Teacher 'powerless' to stop ex-girlfriend's cyberstalking - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/05/03/bc-cyber-stalking.html

<comment><USER2> We deal with psychos like this on a daily basis and it is the one reason I'd be more than happy to quit my 15 year stint as operator of an online community.

It is absolutely incredible, the kind of viciousness some people will direct at those they claim to once have loved.

<comment><USER3> They've obviously got some issues that require professional help. This doesn't seem that far off from stalkers who feel like they are part of a person's life, and turn nasty when rejected (even though they never were a part of the person's life).

<comment><USER2> That's exactly what they are, only this is the online variety. The hardest problem of all for me in dealing with this is that you simply can't reason with these people.

<comment><USER4> The only thing you can do is ignore them. Become a stone wall. If the stalker can't seem to get any reaction out of you, he/she will eventually get bored and start stalking someone else instead.

<comment><USER3> In the absence of a reaction/interaction mentally disturbed people will make up their own in their head (i.e. he really wants to talk to me, but he's busy; sure he's married, but she holds sway over him and it's obviously a loveless marriage; etc). There is no logic to be applied here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Male teachers are probably the most vulnerable targets to such attacks. If you're male and a teacher, it's probably best to use a different name in all non-professional activities (said only partially in jest).

That said, he should've announced his name on a press release associated with this news story and took advantage of the Google juice of the mainstream press (EDIT: oh he did).

</comment><comment><USER6> Surely this is the wrong approach - instead of trying to remove every post about him online (ultimately impossible) he could employ a company to produce content with enough SEO juice to outrank everything else when searching for his name.

<comment><USER7> Good luck trying to out SEO cbc.ca.

What you suggest might be possible if the sites were low PR etc., but now that it's a news story, the Streisand effect pretty much negates that approach.

<comment><USER8> The point is that he IS pursuing that strategy and that cbc.ca is a positive google for his name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One can't do much about comments on websites, but man, secure your machines. I'm willing to bet that "hacking his email" consisted of firing up his Windows machine, opening the account with no password, and starting Outlook. Same for the nude photos.

Yeah, yeah, "trust" and all that. I don't think my own wife of nearly 20 years has spent more than ten minutes total logged onto one of my accounts on any machine in our home. I trust her, she just doesn't need to, she has her own account. Random chick I've been dating who displays just a little bit of psycho bitch from time to time? Yeah, that machine gets locked down with a high-entropy password and she gets guest privileges.

<comment><USER10> Any physical access means game over to a competent attacker. You say hard disk encryption? I say evil maid attack.

<comment><USER11> evil maid attack wouldn't have worked in this situation, since she broke in and stole the laptop. I also doubt she has the know-how to perform an evil maid attack. Enabling a BIOS boot password would make it more difficult to stealthily perform an evil maid attack. Finally, "no security is perfect" is not an excuse for having no security.

<comment><USER10> I was talking about the general situation - the grandparent post talks about his wife's access for example.

I also said a _competent_ attacker.

Also, I wasn't saying that disk encryption is worthless. If your laptop gets stolen by someone who has not previously had access to your computer (or confiscated at a border) then your data is secure.

I agree with your point about the BIOS password.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Contempt of court, given jail time, skips the country and keeps going. Christ, what are you supposed to do? :/

<comment><USER13> change name and life

<comment><USER14> In times of widespread face recognition software this might prove futile ... and raise even more suspicions.

<comment><USER13> Of course he should keep away from social accounts. Other than that, I doubt she would find him.

Basically like new identity.

It would help to clean his name for future employees. Also, a really common name would help probably.

<comment><USER15> Or even one held by someone already popular.

"Students, meet your new teacher LeBron James."

Googling "lebron james teacher" shows a few basketball instructional videos, so that's a start. And there are Vancouver articles about LBJ too, so that covers "lebron james vancouver"...

<comment><USER16> I hit the jackpot there, I just happened to have such a name when I was born.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The manager of liarsandcheaters.com seems like a nasty piece of work.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I heard about sites like those before, often one is welcome to _pay_ to have their info removed, similar to those "check to see if a registered criminal lives in this neighbourhood" sites.

I wanted to check if this was the case--they usually hint at it pretty clearly, as it's their main source of income--but it appears the domein is currently parked (or perhaps the news article listed it wrong and it's spelled differently, I don't care to figure it out).

<comment><USER18> ... found it, liarscheatersrus.com/contact-us conveniently links to "internet reputation control.com" and "remove names.com", both sites that also _conveniently_ name liarsandcheatersrus.com plus a short list of very similar SEO-happy domains. Wouldn't surprise me if they're all operated by the same people, or at least split the money people pay to have their names cleared.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is unbelievable - what the hell does she gain by this? She not only ruined his life, but hers too. Now her pic is online, complete with what she did. She is on the run from Malaysian authorities. All of this, for what? This is beyond crazy.

<comment><USER20> Your last sentence almost certainly contains the answer to your question. It seems to me that this would be the next step: work on building a case to have her committed. That's not an easy thing to do even in the best of cases, but she seems to be cooperating (knowingly or otherwise).

<comment><USER16> Maybe that was the correct answer the first time. That's a dangerous pattern of behavior. Setting restraining orders and putting up barricades isn't the answer much of the time.

My heart goes out to this guy, he did what anyone would do. "I just want this to be over" and acted defensively. A life lesson, as I see it: Offense over defense. Get her in a room with a moderator and a camera, reason with her/use recording as grounds to get her committed.

<comment><USER19> I wonder if people (like that webmaster of liarsandcheaters etc) would sympathize more if the genders were reversed.

Also, it is sad that Google wouldn't remove these pages from their index, even after a court order. They spend so much time policing the DMCA stuff etc, but unwilling to spend a few minutes helping this guy out.

<comment><USER16> That order _IS_ unenforceable. You can't remove every entry on the internet for Terry Johnes, there's more than one, and you can't differentiate.

Kinda like the DMCA, actually. Look at what a can of worms THAT was, no wonder google wants to keep the lid on tight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can we all remember that being murdered by your spouse or ex is probably an order of magnitude more likely than this, purely from the fact this is making the news rounds where as generally you'll mostly not even hear of a murder by an ex in another state.

That's not to say this isn't interesting from a SEO or how do we live in a world where information cannot be removed once it's out there perspective. Or even how information attacks are possible.

But if you're getting up in arms about this personally it's a good reason why you shouldn't read the news because this is less likely than being murdered and that I doubt you'd worry much about that.

<comment><USER3> Are you suggesting that injustices only matter depending on their statistical likelihood to happen to me (or you) personally? For example, I shouldn't care about a serial killer murdering strippers because I'm not, nor ever intend to be a stripper?

<comment><USER22> Well you never know what you'll be into when you're old and senile...

(obviously referring to the stripping part, not the stripper murdering ;P)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> People try to paint these types of things as being a problem unique and newly introduced with the advent of the Internet. In truth, there have always been ways to slander and defame someone just because you don't like them. You can always post an anonymous editorial in the paper about someone, or make an anonymous phone call to DHR or child services slandering someone. It's not just 'cyberstalking'. There has never been much recourse for victims of slander.

<comment><USER24> But surely it is very different when you can post an endless river of vicious comments in thousands of different places, have those comments searchable by anyone, and then have the world's most trusted search engines compile those comments in a way that suggests that they are the most relevant for a persons name.

And I don't think that anyone could ever have posted an "anonymous editorial" in a paper. Newspaper content is written by staff (or wire services) and letters to the editor are curated.

<comment><USER23> You can submit an editorial to any newspaper in the world anonymously, whether they choose to publish any of the material contained therein would be up to the newspaper and whether they though there was any validity (or more likely, public interest) in the editorial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> BrandYourself.com should do some pro-bono work and get themselves some good PR :-)

<comment><USER18> slight problem--how would they reap the PR? it'd have to be an anonymous testimonial from the guy, nor is it a great success story you'd tell many people about and recommend them ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > "Little did I know, this was just the beginning of this campaign of > harassment and cyberstalking," said Clayworth

Although the ex-girlfriend was responsible for the initial breakin, email spoofing, and posting of pictures, does the teacher know for sure she's really responsible for the continuing campaign of harassment and cyberstalking. Perhaps someone else is taking advantage of the opportunity for anonymity by supplementing her efforts.

Some people who harass do it anonymously, keeping themselves well hidden. This often also entails watching and monitoring the target closely. When they do say something publicly, it will have two possible meanings so it's all deniable. Often, they'll use their positions of influence to implicitly encourage others to do the hands-on dirty work of slagging publicly.

<comment><USER27> Yes, we can easily create a slew of alternative explanations.

But the simplest explanation - something that's happened many many times to many people - is that a single person is harassing this guy.

The problem with creating alternative explanations is that some people will start saying things like "Maybe he did something to cause this? Maybe he could have done something different?" And that's a problem, because stalking and erotomania are genuinely scary. It's hard to believe when you're the person that it's happening to, and it's hard to believe for people outside it, but that's why we should be careful not to pin blame onto the victim.

<comment><USER26> > It's hard to believe when you're the person that it's happening to, and it's > hard to believe for people outside it, but that's why we should be careful > not to pin blame onto the victim.

That's true, I'm not disputing that. But it's also hard for many people to believe that certain types of people exist who'll hide themselves, watch others, and run a smear campaign without ever showing themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is there a way to legally change your identity, similar to the witness protection program?

<comment><USER29> You can simply go by another name in many countries, without having to tell any formal authority. In the UK, if you want a piece of paper to go with it (perhaps for applying for a new passport or the like), you can get a statutory declaration or a deed poll; I know someone who needed one to get his bank account details changed and he literally dropped in unannounced over a lunchtime at a local lawyer's office to bang one out.

Of course, if the perpetrator discovers this, they can just start again using the new name.

<comment><USER30> But what about credentials? Any degrees or certifications would have to be re- issued, and past employers that might be called for reference would only know him by his current name.

<comment><USER29> Didn't seem to bother him. He just has the degree/certificate in his old name, and his paperwork showing the name change.

It's still quite common in the UK for women to change their name when they get married and they don't seem to have any problems of this nature.

<comment><USER30> Well, I think the key reason for the name change in this situation is to completely remove the old name from consideration. Having any papers referencing the old name brings up exactly the same issue, whereby a potential employer would say "oh, their name used to be Clayworth? I wonder what I can find about that on Google..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I would hope that this and other news outlets picking up the story would carry enough juice to help push the offending content from the first page.

Its a terrible story. Can he not submit take down notices to individual websites?

<comment><USER32> He could throw around nastygrams, but those don't have the force of law behind them. To get the law on his side, he'd need to actually go through the legal system in the home country of the site in question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is my worst nightmare. I had a fairly recent being-trashed encounter and it was the worst month of my life. But thank god it was offline. Made me quite a bit more paranoid about photos, online accounts (closed all), etc. I can't imagine what this must feel like. There really needs to be better legislation for victims.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm not sure why he hasn't changed his name.

<comment><USER27> "When did you qualify? Where did you qualify? Can you give us your details for the criminal records vetting?"

Teachers are qualified (in his original name); registered (in his original name); referenced (in his original name); and vetted (in his original name).

<comment><USER3> True, but going by a different name _may_ be enough to get past the "What if a parent Google's his name" hurdle that may be one of the reasons for not hiring him.

<comment><USER35> Liability-concerned administrators would not be comforted by someone changing their name to avoid molestation claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Going on a media counteroffensive is probably better than trying to change his name and experiencing backlash in the form of the Streisand effect. People would think that he had something to hide, which he doesn't. Going to the press shows humility, which in this case is the antidote to shame.

<comment><USER37> people will think he has something to hide no matter what. making decisions according to what people think ends up lol - you end up making decisions based on the worst things because those people often have the loudest and strongest opinion. based on what, i don't know, probably because liberal society worships youth and the brash cockiness associated with it.

if people are thinking the worst things about you, should you always be having to defend yourself? what about your own life, what if there are people in it that you're trying to protect who've been very hurt and just need safety and privacy? going to the press shows that in his experience, drawing attention to something has been mostly positive. this is not everyone's experience. the press is responsible for the streisand effect in the first place. i don't see how bowing down before this pressure is humble, although it is probably smart to be media-savvy, not everyone can afford the mental expense. people are different - as if theres only one way to react to a thing like this, as if the style of the reaction says anything about anything.

true humility would require that this person not care about his career any more, accept that probably he's getting a rightful punishment for his moral degradation by dating what seems like a much younger woman in a country where he has a great deal of power, who is not pulling these attacks out of thin air, in a context where, as one commentor says, a 'westerner and crazy chinese' is common - and move on. it's well known among asians that whites look old to them, and that asians look young to white people. white people have the luxury of not having to care what asian people think, and so this is not common knowledge to them and might explain some ignorance on this thread.

<comment><USER37> my grandfather was a good republican, a mayor of a small town in florida in fact. he raised me to not talk about politics and religion because it's not polite. he said just to do a good job and that would be enough. obviously his times are over if this is the discussion we are having to have and i think that says a lot about this new radical experiment in social relations that the internet has brought about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> He should learn to secure his online doings and then create new everything. Also, should keep away from social accounts.

Name change would really help and if kept quiet, zeros harasser's work. It's not about whats right, it's just the easiest way.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm a little surprised the article give names and photos of the ex-girlfriend.

<comment><USER39> I'm not. She was found to have committed a crime, it's public record. And she's not a minor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> More likely his haircut, or some other negative quality.

Name changes are cheap, at least in America. Change your name, get a new haircut, and voila, you can begin building your new identity. This isn't even an issue with technology, per se.

The guy's not powerless, he just has too much faith in courts. Why else would you be fool enough to sue your psycho ex-girlfriend? Has anyone ever said "boy, I'm glad I got into a legal entanglement with that person who hates me, because it sure resolved the grudge!"

No. Going to the courts is a fantastic method for elongating a momentary hatred to a lifelong vendetta.

Also, this is a culture clash. If you banged an American girl as an itinerant teacher in 1850, her brothers and her father might have just tracked you down to shoot you. Forget about cyberstalkin' -- they would've just stalk-stalked you and killed you like a possum.

Malaysia's sexual mores in 201* != America's 201* mores.

<comment><USER41> > Malaysia's sexual mores in 201* != America's 201* mores.

Can you elaborate? What does that have to with the article? Are you implying that in Malaysia is normal or acceptable for a woman to cyberstalk a guy like this?

<comment><USER42> He's implying that the teacher's relationship may have not been ok by Malaysian standards. She might be considered "damaged goods" now (note: I know literally nothing about Malaysian culture.) Here in the States, that might have been dealt with through street justice. That nobody really cares about that sort of thing in the US anymore doesn't mean that it's not a consideration abroad. Her romantic prospects in her home country might be potentially destroyed. That's all speculation; and I'm not, of course, justifying her actions.

<comment><USER43> Judging by her looks and her name, she is Chinese (there is a large Chinese minority in Malaysia). Also, for Westeners in Malaysia its far more likely to get involved with a Chinese than with a Malay girl, because they Malays are Muslims and are usually looking for Muslim boyfriends.

"Westener with crazy Chinese girlfriend" is something very common, judging by what I witnessed in many years living in China.

<comment><USER42> I had a friend that returned from Japan after breaking up with a Chinese girl that he met there. The aftermath was interesting to say the least. Must be something cultural.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Cyberskanking is a new breed of social terrorism. And now, Bob with the weather...

</comment><comment><USER45> It doesn't say her age anywhere. He's 35, she looks like she could be rather young. It also says "after they split up" which strikes me as saying nothing; who broke up with whom, how and why? Oh, and "dated for several months", does that mean "had sex with, while she was under the impression it was serious when he knew all along it wasn't for him"?

Mind you, even IF any of those speculations hold any truth, that still wouldn't excuse her way of dealing with that (though it would excuse kicking him in the nuts with gusto though, in my books). But still, that this story is one-sided can't be helped, that it has missing pieces I consider vital makes me suspicious enough to not really care either way.

<comment><USER46> Googling her name turns up a story in thestar.com.my stating that she's 28 and an MBA student.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I don't understand why we emphasize this article when many women deal with stalking daily. Why is this particular teachers story different? Just last week I had to tell a female co-worker that unfortunately I don't know how to stop someone from following her on Spotify.

It's a daily occurance, to so many women. And it's very uncomfortable.

<comment><USER43> Great username for somebody making such a comment.

Also, "being followed on Spotily" != "having your private and professional life destroyed"

Just saying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Why do people keep naked pictures of themselves? That is a bad idea, and doubt that there is anything good that can come from it. Just sayin.

Now- looking at this girls postings, it appears that most were to memegenerator, and other forums that I wouldnt exactly give much credibility to. I guess I just dont see how this could cost someone a job. Arrest records, news stories, etc maybe but a meme generator picture???

<comment><USER49> >and doubt that there is anything good that can come from it.

For a couple where neither person is crazy, plenty of good comes from it in the form of sexual intimacy.

The fact is that if you're in a long term relationship with someone, trust them, and get close to them, you're going to share details of your life with them that could be used against you. Nobody is so clean that they are immune to this - the only limiting factors are the intelligence of the scorned lover, and the degree of their psychosis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Here's a thought experiment: What if some guy actually _were_ a child molester, a pedophile, or something from the list of things mentioned in the article. Then one day, his girlfriend finds out about it. And she starts an internet campaign like that -- not because she wants to warn others, but just for personal reasons like the girl from the article.

Would that change how you feel about an internet "smear" campaign like that, the difference obviously being that it's not defamation but facts?

EDIT: Since I'm getting downvoted already, I'd like to add that I don't want to imply that the above is my opinion (nor that it isn't). I'm just genuinely interested in the truthfulness of the statements posted by the girl is a factor relevant to people's judgment of what she's doing. It is completely hypothetical (but that's often the nature of thought experiments).

<comment><USER18> You're getting downvoted not just because before your edit it did actually seem very much like that is in fact your opinion, but _also_ because it's a very stupid question.

You're asking about a ridiculous hypothetical situation where a person would be guilty of _all_ the things she smears him with (check the articles), a situation where you ask the opinion of random onlookers to imagine they are somehow magically 100% certain of his guilt as a fact, yet this person is somehow not convicted.

I call troll.

Maybe not even on purpose. If you have to qualify your question with "I am just _genuinely interested_ ...", I don't think I ever used that phrase outside of circumstances where I was purposefully trolling.

<comment><USER50> Thanks for your answer.

I see how my post could be perceived as trolling while in fact that was not my intention at all. I certainly did not write about being genuinely interested while I'm actually _not_.

You're making a good point about how the situation I described is hypothetical. However, I did not write that you as an onlooker would be 100% convinced that all of the things she claims were true. The article actually only names some accusations she makes, and I referred to these in my original question. Therefore, the things she posts may in parts be correct in my thought experiment, and the onlooker knows about that, while other parts of her posts may still be incorrect ("smear").

Note that even with the actual article, i.e., without any knowledge about what actually happened other than what is written in the article, we are _all_ "random onlookers". And we're all forming opinions one way or the other when we read something like this.

I am interested to know how these opinions would perhaps be influenced if we had additional knowledge that isn't explicitly mentioned in the article. The thought experiment I sketched certainly is on an extreme end of the spectrum.

If anything in my post was purposeful, then that it was hypothetical. Since your reply I'm thinking now that perhaps it was indeed "ridiculous" to think something like this up. But again, it wasn't my intention at all to troll.

I appreciate that you took the time to answer.

<comment><USER35> Why concern yourself with these hypotheticals? I enjoy tech prognostication, but there are so many ways for people to be terrible to each other in reality that dwelling seems unnecessary.

<comment><USER50> Well, different people find different things interesting. For instance, I might ask: "why concern yourself with Twilight", yet there are many devout fans of the shows.

<comment><USER35> Devils' advocacy for the sake of devils' advocacy seems a bit onanistic, or worse when it comes to seeing sinister plans in the eyes of victims. I find it interesting to ~do~ it in my own head, plenty of "what if?"s, but targeting victims of various crimes with "what if they deserved their abuse?" sans- evidence doesn't come off as very healthy. It goes in a darker direction than most brainstorming, IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I find it quite disturbing that this is seen as such a terrible situation. You do know that there are several porn sites dedicated to ruining the lives of ex-girlfriends? When the victim is male, suddenly this justifies news articles and a heated discussion.

I feel terrible for the guy, but this is gender-biased hypocrisy. The comments on the article considering "if it was the other way around he'd be in jail" are so out of touch with reality that it hurts my brain.

<comment><USER52> How you can possibly view this as "gender-biased hypocrisy" astounds me. There's a person being stalked, slandered, and having their career ruined by a vindictive and determined person of questionable mental and emotional stability. It would be _the exact same story_ if the victim was female.

>You do know that there are several porn sites dedicated to ruining the lives of ex-girlfriends?

Like what, gfrevenge? There's a massive difference in scale and severity between posting nude photos and videos of an ex online without their permission, and accusing them of child molestation and attempting to ensure they can never find work in their field again. It's the difference between throwing a rock through someone's window, or doing the same with a molotov cocktail.

<comment><USER53> I agreed with your first paragraph, but the second one surprised me. Your comparison does not apply to everyone. Many people would much prefer to be hit with baseless accusations and rumors rather than have footage of their most intimate moments be immortalized for public access.

<comment><USER37> agreed. men get carried away with our bullshit and forget that images are attached to people. women dont forget that and its much shittier for them. as a man i know we suck.

<comment><USER35> Broad based claims really help nobody, man or woman.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Any Brazil hackers around looking for startup partners? - <AUTHOR>

Please drop a comment with contact details and areas of interest. <comment><USER2> I'm from Porto Alegre and would like to hear your ideas. Have a blog ?

Our interests should be somewhat related anyway because we hang out on yc.news. ;)

</comment><comment><USER2> Oh, i just found it out on your profile.

</comment><comment><USER3> from Sao Paulo

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> guess not :/</comment>


Ask HN: What physical product do you make? - <AUTHOR> What physical product do you make for your job? Perhaps you are working in more traditional hardware, firmware, and systems engineering? Tell us about your work!<p>If you're building a website or app, sorry this Ask HN isn't for you. This is for those makers who are creating physical things: headphones, medical devices, cars, furniture, etc... <comment><USER2> Up until my current job, my entire career involved physical things. Either doing electronic design, or writing firmware that controlled something or both. The current day job's not that interesting, so let's talk about the side gig instead.

My most interesting product converts position signals from old machine tools (e.g., large planers and mills built in the 70's, 80's and before) into signals that modern motor drives can read. It makes it much easier to retrofit old machinery with modern controls.

It was built at the request of a single customer and I did it mainly for fun, but over time it's opened my eyes to the market for tools to retrofit and modernize old equipment. They're still actively buying these from me, but I know there _has_ to be a larger market.

Product #2 is still being developed: a generic "leveling module." Basically it's a motor controller designed to keep the load level in one axis.

For the last 15 years or so I've also been making modules take a pulse input at one end, and send an accumulated count out the other end over an RS232 serial interface. I don't sell a lot of them, but the surprising thing is that demand hasn't dropped off over all this time. Could probably sell more, but it's really not interesting enough to put a lot of marketing effort into. The fun part is all the customizations I'm asked to do.

<comment><USER3> It's not even just retrofitting and modernization. Even just repair of larger CNC machines is unbelievably expensive and very cool.

Are you removing old motor drives from machines and installing new drives to extend life? There is certainly a larger market. I'm in Norfolk, VA and there are machine shops all over the place. I'd love to hear more from you.

<comment><USER2> I personally am not; my customer's core business is repairing and retrofitting the machinery. They kept running into the issue doing some retrofits where the new drives weren't compatible with the signals from some of the old machines and it was causing them to have to modify the drives (breaking the warranty) to make it work.

They realized that if they had hardware to read the original position indication, do some DSP and convert to something the new drives could handle, it would simplify everything. That's where I came in.

It's been working out pretty well for everyone concerned so far and I'm now working on version 3 of the product!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am a SWE at stenon [0], we make a portable nutrient analysis probe for agriculture. It is basically an electronic shovel that you stick in the ground, and you then can view a real time breakdown of bioavailable and mineral nutrient content of that soil on your phone or tablet.

I often say we're actually building three products, ML, hardware and software. It is pretty challenging but a lot of fun, and very rewarding.

[0] - [https://stenon.io/en/](https://stenon.io/en/)

<comment><USER5> Great if you can make this work. My questions would be how long does a probe last before you have to re-jig it? Does it work with sandy soils? Clays? To what extent do readings swing massively based on soil substructure and poor contact/other random chance? Does it internally capture material and create liquid solutions to get around this problem? What range of data can you sample?

Ideas: Don't just target industrial agriculture, consider the residential and commercial garden and surveyor markets. For inspiration or allies, look at the mining industry's established ecosystem of prospecting and sampling related service and software companies. They could also be customers: with open cut mines, they often have to do site remediation, eventually, and it's well funded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The job that pays the bills is pushing code. On a personal level, I build airplanes. I've done a couple different techniques end to end - composite and classic cloth and tubing. If things don't totally fall apart, hope to start my first sheet metal construction this summer. Were one to compare what I spent to what I got back... well, some of these dot bombs don't seem so silly. :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a side hustle where I produce niche desk ornament sculptures and busts made from concrete. Etsy link: [https://www.etsy.com/shop/jurgenstudio](https://www.etsy.com/shop/jurgenstudio)

This brings me around 500 euros per month. Recently the sales of Marcus Aurelius took off nicely, so I'm seriously thinking about expanding this business by making busts of more famous philosophers and leaders. I'm in the process of adding mini concrete busts of Alan Turing, Steve Jobs, Slavoj Žižek, Nikola Tesla, Plato, Aristotle, Jordan Peterson and more.

If anyone is interested in how I these are made (3d printing, molding, concrete pouring), please check here: [https://twitter.com/matixmatix/status/1243116129289146368](https://twitter.com/matixmatix/status/1243116129289146368)

<comment><USER8> How did you do the digital sculpting? Any tutorials?

<comment><USER9> I make and sell (used to sell) art toys on Instagram, and I make my digital sculptures in Blender since it's Free and Open Source. CGCookie.com just came out with an up-to-date course in sculpting with the newest version of Blender (2.8x). I highly recommend it. It's mostly up to par with zBrush, and you get the benefits of the FLOSS community. [https://cgcookie.com/course/fundamentals-of-digital- sculptin...](https://cgcookie.com/course/fundamentals-of-digital-sculpting- blender-2-8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bread: [https://pearlbakery.com](https://pearlbakery.com)

We are moving the operation out of downtown Portland OR, but this virus will slow down our opening.

There's a surprising number of ways to apply technology to bread baking. Inventory management, formula calculation, delivery planning, etc. There's also the problem of trying to optimize the production schedule , i.e. when to mix, how long to rise, when to shape, and when to bake, across your entire menu with orders changing day to day.

<comment><USER11> > There's a surprising number of ways to apply technology to bread baking. > Inventory management, formula calculation, delivery planning, etc. There's > also the problem of trying to optimize the production schedule

Yup! For example, here's an old press release from a vendor of combinatorial optimisation software (LocalSolver) -- the type of software that you might use to optimise Operations Research type problems: inventory management, supply chain, planning, routing, scheduling -- about a successful integration and deployment of their product to cost-optimise a large Japanese bakery's supply chain decisions:

> [Pasco Shikishima Corporation]'s supply chain involves 15 factories in > Japan, each one with several production lines, and more than 100 > distribution centers. Pasco's catalog contains more than 1,000 products. > 900,000 orders have to be executed each day in Pasco's factories. For each > order, Pasco has to decide where and when to produce it. Moreover, Pasco has > to decide where to source raw materials and which routes to deliver > distribution centers. The goal is to minimize production and distribution > costs over several days of horizon, while respecting production and > distribution capacities.

> Here is the scale of a LocalSolver instance solved by Pasco to plan the next > 3 days: 32,670,717 expressions (that is, intermediate variables) including > 8,307,431 binary decisions, 991,251 constraints, 16 lexicographic-ordered > objectives. This model was solved in 3 minutes of running time on a modern > but standard server, including input and output processing times.

\-- [https://www.localsolver.com/news.html?id=70](https://www.localsolver.com/news.html?id=70)

(& apologies for dragging the conversation back towards software, but there's some challenging mathematical & computational problems involved in figuring out how to manufacture & distribute physical products efficiently)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lighting systems - most usually illuminated props of various varieties for ceremonies of big events; things broadly like the Olympics. It's fun but generally NDA'd to hell, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER13> Vehicle Driving Simulators This consists of three major parts: 1) The game engine that simulates the physics of different driving scenarios and rendering them to the drivers display. 2) A six DOF motion platform that is used to recreate the motion of the vehicle. 3) The vehicle body mounted on-top of the motion platform that has the steering wheel and other controls exactly like a real vehicle.

The driver inputs are read and fed into the game engine which outputs the rendered video to the vehicle LCD's. The output from the game engine is also used to control the 6-DOF motion platform to recreate the physical motion one experiences while driving.

<comment><USER14> Is there a link to view if you dont mind sharing. This is just purely out of curiosity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm a mechanical engineer working in a university research lab. We're a pretty broad lab with researchers in diverse domains but focused around one idea: innovative design. Making stuff that works.

As a research engineer, I get pulled to work more on "development" projects close to or with industry. Grad students get the more early phase research stuff.

I'm currently working on a contract for a large aerospace company, which involves a new kind of thrust-generating machine. I'm solely responsible for designing and building a prototype and test bench as well as doing the experimental work when that is done.

It's diverse and rewarding work, but it gets a bit lonely sometimes compared to working in teams with 10s of engineers and techs in a large multinational corp. It's still the most enjoyable job I've held so far.

</comment><comment><USER16> As a small sideline we've developed a new type of house that is CO2 neutral in materials over lifetime, low energy to passivhaus, very quick to build, and healthier to live in.

Designed for Nordic climates but insulates just as well if it's warm outside :)

The initial target was a modern starter house pattern, that could be expanded as the family grew, then split for renting out parts when the owners got old. It had to be cheaper, environmentally friendly, and healthier to live in.

As a bonus it has excellent fire resistance, and is very quiet.

It's fun to work with this kind of problem. Quite far from my normal projects. But holy hell, I didn't realise how truly broken the bureaucracy around construction is in many regions.

</comment><comment><USER17> We make water meters, radios for water meters, mobile radio receivers that go in utility trucks, fixed radio receivers that go on towers. I test the new and old products, using a lot of Python to automate and speed up testing.

</comment><comment><USER18> I love building physical products. My first ever physical product was [https://www.instagram.com/humblepen/](https://www.instagram.com/humblepen/) but after couple years was shut down.

Now, I don't treat these projects as startups, but solely to share the joy of building, learning and teaching.

Recently, I built a project called Wise Charlie which is a compact list of mental models in a deck of cards form. [https://www.wisecharlie.com/](https://www.wisecharlie.com/)

</comment><comment><USER19> When not running my software biz, I make exercise machines which use flywheels for resistance. The difference compared to traditional weights is you get constant resistance at all angles throughout the entire range of movement. Plus it allows many exercises in a compact package, and the resistance can be variable based on how hard you work. It also includes an app + sensor (Electronic hardware is a complete PIA, but we got there in the end) [https://exerflysport.com](https://exerflysport.com)

</comment><comment><USER20> We're a small team of doctors that redesign everyday household products to be more hygienic.

Our first product (launched in December 2019) is an antibacterial/antifungal 2-sided bath towel designed to separate natural bacteria from exposure to your face.

Several medical research studies show we spread pathogenic bacteria and fecal matter to our face when we reuse a bath towel.

Our first product helps reduce natural pathogenic bacteria exposure: [https://halfff.com](https://halfff.com)

</comment><comment><USER21> Network Engineer / SysAdmin / Helpdesk by day in Singapore.

I'm part of [https://www.dwarvin.com](https://www.dwarvin.com) that provide lighting solutions to model railways. Its a small family business and I help out with online side of things. Recently was ask to help out with to build a programmable lighting system and am having tons of fun, brings me back to my embedded systems class during my CS degree time.

</comment><comment><USER22> Small, tailored, temporary demonstration and applications with sensors plus very simple software running locally are becoming quite popular for home-made domotics over here. Many times, it is non-technical people willing to see how this could be going to work in case it becomes mandatory. They lose interest soon, though, smart is not smart if there is no visible gain, the like you can follow with smart meters and bills or with fitbits and health.

</comment><comment><USER23> We build the computer accessory Luna Display[0] which turns your iPad or extra Mac into a second display - particularly useful for working from home!

We were originally pure software people, so it's been fun and challenging to explore the hardware space. I've found it to be a lot like software development but with much much longer "compile times" aka manufacturing.

[0] - [https://lunadisplay.com](https://lunadisplay.com)

<comment><USER24> Hey, that's pretty neat. I'm on a MacBook Pro that doesn't support Sidecar with our iPad Pro. Going to seriously consider this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm the founder of Huan [0] - we make smart pet tags. We're the only ones making tiny cat-sized ones too (only 17mm in diameter)!

Once I'm done raising this round (great timing, I know) we'll start deploying our mobile sensors that let us create ad-hoc BLE networks that can be deployed dynamically and find missing pets very quickly without requiring a GPS.

[0] - [https://gethuan.com/](https://gethuan.com/)

<comment><USER26> Those animated buttons are horrible.

<comment><USER25> That's what I said, but my web designer insisted. Gotta pick your fights!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Systems that automatically prepare, package and retail personalized meals direct from fresh ingredients in a 2m² footprint, and can self-clean.

Actually, a network of those plus: a factory to build them; operations centers to supply them; and a logistics network to resupply, maintain, and repair them.

Now 4 years in, we have a factory, we're currently finalizing for mass production, we own our own production equipment, we are way below budget per unit and we're funded.

</comment><comment><USER27> We make smarter occupancy sensors for your home that know how many people are in each room while protecting your privacy. You can finally automate your home to instantly react to you with zero commands, like a sci-fi movie. [https://www.hiome.com](https://www.hiome.com)

My background is actually entirely software, so this is my first physical product. It's been both challenging and a ton of fun!

</comment><comment><USER28> I built a digital chip tester from scratch, including schematic/layout, firmware and software. It's still a work in progress, but I thought I'd share.

I wrote a blog post about the process here:

[https://www.geminicomplex.com/about](https://www.geminicomplex.com/about)

</comment><comment><USER29> My latest company makes custom furniture, architectural millwork and woodwork. www.valkyriewoodwork.com

3d Digital design, CNC manufacturing with laser and router machines, and we still depend on a lot of skilled and talented people on the bench.

So much of my time in software project management has been an asset here.

</comment><comment><USER30> I make ice cream sandwiches that I sell wholesale as a side business. It's hard right now, good thing I have my full time.

</comment><comment><USER31> 3D printers. Although I just do the software bits.</comment>


EA: The Human Story - <AUTHOR> http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html

<comment><USER2> How many years old is this?

<comment><USER3> The date at the top of the page is: 2004-11-10 , so that would make it about 4.2 years old.</comment></comment>


Monitoring Processes with Supervisord - <AUTHOR> https://serversforhackers.com/editions/2014/08/12/process-monitoring/

<comment><AUTHOR> This weeks SFH covers Supervisord (The eBook mentioned there will cover forever and Circus as well).

I've tried to add a little beyond the usual tutorial on Supervisord to include things like adding environmental variables your application can use, and setting up Supervisord's web interface.

</comment><comment><USER2> Upstart and systemd are not that complicated. Supervisord certainly has advantages -- the main one is that it's always a `pip install` away on *nix platforms.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been using supervisord for a while, but never knew it had a built in webserver..</comment>


Google to limit free news access - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8389896.stm

<comment><USER3> I know I'm probably the odd one out here, but I think this is a good thing. Newspapers have been arguing that they aren't getting paid enough for the service they provide and a lot of internet users are arguing that the service they provide have too little value to be worth paying for. Anything that can help bring these warring factions to some sort of actual confrontation can only be a good thing in the long run.

We've seen too much hand wringing and rhetoric and not enough action. Big media, you say internet users have been freeloading for too long, here are the tools to stop them, now use them. Internet users, you say you can do without access to major newspaper content, they've now limited your free access, so go do without.

I honestly don't know how it will play out in the end, but I'm pretty sure we'll see the future of news media rise from the ashes of the conflict, and I'm genuinely excited to see what it looks like.

</comment><comment><USER4> Really all this is going to achieve is to drive readers away from conventional news sources to less conventional ones. Google doesn't control ads on most Murdoch media sites, but it does control ads on many blogs. Potentially Google could make more money by having people spending time reading news related blogs and less time on other news sites.

<comment><USER5> This thread is a dupe of this one: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=971331>

In that thread I've explained what First Click Free really is (its not new), because the BBC article is quite misleading. This is a small policy change to throw a bone to top-tier publishers like NYTimes, and is unlikely to have the impact you've described.

More here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=971414>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is not a very informative news article, but I did some research and here's what I think is happening: Google has always required that indexed sites show the indexed content to visitors that come through Google (to prevent bait-and-switch tactics). They're now allowing indexed sites to use bait-and-switch tactics after the fifth visit in one day.

This actually seems like it will have some noticeable (unintended) effects: won't it apply equally to Experts Exchange and their ilk?

(It's not clear what this all has to do with "First Click Free", which is an old program that seems to offer a smaller loophole in the "no bait-and-switch" rules. It's easiest to explain by example: If you go to a WSJ story via google, then click a link to another story, WSJ may ask you to register without being penalized by Google, even if that link didn't lead to a registration wall to the googlebot.)

<comment><USER7> I think Google is working with a handful of news publishers on this as opposed having this as a default option for everyone. So if you are not one of the few pre-approved sites you can't do this.

That would make more sense.

<comment><USER8> No. [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/changes-i...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/changes- in-first-click-free.html) [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/new- user-...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/new-user-agent- for-news.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this another case where Google of the Chrome frame for IE6, where Google realizes that things won't change until they intervene? Really, the news sites should be the ones to add a cookie on their sites and redirect users after visiting x pages in a day - a very simple thing to build.

I don't understand why Google has to be involved, unless they want to push things forward or be on good terms with Fox and co. A very hacky solution, IMHO, and an approach that won't lead news sites to profitability.

<comment><USER10> _A very hacky solution, IMHO, and an approach that won't lead news sites to profitability._

But if they do it right, they'll make the news sites happy as they are going out of business. The news sites will blame the users. Also, if they do it right, the users will be blaming the news sites and not Google.

I think Google is out to call Rupert Murdoch's bluff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would have trouble explaining this to my parents, or anyone not familiar with how cookies or "cloaking" work. I just heard the BBC world report (radio) summarize this coverage a few minutes ago; it made it sound like

\- Google copies and stores news articles and serves them to users

\- Google decides when users have to sign in upon visiting third-party news site.

These misconceptions are great if you're Rupert Murdoch. In reality, the change in Google's policy is minor:

\- You are permitted to serve different content than the bot got (i.e. make them sign in) _if_ the cookie on the other end has already requested 5 (or whatever) articles

\- You could do that before, of course, but you would have gotten delisted for cloaking, just as with Google's web index. This is a new exception to that rule.

Laypersons have enough trouble understanding that news sites are not obligated to serve their content to Google. Making the issue more complicated (even if this isn't very complicated to us) may not be a good PR move.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Some readers have discovered they can avoid paying subscription fees to newspaper websites by calling up their pages via Google."

This is absurd on so many levels. People find the article with Google, but it's the newspaper who puts it up for free. Yes, there is a question here, but this article is confused. The question is simple: newspapers produce content, Google indexes it, how do they split the ad revenues? I would think that both parties are free to put up ads on their pages, and they do, but newspapers are trying to cut into Google's ad revenue. I'm sure they're also willing to chip in to help pay for Google's cost of maintaining their index, after all, it's driving traffic to them...

If we're talking about a subscription article, then Google shouldn't (can't?) index it anyways?

<comment><USER13> Yep, they can. Know why? Because Agents with the Google codename get free access to subscription services. Why would this happen? Because Newspapers want to get fucking indexed and search traffic.

In fact there's a ff plugin out there that lets you change your user agent id to that of google's bot. Lets you see free articles, porn, etc. But mostly porn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seriously who reads more than 5 pages of news from the same source a day? I assume 99.99% will not get affected by this. People who are dumb enough to pay for online news will pay for online news, regardless of the changes.

Advertisement is the only way of revenue for news publishers, subscription is silly and short-sighted.

<comment><USER14> I usually read about 10-20 pages from the BBC and from my local newspapers' sites.

Of course, the latter will change, as the company that owned them has announced plans to make their entire newspaper constellation (several hundred local newspapers across the UK) paywalled, and both local newspapers for me are owned by the same company.

<comment><USER7> I rather pay for BBC than any US based News source. I want news not a liberal or conservative or neutral interpretation of the source, let me be the judge of what I want to conclude from the news. Just give me the facts.

BBC seems to do that more often than others.

<comment><USER15> If the Tories win the next UK election (they probably will), it's been suggested that as part of a deal they've done with Rupert Murdoch, they may destroy the BBC new website, or at least castrate it severely, so Murdoch can make more profits.

<comment><USER14> They can try, anything like that would have to get past the lords, and I doubt they'd be willing to castrate the BBC like that, certainly not to line a foreigner's pockets some more.

<comment><USER15> The present government are quite happy to throw away the people's historic rights such as the rihght to a fail trial and no collective punishment, in their Digital Economy Bill, in order to line foreigners' pockets (the RIAA and MPAA).

And the Tories' response to this? They think the DE Bill is basically sound, but doesn't go far enough.

I think we can take it as read that both the Labour and Conservative parties, when faced with a choice between the British people, and lining foregners' pockets, will choose the latter, esepcially when they are big donors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> When the "Miracle on the Hudson" happened, where did it hit first? Twitter, by somebody on the plane. This was hours before any print media even knew what was happening. On all levels that first post showed just how obsolete traditional media is becoming because it satisfied the major requirements of news: speed and credibility. What is being posted on Twitter is information, and news is a special case of information that has a sense of urgency associated with it. As blogging becomes more mainstream, traditional media will disappear, and this latest development from Google is intended (I believe) to push things in that direction.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm extremely happy to see this. This is a great day for <http://en.wikinews.org/>

Oh, and guys -- you perhaps ought to consider writing for it. :) The HN crowd is very educated, so many of you are the ideal candidates to be writing the news, as you witness it.

<comment><USER14> It really needs a way to support local and regional news for areas around the world. Johnson Press announced on monday plans (and a trial scheme of 3 local news areas) to paywall all of their local newspaper sites in the UK - <USER2> will be a huge loss to the internet, as JP effectively has a monopoly on UK local news - they are the only local news provider for about 80% of the UK.

As an example, my local newspaper and regional newspaper are both JP papers, and they are my primary source of local news online, as well as in print.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So, Google gives publishers finer-grained control over how their readers can access their content via Google's services. They do it because the newspapers are getting desperate in their quest to find a working revenue model and seem likely to try drastic measures, like unlisting themselves from Google (which any site can do using robots.txt).

</comment><comment><USER19> Doesn't the FT already do this ? - I'm failing to see what Google has to do with this. Some newspapers already send you a cookie and only let you see a certain number of articles before giving you a paywall.

<comment><USER20> I've noticed this recently about FT. My reaction is that when I notice a link is to FT I don't bother clicking it, because it's annoying to get the "register first" page, and that because I'm only going to close the page rather than register.

It's not a rebellious, "they're taking my free Internet" reaction, it's just an annoyance that I swat away, like a fly and with about as much thought. This post is orders of magnitude more thought than I've given it to date.

I wonder how many other people are going to react that way to FT and other sites?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> They've also added a new news-specific user agent for their GoogleBot: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=972412>

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's hoping Google News gets an easy way of ignoring articles behind paywalls...

</comment><comment><USER23> Is this out of fear of or caving in to pressure from Rupert Murdoch?

</comment><comment><USER24> Suddenly, downloads of BugMeNot's add-on skyrockets...

</comment><comment><USER25> Another victory for Murdoch I guess.

</comment><comment><USER26> What was this don't be evil thing again? So who will build a news-only search engine with deep links, maybe a distributed effort?</comment>


Hyperlinks are broken. 3 ideas for improvement. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/de-correspondent/links-are-broken-these-three-alternatives-have-improved-our-readers-reading-experience-796c302c8930#.chsg1m1vp <comment><USER2> As an Indian growing up in the 90's, I went thru' the perhaps unique situation during the growth of the Web, where hyperlinks were targeted for breadth but the existing connection speed enforced the decision on you whether you'd stay with the article (ie: depth) versus whether you'd explore (ie: breadth). Honestly, it was a pretty hard decision and while I think this is a good effort to question something fundamental to the Web and how we interact with it, I'm not sure this well intentioned proposal would really work in the absence of a physical limitation by bandwidth.</comment>


Kubernetes External Secrets - <AUTHOR> https://godaddy.github.io/2019/04/16/kubernetes-external-secrets/ <comment><USER2> Kubernetes External Secrets essentially copies secrets from an external source, in this case AWS Secrets Manager, and creates a native Kubernetes secret in the same namespace where the ExternalSecret custom object was defined.

Kubernetes is being leveraged as a secrets cache and transport layer, with just enough access control thanks to the built-in RBAC functionality. Kubernetes is not the source of truth for the contents of the secret, but provides APIs for referencing, and ultimately transmitting cached secrets to containers under management.

I like this approach. Nice and simple. I do have one suggestion that might improve External Secrets for use with multiple clusters.

By running the External Secrets "control plane" inside the Kubernetes cluster you end up with what I described above. Now consider the case where you have multiple Kubernetes clusters in the same environment -- HA across multiple regions in production.

You have a few options on how to leverage External Secrets in this context. The obvious approach is to deploy the "control plane" across every cluster. There are pros and cons. While you have the ability to do a canary roll out of the External Secrets control plane across multiple clusters, you also take up compute resource across every cluster, and must store the credentials required for the External Secrets control plane to sync secrets from an external store.

The other option would be to enable the External Secrets control plane to live outside of any individual Kubernetes cluster and work as a "global control plane". In this configuration the External Secrets control plane can push secrets across multiple clusters. Users can still define ExternalSecrets objects in each cluster, but you now have the ability to support "global" ExternalSecrets objects which are replicated to every cluster, or a limited set of clusters and namespaces based on configuration.

You can still host the External Secrets control plane using Kubernetes, but in a "admin" cluster, which is separate from the clusters where normal applications are deployed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the feedback and great suggestion. Made an issue to track on github: [https://github.com/godaddy/kubernetes-external- secrets/issue...](https://github.com/godaddy/kubernetes-external- secrets/issues/45)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We're building something similar at work. There is actually an implementation of the very same mechanism using the operator framework. Here's the link: [https://github.com/mumoshu/aws-secret- operator](https://github.com/mumoshu/aws-secret-operator)

Were you aware of this project? If so, why did you go for this implementation?

<comment><USER4> I don't think they were aware, but someone pointed it out in this issue: [https://github.com/godaddy/kubernetes-external- secrets/issue...](https://github.com/godaddy/kubernetes-external- secrets/issues/47)</comment></comment>


Yubikey special offer for GitHub users - <AUTHOR> https://www.yubico.com/github-special-offer/github-yubikey-special-offer/ <comment><USER2> More importantly, they have a special Octocat graphic!

[https://www.yubico.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/09/security-k...](https://www.yubico.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/09/security-key-octocat-444x444.png)</comment>


Seth's Blog: You're right! - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/youre-right.html <comment><USER2> To be fair, the new Prius is really hard to figure out how to turn off.

\- Taking the key out of the car doesn't turn the engine off. You have to press a button.

\- A lot of times when you press the button the car doesn't turn off.

\- It's really hard to figure out if the car is on or off because the engine turns off as soon as the car is stopped, so the car is completely silent.

Most people I know with the new Prius have accidently left it on at least a few times. Since the engine is turned off the energy penalty for doing that is minimal, the biggest concern is that the car is probably stick unlocked.

</comment><comment><USER3> So, the point of the article is "bullshit your customer so he feels good". That might be good for your business, but it's terrible for society. I rather have a straight answer than to be fooled with "oh, you're right, it won't happen again". And if I go back there it happens again.

Maybe most parking places won't turn off the guy's car if he doesn't explain to the workers. If that's the case the answer he got was far better than "you're right, I'm so sorry. It won't happen again". What scares me the most is people who want to be fooled.

<comment><USER4> I didn't see anything that suggested "bullshit". I think the proposal included the business owner actually posting a note so attendants know how to turn off hybrid cars.

<comment><USER3> That would be nice initiative. But his main point seems to be that you just can't give your customer the truth. Even if it's not viable, for some reason, to make sure the situation that happened to your customer never repeats itself again, the blogger seems to say that you better agree with the customer. That's just wrong. You better give a straight answer, like "we are not capable of teaching that to our workers, you should teach them yourself the next time".

Of course, in that particular situation, giving instruction for the people working at the parking lot _shouldn't_ be a big problem. So I agree that he should have done it, but I stand by his choice of giving a straight answer instead of saying he feels bad for the customer and will change things, but in the end he doesn't.

<comment><USER4> I feel like I must be reading a completely different blog post.

Can you point to where he even suggests lying? How is "I can see that you are annoyed" in any way false? He even said of his examples, "Every one of these statements is true". Are you responding to tone (DH2), or something he said?

<comment><USER3> That's not lying, that's bullshitting. In this sense: <http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html>

That's not true or false, that's just something he's saying in order to make the customer feel better. He might as well give the customer all kinds of complements, they can be true or not, the point is that the manager don't know (or care) if they are. He's just trying to please a customer. That's very bad practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't even count the times airlines or web hosting companies try to tell me I'm wrong, and that that's the way it's supposed to be. A little sympathy goes a long way.

On the other hand, when I gave feedback on kayak.com (a much better version of priceline), they said the CTO would personally reply ... and he did! And that made me like them enough to write about them here :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Sent to the owner of our company, with a response I wanted to send a customer basically following the advice. The owners' response "I don't think his question even deserves a response" (was questioning our pricing) ... scares me :( I think all questions deserve a response (-rhetorical)

</comment><comment><USER7> True story. I once wrote a rant of an email to Steve Jobs about how my MacBook had died and that my experience with Mac hardware had been abysmal: the number of actual repairs to my Macs outnumbered the number of Macs I owned!

I didn't leave my contact information. I just left the serial number to the latest computer to exhibit a problem.

That Monday (I wrote the rant on a Saturday) I got a phone call on my cell phone. The voice said "Hi, I'm from Apple Executive Relations. I'm calling because you emailed our CEO Steve Jobs. I understand that you have been having some problems with your MacBook." After the shock wore off that somebody actually phoned me, I confirmed the details. "Okay, I see that you're in Toronto. Would you be able to take your MacBook into store X? I know Joe (I forget the actual name) who is their lead technician. He will ensure that your MacBook is repaired for you and that you do not lose any data, as I understand that you need your MacBook for a conference in a few days (I mentioned this in the email). If that repair does not fix the underlying problem, then I'll authorize a replacement unit. But I would appreciate if you would try this repair one more time. The problem you are having with your MacBook was a difficult issue for us to diagnose and a new unit might actually still have the faulty part in it. We now know what the exact cause is and I'm confident our repair will fix things once and for all. Is this acceptable?"

At this point, he had gained my confidence and I was rather calm. His suggestion sounded reasonable, so I took it into the store. "Joe" the technician indeed took care of my repair, told me that he'd received a phone call from Apple. The part that was needed for the repair had been tremendously backordered because the fault was widespread. He said typically that the wait time was 5-7 business days, but that the Executive Relations guy had gone in and manually inserted me into the head of the queue. It was 3 pm. I would have my MacBook repaired and in my hands before noon the next day, as he'd been ordered to tend to my MacBook first.

At 11 am the next day I got a phone call from the store that my MacBook was ready to be picked up. Sure enough it was repaired and still works fine to this day. I got a voicemail from the Executive Relations guy soon afterward telling me that he had seen in the system that my MacBook was repaired. He wanted to know if everything was working well. If I had any problems, he said I should give him a call.

\---

Anyways, moral of the story. I really believe in phoning the customer and speaking with them. Note that this person did not actually offer me anything more than I would have been offered if I had just taken my MacBook in to get repaired on my own (except jumping the queue on the backordered part). What he did offer me was peace of mind and the feeling that I wasn't just a number on their balance sheet somewhere. The Executive Relations guy did everything right:

1\. He empathized with me.

2\. He tried to understand my problem.

3\. He fixed my problem.

That's just basic customer service, but you need the whole package. Just paying lip service or empathizing without actually resolving the matter at hand can actually make a customer even angrier. Also, telling the customer s/he is "right" when they aren't right is a recipe for disaster. The customer is not always right. That said, the customer always comes first. There's a difference.</comment>


Generic Drugs May Not Be As Safe Or Effective As Thought - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/16/723545864/the-generic-drugs-youre-taking-may-not-be-as-safe-or-effective-as-you-think?mc_cid=362a76f80a&mc_eid=61ba61d10e <comment><USER3> "Eban advises consumers to research who manufactures their generics and look up any problems that regulators have found out about them."

The whole point of government agencies like the FDA is to perform inspections that consumers lack the ability, time or resources to do on their own.

I get that we're in a complicated interconnected world and you've got to look out for yourself, but that's me. There's about 300 million Americans out there and a good portion of them are busy raising kids and busting their ass working and CAN'T spend hours investigating their prescription meds and inspecting their food.

Also, it's politically incorrect to say this, but a smaller number of consumers aren't intelligent enough to even begin taking care of themselves. They need the FDA more than anyone.

<comment><USER4> That strikes me as useful as the "security expert" who shows up on TV and tells people to "only download apps you trust".

Who really knows anything about ANY of the apps they download? Nobody has the required knowledge / time to make that determination with any amount of success.

Anyway the FDA situation reminds me of a libertarian blogger who a while back wrote a great blog that went something like "Guys, libertarians aren't supposed to hate the FDA / EPA!"

His point being that libertarians are supposed to get riled up when government gets involved in protecting people from decisions that they should make on their own, such as preventing people from jumping off anything because jumping off a cliff is bad (overly simple example but that's the idea). Situations like telling good medicine from bad where you need huge amounts of testing and industry knowledge, or having someone dump toxic waste next to your house that you can't tell ... you're permanently hurt by the time you figure it out is something libertarians should want a government involved in.

Life is complex, we can't figure everything out ourselves.

<comment><USER5> There's a free-market answer to the FDA problem, I don't think any real libertarian would argue otherwise (note: I'm not a libertarian).

The solution is having a brand, and building that brand based on trust. Additionally, 3rd parties you subscribe to could verify the claims of brands and their integrity.

This is similar to things like Fair Trade [1] certifications, or Kosher certifications.

I often buy brand-name drugs OTC for QA purposes. I know that for the most part, Tylenol is going to contain 500mg of the primary ingredient when I buy it. Those portions are likely to be of good purity and uniform size. The off brand, might have more or less, of similar or dissimilar quality. I trust that US-based business for the most part actually care about their customers. It's a web of trust. Do I trust non-US business with manufacturing operations overseas? Not really when it comes to medication, no.

1: [https://www.fairtradecertified.org/](https://www.fairtradecertified.org/)

<comment><USER6> > The solution is having a brand, and building that brand based on trust.

You mean like Boeing's 737 MAX8 aircraft? Or Purdue pharma's Oxycotin (aka: that opioid that Purdue Pharma claimed was non-addicting, except it kick- started the entire opioid crisis because spoiler alert: its opium-based and therefore very very addicting?)

1\. Big brands make mistakes.

2\. Consumers don't know the brands: do you know whether or not your drugs are Purdue Pharma or not?

3\. Brands are sold. The original company who made a brand may have cared very much about it. But 10 years or 20 years later, the brand may be owned by entirely new people. Either everyone has retired / moved on, so the company is simply consisting of new people... or maybe the brand was chopped-up and sold to 3 or 4 different companies. Quick: who owns Epipen right now? (That drug brand has been passed around at least 3 times in the past decade)

<comment><USER5> All of these things go into factoring your individual trust level for a brand.

Do you consider gmail.com as a brand to be more trustworthy than 'totallynothackers-email.com' for hosting your email? Of course you do.

In the case of medicine (or anything else that can kill you for that matter), the brand trust has been (mostly) replaced by regulator trust, or store-based trust. EG, CVS is probably going to source from reputable suppliers. You can also fill prescriptions on sketchymeds.com if you choose, especially if you're outside the US.

Brands being sold and bought are an input to the brand-trust equation. It might mean 3rd parties are the more trusted source of information in a given segment than the brand name itself (of course, you could say the same thing about 3rd parties, ad infinitum).

<comment><USER6> But even doctors, whose job is literally to keep track of these drug thingies, have gotten things wrong. See the opioid crisis + Oxycontin.

What hope do laypeople have when even the specialists with over 10-years of high-class training get these things wrong on a nationwide level?

Before the Oxycotin news, I thought Purdue was just "that chicken company" at the grocery store (Yeah, I'm ignorant. But that's the fact, at least I know I'm ignorant). I don't have the time to figure out which brand-names to trust or what not to trust.

My doctor gave me a "Tomed mandibular advancement device". I don't even know what a mandibular is. My only hope is to trust the doctor and hope it fixes my problem. I've never heard of "Tomed" before.

How the hell am I, as a customer, supposed to build a relationship with a brand, when I only buy one or two of their products per lifetime? How am I supposed to do market-research, and figure who their competitors are? If I buy a competing product, what assurances do I have that it works as well as the one my doctor gave me?

Look, I trust that the engineers are trying to build devices that improve my life. I trust my doctor is trying to improve my life. I trust my insurance company is trying to save (themselves and me) the most money. But I recognize that there are systemic flaws in the US Healthcare system, and something isn't exactly working right.

In any case, the "brand" system being proposed in this topic is clearly not a solution. Not only is it NOT working right now, I have my doubts that it would ever work under our current system. I'm just too ignorant about the companies who make medical devices and drugs, and I've got the freaking internet in my pocket to research things instantly. That's not the problem, it takes more than 5 minutes, or even an hour, of googling to review peer-reviewed journals and figure out which devices, techniques, or drugs are effective.

Ultimately, I'm going to trust my doctor and insurance company. Its all I got. I'm not going to be trusting my life to brands of which I've never used before. Its incredibly rare for me to buy any form of medical device in general, I simply don't have a relationship to any medical brand what so ever.

<comment><USER5> > Ultimately, I'm going to trust my doctor and insurance company.

You're already benefiting from the brand-trust type of system. You trust your insurance company (currently because the market is regulated, but if the market wasn't as regulated, you'd probably be choosier about who you shop with). Your insurance company pays the most for in-network doctors. Doctors probably need malpractice insurance and not be complete frauds to be in an insurance network.

I think the airline industry is a good example in the US. I could often save money by going with a smaller carrier, but I choose to spend a little more to go with the bigger carriers, primarily because I know if there are any problems, they're more likely to have extra flights to get me where I'm going.

Another good example is HVAC companies. You can pay someone working out of a truck to install a new A/C system for slightly less than the name-brand (factory authorized dealer) in your area. You're probably going to get what you pay for. Companies want to stand by their name. This is a once-in-a-while transaction that can cost multiples of 10's of 1000's of dollars (depending on size/complexity of the system, obviously).

<comment><USER6> In my case: the Tomed MAD cost me $1000.

The actual device is worth 150 EUR from Germany (where Tomed is located). The US-distributer sells it for $500. Somehow, the markup got all the way up to $1000 by the time it got to me.

Clearly, something, somewhere, has gone wrong in the system. This is a 150 EUR mouthguard that is being sold to me for $1000. As in, what I've literally paid for. Why?

<comment><USER7> > Clearly, something, somewhere, has gone wrong in the system. This is a 150 > EUR mouthguard that is being sold to me for $1000. As in, what I've > literally paid for. Why?

There are multiple factors, but a motivator is that US regulators are under pressure from both sides to adopt rules that make healthcare consumers less price sensitive.

On the one hand, the supplier is quite happy to be collecting $1000 rather than $150.

On the other hand, people don't like paying $1000, so they go to the government and ask them to do something about it. The government could then push for more price transparency and make sure that existing regulations aren't impairing competition and driving up prices, but that's exactly the opposite of what the people making $1000 instead of $150 want.

The alternative is to get somebody else to pay for it in enough cases that the remaining cases (i.e. yours) don't have enough political power to actually fix it. So they cause the money to come from insurance premiums or taxpayers in most cases, whose costs are in turn laundered through employer-provided health insurance or general tax revenues.

But the seller can't charge $150 retail and still get $1000 from insurance, so they set high prices and anyone without [sufficient] insurance coverage is relegated to either overpaying or using whatever kind of need-based assistance if any that the seller provides, or figuring out a way to order from overseas.

This type of regulatory corruption is obviously not a cost efficient way to provide healthcare.

And it's much the same reason branding and private certifications are ineffective. If regulators get rid of most of the charlatans then consumers become willing to trust that anything approved by regulators is safe. Then when it isn't (as with the MAX8), there is a single point of failure, both because people are then less wary of things that are potentially dangerous, and because independent private infrastructure to verify quality atrophies when government embeds their own safety standards into law, even if they do a mediocre job of it.

<comment><USER5> > ...independent private infrastructure to verify quality atrophies when > government embeds their own safety standards into law, even if they do a > mediocre job of it.

Pretty much the story for every aspect of government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> y-c-o-m-b I am/was on a generic version of Proscar (prostate drug and it's also a higher dosage of Propecia-a hair loss drug) called finasteride. From 2006 up to I think 2015 or so, TEVA was the brand of generic I was under and it worked great. At some point the drug stopped working. I thought maybe I built up a tolerance or something.

I remember one day I was standing in the kitchen pissed off that my meds weren't working anymore and looking at my prescription bottle when I noticed it was no longer from TEVA, it was from a company called Aurobindo; the drug was manufactured in India. I immediately called the pharmacy and told them I want to switch. I did some research and found one that is manufactured in the US by Accord pharma. Accord I believe is still HQ out of India, but the drug is made here in the US at least. Fast forward about 6 months, and things are finally returning back to normal - the meds were working! At that point I filed a complaint with the FDA against Aurobindo. Never heard back, but I tell everyone I know to avoid using Aurobindo drugs.

I don't know, I feel like outsourcing the manufacturing of drugs - <USER2> those with a life or death impact - is a mistake.

<comment><USER8> You should always check that the medication you have received from the chemist is the one you expected to get. If I were handed an unfamiliar drug I would immediately ask the pharmacist what was going on and ask for an explanation of the likely effects.

<comment><USER9> Same drug, different generic manufacturer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anecdote, but I personally noticed variable effectiveness of epilepsy drugs between different generic manufacturers and the brand name. I was taking Teva brand for a while and it seemed to work fine. Soon I noticed that the drug wasn't working as well (i.e. had seizures) and I saw the brand I was taking changed (I forget what it was). Anyway I had to run around and find a pharmacy that had Teva brand again. I also learned you can ask your pharmacy what generic brand they carry, and you can also ask them to fill your prescription with a particular brand, but you have to give 1-2 days heads up.

Ultimately, I ended up going on the brand name of the drug and it worked much more consistently. Often, if a generic drug isn't working well, doctors will write prescriptions that request the brand name so that insurance approves it. I think they all know that generics can be hit or miss for these types of drugs. Anyway, I don't take generics anymore. Now, almost every time I go to the pharmacy they ask me "You know how expensive this is, right?"... Yep. My insurance is billed for almost $5k every time I go, and I pay $180/mo. Generics would cost me $20/month or so. It must suck for people who can't afford it, or who have crapp(ier) insurance, or who don't even know about the variance between manufacturers.

</comment><comment><USER11> I heard this piece on NPR, the entire time all I could think about is it seems tailor made for the pharm industry.

They never mention a specific instance of impurities found, just a vague "they're made over in India/China!" thing. No details here other than people drinking tap water in India.

<comment><USER12> I feel like NPR has gotten worse in the last 10 years. Completely ignoring the topic of bias, (because it's a fruitless minefield) it seems difficult to encounter a story on NPR that isn't primarily about emotions. NPR seems to believe that a story is only accessible if there's a single person (or small group of people) who can directly emote about the wrongness of a situation. A caricature of an NPR story might go something like this "As violent insurgency breaks out in [some country], we bring you no details about the local politics, tribes, or history, but instead 15 minutes of an individual mother telling you just how miserable her life is. And here she is along with some ambient sounds so you can really feel like you're there."

I'm aware that there's a group of folks who believe that personal stories are relatable, while statistics are easily ignored. At best, I feel like this view is shortsighted: not everyone works this way, and sympathy shouldn't be limited to cases with emotional proximity. (ie, rational ethics are possible) At worst, NPR is deciding how you should feel about the story by inserting an emotion-based testimonial.

<comment><USER13> What irks me is that I either have to agree that they track me or I'm redirected to "text version" of the site, but in the latter case they redirect me to the list of articles, usually even without the one I came for, as if showing that without tracking I'm completely useless for NPR and I could as well go away. This attitude speaks louder than words.

<comment><USER14> It's oddly enough not consistent. Often enough, it redirects me to the article, but not always. Maybe they don't do it for all parts/categories of the site?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In particular there is a growing amount of evidence that the generic anticonvulsant drugs are not nearly as effective as the original brand-name version, and I don't believe it is known exactly why. Just that the FDA's definition of what makes two drugs equivalent is not sufficient in all cases.

My younger brother died because of this. He got moved off Keppra to a generic equivalent because insurance refused to pay for the real thing, and his seizures immediately began to increase in frequency. One night he suffered a grand mal and never woke up.

</comment><comment><USER16> This reminds me of this case:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/business/generic- ritalin-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/business/generic-ritalin-drug- not-equivalent-to-the-brand-is-in-use-anyway.html)

Everything in healthcare regulation tends to face intractable tradeoffs between cost, time, quality, and access, but small molecule generics should be an exception to that. The development work has been done, and the cost of goods is so cheap in general that it it seems entirely reasonable to demand more stringency in proving equivalence in manufacturing to the brand name.

An important question is - what's going to happen as we move into biosimilars and other large molecule 'generics?' These are much more complex than these small molecules, and it doesnt bode well for their future if we can't even get small molecule genetics up to par. I do think its doable though, and I'm glad that there's work out there like these articles bringing attention to the issue.

<comment><USER17> There was a similar issue with Wellbutrin extended, where the active ingredient was theoretically the same, but the bit that was supposed to slowly give it to you would dump it on you instead.

"'In the first two hours of a dissolution test, we found Budeprion released 34 percent of the drug, while Wellbutrin released 8 percent. At four hours, the Teva product released nearly half of its ingredients, while original Wellbutrin released 25 percent. The generic did not act like a once-a-day formula but more like an immediate release formula,' Dr. Todd Cooperman, Consumer Lab's president, stated."

[https://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-finds-generic- antidepressa...](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-finds-generic- antidepressant-original/story?id=17399399)

[https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety- information...](https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information- patients-and-providers/update-bupropion-hydrochloride-extended-release-300-mg- bioequivalence-studies)

Problem with that is Wellbutrin can cause seizures if you have too much at once, and it synergizes with things like ADHD meds to lower the seizure threshold further. Since Wellbutrin itself is a third-line ADHD medication, that last bit was a real issue--at one point I was prescribed both Wellbutrin XL -and- Concerta, and had to get "only as prescribed" scrips for both to avoid generics. Pulling the Wellbutrin generic with the known-bad delivery mechanism was one of the few cases where the FDA actually stepped in on a previously-approved generic and did something.

In general, I don't worry too much about the active ingredients in generics (though maybe I should) but I worry an awful lot about extended-delivery mechanisms. I don't think testing or standards are sufficient to enforce a bioavailability curve across a dosage lifetime.

<comment><USER18> It confuses me that they throw in the name Budeprion. I've only heard Bupoprion used as a generic term for Wellbutrin.

<comment><USER17> That is the actual substance name. Some generics have their own "brand name" that will usually be a minor variation on the real name. In this case, one of the generics that didn't deliver correctly was from Teva and branded Budeprion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yet another anecdote: Several years ago, my wife had her birth control switched to the generic by our pharmacy. The day after she started taking it she became extremely nauseated, it passed later that day. The next day, the same thing. After the third time, we realized that it wasn't a coincidence, she stopped with that pill and the nausea ended.

After some online research, we found the generic was manufactured in India and some people had mentioned a similar issue with the product. It took us switching pharmacies to get back on the name brand.

</comment><comment><USER20> Recently I was switched to a brand-name after a decade+ on generics. The difference was obvious and really surprising to me as I figured the same chemical compound would produce identical results. The facts described in the article would explain the difference. Really sucks for people that need medication to be rolling the dice every month.

<comment><USER8> How are you rolling the dice? Don't you get the same drug each time? I always do. And why monthly? For high blood pressure I get 98 tablets in a packet, that's fourteen weeks.

<comment><USER21> Pharmacies will constantly negotiate and change drug distributors that may use a different manufacturer of generics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The title is misleading. The article claims that drugs manufactured outside the US for sale inside are not held to the same standards as those made in the US. This has rather little to do with their status as generics.

</comment><comment><USER22> I read ChinaRX recently, and it included a lot of similar concerns. But it emphasized that a lot of the components and active ingredients are produced in China, and some American companies are not always very vigilant or thorough in checking the purity or quality of their suppliers. So even if a pill is made in America, it could still be at risk as much as a foreign pill.

The book kind of veered off in parts to being a little bit fear-mongery/off topic--a large portion of it was rehash of a Planet Money chicken tax podcast, and then another large block was focused on container ships-- though so I wouldn't really recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Our anecdote: My fiancee was prescribed generic Exemestane. We 100% believed that "generic is exactly the same compound, just cheaper". Her joints became stiff and sore. All over. It was debilitating. (It's a known side-effect of the drug.) Took the generic for two years. Then the supply of generics ran out locally and we _had to_ get brand-name Aromasin. The exact same compound. We had _no expectations_ of different effects or less side effects. Her joint pain mostly cleared up. By like 90%. The difference - once it dawned on us - was shocking.

</comment><comment><USER24> Somewhat off-topic, but I would like to see regulations around non-opiate drugs changed to the point where I can buy my BP drugs off the shelf. I can see no reason this can't happen. It can't be a safety issue. I can show you hundreds of supplements significantly more dangerous than BP drugs.

I want to be able to stock up on BP meds, so that there is an emergency, I am not 100% dependent on the pharmacy being open and reachable. Currently, I am at greater risk than someone who is addicted to heroin. You can stop heroin without risk of death.

<comment><USER25> How are pharmacists going to make 60$/hr if you don't pay them for every transaction? /S

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> the trouble is that the burden is wrongly on consumers to file complaints with the FDA if they find that their generic medications are not performing in the way that they should.

based on my experience inside the biotech/biopharma industry within several different roles, i think that ideally the FDA would be terrorizing the pharma companies producing generics such that each new manufacturing lot of medications would be tested for bioequivalence in small cohorts of patients before hitting the market.

of course, this will never happen because it would be expensive and time consuming for manufacturers of generics, who rely on volume to make a profit (traditionally -- i know this is changing as they are currently raising prices like wild). so, consumers get the shaft and nothing is done because the perfect solution has the imperfection of reducing revenues.

it's a tough problem, though. i'm fairly certain that doctors know that you get what you pay for with many generics -- but i'm also fairly certain that doctors understand not everyone can afford brand name medication.

<comment><USER21> It has been my experience that doctors are not that knowledgeable about specific pharmaceuticals, particularly compared to a pharmacist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Related, what it takes to get a generic drug approved in Canada:

[https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs- health...](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health- products/drug-products/fact-sheets/access-to-generic-drugs.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> While there may be some truth here, I am highly suspicious because this story feels like corporate sponsored FUD 101.

</comment><comment><USER29> This would be a non-issue if you had a single buyer at the national level sourcing the drugs on behalf of patients.

<comment><USER30> If anything that seems like it would make things worse - someone else, completely disconnected from your care, making decisions about what manufacturer should provide your drugs.

Government sourcing is riddled with plenty of cases of corruption and wrongdoing. Generally the worst case is that they overpay for something. With medicine, the worst case is that someone dies. I'll pass.

<comment><USER29> Can you cite examples of this happening?

<comment><USER30> Sure, here are just a couple:

[https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/defense-contractor-and-its- ce...](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/defense-contractor-and-its-ceo-plead- guilty-corruption-conspiracy-involving-scores-navy)

[https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl- xpm-1989-01-07-89010109...](https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl- xpm-1989-01-07-8901010981-story.html)

[https://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-boeing-scandal- story.html](https://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-boeing-scandal-story.html)

<comment><USER29> Only able to read the first article (2nd two are verboten for EU users), but all I read is that a private company was implicated, _not_ a national level single buyer (such as the NHS in the UK).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>