Interview Humiliation - <AUTHOR> http://deliberate-software.com/on-defeat/ <comment><USER2> Almost everyone on this site seems to have gone through similar interview experiences one time or the other. Our profession can get rid of this malady only with collective effort, as the author suggests:

        Lastly, this story fills me with an overwhelming desire
        to never continue the cycle of abuse. I strive every
        interview to try to respectfully work with the candidate,
        and never humiliate them. I want every person I interview
        to leave feeling loved as a human and respected, even if
        they are completely incapable to perform the duties of the
        job.

<comment><USER3> I agree. It looks like most interviews are aimed at finding "defects" in people - why they would not be a fit, than looking for reasons what the candidate can bring to the company/team if they were to join.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He should have walked out the interview the very moment they made the "Can't you afford a real machine?" comment. Even if you pass the interview, do you really want to work for/with these assholes?

<comment><USER5> While it's not a good sign in any event, depending on how it was delivered it's probably not enough to motivate burning bridges on its own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _I never found out if I had done something to make everyone so angry. I now suspect that they were massively turned off by a host of things._

It's not you, it's them. You are lucky you got out of there, you would have been miserable.

<comment><USER7> Not enough people realize that interviews are a two-way interaction. Steve is lucky that he got the valuable answers without ever asking the questions. "Company A" failed that interview dismally and should be embarrassed. I would have shown _myself_ out of the door given pretty much any of their remarks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8>
         This presentation is bullshit. You have no evidence,
         nothing valuable to show, just spurious subjective
         opinions. You've put up a straw man and now are trying
         to knock it down assuming we are idiots. I've seen
         enough.

Whoever said this is a dev I'd refuse to ever put into an interview again. Hell, I'd be reluctant to put this dev into any meetings requiring communication skills.

<comment><USER9> Stated in this exact way, word-for-word is quite extreme. Could the author be paraphrasing?

I'm probably nitpicking like a nerd. Even if he were paraphrasing it wouldn't take away from the overall message.

<comment><USER10> I wrote it down the quotes four years ago, just because I knew I'd want to write about it at some point. I didn't want to "get back at them", just turn it into something good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is such comic book villainy I just don't believe it happened as described. I wonder how the other side would describe it.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, 25 minutes late set the tone for that interview. I don't really care what the reason is, I'm going to be pissed if someone is 25 minutes late for anything.

<comment><USER4> Being half an hour late is not really an excuse for their sociopathic behaviour.

<comment><USER12> Yes, because it happened exactly as written, and totally wasn't embellished at all.

<comment><USER4> Do you have any special reason to doubt his story so vehemently? Should we dismiss any workplace abuse story as embellishment? Bosses and coworkers are always friendly and professional?

I know people that have suffered boss/coworkers bullying and I find this story plausible. And I know this industry and some people can be very inmature and unprofessional.

<comment><USER13> As the root poster said, it's comic book villainy. I believe that he had a bad experience and that the interviewers were rude but the story as told doesn't pass the smell test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Excuse the language, but fuck those people. If that's the way they're going to treat potential hires, they're going to have a bad time.

</comment><comment><USER15> What do you think of the practice of ending an interview earlier than scheduled when you're quite sure that the candidate is not a good fit for the position?

The rationale I've heard is that it saves both you and the candidate time.

But in practice, during the times when I've seen it done, the candidate ends up feeling really hurt.

<comment><USER16> Ugh, that sounds exactly like something an engineer would come up with. Saves time, right? It's more efficient so it's better. Except it doesn't even pretend to give the candidate a chance to save face, it's just naked rejection. But why should that matter, it's just emotions, it's not rational.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> These guys sound like movie villains. They may be programmers by trade but they belong to no profession.

I have a very difficult time imagining that, as the top comment says, "almost everyone on this site seems to have gone through similar interview experiences." During the dozen or so interviews I've personally done, I've seen interviewers arrive late and unprepared or unqualified to conduct the interview occasionally but I've never been treated discourteously.

Maybe the job market in 2003 was such that some people felt like they could get away with more in the name of "evaluation?" No clue, but seriously - planned evaluation or not I'd have certainly pardoned myself from the interview prior to the group lunch. Sticking it out to be avoid burning bridges only makes sense if you are being treated with the modicum of respect a human being deserves. Some bridges deserve to burn.

Edit: not about a story that occurred in 2003, so feel free to disregard my idle speculation about the state of the job market.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sounds like a bad cultural fit. The OP was professional, talented, polite, educated and fit to lead a team. The interviewers were ... something else.

<comment><USER19> No, just a bad culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I personally would have left the room after the comment on the Linux laptop.

<comment><USER21> My thoughts exactly (and I switched to Mac as soon as OS X came out).

I understand why the OP doesn't want to name the company, but I can't help wondering if these guys are even still in business.

Edit: saw the OP's comment below about them going in the hole and having to lay off 3/4 of their staff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why not name the company? I'm going to be honest..I don't think this actually happened.

<comment><USER23> >Why not name the company?

I'm going to guess OP may be 'liable' for damaging the company's reputation.

<comment><USER24> No, not liable if this is true. The recruiter being fired is easily provable. It will add weight to the rest of the story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There are times when it is necessary to recognize that we are interacting with the environment, not in our capacity as logical problem solvers, but in our capacity as social apes.

"This presentation is bullshit. You have no evidence, nothing valuable to show, just spurious subjective opinions. You've put up a straw man and now are trying to knock it down assuming we are idiots. I've seen enough."

At this point, the correct response is "Yeah, I've seen enough too. This interview is bullshit. I'm surprised you clowns are still in business. Good day." And pick up your stuff and walk out.

Obviously that won't get you the job, but nor will anything else; in reality, as very often happens, they made their decision no later than ten seconds after you walked into the room. (Anyway, would you even want to work for people like that?) Continuing to stammer meaningless-in-context words about tech stuff will just result in damage to your self-esteem, which can have significant negative consequences in your life for years down the line.

</comment><comment><USER24> When it's this bad you have to name names. I know it's hard but the bridge is already burned.

</comment><comment><USER26> Even if the author was just paraphrasing/dramatizing the interviewer's comments... I could not imagine being treated like that in a job interview.

</comment><comment><USER27> These guys were pure jerks. What person thinks its 2003 when you have a Linux. I love a Mac and use it on a regular basis, but Linux is the real machine. That's where you get your hands dirty and learn the inner workings.

Yes, you treat the developer with utmost respect even when you know from the start of the interview that they are unfit for the job. People change over time and you never know how your company might meet him in the future. Make him an offer or not, you have to let the candidate leave with a good feeling.

I have interviewed at quite a few places including startups. But, never anything like this.

</comment><comment><USER28> Classless and unprofessional in all respects. We can all learn by their example how _not_ to treat candidates.

</comment><comment><USER29> I find this story highly suspect, unless the writer happened to find a company run primarily by sociopaths.

</comment><comment><USER30> This sounds highly improbable, especially the "Oh, wow, Linux, what is this, 2003? I'd hoped I'd never have to see....." comment, I honestly can't believe there are any developers would make such a comment.

The OP should name the company if this interview was this terrible.

<comment><USER10> I don't want to say. Its been almost four years since then. A friend started working there for a different team, and he intimated the team I'd interviewed for was strongly anti-TDD, and very pro-Python. Even he laughed at me for not using a Mac. Recently they expanded too much and laid off 3/4 their development staff including my friend. In all, it sounds like it wasn't a great place. But I don't want to publicly call out a whole company of hundreds of developers because I got stuck with a few bad apples.

I do wish I know who my interviewers were, I want to meet them now and ask them what was up and what they thought of the whole thing. I do remember a few in the room seeming pretty embarrassed about it all, but I think the main three antagonists were their bosses or something.

<comment><USER30> If you tell HN how they looked and the company name, we can go on a witch-hunt :p.

But in all seriousness, sorry you had to go through something that terrible. Like someone mentioned already in this thread, you should have left the place when you heard the linux comment. Come to think of it, I'm happy for you for not getting stuck in an obviously poisonous environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'd be willing to play devil's advocate and say it was mainly the time that peeved them (peeved them enough to fire the recruiter for giving everyone the wrong time), but they really should be professional enough to not turn into 5 year olds when they get annoyed.

</comment><comment><USER32> What's the appropriate response as the interviewee in that sort of situation? They've completely turned you off to the idea of working for the company, should you just excuse yourself and end the interview?

</comment><comment><USER33> it is obviously a dubious story. Wouldn't the first thing you would say as soon as you enter the room is that you got an invitation to 9h30 and not 9h? Then what did op reply to their questions such as 'can't you afford a real machine'? he just mubbled? I would reply very harshly to such comments and show them who is the weakling.

While they were total assholes, you were not in a desperate enough situation that would justify you to say amen to whatever bullshit they say.

<comment><USER34> It's dubious because he didn't respond as you would? I never thought I'd be reminded of victim blaming here, yet here I am. Unless you personally know the OP, you have no idea what the OP's personality is like. Sure, I personally would tear them a new one (civilly) if they treated me like that, but I have non-confrontational friends that would be terrified to escalate the situation like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Assholes can be unavoidable. You may land a job at a point where there are none. Over time they hire more assholes.

Get the offer from the assholes, and use it as a bargaining chip.

</comment><comment><USER35> shame on them. doesn't sound like a place any self respecting developer would want to spend time at. what company was it?

<comment><USER36> By the sound of it, a D&D club at junior high.

<comment><USER37> Let's not insult junior high D&D clubs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Get baited hackernews, shitty to see this in the top feed. No way in hell this happened. If it did the OP wouldn't hesitate to name the company.

</comment><comment><USER39> The behavior of the interview team was truly appalling here, and this was a good post. It's important to be aware of just how bad things can get in technical interviews.

However, much as I'm always game for a good horror story, I'm more interested in the damage that the ordinary, polite, courteous technical interview/exam may be inflicting on people and our industry.

As I've posted in the past, I believe that tech interviews are essentially entrance exams that software developers are forced to take over and over. Actuaries, for instance, take exams on topics that correlate closely with mathematics classes, like numerical analysis or vector calc and linear algebra. These exams are recognized for what they are - rigorous entrance exams to show competency in core subjects. We don't call these exams "interviews" and leave it to an some dude who sits in cubicle D-12 to decide how he feels like testing an experienced Actuary's understanding of integration by parts today.

The reason I prefer to focus on the polite, respectful, professional interviews is that it helps us see the fundamental problems with our approach, rather than the misbehavior that can occur in any interview situation. I do think that the intense technical interviews in our field have taken the place of the bar, the actuarial exams, the medical boards. However, most professional entrance exams adhere to a code of conduct - students have an associated study path, they get a respected credential (reassuring their peers and hiring managers that they really do possess this knowledge and ability), they are aware of who their examiners will be and are assured that they possess the proper credentials and expertise to conduit the exams properly, fairly, and most of all, _consistently_.

I really would like to see developers, as a profession, determine how our competence will be established relative to our peers.

Now, one more thing - I said that I prefer to focus on the polite interviews than the horror stories, but I absolutely do acknowledge that a process like tech interviews may be unusually prone to these horror stories. In short, horror stories like this may not be entirely orthogonal to the core issues, they may very much be a common side effect.

Instead of highly respected practitioners and acknowledge experts sitting on a board, we go grab a few developers and hope they know what they're doing. When I defended my MS project, Berkeley didn't go out and grab a few people who seem to know the industry well enough (uh, I guess, oh, he's busy, well, this other dude seems pretty good, have him sit in) and have them decide whether I would receive a degree. I'm not saying there is no variance among experts, some may pass you, others may not, without question. But I could be certain that the people on my committee were qualified to evaluate my work, that I had rights as a student sitting for an exam, and I would receive a lasting and meaningful credential with feedback (not just a "we've decided not to proceed with your application at this time, but we'll keep your resume…).

With such a capricious and chaotic process, yeah, the sort of thing described here is more likely to happen.

</comment><comment><USER16> All the usual cliches apply- you wouldn't want to work for them anyway, etc etc

(Seriously though, a suit?!)

<comment><USER40> Exactly. What kind of schmuck wants to look like some kind of business professional? What are you trying to do, give the impression that you put some thought into your appearance and have respect for the interviewer's time?

A suit? Get with the programme; we have a strict uniform in this game and you'd better not have the self-confidence or the sense of style to step outside the uniform. We hire people who are just like us, and don't you forget it. Monoculture and groupthink? Damn right. That's what we want.

<comment><USER41> Exactly. The correct answer to "Why are you wearing a suit" should always be "Why aren't _you_?"

Suit up!</comment></comment></comment>


Why We're Drawn into Darkness - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us//issue/77/underworlds/why-were-drawn-into-darkness <comment><USER2> He talks about whether we are being good ancestors. What have we lost that would prevent us from being bad ones?

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess I'm not gonna be an ancestor</comment>


Why the Facebook Instagram Purchase Was Worth Every Penny - <AUTHOR> http://justinireland.com/how-facebook-could-dominate-advertising-and-why-the-instagram-purchase-was-worth-every-penny/

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been sitting on this theory for a couple of years but finally got around to writing about it. The Instagram purchase makes sense from this perspective. I believe this is the ultimate goal for Facebook and I see no reason why they cannot achieve it.</comment>


Ask HN: Pick a language.  What are some project ideas that show it off? - <AUTHOR> I realize that if I pick up a web framework, web projects are the obvious application space.  But what about "raw" languages?  If I want to see toy around with, say, haskell, what's a good application space to show off it's feature set/paradigm and build something that's not just a crappy "Hello World" application?<p>In other words, let's get a listing of project ideas (not startup ideas) per language that show off that language's strengths in a non-trivial but below expert-level way.  Go! <comment><USER2> This is a very good question and it is a hard one. I tend to have a standard set of problems that I use to take my first steps with a language.

A very simplistic thing to do is to generate a "signature survey": [http://c2.com/doc/SignatureSurvey/](http://c2.com/doc/SignatureSurvey/)

This generates a simple metric over c-type language code and includes walking a project folder structure and print out all {} and ; (blocks and statements) to get an overview over the complexity of the project.

Another one is "Folder Cleanup". I am a compulsive (Windows-) desktop hoarder. After a while my desktop gets so crowded with symbols that I move them into a certain folder, which I usually name after German dumpsites for nuclear waste. The script sorts files by their types and puts them into certain folders.

This one helps one to explore basic syntax, code structuring, modularity, fs access, working with data structures (recursive descent into dir trees), blacklisting of certain filetypes and so on.

These are very simple generic problems that one can do that in any language; it helps to compare the learing effort for the language and its syntactic and semantic power, for it is a very controlled, well understood problem. Beats hello world, but I am aware that these are not specific to show off what "side" a language "is on".

With python anything will do, but writing a webserver in r can be quite tedious I believe. If a langauge claims to be a general purpose language (as do f# and haskell) the aforementioned problem could do the trick.

</comment><comment><USER3> WPF (not a language, it's a desktop UI framework):

Windows Media Center (you have to jump through hoops to get it on modern windows, but I feel it's worth it).

Here's what it looks like for those who aren't running windows or don't want to install. [http://youtu.be/MSvME6zR7gU](http://youtu.be/MSvME6zR7gU)

As far as I know it hasn't changed much since Vista. I still consider it one of the best examples of what a WPF experience can be like.

You can use WPF with any CLI (.Net) language, but C# is preferred. WPF is windows only (windows presentation foundation) and can't be used with mono as far as I know.

</comment><comment><USER4> Node.js and Real-time.

WebSockets are a real blast to work with in Node.js. Some libraries to get you started:

SockJS - [https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs- node](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node)

ws - [http://einaros.github.io/ws/](http://einaros.github.io/ws/)

engine.io - [https://github.com/LearnBoost/engine.io](https://github.com/LearnBoost/engine.io)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd say write a little came. Possibly with multiplayer support if you want a challenge.

I recently started writing a clone of the curveball flash game with OpenGL graphics and network multiplayer support to learn haskell. I'm halfway through and I think I am familiar with the basic haskell concepts now.

</comment><comment><USER6> I always refer to Docker when telling people about Go. [https://github.com/dotcloud/docker](https://github.com/dotcloud/docker)

</comment><comment><USER7> bitcoin price aggregation deamon in Go !</comment>


Show HN: Keeping Track of My Life in a Spreadsheet - <AUTHOR> https://davidbieber.com/post/2019-12-29-track-your-life-in-a-spreadsheet/ <comment><USER2> Is it possible to automate this by getting all of your browser/PC/mobile history? E.g. if you are accessing a browser from home/work, then you can assume they are doing certain tasks.

If you're waiting for a bus/driving, then you can pick up GPS data to assume that you are going on holiday, or commuting, or going to gf/bf house, etc.

You can even loosely guess showers and cooking times if you add your bank account expenditures in. How much money spent at supermarket could correlate to time spent cooking food. Or, water bill cost with amount of time spent showering. In this way, through a process of deduction your life can also be kept track of, and in the long term, you can train an AI to do your actions for you :p

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool ideas. I'm definitely interested in adding browser history into the mix.

Transaction data, I already collect automatically (and semimanually label because the existing auto labeling is insufficient) and find quite valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you use iOS, reporter ([http://reporter-app.com/](http://reporter- app.com/)) works well to do this.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice! I've been meaning to do this for years. Decades. But still haven't got round to it</comment>


Here's a fun GitHub code search - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/294544320982290435

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like they're already cleaning it up a bit. Code samples are gone from search.</comment>


Fifth cable to middle east cut - <AUTHOR> http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/02/06/1431206.shtml

<comment><USER2> Who knows what's going on, but coincidence is out of the question.</comment>


The 15-Year Layover (2003) - <AUTHOR> https://www.gq.com/story/merhan-nasseri-charles-de-gaulle-stuck?printable=true&currentPage=all <comment><USER2> This story just makes me feel sad, and pessimistic for humanity's future. The idea that it was "just okay" for a guy to live in an airport for over 15 years, and lose his freedom of movement and autonomy just because he didn't have papers proving he was born in a particular place... it's just profoundly sad.

It just reminds me of how incredibly petty, violent, and cruel humans are as a whole. We're all _people_ , each deserving life and freedom, and our need to divide ourselves into different, antagonistic tribes is our greatest weakness. And if you can't prove that you're a member of a tribe, you're screwed.

<comment><USER3> While I don't have sources, I think it wasn't as simple as that. I've read that Alfred did have some chances to go outside, but he simply didn't take them.

All I'm saying is: from what I remember what I've read, it didn't seem to be the case that he was locked up. He kind of willingly let it happen. Whether that is actually true is another story as I can't remember the source where I read it from.

In any case, I do think there's more to this story than this submission is showing (after skimming through it).

<comment><USER4> According to Snopes [1], Belgium did eventually offer him residency — which he declined — after a ridiculous 7-year impasse where Belgium said he could only retrieve his lost refugee documents in person but France said he couldn't leave the airport without said documents.

[1] [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stranded-at-the- airport/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stranded-at-the-airport/)

<comment><USER3> That sounds very Kafkaesque :(

(I hope I'm using the word right, first time xD)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Took me a while to figure it out, but it appears every instance of the letters 'xe' has been removed. Anyone care to guess why?

a herd of red on (oxen)

Lufthansa bos (boxes)

his day's greatest ertion (exertion - that's when I caught on)

ercising his jaw muscle (exercising)

<comment><USER5> Missed the edit deadline, but here's an update:

I've got the day off today, so I'm on this like a poorly-disciplined bloodhound. After searching GQ.com with all 26 letter combinations x_ it seems 'xb' and 'xe' have been removed, site-wide (edit: not site-wide), while none of the other combos are affected. My test words are listed below.

So, is this starting to ring a bell for anybody? Do xb and xe have anything in common? Defunct formatting codes? Emacs function keys, I only half-jokingly joked?

examination

Oxbridge

excuse

Disney XD

boxes

exfoliate

foxglove

exhale

exit

Jaguar XJ

Jaguar XK

axle

axman

Oxnard

exoskeleton

expose

exquisite

iPhone XR

coxswain

next

sexual

Final Fantasy XV

Maxwell

XXX

sexy

Olympus XZ-1

<comment><USER6> Wow, great work so far. This is really interesting.

My guess is that they were moving content out of some proprietary early-2000s CMS around 2015. Instead of carefully parsing the storage format and extracting the text, they dumped it and the output was peppered with garbage. To sanitize the output, they simply elided certain character sequences.

Further speculation, 'xb' and 'xe' (for 'beginning' and 'end') were control sequences marking the extent of something in the old CMS format

Edit: These people would be the ones to ask:

> The Software Engineering team at Condé Nast International (CNI) knew it > needed an automated way to migrate the vast quantities of content, and it > developed a tool to do just that, recognizing that no off-the-shelf tool > could cope with the disparate set of content it was facing, spanning > multiple territories, languages and content types. But to meet its hard > three-month deadline of migrating the first territory, Germany, CNI also saw > the need for additional resources who were experienced in key technologies, > including Node.js and React, so it selected NearForm.

[https://www.nearform.com/blog/case-study/accelerating- transf...](https://www.nearform.com/blog/case-study/accelerating- transformation-at-a-global-media-company/)

<comment><USER5> Ha - I suspect you're looking in the right direction. Especially when they talk about that "hard three-month deadline." What is it with the arbitrary deadlines, people? The deadline happens once, but the mistake hangs around forever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author attempts to extract some higher spiritual meaning from the ramblings of someone who is mentally ill.

This reminds me of a story about a reporter seeking out hermits who been living alone for decades. Searching for higher truths and enlightenment, all he found was varying degrees of alcoholism and mental illness.

<comment><USER8> There is still a moral in those stories. Unfortunately, they are rather depressing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some may write him off as a crazy person, but he sounds like a broken man who just gave up. Life fell apart and no where to call home...

<comment><USER10> So it goes with many homeless and mentally ill. Quite a reminder that our very sanity depends on the kindness and support of the people around us.

<comment><USER11> Or the willpower to get up and go to work.

<comment><USER12> This is, pardon the french, puritan bullshit.

Without the kindness and support of the people around us, we all fall apart, sooner or later. Humans evolved as a social species, and if that social component is removed, it has grave effects.

There's a reason solitary confinement is chosen as a particularly brutal punishment[1]. There's a reason people with less social contacts have, in general, a shorter life span[2].

"The willpower to get up and go to work" comes, at least partially, from being embedded in a community.

[1] [https://www.nmlegis.gov/handouts/CCJ%20102716%20Item%203%20D...](https://www.nmlegis.gov/handouts/CCJ%20102716%20Item%203%20Dr%20Grassian%20Psychopathological%20Effects%20of%20Solitary%20Confinement.pdf)

[2] [https://www.nature.com/news/social-isolation-shortens- lifesp...](https://www.nature.com/news/social-isolation-shortens- lifespan-1.12673)

<comment><USER13> > There's a reason people with less social contacts have, in general, a > shorter life span

Or people who are obviously going to die earlier will get less social contacts -- the causation could be in either direction. Perhaps they don't form the social contacts because they don't want to make others who get to know them be the ones to suffer sadness when they die first, or they don't want to burden others with feeling they should look after them when they get sick first. Or perhaps it's the others who don't want to risk the sadness or incur the burden.

<comment><USER14> > Perhaps they don't form the social contacts because they don't want to make > others who get to know them be the ones to suffer sadness when they die > first

Are you suggesting that people with low social interactions either consciously or subconsciously are aware they have a lower lifespan? That seems like a greater leap in faith than people experiencing negative side effects from lack of social interaction.

<comment><USER15> From the comment you're replying to:

> people who are obviously going to die earlier...

Your parent was giving examples based on people who are near death. If sick old people know they are near the end, they may be less likely to spend precious time and energy chasing after new friends.

The point is that we don't know the causality. The study is specifically about old people too, so this seems like a plausible explanation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is a movie that loosely related to this, The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks. I'd say it was a pretty good movie, I liked it.

The man this article is about also wrote a book, but I can't thing of the title off the top of my head.

<comment><USER17> [https://www.amazon.com/Terminal-Man-Alfred- Merhan/dp/0552152...](https://www.amazon.com/Terminal-Man-Alfred- Merhan/dp/0552152749)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri)

</comment><comment><USER18> He left the airport in 2006, lives in Paris now.

</comment><comment><USER19> This kind of thing keeps happening, it's not as far fetched as it seems.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us- canada-46547794](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46547794)

This Syrian guy was in Kuala Lumpur airport for 7 months.

</comment><comment><USER20> _" I'm afraid the sad fact is that he's now completely destroyed."_

A conclusion it is hard to deny.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is the subject of the story still alive, or did officials sample his tissue/DNA at death? If so it may now be possible to track down his mother in Glasgow ... a Scottish nurse (?) working in pre-revolution Iran, I imagine, wouldn't be so hard to narrow down.

<comment><USER22> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri) Sir Alfred is still alive, and left the airport in 2006. His life doesn't seem much better now, despite having been paid a quarter million dollars for his life story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The modern world is so strange. What a horrifying story.</comment>


Sneaky deals are keeping cheaper generic medicines off the market - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-generic-drugs-pay-for-delay-20190627-story.html#nws=mcnewsletter <comment><USER2> > The Federal Trade Commission estimates that pay-for-delay deals cost > American consumers $3.5 billion a year in the form of higher drug prices.

Pay for delay is bad, but let's put it into perspective. This is 0.1% of healthcare spending.

That's the most frustrating thing about the healthcare debate in the US. Nobody has a clear idea of where all the money is going.

Germany spends 1.56% of GDP on pharmaceuticals. The US spends 2%. If we forced drug makers to give us discounts to German levels, we'd save $86 billion. To get our overall healthcare expenditures down to German levels (11% of GDP), we need to cut $1.4 trillion. Where is the rest coming from?

<comment><USER3> I get your point. It's a good one. What about the fact that Americans are essentially subsidizing world health care via private R&D? Other countries benefit from our new drugs yet won't pay market prices for them, and it's $2 billion to create a new drug these days, minimum. The reason a huge majority of pharma innovation happens here is because there is an incentive for it. Honest question: if we further regulate the amount of money pharma companies can make, who will innovate?

<comment><USER4> > Other countries benefit from our new drugs yet won't pay market prices for > them, and it's $2 billion to create a new drug these days, minimum.

What makes you think drug prices in other countries aren't 'market' prices? Is it because they're negotiated on a country-wide level by the governments? I.e. because the buyer is a larger entity than the seller? But when the buyer is smaller than the multinational drug company, such as an individual or a medium-sized insurance company, then the price somehow _is_ a market price?

> What about the fact that Americans are essentially subsidizing world health > care via private R&D?

This tired argument again. Given that pharmaceutical companies spend more on just marketing than they do on R&D [1], isn't it more accurate to say that the US is subsidizing drug ads? How high would drug prices have to get, and how small the R&D budget, before you'd stop claiming the US is 'subsidizing' R&D? Or would whoever pays the highest price always be hailed as subsidizing R&D, to try and guilt everyone else into paying more?

> The reason a huge majority of pharma innovation happens here is because > there is an incentive for it.

Given that drugs are sold internationally, pharma could continue their extortionate pricing in the US no matter where the drugs are developed, so the cost of drugs doesn't act as an incentive for where to conduct innovation.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-p...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big- pharmaceutical-companies-are-spending-far-more-on-marketing-than-research/)

<comment><USER2> > This tired argument again. Given that pharmaceutical companies spend more on > just marketing than they do on R&D [1], isn't it more accurate to say that > the US is subsidizing drug ads? How high would drug prices have to get, and > how small the R&D budget, before you'd stop claiming the US is 'subsidizing' > R&D.

Annual drug R&D spending isn't "small." In 2014-2017, pharmaceutical R&D was about the same size as total VC investment nationwide. (There is some overlap between the two numbers.)

Additionally, the "marketing expenditure" angle is an ignorant trope. The pharmaceutical industry is as efficient as other high tech industries in concerting revenue to R&D. In 2017 US pharma companies spent 20% of revenues on R&D. That's at the top of the range compared to companies like Intel, Facebook, Apple, and Google. [https://www.theatlas.com/charts/N1Gs8E4v](https://www.theatlas.com/charts/N1Gs8E4v). Few would deny that Google is a highly innovative, R&D-heavy company, but it's at 15%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see how this doesn't already violate price fixing laws. This isn't the market at work, but a calculated distortion of it within the pharmaceutical oligopoly.

</comment><comment><USER6> It seems everything around heath care billing is sneaky in the US. It's probably the most rotten, inefficient and corrupt sector of the whole economy. I am not talking about the actual health care but only about billing practices.

<comment><USER7> From the healthcare delivery standpoint there are so many rotten, inefficient and corrupt practices that many days it feels like you are delivering good care despite the system. Certainly not because of it. It's kafa-esque and there is zero incentive for your boss' boss' boss' boss' calling the shots to improve patient care.

Healthcare providers are also just as mystified as to where all the money goes, not the workers doing the direct patient care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's also the practice of the Big Pharma companies either buying the generics producers or contracting with them __not __to make generics. I think Big Pharma might be more hated than Congress at this point.

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://archive.is/f4TCi](http://archive.is/f4TCi)</comment>


Ask HN: How does the points system work here? - rush-tea

I am a bit confused... I replied to a thread and I got -2 points (yes, negative points).  I didn't spam or discourage, just offering my advise.
Just curious... And how do one judge or vote +/- point?
Thanks. <comment><AUTHOR> I assume you're talking about this comment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880317>

In short, it's wrong. Patenting your business model is no defense against wholesale copying. Copyright _is_ a defense, but then you have to defend it. Taking it to the courts costs money, and has an uncertain result.

So in this particular case I would guess you've been downvoted because you added nothing of value, and what advice you did give was wrong.

As to how the points work, it's like this.

People can upvote submissions and comments. Every upvote helps float the item higher, and counts for you as a point of karma.

People with enough karma (currently 500 points) can also downvote (with a few exceptions). Downvotes are pretty much the opposite of upvotes, floating the item lower, and taking karma from you.

The exceptions to downvotes are that you can't downvote:

* Something that's really old

* A reply to a comment you made

* A reply to a submission you made

* A submission.

People here are pretty hot on the idea of value. Simple "Me Too!" comments get hammered, and content-free blather will get downvoted or ignored. Mostly things get upvoted if they genuinely add relevant information.

Mostly.

<comment> rush-tea OK. I understand it now... But now I am counting on my points via 'threads' section on the top bar, but it doesn't add up. As of now I have 8 'karma', but when I count, the points should be greater than 8...

So how do I know which post gets point? and which not?

Sorry, newbie questions. I read the FAQ on the HN in regards of the points system, but there are not one clear answer...

Thank you.

<comment><AUTHOR> When you submit or comment your item automatically gets one point, but that doesn't contribute towards your karma. If you add up the points on all your items, then subtract the number of items, you should get close.

But there are also aspects to the algorithms that aren't made public. Our host occasionally makes changes to help fend off voting rings, spammers, trolls, and other nasty and undesirable things.

Finally, there is no feedback as to things getting upvoted.

My recommendation is that you try to be informative, helpful, add value, and not care so much about the karma. Whether or not people see your contributions is largely luck anyway. Just try to work it out if you get downvoted to the basement - try to see why people think you added no value, or were wrong. The guidelines suggest not complaining about downvotes, and I'd agree. It doesn't help, and it makes boring reading.

And you're welcome. Just join in, and be useful.

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> So 'karma' is just the level of influence you have? So you could say that 'karma' is the klout for HN? Or is there more to it?

</comment><comment><USER3> Users with a certain amount of points can vote comments up _or_ down.</comment>


What really drives the poor - <AUTHOR> http://www.livemint.com/2011/06/24201858/What-really-drives-the-poor.html

<comment><USER2> I barely made it half-way through the article, it sounded like an United Colors of Benetton add adapted into a Nobel-winning Economics paper.

Just a couple of gems that made me skip it:

""" they may well be more driven by ideas, simply because they have less information about the world outside """

So, supposedly, us, the rich people, live in the "real" world, why them , the poors, live in a world from which they cannot see "outside". Ok, I got it.

""" She would also read to us books on Mother Teresa, on African children, etc """

Mother Teresa and African children in the same sentence, what's this, "feel- good bingo for well-off people"? Also notice the "etc" after "African children", that's a first.

And I could go on and on. In case anyone's curious (and before you start downvotting me), I'm furious about the condescending tone of this article because some time ago, when I was 15-16, my family went from middle-class status to poverty (meaning less per US$ 1 per day per person) in a very short time. I can still remember my mum, an engineer by training, going to the market place early in the morning to sell home-grown parsley. She gave me most of that money in order to pay for private math-lessons given by my high-school math teacher (that was the only way to get into CS school). I still try to help my parents as much as I can, but 10 years later they still rely mostly on subsistence agriculture. But, nevertheless, they're happy with it, that's their life, they have their small piece of land, they garden it, they live under the sun in fresh air and not in a God-forsaken cubicle with artificial lights, and my dad would look very strangely at these "rich", paper-writing people who think he's living in a "different", lesser world.

<comment><USER3> I share your disgust. Personally, I have a real problem with academics or journalists who go on a junket to a third world country and act like the people around them are animals in some zoo.

Look at any western family for a similar period of time and no doubt you will spot all sorts of bizarre dysfunctions or irrational behavior, regardless of wealth.

People are people.

<comment> mkr-hn Here's an instructive contrast to the poverty safari: [http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/03/01/from-the- rich-t...](http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/03/01/from-the-rich-to-the- poor-or-what-i-learned-in-africa/)

And GRS comments are worth reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mike Konczal:

Here's the normal story. Picture you are in a room with 10 people. Each of them has a slice of cake. How much you are willing to pay for a slice of the cake is the 'marginal utility' of having it, and the more cake you have the less any more cake is worth to you. You'd be willing to pay a $1 for the first slice of cake, but you'd only be will to pay 90 cents for the second slice. You'd only be willing to pay 10 cents for the 9th slice, and a penny for the 10th slice. Eating the 10th slice of cake in that room would probably make you sick, hence you want it a lot less than the first slice, which is delicious. That's declining marginal utility.

Now picture you are in a room with 10 people screaming. You hate it when people scream, and you can pay a person to get them to stop screaming. Would you pay in a similar way to the cake example? Would you pay a $1 to get the first person to stop screaming, and a penny for the 10th person to stop screaming?

No. Getting one person to stop screaming would make very little difference in how much you dislike being in the room. Modern psychology tells us you might not even notice it. You'd probably only pay a penny to get that first guy to stop screaming. However getting the second guy to stop screaming might be worth 10 cents. And the last guy, the difference between some screaming and no screaming, might be worth the full dollar to you. The more quiet it got, the more a marginal difference in how quiet it is would be worth to you. There's increasing returns to this good; the 10th guy not screaming is worth more than the first guy not screaming, which is the exact opposite dynamic of the 10th cake being less delicious than the first.

\-- [http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/persistence-of- pov...](http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/persistence-of-poverty-and- increasing-marginal-utility/)

<comment><USER5> It is a commonly used argument that the lives of poor people are very hard and unpleasant and that dealing with the hardships sucks out all their energy and brings down their spirits so they can't take advantage of all the opportunities that middle-class people have to improve their situation.

The problem I see with this reasoning is that if you consider the entire range of standards of living which people had throughout history and geography, with maybe middle-age European peasants on one end and say Larry Ellison on the other, then on this scale, the standard of living of contemporary American poor is very close to the standard of living of the reasonably well off. From the point of view say anyone in communist Poland, as well as at least a billion people living today, what you call poverty would seem like mind- blowing opulence. On the other hand, I rather suspect that for anyone featured in The Real Housewives of New York, the lot of doctors and software engineers and struggling janitors alike must seem like horrifying wage slavery.

So, to claim that there exists a standard of living threshold, and that below this threshold life is objectively hard, whereas above this threshold it's easy, and that it so happens that the line lies between the poor and the middle class in contemporary America, you have to believe that we're looking at a very unique time and place. Of all the possible values that the threshold could potentially have, what are the odds that it would actually fall within this narrow range you're looking at? A hundred or maybe even fifty years ago in the US (and much more recently in many countries around the world), almost everyone's standard of living was way below that of contemporary poor. Do you think all these people were equally as incapacitated by the harshness of their lives, unable to make rational decisions and work to improve their lives? If the civilization does not collapse for one reason or another, chances are in fifty years time even the poor will have the standard of living as good as wealthy people have now. Do you think the poor of the future will not suffer from this ten-people-in-a-room-screaming effect?

<comment><USER6> _So, to claim that there exists a standard of living threshold, and that below this threshold life is objectively hard, whereas above this threshold it's easy, and that it so happens that the line lies between the poor and the middle class in contemporary America, you have to believe that we're looking at a very unique time and place._

Not only that, but you also need to ignore most of the world. Even traders, programmers and executives living in Bandra (a part of Mumbai more expensive than Manhattan) tend to have lifestyles worse than many US poor people. I.e., cramped apartments in poor condition, long commutes and very few luxuries.

Given this, the Karelis/bee sting/screaming guy theory would predict Mumbai's corporate lawyers would behave similarly to the US poor - never saving for the future, blowing their money on crappy food and booze rather than education, etc.

Strangely, that doesn't happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They finally hit on the real story halfway down:

""Generally, it is clear that things that make life less boring are a priority for the poor," they write in their new book."

Yes, the poor spend their money unwisely when they have extra. That's the real reason.

If a rich person finds themselves down on their luck, they knuckle down and work really hard to get into a situation where they can afford to buy luxuries.

It isn't about lack of opportunity. It's about wise choices.

I can't find the story now, but there was a fairly wealthy man who decided to give all that up and see if poor people could pull themselves up. He stowed his credit cards and cash and went to live on the street. He started at day- labor sites until his work ethic paid off and he got a steady job from someone. He had goals like an apartment, a car, etc, with a certain amount of cash in the bank. He gave himself 1 year. At 9 months, he had completed his goal, and a family member fell ill. He quite before the 1 year, but he had already completed his goals and was on his way to a good life.

In other words, he spent his money wisely and was able to vastly improve his lifestyle in less than a year. But most poor people say it's impossible. Are they not trying? Are they trying, but making too many bad decisions?

<comment><USER8> Hi. I'd like to see if I can offer you some personal insight about the plausibility of extrapolating evidence from the scenarios you describe into broader policy judgments.

Currently I'm in a Ph.D. program in a field I find extremely interesting, and am quite happy with my position relative to my goals and background. A few years ago, however, I was living in a one room apartment above an auto body shop, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with several tenants in various stages of socioeconomic distress (viz. social service dependence, street-level prostitution, drug addiction, &c.). My life was generally unpleasant. I was working as a day labourer in construction and drove my four hour daily commute in perpetual terror of being pulled over while driving on a suspended license (for failing to pay an old ticket that was sent to the wrong address). My "roommates" repeatedly stole my food and occasionally broke into my room to steal loose cash. I had no health insurance. When I bit the bullet and drove myself to the ER after receiving an inguinal hernia on the job (while carrying literal tons of demo debris down three flights of stairs in a Baltimore rowhouse in July), I was stuck with an 800 dollar medical bill that plagues my credit to this day. When my parked car was struck in a drug-related accident (remember I didn't live in the best part of town), the city ran my plates and booted my car, soon after which it was towed and I had to find another job. My life was brimming with problems, the solution to any which required money that I didn't have. Moreover, the concurrence of all of these problems seemed to frustrate action on any one of them: how do I work if I don't have a car? How do I recover and fix my car if I don't have any money? How do I find work if I can't lift heavy objects without aggravating the hernia? How do I treat the hernia without health insurance, which I don't have even if I had a job? I am not relating all of this in order to garner sympathy, but rather to explain the kinds of problems I encountered, and their apparent magnitude relative to my means then.

One aspect of poverty which is probably less salient to those not acquainted with it is that it alters parts of your personality that you previously considered stable. While I had always considered myself a relatively even and temperate guy, friends who saw me then would tell me that I seemed constantly angry and brooding. Things that I could have taken in stride before were usually occasions for despair.

Even my tastes changed. Whereas I had previously considered soda and individually wrapped danishes disgusting, I found I could hardly help myself in 7-11s on my way home from construction sites. I used to enjoy cooking, but could barely manage to throw a can of beans a 25 cent box of mac and artificial cheese when I got home. (I shopped at a discount off-brand grocery store full of security cameras, screaming children and expired fruit.)

There is a famous quote from Orwell's _Road to Wigan Pier_ which I had never understood until that point in my life:

"The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea and potatoes -- an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't.… When you are unemployed … you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit "tasty." There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you."

This is just about one of the most accurate and robust observations you can make about the psychology of poverty.

So that's why I'm no longer terribly impressed about the exhortations of the rich to "knuckle down and work really hard" in order to bootstrap oneself into economic security and material comfort. My situation wasn't nearly as destitute as that of a lot of people in this country alone, and when I came home from work I wanted--very badly--to blow money I didn't have on cheap comforts and postpone thoughts of tomorrow.

Secondly, it's important to acknowledge that even while living with junkies and hauling debris for $10/hr, I was much better off than many in my situation, for reasons that make me much less impressed with riches to rags to riches stories such as you describe. Let me explain.

When I first began applying for construction jobs, I was objectively under- qualified in comparison to almost any other applicant, of which there were many since construction jobs were becoming scarce around 2008. I remember one interview where I flatly failed the ``technical portion" and had over- estimated my competence to boot, demonstrating that I didn't even know what I didn't know. I was nevertheless hired because I "talked educated" (verbatim quote, I swear to god), which I assume meant either that I was white, or didn't come from the working class backgrounds of south Baltimore of the other applicants. About three months after my first day labor gig (which I only found because I had internet access and at-the-time reliable private transportation), I was running a crew under my boss. I was offered this not because I was an objectively knowledgeable and competent carpenter, but because 1) I had learned serviceable Spanish in an enrichment program as a kid, and 2) the college-educated owner felt that I was "more like him" than the Salvadoran guys who actually knew what they were doing.

I was also able to pull in some lucrative (to me) side gigs tutoring math and Latin in-home (again, internet and car), which ultimately allowed me to get out of construction and start teaching rich kids full time. That obviously would not ever have happened if I were a day labourer from west Baltimore, rather than a middle-class kid from the county who happened to be very down on his luck.

The differences that separated me from the people I met during that period were vast. If I had found myself in those circumstances without the advantages of white skin, middle-class education and secret-handshakes, and freedom from further complications like care-giving responsibilities (as you somehow manage to mention and dismiss the significance of), I'm not sure that things would have turned out the same way. Really, I'm not so sure that things were guaranteed to turn out the way they did for me at all.

<comment> daniel-cussen >"The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea and potatoes -- an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't.… When you are unemployed … you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit "tasty." There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you."

So, calories, or not enough of them. Cooked food has more net calories than uncooked food. It's probably the same reason that, nowadays, poor people like to watch TV: it shuts your brain (20-30% of your metabolism) down harder than falling asleep. It's a decision that doesn't make any sense until you think of it calorically.

<comment><USER9> It's also not cheaper to buy brown bread and raw carrots. It's less expensive to buy the "tasty" higher-sodium canned foods. Eating healthy is not inexpensive. Add to that that raw foods in quantity go bad sooner than cheap canned items and the cost of raw and healthy give up because of the extra waste.

As for entertainment, the more wealthy enjoying turning off their brains as well. But they spend money on going to live performances at playhouses or symphonies. TV is comparatively cheap. Also with TV, you have more immediate choices (especially with something like Netflix): to watch more cerebral material or dumbed-down garbage.

<comment><USER10> > It's also not cheaper to buy brown bread and raw carrots. It's less > expensive to buy the "tasty" higher-sodium canned foods. Eating healthy is > not inexpensive.

Also, you have to factor in how much it costs in terms of time to prepare a meal from fresh, more-or-less whole ingredients compared to throwing something prepared into the microwave or onto the stove. If you have the time to cook after your job, wouldn't you be tempted to get a second job instead of cooking, if only to make your constant, grinding debt go away faster?

Then you get into 'cultural poverty', where someone flatly doesn't know how to cook because their parents never cooked and only ate at cheap restaurants (which isn't cheap) and used prepared food. You might say 'oh, just get a cookbook', but I know first-hand how much implied knowledge you have to have to get much out of a cookbook. Implied knowledge has to come from somewhere; if you didn't get it from your parents, you likely don't have it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Poor people are human beings, so I assume it's the same things that drive other people.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's amazing how few policymakers realise that. mostly, the poor tend to be infantilised and patronised.

<comment><USER12> To be blunt, quite a few politicians really don't want changes to the current status because it would endanger their power-base. If you ran on an issue, it is helpful not to solve the issue and blame the other guy for not solving it.

One example is bilingual education. There are very effective groups and lessons that can teach students English in a short amount of time, allowing the student to be in the same classrooms as everyone else. But if that student (or anyone else) doesn't speak the language of the majority, they are easier to control because they are not independent and need "special" programs. If they were bilingual, then they would have a better chance than 1 language people to get jobs and opportunities. More language = More options. Instead we get a lot of empty political rhetoric that keeps everything the same.

<comment><USER13> Not only that, but there's money involved. How many billions are sent in foreign aid? Some of that money disappears due to corruption and who doesn't want some corruption happening ;p

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I read the whole article, however, I didn't think it did a good job of getting to the bottom of everything that does matter. The article needed to give people a better sense of the situation of the poor, by providing more insights. Otherwise, people who've never experienced poverty would not understand why it's so important to help these people out. The best reporter on an issue like this is someone who actually made it out of poverty and is actively trying to help their own people.

</comment><comment><USER15> Are _Untouchables_ allowed to own/operate a restaurant in India? [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Untouchabilit...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Untouchability)

</comment><comment><USER13> _"Generally, it is clear that things that make life less boring are a priority for the poor," they write in their new book.

"They don't just need nutrition that will keep them alive longer—they also need a reason to want to live longer. Being healthier by denying yourself the little pleasures you can afford, a cup of tea or a bowl of steaming rice, makes little sense if you have nothing else to look forward to," says Banerjee. "I think they make exactly the choices I would make in their place as regards food."_

...isn't that fucking obvious? You can extrapolate from our own rich society where people would rather spends thousands on electronics than on non-fast- food. Paying double for healthier food? Fuck no. Paying hundreds for an iPhone? Fuck yes.

</comment><comment><USER16> im getting some weird html on this url. the body is empty and its followed by a style/css tags with flash embedded in it. wtf?

</comment><comment><USER17> Good insights, though instead of biometric (?!) based money transfers, I'd like to see a further push on phone based transfers and other branchless banking. Recent research reported through CGAP shows branchless transfers being used increasingly by the poor, [http://technology.cgap.org/2011/06/17/does-branchless- bankin...](http://technology.cgap.org/2011/06/17/does-branchless-banking- reach-poor-people-the-evidence-from-india/) I was hoping they might discuss Microfinance's role in helping the poor reach their goals, since at kiva.org we tend to think of microloans as one of the small steps towards solving the problems they face.</comment>


Firefox Will Warn Users When Visiting Sites That Suffered a Data Breach - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/firefox-will-warn-users-when-visiting-sites-that-suffered-a-data-breach/ <comment><USER2> Sounds like a great idea if you want to get into some very risky lawsuits. I doubt the Mozilla foundation is going to get involved in this, it's a statement by one of their engineers.

<comment><USER3> What could they sue for? Defamation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Will that include uber.com?</comment>