Linus on compiler warnings and code reviews - <AUTHOR> https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/9/3/428 <comment><USER2> I tend to treat warnings as errors. (Even set up my IDE to do so).

In the short run it maybe is annoying but in the long run it really pays off. (Have been burned by a huge pile of crap code base with hundreds of warnings + 64bit transition).

<comment><USER3> Agreed. New code shouldn't be committed unless it compiles without error. The build server should then compile with -Werror, with all relevant shame being healed on the developer who breaks the build by letting a warning through.

<comment><USER4> Sadly, you folks seem to be the minority out there. I can't even remember how many times I've had conversations along the lines of:

Me: Hey, that code generates 3 compiler warnings, and you shouldn't be casting that pointer here.

Them: Oh, ok, whatever, change it if you want.

Me: It's not about what I want.. the code isn't correct. It'll break on some 64-bit platforms, for instance.

Them: Well, it works on our target platform, and that's the one in the spec. If the spec changes, we fix it as a change request.

Me: But it just happens to work! Even a different compiler could result in different behavior. Can't we just put in a little effort up front to avoid trouble later?

Them: Go for it if it bothers you so much. We have real bugs to fix. Nobody cares about hypothetical problems on systems we don't support and compilers we don't use.

Me: [This is going to drive me to alcoholism]

<comment><USER5> The biggest issue with lettings warnings go is that they pile up and you start missing the important ones that point to real bugs. I have seen that happen many many times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Biggest flaw in the design of C: no real array parameters. Source of most buffer overflow vulnerabilities for thirty years. It's a fixable problem [1] but it's not going to get fixed. We need to move forward to Rust, or something like it, and get rid of C for anything for which security matters.

[1] [http://animats.com/papers/languages/safearraysforc43.pdf](http://animats.com/papers/languages/safearraysforc43.pdf)

<comment><USER2> >We need to move forward to Rust

That's the second time in two days I've come to read offensive ranting about a language + "let's move to Rust" as the proposed silver bullet solution here on HN.

If this is the way the Rust community tries to evangelize their language I'm inclined to keep myself as far away as possible from it.

Now don't get me wrong: I think Rust is fine. But that "C/C++ is dumb and everyone who continues to use it is also dumb and/or ignorant" sentiment won't win you any friends. There are valid reasons why people keep using C++ and can't switch to any other language in the near future.

<comment><USER7> I don't see how this is offensive. It is well established that most programmers will produce defects at a relatively high rate when writing C or C++. Rust "or something like it" does effectively eliminate certain categories of defects. Java evangelists have been claiming the same thing since the late 90s, and they were right... buffer overflows in Java programs have most commonly occurred in parts of the Java library written in C, and Java has given us productivity + quality gains in various fields (mostly server-side web applications).

Nobody's saying that C/C++ or its users are dumb and/or ignorant. The cost of switching languages is high, and Rust is not very mature.

<comment><USER8> Using a language to solve a practices problem is the same with any other attempt to use technology to correct behavior. It's not completely unjustified, but don't expect good results.

If you have to write 'C', learn 'C'. I'd say the same of C++, but by the time you learn it, it's become something different :)

<comment><USER7> Array bounds errors are a common source of problems in C. Fixing these errors with behavioral changes is expensive. It increases the amount of training and increases the cognitive load on programmers, and yet errors will still slip by because we are imperfect. On the other hand, if I add bounds checking to my programming language, then I've just transformed serious vulnerabilities into simple runtime errors. Computers are easier to reprogram than brains are.

<comment><USER9> How about "taking heed of compiler warnings" as suggested by Linus? it's niether expensive nor mentally taxing

<comment><USER10> How about eliminating the need for them in the common case like other systems languages did? Why should you have to worry every time you do a common operation if the alternative has acceptable performance and is actually more productive?

And I'll add that most of the older, safe languages let you turn off safety for performance if you have to. You just then have to use you brain like you would with C or whatever. Just for that module, though, along with calls into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I often feel a bit guilty when I spent time looking through something instead of just giving it a quick glance; but knowing that Linus has to fight the same fight really gives me confidence that it's better to know whats going on than to just ship code out the door.

</comment><comment><USER12> That was actually darn polite for Linus.

<comment><USER13> Yes, I was going to say something along those lines too .. seems our Benevolent Leader has gotten a bit soft. Frankly, the use of array function arguments in code like this would set me off into a minor rage .. I'm impressed at Linus' restraint this time around.

Whats interesting though is that we're still dealing with these kinds of issues, even now in the 21st Century, from C programmers who should know better. Seems that the more things change the more they stay the same ..

<comment><USER14> No, the C programmers who should know better have retired. Everyone else is just trying to patch code written 10-15 years ago while modifying as little of it as possible...

<comment><USER15> We still have UNIX so it won't change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Thorvalds still runs Fedora (22) and the GCC warning is a new one coming from clang.

[https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/9/3/494](https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/9/3/494)

[https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/9/3/499](https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/9/3/499)

</comment><comment><USER17> "I tried - and failed - to come up with a reasonable grep pattern"

Is there a nice, light, better-than-betterthangrep[1] static analysis tool that would help with this sort of question? (I suspect the decay to pointer would, for example, elide this detail from llvm's IR?).

[1] [http://beyondgrep.com/](http://beyondgrep.com/)

<comment><USER18> There is/was a refactoring DSL for parsing and modifying C code accurately, but I don't recall the name. If I remember correctly, it was produced by a French organization or university.

<comment><USER19> You're probably thinking of [http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/sp.php](http://coccinelle.lip6.fr/sp.php)?

<comment><USER18> Yes, I think that's right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've made this mistake in the past. In C++ I used a reference to fix it like so:

        #include <cassert>

        typedef char array_xyz_type[42];

        void test(array_xyz_type & a, array_xyz_type b, char c[42], char (&d)[42])
        {
            assert(sizeof(a) == 42);
            assert(sizeof(b) == 4);
            assert(sizeof(c) == 4);
            assert(sizeof(d) == 42);
        }

        int main()
        {
            array_xyz_type x = {1,2,3};
            test(x, x, x, x);
        }

I'd add these comments:

1\. The reference makes the code somewhat less flexible in that you can't call the function with anything other than a char[42] type, e.g. test(new char[42]...) won't compile. (This may or may not be what you want.)

2\. As Linus said, don't ignore compiler warnings.

3\. Write some code, then watch every line execute in the debugger so you see if what you wrote is what you thought you wrote. Repeat.

</comment><comment><USER21> C does have pointers to arrays:

      static bool rate_control_cap_mask(struct ieee80211_sub_if_data *sdata,
                                       struct ieee80211_supported_band *sband,
                                       struct ieee80211_sta *sta, u32 *mask,
                                       u8 (*mcs_mask)[IEEE80211_HT_MCS_MASK_LEN])

       for (i = 0; i < sizeof(*mcs_mask)/sizeof(**mcs_mask); i++) {
         // Use (*mcs_mask)[i]  or  mcs_mask[0][i]
      }

</comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone know _why_ array arguments decay to pointers?

<comment><USER23> Because that's how the machine sees C arrays. It would take an extra (invisible) parameter on the stack to implicitly pass the array size into the function, a thing which is very much against the spirit of C.

The only real surprises/magic in C are things like:

      - addition/subtraction on typed pointers has an implicit multiply by sizeof(type)
      - type conversion between floats and ints

<comment><USER24> > Because that's how the machine sees C arrays. It would take an extra > (invisible) parameter on the stack to implicitly pass the array size into > the function, a thing which is very much against the spirit of C.

It would only require a separate parameter if you needed to pass arbitrary- sized arrays. In this example, if the prototype contains the array size:

        int foo(char array[30]);

It would not be difficult for the compiler to only allow arrays of that length to be passed as parameters, and no invisible parameters are necessary, assuming also that the function implementation made the same assumption of array length.

Developers who handle arrays of arbitrary length tend to already encode a length parameter, it's this case where it looks to the developer like they are encoding a length value that is the deceptive/problematic case.

<comment><USER25> This is one of the many uses of the static keyword in C99:

      void ten(char foo[static 10]) { }

      void generates_warning() {
        char foo[3];
        ten(foo);
      }

This causes clang to emit the following warning:

> warning: array argument is too small; contains 3 elements, callee requires > at least 10

<comment><USER26> The warning is true - it is "at least" 10:

        char ten(char foo[static 10]);

        char ten(char foo[static 10]) { return foo[1]; }

        void generates_no_warning(void);

        void generates_no_warning() {
            char foo[30];
            ten(foo);
        }

        int main() {
            generates_no_warning();
        }

Modified also so it would build cleanly with -Weverything -Werror

<comment><USER27> It avoids stepping on memory elsewhere in the program though. My personal preference for C99 and above is to pass the length as a parameter.

        int do_stuff(size_t len, int64_t arr[len]);

It still suffers from the pointer decay problem, but it at least forces whoever is reading/writing the code to acknowledge the length.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> In the age and day of static analysis, someone actually took the time to question the rudimentary analysis the compiler does?

It boggles the mind. I'm with Linus on this one.

</comment><comment><USER29> What is the warning?

<comment><USER30> It's in the subsequent response [0] from Linus.

[0] [https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/9/3/494](https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/9/3/494)</comment></comment>


How To Get Top Engineers To Open Your Email Then Join Your Company - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/23/recruiting-elite-engineers-in-the-new-ultra-competitive-talent-market/ <comment><USER3> Interesting about A/B testing subject headers for recruiting emails - <USER2> ones got opened/discarded.

Has anybody done A/B testing on HN headlines? Same article, different title?</comment>


Amazon to Create 100,000 New Jobs in U.S. In Next 18 Months - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-12/amazon-to-create-more-than-100-000-new-jobs-in-u-s-in-18-months <comment><USER2> How to PR.

1) Identify large trends or the goals of powerful people.

2) Release feed prewritten BS to media that describes what you already planned to do in terms that aligns it with the above goals.

3) Profit(or don't get in a pissing match with our appearance above all else President Elect)

<comment><USER3> 4) forget to mention that your definition of 'create job' is 'take it from some other business which must fire a person and move this position to (amazon)'

<comment><USER4> "Amazon to get rid of 100,000 warehouse workers due to automation by 2020" just doesn't have the same ring to it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article is making it sound like Amazon is doing this b/c of Trump. Like Amazon was tired of growing, but got a second wind after the election

This part also seemed off:

"What's more, the hiring spree could do less to help the U.S. economy than is immediately apparent. Research groups have argued that the company kills more jobs than it creates because it has disrupted the traditional retail industry."

If Amazon getting into groceries and same-day delivery fuels a lot of the hiring growth, you're not killing mom and pops, you're competing w/Wal-Mart and Target. And I have to imagine that an Amazon warehouse and a bunch of delivery drivers is more jobs than a big-box.

<comment><USER6> >And I have to imagine that an Amazon warehouse and a bunch of delivery drivers is more jobs than a big-box.

It's probably fairly close - operating a checkout lane is easier than delivering packages, but stocking an open-to-the-public store is harder than loading things onto delivery trucks. Figuring that out is fun, but honestly a waste of time unless you really want to get into operations research.

The outside view is way better approach. Amazon will compete with Target on some combination of price and quality. In other words, Amazon will do some combination of being more efficient (= cause fewer dollars to be spent on labor) and providing new services that customers are willing to pay for (= cause more dollars to be spent on labor). So the two things we need to actually look at is how much a customer will spend monthly shopping at Target vs Amazon delivery, and average hourly rate of the employees required to provide marginal service. The first determines whether the economy is doing more work in terms of dollar value, the second determines how the growth is distributed between increased employment vs increased wages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One other issue bubbling behind the scenes is Bezos wants Amazon businesses to have a bigger footprint in China. He brought it up at the "Tech Summit" with Trump last month (1):

 _Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was apparently very voluble, and aimed many of his points at how U.S. companies had a hard time succeeding in China, and what the government could do about it._

Considering Trump has threatened to upend Sino-U.S. relations over the Taiwan issue, the answer may be, not so much.

1\. [http://www.recode.net/2016/12/15/13976806/immigration- matern...](http://www.recode.net/2016/12/15/13976806/immigration-maternity- leave-grid-software-president-trump-tech-meeting)

<comment><USER8> I think part of the question is how much leverage does the US have. It feels to me that 10+ years ago the United states had a lot more leverage in the world to push things in their favor.

Today it feels opposite that the US is losing that leverage and China doesn't really care. Perhaps I am wrong.

<comment><USER9> All other things being equal, a country's GDP is probably a good 1st order estimate of its influence in the world. Over the past several decades China's GDP has been increasing at a faster rate than the US so your feeling is probably correct. Relatively speaking China's influence has been rising and the US's has been falling.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. It mostly means that in terms of GDP per capita China has been catching up which means many millions being lifted out of poverty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 90% of these jobs will be at or very close to minimum wage. The company might also figure out a clever way to use independent contractors so they are paid less than minimum wage.

<comment><USER11> Do you have any numbers on what you mean by 'close to minimum wage'? Quick Googling shows that Amazon pays fulfillment associates $12-13/hour starting, which is much higher than the US minimum wage of $7.25.

The more important factor is competition. If Amazon hires 10 people, you can bet tradition retail needed at least 11 to do the same amount of work. If Amazon is undercutting them, those businesses will die off, and 11 people will be out of work.

If Amazon wants to hire 100,000 logistics/fulfillment employees, you can bet there's more than 100,000 people who will be out of work elsewhere.

Bias note: I spent 5 years making software for Amazon's logistics division.

<comment><USER6> >If Amazon is undercutting them

That's the actually important question. If Amazon is convincing people that delivery service is worth paying a premium for, that's a new product/service that the economy is producing and employing people for, and is itself economic growth. If Amazon is instead more efficient and competing on price, then they're only freeing up the ability for the displaced to do productive economic work elsewhere in the economy.

<comment><USER11> Bezos's famous quotation: "Your margin is my opportunity". They'll alway undercut the competition if they can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems to me that discussions of "job creation" often neglects to account for what these jobs replace. Amazon is master of operational efficiency. It's very likely that Amazon hiring 100K new people will lead to other companies laying off a total significantly greater than that. This is progress and should be celebrated for sure, but first we need to acknowledge this fact.

<comment><USER13> I listened to an interesting podcast recently about the wars between Kansas and Missouri near the state line. They'd offer incentives and try to lure companies with tax breaks. Many companies would move, often several times back and forth.

Anyway, the states would tout "new jobs" when they won but wouldn't talk about the ones they lost. The jobs weren't new at all either.

Turns out that all the effort both states put in basically came out to a wash so both states were trying to setup a truce to avoid poaching and having to keep offering incentives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In additional to PR bullshit...

If you make enough jobs the Fed will induce a recession:

[https://hbr.org/1996/01/a-country-is-not-a- company](https://hbr.org/1996/01/a-country-is-not-a-company) (an article I can imagine quoting extensively from now on...)

You can make a company bigger and more prosperous by employing more people, theoretically, forever. A country doesn't work like that - but Trump probably thinks it does.

Even if this were true, companies creating more jobs wouldn't necessarily be a good idea.

<comment><USER15> It's an interesting article, thanks for sharing.

I feel the jobs argument is outdated. As of right now the fed is unable to induce inflation despite huge amounts money pumped into the market. In other words the fed lost its ability to control employment.

It also ignores the productivity gains from increased demands of bigger markets created by free trade. Yes, productivity gains destroy jobs, which is the opposite of what the globalists like to say. However this is essentiallly a Luddite argument. Had we stuck with it we would still live in an agrarian society. Reducing costs stemming from increased productivity affords more expendable income, creating new markets and new jobs in them. So free trade has the effect of promoting productivity, which I argue is the same as scientific and technological progress of our civilization.

<comment><USER16> > I feel the jobs argument is outdated. As of right now the fed is unable to > induce inflation despite huge amounts money pumped into the market. In other > words the fed lost its ability to control employment.

That was probably true 2-6 years ago but since then the Fed has raised rates in Dec 2015[1], Dec 2016[2] and shows signs of raising them again (meaning that inflationary policies are doing something). The "liquidity trap" is mostly over.

> It also ignores the productivity gains from increased demands of bigger > markets created by free trade.

How can an individual gain productivity from increased trade? Without increased education or new technologies, individual productivity (and in aggregate, world productivity) will not be affected by changes in trade policy.

[1]: [https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/201...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20151216a.htm)

[2]: [https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/201...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20161214a.htm)

<comment><USER15> Larger markets afford economy of scale to pretty much any business. Fixed costs remain fixed, variable costs shrink with increased volume. This reflects in hiring too - making twice as many cars does not require twice as many people. If the output grows faster than employment the productivity is increasing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article doesn't even mention what kind go jobs they are. For all I know they could be associates who sell things using amazon's infrastructure. Or low paying high stress warehouse picker jobs. But those are increasingly being automated away.

</comment><comment><USER18> Jeff Bezos is a master. The game he's playing is "talk, talk, fight, fight". On the one hand, his public utterances and announcements signal a detente viz- a-vis Trump. On the other hand, he continues to direct WaPo's attacks against Trump.

Those saying this is not politics fail to realize that companies that reach a certain threshold size have no choice but to play politics. If they don't, avaricious politicians will take the politics _to them_. This is the lesson Google learned from Microsoft, and Bezos didn't fail to learn it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Were these 100,000 new jobs not previously planned?

</comment><comment><USER20> In their warehouse? Well, a job is a job, I guess.

<comment><USER21> An incredibly arrogant response to what could potentially be an enormous opportunity for tens of thousands of families. What's wrong with a warehouse job if it gets somebody out of unemployment?

<comment><USER20> I visit their warehouse once. It is not a good job, to be put directly, everyone looks like they would jump out immediately if given a choice, which should be no surprise, since the warehouse is designed in a way to maximize automation, the stuff left for human to do is still pretty robotic.

My statement is easy to understand, a majority of claimed 100,000 jobs might be that desirable, even though they are jobs indeed. As other comments put, those jobs help little in the person future career, and is not something you can do for a long time either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Amazon is a widely acknowledged terrible employer yet people are silent. They make Walmart look like Google at least for their warehouse people.

[https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/](https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/)

</comment><comment><USER23> how many jobs it destroys?

</comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone know how Z seeks applicants?

What & where & who hires for Z?

</comment><comment><USER25> Don't waste your time, it's PR bullshit:

""It's a very powerful headline, and the timing certainly makes Trump look good,"

The staffing up isn't particularly surprising for a company moving into multiple categories from groceries, hardware and video to fashion and cloud services. But the move could appease Trump, who tangled with Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos during the election campaign.

<comment><USER26> Look, regardless of your political inclinations you can't blankly hate everything Trump does. I get it, it's cognitive dissonance, but give credit where it's do. One company committing to 100k U.S jobs is huge. Looking at the numbers, that alone will contribute to 2.5-5% of job growth in the US (assuming job growth is btween 100-200k/month.)

Is it a political move? How couldn't it be? Is it somthing to lambaste about? No, it's basic job creation in the US, something we really need to sustain the America us cosmopolitans have forgotten about.

<comment><USER27> You're half-right. Not everything Trump does will be horrible and bad. We should judge him by his actual actions.

I'm 95% confident he is going to be a disaster (and so will this Republican congress) but maybe this country needs to experience some pain to understand that both sides aren't equal. Nevertheless I can't lay blame until action is actually taken and the results are known.

<comment><USER28> "We can't press charges when someone's driving drunk until they crash into something or kill somebody. Our hands our tied!"

<comment><USER29> "We can't press charges when someone's driving [ _seemingly_ ] drunk until, [we know for a fact they are drunk or,] they crash into something or kill somebody. Our hands our tied!"

Be careful, your hubris is making conclusions you don't have facts for. You're more than likely right, but its a bad habit to start.

<comment><USER28> Exhibit A: The "blind trust" that is anything but.

Exhibit B: Mass-terminating appointees before they're formally replaced leaving huge parts of the government rudderless for months.

Nearly everything about this presidency is off the charts batshit insane. There is no way this thing would pass a political breathalizer.

Have you listened to anything he's said? Did George W. Bush teach people nothing?

<comment><USER30> > off the charts batshit insane

I suggest you become more of a student of history. At very least it will leave you with bigger charts.

<comment><USER28> Name another president that's generated as many scandals _prior_ to entering office. Name another president that's won the electoral college but lost the popular vote by over two million votes. Name another president who's actively hostile against several major branches of government. Name another president who's apparently been collaborating with a major foreign adversary.

There's been _candidates_ for office with crazier ideas, with fewer qualifications, with more scandals, but none have ever been elected before. Ths path is well trod by tinpot dictators, not US presidents.

In terms of US history, the only thing missing is Trump killing someone in a duel on the White House lawn to really put this over the top.

<comment><USER30> >Name another president that's generated as many scandals prior to entering office

John Quincy Adams, he called the sitting presidents wife a whore during his campaign. I'd argue Hillary Clinton had more scandals prior to office, but she lost.

>Name another president that's won the electoral college but lost the popular vote by over two million votes

Name another president who ran when there was over 310 million Americans.

>Name another president who's actively hostile against several major branches of government

Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight "beware the military industrial complex" Eisenhower, and JFK.

>Name another president who's apparently been collaborating with a major foreign adversary.

Well if the standard of evidence on that is "unnamed sources" and top secret documents nobody is going to see for a few decades. All of them according to my unnamed source in my top secret document.

In the interest of fairness may I note that Hillary Clinton's state department approved a sale of 20% of this nations uranium to Russia and shortly thereafter she received a few million dollar donation to the Clinton foundation from a Russian weapons manufacturer who had directly benefited from that deal. Clearly she didn't think Russia was a threat when she was cashing their checks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Incredibly great news.

</comment><comment><USER32> That's a good news!!! Amazon offers high-quality jobs.

</comment><comment><USER33> Might as well rename the company "Trump" \- BTW "Amazon Just Got Slapped With a $1 Million Fine For Misleading Pricing"</comment>


The strange effects of thinking healthy food is costlier - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/8325.html <comment><USER2> Often the healthy versus unhealthy discussion reduces to a home-cooked-from- scratch versus processed/junk food discussion. Having seen how my North American-raised Gen X/Millennial peers shop for groceries, I'm not surprised at the perception that the healthy option is more expensive. The predominant approach to home-cooking I see these cohorts taking is:

1) Find recipe 2) Make shopping list 3) Go to preferred grocery store and fulfill shopping list

This is a foolproof recipe for "more expensive". To eat healthy and maintain reasonable spending, grocery shopping needs to come _before_ recipe selection. One needs to go to the store, buy what's on sale (which is also frequently what's in season and thus probably more nutrient packed), and then build a recipe around that using non-perishable pantry ingredients. The cost difference between the two approaches will generally be at least 1.5X, and sometimes a lot more.

<comment><USER3> Is there a business opportunity? Someone could write an app that takes growing seasons and scraped grocery store price lists as input, and automatically generates shopping lists and recipes as output.

<comment><USER4> I think the biggest opportunity is in finding a group of recipes that uses up all the ingredients you buy in a single grocery run. If you use half an onion for something, you need to use the other half before it goes bad. This is especially true for perishable herbs, which usually come in large bunches and end up only being used once.

<comment><USER3> The traditional solution is to feed that half an onion to your pigs, and then later eat the pigs. Doesn't work too well in urban areas though.

<comment><USER5> My modern take on that is to freeze the half onion, then toss it in the pressure cooker when I have enough chicken bones to make chicken stock :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This rings pretty true to me. I live in Manhattan, and my wife is a personal chef, so she has to be one of the world's foremost collectors of anecdotal grocery price data you'll ever meet.

She's noticed a lot of weird dissonances in the way people think about grocery pricing over the years I've known her. For example, despite its reputation, Whole Foods has some of the cheapest prices on staple pantry items in the city. Things like flour, sugar, eggs, butter, olive oil, milk, and rice, as well as many of the "365" branded packaged products are actually much cheaper than "low end" grocery stores like Gristedes or Key Food. Trader Joe's has a reputation as a high end grocery as well, but they have incredibly cheap produce and other perishables. If you go to Gristedes and buy a box of corn flakes you're going to spend $4-6. For that price you can buy 24 eggs! At Key Food you can buy pork chops for $2 / pound. Canned beans and other non- perishables can also be incredibly cheap. With the exception of the corn flakes, which - while delicious - is actually loaded with corn syrup - everything I just listed is perfectly healthy when prepared at home.

Anecdotally, my mother spends an absolute fortune on nasty weight watchers meals because she believes they are "healthier" than just cooking herself a piece of chicken and some broccoli. My sister will eat a $3 lara bar that is "made with real fruit!" instead of a 25c banana.

It doesn't surprise me that within the universe of packaged foods, people think that the expensive ones are healthier than the cheap ones. But I just wish people would figure out that within the universe of foods, the packaged ones are both more expensive and typically less healthy than cooking your own food.

<comment><USER7> What if you eat packaged foods because you're too scared of making yourself sick because you've missed something very obvious while cooking that everyone else knows about?

Are there any YouTube videos of paranoid cooking? ie they'd teach where to look to see if you've screwed up etc.

Asking for a friend.

<comment><USER8> Not really a problem for vegan cooking. Go ahead and cook whichever way, and the worst thing that happens is undercooked or overcooked.

<comment><USER9> Not true. Incorrectly cooked kidney beans (and to a lesser degree other beans) can cause severe vomiting and diarrhea, because of phytohaemagglutinin toxicity, which needs prolonged heating to destroy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_vulgaris#Toxicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_vulgaris#Toxicity)

<comment> nommm-nommm Improperly washing vegetables can lead to a really bad time as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The headline misrepresents the article completely.

Eating healthy food _is_ costlier than not caring about what you eat. However, that does not mean that expensive equals healthy.

It's basically the same old "everything that's good is (at least somewhat) expensive, but not everything that's expensive is good" applied to food.

BTW: why the heck are both source and journal reference links to some top level domains?

<comment><USER11> > Eating healthy food _is_ costlier than not caring about what you eat. > However, that does not mean that expensive equals healthy. > It's basically > the same old "everything that's good is (at least somewhat) expensive, but > not everything that's expensive is good" applied to food.

Actually, that is false and contradicting. It is perfectly possible to eat healthy _and_ cheap. Sure, if you limit your price you end up with less choice, but that does not mean the cheap choices are bad, or that you end up with expensive food if you want quality. An entire industry wants to make you think otherwise, but they're deceiving the customers. Take for example, from the article, the following: "The key was that for some participants the Chicken Balsamic Wrap was listed as more expensive, and for others the Roasted Chicken Wrap cost more.". The names of products should not be misleading, yet the industry gets away with it, 'as long as its in the product'. Sounds good? Well, if there are trace amounts in the product, it counts. This is just one example. Another one is right in the article: ""Rich in Vitamin A for eye health."" this is a fraudulent statement, a propaganda lie which stems from WWII. The Brits used it as propaganda to convince the general public, including the Germans, that this was what allowed them to see German airplanes in advance (it was actually radar which did). It has long since been debunked. Our laws are failing us here. They are supposed to protect us, but companies work around them.

Some very healthy foods which aren't that expensive (in my grocery store, in my country, YMMV (!!)): free range chicken eggs. Compared to a cereal, much more healthy, and filling. Yet a fraction of the price. Another example: an unripe banana is high on magnesium, yet doesn't contain a lot of sugar. You may find it between other bananas which are more ripe. Frozen raspberries and blueberries, cost about half of fresh ones, yet they'll stay well longer. You won't find the green friends on those berries while they're in the freezer. Another silly one is all those fruit juices. As if you need vitamin C if you simply eat green vegetables such as brocolli. There are countless of examples available. It does require some comparisons and it does depend on what you believe is healthy. People don't wanna make those comparisons at 5 PM after a long day of work, I get that. That is why I want governments to interfere. The industry is too selfish to manage this on their own (they're for profit, and enjoy a lack of regulations on it), and is confusing the general public with smoke screens on what is healthy and what isn't, or like this article explains with silly prices.

It is actually quite a fallacy, and the opposite is suggesting: "because this is expensive, and we claim it is healthy, it is therefore more likely to be healthy than if it were cheap. Else we would sell it cheaper." it stems from the ridiculous assumption that expensive food means healthier food.

As for your statement: "Eating healthy food _is_ costlier than not caring about what you eat." we are creature of habit. If your food habits are healthy as they are, and you have done your best to find cheap yet quality food in your grocery store then you'll be fine with doing groceries at 5 PM whilst being tired from work. You just mindlessly buy the things you always buy, you don't get distracted by offers, you don't have to do any research or comparisons. You already made up your mind. It is not equal to 'not caring' since you did once care, but it is 'careless' in a sense.

<comment><USER10> > It is perfectly possible to eat healthy and cheap.

You seem to have missed my point entirely, so let me elaborate a bit more. I do not claim that it's impossible to eat healthy and cheap. However, everything else being equal, healthy food has to be costlier than the cheapest food, because otherwise those two would be the same.

For example you named free range chicken eggs as being healthy and cheap. And while that's probably true, eggs from egg factories will still be cheaper. So the healthy option is also the costlier one.

> It is not equal to 'not caring' since you did once care, but it is > 'careless' in a sense.

It's probably poorly phrased, but I meant not caring literally, as in the only thing that matters is nutritional value per dollar spent. Thought the same thing applies if you factor in flavor.

<comment><USER11> > However, everything else being equal, healthy food has to be costlier than > the cheapest food, because otherwise those two would be the same.

Why can they not be the same? Why can something not be healthiest _and_ cheapest? And, if we ban all unhealthy food, or tax it, it is going to be not the cheapest.

> And while that's probably true, eggs from egg factories will still be > cheaper.

Glad you used that example! I don't know about the USA, but those eggs are becoming more rare in grocery stores here due to pressure from consumer right and animal right organisations.

The reverse (ie. your statement) _can_ also be true. Whole wheat bread is more rare (and if they even do have it, more expensive). Meanwhile, white bread is being made as if it looks like whole wheat (brown), and as if it contains whole wheat (either none, or barely). In this example, you are absolutely correct (at least, here, I don't know about US for example). But, that reverse is not true by _definition_. It is not a _law_. I would agree with you, if you'd argue that it is more _likely_. IMO, that is due to lack of regulations which stems from lack of political willpower to bother.

<comment><USER12> Having just visited Japan, one thing that struck me is that Japanese consumers by and large refuse to buy low quality crap, so stores generally don't stock them (including groceries).

Having really discriminating consumers is probably the one way to make sure stores stop selling unhealthy things. Regarding laws though -- consumers and voters are largely the same group of people. If they're not discriminating enough to care about not buying something, it's unlikely they'll vote on those preferences too.

<comment><USER11> > Having just visited Japan, one thing that struck me is that Japanese > consumers by and large refuse to buy low quality crap, so stores generally > don't stock them (including groceries).

Would be interesting to look into the _why_ and/or _how come_.

> Having really discriminating consumers is probably the one way to make sure > stores stop selling unhealthy things. Regarding laws though -- consumers and > voters are largely the same group of people. If they're not discriminating > enough to care about not buying something, it's unlikely they'll vote on > those preferences too.

It is difficult to change a habit for an individual, and the same is true for a society, but if we can change the habit of some individuals we can change enough momentum to change society for the better. Its not that nobody cares; consumer right movement does care, for example. My point is that we don't have to change the habit of every single individual. We need enough people who do care. At the very worst, we'd need 51% of the population, but likely much lower will do.

First we must understand the why and how come though. I think there are solid reasons for that being how it is though. They're kinda intertwined/related to each other.

1a) Brand loyalty. People don't like change, they like to stick to what they know. This creates easy brand loyalty. This also has the disadvantage that newcomers [in the food business] have a harder time to achieve market share.

1b) Abundance of choice. Choice is great, too much choice is not. Clear choices, with clear pros and cons are informational . This also affects #1, and once again means even less space for newcomers.

2) Contradicting information / lack of consensus. For one, we still haven't reached a consensus of how something like diabetes is developed, we still as a society fail to combat obesity.

3) Time constraints. You can' expect hard working people who spend their free time to construct a diet for them.

4a) Lack of stimulus for the industry. For a variety of reasons the industry gets away with serving & selling low quality food. While becoming ill from food is short-term, ill from diet is long term. The blame is shifted towards the lifestyle choice of the people. Some self responsibility is fair, but not all.

4b) Lack of direct feedback. As briefly explained in 4a the user does not receive direct feedback over the cause and effect of their lifestyle choices. Some food choices do give direct feedback, but the user has learned to ignore.

4c) Addiction. Adding to 1a and 4a/b, there is a clear benefit to having people becoming addicting to your food, so that they keep coming back. This also makes it difficult for newcomers, since people tend to get back to their product. Even if yours is better. Note, I'm a former cigarette addict, so I know how difficult it is to overcome an addiction.

How can we solve such a complex issue? Well not overnight, but for starters:

Re 1) These cannot be easily solved. Or at least, I don't see how. As long as these exist this gives us a disadvantage. However, globalisation has given us even more food choice, including some healthy ones, and something like drones allows us to order less common but healthy foods more easily (even though the local grocery store may not carry it).

Re 2, 4) This can be solved with legislation, but also with proof hunting. This phenomenon has some momentum due to the fake news debacle in US election. Computers can aid us here.

Re 3) Here, too, computers can aid us. I have some ideas on software which could aid us specifically with this aspect of the problem, see [1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13215767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13215767)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Time/ability is a big factor when it comes to what people eat. Throwing a frozen pizza in the oven is fast, easy and requires no extra dishes. You can even just use the box it came in is a plate, so I've heard.

Being comfortable in the kitchen is important too. If you have to go looking up recipes and following them exactly that can make cooking at home a lot slower and tedious.

It's easy to point out things like dried beans and cheap root vegetables but those only really compete on the cost perspective, convenience and ease are just as important IMO.

<comment><USER14> Consider that a banana is both easier to unwrap, faster to unwrap, cheaper, and healthier than a granola bar... So are carrots and they don't even need unwrapping (although I'd rinse off a carrot before eating it)

Or at the very bottom of the hierarchy, below the bags of salad you dump in a bowl you provide, there are salads sold already in a plastic bowl, simply break the seal and eat them. Usually you have to tear open a plastic envelope of salad dressing but its not that hard. They're still cheaper and more filling than a big mac.

Food is a multidimensional problem. The opposite of a big mac is probably not a Rutabaga or a cactus leaf or a bag of uncooked unseasoned rice.

<comment><USER15> The opposite of a Big Mac is a Wendy's burger. I always used to joke that McDonald's sucked all the joy out of their burgers and sold it to Wendy's and other fast food places to keep their profits up.

Of course, I haven't had a Big Mac in about 25 years... maybe they're better now.

<comment><USER16> > I haven't had a Big Mac in about 25 years... maybe they're better now.

10/10 optimism

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Having lost about 50kg, I feel happy talking about this.

It's much more expensive to eat healthily, and in general more expensive food is healthier, so people are just running in reality.

To be exact, you can eat cheapily and healthily, but it is very boring. If you want an exciting and healthy diet, that gets expensive. No ready meals, and things like prawns and raspberries (two of my favourites) are great low cal options, but not cheap in quantity.

<comment><USER18> For single-person households, cooking becomes even more expensive because you're buying these fairly large food packages and have to throw some of it away because it goes bad.

<comment><USER19> If this is an issue, you can buy frozen vegetables (unprepared) which can be as good as fresh if the fresh stuff is not very fresh. Those last forever, and you can reseal the bag easily. Flour, rice, noodles only go bad if you get moths. Spices can lose some taste, but you can just use a little bit more.

If you pay a lot more as a single-person household, you have an excellent opportunity for improvement on your hands.

<comment><USER20> > Flour, rice, noodles only go bad if you get moths.

They can develop mold, which sometimes is not noticeable, but will attract booklice. I have had that happen to a bag of rice. There are also rice weevils.

<comment><USER19> Oh, and I didn't consider climate. In a region with high humidity and temperature this might be a bit more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When people have to judge something, but they have no expertise to actually judge it, then they use price as an indicator for quality. People use price as indicator when buying clothes, jewellery etc. all the time. Isn't this the same effect, but applied to food (where healthy is considered to be correlated with quality)?

<comment><USER22> Agreed... I feel like this study is going to be misused to mock people who choose healthy food. But the reality is, we all make those kind of decisions based on limited information.

I can walk into a Best Buy right now and laugh at all the people wasting money on perceived better electronics because of price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> To keep myself healthy I need large quantities of protein.

And it is ridiculously expensive, at least when compared to corn and mandioca that grows on my yard and potatoes that are very cheap.

People tend to think that "healthy" food is just thr opposite of junk food. The problem is that potatoes can be infinitely cheap, but it won't be healthy to eat only potatoes. An actual healthy diet with all nutrients can easily be very expensive, even more so when corporations manage to distort prices (I once lived in a place where the cheapest source of clean water available was soda. When compared to juices or milk even Coca-Cola, that was the most expensive soda, looked like a great deal)

<comment><USER24> I also eat an athlete's diet and when I lived in the US it was very expensive. Going to farmer's markets helps a lot, where I would buy cauliflower, sweet potatoes, beets, kale, carrots, squash, eggplant, and more.

Since I try to get around 60% of my caloric intake from fat and protein, that's where most of the expense came from. For fat, there are a small number of fruits like avocados, durian, and coconuts and those tend to be more expensive / hard to find, most nuts are expensive, cow's milk isn't very healthy and never sat well with me before exercise, but the best and cheapest option is probably to just included some healthy oil in your cooking. For protein, chicken is good and not too pricey, fish is good but expensive, red meat should be avoided above all, legumes are cheap and great tasting if prepared well, tofu and eggs are cheap and high in protein but it's typically recommended to not consume them in large quantities, coagulated cow's blood is awesome but good luck finding it outside of Asia!

I stand firmly on the side that it is expensive to eat truly healthy food, especially if you live in a food desert, and especially if you have specific nutritional requirements like that of an athlete. Plus, a huge factor is that to eat cheaply, you have to cook, and as the HN crowd should know, time is money. The time preparing, cleaning up, buying food, and actually learning how to cook is significant but worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interestingly, this also holds for cat food. People are often willing to pay a premium price for the food of their pets, while in the end they and their pets get to eat low quality processed stuff.

<comment><USER26> Ok, I'll bite. I hate giving my cats wet food because, frankly, it smells dreadful. But I know it's better than dry food for them. Any suggestions/links about how to prep food for cats? Bear in mind I actually have no idea how to prep meat as I don't eat it myself.

Also, those people that try to feed their cats/dogs "vegan" or "vegetarian" are terrible human beings and don't deserve their furry friends.

<comment><USER27> I've usually heard that dry food is marginally better for cats, since it's better for their teeth. Otherwise, nutritional content is the same.

<comment><USER28> My vet told us to alternate between wet and dry servings. Cats are designed to get water from their meals and it helps for cats that don't like to drink water on their own. Dry food helps with their dental hygiene like you said though. Nutritionally I think they're more or less the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Isn't the largest expense of eating healthier related to the time to prep the food (and cognitive load to think about food prep) rather than the direct monetary cost?

<comment><USER30> Well, the money isn't nothing, but this is a huge cost that most of these comments are absolutely ignoring. People in poverty aren't typically brimming with time, energy, and structure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> "There are certainly categories of food where healthy is more expensive, such as some organic and gluten-free products, Reczek said."

there's basically zero evidence organic or gluten free are "healthier".

<comment><USER32> If you have celiac disease, there is 100% evidence that gluten free is healthier.

<comment><USER33> And people with celiac are benefiting enormously by the generic diet trend of eating low gluten/gluten free by the masses who have nothing wrong with them.

A quick google search shows 86% of people who are think they're gluten sensitive, aren't. That's nearly 90% of the stuff in the "gluten free" section of your grocery that's being bought by people who are just wrong.

So for 9/10 people buying gluten free food thinking it's healthier, there is no evidence. lintiness is speaking to that.

<comment><USER34> Eating a gluten free diet often means avoiding junk foods such as bread, pasta, etc. So those people might be wrong in that they aren't gluten sensitive, but they're probably right that their diet improved their health.

<comment><USER35> Wouldn't, say, a Paleo or Atkins diet be even better for them if bread & pasta were the source of their problems?

<comment><USER36> Atkins no, Paleo yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Healthy prepared foods are, of course, more expensive than junk prepared foods. But healthy and less-processed foods can be cheaper than junky prepared foods. With Taco Bell being the notable exception.

</comment><comment><USER38> Healthy food does cost a lot more. Fruits and vegetables cost much more per calorie than flour, oil and sugar.

A $6 bag of apples has less calories in it than a loaf of Wonderbread.

$2 of broccoli has less calories than a $0.30 can of soda.

<comment><USER39> Where are you getting soda for $0.30 a can?

<comment><USER40> That's $3.50 / 12pack - which is probably the average around here (non-sale price of $4, sale of $3, or best at $2.50). This is pepsi line at a Krogers, so name-brand product & store.

<comment> nommm-nommm Wow, that's cheap. Name brand soda (specifically I'm talking about Coke) is $6/12 pack normal price here. I'm not sure who buys it at that price though because it goes on sale all the time. The most common sale I see is 3 for $9.

Generic soda is obviously much cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's a little ridiculous that the "source" is just a link to the top-level domain for Ohio State University.

</comment><comment><USER42> A lot of people, myself included, equate healthy food with perishable goods. Perishable goods do cost more. Frozen or canned veggies are cheaper than fresh veggies.

<comment><USER43> Some frozen food (like peas) are fresher than "fresh veggies" because they were frozen earlier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> It doesn't help that people like to project their personal way of life onto what should be a generally mechanical question. Eat x and y and z, don't eat [meat/grains/something else], complete with extra-pompous "most people in the world eat..." (I assure you the speaker doesn't), when look, if you go to Popeye's, the cashier asks if you want French fries or onion rings or coleslaw or green beans, and you'll almost never see anyone get the last two. Coleslaw might have a bit of mayonnaise on it but it's a damn lot healthier than potatoes which have had their nutrients partially removed by soaking and are drenched in partially oxidized peanut oil. This is relevant because _the healthy options are the same price and all you have to do is say the word_.

The culture of dieting is seriously broken. One of the only things worse than being fat is being openly trying to lose weight, because everyone knows how to help you (lol). The typical way a person responds in the above situation is " _well_ , I'm already eating fried chicken" because we're either "being good" or "bad" and as we keep making it harder to be good we get a worse overall balance. People are unable to put one foot in front of the other because we always make it about running the whole race at once. A myopic and frankly wrong obsession with reducing the quantity of meat (irrespective of its preparation and toppings) doesn't help, because it ensures that "approved" diets are guaranteed to be unpleasant.

So that's what they pay for: a certificate that says "your food is healthy", because either it's _Mark 's Daily Apple_, or it's Popeye's. And this entire discussion is like that: many ways to 'reinvent' the way you cook food at home (yes, I can make a shitty curry with a can of coconut milk too), little recognition of the many small changes that can be made _without_ reorganizing your entire life.

</comment><comment><USER45> I think it goes beyond just food. People have it ingrained in their heads that "you get what you pay for." Which naturally leads them to the conclusion that "if something is cheaper, it must be worse." In a perfectly rational and perfectly informed utopia, this might be true, but certainly not in our world. There are plenty of companies that provide worse goods at higher prices, and they get by on the backs of marketing/brand-name/ignorance. I've often found that 10 minutes of googling can get you recommendations that are strictly superior to what the average guy ends up buying without thinking twice about.

</comment><comment><USER46> I recommend going vegan. Cheap an effective. Thug Kitchen is really good starting cookbook if you can ignore the language. Also you need to be okay with spending time on food preparation.

I'm a reformed meat eater.

</comment><comment><USER47> Why does HN link to so so many sites with popups?</comment>


Is Working on Weekends the Secret to a Successful, Happy Work-Life Balance? - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3021090/is-working-on-weekends-the-secret-to-a-successful-happy-wo <comment><AUTHOR> *sharing this as we go into the weekend.

Do many here work through the weekend ? Not because you have to but you want to. Have you see any difference through your weekdays ?</comment>


Questioning the motive behind the security allegations against AMD - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamersnexus.net/industry/3260-assassination-attempt-on-amd-by-viceroy-research-cts-labs <comment><USER3> There is a bit of a back story from a South African perspective on what is happening here.

Viceroy research group were the ones to break the Steinhoff scandal[1], exposing gross financial misreporting on Steinhoffs financials and resulting in Steinhof's share price dropping from R46 to R6 per share[2].

I suspect Viceroy had short positions on Steinhoff and made quite a bundle. After tasting this legitimate success, they attempted a similar tactic with Capitec bank, a very successful and fast growing South African bank.

They released a research report stating that Capitec has unsustainable and bad debt levels and will soon suffer huge losses due to this bad debt[3]. This opinion was largely unfounded and fears were dissipated with the South African reserve bank making a statement that Capitec's business is sound, but not before capitec suffered a short term drop in their share price.[4]

And so Viceroy have hit upon a very lucrative business strategy, and AMD is next in line...

[1] - [https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2017-12-13-the-s...](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2017-12-13-the- steinhoff-debacle-the-biggest-fraud-in-sa-history/)

[2] - [https://www.fin24.com/Companies/Retail/steinhoff-drops-to- un...](https://www.fin24.com/Companies/Retail/steinhoff-drops-to- under-r6-after-joostes-departure-amid-accounting-scandal-news-20171208)

[3] - [https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-02-02-viceroy-u...](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-02-02-viceroy- under-fire-for-reckless-capitec-claims-but-others-have-also-raised-alarm/)

[4] - [https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/companies/capitec- shar...](https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/companies/capitec-share-price- still-on-a-downward-slide-13044332)

<comment><USER4> Well there's a lot to unpack there. But it's worth noting that there's an enormous difference between doing something like this in South Africa, and doing this in America.

Of course the SECs view that any trading on US stocks is under it's jurisdiction, and Section 9(a)(4) of the SEC Act. It's known as stock bashing, it's a fairly usual form of market manipulation and attacking big American corporations like this is a great way of getting SEC attention.

So whilst it's potentially lucrative, it's also probably illegal and more a game of when they get big enough to be picked up by the SEC rather than anything else.

It's worth noting AMD's stock has not moved significantly right now, and these anonymous, rather weak accusations are unlikely to be effective, which would leave this strategy quite unprofitable.

-edit: somehow transposed India and South Africa

<comment><USER3> Sorry if it was implied in my post that their actions has my approval or admiration or any other feeling. The purpose of the post was purely sharing some background information I am aware of.

For the record I view their actions in the case of Capitec and AMD as attempts at blatant (unlawful??) market manipulation.

-edit Oh and there is also a difference between India and South Africa :P

<comment><USER4> I have no idea where I got India from :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Vicearoy, a firm that specializes in shorting stocks, had a 25 page writeup [1] ready to print on why AMD was go bankrupt because of this before AMD itself even fully analyzed the issues.

I suspect there will be an SEC investigation.

1\. [https://viceroyresearch.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/amd- the-...](https://viceroyresearch.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/amd-the- obituary-13-mar-2018.pdf)

<comment><USER6> At which point does it become illegal though? Is it considered insider trading if you know about a security issue but have no internal knowledge about deals etc.?

I would hope that intentionally spreading false information to manipulate stock prices would be illegal, but it may be hard to draw the line between subjective interpretation, intentionally misleading interpretation, and outright lies.

<comment><USER7> > Is it considered insider trading...

No, it's not. Short selling is not a populist activity, but it's essential for disciplined price discovery. This type of behavior is EXACTLY what the SEC and other regulators want to encourage: self regulation. This is a market solution to a market problem. These vulns may or may not be significant, and the people behind the release may be shady...but this is what society should want to see from market participants. It's no different than performing forensic accounting and discovering massive fraud. There have to be incentives for investors to perform due diligence, and if people only get compensated by rising prices, there will be no incentive to uncover the frauds.

<comment><USER8> It seems a little more nefarious than that. From what I am reading it seems that the group that is releasing the vulnerabilities has created a fake research firm and released an analysis attacking AMD. That parts reeks of market manipulation.

<comment><USER9> Wouldn't it just be straight up libel?

<comment><USER10> They're trying to cover their a.. with a long disclaimer. I hope that that's not enough to provide legal protection; but it may provide some protection against some laws. And then there's the issue of jurisdiction - <USER2> defamation laws apply? If they reasonably believed to be true statements that a reader might reasonably infer, is that enough to shield them - even if another reader might (incorrectly) infer something else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Another article on the same issue highlights some other problems as well:

[https://wccftech.com/low-down-amd-security-exploit-saga- cts-...](https://wccftech.com/low-down-amd-security-exploit-saga-cts-labs/)

> The offices shown in the CTS-Labs interview don't exist, its CGI.

> shorting the AMD stock to make a quick buck. In fact, both CTS-Labs and > Viceroy Research, very 'ethically', disclose that they could be doing just > that.

<comment><USER12> Both those points were covered already covered by this item's article.

<comment><USER11> This comment was meant for another submission which didn't cover these points explicitly. Comments were merged hence the issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If an action is brought against the researchers, I predict it will be a (likely unsuccessful) insider trading case, not a market manipulation case. I don't see any market manipulation here[1], considering activist investors have set a precedent for make hyperbolic statements which are mostly unchallenged, so long as there is a nontrivial kernel of truth.

Material, nonpublic information is of course not illegal to trade on, on its own. It's not generally illegal to trade on unpublished vulnerabilities. But it's routine to be forcibly entered into a confidentiality agreement as part of the process of _reporting_ a vulnerability. For example, reporting a vulnerability through Bugcrowd or Hackerone would immediately make it illegal for you to trade on the knowledge of the vulnerability.

I assume the researchers were savvy enough to report the vulnerability in such a way that did not enter them into a confidentiality agreement. That said, AMD may lean on the widespread commonalities of how many responsible disclosure processes _do_ work with respect to confidentiality in order to try and establish a precedent. They'll make arguments about reasonable disclosure windows before publication, etc. This is, to my eyes, the best case for someone trying to bring a case forward. If the researchers implicitly agreed to a confidentiality agreement (for example, if the page with security contact information has "browsewrap" terms and conditions, or if buying an AMD product at all has such terms), it will be messy, but they'll be _probably_ fine, I think.

However, if they actually reported the vulnerability through a medium that explicitly forces confidentiality, I think they're actually screwed.

__________________________

1\. Legally speaking. I decline to comment on ethics.

<comment><USER14> Going strictly by the letter of the law what you say makes sense. But there are other factors at play here. These are "computer nerds" taking aim at an American company from outside the US. I do not think they will find many willing to practice the restraint we would see if we were dealing with a typical wealthy American white collar criminal. Such behavior is normalized in some circles, but it is still seen as aberrant for any 'outsiders' to engage in the same behavior.

<comment><USER13> _> These are "computer nerds" taking aim at an American company from outside the US. I do not think they will find many willing to practice the restraint we would see if we were dealing with a typical wealthy American white collar criminal. Such behavior is normalized in some circles, but it is still seen as aberrant for any 'outsiders' to engage in the same behavior._

1\. That they are "computer nerds", in your words, is inconsequential. Their in-group will not be a deciding factor, for better or worse. This isn't high school, and the SEC has a minimum level of professionalism it _does_ adhere to.

2\. Your characterization is, more broadly speaking, not well-founded. Activist investors are not, as a rule, white collar criminals. in fact they're not typically any sort of criminal. The SEC doesn't need to practice restraint or extend arbitrary leniency (something the SEC is _not_ known for, for any group), because the activity tends to only rarely overstep legal boundaries.

3\. This behavior is not seen as aberrant for _any_ outsiders, and it's not normalized to only some group in "Big Wall Street." For example, I'm an outsider to activist investing, and I find nothing aberrant about it at all. In fact I think of it somewhat positively.

<comment><USER14> I think you misinterpreted what I was talking about. Either that or you define 'activist investors' very differently from how I define it. What these people are doing is not 'activist investing.' They are providing disinformation, engaging in active and intentional deception towards the goal of destroying a company in order to profit. They are not uncovering wrongdoing or fraud. They are not doing due diligence and profiting from material information. That is not criminal, obviously, and is to be lauded!

If you engage in willful intentional deception, you are not an activist investor. You would be engaging in fraud and illicit market manipulation. I find it very bizarre that you would claim these malicious actors as activist investors. Most of the rest of your complaints with my statements seem to stem from your notion that I would do the same. I do not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The most likely explanation to me is that the authors are connected to people shorting AMD, and they wished to get the maximum impact out of their release. It didn't seem to hurt the stock any though.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, ironically, the price went up significantly.

<comment><USER17> Short squeezes are rough, especially if people are expecting one and want to get in on the action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a side-side note, I noticed this in the article (near the end):

> The CTS-labs.com domain name was registered on June 25, 2017, around when > the Meltdown exploits were privately revealed to Intel.

which somehow sounds "queer" to me, particularly in an article attempting to debunk a possible "conspiracy", I mean June 25, 2017 is also _surprisingly_ around the time the UK parliament was cyber-attacked and the time the large Brian Head fire started in Utah, what gives?

<comment><USER19> Yeah that jumped out to me as irrelevant and baseless theorizing. If it had been intelflaws.com or some bandwagon like domain then the claim might have merit. But the article is just making speculation similar to what they're criticizing CTS Labs for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16577433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16577433) was the big thread on the front page all day, but since a second wave of analyses with more information is coming out, this submission is rising and it seems like discussion can move here.

</comment><comment><USER21> Do you think it could be organised and paid by the same company that bribed Dell and other OEMs so they don't sell AMD CPUs in their laptops?

<comment><USER22> To give you a straight answer: no, it isn't. Intel isn't afraid to get its hands dirty and will take a close look at every opportunity to sabotage AMD, but this was amateur hour. At the very very least, Intel would've exposed an actually serious flaw in Ryzen. There's already a strong suspicion that CTS isn't a real lab but just something set up to make it look more credible, while the actual exploits have been bought through a 0day broker. This is amateur hour by some people who've never done actual security research and are only in for a quick buck. Odds are high this will lead to an investigation for stock manipulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is also a business model: short the stock, issue "research" that put the company in a bad light, cash out--if lucky.

Shorting on the other hand is quite legitimate and so is pointing out you opinions.

<comment><USER22> Shorting is legitimate—under certain conditions. In many markets throughout history, shorting has been explicitly forbidden. This is because it encourages destroying value. It's much much easier to destroy a company's value than to raise it. So anyone holding a short on a company has every incentive to disrupt its operation. This is in contrast with the traditional position, where you hold stock in a competing company. Then you have only a very minor incentive to disrupt your competitors, because it translates in small gains for your own stock. Only when companies are neck-to-neck does it become profitable, but then any sabotage is scrutinised much more closely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It looks like both cts-labs.com and amdflaws.com are completely black-holed by Google search. Does anyone know why?

<comment><USER25> For the first one, it's probably that they don't allow search engines to crawl their site:

[http://cts-labs.com/robots.txt](http://cts-labs.com/robots.txt)

The other domain does appear on Google for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Feels shady to me.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is link dead?

<comment><AUTHOR> Still working fine for me

They released a video version of the article here if that helps you: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ7H1WTqaeo&t=628s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ7H1WTqaeo&t=628s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why was this flagged? While the title is clickbaity, this seems to be a well- researched piece on the alleged AMD vulnerabilities.

By the way: There were also some very interesting pieces by Matt Levine on Bloomberg about the legal implications of independent short-selling "research groups" like Viceroy. If you can't show that they are acting in bad faith, it is apparently not illegal to publish biased "research" to move the stock down.

Edit: Ok, just saw that there were already other threads about this topic. However this article adds some additional research and statements from industry insiders, probably it would make sense to just change the title.

<comment><USER20> We've changed the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Poor title choice.

<comment><USER30> I thought someone had tried to kill the CEO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Discussed earlier here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582022)

<comment><USER20> We merged those comments into this thread. It's true that one was posted earlier, but [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16577433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16577433) was earlier still, and the current post seems at first glance to have the more substantial analysis.</comment></comment>


Why You Should Join Diaspora Now, Like Your Freedom Depends On It - <AUTHOR> http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columms/why_you_should_join_diaspora_now_your_freedom_depends_it

<comment><USER3> The article seems to miss the whole point of the social network functionality. For example, it states: "Diaspora has now reached a level of basic functionality, so that it could be used for many purposes we now rely on other services for. [...] You can post text and pictures."

In a social network, there isn't an use case "post text and pictures" - <USER2> real use case is "post a picture of my kid so that my mom can see it"; and Diaspora fails at that, as my mom isn't there, she's on facebook. An useful use case is "post a morning rant so my friends can see it" and it fails if my friends aren't on that network.

"read user posts" is a weak feature, but "read Bieber's posts" is a feature greatly valued by millions of teenagers - and Diaspora doesn't have that feature, Twitter has.

The core value of any social site or network isn't in the software, but in the community. If the interesting people aren't there, then the service is useless to me, so I won't read or post. If the facebook site was opensourced and used by Diaspora, even then it would bring orders of magnitude less value to users simply because of the smaller community.

What is Diaspora's plan for solving the user acquisition? Facebook replaced university 'facebooks' to get initial 'hot' users; Twitter got the critical mass from a few early adopter celebrities; Google+ is bootstrapping off of gmail contacts. Tech part is 1% of the resulting value, user part is 99% of it.

If Diaspora can't show a reasonable path how they will resolve the chicken- and-egg issue to get a critical mass of users, then it's not worth to invest time and emotions in posting there.

<comment><USER4> _The core value of any social site or network isn't in the software, but in the community._

The article recognizes this and suggests that the people who care about freedom should make the initial 'investment' by creating an account, thereby increasing the value of the network for everyone else.

<comment><USER5> But that's now how this works. If everyone on HN went and created an account and went to great pains to post relevant things to it, it would _still_ be useless.

The success of a social network hinges on a _wide_ base of appeal. Facebook was inherently mainstream from the get-go, starting with colleges. Twitter bootstrapped off of celebrities and famous people who have an audience that transcends simple subcultural boundaries (Lady GaGa instead of Edward Tufte, for example).

"People who care about software freedom" have little relevant content to anyone but themselves. Getting these people to create accounts and post will only succeed in creating yet another place from a niche, isolated demographic to hang out - and we're not really in desperate need for yet another meeting ground for free software folk.

Google+ for example has seen tremendous uptake by photography enthusiasts. I enjoy using it greatly for this purpose - but break into the mainstream is certainly has not, and never will with this group.

<comment><USER6>
      > Facebook was inherently mainstream from the get-go

I joined Facebook in 2003, didn't get what the point was (they wanted me to fill in my school schedule, etc), and got a friend request from someone that I wasn't on good terms with in highschool. I never bothered to remove the account, but I think I've logged in < 10 times since then.

I think that Facebook was only 'mainstream' within a certain set of people from the get-go. Also, Facebook 'from the get-go' wasn't just the Facebook of today with less users.

<comment><USER7> You are not "the mainstream" for Facebook. Sure, many mainstream focused products are not going to get everybody. The point is to get critical mass across a broad enough demographic, not to get every single person on board.

One cannot refute the iPhone's popularity by saying "but I hate it and own an Android phone". One needs to look at sales data and trends and even then correct conclusions are not always immediately clear from the data at hand.

Arguing against Facebook being mainstream from the get-go by saying "but I don't like it" or "but I don't use it" misses the argument. A few people who don't like it does not argue against its mainstream appeal.

A better argument is that, of course with 20/20 hindsight Facebook seems like a great, popular idea with mass appeal just waiting to take off. But in 2003 that wasn't at all obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> <https://joindiaspora.org/> is linked in the article and gives me giant security certificate warnings. <https://joindiaspora.com/> looks like a real site.

<https://diasporafoundation.org/> (linked from the .com) also has giant warnings.

I'm hesitant to accept the security promises of sites who don't bother to get their certs set up correctly.

<comment><USER9> > I'm hesitant to accept the security promises of sites who don't bother to > get their certs set up correctly.

Or that just don't want to pay to have a shiny certificate that won't trigger alerts in your browser.

The certificate is just self-signed, not necessarily invalid or dangerous.

<comment><USER10> By that logic, why bother paying for a shiny domain name? Why not just post the IP address on HackerNews and have people go to it directly?

The value that Diaspora _would_ have is in getting people to use it, not in the actual software; and that includes people who aren't necessarily tech- savvy. If your browser throws out a giant red page talking about an untrusted page, how many of those people do you really think you're going to get?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I keep considering making an effort to investigate Diaspora, either as just a user but preferably by running my own pod.

Two of the key features I want to see before I make that effort though were heavily talked about at the start but are _still_ listed as "coming soon": "export your data" and "move pods". If the data is locked to a pod, mine or anyone else's, many of my contacts will see that as no different to facebook. I know there is facebook integration so I can play without needing anyone else to move over, but I'd rather wait until what (for me) are key items driving the desire for something else (i.e. addressing control/ownership issues) are actually working features rather than aspirations.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is <http://tent.io>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a base/API, not a service ready for end users. Diaspora is considering using it in some way, but so far it's limiting the logic of the node to one user only, which doesn't look like a logical restriction.

See <http://www.loomio.org/discussions/1522>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's the wrong solution to a problem. Even if you get people on Diaspora, they'll now have both Diaspora AND Facebook (and Google+) because that's where their friends are.

The real way to defang facebook for the majority of the population is to make them be able to consume facebook without knowing that's what they are doing (e.g. with a specialized client that makes every effort to post to diaspora or friendica and will only post to facebook as a last resort, but without too many hardships).

Unlike myspace, facebook with it's email, events and identity authority is too entrentched to be replaced in a short time -- the only way to deal with it is to make it interoperable but increasingly irrelevant - like the internet did to AOL some 10-15 years ago.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A recent interview with one of the leading Diaspora developers: [http://podroom.a2zen.fm/podcasts/exposing-the-truth- radio/ex...](http://podroom.a2zen.fm/podcasts/exposing-the-truth- radio/exposing-the-truth-radio-with-sean-tilley-from-dia#.UOaY1NcU7MU)

</comment><comment><USER14> Wed, 2011-09-14 13:30

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it's dated (those issues with Diaspora mentioned there, like no video posting, are already fixed), but at the same time it describes the current situation with problems of centralized social networks very well, and the main point behind the article applies now all the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Recent article on Fitbit "can I have my data please" .. resonates here too .. the better use case and business opportunity for Diaspora model is for healthcare and personal medical data.

</comment><comment><USER16> Diaspora is not as good social network as facebook and can not be very good at privacy because personnal user data stored in a pod are not encrypted and can be read by the pod owner. Encrypt/decrypt should be performed only at the browser level. I think diaspora should first start building a good cryptographic framework. Once the foundations are ok, they will find people to help for pretty features.

The problem is that a social network that respect privacy would be a paradise for bad guys.

<comment><USER17> > Diaspora is not as good social network as facebook and can not be very good > at privacy because personnal user data stored in a pod are not encrypted and > can be read by the pod owner. Encrypt/decrypt should be performed only at > the browser level.

That would probably kill Diaspora's most realistic (obvious) option for scaling up to the size of a major social network. Right now it's small enough that it's reasonable for individuals to run pods altruistically.

But if it gets big, that's going to get expensive. Somebody will have to pay for all that hardware, electricity and bandwidth. Nobody wants to pay to use social networks, so it sure won't be the users. At least not directly. A much more feasible option is to aggregate all the data you're privy to as a pod operator and use it for advertising purposes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, encryption doesn't increase the cost much and is only welcome. The way to deal with increased user base is to even out the federation - i.e. in ideal case the pod will run on user's own computer, and thus will reduce the cost of hosting to virtually the cost of Internet connectivity, which is already paid by the user. Of course in practice it's not always the case, but quite a number of such pods already exist.

<comment><USER17> Unless there's a clever scheme I don't know of, encryption that prevents pod operators from reading content would increase the cost by making the system significantly more complicated.

If the data you post to your network is encrypted, then that means anyone who wants to see it needs to have a key to decrypt it. Which might not be terrible as long as posting stuff to the network is all-or-nothing. But if the network needs to have support for allowing different acquaintances access to different content depending on your personal desires then it would become morass. You'd need to encrypt everything differently for each of the different combinations of people or groups of people that you might want to share with, and every time you friend someone, unfriend someone, or rearrange your sharing settings for a person, you'd potentially have to generate and distribute new keys.

As far as self-hosting pods, that's fine as long as you want to limit your social network to people who are in a position to host their own pods. But that's got to be a fraction of a percent of all Internet users.

<comment><AUTHOR> At present installing your own pod is indeed a difficult task, and is too involved for an average user. However Diaspora is working on simplifying this.

Yes, encryption with such access scope is complex, but I was referring to the cost of running it, not to the cost of developing the architecture. Development can indeed be hard and costly, but many things are, and open source still tackles hard problems successfully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I took a pod from the list: <http://podupti.me/> Went to sign up: <https://poddery.com/users/sign_up> There is no way to use my facebook or google account to sign up! IMHO, The barrier of entry for regular people is too high...

</comment><comment><USER19> It's ok. I joined Diaspora a couple of weeks ago and the functionality isn't there. I wanted some album feature so I can put my photos.

I'm in the middle of researching Friendica and it seems like that would be better. I still have to try it out first.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there a Diaspora spec / pod-to-pod API spec so people can write other interoperable implementations that are compatible with the current Ruby one?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's being ironed out now. You can contact the development team at: [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/diaspora-...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/diaspora- dev)</comment></comment>


How Much Does Getting into an Elite College Matter? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/upshot/elite-colleges-actual-value.html <comment><USER2> What they miss in this article is the signal that graduates of elite colleges send to others. For rich people, it's no longer a matter of money, it's a matter of social standing. Rich people don't want to introduce their kids as the graduates of their local public university. They rather just say that their kids never went to college.

If all rich parents need to do is to spend a few bucks, relative speaking, to get their kids into elite schools then they will do it.

People are surprised by the amount of money rich parents are willing to spend. But in a society where merit is valued over money, it's no surprise that people are willing to buy some merit.

Social standing is priceless to many people.</comment>


Mac Pro 2019 Teardown - <AUTHOR> https://ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac+Pro+2019+Teardown/128922 <comment><USER2> So much to appreciate here. A few things that really stand out for me:

\- RAM on one side of the mainboard, CPU and PCIe on the other. All upgradable. (never seen that on a desktop motherboard)

\- The CPU appears to have standard heatsink mounting holes. Maybe you could put AIO water cooling in it if you wanted to?)

\- PCIe power ports on the mainboard, even though they're not used by the MPX modules. Looks like 4x 8-pin and 1x 6-pin.

\- unused SATA ports

\- unused internal USB-A port (anyone know if it's USB3?)

\- front fans use non-standard spring contact connector, so if they fail you're stuck getting that monster module from Apple, though that's probably not very likely.</comment>


Why Venture Capitalists Don't Like To Be Rushed Into Deals - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2010/05/03/why-venture-capitalists-dont-like-to-be-rushed-into-deals/

<comment><USER2> An interesting story, but I think this is n part an "it depends". I contrast this one with e.g. what I remember of the quick VC fundings of Apple and Sun ... but then I note that their markets were a lot more obvious at the time _and_ there was little time to waste.

(I bring this up because I dislike indecisive VCs, which doesn't seem to be a problem here.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow. Do you really have to be over-dramatic with VCs? sounds like quite a lot of game (fore?) play.</comment>