Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/gut-feeling-how-intestinal-bacteria-may-influence-our-moods-1.2701037 <comment><USER3> Be very careful with probiotics; just loading your system with random strains of bacteria from your local health food store can have serious consequences. I have IBS and an anxiety disorder that had been in remission for years. I tried Primadophilus Optima and it wrecked me. I went from a mild IBS-C to severe IBS-D, and my panic attacks came back with an intensity unlike anything I've ever experienced.

I don't doubt that intestinal bacteria are related to IBS and anxiety disorders and that certain probiotic treatments may help. But such supplementation should be based on detailed research of each of the strains taken, much of which does not even exist yet.

<comment><USER4> IBS seems like the doctors way of saying "We don't know what your problem is".

Doctors told me I had IBS for 10 years, then a friend suggested to stop eating wheat, and 95% of my symptoms went away.

I'm actually about to start testing a FODMAP diet to see if I can improve my health any further.

Have you tried anything to improve your health, or did you just accept the IBS diagnosis? I only ask because I've seen no research that suggests IBS is a real thing, just a catch-all for many potential things.

<comment><USER3> I've tried eliminating wheat, sugar (in case it was fructose malabsorption), dairy, etc. I've tried tons of supplements like fish oil or vitamin D. Interestingly, each of those except dairy had very positive effects on my health in general (weight loss, clearer skin, elimination of seasonal depression) but had little effect on IBS symptoms.

What did improve it (but not eliminate it) was taking an SSRI, which isn't surprising since they have been shown to help in trials. My mother also has both IBS and an anxiety disorder, which is consistent with research showing that there is a genetic factor. I wouldn't be surprised if there are multiple possible underlying causes, but I really think IBS is a legitimate diagnosis.

<comment><USER5> Have you considered doing a fecal transplant?

<comment><USER3> I'm willing to try anything safe and shown to be effective scientifically. However, at the moment I have poor health insurance and little disposable income, and my GI doc wants me to do a CT scan that would cost me $1600 out of pocket to rule out IBD and a few other things before continuing. So basically I've hit a brick wall for the time being.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Popular media reporting on complex scientific/technical/legal/etc topics should always be viewed with suspicion. Googling for the researchers' and journals' names produced the following:

Dr. Mayer's study about women's responses to facial expressions. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23474283](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23474283)

Elaine Hsiao's study about certain autistic behaviors in mice. [http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(13)01473-6](http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674\(13\)01473-6)

Here on HN, we should favor articles that link to the original sources so that the domain experts among us have an easier time digging into the claims. For example, NPR's reporting at [http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/18/244526773/gut- bac...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/18/244526773/gut-bacteria- might-guide-the-workings-of-our-minds)

<comment><USER7> No expert on the topic, though it really interests me. Have been drinking EM ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_microorganism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_microorganism)) every day for the past 6 months which has improved my digestion a lot.

Thought this comment on the NPR article was really insightful:

There's so much more to developing a healthy microbiome than just eating yogurt and drinking kombucha, as many people like to claim. It starts at birth. As you travel through the birth canal, you come into contact with many different and important microorganisms through contact with your mother's vaginal fluids and even fecal matter. If you're born via C section, you're starting out at a disadvantage. Then breastfeeding is the next step. Mother's milk is where you get your next dose of a very broad spectrum of microorganisms. Then throughout life, as you come in contact with other people, you eat dirt, you hang around farm animals, etc, these are all mother nature's way of helping you develop that microbiome, which is essentially the core of your immune system. Eating is important too, and one of the biggest problems with our modern food system is that everything is pasteurized, cooked all the way through, sterilized, irradiated, etc. All of the healthy microorganisms that used to exist are being killed.

So the point here is that people need to rethink many of their lifestyle choices if they want to heal their guts. Every time you take an antibiotic, you likely suffer much collateral damage because you may be permanently killing beneficial species that you may never be exposed to again. They don't exist in yogurt or kombucha. Either that, or consider fecal bacteriotherapy (fecal transplants) since it seems to be one of the the most promising new approaches to healing microbiomes. ~Julie Latham

<comment><USER8> Totally non-scientific response to this, but I can say that after having to take antibiotics a few years back for a pretty bad sinus infection my digestive system has never completely recovered. I never had any sort of digestive issues that I can think of but have had numerous since then. I can't directly contribute it to the antibiotics, but it certainly seems to correlate.

Taking probiotics helped quite a bit, which I did a month or so after the antibiotics started causing these issues, but yeah, never completely felt 'better' since then. I guess this is yet another example of why/how over prescription of antibiotics is a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I must agree with this. I've been suffering from IBS for a while now. Anytime I have a flare up, I most certainly have severe anxiety (and it's not just anxiety of having to deal with the flare up. Anxiety symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, weakness just show up). I've tried a few probiotics but didn't see any noticeable difference though.

<comment><USER10> I'm just asking, but is there any chance the connection is the reverse?

Stress and anxiety can cause digestive symptoms.

<comment><USER11> The interesting part is that even if that's the case, treating the digestive symptoms in an effective way could provide meaningful relief, cascading back into the emotional state that caused the initial problem.

I've had it described to me in the following way; stress creates physical manifestations of that stress, those physical manifestations create discomfort, that discomfort creates stress. The feedback loop, once in place, can accelerate the anxiety. It can also be used to shut the anxiety down. It is possible to focus on the physical manifestations and "cut the strings" of the cycle by relieving those symptoms through meditation and treatment. You're left with the original stressor, but the feedback cycle doesn't help you get better as long as it is active.

<comment><USER12> So essentially changing diet is partly (or mostly) a placebo effect. IMO it is better to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress and make changes to your lifestyle that address the root cause, rather than believing dubious science about gluten. (I'm not saying that you personally believe this crap science, but there are a lot of people out there who do). That has certainly worked well for me. I still do have IBS on occasion, but after doing some research into the HPA axis and ANS (and how the control gastric emptying, colonic transit and absorption) I now understand exactly why I have the symptoms, and they are very manageable. I don't have CFS, burnout, fatigue, anxiety or depression any more, but mild IBS seems to be a fact of life. Working for myself at home certainly helps a lot.

<comment><USER13> > So essentially changing diet is partly (or mostly) a placebo effect. IMO it > is better to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress and make changes to > your lifestyle that address the root cause, rather than believing dubious > science about gluten.

That sounds very much like the approach a software/hardware engineer would have towards a bug. And it's great!

However, I'd say that the human body can't really be approached that way because of its, very much, inconstant nature (at least until we've figured out 100% how our bodies function).

In the current state of knowledge human kind has about biology, it would be very hard to pin-point a "bug" (IBS/stress/anxiety for example) to a specific root cause (bacteria x or y). On the opposite end, a software bug ultimately has one (or multiple) very much identifiable root causes.

All that to say that, it might not be possible to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress, and thus, treating the symptoms might actually be the cure. (who knows, maybe treating a "biological bug" fixes the actual bug?)

It's also a chicken and egg problem: which started first? IBS or stress/anxiety?

<comment><USER12> Yes, it's a little more difficult pinning down problems with the human body than in a piece of code, and these kind of functional problems even seem to have stumped most of the medical profession. However I see it as an engineering challenge. Essentially you are looking at a complex system and trying to solve a problem in a piece of machinery that you don't have any information about. Sometimes working around bugs in android or iOS can involve similar detective work.

In terms of IBS, there is very little doubt that in my own situation that stress causes the IBS rather than the other way around. Diarrhea during the week, followed by constipation during weekends. Or diarrhea preceeding before a novel event. These are repeatable and predictable - it just requires taking a close look at your situation and seeing if you can see any correlations. Unfortunately it can be easy to get fooled into seeing correlations that don't exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if there's a strong correlation between those who suffer IBS and people working in this industry. Seems to me like the mentality to continually push forward and overwork/stress ourselves can only contribute to poorer health both mentally and physically. Personally I suffer from.. Hmm, I'd say IBS-D based on the classifications mentioned here, although my symptoms are fairly mild (however, very consistent - ~5 years and counting..) save for a few more painful symptoms every now and again. There was an article on here last week talking about the strong correlation between our guts and our brain as well. These articles seem to gain a lot of popularity here on HN, which makes me think that this problem is more wide spread than it appears (perhaps just amongst HNers)

I'll report that I too have personally experienced a strong link between my gut and my mental state (I occasionally suffer mild panic attacks). I'm tired of having bowel problems - if anyone has any suggestions that have worked for them I'm open to hearing them (and I'm sure there's plenty of people reading who too are looking for suggestions). I've been working on removing wheat from my diet - I can't speak to the effectiveness yet as I've only just begun.

<comment><USER15> Good point. I'd be interested in knowing as well.

I stopped drinking sodas, alcohol and milk. That helped a lot. I also physically moved and started working from home. This combination has almost stopped the symptoms.

It seems like a combination of my diet, stress and overworking are the biggest factors for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My anecdotal evidence suggests the probiotics that fix your pooping problems fix your mood too. If they make your poop worse, your mood will suffer as well.

<comment><USER17> Constipation has sometimes produced the bloodiest scenes. My grandfather, who died a centenarian, was Cromwell's apothecary; he has often told me that Cromwell had not been to the toilet for a week when he had his king's head cut off. - <USER2>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's always interesting to think of humans as giant integrated microbiomes. Our bacteria is part of who and what we are.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hi there, I'm CEO of uBiome. It's a really fascinating area and there are a lot of interesting discoveries coming out. If you'd like to learn more about your microbiome, check us out at www.ubiome.com.

<comment><USER20> Similarly, hypothesis like these were why I invested in uBiome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Bacteria feed on nutrients we ingest with our food, and like people, bacteria don 't use everything they eat. Whatever doesn't fuel their growth and reproduction, the bacteria expel as waste.

That waste gets into the blood and probably into the brain, changing its chemistry._

If this theory is correct, does it mean that a drastic change in diet might change a person's behavior? I'm imagining a future where people match their diet to their intestinal bacteria to increase or reduce the "waste" that gets produced to achieve a desired mood or behavior.

<comment><USER22> > If this theory is correct, does it mean that a drastic change in diet might > change a person's behavior? I'm imagining a future where people match their > diet to their intestinal bacteria to increase or reduce the "waste" that > gets produced to achieve a desired mood or behavior.

The concept is really not new. Diet has long been linked to mood and behavior in traditional medicine. It wouldn't be a shocker to learn that some traditional approaches to dietary therapy are actually effective, though probably not for the reasons they proclaimed.

<comment><USER23> In fact the concept is very old (not to say anything about whether it's correct or not).

"All Disease Begins in the Gut" ~ Hippocrates

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's interesting that your digestive system 'thinks'. I've always found the Vagus nerve's role in satiety to be interesting. It's a big nerve from the brain that extends directly down into the abdomen. [http://neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter04.html](http://neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter04.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> Although I see a connection, I stopped taking this article seriously when I read this sentence:

"Their study, published last year, was funded in part by Danone Research, a division of multinational food company Danone."

<comment><USER25> So? Danone makes yogurts with probiotics. I think they might be interested in knowing if there is any value to a diet <=> mood connection. If you would take your head out of the sand you'd know that lots of research is funded by industry and that's not necessarily bad.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, no conflict of interest whatsoever...

<comment><USER26> First of all, they acknowledged the conflict of interest.

Are you suggesting, based on zero evidence, that their findings were somehow fabricated - a claim that if true would ruin the careers and lives of the scientists at hand?

While not unthinkable, it is a type of conspiracy theory thought. Should you have a problem with their methods, data acquisition, etc etc. then it would be a completely different story, but to dismiss something based on some sort of belief is very unscientific.

<comment><USER15> I'm not arguing the science. It may be 100% correct. My issue the fact that a corporation with a very big upside is funding the research. That's all.

Think about it.

<comment><USER27> You'll have to do better than "think about it" if you want your reasons to make sense outside of your own head.

<comment><USER15> It's okay. I understand common sense isn't so common...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The book 'Not All in the Mind'[1], published in 1976, is definitely worth a read. It's been a while since I picked it up and my copy is in another state while I'm away from work, but I remember it being very pertinent to this conversation. (I'd write more about, but it's 01:00 where I am and I'm falling asleep at the keyboard).

1\. [http://www.amazon.com/Not-All-Mind-Richard- Mackarness/dp/033...](http://www.amazon.com/Not-All-Mind-Richard- Mackarness/dp/0330245929)

</comment><comment><USER29> Having been diagnosed with probable IBS, I have noticed mood changes related to the intestines. But I always linked it to impaired absorption of some nutrient or another, but never with bacteria.

</comment><comment><USER30> Wanting to get a product rich in Resistant Starch out there is part of our process motivation for MealSquares. We're presoaking our oat flour in an acidic medium and then asking customers to refrigerate their MealSquares in order to maximize the amount of RS formed by retrogradation.

Resistant starch is starch you can't digest but your gut bacteria can. It's been shown to have a variety of health benefits.

</comment><comment><USER31> But which came first, the intestinal issue or the mental health condition? These studies seem to begin with an assumption that the physical ailment arises first. What if it's not the case... What if that assumption is just the opposite, and it's the mental health issue impacting the physical well-being?

</comment><comment><USER32> If you're interested in the Bacteria-autism connection mentioned in the article, here's a great talk by the researcher: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWT_BLVOASI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWT_BLVOASI) (The topic is "Mind Altering Microbes")

</comment><comment><USER33> The newspaper article by a freelance journalist kindly submitted here proved to be interesting to read all the way through, and prompted me to read all the comments here posted before I saw the thread, and also to look up the researchers mentioned in the article and the author of the article. There are interesting ideas here, but this is very preliminary research, based on early animal studies mentioned with human studies with very small n and a short time frame. ("The researchers gave 12 healthy women fermented milk containing a probiotic supplement made up of five different strains of bacteria thought to have a positive effect on the intestines. The women drank the milk two times a day over the course of four weeks. Another group of 11 women drank milk without probiotics.")

It's quite a bit too early to tell if altering your personal dietary habits will have any predictable long-term effects on your mood (the article title says "may" after all) and especially what alterations in intestinal microorganisms have what interaction with what other health outcomes.

So far, "modern life" appears to be good both for reducing mortality and reducing morbidity, as life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising throughout the developed countries of the world.[1] A variety of incremental changes over the last century have allowed us all to enjoy longer, healthier lives than our ancestors a hundred years ago, as reported in an article in a series on Slate, "Why Are You Not Dead Yet? Life expectancy doubled in past 150 years. Here's why."[2] If deeper understanding of the health effects of intestinal microorganisms leads to even more incremental improvement in disease prevention and treatment, and increase in healthy lifespan, that would be great. So I heartily support research on these topics. (I remember that the father of _Freakonomics_ co-author Steven Levitt spent his career at my alma mater university studying intestinal gas with federal grants--I'm not making this up.) But we can't be sure yet what the recommended practice will be for how we eat or whether or not we should have particular microorganisms put into our intestines.

Meanwhile we can be happy that ongoing medical research and perhaps other factors we don't fully understand seem to be driving steady increases in healthy lifespan. Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing"[3] by James Vaupel, originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for time trends in life expectancy. His striking finding is "Humans are living longer than ever before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries can expect to live to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human longevity has increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an average of six hours a day."[4]

[1] [http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...](http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html)

[2] [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html)

[3] [http://www.demographic- challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2...](http://www.demographic- challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf)

[4] [http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....](http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER34> Follow @phylogenomics, look at recent his recent rants. Almost certainly this is correlation/causation bunk about the microbiome (in addition to the other problems noted here).

</comment><comment><USER35> It's not really surprising that intestine and heart systems have their own state and impact on your whole self. I believe they came first in our design history.</comment>


Opinions of a middle-end programmer - <AUTHOR> http://ratafia.info/post/8249333642/opinions-of-a-middle-end-programmer

<comment><USER2> Programming is like religion: there are a few beliefs and people tend to choose.

Here are some of the beliefs: the hackers, the pragmatics, the engineers, the scrappers, the academics, the oops, the functionals.

They are all pursuing different ways to achieve the solution in their respective space. What matters for you is to pick one (or two) belief that you like the most as of today.

<comment><USER3> Or, just do what you want and don't try to fit some label for which thousands of people have thousands of different definitions.

<comment><USER4> In other words: Programming, motherfucker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Who or what is a "middle-end" programmer?

<comment><USER6> Not brilliant, but not rubbish. Pretty standard phrase, at least here in the UK.

<comment><USER7> I'm a Brit and have never heard "middle-end" used like that. "Middling", yes. "Middle-end", no.

And to answer the grand-parent:

 _building infrastructure that will help other parts of the project -- part of why I call myself a 'middle-end programmer'._

It seems that the author is using "middle-end" in a manner analagous to the more common "front-end" and "back-end".

Exactly what this involves is not entirely clear, but building frameworks, perhaps.

<comment><USER8> _building infrastructure that will help other parts of the project --part of why I call myself a 'middle-end programmer'._

Brooks called that role the toolsmith.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I quite liked these guidelines for documenting code:

1\. explain the motivation 2\. give at least one example of usage 3\. explain implementation choices

(Not saying this is the best way - there are lots of different guidelines for documenting code that I like!)</comment>


Coronavirus: an email to my family - <AUTHOR> https://www.julianagrant.com/blog/2020/2/29/coronavirus <comment><USER2> This seems to be overstating things.

> COVID-19 seems to be most severe in older adults.

The median age of deaths is 75. I guess that's technically "older adults" but I think "elderly" would be a better description.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/world/asia/coronavirus- vi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/world/asia/coronavirus-victims- wuhan.html)

> there are a number of indications that it will be very much like the 1918 > Flu Pandemic

The New England Journal of Medicine has a different take:

[https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387)

It sounds increasingly likely that the fatality rate is less than 1%, potentially a lot less, as were now hearing that 80% of people don't even get sick enough to seek medical attention, and many have no signs of illness at all — which means the denominator in the death rate is likely much higher than is accounted for in the common 2% metric from the first data.

> Expect people you know to die.

Aside from this likely being inaccurate, is this language even remotely helpful?

<comment><USER3> That number will vary greatly by region and the quality of healthcare, as well as the functioning ability of governments to handle it. The infection rate is such that it's exponentially growing, which means it's showing no signs of slowing down. If 1% of the world dies from it, that's hundreds of millions of people dying from something in addition to everything else already killing people. This is really bad.

<comment><USER4> The death rate seems so low, that I could imagine many of the elderly people dieing from it, would also have been killed from many other viruses that would have possibly come along shortly after.

<comment><USER5> It's both. When a virus like this taxes your immune system, the risk of secondary infections becomes far greater.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > For those of you who don't know me well, I am a preventive medicine > physician and infectious disease epidemiologist. I graduated from the CDC's > Epidemic Intelligence Service and have over 17 years of experience in the > field, most of that with CDC.

For those here expressing skepticism of the author's (admittedly dire) predictions, what set of credentials should someone have before you take what they say seriously? Not trying to be snarky. Perhaps I simply wish to understand more of what people find convincing in situations like this and why.

<comment><USER7> I am not sure there is any set of credentials which would make me trust someone's predictions.

<comment><USER8> Really? That doesn't seem rational. If a doctor diagnosed you with pancreatic cancer and told you that you had 6 months to live - you would not trust his prediction?

<comment><USER7> I would get a second and third opinion, and then decide. I guess my point was that I am not going to trust any one individual based off of their credentials.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think a lot of the comments in this discussion risk understating the potential impact of the virus. Yes, there are many unknowns, and we might not encounter the worst-case scenario. But many experts have basis for being worried, e.g. listen to these interviews [1,2]. It will take a while before the virus really spreads in the US/Europe but it seems pretty clear that it's not contained anymore. Remarks about the fatality rate cut both ways: if it's lower than reported it means that the virus is spreading faster than we think (more mild cases), if it's higher than reported there are going to be many more fatalities still. There are arguments to be made for both (lower: many mild cases go undetected, higher: reported fatality rates often seem to be calculated from active cases, not complete cases). Either way it's clear that in China the rate of infection was well beyond what hospitals could handle which seems to indicate that we might encounter similar issues.

Let's just be careful and be prepared, there really seems to be too little info to get comfortable with this at this point.

[1] [https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/deep-background-with- noah-f...](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/deep-background-with-noah- feldman/e/67663436)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/podcasts/the- daily/corona...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/podcasts/the- daily/coronavirus.html)

<comment><USER6> >Either way it's clear that in China the rate of infection was well beyond what hospitals could handle which seems to indicate that we might encounter similar issues.

What's more concerning about what happened in China is that it overwhelmed their healthcare infrastructure even after they implemented what would otherwise be called martial law throughout the country for a period of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Honest question: how one can ditinguish coronavirus from other "pandemics" of recent years like svine flu or bird flu or whatnot? Those happened primarily on TV news, and the informational background was about the same: apocalyptic pictures of empty airport, packed hospitals, etc. Why should an average Joe care more this time?

<comment><USER8> I don't believe any of those had packed hospitals nor piles of bodies, as we've seen for this one.

There are some major differences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am seeing some harsh comments here out of fear. I dealt with the same reaction from family members.

The U.S. is doing very little to prevent this. A lot of people, especially elderly people, will likely die.

It will also likely have a severe impact on the market. The sooner we can all accept this and prepare the better.

<comment><USER12> "The U.S. is doing very little to prevent this. A lot of people, especially elderly people, will likely die."

At this point, what realistically could the US do to prevent this? It will continue to spread in other countries, and there's nothing the US can do about that. We can implement more severe travel restrictions, but that has its own issues and it's not recommended by the WHO. That will only be effective for a period of time in the beginning of the virus spread, and they are basically doing that afaik

Im no expert, but besides providing financial or medical aid to to the countries fighting the virus, and helping developing a vaccine/cure, I'm not sure what the US should be doing prevention wise

<comment><USER8> There is considerable value in SLOWING the virus.

1\. You smooth out the cases that end up in hospitals and ICUs

2\. You give more time for a vaccine to be developed and deployed.

3\. You reduce the economic impact.

<comment><USER11> Exactly #1. From what I've seen, in a best case scenario we have 30k extra ventilators. Reportedly, 6% of cases require ventilation. Some quick math shows that only .16% of the population needs to be infected at the same time for our ventilator supply to runs out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just FYI: Reddit /r/coronavirus is having an AMA with a panel of experts from WebMD on Wednesday, March 4 at 12pm EST

/r/covid19 is an interesting scientific discussion of the topic.

</comment><comment><USER14> Much conjecture, not supporting data. Much of what he predicts is not supported by the CDC which he starts off saying you should listen to first....

</comment><comment><USER15> Is Juliana Grant a noteworthy expert or something?

<comment><USER16> _For those of you who don't know me well, I am a preventive medicine physician and infectious disease epidemiologist. I graduated from the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service and have over 17 years of experience in the field, most of that with CDC._

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What is wrong with this god-damned site? Seriously, this post was #25 on the front page, I check again and it's buried 4 pages deep literally 10 minutes later.

Some people in this community are in really deep denial and do not understand the concept of asymmetric risk.

This is a clearly written piece that can be shared widely with your network, especially for people who may not be clued in to the situation. Please share this.

<comment><USER9> I don't get this either - the front page has many posts with fewer points over a longer period. Maybe downvotes are treated differently from upvotes in the sorting algorithm?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > COVID-19 seems to be most severe in older adults. Children and young adults > generally have mild infections. We are grateful for this.

I'm sorry to ask this .. why are we grateful for this?

<comment><USER19> When I bury my father, I will be very sad.

If I should have to bury my daughter, I would be devastated.

<comment><USER20> There are few things that feel utterly "against nature" than a parent outliving a child.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> >> It's possible that COVID-19 will be similar to a bad flu year but there are a number of indications that it will be very much like the 1918 Flu Pandemic.

This, right here, is horseshit. There is no way whatsoever it will be like the 1918 Flu Pandemic, unless we've utterly failed as a society and did not invent anything in the last 102 years. In 1918 we didn't yet have _penicillin_, let alone antiviral drugs.

More accurate prediction: this will be only slightly worse than the seasonal flu we endure every year. In fact, it's quite possible that this year in the US more people will die of the complications of the flu, than of COVID19.

<comment><USER22> 5-10x more deadly than influenza is "only slightly worse"?

<comment><USER21> Nobody knows if it's 5-10x more deadly because nobody knows the denominator - the _total_ number of cases, including the cases which are mild (which most of them are), and for which people are unlikely to seek treatment. Also, even allowing hypothetically that it's 5x as deadly in China, that doesn't mean its CFR is the same in the developed world.

<comment><USER23> The denominator was estimated by multiple teams: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22405204](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22405204) That's why we are fairly confident in the approximative CFR range of 0.5%-1.6% See more details in all the studies I link to in my post at: [https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio- ncov/#updates--...](https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/#updates --validation)

<comment><USER21> Sounds about right. But that's not "we're all gonna die" estimate of 5x-10x.

<comment><USER23> Yes it is. 0.5-1.6% means the coronavirus is 5x-16x deadlier than the flu (0.1%)

So the fatality, at the upper end of the range, would be _comparable_ to the 1918 pandemic flu (estimated at 2.04%: [https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/nCoV- public/an...](https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/nCoV- public/analyses/first_adjusted_mortality_estimates_and_risk_assessment/2019-nCoV- preliminary_age_and_time_adjusted_mortality_rates_and_pandemic_risk_assessment.html))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Live Aid: The Terrible Truth (1986 & 2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.spin.com/featured/live-aid-the-terrible-truth-ethiopia-bob-geldof-feature/ <comment><USER2> Date: 1986

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reminder. The article revisits the issue in 2015 and Geldof's continued and current avoidance of the concerns raised.</comment></comment>


Elastic enters Application Performance Management space with Opbeat acquisition - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/22/elastic-enters-apm-space-with-opbeat-acquisition/ <comment><USER2> OpBeat was the annoying company that transitioned my unused beta account to a paying account upon launch without authorization and without me entering in my payment details. I only realized this once they started emailing me that I had racked up a bunch of charges on OpBeat and that I needed to pay these bills immediately. Apparently if you signed up for the beta you had to explicitly op-out of being charged upon launch and I never returned to the OpBeat site after briefly trying the beta, so I hadn't opted out. Hmm....

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm using Opbeat everyday at work and it is a very nice platform. But since there seems to be an Opbeat employee here I thought I would write down a couple of suggestions.

1) Please add the ability to search for errors. Having to scroll through the pages when finding some old error is quite annoying. Or trying to find all errors with a specific exception.

2) More notification settings in the Android app. I would like to be able to change the notification sound and disable vibration. Right now I have worked around this by disabling notifications in the app and assigning label in Gmail to Opbeat email notifications and setting custom notification settings for this label.

3) It would be great to see the "Misc." and "Extra" tabs in addition to the stacktrace in the Android app. We include some useful information about the errors in the extra section and it would be helpful to take a look at them right in the app.

<comment><USER4> Hi tophattom, I'm happy that you like our platform, and thanks for your feedback :)

1) With the new version of Opbeat which will be based on Elasticsearch, you have the ability to perform any custom query you like. That should hopefully take care of that part

2+3) I'm not 100% sure what the app development plan is. But I'll make sure to tell the right people :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Elastic could acquire a better support for their "cloud" offering. That would be nice. 48h on a critical ticket, still no intervention. Luckily, it's only the production cluster.

</comment><comment><USER6> It was interesting to see Opbeat pivot from a specifically Python/Django APM platform, to one so heavily focused on JavaScript.

<comment><USER7> I always wanted to try them but moved away from Python/Django and kind of forgot about them. Nice to see they have evolved. Love their design.

<comment><USER4> Though our current marketing doesn't mention Python, we still support it. And plan to add new languages in the future as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats, we are very happy users of Opbeat at Ionic

</comment><comment><USER9> First I've heard of Opbeat - it looks beautiful and functional. A great pairing.

I'd _love_ to try them out, but it seems like no one gives PHP any love any more so it's not possible :(

<comment><USER10> I think there's actually some pretty decent PHP monitoring love these days!

1\. A little plug for TraceView, a PHP performance monitoring and distributed tracing product. Not only insight as to what your PHP code is doing, but also what external services it is interacting with, which ones are slow, and (if they're other services you run) end-to-end traces between them (including software written in 7 other languages). ([https://traceview.solarwinds.com](https://traceview.solarwinds.com))

2\. New Relic offers a PHP solution, which is a bit pricier but also folds into their ever-growing suite of products. [https://newrelic.com](https://newrelic.com)

3\. Tideways is pretty cool as well (someone mentioned that already) and it supports HHVM. [https://tideways.io](https://tideways.io)

4\. If you're looking for just profiling, there's [https://blackfire.io](https://blackfire.io), though I don't know much about it.

5\. AppDynamics has a PHP monitoring product but I can't recommend it unless you are looking for on-prem hosted solution.

And there's probably several more...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's gonna happen to the Opbeat Heroku Add-On?</comment>


Ask HN: Is Intel with its C++ or a user violating the GNU license? - <AUTHOR> Intel C++ for Linux, as far as I understand, uses libstdc++ for which the license https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/license.html specifically names which "compilation process" is "eligible" for a non-GPL exception to be allowed. My understanding is that Intel's compiler is <i>not</i> eligible (and not GPL). Who is then violating the license, Intel, the user using it, or both? What's your understanding? <comment><USER2> The relevant part of that license is

> A Compilation Process is "Eligible" if it is done using GCC, alone or with > other GPL-compatible software, or if it is done without using any work based > on GCC.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the Intel C++ compiler suite falls in the latter category.

<comment><AUTHOR> On Windows, maybe, on Linux, I can't see that it's "done without using any work based on GCC."</comment></comment>


Investing in Roblox - <AUTHOR> https://a16z.com/2020/02/26/roblox/ <comment><USER2> Interesting. Presumably they're thinking of it as a Minecraft competitor with a similar creative platform & ecosystem.</comment>


Ask HN: How to find users for my beta app? - <AUTHOR> I have side project that I really enjoyed doing plus I think it's a really nice tool to have. I use it in my day job. The thing is I have no idea how to find users to register and start use it. There is a free plan, so I really don't think it should be so hard...
The app is http://discrete.li/ it's basically analytics service for ajax requests. Website owners plant a small javascript snippet in their site, and I track all statistics, including latency tracking and payload logs.
The service is pretty simple right now, but it is reliable. I use it for 6 months to track a medium-size app in production. I don't expect people to pay right away. I'll give it for free in exchange for feedback + patience while I implement it :-)
any way, I would love to hear your thoughts.... <comment><USER2> There are lots of examples on my site IndieHackers.com of people building up a side project from nothing. In general, they seem to do two things in the beginning.

First, they spend lots of time talking to everyone they can: friends, family, coworkers, people in their online communities, people at conferences, etc. This is not scalable in the long-run, but very helpful in the beginning to kick things off. Paul Graham has written about this extensively: [http://paulgraham.com/ds.html](http://paulgraham.com/ds.html)

Second, the more successful founders find good distribution channels. They find app stores, online marketplaces, partnerships, etc that constantly put their product in front of lots potential customers. Easier said than done, of course, but the first step is just being aware of that approach.

<comment><USER3> There's an entire book written about the second approach called _Traction_ [0] which boils down to: find the most dominant distribution channels and exploit them. Of course it includes plenty of non-traditional channel ideas and strategies as well.

[0]: [http://tractionbook.com/](http://tractionbook.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My reflections as a potential beta-user:

\- the price is very high - the $89 plan will be sufficient for a small website only!

\- why only javascript analytics when I also have server requests?

\- the dashboard looks nice

\- the website could contain more information - seems too plain for a paid product - a documentation link, company data

Overall, even if the price was lower I don't think I would use the product. It looks like it gives _some_ functionality of more focused tools (like Sentry for error notification) but doesn't look sufficiently advanced.

To do what your product does I use Sentry (error notification) plus parsing of Nginx logs + metrics in a database for timing data.

I hope my remarks are helpful!

<comment><USER4> I got error when clicking on "save and get new tracking code".

BTW, the tracking code sends a request to your server for each ajax request? That looks like a big cost to end user (duplicated number of HTTP requests a browser makes).

Error: obj is undefined this.getTrackingCode@[https://demo-dot- latenlog.appspot.com/static/js/out/common.j...](https://demo-dot- latenlog.appspot.com/static/js/out/common.js?1471977456211:446:1) this.save/<@[https://demo-dot- latenlog.appspot.com/static/js/out/common.j...](https://demo-dot- latenlog.appspot.com/static/js/out/common.js?1471977456211:465:34) $http/promise.success/<@[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angula...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angular.js:10498:13) processQueue@[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angula...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angular.js:14991:28) scheduleProcessQueue/<@[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angula...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angular.js:15007:27) $RootScopeProvider/this.$get</Scope.prototype.$eval@[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angula...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angular.js:16251:16) $RootScopeProvider/this.$get</Scope.prototype.$digest@[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angula...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angular.js:16069:15) $RootScopeProvider/this.$get</Scope.prototype.$apply@[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angula...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angular.js:16359:13) done@[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angula...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angular.js:10791:36) completeRequest@[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angula...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angular.js:10989:7) requestLoaded@[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angula...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.9/angular.js:10930:9) angular.js:12722:18

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think the best way to start user acquisition is to find other people that have the problem you have / had, and ask them to try it unrestricted. I would remove any notion of plans and pricing at this point until you've validated that it works for quite a few other people.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice, having logins while not using Https.

EDIT: Failed at english.

<comment><AUTHOR> you're basically right. since it's a side project, i haven't invested in a certificate yet...

you can use this link though: [https://latenlog.appspot.com/](https://latenlog.appspot.com/)

<comment><USER2> I don't want to pile on, but think there's a higher level lesson here, which is that it's important to know your audience. It sounds like you made a conscious decision to forgo TLS, however it's very predictable that that would go over poorly in a place like HN, so I assume you either weren't considering that or weren't aware of that. Try to always think about your audience!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best data storage strategy for SMB - <AUTHOR> What is the current go to data strategy if you are too big for Dropbox but not yet enterprise level?
We are a fast growing architectural design studio. We're currently about 60 designers mainly co-located but with some remote workers and people often work from home.
The designers are mainly working with CAD and increasingly Point Cloud files. Often with multiple people accessing the same files in short periods of time.
Up until now we have been using Dropbox but it is driving the team insane. Sync speed, lack of file locking, clunkiness of selective sync and conflicted copies being the biggest challenges.
We have a web dev engineering team but no one with deep data storage knowledge.
This feels like a common situation for small to medium sized business. How has your company handled it?
- Stick with Dropbox? - Set up your own data center? - Outsource it to a local data specialist? - Use enterprise cloud vendor? - Something else entirely?
We are willing to spend money on the right solution but just currently unsure what that is. <comment><USER2> I looked into this about 3 years ago. Architectural firms are in a unique position - they generally have SMB requirements for the majority of their needs, except data storage. I had ~24Tb of data, ~18Tb of which were Revit/AutoCAD files. Cloud solutions were just horrifically expensive or just couldn't handle the volume of data. De-duplication is a must, as is regular scavenging of app generated backup files.

That said, StorSimple and Azure looks like it's matured enough to look at now. The main potentially prohibitive factor being cost. [https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/services/storsimple/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/services/storsimple/)

Edit; this has got me thinking about how awful model syncing it Revit is! A big part of the problem for me was that the only solution for syncing was local data storage. Remote working with Revit was a nightmare.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.freenas.org/freenas-certified- servers/](https://www.freenas.org/freenas-certified-servers/)</comment>


Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish <comment><USER2> This is brought up every time Microsoft and Github are discussed, and it seems like a very shallow thing to fixate on. Is it impossible that a company, with a new CEO and leadership team, would discard a strategy from 25 years ago (more like 50 years ago by non-tech industry timescales)? Especially now that its market dominance is fundamentally different and reduced (likely permanently) compared to the 90s? What evidence is there that Nadella is a Manchurian candidate for Ballmer forces?

Note that my issue with EXX being brought up is that it is superficial, to the point of being deceptive to the kind of threats Microsoft+Github are most likely to pose if Nadella et al do have their own malicious plans. But I think Microsoft's support for a healthy OSS ecosystem, via Github and things like VS Code, is genuine. Not necessarily out of altruism, but because it's one of the few ways they can have an edge into the future and not fall into stagnation like IBM.

<comment><USER3> I think you underestimate a few things

\- How great it feels to make dire predictions about the future. Only I can see how terrible M$'s latest move is going to be. The other sheeple can't. When I'm right I'll tell everyone I told them so.

\- How satisfying it is to educate these younguns with their JS frameworks. They don't have my wisdom and experience so I'm doing my duty to society and HN by sharing with them. I will paste links to wikipedia wherever necessary. Like so -> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

\- how smart I'll look by talking cynically. Every action that someone takes will be followed by a cynical analysis which assumes the worst intentions. Wide eyed optimists will look naive to any person lacking context.

<comment><USER4> People were shouted down here 5-10 years ago for predicting that Google might turn evil, now it's almost a mainstream opinion here.

You know, simple predictions are often correct. But ignore it (especially if your salary depends on it).

<comment><USER5> Salary is no excuse, just avoid working for ill-intention companies. You'll feel better and the world will be as well.

This is the only way to make a difference.

<comment><USER6> Making conscience-free salary doesn't necessarily mean it'll always be that way. Companies change, people change.

Are you suggesting people change companies every time they uncover their existing employer did something unethical/immoral?

I say this as someone whose employer in the past turned into a patent troll - as a new parent and during a downturn it was difficult to switch jobs for quite some time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> EEE is, among other things, a pattern of incentives.

Embrace: We care about our customers. If someone other than us creates something that would be valuable to them, of course we're going to embrace it. To do otherwise, would be a Not Invented Here failure, would be to let down our customers.

Extend: We care about our customers. We are a major center of innovation, working constantly to improve things for them. We're not going to hold back on helping them just because some standards committee is moving like cold molasses, riven by politics, technically tasteless, or has conflict interests optimizing for things other than the best interests of our customers. And we're certainly not going to later break things for our customers merely because some committee eventually decides it wants things done differently. They're just committees. More people are benefiting from our work than theirs. We're not going to hurt our customers just because some committees have a disproportionate sense of entitlement and importantance.

Extinguish: We care about our customers. And those who are potentially our customers. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to gain the benefits of being our customers. The health of our competitors, and even of people unfortunate to not yet be our customers, are not our motivating responsibility. We're focused on our customers, and what happens to that portion of the industry that isn't, can't be what we optimize for. And we're just a normal commercial company, so of course we're not going to fail to compete with our competitors. If nothing else, we owe it to their customers who may soon be ours. And of course to our stockholders.

Much evil in the world is arguably an emergent property of regrettable incentives.

I mention this only because this post is for whatever reason trending today, and past discussions have repeatedly been of unusually disappointing quality for tech topic on HN. Perhaps this comment will help prune some of the inevitable "but they're good people now, not evil, so there's no problem" comments.

<comment><USER8> I don't see how you could be any more up the ass of bad incentives.

Nobody disputes that Microsoft's incentives are 'regrettable', so what point are you really trying to make?

<comment> core-questions > so what point are you really trying to make?

Incentives can result in individuals making "good" decisions relative to their environment that result in organizations making "bad" decisions relative to the playing field as a whole.

This is essentially the Tragedy of the Commons on a meta-scale, and requires regulation or sovereign action to overcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> VS Code. GitHub. NPM. VS Code Online. GitHub CodeSpaces. Integrated Azure.

A ten year old today learning programming will be locked in. As will JS yuppies and the extremely articulate product manager types.

I like it. Gives me an opportunity to become a "thought leader" by promoting the UNIX approach to enterprises in 5-10 years.

<comment><USER10> \- VSCode is open source, so I'm not sure how that constitutes lock in. Switching text editors is pretty easy.

\- GitHub has some special things like issues and pull requests but in general you can just switch your origin URL to another Git repository that isn't GitHub and boom you are off GitHub.

\- NPM you can just point your package.json at any Git repository you want, no need to use the NPM package repo.

\- VSCode Online: like I said, just use a different online editor.

Not too much lock in going on here. Integrations and seamless workflow? Sure. But lock in? No I don't think so.

<comment><USER3> > Switching text editors is pretty easy.

Not only is it easy, VS Code made it easier than ever. By creating protocols for language and debugger support, they've liberated future text editor developers from having to support every language under the sun. By adding support for the protocol, the new text editor automatically gains support for all languages.

<comment><USER11> The same way Slack used to have an IRC bridge, but they shut that down once they were the leading market player.

This is literally the Embrace/Extend part of EEE

<comment><USER3> Oh? And what's the play after that? How are they going to shut down the protocol or language servers?

Even if they remove support for the protocols, those language and debugging servers still exist. Those servers are controlled by a wide variety of organisations, all of whom are committed to supporting the entire ecosystem of editors.

It doesn't take much to regurgitate "EEE" on an MS article. If you can't even imagine how the final E works in a specific case, maybe say nothing at all.

<comment><USER11> They'll just disable support for it in VSCode. Got a brain up there buddy? Or maybe you're just an MS shill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With meaningful competition, the game is elevated for everyone. Those competing must win on merit, and those watching and consuming get the best output.

When Microsoft was the dominant software Goliath, they were winning in business and personal computing. The internet was new and they wanted to win that - not necessarily by being the best, but by using their leverage.

In the current environment, Microsoft is still winning in a lot of areas of business - competitive if not dominant. They have meaningful positions (but also competitors) in cloud hosting, operating systems and productivity software.

In my opinion, we're in a good place for a lot of these vectors. Cloud has Azure, AWS and GCP (though I don't know how well GCP is competing.) Operating systems have the classic gorilla in Windows, the polished closed system macOS and the persistent open source varieties of Linux. They are all meaningfully competitive.

Mobile is probably the weakest area, in my opinion. I wish Microsoft was still competing with Windows Phone here, because I don't love my Android and iOS options. They are good and they do what I need. I'm not confident I could switch between them easily (the way I am mostly confident I can switch between Windows, macOS and Linux).

(Online advertising is clearly the realm of Facebook and Google.)

I'm not sure how to summarize, but I don't think Microsoft is the same 800-pound gorilla that stuck us with Internet Explorer 6 for way too long. They'll (as long as they can) always be ambitiously seeking dominance in profitable software-related markets. They'll never be 100% charitable or philanthropic. And neither will their competitors. Is there a useful rubric or framework to think about all this?

What are personal decisions you can make that aren't too painful, but matter on the grand scale of these massive companies?

<comment><USER13> +1, and I wish more folks thought about Microsoft/Google/Amazon/etc this way. What we're seeing with Github, LinkedIn, Azure -- all the modernish MS moves -- feels more like the sleeping giant is waking up and _competing_, not like an 800-pound goliath throwing its weight around to extinguish competition. Github vs Gitlab is a _healthy_ competition, to the benefit of everyone (including MS and Gitlab!), same with Azure vs AWS vs GCP.

This is a _good_ state we're in, not a bad one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well in that case, Microsoft is really targeting developers.

VSCode, Typescript, Github, WSL, the inevitable tie into Azure...

I wonder how this all ends.

We can short circuit some of the inevitability I guess, still holding out for this: [https://panic.com/nova/](https://panic.com/nova/)

Looks like Deno already adopted Typescript, but the world doesn't have to revolve around Github.

AWS and Azure will keep each other honest.

Edit: I'll add that I really really don't think Microsoft wants to proselytize developers into it's ecosystem just to make apps for Windows. I really think they are going to try mobile again.

<comment><USER15> Not to forget LinkedIn, which is now being deeply integrated with O365, which has gained MyAnalytics (or whatever it's called) which is for all intents an automated "productivity" tracking software that aims to capture the time you're working, who you work with and how you spend your time.

I wonder when that data will be exposed on LinkedIn (hey recruiters, this guy is working late hours a lot!).

And then the eventual integration of that dystopian system with MS's developer monopoly. Now we have a truly "boring dystopia".

The worst part is: MS now has all the tools for this and more.

<comment><USER16> I've been waiting for the integration of active directory and linkedIn. It seems only a slight stretch to think of using corporate data and social data for cross-validation of true Identity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Eclipse is making open-source registry for VS Code extensions [https://open- vsx.org](https://open-vsx.org)

support it if you are afraid that MS could pull the plug on their Marketplace in a few years

</comment><comment><USER18> I'll never forget muttering that to myself when Washington state passed a law banning smoking within 25 feet of doorways, but Microsoft made it 30 feet on the signage on campus.

</comment><comment><USER19> Extinguish only works if it is a monopoly. Back in the day Microsoft had a monopoly on the PC operating system market and microsoft tried to extinguish the web. Microsoft still has lots of monopolistic practices built into the bootloader. Not sure if driver makers are forced to work only with windows these days but thats definitely the case with hololens.

It would be more interesting for microsoft to take a stance on privacy like apple.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd love to hear Torvalds' opinion on this DirectX PR. In any case, as someone who hates complexity and loves simple software (in the suckless sense), whenever I see these monstrosities get merged into the kernel, it makes me search for alternatives. There was a time when the kernel codebase was small and easily understandable by 1 person, apart from the drivers. Apparently simplicity and keeping complexity at bay is no longer a goal for Linux.

BSDs do a bit better here, but they are still behind on several metrics. Maybe this will be the main motivation for the next successful kernel? The fact the Linux simply got too big and complex?

<comment><USER21> As some of the replies on the LKML suggest ( [https://lkml.org/lkml/2020/5/19/742](https://lkml.org/lkml/2020/5/19/742) ) having this as a simple accelerator pipe, but simple in the Linux perspective of re-using as many conventions and existing infrastructure as possible, and living _not_ as a display adapter (which will surely become far more complex later) would probably work for everyone; right now.

The question is strongly dependent on future developments. With this being contributed as a GPU driver and the likely hope of this being used to run Linux applications within another OS, the question might be re-framed:

How is this addition to the Linux Kernel API going to benefit _all_ users of Linux, not just users of WSL?

Were Microsoft trying to provide a thin abstraction layer, so that drawing to a vGPU shard from windows on the application facing side of the Linux Kernel API looked like any other standard GPU under Linux, I feel it very likely everyone would feel positively about the changes.

If this were about contributing Microsoft's vGPU driver for Linux, and in so doing also implementing only Freely Implementable Industry Standards (like Vulcan, OpenGL, or maybe others that Microsoft made/makes similarly free), while also not neglecting the expected core standards for other GPU drivers, then that also seems logically acceptable for everyone.

Though my above suppositions are purely my opinion and guesses about the opinions of the maintainers for the software, while trying to think about how they approach their inherent responsibility for the long term maintenance and stability of a project they are clearly passionate about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> __Cisco has entered the chat __

</comment><comment><USER23> Saw this while scrolling Reddit, and thought it is relevant here as well.

[https://medium.com/@probonopd/microsoft-loves-linux-a- little...](https://medium.com/@probonopd/microsoft-loves-linux-a-little-too- much-cff91023e4b8)

</comment><comment><USER24> Was thinking about this earlier, saw some article about how Microsoft is trying to get Windows 10 to run Linux GUI apps.

But also Spotify! There's a strain of thought out there that the podcast ecosystem is resistant to centralization, but Spotify is making a serious go at proving this wrong.

<comment><USER25> >saw some article about how Microsoft is trying to get Windows 10 to run Linux GUI apps

I thought that exact same thing when I saw that article yesterday.

Interestingly Linux has its own corporate champion: Redhat/Poettering. Currently they're the villain in most Linux circles, but it'll be interesting to see them and MS square off, as they inevitably will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anyone have context as to why this is on the front page?

<comment><USER27> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft)

Microsoft is taking over the world. They now own Github, NPM, Citus data, LinkedIn and a ton of other companies. Not to mention they have a trojan horse on almost every new developers machine thanks to TS and VSCode, and all of the data and services that companies are trusting to them on Azure. They are poised to become a data king.

TBH... if I had a bunch of liquid cash to fuck around with I would be buying a ton of MSFT becuase my gut is telling me they are going to really take a huge slice of the open source development pie here in the next few years.

They know that is the market they need to capitalize on which is why all these acquisitions and investments are happening.

<comment><USER28> There are a lot of young developers that just have no context for what Microsoft did in the past. If you bring up their past, they say "that was so long ago" or "but they've changed!"

But public companies are not _people_.

Of course they change -- _tactics_ \-- and try to gain control again. Everything they do will in the end have to be justified to their shareholders and how it will either gain them profit either now or in the long run, and as soon as the fickle-minded shareholders change their tune, out goes Nadella, and we'll get another Balmer or worse.

<comment><USER27> I'm on the fence. I resonate with your take on things, but I also have a bit of hope in me as well. At least outwardly their optics are looking much better and brighter, but I'm not sure what the real culture is like at present day.

<comment> seph-reed Your optimism is inherently misplaced. Power is corruptive. Even if the people in power now aren't corrupted, there is no fail-safe in place to pull the plug if they ever hand off that power to someone who can't control it. It will happen, it always does.

There is historically no such thing as a trustworthy super-power unless it subsists overwhelmingly on the support of discerning people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It is strictly my personal opinion. From the WSL + Direct X announcement of today, I see the same old M$ that I knew 20 years ago. They simply learnt new tricks.

</comment><comment><USER30> Microsoft does things well. If you don't want EEE to happen, just be better than Microsoft. As a consumer we just don't care whether Microsoft is the axis of evil or something. We don't give a f. We just want things to work and work well.

<comment><USER25> If you're the "just work" type go buy Apple devices and be done with it. Not all of us want fisher-price-style products.

<comment><USER31> so apple is ok but microsoft is not? because...?

<comment><USER32> Microsoft's recent involvement to open source is currently a bigger threat to OSX than it ever was to Linux.

Users who use Linux distros are content with their overall desktop experience in the absence of closed-source libraries such as DirectX, etc. They were never the target audience Microsoft gains from embracing because not many would have felt the incentive to do so. Especially considering their efforts to port and upstream changes to the kernel, lessening the allure. Albeit not that Microsoft is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, they benefit from doing so.

Meanwhile, the Apple developer ecosystem has not made any significant strides. It has been a while since homebrew that OSX has gotten a useful developer tool, and ever since Lattner departed from both of his projects related to Swift (TF), it has slowly been losing traction.

Many Mac users choose OSX for the neat desktop experience Linux struggled to offer, and the *nix-like interface Microsoft had been missing. WSL and Microsoft's recent contributions to Linux has changed the Windows developer experience significantly, giving many previously hesitant Mac shops the nod.

<comment><USER31> I wrote this in another comment so I'm just gonna repost it here. I really don't get how is this a problem. Now you can use acceleration for ML under WSL. Great. If you don't want to do that, what's stopping you from using ML on native Linux as you're doing right now? They are not changing Linux. They are adding something to Windows. Why are you all so threatened all the time? Even if Microsoft does... idk what you think it will do, you can still use your favorite flavor of linux with the tools you want, the language you want, the framework you want.

And to quote many people from open source: you still have the source code so if there is something you don't like you can always change it and build a version that better suits your needs.

How is IBM's or Oracle's involvement in open source not a bad things? Is Oracle really someone who's suddenly ok?

From all these comments, all I see is: someone is going to build a different toy and many will want to play with that instead of this.

"Many Mac users choose OSX for the neat desktop experience Linux struggled to offer, and the *nix-like interface Microsoft had been missing. WSL and Microsoft's recent contributions to Linux has changed the Windows developer experience significantly, giving many previously hesitant Mac shops the nod." Okay, so? It's Windows. Feel free to ignore it. How does that threaten your emacs/node/c/python/gnome/tensorflow working environment?

When docker wasn't working on Windows nobody cared. Why should I have to install vmware or dualboot just because someone can't be bothered to make docker work normally on windows?

<comment><USER33> > Now you can use acceleration for ML under WSL.

Using libdxd12.so, which is closed source and works only under WSL.

> They are not changing Linux.

They are literally asking the Linux kernel to pull in their changes to add a proxy to Windows's device driver model to the Linux kernel. No changes to Windows; all changes to Linux.

> They are adding something to Windows.

Windows already has DirectX, so no, they are not adding something to Windows.

> Why are you all so threatened all the time?

Because MS has a proven track-record of screwing others over. It is only wise to heed a potential threat.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Need an alternative to Google Site Search? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.swiftype.com/2017/02/28/google-site-search-is-sunsetting-what-to-expect-and-how-to-move-on/ <comment><AUTHOR> TLDR - Google is sunsetting Site Search by the end of 2017 and replacing it with an ad-supported alternative...

</comment><comment><USER2> You might also want to take a look at Cludo, which is another alternative.</comment>


Thoughts on Restructuring the Ansible Project - <AUTHOR> https://www.ansible.com/blog/thoughts-on-restructuring-the-ansible-project <comment><USER2> The linked article [https://jpmens.net/2019/06/21/i-care-about- ansible/](https://jpmens.net/2019/06/21/i-care-about-ansible/) describes my issues with Ansible, it's still the best for what I use it for but it's started to become very painful at times and the constant "You used foo, foo was deprecated use bar" where bar is some minor variant of foo.

That and yaml but that's a battle I'm losing (I really don't like yaml) mean I'm keeping an eye on alternatives in the hope something else will arise at some point.

<comment><USER3> Speaking of deprecating, this is a fun one: [https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/56930](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/56930)</comment></comment>


The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FBI%20Letter%20to%20Schumer%20re%20FaceApp11.pdf <comment><USER2> I know it's against the rules to tell people to read the article, but I would encourage everyone to read the article. It specifically says this is a potential threat to

> _" elected officials, candidates, political campaigns, [and] political > parties"_

not to the general public. The potential threat is for someone at Candidate_1's campaign taking selfies with the app, that then uploads them to Russian servers where the Russian government can see them and can also see what's in the background (sensitive documents?) or see geo-location from the app (like how Strava was leaking the coordinates at military bases [1]) or any number of things a hostile foreign government who has already hacked American elections once and is planning to do it again might want to do with pictures that interns/staffers might think are private.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness- tracki...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app- gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases)

<comment><USER3> >The potential threat is for someone at Candidate_1's campaign taking selfies with the app, that then uploads them to Russian servers where the Russian government can see them and can also see what's in the background (sensitive documents?)

good old days just less than 20 years ago back at Sun when we were strictly instructed that the computer monitors must be off when the photos would be taken. How times and basic norms of opsec have changed - these days you just tweet the straight photo of the classified monitor screen [https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump- twe...](https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-tweets- sensitive-surveillance-image-of-iran)

<comment><USER4> Is President Trump representative of modern opsec norms?

<comment><USER3> i think it is close to it. I mean for example that FBI guy - Peter Strzok - who led investigation into Clinton's mishandling of emails was himself officially found in flagrant violations of classified information handling policies in particular for storing the classified documents on his personal unencrypted devices, etc.. Somehow i don't think that Strzok is just an exception at FBI - he spent 21 years there after all - , no, he is just the one who got caught because he attracted attention (by his anti-Trump and pro- Clinton text messages on his FBI issued phone while investigating Clinton emails and Trump-Russia collusion - speaking about opsec again :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like the FBI designated FaceApp as a threat because of its crazy data policy and its Russian origin. Even though I think it's a really shady app, that's a pretty low bar.

<comment><USER6> I think FaceApp should be hosted on an AWS-like infrastructure.

Hosting in Russia is expensive and does not provide any advantages, such as dynamic routing that is crucial for world-wide app. Most developers use it to comply with Russian standards: you only need to store information about Russian users on Russian servers. In addition, currently in Russia there are no good alternatives for reliable cloud neural network inference.

But I can't understand the negative media about the application, based on the founder's country of origin. I argue that this is discrimination because there is as yet no evidence of breach of confidentiality.

<comment><USER7> >I think FaceApp should be hosted on an AWS-like infrastructure.

>Hosting in Russia is expensive and does not provide any advantages

Hosting in top .ru DCs like Selectel is _vastly_ cheaper than on any AWS- likes. These are extremely different products though.

<comment><USER6> You might be right. It's been a while since I tired to migrate to Russian servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Plenty of chinese apps under "utility" category is flooding the us consumers...

<comment><USER9> Notably ES File Explorer was recently removed form the Google play store because of suspicious behavior. One of the most popular Android file managers.

<comment><USER10> I bought microSD reader off Amazon, which has two dongle ends, one USB type A for a computer, one Lightning, for my iPhone. According to the included instructions, it required me to download an app (from the Apple app store) to use on the the iPhone. I didn't trust the App, even with Apple's scans, so I ended up using it with my already-owned Camera Connection Kit (Lightning to USB Host) adapter just fine. The name of the app was something very similar, if not identical, to that name, which is what reminded me of it.

It seems fishy that the Apple provided Files app didn't recognized my SD card

<comment><USER11> Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken, but this is/was a limitation imposed by Apple before iOS 13. On iOS 13 (on an ipad pro at least) you can now access an SD card via files, but before that it was Photos or a bespoke app from the manufacturer only. I've not tried on an iphone recently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article does not match the headline. The FBI letter only calls it a "potential" threat, meaning maybe it is a threat, maybe not.

<comment><USER13> Yes so buyer beware. Russian government currently engaged in global disinformation campaigns, use app at your own risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how many people with a profile picture of their face on their Twitter/Facebook accounts are seriously concerned about this

<comment><USER15> Well Twitter and Facebook are American companies so it's obviously _patriotic_ to give them your image and data.

(/s)

<comment><USER16> It's certainly better than giving your face to sketchy apps from Russia or China.

<comment><USER17> It's not better to have your face or other data in a database within reach of your own government. Your government has power over you, other governments do not.

<comment><USER18> Other governments absolutely have power over you, just not always legally.

<comment><USER19> Or anywhere nearly as easily, to be fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is no threat model for an iPhone app to do nefarious things in an App Store distributed app on a non-jailbroken phone. At most, FaceApp grabs the picture you uploaded and some minor meta-data that every app using an analytics tool (read: all of them) collects.

This is political grand-standing at best, and would be a non-issue if you replaced the geographic location of the dev team with any other countries

I get it, Russia is the Big-Bad-Boogeyman right now. But if you think for a second that a real attempt at counterintelligence would publicly come from such an obvious point of interest, than I have a bridge to sell you

<comment><USER21> The threat model is that this photo is shared with the Russian government and then the Russian government can match American citizens (or potentially people working in intelligence), and then using that in facial recognition programs. I.e. they can differentiate Americans (insert x country) from their own citizens and know who to watch more carefully.

This is a legitimate threat model. I'm not sure why you think it wouldn't be. Spies and others do use fake identities. The threat model is that there is that there is a way to determine who is faking their identities.

<comment><USER20> A picture, that has no good associated data about the user, is a real threat? Heaven forbid Russia figures out how to take pictures in public places

<comment><USER21> > A picture, that has no good associated data about the user

A picture is a username... Are you trying to say that your face isn't personal identifying identification (PII)? I'm not sure what your argument is here, because it can't be that. That argument would be absurd, so I'm sure I am misunderstanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have seen countries around the world have such a response. Russia freaked out that the latest Windows phones home, USA freaked out about Kaspersky, and so on. Russia has set in motion projects to build homegrown Linux based operating systems etc. I consider all this a good thing.

Why don't we have the ability to restrict at the OS level which domains an app can send information to? Then we can finally host backend software locally on servers of OUR choice.

I would love to see more OPEN SOURCE apps running on servers of our choice, and communication over mesh networks. In fact I'd love for most functionality to be client-side and an option for ALL data sent to servers to be end-to-end encrypted at the OS level. I dont want to have to trust the APP manufacturer to pinky swear it's all end to end encrypted. The OS should have a little badge saying none of the data sent by the app is being sent in a way the server can decrypt because the OS intercepts and encrypts it with keys the app can't get. That may still leave side channels such as timing based information to tunnel through. But if we restrict what domains the app can talk to, we can close that loophole too.

That's what I would love to see ... finally put an end to server side landlords owning your data just cuz they own the infrastructure!

<comment><USER23> > Why don't we have the ability to restrict at the OS level which domains an > app can send information to?

Ads.

<comment><USER22> But Apple is a honey badger - it dont care about ads. Their whole differentiator has become privacy and putting the user first vs apps! Seems like a glorious feature for them no? Safari already leads the way with blocking ads and third party tracking cookies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Forgive me for chuckling at law enforcement in by far the world's largest exporter of consumer malware for treating a single comedy deepfakes app with so much paranoia and suspicion. How did that common saying go that was bandied around in our teenage years? Something like the person in a relationship who fears cheating the most is the one most likely to cheat

<comment><USER25> So, your logic is that since the U.S. spies on people, it means they have no credibility in calling out other people for spying on U.S. citizens?

Seems like a "pot" should have more knowledge than average on which kettles to call "black".

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure where I stated they have no credibility, only that the situation was deeply humorous

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Russian laws obligates all companies and individuals to provide government access to any data, hardware or applications upon initial request or better have backdoor. All information must be stored for minimum 5 years and provided in un-encrypted form or decryption mechanisms must be supplied.

</comment><comment><USER27> > The FBI considers any mobile application or similar product developed in > Russia, such as FaceApp, to be a _potential_ counterintelligence threat

Seems like the word "potential" is conspicuously missing from the title of the submission

</comment><comment><USER28> Seems like the only thing uploaded is your picture. I'd be curious to see what data it actually collects from your phone otherwise but just a photo feels pretty innocuous

<comment><USER29> Having a database of peoples picture is a huge asset for Russian intelligence. They can use facial recognition to enhance their visual surveillance efforts.

<comment><USER28> Seems like that information is already largely public just not linked publicly to your phone information.

<comment><USER29> Is there a public database of images of people with names? Police don't even have that.

<comment><USER30> You mean the digital equivalent of a big book full of people's names and faces? That's an exact description of Facebook.

<comment><USER29> Can Russia buy all facebooks data? How would their intelligence agency get photos and corresponding names from Facebook?

<comment><USER30> For almost all people, name and profile picture are set public. It's an incredibly tiny fraction of all the data, which is why I'm amused at all the uproar. There really is very little you can do with that information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Perhaps country of origin should be on the app store? We do this for cheese and wine and cars. Why not apps?

</comment><comment><USER32> The best measure would be for "good actors" (universities, government research agencies, the New York Times) to provide a free FaceApp-type app. It's like a weekend-hackathon of work and can be prioritized by the app stores.

<comment><USER33> That works in this particular case but is not a general solution. It's not feasible to have "good actors" rewrite clean versions of software written by "bad actors"

<comment><USER32> I see it like harm reduction of street drugs with something like methadone. Except the marginal cost is zero, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's not clear what is the potential threat this specific app introduces. A nation state can easily perform facial recognition on the majority of the human race by scraping social media.

<comment><USER9> Many foreign nation states might have access to like, 500x400 pixel photos of people. Not 12 megapixel direct front selfie camera taken photos, where the person is intentionally trying to get the highest quality photo possible.

<comment><USER35> You don't really need high res for face recognition. In fact, the high frequencies are probably noise that you'd want to remove with a low-pass filter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> When will the OPM get the same designation?</comment>


Ask HN: How much to never use a Google service again (search, gMail, YT, etc)? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Are you asking how much someone would have to pay me for me to stop? The answer's nothing, leaving Google is it's own reward.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really? You would voluntarily never use gMail, search, Maps, YouTube, Android, etc. ever again?

I know that someone would have to pay me a pretty insane amount to introduce that set of annoyances.

<comment><USER2> I've already voluntarily stopped using Google Search and Maps. (As well as Drive and several other Google products I used to use.) My contract on my last Android I'll ever make the mistake of buying is up in November, and I'm preparing to shift off of Gmail. (I've been on Gmail for ten years, so shifting to a new address is a royal pain.)</comment></comment></comment>


Crappy App Creation Strategy and $2892 in profit with no bloody idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.appincomereport.com/crappy-app-creation-strategy-and-2892-in-profit-with-no-bloody-idea/ <comment><USER2> So, wait...this guy makes money off essentially the same app repackaged n times and submitted, written by an outsourced team?

No mention of what it actually does (which leads me to believe 'not much')?

Does he target ill-informed users, or are the rest of the people suckers for trying to do one app, and do it well (thereby giving users the benefit of the doubt)?</comment>


Inside Oyster's Tech Stack - <AUTHOR> http://blog.underdog.io/post/103208090007/inside-oysters-tech-stack

<comment><AUTHOR> Some interesting nuggets:

"Oyster's backend was originally written in Python, but we're in the process of transitioning to a service-oriented architecture backed by Scala and Akka."</comment>


School Scrambles To Preserve Newly Discovered Chalkboards From 1917 - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2015/06/23/414616431/school-scrambles-to-preserve-newly-discovered-chalkboards-from-1917

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9673347](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9673347)

</comment><comment><USER3> Of course someone on Reddit already has an answer:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/38u3av/how_d...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/38u3av/how_did_this_multiplication_wheel_from_a_1917/crye1o0)</comment>