Robot Disinfects Greater Boston Food Bank - <AUTHOR> https://news.mit.edu/2020/csail-robot-disinfects-greater-boston-food-bank-covid-19-0629 <comment><USER2> I'm highly skeptical of their area coverage claims. The amount of UV-C insolation required to effectively disinfect a surface is substantial. The UVD Robots require 10-15 minutes to disinfect a single hospital room [1]; SmartGuardUV claims 1000 linear feet per 8 hours [2]; and we've modified our safety & security robots to do disinfect elevator panels, doors, & other heavy interaction points, which requires several minutes of exposure to be effective [3].

You might be able to disinfect 10,000 sqft of space in 8 hours. But the MIT robot doing 4k sqft in sub-30 minutes is highly suspect.

[1] [http://www.uvd-robots.com/](http://www.uvd-robots.com/)

[2] [http://smartguarduv.com/specifications/](http://smartguarduv.com/specifications/)

[3] [https://cobaltrobotics.com/](https://cobaltrobotics.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think anyone doubts that MIT can build a robot that can navigate a factory or that they can attach UV lights to it. It would be more compelling if they measured the efficacy of the disinfecting.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty aware of this space (I work in healthcare and did my Masters in contamination of hospital environments). There are a number of companies that sell these units specifically for patient rooms. There was one that include 4 sensors that you placed in the corners of the room. They would detect the amount of UVC light reaching them and adjust the 'clean time' to allow enough UVC to reach all corners. As for the effectiveness of UVC light on pathogens, that's pretty well known.

I suspect you are looking further, and asking if using a tool like this actually reduces infections in a place like this food bank. I suspect no. For one, coronavirus (and other resp viruses) don't live well on surfaces, especially when going from varying environments (refrigerated storage, delivery truck, someones house). Additionally our environment is covered with a lot of (mostly) harmless bacteria, such as Bacillus sp. Bacillus can be worrisome for people with no immune system, but for general population it won't do anything.

I personally think UVC equipment has utility in specific use cases, such as patient rooms, but in grocery stores, food banks etc it won't do much. In those situations, its mostly about close person to person contact.

<comment><USER5> Coronavirus stays suspended in the air for hours. UVC disinfection affects those suspended articles, which surface cleaning does not.

<comment><USER4> >Coronavirus stays suspended in the air for hours.

In controlled lab environments. Also, it likely doesn't stay in loads high enough to cause infection. Any airborne virus will be affected by volume displacement, air currents, air exchanges in addition to things like UV light from the sun, humidity and temperature changes. If I were asked to pick a disinfection method, I would not take disinfecting the air into my consideration.

<comment><USER6> There's some evidence it happens in the real world too. In the very early days of the pandemic first there was a case in China where an infected but asymptomatic person went to church and sat in a pew. That person left the church and a different person who later sat in the same spot became infected.

<comment><USER4> That case was mentioned in a popular paper with about 8 others I recall. One big issue is that they all occured pretty early on when testing wasn't so wide spread. So there's also a good chance it was just a concidence and they were actually exposed to someone else.

This is one issue with the media. That paper, with less than 10 case reports of asymptomatic and potential airborne spread was spread much more rapidly than the WHO report which reviewed ~70k Chinese cases and most spread within household contacts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is great for our time, but I worry about the long term effects on the immune system of us living in what are going to be Hyper sterilized environments everywhere we go. (And breathing ultra clean air too)

<comment><USER8> The only side effect of living cleaner so far (although this is still disputable) is not having parasites anymore and not having immunity suppressing effect they have on your system. This still is net benefit though since parasitic diseases take a toll on the body.

<comment><USER9> problem is immune system has been tuned to develop with parasites and malfunctions without them.

<comment><USER10> Hence auto-immune diseases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this robot dangerous to be exposed to? I'm under the impression that UV-C is very dangerous to eyesight.

Side note/digression: the Greater Boston Food Bank can provide somewhere between 3-4 meals for people in need per dollar donated. They are my local foodbank and I've been giving as generously as I can during COVID times. I encourage you to do the same with your local foodbank. Food banks can achieve synergies with grocery chains and food wholesalers that individuals cannot. Your dollars go a long way there!!

<comment><USER12> > I'm under the impression that UV-C is very dangerous to eyesight.

Yes, among other things. It also has negative side effects on the surface it's cleaning. But there's some interesting IP in the space to maximize the effectiveness while minimizing time and energy used. Not all UV-C is the same.

<comment><USER13> Far UVC is supposedly safe for humans.

> To continuously and safely disinfect occupied indoor areas, researchers at > Columbia University Irving Medical Center have been investigating far-UVC > light (222 nm wavelength). Far-UVC light cannot penetrate the tear layer of > the eye or the outer dead-cell layer of skin and so it cannot reach or > damage living cells in the body.

[https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/far-uvc-light-safely- kil...](https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/far-uvc-light-safely-kills- airborne-coronaviruses) ("Far-UVC Light Safely Kills Airborne Coronaviruses")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm disappointed that it's remotely driven by a human.

<comment><USER15> Humans just have to set waypoints. It's no roomba though.

<comment><USER16> Imagine that thing just fucking bumping into everything over and over to navigate....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think Far-UVC light is going to be the next generation method of general santization. Far-UVC light is neither harmful to skin nor the eyes, making it safe for general use. I don't believe it creates ozone either.

I bought a couple of UVC light bulbs early in the pandemic and used them early on but found it extremely hard to use, especially because of the ozone generated. Also because it's light, it doesn't cover everything unless you move the object around. I think there's a lot of promise though so it's something I'm looking forward to.

<comment><USER10> Line of sight of course as you mention is the big drawback compared with something like ozone which can get into nooks and crannies.

<comment><USER4> There is also vaporized hydrogen peroxide that is used to disinfect surfaces. Doesn't have the same shadow effect that UVC does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What do you think about using ozone generator to disinfect items that might have contact with the virus, like groceries or mail?

<comment><USER18> Ozone is a lung irritant and damages plastic, you've gotta be careful with using it around your home on a regular basis. Maybe inside a sealed container?

<comment><USER8> That was my thinking. I basically built something like that. I bough small ozone generator that has a pump, inlet and outlet (it was designed for bubbling ozone through water). I put both inlet and outlet inside large cardboard box and when I run it I put the whole box outside because the box is not sealed and small leaks or venting it at the end would release ozone into my apartment which as you say is lung and throat irritant. I haven't notice any damage to plastic. It may have some effect on glue on the duct tape I used to modify the box.

I'm running the generator for 10-15 minutes and then let the stuff sit in generated ozone for additional 20 minutes. But I have no idea if I'm improving my security or just performing security theater for my own amusement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Quickly gets dismantled after developing consciousness, insisting to dwell on the nuances of sexual misconduct allegations against prominent former staff member.</comment>


Snap falls to IPO price - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/06/15/snap-inc-falls-ipo-price/102892650/ <comment><USER2> $17.00 was the IPO price but only for investors with access. Your average investor with an eTrade account saw a price of $24.00+ when the market opened that morning, and it hit almost $27.00 that day. So those folks have seen a 30%+ drop since IPO.

Given that Snap paid out billions in IPO bonuses to executives and other employees, it's turned out to be a pretty big wealth transfer from retail investors to Snap employees.

<comment><USER3> Did you try to subscribe to the IPO? It was not hard at all. I'm an "average" investory with a standard Charles Schwab trading account and subscribed to it with a few clicks of my mouse. I imagine anyone else could with their brokerage. It was oversubscribed tho, so I got half the quantity I wanted and sold shortly after opening.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the info, I think my next bank account is going to be with Charles Schwab ( I was waffling between Ally and Charles Schwab, but this is a useful feature for me and a good step up from Robinhood).

<comment><USER3> I was referring to the trading account, which is independent from the bank.

Tho Charles Schwab bank accounts are useful because they refund your ATM fees.

<comment><USER5> Free checking account helps too; they sent me two boxes of checks and a checkpad with a $0 initial balance, for no fees.

And they offer you commission-free trades too if you offer to transfer in enough funds.

Great, great, place to keep your finances.

<comment><USER6> How's their mobile app on iOS?

<comment><USER7> Pretty similar to android (IMO)

<comment><USER8> Are you a Marx Brother? Sheesh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As skeptical as I am that Snap will ever be a moneymaker, this data point is not meaningful in any way. Facebook traded below (often _well_ below) its IPO price for the first 15 months on the market.

<comment><USER10> Facebook was profitable before it went public, and faced serious strategic challenges immediately post IPO (specifically, mobile was exploding and Facebook's mobile story was not good -- it didn't even have advertising).

I guess the meaningfulness of this data point is that people are dubious that SNAP will succeed long term. But that's somewhat tautological: if people thought SNAP would succeed, they'd buy it.

<comment><USER11> Facebook's mobile story 'was not good'...but it was clearly just a missing set of features in a product that was ripe for infiltrating mobile and they had the cash to buy to eventually buy instagram.

The question is whether Snapchat is fundamentally flawed or a few features away from becoming a strong company.

It just seems to me that they have too much competition against Facebook...a behemoth that's still innovating.

If some company came out with a cool twist on search after Google, I'd be bearish on them as well.

<comment><USER12> How exactly have they been innovating in the last 5 years? They bought Instagram and WhatsApp and added SnapChat features to them

<comment><USER11> They're still an innovative company. They have one of the world's strongest engineering organizations and an executive team that has the vision to jump into new, hot areas. By all measures they're still innovative especially for their size...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Financially it does not matter for the founders that much anymore. Significant wealth has already been transferred and cashed out:

[http://www.nasdaq.com/quotes/insiders/spiegel- evan-1016829](http://www.nasdaq.com/quotes/insiders/spiegel-evan-1016829)

<comment><USER14> There are only a handful of people on the planet that could reasonably claim that $1.4 billion doesn't matter that much to them (and none of them are likely to actually hold that belief).

It's an absurd premise to claim that 80%-90% of someone's wealth does not matter much to them. Not to mention implying all sorts of horrible things about their character in the process (to claim what you are, is identical to claiming that Spiegel is ok with losing that money as opposed to keeping it and doing something good with it, that he would feel indifferent to the contrast of said scenario).

<comment><USER5> I believe the point is more about the marginal utility of wealth and what additional products and services $1.4 billion can buy relative to the $250+MM net worth they have now.

<comment><USER15> $250 million means I need to fundraise to build my spaceship. With $1.4 billion, I can get started on a Dyson sphere. Depends on your goals.

<comment><USER16> If you think you can completely encompass a star for quarter the price of an aircraft carrier, damn what's your secret? :)

<comment><USER17> You just have to build one little robot capable of building another robot out of lunar regolith.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What does $SNAP need to do to deliver on the hype? Is there anything that can make $SNAP a good investment for anyone other than the parties involved in trading the IPO?

I tend to be bearish on $SNAP in general, but I'm interested in the discussion. How do they right the ship and boost back up to that $25-30 range? What's their play?

<comment><USER19> +1 this. I've asked multiple people and ideas are mostly mixed on what Snap's strategy should be going forward. Being a social app will definitely be a difficult play. IMO they could try to leverage their AR expertise to do, well, something. But social definitely seems like it will be tough.

Good luck to the team though. It must be a stressful time there.

<comment><USER20> The fact that no one is responding with ideas tells you what you need to know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Pardon my language but: no fucking shit. $20bil was _unbelievably_ overpriced.

This is the one major tech stock that I simply do not _get_. ~$125 a user is insane.

<comment><USER3> Facebook is >$200 per user.

<comment><USER22> Facebook grew so much, almost everyone has it and its use cases are versatile (and therefore the data collected). Snapchat is really just used by younger folks with almost no financial power for chatting in the weirdest way.

<comment><USER23> Like nick, I'm close to 30 years old too. Snap is big in all my social circles. Mostly people between mid 20s to early 30s. Less popular the older you get, but still significant. Regardless, all have enough buying power.

Even if Snap never gets much traction past people in their 30s, that's enough of a market to expand for quite a while. The 18-34 demographic is the most coveted. The pre-teen and teen market isn't something to completely sneeze at either.

<comment><USER24> Popular does not mean profitable! I feel like the tech industry has confused the two over and over again.

<comment><USER23> Of course. But getting popular is an important part of being a big social media company. Profits of $100M on under $1B in revenue isn't going to help things much for Snap if that's not growing because they don't have enough users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think Snap's stock price will continue to fall (to under $10) and then at some point it'll be acquired, possibly by an asian company or investment group.

</comment><comment><USER15> Lock-up expires 29 August [1]. On the other hand, they have $3.2bn of cash and short-term investments (as of 31 March) while burning about $600MM of cash from their operations (FYE 31 December 2016) a year. That's 5 years to get it right.

EDIT: insider lock-up at T+150 comes in at the end of July.

[1] [http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/snap- inc-899497-8...](http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/snap- inc-899497-82723)

<comment><USER26> > Lock-up expires 29 August [1].

Its actually the end of July for the first and most important IPO lockup expiry.

> The first key lock-up date for Snap will occur roughly 150 days following > the IPO. At that point, pre-IPO investors, such as company insiders, will be > allowed to sell their shares. The second major lock-up date applies to 25% > of the shares that were offered in the IPO itself. Of the 200 million total > IPO shares, 50 million of the shares will be restricted for one year.

<comment><USER27> Founding team cashed out pre-IPO for hundreds of millions each.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think it is safe to say that the IPO was a total scam. The company was never profitable, and numbers never made any sense.

I have a bridge in Brooklyn up for grabs (cheap) if you still think the valuation was based on ridiculous data points such as active users, etc.

People already lined their pockets up and you will be reading another P.R piece on how great of a businessman Evan is within the next couple of months.

Spend all of the funding on aggressive marketing to get the numbers up pre- IPO, file for an IPO and cash out. Rinse & repeat.

<comment><USER29> Is it really a scam if there was no deception and every buyer knew what they were getting into?

<comment><USER30> is pyramid scheme a scam?

<comment><USER31> Yes, people that buy into them are just dumb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not sure this is really news worthy.

They've been heavily shorted for a while now and their puts are expensive. But really 1 Billion new shares could flood the market in just a few more weeks.

To put it in perspective I believe Twitter, the other poster child for giving away options, had about half that amount.

Even the IPO underwriters are starting to crack. Credit Suisse used the stock drop to keep an "outperform" rating on the stock while lowering its target from $30 to $25.

IMHO Snap will do just fine for hte next year. They are big enough that companies will carve out a piece of their marketing budgets for Snap. It won't be until a year later when they have enough data on how well their Snap advertising is working that they'll decide if its worth it or not.

</comment><comment><USER32> Following snapchats fluctuations about its stock price is somewhat interesting . To be honest though I'm getting fatigued on this. I remember when Facebook IPOed and we were getting similar posts. The fact that Snap was able to IPO and get money to become more competitive will have to wait for a few quarters though.

<comment><USER33> I think the situation is not comparable at all precisely because Facebook did not have a larger network strangulating their growth.

I wonder if there is any precedent for a social network (or any large application for that matter) having their growth stalled to single-digits and then it picking up again.

To me, it looks like there is a very real possibility that facebook already killed them in the sense that they will never go beyond 250 million or so users, which does not support their valuation. So share-wise, they might end up a second Twitter, just with a much faster turnaround this time because user growth has already come to a grinding halt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> i wonder if the community realizes how bad those kind of overhyped companies makes us look to the general audience, with founders cashing out shortly after the stock gets public and everybody realizes valuation were simply absurd.

i don't think we'll have to wait for a long time before we see traditional investment funds and banks not willing to take part in that game anymore.

</comment><comment><USER35> snapchat baffles me. It's just another instant messaging platform except that they came up with the idea of messages that delete themselves after a time period. The problem is that this killer feature is easily subverted by taking a picture of your screen. So basically, they have provided an instant messaging platform with one extra useless feature.

<comment><USER18> More to the point, this "killer feature" is easily cloned by a competitor and shows that the product creates no competitive barriers. Coupled with the fact that the cloner has a much better idea of their users and can target ads much more successfully, this creates a long road for $SNAP.

<comment><USER36>
      More to the point, this "killer feature" is easily cloned by a competitor

... which is why I was skeptical of Groupon's value from the outset.

<comment><USER18> And much has been written of that, and that's exactly the same way I feel about Uber.

(And every time I mention that about Uber on HN, people point out that _they_ can get Uber in any city in the world, so why would anyone who never travels use anything else?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> With no knowledge other than using the app and from general bar talk, I saw this as a huge flop. I wish I shorted it. It may have potential, but I don't see what that potential is when their features are so incredibly easy to mimic. And no, SnapChat, I don't care what Puff Daddy did with Beyonce or whatever it is their news feed tells me.

</comment><comment><USER38> As an excercise for the reader, would be interesting to test the performance of a buy and hold strategy of stocks a.) Going below IPO price, b.) Going below 50% IPO price. A second filter that can be applied is the time span between first day of trading of such event.

</comment><comment><USER39> I can't understand what are they doing to not make any profits. They are selling ads. Server resources to exchange the pictures are a minor cost, so where is all that ad money going to?

If they stopped wasting money on development time making their UX even worse, or stupid stuff like Spectacles, or this: [https://www.recode.net/2017/6/17/15824222/snapchat-ferris- wh...](https://www.recode.net/2017/6/17/15824222/snapchat-ferris-wheel-cannes- ad) \- maybe they would actually be making profits right now.

<comment><USER40> They have 1-5K employees. Even if you take a median salary of $40K, that's $40-200M/year. That's just the salaries with no taxes/overhead and no consideration that IT salaries are generally much higher.

<comment><USER41> Snapchat has 2000 employees roughly. But why?

And why does twitter need 4000 employees?

What do they all do?

edit: n/m. Their job postings are quite telling.

[https://www.snap.com/en-US/jobs/](https://www.snap.com/en-US/jobs/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEli06ID6t8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEli06ID6t8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> For your consideration, not a single share purchased is a voting share. SNAP's shares should be closer to $13.

<comment><USER43> I'm curious, why $13? Why not worthless? (I don't believe they should be worthless, but I'm curious how you decided on the precise middle ground)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> maybe twitter should buy them

</comment><comment><USER45> Invest in the things you love and use most! What could go wrong?!

<comment><USER37> but dikpiks can only get you so far, no matter how wonderful we all collectively think they are. I think this was L.A.'s attempt at a Silicon Valley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> All my friends are turning off their Snapchat account to keep using Instagram that does the same + better photo features.

</comment><comment><USER47> Is is much below the IPO price now

currently 15/62 but trending lower

This is before the lockup period ends when ususal new stocks drop

</comment><comment><USER48> Based on revenue and flat growth, the company is worth about $4 a share. If it get's to that price I'll think about buying in, if and only if i think the company is going to turn it around.

I've made good money waiting for the time to be right before buying in. This stock is worthless above $8 a share.

<comment><USER49> Why not making money in the meantime going short?</comment></comment>


Stop doing lists - <AUTHOR>

I didn't much care for the book "Good to Great", but one of the good ideas is to have "stop doing" list.  I think that can be tough for the intellectually curious. <comment><AUTHOR> Here's my current list of things I have going on. I know there are too many of them, but it's hard to get rid of things... What do you guys think?

\- Hecl - scripting language for J2ME, mobile phones. I think this is the coolest thing I've done in some ways, but one of the least likely to be profitable (no one makes money selling languages).

\- Linux Incompatibility List - leenooks.com - a list of hardware that _doesn't work_ with Linux.

\- LinuxSi.com - List of stores in Italy that sell computers with Linux, or at least without Windows.

\- Rivet - <http://tcl.apache.org/rivet> \- this one's mostly on the way out in terms of my involvement, but I still have some obbligations.

\- ShopList - <http://shoplist.dedasys.com> \- a shopping list app for mobile phones that some people seem to like a lot, because it's done right (data entry is via the web, not the phone).

\- Squeezed Books - startup idea that's basically as far as I'm going to take it without an uptick in interest.

\- Stuff to Do - a time tracker/todo list that's now open source. Not really going anywhere at this point.

\- Tcl book - book on the Tcl programming language that's in its advanced stages. I'm really torn about this one - Tcl isn't going anywhere, but publishing a book would be cool.

<comment><USER2> I like Squeezed Books a lot. You should promote it more.

You're right, Tcl isn't going anywhere. Finish quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> But you can't or shouldn't cross things off the list, right?

Or is this just eliminating things that you do now? That would make it a "stop doing list"

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops, you're right, I fixed it.</comment></comment>


Nerve transfer restores hand function, elbow extension in paralyzed patients - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190704191425.htm <comment><USER2> Whenever I see a post like this I am struck by the huge disparity in our grasp of (and ability to treat) different types of human ailments. Are you a tetraplegic? Don't worry, we will just literally rewire your nervous system to give you functioning limbs again. Do you have tiny tumor in your pancreas? Sorry, you won't know about it for a while, and when you do your only recourse is for a surgeon to cut out half of your digestive system and then we'll inject literal poison into your body with the hope that you die in 1 year instead of 3 months.

I know, there are plenty of reasons that certain diseases have been harder to crack, but the disparity always seems so striking. This nerve transfer study seems so incredible and futuristic, and yet there is still so far to go.

<comment><USER3> The autonomic dysfunction (including the super-horrible autonomic dysreflexia events) would still occur in higher level spinal cord injuries, including in people with higher level paraplegia and more commonly in quadraplegia, in the case of nerve transfer. It is not as good as it sounds, as autonomic dysreflexia occurs in up to 90% of people with injures above T6, to varying degrees. The autonomic ganglia (which runs adjacent to the spinal cord, and consists of a different type of nerve) controls this, not the spinal cord. You simply cannot do a nerve transfer for the autonomic nervous system without just about dying. By the way, trust me, autonomic dysreflexia is actually one of the worst feelings in the world.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_dysreflexia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_dysreflexia)

<comment><USER4> Is this the phenomenon that paralyzed athletes exploit to increase performance?

<comment><USER5> Yes.

I had a friend who broke his toes repeatedly to do so before track events. I had another friend in physical rehab that used to purposely sit on his own testicles to trigger an AD fit for the same purpose.

It's a pretty terrible feeling, but I guess if there is a strong enough desire to win you can put yourself through whatever you need to. I've gone through a lot of shit medically, but AD and the accompanying loss of blood pressure and uptick in heart-rate is one of the closest to "feeling like i'm going to die" i've ever been.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Same here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Frankly, as somebody with 2 rare autoimmune nerve diseases (affecting my peripheral nervous system), who is disabled, I am not excited about this news.

Do they have any sort of residual neuropathic pain, either from their injury or the procedure? What sort of functional limitations do they have? Did their autonomic dysfunction improve (extremely unlikely to improve with a nerve transfer procedure, as described above)? Etc., etc.

I am sure this is more heartwarming than anything else. I am perfectly OK with being disabled, and I just wish society would accept us for who we are (as disabled people). I am tired of people in tech posting "inspirational" stories in general about "overcoming disabilities" or "making our lives better" (because "we suffer so much"), without any sort of interview or input from the disabled person. We are always portrayed as objects, and are never at the center of the story, and if we are, we are still the object because it is about making a gerry-rigged mobility device with a high school robotics team with Home Depot materials because our insurance refused to pay for something medically necessary.

The most famous example of a "heartwarming story" about the disabled is wheelchairs that climb stairs (that probably are not safe to use in the rain or on carpeted stairs), that cost tens of thousands of dollars and have huge design constraints (which are almost never mentioned). Plus, if you knew how US insurance reimbursed wheelchairs (which should be classified as a prosthetic device, versus an orthotic device), you would be absolutely appalled. I would not hold my breath on insurance reimbursement for a procedure like nerve transfer anytime soon, either.

To me, this is another variant of techno-ableism: [https://techanddisability.com/2017/11/11/technoableism- cybor...](https://techanddisability.com/2017/11/11/technoableism-cyborg- bodies-and-mars/)

<comment><USER6> > They can now perform everyday tasks independently such as feeding > themselves, brushing teeth and hair, putting on make-up, writing, handling > money and credit cards, and using tools and electronic devices.

Would that not be worth it?

<comment><USER3> The way this news is portrayed, as "heartwarming", does nobody favors.

The autonomic dysreflexia, which people with tetraplegia are almost guaranteed to have, is literally one of the worst feelings in the world. I promise you, and I have experienced it firsthand. This cannot be resolved by the nerve transfer.

It's not about worth or function-It's about perspective and how things have changed for them. That is what really matters. Nobody ever interviews the disabled people who participate in these sorts of things, and limitations are almost never honestly described in these circumstances. If you do not recognize the hypocrisy, then I do not know what to say.

By just portraying it as heartwarming news, it does no favors for people who are actually going through things like this. By the way, it is not at all heartwarming for us. We also cannot make informed decisions off of articles like this, and it is harmful because the bar is either set really high for us --or really low.

Our lives are tied more to "what we are worth" far more than the abled-bodied. I could go into it more but I don't want to write a really long winded post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's really heartwarming to have progress in this field of medicine! I feel anxious just imagining being unable to move my arms.

But there's a catch:

> Despite these achievements, nerve transfer surgery still has some > limitations. For the best results nerve transfers should ideally be > performed within 6-12 months of injury.

I hope this method will progress to have a much longer span of time allowing this surgery.

<comment><USER8> >I hope this method will progress to have a much longer span of time allowing this surgery.

I think it becoming cheap/common enough that 6-12mo is not a limitation in practice would be a far better outcome.

<comment><USER9> The problem isn't with treating new injuries. There are a lot of paraplegics in the world today who were injured a long time ago, and it would be nice to fix them...

A much harder problem, I'm afraid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I was injured in 1991, they transplanted nerve sheaths from my leg to my arm with the hope nerves would regrow. Some actually did an I regained some sensation and movement.

That was considered pretty good at the time. I wonder how much better off I'd be if I'd been injured today instead.

</comment><comment><USER11> How exactly does a nerve transfer work? I always imagined that certain control and reception signals would have their dedicated nerve connections, such that rewiring from a transplanted nerve would jumble up the wiring and give 'incorrect' results.

<comment><USER12> Even if the result is incorrect at first, the brain is adaptable and will simply remap to correct the bad wiring.

There are videos on youtube of people who put on googles that invert the view of the world upside down. After a few weeks/months of adaption, they can live in that condition as normal.

<comment><USER13> I seem to have awareness that people have redirected the auditory and visual cortexes as an experiment and found that sight and hearing were recovered eventually?

Unfortunately I can't find a source to verify this so hoping someone with better knowledge could confirm that this is just how plastic the brain can be?

<comment><USER14> You may be thinking of this experiment on ferrets: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1527604/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1527604/)

<comment><USER13> Yes this is along the right lines - thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Australian surgeons attached functioning nerves above the spinal injury to paralysed nerves below the injury."

How was that done, exactly? Were they just sort of clamped together? Some sort of special bonding device that encouraged synapse formation?

<comment><USER16> Might have been a neuragen tube.

I had one of these placed in my hand after I severed the nerves in one of my fingers... It took about 1 year before I regained any feeling and 2 before I regained maximum nerve use.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920394/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920394/)

<comment><USER17> Roughly how close was max nerve use to how it was before the accident? 60%? 80%?

<comment><USER16> It's hard to gauge, but...

* Before the accident the nerve was 100% (undamaged)

* Immediately after it was 0% (could not feel anything - including the sensation of heat)

* 1 year after ~20% (could feel the sensation of heat and firm presses)

* 2 years to now ~70% (could feel heat and soft presses)

I still only type with 7 of 8 fingers on the keyboard because I have a hard time determining the location of that one finger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Good reference book is The Body Electric. Except it's about regrowing limbs.

<comment><USER19> Seconded, awesome book about human tissue regeneration.

Michael Levin's lab is doing mindblowing stuff: "What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous System"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736698)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What I remember from biology class is that nerve cells are very long (up to ~1 meter) and when they are cut they die.

I wonder how they transferred nerves given that.

If someone know and can explain I'd be very thankful !

<comment><USER21> Not all types of nerve cells are the same size. Some are several feet long, but some are only millimeters long. I assume this technique must make use of the shorter ones that survive?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Probably the most uplifting news I read these last times. I cant imagine what these people must have felt when they got this new arm.

</comment><comment><USER23> Woah, like transfer learning in neural nets.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is magical, science shall cure all ills.</comment>


How many YC companies have been working on mobile startups? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Odds of succeeding in mobile software market are extremely low. You have a better chance of winning a state lottery than seeing your company create a mobile soft product that gains wide acceptance. If you're a startup thinking about going into that area, don't! One of the rules of startups should be: "Thou shall not waste time trying to write mobile software apps". But, alas, every month, some people jump into it and some investors who should know better fund them.

Even with all the VC money, recent history is full of startups that tried and failed in mobile soft market. Successes are almost non-existent and those that are still alive, are zombies. Stay away from walled gardens... you cannot win. You cannot rule somone else's sandbox. The networks are their property and they hold all the keys. Even if you win the lotto and you enter their network, they can boot you and lock you out anytime they wish. And they will.

More here: <http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2006/06/opengardens_wal.html>

<comment><USER3> Tides are changing though. Take a look at VoIP and Wi-Fi equipped cell phones. The combination scares the HELL out of the carriers. But market pressures are leaving them no choice but to accept this is what users want.

Then there's WiMAX and the other "last mile" broadband initiatives. Carriers are no longer the only ones who hold the key.

Its not a matter of if mobile devices will be the viable application development platform, its a matter of when and how. Startups attacking these issues and their investors are not wasting their time.

<comment><USER2> "Take a look at VoIP and Wi-Fi equipped cell phones."

Oh, I have. Big problem with those is that WiFi is treated as just another carrier channel and you still have to figure out how to install your software on a closed-off cell phone. First of all, carier are very picky about what they allow on their networks. They will tell you that they do that to protect their networks from malicious software and to protect their consumers' phones from draining their batteries too quickly.

"The combination scares the HELL out of the carriers. But market pressures are leaving them no choice but to accept this is what users want."

They're not scared. They're just playing the embrace, extend and extinguish strategy. Recent announcement by T-Mobile and UMA support shows what game their playing: <http://gigaom.com/2007/05/03/t-mobiles-wifi-cellular-summer/> MetroFi deployments have been a failure so far. Earthlink has stopped responding to RFCs from cities. They realized that no one is willing to pay for WiFi. That means that free wifi spots are going to be the norm in the future. Problem is that these wifi spots are not very reliable and the range is awful. Look at the popularity of EVDO as an example why (metro)WiFi has been a disappointment so far.

"Then there's WiMAX and the other "last mile" broadband initiatives. Carriers are no longer the only ones who hold the key."

You still need spectrum for WiMax. Which startup has $100mm to buy some spectrum for WiMax?

"Startups attacking these issues and their investors are not wasting their time."

I'm not saying it's an impossible problem but what I am saying is that your chances of success are very low indeed. You have a much higher chance of success by making your software work over open networks such as Internet than trying to crack a walled garden.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know of a reference list for sending _from_ SMS _to_ email on various carriers/platforms? There are all kinds of resources for sending email to SMS (generally involving sending it to (phone number)@(carrier address.com)), but I haven't been able to find a cross-carrier reference for going the other way.

On my T-Mobile service, for instance, I have to send an SMS to "phone number" 500, with the email address, subject, and body of the message separated by appropriate delimiters. How does it work on other carriers?

<comment><USER5> simply "wikipedia" email to sms gateway and you will see all results. This option is fine, but if you use it too much, you will considered spammer. So if you are trying to build a lasting business, be careful with it.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, but I'm looking for instructions for going the other way. The Wikipedia article (at least the one I found) has good information for sending email _to_ cell phones, but that information is all over the place.

What I need is a comprehensive, cross-carrier list for sending email _from_ cell phones. I've found this information for a few carriers, but it's not complete by any means. For instance, it looks like Cingular (U.S.) and Rogers (Canada) use the same method as T-Mobile (U.S.), just using a different number (500 for T-Mobile, 121 for Cingular, and 0000000000 for Rogers).

I may have to devote a few days to digging out this information by hand from the carrier web sites. If I do, I'll add it to the Wikipedia article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> From what we could tell from our brief interview, the YC gang didn't seem very enthusiastic about installed cell phone apps. They cited the amount of capital required to strike deals with the carriers as one of the negatives for small startups. I'm sure they know from first hand experience if this is the case or not so I wont debate that. My opinion though is that users will install apps anyway if they want them, regardless of what their contract says.

<comment><USER6> a business model that depends on people explicity breaking their wireless phone contracts, can only work if there is some negatiating edge, which force the telecoms to negotatiate with you. I.E. if your product somehow allows the telecoms to make money, and once the telecoms discover your product makes money, there has to be some reason its hard for the telecoms to indepandtly reproduce your product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> loopt, textpayme, heysan, the guys building the open source language for mobile apps - 4 so far. Any more?

</comment><comment><USER8> Somebody needs to create a replacement for voicemail. They should be downloaded to your phone passively. You should be able to browse your voicemail like text messages, listen to them instantly or delete them. Is something like that even possible?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.spinvox.com/> may be what you're after: _"Service that converts voicemails into mobile phone SMS text messages and emails"_

<comment><USER8> That's actually pretty cool. But it'd be better if they were just audio files you could browse through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious, how many YC companies have been working on mobile apps and how have they done? Also is anyone else on news.YC working on mobile apps/web?

<comment><USER9> you mean mobile apps or mobile services?

we (heysan) are building a mobile messaging services, but the guys at iminlikewithyou have done a great mobile integration too.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just checked out the iilwy mobile interface and its slick. It's perfectly designed for "I'm bored now" momments.

I'm interested in bth 'pure' mobile startups and those who have mobile as just a feature in a bigger service (dopplr for example).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thou shall not waste time trying to write mobile software apps". But, alas, every month, some people jump into it and some investors who should know better fund them.

twitter and jaiku are mobile startups, right?

and also: <http://paulgraham.com/fixrazr.html>

<comment><USER2> This was directed at me so I shall reply...

Twitter and Jaiku do not _run_ on cell phones. You do not have to install anything to use them. They use SMS gateway which anyone can setup (if you have $50K+ a month to pay for the traffic, that is). My post was about apps which you have to _install_ on a phone! There's a huge difference between the two approaches.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm counting SMS/MMS/ivr apps (82ask, twitter, radar, 411 free), mobile apps(jaiku,gmail) and mobile web (cant think of any :S) all as mobile startups.

I've noticed that most of the popular, succesful mobile startups use just sms/mms and a counterpart web site currently. Perhaps we shall see them 'evolve' as the years pass as mobile apps and then mobile web become familiar to 'regular' mobile users. Users will look back at the day you had to remember text commands and shortcodes just like we now look back at the command prompt.

For now I agree, apps are a pain and you should stick to the most well know interface of sms when you can. The 'fun' stuff needs apps but the chance of success is a lot lower currently.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I published in a predatory journal - <AUTHOR> http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49071/title/Opinion--Why-I-Published-in-a-Predatory-Journal/ <comment><USER3> There's a expose like this every couple of years, but nothing ever changes. My adviser told me entertaining stories of pranksters putting fake articles into CS journals from "The Austrian Naval Academy". I suspect one reason things don't change much is that the publishing game is shades of grey all the way up to the best publications - a third-tier journal won't publish complete gibberish, but you certainly might be able to get some pretty shallow stuff into it and I would be very surprised if anyone, say, checked the references or reality-tested the results.

<comment><USER4> I know it's funny now because Austria is landlocked but back when it controlled Croatia they did have a naval academy near Rijeka. It's where Captain von Trapp went (from Sound of Music)

<comment><USER3> Yes indeed, there was a substantial Austro-Hungarian Navy. I wound up reading a decent amount about this when I went looking for an on=line account of my adviser's story. Still, I suspect the Austrian Naval Academy was not a powerhouse of computer science research at the time...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've spent basically zero time in academia. I've heard the phrase 'publish or perish', and I know the evils of Elsevier, and the popularity of sci-hub - <USER2> that's about it.

How are these guys making money? Is it just the 'editing fees' for people trying to publish? Presumably advertisers are savvy enough to not throw money at these types of journals? Proper scientists / researchers are (hopefully) also not easily fooled - and whoever peer reviewed this article (assuming it actually was peer reviewed, as claimed) won't want their name attached to the publication.

These stories come up often enough to suggest it's a well known problem, and the culprits are easy enough to identify. But that these stories _do_ keep coming up suggests there's good money being made somehow, and attempts to thwart these publications are failing.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it is the editing fees. Nth-tier universities in many countries are pushing faculty members to publish more. This is all done with the best intentions -- we all want faculty at the cutting edge of research. So many of these universities offer financial incentives of various sorts to faculty who publish more. For instance, they may tie pay hikes or promotions to the number of publications. There's often grant money available for research (and publication) to support these activities.

This has led to the inevitable unintended consequences. Most of these faculty members do not have the resources or the ability to publish in "real" journals, nor do they even understand what a good journal is. So they publish in whatever venue that accepts their paper. If it requires them to pay, then so be it. And thanks to the beauty of capitalism, a bunch of predator journals have emerged to lighten the purses of these poor folks.

<comment><USER7> It seems odd to call the journal "predatory" in this situation. Who is it preying on? The person who got rejected from a journal with standards but still wanted to keep his job?

<comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open_access_publishi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open_access_publishing#Characteristics):

 _" Complaints that are associated with predatory open-access publishing include

Accepting articles quickly with little or no peer review or quality control, including hoax and nonsensical papers.

Notifying academics of article fees only after papers are accepted.

Aggressively campaigning for academics to submit articles or serve on editorial boards.

Listing academics as members of editorial boards without their permission, and not allowing academics to resign from editorial boards.

Appointing fake academics to editorial boards.[34] Mimicking the name or web site style of more established journals.

Misleading claims about the publishing operation, such as a false location.

Improper use of ISSNs.

Fake or non-existent impact factors."_

One could say they prey on society's trust in science.

<comment><USER7> Ah, then society's trust in science should be warned to watch out.

Or perhaps the metaphor is misapplied?

<comment><USER9> > Ah, then society's trust in science should be warned to watch out.

Perhaps you've noticed an alarming rise in society's distrust in science, perhaps partly exacerbated by an increase in poorly peer-reviewed publications.

<comment><USER10> No, that's mostly a result of global warming denialism paid for by fossil fuel companies, vaccine denialism pushed by chancers like Andrew Wakefield, and the _completely awful_ state of media pop-science.

<comment><USER11> You forgot anti-GMO horror stories paid by agriculture and "organic food" companies.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure on this one; I suspect there's a lot of "media management" going on by Monsanto, as well as a lot of activists who are under-informed on the technology. Personally I thought that Big Ag was in favour of GMO and that organic food wasn't big enough to fund a disinformation campaign.

<comment><USER12> If a local producer is getting outpriced by a foreign company with more resources, turning it into "stop importing harmful GMOs" issue is rather convenient.

<comment> castle-bravo GMO is not inherently unsafe, nor is it inherently safe. Plants can be engineered to produce additional nutrients and better withstand drought, but they can also be engineered with insecticidal proteins that may be harmful to humans. This is perfectly analogous to pharmaceuticals. If someone said "ban all pharmaceuticals", we'd agree that they're crazy, but the correct response is not "pharmaceuticals are perfectly safe". Some pharmaceuticals are perfectly safe. Some are deadly poisons. GMOs need to go through an evaluation process before being approved for the open market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been drafting a P2P app to (legitimately) share publications without intermediaries. Authenticity and traceability of all data - including metadata such as tags to represent peer approval - are supported using PGP cryptography. If anyone is interested to at least provide a critique to the code (it's my pet project so it's also rife with "let me try this new framework" syndrome) please give me a ping. If you want to contribute yay!

<comment><USER14> Peer approval at respected journals is anonymous: the writer doesn't know who the reviewers are. Sometimes the reviewers don't even know the identity of the author. How does your system allow for that? PGP signatures do not permit anonymity.

<comment><USER15> They're anonymous but after the reviews the authors are then usually (always?) revealed to the reviewers. Let's not kid ourselves though, academia, and especially in smaller subfields, is made up of small communities where you can usually guess whose paper you're reviewing unless it's a brand new contribution in a field by someone who doesn't usually publish there. You can often guess who the review was performed by too, since the program committee is always public.

<comment><USER16> You could implement something like Certificate Transparency's "precertificates" where you store a hash of the digital signature in a public Merkle tree, so during review the reviewer's identity isn't known. But once the paper is published, the actual signature can also be published and checked against the review hashes in the paper. If they're missing or inconsistent, treat the paper as unreviewed.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like a good approach

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> With all this hubbub about 'fake news' \- 'fake science' may be even more dangerous.

<comment><USER18> This has got to be how anti-vaxers obtain their "peer reviewed", "scientific" studies...

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately Wakefield's paper that essentially kicked off the "MMR vaccine controversy" was published by the Lancet. They eventually retracted but enormous damage was done (including deaths apparently).

<comment><USER20> For the unknowing, the Lancet was at the time this paper was published considered to be a top-tier medical journal; the equivalent of Nature or Science for medicine.

I cannot speak to its prestige now, however. I'm sure that its reputation was somewhat damaged by publishing this paper but I imagine it's still considered a "good" journal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I worked for one of these outfits for a summer job. I needed the money and they seemed alright on the outside.

There was a strange obsession regarding looking official and academically legitimate, to the point where they would attempt to recruit professors to do the peer-reviewing, then override what they said in the final "edit" stage of the review and approve the submission anyway. Since it was anonymous, there was no way to tell if "Reviewer 3" was actually bumped or just that someone else got to that submission first.

That said, their business model was a bit different. They weren't open-access: they made their money selling conferences (which were mandatory to attend if you wanted your paper to actually get published in the journal).

Often, they would resell gifts from the venue such as comped hotel rooms and airport shuttles at above market prices to the attendees as well as part of a "package." As well, the venues usually also matched where-ever the founder wanted to go on vacation.

Out of paranoia as much as cost-cutting, they ran the offices very lean and centralized authority in the founder and his family. They probably would have had a more successful operation had they gotten good lieutenants who were better capable of maintaining the facade. My local university used to warn people off of publishing with them by name, which I thought was a remarkable step considering the precarious state of Canadian libel law.

Other staff was mostly early-stage "green card"-esque workers who they would hold the threat of dismissal over their heads (forcing those workers to rush to get a new job before they timed out and had to leave the country) and students like myself.

The year before I got there, they had a major publicity crisis in which they took substantial heat in academic circles for basically auto-publishing plagiarized articles from anybody with an email address. Part of my work was integrating one those "turn it in" style plagiarism detectors into their submission funnel.

By the end of the summer they were in deep with the tax authorities from a backlog of unpaid taxes; the founder bragged to me that he considered paying corporate income tax a kind of "game" in which the penalties for losing were insubstantial. I'm sure by now the penalties have grown in seriousness, though the last time I looked them up they still seem to be publishing journals and hosting conferences.

It was a good lesson for me about what to look out for in the future when trying to select a small business/team to work for.

<comment><USER22> > which I thought was a remarkable step considering the precarious state of > Canadian libel law.

Taking a University to court for calling you a fraud only gives the University a great opportunity to prove it in a public court room :)

Also you can probably interview current and former employees, like yourself. Not to talk about the presumably long list of sketchy things published, which should be sufficient on its own.

If you want to maintain some illusion of legitimacy, suing a University isn't going to get you far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Journals are flooded in a way you would never believe if not spending a day on the other side of the desk. Many papers are presumptuous and preposterous at best, from developing countries but also from reputed institutions. The model is clearly flawed and the ecosystem saturated, there are a small number of institutions being accepted by default and a lot of the other not being given any sniff in. I am not sure how to rectify this distortion, predatory journals being one effect more than a cause: you can't stop shit / compilative / small incremental papers being put forward and spammed if not charging them a fee? The more you charge, the more probable they desist. Point is such money should be reinvested into the ecosystem, not drained out by greedy publishing corps imho.

<comment><USER24> > you can't stop shit / compilative / small incremental papers being put > forward

There's a place for literature review papers. They can be good starting points or useful for catching up with recent state of the art.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What people don't realize is that it is YOUR responsibility to make your research any good. Peer review won't significantly improve your research, and btw it is very rarely constructive criticism, and it certainly doesn't make you feel you and reviewer are in the same team (but you should be in a perfect world). So what the author of original article confirmed here is that he can falsify results, his name, etc. But that's ON HIM!

</comment><comment><USER26> Wow! There are multiple wars against science, exploiting "science". There seems to be a strong need for some service that can flag fake news, fake research, etc. in facebook, google and others.

The government which funds the vast majority of scientific research should insist that real research is freely accessible not in these gated journals that are ridiculously expensive (as much as $25k/year for a single subscription)...so that there was an easy way to access real scientific research.

Incidentally a similar stunt was pulled with a humanities journal several years ago and the gibberish paper got published...but this was in something a lot more like a real journal.

<comment><USER27> But who gets to say what's fake news and fake journals, who gets to be the gatekeeper?

A few years ago the Beall-list added the Frontiers journals to its list of predatory journals, which generated quite the backlash: [http://www.nature.com/news/backlash-after-frontiers- journals...](http://www.nature.com/news/backlash-after-frontiers-journals- added-to-list-of-questionable-publishers-1.18639)

There is quite a bit of 'regular' research published in Frontiers and they do have peer review, but also a lot of crap (a similar point can be raised for Nature's new Scientific Reports, but also for PLOS ONE, which all cost money to publish in). The border between 'predatory' and just 'kinda crappy' journal is hard to set. The big difference between most predatory OA journals and Frontiers is that Frontiers at least responds to criticism.

Edit: Some similar criticism on Nature Scientific Reports: [http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/06/15/mor...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/06/15/more- on-scientific-reports-and-on-faked-papers)

and for PLOS ONE: [http://www.omnesres.com/blog/plosone/](http://www.omnesres.com/blog/plosone/)

<comment><USER28> >who gets to say what's fake news and fake journals, who gets to be the gatekeeper?

That's not how reputation works. There isn't a single institution who gets to say "This is good science, but this isn't", but scientists as a body can.

An institution can of course choose its own standard regarding specific journals, but it cannot impose them unto others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I can't help but remember:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Nights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Nights)

[https://www.amazon.com/Atlanta-Nights-Travis- Tea/dp/14116229...](https://www.amazon.com/Atlanta-Nights-Travis- Tea/dp/1411622987)

<comment><USER30> In addition to the more well-known

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair)

although that had different goals.

<comment><USER31> And once you've read about that, make sure to have a laugh with the Postmodernism Essay Generator ([http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/](http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/))

<comment><USER32> but if you like the generated ones, you'll love the real, and really absurd, ones: [https://twitter.com/realpeerreview?lang=en](https://twitter.com/realpeerreview?lang=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Quote: "My long-term goal—an ambitious one, I know—is to stop the production of predatory journals altogether."

I salute your energy and your objective. Having observed individual scientists over a period of decades and noting the degree to which a modern scientist's professional life is ruled by "publish or perish", I think some very basic changes would have to take place to eliminate phony journals.

On the one hand, phony journals, and corner-cutting episodes like the recent retraction of 107 cancer research papers from otherwise legitimate scientific journals[1], only show the desperation in the lives of many scientists and pseudoscientists.

On the other hand, freedom of the press allows pretty much any nonsense to be put on paper and online, and efforts to stop phony publications often collide with a very permissive attitude toward printed expression, including those that walk a thin line between fact and fiction.

To me, the central problem is that publishers make too much money from technical and scientific publication -- it invites cheating and exploitation. Maybe in the future there will be some kind of publication arrangement that is (a) beyond reproach and (b) not undermined by absurd access prices.

1\. [http://retractionwatch.com/2017/04/20/new-record-major- publi...](http://retractionwatch.com/2017/04/20/new-record-major-publisher- retracting-100-studies-cancer-journal-fake-peer-reviews/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Here is an fascinating instance of astroturfing by MedCrave on Quora, with painfully bad "smart-people" English [https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-get-rid- of-the-rumours-about-...](https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-get-rid-of-the- rumours-about-Medcrave-Predatory-Publisher)

<comment><USER35> Hoooooly Cow! I think that thread could be _the_ example of astro-turfing. Just, wow, the brazenness of it all is really astounding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> When we're here, I have to jump in with my own: [https://www.scribd.com/doc/167706815/EVALUATION-OF- TRANSFORM...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/167706815/EVALUATION-OF- TRANSFORMATIVE-HERMENEUTIC-HEURISTICS-FOR-PROCESSING-RANDOM-DATA)

The whole sting is later analyzed in a serious scientific journal: [https://sci-hub.cc/10.1007/s11948-014-9521-4](https://sci- hub.cc/10.1007/s11948-014-9521-4)

</comment><comment><USER37> To complete the expose of broken peer review, there ought to be a kickstarter / crowd funding for the $799 fee.

Cash for publication. Sad state of science. Terribly irresponsible that this is medical science.

I'm not emphasizing blame for the individuals involved...I think the way the system operates incentivizes things that don't work to produce solid results.

A new peer review system that does work to reliably generate reproducible results would be a significant technological innovation that improves basic publicly funded STEM research.

</comment><comment><USER38> The current system for publishing needs to be overhauled. This is difficult because those early in their careers have to establish themselves, and publications are the de facto metric for doing so. However, number-of- publications is not necessarily an accurate surrogate for the quality of a person's work since all journals do not have equally rigorous review processes (or _any_ review process as shown by this article and many others).

Long term solutions for this problem often focus on (1) new systems for reviewing/publishing scientific work as a means to make number-of-publications a more accurate quantifier of the quality a researcher's body of work, or (2) incorporating metrics other than publications.

What about short term solutions? What about an IMDB-like review and rating system for publications? This way, researchers still publish wherever they like, but could be potentially reviewed by a independent system. Would such a system be too readily game-able?

<comment><USER39> The main challenge that I can see is that it takes real effort to review papers. Without that effort "popular" publications may end up spreading materially wrong results. The shortcoming of current peer review systems is that anonymous peer reviewers are expected to put in this work without receiving commensurate (not necessarily monetary) compensation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Can't websites like Google Scholar help here? There should be some algorithmic way to identify such journals. One way could be to use PageRank for a paper to create a PargeRank of journals. Then take the bottom of journals and use either wisdom of crowd or human editors to de-list them or flag them. If publications from bad journals stops showing up (or at least get flagged) in search results and/or Google Scholar, they practically don't exist.

<comment><USER36> That is irrelevant. Anyone who is remotely competent to read any scientific article will recognize predatory journal with a quick glance. I doubt that predatory articles have even a couple of reads. The problem is something else: those articles are used to beef up the CV of the "scientists" who are then promoted on their jobs over honest candidates. That may be rare in USA (but I am not sure) but it is rampant in developing countries (of that I am sure).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Nobody is suprised that there are con-artists who will take your money. The real problem is similiar behavior from supposedly legitimate journals.

</comment><comment><USER42> Are there journals like this for computer science?

</comment><comment><USER43> Its all about greed. As long as you pay, or say you have the intention to pay the 799, your paper will get published. The system is rotten.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm more shocked at the fact that they published the article without receiving payment!

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm sorry, I only read the abstract[1] but this is excellently written, in a way that only people with real scientific understanding are able to write. This isn't a "hoax", it's simply unconscionable on the part of the author.

Let me translate this to terms people here might understand. This is like writing an O'Reilly book entitled "Essential System Administration In Client- Side Javascript" detailing a cookbook of the most common techniques you would want to use to do local system administration from Angular, React, Meteor/Ember, etc, with special attention to the pitfalls of identifying whether the local system is a Windows,Mac, Linux, a mobile browser, tablet, etc, and listing the various ways you can set up the local user's device to your own liking.

Where it crosses the line is if it's written in a highly informative way without any indication WHATSOEVER of being satire. Local system administration from javascript frameworks doesn't exist. It's not a thing. You couldn't so much as set the time.

But when you write with authority on how to do that and more, suddenly it does exist. What's more, it will be interesting and useful. If you write with authority and an overview of the subject, in the way done here (it starts by identifying the scope of the issue - the very first words of the abstract are "Uromycitisis is a rare but serious condition that affects over 2,000 mostly adult men and women in the United States each year". From the moment you've written those words -- you even say who it affects and the exceptions, since it affects adults but mostly adults -- you are now an expert and you're not writing a satire or hoax: you're writing fraud.

It would be as if I began the above with:

"Web-based administration of local devices with a standard browser serving as the remote administration client is a small but growing choice of hundreds of large companies with 5,000-50,000+ employees. Its advantages include leveraging development practices that may already be familiar, web standards, regular security upgrades from the major browsers, centralized distribution of small updates while leveraging the security mechanisms (such as HTTPS and signed certificates) already present in the browser, and cross-platform availability across many devices. Simply put, System Administration in client- side javascript is the closest you can come to fully controlling your user's devices without administrative tools at all. While it has important limitations, such as being unable to repartition hard-drives or install a standard image while the operating system is running, in other respects it enables all of the power of many administrative tools without many of the downsides. In this book we will cover some of the basic functions you may want to do, such as applying security updates, installing or removing software, creating user accounts and setting their privileges, and, in the case of Windows computers, setting up roaming profiles. Let's get started."

Is that a hoax? No, it's more like simple fraud. (Our author invented a research institution, created fake gmail accounts, etc.)

Sorry. I don't support the author in how they went about this. It would be different if what I wrote was _hilarious_ \- such as bemoaning that for the moment Apple Watches unfortunately do not support a standard browser, so you will have to break into them by finding and applying zero days for the iPhone, which are unfortunately patched regularly; a list of Russian and Chinese sources is contained in Appendix 1, and you can usually ask for a sample while promising bitcoins - but is the above paragraph I wrote hilarious? No. It's not hilarious and that means it's not okay.

[1] direct link to PDF: [http://www.the- scientist.com/images/Opinion/2017/UNOAJ-04-00...](http://www.the- scientist.com/images/Opinion/2017/UNOAJ-04-00132.pdf)

<comment><USER46> Yeah, that was more or less my impression. The implication that the reviewers should have caught on because it was a reference to a well-known Seinfeld episode is particularly silly. Many people who grew up in the United States haven't watched Seinfeld. I definitely would not have gotten the joke, and I certainly wouldn't expect a random journal reviewer (who could be from anywhere) to be intimately familiar with American popular culture, and I wouldn't expect them to google the author's name to figure out if they're the target of a practical joke.

Reviewers usually have to assume on some level that those who submit articles aren't lying. They can't verify every claim. Maybe a case could be made that the reviewers in this case didn't do enough due diligence, but just because they didn't get the joke doesn't mean they're doing a bad job.

<comment><USER45> yes, thanks. Especially given that he introduces the prevalence as being 2,000 people nationwide. (That is beyond rare. Albinism for example - extremely rare - is 5 people per 100,000 in the United States. 2,000 people in the whole country is 0.62 per 100,000.) So when recording such an incredibly rare disease it would be normal for no one but, for example, the _sole_ specialist in the entire country to have even heard about it. It would be different if he had reported that 2 _million_ people are effected. I don't like the whole thing.

It's even worse because the report _deserves_ to be published. As written (though I didn't read beyond the abstract and what he wrote about it), it _deserves_ publication. This isn't like this other hoax, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair) \-- "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" which on its face does not deserve to be published.

I would publish this paper, and more than that, I would argue that papers like this must be published despite not finding anything about it.

Integrity is important.

Requiring the standard of scholarship to be raised to "integrity isn't enough. If I can't verify the scholarship independently then I would rather shut out exemplary papers than allow frauds through" is not going to benefit science in the long term.

Many important researchers did not come with ready-made citations. When Einstein published four groundbreaking works in the Annals of Physics[1] that tore apart the very foundations of space, time, mass, and energy, would someone Googling have found that it almost certainly wasn't a hoax?

At some point you just have to believe the papers, and prefer to believe and publish Einstein on the strength of _what he 's written_ than to deny him on the strength of a paucity of corroboration.

This exercise doesn't help anyone. The paper is just too well-written.

[1] see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> If a paper is published after 2010 and the corresponding author's email is from a free service (gmail, yahoo, yandex) or is not from an institution that is a university or firm with an R&D department, you shouldn't trust the journal or the paper.

It's a simple litmus test and while it generates many false negatives, there are almost zero false positives.

EDIT: At least, for biomedical papers... can't speak for other fields

<comment><USER48> Disagree. Sometimes the main (corresponding) author is exactly a Master or PhD student, and will leave the institution after submitting the article but before it is published. Or even a Professor will change the institution he is in.

I prefer to read a paper or article by its merits. E-mail from the author had little impact in that sense.

(Speaking for areas outside biomedical papers, for those, I don' know.)

<comment><USER47> The peer-review system, as very flawed as it is, protects us from a certain level of bad and in some cases fake science.

It's not very difficult to establish a peer-review ring when you use freely available emails, and journals are increasingly aware of this [0,1]. That's why I'm often suspect of journals who let this slide, because it's a sign they don't screen very well.

In 2017, in light of the widely successful and low-barrier ways to game the peer-review system, I don't buy your "leaving an institution" argument.

Corresponding author is more commonly the professor than the main author, and faculty at academic institutions almost always have "e-mail for life" privileges.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/07/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/07/10/scholarly-journal-retracts-60-articles-smashes-peer-review- ring/)

[1] [http://www.nature.com/news/publishing-the-peer-review- scam-1...](http://www.nature.com/news/publishing-the-peer-review-scam-1.16400)</comment></comment></comment>