Taking the long view on API ecosystems - It's the Business Model Stupid - <AUTHOR> http://www.3scale.net/2012/07/taking-the-long-view-on-api-ecosystems/

<comment><AUTHOR> See Kin Lane's take here: [http://blog.apievangelist.com/2012/07/12/dont- forget-about-t...](http://blog.apievangelist.com/2012/07/12/dont-forget-about- the-api-pioneers-when-you-think-apis-wont-work/)</comment>


Remind raises $40M Series C - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/tag/remind101/

<comment><AUTHOR> Congrats to Brett, David, and the rest of the amazing Remind team for reimagining how teachers connect with parents and students.</comment>


Huawei: UK prepares to change course on 5G kit supplier - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53398487 <comment><USER2> > Six months after agreeing it could have a limited role, ministers look set > to exclude the Chinese company, with no new equipment installed from next > year.

Best news in some time, good thing Washington applied pressure on UK to do the right thing here.</comment>


Ask HN: What is best programmable drone with camera - <AUTHOR> I am looking for a drone (with camera module) with good support for coding so that you can write applications on top of it. I read previous similar questions asked but for application I am thinking of writing on top of it, it needs a camera module <comment><USER2> Phantom 3 it has an SDK so that you can send commands from your phone to the drone. There are a bunch of apps that advantage of this: Litchi,vertical.ai, etc.

Ardupilot is open source however you will need to build your drone. Its not too hard. [https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot](https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot)

<comment><AUTHOR> Phantom 3 looks pretty expensive. I just need a basic hardware drone (no packaging or end product). But the only requirement is good software support so that I can write applications on top of it. I checked ardupilot and seems that any basic drone that follows its specifications would be good to go. Also would be ok if there would be DIY kit for drone that can reduce the cost as my main focus is on application on top of drone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Most RTF (ready-to-fly) drones use proprietary software. Some of them come with Naze32 or CC3D flight controllers, but camera support for these is not very good. As far as open source goes, you're better off with APM.

A full APM set (2.8, with GPS and telemetry and whatnot) retails for about 100 dollars. You'll need a frame, 4 motors (2204/1000kv for a Phantom-sized drone are fine, less than 8 bucks a piece), 4 ESC's (30A, also 8 bucks) and a transmitter/receiver combo (turnigy 9xPRO is fine, it's 60 dollars). Throw in a copious amount of props, batteries and small things like wires and you're set for under 250 dollars. You'll have more capabilities than a Phantom, you have a drone with replaceable parts and you'll learn how to repair it when you crash. Mind you I said 'when', not 'if'...

<comment><AUTHOR> Drones with proprietary software wont be useful for me. Yeah APM looks good wrt software support. So minimum I will have to spend to get basic DIY hardware for drone + camera which supports APM platform is ~$250? Its good option when you consider availability of replaceable parts as I heard there is high probability of crashing drones while experimenting. Most of the sites dont ship to india so will have to look for some way to get all this shipped here. Would be great if you can suggest some site that provides all components. Thanks for reply.

<comment><USER3> Flight Controller (USD 99.98): [http://www.banggood.com/APM-Flight-Controller- Set-APM-2_8-6M...](http://www.banggood.com/APM-Flight-Controller-Set- APM-2_8-6MH-GPS-OSD-Radio-Telemetry-etc-p-960341.html)

Frame (USD 10.22): [http://www.banggood.com/DJI-F330-4-Axis-RC-Quadcopter- Frame-...](http://www.banggood.com/DJI-F330-4-Axis-RC-Quadcopter-Frame-Kit- Support-KK-MK-MWC-p-943370.html)

Motors (USD 8,29 x 4 = USD 33.16): [http://www.banggood.com/Wholesale- XXD-A2212-1000KV-Brushless...](http://www.banggood.com/Wholesale- XXD-A2212-1000KV-Brushless-Motor-For-RC-Airplane-Quadcopter-p-57432.html)

ESC (USD 8.30 x 4 = USD 33.20): [http://www.banggood.com/2S-6S-BlHeli- Platinum-30A-ESC-For-RC...](http://www.banggood.com/2S-6S-BlHeli- Platinum-30A-ESC-For-RC-Quadcopters-p-975528.html)

Propellers (8040, get 10 pairs so you can afford to crash, USD 2.29 per pair = USD 22.90): [http://www.banggood.com/GEMFAN- GF-8040-8060-9045-1050-1070-9...](http://www.banggood.com/GEMFAN- GF-8040-8060-9045-1050-1070-9060-Electric-Propeller-1-Pair-p-977960.html)

Transmitter + receiver (USD 47.51): [http://www.banggood.com/FlySky- FS-i6-2_4G-6CH-AFHDS-RC-Trans...](http://www.banggood.com/FlySky- FS-i6-2_4G-6CH-AFHDS-RC-Transmitter-With-FS-iA6B-Receiver-p-983537.html)

Servo wires (USD 2.49 for 10 pieces): [http://www.banggood.com/10-x-15cm-60-Cores-Servo- Extension-W...](http://www.banggood.com/10-x-15cm-60-Cores-Servo-Extension- Wire-Cable-For-Futaba-JR-p-909171.html)

XT60 plug (USD 2.29): [http://www.banggood.com/Amass-XT60-Plug- with-10cm-12AWG-Cabl...](http://www.banggood.com/Amass-XT60-Plug- with-10cm-12AWG-Cable-AM-9024-p-1050854.html)

Lipo battery (USD 17.49, buy 2 or 3 if you can afford): [http://www.banggood.com/Eachine-11_1V-2200mAh-3S-35C-XT60-Li...](http://www.banggood.com/Eachine-11_1V-2200mAh-3S-35C-XT60-Lipo- Battery-For-RC-Multirotors-p-1038461.html)

Imax B6 knockoff balance charger (USD29.99): [http://www.banggood.com/SkyRC- IMAX-B6-Digital-RC-AC-Lipo-Li-...](http://www.banggood.com/SkyRC- IMAX-B6-Digital-RC-AC-Lipo-Li-polymer-Battery-Balance-Charger-p-912239.html)

2 meter red+black AWG16 silicone electrical wire (USD4.18) and 2 meter red+black AWG12 wire (USD5.18): [http://www.banggood.com/2M-AWG-Soft-Silicone- Flexible-Wire-C...](http://www.banggood.com/2M-AWG-Soft-Silicone-Flexible- Wire-Cable-12-20-AWG-1-Meter-Red-1-Meter-Black-p-985529.html)

Grand total: USD 308.59, including transmitter, battery, even the lipo charger.

Bear in mind that this is a budget setup. Motors aren't high quality, but I have the same one and while they're not very efficient they can take a lot of beating. When you crash you're probably break a prop or two, and maybe an arm of the frame if you crash hard, so get a spare frame too, if you can. My first setup was almost exactly the same as above, and I get about 7 minutes flying time. It's pretty zippy, too.

The good thing about this setup is that it won't break the bank, and everything is upgradeable and repairable. I recommend anyone starting out with the hobby to buy cheap parts: you'll probably break some parts anyway and when you're advanced enough to upgrade your parts you'll know what to buy anyway.

Banggood ships to India, so does Hobbyking but check shipping rates first.

[https://oscarliang.com/](https://oscarliang.com/) is a treasure trove of knowledge about building and flying these things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 3DR is known to use free software for the autopilot and the ground station:

[https://3dr.com/solo-drone/](https://3dr.com/solo-drone/)

[https://pixhawk.org/choice](https://pixhawk.org/choice)

[https://github.com/ArduPilot/MissionPlanner](https://github.com/ArduPilot/MissionPlanner)

<comment><AUTHOR> 3DR looks great but its simply out of budget for me. I would prefer some minimal hardware (even DIY is good) which supports open source software plarform like ArduPilot so I wont have to spend time in tinkering with firmware.

<comment><USER4> In that case you can take a look Walkera's products:

[http://www.walkera.com/](http://www.walkera.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> build your own multiwii based drone. you'll get a more complete understanding of the hardware and software this way: [https://nathan.vertile.com/blog/2016/04/24/rctimer-u210-mini...](https://nathan.vertile.com/blog/2016/04/24/rctimer-u210-mini- quad-build-setup-and-review/)

then for firmware, there are 3 modern forks of multiwii: cleanflight, betaflight and inav.

if you want gps navigation, put iNav on it: [https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav/](https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav/)

if you want awesome flight performance, use betaflight

there is also a slightly more robust autopilot firmware, dronin (which is an openpilot continuation) which can run on the flight controller listed on that blog post: [https://github.com/d-ronin/dronin/issues/9](https://github.com/d-ronin/dronin/issues/9)

full disclosure, that's my blog :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Parrot is another option

<comment><AUTHOR> Parrot looks like good options. Cost is little bit high since I am only doing it as a project but can be managed. I checked that parrot supports open source platform dronecode ([http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/parrot-team- blacksheep-w...](http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/parrot-team-blacksheep- walkera-and-others-join-dronecode)). Is it rival to ardupilot? Is there some good place where I can read about material regarding drones? Hardware as well as software? Since drones are in relatively early stage of adoption, there is lot of noise in hardware as well as software for drones (multiple specifications/platforms) and becomes little hard to choose one of them.</comment></comment>


TIL that in former days chimneys were sweeped by Climbing boys - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimney_sweep#United_Kingdom

<comment><USER2> Please don't rewrite titles like this. It's against the HN rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

</comment><comment><USER3> Let me teach you something else Mary Poppins [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Poppins_%28film%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Poppins_%28film%29)</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use for realtime code collaboration? - <AUTHOR> Our small team (3 people) is using bitbucket for a hobby/private java project. We're all remote and there are instances where it would be great to do a code walkthrough via AT&T Netmeeting or Webex, but don't have funding for such services.<p>Any suggestions for a free or low cost realtime code collaboration/net meeting tool? <comment><USER2> I worked remotely for a couple of years in a team spread between the UK, Spain, Switzerland and Bulgaria.

We used Skype for voice chat so tried to use its screen sharing feature but found that it was not reliable due to a combination of lag, compression artefacts and occasionally just not working at all.

We found that TeamViewer ([https://www.teamviewer.com](https://www.teamviewer.com)) was good and reliable. It's free for personal use.</comment>


Show HN: Coldcrate, large short-term burst storage using the Dropbox API - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Satshabad/coldcrate

<comment><USER2> It's a pretty cool little hack. Nice usage of the API.

It's not very respectful though towards the limits to their service, especially since they use S3[1] as part of their backend - :. rampant usage of this type of tool could definitely put a dent in their bottom line (bandwidth costs / etc.)

[1] <https://www.dropbox.com/help/7/en>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yes I realized that if everyone started using this it would not be fun for dropbox, but from what I have just been testing it on I am pretty sure they have measures in place to limit the undo space.

But in any case, it's not my brightest hack. Any ideas for a cooler project to procrastinate with?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I made this last night while procrastinating. It was just a little project to learn a bit about the Dropbox api.</comment>


$1B Business Where All 700 Employees Work Remotely (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2019/07/21/he-built-a-1-billion-business-where-all-700-employees-work-remotely/#caffbb02aa97 <comment><USER2> If the majority are remote then it can work. Don't be remote where the company is otherwise geo-located. Hallway conversations often make decisions.

<comment><USER3> Seconded. I've had a fabulous experience at an all-remote company, and a pretty lousy experience where I was the only remote worker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It really looks like this guy found his calling, good for him! I'm impressed his managed to keep his organization healthy with 700 remote employees, that takes some real business/management talent.

In my own business, we are a remote team of 6 and we do pretty well. The way we've made it work so far is by doing very little collaboration, and instead opting to each have our own focus with little overlap. There are times when I'd really love to have some other engineers to whiteboard with and collaborate on difficult problems, but that seems impossible to do remotely. At least very easily.

<comment><USER5> Thanks! What we do for remote brainstorming is using indentation in Google Docs. We find that most ideas can be represented by a tree structure. We use indentation to indicate what is connected. You can't easily do arrows between different ideas but I've seen it work on almost every case.

BTW We're trying to bring real-time collaboration to GitLab issues so you can do the same in GitLab. I spend some time on that this weekend [https://gitlab.com/gitlab- org/gitlab/-/issues/21473#note_301...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab- org/gitlab/-/issues/21473#note_301465115)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not trying to be snarky, but because I think it'll be meaningful to executives: What's the largest profitable remote-only company?

Sure, your Gitlabs, Elastics, Sonatypes, etc, are remote-only, but they're still in VC-funded, money-losing, growth mode, AFAIK.

Are there profitable remote-only companies that a more conservative, maybe even non-tech company could look at to get a warm fuzzy rather than being able to dismiss remote-only as a dalliance for tech bros lighting money on fire?

<comment><USER7> If you're not trying to be snarky avoid stuff like "dalliance for tech bros lighting money on fire".

I think you can look at subsets of companies for precedent.

\- Regional sales staff are very frequently distributed by territory (obviously not remote in customer contact, usually) and work out of their homes. This is common across many companies in and out of tech.

\- Distributed teams where you have smaller satellite offices where cross-team functions are remote and coordinated across time zones, which have to be remotely coordinated. This is almost universal in tech in my experience, and widespread outside of tech.

\- Hybrid companies where some staff are fully remote or people have a certain number of days per week that can be remote. This is so common as to be universal in tech, in my experience (particularly for support rotation/SRE work).

Fully remote work, to me, seems just minor extension of all of those existing practices.

<comment><USER6> > If you're not trying to be snarky avoid stuff like "dalliance for tech bros > lighting money on fire"

Haha, that's fair. To be clear, I believe remote work is generally more productive and represents the future of most knowledge work. I was trying to put words into the mouth of an imaginary conservative executive who is afraid to go the remote path there.

<comment><USER7> I did take your comment in the intended spirit! My response were answers in that same spirit (points you might give that executive to say "we're a remote organization already").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd be happy to answer any questions about remote work. We've published extensively about this subject [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/guide/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/) and today we released a remote work emergency toolkit [https://twitter.com/darrenmurph/status/1237771768020054016](https://twitter.com/darrenmurph/status/1237771768020054016)

<comment><USER8> >We've published extensively about this subject

For entrepreneurs or anyone thinking of All-Remote culture I think the hiring page is better [1]. And a list of countries that they dont hire due to legal reasons. [2]. And list of countries they have listed as cooperate entity for Payroll [3]

I think a lot of the issues and problems with All-Remote is not in the communication or working style ( which can be adopted ) but actually in the hiring and legals where smalls startups have absolutely no time, idea, nor the energy to do it themselves. I remember reading HashiCorp's founder saying the same thing where its was the hardest part of hiring across the world.

This may actually be startup idea to solve this.

[1] [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/hiring/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/hiring/)

[2] [https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/faq/#country-hiring- guidelines](https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/faq/#country-hiring-guidelines)

[3] [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/blob/master/dat...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/blob/master/data/contract_factors.yml)

<comment><USER5> For sure that is a big problem. I blogged about it in 2016 [https://sytse.com/2016/12/28/adyen-for- payrolling.html](https://sytse.com/2016/12/28/adyen-for-payrolling.html) and I'm excited to be an investor in Remote.com that tries to solve that problem. It is started by our old VP of Product Job van der Voort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Prior comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20496011](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20496011)

</comment><comment><USER10> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20496011](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20496011)

</comment><comment><USER11> given the majority of coworkers are now remote due to coronavirus, I hate it. I miss just grabbing someone to my computer and have a chat about my problem. now I'll have to arrange a meeting, share screen and all, do you see it, do you hear me?

plus in meetings remote workers rarely get the chance to speak. otherwise opinionated colleagues are now silent.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think gitlab has a huge advantage in remote work as in their mission is clearly understood by their employees ( to clone github.com). Its a very outsourcable class of problem where requirements are clearly understood and employees aren't required to really come up anything new or innovative.

I am yet to see a 100% remote company thats doing something brand new and innovative.

<comment><USER13> C'mon that's just unfair. GitHub is Microsoft now, I for one I'm glad gitlab exists even if I don't personally use it much, but it's a nice replacement if centralized microsoft-owned github goes down like it has been in the last weeks/months...

Basecamp has a lot of competition and probably some frontend clones maybe, but I don't think it could be called unoriginall or a copycat of any of it's competitors (Todoist,Asana,Etc)

They also have great (free) books on working remote like REWORK. Maybe you like that example better?

Anyways nothing in life is black or white

<comment><USER12> yes gitlab is nice, i use it personally. i wasn't implying otherwise. Gitlab is a copy of github, everything was exactly the same as github until few yrs ago. Like feature by feature replication. I really don't think they did anything truly innovative like github did.

>Anyways nothing in life is black or white

yea ofcourse, you seem to drawn a false implication that copycat = bad, which is obviously not the case like you pointed out.</comment></comment></comment>


Bang With Friends Sex App Registers 5 Users Per Minute - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2013/01/29/bang-with-friends/

<comment><USER2> And now I play the waiting game...

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't see an iPhone app getting approval.

<comment><USER4> <http://www.appnightstand.com/></comment></comment>


Product strategy means saying no - <AUTHOR> http://productstrategymeanssayingno.com <comment><USER2> As a product manager, this makes me cringe. This attitude is exactly why engineering often hates product.</comment>


Seattle coronavirus survivor gets a $1.1M, 181-page hospital bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/inspiring-story-of-seattle-mans-coronavirus-survival-comes-with-a-1-1-million-dollar-hospital-bill/ <comment><USER2> "because Flor has insurance including Medicare, he won't have to pay the vast majority of it"

Did they really use stuff that truly cost $1.1M on him, and did they _need_ to? If they're charging some absurd amount for a room, maybe it's just a way of rationing at some level, not what is being consumed.

I wish people would look at more what was spent in resources than what the dollar amount of the treatment was - if the patient didn't pay, then what matters to society is what was spent by society, not what number was written down as part of weird accounting.

The article acknowledged "hospitals get paid only a portion of the amount they bill". It's not helpful or necessary to write anguished stuff based on your conviction that the accounting style is wrong. What matters is the effect on real people.

On the other hand, if the reason that drug costs for instance were so high was because unnecessary drugs were used, or because they were wasted, or because the manufacturing of them was inefficient, that's a real problem and I wish that an article like this would focus on it, delve into it. Just...don't write stuff about how America is terrible because big numbers are scary.

I can't tell if the article is meant to be pro or con universal coverage, or if the point is, America is terrible and always will be and universal coverage won't fix it. If the point is the latter, I think it's a cheap effort in support. If people take it seriously, it's very demotivational and makes me want to find a scapegoat for catharsis. Which for me, the default is adtech incentives these days.

<comment><USER3> At 400K hospitalizations per 30 days, and $1M per patient, that's nominally $400B transfer of wealth _per month_ from citizens (via patients, patients' insurance, or taxpayers) to healthcare industry, with significant percentages extracted as income and profits at each step.

Imagine if there were some way to cut out duplicative overhead and administrative costs from all these counter-parties and cut-outs...

<comment><USER2> I think impugning or debating the legitimacy of the entire healthcare industry based on ignorance of the details is not productive. It disgusts me. Nearly everybody has a job in modern society that a random person on the street wouldn't understand, and yet too many people spend their time on the internet declaring most other people have "bullshit jobs". That _is_ toxic bullshit. First the narrative was private insurance companies are useless, now it's the whole healthcare industry.

You can't say that in fact $400B is being transferred, just because a number that big can be or is written down, and if it is, that it's inappropriate, without reference points and context. Anything that affects large numbers of people involves big numbers, so negative reactions to billions or trillions in and of themselves are useless or harmful.

<comment><USER4> You're welcome to visit any other developed country where people don't live in fear of getting sick and don't treat massive bills as an inevitability, even after having insurance.

Their health systems are as competent as those in the states, despite the fear mongering by your health industry of years-long wait times, queues, etc.

So yeah, if the job we don't understand results in massive underserving of your nation's health needs, perhaps your disgust is misdirected.

<comment><USER5> Correct. In the US, the 3rd leading cause of death is believed to be preventable medical errors [1]. It is an absolutely atrocious statistic, that only mirrors developing countries. Statistically, this sort of thing only happens in developing countries, and never developed/industrialized countries. Americans should see the irony in that.

A good resource, that I suggest all Americans consult so that they can stay alive is: [http://HealthData.org](http://HealthData.org)

I consulted that website for years for trusted data on global health systems. Ironically, it is the same group that runs the IMHE coronavirus predictive models in the US. It is an amazing group, run by the University of Washington, which has a phenomenal public medical school.

Anyways, the wild part is that countries like Croatia compete with the US, for overall quality of care as a whole (not medical errors!). You know, a former Yugoslav war-torn, economically damaged country, that is up and rising thanks to being a new member to the European Union. It also has its geographic challenges in distributing care, due to having about 50 inhabited islands. One island is a 2 hour and 45 minute ferry ride away. If you get extremely sick, it is a 5 hour boat ride back to the mainland. There is no air ambulance service.

The US is really going the wrong way, and for shocking reasons. Also, Americans are generally unaware of how low the bar has been actually set, which is actually extremely low. It is also the system's fault, not the doctors. We really do have incredible doctors in the US.

[1] [https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2016/05/03/4766361...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2016/05/03/476636183/death-certificates-undercount-toll-of-medical- errors)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of the inflation in medical prices comes from how the incentives in the US medical system are lined up (e.g. "Usually hospitals get paid only a portion of the amount they bill, as most have negotiated discounts with insurance companies."). So, UHC doesn't just mean that the cost is paid for, but that the price itself wouldn't be so astronomical. I'd really love to see a comparison between 1) the $1MM bill 2) the "actual" negotiated money that changes hands 3) what it would cost in other countries with different healthcare systems.

<comment><USER7> I reside in India and I have also lived in the US, so I can comment on 3.

India is going through an interesting phase of aping the "insurance system" of the US over the last 10 years or so (maybe longer, but that's not the main point), but a lot of people are too poor to afford health insurance. Only people who go to the more expensive hospitals use insurance, as a rule of thumb. And guess what? The costs for many procedures have increased 4-5x over this period at those hospitals which _do_ ask for insurance, which still beats inflation handily.

On the other hand, the vast majority of people don't have insurance, which means people get to pay _actual_ medical costs for the trivial stuff like cold and fever, and common ailments. These costs generally track inflation.

On seeing this, and realizing that except for some really complicated stuff, India's healthcare system is generally quite OK, I have come to the conclusion that the insurance industry in the US is just a complete scam. Insurance is supposed to be something you use in case of a catastrophe, and I don't know how it ended up as such a mandatory thing in the US.

<comment><USER8> I think that inelastic demand and relative difficulty of ability to price compare lead to it pretty naturally Once you have an insurance layer in the system. I mean, if you get shot, and the ambulance rushes you off to a hospital, you (literally) can't haggle and shop around.

As for it staying like it is, laws in the US radically favor entrenched monied interests because of lobbying, and we have a huge amount of political propaganda convincing uneducated voters to vote against their own interest to the extent that votes even could do anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They charged him $82,000 to use a ventilator. I wonder if that includes supplies and labor, because you can buy multiple ventilators for that price, and they're reusable.

Also, $400,000 to seal a hospital room seems excessive. I don't imagine how it could possibly cost that much. Add a few hepa filters to pull negative pressure, and you're already pretty close (not counting decontaminating the doctors on the way in and out, but still, $400K?)

</comment><comment><USER10> As a Swede, I find it hilarious that you get a $1.1M bill at a place referred as Swedish hospital in the article. In Sweden you would have to pay $130 as this is our one year cap of personal expenses of hospitalization (high cost control, performed by the hospitals, not by the insurance companies).

</comment><comment><USER11> Something I don't understand. Insurance companies seem to have an incentive (more profit) and collective bargaining power to reduce what they pay. Why don't we see a downward pressure on healthcare prices, then?

The typical narrative I hear around large healthcare bills is "racked up large charges because insurance will pay it" which is the opposite of what I would expect given the incentives I understand. Do insurance providers have a non- obvious incentive to keep costs high?

<comment><USER12> There's a strange relationship where the bill provided to you is not actually expected to be paid as-such when given to the insurance company -- they will generally challenge the bill, and through a court, it will be negotiated to something more sane -- and this bill will finally be paid out.

So a doctor can charge you 10k, but the insurance company itself will only end up paying 2k to cover it (and you pay your deductible).

So the charged price is entirely divorced from reality.

You get fucked when you don't have insurance, because you can't participate in this process

<comment><USER13> >You get fucked when you don't have insurance, because you can't participate in this process

This is not accurate. Cash payers just have to go through the administrative part themselves, cobbling together charity and self-negotiation, eventually landing on a payment plan that doesn't get reported to credit agencies.

<comment><USER6> So the medical industry is based on intentionally giving ridiculous bills that no one can pay and waiting for people to haggle them down in hopes of not having their finances crushed?

<comment><USER13> Yes, this is accurate. There is no expectation, from anyone, that a person with a $1.1m medical bill will pay that. There's a specific group of people called Medical Bill Advocates that help people navigate the medical billing system.

As well, people don't really go bankrupt from medical costs that often. Hospitalizations cause about 4% of bankruptcies among nonelderly adults. Among uninsured, this rate is about 6%. They mostly go bankrupt because they lose their jobs and income [0].

[0][https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5865642/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5865642/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminds of this story. Perhaps not relevant here or is it?

Henry Ford once balked at paying $10,000 to General Electric for work done troubleshooting a generator, and asked for an itemized bill. The engineer who performed the work, Charles Steinmetz, sent this: "Making chalk mark on generator, $1. Knowing where to make mark, $9,999." Ford paid the bill.

[0] [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/charles-proteus- stein...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/charles-proteus-steinmetz- the-wizard-of-schenectady-51912022/)</comment>


YC next batch. Could one submit an "already-launched/private beta" *up? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The answer is yes. That replacement of star with an asterisk might be seen as a bug...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. and my bad on the star.</comment></comment>


How to Vote in the 2020 Election - mkr-hn https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/how-to-vote-2020/ <comment><AUTHOR> Considering the current climate surrounding the USPS, if you vote by mail you should drop it off yourself at the local election office.

The law in several states is based upon when they receive it. If it is postmarked in time but they receive it late, your vote literally gets thrown away.

<comment><USER2> According to a Washington Post article from today, the Trump campaign is considering filing lawsuits to challenge mail in ballots without postmarks.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mail- voting/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mail- voting/2020/08/13/3eb9ac62-dd70-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html)

<comment><USER3> Because it leaves the doors wide open for foreign interference

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> All the votes i could cast this year that will substantively affect an outcome have already been cast in my state's statewide primary, in which i cast an absentee ballot i mailed back last week. I voted in the presidential primary before lockdown, where my candidate was defeated.

I will for damn sure be voting in the general, but my local rep is running uncontested, my state has a polling average of ~+40 biden, and no local ballot measures of any interest are included this cycle, so all i'm doing is bumping the popular vote a bit in an extremely predictable direction as far as top of the ticket is concerned.

Downballot, we have a right to repair measure that I think is important, but not a lot else.

edit: just to be clear, I _love_ voting, I take my obligations seriously, it's one of my favorite civic activities, I am well aware of the importance of local politics. Mostly, I am equal parts relieved that we're here again, and only disappointed that the pandemic is almost certainly going to preclude my usual celebratory post-voting girl scout bake-sale brownie at my polling place.

<comment><USER5> People have got to get over the math arguments here. Voting isn't about whether your vote will "matter" mathematically to your local races. It's a symbol of expressing your democratic power - a discipline and civic responsibility. We should all vote just as part of being citizens that care about and defend democracy.

(And then occasionally - you don't know when - it will also matter mathematically.)

<comment><USER6> It's more important to identify as a voter than it is to just vote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's so strange to me that voting is so political in the USA (yes, I realize the phrasing). It really feels like fundamental voting rights are constantly under attack -- whether it's against felons in Florida that don't vote the way that the leadership likes, or disenfranchising minorities.

For a "bastion of democracy and freedom", America has some major problems with its most basic rights.

<comment><USER8> This is intentionally done by one political party that does not care about democracy. They push policies that restrict individual voting rights, gerrymander districts for minority rule, and expand the influence of money over people. This has been their plan for decades, as they see the younger and more diverse America as a threat to their ideology. We have got to vote them out at every level.

<comment><USER9> > This has been their plan for decades,

Democrats controlled the house continuously for 40 years until 1994, due in no small part to gerrymandering. Republican-advantage gerrymandering (on a nationwide basis) dates to only about 2010.

<comment><USER10> > > This has been their plan for decades,

> Democrats controlled the house continuously for 40 years until 1994,

1955-1995, actually, and yet it is still true that the current Republican effort (which also includes gerrymandering, but also all the other factors list by GP) has been in place for decades. (1995 was two and a half decades ago, and the Republican strategy being discussed started _before_ they took control of the House.)

And, yes, some of the other bits besides gerrymandering also used to be Democratic strategies, especially racially-targeted restrictions on voting rights before the parties switched sides on race issues in a process that included Johnson's embrace of civil rights followed by the Republican subsequent exploitation of that and pursuit of disaffected ex-Democratic racists as a core voting bloc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Voting is really the absolute minimum you could do to effect political change.

You can magnify your influence by not just voting but also volunteering for and donating to political organizations, getting involved in local politics (such as running for office yourself or sitting on local boards), becoming and organizer yourself, and educating yourself and others on the issues, organizations, techniques, history, and people involved in politics.

</comment><comment><USER12> Seriously, send your application in now. I sent it in a while ago and it took a solid week longer than it has taken in years past.

</comment><comment><USER13> See also: the "How to Vote in Every State" YouTube channel, which has a short video for each state + DC.

[https://www.youtube.com/c/howtovoteineverystate](https://www.youtube.com/c/howtovoteineverystate)

I like those because it's sometimes easier to share video content with people.</comment>


Show HN: Scam Editor - proofreading services for phishers and spammers - <AUTHOR> http://scameditor.pressbin.com

<comment><USER2> Hilarious.</comment>


RhetFig - <AUTHOR> https://artsresearch.uwaterloo.ca/chiastic/display/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand what this is. Maybe because I don't know much about linguistics. Can someone explain what this is? Seems interesting.

<comment><USER3> I was confused at first too. It actually has to do with rhetoric, thus the name, RhetFig, a shortening of « Rhetorical Figure »

Only reason I was able to deduce this was because I have a big book on rehtoric, anadilopolis is not something that comes up in other contexts, and it is indeed the proper use of technical terminology to call somethig a scheme in rhetroic.

Super cool site though! Basically, it associates a rhetorical figure with its taxonomic classification (in terms of rhetoric), its linguistic associations, and its conceptual associations. For example anadipolis is repetition of the same morpheme at the ending position of the word so its associated with two concepts, repetition and positon. —i think thats waht anadipolisis is anway, been a while since ive brushed up on it (might be repetition at the start not the end)

edit: just looked it up, anadipolis is repetition of te end of one clause at the beginning of the next. (thus the association to repetition and position)

Really neat stuff!

<comment><USER4> Curious, which book of rhetoric is that?

"Rhetorical figures" are more commonly rendered as "figures of speech", according to Wikipedia. Website seems to be made by people in the English Language and Literature department of Waterloo, so maybe not linguistics (which I think of as a soft science) but more like a humanities.

<comment><USER3> Here's the book I was thinking of, Oxford's encyclopedia of rhetoric: [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/978019512...](https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195125955.001.0001/acref-9780195125955)

The handlist of rhetorical terms, while not as exhaustive has a ton of great knowledge as well and covers all the key bits: [https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520273689/a-handlist-of- rhe...](https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520273689/a-handlist-of-rhetorical- terms)

And yes, it's more common to just call these things figures of speech these days. But rhetoric was a rather sophisticated and complex field of study back in the day. Its lost its luster and is rarely formally studied these days expect in very small circles, presumably of politicians and other important speechifiers.

The latins abd medievals really had developed it into quite the art. They went so far as to distinguish the speeches sonic effects from its emotional ones, both of which were seperate from its logical import, and all of which were controllabe to degrees by the deployment of certain figures.

Technology has made these arts wither in a way as a lot of the impetus for their practice was driven by the need to keep the memory sharp—its easier to recall a set of several repetable rythmic figures than a freeform prose speech wihout fixed patterns—similar techniques were used in the recitation of oral myths—these days we dont need these "wetware" techniques as much since we have so many other technological memory supports.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Aging Is Reversible--at Least in Human Cells and Live Mice - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/aging-is-reversible-at-least-in-human-cells-and-live-mice/ <comment><USER2> Caveats:

1) Doing anything to the aging of cells in culture has next to nothing to do with what goes on inside aging tissues, or where it does that is heavily dependent on the details. The article doesn't tell you enough to decide, so you should look at the paper.

2) Doing anything that attenuates the effects of an accelerated aging phenotype, actually usually a DNA repair disorder, almost always has nothing to do with aging as it happens in normal individuals. You can hit mice with hammers, and then evaluate the effects of a hammer-blocking cage, but that doesn't tell you anything about aging - and for exactly the same reasons. This is generally true except when it is isn't, and that depends on the fine details. Again, go look at the paper.

3) The interesting experiment is the one in which pluripotency-inducing factors are upregulated in a normal mouse. This is the thing that people have looked at in the past and said, well, turning on widespread transformation of somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells sounds like a really bad idea. Cancer seems the likely outcome, but there is also the point that your central nervous system rather relies upon maintaining the fine structure it has established in many cases, such as data stored in the brain. Running in and randomly reprogramming any CNS cells that take up the vector or the pluripotency signals seems like a bad idea on the face of it.

So on the whole it is fascinating that a good outcome was produced in the normal mice, analogous to the sort of thing that has been produced via stem cell transplants and telomerase gene therapies. But I'd still want to see what happens to the mice over the long term after that, and would expect cancer.</comment>


Technologically-enabled Direct Democracy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@stevekrouse/tedd-b86504a62144?source=linkShare-2c705c136988-1479265009 <comment><USER2> "could use our high-speed communications network to vote directly on every law."

How can we trust online voting? If you think bad foreign actors somehow control the election now, it will be much worse when it's all online.

"In order to cast my vote, I open my phone, and scroll over to the United States Government Voting App. It has a red badge on it that says 312. I click on the app and log in. It says, "Today you have 312 laws you have to vote on." I read through each law and hit yes, no, yes, no, yes no. At the end of the day, my vote and everyone else's are tallied up, and the law passes or not."

How do we prove that you are actually a citizen of the US (or even of the state)? The government is notoriously bad at online security.

Making it too easy also leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. It will be so easy to make snap judgements and quick decisions when voting through an app. There should be at least some effort (besides clicking a few boxes) put forth to vote.

Technology has changed, but human nature hasn't. A fast way to a dictatorship would be a direct democracy.</comment>


Coca-Cola Promoted Trend Nets 86 Million Impressions on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/06/25/coca-cola-promoted-trend/

<comment><USER2> I am dubious. Another site reporting this story [1] stated that Twitter gets 190m visitors per month. So 86m impressions in 24hr versus 190m visitors/month seems a little odd...

I don't know what they count as an impression, but if they just count page loads it may be skewed by the countless linkbots that scrape twitter links as soon as they are posted. For every retweet these bots scrap the link again and again.

I'm also curious how they measure the 6% engagement.

There is no doubt in my mind that Promoted Tweets will drive a lot of traffic to a site, but this seems a bit exaggerated?

[1] [http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/coke-sees-phenomenal- result...](http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/coke-sees-phenomenal-result-from- twitter-ads-ftimes-d0a0f1579a92.html?x=0)

</comment><comment><USER3> at a cost of...? 1 USD CPM? is it worth it? will it be worth it once the novelty wears off? is it enough to make twitter profitable enough?</comment>


US Government Takes Down 3D Printed Gun Plans - <AUTHOR> http://on3dprinting.com/2013/05/09/us-govt-takes-down-3d-printed-gun-plans/ <comment><USER2> What's going to be hilarious is when the NRA works against homemade guns because they don't actually represent gun owners but gun manufacturers and people finally start getting the point of lobbyists.

Going to get some popcorn and watch y'all fight each other over who gets to have the most toys to accidentally kill their friends and family with.

<comment><USER3> Can I just upvote the first line of your reply?

<comment><USER4> Surely you can appreciate that most of the world considers the American obsession with guns absurd :)

Most countries have strict gun laws and the people are fine with that. Banning 3D gun models is still stupid though, especially in a country with such high gun availability.

<comment><USER5> Shooting is an Olympic sport for God's sake, but of course Americans are ignorant violent idiots.

<comment><USER6> Hey, not counting Northern Ireland, handguns are banned in enlightened Great Britain and their pistol team and aspirants to it have to practice outside of the country: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_sport#Pistol>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "While I am as impressed as anyone with 3-D printing technology and I believe it has amazing possibilities," said California state senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), "we must ensure that it is not used for the wrong purpose with potentially deadly consequences. I plan to introduce legislation that will ensure public safety and stop the manufacturing of guns that are invisible to metal detectors and that can be easily made without a background check."

Why are even bay area politicians so completely dumb about tech. Why can't we get a Jared Polis?

<comment><USER8> What would be a better way to handle this situation?

(edit) I'm not saying that this is the best option. The government _is_ tasked with ensuring public safety and this _is_ an issue with major public safety repercussions. They cannot just sit and watch this unfold, and what this guy said is basically the most obvious way of dealing with the situation.

<comment><USER9> It is not. Nobody was threatened with this, nobody will ever be threatened with this. This thing is un-concealable and unusable as a real-life weapon in any public safety scenario. If you think anybody with this prototype can threaten public safety you are badly mistaken.

The idea that any time anything new happens the government should jump in and prohibit it until it is proven safe is exactly why politicians like this thrive. Instead, people should use their brains and let the government intervene only when actual threat is there, not theoretical lets-cover-our- asses invented threat is touted by politicians.

<comment><USER8> I'm guessing that one can carry it through the airport security easily enough. It's not that it's printed, it's the fact that it's printed in _plastic_.

<comment><USER9> Have you been to any US airport recently? These guys grab my freaking nuts and touch me in places that usually only myself and my wife are allowed to access. And you say it'd be easy to get through them a piece of a size of a large brick without them noticing? Do you know what mayhem an explosive of a similar volume could create? Something does not add up here with your theory.

<comment><USER8> You put it in a bag, obviously.

As a bonus, you redesign it into larger number of smaller pieces and spread them over several bags.

You can stick your head in a sand as much as you want, but this _is_ a game- changing development. If one can print a working gun, one can conceivably print other interesting things that to date were assumed to only exist in metal, the assumption that was the foundation of respective detection technology. The assumption that is no longer valid.

<comment><USER10> _You put it in a bag, obviously._

You mean the bag that goes through an X-Ray scanner which detects high density objects?

<comment><USER11> Indeed, the same bag that is mysteriously devoid of valuables after it has arrived at its destination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People do realise that improvised firearms are actually nothing new right? They've been around for ages - indeed 3D printed versions are vastly inferior to their machine shop counter parts which have been used quite effectively in the past for various political and gang related assassinations.

Source: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm>

They should probably ban flash lights as well.

<comment><USER13> But that's not the same. Printing a 3D gun is relatively easy: download the design, print it, and that's it (more or less). With an improvised firearm, you have to search the design, get the materials, build it, and unless you're experienced the gun probably won't work.

For me, it's like saying "we should not control gunpowder sales because you can make gunpowder at home". Silly example, I know, but you get my point.

<comment><USER9> You realize you just described the same process twice, only in different terms to appeal to different emotions?

It's not like 3d-printed gun does not require design, does not need materials, does not require assembly and is guaranteed to work.

And yes, controlling sale of basic chemicals on the premise that this somehow prevents criminals from using them for their nefarious goals is silly. The US government does it right now with drugs and it is failing spectacularly, only guys they make trouble to are amateur chemists that have nothing to do with drugs. Same will happen with guns.

<comment><USER13> You don't have to understand the design of the printed gun. You don't need to search materials apart from the big block of plastic to print and the percutor needle. The difficulty level is completely different.

And I didn't say that I'm for controlled sale of basic chemicals. I said that the idea of not controlling 3d-printer gun designs because "you can also make your gun at home" is silly.

<comment><USER14> What I don't understand from you (and most anti-3D-printed-guns) is why you think it _should_ be controlled in the first place?

Even if you somehow found a compelling argument, the kind of control you're asking for is _impossible_. It's like trying to stop piracy with DRM: you're gonna piss off users and someone is just going to break your "controlled environment" in the end.

<comment><USER15> But you'll still stop _most instances_ of would-be piracy - the 14-year-old kids hanging out at a park, unable to _easily_ send a movie from one smartphone to another. Not impossible - just hard enough to not bother.

You can't absolutely stop 3D printing of dangerous artifacts. But you can lower the appeal by increasing penalties, requiring the party to take more steps to avoid being caught, attaching a strong social stigma to the practice.

It's physically impossible to keep someone from barreing their car at 80mph down the wring side of the highway into oncoming traffic, but this is one among countless potential potential disasters we almost never see in practice. It is worth considering why such things happen as rarely as they do.

<comment><USER9> >>>> But you'll still stop _most instances_ of would-be piracy

Really? Is it how it is working out? Last time I looked all those DRM-ed things were still available easily - together with cracks.

>>> But you can lower the appeal by increasing penalties

Really? Is it how it is working out? I remember we have increased penalties for drug offenses, which completely eradicated drugs from the market. Oh wait, it didn't, it is actually worse than ever and increased penalties mostly hurt innocent people with no criminal intent or criminal past, routing them into the vast prison industry.

>>> but this is one among countless potential potential disasters we almost never see in practice.

As opposed to mass shootings with a 3d-printed plastic guns, which we see in practice every day, right? It is fascinating how common sense can be compartmentalized so neatly - here you can distinguish imaginary threat from real one, and here you completely can't.

>>> It is worth considering why such things happen as rarely as they do.

But it's much more worth considering why some things that never happen is OK but some things that never happen require immediate government action and give exception from all the Constitution.

<comment><USER15> It is difficult to measure counterfactuals, but I strongly suspect that the rate of piracy is much lower than it otherwise would be. Everything you say regarding availability is accurate - but consider, for example, the difference in piracy rates between console and PC games. There _are_ cracked versions of console games, but they are much less widespread because using them is much, much more difficult.

I am not happy that DRM appears to be effective - I would much rather that not be the case - but it does appear to significantly reduce the level of piracy from what it would otherwise be.

You are correct to note the absence of printed-gun crimes. The technology is young, the printers are not widespread, and the initial designs are likely far short of what is possible. As accessibility, knowledge, and affordability increase, I expect those crimes to start occurring. I further expect that the rate of those crimes will be lower with federal intervention than without. I really hope I'm wrong about that, too.

<comment><USER9> Most of the crimes always were, are and will be committed with most readily available means. This is why in most violent crimes, the weapons used are fists, knives, clubs and alike, and regular common handguns. One needs to either have very special circumstances or very special state of mind to choose to commit a crime with such very exotic weapon as 3d-printed gun. It's like choosing to shoot somebody with 15-century longbow - possible, but who really would do it? Of course, among 300+ mln people sooner or latter there would be some weird people that do that, however I highly doubt banning those files would stop them either from committing the crime and from committing the crime with this specific weapon if they already decided to do it.

<comment><USER15> "Exotic" is a function of time, familiarity, price, and rarity. There was a time when Internet pornography was exotic, and there will come a time when printed weapons aren't. Notice, too, the degree to which the Internet vastly expanded the audience and variety of pornography available. The analogous process with something less innocuous, like weapons, is not a cheering thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Folks, lets have us a book burnin!" said Obama. Fortunately, it's not 1960 and the information they seek to control is already out and cannot be controlled. The fact that the government would even bother taking it down in an era of torrent networks exemplifies their extreme ignorance of the world we live in.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wow, this is unbelieveable...

I didn't realize they had this power, or that they'd exercise it like that... it's just scary to think that the internet is not as free or open as it feels or appears.

<comment><USER18> This is nothing new, only the newly digitized weapon de jour is changing. Remember back in the nineties when exporting encryption was the hot topic: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_investigation)

<comment><USER19> The only actual difference being that cryptography never killed anyone...

<comment><USER18> You don't have to kill someone in line of sight with it to argue that a technology is a vital military asset. Nor has it to be its sole purpose.

PS: Obligatory Enigma reference: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra>

PPS: I'm not saying encryption should regulated by the government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0ad7b4f1833e01a3f2fa5613d8fc46de622339ac&dn=DefDist+Defcad+Liberator+Printable+Gun for download.

To view it, download Blender (free and opensource 3d software)- <http://download.blender.org/> (it allows you to import stl files if you want to view them; or export them from your designs when you want to 3d-print something).

Also, Github has in-browser STL rendering capability (e.g.: [https://github.com/lorennorman/octocat-3d/blob/master/stl/oc...](https://github.com/lorennorman/octocat-3d/blob/master/stl/octocat_head.stl) ). It's only a matter of time I guess before we'll all be seeing direct links to individual components.

</comment><comment><USER21> I thought the government would understand The Streisand Effect by now.

<comment><USER22> Yep I really think that the printed gun is lame, but now that it is forbidden I want that file! Just for the sake of being able to get it. I don't own a 3d printer yet, and I would never fire from a plastic barrel, ever (unless plastic technology changes quite a lot, which is probable)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> From here it looks like in two years it will be completely possible to arm thousands of people on a large demonstration without law enforcement being able to step in. It might add some weight to peoples' opinion on CISPA, INDECT and other fascist inventions as they walk towards the parliament. And that's talking about first world.

Remember Athens, Egypt? Try imagining it a few years from now. People will have affordable real-time mesh communication networks, high quality urban mapping, printed guns and home-made explosives. How exactly would you suppress crowd like that? I say with understanding and empathy, because anything else _will_ hurt.

<comment><USER24> "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Meanwhile, I grabbed it off TPB and, judging by the number of seeds, was hardly the first to think of doing so. Why the USG thinks it can put the cat back in the bag is beyond me.

<comment><USER26> they're adding hurdles, the more friction involved in the process the lower the conversion rate for the amount of people who will have the template.

<comment><USER27> Except that's not how it works with this. They've now incentivised a lot of people who'd never, ever care to download it just because it's been taken down, and brought massively more attention to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The government's stated reason for taking it down is that making weapons technology available for international download via the internet requires an ITAR license [1]. If he had simply blocked international IP addresses from downloading it, it would not have fallen under the powers of the State Department. I've had to even do ITAR licensing on portable half-racks of off the shelf Dell servers.

It's a pain, but it is what it is.

1 - <http://pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar_official.html>

<comment><USER29> First admentment triumphs ITAR, that is why you can export crypto programs.

<comment><USER28> Nope, public safety trumps free speech.

You don't have to register with the State Department anymore and it's been loosened up a bit, but you still have to register with Commerce now and there's still restrictions.

<http://www.bis.doc.gov/encryption/default.htm>

Here's a nice article summarizing the current status

[http://encryption_policies.tripod.com/us/rubinstein_1200_sof...](http://encryption_policies.tripod.com/us/rubinstein_1200_software.htm)

(not that I disagree with you in principle, just that the reality is not so cut and dry)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This makes me wonder what kind of regulations the 3d printing industry will face. It makes me wonder if 3d printer software might be forced to not print pieces it recognizes as a gun similar to how ink printers won't print images of money. Or some other restrictions on printing It seems unlikely that the government will be happy with people printing anything they want.

<comment><USER27> The problem is the range of projects aimed at making 3D-printers that can replicate the parts for itself. Any restrictions will see people designing plans for innocent looking components that can be used to assemble a restriction-free 3D-printer. It's a losing proposition to try to restrict this. They may succeed at delaying widescale adoption for a while, but not much more.

<comment><USER31> People will just hack the firmware as with every device ever made. They'll have to make it a crime to use a 3D printer with the intent of creating a firearm, but who's going to give a shit?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> One possibility I haven't seen mentioned here:

1\. Government does actually know how the Internet works

2\. Makes this attempt, knows it will fail

3\. Waits until somebody blows themselves - or somebody else - up with a poorly made, 3D printed gun

4\. Government points to failed attempt, argues it does not have the necessary power it needs to prevent these tragedies

5\. Government passes bill expanding its power

6\. Rinse, repeat

Of course my use of "government" here incorrectly suggests a single entity with a plan. Obviously it does really work that way, but bureaucracies sometimes remind me of organisms with memories, immune systems and, above all, a desire to grow.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's just data. Good luck vacuuming it up from every crack of the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER34> They're on The Pirate Bay from what I understand, so its a little too late for that now...

<comment><USER35> Streisand Effect powers, ACTIVATE!

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6a991291e4c22d379e814be8b4d44f110ac7d1df&dn=DefDist+Defcad.org+AR-15+Lower+Receiver+V5

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:1c012de81d94330055acce53f46602e7b510b46c&dn=defcad-repo- master-2013-05-08.zip

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0ad7b4f1833e01a3f2fa5613d8fc46de622339ac&dn=DefDist+Defcad+Liberator+Printable+Gun

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:c862f0d031e575384acc6bacc2be7d705666d5bf&dn=DefDist+DEFCAD+MEGA+PACK+v4.2+%28Saito%29

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:c37772020eab135e67aac243fb52e750f210a25c&dn=DefDist+DEFCAD+MEGA+PACK+v4.1+%28Carothers%29

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0f5f7f0a3e5a3e29b56868e19b60f0fe49c17474&dn=DefDist_DEFCAD_MEGA_PACK_v3.3

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:2e26ad5ad4e0f3c7638b41daaaba3aba42b7eadc&dn=3D+gun+print+DEFCAD+MEGA+PACK+v3+with+updates+zip

I don't have a 3D printer, and really, _really_ don't care whether or not you can print a gun using one. But try to censor information about it, and I'll mirror it on my seedbox for as long as I can, just to piss you off.

They can't stop the signal.

<comment><USER36> And you thought that the MPAA tracking torrents was bad... now not only are you seeding potential copyright infringement (I don't know what the license actually is), but you might now also be circumventing arms control laws. That is a whole level of legal hurt that I'd rather avoid.

You might not be able to stop the signal, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Universe still died at the end of Serenity.

<comment><USER35> [http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-20.0&os=win...](http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-20.0&os=win&lang=en- US)

That file didn't exist in 1995, but if it had, distributing it outside the US would also have run afoul of arms control laws.

Technology changes, and laws change with it. The laws, almost without exception, lag several years behind the technology.

<comment><USER36> Yeah, but that was for encryption. Encryption of today would have been unbreakable in 95. This is for... you know... actual arms.

So, really, the law makes more sense here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> There seems to be a lot of assumption that the govt is somehow misunderstanding technology or the internet. I doubt they expect to prevent the distribution of those files, or that they even care about the printed gun - as others have said, it's not really anything new as there are existing ways to make one.

What they probably do care about is Cody Wilson trying to build up some sort of cult around 3d weapon printing. He's spent quite a bit of effort trying to provoke the government and prove he can't be stopped. Seems he was wrong.

<comment><USER38> while I think cody is a repulsive regressive snot, I would risk my life to defend his words. I feel his files are his words.

As for cults, the USG just played directly into Cody's hands... the files have now spread father and wider than if the USG had just ignored them in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I suddenly have an urge to make one that I never had before...

</comment><comment><USER40> I downloaded the file. I was curious to look at it and I am not all that impressed. It isn't amazing mechanical engineering. And I have a shotgun I bought a block from my house for 99 bucks and there was one page of paperwork and I used a expired ID card to buy it. It isn't hard to get a gun.

I'm actually pretty excited about the plastic gun thing. It is way less fingers that can pull the trigger on guns that are already really easy to get.

Edit: I should that I am for really strict gun laws. My father was killed by a gun that was bought in a pawn shop so if you even save a few people a year it is worth it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Unless I'm missing something, you will still need to purchase ammo to use in your 3D-printed gun, or else it will be useless. Are the sales of ammunition in the US completely unregulated?

<comment><USER42> When I worked at a place that sold ammo as far as I can remember we didn't have to track anything special. Guns had all kinds of tracking and restrictions, magazine sizes had restriction (for at least 5 states) but ammo seemed to be just fine. Since it was an internet store most of the orders were CC but even then we'd have the address we shipped to but it isn't like the ATF came in and asked about ammo. They would ask about the guns and make sure we were compliant there.

I get the nagging feeling that I had heard of some sort of tracking before but I can't recall any detail to search on. For all I know it might have just been a rumor and that increased our sales and that's what I heard.

Wal-Mart limits sales per customer per day[1].

[1][http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732329370457833...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323293704578332561074939182.html)

<comment><USER6> As the article indicates, Wal-Mart's limits are only due to the severe, we've never seen anything like it before, post-Newton ammo shortage. My other comment in this subthread addresses the existing limits as I know them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> $100 to the first person that can encode the plans on a t-shirt (but you have to send me a shirt)

<comment><USER44> A QR code can store 2,953 bytes. If you were just encoding compressed vertex data it might be enough (depending on the complexity of the model - I haven't seen it myself).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> "In Canada, it is legal to download the instructions, but there is a question of whether Canadians can legally print the components."

(from [http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/05/09/technolog...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/05/09/technology-3d-printed- gun-crackdown.html) )

That's not especially significant in itself either, only somewhat reassuring for any Canuckois out there wishing to download the models.

</comment><comment><USER46> [http://www.scribd.com/doc/140471313/Letter-from- Department-o...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/140471313/Letter-from-Department- of-State-to-Defense-Distributed)

The letter references a number of items besides the printable gun, including "125mm BK-14M high-explosive anti-tank warhead" Which sounds rather closer to matching the intent of the munitions export regulations.

<comment><USER47> It's just another file on the defcad site, usual government confusion around files hosted on the internet.

You can pick up most of what you need to know about anti-tank warheads from a Tom Clancy book, or any library book about shaped charges.

For most people an anti-tank warhead is going to be useless in the context of how to disable a tank.

<comment><USER29> Can you expand on your last sentence?

<comment><USER47> You need a way to deliver the warhead perpendicular to armour plate of the tank with sufficient force to disable the various safeties. If you don't accomplish all those things then the shaped charge will do virtually nothing to the armour plate.

As far as I know it's difficult to 3D print 88mm cannons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Keep in mind, ITAR and AECA regulations are concerned with export weapons and weapons systems to non-US entities. The munitions list (USML) includes everything from guns to airplanes. The regulations themselves go well beyond physical assets and include related software, documentation and design drawings. It is likely DEFCAD, if they survive any fines, could reopen if they can somehow verify the downloader does not require an export license.

This is the same set of regulations Robert Gates famously complained[1] restricted the export of F16 spare parts from the US. This platforms has been widely exported and this regulation applies to non-weapons related components i.e., canopy latches, flaps, etc.

[1] <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/world/21export.html?_r=0>

</comment><comment><USER49> right... so you're not allowed to download the plans for a gun, but you _are_ allowed to buy a rifle for a 5 year old. For me, it seems this is just someone trying to protect their income.

<comment><USER6> Only parents can judge when children are mature enough to wield guns, and obviously some will get it wrong. My father started directly teaching me how to shoot when I was around 6. At 3, he would start taking me and later my siblings with him when he went hunting, so he started teaching by example at that age.

His guns were never locked up, our parents "gun proofed" us, taught us about danger and responsibility. They're from the Silent Generation, it was assumed back then. Heck, my father and many of his classmates would store their hunting guns in their school lockers so they wouldn't have to go back home before hunting after school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> (Parts of) weapons is just the beginning. After the Music and Film industry, will we now see the manufacturing industry go after individuals sharing 3D maps of 'their' content?

</comment><comment><USER51> Looks like I wasn't far off... <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5661443>

</comment><comment><USER52> There is some chance that these guys will be killed by guns of their own design. Possibly a cool attempt to get the Darwin award.

</comment><comment><USER53> That letter is surprisingly polite.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, also when the suspect is taken into the police car, they ensure he doesn't bump his head on the roof, I've seen it. Doesn't change the fact he's taken into custody, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I live in the U.S. and I am raising an eyebrow at this. For the rest of the world, I understand the need for this, but the easy access to guns we already have in the states would make it skeptical on why you would want one of these. I guess it would be for curiosity for some, but I would rather stick to my AK and shoot thousands of rounds reliably. I am a firm believer of "to each their own" so if people want to make these, I am all for it. If they blow up their face in the process of shooting, oh well. In a different perspective, I would rather build a gun with my hands as I am a firm believer of do it yourself.</comment>


'Fixer-developers' needed for web apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/318760,rsac-fixer-developers-needed-for-web-apps.aspx

<comment><USER2> > "You won't find good engineers interested [in fixing vulnerabilities]. It's > a waste of their talent."

> "He said engineers dedicated to coding will not devote time to fixing bugs."

Unless he meant to say finding the bugs or doing quality assurance, this is very elitist. Engineers dedicated to coding should fix bugs they themselves created, because it means they know the source code better than anyone, and will be able to do so with minimal effort and minimal side-effects.

Saying it's a waste of their talent made me puke a little. Coding _is_ fixing bugs. It's a big part of development, and often takes the hardest work or most thinking. You can't just start throwing code around and expect someone else to come around and fix your bugs for you. That's ridiculous and will probably result in a culture where new bugs are created faster because there's no responsibility.

> "You have to analyse the vulnerabilities of these apps and understand > attacks, at a very fast speed. We don't have that time anymore."

If you're coding a web app and you're (calling yourself) a topnotch engineer, you should understand the basics of web app security, and how to avoid the top attack vectors such as XSS, SQL injection, XSRF, etc... You really have no excuse not knowing about them, and should from the ground up code the app to avoid these vulnerabilities. Saying it'd be a waste of talent just doesn't make sense, because if you have any talent in coding, then you know about these, and you know how to code the app without creating them. It's like a reflex.

My conclusion: this CEO Philippe Courtot is full of shit.

</comment><comment><USER3> > He said engineers dedicated to coding will not devote time to fixing bugs.

That's so corporate. Engineer will do whatever is necessary to make the goddamn thing work properly.

I briefly worked at software production division of some corporation. They had funny attitude. They were building their apps in the scrum process fixing bugs as they went (reluctantly because, no story points for bugfixing and everyone loves points even though it's just a planning tool not performance measure) but when the project was considered done (by whoever made such decisions) it was promptly forgotten as if it was just perfect. As if they weren't aware that the piece of software they just architected and engineered is bug ridden piece of crud, as every software is until you spend a at least year with your users weeding bugs out.

</comment><comment><USER4> "You won't find good engineers interested [in fixing vulnerabilities]. It's a waste of their talent."

If developers know that they'll have to fix their own bugs, hopefully they'll be more careful there will be fewer bugs. Also, developers fixing bugs in their own code are less likely to introduce additional bugs than people fixing bugs in code they don't know well.

Also, if these developers are really so talented, why do they write code that's full of vulnerabilities?</comment>


Trump administration to pay hospitals to treat uninsured COVID-19 patients - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-plans-to-pay-hospitals-to-treat-uninsured-coronavirus-patients-11585927877 <comment><USER2> I can only read the first couple of paragraphs, because paywall, but does the article have the phrase "single payer", "socialized medicine" or "medicare for all" in it? If not, why not?</comment>