Ask HN: Open problems in finance? - <AUTHOR> Hello everyone,
I've seen people working in finance or interested in finance on this board, so I thought I may ask.
According to you, what are some open problems in finance, old or new? I am especially interested in quantitative finance.
I would ultimately like to come up with a list of them, a little bit like we do in mathematics, physics and computer science.
Thanks and have a great day! <comment><USER2> Not sure if this would come under your defintion of an "open problem", but in the financial risk space there are many time consuming and costly challenges implementing economic capital models.

These models are used to determine the probability of an account/customer/contagion risk group defaulting (aka PD) and the loss incurred, given a default (LGD).

The current models require a lot of historical data to train them, and need to incorporate economic cycle factors.

There are some vendors in this space, but their products are very dated, expensive and leave a lot to be desired. Also the products really provide a platform for an actuarial team to build upon, rather than having an out of the box solution (which is probably desirable in the banking space)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_finance)

</comment><comment><USER4> While your interest is in fintech, do take a look at the forces shaping the broader global macro economic environment because you can literally see some of these "open questions" playing out in real-time!

List of Unsolved Problems in Econ:

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

What happens when central bankers run out of ammo and realize monetary policy may not be an ideal path to fiscal stimulus? Or having the bright idea of devaluing your currency to depreciate your outstanding liabilities results in a mutually assured destruction scenario when every sovereign on earth implements the same idea simultaneously? And when "too-big-to-fail" entities amass derivative exposure that is 100X global GDP does it become time to panic yet?

But still its innovations like ZeroCoin and SmartContracts that give one hope that out of the rubble, creative solutions will arise. As long as they are grounded in economic reality and not fantasy, humanity will abide...

<comment><USER5> Thanks for posting that list. Interesting problems.

One thing that I think is missing from that list is how to factor in technology into economic models or measurements like GDP.

Right now this dark horse which in my view have the biggest single impact on our world is mostly left out as an externality which if you think about it is not just absurd but straight out irresponsible.

Politicians listen to economists and their models and as long as it's kept out of those models they can't react politically to it. And thus technology will keep moving faster than legislation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1\. A question that has interested me for some time: what is the best quantitative measure of "risk"? Intuitively we understand risk to be related to the distribution of investment returns. More information means that we are more confident about our prediction, hence our risk is lower.

But pinning risk down "mathematically" is kind of tricky. There are several proxies for risk under modern portfolio theory, including variance, standard deviation, shortfall, half-normal variance. Why are there so many different measures? If analytical tractability was not a concern, what should risk models look like?

2\. Multi-horizon portfolio optimization. Portfolios are typically optimized one time step (horizon) into the future. However, if one wishes to optimally allocate a portfolio with extremely long-term investment periods (think Berkshire), one needs to subdivide that period into multiple horizons and optimize over these together. This is computationally expensive - is there a way to do this efficiently?

<comment><USER7> #1 I don't think there is a perfect measure. In practice portfolio managers use multiple views of risk, including multi-factor risk models, stress testing, value at risk, etc. Any tool money can buy they will use.

#2 has already been solved: One formulation is here: [https://stanford.edu/~boyd/papers/pdf/dyn_port_opt.pdf](https://stanford.edu/~boyd/papers/pdf/dyn_port_opt.pdf) There are optimizers out there already on the market with these capabilities.

<comment><USER6> #1 - Whether or not there is a formal risk measure that is less "ad-hoc/in- practice" than the others is still up in the air, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This isn't a quantitive finance problem but more of a consumer finance problem: I really think it is about time there is an API for consumers to access their data at financial institutions. I could see that opening up all kinds of innovation. (Selfishly it would allow the startup I'm working on to multiply the value we offer to users.)

Obviously a standard would be nice but in practice I'm sure each institution would come up with their own or embrace and extend the standard. e.g. FIX with trading.

<comment><USER9> I looked into this problem extensively a few years ago. Banks are actually moving _backwards_. The ones that previously exposed an API are killing them off and moving to a proprietary API that talks only to their app. Every retail bank is basically creating their own version of Mint, where you add your accounts from other institutions to their app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> No exactly an "open problem" (as in science), but an underlying problem is that there is no "google for finance". All financial data is scattered over different places, some of it not openly accessible, in crude formats, etc.

<comment> T-A Recently mentioned on HN: [https://www.tiingo.com/welcome](https://www.tiingo.com/welcome)

And of course [https://www.quandl.com/](https://www.quandl.com/)

<comment><USER10> Thanks, I didn't know those yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Remittance is still one the biggest unsolved problem according to me.

I could consider cryptocurrency as the ultimate solution but online if everywhere its being used in equal importance and liquidity. For more traditional money, banks are squeezing fees & spreads out of regular people. Companies like TransferWise are trying to resolve some of these problems but still they rely on the existing banking system to move the funds around.

So there you go - open problem!

</comment><comment><USER12> It may be just my ignorance. But I always thought we need a better measure of the health of an economy. (All?) the proxies like GDP are either simplistic or flat out deceptive. GDP for example seems to suggest that throwing a bunch of money around without producing anything improves the health of economy. I realize this is not really a quant finance related question.

<comment><USER13> There are many economic metrics apart from the GDP, and they are freely available. Things like national productivity, currency inflation, average amount of savings, etc.

The most telling one, for me personally, is the human condition of the bottom 20% of the residents.

<comment><USER12> Yes. Measuring inequality or happiness etc would seem better but are they quantitative and objective? I don't know how this human condition metric is quantified. I will look it up though. Moreover this has the same problem as GDP. Supposing every one is happy and there is very little inequality in the society. But it does not tell me anything about the actual economic progress. Unless I define progress as reducing inequality, in which case this argument is moot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good question. I would like to know what's been debunked in finance.

Personally, I cringe when I hear talking heads correlating then Fibonacci number with the stock market.

And I've come to realize, if Jim Crammer recommends a stock, don't buy it. I would like to know which professional out there has the best track record in stock speculation. It seems like something that we could accurately study, and publish the data?

I don't have the money to speculate in the stock market. It just seems like it's as bad as gambling at this point in history. It interests me though. If I had money it would go to realestate speculation. I'm so wrong on my stock picks, I've though about contrarian investing. Supposedly, there are such people?

<comment><USER15> You're not "so wrong on your stock picks", you're wrong almost exactly 50% of the time (well actually you should be wrong about 40% of the time, but those 40% of bad picks will lose you about the same amount of money as the 60% of good picks earn you).

Just like everybody else, even most professional fund managers, although they wouldn't like to admit it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The most popular stack with IDE lacks most modern programming tools. I am of course talking about Excel. Where are my unit tests, version control, and so on?

A good start would be a readable and round-trippable format that Excel documents can be saved as

<comment><USER17> In my university finance classes we were forced to use calculators that were invented in 1976[1] to run calculations on formulas we had to memorize that could easily have been automated in Excel. Since then I've been prejudiced that "the invisible hand" ;) was deliberately keeping electric technology out of finance in order to maintain a legacy business model. Like that of the MPAA towards VCRs and DVDs etc.

[1][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_Business_A...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_Business_Analyst)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Risk neutral model selection. In general, if your model has too few parameters, it doesn't capture some features, and if it has too many, it overfits. In statistics, the balance between fit and model parsimony is achieved by information criteria, like Akaike. There is nothing similar for risk neutral models. How do you choose between a one factor Vasicek model and a 10 factor Cheyette with stochastic-local volatility and time-dependent mean- reversions? Currently it's much closer to an art than to a science.

</comment><comment><USER19> True digital cash: secure, anonymous, portable, offline etc.

<comment><USER20> \+ universally and instantly spendable :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The measurement problem, if by quantitative you mean "relating to, measuring, or measured by the quantity of something".

There is no consistent mathematical standard of measurement by which money is created. Instead, the monetary value of some good or service used as capital for a loan is largely up to the arbitrary appraisal of the bank.

</comment><comment><USER21> I know not all countries have this problem. But i live in Switzerland and not a single bank offers me some kind of API. All i was asking for is a readonly interface to allow me personal tracking. (We dont do credit card payments for everyday stuff here, we use money)

</comment><comment><USER22> How to prevent bubbles from forming. How to provide a viable way to invest in ones retirement that provides some surety.

</comment><comment><USER23> How to calculate rate variances and volume variances. There is currently a standard used, but it is misleading.

</comment><comment><USER24> How to make money. Unsolved, or at least those who've solved aren't sharing. (100% serious answer.)

<comment><USER25> Since you insisted it was a serious answer, I'll bite. Making money relatively straightforward. Money is a type of medium of exchange, it possesses certain qualities that other media do not.

You make money first by creating the tangible / intangible artifacts of that exchange, like currency, systems of accounting, and such. You then get other people to use the system to exchange goods and services.

This typically requires a government, but other entities have made money in the past, and even today. Bitcoin satisfies all the criteria of money.

The practice of fractional-reserve banking is another example of money creation. Most banks will lend out more money than they have access to in deposits, as a relatively safe form of leverage.

This has the effect of slightly expanding how much money is available to the economy, aggregated over all the banks and loans being made by those banks, the expansion is significant.

Things like video game currencies also satisfy all the criteria of money, though the things you can buy with them are limited, sometimes you can trade them for other currencies.

So there's lots of ways to make money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's a potential unsolved problem if you think Bernie Sanders would eventually get his wish of taxing stock trades.

In fact, I suspect there's a Superpac somewhere that would fund research showing the net effect it might have. Or some organization that would want to know what that does to algorithmic trading.

I'm guessing though, the likelihood of a bill like that making it all the way is pretty low.

<comment><USER27> Canada tried such a tax, and there is already research showing the net effect it has.

[http://qed.econ.queensu.ca/pub/faculty/milne/322/IIROC_FeeCh...](http://qed.econ.queensu.ca/pub/faculty/milne/322/IIROC_FeeChange_submission_KM_AP3.pdf)

[http://www.publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection-R/LoPBd...](http://www.publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection-R/LoPBdP/BP/bp419-e.htm)

The net result is that institutional investors (Goldman) won, retail investors (grandma) lost and spreads (the cost of trading) increased 9%.

I haven't been paying close attention, but I thought Bernie was contrasting himself against Hillary who is supposedly in the pockets of banks. That image doesn't really fit with such a policy.

<comment><USER26> Here's what he has on his official site regarding it:

"Has proposed a financial transaction tax which will reduce risky and unproductive high-speed trading and other forms of Wall Street speculation; proceeds would be used to provide debt-free public college education."[1]

[1][https://berniesanders.com/issues/reforming-wall- street/](https://berniesanders.com/issues/reforming-wall-street/)

I'm trying to avoid getting into a debate about whether it's a good idea. If you think, though, it has some chance of happening...it does specifically become an "Open Problem in Quantitative Finance", which is what the OP is asking for.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, a financial transaction tax is exactly what Canada did. It did reduce "risky" [1] high speed trading, and in the process hurt retail while helping (a little) big traders. This is pretty much exactly what microstructure theory predicts. Figuring out the effects is a solved problem.

The "open problem" I guess will be improving the existing tax avoidance software for traders?

[1] High speed trading is extremely non-risky. Look at graphs of the most extreme HFT incidents: [https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/flash_crash_flash_in...](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/flash_crash_flash_in_the_pan.html)

<comment><USER28> >helped big traders a little >reduced HFT

don't big traders use HFT as a market advantage over retail?

<comment><USER29> Not at all. The HFT debate has two real players: Large banks and large active investors (on the one hand) and HFT firms on the other hand. HFT firms profit by driving margins down at the expense of established players, and by reacting quickly to very large orders. Retail investors, however, benefit from the lower margins, and weren't placing very large orders. They're fairly clearly winners. (So are large passive investors. Vanguard is on record as being very pro-HFT, because it drives their costs down.)

One description of the HFT (from the always thought provoking Matt Levine): "It's an incremental efficiency improvement, with some opportunity for gamesmanship, that overall allocates some money out of the pockets of banks and hedge-fund managers and into the pockets of exchanges and HFT technologists."

That's basically correct. And as a bonus, the small retail investor buying twenty shares of Apple now gets his shares very slightly cheaper, which is kind of nice I suppose. (Unless you work for a large Wall Street firm who's revenue depends on retail investors paying high margins. But in that case my sympathy is _quite_ limited.)

<comment><USER27> See also this article I wrote explaining this: [https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/fervent_defense_of_f...](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/fervent_defense_of_frontrunning_hfts.html)

Concretely speaking, HFTs price discriminate when providing liquidity. Grandma gets a good price to sell her 2 lots of GOOG, but Bill Ackman and George Soros need to pay more to sell 20000 lots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The "breakthrough models" are not stable and fall apart as soon as the world financial landscape drastically changes. It took me 17 years to build a working model (black box) and my secret ingredient was an "organic" sub formula that allow the core structure of the model to adjust with the changing financial landscape.

</comment><comment><USER31> Changing legacy business processes to align with the post-recession regulatory landscape.

</comment><comment><USER32> Predicting the markets

</comment><comment><USER33> Greed.</comment>


Video of Aaron Swartz discussing the Open Library - <AUTHOR> http://media-cyber.law.harvard.edu/VideoBerkman/aaron_swartz_2007-10-23.mov <comment><USER2> I don't really see what problem is solves... maybe I don't have such a passion for books.

Sounds like unless you want really detailed information on out of print books, what already exists is good enough.

Am I missing the killer feature?

<comment><USER3> Aaron Swartz is the "killer" feature. How long before this goes the way of abandonment?

<comment><USER4> A fair question. Looks like other folks are doing the bulk of the coding:

<http://demo.openlibrary.org/about/relnote>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> what's he staring at? the hand gestures are kind of distracting too. should have used apple remote with that keynote.

oh and as an aside, i'm starting to notice that "structured wiki" might be the new buzzword of 2008. hey, what you making? i'm making a web 2.1 app that's a structured wiki with digg style voting to help you find a babysitter ONLINE; i'm going to get microsoft to value it at 15 billion.

<comment><USER6> Can I buy some shares? I will bring you oranges.</comment></comment>


Using DNS as a thin ID system - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2011/03/04/usingDnsAsTheThinIdSystem.html <comment><USER2> Neat. You could drop the HTTP part and use pure DNS:

$ dig @auth-ns hashed-password.andy.tel naptr

NXDOMAIN on failure, NAPTR record (or a set of records) on success.

Your comment about DNS being an API is right on.</comment>


Ask HN: Why enable Facebook comments on TechCrunch if they're used for spamming? - <AUTHOR>

Why would anyone enable Facebook comments while it is clear they're being used just to promote scams or filthy businesses.<p>http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/12/lenovo-is-laying-off-3200-staff-after-a-poor-quarter-of-business/ <comment><USER2> A couple of years ago Facebook Comments were the way to get rid of bad quality comments and trolls. [http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/techcrunch-facebook- comment...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/techcrunch-facebook-comments/)

Apart from using manual moderation what should TechCrunch do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe use some kind of spam filtering, most of those comments are obviously spam.</comment></comment>


Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-johnson-johnson-cancer-special-report-idUSKBN1OD1RQ <comment><USER2> It's sad that I'm not surprised that a company would put profit over life. I'm saddened by the fact but not surprised.

What really gets me is that baby powder is marketed towards young mothers and babies. That's a hardcore attitude towards money over life. How can they ever defend that?

<comment><USER3> > What really gets me is that baby powder is marketed towards young mothers > and babies.

Why does that increase the significance of this issue?

<comment><USER4> Culturally we value the women and children over men and older people.

This is likely due to the reproductive drive that makes babies cute and men more expendable than women.

<comment><USER5> But people from the same culture insist on the existence of "systematic sexism". Are they not mutually exclusive? I am genuinely interested in this. I do not understand how you can believe that people value women more than men, and at the same time say that there is "systematic sexism", "male oppression (against women)", etc. And on top of that surprisingly it is only men who are at fault, at least according to the people whom I have asked.

Please if you down-vote, do give me some sort of a feedback. It helps me learn and it helps me to not make the same mistake twice. :)

<comment><USER6> I think its more about trust and trust of products, historically we've believed women and children to be weaker and more vulnerable as people which is in turn why we depict them as so in sexist attacks: "Women are not good enough" and men are depicted traditionally as "strong, tough and burly" which I would say is also a wrong and stereotyped point making it harder for many men who are not like that or might need a break but can't because they have to maintain their "tough" image.

Thus Johnson & Johnson breaking that delicate trust over the issue of vulnerable women and children shows them as profiting from the "weak" and "precious" using products they knew were wrong. Society does not look well upon harmful exploitation at the profit of a few but expense of many, especially when you buy talc powder to use for children trusting that it won't harm you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My dad used baby powder as deodorant because he had sensitive skin. Died of lung cancer at age 58, and never smoked. Anecdotal, but this really pisses me off.

<comment><USER8> Was your father's home and workplace ever tested for radon? It's the second leading cause of lung cancer and a far bigger problem than asbestos.

[https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes- prevention/risk/s...](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes- prevention/risk/substances/radon/radon-fact-sheet#q4)

<comment><USER9> I couldn't find much detail about the sources of home/office radon in the linked site. Is it suspected to naturally occurring ie coming out of the ground or from some product or chemical used?

<comment><USER10> It rises up out of the ground, and the (expensive) solution is to install a vacuum system beneath the slab that vents the the outside. I know because my parents' house has such a system. More info: [https://sosradon.org/reducing- radon-in-your-home](https://sosradon.org/reducing-radon-in-your-home)

You can tell it's working because there's a U-shaped pressure gauge attached to the system showing the differential between under the slab and outside: [https://www.clutchprep.com/physics/gauge-u-shaped- tube](https://www.clutchprep.com/physics/gauge-u-shaped-tube)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> J&J responds [1]:

> The Reuters article is one-sided, false and inflammatory.

> The article ignores that thousands of tests by J&J, regulators, leading > independent labs, and academic institutions have repeatedly shown that our > talc does not contain asbestos.

[1] [https://www.jnj.com/our-company/johnson-johnson-issues- state...](https://www.jnj.com/our-company/johnson-johnson-issues-statement-on- reuters-talc-article)

<comment><USER12> Which is a cute line, but Reuters has the receipts... dozens of documents with experts from all over pointing out that the J&J talc sources have worrying levels of asbestos. My favorite one is a 2018 lab report in which they tested a sample of 1978 Baby Powder that they pulled from the J&J Museum and found asbestos:

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5080806-2018-lab- rep...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5080806-2018-lab-report- on1978-Baby-Powder-sample-from-J.html)

> _" Based on the results of our analysis, it can be stated, that individuals > who used 1978 Johnson's Baby Powder would have, more likely than not, been > exposed to fibrous amphibole asbestos."_

Caveats that this likely came from a plaintiff's attorney, but the methods seem solid.

Another fun one from J&J's scientists in 1973:

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5005205-April-26-197...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5005205-April-26-1973-DeWitt- Petterson-Memo.html)

> _" The talcs contain widely varying amounts of tremolite or fibrous talc. > Our Baby Powder contains talc fragments classifiable as fiber. [...] It > should be cautioned, however, that no final product will ever be made which > will be totally free of respirable particles."_

They knew their product had respirable particles, including nonzero quantities fibrous particles.. they lobbied the FDA to use less sensitive tests so that their products wouldn't fail tests, and they lied about it for the past 40 years. I'm shocked they only lost 10% of their company's value today.

<comment><USER11> > It should be cautioned, however, that no final product will ever be made > which will be totally free of respirable particles.

What is the definition of particles? I'm not surprised that talcum powder contains respirable (talc) particles.

<comment><USER12> The important distinction is "Respirable" not "particles". Respirable particles are those that are small enough to get into the alveoli of the lungs. Most talc particles are much larger, >25μm, which are easily caught in the nasal passages or cilia in the throat but there's a huge range of sizes depending on the talc source. Small particles (<10μm) can move to the lungs, hence the air quality warnings at PM2.5, PM7.5, and PM10. Particles of that size are particularly dangerous, but moreso when they contain fibrous silicates like asbestos, which are known to cause cancer when respired.

In the Reuters documents, you see repeated references from scientists / consultants to just swapping the talc for corn starch since it has a larger average particle size and a smaller distribution of sizes -- and importantly, doesn't have any fibrous silicates which can't be guaranteed with mined talc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tylenol 1982? J&J pulled every bottle off of every shelf from every retailer, imagine what the cost was. Sure management may not be the same today as it was back then, but you dont get to the position they're in by simply looking the other way

<comment><USER14> Good point. [http://time.com/3423136/tylenol- deaths-1982/](http://time.com/3423136/tylenol-deaths-1982/)

<comment><USER12> It's funny -- That J&J case is taught almost universally in ethics and business courses because it was so clearly the right thing to do, the company did so at great expense, and engendered so much good will.

Then it turns out during the same period they were actively misleading about the problematic nature of their talc. Since then, they've had several other scandals including bribing doctors all over Europe[1], were successfully sued over defective transplants that they knew about[2], shipped a poorly tested and dangerous vaginal mesh that also got them sued[3], among other just awful actions. It's looking more and more like they stumbled onto the correct course with the Tylenol episode and shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt for anything else.

[1] - [https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2011/2011-87.htm](https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2011/2011-87.htm)

[2] - [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-johnson-johnson- verdict/j...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-johnson-johnson- verdict/johnson-johnson-hit-with-247-million-verdict-in-hip-implant-trial- idUSKBN1DG2MB)

[3] - [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/29/revealed- joh...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/29/revealed-johnson- johnsons-irresponsible-actions-over-vaginal-mesh-implant)

<comment><USER15> I just learned about J&J through an XBOX history video. Microsoft said the failing rate was a tylenol moment for the xbox project. And now J&J fails to honor their past. Weird.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel uncomfortable when I read stories like this: the kind of stories where large groups of otherwise reasonable individuals collectively decide to secretly expose thousands (low-balling) of people to asbestos. Events like this pop up everywhere in the world and everywhen in recorded history. The frequency leads me to believe that my current self and my hypothetical, killer J&J executive self are the same or very similar; differing only in circumstances, rather than character.

I revisit this train of thought fairly often. I think it would do a lot of good to investigate what exactly happened to the people who are knowingly participating in this coverup. Maybe ask them if they would like help in their personal lives? Maybe some kind of welfare program where taxpayers subsidize their lifestyle and also pay for a counselor to help them figure out how to lead joyful, wonderful lives without killing the whole world? I'm just brain- storming from my armchair over here; A thorough investigation would probably yield better answers to the question of "How can I meet my needs if I admit that the company I work for sold asbestos to babies for decades without telling anyone?"

</comment><comment><USER17> Aren't lots of street narcotics "cut" with talcum powder?

I wonder if any studies show any correlation of mesothelioma and drug use...

<comment><USER18> I'm sure that some idiotic dealers do that.

But generally, one uses lactose or cornstarch.

Always spit in your palm, add a small sample, and mix. If it's gritty or even cloudy, don't buy. If you intend to inject, also don't buy if it's viscous. And always do progressive dosage testing, to reduce the risk of overdose or outright poisoning.

<comment><USER19> Do drug dealers just let you do that?

<comment><USER18> Anyone who won't is not someone you'd want to buy from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >The documents also depict successful efforts to influence U.S. regulators' plans to limit asbestos in cosmetic talc products and scientific research on the health effects of talc.

Yet another example proving that no corporation considers the interests of the public in any way. I'm baffled that anyone can argue for unfettered free market capitalism with such a bevy of evidence against it.

<comment><USER21> Not sure what is meant by your last sentence. Consumers will obviously avoid J&J baby powder products and switch to a competitor's baby powder product.

<comment><USER22> If the report is accurate, then how can consumers know in time to avoid dangerous health effects?

A sample timeline:

        1: J&J discovers asbestos in talc products
        2: J&J covers it up
        3: Consumers, none the wiser, continue using talc products
        4: X consumers contract cancer and die too early, fracturing families and causing unknowable amounts of economic damage in the form of lost productivity
        5: Decades later, Reuters publishes report
        6: Consumers avoid J&J talc products, shareholders lose some money, possible lawsuits

I call your attention to step 4. If the consumers don't know that a product they're using is damaging them irreversibly, how can they make an informed choice?

Is dying a fair cost to inform others about the danger of a product you're using?

Is loss of market value, lawsuit settlements, and regulatory fines a fair consequence for the person who is no longer living?

If a company can cover up health effects, let a bunch of people die, deny everything, and eventually pay some money, is that the market working as intended? What about the people who are dead now, is that money helpful for them?

I don't think we can ever fully trust "the market" to prevent this kind of thing from happening, because companies have no reason to ever admit to wrongdoing that will affect their bottom line, even if lives have been lost. The only time a company _will_ admit wrongdoing, is when the cost of dealing with it publicly is less than the cost of covering it up and possible future liability.

Case-in-point: [https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome- to-b...](https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-beautiful- parkersburg/)

We could have laws that require compounds created to be used by non-expert end-users, whether for food, topical application, or otherwise, to be tested extensively for long-term health effects before they can be sold. This would be a cost to the manufacturers, but what is the value of a life? How much profit would _you_ allow a company to save in order to kill you with a tainted product?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> parents shouldn't be using baby powder on their infants anyway, there are safer alternatives and most pediatric or obgyn nurses would be able to recommend them.

</comment><comment><USER24> As far as I know, Asbestos is only harmful when inhaled, no?

<comment><USER25> Baby powder is in the air pretty often with a baby in the house.

<comment><USER26> Some adults use baby power too, sometimes every day.

<comment><USER15> yeah, every baby caring employee (nursery, kindergarten even) might accumulate risks over their career..

<comment><USER26> I mean, I know adults who use it on themselves regularly, It's not just a risk for people who care for children. They use it reduce moisture in various areas (genital and anal region, feet, between thighs, under boobs, etc.) A lot of women are taught to sprinkle it on their underwear ever day to "stay fresh."[1]

[1] [https://www.thecut.com/2016/04/sad-truth-behind-the-baby- pow...](https://www.thecut.com/2016/04/sad-truth-behind-the-baby-powder- ovarian-cancer-lawsuits.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What about other baby powder brands?

</comment><comment><USER28> If the economic model was different they might have spoken up. I think it might be worthwhile, in this case, to examine / contrast what a socialist society might do vs a capitalistic society.

EDIT: I'm in no way inferring this is a black and white issue. But I do think it's a worthwhile experiment for the mind.

<comment><USER29> Thefts, lies, frauds can and do happen everywhere. People follow incentives. If they can get away with it, many will do it. Be it investors trying to cash out with an IPO, or administrators of a government program.

The question is, what do you once you find out these people? To the gallows? Allow the blame to fall on the inevitable scapegoats? Inconsequential fine?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Jail time for a small amount of weed. Payouts and bonuses for killing people in the name of money. America.

<comment><USER31> Well, the consequences of this aren't really known yet, so let's be slightly more careful with the cynicism...

I'll also add that you would usually _want_ this to be a civil matter. First, because the standard of proof is far lower ("preponderance of evidence" vs "beyond reasonable doubt", i. e. 50% vs, say, 95%), making actual consequences far more likely.

Secondly, you are more likely to get whistleblowers if you focus on punishing organisations and not individuals.

Thirdly, these really _are_ , almost always, actions by organisations undertaken in a sort of collective delusion, where everyone believes their actions are ok because they see so many others participating in it. None of these people would ever murder someone outright. That they happily do so as a group, thousand times over, needs to inform our reaction: it is a systemic failure, a group dynamic gone awry. Treating it as anything else only diminishes our chances to prevent future cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> but at least the shareholders got to make tons of money tho, right?

<comment><USER33> not today!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is one of the biggest issues with unfettered free market capitalism in that long-term issues are incredibly hard to balance out and relatively easy to cover up. By the time people figure out what it is that might be killing them there's little recourse or the damage is already done.

Eventually the free market might kick in and result in companies like J&J being torn apart. Yet are we really willing to repeat the cycle of a shitty company hiding things that are harmful to the public under the guise of a free market? A free market can only theoretically work when consumers have full access to information that allows them to make rational decisions about what they chose to buy; companies hiding information like that very obviously goes against that core concept.

<comment><USER35> How is this "unfettered?" FDA does quite a bit of "fettering." That the regulation failed isn't a failure of free markets, if anything, it's a failure of regulation. If you are going to regulate and the regulations didn't work, yet the companies complied with said regulation, do you blame the company or the government?

Plenty of nasty products from the Soviet planned economy only there, you wouldn't have the benefit of competitors or alternatives for the public — assuming you could even good goods at all. People that complain about capitalism have never lived under the alternative.

<comment><USER34> This is the very definition of whataboutism.

And the clear answer is to blame both. Especially when the line between corporation and government is blurred due to lobbying and vested interests.</comment></comment></comment>


Diamonds May Have Jump-started Life on Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080726-life-diamonds.html <comment><USER2> ... by enabling sexually-reproducing organisms to marry? ;)</comment>


Show HN: Control of Sliding-Arm-Quadcopter with DynamicStructuralParameters - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.12920 <comment><AUTHOR> Our paper is accepted in IROS-2020.</comment>


No ORMs - Statically typed PostgreSQL queries in Typescript - <AUTHOR> http://cs.mcgill.ca/~mxia3/2016/11/18/Statically-typed-PostgreSQL-queries-and-typescript-schemats/ <comment><USER2> This is very cool... I've also been enjoying using the custom template string processors to create parameterized queries from template strings.</comment>


JFK assassination: a new angle to the story  - <AUTHOR> https://sketchfab.com/show/6d7e22cb0968419482cfddc092c80e54

<comment><USER2> Great model that bring the tragic events of November 22, 1963 to life. I'd also like to see labeled in the diorama the location of the infamous "grassy knoll" and the location Zapruder was filming from.

</comment><comment><USER3> Froze my MacBook Pro with Google Chrome two times :(

</comment><comment><USER4> What does the green line represent?

<comment><USER5> Pretty sure it's the one shot that missed. The red lines would be the 2 shots that hit the President.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty nice guys!

</comment><comment><USER7> mind-blowing.

</comment><comment><USER8> amazing

</comment><comment><USER9> where are the red lines from the grassy knoll from the cia assassins?</comment>


Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/your-money/beware-of-cramming-on-your-cellphone-bill-the-haggler.html?_r=1&ref=technology <comment><USER3> Thank you FluidDjango for posting this. You just saved me money.

After reading this article, I realized this just happened to me. I ignored the messages (From "Brain Cool IQ"), thinking that they were spam. Didn't bother reading them. Thankfully I had not yet deleted them.

The first message, on Mar 8, advertised the service. Then, on Mar 22, I received three messages in a row. The first advertising the service, the second welcoming me to the service and inviting me to cancel with a "STOP" message, and the third with some stupid fact.

In my case, the STOP message, which I sent just about 20 minutes ago, seems to have worked. I got a response claiming I was unsubscribed from messages and fees.

I never subscribed to anything in the first place. This is fraud, plain and simple. In my case, I ignored the first advertisement sent on the 8th. Had I actually subscribed to this service, they wouldn't need to advertise it first. Since their first round of messages on Mar. 8 didn't succeed, I imagine they got bolder and decided to subscribe me (and everyone else in that batch) without my having asked.

Since this was from a few days ago, I cannot check to see if anything was billed to my Verizon account yet. That would show up on the next invoice. I did change my account settings right away, blocking all Premium SMS message services.

<comment><USER4> I received the three messages while I was reading the linked article! My messages came from "MobibroIQ". I did not respond.

I logged in to AT&T and launched a chat with Technical Support. I indicated in my description that I wanted to place a purchase block for 3rd party services billed to SMS. The entire exchange took about 10 minutes. I received an email for each line on my account indicating the purchase block had been activated and that a PIN code would be required for charges to apply. AT&T reported that the change could take up to 90 minutes to take effect. As I am typing this, I received a message from this "MobibroIQ" stating, "This msg confirms that u have discontinued and will no longer receive messages or charges for this service..."

Again, I did not reply "STOP."

I hope this solution is as painless and simple for you as it was for me.

EDIT: Follow up message from AT&T "To confirm, purchase blockers have been added to all lines and also checked your line #### & cancelled a subscript.charge for $9.99, will see credit next bill"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> After this happened to me, I managed to get Sprint to lock my account from having any SMS subscriptions added, since I'm not in the habit of signing up for them on purpose. It took some persistence and a transfer to a manager, but they eventually agreed. Might be worth trying.

I do think the mobile phone companies are at the very least turning a blind eye to it; some _very_ basic vetting, like making sure the company has an actual address at which they can receive postal mail that doesn't bounce, or terminating services that generate too large a percentage of fraud complaints, could catch a large portion of the worst offenders.

</comment><comment><USER6> I got one of those text messages in like early February. I ignored it of course and deleted it.

On my most recent phone bill I noticed an increase of about $10.00

Sure enough. By ignoring the text message and deleting it I was signed up of an unwanted $9.99 per month program.

I called ATT.

The ATT rep told me she would cancel the service immediately. She confirmed that by ignoring the text message I had "agreed" to the charges.

I told her that I wanted the $9.99 refunded. She said ATT would ONLY refund the $9.99 if I agreed to put in place a block on ALL future 3rd party charges on the cell phone bill.

I told her I wanted the block on all four of my cell phone lines immediately.

And I got the $9.99 refunded.

Long story short: ATT allows this because they benefit from this extremely anti-customer behavior.

The service I got crammed with was:

    	 02/29/2012	 Saynow Alerts	 58497	 MT	 SayNow.com

For assistance contact: http:/www.mxtelecom.com

If you go to the www.mxtelecom.com it provides NO assistance what-so-ever.

According to the statement at www.saynow.com "SayNow has been acquired by Google, Inc. For media inquiries please contact firstname.lastname@example.com."

<comment><USER7> I've had the same experiences with both Verizon and Sprint. My conclusions about the telcos turning a blind eye are the same. I suspect these spammers leech onto large percentage of new cell phone customers.

I'm very happy to not currently need a cell phone.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra In Russia they used to do that; later on the telcos were forced to require an explicit confirmation: a code would be sent to subscriber which they then has to willingly submit in order to subscribe.

And now half of the malware and shady websites would ask for your phone number and then trick you into telling them the confirmation code.

I think that such services should be illegal in the first place. That's the only way to protect subscribers. And they need to be protected: imagine it can be your granny who will end up paying tens of dollars monthly for nothing (I've got the impression they don't even send the SMSes you "subscribed" to, just charge the money)

I can't imagine a SMS subscription worth ten bucks monthly. Every one of them is a fraud.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is one of the reasons I stayed on a PAYG plan for as long as humanly possible. My burning resentment for my monthly plan has not yet subsided.

Amongst the irritation: it costs me to receive text messages. Right now I have an unlimited text plan, but it's a waste of money, since I have Google Voice and text using it. But I also receive spam texts to my main cellphone number- so if I cancelled my text plan I would actually be paying money to receive spam. Mind-bending.

<comment><USER9> Being charged to receive texts never made sense to me. You're being charged for something you have zero control over - it would be like being charged per piece of mail you receive.

Not to mention, someone who didn't like you could seriously ruin your month just by sending you a couple of text messages a day. There are services that let you do it for free online, aren't there?

<comment><USER10> _Not to mention, someone who didn't like you could seriously ruin your month just by sending you a couple of text messages a day_

Especially if you are traveling internationally. It really doesn't even have to be someone who doesn't like you. One woman (second-hand story) was traveling abroad when her son did something remarkable in an athletic contest. Well-meaning friends texted her pictures! $1200 US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I got one of these texts two nights ago. I was unsure whether to reply with "stop" because I worried it would further legitimize things, but I did it anyway.

I went to a Verizon shop to see if they could look at my records to see if I got charged, and they are in the dark about it until my next bill cycles over in 3 more weeks.

They also told me they don't do chargebacks for these, because it wasn't a Verizon charge. The manager there likened it to a roaming charge billed by another carrier. He had no real answer when I told him that this isn't like a roaming charge at all - I need to actually act by making a call or using data to attract a roaming charge, and I didn't do a thing to get this "premium message."

</comment><comment><USER12> If you call AT&T you can block them from automatically subscribing to services without your explicit consent. The most interesting thing about these services is that almost all billing for these services occur through a subsidiary business of Verisign. I was shocked to learn this because I've always thought that Verisign was a trusted company.

<comment><USER13> > I was shocked to learn this because I've always thought that Verisign was a > trusted company.

You mean this verisign?

[http://slashdot.org/story/03/09/16/0034210/resolving- everyth...](http://slashdot.org/story/03/09/16/0034210/resolving-everything- verisign-adds-wildcards)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I also had this happen to me. Some daily joke service sent me a text message at 4 AM in the morning, followed by another message a second later stating I was now subscribed and would be billed $9.99 per month.

I waited until the end of my billing cycle to see if the charges actually were there. Sure enough, they were. I was almost in disbelief.

This is fraud, plain and simple. I called AT&T to dispute the charge and they did refund the money and put a block on my line for future charges.

But still as many have pointed out -- what of the many other people who do not notice the charge? It's clear to me that AT&T is to blame for allowing these companies a way to bill their customers and not policing them -- in this case the AT&T customer service rep admitted to knowing about cramming and how big a problem it is, even with this specific service. So other people have called about it and reported abuse, yet they have done nothing to ban the company. The burden here is clearly on the part of AT&T for letting these companies continue to bill people when they are implicitly aware of the fraud.

There really needs to be a big law firm that gets behind this and starts some class action litigation against the carriers. That seems to be the only way problems actually get fixed these days.

</comment><comment><USER15> It is unbelievable that this is not illegal.

<comment><USER16> Cramming is illegal but there are two reasons why enforcement is lax: First, as the article points out (and attempts, by inference, to get the carriers to convict themselves of), the billing carrier earns a cut, usually in the 20-30% range. Second, the individual amounts are usually quite small so it's not "worth" anyone's time to actually investigate unless that person is the subscriber who got dinged.

Simply shutting off third-party billing would kill off all kinds of pretty revenue streams that U.S. mobile and wireline carriers just love, such as purchasing apps from the Android and Windows Phone marketplaces without a credit card and "accidentally" (or intentionally, since they are somewhat popular) signing up for premium services via SMS.

<comment><USER17> I guess the easy targets are the phone companies themselves for facilitating/enabling the fraud. They should probably be the ones getting sued.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This happened to my father. Not from this company, but from others.

We didn't catch it for months. T-Mobile was kind enough to remove charges for a few months back, but said they couldn't remove anything beyond that. Which I felt was understandable.

What I didn't like was that the only way to block future versions of these was to block messaging entirely for that line, and to that (without blocking the other lines) was to pay for a service that let me set fine-grained restrictions on the lines.

See, it's my dad's line, and he's not tech-savvy, so he thought that ignoring them was the best way to go. I don't blame him, as that's the way it should be. Nobody should be able to add charges to your line without express permission.

That should include calling numbers that have a toll charge, too. It should actually ask you when you call the number if you're willing to pay the charge. Likewise for SMS messages. If not, the call/SMS won't go through.

Why this has managed to be this way for so long is beyond me. It only serves to promote fraud.

</comment><comment><USER19> I had no idea that these "services" could automatically add themselves to your wireless bill without an Opt-In. I just checked my family's account and indeed there were 2 different subscriptions on 2 different numbers. Thank you for posting this, as I have no idea how long they've been on there. Now I'm just waiting until 9:00AM CST to call ATT...

<comment><USER6> Please consider not just cancelling but instead ask for (demand) a refund in full of all charges going back to the very first month. We have got to punish ATT for this gangster type behavior.

<comment><USER19> I just got off the phone with ATT. I had all the charges (past and current) removed and credited to my account. I also had "Purchase Blocker" added to all 4 lines to prevent this from happening again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I just happened to catch this at random a couple of months ago when I looked at my bill (I normally don't review my bill every month).

I called AT&T and they similarly to others' experience did not give any explanation as to why they permit third parties to initiate subscriptions without any explicit confirmation from users. Of course, I had them put on purchase block and refund my money, but I'm sure for everyone one of me there are 20 people who didn't notice or just happened to not look at their bill - <USER2> normally don't either. This is really unbelievable.

</comment><comment><USER21> Startling article!

You would be eviscerated at every level if you tried to do this anywhere in the EU...

Not sure how this is possible, even in the US, since it should be a large risk to the carriers.

</comment><comment><USER22> Could this have been caused by an app on your smartphone that subscribes you or even uses the old WAP protocol?

</comment><comment><USER23> So what if you have a MiFi and never actually see any SMS messages?

I'm puzzled by how this could possibly be legal.

</comment><comment><USER24> it's bullshit like this that will let twilio take over the mobile market when they choose to go that route.

i'll be first in line to sign up for twilio's pay as you go voice + data service.

</comment><comment><USER25> Great to see FUD alive and well on HN. Take a look at <http://www.mmaglobal.com/bestpractices.pdf> \- if there is a service billing your phone directly that doesn't comply, they are in violation and will be shut off if you complain. Carrier customer service isn't always super helpful and there are possibly many companies between you and the product actually billing. This shouldn't be anything new to people who build products and use technology.

....

Yeah.

</comment><comment><USER26> So how did he end up subscribed to this in the first place? I assume he must have signed up in the small print by signing upto some other service.

If this was not the case then I would expect this to be much more prevalent , if you could start charing people so much money by simply sending an SMS then everyone and his dog would be at it.</comment>


Case study shows new roles for robots in today's economy - <AUTHOR> http://robohub.org/case-study-shows-new-roles-for-robots-in-todays-economy/ <comment><USER2> Fascinating insight into how robotics companies make it from startup to success.</comment>


Building a gimbal in Rust - <AUTHOR> http://www.hydrocodedesign.com/2014/08/05/building-a-gimbal-in-rust-introduction/

<comment><USER2> Hm, could the controllers from Segues be used for this?

Don't they keep an object oriented in a manner similar to what is described, right down to the slight lag or smoothing?

Granted, the Segue controller does this in one degree.

I wonder if what I picture happening when you put one Segue controlled motor on each axis of the gimbal is actually what would happen.

I think you could even leave them with default sense of "up".

</comment><comment><USER2> ...The Terminator's eyeballs.</comment>


All Youtube livestreams blocked only in Germany - why? - <AUTHOR> http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=2474025&topic=2474327&answer=2524544

<comment><USER2> Probably GEMA's fault somehow.</comment>


Markets: Can they really be tamed? - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/aad452a8-660b-11e5-a57f-21b88f7d973f.html#axzz3nKeg4lSI <comment><USER2> This looks good. Please email email@example.com if you would like us to send you a repost invite. It's an experiment we're working on to give good submissions a second chance.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Google the title to get around the paywall if you don't have an FT subscription.</comment>


What I Wish I Had Known Before Pitching LinkedIn to VCs (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20131015161834-1213-what-i-wish-i-knew-before-pitching-linkedin-to-vcs?_mSplash=1&trk=mp-reader-card <comment><USER2> Most of his points on creating a pitch deck are _true_ in the limited sense that they help create a better story, but they are all ultimately second-order optimizations.

Unfortunately, in early-stage startups you see the pitching equivalent of "teaching to the test"\--crafting pitch decks that are pitch-perfect but the underlying business is no business at all.

This has the particularly nefarious consequence that most of the feedback such a "pitch perfect" deck receives is stellar--except, of course, from the people who you really need money from.

The best pitch deck advice remains: 1\. Build a company such that you don't _need_ money. 2\. Make it obvious that more money will help you annihilate the competition. 3\. Don't pitch unless you think your audience would have to be insane not to invest.

Pitching (2) before (1) is a recipe for failure.

<comment><USER3> Well, if you look at the notes on Reid's site[0], he says

> 1\. we weren't the natural leader of a market or technology trend that > everyone was paying attention to,

> 2\. we didn't have substantial organic growth, and

> 3\. we had no revenue.

It sounds like LinkedIn really did need that money. Reid was still able to raise a B round from Greylock probably because he was a known quantity from his PayPal days, and because Sequoia led the A round. The bigger lesson here is that much of the advice given by prominent Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs often doesn't apply to the rest of us, because we're not in the positions of privilege that they are.

If I were a repeat entrepreneur with a moderately successful exit, a current exec at AmaGooFaceSoft, or participating in YC, I would devour all the advice these people are offering. Otherwise, it's useless. Forget about an actual pitch, you're probably not even going to get a 5 minute phone call with a partner at Greylock. Why would you expend any time or energy on preparing in advance for such an unlikely event? You're much better off spending your time figuring out how to generate and grow revenue and profit (what running a business is actually about).

0: [http://reidhoffman.org/linkedin-pitch-to- greylock/](http://reidhoffman.org/linkedin-pitch-to-greylock/)

<comment><USER4> Yes there are two paths for founders looking to raise VC money - a path open to insiders and the path open to outsiders. If you are an outsider don't try raise money using an insider model.

The only time you want to be raising money is when you don't need it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meanwhile linkedin, at least from my perspective and use (I am not a recruiter nor am I someone who is looking for a job) has totally lost it's way. It's not the same it was back when it started which was a genuine way to connect with someone that you knew or someone that you wanted to know. The connection spam is unbelievable a connection means literally nothing. I don't know how much of this has to do with Reid having his hand in so many other pots but it's ironic given this particular post.

<comment><USER6> It has little value for me as well. Growing spam is annoying and networks are diluted. I think they lost when they closed the API.

> Every product attempts to expand until it has API. Those products which > cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can

<comment> enahs-sf That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Turning your back to the developer ecosystem is always a mistake as Twitter has also had to learn the hard way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Better link on Reid's website: [http://reidhoffman.org/linkedin-pitch-to- greylock/](http://reidhoffman.org/linkedin-pitch-to-greylock/)

</comment><comment><USER8> What does investment thesis mean in this case?

<comment><USER9> As the world changes, strategies for making money change. Uber isn't an individual attractive business, it's an exemplar of how putting internet- connected sensors in every pocket allows new and improved marketplaces to be created, and marketplaces have proven network effects that lead to profit. When startups claimed to be "Uber for X," this is the investment thesis they were shortening.</comment></comment>


The mysterious link between the Stanley Cup finals and Canada's stock market - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/the-mysterious-link-between-the-stanley-cup-finals-and-canada-s-stock-market-1.4685637 <comment><USER2> [http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious- correlations](http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)

Possibly relevant?</comment>


The Makers of Modular - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/28/meet-the-makers-of-modular/ <comment><USER2> If anyone's interest is piqued (and who here wouldn't want to twiddle those knobs and sliders?), the excellent (and active) VCV Rack offers an OS software alternative with both free and paid modules available: [https://vcvrack.com](https://vcvrack.com)

It has also recently become available on iPad: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mirack/id1468259834](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mirack/id1468259834)

It is not the same experience as touching real hardware, but it can be a stepping stone without incurring the expense of an actual modular system.

<comment><USER3> Note that miRack is unaffiliated with VCV and is a third-party fork of an old 2017 version. None of the VCV plugins from 2018-2019 are available for it.

<comment><USER4> It looks like the app makers have to port over the plugins that are available in the app too, so older ones may not be available either. At least that's what the App Store text leads me to think.

Still, as someone who's very interested in getting into modular, $8 for a few hundred modules that I can use with my other iOS audio apps is a great deal! I expect to lose track of time very soon...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've recently completed my own semi-modular synth build, having deemed buying eurorack both too expensive and too easy: [https://photos.app.goo.gl/YDSY4Wo34hvZuDJT6](https://photos.app.goo.gl/YDSY4Wo34hvZuDJT6)</comment>


Trump left out of Google search for presidential candidates - <AUTHOR> http://nbc4i.com/2016/07/27/trump-left-out-of-google-search-for-presidential-candidates/?do=notcensor <comment><USER2> From the article: "We found a technical bug in Search where only the presidential candidates participating in an active primary election were appearing in a Knowledge Graph result. Because the Republican and Libertarian primaries have ended, those candidates did not appear. This bug was resolved early this morning." — Google Spokesperson

<comment><AUTHOR> Upvoted. A technical bug in Google Search should be relevant to the reader demographics of HN. The story should not be 'Flagged'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Trump is showing up now: [https://www.google.com/search?q=presidential+candidates](https://www.google.com/search?q=presidential+candidates)

</comment><comment><USER4> can we just occam's razor this one.

<comment><USER5> No, this happened too many times and it is also known that Silicon Valley leaders from Google/Apple/Facebook and others met to discuss how to stop Trump.

I've also seen that a week ago the Google image search for one of Trumps books returned Hitlers Mein Kampf as the first result, which I feel is extremely disgusting.

<comment><USER6> sources?

<comment><USER5> [http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/07/28/google-search- connect...](http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/07/28/google-search-connects- trumps-book-to-hitlers-mein-kampf.html)

It is Fox news which is biased but I tested it myself back then (when it was first posted on Reddit a week ago) and I got the same result</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do surgical masks filter airborne viruses? - <AUTHOR> Just read 3M's n95 surgical mask data-sheet[1] and claims to contain an "advanced electrostatic media". However, there is no technical data on its working mechanism. My guess is that this is just a net charged cloth that filters viruses by repelling/trapping them. If this is indeed how it works and was charged during assembly, then the electrostatic charge will probably wear out with usage.<p>I bought a pack and was wondering whether they could be reused by disinfecting them with chlorine dioxide (a gas). However, they might still stop working due to lose of net charge.<p>[1] https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/3M-Health-Care-Particulate-Respirator-and-Surgical-Mask-1860-N95-120-EA-Case/?N=5002385+3294795990&rt=rud <comment><USER2> "N100 and P100 Masks for Protection against Avian Flu, Swine Flu and Other Diseases The Centers for Disease Control tested N100 and P100 masks for their efficacy against avian flu, swine flu and other contagious diseases and found them to provide superior protection.

Since N100 respirators and P100 respirators are capable of blocking the majority of airborne hazards, people often use them to prevent the spread of dangerous diseases." [1]

N95 masks are useful for preventing sick people from spreading disease by coughing. They are only really usable once. The media is promoting surgical masks which are only designed to prevent a surgeon from contaminating the operating table with droplets from her mouth(the literature mentions HCP to HCP prevention which is a sick doctor from infecting a colleague); these masks do NOT provide enough protection to prevent inhaling a virus. You will need HEPA which you will get with a N100 / P100 mask that has a carbon filter. No one is talking about N100 / P100 because they are only rated for trained individuals and occupational use.

In a environment where you will be exposed to the virus, you must also cover your eyes. Virus can infect you through mucus membranes. At least get a tight fitting goggles, or a full face shield. Glasses with side sheilds will be better than nothing, but why take the chance.

The proper gear has an indefinite shelf life. Expect that there will be waves if this becomes a full pandemic. Some estimates that this could be three month cycles. The R0 factor means more people infected by pre-symptomatic carriers. The beginning and middle of the cycle will have the most cases. The end of the cycle will be cleaning up and trying to get back to normal.

Get plenty of disinfectant or chlorine based cleaners. You will want to clean all items you take outdoors. Wash your hands, wear gloves, wash the gloves. Overcoats / pants can be warn, and these are left outdoors, and or cleaned or washed outside.

See also diagram on donning sequences. [2]

[1] [https://www.envirosafetyproducts.com/respirators-safety- prot...](https://www.envirosafetyproducts.com/respirators-safety- protection/particulate-respirators/n100-and-p100-respirators.html) [2] [https://www.cdc.gov/HAI/pdfs/ppe/ppeposter1322.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/HAI/pdfs/ppe/ppeposter1322.pdf)

<comment><USER3> CDC recommends P95 for health care providers. I seriously doubt they are not effective. I'm sure P100 is marginally more effective but on marginally.

[https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/hcp/infection- cont...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/hcp/infection-control.html)</comment></comment>


A performance analysis of expression templates - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1104.1729 <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not one of the authors; just came across this and wondered if the conclusions in there (as well as the idea of "smart" expression templates) are sound.</comment>


Open Liberty Now Open Source – Foundation of WebSphere - <AUTHOR> http://community.cloudacademy.zone/t/open-liberty-now-open-source-foundation-of-websphere/24 <comment><USER2> Lots of really great cloud infrastructure being released as open source. Good to see these projects with docs and all the stuff that makes them easy to work with.</comment>


Windows Live Messenger supports XMPP - <AUTHOR> http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2011/12/14/anyone-can-build-a-windows-live-messenger-client-with-open-standards-access-via-xmpp.aspx

<comment><USER2> I was involved with the effort [to avoid] standardizing instant messaging back in 1999-2000. One of the products the company I was with at the time was offering was an instant messenger (with a twist that is not important for this story), so we tried to support all the prevailing protocols of the time (AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, PowWow, IRC, ... I don't even remember). And I was eagerly following the instant messaging standardisation effort at the IETF.

What became painfully clear to me after a while was that the big guys (AOL=AIM+ICQ, MS, YAHOO) who were running the show were all actively making sure that no standard would be decided upon. It was all dressed up in technical arguments, so it didn't look that way, but it was. Perhaps the engineers participating in the discussion weren't even aware -- it's easy to miss the big picture -- but as an outsider it was painfully obvious that the effective mandate that was given by the respective companies to their representative was to NOT standardize anything.

What ended up being the IETF standard was Jabber -- which was way too complicated and wasteful. And the reason it ended up that way was that while the big guys were avoiding standardisation, someone just put out an open source / open spec product which -- with all its deficiencies -- eventually worked well enough to gain non-trivial adoption, including by the IETF. And all of that happened awhile after the instant messaging working group was disbanded because of "irreconcilable differences" -- those differences being that every participant would only accept a standard that forced others to concede defeat and implement that participant's existing system (always in a way that limited everyone except said participant, of course)

Watching those discussions was an eye opener about how things supposedly work (and even look that way on the surface), and how they really work.

EDIT: REMOVED claim that Jabber/XMPP is still too complicated. I'm sure it still has 90% bandwidth and parsing overhead compared to comparable protocols (unless it's become backward incompatible), but standards have changed, and I guess that's no longer considered wasteful or bad engineering practice.

EDIT: ADDED: Just to be clear, this is an anecdote about the distant past (as in, 12 years ago now!). I have not been following Jabber/XMPP closely since 2004 and not at all since 2006 or so. Back in the day it was ill-and-under specified, ridiculously chatty (as in >90% overhead before you count TCP headers, both in bandwidth and parsing). What is acceptable has changed since then (no one cares about 95% overhead anymore), and for all I know all the kinks have been worked out.

And for the good parts - it is out there, there are multiple server and client implementation, and it works. That's a thousand times better than the product I was working on at the time, which was proprietary closed source, and though it was super efficient in every way, was discontinued and is no longer available.

<comment><USER3> As someone deeply concerned with real-world operation of systems, I find your removal of the "claim" distressing.

It is true that developers routinely create very poorly thought out protocols that have massive overhead, but it is far from good practice, and anyone who tries to foist such a disaster on me for any reason other than business- critical interoperability will be SOL. I simply will not deploy it, they will have to go back and create something that is at least moderately sane.

XMPP does retain massive overhead, in excess of 50% even _before_ considering the XML bloat (I'm just referring to redundant or otherwise unnecessary messages here), and that's the main reason I have refused to use it in my projects.

<comment><USER4> Premature optimisation is the root of all evil. If you're deeply concerned with real-world operations, you should be painfully aware of this.

XMPP is primarily an instant messaging protocol. An overhead of 50% is nothing if the payload itself is often just a few bytes, and a few kilobytes at most. Of course it makes XMPP unsuitable for a few scenarios, but in almost all cases, XMPP message traffic will be dwarfed by other transfers. I think you have to think pretty hard to come up with a situation where you'd really want to use XMPP if only it wasn't for the overhead. Huge amounts of small messages exchanged between embedded devices, maybe?

Incidently, your message had 722 characters, the whole page had 4.83 kb. Pretty bad overhead, and of course HN is _extremely_ frugal. I'm sure Twitter is much much worse. Apples and oranges, I know.

<comment><USER3> > _Premature optimisation is the root of all evil._

Argument by cliché, and a badly misunderstood one, at that. It's not a pass to engage in poor design practices. Would you deploy bubblesort on the grounds that quicksort is a premature optimization?

> _An overhead of 50% is nothing if the payload itself is often just a few > bytes, and a few kilobytes at most_

You've just given me an estimated range of three orders of magnitude. As it happens, that is also the range I commonly get from people who have just "designed" a protocol with zero thought.

> _I think you have to think pretty hard to come up with a situation where > you'd really want to use XMPP if only it wasn't for the overhead. Huge > amounts of small messages exchanged between embedded devices, maybe?_

When I'm trying to process 10,000 messages per second on a CPU, and most of the overhead is already in ingesting, parsing, and routing each message, a 50% increase in message quantity means I need 50% more CPUs.

> _Incidently, your message had 722 characters, the whole page had 4.83 kb._

I don't have to design, implement, or deploy websites, and consider the entire model quite broken for communications, so the comparison changes my opinion not at all.

<comment><USER4> > Would you deploy bubblesort on the grounds that quicksort is a premature > optimization?

Unless it turns out the sorting routine has a significant impact on the overall performance, I wouldn't care a bit if it used Bubblesort, Quicksort or Bogosort.

> You've just given me an estimated range of three orders of magnitude. As it > happens, that is also the range I commonly get from people who have just > "designed" a protocol with zero thought.

Argument by snark. The assumption is that a chat protocol is developed for certain payload sizes because there is a trade-off involved: you'd do things differently if you had to create a protocol that works for 5 byte messages exactly as well as it does for 5 GB messages. Under that assumption, it's perfectly reasonable to give a range of expected message sizes. And since Jabber was developed in the first place as an IM protocol, 5 to 5000 bytes seems about right, with the distribution heavily skewed towards smaller messages.

> When I'm trying to process 10,000 messages per second on a CPU, and most of > the overhead is already in ingesting, parsing, and routing each message, a > 50% increase in message quantity means I need 50% more CPUs.

Yes. So? How many people are running large enough Jabber servers that this is a problem for them? And why can't they simply buy another CPU?

<comment><USER3> > _Unless it turns out the sorting routine has a significant impact on the > overall performance, I wouldn't care a bit if it used Bubblesort, Quicksort > or Bogosort._

By your evident logic, then, Bogosort is the right default choice, because anything else is premature optimization.

> _Yes. So? How many people are running large enough Jabber servers that this > is a problem for them?_

Well, the person I originally replied to appears to have been one of them. As are Google, Microsoft, AOL, Facebook, and Yahoo. I know one much smaller company I can't name who did field trials of XMPP on their embedded consumer device and promptly dropped the project.

Had I made the mistake of trying the same thing, I would now be in such a position.

> _And why can't they simply buy another CPU?_

And the server to put it in, and the space, and the power, and the cooling. I might be able to get a chip delivered for $200, but it's going to cost me another $400-800 plus people time to put it into service, and another $500+/year to run it.

Far cheaper to make the engineer spend a day or two to come up with something reasonable.

<comment><USER4> > By your evident logic, then, Bogosort is the right default choice, because > anything else is premature optimization.

How does that follow from my logic? What I said was: I don't care about implementation details unless it turns out to be relevant. If I spent 99% of my time waiting for IO, and 1% on sorting, then yeah, the sort routine could be Bogosort for all I care, since the potential gains are tiny.

The right default choice for sorting is your standard library's sort routine. If you use that and sorting still takes a long time, then you can worry about what goes on in there and if it's worth replacing it.

> As are Google, Microsoft, AOL, Facebook, and Yahoo.

All of which now use XMPP despite the overhead.

<comment><USER3> > _I don't care about implementation details unless it turns out to be > relevant._

Then you are reckless. It is both possible and desirable to anticipate obvious problems in a design and avoid them before they present themselves operationally.

> _The right default choice for sorting is your standard library's sort > routine._

Smarter people than you or I decided what the standard library's sort routine would be, and did so with careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of their choice.

Here we are speaking of the design of a protocol from scratch, and/or the explicit choice of a protocol for a given set of requirements. It is your duty to do as the standard library author did, and pay careful consideration to the implications of your design, as it will impact your business for years to come.

> _All of which now use XMPP despite the overhead._

They have an interoperability requirement. Did you miss that detail of my earlier comment?

<comment><USER4> Okay. I agree. But carefully considering your options and paying mind to your requirements is a far fetch from flat out disregaring one option simply because of a detail -- overhead -- that may or may not be relevant in your situation. I still think you could refer to this as a kind of premature optimisation, although I see now that this was unhelpful, because it brought up the whole sorting thing which was kind of a tangent.

> _They have an interoperability requirement. Did you miss that detail of my > earlier comment?_

Some of them do. Some of them explicitly turn off interoperability and still go with XMPP; Whatsapp (no affil) is another one of those. This just stresses the fact that efficiency/overhead is not the only consideration when it comes to protocol choice, and pretty far down the line when it comes to IM protocols.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From a user point of view Microsoft butchered Messenger a long time ago. That's why Facebook killed it very easily.

First the official client (which I never stoud btw) became shittier with each release. Then they made that (very very) bad Facebook copy and forced users to display their real name instead of nicknames.

Moreover Messenger suffers from protocol version fragmentation. Features in alternative clients are random. Some people see nicknames, others real names, some are unaware that their real name is displayed. Sometimes you get old avatars, sometimes new ones, sometimes you don't even know that your avatar does not work. Same for offline messaging, and multi-connection.

And sadly Pidgin MSN's implementation SUCKS and it was a bad day when their survey indicated that people wanted up-to-date support and they just dismissed it.

<comment><USER6> I've never seen an alternative implementation of MSN that didn't suck. I've worked with the MSN protocol quite a bit, and the older versions were very nice in their simplicity. All the new XML junk they've added ruined it for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's amazing to think how ubiquitous MSN Messenger was as a teen growing up, and how its use seemed to evaporate overnight with the coming of social networks and cheap text messaging.

Funny to me how asynchronous messaging seems to be more useful to people - would not have predicted that.

</comment><comment><USER8> Have any third party XMPP clients implemented the proprietary X_MESSENGER_OAUTH2 authentication mechanism yet? Or is there a way to get the authentication to work with existing clients?

Is it on the roadmap for Pidgin (or libpidgin) or Adium?

I tried doing some quick Googling, but I couldn't find any answers...

</comment><comment><USER9> It still looks a bit rough, e.g _"Roster management is not supported"_.

I wish it would not end up being just a client concern but also impact server- side at some point thanks to XMPP federation. Google Talk does federation but last time I checked Facebook Chat did not. Such a shame.

<comment><USER3> Apparently Messenger does link with Facebook and Yahoo, but I don't see anything indicating a general federation.

It occurs to me that IM services have established a twisted, mutant, incompletely-routed version of an IRC network amongst themselves. And as far as I can tell, they still haven't gotten group chat right...

<comment><USER10> What's wrong with XMPP multi-user chat? And I don't understand your argument of "incompletely-routed", especially if compared to IRC. imho XMPP federation is much more powerful concept than IRC networking.

<comment><USER11> His argument seems to be that MS ties into Facebook Chat, but not using XMPP federation (since that seems to be disabled on FB's side).

So - it's behind the scene. It's (by a stretch) comparable to IRC links, maybe.

The complain about group chat was, as far as I understand the GP, not about XMPP multi-user chat, but about the inability to _use_ that if you're not using real XMPP federation. In other words: How do you start a group chat from GTalk with your MS Messenger / Facebook friends? The technology would support it, but 'they still don't get it right'. I agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does that also mean that I can send messages to Messenger from other XMPP networks (and also the other way around)?

<comment><USER13> There's no federation so no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here it comes again: embrace and extend.

</comment><comment><USER15> A step in the right direction IMO.

Now, I hope the other protocols I use such as Skype, Steam (And I guess Origin too) would follow suit. I would love to know when my friends are playing games, without having to be tied to either wine, virtualbox, or my gaming PC or yet another client.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is this live yet ? Just tried to add msn contacts to my jabber client and we couldn't make it work.

<comment><USER8> They use a proprietary authentication mechanism, so you can't just use any XMPP client...

 _The client-to-server authentication used is SASL, with a specific and proprietary mechanism called X_MESSENGER_OAUTH2. ... Which means that all current XMPP clients are NOT able to connect to messenger.live.com._

[http://www.process- one.net/en/blogs/article/details_on_msns_...](http://www.process- one.net/en/blogs/article/details_on_msns_xmpp_server/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if this is because Microsoft is becoming better and better at embracing open source when it sees a business advantage to do so, or if it's simply a last-ditch effort to keep Messenger alive as more and more people use it less frequently or not at all because the likes of smartphones, apps, and Facebook (Chat) are becoming more widely adopted.

<comment><USER18> I'm guessing it's the former. In the past 2 weeks I've heard MS submit a patch to Redis, they've helped bring Node.js to Windows, Phil Haack joined GitHub primarily to bring C# into that open source community's limelight,...

and now this. Seems to me like someone's been pushing the open source agenda within Microsoft.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems like Microsoft is becoming more likeable recently. I hope this happens for their main products, too :)

<comment><USER19> They are not the Dark Knight anymore. The cape is fluttering in Cupertino now.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Dvol – version control for your volumes in docker - <AUTHOR> https://clusterhq.com/2015/11/12/introducing-dvol/ <comment><USER2> We'd love to hear you feedback on this developer tool. We are hoping to make the developer experience a better place by allowing the git-like versioning semantics with your local volumes.

(I work at ClusterHQ)

<comment><USER2> [comment made outside of hn]

It might be useful to a user developing a set of microservices locally to commit multiple volumes or snapshot multiple volumes at once?</comment></comment>


Don't introduce people to hacker news, let them discover it by themselves - <AUTHOR>

i love hacker news.  its interesting, its innovative, its dynamic, its' unique.  i discovered it years ago on my own just randomly seeking knowledge on the internet.
i never forward/tell anyone about hacker news because I don't want it to become some bastion of pop culture.  the only people i want here are people who discovered it themselves by perusing the web for interest/knowledge.
i find the knowledge I extract from reading hacker news gives me an advantage over competitors who do not know about hacker news.
anyone else feel the same and practice this "don't lead the horse to water, let them find it themselves" principle? <comment><USER2> The site is run as an experiment in internet social behavior. The idea is to see how to keep a growing community feeling small over a long period of time (without actually stagnating). The mod points and submission guidelines <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> aim to prevent the site being overwhelmed with "noise" even though traffic is quite high. Trafic is almost certainly higher than you think. New users get modded down until they be quiet, leave, or learn to stop making jokes that "belong on Reddit". I remember it took me a few months to learn how to write comments that got upvotes, now I'm #51 on the top karma list.

tl;dr I don't think it's a big deal, the site has kept up with new users just fine so far.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> ahh hacker news never fails, great feedback from all, which further proves the quality of contributors here...

i don't agree it is with luck that people find hacker news, sure some percentage do, but do these people recognize the tremendous value of hacker news when they come across it?...probably not most.

if ones does enough reading/research on the web about things related to computers, programming, science, engineering, or technology, they are almost certain to stumble across hacker news and recognize its value...so it is more statistics related to the time a person spends trying to innovate and learn using the web...and these are the people I want on hacker news because selfishly I learn the most from them..and I hope vice versa...

elitist? The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources? I do not think hacker news readers/contributors deserve special/favoured treatment. I do think hacker news readers/contributors are in the higher percentile of intellect, but not necessarily in social status or financial resources.

private? Am I excluding people? No, I just choose not to advertise it, I prefer they find it on their own and recognize its value because I feel it provides a litmus test to the type of people that make this forum so great. But I would never shun or try and forbid anyone from advertising Hacker news...I was just interested in peoples opinion on the matter...so thank you.

i mean how did reddit get so bad, that place is horrible, i would hate it if this happened to hacker news...but then again i would probably keep using the web to learn, innovate, and grow and more than likely stumble onto the next hacker news...

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems a bit elitist, no? So you only want the lucky few who stumbled across this little oasis in the vast nightmare of the internet to benefit from the knowledge here? Knowledge that is shared freely, which you then claim to gain a "competitive edge" from?

Seems like you want to keep HN private so you can reap rewards from the knowledge of others, without being forced to share it with the common plebe.

And here I was just wishing people who posted on HN used proper punctuation...

</comment><comment><USER4> The YC philosophy that it is better to include a winner than to try and weed out possible failures might be appropriate for HN as well.

Most people won't find HN interesting as an aggregator. Of those who find it interesting, few will be inclined to participate. Only a subset of those will ultimately make significant comments on a regular basis.

The leader board is a select place, but who will make it can't be accurately predicted at the widest part of the funnel.

</comment><comment><USER5> I only recommend it to people who I think could really benefit, but urge them not to sign up. I lurked on HN for quite a while before I signed up. (Somewhere on the order of weeks or months.) I think that if you take a bit of time to read other people comments, you'll get a good feel for what to say in your own.</comment>


Show HN: Elance withdrawal bot - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nfriedly/elance-withdrawal

<comment><AUTHOR> I do some occasional side jobs on Elance and I kept wishing they would just automatically send my payments to my bank. Then a few weeks ago, I decided I could just add the feature myself! I have a Heroku instance running this once per day on my account, and I've been able to forget about that task ever since :)</comment>


ICANN opens domains to creativity - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-internet-domain-20110621,0,6981339.story

<comment><USER2> I wonder how this could slow down the internet. As we know, to reach a website, we need to translate the name and find the IP address. But, the DNS is organized in a hierarchy way, that the top level domains are well listed.

If we allow the new names, how could we make a Domain Name Server to reach all over the world? And if we make one that is exclusive for the new domains, and we put in the US, the connection in chine will be as low as if they dont have a domains server at all.

My question is, do they ( ICANN) is taking the technical issues? If yes, how do they deal with it?</comment>


Nextdoor: A neighborhood social network that is being used to fight crime - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/business/2012/12/crime-fighting-social-networks?param=value

<comment><USER2> I actually got an advertisement in my mail for Nextdoor. I followed the instructions and plugged in my zipcode on their website. It told me that nobody had organized a group for my neighborhood, and that I could either start one myself, or sign up to be notified when someone else did.

Maybe I should have put my email address on the "waiting list", but at that point I just closed my browser and moved on.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of a previous HN submission: [http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/12/07/local-police- po...](http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/12/07/local-police-post- mugshots-on-pinterest-leading-to-a-57-boost-in-arrests/)

I think the key is using this technique on already established social networks. This seems like it would only target those who have actually had crimes committed against them: I'm not going to be browsing Nextdoor if nothing has happened to me.

<comment><USER4> > I'm not going to be browsing Nextdoor if nothing has happened to me.

As a Baltimore denizen, I respectfully submit that not everyone thinks that way.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This has the potential to be a great example of software making a real difference. I'd never heard about nextdoor until a few days ago when my parents of all people told me how great it was and that they had heard on nextdoor of a series of break ins around our neighborhood. I've now heard greats things about nextdoor multiple times from different people since then

</comment><comment><USER5> Nextdoor is an example of more practical/useful local social networking. Social apps/sites can serve greater needs than selling coupon deals and ads, and I hope we see more user-focused development like this (as opposed to advertiser-focussed development).

<comment><USER6> Completely agree with you. Definitely see a variety of beneficial use cases ... wish it worked outside US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a feeling Nextdoor is going to be huge.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sounds like something I'd monitor if I were going to rob a neighborhood.</comment>


Get a working jet pack for $86,000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.martinjetpack.com/how-do-i-buy-one.aspx

<comment><USER2> Many, many stories about this over the past week:

[http://searchyc.com/submissions/jetpack+-mozilla?sort=by_dat...](http://searchyc.com/submissions/jetpack+-mozilla?sort=by_date)

... and 5 months ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=830868>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It has a 31.5 mile range and maximum speed of 63 mph.</comment>


Is It Time to Retrain Business Schools?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15school.html <comment><USER2> There's probably 20 years of academic research that says "yes." But money has always trumped that, maybe until now.</comment>