Ask HN: Can an Iphone app just link to a website? - <AUTHOR>

I've created an HTML5 website which when viewed on the Iphone, is able to mimic the look and feel of a native app. Is there anyway to create an Iphone app that can be submitted to the app store, where the only functionality is that it launches the site?<p>Basically, I need the end user to not be able to tell that they are working with a website instead of a native app. <comment><USER2> I am no longer an Apple developer, but I think I remember that it was against the rules to have an app that did nothing but display a web page. You run the risk of having your app rejected, although many seem to be getting away with this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes. Download any of the ClearChannel apps besides Iheartradio (Coast to Coast AM, AT40, etc). These use an embedded safari view to display some content, and Rss to feed other pages in a native environment. See if you can tell the difference.

EDIT: just to clarify, the pages in the app served using the Safari view are served from our web servers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats great, I'm going to check them out. Could the same thing be done for android apps as well?

<comment><USER3> Yes, this is the method that Bank of America used to create its Android app until a few months ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Check out PhoneGap and their new service PhoneGap Build, it might be what you're looking for:

<http://build.phonegap.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I've seen phonegap, but I'm not looking to port the website, just have an app that could display it.

<comment><USER5> That's exactly what PhoneGap does. It's just an embedded webview, and you put in the html/jss/etc from your site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, I understand that part, but it still sounds like it converts your site into a native app. If I then made a change to the site, I would have to do the whole process over again. I'm looking for something that points to the site, so I can update the site all I want without having to change the app at all.

<comment><USER5> I believe you can have it load dynamic content. For example, I made an app that had a pretty much static front page, then the other pages loaded RSS feeds. Ajax and jQuery are you friends if you decided to go that route. Otherwise, what would be the point of having an app that just points to a webpage?

<comment><AUTHOR> Basically, I'm trying to appease higher ups who insist that we need an app, but dont understand all the complexities about maintaining separate codebases, app store approval process, etc... As long as there is something installable in the app store, they're happy. And I can code the site in such a way as to mimic a native app, so the end user wont know the difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You could probably do this with one line of code (and the rest in Interface Builder), if you really wanted.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd recommend either using PhoneGap or just implementing something like - [http://www.luscarpa.com/development/make-your-website-an- iph...](http://www.luscarpa.com/development/make-your-website-an-iphone-web- application/)</comment>


How to make your YC application stand out - <AUTHOR> http://aarone.com/post/19657024141/how-to-make-your-yc-application-stand-out

<comment><USER2> > _The week after Christmas, we drove our entire lives up to our new apartment > in NYC, got my wife settled in the city, and then I flew out to San > Francisco to live on the other side of the country from her for 3 months.

> And it was, without a doubt, one of the best experiences of my life._

Out of context this wording is kind of funny/sad.

</comment><comment><USER3> The one trait I've noticed about these articles is the applicant must have a significant amount of planning.

It doesn't sound like YC is something that you wake up on Monday and say, "I'm going to live in California for 3 months on savings without a reliable source of income and hope I can turn my idea into a business."

<comment><USER4> Strangely enough, a lot of the most successful startups we've funded applied at the last minute. E.g. David Rusenko of Weebly told me he applied 30 min before the deadline.

<comment><USER5> That could be because a) anyone who can put together a coherent pitch in 30 minutes already knows the problem space and solution very well, and/or b) there isn't time to lie or exaggerate in 30 minutes, so if you fund them, they are actually as good as they said they were.

Any ideas which?

<comment><USER4> Mostly a). The people who apply at the last minute don't usually have the idea at the last minute. They apply with something they've already started working on, or at least thinking about.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21740873-argument-universal-health-care-clear-getting-there-difficult-says-john <comment><USER2> When a person gets a life threatening disease they ought not worry about whether or not their treatment will leave their family in penury. This is especially so in a nation as wealthy as the U.S. The American healthcare system is immoral and I hope it drastically changes.

Americans need to change their underlying notions of what it means to be a society. An author was once made fun of for suggesting that it takes a village to raise a child. When it comes to public funding for public goods we tend to worry about some poor person getting something they don't deserve. The go it alone I've got mine, fuck you attitude is unhealthy.

Until we change our collective view in what the purpose of a government and society is things won't change significantly. Even so called champions of progressivism in the U.S. Senate voted against allowing the importation of medicine from Canada. It seems the public interest is subordinate to private interests and often times with immoral consequences.

<comment><USER3> If you think the private healthcare system is immoral, you should take a look at the 100% government ran healthcare system that is the VA. You literally couldn't make up worse things than their administration has been caught doing with little or to consequence.

If the VA is the best the US government can do, with some of the most sympathetic citizens, then it is incapable of doing better than our private system.

<comment><USER4> The VA was a good system not too long ago, but the past couple decades has seen it get extremely underfunded in a starve the beast strategy. It used to be a black eye in the Republican's view of healthcare, but they sure fixed that.

<comment><USER5> What makes you think universal healthcare would be any different? If you recognize the VA's failings, and you blame Republicans for it, what's to stop them from doing it to every "good" idea you have?

If a few motivated politicians can ruin the lives of millions those politicians _shouldn 't have that power_ in the first place.

<comment><USER6> >What makes you think universal healthcare would be any different?

Because America isn't the entire world and there are many places where socialized healthcare of various forms have been very successfully implemented for a long time. The idea peddled by conservatives in America that the only options for socialized healthcare are inevitable failure or tyranny is simply, demonstrably nonsense.

It's exactly this kind of parochial, limited mindset that needs to change.

<comment><USER5> Oh yes. Everyone who disagrees with me has a limited mindset. You could have used your open mind to read about a European (within this comment thread) who is having trouble with "the right" in his country:

> This is a principal reason why the US was crossed off my list of countries > where I would work and live. I fight against the privatization that is > occurring within healthcare in my native country, Iceland. We used to have > the Scandinavian model but decades of attacks from the right-wing > Independence Party has broken our healthcare system. The next phase > described by Chomsky is handing it over to private capital since people are > outraged that it doesn't work anymore. I'm sickened by the development and > feel a little like an old man screaming at the desert wind.

It's exactly _your kind_ of Utopian mindset that needs to change. Please read the news of countries other than the US. You might be surprised at the amount of controversy that surrounds universal healthcare systems.

<comment><USER7> The controversy that surrounds universal healthcare systems goes something like this:

"I am disappointed by my treatment in the system!"

"Do you want to privatise it?"

"Absolutely not."

<comment><USER8> In the US, the first sentence holds true, it just costs a lot more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In my country we do have single payer health care, but I wouldn't step foot into a state hospital unless I would have a terminal disease.

The infrastructure is old and crumbling, people get infections during operations and walk out more sick than they entered.

Sometimes you are asked to bring your own medicine, and basic medical supplies because hospitals don't provide you with anything. The system is overcrowded and no one gives a shit about you unless you bribe them.

I think the key-word is functioning universal health care.

While I do support paying for universal health care and think it is a basic necessity of a civilized country, you need a good culture and competent people to make it work.

I think a good culture makes shit work, not the process itself. (just like applying Scrum / Agile won't make you solve anything without the right people)

<comment><USER10> What country is that?

<comment><USER11> Presumably not one that spends twice the world average per capita on healthcare like the US.

<comment><USER12> > Sometimes you are asked to bring your own medicine, and basic medical > supplies because hospitals don't provide you with anything. The system is > overcrowded and no one gives a shit about you unless you bribe them.

Sounds like Venezuela, which I would not hold up as a gleaming example of good governance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Universal health care is a euphemism for the poor and sick getting their medical care subsidized by the wealthy and healthy.

Morally, caring for the sick seems like the right thing to do, but it's like when I hear Bernie Sanders call for "free college education": he doesn't mean free, he means the wealthy subsidizing it for others.

Universal health care implies just distributed costs, but the focus should be on bringing down costs so the payments don't have to be so astronomical.

For example:

-Nurses could do a lot of things doctors do now, and for a lot less money, but MDs refuse to cede any authority.

-Medicare should be allowed to negotiate drug prices.

-Hospitals should pre-publish costs upfront before you accept care rather than saddle you with 100K in bills later on.

All of these things would help bring down cost but for political reasons we don't do them. Instead it's just about making wealthy people (which, for the record, I am not) pay more to cover for it.

Even if caring for the sick is just it shouldn't be accomplished just by a wealth transfer (to be fair, the ACA had some provisions to bring down the cost of care, but not nearly enough).

<comment><USER14> There's some serious mental gymnastics going on here to justify that the US spends 2x the next country per capita on health care expenditure and still doesn't manage to pay for all its citizens. Especially when the federal government has already taken all its worst customers (the old) and thrown them into a socialized pool (medicare) without anyone to balance out the risk.

Wasn't there a writeup recently that wealth distribution isn't materially distinguishable from luck? [1] Your argument that the healthy/rich subsidize the poor/sick is tantamount to saying the unlucky should fend for themselves. That's an easy argument to make if you're lucky. Your luck may turn at any moment, and then if it does, you're SOL.

Further, if the moral argument falls flat for you, the self-centered argument is that if someone is too poor to get their horrifyingly contagious disease treated until its too late and it spreads to you, you're still sick, and you may still die, cover or no cover. It's why the fire department is socialized -- if the fire spreads to your house, it still burns does it not?

Especially as you argue you're not particularly well off necessary, you should be the strongest advocate for yourself, and therefore, for socialized medicine.

The world is moving there -- at least towards a two-tier system -- and this argument is on the wrong side of history.

[1] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610395/if-youre-so- smart-...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610395/if-youre-so-smart-why- arent-you-rich-turns-out-its-just-chance/)

[EDIT] I also wanted to throw in there the self-centered argument for socialized higher education. If you believe in the value of a college education, then you believe it will increase the productivity of that individual. A more productive individual makes your country more competitive, boosts GDP, moves the markets higher relative to that of other countries. This in turn benefits the wealthy who likely hold equities. Speculative, of course, but the argument seems consistent to me.

<comment><USER15> > There's some serious mental gymnastics going on here to justify that the US > spends 2x the next country per capita on health care expenditure and still > doesn't manage to pay for all its citizens.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this.

The US _does_ spend a lot more, and _doesn 't_ cover everyone. If I understood the parent post, (part of what) it's saying that the US needs to focus on lowering costs, because otherwise, the fact that there is so much spending even now, is going to cause trouble. And more trouble than comparable countries, because the price in the US is so much higher.

I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with this, or what? Do you assume that if the US covered everyone, it would be cheaper? Would be great if you could clarify :)

<comment><USER14> Sure, my bad, in re-reading I can see how this wasn't clear.

I meant along the lines of: I can't see how allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices, letting nurses do more of what doctors do and publishing prices gets the US medical system anywhere close to a 50% reduction in per capita spend, or gets the US any closer to covering 100% of the population. The US should do each of these. Each would make a difference.

What the country needs, though, is real reform.

And also, yes, socialized medicine is dramatically more efficient. Medicare's overhead is only 2% whereas that of private insurance is 18%. Just knocking that off the top would bring the US per capita expenditure much more in line with the OECD.

[1] [http://cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/overhead-costs-for- private-h...](http://cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/overhead-costs-for-private- health-insurance-keep-rising-even-as-costs-fall-for-other-types-of-insurance)

<comment><USER16> Centralized systems are more efficient when they're smaller. The bigger a centralized system becomes, the more you need to spend on intermediary layers of bureaucracy that don't actually help achieve whatever goal it is you're going for (in this case, medical care).

The US has ~330 million people. The US has ~13 million undocumented immigrants. The US is the size of Europe. You're not going to magically get the efficiency of European countries 1/10 the size by having single- payer/universal health care.

Imagine trying to have a single health care system for all of Europe. It would not be nearly as efficient as you think it would be.

Does that mean we can't significantly bring down the cost of care in the US? No, we absolutely can. But a national system in the US is never going to be as efficient as _any_ European country's national system. It's impossible to maintain the same level of efficiency when the scale increases exponentially.

<comment><USER17> If only the United States had some kind of system of geographic administrative divisions similar to the countries that make up Europe...

<comment><USER16> Right, and states are free to enact single-payer/universal health care for their residents if they so wish. In fact, you might want to look at the Massachusetts health care system.

But implementation at a state level is obviously not what this thread is about.

For a US-wide health care system you need US-wide infrastructure/bureaucracy. This decreases efficiency.

<comment><USER14> I'm down with this -- this is how Canada's system is run. Each province provides insurance for its residents meeting the requirement to provide a socalized system as defined in the Canada Health Act. States should provide the socialized system, the federal government should mandate a public option exists (either single payer or two-tier) and the basic rules that govern one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When the issue of universal health care comes up with regards to US policy I often see those emotional arguments pulling on the heart strings. Unfortunately, this is a distraction.

I know this sounds cold, but it comes down to money. Healthcare in America is expensive. The problems appear to be commonly identified by various forms of research and including things like pricing inefficiencies of drugs, malpractice insurance, and administrative inefficiencies.

The problem isn't as simple as blaming medical insurance providers, pricing, or fees. The problems appeared be directly associated to the processes in place, or in the case of drug prices missing pricing regulation. Drug pricing regulation does exist for the VA which has a set pricing schedule, but everybody else gets to pay more.

In order for universal healthcare to come into fruition in the US these cost inefficiencies have to be addressed. If universal healthcare is important for you then these financial and administrative problems are what you should solve for.

<comment><USER19> I don't think emotional arguments are a distraction, they're the whole point. This is a moral issue. Other countries manage to have universal healthcare and it doesn't break the bank. In fact, they spend less per person. The fiscal argument is the distraction.

<comment><USER20> > I don't think emotional arguments are a distraction, they're the whole > point. This is a moral issue.

I find the moral argument to be disingenuous. It is immoral to make poor people pay a tax that cure the diseases of rich people.

"Nobody should go hungry, so everyone should be able to eat anywhere they want and not look at the tab".

<comment><USER19> Disingenuous? You think people arguing that it's immoral for someone to die because they were born poor are not actually sincere in their argument? Tell me, what is my evil ulterior motive? Do I actually just want to increase taxes for the hell of it?

<comment><USER20> Of course its not a sincere argument: I believe that you can believe it, but its insincere at least to yourself to say that the reason healthcare should be universally provided through government is for the poor. If you cared for the poor the argument is to make food stamps for healthcare services, not universal. Universal is also for yourself. So yes, it is disingenuous to say that which is best for your is also best for the poor.

Reminds me to the typical argument that college should be free so poor people can go, but ultimately, middle class and up go. Healthcare is similar: the richer live longer, which means they live more of the most expensive healthcare years.

<comment><USER21> Your argument makes no sense.

It's like garbage collection, it's just something the government provides as a service to all citizens.

Whether it's regressive or progressive entirely depends on the tax used to pay for it. If everyone has to pay exactly the same, it's regressive, as poor people are impacted much more than rich people. If it's a proportion of income, it's progressive.

In the UK our national insurance, which pays for our universal healthcare, social welfare and pensions, is actually a regressive tax, it's 12% on the first £46k you earn, then 2% after that (something like your first £6k is actually tax free). I don't know why people don't make a bigger deal out of this given that the NHS is suffering at the moment.

<comment><USER20> > In the UK our national insurance, which pays for our universal healthcare, > social welfare and pensions, is actually a regressive tax, it's 12% on the > first £46k you earn, then 2% after that (something like your first £6k is > actually tax free). I don't know why people don't make a bigger deal out of > this given that the NHS is suffering at the moment.

Are you arguing that NHS is not a benefit to the poor? Because its a regressive tax? So eliminating NHS is actually in benefit of the poorer classes.

<comment><USER21> No, I replied and rapidly edited out a few words of my original reply to try and make it clearer, but seem to have done the opposite. The last sentence initially started with "Interestingly". My original meaning of the last paragraph was "here is an interesting, related, factoid. The UK happens to have a regressive tax to pay for the NHS".

My main point is that governments are free to provide the same service to rich and poor without that being regressive or disproportionately favouring the rich. For example, bin collection, policing, national defence, fire safety, etc.

A universal health service can simply be another collective service. If you want more because you're rich, in the UK we also have private healthcare services you can pay for, much like you can pay for a cleaner in addition to your bin collections or a body guard in addition to the police or national defence or pay to install fire suppression in addition to the national fire service.

What makes it regressive or not is how it is taxed for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Universal healthcare is not a silver bullet, in certain Eastern European Countries we pay a large amount of our salary in taxes so that we have universal healthcare and yet you still have to give "gifts" to every nurse and doctor that treats you unless you want the bare minimum treatment and care. Doctors can also intentionally botch surgeries if you fail to pay up. Not so much that it can be called malpraxis though.

<comment><USER23> How can a surgery be "botched" but not be malpractice?

<comment><USER24> Simple, there were "complications" caused by "x, y, z". which is all totally legit, except it's all made up and unverified due to rampant corruption

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Universal health care doesn't require government coercion. Many more people in the US would have access to health care, including insurance for catastrophic events, if the state and federal governments stopped interfering in the supply side. The same groups that use force to prevent new hospitals being built, restrict the number of doctors, prevent nurses and nurse practitioners from treating many problems they're more than qualified to address, and disallow insurance being sold across state lines say that the solution to the problems they created is more government. It's almost like they have an ulterior motive.

Big government programs raise taxes and decrease liberty. To quote Penn Jillette, "Why not err on the side of a little more freedom?"

<comment><USER26> Many people would also lose access to health care. Remember when a pre- existing condition meant you were fucked for life? It wasn't that long ago.

Fully privatized, deregulated systems can work out great for people who are lucky enough to avoid financial hardships, bad planning, or being born into bad circumstances. I'd rather not just screw everybody else.

<comment><USER27> You're operating under the assumption that insurance companies would continue acting as they do now, even if there is much more competition.

Insurance companies shouldn't want to deny you coverage just because you have a pre-existing condition. They most likely would just charge you more, because you're at a higher risk of costing them money.

<comment><USER26> Of course they'll just charge you more. That's how it was before, too. But when the premiums are so high that you can't possibly pay them, there's no real difference between that and being denied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just going to throw this out there. Non universal health care is analogous to half the roads in a city being toll roads. Society can still function and you can mostly get to where you're going but it's not close to efficient.

<comment><USER3> Why are toll roads not close to efficient? In my state the toll roads are by far the nicest best maintained roads and the tolls are extremely reasonable and collected without having to slow down or stop at a booth.

<comment><USER29> Who collects the tolls? Is it a private company or a government body with motive different than maximum profit?

For example in Poland we got the most expensive toll motorways in Europe because a private company owns them and continues to demands exorbitant prices for passage with nobody to stop it.

<comment><USER30> > Who collects the tolls? Is it a private company or a government body with > motive different than maximum profit?

Private company with motive different than maximum profit. Motive: not to get subsumed and punished by the government allowing them to do this...then second motive is maximum profit. That primary motive one is an important one in all of these non-competitive industries, and can't even have a private vs public discussion without including it. Otherwise, it's just corruption/apathy and it's a different problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Skeptic's questions:

1\. How many are aware that Britain's NHS, if run as well as Spain's healthcare system, would kill 10,000 fewer patients each year due to better treatment? [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-world- ranking-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-world-ranking-uk- healthcare-worse-ireland-spain-slovenia-30th-lancet-a7744131.html) and [http://www.cityam.com/270171/nhs-world-class-if-you- ignore-i...](http://www.cityam.com/270171/nhs-world-class-if-you-ignore-its- woeful-outcomes) (3rd to last paragraph)

2\. I can get an MRI in the USA within 3-5 days (sometimes next day), virtually anywhere in the country.

Canada (universal health care) wait times to receive MRI(self-reported by the government): over 90 days in some cases. In the richest and most populous province of Ontario, only 41% of patients got scanned within the targeted time: [http://www.hqontario.ca/System-Performance/Wait-Times-for- Di...](http://www.hqontario.ca/System-Performance/Wait-Times-for-Diagnostic- Imaging?utm_source=Ontario.ca&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=WT%20Referral) (you might have to select Adult MRI instead of the default Adult CT)

If you were diagnosed with a possible brain tumor/cancer requiring an MRI to confirm, would the 50 to 90-day difference in MRI and diagnosis result in a measurable difference in outcome, if you did in fact have a tumor?

<comment><USER32> > 2\. I can get an MRI in the USA within 3-5 days (sometimes next day), > virtually anywhere in the country.

Not if you don't have insurance, like a few million Americans. But fuck those guys, right? At least _my_ MRI is fast!

<comment><USER33> You have a few percent of the overall American population waiting vs. 41% of Ontario.

<comment><USER32> No, 41% of patients of Ontario who needed an MRI, which is a small subset of the population. Meanwhile in 2016 you had 28 million Americans under 65, that's 10.4% uninsured [0]. I'm sure 10% less people would cut the waiting lines in Ontario a bit.

So yeah, fuck those 28 million, they're not rich, let them suffer if they get ill!

[0] [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health- insurance.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-insurance.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> $5700 ER bill for an ice pack and refusal of treatment: [https://www.vox.com/2018/5/1/17261488/er-expensive- medical-b...](https://www.vox.com/2018/5/1/17261488/er-expensive-medical-bill)

this is what's broken in America today.

<comment><USER16> Maybe part of the problem is the mindset "banged my head on a table, time for the ER"

???

If you're young and healthy and you lightly bang your head on a table, you don't need the ER! It sounds like she wasn't even concussed! Sure, get checked out by a doctor, but this isn't a life or death situation, so don't clog up ER triage with your BS.

That's like breaking your toe and calling an ambulance.

<comment><USER35> Maybe. But possible one in a hundred times, the "banged head on table" could lead to complications. I'm familiar with such a case.

Somehow, everywhere in the developed world except the US, people can go to the ER-or-equivalent (many places have 24-hour clinics/triage centers that would send you to an ER only if needed) after they've banged their heads, and 99% of the time be told "go home, it's fine" without being bankrupt. I would say the problem is with how the US healthcare system is run.

<comment><USER16>
      People go to "ER-or-equivalent".

      Immediately mentions a place that is not the same as ER that the US also has (clinics).

As I said -- she was wrong to go to the ER. She lives in NJ. I know for a fact there are loads of clinics she could've gone to and been sent home with a clean bill of health for $50 copay.

<comment><USER35> I left NYC 5 years ago. But at the time I was living there, there was essentially no option other than an ER after 3pm (and very few before).

And my point is that the European system does not require you to make decisions in such a case. You just go and get checked without going bankrupt.

Where I live now I have 3 hospitals within 20 minute drive, one of which is walking distance, and 20 triage/clinic locations. I can go to any; I prefer the triage because they are quicker and nicer.

<comment><USER16> Really? I live in NYC and can't agree[1].

Yes, you are correct -- with a socialized system, you don't need to worry about "triaging yourself". _But that is not a good thing_. You don't want patients to mis-utilise the services available to them, just because they are free and therefore they don't need to worry about the associated costs.

Ambulances / ERs / MRI / etc -- these things are EXPENSIVE to operate. It's too bad, but it's the truth. Just because you _can_ use them in the UK or wherever doesn't mean you should, and there is nothing to disincentivise people from this because they're not footing the bill (directly, that is). I literally wrote my undergraduate dissertation on various ways the cost of MRI could be brought down, and it's not an easy problem, regardless of who is paying for it. Getting medical care that you don't need is no small thing in the scheme of things.

1: [https://www.google.com/search?q=urgent+care+center+nyc](https://www.google.com/search?q=urgent+care+center+nyc)

<comment><USER35> At the time I lived in NYC (2007-2013), Me and family had needed urgent care services 3 times. In all three times, we called insurer (Aetna once, United twice), and they told us to go to ER because there is no better option.

Things may be different now, last time I visited manhattan a few months ago indeed there were several walk-in clinics between 8th street and 23th that weren't there 5 years ago, but (at least from the sign on the window), not all accepted all insurances, and none had a chargemaster listed outside, which means there's a nontrivial possibility one would go bankrupt going into them.

> Just because you can use them in the UK or wherever doesn't mean you should, > and there is nothing to disincentivise people from this because they're not > footing the bill (directly, that is).

That's true. And if people did misuse them significantly, I'm sure the (dis)incentive structure would be put in place. But it turns out that most people in the UK and EU and other places are not jerks, and do not call an ambulance needlessly.

It is a mathematical certainty that there is always a false-positive / false- negative tradeoff; The US system (and your recommendation) prefers false negatives, the EU system and other single payer systems prefer false positives. And .. what do you know? Bang for buck, single payer systems triumph greatly, have lower infant death, and higher life expectancy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> There are lots of problems you can avoid when you are able to regularly get a checkup from your doctor.

Also not everything is only a cold and having someone who can check early for complications might save a lot of lives or prevent people from far worse conditions.

Last but not least: Access to mental health services like cognitive behavior therapy that replace or supplement only eating pills might help a lot of folks with addiction and raises productivity.

<comment><USER37> What are your thoughts on this Oregon study which showed no significant effect on health outcomes for people who were given Medicaid vs the uninsured?

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/05/02/oregon...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/05/02/oregon- study-medicaid-had-no-significant-effect-on-health-outcomes-vs-being- uninsured/#71a919d60430)

<comment><USER36> That's wrong - here is the study: [https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1212321#t=articl...](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1212321#t=articleTop)

We found that insurance led to increased access to and utilization of health care, substantial improvements in mental health, and reductions in financial strain, but we did not observe reductions in measured blood-pressure, cholesterol, or glycated hemoglobin levels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've lived in countries that have socialized medicine and ones without and my experience was dramatically different. I was always taught that socialized medicine was better. However I never got half decent care until I bought private health insurance.

My whole life I've been on government healthcare plans, across various countries. Imagine my shock when the first time I called my private health insurance provider at 34, it worked well. They chose the clinic I would go to, when I arrived to my appointment I was immediately ushered in to meet a physician. The physician was able to diagnose many problems within a couple of minutes, and I was asked to call my insurance company back so they could approve a series of tests and treatments.

I waited half an hour for approval and I then immediately saw two different doctors and had an x-ray all before leaving the building.

The clinic is interested in actually treating me and giving me the best care possible so that I don't come back. This ensures they get repeat business from my insurance company. Socialized medicine never gave me that kind of care or expediency in my life. The problems were all fixed.

One of the problems I've had for 10 years. Doctors were never able to diagnose it properly or it was "come back in 2 weeks, try this medicine, try that, etc." They were not interested in treating me they were interested in seeing me again and again because they were getting paid by the state.

I'm sure there are anecdotes to the contrary but I am completely sold on private healthcare. It's also fantastically cheaper. In Germany for example I was paying 800/month for healthcare, half "paid by my employer", which would really be my money. My current private healthcare costs about 380/year.

Diagnosed immediately, immediate care. I can buy as much or as little as I want and don't have to subsidize others. I'm encouraged to stay in shape and healthy.

<comment><USER29> You will quickly find the limits of private healthcare once a surgery or advanced treatment is necessary. Usually that it is not covered in your plan. Heck, even relatively simple specialist interventions will go beyond coverage.

In many countries they are great at routine care, no doubt, as they're just not overcrowded and that is the main reason for problems in public systems. If you shift all the crowd there... well... they degrade much quicker and worse than public.

So, apples to apples. Fully public vs fully private systems.

You could say compare German system with US system which are almost completely mirror images except German one is many times cheaper.

<comment><USER38> Not true. For the small amount I am paying I am covered for one major surgery in a hospital per year. Hopefully I never have to use it. If I need two major surgeries in one year well then I'll pay for it. Sounds like I've got bigger issues.

More than one surgery per year I'm covered for surgery in the medical vehicle. So if I'm going beyond that, I think I'll take the extra 9220 that I'm saving every year and risk it! Call me crazy I think most of that money is going toward treating fat people and drug users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> We should think of healthcare (not insurance, care) as our #1 national defense priority.

<comment><USER40> I get your sentiment, but I personally feel that education should be our #1 defense priority.

<comment><USER41> No need to fight over which one gets to be called number 1. Both are components of a whole vision; a healthy, thriving populace, building off the successes of one another to create a better experience for everyone, rich and poor alike.

<comment><USER42> You don't need government programs to do that.

<comment><USER43> It's important to have a central, regulated allocation of _some_ resources for a society as large as America-- and for that matter, any society. The point of group living (where any society is group living) is that everyone has a safe place to return to and can count on at least most of the other members of the group to help them out when they need it. The point of universal healthcare is that you pool your money with everyone else so that when you get sick, you get care, and when your neighbor gets sick, he doesn't spread his infectious disease to you, and when someone else in your work place gets sick, you spend less time making up for their missing days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Yes, health care is important, if not morally necessary in the 21st century.

That said, it's also (imo) a proxy. The more accurate metrics are things like infant mortality rate (IMR), longevity, etc. KPIs that measure actual health and health outcomes. Access isn't necessarily the key.

Take for __example__ the USA. We now have the vast majority of the population covered. We spend more and more (and more)on healthcare. Yet, IMR is climbing. It's predicted that the current generation(s) will die younger. And finally, obesity is so widespread it's been mentioned as a threat to nation security.

Point being, (as stated) healthcare is a proxy (even for the countries that have it). I would imagine there are 5 to 10 KPI's that measure __health and wellness__ that would be more accurate (and likely paint a different impression).

Healthcare isn't a panacea. Yes, it's necessary. But benefits come from health (and wellness / prevention) and not just care.

Editorial: Discussing health care without also discussing (personal) health is a fool's errand. Championing healthcare is great for buying votes, but it's only part of the picture.

</comment><comment><USER45> The big riddle is how do you get the health care costs in the U.S back in line with the rest of the world, which doesn't necessarily have single payer. I'm a big fan of Singapore's public/private hybrid which delivers excellent results for a very low percent of GDP. We spend double as a percent of our GDP on health care vs all other developed nations.

<comment><USER46> Me too. Then of course you get into the nitty-gritty ([https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2017/4/25/15356118/s...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2017/4/25/15356118/singapore-health-care-system-explained)):

"More than 80 percent of the hospital beds in Singapore are in public hospitals, and those hospitals are cut into different "wards" with different levels of amenities: A-class wards provide unsubsidized care but have single rooms and air conditioning, while C-class wards are overwhelmingly subsidized but are set up like shared dormitories with common toilets. There are a number of ward levels in between, too, all with a sliding scale of comfort and subsidization. So both A-ward patients and C-ward patients are paying for their own care, but the prices they're paying are very, very different, because the government is absorbing the direct cost of care in the C-wards."

Not saying common toilets are unacceptable but it's things like that which would be a big adjustment/shock to the American system of being used to mostly individual rooms with meal service, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Isn't it better to design health care system based on some form of score, very much like credit score in financial systems? The healthier you live, the less you pay.

Obviously someone who drinks alcohol regularly, smokes regularly, is overweight, ... would be a burden on health care system (in long run) compared to someone who lives with a healthy life style. Why would they both pay the same amount? In a credit-based system the former pays more.

Making some exceptions in such a system is just fine. Not everyone has cancer. Insurance company can easily pay the full amount for these people. It is not the major cost for system.

<comment><USER48> How do you know how often someone smokes or drinks? How do you determine what level of smoking/drinking is harmful enough to merit higher premiums? How do you dispute the insurance provider's claim that your cancer is really your fault because you chose to live in a city with bad air?

Enforcement requires a beneficient panopticon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'd much rather pay for healthcare, infra or basically what ever benefits us, the society, than for the war industry.

<comment><USER20> As an average american citizen, you already pay for healthcare. You are not getting the bang for your buck, thats the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> In these kinds of discussions I like to promote this interesting TEDx talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU) "Where in the world is it easiest to get rich?"

Spoiler: the talk shows that statistically the Nordic countries lead the world in millionaires and billionaires / capita, and in rags-to-riches. The talker offers the opinion that this is because its of the strong social safety net, education and healthcare.

Living in Scandinavia of course I like to hear this ;)

<comment><USER16> Or maybe it's the very high resource/population ratio?

The petroleum sector accounts for 40% of Norway's exports.

Fishing is 10% (!) of Norwegian exports.

Both of these things have an incredibly high extraction efficiency in the modern era. It would be nice to believe it's the social safety net, but I don't think that hypothesis is backed up with much evidence. The much more obvious reason is staring Scandinavia in the face. I'm intrigued to see how Norway does when the rest of the world stops using petroleum and goes vegan.

<comment><USER50> Sweden, without oil and without much fishing, is also doing really well per- capita etc.

On the ground, the welfare state approach seems the plausible explanation.

And how will Norway do post-oil? Really rather well, it seems, because of its sovereign wealth approach which contrasts strongly with eg the Texas approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> A dissenting opinion: in The Netherlands, with pretty awesome universal healthcare, >50% of healthcare costs are made for 600k 65+ yr olds. That in a country of 17 million. It's 28 B€ for this small group in 42B€ total cost.

The social value of catastrophic health insurance is huge. The cost of universal cradle to grave care is catastrophic and untenable within 20 yrs.

Source (in Dutch, from a government regulatory agency), looking across healthcare categories:

[https://www.nza.nl/actueel/nieuws/2018/04/20/zorg-voor- ouder...](https://www.nza.nl/actueel/nieuws/2018/04/20/zorg-voor-ouderen-in- beeld-overgrote-deel-ouderen-woont-thuis)

</comment><comment><USER52> If you get cancer, would you rather be treated in the US or Europe? Survival rates are significantly higher in the US, so I know what I'd choose. And yeah, I'll pay more, too, because I want high quality doctors.

<comment><USER53> If you don't get cancer, where would you rather live? Life expectancy is significantly higher in Europe for lower average cost of medical care. There's not necessarily a conflict between checkups and chemo, and surely some of the difference is due to population-level differences in poverty, diet, and lifestyle. But it's worth remembering that it can be rational to trade slightly worse specialty care for better general care.

Also, fwiw, what I'm reading (e.g. [https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/30/5819148...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/30/581914807/whats- the-5-year-survival-rate-for-cancer-patients-around-the-world)) suggests that US cancer survival is better than the rest of the developed world, but not significantly so.

<comment><USER54> > Lower average cost of medical care

All derived from figures that don't account for how much more you pay in taxes for that "free or cheap" healthcare.

<comment><USER29> Actually it is a perfectly visible item in budget. We pay less for whole of medical care than total US budget for just VA.

 _Someone_ is paying for this in tax.

<comment><USER54> I think you misunderstand the statement. I wasn't referencing the comparison of the tax costs of different public healthcare systems. But while we're on that subject, I'm willing to bet that your VA comparison isn't per capita, or placed against GDP, rendering it useless.

What I was referencing was the per capita or per household _total cost of healthcare_. The comparisons that say western countries with universal healthcare have "lower costs" generally omit the increased tax burden.

If I make $100k a year, for example, and pay ~30% in taxes, but also pay ~$15k a year for total family medical expenses, including premiums, I'm still making out better than if I pay ~60% in taxes, but get "free" healthcare.

<comment><USER55> The US government pays a huge amount on healthcare. This is whether you do it by total; by GDP; per capita.

[https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/howdoesukhealthcarespendingcompareinternationally/2016-11-01)

If you include private insurance:

> As a percentage of GDP, the UK spent less on healthcare than USA, Japan, > France and Germany and a similar percentage to Canada. The USA spent the > most on healthcare as a percentage of GDP at 16.6%.

If you exclude private insurance the US still pays a lot, at about 8.2%

The US has by far the largest spend per capita, yet has average life expectancy.

<comment><USER54> You misinterpret or spin the data from your link. Look again and you'll see that, as far as compulsory spending goes the US and UK spend roughly the same percentage of GDP on "healthcare". What is "healthcare" as defined in this PR piece from the UK government? Where do factors like average wait time to see a specialist or have surgery weigh in?

I could take those same numbers and say, "The United States does a better job of assisting it's poorer citizens into the highest quality healthcare in the world, all while allowing all its people the complete freedom to control their own health outcomes."

For the record, I'm not a health libertarian, but I'd sure as hell take it over health authoritarianism, and the UK government proved that's what they have last week.

<comment><USER55> > Look again and you'll see that, as far as compulsory spending goes the US > and UK spend roughly the same percentage of GDP on "healthcare"

Yes, that's the point. The US government spends more on healthcare, but that huge spend doesn't cover the whole population.

> "The United States does a better job of assisting it's poorer citizens into > the highest quality healthcare in the world,

Why does the US have such poor mortality figures if health care is so good and if everyone can access it?

> but I'd sure as hell take it over health authoritarianism, and the UK > government proved that's what they have last week.

In the US cases of medical futility the doctors announce their plan to remove life support and if the parents disagree they have to go to court to stop it happening.

In the UK the doctors need to get the agreement of the parents, and if the parents don't agree the doctors have to go to court. In that court process the family can get legal aid (if they meet the financial test) - Alfie Evan's parents went through 7 legal firms, and they had expert counsel of a well respected silk and two juniors. But also Alfie had his own legal representation.

Alfie Evans had 16 months of excellent health care, followed by robust legal protection to make sure his best interests were looked after. His family are poor. He wouldn't have got anything like this in the US.

<comment><USER54> > But also Alfie had his own legal representation.

What?! How does an infant/toddler receive legal representation arguing for the plug to be pulled, outside of the wishes of his parents?! That is the very definition of authoritarianism.

> He wouldn't have got anything like this in the US.

Absolute nonsense spread by someone who has no knowledge of the American system. A child like Alfie is given free medical care from one of many charity hospitals with some of the best doctors in the world, and other charities house the family, for no cost, during treatment. You know, like the Vatican offered, and the parents accepted, but apparently you're government decided it was time for Alfie to die.

<comment><USER55> > How does an infant/toddler receive legal representation arguing for the plug > to be pulled, outside of the wishes of his parents?!

The child is not property. The child is a human, and has human rights. Those rights are protected. The child has his own independent legal representation to look after its best interests.

This system has been tested by international courts -in Europe- and they've found it works to protect the rights of the child.

> You know, like the Vatican offered,

No. The vatican offered the same end of life care he was getting, with the additional burden of a long difficult journey.

> A child like Alfie is given free medical care from one of many charity > hospitals

I've already linked a page in this thread that shows this to be false.

You keep saying "government", but the UK government wasn't involved in any of the cases (apart from the EU ones).

<comment><USER54> > The child is not property. The child is a human, and has human rights. Those > rights are protected. The child has his own independent legal representation > to look after its best interests.

How humane of your government to decide that a toddler must starve to death.

<comment><USER55> Have you ever had a naso-gastric tube fitted? It's not pleasant. Doing this in order to prolong life when the case is medically futile is cruel.

Also, it's far better that the hospital has to go to the courts to get permission to do this than the situation in the US: the doctors announce their plan and the parents then have to go to court to stop it happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> It has the benefit of being supported by the state, yet nowhere has it obsoleted private healthcare (except for places where the government outright criminalizes private healthcare). There is something rotten in Denmark.

</comment><comment><USER57> Ah yet another time to remind US citizens they are needlessly dying at worst or massively overpaying for health at best.

The health care of system of the US is insane and has malignant cost disease. If they scrapped everything and adopted a universal health care system where the government simply pays for health care of everyone up to a standard of care above which there is quickly diminishing returns, they could do so without increasing current federal levels of health spending, since US government health spending is already large by the standards of other countries that take the single payer approach. If you want more health care than this, you can buy private insurance, except now because all consumers are weighing up whether it's actually worth it given they have most of their health care covered by the government, the insurance/health system has much less cost disease.

This is how health care works in sane countries. Countries where rational policy discussions cannot get totally derailed by the magical word "socialism".

</comment><comment><USER58> It's almost as though sick people are less productive or something.

Did we _really_ need someone to tell us this?

<comment><USER59> _Did we really need someone to tell us this?_

Well, yes. Otherwise, we'd expect there to be universal healthcare!

<comment><USER60> What makes you think most people in power really care about productivity of the domestic population at this point? High productivity is something that is purchased from abroad these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> my father always said: "those who have will even take from those who don't have". this seems to be the crux of the issue

</comment><comment><USER62> Tell that to little Alfie.

When you have an unconditional "right" to consume someone else's labor, the inevitable result is tyranny, rationing and the force of government determining outcomes.

<comment><USER24> I see this argument a lot, but in no country with socialised medicine is any doctor ever "forced" to treat someone.

Doctors can choose employers, work in private practises, and quit at any time.

Much like many employees, when they're employed they may have to perform duties relevant to their position such as treating sick people

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> From the Hackernews guidelines:

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

This post is clearly political and calls for universal health care have been around for decades.

<comment><USER64> Universal health care helps startups.

<comment><USER65> This is not certain. There is evidence that the safer people feel, the less willing they are to take risks. This is only paradoxical at first glance.

<comment><USER66> On the other hand, taking potential health concerns out of the equation makes working for a startup inherently less risky.

Before the ACA removed restrictions of pre-existing conditions, merely switching employers carried the risk of losing access to necessary healthcare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This article conflates public "essential health" services with universal, state-run healthcare. It also uses nondescript graphs, in image form and with no link to source data, to make sweeping, "correlation equals causation" points about universal health care and life expectancy.

This is an article trying to make an ideological case rather than to discern truth.

<comment><USER67> "This is an article trying to make an ideological case rather than to discern truth."

Generally Economist is unashamedly political. That's what makes it so good - they don't try to hide the fact that they take a stand. They give you the facts and their arguments, and then it's up to the reader to digest it.

If you disagree with some of the points, I suggest you send them a letter. The letters section of Economist is one of the high points of the magazine as well - they publish rebuttals and corrections no matter how far they stray from the magazines core claim as long as the letter is well written and sanely argumentative.

<comment><USER54> > Generally Economist is unashamedly political.

I have no problem with unashamedly political. I do have a problem with willful disingenuousness to promote ideological dogma.</comment></comment></comment>


DDSketch: A fast, fully-mergeable quantile sketch with relative-error guarantees - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.10693 <comment><USER2> Author here. We wanted to be able to graph p99, p99.9 metrics with arbitrary ranges, and found the existing solutions were not accurate enough for our needs. Happy to answer any questions.

Code here:

[https://github.com/DataDog/sketches-go](https://github.com/DataDog/sketches- go)

[https://github.com/DataDog/sketches-py](https://github.com/DataDog/sketches- py)

[https://github.com/DataDog/sketches- java](https://github.com/DataDog/sketches-java)

<comment><USER3> Nice work! Averaging percentiles is well-known to give terrible results. Glad to see more people, taking this problem serious, and providing viable alternatives!

A note on Accuracy: At Circonus, we have been using a version of HDR- Histograms [1] for many years to aggregate latency distributions, and calculate accurate aggregated percentiles. Accuracy was never a problem (worst-case error <5%, usually _much_ better).

If I read your evaluation results correctly, you also found HRD-Histograms to be as-accurate or more-accurate, than DDSketches, correct?

The differentiator to HDR Histograms seems to be merging speed and size, where DDSketches seem to have an edge.

One thing that is not immediately clear to me from reading the paper is, how much of the distribution function can be reconstructed from the sketch? E.g. for SLO calculations one is often interested in latency bands: "How many requests were faster than 100ms?" [2].

Is it possible to approximate CDF values ("lower counts") from the sketch with low/bounded error?

[1] [https://github.com/circonus- labs/libcircllhist](https://github.com/circonus-labs/libcircllhist)

[2] [http://heinrichhartmann.com/pdf/Heinrich%20Hartmann%20-%20La...](http://heinrichhartmann.com/pdf/Heinrich%20Hartmann%20-%20Latency%20SLOs%20Done%20Right%20\(FOSDEM,%202019\).pdf)

<comment><USER2> HDR is great for the use-case when you can bound your range beforehand and merging is not a requirement, but those were also the reasons we needed to develop DDSketch.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, but I don't follow this argument:

(1) HDR-Histogram merges are 100% accurate and very fast (few microseconds)

(2) The range of HDR-Histogram is bounded in the same way that floating point numbers are bounded. Hence the name "High Definition Range":

> For example, a Histogram could be configured to track the counts of observed > integer values between 0 and 3,600,000,000,000 while maintaining a value > precision of 3 significant digits across that range.

[http://hdrhistogram.github.io/HdrHistogram/](http://hdrhistogram.github.io/HdrHistogram/)

Circllhist offers a default range of 10^-128 .. 10^+127, which has been more than ample for all use-cases I have seen.

[https://github.com/circonus- labs/libcircllhist/blob/master/s...](https://github.com/circonus- labs/libcircllhist/blob/master/src/circllhist.h#L66)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey, congratulations, this is a really cool algorithm! Thanks for sharing it.

I'm interested in this paper because I worked on a somewhat related problem some time ago, but got stuck on how to handle data that morphs into a mixed- modal distribution. Modes that are close together are no big deal, but modes that are spaced more exponentially apart are tricky to deal with. For an example of something that would be in DataDog's purview, it would be like trying to sketch the histogram of response times from an endpoint that sometimes took a "fast" path (e.g. a request for a query whose result was cached), sometimes took a "normal" path, and sometimes took a "slow" path. (e.g. a query with a flag that requested additional details to be computed) If the response times from the slow path is much bigger than the others, e.g. by an order of magnitude, their statistics might essentially drown-out the data from the other two paths since you're using them to calculate bin size.

I noticed you had some results from measuring DDSketch's performance on a mixed-modal distribution that looked pretty good (that "power" distribution on the last page). I was wondering if you had done any more investigation in this area? E.g. how messy/mixed can the data be before the sketch starts to break down?

</comment><comment><USER5> How does this compare to t-digest?

[https://github.com/tdunning/t-digest/blob/master/docs/t-dige...](https://github.com/tdunning/t-digest/blob/master/docs/t-digest- paper/histo.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Ah there is a short comparison in "related work":

The problems of having high relative errors on the larger quantiles has been addressed by a line of work that still uses rank error, but promises lower rank error on the quantiles further away from the median by biasing the data it keeps towards the higher (and lower) quantiles [7], [8], [17]. The latter, dubbed t-digest, is notable as it is one of the quantile sketch implementations used by Elasticsearch [18]. These sketches have much better accuracy (in rank) than uniform-rank-error sketches on percentiles like the p99.9, but they still have high relative error on heavy-tailed data sets. Like GK they are only one-way mergeable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> great! so main difference is more accuracy on average or more the fact the maximum error possible is bounded?

<comment><USER2> Most previous sketches used what they called "rank accuracy". So if your inputs were [2^1, 2^2, ...., 2^1000]. The actual p95 is 2^950, and a 0.01 rank-accurate sketch would be allowed to give you any value between 2^940 to 2^960 (which can be up to a factor of 1024 away).

A 0.01 relative-accurate sketch has to give you a value within a factor of 100.

The above example is contrived, but with real web request data, there is often a very long tail, and rank accurate sketches quickly start giving values far from the actual percentiles.

So to more directly answer you question, it's that the maximum error possible is bounded.</comment></comment>


Everything I Wish I Had Known About Enterprise SSO - <AUTHOR> http://lightstep.com/blog/everything-I-wish-I-knew-about-enterprise-sso/ <comment><USER2> In our experience it most often boils down to "do you guys support SAML?" and "we can't really make any changes to it"</comment>


Ask HN: What is the correct method to teach C in a university? - <AUTHOR> My university in India has somewhat rigid rule to teach C and it is compulsory. The course spreads over 3 hours a week and spans through 4 months. <comment><USER2> CS50, Harvard's introductory CS class, introduces students to programming with C. I took the online version in 2016, and I greatly enjoyed the way it was presented. I'm not in the best position to compare and contrast teaching methods, as I've only taken the single class on C, but if you have the time I would highly recommend seeing how they do it.

You can access their lectures, notes, problem sets, slides, and other material for free on their course website [0] and on edX [1]. A warning in advance before you click the course website link though! It's currently Halloween, and the page features an autoplaying scream sound. You've been warned!

[0]: [https://cs50.harvard.edu/2018/fall/](https://cs50.harvard.edu/2018/fall/)

[1]: [https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-computer- scien...](https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-computer-science- harvardx-cs50x)

</comment><comment><USER3> First question is why? Are you making systems programmers? Are you trying to ensure they have a deep understanding of how a computer works?

Personally I would recommend teaching some simple type-less language first. This will be their 'Crutch' language, used to test out simple algorithms.

Then I would teach them assembly language. Make sure they call subroutines and use pointers, but on a simple level. Like sort an array of strings.

Then I would teach them the C and show how it directly and easily translates to assembly. Having done assembly they should have an easier time of pointers. As we all know, pointers is what makes the new C programmers cry. Well that and freeing the same space twice.

</comment><comment><USER4> I suppose the main snag will be pointers. The approach that worked for me was the holistic approach of using C as a way of controlling the machine's memory itself.

In my view, C really only makes sense in the context of manipulating data in and out of the heap and the stack. So once you're past basic syntax, I guess start there: the heap and the stack. When you grasp that, I feel like you can stand on solid fundamentals on how computers work going forward.

</comment><comment><USER5> The correct method to teach C must be rooted in specification of behavior.

Behavior that is _observed_ in a C program is not necessarily one that is _required_. If that behavior is required at all, it might only be required by the platform or implementation, not by the language.

Students should not be discouraged from learning by experimenting, but they have to take the results with a grain of salt. Question, research and discuss everything.</comment>


Honeypot analysis - Looking closer at SSH scans (user and passwords used) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/01/honeypot-analysis-looking-at-ssh-scans.html

<comment><USER2> Good job researching those pesky brute force scans. Is there anyway you can post the complete list with all the data collected instead of just the top 50?

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice analysis.

[advice for those not doing it right]: if your sshd config allows id/pw login, turn this off and only use kays. Also, move your sshd listener port to something besides 22 to eliminate most of the bot login attempts in your log files.

<comment><USER2> You know, lots of people talk about using keys instead of passwords... By doing that if you box is compromised, the attacker will get access to ALL your boxes.

So, the best option is to use an encrypted ssh key (so you have the type the pass everytime) or a good/different password for every box.

<comment><USER4> When you log in to an ssh host using a public/private key pair, the server only sees the public key. So by breaking and entering the attacker can disable your ability to log in in this fashion (by deleting the key) or can enable you to log in somewhere else (by copying the key, probably useless) but they cannot use that key to log in somewhere else absent modification of the SSH server. And even then I doubt they could get the private key, although they could probably run a MITM attack.

<comment><USER5> I believe s/he meant if the box you are using to log in is compromised, then all boxes your box has access to (by way of the private key it has in its file system) are compromised, whereas it seems you interpreted the comment to be implying that the host to which you are logging in (which only has the public key in its file system) has been compromised.

The point is that the computer on which you type becomes a lynch-pin.

<comment><USER4> Yes, if you have a computer with a private key that is available to the internet, and it gets knocked over, you're dead. Just as you would be if he knocked it over and installed a keylogger and you were using passwords. Cracked is cracked.

Assuming you are _not_ running services on your main workstation, which is not that unreasonable (Ubuntu workstations are installed with 0 services available to the local network; my Mac has 0 services available by default), then you can get knocked over but it will probably happen because of an browser bug or something like that, i.e. not an active attack.

The whole point of keys is that knocking over one of the intermediate nodes in the network _no longer gives you control over everything_. Just because you rooted my server doesn't mean you can automatically log in to all my other machines, even if I'm using keys. Keys are better than passwords.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if the lack of root:alpine and mobile:dottie indicates the attack tools are smart enough to know the OS of the box they're attacking, or just a lack of interest in owning jailbroken iPhones?</comment>


Steep.it - <AUTHOR> http://steep.it/

<comment><USER2> I like the use of keywords in the url structure to get directly to the needed timer. I can see putting both a "green" and "black" shortcut on my iPhone – just one tap to directly set and start a timer.

Reminds me of the reason I made <http://donetemperature.com>. I don't know how many times I searched for a proper cooking temperature when grilling and ended up with poor/conflicting results or having to scroll through a recipe or article for a simple number.</comment>


South Australia teams with Tesla, Neoen to build world's biggest Li-ion battery - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-07/south-australia-to-get-worlds-biggest-battery/8687268 <comment><USER2> Tesla sold a financial product. The government needed to cover some of the risk of when power lines go down, or if something goes wrong in another part of the network. It needs to cover this risk quickly for political reasons.

The chance of another similar storm knocking out the power lines again, which now have bigger maintenance crews, is very small. But if there is another blackout and they didn't do anything? They'd be in big trouble with the newspapers.

So Tesla really sold a risk product. Since SA could have spent the money on more generation. But not all people understand that.

The 100MW stage of that wind farm cost $250 million, and took some years to reach agreement, and some years to build. By promising to build the battery quicker, they have covered that risk during the time they need it.

They could have installed another wind farm the same size in a different part of the state in order to reduce the risk, and fill up the valleys of power generation. That has been proven to work too, and the benefit is you have more power generation in the peaks.

The cost of the blackout was estimated to have cost $367 million to business. 12% of the businesses had backup power generators themselves, and about a third of the businesses had bought insurance for such situations. Life critical systems are required to have independent backup power.

By the time it's built there will probably be a similar amount of solar power installed as the battery (by current rates of installation). There's 2,034 MW of industrial solar being constructed in Australia for 2017. This doesn't include stuff going onto roofs of houses, of which there are millions of houses already covered and more being done. 5KW solar installed in Australia can be done for $5,000AUD or less for a 5KW system. That's $100 million AUD for 100MW on 20,000 homes.

There's also a lead smelter which is being upgraded, so it will have modern equipment which lets it use power more dynamically... effectively making it a battery. It can take in power, or not, as it needs. They can also shut down their power hungry desalination plant if needed (which they don't really need when there is not a drought).

So now they have a backup battery, a backup gas power plant, and backup power lines to another state, more efficient industrial power users, and hundreds of thousands of small independent solar power generators.

They've definitely covered their arses.

<comment><USER3> It's not just insurance if power goes down. It'll knock the edges off the price-peaks, which SA suffers badly from.

Gas fired power stations don't fire up until they can get the maximum price possible, and often try to drive the price higher by stopping producing power. SA is very vulnerable to that because there is no backstop of coal prices. OTOH, the _minimum_ price of wind power and solar is much lower.

These batteries will kill the peaking gas generator game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone here played the real time strategy game Total Annihilation or its spiritual successor Supreme Commander? I remember playing with a friend around 1998 and he told me off for using energy storage as opposed to just collecting/producing more energy sans storage. His argument was that my economy should never be at the point that I'm saving energy for a rainy day - I should be spending as I collect/produce so that my potential is always maximised. I told him I need a buffer for when I'm spending more than I'm producing or if I lose infrastructure in battle.

Either way, we played each other over LAN one day and sure enough he took out a few of my nuclear plants, but I had enough energy stored to keep bombarding his base with artillery and eventually struck his commander despite being in the negative for energy production vs consumption. I won. He changed his opinion after that.

It's good to save for _that_ rainy day.

<comment><USER5> The costs and benefits in those games are set deliberately at a point where the decision of which to build is interesting. No such restriction applies to reality. I very much doubt the relative costs of production and storage in game are at all close to what they are in real life.

<comment><USER4> > _doubt the relative costs of production and storage in game are at all close > to what they are in real life_

Aren't most games a form of allegory?

<comment><USER5> No, and especially not the good ones (and TA / SupCom stand among the best). Good game design prioritizes gameplay over moral or political messages, IME.

<comment><USER4> > Good game design prioritizes gameplay over moral or political messages

This is tangential to what we're discussing, but TA was politicised:

 _What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds._

<comment><USER6> The game was made long before the story. From what I remember (I can't remember where I read this) the story and campaign were fairly rushed afterthoughts, compared to the mechanics and multiplayer.

<comment><USER7> The story itself was iffy, but the campaign's aesthetic and maps were AMAZING.

I still remember the "defend the harbor" mission where you had one Moho mine and you had the long range destroyers showing up and desperately salvaging the long range Ranger missile ships for minerals because they were utterly nonthreatening but _super_ valuable..

The map with a giant crevasse. The map with a ton of gunships. It was a really solid campaign. It _felt_ like an amazing story even if the writing was simple to the point of parody just because everything was so well designed and fit perfectly together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> South Australia has a population of ~1.7 million. I'm reading this article as:

* Battery ($140 million)

* Gas Power Plant ($360 million)

These costs are noticeable but not unreasonable.

SA will hopefully turn a nominal profit, although the principle of 'if it were the profitable option, private enterprise would have done it' suggests this will be an economic drag at least in the short term.

I suspect this move is a knee-jerk reaction to the power outage in 2016; so I am very interested in what the long term impacts of this are. I'm adding this to my watch list along with the German Energiewende to see where it is in 2020. It is a very interesting tour-of-force by Tesla and hopefully we discover positive things about large-scale lithium deployments.

<comment><USER9> where did you get those numbers?

Cause TFA says if he doesnt get it done in 100 days it'll cost him 50 mil

>But the promise could leave Mr Musk significantly out of pocket if he fails to deliver to deadline.

>He estimated it would cost him "probably $50 million or more" if the 100 days lapse without the battery installed.

<comment><USER10> I'm guessing, but would imagine that the contract to build and install is priced up as above, but if they fail to get it all in in 100 days it's only the batteries themselves which are free, the rest of the job still needs to be paid for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd be interested to know more about the politics behind this decision. The Federal government (generally conservative and anti-renewables) was pushing for pumped hydro energy storage, which would have cost several times as much and taken years to build (and made renewable energy look worse for longer).

This looks very much like the state Labor government giving the federal government the finger.

<comment><USER12> Got any sources that show pumped hydro to be more expensive?

<comment><USER13> [http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political- news/snowy-...](http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/snowy- hydro-20-malcolm-turnbull-announces-plans-for-2-billion- expansion-20170315-guyozj.html)

This project is about expanding the output of the Snowy Mountains scheme, which means greater demand on the storage capacity, not forgetting 1000km of transmission lines to get the energy to Adelaide which means the grid components that failed them last time are in exactly the same place.

The proposed expansion is $1/W capacity.

The expected price for the Neoen project is in the order of $1/W ($100M for 100MW output, 129MWh capacity)

Note that the actual price on the SA battery is not known, and there has not even been a tender out for the Snowy expansion much less accompany at work digging tunnels suddenly finding that Australian conditions are breaking their equipment more than expected :)

The expected cost overruns on the SA tender are aporoximately zero, the expected cost overruns on a large hydro project between initial estimates and completion are approximately 100% based on industry standards.

<comment><USER14> > there has not even been a tender out for the Snowy expansion

There is nothing to tender against.

The plans for the Snowy Mountains expansion is nothing more than the one page press release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Official announcement from Tesla: [https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-powerpack- enable-large-scal...](https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-powerpack-enable-large- scale-sustainable-energy-south-australia)

</comment><comment><USER16> I really hope this works out to be worth the investment. It seems storage is the missing piece to the renewable energy puzzle.

<comment><USER17> Based on other comments here it seems like SA sees large price spikes that this should smooth out, so I suppose it's possible it will pay for itself not just in a more stable energy utility but also in real Dollarydoos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> We have a long history here in SA of being the first people in the world to do stuff, and it nearly never (I mean this literally) works out well.

For once, I'd love it if our ever changing State Government would just spend its limited budget on tried and tested solutions rather than pissing money up the wall on things that may or may not work.

<comment><USER19> Examples?

<comment><USER20> I'm not from SA but I think the Desalination plant they built to supply drinking water to Adelaide was a pretty infamous example.

<comment><USER21> SA certainly wasn't the first to build a desalination plant, and it appears to have been working as designed for quite a while now ("Water production to date (to end of June 2017) = approximately 138 billion litres" [1]).

I think the infamy was unearned, and mainly due to people not understanding that it was never intended to run all the time, but is insurance for a time of crisis (which we will certainly have again at some point).

So, not a good example.

[1] [https://www.sawater.com.au/community-and-environment/our- wat...](https://www.sawater.com.au/community-and-environment/our-water-and- sewerage-systems/water-sources/desalination/adelaide-desalination-plant-adp)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dao- 100 MW. For comparison, here's a >30 years old pumped storage power plant with a capacity of 1,045 MW:

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

<comment><USER22> Which took 20 years to get running instead of 100 days and required favorable terrain.

<comment> dao- Construction started in 1970 and it's been running since 1979. That's nine years, with ancient tech and the GDR's limited resources. There's no reason to believe a similar project should take nine years today in Australia.

<comment><USER23> If anything, large infrastructure projects take longer now with more stringent worker safety, environmental and engineering requirements. The replacement cost of 1960s/70s/80s hydro generating stations (particularly their dams) is much higher than what they cost initially. It's no longer acceptable, for example, to have 20 people die on your dam construction project. It's also a hell of a lot easier to forcibly relocate local people in an authoritarian country like GDR than in Australia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Doesn't anyone know how long these industrial sized Li-ion batteries last?

If its anything like my Nexus 6p it'll need replacing within a year.

<comment><USER25> Such information is more than likely commercially sensitive. However, given the large number of cells, a charge controller can optimise charges to ensure optimum cell use.

Bit like wear levelling with SSD drives.

Your phone probably has an erratic charge discharge cycle.

Most Li-ion batteries have 400-1200 duty cycle. That should give this project a 3 year cycle a least.

<comment><USER24> Infrastructure is usually measured in decades though, I would have thought < 1 decade isn't good enough. Maybe its easier to maintain large scale batteries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Do you need multiple batteries though to really stabilise the flow? I.e. these look like they will be right at the point of power generation, guessing that the bulk of inhabitants will actually be in Adelaide, why not put the batteries there after you have suffered the lossiness of transmission? Directly in people's homes would also probably be more effective...

<comment><USER13> The losses will happen somewhere, and the power is coming from the wind farm anyway. Combining grid interconnect with what is already there probably makes the power engineering easier.

<comment><USER2> Also Australia is one of the most expensive places on the planet - in the urban centers. They already have space near the wind farm for very cheap. As a bonus you don't have a giant Samsung Galaxy situation near so many people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Didn't they announce last year that the largest battery manufacturing plant was being built near Reno, NV as part of the Gigafactory. Now all of a sudden this one in Australia, what's the deal?

<comment><USER28> Not a factory. This is a battery stored peaking power plant.

<comment><USER27> thanks for clarifying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Isn't 129MWh of capacity a bit low for 100MW of peak discharge? That would provide 77 minutes of power at peak discharge. Does anyone have any insight into the rationale for this capacity?

<comment><USER30> From what I've seen this is quite common with batteries -- the rated power output number is usually in the same ballpark as the storage number.

I'm no expert, but I would guess it's because most of the time the wind will be blowing _somewhat_ , so you will rarely need peak discharge. Most of the time the batteries will be providing load smoothing and frequency regulation.

<comment><USER31> According to Tesla's website ([https://www.tesla.com/powerpack](https://www.tesla.com/powerpack)) each Powerpack has 50 kW / 210kWh with a scalable inverter power ranging from 50 kVA to 625 kVA.

So they could have gotten a system with 100 MW/420 MWh

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is certainly a step in the right direction for South Australia.

<comment><USER32> I should qualify why: The South Australian power network, due to its increasing reliance on Wind and Solar, struggles with fluctuations in the network. The battery will aid to stabilise the grid in peak demand times.

<comment><USER28> So what were the causes of the queensland outages with their coal?

It was transmission tower failures that took out the network for the significant outage.

<comment><USER32> The really big 2016 blackout in SA also wasn't caused by wind or solar energy, but that doesn't mean that stabilising the network isn't something that won't be required if the energy production develops more towards renewables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wow. This story makes you believe anything is possible.

</comment><comment><USER34> Does anyone know if large scale capacitors are being investigated for this sort of application (or in home storage)? Strikes me as more appropriate than batteries; don't really need to store that energy for months, but rather hours or days. I know that Tesla utilises economies of scale, but still curious why I've never heard of large scale capacitors even being researched.

<comment><USER35> The Energy density of capacitors is very low (10-100x less than lithium) and they cost quite a bit more per watt-hour.

Capacitors are good if you need power for seconds rather than the minutes- hours that batteries are good at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Unfortunately no word on durability and maintenance guarantees. What happens after a few years when batteries lose most of their capacity? Who is going to take care of recycling? I'm honestly curious about details because as opposed to lead-acid batteries industry, there is no profitable or existing li-ion recycling market.

<comment><USER37> > What happens after a few years when batteries lose most of their capacity?

That's rather pessimistic isn't it? In their cars, which is arguably a less stable environment, they don't seem to fall much beyond 70-80% capacity. The lose capacity quickly at first, but then it stabilizes. I haven't heard anything that implies that a lithium-ion battery in a stable, temperature environment will lose "most" of their capacity, i.e. over 50%.

And unlike cars, it's not like the value of the battery becomes so much less when they lose capacity. There's plenty of space, that's not the problem. They could just add a few extra batteries if they want to keep the capacity (more likely they will add more batteries other places).

Of course battery capacity loss will be part of the contract. Tesla will probably guarantee a certain capacity after a certain time, and they will tell the customer how much loss they can expect. It will all be taken into account when calculating the profitability and life-time of the system.

Why would they report this in the media? It's not something most people is interested in. It's the kind of thing you find in datasheets for the product.

<comment><USER38> I wonder if that could be part of Tesla's cross-market strategy. You can put fresh batteries in cars where high energy density is really important, then as the capacity drops you reuse them in lower energy density applications like commercial power.</comment></comment></comment>


CMS that dynamically changes your website based on visitor's LinkedIn profile - <AUTHOR> How about a CMS that, given a LinkedIn profile, changes copywriting and contents of your website accordingly whit that person's role, skills and recent activities? <comment><AUTHOR> Something similar to this [https://www.if-so.com/](https://www.if-so.com/)

But the limit with this plugin is the quality and quantity of insights you can scrape from an unknown visitor.

The cut I would give to the idea is a bit different. Imagine you're about to do an outbound sales campaign with a list of leads for which you have all the LinkedIn profiles associated... let's say a newsletter.

The tool would generate an instance of your website for each lead based on their LinkedIn profile, returning a list of links like this: \- www.yourwebsite.com/AR54T \- www.yourwebsite.com/AT221 \- ...

You then embed in your newsletter that dynamic link, different for each lead. This way you increase the chance to convert them into customers as you are showing contents accordingly with their skills/roles/recent activities, in other words stuff that resonate with their interests

<comment><USER2> This is, I believe, the closest thing to what you are describing: [https://www.mutinyhq.com/](https://www.mutinyhq.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Seems like something an A/B testing tool could be modified to do, if you could get the data from LinkedIn via an API or something and show a certain 'variation' based on which the user matches a certain category/number of categories.

However, it seems like something that'd take an awful lot of work, and the amount needed would basically grow exponentially depending on how fine grained you wanted the targeting to be. That probably wouldn't give you a great return on investment, especially given that even a perfectly targeted website is nowhere near sufficient enough to guarantee a sale/make it that much more likely.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting perspective, yeah I agree that it's a lot of work at the beginning if I don't target a specific market.

At the beginning to decrease workload and define a small MVP, I should target a niche of outbound salespeople whom do a lot of outbound sales, and whom have a sales process that relies on how content is sorted... some ideas that comes up to mind:

\- Professional e-commerces like [https://www.rs-online.com/](https://www.rs- online.com/) (products in home page sorted in a way that can impress that visitor)

\- Web Agencies (projects, services, testimonials comments sorting)

\- [Covid-19 alert] Travel Agencies (sorting available travels in home page)

Just thinking out loud

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why would you want to do it?

To show that person's role, skills, recent activities back to themselves? Is it a resume creator of some kind?

Or do you mean the content is supposed to be representing the site owner (job seeker?) and that the content being changed accordingly to match the visitor's (assuming that would be to target their interests).

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a tool for salespeople/marketers who can customise contents, copy, images, accordingly with their visitors' characteristics and so increase the chance to convert them into customers

<comment><USER4> But is the linked in user profile available (without the user logging in with linked in to your site)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Look at the comment above:

"The cut I would give to the idea is a bit different. Imagine you're about to do an outbound sales campaign with a list of leads for which you have all the LinkedIn profiles associated... let's say a newsletter."</comment></comment></comment></comment>


In the Final Minutes of His Life, Calvin Has One Last Talk with Hobbes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@playmaker/in-the-final-minutes-of-his-life-calvin-has-one-last-talk-with-hobbes-4f6d76dc9cae <comment><USER2> I remember this, but I don't remember seeing it as an image.</comment>