Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains? - <AUTHOR> https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/is-it-time-to-rethink-globalized-supply-chains/ <comment><USER2> I feel like the problem is less that supply chains are globalized, and more that they aren't redundant. By that I mean, there's too much reliance on China as the primary producer/exporter for countless industries and products. Having just one nation account for such a large share of manufacturing introduces single points of failure. It would be wise to have multiple sources for any given good, especially if it's essential.

<comment><USER3> In my experience, it's not that companies are choosing any one strategy over another. It's more that companies have _no idea_ what their supply chain actually looks like. Only that the widgets show up at their loading dock every week, and that the shipments have always been reliable in the past, so that there's no reason to look any further.

There are often strong disincentives, as well. Nike, for example, got themselves into trouble when parts of their supply chain became public. Many more companies regard their unique supply chain as a competitive advantage. So, even if you should take up the time, effort, and expense to research your own supply chain, there's a high likelihood that your upstream vendors will have no interest in sharing their suppliers with you.

There are exceptions to this. Reportedly Apple has excellent supply chain visibility, but they've achieved it at great effort.

(I'm by no means an expert, but I used to work for sourcemap.com, an MIT startup based around the idea of understanding supply chains end-to-end.)

<comment><USER4> This is it 100%. I work at a major financial institution and we invest ridiculous amounts of money, effort and, frankly, delay, in understanding our supply chain, its security posture and risk management model. It's a unbelievably gargantuan effort and if it weren't for the scary shit that we find all the time one could easily argue it's a waste.

<comment><USER5> What problems have you encountered that others should avoid?

<comment><USER6> Over the years, I have run into:

\- Counterfeit components, like memory out of spec that creates scaled failures.

\- Fake products from the channel.

\- Fundamental mistruths with regard to how services are delivered.

\- Poor operational practices for maintaining SLA, especially for off-shored services. Those ops folks will move mountains to meet the minimum standard of "up", but will allow problems to fester.

\- Fraud. Fake on-site employees sending work back to a boiler room with people actually doing the work.

\- Fraud. Named users actually being fake people sharing a credential. In one case, a colleague in a manufacturing case discovered this when he accidentally received a link to an open video stream of a MFA token.

\- Fraud. Stuffing fake or inferior products into orders. Example: Order new laptops, find a bunch of refurbs in the pallets.

Basically, people suck and if you primarily make purchasing decisions based on price, and you care about what you are buying, you need to treat the counter- party as a potentially hostile actor and assume that you are going to be ripped off.

<comment><USER7> I read when having bicycle frames made in Taiwan you get the best price/quality ratio if you have a permanent onsite observer in the factory. That guy doesn't really do anything but they wont cut corners if he is around.

<comment><USER8> You get what you pay for. If you aren't paying for the guy to be the observer there's no one to observe.

<comment><USER9> You _don 't_ get what you pay for.

But generally value derives from multiple independent credible verifiable audit mechanisms.

<comment><USER10> Or from reputation.

A company with a reputation for quality can charge more, because you don't need observers and can just rely on them. And they want to deliver on the reputation, so that they can keep milking it.

<comment><USER9> The value of trust.

JS Mill has some interesting observations going back a ways.

Auditing is still recommended.

<comment><USER10> Definitely, auditing is one way to speed up the process.

Ignoring auditing for a moment:

The trustworthy reputation is quicker to build, if the quality of the product is easy to ascertain quickly.

But if you are a company in a sector where that's not possible, the reputation for quality becomes even more valuable.

And you can potentially ride it out for a long time in an exit scam. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_scam)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The price advantages of globalised supply chains vs. the relative rarity of an event like this means that, during normal periods, firms using them will enjoy a significant advantage over those doing the "right" thing and market forces will weed out the latter. So I don't expect management to be taking a lead on this.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, not only is this a once in 100years event, it's also staggered in such a way that the Chinese manufacturing will likely be caught up by the time the European and North American economies are coming back to life.

<comment><USER13> > _it 's also staggered in such a way that the Chinese manufacturing will > likely be caught up by the time the European and North American economies > are coming back to life._

It's more difficult than that. Links in the supply chain aren't independent. Supply and demand must balance. Chinese manufacturing is spinning back up just as European and US demand is dropping. This will cause further damage to the companies on the supply side. And as Europe and US spin their economies back up, China may not be able to meet the growing demand in full. It'll take a while before this reaches something resembling an equilibrium.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Counterpoint: YKK (look at your zipper) relies on absolutely no one else for its supply chain [0]. This could easily be seen as a waste by those who would say YKK should just source its metal from the foundry down the street. It's easy to do a quick thought experiment in your head to think about how feasible it might be for every company to vertically integrate the way YKK has. On the other hand, YKK can't get jerked around by greedy corporations looking to take advantage of their dependencies.

[0] [https://ykknorthamerica.com/the-ykk-difference/vertical- inte...](https://ykknorthamerica.com/the-ykk-difference/vertical-integration/)

<comment><USER15> Never heard of them. Their company setup is pretty impressive. However to say 'relies on absolutely no one else for its supply chain' is an extreme exaggeration and frankly impossible.

They don't make the computers, fiber optics, switches, exchanges, or software that their web site requires to run. They don't own the fleet of trucks, boats, and planes required to get their product to their customers - or their raw materials from plant to plant. They likely use rubber mats in their plants but I don't think they have a rubber plant. Unless they use outhouses I'm pretty sure they don't make toilets and sinks and plumbing. I don't know if they produce their own electricity but I'm sure they didn't build a generating plant from scratch....and on and on it can go.

If you haven't read it, search for the essay - I, Pencil - I'm sure YKK uses pencils as well.

The point is noone is even remotely close to being their own supply chain every one is deeply dependent.

<comment><USER16> >Never heard of them.

We had an argument in a CS class once about what the most "pervasive technology" in the room was. We were examining claims that "computing would become so pervasive and ubiquitous that it would become invisible" like electricity and that zipper.

The reason it won was because we could count more of them than any other piece of tech in the room. Every person had more than they thought -- often as many as half a dozen between their pants and schoolbag.

<comment><USER17> The thing about zippers is, YKK is hands down the best and most reliable zipper. Yes I know there are types of zippers, metal coil, molded plastic etc- YKK makes the best of each.

Plenty of companies try to source their own (Levi's is the first to come to mind), but the best companies all use YKK zippers because they know. If it doesn't say YKK on it, it's not a YKK zipper.

<comment><USER18> YKK also has a lot of imitators. I recently saw an "HKK" zipper on a cheap piece of clothing from Amazon, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The problem is that almost no one buys products based on the stability of the supply chain, so irresponsibly-global supply chains will beat out responsibly- global ones on price.

The problem is our tools to addressing this are either (a) some sort of tariff arrangement, which will almost certainly be political footballs far more than they will address any real problem, or (b) some regulatory/compliance arrangement, where regulated industries will have to sift through billions of dollars of compliance paperwork annually describing their supply chains, and which may be subject to the scare-of-the-month and _international_ political football. Neither is ideal.

<comment><USER20> There is a third option. Apply the same regulations to the manufacture of all products _sold_ in your country. You want to manufacture in China and sell in the US, that's fine -- but you have to do it in accordance with US environmental rules.

That does two things. One, no more cost advantage to global manufacturing in whatever place has the least respect for the environment, which lets others compete better and removes the race to the bottom. Two, there are lots of different and potentially conflicting rules everywhere, so then you get more specialization as there is an advantage to smaller companies that only comply with the rules for the markets where they're selling.

<comment><USER21> There's a fourth option: close down all U.S. trade ports for a month once a year. No paperwork or other administrative headaches. "Just" a dry run once a year.

<comment><USER22> That'll just mean stockpiling before the month it gets closed.

<comment><USER23> Not if it's unknown _which_ month. Then you'll have to keep a stockpile year round, which is precisely the objective of grandparent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Definitely time to rethink globalized supply chains. The centralization inherent to this obsession with efficiency is simply not resilient to disruptions. We learned to build redundancy into our food production to handle disruptions like, centuries ago, which is (partly) why we pay farmers to produce more food than we technically need. We don't invest much to keep manufacturing of some other critical goods domestic.

I'm frankly astounded that exclusively outsourced supply chains were ever a serious consideration. Yes they're more efficient, but efficiency isn't the only consideration. Imagine if someone seriously came forward to suggest China should also produce all of our food. It's nuts.

I blame the continued financialization of our economy which leads to an absurd obsession with efficiency above all other considerations. It's yet one more example of borrowing against the future that has led to many of the recent economic crises.

Edit: we regulate risk in financial sectors, like the debt ratio, and supply chain resiliency is simply another risk assessment. I think more comprehensive legislation surrounding corporate risk taking will ultimately be needed.

<comment><USER25> Farming is not a good comparison to manufacturing when it comes to overproduction. Food can be eaten or processed/preserved to be eaten later. Some foods have elastic demand but in general food doesn't since we all need to eat.

With a lot of manufactured items demand is far more elastic and any given manufactured item isn't necessarily a substitute for any other. If Intel or AMD overproduces higher power desktop CPUs but there's market demand for low power laptop CPUs or ARM SoCs...the oversupply isn't going to spur any demand. Even if the oversupply depresses prices on those chips and desktop systems, they're not portable or phones so there's no useful substitution.

Managing production volumes and forecasting demand is a huge aspect of modern manufacturing. Responding to demand quickly is one of the reasons manufacturing consolidates geographically. If a production line needs Component X at volume Y to keep moving, they can't wait weeks to get that supply. Too much surplus of components is also a problem because those all need to be stored until used. So the most economical configuration tends to be shipments of sub components feed almost directly into component manufacture lines that feed into packaging which feeds into shipment and distribution. That's difficult or impossible to accomplish if your supply chain is geographically dispersed.

Slower and less dynamic supply chains aren't necessarily better at responding to crises since the production schedule of whatever will have been set well before the onset of whatever crisis. Responding to the crises then takes longer since extant component supplies likely don't match the crisis production needs.

You can see this right now with industries the produce regulated/qualified products like medical supplies. A random factory can't just supply medical grade components. Without proper quality controls, sterilization, or batch tracking those items can end up more dangerous than not having them. Face masks that are ineffective due to manufacturing issues can get healthcare workers sick or spread disease to uninfected but at risk populations.

I'm not saying JIT manufacturing is a panacea or that it's a good thing China has such a lions share of commodity goods manufacturing. But the solution to supply chain issues is more complicated than just building factories. Many companies are also simply unwilling to take a profit hit by diversifying their supply chains or moving to longer production cycles.

<comment><USER24> I never said supply chains should be slower or less dynamic, I said they should be less centralized and thus more robust, and arguably critical goods manufacturing absolutely also need a domestic presence.

This is completely obvious when you see how Hurricane Maria led to drug shortages because Puerto Rico was the sole produce of some critical drugs, or how China recently had to halt outgoing shipments and everyone else in the world started running out of masks and medical equipment.

> But the solution to supply chain issues is more complicated than just > building factories.

Right, it's building factories _in the right places_ , and ensuring they can tolerate disruptions.

> Many companies are also simply unwilling to take a profit hit by > diversifying their supply chains or moving to longer production cycles.

Sure, just like banks and investment firms would be unwilling to have more robust debt ratios in order to improve their returns when all is well, if we didn't force them to maintain a less risky debt ratio in order to avoid catastrophes when all is not well.

Manufacturing isn't meaningfully different in this respect, it's all about managing risk. Corporations should have more responsibilities to quantify and manage risks like this.

<comment><USER25> > I never said supply chains should be slower or less dynamic, I said they > should be less centralized and thus more robust, and arguably critical goods > manufacturing absolutely also need a domestic presence.

If manufacturing supply chains are more geographically dispersed they are automatically slower and less dynamic. They're not necessarily more robust either. As soon as the supply chain involves moving materials farther than a few hour drive by truck it becomes constrained by modes of transport that can't be easily dispersed (rail, air, water) or reprioritized.

> Right, it's building factories in the right places, and ensuring they can > tolerate disruptions.

As demonstrated by...all of history since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the _right_ location for a factory today is not necessarily the _right_ location for tomorrow. Relocating factories is expensive and difficult in the best circumstances. Every factory has a logistics train attached to it; not just equipment and trained workers but power requirements, waste disposal, physical siting requirements, and dozens of other factors. Some are easy to uproot and others are not.

Again, I'm not arguing that China should just make everything and all factories should be located next to one another. I am saying that manufacturing is not like AWS. You can't just spin up new instances when you run out of capacity. You can't just move everything to a new factory closer to some resource or retool a factory for a totally different type of production with a deploy script.

> Corporations should have more responsibilities to quantify and manage risks > like this.

Some do and several industries are regulated when it comes to sourcing. Defense contractors have all sorts of supply chain requirements. More industries can have supply chain security requirements but then end products will get more expensive. The added cost will get pushed to consumers. So you can optimize for the common case where pandemics are rare but manufacturing tends towards consolidation and low cost or you can optimize for robustness and everything manufactured carries with it the amortized cost of that more robust but expensive supply chain. Unless regulation forces all manufactured items to have a similarly robust supply chain and all manufacturers have the same burden, there's a competitive advantage to having a supply chain more susceptible to rare disruption but far less expensive.

<comment><USER24> > If manufacturing supply chains are more geographically dispersed they are > automatically slower and less dynamic.

You keep hammering on this geographic dispersal, but as far as I can see, no one is suggesting geographically dispersing or relocation supply chains, but are instead suggesting _replicating_ supply chains in different geographical locations. You know, the standard approach to adding resiliency to literally any system.

> Some do and several industries are regulated when it comes to sourcing. > [...] there's a competitive advantage to having a supply chain more > susceptible to rare disruption but far less expensive.

Yes, and I'm suggesting that a more comprehensive legal approach where corporations providing critical goods or services should have to perform risk assessments and ensure a maximum tolerable risk. Everyone recognizes the competitive advantage of ignoring risk. I described it in my very first post to which you replied, and I then said improved risk management should be legislated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My dad was in agriculture.

When I was a know-it-all college student I would complain about farm subsidies and how they're inefficient and unfair to tax payers, etc.

But he would mention that America should never have a food shortage because of them. We've never outsourced our food to China or OPEC.

And now I'm really seeing the wisdom in that. For essential goods, like food, medicine, maybe energy, it makes sense to keep some production local.

<comment><USER27> You know, that's a really good thought!

</comment></comment><comment> GuB-42 Is it _really_ a problem? Obviously, now, it is. But everything is a problem.

Having the supply chain less globalized doesn't mean there is an excess. Now, there is a shortage of surgical masks, but that's because the demand is too high, not just because they are made in China.

You have to balance efficiency and reliability. And normally, the global supply chain is very efficient, and surprisingly reliable. Black swan events happen regularly and besides a few price hikes and some company coming and going, business continues as usual. A de-globalized supply chain will certainly be able to deal with such event better, but at the expense of permanent inefficiencies.

Of course, right now, it is far from "business as usual", but that's because there is a freaking virus in the air, and if you catch it, you may die. Still, you can still buy food, and the essential shortages are of things that are directly related to the disease, like masks, hand sanitizers, and respirators.

And governments and companies alike do plan for shortages. Most countries produce more food than necessary to account for the risk of famine. There is a reserve of essential medical items, and it is being used right now... within reason.

One thing is for sure, it is too soon to draw conclusions.

<comment><USER28> This is HN, so let's use tech nerd examples.

Do you want a single server handle the load, located in China?

Or a decentralized, load balanced system?

9bn users.

Go.

<comment><USER29> But that's not accurate either. In this analogy China would in fact be hosting thousands of different servers. There is no "China Business"; there are businesses in China.

A more apt comparison would be between cloud providers (which are the supply chains of modern IT) - do you want to stay at AWS's mercy, or expand to Azure and GCP as well? Maybe you should consider Linode or DigitalOcean as well? There are pros and cons to those approaches - both in experiences, pricing, innovation, etc. The same applies to global supply chains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It seems to me like the problem is just that supply chains aren't legible. I forget where I read this from, but Walmart or Amazon would easily pay billions of dollars to know which shipments won't arrive over the next few months because of the rolling wave of factory shutdowns.

Once you have that legibility, the extra step of snipping the globalized supply chains seems unnecessary. Some businesses will plan to maintain continuity with all international shipping stopped, and a few will receive subsidies and mandates to do so. Others won't, and that's fine too; there's a ton of value in making our lives better even in ways that can't be sustained during a crisis. (It's worth noting that international shipping in everything but coronavirus-fighting medical equipment hasn't stopped during the currrent crisis.)

<comment><USER31> > It seems to me like the problem is just that supply chains aren't legible.

There are a number of efforts to make supply chains in all sorts of sectors more transparent using blockchain-like protocols. So this will hopefully improve in the future.

<comment><USER32> Over a decade ago, the supply chain hype was RFID chips. Now, more htan ten years laer, they are not used besides your occasional pallet tracking. or for hteft preventin at shops. And RFID would just have replaced bar codes, so no process changes necessary for a first implementation.

Blockchain is a different beast. And most companies wouldn't like the full transparency that comes with it. Decentralized ledgers would result in a lot transparency for everyone. And that trust building is a main issue. That, and that the information flow (blockchain) has to be _always_ sychronized with the physical flow (goods).

<comment><USER33> > And RFID would just have replaced bar codes, so no process changes necessary > for a first implementation.

There would have been changes necessary. RFID chips fall as electronics under RoHS and probably regional/national recycling regulation which means that their introduction into products would cause an enormous overhead. Additionally chips cost _at least_ 10ct each in bulk which means for a lot of 1m units you would lose at least 100k $ in profit (or offer the product for more money, which is ... difficult to do when dealing e.g. with Walmart).

The only way RFID could have taken off would have been if governments mandated their usage.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, especially price is a major obstacle. A barcode costs nothing and does the job.

<comment><USER25> Not only do barcodes do the job but better and cheaper image sensors and processors allow even 1D barcodes to be read at greater distances and from multiple angles. This was one of the promises of RFID, pallets could just stream off a truck and their ID could be read by some fixed reader on the loading dock. A robot could zip past shelves and take stock of everything.

Better barcode reading allows a lot of the same advantages for none of the marginal cost or dealing with extra regulation. Even handheld barcode scanners are starting to use cameras rather than lasers because they're more flexible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not sure about global shipping concerns, but I do think that 30 years of companies optimizing for Just In Time delivery in order to avoid the risks of excess inventory has made us prone to shortage crisis when 'excess' inventory is needed.

I'm in the situation of being able to buy whatever luxury goods I want, but getting staples like canned meat and bread and rice and toilet paper requires lining up, virtually or physically.

</comment><comment><USER35> As others here have mentioned, during normal times, companies have strong economic and competitive incentives _not_ to invest in expensive, redundant, inefficient infrastructure that is robust to rare events.[a]

This is true of financial companies too. For example, banks that are run to survive rare events like global pandemic or world war cannot compete with banks that ignore the possibility of such events during normal times.

The obvious question is, should societies impose limits on competition to ensure there is always a minimum baseline level of redundancy in the economy, and if so, what kinds of limits? I don't know of any obviously good answers to this question.

[a] See, for example, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22628239](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22628239) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22628157](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22628157)

<comment><USER36> > This is true of financial companies too. For example, banks that are run to > survive rare events like global pandemic or world war cannot compete with > banks that ignore the possibility of such events during normal times.

The opposite can't be allowed to continue. Spending heaps on stock buybacks to then months later be completely out of cash.

> Take McDonald's. With $21.1 billion in revenue last year, it ended 2019 with > only $898.5 million in cash on its balance sheet, a little more than two > weeks' worth of sales. Considering that the fast-food chain, which owns more > than 2,600 stores, franchises 36,000 more and employs 205,000 people, > generated $5.7 billion in free cash flow last year, it could have as much > cash as it wants. Instead, McDonalds' bought back $4.9 billion worth of > stock in 2019 and paid another $3.6 billion for its dividend, almost exactly > the $3.24 billion the company borrowed last year.

This is a joke. It borrowed 3.2 billion to pay a 3.6 billion dividend? And now it's CEO is meeting directly with the president to argue how enforcing paid sick time off due to coronavirus is a bad idea because it will hurt businesses too much. The system is so broken there are barely words.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/17/crash-shows-major- corporatio...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/17/crash-shows-major-corporations- broke-no-1-personal-finance-rule.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> There is one thing good coming out of this, among all the desastrous things we saw so far.And that is increased awareness of the importance of jobs like nurses, shop clercks, truck drivers, deliverydrivers, warehouse workers and logistics and supply chain management.

of all the companies Isaw, from insideand the outside, in my lifeso far, only the rare minority treated supply chain management and logistics as anything else than cost centers. If that perception changes, supply chains will become more robust. Because all the points that are now visible for everyone due to covid-19 are kind of well known in the supply chain community.

That being said, i don't think global supply chain will go away. After, they survived two world wars so far. And the economic upside of specialization is simply to big to ignore. Supply chans have to become more robust, especially for things needed for events and crisis like we see now. And that part was kind of neglected.

</comment><comment><USER37> My feeling as a layman is that the scale of globalization an industry uses will emerge naturally as a result of the trade-off between the costs and benefits. So far, the benefits have been worth it, otherwise companies wouldn't do it. As the article notes, there are a number of examples where safeguards are already in place, for in those cases it's worth being cautious.

The more serious, but harder to deal with, issue is that globalization lets companies indirectly exploit labor and environment in a way that their home region would not allow. Until this is sufficiently economically disincentivized, it will continue.

<comment><USER38> The short-term benefits have been worth it. Long-term is much more questionable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> We in the manufacturing tech space have been thinking a lot about reconfigurability, beyond just 3D printing locally, but to how do you tool up (make molds, program machines, etc.) automatically akin to a deploy script, Docker container, etc.

These analogies are no where in the current paradigm, but if we have them, we could quickly allocate work across the manufacturing space to get stuff made far quicker. The material part of tool up (cutting molds, etc.) only takes days if you parallelize it, whereas the human aspect of dialing in the machines, etc. is where all the time goes.

Here's my proposal for what a more software-like engineering / manufacturing system would look like:

[https://www.slideshare.net/nickpinkston/the-future-of- tools-...](https://www.slideshare.net/nickpinkston/the-future-of-tools-nyc- whats-now-at-capgemini)

<comment><USER40> I looked through it but couldn't understand what the proposal is from the pictures. A blog post would be more helpful.

<comment><USER39> Thanks for the look! The YouTube video is linked in the description, but here it is:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXk1O6biJSE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXk1O6biJSE)

Would love your thoughts. (and yes, eventually I will write all of this up, but there's a lot to get out, and I've been focused on building)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Nothing will change because if we all fail together then we will be bailed out together by the government. So the best solution is to minimize costs today by maximizing the chance that we will all fail together as an industry in a downturn and get bailed out.

</comment><comment><USER42> If we are making changes solely on the basis of COVID-19, then isn't the lesson that whatever you do, make sure you're manufacturing and hiring people in China? (Or South Korea).

I mean, China was the first one affected by this, and after a few weeks of covering up (something western countries like the US also engaged in despite having already witnesses the negative effects of COVID in other countries), China took swift and drastic action (the kind which other countries may not even be able to do legally) and got the situation under control.

The US, on the other hand, is gonna be shut for months, and if the global supply chain was dependent on the US we would likely have been even more screwed.

</comment><comment><USER43> I think the unfortunate fallout from this is that China now has confirmation that they are in a dominant position world wide and likely will start to exploit that fact. This isn't a statement on the country, as any country in that position would do the ame and has done so in the past many times over.

<comment><USER44> And other countries might try to become more self sufficient. Which sounds similar to what happened after the great depression.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm afraid it will be hard for the US to bring back its supply chain. The US has been moving out its manufacturing business for at least three decades. As a result, we've lost generations of talent in manufacturing and supply chain. It's not like we can bring back the talents overnight.

And even if we create redundancies in the US, the redundancies need to stay competitive. Otherwise, we will just repeat the sad stories of the rare earth industry, the solar energy industry, or the electronic industry.

</comment><comment><USER46> In re: "Black Swans" the articles says:

> But over the past decade, we have had a number of black swan events.

which links to this: [https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-science-of- managing-...](https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-science-of-managing- black-swans/)

> To a risk manager, "black swan" phenomena are highly unlikely events that > have massive impacts on a business or society on the rare occasions they > occur.

But the whole point of the "Black Swans" is that they are both unpredictable _and_ we forget about or rationalize them away after the fact.

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

Pandemics aren't unpredictable. This virus isn't a _black_ swan it's just a large _white_ swan.

If we manage to cope with it well enough to keep things more-or-less stable and then forget about it _then_ it's a black swan.

\- - - -

We could and should know better. You watch Star Trek and they're always beaming down to random planets in their shirt-sleeves, no space suits. Meanwhile, in the real world, we are expanding our "attack surface" (there are more of these viruses out there, as we invade more wild areas we will encounter more viruses) while weakening our systemic defenses (cheap international travel, extended supply chains).

</comment><comment><USER47> Having such reserve knowledge and experience is invaluable to national security, justified even under subsidy. Especially for critical supplies like semiconductors and medicine.

</comment><comment><USER48> I think we're damned if we do or damned if we don't.

There's a philosophy on international politics that basically posits that countries that don't share get jealous neighbors. I forget the line but it's something to the effect of, "Either goods cross your borders or soldiers will".

Instead, as someone else suggested, it's supply chain optimization that's the problem. But when you have a company that's making 20% margins, an 8% gain in margins by running right at the ragged edge would be pretty damned tempting. And if your competitors do it and you don't?

I think at the end of the day we are all to blame a little bit. And I proposed in the first article of this sort that it might be a good idea if Congressional pork were more evenly distributed throughout infrastructure and logistics instead of being concentrated entirely in Defense.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is what people were talking about in the beginning of the pandemic but, if anything, all this has taught us is we should invest even more deeply in global supply chains. If US made most of the masks that the US needed, then we would be shutting down all of our mask making factories right when we needed them. Because China makes our masks, China can buy global masks while they were locked down on a pandemic and now they can turn around and be the factory for the world while everyone else desperately needs masks.

What we should be wary about is Single Points of Failure but we should be worried about that regardless of what the supply chain looks like.

</comment><comment><USER50> In light of the recent evacuation order issued by MIT administration over concerns about the spread of COVID-19, students should rethink whether or not the campus experience is really worth the exorbitant price that schools like MIT are charging for it.

Perhaps it's time now for the "globalized supply chain" of higher education to go online.

A recent hacker news article talked about the precipitous decline in applications for on-campus business school degrees. If that trend continues, maybe future MBA's can lead the way on this one.

</comment><comment><USER51> Hum, nope. We will not rethink globalized supply chains.

It's a good time to invest in research about knowledge protection and flexible production. It's also a good time to invest in emergency production capacity (best if it's of the flexible kind) by the government, most likely inside the military. (It may also be a good time for most countries to rethink the role of the military.)

But we will not adopt suboptimal methods on the private economy. It doesn't work that way.

<comment><USER52> > But we will not adopt suboptimal methods on the private economy. It doesn't > work that way.

It does. Many business in many natiins are encouraged or forced to remain domestic for strategic reasons. Eg why were car companies in US bailed out. Ports are very restricted. Semiconductors. Farmland. Aero industry. Steel manufacturing etc.

This is often done for security rational. And what nations consider 'for security' may well expand post Coronavirus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> If you think about it, cloud services add another layer in the supply chain. For example, just think about a UK company buying cloud services from a US company who buys hard drives from a company in Thailand. Now, you're affected not only by the floods in Thailand in 2012, but you're affected by natural disasters in the US as well. Even if you're not using US data centers, they're part of the control plane for the data centers in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER54> Redundancy and diversification is always a good idea in general, but I find the recent clamor for supply chain diversification due to COVID-19 bit of a knee-jerk reaction, especially considering the virus is now global. Where to diversify to is not an easy question to answer, compare to say a few weeks ago, when the virus was mostly just infecting China.

Most supply chain analysis focus on cost/location/scale (this one too), but ignore the manufacturing and engineering skills that are accumulated from experience, which are much harder to replace. Countries level up to make themselves more valuable. And the cost v quality tradeoff is really hard to figure out.

Apple's failing foray into India's supply chain a few years ago is a case in point [0]. I've written about this too in an India and China comparative context when it comes to Apple [1]. Tim Cook said recently on TV that he's not leaving China anytime soon [2].

Not everyone is Apple. How do you think about the tradeoff depends on your business model. But rushing to "rethink" something as complex as global supply chain, because of an unrelated, intervening event, however severe, seems imprudent to me.

[0] [https://www.theinformation.com/articles/inside-apples- search...](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/inside-apples-search-for- an-indian-supply-chain)

[1] [https://interconnected.blog/leaving-china-supply-chain-a- pip...](https://interconnected.blog/leaving-china-supply-chain-a-pipe-dream/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsDU- QsfkX4&feature=emb_logo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsDU- QsfkX4&feature=emb_logo)

</comment><comment><USER9> Fron 2012: Trade Off: Financial system supply-chain cross contagion – a study in global systemic collapse. By David Korowicz

 _...in order to understand systemic risk in the globalised economy, account must be taken of how growing complexity (interconnectedness, interdependence and the speed of processes), the de-localisation of production and concentration within key pillars of the globalised economy have magnified global vulnerability and opened up the possibility of a rapid and large-scale collapse. 'Collapse' in this sense means the irreversible loss of socio- economic complexity which fundamentally transforms the nature of the economy. These crucial issues have not been recognised by policy-makers nor are they reflected in economic thinking or modelling...._

[https://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial- system...](https://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system- supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/)

</comment><comment><USER43> I think the unfortunate fallout from this is that China now has confirmation that they are in a dominant position world wide and likely will start to exploit that fact. This isn't a statement on the country, any country in that position would do exactly the same thing and had done many times in the past.

</comment><comment><USER55> Really MIT? This is news? You and other top business schools taught throngs of MBA students to outsource and manage costs to increase shareholder value. You and your peers taught many a business leader to indirectly leverage a pool of slave labor provided by a dictatorship to make cheaper and cheaper components. Ever thought how they could be so cheap? It's called lax environmental regulations and not valuing life; suicide nets at Foxconn ring a bell? I don't wish ill will towards anyone, and it sucks so many people are losing their jobs right now, but based on the "preservation of money" principle (think thermodynamics for money) it's time large business leaders reap what they've sowed; the collapse of the business on their watch. Sucks, but, it's a reality and something had to give.

<comment><USER56> > Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?

"Hey guys, wait. Is neoliberalism actually a really stupid idea??"

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I highly recommend the Daniel Suarez novels Daemon and Freedom. They start with a (computer) virus taking over the world, and end up asking all kinds of interesting questions about long supply chains and how much we should trust in government and big business.

</comment><comment><USER58> As often, I have a feeling that the answer depends on the person/group you're optimizing for.

As the government will swoop in and save the companies that are large enough, there is little risk for them, so why would they spend enormous amounts on mitigating that risk?

</comment><comment><USER59> I think this issue is analogous to the politician one. As a politician/CEO you only care about what happens under your term and to get re-elected.

Maybe Executives should be paid with very long vesting schedules like 10 yrs? (vests even if no longer employed...)

</comment><comment><USER60> That's silly, you can easily fix the problem by using a subscription only on staples like food. That way they can't surge the supplies and you end up with one guy getting all the eggs and reselling them.

<comment> xkcd-sucks The word for this is "rationing", right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> No company will trade efficiency for resiliency. If you prepare for black swan events your company is eaten by the efficient ones that don't. Even if the black swans come every 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER62> Is it time to rethink the Bay Area and NYC having all of the tech jobs?

</comment><comment><USER63> Yes agree that its time to rethink global supply chain. Actually its time to rethink the whole economy. Economist now say we need to consume more to keep the economy going. But the earth is warming due to global warming. When we consume more we also consume more energy to make those things.

Thus what economist the current economy need and what the environment need is disconnected and not in harmony.

We need to reinvent into a circular environmentally friendly economy where we put the environment first.

</comment><comment><USER64> I hate to make this political, but in a neutral sense: is this not precisely what Trump ran and won the election on? I didn't vote for him, but clearly the offshoring of factories to China has had serious negative consequences. These were noticed by everyone in "flyover country" a decade ago, but the coronavirus seems to have made everyone aware of the downsides of distributed supply chains, especially to a totalitarian state in a time of crisis.

<comment><USER65> Trump ran on it, but his presentation of it was tailored to right-wing nativist populism, and the specific plan (tariffs etc) seems more like trying to show that something is getting done, than actually fixing the problem.

But it's not unique to Trump - Sanders also makes similar points wrt globalization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Globalized Supply Chains incentives cooperation (like not war)

</comment><comment><USER67> There is the climate change / pollution angle too. Its such a waste to ship things half way around the world. A proper carbon tax on ships could improve things.

<comment><USER68> It's also a waste and maybe (don't know enough to do the modeling) worse for the environment to spin up many duplicative factories with poor economies of scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Fun side note. Since we always think of international supply chains as a modern phenomena. The Dutch have been, among other things, importing their grains since the 17th century from Eastern Europe: [https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-dutch-economy-in-the- golden-...](https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-dutch-economy-in-the-golden- age-16th-17th-centuries/).

</comment><comment><USER70> If those in power dealt with emergent threats like epidemics, climate change, AI safety, nuclear war, maybe we could trust them with globalized supply chains. But since they hoard profits and refuse to pay taxes, while failing to prioritize the populace survival, seems we may do well to localize into our own communities. Why should we accept global threats and barely reap the rewards of global commerce?

</comment><comment><USER71> The actual title is "Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?" which doesn't use a question mark after a statement.

<comment><USER72> Also this fails HN's guidelines of title editorializing, by including the author's name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Executives aren't paid to build resilient organizations, they're paid to return capital to shareholders. Until you incentivize them otherwise, it won't be a priority. Right now, everyone is content to throw their hands up saying "it couldn't have been predicted" and then return to business as usual once the crisis blows over.

</comment><comment><USER74> Often, when bad things happen, humans tend to go broad and deep and question everything around them. This is the wrong approach, IMO. Nobody has the power to alter everything around them, so nothing gets done.

If we look at history, we see tiny, continuous improvements in reaction to bad events are what have led to the relative stability of modern life. Bad thing happens, we figure out the (usually small) root cause, then we stop it.

For example, when the automobile emerged, we learned that allowing people to drive without rules resulted in gridlock and frequent crashes. Did we ban automobiles altogether? No. We created regulations (traffic rules), and improved the issue.

Then we then learned that more people die in car crashes if they have nothing protecting their body in a crash, so we created seatbelts. Then we learned they still needed cranial protection in a crash. We created airbags, and improved the issue. And so on.

After coronavirus, the solution is not to lock down global supply chains and force everybody to stay indoors forever. The solution is easy. We simply change regulations and practice around the storage of certain animal species. Until the next thing comes along, and we tweak our model of the world again to address it.

This is not complicated. Human life is one giant continuous improvement model.

<comment><USER75> The wet markets were already illegal. I'm not sure that betting we can prevent another pandemic is the right approach here.

<comment><USER76> They actually banned them after SARS, but then legalized them again after it all wound up being sold on the black market anyway, but with worse safety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> On the contrary. Global is good, but it has to be globally _distributed_. Global cannot mean just make it in China.

Right now, since China is ahead of the curve, it is valuable to be globalized in many respects. But it is not enough.

</comment><comment><USER78> You can sit there in your academic cubbyhole at MIT and rethink all you want; at the end of the day, you need something from halfway across the word that they don't make here, or not at the price you want or other requirements.

</comment><comment><USER79> Hopefully Sloan MIT will retool their supply chain masters courses that train managers in the efficiencies of just in time global chains [https://scm.mit.edu](https://scm.mit.edu)

</comment><comment><USER80> I think that there is a general rule that the more optimal a system is the less robust it is. So, it seems that we have to choose a balance between the two. And the current market incentives are to choose the minimum costs.

</comment><comment><USER81> It's time to rethink conducting business and trade with oppressive authoritarian and frankly communist countries. The world should not have to endure a pandemic every decade from countries that continues to suppress its people, its scientists its media. Enough is enough.

And to be clear, this is targeted at the country's government, and never its people. The government needs to be held accountable.

</comment><comment><USER82> Probably "de-globalizing" a supply chain would turn out to mean off-shoring the entire production to one country, instead of the probably intended on- shoring of production to one's own country.

</comment><comment><USER83> I think the rethink just needs to address the need for uncorrelated redundancy. And yep, that's more expensive than the current mode of operations.

</comment><comment><USER84> Global supply chains are a problem now but I wonder if the virus would have spread like it has without global tourism.

</comment><comment><USER85> Well, isolationist policies are not really possible for small countries, they can't possibly make everything they need. Having bigger countries depend on each other is also the opportunity to somewhat teach them diplomacy; otherwise they would have an even worse behavior towards small countries.

Imagine China or the US without any need for an external country, their behavior as citizens of the world would be 10 times worse.

</comment><comment><USER86> It's already moving somewhat to India.

Slowly, but China 2025 made a lot of people fear it.

</comment><comment><USER87> out of curiosity why haven't american companies been outsourcing to Mexico or Canada instead of China?

<comment><USER88> Companies have been outsourcing to Mexico for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> I think this article might be a good counterexample to Betteridge's law of headlines:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

</comment><comment><USER90> Robotics!

</comment><comment><USER91> Supply chains have been globalized since the silk road. The famous "I, Pencil" essay is 50 years old. It may not be _possible_ to deglobalise supply chains without unreasonable cost.

So that means we have to start looking at local resiliency and what that means instead; arguably this is where parts of the environmental movement are way ahead, such as the "transition towns" movement. And anti-consumerism in general: there's no supply chain for something you don't buy.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News Meet Up in Austin? - <AUTHOR>

If no, does anybody want to start one? I am based in Austin and would love to meet like minded individuals in the Hacker and Startup community here in Austin, Texas.<p>We could meet every month at some great bar, enjoy some live music, and talk about ways to make our passions a reality. :) <comment><USER2> I'm interested!

Also consider the (physical) hacker community at <http://www.atxhackerspace.org/> or one of the many co-working spaces. Sunday daytime will be easier for bars, less so for restaurants. Only a couple of coffee shops have space you can reserve; Genuine Joe has one I've used in the past.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and I can put together an invite for anyone who wants to come. I will shoot for this first Sunday in March, right before SXSW Interactive.

Edit: I may need to repost the question with my email included at the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not that I know of, but I bet we could pull enough people together to make this a regular thing. In fact, I wouldn't mind volunteering some time to get this started.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you meet Sundays, I could drive over from Houston.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sundays would work for me, hopefully we can get more involved if this is not going on already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a startup weekend on the 25th - 27th. I will be driving up from San Antonio for it. Check it out at austin.startupweekend.org

</comment><comment><USER6> Just moved to Austin to do development, Would love to see a HN Meetup in the area!

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm here as well.... would be interested in checking it out.</comment>


Assembly for XML - <AUTHOR> http://www.xembly.org/?oct <comment><USER2> The COBOL of 2050?

I can imagine some poor sap who has not yet been born getting his first job in programming around that time. "Yeah, we don't actually do VR code modelling here, so you have to type. Fortunately there's not a lot of typing for this particular job. Your task is to maintain these assembly scripts. They generate a really complicated old text document format, which is then fed to a big old server in our original data center, which is now completely dark apart from this one machine... It's running something called AIX. Nobody knows what that shit is, so don't execute any commands that are not on the safe list."

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like a procedural step back from XSLT.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly am not fond of XSLT, its programmatic fundamentals were certainly lacking (technically there, practically a pain in the ass) and the implicit nature of the "current node" always weirded me out, but the very descriptive match/transform of XSLT was reasonably great, any not-too-badly-written stylesheet would show the output structure shine through.

If I wanted something to replace XSLT, I'd take adding XLST-type (match-and- transform) capabilities to a general-purpose language, not attempting to extract a fucked-up version of a jQuery DOM manipulation chain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, exactly a procedural step back from XSLT. In certain situations (most of them are that) you don't want to bother with XSLT. You just want to add attribute to the node, in a few lines of code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For the coder who looks at XML and says "This isn't quite difficult enough to work with already. There must be another way!"

<comment><USER5> To be honest, the author is not wrong. It does look easier than XSLT.

<comment><USER6> But it doesn't look easier than XQuery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is the point of this? I don't see a situation where this would be a better choice over:

(1) XSLT (2) Regular programming language e.g. Java / .NET and use the XML libraries to build the document.

Also with the navigation e.g. UP; it looks hard to maintain.

I can imagine production code ending up with:

UP; UP; UP; UP; UP;

A simple change to the XML structure and this will break so easily.

<comment><USER8> this supports PUSH and POP

so you could easily PUSH the current node

dive deep deep deep deep (and even have no problem adding more later)

then POP the original location back.

<comment><USER7> That ain't a whole lot better.

But if you are only doing very simple stuff that you could do quite simply in XSLT anyway then it is probably fine.

Although XSLT may be preferable anyway due to tooling support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wait, shouldn't this be written in Rust, but with a competing implementation in Go, but it translates it to Javascript in the meantime, because, well, everything is Javascript these days. Then someone will complain that in the book 'XML: The Good Parts', that XML, is just misunderstood, and really, it is beautiful underneath, if you just ignore the cataract-forming hideousness of it all.

</comment><comment><USER10> Being implemented in java is just the icing on the cake.

<comment><USER11> 1\. Reimplement in go. 2\. Put "go" in the article title. 3\. MADNESS ON HACKERNEWS.

<comment><USER12> "It's in Go... but it's for working with XML..."

 _Head explodes_

<comment><USER10> Not too mindblowing [http://godoc.org/encoding/xml](http://godoc.org/encoding/xml)

<comment><USER12> See, it was a joke about how Go is super popular on HN and XML is not, and...

Oh, never mind.

<comment><USER13> They don't really do jokes here...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Was kinda hoping this was an XML representation of ASM, similar to IBM's JSON in XML recently.

<comment><USER15> I was hoping it was assembly code for manipulating XML...

<comment><USER7> I thought it would be a .NET assembly for manipulating XML.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, that's interesting and weird.

It was _very strange_ for this to use the term "directive" for the core instructions used in the language.

In actual assembly, the term ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language#Assembly_dire...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language#Assembly_directives)) is used for meta information, i.e. the directives are to _the assembler_ (the tool converting your source to a program), not part of the resulting program as such. This created a huge disconnect for me, and I stopped reading.

</comment><comment><USER17> It actually might be quite useful when doing merging/diffs/undos/redos/etc. operations either with a source server system (p4, git, svn, etc.) or exposing internal tree hiearachy as commands, also serializing/deserializing.

If I'm not mistaken, Autodesk Maya for examples does not store the DAG tree, but the operations done on objects as commands (tcl-like syntax (MEL script)).

So while I'm not entirely sure of its usefulness, I've found situations where this might be helpful, but need to explore it more.

Also for conversion from XML to other things and vice versa...

</comment><comment><USER18> For those of you balking, I think this would be really useful for coding XML migrations. If you have a schema, write a xembly script for every breaking change.

<comment><USER19> That's the only sane scenario I can think of too, but I have my doubts that it would really be simpler than XSLT for migrating XML. XML->XML is pretty much the only thing that is sort-of easy with XSLT, and it's likely to be a lot more robust, easier to create and debug that the equivalent procedural script.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The elegance of assembly with the performance of XML!

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://www.yegor256.com/2014/04/09/xembly- intro.html](http://www.yegor256.com/2014/04/09/xembly-intro.html) This article explains it even better

</comment><comment><USER22> Well, no worse than transpiling to JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER23> what's the use case for this ?</comment>


Seafood Raised on Pig Feces Approved for U.S. Consumers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/asian-seafood-raised-on-pig-feces-approved-for-u-s-consumers.html

<comment><USER3> I submitted the following link the other day and was disappointed it didn't get a single upvote. Hopefully more people will see it now. Seems relevant given the topic at hand. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food- sickens-millio...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens- millions-as-industry-paid-inspectors-find-it-safe.html)

<comment><USER4> +1 great article, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is silly and not at all new. I believe most crops require fertilizer and until very recently in human history it was either decomposing trash or some form of manure. Regardless they both contain nutrients that can be used to feed and grow other things...the whole "circle of life" and what have you!

<comment><USER6> The article is about fish and shrimp that are fed animal feces. Fish and shrimp are not crops (plants grown for food[1]), they're livestock (animals grown for food[2]).

" _The manure the Chinese use to feed fish is frequently contaminated with microbes like salmonella_..."

"... _packs shrimp headed for the U.S. in dirty plastic tubs. He covers them in ice made with tap water that the Vietnamese Health Ministry says should be boiled before drinking because of the risk of contamination with bacteria_ "

Beef contaminated with even small quantities of feces would not pass USDA inspection, so how could shrimp _grown_ in pig feces be considered safe? (Yes, the shrimp are grown in water that has pig feces in it; there's no other way to get a shrimp to eat something.)

That article doesn't sound in the least bit silly to me. It's saying that a large fraction of our seafood supply is dangerously contaminated with bacteria. Would you eat a shrimp that accidentally fell in your toilet and got rinsed off with water?

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop>

[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock>

<comment><USER7> I am not an expert on food safety, but I believe the stricter standard for beef is because people often eat it rare. The bacteria in the shrimp is not a big deal if you cook it. There are many meats that you NEVER eat undercooked (chicken and pork among others); why not shrimp?

<comment><USER6> As far as I know, chicken contaminated with salmonella wouldn't pass USDA inspection either. While chicken should never be eaten when it's undercooked, it's quite easy for that to accidentally happen (the outside of a piece of chicken may be cooked completely, but the inside is undercooked). Not to mention that raw chicken that has bacteria on it can contaminate preparation surfaces in your kitchen, spreading the bacteria around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What the point of such an headline?

Public outcry?

The agricultural industry needs to find new ways to make food more affordable or more efficiently. Until we find a way to bioengineer proteins from say bacteria, and keep a familiar taste like chicken, we will have to keep using animals.

Finding a way to recycle pig waste to reduce the carbon emission and also create seafood seems like a good idea to me.

What's the alternative? Letting the pig waste pollute natural resources and keeping seafood price up???

<comment><USER9> Where, in the article, did you see any mention of recycling pig waste? The article is about food contamination, not sustainability.

<comment><USER8> That's just a bloomberg article, not a full cost benefit analysis. If some of the pig waste goes to the shrimps, less of it will go elsewhere. I'd call that recycling - a positive externality here.

Pig manure is causing problems in this world. For example, some serious effort is made to find the best storage temperature to reduce methane emissions - <USER2> www.engr.usask.ca/societies/csae/protectedpapers/c0209.pdf for exemple.

So anything that will reduce or convert the amount produced is a good thing.

<comment><USER9> Including contaminating food? What's with this straw man? Pig waste might be a problem but how does that justify feeding food sources with it? Are you comfortable with the notion of feeding other non-seafood food sources (such as pigs) with it too?

Again, all the context necessary is provided in the article. I'm not against finding a solution to the "pig waste problem." I don't think feeding it to food sources is a logically sound primary solution any more than feeding children radioactive waste is (for the "radioactive waste problem").

<comment><USER8> It's a solution. Until it has been evaluated, can't say if it's the best solution. It certainly is a way to consider however - like you, I'm not against any solution.

But the radioactive example is a fun one- wasn't there a plan to reduce the risk of radioactive materials by including them in construction materials, so that the emitted radiation would be lower? Some believed that it was safer than concentrating/burying them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I thought that recycling animal waste into the food chain was one of the suspected causes of CJD.

e.g. <http://rense.com/general10/MDSS.HTM>

It seems like a bad idea to me... (primarily from the unknowns, not the knowns)

<comment><USER8> It's not every kind of animal waste - it's only waste containing neuronal proteins, like the spine, the brain.

So it was banned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I suppose there will be the outcry from the Jewish and Muslim factions, as this food is arguably non-kosher and non-halal.

It'll probably culminate in a law suite requiring these products to be labeled as such, instead of slipping them in behind the scenes.

<comment><USER12> Well, the shrimp is already not kosher. :-)

Google indicates that Islamic authorities are in disagreement as to whether shrimp is halal.

Crustaceans eat all kinds of nasty things in their natural environment, btw.

<comment><USER13> It is Halal. /end fatwa

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ouch, my wife and I are pescatarians (vegetarians who also eat seafood). I try to buy Canadian and US seafood, but...

Good article.

<comment><USER14> I thought you were called a veg-aquarian.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Of course, there's also a good chance that any vegetables you buy from overseas were raised in animal feces of some sort.

</comment><comment><USER15> Moderators, please change the title. It is extremely misleading. Here's what the article really says:

"Ngoc Sinh has been certified as safe by Geneva-based food auditor SGS SA, says Nguyen Trung Thanh, the company's general director." "SGS spokeswoman Jennifer Buckley says her company has no record of auditing Ngoc Sinh."

In other words, Bloomberg is accusing Ngoc Sinh of having disgusting practices and lying about being inspected, which is a crime, while the title is instead accusing the inspectors of not doing their jobs, which would also be a crime but with a different party accused.

</comment><comment><USER16> For people who don't consider this as serious, a reminder from one of the older article: [http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/03-hidden-epidemic- tape...](http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/03-hidden-epidemic-tapeworms-in- the-brain)

It's bad enough to eat pigs with parasites but probably worse to come in contact with their shit.

<comment><USER17> Tapeworms are carnivore parasites. Regular tapeworms come from eating a cyst in pig meat. The tapeworm eggs that give rise to those cysts you mentioned come from _human_ feces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Couldn't they just test the shrimp?

It definitely seems unsanitary on the front of it, but I wonder if it's actually unsafe, or if there is some step down the manufacturing process that makes it safe, such as cooking. On the front of it growing lettuce in pig shit would result in lots of deaths but it doesn't which makes me wonder if it's also a safe way to grow shrimp considering that they pretty much feed on the fish shit anyway.

The article is chalk full of experts who say something is unsanitary, but very light on data actually proving that whatever standards these operations have are resulting in unsafe seafood.

It would seem to me that shipping seafood covered in pig shit would make a lot of people sick really really fast and if it was unsafe would be REALLY unsafe and generally noticed by people concerned with such things.

</comment><comment><USER19> Evil foreign shrimp is evil, so stock up on some Good-Ol-American pork and beef instead! Signed, the Advertisers.

<comment><USER3> Those aren't any better: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food- sickens-millio...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens- millions-as-industry-paid-inspectors-find-it-safe.html)

<comment><USER20> Please don't be _that guy_ who posts the same link on every comment in a thread.

<comment><USER21> It was posted in this branch once (where it's relevant) and as a direct reply where I first noticed, read and appreciated it. One extra mention is pretty easy to ignore. Not as though it's someone spamming their own blog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not exactly surprising news. If you eat seafood consider checking what you are buying with Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch (website[1] or app).

[1] <http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER23> This sounds pretty much what they usually eat...

</comment><comment><USER24> What if pigs are raised on these shrimp that have been raised on pig feces (recursive)?

</comment><comment><USER25> "U.S. Consumers"

So does that imply if the consumers were not in the U.S. this would not be newsworthy? Or am I reading too far into the title?

</comment><comment><USER26> Definitely not kosher

<comment><USER27> It's shrimp...</comment></comment>


In Which I "Strongly Caution" The TSA To Snort My Taint - <AUTHOR> http://www.popehat.com/2012/03/08/in-which-i-strongly-caution-the-tsa-to-snort-my-taint-and-probably-get-on-the-no-fly-list/

<comment><USER2> RIP HN. You will be missed.

<comment><USER3> I never thought I'd see the word 'taint' on the front page.

Maybe some keyword filtering would do HN some good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find this whole thing a tempest in a teacup. The original claim that the scanners are flawed doesn't strike me as explosive a revelation as it's being made out to be. My guess is the machines could be modified to change the background color behind the scanned person's silhouette.

The quote from the TSA ("Any guidance provided is to caution reporters not to generalize...") is merely saying "don't jump to conclusions on the basis of some activist's blog post/video," which is quite a reasonable "cautionary" statement. Sure, they're covering their ass some, but if they're truly being sued by this guy, they probably can't even get into things with him in the media anyway.

Granted, I have no love for the TSA, but some of this anti-TSA rhetoric seems like groping of a different kind.

<comment><USER5> > My guess is the machines could be modified to change the background color > behind the scanned person's silhouette.

For a billion dollars, I would have demanded, at minimum, that modifications to make the machines actually _work_ be included. That they weren't just underscores the idiocy at play.

> The quote from the TSA ("Any guidance provided is to caution reporters not > to generalize...") is merely saying "don't jump to conclusions on the basis > of some activist's blog post/video," which is quite a reasonable > "cautionary" statement.

It would be reasonable, if this were a citizen petitioning the media. Except this is the _government_ , funded by the people, telling the media on their behalf what should and should not be discussed. The most charitable analysis is that my hard-earned tax dollars are being flushed on unsolicited media curation. A less charitable (and I believe, more likely) explanation is an attempt to sidestep the first amendment with no repercussions because it's not censorship, just chilling effects which nobody can be held accountable for.

So at best, complete incompetence, and at worst, conspiracy. Either way, I think the outrage is justified.

<comment><USER6> Once you have spent the billion, you no longer have the resources to see if it works or not. Outrage away, it won't change the basic limitations of human cognition.</comment></comment></comment>


Pinterest open sources Pinball – a flexible data workflow manager - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.pinterest.com/post/113376157699/open-sourcing-pinball <comment><USER3> There's something amazing about how Pintrest -- a seemingly simple social media app, roughly replicable with a few hours of CRUD framework programming -- takes on a life of its own when infused with venture capital funding and a strong engineering team. The core of the web product is so simple as to be almost trivial: show a grid of images and links to each user. Indeed, when Pintrest first started I'm sure the logic entailed little more than that. Now, billions of page views and dozens of engineering hires later, a once-simple app becomes a behemoth force, crunching data on the order of petabytes per day.

How do the operations powering an app like Pintrest evolve from simple to so complex? Do the complexities emerge from necessity, or simply from idle time on behalf of the engineers, who naturally crave hard problems to solve?

It's a fascinating meta-commentary on our industry that simple web apps grow to become such complex operations. A business can survive on the kernel of its core competency -- in this case, photo grids -- but to thrive, it requires careful attention to petabytes of peripheral decisions. Indeed, it seems such an evolutionary process is advantageous for a web startup. Friendster and MySpace may well have failed because they mistook their problems for simple ones. They were able to solve the core problem of a social network, but not the many peripheral ones of operating that network at scale. It's the ability to do the latter that sets apart the major successful startups from the also- rans.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have a workflow that I'd really like to automate/rewrite. A wav file is generated on a remote server. That server will rsync/scp it to a processing node. The processing node will query a database, and write out a text file with parts of that file to remove. It'll then convert it to mp3 (using sox and lame) with those parts removed. Another job will then pick up the mp3 file, query another database, and if it gets a hit it will sync that file to s3.

Is this a kind of workflow that would run with pinball? Can you move files around with it, or do you use the file system and pass filepaths around? Ideally, the workflow job would hold onto the wav/mp3 and the associated database fields that are returned so I don't have to juggle weird directories around (and have to sync access to them).

I'm not familiar with any other workflow engines, so I'm unsure if this is the kind of thing that would traditionally run on one. I looked at the user guide but it's currently barren.

<comment><USER5> Pinball is good for this use case. You can build a workflow include a few jobs,

job1. generate a wav file, and put it somewhere say, s3://wav.file

job2 (run after job1): pick the wav file from the location s3://wav.file

you need to know the contract between the parent and child jobs from the business logic. In this example, when you implement job 1 and job 2, you need to have protocol for them to produce store and consume the wav.file..

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the reply. I'm wondering how you would share the location of the file between jobs though. Can job 1 output a file location that job 2 accepts as an input?

I see there are plans to write up some documentation, but are there any timelines that you're aiming to have those written?

Also, the README calls out mysql as being required. I assume that this, being a django project, will work with other backends too. Is there anything, to your knowledge, that would prevent a different backend being used (like postgres or oracle)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've badly been wanting one of these since I used a great one at my last job in 2010. Are there more of these now that I don't know about?

<comment><USER7> yep, check out Spotify's Luigi project. Probably the most widely adopted OSS one [https://github.com/spotify/luigi](https://github.com/spotify/luigi)

<comment><USER8> Are there people who have more experience with comparative workflow managers who can quickly see the pros and cons of Pinball vs. Luigi? Perhaps someone at Pinterest who tried out other systems, as was mentioned in the post? (Though maybe Luigi wasn't available to the public when this comparison happened.)

<comment><USER5> Luigi was not available in public, when Pinball starts. So not sure the pros and cons between Pinball and Luigi.

When we build pinball, we aim to build a scalable and flexible workflow manager to satisfy the the following requirements (I just name a few here).

1\. easy system upgrade - when we fix bug or adding new features, there should be no interruption for current running workflow and jobs. 2\. easy add/test workflow - end user can easily add new jobs and workflows into pinball system, without affecting other running jobs and workflows. 3\. extensibility - <USER2> workflow manager should be easy to extended. As the company and business grows, there will be a lot new requirements and features needed. And also we love your contributions as well. 4\. flexible workflow scheduling policy, easy failure handling. 5\. We provide rich UI for you to easily manage your workflows \- auto retry failed job, \- you can retry failed job, can skip some job, can select a subset of jobs of a workflow to run (all from UI) \- you can easily access all the running history of your job, and also get the stderr, stdout logs of your jobs \- you can also explore the topology of your workflow, and also support easy search. 6\. Pinball is very generic can support different kind platform, you can use different hadoop clusters,e.g., quoble cluster, emr cluster. You can write different kind of jobs, e.g., hadoop streaming, cascading, hive, pig, spark, python ...

There are a lot interesting things built in Pinball, and you probably want to have a try!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know how this compares to full Business process modeling platforms, such as Activiti, jBPM, or Bonita?

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know how this compares to celery?

<comment><USER5> [http://www.celeryproject.org/](http://www.celeryproject.org/) celery is a Distributed Task Queue. Pinball has the concept of workflow and in a workflow there are many jobs. Pinball handles helps translate a lot application logics like workflow, schedule, jobs into its system, and provides a lot function for end user to manage their workflow jobs.

We do compare Pinball with Apache oozie and azkaban when we start this project.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the details! I will look into these resources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> are there any open source toolkits that handle user workflows well?

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow this is awesome</comment>


Gamers Launch Harassment Campaign Against BioWare Writer - <AUTHOR> http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=7832 <comment><USER3> Personally, being a writer, I can see where she's coming from. Bioware is lauded for its story telling and despite being an avid FPS player, I'm not playing Mass Effect or Dragon Age solely for the combat. If I was forced to choose I'd take a story only game for these, because brain-dead "these are bad guys, shoot them" are a dime a dozen.

I bought Mass Effect 2 almost six months before it got into my list of games I was playing, _because I love the story_. I play the Halo series over any other FPS because I love the story. I don't play CoD anymore because it voided the use of story almost a decade ago.

What I hate is seeing moronic, misogynistic, homophobic, redditards do this to a woman who's likely being part of the driving force for making Biowares female characters "real".

<comment><USER4> * WARNING: MAJOR SPOILER *

I loved Mass Effect I & II as well, but lets name their problem: they are padded with boring gameplay. Most of the fights are utterly forgettable (corridor, enemies, your gun, their gun, repeat, end dialogue), the Mako was the worst vehicle ever driven in a game and firing probes on planets - no word about that. When the gameplay actually worked and was interweaved with the storytelling (for example the possibility to skip parts of the boss fight by Mass Effect I by convincing Saren of his evil), it was truly great. I think its time that Bioware managed to cut back on meaningless fights and only allowed interesting battle situations (for example, the ascend to the final fight in Mass Effect I - it was quick, great layout and it had a story to tell: our heroes climbing the final mountain). I wouldn't want to skip them, but often it felt like "and now kill 20 enemies, because its a shooter we play, here!". Especially in Mass Effect 2, where sidestories all followed the same scheme.

Oh, about the female/male stuff: I think Mass Effect and Dragon Age are the only franchises that take relationships and gender seriously. I never played the romances in Mass Effect II because I didn't want to break my promise from the first game and the game took note of it - now, thats decision making.

<comment><USER5> Dragon Age 1 stands alone in quality writing. It's not fair to compare DA2 or the ME games to it.

<comment><USER4> Actually, I got bored by Dragon Age I really quick. The writing was okay, but the characters were (visually) stiff and off-putting. Also if I have to play another RPG where I have to micromanage my inventory of a group of six characters, I'll start a career in accounting.

Also, I think that any story involving dragons has been told to death.

<comment><USER3> I have to agree with the inventory, better weapons and armour should auto- equip. Select weapon class (axe vs dual-wield vs bow) and let them auto-equip up in one weapon or armour class.

> Also, I think that any story involving dragons has been told to death.

Agreed, but so has every film plot involving racing cars or stealing cars but people still go to see them. I think the problem is that when you appeal to 90% of people, you're stuck eternally trying to appeal to the same people.

<comment><USER4> Well, I also haven't seen any films involving car theft and racing for ages :). Taste, taste, taste. I didn't enjoy DA, because it was wasting my time even more than ME, which at least had the inventory cruft cut. I agree that DA should be mentioned in one breath with others when it comes to careful storytelling.

<comment><USER3> I think DA did so well because there's a huge hesitation in people to play a "sci-fi" game. I have no clue why though. My wife even said "that [ME} is too sci-fi, but that [DA} looks interesting".

I don't get what the difference is between a Krogan and an Orc.

Being a writer, I know I could write a story where I could literally switch terminology and it be either a sci-fi or fantasy.

What really gets me is I can never get my wife to sit down and watch more than an episode of BSG, Stargate or something else, but over 3/4 of the movies she picks to see are sci-fi. So I spend a lot of time pulling my hair out on TV choices but for a film I don't even have to ask what it is (although I should keep track of when the damn twilight movies come out as I get sidelined every time).

<comment><USER4> Actually, I managed to change my girlfriend a bit in that respect. I think the biggest problem of SciFi is that its mostly associated with Star Wars and Star Trek, the first is a geekfest for nerds and the second is a very special facet (both not bad, but hey) and also associated as "boy things" already.

We actually watched more thoughtful things like Blade Runner and discussed the film afterwards. Half-SciFIs like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which have a more subtle use of SciFI-topics are also good. Its best if you can say "hey, you just watched a SciFI movie" without her realizing that at first. Firefly is also good, because there is not spaceship-shooting-at-things stuff. As my girlfriend is a suspense fan, Alien will be up next :).

And yes, I know half of the story of DA because my girlfriend is far ahead of me :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow... I am astounded. In an age where computer games nearly rival, or surpass, movies in terms of storytelling; a game developer gets harassed because she prefers storytelling aspect over combat.

But seriously, we deserve it. For some people gameplay = combat; not the experience lived with it and at the core of this problem lies fps-ification of everything. Gone the days of Monkey Island and Beneath a Steel Sky. We need oodles of guns and/or breasts in our games. No need to think or read, we need blamming! If it's medieval we need badass swords and breasts; if it's modern we need guns and ammo and breasts! Story? What do you mean "story"? Who needs story when you have enemies to turn into offal.

It is sad to see this train of thought is dominant in gamers nowadays.

<comment><USER7> It's unfair to say it's dominant. The problem is that EA management forces BioWare to aim for the (admittedly, quite large) segment of the gaming population that loves playing a big burly man who shoots other big burly men, because those games make an absolute truckload of money.

It may be true that Modern Warfare and Gears of War are absurdly profitable franchises - that's why BioWare is slowly turning Mass Effect into those games - but that doesn't mean that other types of games aren't popular, or that the average gamer only wants to play those games. You need only look at the most popular games on Steam to see evidence otherwise.

An important thing to consider, though, is whether Hepler's agenda - <USER2> though it may be - is actually right for Mass Effect or any of BioWare's games. If BioWare's customers want games that are heavy on gameplay and not story, trying to build a pure story game is probably unwise, unless your goal is to drive away all your existing customers and try to find new ones. You can do that, but it's usually not a good business strategy, and my wager is that EA shareholders wouldn't approve of it.

If you look at the trajectory of BioWare's games, over time, they've shed their gameplay sophistication, branching paths, and depth in favor of accessibility, action, and high production values. The emphasis on shooting men with guns (or, in the case of Dragon Age, stabbing men with swords) came along with that because those themes are wildly successful in modern sci- fi/fantasy films and test well with focus groups. When BioWare's remaining fans (not to mention former fans who were driven away by the new focus) hear a BioWare staffer calling for the games to have _less_ gameplay, they're going to see that as someone driving their games further away from the classics that many people remember BioWare for - like Baldur's Gate. And it's no surprise to see a negative response for that.

As far as the content of the actual community response, I don't think it even bears mentioning that the sexism is unacceptable. Unfortunately, the community as a whole will likely never move past this, because games are popular with youth and the emotionally immature instead of just with adults.

<comment><USER8> You're assuming that BioWare's change of direction is because of EA. That is, you're assuming it's not what BioWare _wants_ to do of their own accord. Is that your assumption, or have you heard either EA or BioWare say that is the case?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A more in-depth article was previously posted on HN: [http://www.themarysue.com/inclusion-what-jennifer-heplers- st...](http://www.themarysue.com/inclusion-what-jennifer-heplers-story-is-all- about/)

HN discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3618301>

</comment><comment><USER10> From the "About Us" blurb: _The Border House is a blog for gamers. It's a blog for those who are feminist, queer, disabled, people of color, transgender, poor, gay, lesbian, and others who belong to marginalized groups, as well as allies._

From the article: _But more importantly, she's talking about making games more inclusive and suggesting that people play games for different reasons and in different ways. This is at the heart of why the misogynerds are so angry: the industry is changing, it's been changing for a long time, and it's no longer the sole domain of misogynist nerds like them._

<comment><USER11> … and? I don't understand what you're trying to say?

<comment><USER10> That first they get on the high horse of respecting everyone, and then they slam a particular minority. They even came up with a condescending word for it: misogynerds.

<comment><USER12> Those people are not a minority. They are the clear majority and until a few years ago dominated everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Granted what the players are doing to harass her in her personal life is ridiculous and ought to be stopped, but lets consider what she said.

We have a writer with a high degree of influence on a game development staff, claiming that she does not enjoy playing games.

This to me is a PR failure. Some industries can get away with being indifferent to their work (e.g. no one cares if you love making widgets so long as they're good widgets), but entertainment products such as books, movies, and games are naturally expected to be "labors of love".

Can you imagine a studio director coming out to say that he doesn't watch movies? If she or anyone else on her team doesn't like their product, they ought to keep it to themselves for PR value alone.

<comment><USER14> Let's look at the thing in context. First of all the claim was made 5 years ago when she was fairly new to the computer games industry (she'd worked on tv shows and written for table top games before). Who know how she feels about games today.

Also she didn't simply say she hated games she actually said "...While I enjoy the interactive aspects of gaming, if a game doesn't have a good story, it's very hard for me to get interested in playing it. Similarly, I'm really terrible at so many things which most games use incessantly — I have awful hand-eye coordination, I don't like tactics, I don't like fighting, I don't like keeping track of inventory, and I can't read a game map to save my life. This makes it very difficult for me to play to the myriad games I really should be keeping up on as our competition."

Finally her comment about wanting to skip combat was made in the context of her having a baby and simply not having the time needed to get through an RPG. She just wanted an option to follow the story of the game without having to dedicate month of her life (time she no longer had) to do so.

<comment><USER13> I actually didn't realize till now that it was something she posted in 2006. It's still not good to have it come up now but to me it makes it less relevant.

However, PR is like politics and if you remember the Obama campaign--opponents can make impact by dredging up old dirt about you from even 30 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I haven't played video games in a long time. Exactly as that writer says I find combat dreadfully dull. I wouldn't play any bioware games unless a no- combat mode is possible. But there is a genre of entertainment that's perfect for me. It's called Visual Novels. It combines all the best parts of multiple media with the interactivity of gaming. A popular visual novel you might've heard of is Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney. There's a ton more in that genre.

Here's a HTML5 example:

<http://visualnoveldai.com/visualnovels/narcissu>

</comment><comment><USER16> If you don't have to actually play a game like Dragon Age(by being able to skip combat), it just becomes an interactive movie.

I think having really low difficulty levels is lot better than taking the gameplay out of the game, of course you can do that too but you can't really call it a game then.

I really love Dragon Age Origins for it's synergy between interesting gameplay and story telling.

<comment><USER14> _If you don't have to actually play a game like Dragon Age(by being able to skip combat), it just becomes an interactive movie._

And why would that be a bad thing? No one would be forcing you to skip combat. Personally I'd love a feature like that. I obviously wouldn't use it on every level, but being able to skip that dull, tedious level I just can't get past, so that I can get on with the rest of the game (and story) would be great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If people don't like BioWare, they should simply _play other games_. There are different games that appeal to people with different tastes, and that's a good thing.

Their attitude seems to be like someone who complains that a particular novel or TV program doesn't appeal to them, as if the writers had some sort of moral obligation to appeal to that particular person.</comment>


MIT's Mission Statement - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/mission.html <comment><AUTHOR> "The Institute is committed to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges."

Hopefully Prof. Abelson's investigation starts with MIT's mission.</comment>


Ask HN: Meetup in KC? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone want to do a meet up in January near Kansas City? <comment><USER2> I'd love to! Lunches are typically better for me than after work stuff, but I'll try to make it to whatever works for everybody else. I'm downtown, so I can do Westport, River Market, the Plaza, it's all good.

<comment><USER3> megamark16, wmeredith and I already had a mini-meetup over lunch. It was good.

If we do a lunch, I suggest The Cashew. If we do a happy hour, I suggest McCoys / Foundry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd be up for a meetup - I lurk here all the time. I thought I had an account, but it turns out I didn't so I just made this. I wouldn't have seen this post if it weren't for the crosspost to the KC subreddit.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Date, Venue, Time set:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2080049>

Thank You

</comment><comment><USER5> Splendid idea. The Foundry / McCoy's in Westport? I'll be happy to meet just about anywhere though.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sure!

What do you have in mind, something like a Friday afternoon happy hour or something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe, going to try another Ask HN tomorrow to try to rally more people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Based on a few emails floating around among us, it sounds like we're getting together Wednesday the 26th at 5:30 at McCoy's in Westport.

<comment><USER7> Sounds good to me! Looking forward to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd love to meet up. After work would be better for me. By the time I could get to Westport my lunch hour would be half over.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sure, I'll be there. Crossposting from reddit.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there a date/time/place set yet? I'm right near westport and would like to meet up somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm be interested in a KC meetup.

</comment><comment><USER12> Beer Kitchen across the street is also delicious. Bump for anywhere westport.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sure. I can visit after work hours. When and where?

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd be interested.

</comment><comment><USER15> Count me in.

<comment><AUTHOR> email in profile (or could you email me via my profile)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm in for a meetup in Westport!

</comment><comment><USER17> I would be interested too.</comment>


Uses XSS and Google Street View Data to Determine Physical Location - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityweek.com/hacker-uses-xss-and-google-streetview-data-determine-physical-location wiredmikey sends along a brief (and quite poorly written) report from Security Week on Samy Kamkar's talk at Black Hat last week. In the video, which is amusing, he demonstrates how to obtain location information (within 30 feet, in the example he shows) of a user who does no more than visit a malicious website. The technique involves sniffing out the local router, breaking into it to obtain its MAC accress, and sending that to Google to extract the router's location from Google's Street View database. <comment><USER2> I don't see how this is possible on many levels:

1\. How do you get a router's MAC address using javascript?

2\. How do you get a router's model number using javascript?

3\. Why does Google maps store location by MAC address?

4\. How do you get this information from Google maps?

Even if you don't specifically know how to do these things, I'd love to hear how and why they're possible at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> You could determine all of that information with regards to the MAC address by examining the packets from the user.

But form the video it appears that he mostly leverages lazy network admins, and the fact that routers are all configured with forms.</comment>