U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies' Abuse of Boys - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html <comment><USER4> This has been known since 2009. This US Army Human Terrain Team report is interesting reading, if you find strange & violent forms of misogyny and pederasty morbidly fascinating [https://info.publicintelligence.net/HTT- PashtunSexuality.pdf](https://info.publicintelligence.net/HTT- PashtunSexuality.pdf)

""" Another example of cultural misinterpretations of Islamic tenants, bent to support homosexuality over heterosexuality, comes from a U.S. Army medic completing a year-long tour in a rural area of Kandahar province.8 She and her male colleagues were approached by a local gentleman seeking advice on how his wife could become pregnant. When it was explained to him what was necessary, he reacted with disgust and asked "How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean, when one could be with a man, who is clean? Surely this must be wrong." """

<comment><USER5> > _She and her male colleagues were approached by a local gentleman seeking > advice on how his wife could become pregnant. When it was explained to him > what was necessary, he reacted with disgust and asked "How could one feel > desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean, when one could be with > a man, who is clean? Surely this must be wrong._

The dialogue sounds fishy and constructed to me. Local "gentlemen" surely know the procedure to "get pregnant" and have managed to procreate just as good as anywhere else in the world in the last 30 centuries without asking western medics...

<comment><USER6> Oh, hang out on reddit.com/r/sex or /r/relationship, and you'll see that people come up with the strangest questions.

(Might still be fake, of course. But I wouldn't bet on it.)

<comment><USER7> There's a lot of fake posts on r/sex and r/relationships too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Young boys brought to police outposts were quite common - it was a disgusting practice, though in the parade of despicable acts by all sides you became numb. Most of my memories are hazy at best, but at times something I see, hear, or smell finds it's way through the fog and I become lost reliving moments.

Thanks for posting, it's good to reflect from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER9> On HN regularly posters demand the US not to impose their values upon other "cultures".

Then again - I don't believe this is part of Afgan culture at all anyway. I think that happens when survival bias due to war and destruction over a long period of time leads to very fucked up people climbing to the top of a society.

At the end of the day - or maybe rather at its start - the US is partly responsible for Afghanistan being trapped in a downward spiral.

Have a look at this (randomly chosen gallery) about Afghanistan in its 60s - <USER2> don't think _that_ culture would be very fond of rapists.

[http://www.upworthy.com/afghanistan-in-the-1960s-prepare- to-...](http://www.upworthy.com/afghanistan-in-the-1960s-prepare-to-be-very- very-surprised)

<comment><USER10> Disgustingly, it is a longstanding cultural thing in Afghanistan.

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/)

Don't let the modernity of 1960s Kabul fool you. I have a teenage student sold into sex slavery in the US. The weak (or in her case, homeless and orphaned) are targeted no matter what the culture. For more moral turpitude, check out Rotherham.

* I work with folks from the US's Office on Trafficking in Persons. It's one of the few programs run by the Department of Health and Human Services that has broad bipartisan support.

[http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/endtrafficking](http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/endtrafficking)

<comment><USER9> Are you aware of the political and societal implications and surroundings of f.x. the cases around Jimmy Savile or Marc Dutroux?

Maybe you should watch some documentaries about that to realize that _this_ is by the same token part of _any_ "culture".

<comment><USER10> Why the hostility? You said that you didn't think this was a longstanding part of Afghani culture and I brought up a documentary _that was linked in the article you posted_ saying that, in fact, pederasty was a longstanding part of Afghani culture. There are plenty of people _in Afghanistan_ who oppose it, but that doesn't mean it's not an accepted part of the culture.

As for "culture", we may be better describing this as a societal failure in the case of Rotherham. Note, I mentioned Rotherham, not Jimmy Savile. The sexual exploitation in Rotherham was disgusting and was allowed to happen for years. It was a failure on the part of the predators (obviously) and a failure on the part of the local governmental structure who largely knew about it.

In the Americas we have cases like my student's. Human trafficking is a big big thing and that it goes on isn't because of isolated individuals but because of large organizations of procurers, pimps, money launderers, etc., who are able to work because so many folks choose to turn a blind eye to it.

Let's be clear, here, I'm not saying that human trafficking or pederasty has widespread acceptance in the West. I am saying that there are cultural (or subcultural, whatever) groups for whom it is acceptable.

Modernity ≠ moral

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Which sort of begs the question: why the hell are we over there, now?

Originally, I guess we went to hunt OBL and punish the Taliban, but then there was the whole oil question (they have it, we want it, etc.).

But we failed to stop the Taliban (Mission Definitely Not Completed), which just shows we failed to learn _anything_ from the Russians and/or the British.

So, why are we there now? Anyone? Bueller?

Sure, we can burn billions of dollars per year doing whatever the hell it is we're doing over there now, but, as history shows, it won't really change anything.

Freedom and democracy is a great thing, but if they're not interested in it _at all_ , then maybe we should just stop trying to cram it down their throats.

<comment><USER12> >But we failed to stop the Taliban (Mission Definitely Not Completed), which just shows we failed to learn anything from the Russians and/or the British.

That's why the Taliban are comfortably ensconced in Kabul, right?

>So, why are we there now? Anyone? Bueller?

We've withdrawn all but a token force. There are less than ten thousand US troops in Afghanistan.

<comment><USER13> >failed to learn anything from the Russians

I chatted to some exiles from Afganistan and they thought the Russian period was the best in terms of economic growth, human rights and the like. It only really ended with the US arming people like Bin Laden to overthrow them and didn't that work out well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The sad irony here is that the Taliban gained a lot of public support for abolishing this practice, and with the international communities diminishing engagement, the Taliban is set to return and gain more grass rooots support for putting this practice down again.

<comment><USER15> Has to make you wonder if the Taliban have not been the "good guys" from the very beginning?

<comment><USER16> Or do people not neatly fit into little boxes marked "Good" and "Bad?"

<comment><USER17> The Taliban allegedly destroyed poppy fields.

The Taliban also destroyed Buddhist monuments.

You're right. People do not fit into boxes of good and evil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Second time in a few days I get to recommend Adam Curtis' documentary Bitter Lake (available on iPlayer in the UK).

One of its themes is that simplistic tales of good versus evil are an issue with the recent US (with their UK side-kick) wars.

It touches on this issue, though without specific talk of sexual abuse. It does suggest that the "police" were basically just a bunch of warlord militias and so when the west turned up and started helping them, they were immediately seen as part of the problem not the solution by many of the locals.

</comment><comment><USER19> From the good old days of you are going overseas... when not in the field the first rules are , don't stare and shut up. As in, be careful where your about where your eyes are and do not comment without permission.

Simple rules that work for travelers too. There are many cultural issues that don't coincide with Western values and its best to get over any idea our views are superior because you cannot survive with that attitude while in another country.

</comment><comment><USER20> The key to this is what you think about the morality of one's own countries soldiers ignoring and so tacitly approving the rape of children.

Structurally what do you think of the idea that soldiers were _ordered_ to do so.

Rape of children is outside the limits of what I will tolerate from any culture.

First things first, the idea that those of my own culture and country condone the rape of children for political ends in a foreign country is something for which they should be facing charges and entitled to proper legal defence in my culture and my country.

</comment><comment><USER21> Things might have gone better if they'd been told to ignore drugs instead.

<comment><USER21> I honestly don't understand why this was down-voted. The planting of opium formed a major part of the Afghan economy - roughly 50%[1] of their GDP in fact - and outlawing parts of that economy is both expensive - the US spent $7.6 billion trying to stop it[2] - and likely to alienate the people who you rely on for intelligence.

That doesn't mean that the intelligence will stop coming, it's worse than that. It means it won't be reliable. The trouble, when you get into this sort of application of force, is that you end up being nothing more than an enforcer for the local grievances. They'll tell you where something is when they want you to squash it - and in the mean time, because it is illegal, people profit off it who you don't want walking around with a lot of money. No-one trusts you, because your behaviour pattern appears unreliable unless you know who's talking to who, you don't manage to stamp the things out, and you inflict a lot of grievances.

The smart move is not to try to exact control on an issue when it is not practically attainable. The U.S. hasn't been able to control drugs within its own borders, where they all speak the same language and there aren't the same degree of major tribal issues, let alone in Afghanistan. And it seems to me to have had the same sorts of disastrous outcomes there as it has in the U.S.

\----

1\. [http://www.cato.org/publications/foreign-policy- briefing/how...](http://www.cato.org/publications/foreign-policy-briefing/how- drug-war-afghanistan-undermines-americas-war-terror)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/world/asia/16drugs.html?pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/world/asia/16drugs.html?pagewanted=2)

2.[http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/21/world/asia/afghanistan- dru...](http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/21/world/asia/afghanistan-drug- war/index.html)

<comment><USER22> We also have a worldwide shortage of opiate painkillers for use in surgery, it could have been a lot better to just buy the opium from the growers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is the sort of evil that Moral Relativism gets you.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a good headline. I wish we could get back to informative page titles.

Sorry itself is sickening.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's a sad world we live in. Looks like countries who ban stuff the most, have the most offenders...

<comment><USER26> Buses in London used to have signs saying 'No Spitting'. They don't have them anymore, but not because it's now OK to spit on buses. You don't make rules against things that nobody does.

<comment><USER27> I suspect that will change as tourism becomes more widespread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "The one American service member who was punished in the investigation that followed was Major Brezler, who had sent the email warning about Mr. Jan, his lawyers said. In one of Major Brezler's hearings, Marine Corps lawyers warned that information about the police commander's penchant for abusing boys might be classified."

We seem to have a classification problem.

</comment><comment><USER29> Anybody else here remembers the picture of Reagan with the Taliban and a heading along the lines of "These gentlemen are the moral equivalent of our founding fathers". I am not surprised in the slightest.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure when the Taliban officially started, but it's probably a bit after Reagan was involved in funding the Mujahadeen.

Plus, the individuals mentioned in the linked story are actually warlords that are fighting against the Taliban, in conjunction with the US forces. This is complicated further by the fact that I think many of the warlords switch sides between Taliban, US & freelance depending on whatever seems to be the most lucrative at any point in time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Afghan soldiers told to ignore American Allies' eating pork"

Well, reading this you might think "how can that compare to raping boys? Boys are human beings and human beings have rights, just like you and me? But at the same time a Muslim may consider refusing to eat pork a law by god which is way higher than anything considering humans.

The point I try to make is this: In an intercultural environment you need to accept the other one doing things you consider immoral. Otherwise there will be no cooperation at all. You must not judge. We all know that and when we talk about it we think about clothes, how to say hello, and kinds of food. But if you really want to achieve important cooperation you also need to consider points like this. That's the tough part, accepting these things that are really undiscussable in your culture. In an intercultural environment they should be.

Now please, don't just downvote. Write a comment. Thanks.

<comment><USER31> Your analogy is utterly wrong and broken, because you are mistakenly calling raping young boys "cultural". It's not cultural, and it's not something that happens across all of Afghanistan, otherwise all Afghani males could be considered pedophiles. It's a select group of pedophiles that have attained military status such that they won't be prosecuted for their crimes. That's not culture, that's corruption.

It's the same thing with the Catholic Church. Widescale sexual abuse of young boys by priests occurred, but not because it's a cultural aspect of the Catholic Church. It's a disgusting corruption that somehow manifested itself by pedophiles that infiltrated the Church and abused their positions, just like in Afghanistan. So there's no lens of morality to view things with. What happened in both cases is that it's a crime that has grown due to widespread corruption. I'm sure you will find that a lot of money was stolen by the Afghani military as well, but theft is not cultural as well, that's corruption and abuse.

The same thing happened in the British government where a widespread sexual abuse ring was discovered recently. Is that also "cultural" aspect of British people? No, it's corruption and a heinous crime.

<comment><USER9> The assumption that only pedophiles rape very young children is wrong - <USER3> is a "phenomenon" of substituting preferrred sex partners with what is _available_.

That's why there is a rape problem in prisons which is certainly not caused by gays ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Unfortunately, I've come to see such articles with immediate suspicion.

<comment><USER33> [https://youtu.be/Ja5Q75hf6QI?t=3124](https://youtu.be/Ja5Q75hf6QI?t=3124)

the whole video is worth a watch</comment></comment>


Tendon stem cells enhance regeneration - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41556-019-0417-z <comment><USER2> Just a word of advice, if you suffer from tendon pain and took flouroquinolone antibiotics within last 12 months. Never, take those again.

I have been dealing with widespread tendon issues for the past 7 years due to that medication. The black box warning reflects the issues somewhat. These should be last resort antibiotics but are given out in the US for suspected UTIs.

<comment><USER3> In UK there was just recently published Guidelines for [1] Safe prescribing of fluoroquinolones.

'Do not use fluoroquinolones in patients with known aortic aneurysm, aortic dissection or history of serious side effects related to quinolone treatment (including tendon disease/disorder) unless there are no other treatment options available'

'Patients should be counselled to discontinue fluoroquinolone treatment and seek urgent medical attention at the first sign of:

\- Tendon pain or inflammation (particularly in shoulder or ankle)

\- Symptoms of neuropathy such as pain, burning, pins & needles, tingling, numbness or weakness

\- Sudden-onset of severe and constant abdominal, chest or back pain

1\. [https://www.ncl-mon.nhs.uk/wp- content/uploads/Guidelines/5_F...](https://www.ncl-mon.nhs.uk/wp- content/uploads/Guidelines/5_Fluoroquinolones_Safe_Prescribing_Position_Statement.pdf)

<comment><USER4> So basically it fucks with your connective tissue?

<comment><USER5> > _The histopathologic findings [of the tendons] include degenerative lesions, > fissures, interstitial edema without cellular infiltration, necrosis and > neovascularization_ [1]

Basically it dissolves, and the achilles tendon is the most common rupture, at least with cipro.

1\. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22035890](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22035890)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for posting this, I used to compete in bodybuilding and tore my left quad tendon 6 months ago. It's just now really starting to feel like a normal leg again. The recovery sucks, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

<comment><USER7> Been fighting quadriceps tendinitis for 3 years, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of quality research surrounding tendon regeneration. Living in the US with odd insurance limits for physical therapy has definitely set me back. If you run into issues with that, Martin Koban wrote a book on patellar tendinitis and has an updated online course with a recommended program for tendon strengthening. It's the only thing that's helped me so far

<comment><USER8> I've been struggling with chronic mid-portion Achilles tendinopathy for 13 months. Progressive loading, heavy/slow resistance work and your pick of eccentric, isometric or isotonic exercises are apparenlty the way forward. The biggest surprise has been the amount of quality information on Twitter; finding the people to follow is harder. If you're interested, good starting points are @SethONeill, @UDtendongroup, @kgSilbernagel, @tendonresearch, @TendonGlasgow, @IreneSDavis, @tendonpain, @ProfJillCook, @KFarnqvist, @lorenzo_masci, @sancho_igor and @pdkirwan. HTH!

<comment> Blinks- I have also found success with high repetition (15-30 reps) slow eccentric work for tendinopathy in my fingers and elbow. So far it's really the only thing that helps besides making sure the surrounding areas are not overly tight with soft tissue work. This guide and the linked research have been very helpful. [https://stevenlow.org/overcoming- tendonitis/](https://stevenlow.org/overcoming-tendonitis/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As it might be of interest to someone suffering from tendonitis:

i've had pain in my right achilles tendon for well over a year now, and although i've never had any symptoms, i've been diagnosed with gout / high uric acid levels in the blood. I didn't know that urate crystals can deposit in soft tissues/tendons, causing inflammation.

I've been taking allopurinol for a few months now and the tendonitis seems to be slowly going away but i'm not recovered yet.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this the same thing as the stem cell treatments offered by various clinics today?

</comment><comment><USER11> Sounds really interesting for the rock climbing community, which constantly suffers tendon injuries in their hands.

If only there wasn't an academic paywall so we could actually read this study, sigh.

<comment><USER12> Put `sci-hub.tw/' in front of the URL and reload.</comment></comment>


BP Buys Search Terms For 'Oil Spill' - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherboard.tv/2010/6/7/creep-files-bp-buys-search-terms-for-oil-spill--2

<comment><USER2> Click the ads. It'll cost them money.

<comment><USER3> They're the #8 company globally in market cap, worth 232B. At best, clickfraud will trickle ~50k into Google's coffers (another megacorp) or at worst, it will waste our time since BP SEMs will just dispute the charges as fraudulent and some Google account manager making $45k/yr will be forced to undo it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They're competing with lawyers. I'm not sure who to support.

</comment><comment><USER5> image isn't everything.</comment>


Publications by Googlers in Software Engineering - <AUTHOR> http://research.google.com/pubs/SoftwareEngineering.html <comment><USER2> I'd be interested in a list of publications from Hacker News folks.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am surprised by how few there are.</comment>


IBM doubles its 14nm EDRAM density, adds hundreds of megabytes of cache - <AUTHOR> https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/3383/ibm-doubles-its-14nm-edram-density-adds-hundreds-of-megabytes-of-cache/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if it will ever see a chance to go mainstream.

The memory bottleneck is pretty much the only thing in CPU design that didn't see a dramatic improvement over the years. Its elimination is the only obvious improvement pathway still left with expectation of double digit performance gains.

So we need either very big and very fast caches, or extremely wide and low latency memory. Both options are quite costly.

Adding on die DRAM that can work at least as fast as 500mhz will surely require some specialty process with a lot of compromises like the one in the article.

Gluing something like HBM2 to the die for a second option moves the cost from the specialty process to the specialty packaging. Not much better.

<comment><USER3> > Gluing something like HBM2 to the die for a second

This is something AMD is already doing for EPYC, and they've already used HBM2 in their GPUs.

So I'm surprised they haven't released any CPU models with crazy huge L4 caches using a few GB of HBM2.

Then again, Intel made a laptop CPU with a huge 128MB cache and their comment was that it didn't make that big of a difference. I believe the performance boost was less than 5% for going from 64MB to 128MB.

<comment><USER2> Its all about how fast the memory is.

960MiB is prodigiously large for such a microscopic chip, but if it "only" gain 3-5 times latency reduction over external DRAM, it's still very far from a proper L3 implementation, and far behind L2.

Make DRAM work on 1Ghz+, and then you will see miracles. Imagine a fully synchronous on-die DRAM that can sit just behind L1, or even be connected to load registers directly.

The problem is that effective frequencies for memory round-trip haven't got up much since nineties. If you work with 100% cache misses, your mem will still be working at effective frequency of around 100 to 200Mhz

<comment><USER4> > If you work with 100% cache misses, your mem will still be working at > effective frequency of around 100 to 200Mhz

I think you mean 20MHz. Current DRAM is abysmal at random access.

<comment><USER2> Yes, more so like this if you discard how it looks from the electrical side.

Even after bytes arrive to DRAM controller analog side, a lot of things have to happen before the data gets to the register. This accounts for the further five to tenfold increase in round trip latency

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Twelve point two billion transistors. That's absolutely nuts. Does anyone have a ballpark figure for how much a 'drawer' of four of these things costs? What's it supposed to run, is this an Oracle/DB2 beast?

<comment><USER6> Highly dense Docker hypervisor hypervisor hypervisor.

<comment><USER5> Nobody's even mentioned Crysis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Impressive tech. How big is the market for these machines these days? Like how many Z15 CPs would they expect to sell (assuming each Z15 install can vary a lot in size).

<comment><USER8> This is likely catering specifically to IBM's customers who have been them from the mainframe days and continue to rely on IBM products (airline, banking etc.). The systems used by these orgs are massive in complexity and I'm not sure how much they want to invest in refactoring them to run on COTS hardware.... it probably doesn't make sense for them financially.

<comment><USER9> There is market for reliability, security and scale in compact size, so they can get new customers.

Companies like Robinhood may discover that it's actually cheaper to by reliable and secure hardware and write software into it than try to write fault tolerant and secure software over COTS hardware.

<comment><USER10> Is it really that easy to write reliable software for mainframes? What sort of abstraction do you get from them that you don't get in commodity hardware?

Nice easy shot at Robinhood of course, but they're a very young company. Do the big banks really have a fundamental edge that's not just more invested hours?

<comment><USER11> I think the idea is that your locks and threads are so close latency wise that you only need a few to get the job done. Versus trying to figure out how to parallelize things, some of which are inherently non-parallelizable. But sometimes you don't know until you try! Ain't life grand?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is my type of tech. Not glamorous but highly functional.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Are there any modern initiatives around mainframe? What is IBM doing to promote it more to new generations?

Are there any startups doing anything related to the mainframe?

I was always fascinated by the tech around mainframe and am even thinking about moving into that space. I can imagine that a barrier to entry is high... or?

<comment><USER13> The barrier is not always high [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk)

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you trying to say that it is wide and heavy as well :)

Joke aside, how are people actually getting started in this space? And more importantly, is it "worth it" financially? Is the mainframe skill shortage ("dreaded COBOL"?) a real thing?

<comment><USER14> > How are people actually getting started in this space?

Depends on your needs. Do you need near-perfect uptime? Most don't; their products aren't so critical, so they settle for a cheaper option. Do want to run a data center? Most don't; it's so much easier to push code to AWS and let them handle the infrastructure demands.

Startups historically survive because of adaptation and speed. The mainframe may not fit those operational principles, though that's up to a given startup (see below for industries which might benefit the most from a mainframe).

> Is it "worth it" financially?

The System Z series excels at transactions and updating records. Industries which deal extensively with these types of computations are banks, airlines, credit card companies, stock brokers, insurance companies, and certainly others. If you're in one of those lines of business, you probably should look into mainframes. More generally, if you need to maintain system state at all costs, mainframes are probably a good option.

I would not recommend mainframes for heavy, laborous computing loads (scientific computing, rendering boxes, etc.)

> Is the mainframe skill shortage ("dreaded COBOL"?) a real thing?

If a company wants to add a new feature to or fix a bug in a 40 year-old COBOL program, they'll likely have a hard time finding a young programmer, sure. Some older COBOL coders are helping fill the game while they can. Don't forget that the System Z mainframes have a level of backwards compatibility that makes x86 blush; your COBOL program will certainly still run.

I wager most new programs (<15 years) have been written with Java or C++, given z/OS supports more languages than COBOL: [https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/zosbasics/com.ib...](https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/zosbasics/com.ibm.zos.zappldev/zappldev_22.htm)

COBOL is dying, as it would be ridiculous to start a new project in COBOL. But many legacy systems still work, so why change them if they aren't broke?

I've made a comment in the past about IBM mainframes which you also might find informative: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20978305](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20978305)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the answer and sorry for not being clearer, but I was asking from the perspective of an engineer that wants to enter the mainframe world.

Let's say I want to focus on developing, maintaining and running the software on mainframes. How do I get "in" and are the skills paid well in comparison to a typical Java/.NET/C++ developer position nowadays?

You touched a bit on dying workforce when you mentioned COBOL. Is that dying workforce a real problem making it financially lucrative for the people willing to learn that stuff? Or is it just a myth?

<comment> pickle-wizard IBM has an internal program for training people in Mainframe skills, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is called. I was going to be part of it when I graduated college, but then 08 happened and I was moved into Open Systems support after a RIF.

A google search showed me this page. [https://www.ibm.com/case-studies/ibm- academic-initiative-sys...](https://www.ibm.com/case-studies/ibm-academic- initiative-systems-hardware-mainframe-skills)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-2g-tuesdays-to-slow-employee-internet-speeds-down-2015-10?op=1 <comment><USER2> It's worth noting that Chrome has a Device Emulation feature, which allows you to throttle connection speed to common presets such as EDGE/2G/3G/etc. It makes testing mobile layouts easier, at the least.

[https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome- devtools/iter...](https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome- devtools/iterate/device-mode/?hl=en)

<comment><USER3> Also, Mac OS and iOS have the Network Link Conditioner, which can do the same thing (from a network perspective) at the system level:

[http://nshipster.com/network-link-conditioner/](http://nshipster.com/network- link-conditioner/)

<comment><USER4> And Windows, of course, has Fiddler:

[http://www.telerik.com/download/fiddler](http://www.telerik.com/download/fiddler)

<comment><USER5> And for completeness, Linux has tc [1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tc_(Linux)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tc_\(Linux\))

<comment><USER6> Practically speaking, wondershaper is way simpler for basic throttling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do Facebookers never venture outside of cities? Because maybe the UK is weird, but getting 2G even in developed areas isn't that uncommon for me. Sure there's 4G in cities and 3G in many places, but there's plenty of places with poor signal or outdated transmitters (like the town I live in).

(This is especially noticeable if you're in a train or a bus where you're frequently changing cells.)

<comment><USER8> I'm American, and I took a road trip last month from Dallas to NYC and back (going through Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and tiny bits of a few other states).

Unless I was in a city, I only had 2G signal, and in a few places I didn't even have that (but those were rare).

Edit: for reference, my carrier at the time was Simple Mobile, an MVNO of T-Mobile (I'm no longer with them anymore: I just activated Project Fi today).

<comment><USER9> And this is the exact reason I left T-Mobile. AT&T have 4G coverage on pretty much the entire interstate system. When I had T-Mobile I'd drive from NYC to Columbus, OH and have no signal for the 8+ hours between the two cities.

<comment><USER10> With Band 12 LTE, this is changing rapidly on TMO.

<comment><USER11> Upgrading to a Nexus 6 made vast improvements to my T-Mobile coverage as it supported the new bands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They should add "no battery recharge Wednesday".

<comment><USER13> And "activate every push notification available on my device Thursday".

<comment><USER14> "Friends keep posting idiotic political rants Friday."

<comment><USER15> and let's not forget "Candy Crush Invitations Saturdays"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This would help me too, as a first-worlder: I often use T-mobile's free global data roaming, which is super-nice to have, but capped to 2G speeds (128kbps). It becomes quite clear that some sites' designers have never tested their functionality at 128kbps...

<comment><USER17> Especially sites that hide content until all CSS and fonts are loaded... SO ANNOYING.

<comment><USER18> 1+ from me! Its so friggin frustrating. I remember back in the days I had a 14.4k modem for reading news articles. I could read the article almost immediately, even if it took minutes to load some of the images.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We, at hike ( [http://www.hike.in](http://www.hike.in)), did following things: 1\. gave the cheap android smartphone to use as their primary phone 2\. asked employees to stay on 2G on their mobile phones

It helped a us lot to improve our product for India market.

<comment><USER20> Your landing page takes 15 seconds to load on a simulated "Regular 3G" connection in Chrome. If you'd like I could walk you through fixing some of the most obvious problems, my contact info is in my profile.

<comment><USER21> I need help understanding why this is being down voted.

<comment><USER22> As you asked.. firstly because doesn't speak to the _actual_ idea being put forward, merely implying that they are—at best—incompetent and at worst hypocritical. It then compounds this faux pas with a tender for work which seems a little galling.

<comment><USER23> "I could walk you through" seems to me to be an offer to help, not a pitch for business.

It struck me as basically somebody saying "if you care about it for your app, I'd be happy to help you care about it for your website".

I feel like you're assuming bad faith, and the person confused as to why the comment was being downvoted was applying the principle of charity instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I believe this will have a positive effect in the U.S. as well. For whatever reason, I get 1 bar of service at the office if I'm lucky. The Facebook app is frustrating to use under those circumstances. On the contrary, Twitter is actually not that bad. I've been impressed with it under bad network situations. Consequently, I find myself opening up Twitter a lot more than Facebook during breaks.

</comment><comment><USER25> Cue corporate IT departments everywhere advertising the slow internet speeds as "We are helping you empathize with the developing world"

Today I found out my megacorp has been leading the charge to help me empathize with our customers in Africa. It's a sad day when my latency to the internet in Europe is higher than our actual satellite connection to a remote site in Africa.

<comment><USER26> Be happy that you _have_ access to Internet in Europe. I'm sitting in an international corporation's office in Shenzhen, China, and I have to do absurd amounts of dancing with VPNs to be able to leave a message for my family. Oh, and I have to do it on my own mobile connection, because no way a VPN over corporate network will last more than 30 seconds.

:(.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What facebook needs to realize is that 2G is not the only factor because of which people don't use the facebook app.

First of all the app takes too much resources and makes the phone sluggish, especially on low end phones which are very common here. (Messenger is big offender here)

I believe one of the reasons why whatsapp became so popular was that it was faster to use than facebook's messenger and you could easily delete media to save storage.

People prefer using facebook on Opera Mini on their iPhones and android phones than using it from the app.

<comment><USER27> > whatsapp

Whatsapp is just as bad. Disallowing it from running in the background extends my battery life from under a day to over 2 days. Why are these messaging apps so resource hungry?

<comment><USER28> I know all of this thanks to an old lecture I once attended (not a phone dev), so my information might be a bit off and outdated, but in broad strokes: it's partially due to naive programming practices, but phone manufacturers are also somewhat to blame.

Every app has to poll for new messages on their own. That means opening up a connection just to see if something new is there.

To give an analogy that's easy to grasp: imagine a giant sluice, big enough to fit two oil tankers. Opening a connection is like sending boats through it, the boats are the data, and the water is the power used each time. Now this sluice is a bit funny: once you operate it, it's very efficient and automatic, _but it runs twenty times_. In other words, you want have at least forty big- ass boats full of data to send through if you don't want to waste energy (to be clear, I just pulled these numbers out of the air; and in a real sluice that would be forty boats both ways, but internet connections are a bit different).

Now imagine you just send a teeny tiny boat checking for new messages each time. If there's a message, data will be sent back (other boats). If not, due to how 2/3/4G work, _the sluice will still open and close forty times_. That'a s LOT of wasted water. It also takes time to operate the sluice.

Not everyone who develops these apps is aware of this, so some naive app developers _poll all the time_.

What would be amazing if the phone OS provided some sort of batching system where these polling messages would queue up, and it would connect for all of them at once. I dunno, maybe the newer phones have something like that.

<comment><USER27> There's a very informative XMPP XEP[1] with mobile considerations that touches on what you said (although that analogy of yours is great!). Where my problem lies is: even if I was the cleaner at Whatsapp or FB I'd be making noise about battery life, I'd do everything I could. Put another way: I struggle to understand how a company that is about mobile doesn't put being a good mobile citizen first and foremost.

It's not that hard to open a TCP connection, or heck, even a WebSocket. HTTP 1.1 is clearly the wrong application to use here.

[1]: [http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0286.html#power](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0286.html#power)

<comment><USER29> > Put another way: I struggle to understand how a company that is about mobile > doesn't put being a good mobile citizen first and foremost.

Lack of accountability? All the complaints I hear about battery life are aimed at manufacturers, rather than the crap that we shovel on them and forget about. Facebook taking flak over their recent background audio problems was a rare exception.

<comment><USER27> > Lack of accountability?

Accountability comes with the functionality that allows you to see which apps are using battery. I recently upgraded to WP 10 and got a notification saying "some background apps are using a lot of battery," which is how I became aware of the culprit.

That notification is a very smart idea and I hope to see it at some point on Android/iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Every software shop in the world should be designing and coding for low connectivity speeds.

<comment><USER31> Why?

Edit: It seems to me that depending on the market one targets there's not much to be gained from designing for slow connection speeds...

<comment><USER32> Except that you get slow connection speeds pretty much everywhere as soon as you move outside your house. Subways, commutes, etc. For crying out loud, you even go to EDGE on AT&T when commuting in Sillicon Valley on CalTrain!

<comment><USER33> Exactly. This article really changed the way I thought about optimizing for slow network speeds: [http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/why- availability/](http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/why-availability/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link to the Facebook Engineering blog post

[https://code.facebook.com/posts/1556407321275493/building- fo...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/1556407321275493/building-for-emerging- markets-the-story-behind-2g-tuesdays/)

</comment><comment><USER34> They should also try using older/slower phones that are representative of those areas. I remember that I had an LG L7 which was barely usable at all even freshly reset.

<comment><USER35> I believe the FB Empathy Lab[0] is all about this sort of device testing

[0]: [https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/656582605173858305](https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/656582605173858305)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Ad blocking will improve response times on slow links by about 50%. More for really bad sites.

<comment><USER37> How can I improve this on my phone? I have ad blocking and flash blocking on my laptop, which speeds it up considerably. On my phone which is slower, lower memory, more battery sensitive, and data capped (so ads are a bigger nuisance), I can't find a solution that works on and off WiFi.

I'm in the process of getting a local DNS server set up at home which will help some by blacklisting ad network IPs, but it won't help over the mobile network.

And I'd rather not pay for a cloud server to use as DNS when I'm on the road, plus I think Android will use Google's DNS server if other lookups fail. I discovered this when my parent's internet stopped working for their computer and their iPhone, but my Android worked fine. Their ISP DNS was offline.

<comment><USER38> Firefox for Android supports many addons, including uBlock Origin, Ghostery, HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript, etc. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/android/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/)

<comment><USER39> After having had the first few addons I tried to install a good while back tell me Firefox for Android was not supported, I gave up on trying.

I love uBlock Origin on the desktop and thanks to you now I have it on my tablet too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> An option if you'd like to try this yourself, at home: [https://shuhaowu.com/blog/network_emulation_on_your_router.h...](https://shuhaowu.com/blog/network_emulation_on_your_router.html)

(Previously on HN here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224547) )

</comment><comment><USER41> Is Facebook still planning to gate the internet in India behind Facebook, though? I recall they had plans to give folks in third world countries access to Facebook only, which is extremely sad.

<comment><USER42> Except they were going to offer that service for free, which IMO changes the picture.

<comment><USER41> I agree that criticizing what's essentially a gift isn't "nice". But, on the other hand, this move reeks of evil-ness. Instead of bringing 3rd world people knowledge and freedom, we bring them Facebook. This is embarrassing.

<comment><USER43> People like to disparage Facebook, but it can be an incredibly useful tool. I'll give an example from my own life: Soon after I moved to Oakland, a neighbor recommended I join the neighborhood's Facebook group. It's become invaluable. Group members coordinate to help find missing pets, catch vandals, report stolen vehicles, and warn others about crime. City council members are also members of the group, so we work with them to fix problems. It's much more efficient and convenient than the standard ways of petitioning the local government.

This may seem like a trivial improvement, but it has caused the neighborhood to completely turn around. Everyone is amazed by how much better and safer the area has gotten. So I don't mind if Facebook's motives are ultimately profit- driven. People in developing countries could greatly benefit. It's win-win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I had recently started building a payment network business in India and the bandwidth situation is constantly at the top of our minds.

What makes the situation in India peculiar is not just the lack of 3G, but the variance within the band. It is not unusual to see "3G" connection with 15Kbs speeds.

A recent study, which I am unable to dig into at this moment, showed that the aggregate bandwidth of a 3G connection in India is only marginally (~18%) faster than a 2G connection.

The second challenge we encounter is "fake" connectivity - even though the phone shows 3G or 2G, it is not a guarantee that there exists a data network at all.

And yet another study found that more than half of the country did not get what upgrading to 3G meant. If and when the phone companies successfully win the mind share of this half and encourage them to switch over to 3G, the situation will deteriorate even further because of the load on the band.

A dated but an effective coverage of the situation - [http://www.economist.com/node/10214756](http://www.economist.com/node/10214756)

Creating adaptive (and even offline apps, especially regulated financial industry apps) is super-challenging from a product point.

I will be glad to answer any other questions, related to this topic.

P.S - I have spent ~15 years in NYC and a few years in London and can empathize with the comments in this thread. But building mobile apps for India, takes a different thinking IMHO. We need to wear the hat of a microkernel / embedded systems developer from 8085 era.

Shameless Plug - we are hiring programmers / mathematicians to solve problems like this. If interested, please email me. ID in my profile.

<comment><USER45> There is also a problem of cellular companies with fake "unlimited" plans. Basically, they offer 3G speeds only till a certain limit after which they throttle it down so much that it is barely usable, like Idea Cellular[1].

I have stopped having any mobile data on my phone and mostly prefer WiFi, since I hate paying for such a limited internet.

[1]: [http://www.ideacellular.com/idea/select- circle?PlanType=3Gne...](http://www.ideacellular.com/idea/select- circle?PlanType=3Gnetpre)

<comment><USER46> To be fair that's a pretty common tactic even here in the US. T-Mobile's cheaper "unlimited data" plans are 5GB of 3G/4G with aggressive traffic shaping afterwards that basically dings you down to 2G-ish speeds unless you're browsing at 3AM or something. Do these companies just not disclose that though?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is why I am perfectly happy with our team's local Vagrant development boxes being quite sluggish - the visible lag has surfaced a few timing and UX bugs already. It's important to feel the customer pain as your own.

</comment><comment><USER48> Every company should have such a day in my opinion. It makes you think hard about every KB you're cramming in your requests.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm surprised Facebook UK engineering isn't driving this. Reception is terrible country wide here

<comment><USER50> Ha, I'm glad I'm not the only one. Just posted a reply to another comment here about my visit to the UK last fall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Even with faster speed available I used 2G for a year because I got it basically for free. Only recently with change to my job I upgraded to 3G to get better audio streaming while on move. Spotify worked fine when I was stationary, but couldn't keep up with me on the highway.

</comment><comment><USER52> Wonderful! - but it seems a tad late. :) Even the poorest parts of India should be about to move to 3G (or even 4G) within the next few years due to the more efficient usage of spectrum. Of course it would be insanely overloaded with lots of delayed packets...

<comment><USER53> So, what I'm hearing from you is it is not too late.

<comment><USER52> It's really, really late (8-10 years) but not too late?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I never bothered on having a machine upgarde at work when offered for a similar reason. If stuff is running slow, then it will be noticable on my mahcine rather than on the more powerful production server. That and reinstalling everthing is a pain.

</comment><comment><USER55> I think that Chrome has a network throttling simulator in their Dev Tools that could help and give interested people a rough idea of what to expect from the page performance under severe network conditions.

</comment><comment><USER56> I use edge for email, no web browsing or apps. waaay too slow these days, too much data to transfer even with images off (it used to work ok when 2G was a first world thing)

<comment><USER7> EDGE is semi-usable with Opera Mini.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Also known as:

* Tether Your Phone Tuesdays

* Work from Home Tuesdays

* Fucking Stupid Idea Tuesdays

"I know, let's get a bunch of really smart people, and totally fuck over their productivity 20% of the time." Genius!

</comment><comment><USER58> What is Facebook? Looks like some website a ten year old boy coded.

<comment><USER59> I see you are downvoted, but I had a laugh. It looks familiar. ([https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/736x/01/f9/75/01f975659...](https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/736x/01/f9/75/01f975659e2ec1560876d9ca030e8738.jpg))

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Can they do "Underground Thursdays"? Nearly every app degrades to unusable the second I get on the subway.

</comment><comment><USER61> In unrelated news, Facebook employees have begun to organize "Work from home Tuesdays".

<comment><USER62> They're smart about it:

> When a Facebook employee logs into the app any Tuesday morning, they'll see > a prompt at the top of their News Feed asking whether they want to try out > the slower connection for an hour.

<comment><USER63> and then they use that info when evaluating an employee's eagerness to move forward, be a team player etc. !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Of course, react minified is something like 137mb... and that's not including any other libraries like flux.

<comment><USER65> i assume you meant kb ...

<comment><USER66> or hyperbole ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Is everyone at FB so young that they don't remember 2G in America?

<comment><USER68> Depending on the source, the average age of their employees is between 25-28 years old. That's young enough to realistically expect that they've never owned a smartphone without 3G.

<comment><USER14> I don't think age matters that much. Smartphones didn't really take off until 3G was pretty common. I'd wager the vast majority of smartphone users of any age in the US got a 3G-capable phone as their first smartphone. Speaking personally, I'm 35 and my first smartphone was an iPhone 3GS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I like how one of the employees in the foto is wearing a react t-shirt :)

</comment><comment><USER70> I'd be shocked if I learned they didn't steal this idea from Google.

<edit> Not sure why downvoted. Google has had hobbled networks like this for a long time, for exactly the same reason.

<comment><USER71> Probably being downvoted for using the word "steal". It has a negative connotation where there should not be one.

<comment><USER70> I didn't mean it negatively. It's a brilliant idea and worth copying.</comment></comment></comment>


Why can't black Americans be like Asians? - <AUTHOR> https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/12/05/margaret-mead-hate-racism-law-enforcement/ <comment><USER2> I skimmed the article and it looks pretty tame. The title of this post, however, looks like pure, evil clickbait.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, it's a question that I've heard stated on HN many times. The article addresses the question. Hence the relevance of the post and the title I gave it.

<comment><USER3> This title is ludicrous clickbait and it violates the guidelines. Could you please give them a re-read?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> ok.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


RSS FTW - <AUTHOR> http://www.elezea.com/2012/08/rss-ftw/

<comment><USER2> One way around the "don't know who the subscribers are" problem would be to add a link to every post that gives the readers the opportunity to join your community.</comment>


Warning: OBJECT and EMBED are inherently unsafe - <AUTHOR> http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2011/03/warning-object-and-embed-are-inherently.html <comment><AUTHOR> strangely, two of the flash applets on the test cases page start automatically, despite having flashblock installed on firefox.</comment>


Questioning the Usefulness and Future of Citizen - <AUTHOR> https://diane.substack.com/p/questioning-the-usefulness-and-future <comment><AUTHOR> Does the unofficial social network for protests advance transparency, rubbernecking or divisiveness?</comment>


Chris Cox, Zuckerberg lieutenant, to return to Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/zuckerberg-lieutenant-returns-to-facebook-a-year-after-departure-11591899761 <comment><USER2> The discussion when he left was that Chris did not agree with Facebook's stance on the role / responsibility they have as a platform. I wonder if this is a sign of further policy changes they'll make.

HN Discussion from when he left: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19393018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19393018)

<comment><USER3> _" Look, I'm all about loyalty. In fact, I feel like part of what I'm being paid for here is my loyalty. But if there were somewhere else that valued loyalty more highly, I'm going wherever they value loyalty the most."_</comment></comment>


Ways to Stop the Next Pandemic and Limit Covid-19, Dr Cassidy Nelson - <AUTHOR> https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/cassidy-nelson-12-ways-to-stop-pandemics/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here is the correct URL: [https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/cassidy- nelson-12-wa...](https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/cassidy- nelson-12-ways-to-stop-pandemics/)

 _" At the moment, the most common types of testing are PCR testing, which is polymerase chain reaction, and it allows you to detect a pathogen that has a certain section of its genetic code match this test that's very limited in terms of anything new that comes out. You always have to know about the pathogen beforehand, have to have designed and validated a test against that.

In the last few years though, some new technologies that have come out that are based on metagenomic techniques, which are pathogen agnostic diagnostics. So you don't need to know anything about the pathogen beforehand. You can put a clinical sample on and it will tell you all of the DNA that is in that sample. And so you'd be able to do things like bioinformatics testing on this and be able to actually work out, "Oh, it matches against my RSV or CMV or other known viruses, or this is completely new and it doesn't match anything in my bioinformatics data set…

It sequences everything. So you'd imagine like 98% of it is just human DNA, but bioinformatically you just push that out and you usually don't care about the human DNA, and then everything that's left over you're able to analyze…

This would mean that not only would you be able to have a reliable diagnostic from the get-go before an outbreak begins and then for those first few cases, you might actually be able to instead… on average globally, we have about a 20 day lag in between first outbreak cases and detection of an outbreak for new emerging diseases. That's way too long. If you could detect those first handful of cases of a new disease, you're much, much more likely to be able to contain it...

Robert Wiblin: Is this affordable?

Cassidy Nelson: So this has started being used in places like in 2014 in West Africa when there was some diagnostic conundrums going on in the Ebola epidemic going on there. Metagenomic sequencing, especially based on nanopore technology, which is a fascinating way to do this is quite expensive in terms of the reagents that are being used, but the costs of that are coming down and the accuracy of it is going up. I personally think though that these platform agnostic ways of looking at pathogens is really the only way forward if to be on top of diagnostics. There's really always going to be a one step behind type picture if we have to wait to characterize a new pathogen and then design a new test for it based on PCR type methods today.

Robert Wiblin: So the idea is we would just make this the normal way of diagnosing people with contagious diseases. So people come into hospital, they've got symptoms and you'd do the sample and you try to sequence everything. You see all the viruses that are going through there. And then you can see whether any of them are weird and whether there's a pattern of some new disease showing up, hopefully really quickly.

Cassidy Nelson: Yeah, and there's been great studies that have come out looking at like fever in return travelers, for example: 60% of them never get a diagnosis, but there's something causing their fever. People have gone on using metagenomic techniques and have gone, "What is the pathogen here? What do we actually have", as well as other diagnostic conundrums. So people have been starting to do this. It hasn't been adopted on a wide scale yet, but I'd love to see this adopted and you'd be able to have this in all healthcare settings. So you could have this in your emergency department. You may first limit it to just severe cases. So if you have a severe case of pneumonia or another disease, you don't have any etiology that you've been able to find, you're able to do these types of tests.

Cassidy Nelson: This would mean that not only would you be able to have a reliable diagnostic from the get-go before an outbreak begins and then for those first few cases, you might actually be able to instead… on average globally, we have about a 20 day lag in between first outbreak cases and detection of an outbreak for new emerging diseases. That's way too long. If you could detect those first handful of cases of a new disease, you're much, much more likely to be able to contain it."_

</comment><comment><USER2> Link is broken.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/cassidy- nelson-12-wa...](https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/cassidy- nelson-12-ways-to-stop-pandemics/)</comment></comment>


U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-regulator-bans-theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-from-operating-labs-for-two-years-1467956064?tesla=y <comment><USER2> I hope that Holmes' bizarre behavior as the issues went public keep her from ever running anything even remotely close to things that matter for people's lives and well being.

Even as the questions were building and the noose was tightening, she would announce a public talk to reveal and openly share information on the company's tech, then mysteriously cancel a short while later -- she did this over and over.

I'm still not convinced that Theranos was meant to be a scam, or at least not a scam in the way most people are thinking about it. But it has definitely produced a similar output, and that makes it functionally equivalent.

I hope, _really_ hope, that someday the true story about all the WTF-ness around Holmes and Theranos comes out.

I've been on the inside of a company like this once and I ran away as soon as I realized the place was up to no good. What still bothers me about my personal experience is that I, even as a person on the inside, still don't know the truth about _that_ company due to all the same weird kind of cult of secrecy things we've seen at Theranos. The truth in these kinds of things, I suspect, lives only inside the heads of the people who run these kinds of organizations and it may not ever be possible to get at what the truth actually is depending on how far down the delusion hole they've fallen.

Real kudos to the press who broke and made very public the stories. This was the media at its finest. Those journalists may have helped save many lives.

<comment><USER3> Not sure if scam is the right word. Everyone is capable of deluding themselves into believing their current, morally questionable actions will be seen as justified in the future (when everything works, out of course). I'm sure even Bernie Madoff believed at some point he would win it all back and no one would ever know or be harmed.

<comment><USER4> I don't agree with your characterization of Bernie Madoff. He _knew_ he was running a scam. He was clearly lying in his marketing materials, saying his fund performed certain trades that they never did. (See Harry Markopolos' book, "No One Would Listen"; that's how Markopolos figured out it was a scam.) I think Madoff is, at the least, a borderline sociopath. (If not an outright one.) A sociopath may think they can get away with it, and no one will know, but they probably don't think no one will be harmed - a sociopath does not care about harming others.

I think it's possible Holmes fits your description - she was in over her head, never set out to scam anyone, and slid down a very bad path without ever intending to. I don't _know_ this is the case, but I believe it's possible. That, however, is not Madoff.

<comment><USER5> I never paid much attention to the details of the Madoff case but I think people on the internet throw out the "sociopath" label way too freely.

Not much is gained from that label, in my opinion. And I certainly wouldn't apply it to Bernie Madoff or Holmes based on what I know of their situations.

<comment><USER6> > but I think people on the internet throw out the "sociopath" label way too > freely.

Not an argument.

> And I certainly wouldn't apply it to Bernie Madoff or Holmes based on what I > know of their situations.

Not an argument.

If you're going to disagree with someone, generally, some logic as to why is useful, not just "I don't agree". Madoff certainly deserves that label, he ruined lives by running the biggest investment scam in history: he clearly didn't in any way care about what happened to those other people, completely lacking in empathy, they were used and discarded.

<comment><USER7> What definition of "sociopath" are you using here? How do you third-hand diagnose a man as completely lacking in empathy? Can we somehow use this skill for good instead of boring internet commentary?

<comment><USER6> I'm not third hand diagnosing anyone, I'm not diagnosing anyone, and I'm not the one who even brought up the term sociopath as I'm not the OP; I simply said he deserves the label given what he's done. So if you're bored, feel free to go somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've talked to over 100 hematologists.

This business, didn't pass a basic litmus test of objective criticism from people who work in the space.

There seems to be this bravado among founders who believe they're sticking it to all the people who say something's amiss. I think if there's an elephant in the room though, it probably should be assassinated with a huge body of transparent evidence.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, that is how innovation occurs. There are many examples of "ridiculous" ideas that ended being wildly successful. Where would Elon Musk be if he listened to all of the incumbents who said that his ideas would never work? Obviously, the putative innovators massively failed in this case, but I don't think that the outcome proves that their original idea was fatally flawed, or at least that it wasn't worth attempting.

<comment><USER10> > the incumbents who said that his ideas would never work

which ideas? Is there really that much innovative stuff by elon musk?

My impression is, that it was always more about economic feasibility than technical feasibility. Competitors to Tesla and SpaceX existed before those were founded but they lacked the investment.

<comment><USER11> I would say at the very least, the construction of the Model S and the supercharger network are hugely innovative.

<comment><USER12> But Tesla cars are just that - cars. Nor were they even the first electric cars.

Don't get me wrong, they're fantastic and innovative, but the basic technological underpinnings have been long established.

<comment><USER13> I'd say Tesla's main innovation was on the business end: they realized that batteries are expensive, so EVs must be expensive, and trying to cut corners everywhere else to bring the price down just results in a crappy car people don't want to buy. Instead, make it a great car that's really expensive, but so good that it justifies the high price. Any incumbent could have done this, they just... didn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hear that? That's the sound of $9B in valuation disappearing :| There is really a thin line between delusion and brilliance.

<comment><USER15> I'm beginning to wonder if at any point they will pack their bags, return what's left to investors and close up shop...or maybe they'll just keep going until it's completely dead? Hell maybe they pivot to be a traditional lab with traditional equipment?

<comment><USER16> As a general rule that will serve everyone well on hacker news throughout their lives:

Don't ever expect someone who has gotten their hands on your money to voluntarily close up shop and give it back :p

They'll take it to the casino and bet it all on black, or siphon it off somewhere else before that ever happens...because all your money gone and them giving it back to you is the same thing to the person who no longer has it.

<comment><USER17> > Don't ever expect someone who has gotten their hands on your money to > voluntarily close up shop and give it back :p

Maybe you shouldn't expect it, but I have seen a start-up or two that failed and that did exactly that.

And start-ups that fail have a whole pile of clauses triggered in the various shareholder agreements that count towards a 'liquidation event'. That's what liq-prefs are for and the immediate consequence usually is that the latest investors stand the best chance of getting some or all of their money back.

<comment><USER16> Yep. There's always some events that restore faith in humanity and make you go "wow, I'll remember that/them, full respect/kudos".

But just don't expect it...

<comment><USER17> I think it seriously increases your chances of getting funded with a new project later on.

On the other hand, if you're scamming consumers of course it is only a very small step to scam investors (and easier to get away with).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sometimes company leaders have severe problems with ethics. As mentioned in other comments, even YC has had companies that have bundled adware/malware with software, practiced dark patterns, hidden news of security breaches, etc.

I tend to see YC as being more "evolved" than other VC's, but I also think that these problems are more ingrained into the human condition.

YC could consider making funding contingent on all high level company officers attend or participate in some kind of ethics course. It could even be remote.

There could also be penalties built into VC agreements. If a company violates contracted ethical rules, then penalties could include replacement of staff, more shares being given to the VC, low share buyback prices for the VC, etc.

It could also be a two-way street. If YC violates some kind of ethical rule, then they could be punished by having to do something for the companies they represent.

Ethics are important but so far they have just been "best practices" in our industry and not something contracted and enforced.

<comment><USER19> Hacking sometimes puts you in a grey area :)

Airbnb: The Growth Story You Didn't Know [https://growthhackers.com/growth- studies/airbnb](https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/airbnb)

Airbnb Cofounder Was One Of The Worst Spammers In The World, Says His Freshman Roommate

[http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-co-founders- freshman-r...](http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-co-founders-freshman- roommate-says-hes-a-spammy-scumbag-2011-10)

<comment><USER20> What's interesting about the spammer link is that the YC narrative and everyone thinks about Obama O's and Brian Chesky's hustle making this business. Whereas its clear that mass emailing in the spirit of all publicity is good publicity is what created huge awareness amongst potential customers.

<comment><USER21> Yeah I don't really mind the spam so much, but I really hate when people pollute others' senses of reality with misinformation. If the AirBnB story is all about cereal and photographers walking around NYC, then you teach others to have a less accurate view of reality and you destroy their ability to make good decisions. They will start companies with an unearned sense of optimism, etc.

Go ahead and spam if you're a spammer, but be honest about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have no sympathy for her. It's incredibly irresponsible to do what she did- play marketing games with medical technology. Theranos' unethical behaviour has made it much more difficult for future innovation in the medical field, and has potentially cost lives. This sanction is appropriate.

My fiancee works as a laboratory scientist in a hospital conducting patient sample testing, and her and her co-workers take their work incredibly seriously- checking, and re-checking their work, with complex protocols to guarantee the accuracy of their testing. It's disappointing to see that same attitude lacking in Theranos.

<comment><USER23> Trying to imagine myself willfully misleading her investors and the public for as long as she did, and at that scale extends beyond my capacity for empathy. I suspect she's genuinely delusional. I don't know how else someone could do something like that.

<comment><USER24> I honestly think most entrepreneurs are capable of it. The hype level of Theranos is present at MOST start-ups.

I.E.

A Large software company that allowed user data to be stolen because of known security issues. Software company does not inform the public of the breach until forced to.

A large medical company that allowed a very large failure rate of testing devices from known issues. Medical company does not inform the public of the breach until forced to.

<comment><USER25> What scares me most is that the failure are always seen as morally acceptable loss to the founders : "it's that or we have to fire half the company", "it's that or we can't pay salaries", "it's that or closing the company", "it's that or we're in even bigger legal troubles". It basically boils down to "I know I'm doing something wrong but I have no choice". I've personally met one these people. Very smart guy, but unable to say "I'm doing something wrong, so it's better to stop now".

Ethics should be hammered in some people's head...

<comment><USER26> "I know it's wrong but those are my orders..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Ouch. Sanctions mean "shutting down and subsequently rebuilding the Newark lab from the ground up, rebuilding quality systems, adding highly experienced leadership, personnel and experts, and implementing enhanced quality and training procedures". There is a chance to appeal, but "such appeals have rarely succeeded in the past". Couple that with an "unspecified monetary penalty" and this looks like a very big nail in the Theranos coffin.

Side note: Anyone else have trouble viewing the WSJ article? I had to read the full text through a private news outlet, even though I tried signing in to WSJ with Facebook :/

Edit: Added a sentence of detail to the last paragraph, for those who still can't see the article.

<comment><USER28> Whenever you can't view a WSJ article due to paywall, copy/paste the article headline into google search then click the article out of the google results. Paywall will vanish.

If you're talking about a different problem, sorry, no idea.

<comment><USER29> I just use this chrome extension which does it automatically:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bypass/ekfnpmbmfml...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bypass/ekfnpmbmfmlnbphalelfmiodjmbbjlmp?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> And she went to Stanford? What a joke. Seriously, I am tired and sick of government and regulators not sending people to trials at all. I was watching Elizabeth Warren's hearing in the Senate on finance issues, and she brings up a good point. Wall Street banks have not been punished hard enough. In case of evident and deliberated fraud and cover up, no one was sent to trial. This is stupid.

FYI, I am not the kind of guy goes around and preach about reform. But this shit is stupid as hell. I think major offense like these should be sent to trial or even requires congressional hearing and congressional punishment.

</comment><comment><USER31> The WSJ article and the Theranos press release [1] don't agree. There's no mention of the 2-year ban in the press release. The press release indicates it's business as usual for Theranos at their Arizona lab. Supposedly only their Newark (CA) lab is being shut down.

[1] [http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160707006570/en/Ther...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160707006570/en/Theranos- Receives-Notice-Sanctions-Centers-Medicare-Medicaid)

<comment><USER27> First bullet point in the list of sanctions in the Theranos press release you linked:

"Revocation of the laboratory's CLIA certificate which, as dictated by the regulations, includes a prohibition on owners and operators of the lab from owning, operating or directing a lab _for at least two years from the date of revocation_ " (emphasis mine)

<comment><USER32> Wouldn't Theranos be the owner and operator of the lab?

<comment><USER33> Can't they work around this by renting the lab?

<comment><USER34> Your comment is a bit unclear, but the answer is the same.

If they rent the lab out to someone else, they're still the owner.

If they rent the lab from some third party owner, they're the operator.

Either way they're violating the terms of the ban.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I wonder how long she will be able to hold the CEO position?

<comment><USER22> On the one hand, hopefully not long, as she can't provide any effective leadership with this in place.

However, my understanding is that Theranos has an unusual corporate structure that gives Holmes control of most of the votes, so if she doesn't want to leave, I don't know if anyone can force her.

<comment><USER35> Seems like an odd arrangement for investors to agree to, one I am sure they are currently regretting...

<comment><USER36> Ms Holmes is a close personal family friend of Venture Capitalist Tim Draper, who continues to support her and say that everybody else in the world is a big meanie who is out to get her. He hasn't repented and I don't expect him to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The difference between a startup like Theranos/uBeam and a product based "soft"ware company is that in one case you can make outrageous claims and then use sheer determination, will power and lots of money to make it happen retroactively but you cannot change the fundamental laws of nature.

</comment><comment><USER38> little more text than wsj (unsubscribed): [http://medcitynews.com/2016/07/cms- fines-theranos/](http://medcitynews.com/2016/07/cms-fines-theranos/)

</comment><comment><USER39> The trajectory of this company is just terrible. They surmounted the most difficult obstacle in healthcare - breaking into existing strongholds (e.g. Walgreens). At that point if there was any doubt that their technology worked they should've used existing tools to run their lab tests. Yes they would've lost money, but they could have used the time to build out their rapid technology or pivoted to a different business model. Getting a contract with Walgreens or any major vendor in the healthcare space is an incredible accomplishment, but such unethical behaviour will make it even harder for future startups to secure such partnerships.

<comment><USER36> They _did_ switch to using existing tools to run their lab tests. That's _exactly_ what they did. That's why they started doing venous draws instead of just nanoliter draws from pinpricks. This was documented repeatedly in the media.

They also invalidated all their Edison (their specific nano device) results for two years, and it turns out they weren't even running other people's devices correctly and had to invalidate results for that too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The article mentions that the company's current governance structure may prevent the board from terminating Holmes. Does that mean she is the majority shareholder?

<comment><USER41> She is a majority shareholder, but also her shares are of a class that gives her 100 votes/share.

<comment><USER42> She really did a great job with that negotiation, if only her company had actually had any value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is a great example of needing to do more due diligence. Walgreens and all of the investors were swept up by the whole "disruption" rhetoric. They should have spent more time understanding how Holmes and her team were going to handle compliance. It's clear none of that was done. This is what happens when disruption pushes back.

</comment><comment><USER44> If they're going to ban her from operating labs for two years, does that mean they think she'll be, in some way, rehabilitated and capable of soundly running labs after that?

Maybe there is little precedent, but that length of time seems a bit arbitrary (and too short?).

<comment><USER24> _Revocation of the laboratory's CLIA certificate which, as dictated by the regulations, includes a prohibition on owners and operators of the lab from owning, operating or directing a lab for at least two years from the date of revocation_

I think it's a case where the company had a certificate revoked as part of that process is a direct ban on the person in charge of said lab, which bubbled up to Holmes. I would've supported a direct levy on her but this just seems to be aimed at the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The article says it isn't clear what the monetary penalty would be.. but the letter CMS sent to theranos in March (re the newark lab) proposes a 10000$/day penalty for noncompliance that would continue until the lab is brought into compliance.

[http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/cms20160412...](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/cms20160412.pdf)

<comment><USER46> That's only 3.65M (or 2.4M if they only count business days) per year. Having no idea of the US system here, could they just continue in noncompliance mode?

It wouldn't be the first time a valley business powers on and pays for noncompliance. I understand that Uber pays the fines it's drivers receive where it's service is illegal...

<comment><USER17> That fine could be increased if they continue to not be compliant, it could also be supplemented with different charges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm usually a huge fan of pg, but in his essay about founders, there was one section which I wasn't very comfortable with: [http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html)

Specifically, when he talks about naughtiness, he says:

Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter.

I have absolutely no interest in trying to play language games - and maybe I'm misunderstanding what pg is saying, but it has always seemed to me that the judgement of whether the rule that was broken was consequential or not is post-hoc. For example: had airbnb gotten in serious trouble and floundered in the aftermath of when they started scraping craigslist for listings, they wouldn't be clever and naughty, but reckless and foolish. Had zenefits managed to grow even more or hire some key lobbyists and get the law changed in time, their CEO would be hailed as a visionary genius that cut through pointless red tape.

Anyway: the reason I brought that up is that a lot of the ethically dubious things that Elizabeth Homes did are very similar to things which a lot of tech companies did at one time or another. Trying to push ambitious young men and women to look at rules and regulations as something they should take pride in hacking and bypassing is a dangerous game - even more so in fields that are highly regulated.

Addendum: part of the original hacker ethic was to ignore stupid rules. For example, we take delight in Feynmann cracking safes at Los Alamos, or finding some clever hack to bypass a pointless procedure. However: I think it's one thing to hack a system to make a point about how stupid it is, but it's completely different if you add a monetary incentive, and suddenly the rules that get broken are those that stand in the way of you making money. The two sets have a fairly small overlap.

Addendum two: in a complex society like the one we live in, we have a lot of dumb rules. I'm not trying to defend them - we should obviously get rid of them, even in healthcare. A lot of economists have written intelligently about how to make the approval process of the FDA more agile.

<comment><USER48> Evidence A: How Paul defended shady AirBnB tactics here on hackernews.

<comment><USER49> Evidence B: His defence of the Y Combinator-funded startup that was paying companies to bundle unwanted software into their installers and tricking users into installing it.

<comment><USER50> I just did a quick google search, are you referring to InstallMonetizer?

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130115/17343321692/why-a...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130115/17343321692/why- are-y-combinator-andreessen-horowitz-backing-drive-by-toolbaradware- installer.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Folie à plusieurs

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux)

</comment><comment><USER52> Still waiting for the perp walk...

</comment><comment><USER53> hopefully forever!

</comment><comment><USER54> I've personally heard Tim Draper blaming regulation for her downfall. So in the eyes of SV giants, it's us and the government who are delusional, and we should let her do her thing.

</comment><comment><USER55> Schadenfreude is probably merited in this case, but I for one think one needs to consider that this could quickly spiral down and end up in Holmes taking drastic action that we will all regret. Hope my meaning comes through here.

<comment><USER56> Not really...

<comment><USER57> They're concerned Holmes will commit suicide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I cant read this article. Can someone provide some backstory? What is Theranos? Why was it shut down?

<comment><USER45> click web > go to article from google

<comment><USER58> I have read the article (there was no 'web' button but some other comment posted a working link). Still have no idea what Theranos is or what they have done.

Apparently they worked fro Walgreen or something?

<comment><USER45> i think wikipedia has you covered: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos)

<comment><USER58> Thanks, everyone else just downvoted. Thanks for taking the time to link.

Has there been any clue as to why this ban has come about? That seems rather harsh for a "simple" (I'm using that very loosely) mistake. Is there evidence of faking data or other nefarious deeds on the side of the company?

<comment><USER59> People downvoted because going to Wikipedia is something you could have very easily done yourself. This is like if I commented "what's China?" on a post about the Chinese economy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>