A Cheap Spying Tool With a High Creepy Factor - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/08/02/a-cheap-spying-tool-with-a-high-creepy-factor/?from=global.home <comment><USER2> This reminds me of the comment from the NSA a while ago in which it said that Snowden's documents have already changed many people's behaviour. I'm on a reliable 4G network in London and (mostly) only go to places I'm familiar with. The result being that location service, WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC are permanently turned off. My girlfriend has had location services turned off since she first got an iPhone 3GS. And she won't let me use my Kinect when she's home.

Justified or not, these things are coming up in conversation at work and with friends a lot lately, which I find encouraging.

<comment><USER3> When the Snowden documents were released, I got into a heated debate with a friend, who argued that he has nothing to hide.

He said he couldn't believe anyone was naïve enough to think the government wasn't monitoring everything already, and that we elected them, so we should trust them. He said that privacy concerns sound pretty trivial compared to preventing incidents like the Boston Marathon bombings or apprehending the suspects, and that he'll gladly cooperate to help stop the bad guys.

We pretty much ruined lunch for everyone with our arguing, but he has since spent more time looking into the nuances of the topic and has said he has changed his mind. The thought of not being able to trust the government is really depressing to him.

<comment><USER4> _When the Snowden documents were released, I got into a heated debate with a friend, who argued that he has nothing to hide._

I heard Bruce Schneider being interviewed, and he said that people frequently challenge him by saying they have nothing to hide. His two-second retort, especially on call-in shows, is simple: "What's your salary?"

No one wants to answer in public.

<comment><USER5> I can list sooo many things people would want to hide:

\- Salary

\- Medical history

\- Home address

\- Phone number

\- DOB

\- SS number

\- Bank account numbers

\- Passwords

\- Photos of yourself

\- Photos of your children

\- Job search history (when you are already employed)

\- What time you'll be out of the house

\- Porn search history

<comment><USER6> It's because you can't give that information out without also granting write access to a person's life.

If there were a way I could give you my SSN/bank information/etc without also granting you the ability to impersonate me, I'd gladly do it.

<comment><USER5> Yep, but that's only true for some of those things. Others, like salary and photos of your kids, have other reasons for staying hidden (impact on social situations and safety).

<comment><USER6> Eh, if I didn't think my company would be upset with me telling you what I make, I'd let you know. It's not a big deal to me. You could probably figure it out based on where I live and what I do with my free time anyway.

As for pictures of my kids, I don't have any. But it's a pretty terrible argument because it perpetuates the false idea that you must want to hide something for privacy to be necessary.

I'd bet large sums of money Bruce Schneier has never used this line of defense against the "nothing to hide" argument.

<comment><USER7> If you work somewhere that's anything like places I've ever worked, then I think knowing your salary might have a bigger impact on some of your colleagues than you might think, eventually causing some blowback to come your way. Just my observation from past experience.

<comment><USER6> Yeah I know, but that's not my burden, that's theirs.

<comment><USER6> I'd also like to point out that I promised not to give that information away, and regardless of the privacy implications, I can't in good consciousness break my own word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Something we aren't noticing is, if he can build one that small with off the shelf parts, the NSA could and probably does have devices like these as small as quarters or perhaps embedded in dummy iPhone charging cubes. I would bet the Feds can build out miniature versions for a few hundred bucks a piece. Which in defense dollars means they are disposable.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article also mentions that Weev exploited a security hole in AT&T's servers; a complete misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation of the truth.

<comment><USER10> What is the truth?

<comment><USER11> If I'm not mistaken, a bunch of GET requests against a public API, unfortunately setup to not require authorization credentials and yet still exposing nominally 'private' data.

Nuance is a hell of a thing.

<comment><USER12> 114,000 '200 OK' responses = 41 months in prison.

<comment><USER13> 16 minutes in prison per request.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a collection of media buzz words strung together to create an article, it's about as insightful as claiming that network analysers can spy on network data.

I wonder why he only used one pi per channel though, I think they have the horsepower to sniff perhaps three.

<comment><USER15> The USB power is very very low with them. Even one is pushing it reall, any more would need a bulky powered hub.

<comment><USER16> Since the Pi takes 5V just like any USB device, he could re-use the same power adapter and just get a splitter USB cable; he didn't need a full blown powered USB with its own power adapter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can anyone give a technical account of how this is achieved?

The article makes it sound as though it relies on unsecured wifi data, but also states that "Even when he didn't connect to a Wi-Fi network, his sensors could track his location through Wi-Fi "pings."" It also talks about iMessage, and dropbox, and other application layer data.

I couldn't make sense of it.

<comment><USER18> iPhones are very "chatty" when not connected to a WiFi access point. They repeatedly try to find access points they have connected to before - broadcasting both their MAC address and the SSID of prior access points.

Android phones are completely silent even with the WiFi on when not connected to an access point.

<comment><USER19> I don't think they'll be silent any more unless you turn off 4.3's "Allow scanning by services" option.

<comment><USER20> They'll still be silent: "Allow scanning by services" is listen-only with no transmission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Its awesome that Pi's are finding their way into stuff like this but its still a tiny bit of round hole, square peg.

You could do it for 1/2 the price with a TP-Link TL-WR703N and OpenWRT. Lots of these types of projects are already install-and-go ready for OpenWRT.

<comment><USER22> Indeed, like the somewhat well-known "WiFi Pineapple":

[http://hackaday.com/2013/04/29/wifi-pineapple-project- uses-u...](http://hackaday.com/2013/04/29/wifi-pineapple-project-uses-updated- hardware-for-man-in-the-middle-attacks/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Screw unsecured wifi - most peoples wifi is encrypted, these days (at least around here).

I wonder how secure 3g connections are? Because it would seem to one could get a lot more information out of those.

Edit: speling

<comment><USER24> While I didn't attend this talk, someone mentioned that there was a talk at Defcon where 3g networks were being sniffed.

[https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-21/dc-21-speakers.html](https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-21/dc-21-speakers.html) Do-It-Yourself Cellular IDS "For less than $500, you can build your own cellular intrusion detection system to detect malicious activity through your own local femtocell. Our team will show how we leveraged root access on a femtocell, reverse engineered the activation process, and turned it into a proof-of-concept cellular network intrusion monitoring system.

We leveraged commercial Home Node-Bs (""femtocells"") to create a 3G cellular network sniffer without needing to reimplement the UMTS or CDMA2000 protocol stacks. Inside a Faraday cage, we connected smartphones to modified femtocells running Linux distributions and redirected traffic to a Snort instance. Then we captured traffic from infected phones and showed how Snort was able to detect and alert upon malicious traffic. We also wrote our own CDMA protocol dissector in order to better analyze CDMA traffic."

</comment></comment><comment> cupcake-unicorn I think the author of this article doesn't really understand the technology behind packet sniffing, open wifi, what packets iPhones are sending, etc.

The article makes it sound like somehow this "device" (really just a computer - a Raspberry Pi) is somehow some special technology that people should watch out for. When I can do all of these things on any laptop on an open network. And in fact, that's going to be less attention grabbing in a cafe than some mysterious black box under a table.

It's a shame that the take away message wasn't that _any_ open network is a security risk, not just when someone happens to have one of these "gadgets", but anyone on the network with a laptop can do the same thing.

<comment><USER25> The point is not "your phone/tablet network traffic can be overheard", the point is "it can be overheard and uniquely identified, therefore anyone putting cheap access points around your area can track which ones you go near, and when".

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Unencrypted data sent through public wi-fi can be snooped on, that's as new as sliced bread.

<comment><USER27> Don't despair, something great could come out of this article. A representative could read it, freak out and propose a bill that would ban raspberry-pi and regulate the hell out of the booming open hardware industry.

<comment><USER28> you think the competitors of the Pi in the US are not doing this all ready.

There is a lot of NIH in the comments about the pi on HN and ./

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> See also: snoopy.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsn7_4qUdwk&feature=youtu.be](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsn7_4qUdwk&feature=youtu.be)

</comment><comment><USER30> How would these boxes pick up 3g/4g traffic? Also, to pick up WiFi wouldn't the communications have to be unencrypted?

<comment><USER31> He said "public wifi". That gave me a bit of a jolt too at first.

I wonder if there are any known instances of someone monitoring and collecting a high value target's encrypted home wifi (say a CEO before earnings, or someone at the department of labor) with the goal of cracking it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Definitely not even necessary to buy all that equipment. My friend and I do this with Wireshark on his laptop all the time.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, wireshark can definitely sniff the network, but he was trying to point out that for $57 you can make ten of these and plug it in to empty outlets around the city, hotels, cafes, etc. and it would record data and send it back to a server....

Now imagine the government placed these nodes everywhere... they would basically have a fixed GPS on you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why do sites like this go out of their way to disable pinchzoom? Why remove useful functionality?

</comment><comment><USER34> When they mention a wifi unique identifier do they mean a MAC address?</comment>


The curious history of the clothespeg - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-economist/the-curious-history-of-the-clothespeg-3f8615519c61#.g1b6jmmhv <comment><USER2> This article was originally on the front page 19 hours ago, with 2 comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13273626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13273626)

You submitted it again 9 hours ago with a random #.g1b6jmmhv anchor: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276168)

And then 4 hours ago with the #.g1b6jmmhv anchor.

I don't think we need to resubmit this again. The duplicate URL detection mechanisms, however, may need to be revisited.</comment>


Ingress - <AUTHOR> https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/12/08/Ingress <comment><USER2> +1 on the community aspects. There's a Resistance cell in South Bay (of San Francisco Bay Area) that's pretty highly organized and set us up meetups to go item and experience farming, posts "target" lists (high-value portals to be taken down) and the like. There are meetups for all kinds of things of course ---Hacker News, Less Wrong, Reddit, whatnot, so this is just one more, but it's nice getting together with a bunch of strangers that you end up getting along with.

The game enforces this subtly; higher level players (I'm level 7) need high level items, but the way to get those is from (equally) high level portals. Players can't make a high level portal on their own---a Level 7 player can make a level 5 portal on her own, two can make a level 6 portal, and 8 are required to make a level 7 portal. Since a high level portal hands out excellent items, it's a target, and it makes sense to build it, exploit it immediately, and not try to hope that it stays up long. Community building!

<comment><USER3> Where is the cell, I am down in mtv?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just came back from another 2-hour session of ingress in my local town (≈ 10 minute bus ride from my home to the area with lots of portals). That's the third 2-hour session this weekend, after another one on Thursday :).

I definitely like the game, it's fun to play, especially with friends. When playing together, you can achieve much more: set up stronger portals, bring down enemy portals quicker, etc.

I noticed that people are getting to know each other via the game.

Also, Ingress is the reason for the most time I've spent outside (apart from traveling) in the last decade. My friends share this experience.

Before anyone asks: unfortunately I don't have any invites to hand out.

<comment><USER5> Also like how it doesn't reward obsessive / addictive behavior.

Burning additional hours and mileage won't get you that much further then a few well-timed hours a week. And staying up all night playing Ingress will cost you the way sitting awake in a chair all night won't.

<comment><USER4> I think this strongly depends on the area and the enemy faction. When they are quick to re-capture the portals, you have an incentive to immediately put in 2-3 hours again, depending on how many portals there are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it just me, or is Ingress a rip-off of the Finnish Shadow Cities iOS-only game [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/arts/video-games/shadow- ci...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/arts/video-games/shadow-cities-a-new- iphone-video-game-review.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER7> I thought the same thing when it came out, to be honest. Even the aesthetics are similar.

<comment><USER8> Shadow Cities has been out for over a year based on the NYT article, and still has no android client. Who can blame someone for developing a reality overlay for android, particularly when Shadow Cities is more fantasy-focused ("spells")? Is every reality overlay going to be called a Shadow Cities rip off? In that case both Shadow Cities and Ingress are a rip off of the reality overlay concept in Vinge's _Rainbows End_ (which itself is a departure, but got some of its inspiration, from previous fictional virtual environments, like the one in _Snowcrash_ ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wait, people are driving to play this game? It doesn't seem right to burn gas to play an online game. If you walk or ride a bike it's a great way to get some exercise. But driving?

<comment><USER10> Disagree. There's nothing wrong with driving for enjoyment or to accomplish enjoyment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My first thought: Could I put my phone in a radio-proof room, and externally synthesize the GPS signal to put my phone wherever I wanted, complete with robo-play as necessary?

My second thought: If it's possible at all, I have to assume this is already being done.

<comment><USER12> Yes, there's already some people cheating. I'm not sure if it's in this specific way but there's reports out there, for example I saw this one this morning: [https://plus.google.com/106910446343644147596/posts/JYaepWnd...](https://plus.google.com/106910446343644147596/posts/JYaepWndVQ7)

As far as I can see, the only real way to prevent this kind of thing would be to have checks in the backend. E.g. if you've "travelled" hundreds of kilometers in a couple of minutes, that's a pretty strong indication that you're cheating.

As long as it's constantly recording and reporting on your GPS location, I think it should be possible to come up with heuristics for when you're actually moving and when you're faking. But it seems they're not doing anything like this at the moment.

<comment><USER13> I think it'd be reasonable -- for more than just cheating reasons -- to make your scanner move at, say, a maximum of 25mph. So if your "actual" location is, say, 50 miles from your last location, but it's only been an hour, your scanner is disabled for an hour.

That would probably disable most "war-driving" strategies, while making most (but not all) legitimate strategies still available. And, I think that war- drivers probably detract from the game overall.

Or you could choose a higher maximum speed if you wanted to -- 40mph (as the crow flies) would probably only disallow cheaters for the most part, though it might disable your scanner for several hours after a plane flight.

<comment><USER14> And you'd make the game _completely_ unplayable for everyone that doesn't live in a big city. A lot of people don't seem to realize that unless you're in a densely populated area with a lot of history, there is really no choice but to drive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For anyone playing it: is there any real-money attribute to the game? That seriously kills e.g. Shadow Cities for me, and will probably kill qonqr as well. For Shadow Cities for example, it's not _necessary_ , but it is extremely important for owning locations, which progressively increases in cost (some > 500 'potions', which is roughly equivalent to $30 [1]), or you spend many many hours earning small numbers of them. Yeah, it helps hosting costs, but it ruins the game.

[1]: <http://shadowcities.wikia.com/wiki/Potions>

<comment><USER4> You don't have to spend any real money on the game directly. The closest thing that comes to mind is travel cost.

<comment><USER16> But 8 of you could get together and charge real money to create a Level 7 portal apparently :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I played Ingress for a bit. Love the concept - seems to be the Pong of AR games (not a dig, just the first of its kind that I've played and the potential for future games in this genre is exciting). After a few days I quit playing because IMO it seems better suited for concentrated urban cities. My city is a sprawl and I don't have the time to drive all day looking for the different components/interactions of the game.

Just one guy's opinion.

</comment><comment><USER18> As experiences like Ingress arrive, Vernor Vinge's 2006 novel "Rainbows End" looks more and more like a checklist of inevitabilities.

For a relevant sampling, the short story 'Synthetic Serendipity' is online at:

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/synthetic- serend...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/synthetic-serendipity)

</comment><comment><USER19> Some of the guys at work are raving about this, but.. I guess it depends on your priorities. I'm unable to get excited about yet another online thing that wants to claim my time (or rather, might claim my time if I had an Android phone).. Kids/Family-life and other projects take up time too, aside from work.. Where's the incentive?

<comment><USER20> It is a game. Fun is the incentive.

Damn smart idea of Google to get infinite GPS track point data.

<comment><USER21> it may turn out to be the biggest gamification success until now.

<comment><USER22> it's amazing how much it even changes my daily routine and how I walk around....no longer is it the fastest route; it's now the route where I can hit the most portals haha

<comment><USER13> Yeah, it's been pretty successful at driving additional walking for me. I'd been meaning to get more exercise, but finding difficulty getting motivated -- now I pretty routinely walk a couple extra miles per day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This such a game-changing experience that will have forever affected the way I intend to interact with massive multiplayer gaming.

<comment><USER23> Can you elaborate on that? In what ways do you (or anyone else who has played Ingress) think it will change MM games?

For example, is there a possibility it will affect future MMORPG design?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> A friend and I have really been enjoying this game. There is a good bit of strategy in active cities with how links are made and blocked for other teams. The community is certainly a huge portion, because you really do have to coordinate with people around the city. Many portals are too strong to take out alone, so it is great to bring a buddy or group along.

I have discovered so many cool things around the city that I never knew about. The game leads you out on a site-seeing adventure into pockets of the city that you may no frequent. Many of the portals are real places of interest that deserve a little attention. Furthermore, some portals aren't accessible in a car, so you are forced to do a bit of walking or cycling. My bike has seen plenty of use in the past 2 weeks and today I was walking around town with friends for about 7 hours.

<comment><USER25> Conversely, I have been pretty disappointed by portal locations. Near me, there is one sports store, one tyre store, one butt-ugly highrise apartment bulding, a view from the top of that highrise, and a featureless sunset.

At the city center, on the other hand there are at least 5 portals based on pictures of the cathedral from different perspectives...

<comment><USER26> Is that because of the city you live in? I'm not familiar with Ingress, but can't players also create portals?

<comment><USER25> You can submit new portals (I have done so), but that takes time to get reviewed (4 to 6 weeks according to the FAQ). To kickstart the game, they obviously just used pictures scraped off flickr or something - how else could they get a good coverage of the whole world (or at least the major cities), which requires at least tens of thousands of portals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Still very very heavy on battery though.

<comment><USER2> This is an understatement.

"Ingress is causing a surge in mobile power pack sales." Might hit closer to the mark. A majority of the high-level players I know are tethering a Nexus 7 to their phone, and attaching their phone to a mobile power pack. My phone gets slightly less than 1 hour on it's own.

<comment><USER24> I recently lost my extended backup battery and have certainly had battery drain issues. I was thinking that I might steal this guys idea: [http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- snc6/201097_1015128278...](http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- snc6/201097_10151282789563966_565749521_o.jpg) from this post:[http://www.reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/14f4xw/power_for_ye...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/14f4xw/power_for_years/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This sounds ripe for playing on Project Glass, if/when those come out.

The glasses will be running Android according to the Wikipedia page, and I'm pretty sure they'd work to make the game run will on them.

Sometimes the future is so close to being here! :)

</comment><comment><USER28> I was really excited, and played avidly for a few days, but quickly grew tired of it. It sounds like its a lot more fun in more densely populated areas so that could be my problem.

</comment><comment><USER29> I like the idea of games that involve getting out of the house and meeting new people.

That said, how do the makers of games like this prevent location spoofing?

<comment><USER25> The most obvious thing would be to sanity check each player's location data. Someone who moves 100 miles in less than a minute is obviously cheating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Any idea when people down under might be able to try it out? Any other regions apart from Australia that are not supported as of yet, as well?

<comment><USER31> If you have an invite you're able to play in Australia. I don't own an Android but a couple of my friends are playing already. There was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the game too but I can't seem to locate the link at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Very cool. Another noteworthy AR game: <http://qonqr.com/>

Full disclosure, I'm not affiliated with the company but I knew the team that started it at a Startup Weekend a little over a year ago. Great guys, cool game.

</comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone know a way to get a quick invitation to Ingress?

<comment><USER2> Brandon Badger (<https://plus.google.com/114800310452543164210>) is the Project Manager. He's been running contests on Google+; submit artwork relating to ingress, stories, etc. hashtag them #ingress, and if he like it he'll reshare it and give you some invites.

I didn't even know about the contest when I wrote [https://plus.google.com/110847385311561387629/posts/ePGPdJCS...](https://plus.google.com/110847385311561387629/posts/ePGPdJCSaCQ), but apparently it got to him anyway and he gave me some.

Check out his feed for examples of the things he's reshared.

<comment><USER33> You may be a misguided pawn interfering with the advancement of humanity, but that was awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Man, now I really want an invite code. Definite marketing ploy by google

<comment><USER35> I have an invitation.

I do not have an Android phone, yet :)</comment></comment>


Alchemist Release v0.8.0 Elixir Tooling Emacs Integration - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tonini/alchemist.el/releases/tag/v0.8.0

<comment><USER2> I just want to say that Samuel has made the Elixir emacs experience fantastic. I recently switched to Emacs evil-mode from vim, and expected to find a lack of Elixir tooling in emacs. I've been pleasantly surprised by Alchemist and it blows away what I had in vim land. Thanks Samuel!

<comment><USER3> Hi Chris, since I hear so many good things about evil-mode and Emacs on HN lately I would like try it myself. Do you have your emacs configs posted online somewhere? It would be of great help to me as a starting point since the main things I would like to try out are evil and alchemist :).

<comment><USER4> Here's an Evil-mode best practices thread on StackOverflow: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8483182/evil-mode-best- pr...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8483182/evil-mode-best-practice)

I found at least the mini-buffer quit addition to be a practical necessity; without it I would fairly frequently get stuck in Emacs minibuffer (i.e., its command line) even after I pressed escape. ctrl-G would get me out,but it's much nicer to have the fix so <esc> will (almost?) always get out off command line and back to normal mode.

It's also worth learning how to map keys in Evil, so you can add mappings as you desire. It's easy.

Org-mode is for me the big attraction when moving from Vim to Emacs, and to give it Vim-like usability you really need to do a lot of remapping of Org functions (i.e., create Evil-mode map for Org functions), otherwise you'll be doing lots of chord-keying. There really should be some kind of small open source project that does this; I've been meaning to do it myself for a while. . . .</comment></comment></comment>


Getting started with C++ TR1 regular expressions - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/cpp_regex.html

<comment><USER2> This will certainly make text wrangling in C++ more pleasant. Why all the different flavors though? This seems likely to make code sharing more difficult.</comment>


New York clinical trial quietly tests heartburn remedy against coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/new-york-clinical-trial-quietly-tests-heartburn-remedy-against-coronavirus# <comment><USER2> Not quietly. By mid-day people were buying up all the Pepcid AC they could find.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/heartburn-medicine-pepcid- sh...](https://www.businessinsider.com/heartburn-medicine-pepcid-shortages- famotidine-studied-coronavirus-covid-treatment-2020-4)

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's hope for the best. But his article reads too much like Michael Crichton for my taste.

> Hospitalized COVID-19 patients on famotidine appeared to be dying at a rate > of about 14% compared with 27% for those not on the drug, although the > analysis was crude and the result was not statistically significant.

That's a pretty large difference. For it not to be statistically significant, n is unlikely to be >50.

Since I doubt anything close to half of any random sample (?) takes this drug, we'd ideally want the control group significantly larger than the treatment group.

The solution I've come up with is 1/7=14% and 3/11=27%. Which also explains why they don't disclose these numbers.

It's important to note that there's really isn't a single virus that we can cure with a cheap and benign drug. Or really any drug. HIV took 40 years, untold billions, and is an uneasy stalemate more than a cure. HEP C is curable in the sense that most patients will rapidly improve upon hearing about the costs and side effects. Herpes? Influenza? Nope & no. Rabies? Standard of care is, or should be, a gun. Measles/Mumps/Ebola/Marburg/Lassa/HEP A/B/D/E? Not one cure!

Then, there's the "classified" protein docking simulations. I used to work in unclassified protein docking studies at a Max Planck I. If we had known there was an option to get our work classified, that would have done wonders for our careers! Unfortunately, all our failures happened out in the open, just as everyone else's.

This idea of "designing" molecules to act with some specific mechanism that you come up with by studying 3d-structures and running molecular dynamics is... controversial. As of five years ago when I left it was about as useful as astrology. Maybe it has improved: some parts are near-perfect scenarios for DNNs. But I somewhat doubt it. Even for molecules where we know the exact interactions they participate in, we suck at predicting the effect: you meddle with a bit of NO and every physiological textbook predicts it will lower blood pressure. Then you test it with some volunteers and they start stashing the stuff because it gives them a boner. And blue vision, somehow...

In as far as small-molecule drug research is still happening (as opposed to more lucrative and potentially far more powerful biologicals) it still happens the old-fashioned way of screening "randomised" candidates, only on far larger scales than ever: start with some structures that have been successful in similar situations, collect a few thousand variations based on your gut instinct, some simulation, and what's left over from that experiment the PhD candidate was running until she bit of that hamster's head in frustration Sunday night. Throw away everything that would kill you, throw away everything that might explode, throw away everything your target bacterium eats like ice cream, throw away everything that makes the mice question their job choices and intentionally fail the swim test, throw away everything Martin Shkreli has patented. Then spend a billion trying to find out how cancerous the two or three candidates left over _really_ are. Yes, that's the _good_ process.

Maybe we get lucky! This probably deserves to be tested, especially considering how cheap and safe it is. (Far too much bandwidth was wasted on you-know-what because of you-know-who that should have been used to go wide).

But I'd put chances of a successful drug treatment at <5%, some improvements in treatment protocols (ventilation etc) that cuts deaths by half or more at maybe 25%, and a vaccine at >80%. It also seems to me that our chances of eradication-through-behavioural-changes are underestimated: finding a way to sustainably push R<1.0 will, eventually, lead to eradication. Get < .5 (tests! tests! tests!) and it's a matter of weeks.

<comment><USER4> You're right, and the article does agree with you.

But this is not a story hyping a potential cure. It's a story about how our front line healthcare workers are trying everything they can in an effort to find something that works and sharing whatever they get a glimpse of having potential.

The collaborative effort is impressive. And we're lucky to have the tech to share information so quickly. That has it's drawbacks too. For example, I won't expect to see any Pepcid on the shelves already.</comment></comment>


ASK YC: How soon and where to find the best advisors for your startup? - <AUTHOR>

We're a small startup preparing for our alpha release. So far we've been self-funded and managed ourselves with the help of feedback from friends, family and fellow entrepreneurs. Now we're thinking of getting an advisory board together to help formalize our direction, but more importantly, help us with networking and introductions (generally developing our business). Any suggestions as to how to go about finding them? I'm the type that would just send out an email asking flat-out "Would you consider becoming our advisor?"... Looking for suggestions!<p>Shafqat (co-founder of NewsCred) <comment><USER2> It's usually a sign of lameness to have an official advisory board. If you look at the startups you admire, you'll find few have them.

Board members and (good) investors are always de facto advisors. And if you seem promising, people in the startup world will help you out for free. But it is not a good idea to have formal advisors who are neither board members nor investors.

<comment><USER3> I agree with all of pg's sentiments except for "it is not a good idea to have formal advisors who are neither board members nor investors."

Lots of great companies have formal advisors who are neither board members nor investors. I encourage entrepreneurs to turn proven smart + helpful people into advisors.

The board's primary task is governance, not advice. Lots of great advisors don't even want to deal with being on your board. pg is probably a good example of that.

I would also argue that, to some degree, YC is effectively acting as an advisor, not an investor. This is consistent with the fact that some/many? of the YC grads say that they would give YC the equity for free, just to participate in the program.

I'll write up detailed thoughts on Venture Hacks soon. I'm sure you're holding your breath. =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> PG is right that having an 'advisory board' is a bad sign. However, I think that sometimes giving someone smart and powerful a little bit of stock early in the life of your company can be very helpful. We did it, and it got us two very important deals.

<comment><USER5> Advisers can be amazing. At a friend's startup, they have a few advisers that meet with them weekly and also do weekly intros to prospective clients. They end up selling successfully to about 80% of those clients. How else could you have that kind of success rate?

The wrong adviser is useless, the right adviser is priceless.

An actual board of advisers is a different situation, I don't know many startups that have something like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> People we've met along the way have "advised us," but we are still hacking away on finding the right prototype and the right market.

Lots of people believe in the mensch mentality. It's surprising how many others have just helped us think through decisions. It makes them feel important and on the off-chance you become successful, you won't forget them.</comment>


Apple FQ2 results: 37.4MM iPhones Sold; 19.5MM iPads Sold - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/04/23Apple-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results.html

<comment><AUTHOR> 65% more iPads sold and 7% more iPhones sold than in last year's FQ2. Mac sales remain stable, while the rest of the PC market continues to shrink.

<comment><USER2> Mac sales declined.

<comment><AUTHOR> By one percent, from 4 million to 3.95 million. It's not the same, but it's stable. Which is why I wrote exactly that.

"Mac sales declined" would be the wrong headline, giving that Apple grows faster than the rest of the market, have done so for years, and continues to take most of the profits out of the PC market.</comment></comment></comment>


20-week Study: Facial exercises help middle-aged appear more youthful - <AUTHOR> https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2018/january/facial-exercises-help-middle-aged-women-appear-more-youthful/ <comment><USER2> It's not really related to the story, but training my facial muscles has been a low-commitment hobby for me. I noticed that I could do the 'Elvis Presley' lip curl naturally on the right side of my mouth, but not the left at all, which I found strangely irritating. So, for the next week or two I spent maybe 5 minutes after brushing my teeth practicing in the mirror.

First scrunching up my entire lip, and spending time deliberately trying to get better isolation on my left side. It took a little while, but now I can curl my left top lip with barely a twitch of the muscles on the right side.

Carrying on with this, I've gone on to train to wiggle my ears, arch eyebrows independently(still can only do it on the left side), and to deliberately control my orbicularis oculi muscles which comes in really handy to make a posed smile look warm and natural.. Or to express subtle skepticism/ disgust by flexing one in isolation of the other. I'm guessing actors and comedians probably do this a lot; haven't bothered to Google it.

I don't think its so much about strengthening of the facial muscles as it is about paving the nerve pathways. Like physical therapy.

<comment><USER3> Flaring your nostrils is another fun trick, and seems to be linked to inhaling and throat movements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> But when my glass shows me myself indeed/Beated and chop't with tanned antiquity....

(Sonnet 62, [https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/shakespeares- sonnets-s...](https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/shakespeares-sonnets-sin- self-love-possesseth-all-mine-eye))

</comment><comment><USER5> Is a known fact that exercise for the body improves tone, look, etc but workout for your face is a different matter? weird.

<comment><USER6> It depends and needs research, after all lots of abs exercises havent shown to significantly reduce abdominal fat in comparison with any general exercise like running

<comment><USER7> More generally, it's impossible to target any individual area for fat reduction.

<comment><USER5> yep, there is a lot of misconception with exercise and fat burning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't imagine carving out 30 minutes each day for face-sculpting exercises. I grew bored just reading the descriptions of the exercises.

</comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of this slightly comical video I saw ages ago:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSA-1tZZTPM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSA-1tZZTPM)

maybe was just ahead of her time!

</comment><comment><USER10> Exercise descriptions are so hard to follow, i couldn't follow these. I imagine if there was a simple gif, i would immediately get it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Thousands-of-years study by the Chinese confirms the results.</comment>


Metformin Promises to Extend Life for a Nickel a Pill - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/this-pill-promises-to-extend-life-for-a-nickel-a-pop/ <comment><USER2>
      In 2014 alone, Americans filled 76.9 million
      prescriptions for metformin, and some of those
      prescriptions went to Barzilai himself. (He's
      been taking the drug since he was diagnosed
      with prediabetes around six years ago.)

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

      Metformin is in the biguanide class. It
      works by decreasing glucose production by
      the liver and increasing the insulin
      sensitivity of body tissues.

      The most serious potential side effect of
      metformin use is lactic acidosis; this
      complication is very rare, and the vast
      majority of these cases seem to be related to
      comorbid conditions, such as impaired liver or
      kidney function, rather than to the metformin
      itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> _> You could also be able to shrink the suffering and enormous expense that accompanies cancer, heart disease, dementia, and all the other plagues of growing old._

No. It could at best defer the health costs. We need to stop being passive about this and embrace the idea of (1) life extension technologies for those who want, (2) assisted suicide for those who don't.

When this philosophical shift happens we can get much more serious about life extension research and mental well-being (purpose; reasons to live) and reduce the vast expenditures on palliative care for those who are merely waiting around to die.

</comment><comment><USER4> But holy DAMNED does it give diarrhea. (Diabetic here, not using it since a couple of years)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, but only to 20% of those who try it. For them, there's a slow release version, but I don't think it's widely available - I tried finding Glucophage SR in Europe with no success!

Anyway, I'm among the lucky 80% of those without side effects. I'm not diabetic; I take it for biohacking reasons.

<comment><USER6> "I'm not diabetic; I take it for biohacking reasons."

Did you just say to your doctor, "Hey, doc, I'm trying to live forever here, can you hook me up with some metformin?"

I often wonder about this, when it comes to folks using drugs for off-label purposes. I know there are doctors that are amenable to prescribing things like anti-depressants on patient request, but a diabetic drug seems a harder sell.

<comment><USER5> Many anti-aging doctors prescribe it to non-diabetics. I personally buy it in Eastern Europe without a prescription with no issue. I know all the side effects such as potential Vitamin B12 deficiency, lactic acidosis, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From reading the article, it seems the health benefits may, primarily, be attributed to having lowered blood sugar? I've also seen a number of references saying just eating less has the ability to extend life. So, could it be that sugar, in general, is really really bad for us? If you don't have diabetes, could you get the same benefits Metformin provides simply cutting as much sugar out of your diet as possible? The article reads like a distraction for the masses from the research being done for billionaires to extend their lives. "Hey, don't feel so bad about all the billionaires working on super fancy life extending treatments you can't afford. You can take a cheap little pill to live longer too."

<comment><USER8> Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. If you manage to just cut out all fructose from processed sources (i.e. fruits are ok, anything containing table sugar - glucose+fructose, or high-fructose-corn-syrup is out), you'll be much better off than most people. Also don't forget to eat flax seed to keep your omega-6:omega-3 ratio close to optimal, and take your vitamins.

But even then, metformin might help you live even longer and better. More studies needed.

And even _then_ , these are just things to keep your body's own systems functioning optimally. I can't imagine what real anti-aging drugs might do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The results for metformin in animal studies are all over the map, with many studies showing no results on life span or health span. A great many people have taken metformin for a long time with no great and obvious results. Short- lived species have far more plastic life spans in response to metabolic adjustment in comparison to humans; the two most reliable and sizable effects on mice (growth hormone receptor knockout and calorie restriction) do not have similarly sizable effects in humans. Laron syndrome sufferers and calorie restriction practitioners do not live significantly longer than others.

The one and only reason why metformin is getting into trials is as a political lever to get the FDA to acknowledge aging as a medical condition with defined causes for which treatments will be approved. Metformin couldn't really be rejected in the way the FDA likes to reject a lot of things because it is so widely used and has been so widely used for a long time.

The future of human longevity is not tinkering with metabolism to try to push it to be a little more like calorie restricted metabolism. That is a waste of time and effort. It is enormously expensive to carry out the work to try to understand metabolism well enough to adjust it safely. Hell, look at the past 20 years of work on calorie restriction: how much has been spent, how many man-years focused on it, and the research community is still only scratching the surface on how to induce similar effects via therapies.

Yet there is another approach, one that is far more cost-effective in time and money. Repair the causes of aging. Look at removal of senescent cells: in a bare few years, and at far less cost than has been spent on calorie restriction mimetic development, researchers have demonstrated robust effects and reversal of numerous age-related conditions in mice. Unlike metformin and similar drugs, the results are consistent, sizable, and produce rejuvenation in old individuals, not just a slight slowing of aging.

There is an enormous difference between the bad way forward (typified by metformin) and the good way forward (typified by senolytics). In the former we all die on the same schedule as our parents and grandparents. In the latter we can gain decades or more of additional healthy life.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you post some links? Any idea when these therapies will hit human trials?

<comment><USER9> And further, whenever anyone turns up to say "metformin is great", just point them at the studies showing that aspirin does a fair job of extending healthy life span in a variety of laboratory species. Arguably the aspirin life span studies show more consistent results than metformin, though there are fewer of them. And we all know what aspirin does for human life span.

For senolytic therapies, look at Unity Biotechnology's pharmaceutical trials starting this year, Oisin Biotechnologies' gene therapy approach, SIWA Therapeutics with an antibody approach. There are a dozen or so candidate drugs worth looking at, in addition to the non-drug approaches.

If you have the connections you can order any of the various senolytic pharmaceuticals today and try them. Though this would be unwise for the chemotherapeutics with animal data, since they are not friendly compounds, and worth waiting for a year or two to see how more targeted things like FOXO4-DRI work out in human tests. A year or two from now will be a great time for self- experimentation on this front, given the range of candidates and the size of the effects in mice where there is data. Today the situation is in an awkward state where some of the easier pharmaceuticals to handle are either going to have tiny effects or have no animal data, while the others still need human data. Still, I would expect medical tourism to flourish for these things quite soon: the drugs are cheap, the beneficial effects sizable.

<comment><USER10> I'm allergic to aspirin so an alternative is nice.

<comment><USER11> You got Samter's like me (AERD)? No fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While I'm certain it's a very respectable school, "Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx" sounds like the place a sitcom character pretending to be a doctor would invent as their alma mater.

<comment><USER13> It's pretty solid and, for medical residencies, its internal medicine program routinely draws from the same pool of applicants as MGH, NYP, and Sinai.

It's a pretty solid program all around.

(I didn't go there, but know plenty of folks that did.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> As an MD, I find those "take this miraculous drug we've known for years and live long" fads pretty ridiculous. People are far too confident in medical "research". If you know some statistics, read medical papers before bed and have a good laugh!

</comment><comment><USER5> Dr. Ward Dean is a huge supporter of taking Metformin and it fits his Neuroendocrine Theory of Aging [1] [2]. You can watch a short video about it here [3].

[1]: [http://warddeanmd.com/articles/neuroendocrine-theory-of- agin...](http://warddeanmd.com/articles/neuroendocrine-theory-of-aging- chapter-1/)

[2]: [http://warddeanmd.com/articles/neuroendocrine-theory-of- agin...](http://warddeanmd.com/articles/neuroendocrine-theory-of-aging- chapter-2/)

[3]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bdoiHdhjbM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bdoiHdhjbM)

</comment><comment><USER15> If you don't manage taking metformin with large enough meals etc, you get wonderful "metformin moments" (i.e. uncontrollable diarrhea like you've got food poisoning).

Gotta weigh up those risks. :)

<comment><USER5> Only 20% of patients get this and for them, there's the sustained/extended release version - Metformin ER, or Glucophage SR/XR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You need to supplement with calcium and B-12 [1], though... but B-12 supplementation causes cancer [2]. Oh, well...

[1]: [https://selfhacked.com/blog/uses-benefits- metformin/](https://selfhacked.com/blog/uses-benefits-metformin/)

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15099760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15099760)

</comment><comment><USER16> A really great podcast on the subject by Tim Ferris (I think it's one of his best). They also talk about Metformin

[https://tim.blog/2016/10/20/my-life-extension-pilgrimage- to-...](https://tim.blog/2016/10/20/my-life-extension-pilgrimage-to-easter- island/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Granted, you'd get a huge increase in survival signal just by reducing everyone's diabetes, but maybe I'm just being cynical...

(i guess since this is HN the solution would be to design a statistical model that corrects for anti diabetic effect to try and demonstrate non-diabetic related anti-aging effects...)

<comment><USER6> Given how many people in the western world are pre-diabetic due to diet and lifestyle, maybe curing that would be a miraculous result in and of itself.

I mean, it wouldn't directly help those of us who aren't on that path, but in terms of general societal health and average lifespan, it still seems pretty great. I like it when people don't die. It could potentially save all of us some money, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anyone taking this off-label?

<comment><USER19> When a type 2 diabetic enters remission after losing weight and/or gastric bypass, they are typically kept on metformin forever, because it's cheap and they obviously have a risk factor for diabetes. Metformin is very, very widely prescribed.

That said, lactic acidosis, while rare, can actually kill you. So I wouldn't take metformin without consulting a doctor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The older I get, the more I want the blood of teens.

<comment><USER21> It's a great emo band name.

<comment><USER22> "The Blood Boys"

Best punk band name EVER.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Warning: metformin works by interfering with the mechanism cells use to, well, essentially request food. Whilst yes, chronically working on too little energy has been proven to extend lifespans, you will not like the side effects.

For one it makes you stupid. Obviously it interferes with everything requiring effort, from running to sex.

There are cell types in your body that will, when faced with an energy shortage simply consume themselves. Usually, this means trading a sudden death for permanent damage, for example heart muscle cells. This means that when faced with an energy shortage they will kill themselves. An overdose of Metformin can cause this to occur on a large scale and when that happens, your life is somewhere between over and very short.

Do not take any medication without being aware of the side effects and getting advice from a doctor (and let me spoil the surprise: your doctor will advise against both metformin and calorie restriction. He will be happy to prescribe you a placebo. You would be surprised how calming taking one can be)

There are other treatments that extend life, like taking aspirin daily, and other metabolism blockers, anti inflammatories and blood thinners. All come at a serious cost (DO NOT take aspirin daily unless you're happy to bleed to death with any major injury) which makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

<comment><USER6> "For one it makes you stupid. Obviously it interferes with everything requiring effort, from running to sex."

Fasting (one way to alter insulin sensitivity without drugs) has been reported to increase focus and energy. I have been doing intermittent fasting (16 hour fast/8 hour feast, with an occasional 24 hour fast) for the past four or five months (I started logging my results about 3 months ago, but I started before that in an imprecise sort of way). I haven't noticed a significant change either way. I feel fine, with normal levels of energy and the like. I don't _think_ I'm stupider because of it, though I probably ought to do some A/B testing to be sure.

I've never taken metformin, and haven't done any real research beyond reading the article and the Wikipedia page about it, so I don't really know what it does to someone, but as I understand it sounds like your main concern is the effect on insulin sensitivity. But, insulin sensitivity seems to be a major factor in weight and health, and growing evidence suggests that actions improving it also improve general health.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I don't think it's reasonable to dismiss it or to assume the most simplistic explanation of how the body works (e.g. glucose makes brains smarter, or glucose makes bodies energetic) is the correct or complete one.

<comment><USER24> What do you consider "fasting"? No food at all? What about drinks like coffee/tea? How about water?

Just curious about fasting, need to get into it.

<comment><USER6> There's quite a bit of information out there about the various sorts of intermittent fasting people are doing. Some people do longer, less frequent, fasts. Some people combine it with other diets.

My intermittent fasting looks like this:

For eight hours from midday until evening (the exact times shift a little based on my waking and sleeping schedule; 2PM to 10PM is a pretty common schedule for me), I eat like a responsible adult. Minimal junk food, desserts in moderation, try to make my meals balanced, don't eat too much sugar or simple carbs. I don't deny myself anything I crave, generally speaking, but I try not to eat garbage. I am also a vegetarian, occasional vegan, but I've been doing that for 23 years...it is unrelated to my current diet and fasting.

During the other 16 hours of the day, I eat nothing and drink nothing with calories. I drink water and unsweetened green tea (iced or hot depending on the weather; right now, it's summer and I'm in Texas, so it's iced tea). I don't drink coffee, but I normally don't drink coffee so that's not a change. Some people who fast drink coffee without sugar or dairy; I assume it has no or very few calories.

I never stop drinking water and don't know of any evidence that supports dehydration as a beneficial practice. I'm not seeking spiritual enlightenment or going on a hunger strike, I'm trying to maintain good health as I age.

The goal of intermittent fasting (as practiced by the folks I pay attention to) is to force your body to improve insulin sensitivity and to reduce caloric intake by 20-30% without having to count calories or give up favorite foods.

I don't know if it's the optimal practice, but it seems to be working OK for me, so far. I have lost about 15 pounds (and I'd lost about 5 pounds before that on a reduced calorie diet), which averages out to a little less than a pound every week since I started. Weight loss has slowed somewhat in the past month or so. I have begun lifting weights a couple times a week, though, so that may be offsetting my weight loss with regained muscle.

You probably need to come up with a fasting schedule that works for you and fits your existing daily routine. Skipping breakfast was easiest for me, and I know I have trouble sleeping well when I'm hungry, so eating late in the day is the right schedule for me. 16/8 is a reasonable balance, for me, as well. I find it's really quite easy to maintain; I go to bed two or three hours after my evening meal and then sleep through the next eight hours of the fast. Then I've only got five or six hours to go after I wake up before eating. I sip tea through that time, and most days barely notice my hunger.

I don't know if I'll do this forever but, assuming evidence continues to mount about the benefits of caloric restriction and improved insulin sensitivity, it seems like I'll keep at it for the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER25> > For eight hours from midday until evening (the exact times shift a little > based on my waking and sleeping schedule; 2PM to 10PM is a pretty common > schedule for me), I eat like a responsible adult. Minimal junk food, > desserts in moderation, try to make my meals balanced, don't eat too much > sugar or simple carbs. I don't deny myself anything I crave, generally > speaking, but I try not to eat garbage.

So if you shift your example schedule two hours back to 12PM-8PM, isn't that just saying "I don't eat breakfast any more"? Lunch at noon, dinner at 6, a snack in between meals, and dessert at 7:30 would fit all the criteria you laid out, and indeed is something I end up doing pretty frequently, just without a faddish name like "intermittent fasting".

<comment><USER6> I call it that, too, in the very comment you've replied to: "Skipping breakfast was easiest for me".

The faddish name makes it easy to google for research on the topic. You can, of course, call it whatever you like. I'm not advocating anything, I'm just sharing what I'm doing.

That said, the name does have useful meaning and context. "Fasting" hints at the metabolic response you're trying to achieve with the practice, in a way that maybe saying "skip breakfast" doesn't. And, the word "fasting" has thousands of years of history, which can also be mined for information; it's even part of the word, "breakfast".

"Skip breakfast" leaves room for "but, I had a donut at the 10AM meeting".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lane Motor Museum explains their 1967 Gyro-X [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqGB1zOICfg <comment><AUTHOR> The vehicle's about page:

[https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/gyro-x-...](https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/gyro-x-1967)</comment>


EU court backs 'right to be forgotten' in Google case - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27388289#TWEET1127389

<comment><USER2> Asking search engines not to display stuff that is out there is certainly problematic. No doubt about that. However, they are already required to filter out links to copyrighted material, so the principle of filtering out certain things for legal reasons is already established.

It seems disproportionate to protect copyright holders from economic damage but refuse to protect individuals against being stigmatized forever because of some mistake they made many years ago based on a principle that has already been breached.

<comment><USER3> It even doesn't need to be a mistake. It can be very easily a false accusation as well.

<comment><USER4> The laws of defamation would deal with false things quite adequately. We don't need new legislation for that.

<comment><USER5> Adequately? Try suing some anonymous person X who posted something on a site S hosted in country C, describing something you allegedly did in country D, while you live in country E. Then try removing that data from site T in country F quoting the now removed data from site S.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Other thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7737061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7737061)

<comment><USER7> Thank you. Burying as dupe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe Google can be forced to remove something but the NSA can't. It's a selective 'forgetting'.</comment>


Pseudo-epidemics - <AUTHOR> https://blog.plan99.net/pseudo-epidemics-7603b2da839 <comment><USER2> I think there are a couple of shortcomings to this argument. First, it seems to be arguing that there is no infection at all. Reports of people dying of a new form of pneumonia would argue to the contrary, regardless of test results. Second, it argues that the true positive rate must be so low that it's swamped by the false positive rate. This, however, argues for an extremely high false positive rate, given the overall positive rate we've observed. Third, the analogy to the 2006 Dartmouth whooping cough incident is strained at best. Almost everyone at that hospital would have been vaccinated against whooping cough in the last ten years -- that's the P in your TDAP -- substantially lowering the probability of epidemic. We do not, on the other hand, have a vaccine for sars-cov-2, and yet we do have reports of people dying of pneumonia all over the world in ways that follow consistent patterns of infection and spread.

<comment> tom-_- I read it a little differently. The author steers clear of debating causes of symptoms and speculating how high or low FP% might be. He even doesn't quite come out and say Covid-19 is a "pseudo-epidemic" though one could easily infer that from the title + subheading.

The main points I read were:

\- A FP cannot logically be determined using two non-ground truth tests (PCR)

\- This means FP rate is unknown

\- Even if the FP rate is low (~2%), it would mean perpetual epidemic given current testing targets

\- Public health officials and policy makers don't understand the data and/or aren't incentivized to consider the cost of lockdowns

Though it was be nice to hear from mike_hearn himself.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's about right.

The true FP rate is probably a fair bit lower than 2%. However, even FP rates that sound very low can still be a big problem when the signal itself is tiny. The signal ends up dominated by FPs, which is a problem given that a positive test is being used to trigger harsh actions, like being unable to leave your house for two weeks.

The bigger issue is the conceptual problem. What are tests for? The ultimate thing we care about is detecting ahead of time people who would get severe symptoms or die, or who would be spreading the infection (assuming we take for granted that quarantining and isolation is a reasonable policy to hold indefinitely for such a mild disease).

The test isn't actually detecting any of these things.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What should I use instead of Google for everyday use? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Fastmail does email and calendars. Haven't tried calendars, but they're a really good email provider.

</comment><comment><USER3> SOGo has native Outlook compatibility, CalDAV, CardDAV, and ActiveSync: [https://sogo.nu/](https://sogo.nu/)

I use postfix as a backend for it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> E-mail I can self-host... But what should I do about calendaring (specifically calendar sharing within the family - currently we're using google apps)</comment>


Contribute your own list of HTML5 resources to HTML5 Search by forking project - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/PaulKinlan/HTML5Search

<comment><AUTHOR> In the interests of being transparent about the project all the sites that are indexed are being held on <http://www.html5search.com/sites.html> and by forking the project and committing the change I can then pull (or not) the change with an explanation of why it was accepted or rejected.</comment>


On Programming Deadlines - <AUTHOR> http://rdegges.com/on-programming-deadlines <comment><USER2> I strongly agree with all the 5 rules Randall pointed out. But, IMHO, the very first step to really understand those rules is to dramatically fail on every one. [this is my first comment on HN! :)]

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the article is fine as written, but in the interests of expanding on its ideas, I submit that writing tests first is a design technique and maintaining substantial test coverage is a regression-proofing technique. Both also serve as documentation.

I mention this, because these three objectives--design, regression-proofing, and documentation--can be achieved in various other ways besides writing tests first, and it can be helpful to separate them in your mind even if you choose to practice TDD with great discipline.

<comment><USER4> I always hear that TDD is good for documentation, but most of my unit tests cover odd corner cases, weird error conditions and the like. It certainly isn't a show of what to do. What do you do with your unit tests that make them high quality documentation?

<comment><USER5> That's often true of tests that were only used to check the validity of code, not its design.

In many uses of TDD, you will use somewhat broader specifications to test things. "The login system accepts any user with a valid name by returning '1' and returns '0' if the password isn't the right one". You can have a test to verify that without using special corner cases, and a test such as this one will likely look like any other normal use of your library or function.

If you develop all your requirements using TDD, then both the corner cases and the standard cases should be sitting in the test suite. The standard cases can act as documentation and a design tool while corner cases are really more there to insure things work absolutely right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Setting up deployment routines early is a seriously great tip. It took me years to realize that, and to start doing it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I read so many meta-programming articles that try to make a science out of "getting shit done."

While there are techniques that aide in the process, your time is better spent trying to get the aforementioned shit done.

</comment><comment><USER8> Lots of good points. If you liked what you heard in this post, I recommend reading _The Clean Coder_. Uncle Bob has a lot of great little anecdotes when it comes to dealing with non-technical stake holders and deadlines.

</comment><comment><USER9> The part of the story I don't like is where the boy gave up looking for the dog after an hour.

<comment><USER10> Did you comment on the wrong article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't have time to implement TDD.

<comment><USER12> The counter argument is, of course, that you don't have time _not_ to.

Many programmers who begin TDD have the same concern as you. Many of them find that over time they're more productive over the long haul with TDD. It takes a little while to arrive at that realization.

<comment><USER13> Depends on the project.

<comment><USER2> Please be specific.

In my experience, even if you are building a quick'n'dirty prototype, you'll always need to fire up a terminal or run the GUI to interact/play with the prototype you are building, to see if it "works".

In this case you may apply a --this is my very own definition-- "lightweight TDD approach" just to automate all the procedures that you normally do to test your prototype. Moreover, since you are writing a test for something that does not exist, it may help you defining better what you want from your experimental code, because you are using your prototype _before_ it even exists :)

<comment><USER14> TDD takes longer. Studies conducted at Microsoft and HP (or possibly IBM), found that development time with TDD was 10-30% longer. That's probably minimum, and in high degree determined by the TDD experience level of the team members.

The massive upside is that there is _much_ less defects in the end product (think it was 50-80% in the study, but can't recall exactly).

Depending on the project, the extra time needed, might or might not be worth it.

Take a somewhat complex web app, that is used for a marketing campaign. It has a life time of only 2 months. In this case it does not make sense to use TDD, as the lower defect rate and "future-proofing" qualities, might very well not be worth an increased budget.

<comment><USER12> Yes. My experience with TDD is that it did save time, but not necessarily in initial development. The long-term effect of fewer defects combined with the capability for a higher release velocity is a net savings.

As a counter example, I'm working with a company that uses TDD for their current development, but employees work on a platform with little test coverage. As a consequence of lacking unit tests, they're only able to release a few versions each year because their manual testing burden is so high (estimated by one manager as about half of the cost of a release). They've found that TDD for their new features doesn't escalate the QA cost as significantly as not doing it. Bottom line: it's a little more time up front, but they've found it to be a long-term gain.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you ever hit absolute rock bottom? - <AUTHOR> I'm referring to actually being broke, homeless, having no friends or family, no credentials, deteriorating mental and physical health, no prospects, starving, etc...<p>Were you able to get back up? How? Would you be able to do the same in 2020? <comment><USER2> Not financially, but mentally. I was married to a woman who was and still is incredibly petty, emotional, dishonest and all around an awful person. I developed sleep apnea, depression. I would drive around after work so as to not come home earlier than I needed to. I tried to block her out and focus my energy on my autistic son. Lost all friends as I didn't know how to talk to them about my family problems. Stopped talking to my parents and sisters because any contact with them would cause more fights with her.

I started to go on hikes and travel alone just to escape proximity with this woman. Started drinking regularly.

I compartmentalize everything in my life, but my family life started to affect my work life. I started fantasizing getting a job in a foreign country to escape. Contemplated suicide many times, but I couldn't that to my kid.

Luckily, I met an incredible woman on a hike in Norway. Came back home, filed for divorce and moved out. I am getting better slowly.

<comment><USER3> And your kid?

<comment><USER2> He is with my soon to be ex. During my parenting time I teach him, we cook together, have long conversations, play board games, take him out for fun and hikes. With all her faults, the ex is not a bad mother.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Everyone has their own personal rock bottom and you can't know if you'll hit a lower one later.

My first rock bottom was caused by depression and anxiety fully hitting me post-college, a tough job that wasn't going well, then my longterm girlfriend (who I planned on marrying) cheating on me and breaking up over text message. Full on panic attacks, moving back home, suicidal ideation, the whole works. Therapy, exercise, and medication with SSRIs brought me out of the funk. I had a strong support network which made it easier.

My second rock bottom was during a period of intense professional stress, that through a strange sequence of events, almost resulted in serious legal consequences and potentially prison. Was some very dark days with similar suicidal ideation, panic attacks, etc. But I came out of it far stronger with much higher risk tolerance and knowledge of myself and capabilities.

Was I homeless? Tortured? Disabled? No. But for me, it was rock bottom, and I don't want to be there again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing. I didn't mean to invalidate your experience by listing what I thought represented rock-bottom -- I was just tossing a couple of examples around. I agree that we all have our limits and that's usually when the self-destructive thoughts begin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I spent nearly six years homeless. I got back into housing about 2.5 years ago. I started multiple websites while homeless and I still run multiple websites, some of which are pertinent to this problem space.

This comment seems to list all my homeless sites:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22804929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22804929)

2020 is proving especially challenging for the homeless population. The pandemic has made things very hard for homeless people of late.

Libraries are currently closed in many places, as are eateries with wifi and so forth. Some shelters and soup kitchens have shut down during the pandemic. It's pretty brutal at the moment.

But things like tablets are cheaper than when I first became homeless and websites are generally optimized to work well on smartphones and tablets, which was not true when I was first on the street. So there are ways in which it is easier than ever to figure out how to problem solve and create an income from the street and get your life back.

U will throw in this piece, which I didn't write but it's about me:

 _Homeless to housed: Her virtual life helped her out of homelessness_

[http://alexandralindelof.com/story- package/](http://alexandralindelof.com/story-package/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the reading material. I believe I'm going to find myself in a similar situation soon and having those resources could really improve my chances of recovery.

<comment><USER5> Check out r/gigworks as well. It's listed in the sidebar of some of those sites and I run it.

If you can at all avoid homelessness, that's better. I have seen many conversations on r/homeless and r/almosthomeless where people said "I expect to be homeless in x weeks/months" and were encouraged to find answers before their time ran out and they did. It's much, much easier to problem solve while still housed.

If homelessness absolutely cannot be avoided, make sure to read the following posts before it's too late (because things like getting a mailing address beforehand is very helpful):

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/prepping- to...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/prepping-to-be- homeless.html)

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/climate- and...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/climate-and- unsheltered-homeless-in.html)

Best of luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Based on my own rock-bottom experience ( a very first-world rock-bottom problem ), I'd wouldn't identify them by some kind of 'objective measure of misery' litmus test. Instead I'd identify by saying, "a problem where my existing coping mechanisms no longer enable me to cope."

That's why some of these rock-bottom experiences can be great turns in life -- it forces you to do away with now-unhelpful coping strategies and find better ones.

</comment><comment><USER7> In 2019 I lost nearly everything I loved, in the space of a week. I shook my fist at the cobalt sky, and hoped to die.

</comment><comment><USER8> I was a technician doing industrial microcomputer repairs with that v=ir mentality and life got impossible. Somehow I found it in myself to pray for faith and was rewarded with a satori experience. That's more than 30 years ago now. My life changed a lot.

<comment><USER9> What's v=ir mentality?

<comment><USER10> v=ri is a simple case of Ohm's law, with an impedance with no reactive component and no funny signals.

Being "v=ri" or having a "v=ri" mentality means not asking too many questions or not bothering with details or nuance. The meaning is contextual and depends on the delivery.

"That guy is v=ri", means a simpleton, without nuance or character depth, rigid, or extremely effective. It can either be a compliment or an insult, depending on the delivery.

"I was hungry and found a sandwich that's a week old. I was like v=ri" (meaning the person ate the sandwich withtout asking too many questions).

It also means not bothering to understand things and blindly following a rule all the time. No questions asked.

In the context of the comment, I believe it is repairing industrial microcomputers with a multimeter and a soldering iron, checking continuity, replacing parts, without digging deeper.

<comment><USER11> Thank you for explaining this so clearly. How old is this meme?

<comment><USER10> You're welcome. It has been fifteen years. I was trained as an electronics engineer. We mainly used that expression in EE starting with the first two years of common core (people who plan to do engineering - except CS-, maths, or physics go through two common core years where it's mostly physics/maths/chemistry/alloys/machining/materials strength, etc. and it is in that cohort that this was popular).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> i find im always finding new lows

<comment><USER13> Sometimes we discover that the bottom of the well has a hidden basement.

<comment><USER14> Ha, that made me chuckle.

Hope you're up on like the 3rd floor or something!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is no situation so awful that someone cannot make it worse.</comment>


Baltimore Geek Goes Political - Endorses Mayorial Candidate - <AUTHOR> http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/technology/bs-bz-balttech-rolley-dave-troy-20110104,0,2744471.story

<comment><USER2> The original post is good reading for anyone who lives in a city with machine politics. e.g. pretty much everyone who lives in a city! <http://davetroy.com/posts/a-new-leader-for-a-new-baltimore></comment>


No, you can't block or mute people in Slack - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/slackhq/status/767806840524705792 <comment><USER2> Yeah, I moderate a couple public slack orgs and the banning machine is working hard.</comment>


Google+ shuts down soon; Is the giant finally stumbling? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@lancengym/google-does-minus-not-plus-33a90ff11a7b <comment><USER2> Methinks doth protest too much. Simply quoting Caldwell doesn't make it profound. O365 is not replacing Google docs or sheets. Adding markdown to google docs would be a boost but it's alive and well.

Inbox failed but Gmail is not failed and hosted by Google with Postini is not failed.

Shuttering Picasa was bizarre. Google photos continues.

Shuttering play music for YouTube? Yet to be seen how stupid that is. But it certainly smells stupid.

But stupid is a couple of bob short of dead. Dead looks more like yahoo.</comment>


Our experience with Stripe Atlas (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/our-experience-with-stripe-atlas-fcccafe6fff8 <comment><USER2> As a non-US citizen, opening a company in the US is not the hard part. The hard part is figuring out taxes and legal "configuration" in your own country, where you live. I'm not an expert, but I hear from accountants that you have to figure the thing out properly and you end up having an accountant for your company abroad and one for yourself. It might end up being too much expensive if it's for a bootstrapped startup with little revenue.

Happy to hear from people in EU that made this work and what are the total costs (especially tax-wise in your own country).

<comment><USER3> Be aware that incorporating in another jurisdiction doesn't mean your operations aren't taxable according to the local laws of where you are.

For example, if a company is incorporated in the US, but all it's employees/owners are physically located in Germany, then under German law, the "place of ordinary business" is Germany, and the company gets taxed as though it's a German company.

I believe the same sort of principal applies in most jurisdictions.

<comment><USER4> Same for Spain.

You need a permanent office - that is, employees that generate revenue for the company in the US - for the Spanish government to consider whether you can pay taxes in the US or in Spain.

Note that this varies from country to country depending on the double taxation agreements between countries [1]

[1] [http://www.agenciatributaria.es/AEAT.internet/en_gb/Inicio/L...](http://www.agenciatributaria.es/AEAT.internet/en_gb/Inicio/La_Agencia_Tributaria/Normativa/Fiscalidad_Internacional/Convenios_de_doble_imposicion_firmados_por_Espana/Convenios_de_doble_imposicion_firmados_por_Espana.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My biggest hesitation with Atlas is the C corp part. I don't want funding, I want to start small and bootstrap. For this, LLCs seem best so you don't get taxed twice.

My most optimistic first year in revenue would be $30-60k, still well in side business territory. Am I missing something, or is Atlas not for me?

<comment><USER6> I am replying to this because it is a question I have as well. Stripe employees - I know the Atlas page discusses the reasoning behind a C corp a bit, but I think it would be beneficial to elaborate on why it is preferable over an LLC. It's also worth noting that the Atlas website mentions support for LLCs and other business types later down the line. Any timeline on this?

As I imagine the OP of this comment is, I am a US citizen who was primarily interested in Atlas because it seems like the most painless solution.

<comment><USER7> I work on Stripe Atlas. Prior to that, I ran a few software businesses, all as LLCs.

A rule I had in my business was "Don't talk about timelines until you're ready to ship, because they only slip, and then people are sad." I broke the rule several times, and regretted it every time. Stripe has the same rule, but is disciplined about keeping it.

I have a lot of thoughts on the C corporation vs LLC tradeoffs and while I'd love to put them in an HN comment my top task this week is putting them in a more permanent location.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What would be really cool is if Stripe Atlas allowed its customers to form an LLC first and then provided a seamless framework to get LLC converted to C-Corp. I'm looking to bootstrap a single founder business and I can't find good reasons to go with a corporation. I could be wrong though.

<comment><USER9> if you are not the US citizen you simply can't register a US based LLC.

<comment><USER10> Neither US citizenship nor residency are requirements for forming a Delaware LLC or Delaware corporation. You can start a business in Delaware from anywhere in the world. I think this is what Stripe Atlas does. The only requirement is registered agent has to be based in Delaware and licensed to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How much does it cost (everything included) per year approximately to run a company with zero or very close to zero revenues in US ?. I am talking about cost including Lawyer charges, Accountant charges, Tax, agent charges etc.

<comment><USER7> Approximately $1,000, with some variation due to individual choices and variation, on the US side of things. I can't speculate as to what it costs on your side of things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The biggest complaint I would have is using Silicon Valley Bank. I was a customer for over two years and their web interface is complete garbage and they charged an account service fee each and every month.

I switched over to Capital One Spark Business Checking and highly recommend them instead.

<comment><USER13> I had pinged them about the SV Bank account especially with their high fees compared to my Credit Union and they mentioned that you can immediately close the SV Bank account as use your bank or credit union. [1]

[1] [https://twitter.com/atlas/status/901220134328643584](https://twitter.com/atlas/status/901220134328643584)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone have experience with Stripe Atlas _after_ starting a foreign entity? I have a Canadian Corporation which I'd like to make a wholly-owned subsidiary of that Delaware C corp (or perhaps the other way around).

<comment><USER15> I have some experience as a C-level of a funded Canadian Corp with a American related company that went on to raise from Andreesen, but this experience a bit dated (2012) and I'm not a lawyer / accountant so DYODD, this is all from faulty memory. But I still think its helpful.

Basically don't make a subsidiary, make two corps and sell the IP from the Canadian corp to the American one then license it back with a contract between the two corps. Then you set the same shareholders for both corps. As long as you are paying licensing costs for the IP to the American corp from the operating company within reasonable rates everyone is happy. Management fees / fees associated with the IP corp (costs related to the board, raising capital, non-managerial CEO work) get paid from the IP corp, and the rest gets paid from the operating company in Canada.

But note that as soon as you create an American corp all of your tax planning and accounting fees will essentially 10x and if you don't do things carefully you'll miss out on your one time capital gains exemption or other CCPC goodies, like bulk asset sale dividend tax reductions. Get a tax attorney and game it out ahead of time.

<comment><USER16> This provides the information I need to ask quality questions to lawyers and accountants, thank you.

Regarding why to do it, is there a reason you can't just stand up the DE C and that IP agreement as part of the funding round instead of having it in place before?

<comment><USER15> How fast do you want a term sheet signed? You can of course say "we're not interested in becoming a DE C" and you'll lose 50% of your candidates and you can of course say "we've already set up the DE C" and you'll lose none of them. But if you say "we'll set up a DE C when we need to" you signal that you aren't confident that you'll get the round signed or that DE C is something you'll do begrudgingly, thus advantaging firms that can invest in Canada, so it leaves everyone scratching their heads.

Personally, my current company is staying 100% Canadian. The headaches dealing with the American tax system aren't worth it. If the revenue is there the capital isn't far behind, and I rather spend time optimizing the revenue of the company than getting slowed down with lawyers and tax attorneys plus I trust Canada's judicial system more than I do America's. Not by a lot, but still.

All this doesn't really matter if you're pre-product market fit or pre- monetization though. In that case it's almost always better to just set up the DE C because you have less leverage / allure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've noticed a lot of people setting up UK limited companies for similar reasons - you can do it online for a few pounds and there seem to be very few checks done on your identity or business plan when you do so.

<comment><USER18> The only problem with a UK company for a non-UK person is it has been my experience that it's really hard to open a proper UK bank account without UK residency. Perhaps others have had better luck, but for me, that was a significant pain point.

<comment><USER19> I'm interested also to know how you did it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wondering if Atlas gets a lot of money launderers. Incorporating has always been super easy, but most agents wouldn't open a bank account for you. Especially at this price point.

<comment><USER21> They do KYC. All of this is backed by Silicon Valley Bank, which definitely has a robust compliance department.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "You also realize that you don't really need public financial help if you don't get robbed to begin with. To create a SPRL/BVBA in Belgium, the capital must be fully subscribed at the time the company is incorporated, to the amount of €18,550 (of which €6,200 must actually be paid up in the account of the SPRL/BVBA). Also, the articles of association must be written before a notary. You need to be physically present in the office of a random guy you never met and will never meet again to make sure that your company can be incorporated."

Indeed. This is one of those things that is a massive, nonobvious competitive advantage for Anglosphere countries - most have an incorporation system that works for really tiny businesses, and there are very few requirements for notaries or similar. There really isn't a good reason for company registration to have non trivial costs.

Companies House will do it for £12. There are third parties who will do the registration through their API for even less, somehow. And the UK is also quite good at legal recognition for unincorporated members' associations (useful if you want a local nonprofit org).

<comment><USER15> Eh, I mostly agree, but I think there is a limit. It used to be easier here in Ontario, but then people started lighting up multiple numbered companies to the point where the government couldn't easily understand what was going on so they tightened the rules a bit. The cost is still pretty low, but it isn't as easy as it used to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Setting up a business entity is actually not that difficult. You can do it yourself.

In California for instance, you can set up an LLC in about 5 minutes for $70. It requires filing out one form with the name of your business and the owners and mailing it in (takes a few weeks to process). In many other states you can do this online.

Once you have your Articles of Organization, you can take them to any bank and open a bank account with a credit card in about 30 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how these people are getting access to Atlas?

Every time I follow links to Atlas, the experience always ends with the "Request to join" signup form.

<comment><USER7> If you'd like, you or anyone else on HN can send me an email and I'll send you an invitation.

That form is the primary way most people get access; we invite almost everyone whose business we could accept within 48 hours of hitting submit on it. (We do a very coarse filter on "Is this business obviously unsupportable for legal or policy reasons? No? OK, invite them to send us a full application.")

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Mine had been much better. I expected some glitches, and encountered some. So met expectations :)

<comment><USER26> That depends on case by case. You might have been lucky

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> My particular pain point is how to have a Stripe account living in an unsupported country (Brazil).

Is Stripe Atlas the best solution?

I am starting two very modest side business intending to sell to international customers (mostly US+Canada initially). One SaaS and one content membership.

Any ideas?

<comment><USER7> While we'd be happy to have you in Stripe Atlas, we'd also be happy to have you in the live preview for Stripe in Brazil. You can sign up here: [https://stripe.com/global#br](https://stripe.com/global#br)

Send me an email after doing so (my email address is my HN handle at stripe.com) and I'll talk to the team running it to make sure you get access expeditiously. (Offer open to anyone on HN.)

<comment><USER28> Any plans to open Stripe in South Africa?

Would be great to have Stripe in at least one country on the continent!

<comment><USER7> We're available throughout Africa through Atlas, and are happily serving customers in many African countries, including South Africa. (The community in Cape Town is huge!)

We want to be able to support entrepreneurs and businesses substantially everywhere. We don't talk about concrete timelines externally until we have something ready to show, because that is pure downside for our users if e.g. priorities change, a country launch gets delayed due to issues beyond our control, etc.

When we have plans for infrastructure that we can roll out in a fashion which is predictable enough to be viable to build a business on top of, you'll hear about it in all the usual places. Until then, [https://stripe.com/global#za](https://stripe.com/global#za) and Atlas are your best options.

<comment><USER28> Thanks Patrick, we are in Cape Town. It will be great when Stripe has an office here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Anybody know of any other ways to get aws credits? I'm not willing to give up the benefits of an LLC, and I can deal with setting up my own bank account. But the aws credits and initial accounting help would be really nice.

</comment><comment><USER30> A short question for Atlas users: If I live abroad, and I want to contract someone abroad too, not USA Citizen, is his/her salary deductible from company income taxes (as if I contracted someone in USA)?

<comment><USER7> US companies can deduct expenses necessary and reasonable for the business from their income taxes and employee salaries are business expenses.

You will probably want advice from an accountant local to your foreign employee as to how to comply with local laws to employ them, including making the relevant tax payments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've been contemplating bringing my DE C corp into the Stripe Atlas umbrella. Is it possible to do so and BYOBA (bring your own bank account)?

<comment><USER7> We do not support this at present, but are aware that many people want to do it. Would you mind telling me what you're hoping to get out of doing that, so that I can take that to the team?

<comment><USER31> Like I replied to a sibling comment, I simply want to save time and money doing so (not having to pay a monthly fee for using a bank would go a long way towards the latter). It does seem like I would be able to save time using Atlas to handle ongoing obligations to run my company, which is why I am interested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I feel like I've heard of tax nightmares for people incorporating in deleware. Can anyone comment on that?

</comment><comment><USER33> The article mentions $15k in AWS credits, but Atlas currently only shows $5k in credits.

<comment><USER7> One of the joys about dealing with partners is that occasionally offers change over time as partners' strategies change, their interest in particular programs of theirs changes, etc. We can offer new Stripe Atlas customers (as of April 2018) up to $5k in AWS credits at present.</comment></comment>


IpfsCloud: A Decentralized, Anonymous IPFS Cloud Storage Platform - <AUTHOR> http://ipfscloud.store <comment><USER2> My understanding of IPFS is that it is not anonymous. Is my understanding incorrect?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup. That's why we added an encryption layer over Ipfs so that you can store private data on it.</comment></comment>