Show HN: Infer – Use TensorFlow Models in Go to Evaluate Images - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sjkaliski/infer <comment><USER2> Observation: an alternative way to accomplish the same thing (maybe with a slightly different workflow) is to just call tf-serving from go. See e.g. this gist [https://gist.github.com/mauri870/1f953a183ee6c186e70a0a72e78...](https://gist.github.com/mauri870/1f953a183ee6c186e70a0a72e78b088c)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out, will take a look!</comment></comment>


A Course in Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> http://ciml.info/ <comment><USER2> A lot of easy to digest content in this! Always great to see quality free material to help more people pick up machine learning and get involved solving problems using data science.

One thing I didn't see covered in depth here was feature engineering, which is the process of preparing your raw data for the machine learning algorithms. They cover it briefly in the chapter on "Practical Considerations", but anyone looking to apply ML in the real world should look into feature engineering more on their own.

One resource I recommend (and I am biased), is a python library for automated feature engineering called, Featuretools ([https://github.com/featuretools/featuretools/](https://github.com/featuretools/featuretools/)). It can help when your raw data is still too granular for modeling or comprised of multiple tables. We have several demos you can run yourself to apply it to real datasets here: [https://www.featuretools.com/demos](https://www.featuretools.com/demos).

</comment><comment><USER3> With all of these online courses around, I'm just curious: is there an ML course that teaches you the right model to use? Say for example, the right amount of layers/nodes for a neural net? As a newcomer doing one of these machine learning MOOCs on his free time, it seems to me that it's about chucking in a load of parameters into a black box hoping for the best.

<comment><USER4> Usually you throw everything and see what sticks. There are some obvious trends like if you're doing image classification, a convnet will beat just about anything else. There are problems which are particularly well suited to e.g. random forests and cases where you might want to use a simpler model which will run faster at the expense of a bit of accuracy.

In terms of neural nets, people have more or less done the hard work for you. Typically you'll want to take an empirically well-performing network like VGG, ResNet, Inception, etc and then re-train the top few layers. There is ongoing work in the field to try and train the structure of the network as well.

If you look at Kaggle, the vast majority of winners do so using ensembles. In a recent example - Iceberg or Ship - the winning team used a bit of feature engineering and apparently _over 100 ensembled CNNs_ :

> We started with a CNN pipeline of 100+ diverse models which included > architectures such as customized CNNs, VGG, mini-GoogLeNet, several > different Densenet variations, and others. Some of these included inc_angle > after the fully connected layers and others didn't.

[https://www.kaggle.com/c/statoil-iceberg-classifier- challeng...](https://www.kaggle.com/c/statoil-iceberg-classifier- challenge/discussion/48241)

It's an ugly kitchen sink approach, but it works.

<comment><USER5> > Usually you throw everything and see what sticks.

most practitioners start with the simplest possible learner, then gradually, and thoughtfully, increase model complexity while paying attention to bias/variance. this is far from a "kitchen sink" approach.

<comment><USER4> Certainly that's what most _sensible_ practitioners do. I somewhat doubt that most people follow this to the letter every time.

It's a nice theory, and it works intuitively with models where you can ramp up complexity easily (like neural nets). It's less obvious if you have a "simple" problem that might be solved with a number of techniques. In that situation I don't see why you would be criticised for trying say any of SVM, random forest, logistic regression, naive bayes and comparing. Pretty much the only way you can categorically say that your method is better than others is by trying those other methods.

The simple approach actually came up in the iceberg challenge. The winning team won because they bothered to plot the data. It turned out that the satellite incidence angle was sufficient to segment a large number of icebergs with basically 100% reliability. So they simply thresholded that angle range and trained a bunch of models to solve the more complicated case when there might be a ship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I quickly skimmed a few chapters and like what I see: the language is very friendly and the examples are easy to understand, but there is enough rigor to make this a good introductory book on the subject. Nice!

</comment><comment><USER7> I have not yet found a course that can cover machine learning and also explains the Maths needed to understand this.This course is no exception. Its extremely difficult for a programmer with no solid footing in Maths to understand it. Any help is a lot appreciated

<comment><USER8> True, very true and you'll hit that language barrier in no time. The courses, mostly, provide hands-on experience and don't explain, say for example, what does standard deviation mean?

But this is a good news/bad news kind of thing. Bad news, you need some statistics education to make a sense of what your computer is telling you. Good news, that mathematics isn't "high-grade" mathematics involving integrals and other stuff (as far as I can see anyway).

So what I am doing as a person who is trying to convert himself into a Data scientist is I am taking a basic udemy course ([https://www.udemy.com/python- for-data-science-and-machine-le...](https://www.udemy.com/python-for-data- science-and-machine-learning-bootcamp)) to give me the basics and a book on statistics to properly grok what I am seeing on the screen. On this part I am following a different book than its peers though, so it might not be for you but I like the story-telling aspect of it ([https://www.amazon.com/Adventure- Statistics-Reality-Enigma/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Adventure-Statistics- Reality- Enigma/dp/1446210456/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528016826&sr=8-1&keywords=an+adventure+in+statistics))

After I finish those I'll move to Kirill Eremenko's a-z courses on Machine Learning, AI and Deep Learning. I've found that even though they teach cool tricks and some basics before going in detail, that basics part didn't contain enough information for me as a new student. So I feel if you have some proper background in stats and python data analysis you can skip the parts I mentioned and go straight to a-z courses.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for your insights. I was wondering if one also needs a footing in vector calculus / linear algebra / integrals and other such words I have no idea about.

Also Kirill Eremenko has 38 courses listed. In what order should one take them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, this is a lot more in-depth than I was expecting. I started out with the O'Reilly book (Hands-on Machine Learning)[1]. There's some overlap there, but I'd say both this course and the O'Reilly book are well worth your time if you're starting out with machine learning. [1] [https://amzn.to/2kKaNiQ](https://amzn.to/2kKaNiQ)

</comment><comment><USER10> So many ML/AI courses out there, it's amazing.

Wondering if those ML/AI specialists can't find themselves a job and start writing courses -.-

<comment><USER11> There is some truth to this. Many jobs in machine learning are all bark and no bite. The company may even have created a machine learning team solely out of hype, and just equivocates machine learning with making d3.js visualizations or maintaining Spark jobs that just tabulate summary statistics.

Yet these jobs will still require you to do outrageous things during the interviews, like deriving the full backpropagation formulas for a 3-layer MLP network, or explain some esoteric issue with vanishing gradients or offer from memory a bunch of time complexity info about the SVM fitting algorithm, etc.

They require exponentially more impressive knowledge about machine learning in the interview than what the job experience will actually offer once you're hired. Most positions will fundamentally make your skills atrophy.

As a result, a lot of people resort to writing blog posts or courses about their experiences implementing toy models, studying trade-offs between approaches, analyzing publicly available data sets.

In part it's to help pad a resume and look relevant for getting hired. In part it's to build or exercise skills that the person's day job won't actually enable them to use. And in part to try to get your name out there and associated with a hyped up field.

<comment><USER12> I'm not questioning your analysis of behavioral psychology of the herd, but this particular example, prof. Hal Daume of University of Maryland and Microsoft Research has been long associated with the field, though not particularly neural networks, since way before the current hype.

<comment><USER11> I totally agree for this specific link. Many well-respected and established people in machine learning write course materials.

I was only responding to the parent comment regarding why random blog posts, articles, and course materials seem so widespread and constant in machine learning overall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thanks for breaking down a concept that is completely overwhelming into simple pieces of information!

Great work!</comment>


Mozilla Removes Gab.com's Dissenter Plugin from addons.mozilla.org - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1116036111296544768 <comment><USER2> I dont like what they do over at gab, but I believe people should be able to install whatever they wish on their phones/computers/browsers

I was expecting better from Mozilla

<comment><USER3> I kind of expected it to be honest: [https://www.foxnews.com/tech/mozilla- gave-100000-to-secure-e...](https://www.foxnews.com/tech/mozilla- gave-100000-to-secure-email-platform-harnessed-by-antifa-groups) shitty source I know. But its legit.

<comment><USER4> Gab expected it too. They even instituted anti-hate-speech code into their Dissenter backend, but it was still banned by Mozilla.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apparently the add-on sends every URL you visit to Dissenter: [https://github.com/gab-ai-inc/gab-dissenter- extension/issues...](https://github.com/gab-ai-inc/gab-dissenter- extension/issues/51)

That's probably why it was removed.</comment>


Programming Clojure Book Review - <AUTHOR> http://dobbscodetalk.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Programming-Clojure-Book-Review.html&Itemid=29

<comment><USER2> Can you really call this a review? It's two paragraphs of chapter summary mixed with a sentence ("Programming Clojure is certainly a worthwhile book for any Java and Lisp enthusiasts to read") of lukewarm opinion.

<comment><USER3> Yeah... It's a good book, but this reads like some kid's book report.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just finished reading it a couple of days ago. It wasn't my first brush with Clojure, but it was still very useful in re-framing what I knew, and filling up the holes. Overall it has a very good ROI for both time and money.

<comment><USER5> I'm currently working my way through it and I agree. This is my first experience with a Lisp and the book is a great introduction. Great value for money, DRM-free ebook, updated code on GitHub - I couldn't ask for more. Definitely recommended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My recent approach to learning Clojure:

-First watched the Peepcode screencast that compresses everything into an hour to get a good jumpstart

-Started reading Programming Clojure

-While converting a ruby app I wrote last month into pure Clojure

So far I've been very impressed with Clojure. I was already sold on LISP + functional programming from reading SICP.

I'll be using it in production over the next year.</comment>


Brain reacts to fairness as it does to money and chocolate - <AUTHOR> http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/brain-reacts-fairness-it-does-money-and-chocolate-16024.html

<comment><USER2> Original article (from April) without obnoxious amount of AdSense framing:

[http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/brain-reacts-to- fai...](http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/brain-reacts-to-fairness-as- it-49042.aspx)</comment>


Didi Kuaidi: Uber's Enemy in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/liyanchen/2015/09/23/meet-ubers-mortal-enemy-how-didi-kuaidi-defends-chinas-home-turf/ <comment><USER2> It's worth pointing out that Uber has already become massive in China; whenever I'm in Guangzhou there are a ridiculous amount of rides available and you're rarely waiting more than a few minutes.

<comment><USER3> I think that is only because black cabs already existed and were so popular in those areas. Uber legitimizes them, whereas before you would have had to worry about getting ripped off.

Suffice it to say, most of those drivers are probably on didi zhuanche and get more business from them than Uber. Its not that Uber is massive, but drivers have no concept of exclusivity so just monitor all the networks they can (even taxi drivers might have used multiple taxing hailing apps before the consolidation).

Didi kuaidi (and Uber) have done the impossible and made black taxis semi legal, since they were a fact of life already. They didn't have to build these markets from scratch, they already existed and were just poorly organized.

<comment><USER4> To me, this is the best point I've ever heard about uber.

Before I've in San Francisco I used to have a number of black cab drivers in my contacts.

We had set, agreed on prices for trips like "home to restaurant and back"

The prices agreed to were "low" by actual taxi rate standards and had the convenience of just calling the Lincoln car directly to come get me...

I thought it was a win!! (I lived where cabs would NEVER come to get me [i was banned by multiple cab companies] -- but then uber arrived...

Same black car service, no relationship building... And I paid a fucking fraction of what I was before.

Uber is the best thing to hit transport prior to tesla.

Give me an uber based self driving tesla and I'll commit some % of each paycheck to that.

<comment><USER3> Note when I say black cab, I actually mean 黑车 whose direct English translation probably isn't very precise. Essentially, these are illegal taxis that would have wandered the streets looking for fares when they can get away with it. They don't mean a legal black livery car as in say...NYC.

You didn't see them so much in the first tier cities (though they are still around) where there were enough taxis, but they were everywhere in 2nd/3rd tier cities, and often were your only private transport option.

<comment><USER5> > _Note when I say black cab, I actually mean 黑车 whose direct English > translation probably isn 't very precise. Essentially, these are illegal > taxis that would have wandered the streets looking for fares when they can > get away with it. They don't mean a legal black livery car as in say...NYC._

Gypsy cabs?

<comment><USER3> No, just random migrants and rural residents with cars coming to the city to make a buck.

<comment><USER6> It's just called that for historic reasons[1], referring to any illegal cab, usually which solicits people for rides. They don't have to be of the Romani people.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_taxicab_operation#cite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_taxicab_operation#cite_note-8)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article talks about subsidies. Does anyone know how much Uber and friends are subsidising their rides?

As in if I pay on average 10 USD to Uber, then the driver gets what? 5 USD, 10 USD, 15 USD?

<comment><USER8> Uber drivers get paid an amount based on a subsidy multiplier of the ride value, and they are highly sensitive to these multipliers. According to a driver I talked with recently, Uber takes 20% of the fare, but is currently giving drivers a bonus of about 2.5x. So if a fare is 10 rmb, Uber takes 2 rmb, then pays out 8 * 2.5 = 20rmb. Driving costs these drivers roughly 1-2 rmb/km, and if the subsidy ever fell below 1.3x, the drivers would lose money (these are for People's Uber level of cars, which is the lowest level). Unless the subsidy can ever drop below 1.25x, Uber will be paying for every ride. And if it does, drivers will be parking their cars or switching to another service.

Uber also lost a lot of money through a couple of vulnerabilities that have since been, I believe, patched. Some people were able to figure a way to create fake rides through the app, allowing drivers to get paid without ever driving anyone. They previously also allowed riders to link up Alipay accounts to their Uber accounts, but Uber had no way to ensure the Alipay accounts had funds. So people would take Uber with an empty account, and Uber would have to pay drivers without receiving any money from the riders.

Another side note: there was recently a publicity campaign with some well- known celebrities that had very explicit nationalistic messages encouraging Chinese citizens to use their local service and not the services of an outsider.

Uber will be burning a lot of money in China.

<comment><USER9> The hack needed an extra rooted android phone and a special 'helper' app. It also took advantage of the subsidy they give new users and the driver for new users. (I have no idea if this has been patched)

Another subsidy I heard about gave about $1000 per week if you had over 80 rides. $4000 dollar subsidy a month goes a long way in China.

It really blows my mind that people think this is a sustainable business. Even after you out-spend the competition, who's stopping someone from downloading a new app from a new service? I've seen users in China blast all ride apps at once and just take the first one to arrive. Subsidies won't buy loyalty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ultimately Uber is doomed. Being first to market is great for building a brand, but the barrier to entry is so low for this manner of service that eventually they'll succumb to death by a thousand competitors.

<comment><USER11> First to market in the US. This Fortune article [http://fortune.com/2015/09/30/will-china-be-ubers- waterloo/](http://fortune.com/2015/09/30/will-china-be-ubers-waterloo/) says Didi was in the market earlier in China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I lived in shanghai 5 years ago I was told that a cab driver would make about 4,000yuan a month. So needless to say I was quite impressed by the numbers in the article. I know full time office workers that makes considerably less than that with a masters degree!

<comment><USER13> That cab driver is probably still making around the same amount of money, and she's probably working 12x7 rather than 8x5.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> >>first order of business was to move beyond the taxi roots and emulate Uber's model whole cloth

Typical Chinese approach. What options do companies have when this happens?

<comment><USER15> How is that a problem? They don't have IP protection on the idea. It's quite fair and lawful for another company to copy it. They still need to overcome network effects and actually implement it. As the article shows, this was hard.

<comment><USER16> The parent comment didn't say they did have IP protection, nor that it was unlawful.

They asked how a company can or should respond in order to compete effectively.

It's a huge problem for most any company anywhere: how to compete when your competition is able to effectively clone you (not to mention if they have other advantages you inherently can't match in the market in question).

<comment><USER11> Also, it is just Forbes' words that Didi "emulate Uber's model whole cloth". Fortune has a different perspective "But Didi has some built-in competitive advantages, by virtue of the fact that it was in the market earlier and that it designed its business for the Chinese market, instead of trying to import a template perfected elsewhere." [http://fortune.com/2015/09/30/will-china-be- ubers-waterloo/](http://fortune.com/2015/09/30/will-china-be-ubers-waterloo/)

The Fortune article gave more details about Didi's model.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Image Analogies using Neural Networks - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/awentzonline/image-analogies/? <comment><USER2> It's really neat stuff. The 3rd example is especially stunning.

For more projects like this, you can also check out the neural style transfer implementation in Keras: [https://github.com/fchollet/keras/blob/master/examples/neura...](https://github.com/fchollet/keras/blob/master/examples/neural_style_transfer.py)

This is the script that OP's project was adapted from.

</comment><comment><USER3> See also [http://ostagram.ru](http://ostagram.ru) for some very striking neural network art mashups.

</comment><comment><USER4> the third "analogy" leaves me speechless. i wonder how disruptive this could become to the graphic design industry.

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/awentzonline/image- analogi...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/awentzonline/image- analogies/master/images/sugarskull-analogy.jpg)

<comment><USER5> unless someone goes and creates a easy to use standalone package, very little.

this guy had the right idea [http://ostagram.ru/static_pages/lenta?last_days=30](http://ostagram.ru/static_pages/lenta?last_days=30)

but the service costs an arm and a leg to run on current cuda clouds

first to get to a standalone python or ios version takes all :D

<comment><USER6> The "original" cloud version is [http://deepart.io](http://deepart.io)

As for an easy standalone version, it wouldn't have huge potential, considering the inevitable GPU / computing power requirements.

<comment><USER7> This makes me a little sad, though : "University of Tübingen has a pending patent application for the Neural Art technology."

<comment><USER5> I wonder what google would have to say since it's built from deep dream experience. Also it was recently improved with newer tech which may very well be non infringing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This made me think of the PatchMatch algorithm, see e.g. [1].

It is almost as if this is a generalization of that algorithm. It would be interesting to know if that is the case (for example, it would be interesting to know if the examples from the patchmatch papers can be reproduced with this image analogies algorithm).

[1] [https://vimeo.com/5024379](https://vimeo.com/5024379)

<comment><USER9> That's pretty cool. The patch matching in neural image analogies is based on this: [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.04589v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.04589v1.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can someone who's more familiar with this stuff give me an idea of how to go about trying it?

Is it possible to just spin up an Amazon EC2 instance and make it work?

If so, how long would it take, and how much would it cost, to produce one hybrid image? (Let's say something small, like 640x480 pixels.)

We're not talking hours of processing time per image, right?

<comment><USER11> I've tried colorizing photos with this code (result here : [https://twitter.com/matsiyatzy/status/706270684209680384](https://twitter.com/matsiyatzy/status/706270684209680384)) using EC2 instances. It's pretty fast, around 10-15 minutes, though you'll definitely want GPU-instances with CuDNN drivers installed (which can be a bit tedious to set up).</comment></comment>


Trump reveals that he is taking hydroxychloroquine in case he gets virus - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/0fbe485717c9a74e6d6c48aee7d208ae <comment><USER2> Analysis of all available papers: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1545C_dJWMIAgqeLEsfo2U8Kq...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1545C_dJWMIAgqeLEsfo2U8Kq5WprDuARXrJl6N1aDjY/edit)

</comment><comment><USER3> If I was Trump's doctor, and he asked me for hydroxychloroquine, I would give him a placebo.

<comment><USER4> The only proper thing for the doctor is to say no. Prescribing it or giving a placebo would be unethical. This actually leads me to suspect that he's just lying; it's hard to see how the doctor involved could avoid repercussions, even if it didn't blind him or give him a heart attack.</comment></comment>


What Designers Can Learn from Target's Checkout Form - <AUTHOR> http://uxmovement.com/forms/9-things-designers-can-learn-from-targets-checkout-form/

<comment><USER2> This is the best credit card form: <http://dribbble.com/shots/59549-Credit- card-form>

I want to do a version of that which begins with the credit card types desaturated and then colors the one that matches the number entered (for which there are Free js libs)

<comment><USER3> Agreed with everyone here. Why require people to choose the card type? I don't buy the additional step for security argument. A thief will know what type their card is supposed to be. Just lazy development.

Also, the credit card number series should be tightened up when automatically selecting card type. Wikipedia actually has a nice list of the series (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_number>).

<comment><USER4> I think the only reason to ask for a card type is to discourage customers from trying to pay with an unsupported one. Merchants can still be charged fees for declined transactions.

A few of the larger merchants can benefit from choosing a different transaction acquirer based on card type (e.g. lower fees for Amex) but they should not trust the card type selected by the customer.

<comment><USER5> The card type is a function of the card number, so the merchant has several chances to reject it before they send it off to the payment gateway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Using color temperature to distinguish between primary and secondary elements -- brilliant.

[http://uxmovement.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/09/checkout+or...](http://uxmovement.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/09/checkout+order+summary.png)

I have a little problem with the star at the end of "your price" as it creates dissatisfaction: "Oh, so the price isn't 12.98? What is it? Like $300? $500?"

About gift box... I'm sorry, I had to pull out Ill/PS and do this: <http://olekbeluga.com/targetgiftbox.png>

<comment><USER7> This signature looks like a ribbon/bow to tie the box up above with. i.e. visually it looks like a request to gift wrap.

Sorry, just nit picking, I know this was just a one off.

<comment><USER6> Good point. What if I emphasize the "signature line" concept and insert a line to emphasize the "these two are separate" concept?

As in: <http://olekbeluga.com/targetgiftbox2.png>

<comment><USER8> Why not show an actual, legible, signature? (John Doe or Jane Q. User or something.) Even with the signature line it still looks like visual gibberish.

<comment><USER6> I thought about a legible signature. My reasoning was that it was too specific. When you're drawing an icon of a coffee-cup, you're drawing abstract shapes that will hit as many people with a 'coffeecup' concept. Compare this to a life drawing of 'coffee-cup on a bar in Starbucks at 9pm in Seattle on 5th avenue'. Who gives a shit who's signature it is?

By drawing an abstract shape of signature I'm letting the user fill in the gaps ('yay, it's my signature'), without forcing a specific context on his mind ('oh, it's John Doe's signature').

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Formatted input? Alas, I knew him.

Glad to see that JavaScript is helping formatted input to make a come-back. Too bad such a feature was never incorporated into HTML forms in the first place. E.g. - something like a "PICTURE" clause in dBASE (as in "still preoccupied with 1985" :-) )

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if they did a study into what percentage of their users have font smoothing turned off, because their HTML text everywhere site looks horrendous on my PC with font smoothing off. It's especially ugly when you can easily see where they are using graphic text on a few select spots.

<comment><USER11> _their HTML text everywhere site looks horrendous on my PC with font smoothing off_

If you don't like how text looks without font-smoothing, then maybe you should consider turning on your font-smoothing...

<comment><USER12> Windows XP doesn't have it on by default. Most users don't know how to change it, even if they know what font-smoothing is in the first place.

We as web developers need to at least be aware of what our sites will look like for a given percentage of our userbase (and make a decision as to whether it's worth making it look good for that percentage).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure if I like the promo code being located at the end of the form.. Generally any time I have used one I want to know exactly what the price will be after the code before starting the rest of the process

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't understand holding up the checkbox as well executed. The primary text on the "is this is a gift" is "somebody special". If you're going to use smaller lighter type near large bold black type, then the bold section needs to convey the information and the lighter type just needs to add context or turn it into a grammatical sentence.

Also, "success" is patronizing.

I may be biased. I hate Target because the one in Foster City has a repeated pattern of ringing up sale items at regular price. I don't care much about the 8 cents, but it's the principle.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does the USPS have guidelines or a list for valid city names? Does Target ship to the US only?

If the answer to either of those is "no" then their City validation code is almost assuredly broken.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. A former employer tried to implement something of the sort, just to keep the city names nice... They ended up giving up on it because the data just wasn't good enough.

They even tried just for the US, and not international, and it still wasn't good enough. It just changes too much and any inconvenience to the customer was not acceptable.

<comment><USER17> It seems like the right way to do this is to have a positive list, but to accept anything.

If you put in a city on the list, then you get the green SUCCESS (and probably some autocomplete suggestions to take you there), if you put in one that's not on the list, you get an no cue at all (or an equivocal one)

Then as you make successful orders to previously unknown cities, you can add them to the known list (possibly as aliases of the "real" city name, which you can then display as a choice to future users on entry.

<comment><USER18> The list of valid cities in the US is likely huge -- having an auto complete list that matched anything would likely make it harder as the users has to scroll past a lot of close but not the right ones.

Populating the auto-complete list with the 100 biggest cities and accepting any input would probably give a better compromise.

Or why not just ask for zip code first and auto-populate the rest?

<comment><USER16> <http://www.greatdata.com/zip-code-questions.htm>

Q: How often do the ZIP / postal codes really change?

A: U.S. ZIP Codes change sporadically. Most of the time there's just a few changes, but every now and then (especially around July 1st) there will be major changes.

\----

... In other words, they change all the bloody time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like the shopping cart total box shown in the article. (you listening, Amazon?) I can't say how many times I have gone through and aborted the checkout process in Amazon, just to find out what items are really going to cost, given shipping. Of course, the preview assumes a default shipping option. So let the user set on. I don't have Amazon Prime, so I always select the cheap shipping anyway.

<comment><USER19> I assure you that feature was very well tested and the high-pressure shopping cart tactic was deemed more revenue-promoting than the user-friendly alternative.

<comment><USER9> Touche!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Do higher RPM loading spinners give the impression of faster load times? If the user counts the revolutions, a faster spinner would yield more spins per operation, so the opposite could conceivably be true. More likely, there is a sweet spot. I would think a _smooth consistent_ spinner would be the most important factor.

<comment><USER21> The data spinner on the iPhone is a good example. The 3G/Wifi spinner is at that "normal" speed, just fast enough to be smooth and not fast enough to be unintelligible. The Edge network spinner is at perhaps half speed and is painful to watch. It's quite an effective design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I disagree. The form is really poorly designed. One big specific issue is the Submit button is red, it should be green, this violates a design 101 principle. Thanks.

<comment><USER23> Let me remind you that Target's main color is red. 101 principles do not apply to all cases.

<comment><USER22> I know it's red, but you can't put the brand over an universal association with red=stop. If you look at the data, I bet you they are losing users who stop or abandon.

<comment><USER24> I bet you they aren't. After 8 years of split testing experience on some colossal sites, I'd be surprised if that's the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Great UI in many places, but SSL errors on their Cart.

<https://www-secure.target.com/OrderItemDisplay></comment>


I can't seem to land a programming job - <AUTHOR> Hello all,
I've graduated a Bootcamp last year and afterward, I taught myself Javascript and ReactJS. After a couple of months I landed a Contract Position at Calvin Klein and now I am Freelancing at a small company, but as much as I try I can't seem to get a Full-time role. I've applied on various sites, utilized recruiters and I've even started doing cold emails but no luck. I consider myself to be a junior but I believe I can code, so I don't understand why I've had no luck. For the first time the other day I really thought about giving up on this profession. Any type of input would be much appreciated.
Best <comment><USER2> You've left crucial information: at what stage do you get rejected?

If you're not even invited for interviews, then your resume needs work. Have someone review it and provide feedback.

To improve your resume, do some open source projects, blog about programming things, have a decent website with portfolio. Do something to stand out from the crowd.

If you get the interviews but bombing them, then you probably need to improve your algorithm skills. There are plenty of websites to help with that ([https://www.google.com/search?q=programming+interview+questi...](https://www.google.com/search?q=programming+interview+questions)).

<comment><USER3> Know any good resume review services that are free or really cheap?

<comment><USER2> I don't think such a thing exists because there's no demand for it.

Ask your colleagues.

If you don't have those, go to any programming meetup, strike up a conversation and if the conversation flows, ask the person if they would be willing to give you feedback on your resume. People like to feel important so they most likely will.

In the worst case, ask strangers on the internet. Do Ask HN or do it on r/programming. Like I said, people like to feel important so it's likely to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> First thing I'd say is keep learning. Be sure you fill in all the gaps to be able to build something from the front all the way to the back, typically referred to as a full stack engineer. This will give you more opportunities and help you widen your job possibilities.

Since you really need experience, try interning somewhere. You won't make your true potential but you are learning and you have to start somewhere. Very valuable experience.

And lastly, I work at Quicken Loans and we have 200 openings in technology. I was Director of Software Engineering for over 12 years before switching roles and it sounds like you want to learn, get better, and honestly that's a quality I valued when interviewing. Take a look at our careers site, we have a great culture, [http://quickenloanscareers.com](http://quickenloanscareers.com). If you like what you see, shoot me your resume at email@example.com and I'll take a look at get it to our recruiting team directly if it has potential.

All the best!

</comment><comment><USER5> Aside from your development skills and portfolio I think you have to work on your self-esteem. Even if you have great knowledge about js and react if you act like a junior who had no jobs before they wont hire you. I've gone through this and when I realized there are many companies in need for developers I knew I'm valuable. Be a little more confident and don't let them scare you - they need you as much as you need a job. Of course you have to have knowledge with this attitude, but it's easier to gain knowledge than gaining confidence. Just be optimistic, don't give up and I'm pretty sure you'll find jor full- time job.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would build some cool side projects. Not a ton of them (like not 50 CRUD websites), but a few good ones. Things that showcase interest and ability to pick up on new things.

Remember, you're taking a shortcut into a well-paying profession. People that study other engineering disciplines for 4 years still have to search for jobs for months, often chasing lower salaries. If you have to invest even a couple more years building your portfolio and gaining what experience you can, and you land a job, your ROI is still better than the majority of technical college graduates.

Just try to make yourself stand out from other bootcamp graduates by building something cool. And you'll develop better skills in the process.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are a lot of responses here about resumes, self-confidence, etc, so I won't reiterate those things. What type of companies are you applying for? My background is a lot like yours (minus the boot camp), and I've had much better luck applying for smaller companies that are off the beaten path. I think if you find a small company that needs an in-house developer, could find a position to cut your teeth on and build experience.

<comment><USER8> I really have to agree on this.

I have a small software company looking for developers, and I get close to zero applications. 95% of people just don't consider applying at a small no- name shop, hell most of them have probably never even heard of my company (we are just two people after all).

So everyone applies to the well known companies, who don't even send a reply, and wonder why noone hires them, while all the small companies that would hire practically anybody don't even get any applications.

Anyway, that's what it looks like from my perspective.

<comment><USER7> Are you still hiring? If so, I'd like to check your company out and send a resume over.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I'm hiring: [https://eggerapps.at/jobs.html](https://eggerapps.at/jobs.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Off the bat, I wish you the best of luck and diligence will get you there. That having been said, invest in a good resume preparation service known for servicing your niche. I am being self-serving here since I run a Shanghai based English resume editing, LinkedIn profile creation, and interview coaching service. In most cases, working with the right mentor/consultant/whatever you want to call it will cost you a few days and a few hundred dollars max. If the final result is 1) a document that sells you extremely well, 2) interview skills that are well polished leading to a secure FT position with perhaps higher salary than you were targeting, isn't that worth the investment?

Reach out to me with questions at vfulco[@]weisisheng.cn. You were asking about cheap/free services. We do generalized critical resume reviews for ~15USD and full resumes creation/rewrites for between 150-400USD. This is the time to consider working with someone who does them day in and day out. Go for cheap beer (if you want) not cheap professional career services.

</comment><comment><USER10> What did the bootcamp teach?

There aren't a lot of full time front end only, javascript only roles around, which are the only two skills you've listed.

For employability you need to expand to something more common on the back end like c#/java and especially sql.

</comment><comment><USER3> There aren't that many junior positions out there to be honest. On top of that there are way to many junior candidates. Where do you live? Are you getting to an interview stage?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I do get a couple of interviews. I live in New York City.

<comment><USER11> So that means your resume is good enough to get interviews but you're not passing those? Did you bootcamp go through whiteboarding exercises and prep you for what to expect for a dev interview?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1\. shape your past work at calvin klein and any other projects into a nice little portfolio.

2\. make a simple, clean resume which states those experiences in text form.

3\. dont call yourself a junior. speak to the experiences you have had, which are several.

4\. continue learning, make yourself an expert on one or more of the emerging, most common frameworks and language.

5\. document your finds and solutions on a blog and github

6\. link all this together, send out short emails with a link to your links.

You can't miss. You will get a job.

</comment><comment><USER13> Keep doing the freelancing and keep doing contract positions, build up a portfolio and gain some more work experience in the field, which you can then talk about more in detail in interviews for full time roles. I think one or two years of experience doing contracting and freelancing would be a good idea. Get some more references and testimonials.

</comment><comment><USER14> Build a side-project about something you're passionate about that you can showcase, both in production and Github.

I've always done this, and it worked out great for me even to the point of forgoing the technical part of a couple of interviews (two of which landed me jobs).

</comment><comment><USER15> patience & time. have patience and give it some time. I became a developer late in the game, I was in my late thirties when I decided to go back to school and study fulltime. I can feel your frustration but eventually you will get a break and chance to prove yourself.

<comment><USER16> What kind of job(s) did you hold while you were going to school in your late 30s? I'm single so I pretty much can't rely on someone else's income like I could when I took college in my 20's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are a lot of websites (mostly full-time home-based coding job) out there where you can post your Résumé, etc.

Also, while you still have a lot o' free time, do some swing trading in the stock market to earn some bucks.

At this point (been coding for 4 years) I even consider leaving my full-time programming job to focus on stocks and just do part-time coding.

<comment><USER12> Swing trading, seriously? The OP mentioned nothing about having a) money to invest or b) any financial knowledge.

<comment><USER18> Just throw your money into something and then sell it when it goes up. This isn't hard! /s

Seriously OP, DO NOT just start buying stocks without having a clue as to what you're doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What kind of skills do you have, OP?</comment>


Want to learn to program? Here's your first lesson - <AUTHOR> http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-first-lesson-in-programming.html

<comment><USER2> I think it's great you're helping out people who want to learn with posts like this.

A couple critiques: When I was first learning, I was desperate for Hello World code I could paste and run. As basic as this tutorial is, sometimes even a little abstraction makes it hard for newbies to grasp. For example, why not make the doWhatever function do something, so they can run the code and see how it works?

Same with assignment vs eval... demonstrate it in a fully functioning piece of code they can copy, paste and hack themselves.

Analogies to noble gases aren't the best... since non science people may not even remember what that is. Also, a can easily be changed, so I'm not sure the analogy even holds.

Nice post overall. I think Hacker news should have a way to easily find all articles like this.</comment>


Choose Concurrency-Friendly Data Structures  - <AUTHOR> http://www.ddj.com/article/printableArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VEIB2CYJQ4GH4QSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=208801371&dept_url=/hpc-high-performance-computing/

<comment><USER2> Clojure solves this particularly elegantly by using persistent data structures. This works really well if you've got automatic garbage collection, but is almost impossible to pull off when managing memory manually. Java has some decent concurrent/atomic data structures.

I've written implementations of lock-free data structures in C++ before, and in the end it's always the memory management that complicates everything immensely because you have to watch out for dangling references and need to make up arbitrary, hard-to-enforce access rules as a consequence.

As far as I'm concerned, this is the biggest nail in the coffin of C++. Not the insanely complex syntax, not the compiler niggles, but, ironically, the inability to scale and perform well in a concurrent environment - and C++ has been the domain of those wanting the highest possible speed in serial code. And memory management is one of the arguments that's often been used in C/C++'s favour and is now actually killing it.

<comment><USER3> I'm generally against any complex lock-free data structures, because they're extremely difficult to prove to be reliable (and I mean prove in ACL2 sense of proof).

Have you tried any of the garbage collection libraries for C++? I've never used them for any of my projects, but I currently work in the mobile industry and they would potentially solve two problems. One being the concurrency issue, but then also memory fragmentation. (Windows Mobile 6 allows 32 MB of memory max per process, so this is a big one for mobile)

I know they can cause a lot of cache misses, but it seems like all but the most primitive of low end devices would run into a problem with it in most situations at this point.

<comment><USER2> Indeed, lock-free data structures can be a massive pain to implement. Clojure solves this problem, quite elegantly in my opinion, by making the data structures themselves immutable, any operations yield a new instance of the data structure (with shared substructure of course). You can then update references to the data structure with the new data structure; in Clojure the idiomatic way to do this is using STM transactions, but you could do it with atomic updates or locks in any other language.

Presumably, this won't scale especially well with many writers, at least not for trees and hash tables.

I surveyed the GC-on-C++ situation a couple of years ago, and nothing was realistically that useful for concurrent applications. Definitely nothing anywhere near as sophisticated as, say, the JVM's garbage collector.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do they really have to put a "next page" link after every two paragraphs!?

<comment><USER5> Maybe he wanted to provide an example of a linked list? :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to handle tasks that require design skills as a freelance web dev? - <AUTHOR> Occasionally, clients ask me to make a new page or a new "widget". If something similar isn't already implemented on the site, it requires certain graphical design skills to make such things from the ground up.
I like to believe that I have a good taste for design, but lack of experience, and overall poor "design vocabulary" wouldn't allow me to make such things efficiently.
As my clients are usually small businesses, they don't have a designer nor willing to find one. They feel comfortable with having a single guy handling everything. And that's understandable in such market. But I have no idea how much should charge for the way-beyond-secondary skillset.
Sometimes I try to explain, that I'm not exactly the right guy for the job when it comes to "drawing". The common argument is: "it doesn't really matter as long as you can deliver something that works".
I love to make my clients happy, so I don't turn them down immediately. Maybe they really are in need of just something in order to function properly. So I try hard to make the thing.
Results aren't exactly awful, and clients seem to be happy. Sometimes I even like the end-result myself. But at least half of the time it doesn't look good enough to me.
I never had a complaint, but I feel bad charging the same amount I ask for my primary skillset. And the time spent is just ridiculous compared to the other things I do!
For example, I can make a markup and implement backend in, say, 2 hours. And then, there would be 5 to 8 hours that are spent tinkering with fonts, images, colors, spacings.
How should I charge? Should I avoid such feats? Should I hire a designer? Or maybe I should develop needed skills myself as I am kinda already stepped into it?
It's also worth noting that I never have never hired a freelance designer, so it's a bit frightening.
Please, tell me about your experience. <comment><USER2> I hire designers as one of the first things on any freelance project. They're fairly cheap and bring a lot of value.

I have decent design skills and experience, but normally other people can do it faster, cheaper, better. I didn't even hire a _great_ designer. She just did the work better than me.

It might be worth paying out of your pocket for it. Every time a good designer comes in, client confidence increases to the point that they practically double the budget. E.g. someone who planned for 4 sprints of work initially ends up confidently paying for 8 sprints instead.

</comment><comment><USER3> If it was me, I'd learn design. As a software engineer I'm sure you're great at learning already, and learning new skills is great for your brain. Plus it will likely make you more valuable in your market.

You said your clients seem happy with your work already, learn design and blow them away.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think it'd be useful to have a freelance designer you can punt jobs to - even if you just agree to pay them what you charge for their time, if it saves you the hassle and gives more reliable/efficient results for clients.

<comment><USER5> This. I established relationships with a couple designers and would subcontract work to them. In turn, they eventually started referring me clients. It worked out nicely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> if it's just crud, a bootstrap ui kit can make things easy. Copy/paste the HTML, add some interactivity and you're done.

I actually can design but still use UI kits because it's so much faster.</comment>


Steve Jobs' patent for the UK plug? - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/patents?id=P3USAAAAEBAJ

<comment><USER2> It seems like it's more an adapter to fit a UK-style plug into a socket that would usually only accept US-style power leads.

If you compare power adapters for laptops between the UK and the US, the UK adapters typically have a three-prong socket whereas the US ones have a two- prong socket. This patent seems to cover a UK plug that fits a US power adapter socket.

<comment><USER3> The two-prong C7 is fairly common in the UK as well. This design patent doesn't have to be innovative as it only protects the look, but still, it's just a standard C7 plug connected to a standard UK plug.

If they've patented this I assume they've patented all the other global plugs that can be attached too.</comment></comment>


Buffer has helped send 100,000 tweets for people - <AUTHOR> http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/03/buffer-schedules-100000-tweets-ill-tell-you-about-it-later/ <comment><USER2> I love this app.

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats guys!</comment>


iPhone X Named 'Most Breakable iPhone Ever' - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/06/iphone-x-breakability-drop-tests/ <comment><USER2> I don't think it's necessarily an issue that an electronic-device insurance company conducted the tests. They're going to want to know what the estimated risk of payouts will be and what to charge for premiums. It's not like they're owned by Google or Samsung, or have a known public bias against apple; they insure a lot of devices across the board.

What I think is rather moot is giving it the desgination as "most brakable iphone ever". If you're making a metric and ordering based on that metric, you're going to have one (or more equal) data point in the first position.

What would be nicer to know is, using these tests or a standard test-suite, how the iPhone X (and 8) compare to previous iPhones and phones by other manufacturers.

<comment><USER3> Well, are they not saying how the iPhone X compares to previous iPhones? They said it's the most breakable.

Yes, you'll have one in the first position, but do you expect that the most recent product would be in the first position? I don't think that's moot at all.

<comment><USER2> > Well, are they not saying how the iPhone X compares to previous iPhones? > They said it's the most breakable.

Yep, you're correct they did say that. I wasn't clear enough in my response to indicate what I meant. What I meant to say was, I would like to see how other iPhones rated on "standarzied" testsuite so consumers could see how much more fragile the X is than others. Even nicer would be if other manufacturers phones were rated on the same battery.

> Yes, you'll have one in the first position, but do you expect that the most > recent product would be in the first position?

Depends. I'd hope not but if they're releasing a redesigned product or a product with a new way of building the container, then it might happen. I use an Otter Box and I am pretty careful with my current iPhone but this easier break-ability would effect my purchase decision if I was going to buy a new phone right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is blatant advertising for some phone insurance company

<comment><USER5> Agreed. That was my first thought also.

<comment><USER6> First thoughts aside.

Why is the back of the iphone made of glass in the first place. At least before it was like a usb key... you know 50/50 chance of breaking. Now they're gone full lightning cable and made it a 100% chance that some glass would break.

<comment><USER7> Qi charging capability requires a back that is almost radio transparent, or something along these lines, which aluminum is not

<comment><USER8> Plenty of materials are both radio transparent and non-metallic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I suppose I'll try to refrain from holding my phone over my head and dropping it. The breakability from 6ft is not terribly useful information for me.

<comment><USER10> How often have you fumbled something in your hands, tried to catch it, but ended up deflecting it off your hand so the object got projected higher in the air and received more damage? Happens to me all the time. My favorite experience was slipping on ice with my car keys in my hand. My arm (by reflex) went straight up in the air to counterbalance, fingers extended (again reflex, allows for better cushioning upon falling), and the car keys went flying across the parking lot. I'm sure that if I had a phone in my hand it would have ended up destroyed.

<comment><USER11> Not the person you replied to but that's never, ever happened to me. Your life sounds like a Mr Bean episode.

<comment><USER10> Ok, so a follow-on question. For those who have very good hand-eye coordination (where you tend not to fumble an object you are trying to catch), do you wear glasses, and if so is the prescription strong enough to introduce a lot of distortion (curvature) along the edges? I noticed that when I switched to contact lenses for a few years, I was surprised that I could actually reliably catch a ball. Back to glasses now, but I can't catch anymore, play pool, bowling, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> CNET tested the phone too.

[https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-iphone-x-drop- test/](https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-iphone-x-drop-test/)

My X arrives this week. What's a good case? Have a Spigen on my 7, and it survived several drops.

</comment><comment><USER13> Well, 'SquareTrade' is the only one naming it that way. And it's pretty normal since they are an electronic device insurance company, which is not very trustworthy.

Apart from that, there are some other tests showing the rear glass is almost impossible to break, something not happening with the back one.

Maybe the title is a little bit click bait.

<comment><USER14> > there are some other tests showing the rear glass is almost impossible to > break

Citation needed.

Also, it's not like SquareTrade have hidden their testing methodology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > SquareTrade, a company that provides extended warranties for electronic > devices, conducted several breakability tests on the iPhone X, and found > that its glass back and lack of a home button make it "the most breakable > iPhone ever."

Surprise! Insurance company..

<comment><USER16> That seems like the kind of company most interested/invested in knowing which phones are the most breakable, no?</comment></comment>


StartupHouse: HOT new Hacker Coworking space in downtown SF + Hacker Hostel - <AUTHOR> http://www.danielodio.com/2011/07/15/hot-new-hacker-coworking-space-in-downtown-sf-hacker-hostel/

<comment><AUTHOR> If you'd like to check it out, just make a comment on my blog and I'll make an intro.</comment>


Secret iOS business; what you don't know about your apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.troyhunt.com/2011/10/secret-ios-business-what-you-dont-know.html

<comment><USER3> The first part of this article is all about apps doing unnecessarily large network requests. The lack of gzip, optimized images, and redundant requests are more a sign of developers having not enough time or knowledge in the area of bandwidth optimization.

The second half of the article is much more interesting with a discussion of the horrible security practices in apps (or lack thereof). It is an indichtment of Facebook, flurry, and any other app that is leaking data (including passwords) without the user's permission.

<comment><USER4> It got me wondering if it might be possible to compete with a similar app by just illustrating how much less bandwidth your app uses. Except for Sprint and people on grandfathered plans, people pay per GB for bandwidth on their mobile devices. If you can show your app uses 10% of the bandwidth of another would that make an impact on the typical buyer?

The security stuff is really worrisome. Apple ought to be vetting this stuff in their review process, as having a bunch of high profile identity theft start happening to people using iPhone apps is not going to do anything good for Apple.

Finally, I've added flurry.com to my /etc/hosts.

<comment><USER5> > It got me wondering if it might be possible to compete with a similar app by > just illustrating how much less bandwidth your app uses. Except for Sprint > and people on grandfathered plans, people pay per GB for bandwidth on their > mobile devices. If you can show your app uses 10% of the bandwidth of > another would that make an impact on the typical buyer?

Sadly, I doubt the typical user cares that much. Unless the bandwidth difference were significant... (in MB, not %).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a developer, I am guilty of using flurry too much. But its just so damned useful to be seeing what your users are up to with your app! I am addicted to checking my flurry console every day and watching the event logs, looking at session lengths.. even the world map of users is something I can look at longingly every morning.

<comment><USER7> Actually, I find that to be creepy. You are basically stalking your users.

<comment><USER8> _Actually, I find that to be creepy. You are basically stalking your users._

What's the difference between that and installing Google Analytics on your website?

<comment><USER5> I can easily protect myself from GA tracking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While I agree that these development practices are pretty awful, they aren't particularly iOS specific. You can easily do the same thing in a web/desktop/Android app.

How many websites submit password forms over HTTP or store them in plaintext on the backend or make large, unnecessary downloads or spew tracking data all over your browser?

Unfortunately, many developers are too lazy to bother learning best practices and this is what you end up with.

</comment><comment><USER10> I recently did a study of 10,000 android apps at Black Hat Vegas 2011. We looked at privacy violations, bandwidth usage, etc.

The most bandwidth-hungry app in the sample downloaded 12 MB in the first 30 seconds. Most apps used far far less. Details are in [http://www.neildaswani.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/08/Mobile...](http://www.neildaswani.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/08/Mobile-Malware-Madness_July%202011-FINAL.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER11> Quite funny from a chap who has google+, twitter, digg and facebook button on his page. At the very least, the facebook one tracks users even when they are logged out.

He does make a good point, re developers not caring about anything hidden behind the scenes. Good to see them being named and shamed.

<comment><USER7> "Quite funny from a chap who has google+, twitter, digg and facebook button on his page."

He appears to be using Blogger. Are those buttons forced on everyone using Blogger or is that something he would have added himself?

<comment><USER12> No, blogger doesn't add that stuff by default. You can add it to a template, or find a template that already has it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> On the one hand this is a great article with great research.

On the other hand it shows extreme naïvety.

As bad as this may seem, almost every company I have ever worked for - and I have worked for at least a dozen of the world's biggest most profitable companies - none of them care about security _in practice_. Publicly it's a different story, but back in the security department this happens:

1) security is always an afterthought on every project even if someone put it in the plan

2) the security department covers the entire organisation, that is: all processes, functions, applications, buildings, staff, hardware and software

3) the people that work in the security department cannot possibly have the kind of in-depth knowledge of every one of these and practically never have deep knowledge of any single one, to make the right decisions

4) the power of "No" is used in the place of finding out what is really needed from the real experts who don't work in security - ie they don't listen to anyone who doesn't work in their function

The result is that most companies are vulnerable at almost every turn, but take the view that they only need to shut the barn door after the horse has bolted. And it makes perfect economic sense, as long as the horse has not bolted.

If it has bolted then the decision makers go into damage limitation. That's how companies work so it does not surprise me at all that skilled knowledgeable people can expose these issues with ease.

It's inevitable that what we saw at Sony will happen again and again. Perhaps this was the root cause of Blackberry's recent woes too. We may never know.

Like he says... we live in interesting times.

</comment><comment><USER14> Charles (<http://www.charlesproxy.com/>) is another http proxy that works well. It runs on Windows, Linux and OS X and can read Fiddler logs. I use it all the time to test my iOS apps and look into SSL traffic.

</comment><comment><USER15> Excellent article. It really made me think about the responsibility we (programmers) have for protecting user information. I wonder how this problem could be solved, though. Apple is already widely criticized for their tight control over applications (even though this article clearly shows that this control is not _that_ tight). I do believe however, that right now Apple would be the only company who could change this trend with their App Store model; they already check every single application they offer for sale.

But the line between what's considered usage pattern analysis or creepy spying is hard to draw.

</comment><comment><USER16> In August I ended up using 100MB in one day for whatever reason (I imagine Netflix even though I was home) and started to think about having a proxy service to help me cut down on bandwidth use as well as being able to monitor how much each individual app uses.

I don't know if that's at all possible or if that exists but I realized that it'd be hard to make that a paying product since, with AT&T at least, it costs only $10 extra to go to the next bandwidth cap. You'd most likely need to go under these $10 to see any real interest… That would actually allow you to cut Flurry et al off completely.

<comment><USER17> A company called Onavo is doing exactly that:

<http://www.onavo.com/>

They have an iOS app that configures your device to use their proxy servers. I haven't tried it myself since I'm a bit hesitant to route all my traffic through a third party, but it does sound promising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> With the content-based apps, development is often outsourced to an external company. BigContentCo then gives the developers a content feed that's optimized for web (big PNG images etc).

Yes, it would be nice to implement a caching and resizing service for the feed - but there's often not the budget nor time to implement one. And BigContentCo is not willing to pay the developers to host and supply bandwidth - <USER2> when the app is free.

TL;DR development does not happen in a vacuum.

</comment><comment><USER19> It would be nice if the OS could expose at least a rough idea of how much / when data per app is used. People don't realize until they see nice graphs. Once they know where to look, it would put much more pressure on application developers.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wish I could force this guy and his ilk to forever use the unoptimized first version of every product that benefits from user analytics.

<comment><USER21> The point is that you can utilize user analytics without cross-correlating every damn aspect of my life and buying habits.

<comment><USER20> Of course I could. I could do a lot of other things that wouldn't be as effective, too.

When you use something for free that requires money to produce and maintain, _of course_ every damn aspect of your life and buying habits is going to be cross-correlated, as long as this is legal and profitable in aggregate. (Often it isn't profitable. People dramatically overestimate how interesting and/or valuable they are.)

Seriously, you've been handed something for free and I don't look like Santa Claus. What'd you expect?

<comment><USER16> _When you use something for free_

Are you talking about the app here? Because the price of the app has nothing to do with it, since I'm sure many paying apps use analytics tools as well.

The problem is not the use of analytics to improve the app either, but the fact that Flurry can track you specifically over multiple apps.

If you're talking about Flurry being free, the major problem is that, as a developer, you get the functionality for free but it's the user that pays by giving away behavioral information. You're making the decision for the user that it's ok to use a service that will track you over multiple apps.

edit: I admit that I use Google Analytics on websites, so I'm no better… (though I don't have any "real" sites) Ideally, there would be cheap (or better: FOSS) analytics tools you can set up on your own servers that are good enough for most basic tracking. Or to go with analytics tools that don't have an advertising arm. (do they exist at all?)

(…)

Ok, I just looked at your profile. I feel it's important to note that you co- founded a company (Pinch Media) that was acquired by Flurry. Seems like a relevant disclosure.

<comment><USER20> You could use something like Piwik for your Google Analytics problem - it's open source - although I don't believe it or any of the other open-source solutions scale well beyond a single box, so if your website takes off you'll have trouble.

Many analytics tools exist that don't have an advertising arm - in fact, most don't. They charge developers directly. Mobile device analytics are a bit of an aberration, mainly for historical reasons, although paid solutions there also exist.

For the user to 'pay' by giving away behavioral information, they'd have to suffer some sort of economic loss. They don't. (As an aside, a lot of the arguments made in favor of music or application piracy are surprisingly relevant to the collection of behavioral targeting data.)

I believe that ideas should stand on their own, so I generally don't disclaimer up my posts. For example, I'm always irritated when someone dismisses a politician's stance because of his donors, as if to suggest he was bought. In the politician's case, he has the donors he does because of his ideas, not the other way around. In my case, I have the economic interests I do because of my ideas - again, not the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I would bet that the Australia/Sydney bit that he's so freaked out about is his time zone, not his "location" per se.

</comment><comment><USER23> This app, called onavo, helps you save some bandwith. Not sure about security though.

</comment><comment><USER24> Thankfully iOS 5 does not allow UDID sharing between different apps: [http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/19/ios-5-deprecates-udid-as- iden...](http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/19/ios-5-deprecates-udid-as-identifier- for-developers-but-its-not/)

<comment><USER25> > iOS 5 does not allow UDID sharing

From the linked article:

> First off, let's clear up what it means for Apple to 'deprecate' this > identifier. A deprecated function or software component is not yanked out > immediately; it's simply been flagged by the developer of the platform (or > app, command line tool, what have you) as something that will be going away > in the future, eventually.

<comment><USER26> Whatever happened to always turning on the IDE flag for "Treat warnings as errors"

<comment><USER27> Deprecation warnings are a huge issue in 3rd party libraries. You'd have to rewrite those the way iOS works basically if you do turn on "Warnings as errors". I wish it were not so, but sadly, it is.

On projects who don't have this problem, I turn it on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So, wait, it's possible for me to actually download inefficient apps on my iPhone? Onoes! Seriously, why is "iOS" in the title? Boo.

<comment><USER29> IOS is singled out because iOS is what all the test cases featured in the post were done on. The author does mention the issues are likely endemic to all mobile app platforms.

As a word of unsolicited advice, It's best to set your emotional attachments to a platform aside if you want to engage or broaden the discussion on legitimate technical matters.

<comment><USER28> As a legitimate technical matter, the title of this article is downright misleading, and it was made that way intentionally. This is clearly not a case of a bunch of random app picks that all just happened to be iOS apps. The title drew a conclusion that is wholly unsupported by the article, there is no "secret iOS business". The title is also the most important line in the article, it doesnt matter if the author admitted his guilt later.

My like or dislike of iOS has nothing to do with this, I simply want to find links to higher quality, more honest content on HN. Next time consider keeping your unsolicited advice to yourself.

<comment><USER29> How exactly were you or anyone else mislead? The guy ran a bunch of iOS apps with an HTTP proxy and posted the results (screen captures) and a requisite analysis.

He didn't say or present the post as a comprehensive overview of the entire mobile app data/security model, but did offer that even though this was just a look at one platform, it was probably pervasive on all of them.

As for the headline, he showed tons of data on the apps phoning home to Flurry, a 3rd party app analytics company, with his device ID and location across several unrelated apps. He then provided a link to Flurry's site and used their own language to describe what they do.

"Secret Business" can also refer to that fact that all of this stuff is obscured by the app model and can't be readily observed or controlled by the user like it can in a web browser. Nothing about this is untrue, even if it is applies to other mobile app platforms. And again, he's "guilty" of saying that it does.

All iOS apps are reviewed and approved by Apple before they're available. They hold themselves and their apps to a higher standard and if anything open themselves to more scrutiny than others for this reason. That's my opinion, not the authors.

I saw your green username (new account) and that it was your first comment and was just trying to be helpful. Good luck in your search to find more "higher quality content" and discussion on HN than you already have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Excellent use of Fiddler... I'm going to try this on a few apps that have seemed terribly slow, even on wi-fi. I take that back: I need to use this with every app that I've been semi-trusting.

For development, this seems like a great catch-all tool to make sure expected best practices are actually working........ or if someone completely ignored them / forgot to implement.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it just me or did the Windows 10 rollout go really smooth? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> My new Win10 will shutdown properly, but hangs on reboot. Dunno quite what to do about it. The upgrade process seemed to go fine.

I also had trouble installing Office 2010 after it was upgraded. Had to de- select all the components & install just Excel first, then do a 'Program Change' to add the rest of the components of the suite. Otherwise even in 'Win7' compatibility mode it would fail to find the .msi's it extracted to the temp folder.

I really don't like the transparent taskbar, as the lettering's hard to read. I wish I could just turn off the 'Themes' service to get it back to Win98-style.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Something happened"

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2952507/windows/windows-10-la...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2952507/windows/windows-10-launches- with-its-fair-share-of-bugs.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> My Windows 10 installation fscked up my linux partitions that were on the same drive, and I was unable to repair tem... probably my own fault for not being careful, but very aggravating. The OS itself seems fairly smooth, though.

</comment><comment><USER5> It hasn't even really started yet.

</comment><comment><USER6> I forced my Windows 10 update yesterday morning, and it was a breeze!

</comment><comment><USER7> i upgraded Win 10 on my old laptop last night, guess what? Win 10 kept crashing and restarting after i logged in. i had to restore it to factory setting, reinstall all Win 8.1 updates and some software. fortunately i tried it on less used machine first...

Will never upgrade to Win 10 again till Win 8.1 is EOL.

<comment><USER8> Just wait a few months/years for Windows 10 bugs to be fixed. Installing a new OS on day one isn't for the faint of heart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm guessing it's in stages then as none of my Windows 8 machines have gotten the upgrade yet.</comment>


Apple 'to launch 'explicit' category for App store' - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7316185/Explicit-category-rumoured-to-be-coming-to-App-Store.html <comment><USER2> apparently, the explicit category has already disappeared: [http://gizmodo.com/5479497/apple-removes-explicit-option- fro...](http://gizmodo.com/5479497/apple-removes-explicit-option-from-itunes)</comment>


U.S. Stockpiled 63M Now-Useless Doses of Hydroxychloroquine - <AUTHOR> https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=238783 <comment><USER3> The title belies the truth that those doses of hydroxychloroquine were and are still not useless. It is used to treat Lupus and other conditions. The stockpiling caused prices at one point to nearly double and created shortage for people with disabilities. This needs to be considered beyond the obvious material waste. How many people need to be hurt before accountability is finally laid upon the leadership of this nation?

Edit: [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/23/hydroxychloro...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/23/hydroxychloroquine- short-supply-lupus-patients-who-need/5245542002/)

<comment><USER4> Huge amounts of the hydroxychloroquine debacle were dubious-- public statements about efficacy, broken early trials, etc.

But: in March, it was one of very few leads on a treatment. Building some degree of a strategic stockpile and ensuring that manufacturing was increased made sense, even if it was a long shot. It's unfortunate that this had a negative effect upon people, but if there had been efficacy having that stockpile would have been extremely beneficial.

<comment><USER5> Did they stockpile remdesivir in the same quantities, given its actual efficacy?

<comment><USER6> Did they stockpile PPE? It's proven effective for this pandemic and many other situations; however the feds let the stockpile dwindle for no good reason.

<comment><USER7> I thought the jury was still out on masks at least. The WHO keeps changing its mind about them, as do other governments.

<comment><USER6> It's not, nobody is changing their mind. There were some efforts to reserve masks for front line medical workers. That muddied the issue, but masks protect you from spreading a sickness you may now know you have and provide a minimal amount of protection from catching covid-19.

<comment><USER7> Nobody is changing their mind? That's obviously nonsense. There have been so many reversals it made the news.

[https://nypost.com/2020/06/06/who-reverses-position-on- face-...](https://nypost.com/2020/06/06/who-reverses-position-on-face-masks- as-coronavirus-cases-climb/)

Different authorities can't even agree:

[https://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc-offer-conflicting- advice-m...](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc-offer-conflicting-advice-masks- expert-tells-us/story?id=70958380)

The mask situation is absurd, one more failure on top of so many others for the global health establishment.

<comment><USER6> Wrong! [https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/06/23/anthony- fauci-m...](https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/06/23/anthony-fauci-masks- question-vpx.cnn)

The masks were alway recommended to slow transmission.

<comment><USER7> By _whom_ do you think they were always recommended? Because that absolutely hasn't been true for the WHO and CDC, as the links I already gave you show. The WHO has changed its position on masks, and has been in conflict with the CDC on the same topic.

That video you linked to doesn't in any way disagree with anything I've said, nor rebut the point. In fact it supports it. It's just a video of Anthony Fauci talking about why he changed his position on masks: without admitting to it directly, he 'explains' that he wanted to ensure medical workers had access to them. But he is on record as having recommended against masks in the past. Here's Snopes saying so:

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fauci-masks-no-longer- need...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fauci-masks-no-longer-needed/)

 _In the March 2020 clip, Fauci said: "Right now in the United States people SHOULD NOT BE walking around with masks … You should think of healthcare providers who are needing them and the people who are ill."_ (my caps)

[https://thehill.com/changing-america/well- being/prevention-c...](https://thehill.com/changing-america/well- being/prevention-cures/502890-fauci-why-the-public-wasnt-told-to-wear-masks)

 _He also acknowledged that masks were initially NOT RECOMMENDED to the general public so that first responders wouldn't feel the strain of a shortage of PPE._ (my caps)

Now many countries have introduced face mask requirements (which is dumb, but clearly a change of position).

Not only has mask advice changed but it's changed for dumb reasons: there's no scientific evidence masks work to stop SARS-CoV-2 transmission, especially not the cloth masks being actually deployed. This article investigates what's really known about this tactic:

[https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/06/coronavirus-fact-check-6...](https://off- guardian.org/2020/06/06/coronavirus-fact-check-6-does-wearing-a-mask-do- anything/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note, there are still 134 active clinical trials to study the effects of HCQ (+ other supplements) on Covid-19: [https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=Hydroxychlor...](https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=Hydroxychloroquine+covid-19&term=&cntry=&state=&city=&dist=)

A group of physicians is suing the FDA for limiting access to drug: [https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/doctors-fda- acces...](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/doctors-fda-access-drug- hydroxychloroquine-covid-19-coronavirus-12806194)

<comment><USER9> _The AAPS, a non-profit organisation based in Tucson, Arizona, has a "few thousand" members, according to executive director Jane Orient. It opposes mandatory vaccination, previously waged a campaign against healthcare reforms introduced by former President Barack Obama, and has been pushing back against state restrictions on use of hydroxychloroquine as a preventive therapy for the coronavirus._

The organization's general counsel is Andrew Schlafly, the son of Phyllis Schlafly, who is pretty well-summed-up by these quotes: [https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/06/politics/phyllis-schlafly- quo...](https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/06/politics/phyllis-schlafly- quotes/index.html)

<comment><USER10> Okay?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Useless for what? That HCQ is useless for severe cases where patient require artificial ventilation is nothing new, it has been highlighted by scientific HCQ proponents from the beginning (eg. see Pr Raoult studies, Spain prophylaxis trial for medical staff, ...).

Severe cases are not overwhelmed by the virus but by their own immune system response... in fact there is a lower viral load during the lethal phase of the disease.

Where HCQ might be useful is for prophylaxis or in early phase of the disease to quickly reduce viral load (therefore infectivity). In this setting, plenty studies are still ongoing and positive results are visible in multiple afaik.

<comment><USER12> It's interesting in Raoult's results that they treated 3320 patients with 18 deaths or about 0.5% and you can say ok thats quite low but maybe they were young and healthy. However if you look at the age of the deaths there zero deaths under age 60 and one under 70. It seems unlikely for that to happen if the treatment did nothing. Apparently without treatment deaths under 60 are something like 20% of the total usually. (him talking about it in French [https://youtu.be/Sc1-JBX2y70?t=268](https://youtu.be/Sc1-JBX2y70?t=268))

I can't help but feel when historians look back on this that they will figure there were unnecessary deaths due to political biases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's better to have a stockpile of things that might work than to not have a stockpile of something if it's revealed to work and suddenly there's a scramble for that resource.

Think PPE, potential treatments, Ventilators

<comment><USER14> PPE, potential treatments, Ventilators have all been proven to work for their intended purposes. Thats why we stockpile them.

Stockpiling something in the hopes that it might help is a waste of resources.

<comment><USER15> Widely known and used in Eastern Asia side. You need to have friends in medical fields from that region to know. The western side is basically disinformation itself because of democratic-republican tussle during current year election agenda. Western countries mortality are significant higher in those countries choosing to not use it. I suggest you contact any of your friends working in medical fields working in Eastern Asian side to know a clearer picture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are they actually useless? I recall there was substantial controversy around studies not specifically pairing Hydroxychloroquine along with Zinc, which is needed for it to be effective. I think [https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v1) was one of the few studies that specifically incorporated zinc. Does anyone know where that line of scientific study ended up?

<comment><USER17> Nobody ever convincingly explained how it was supposed to act? And whether it would be effective on other sorts of coronavirus?

<comment><USER18> Here are studies of HCQ + zinc success for _early_ treatment, [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O6Cls- Oz2ZAgJuyDbnICEGjM...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O6Cls- Oz2ZAgJuyDbnICEGjMvQPEyM-aaXARUomR9Ww)

<comment><USER19> If I get Covid19 I plan to request that treatment. I'll doctor shop if need be. OTOH I think I already had it back in early March, but nobody really wants to test for it.

<comment><USER18> It's also been used as a prophylactic by healthcare workers. Half-life in body is weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hydroxychloroquine can prevent cytokine cascade, which fills the lungs and can cause pneumonia.

It should be doctor and patient's choice whether to use it.

The Lancet was forced to retract an article critical of hydroxychloroquine, dubbed "LancetGate". [1] [2] [3]

[1] [https://audioboom.com/posts/7605833-lancetgate- illustrates-s...](https://audioboom.com/posts/7605833-lancetgate-illustrates- science-distorted-by-anti-trump-partisanship-what-is-to-be-done-richar)

[2] [https://www.hoover.org/research/lancets-covid- fiasco](https://www.hoover.org/research/lancets-covid-fiasco)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hhhG61Lx2E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hhhG61Lx2E)

</comment><comment><USER21> The US is doing something similar with vaccine candidates. Kickstarting massive production before the trials complete so that _if_ it works the doses are ready to go.

BARDA is awarding grants like $483 million to Moderna to start manufacturing even if the vaccine is never approved.

It may be totally appropriate for the government to make multi-billion dollar speculative investments in therapies that could help us more quickly restart the economy, the closing of which is costing trillions of dollars.

These investments, like all central planning approaches, will distort the free market and likely cause a misallocation of resources. For example more work on COVID therapies at the expense of cancer therapies which could ultimately lead to more deaths overall. But the cost of the shutdown dwarfs all of that, so basically anything that could expedite full reopening is worth the risk.

When disaster preparedness pays off everyone feels great. When disaster preparedness that doesn't pay off is ridiculed as wasted investment, we get situations like we had with the National Stockpile, and what happened in CA with their disbanded disaster response field hospitals.

We need to accept the government wasting money in disaster preparedness if we want to ever actually be prepared. Otherwise it's like complaining about the insurance premium because the house _didn't_ burn down.

<comment><USER22> _We need to accept the government wasting money in disaster preparedness if we want to ever actually be prepared._

Yup!

I hear people ask "Why weren't we ready for Covid?". Then in the next breath ask "Why are we stockpiling a drug that doesn't work for Covid?".

<comment><USER23> > I hear people ask "Why weren't we ready for Covid?". Then in the next breath > ask "Why are we stockpiling a drug that doesn't work for Covid?".

It doesn't work that way.

<comment><USER22> Sure it does. If you want to prepared for an epidemic, you have to accept that you're going to waste money.

And at any rate, I know the gov't has deals with pharma companies. They'll often swap expired product so the stockpile stays current.

<comment><USER23> You put forth:

Why weren't we ready? Why did we waste money?

Both of those questions should be asked directly of the current administration, don't you think?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not useless at all. Still given off label under the supervision of a doctor. Still studies going on. The big 'study' was retracted. Could still be part of several treatment plans.

</comment><comment><USER25> I find it disgusting how politicized this particular drug became. I think people really decided that it was either useless or miraculous simply because of Trump's excitment about it. There was a period of time in March when this was an early leading candidate for treatment and the government acted proactively. I don't think this was a bad decision, even if it was incorrect in hindsight.

<comment><USER26> It highlights the importance of good leadership, which in this case does not happen to include going on TV and blabbering about drugs you know nothing about.

If the president was able to keep his mouth shut these HQ studies could have continued uninterrupted and the conversation around HQ wouldn't be such a political mess.

<comment><USER27> In other words it is not the fault of the people who are trying to kill a molecule just because they don't like Trump?

<comment><USER26> >>If the president was able to keep his mouth shut these HQ studies could have continued uninterrupted and the conversation around HQ wouldn't be such a political mess.

<comment><USER7> What they're saying is, the studies could have continued uninterrupted anyway. It doesn't actually matter what Trump thinks or says, he doesn't control individual studies.

On the other hand, people who hate Trump like the editor of the Lancet actually _did_ manage to interrupt studies. After publishing the now retracted "HCQ is dangerous" paper, lots of studies were suspended worldwide.

<comment><USER26> >It doesn't actually matter what Trump thinks or says [...]

Yes it does. The president went on TV and blabbered about things he knows nothing about and turned HQ into a political issue.

His inability to shut up and listen to public health experts, his need to stroke his ego and insert himself into every situation, makes the president the fons et origo, the problem in the first place.

Remember when "the buck" stopped with the president? When the president was a respectable, thoughtful person? When the president wouldn't do something as foolish and irresponsible as telling Americans to try a drug he heard about on cable news?

He could have done one thing to improve America's response to Covid-19: shut up and listen to experts. But there's something innate in this president, his comically obvious case of narcissistic personality disorder, that doesn't let him do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> We're also making hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines that may not work just like HCQ. Is that dumb? I certainly don't think so. It's a fast moving situation and if something MAY show promise, it makes sense to obtain a ton of it.

Stop trying to make an issue out of nothing.

</comment><comment><USER29> its useful for the people who needed it before their access to it was drastically limited by hoarding.

<comment><USER30> Hoarding? It is available in the US by prescription only. The only hoarding that could occur is by the people best qualified to control its use - <USER2> professionals. The government screwed that up too by trying to prevent them from prescribing the medication unless the government approved. The artificial shortage of this drug came from clueless politicians and media promoting its unproven effectiveness causing an unnecessary spike in _demand_.

<comment><USER29> and the government started consuming supplies, and doctors started prescribing it in bulk for friends and family who had no need.

Meanwhile people who did actually need it because, you know, actual reasons, suddenly found that there was none available anywhere.

So large groups of people were buying up the supply, without any actual need for themselves. That's hoarding. It's even worse though, because they can't return those drugs, so yay!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Something good could still come out of this. The gov't should "donate" these doses to millions of lupus and RA patients. But nah, that'd be considered socialism.... /s

<comment><USER32> I wonder if the doses have expiration dates. I assume so. Hopefully dumpsters won't be full of expired HCq....

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Has anybody else pivoted to supplying these dysfunctional governments with this and other crap?

It really feels like I've been playing Death Stranding for the past few months

<comment><USER34> Dysfunction government is nothing new, spent billions between 2006 and 2014 stockpiling Tamiflu which doesn't even do anything: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-roche-hldg-novartis- searc...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-roche-hldg-novartis- search/stockpiles-of-roche-tamiflu-drug-are-waste-of-money-review-finds- idUSBREA390EJ20140410)</comment></comment>


Find the key to your app's growth without an army of data scientists - <AUTHOR> http://blog.amplitude.com/2014/07/29/find-the-key-to-your-apps-growth-without-an-army-of-data-scientists/

<comment><USER2> This rings so true. Last April, I had a chance to chat with an engineer at an (explosively growing) early stage B2C startup. He gave a talk about "data science", so I walked up to him afterwards and asked him if he considered himself to be a data scientist and did anything that's remotely like statistical inference.

He said, "nah, most of what I do is collecting a lot of data and just segmenting them in a bunch of ways. Pivot tables go really far as far as product insights are concerned."

Then, he added, "that whole data science thing in my talk...that was to grab attention."

I am NOT saying statistics and machine learning is useless. They are tremendously useful. But chances are good that it pays a lot more early on to collect a lot of data and ask basic questions from different perspectives.

<comment><USER3> Yep, there are plenty of useful (and actionable) insights to be gained just by the data you can get in a standard analytics dashboard. If you know how many people did what, and who came back, you can already learn so much about how people are using your app and what you should focus on.</comment></comment>