Raspberry Pi faces distribution troubles over CE certification - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/29/raspberry-pi-ce-certification-mark-linux/

<comment><USER2> This seems like one of those things that should of been negotiated before they appointed the contract to RS/Farnell, right?

Presumably RasPi or Farnell/RS had previously discussed the distribution of the devices and I'm assuming that they at least made some suggestion that they aren't going to ship until CE certification was granted. So this shouldn't really be a surprise. If on the overhand Farnell/RS have both just said that they aren't going to ship out of the blue, then the cynic in me would probably guess that there would be some other underlying reason why there is a delay, such as other manufacturing problems.

Either way, I don't think too many people are going to be too concerned. They will get here when they get here.

</comment><comment><USER3> I cannot reconciliate the fact that I believe regulations kill innovation in our industry, while at the same time believing that lack of regulation in finance is destroying the economy.

<comment><USER4> > while at the same time believing that lack of regulation in finance is > destroying the economy

It's not a lack of regulation in finance that's destroying the economy, it's too much.

The rules and regulations now are so punitive, so lengthy and so complex that it's making some (many) banking services non-viable or at best very expensive. And ultimately it's the end consumer which bears these increased costs as they get passed on. This means banks make less money, customers have to pay more, staff get paid less or cut, shareholders get reduced dividends, pension funds lose out from suppressed stock prices etc.

Many of these rules don't make sense or make the bank "safer" - they're really just a penalty for conducting finance-orientated business - with such rules sadly being driven by politicians attempting to appease the baying mob.

It's unfortunate that these regulations will have the opposite effect of what they are trying to achieve. Indeed some very large names may actually go out of business as a result which would be catastrophic for the economy.

<comment><USER5> The evidence doesn't really back you up.

Countries with stronger financial regulations didn't have to bail out banks in 2008/09.

<comment><USER4> I can assure you that new regulations are strangling growth. And that they will not prevent or avert some other disaster. No amout of regulation can prevent a bank or indeed any company making reckless or badly informed business decisions.

> Countries with stronger financial regulations didn't have to bail out banks > in 2008/09.

That's because other countries didn't have retail banks or mortgage brokers dishing out 700k mortgages to fruit pickers on 14k. _This_ was the root cause of the banking crisis and this is the industry which needed tightened regulations (such as those seen in the UK or most European countries). Inventing punitive rules on banks' capital ratios and funding reserves etc doesn't help anyone or address the root cause of the 2008 implosion.

<comment><USER6> _That's because other countries didn't have retail banks or mortgage brokers dishing out 700k mortgages to fruit pickers on 14k._

This was one of the root causes but there were many. You should take a step back and really understand what happened. In fact fruit pickers weren't the problem at all. They never applied for those loans and the ones that did were in the minority. No, what you had were a bunch of middle-class people with houses buying up investment property to secure their future.

The condo I used to live in (in Miami) had a 50% occupation rate and it wasn't occupied by fruit pickers. Instead you had doctors, lawyers, and even hackers looking for a 2nd or 3rd or 4th home to rent out. And they all had good credit.

Everyone likes to think it was poor people buying up McMansions (and I don't doubt there were some) but the mortgage crisis was caused by normal people who were way over leveraged and a Fed that let it continue until it collapsed. This

<comment><USER4> Sure, I realise the fruit-picker example is extreme. But it was the sub-prime / alt-a mortgage market that imploded with default rates in some pools hitting 90%. But yes of course everyone jumped on the bandwagon across all of society - I'm not for a minute attempting to blame "poor" people for being financially irresponsible - far from it - I realise there was a complex interplay between the lenders/brokers/borrowers, the banks that securitised the pools and the people that bought the end product.

My point is that the rules and regulation around mortgage lenders and lending were lax to the point of non-existence and that penalising banks (most of whom didn't originate these mortgages in the first place) is just easy scape goating and is exacerbating the very issues it's trying to solve.

<comment><USER6> You and I know it's an extreme example but there are lots of people that honestly believe the mortgage crisis was caused by poor people getting mortgages. Then they reference some civil rights era act that they believe forces the banks to lower their lending standards. In fact the law says you can't deny loans based on where the applicant lives (aka, redlining).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Eben states in the comments on the original post that both distributors didn't include compliance people during the contract stage. Raspberry Pi assumed that they could be like the Beagleboard and not require CE marking. So everyone involved overlooked it. More of the blame lies with the distributors I feel. I mean, they are meant to be the experts here, and have done this many times before.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can we use this opportunity to actually discuss what is involved in CE certification in this case?

It doesn't have any radios so electromagnetic compatibility directive shouldn't apply, and the low-voltage directive states it's for 'equipment designed for use with a voltage rating of between 50 and 1000 V for alternating current (A.C.) and between 75 and 1500 V for direct current (D.C.)'.. since it runs on 5v DC and has no PS it should be ok there too [?: If it shipped w/ an integrated PS, this would apply? would the whole device need testing here or just the PS??].

So what does that leave and what does this testing involve?? (E: it seems to be EMC testing from rPi.org, is this all, and what would it involve?)

FWIW, to me it sounds a little like F/RS want this to be certified as a finished product so they can sell it in bundles, and profit maximise that way.

<comment><USER9> In Australia at least, pretty much _any_ electronic device has to be tested to ensure unintended radiation emission between 9kHz and (I kid you not) 400GHz is within acceptable limits before it gets a C-tick (similar to the CE certification) and be sold.

I think most of the time they stick the device in an anechoic chamber and take measurements at certain distances. For example, under the CISPR 22 standard (that information technology equipment with a supply voltage of less than 600V falls under) it must radiate less than 30dB (uV/m) of electromagnetic radiation between 30 to 230MHz, measured at a distance of 10 metres with a quasi-peak detector, less than 37dB at 230 to 1000MHz, and so on.

There are also restrictions of how much interference is caused from the power supply (which shouldn't apply to the Raspberri Pi) and how much EM is emitted from telecommunications ports on the board (which will apply to Ethernet, but probably not USB).

<comment><USER8> I am guessing that most PCB/PS -like electronics would pass this without any specific attention, given there were no major manufacturing defects?

I'm a little unsure why TI made efforts to avoid it.. or just because they could?

<comment><USER9> It depends on how fast things are clocked on your board. For anything less than 100MHz, you wouldn't have to think about it. For faster clocks, you might have to be a little wary (but it should be fairly easy for such a low power device with proper ground and power planes, bypassing etc.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Non-hardware hacker question: as the Pi is modified over time, does it need to be re-certified each time? Or is it certain components on the board that require this?

<comment><USER11> Simple answer is "it depends". The device has to be assigned a risk category, and depending on that there's a range of possibilities from the manufacturer being able to self-certify (so long as they stand ready to demonstrate the design process that went into a new revision of the product), and at the other extreme, every revision having to be independently verified.

My employer is able to self-certify, but our products are much simpler than a Raspberry Pi.

<comment><USER8> What are your products? PCBs?

<comment><USER11> Shackles, and other steel hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am wondering, why they haven't thought about those problems before. CE certification, EMC testing, WEEE (european electronic waste regulations) are a big part of why hardware is hard. I don't know about specific regulations in the UK, but I guess they are similar to those here in germany.

You can get around those regulations if your product is for use by professionals and/or for development purposes, that means there is some professional knowledge needed to make the product work (soldering, programming,...). For the rPI you only need a power adapter and a downloadable image on a SD card, thats not really professional knowledge.

For CE certification, you can however put a CE badge on anything you want, and refer to some regulation (I don't have the paragraph at hand atm). This basically means "We think it will be alright". A frightening number of Chinese imports do this. This is absolutely legal, the problem comes when something bad happens, e.g. your product causes a pacemaker to fail, then you have to prove that you took all necessary precautions to prevent this, which is basically impossible if you haven't done proper EMC testing and such.

Designing complex circuits (like the rPI) that do not make any EMC problems is extremely hard. I don't think most computer hardware would go through testing/certification without problems, thats why your mainboard sits in a metal case. My worst case guess is that they have to ship the boards in cases or with some shields.

Disclaimer: I am a ECE student. My father is a consultant in the CE/WEEE field. Statements above are based on memorys of conversations with him, when I told him I had an idea for some hardware product (and he told me to forget it unless I want to spent a lot of money on regulatory stuff)

</comment><comment><USER13> Sounds like this is going to be $99 by the time it is de-bugged (on manufacturing side) and certified.

I am angry and frustrated because I want one ;-)

</comment><comment><USER14> Hopefully they aren't trying to sell them in Japan, the certification process there is waaaaay painful.</comment>


Show HN: Chrome Ext. To Find Anyone's Email Address - <AUTHOR> I made a Chrome extension for Gmail and would like to receive some feedback. It looks up email addresses by a person's name: https://teragod.com/ please let me know your thoughts. <comment><USER2> Is this different from Clearbit's extension? If so, how? Thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> It has more data and we think the data is more accurate.</comment></comment>


What does `return function *(){…}` mean in JavaScript? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/q/19833945/375966 <comment><USER2> The asterix after the function keyword smells like a syntax hack. Firefox did it right, [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/New_...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/New_in_JavaScript/1.7)

<comment><USER3> Depends what you mean by "syntax hack". Its point is to create a syntactic scope where `yield` can not currently exist and can be reserved. Since yield is a valid name in javascript today there might be code in the wild going

        function foo() {
            yield = some_computation();
            return yield;
        }

this code would be broken by enabling generators. Same with yield* foo() (which would be interpreted as multiplying the variable `yield` by the result of `foo()` in ES5).

It also creates a nice parallelism between function* and yield _, as a side- effect.

See [http://esdiscuss.org/topic/proposal-to-simplify- generators-i...](http://esdiscuss.org/topic/proposal-to-simplify-generators- impact#content-1), there should be more extensive previous discussions in es- discuss and TC39 notes but it's a pain in the ass to look it up.

edit: [https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/es- discuss/](https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/es-discuss/) also points to the use case of 0-item generators — mostly in relation to delegating from yield_ — with

        function* () {}

in Python (and JS/1.7) you'd need the unwieldy

        function() {
            if (false) yield
        }

and notes that having a star in the header function makes it easier on the reader.

<comment><USER4> > ... there might be code in the wild going ...

There definitely is. We have millions of lines of JS and many applications that deal with yield of a security. _This_ yield: [http://www.investopedia.com/terms/y/yield.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/y/yield.asp)

<comment><USER3> Excellent point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> But jump to this [http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/05/08/generators- in-v8](http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/05/08/generators-in-v8) which explains it properly - and tells you why you would want to do it.

<comment><USER6> Does it need to be used with promises?

<comment><USER4> No. Promises work nicely with generators, but you can use generator functions freely.

<comment><USER6> Is there any promise-less guide, that helps to grasp the concept of function* and yield in JS?

<comment><USER3> Any generator guide for Python will work, the syntax is slightly different (no function _/ def_, the generator is "created" by the presence of a `yield` keyword in the body, and `yield*` is called `yield from`)

<comment><USER6> The easiest thing to do is probably playing around with it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I missing something, or does Stack Overflow really have this marked as a duplicate without actually linking to the earlier question? That's not very helpful.

<comment><USER8> Not sure if it was there when you looked, but I see a link[1] to the relevant question in a grey box at the top of the question. I find the placement to be awkward though, I expected the link to be within the same box as the "marked as duplicate" text.

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9620586/function-in- javas...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9620586/function-in-javascript)

<comment><USER9> It doesn't stand out very much in this question because it has a big block of code which has the same styling as the alert box. When your interface design has so few colors, this kind of stuff happens.</comment></comment></comment>


Department of State OSAC Guide: Basic Evasive Driving Techniques - <AUTHOR> https://publicintelligence.net/osac-evasive-driving/ <comment><AUTHOR> for more _fast and furious_ advise see their sister report: "(U//FOUO) TSA Vehicle Ramming Attacks Report April 2019" [https://publicintelligence.net/tsa-vehicle-ramming- attacks-2...](https://publicintelligence.net/tsa-vehicle-ramming- attacks-2019/)</comment>


Arq 6: More power, more security, more storage savings - <AUTHOR> https://www.arqbackup.com/blog/arq-6-more-power-more-security-more-storage-savings/ <comment><USER2> By the look of their Twitter timeline the launch seems to be a bit of a disaster...

I spent about 15 minutes buying, downloading and installing Arq 6. Then, i spent about 10 hours trying to fix things, and eventually downgrade back to Arq 5 from another backup made with borgbackup...

[https://twitter.com/arqbackup/status/1247845283326803968?s=2...](https://twitter.com/arqbackup/status/1247845283326803968?s=21)

Also, the documentation has been offline all (launch)day: [https://www.arqbackup.com/documentation/arq6](https://www.arqbackup.com/documentation/arq6)

It's a shame because i've been hapily using Arq4 and 5 for many years. Hopefully they get their shit sorted quickly.

<comment><USER2> For what it's worth, meanwhile i have the new Arq 6 up and running smoothly... (but without the migration process of my old backups.)

<comment><USER2> ...and now they have have deleted (or disabled?) their Twitter account: [https://twitter.com/arqbackup](https://twitter.com/arqbackup)

Not a good sign.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> They switched from per-user licenses to per-computer licenses. I am not sure how this works with previous lifetime licenses.

With my lifetime Arq 5 license I can upgrade to a single computer license with 50% discount and to a 5 computer family pack for 62% discount and I am not sure why the first option is even offered to previous lifetime accounts.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the APFS snapshot integration is easily the coolest part of Arq 6. Arq now has access to a special Apple entitlement to take full-desk point-in-time snapshots of an APFS container and backup from that. It's like what time machine would've/should've been, for the cloud.</comment>


Why We're Suing the FBI for Records About Best Buy Geek Squad Informants - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/FBI-tries-to-bypass-Fourth-Amendment-Safeguards-by-using-Geek-Squad <comment><USER2> In a recent talk at Computer History Museum, Michal Kosinski [0] referred to a 'post privacy world'. This is a world in which bits of data about each of us are made available, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, through our online activities. The most jarring revelation was that algorithms can determine your political preferences, with high accuracy, based on your public Facebook likes, and, neural nets could determine your sexual preference from a photo of your face with 90%+ accuracy. Therefore, it seems likely that many personality traits can be hinted or directly exposed from the information we share about ourselves. Who uses illegal drugs? Who cheats on their taxes? Who has committed murder?

Snooping on our computers via Geek Squad, or via our local auto repair shop, or via 'private' communication like the NSA did is in some ways simply accelerating the inevitable. The discourse should be about the inevitable Post Privacy World. It's not one I want to live in, but which I am inadvertently diving into. For example, by commenting on Hacker News.

[0] [https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty- research/faculty/michal...](https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty- research/faculty/michal-kosinski)

<comment><USER3> > and, neural nets could determine your sexual preference from a photo of your > face with 90%+ accuracy.

Couldn't you do that with basic stereotypical gender recognition > choose opposite gender, and then be right a lot of the time?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Mapping tool communities from The Setup (usesthis.com) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/drewconway/thesetup

<comment><USER2> Funny but I was just thinking about scraping the site for data on what users were using 2 days ago. Dropped the idea when I didn't care</comment>


TN Visa Holders – Worried? - <AUTHOR> Increasingly it is looking like the Trump administration has rigged NAFTA negotiations to fail. If NAFTA is terminated, TN visas go with them.<p>Worried? Do you have a Plan B ready? <comment><USER2> People should be careful before discussing their "plan B" in public. Anything said that can be tied back to you, and may be interpreted to violate immigration law could cause you to lose a TN visa. This is particularly important with DHS ramping up their use of social media monitoring.

Just something to dwell on before replying.

<comment><USER3> As a dumb, uninformed, US Citizen. What part of discussing a Plan B to having their visa terminated be against immigration law?

<comment><USER4> From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TN_status#Canadian_citizens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TN_status#Canadian_citizens) (The USA embassy link on the Wikipedia page isn't working):

      It must be noted that the TN status will only be granted if the period of stay is *temporary*.

If the USCIS or a CBP officer has evidence / reason to believe that a TN applicant has intentions to immigrate to the US, then the USCIS or the CBP officer can deny that applicant entry. I wouldn't be surprised if the USCIS or the CBP would consider an individual holding a TN making statements of a similar nature within the United States to merit the corresponding consequences.

<comment><USER5> It could also trigger a bar to entering the country for several years (or potentially obtaining _any_ immigration benefit _indefinitely_ ) if they believe you misrepresented your intentions when applying for the visa in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not a lawyer. My company's legal advice was that the TN work permit is in a separate legal treaty from NAFTA so it would take congress and additional time (and warning) for the work permit to be revoked, even if NAFTA was repealed today.

</comment><comment><USER7> Did anyone else look at this subject line and wonder why credit card holders in Tennessee should have particular reason to be worried about something, as compared to those of us in other states here in the US.</comment>


The hard part of the economics of Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/flattening-the-coronavirus-curve-is-not-enough/ <comment><USER3> The article says expanding capacity has not been approached by any government but I am not sure that's true, in Italy they are building hospital wings or re-adapting abandoned hospitals in many places. Rome has 4 planned covid hospitals as of now.

Also, the Italian government plans to hire a ton of medical and paramedical staff, money has been earmarked.

I am quite sure other governments are doing the same.

<comment><USER4> > Also, the Italian government plans to hire a ton of medical and paramedical > staff, money has been earmarked.

Where will this staff be coming from ? Are there medical professionals currently unemployed in Italy or working in other jobs ?

<comment><USER5> And the equipment...my understanding is that ventilators are critical for those who have severe cases. Can't just magically wish for tens of thousands of ventilators....

<comment><USER6> In italy one and the only factory of ventilators which was selling worldwide 250 units per month is now producing 500-600 per month exclusively for the italian hospitals (and past orders not yet sent abroad were blocked bt the government and redirected to italian hospitals) for the next ten months.

[https://youtu.be/7Iz5tWb9f8A](https://youtu.be/7Iz5tWb9f8A) [hoping the english subtitles work]

<comment><USER7> The translated subtitles seem reasonable. I had to go in and switch it to translating to English.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We know that sufficiently strong social distancing - and universal mask use - can reduce Re below 1, causing the epidemic to shrink exponentially instead of growing exponentially. Once it is small enough, good testing and contact tracing should be able to contribute a significant reduction to Re, so that you can back off on more costly measures.

As hard as it sounds for the economy to adapt to extreme social distancing for a short time and moderate for a long time, it seems like a better bet to me than trying to increase intensive care capacity - which already consumes a nontrivial fraction of gdp - by orders of magnitude _and_ write off millions of lives.

<comment><USER9> So what are you going to do when the virus is gone in your city/state/country, isolate yourself from the rest of the world? Because the timeline/situation will be different for many other places.

<comment><USER10> Return to travel restrictions + contact tracing, and if community spread flares up again, reinstitute social distancing. Repeat until vaccine is developed.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure why you're downvoted. That is exactly the right approach. Implement serious social distancing measures to reduce R0 below 1, get local outbreak under control, and then work on keeping it contained, increasing measures when necessary. Once it's more established which countries are effectively controlling the virus, travel could be more open with those countries, and more restricted with those that still have active outbreaks. (Which doesn't necessarily mean cutting off completely, but perhaps only essential travel and cargo, or unrestricted but 14 day isolation on arrival.)

<comment><USER10> Interestingly, that comment started out as +3 and is down to -2 now.

I think it may be a good harbinger of the public's willingness to endure repeated, long-term changes to their behavior. The way I see this going, we're going to get lockdowns in most countries within the next week or so. After 6 weeks or so, new cases will be negligible, and we'll declare victory and pick up our lives. The virus will silently spread from a few undetected cases during the summer, but then take off again around October, when we get a second wave. Assuming it hasn't mutated to become significantly less deadly (pretty likely - see sibling threads), _that_ will be the real killer, because instead of starting from 1 index case in 1 city it'll be seeded from tens of thousands of sleeper cases across the globe. Public opinion won't support a second lockdown then - people will just be left to die with their families.

<comment><USER12> > Interestingly, that comment started out as +3 and is down to -2 now.

Is there somewhere to check that score, or is it a higher karma feature?

<comment><USER10> If you wrote the comment you can always see the score (0 now, FWIW). At least I've always been able to; hidden comment scores arrived a while after I'd already amassed a pretty high karma level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've upvoted because the article encourages proactive thinking so that we don't just sit in our homes congratulating ourselves how well we socially distanced from each other. What is sadly missing is some back-of-the-napkin math estimating the required capacity increase. Like, is it closer to x2 or x100? is it feasible at all? What is the damage to economy from doing this compared to lock-down for N months?

<comment><USER14> One variable that is still not known and would make a huge difference is how many people are asymptomatic and with that catch this and have no symptoms. That effects infection rates and also getting a better grasp upon how many recovered as well as infected.

Not just a case of testing those for infection, that cat left the bag in every country on that end. Need to also test for those who are now immune without being aware.

Otherwise may well see spreads more than expected due to these people spreading the virus when they have no symptoms and also prevent paralysation of those who are immune, isolating when they don't even know they had it already.

So knowing that variable will become key in tackling this and currently we have no idea upon that.

<comment><USER15> There have been a couple of population studies to try to measure asymptomatic infections. It appears that about 50%+ of people are symptomatic, so unfortunately significant percentages of people are going to need hospitalization.

This study shows the number of symptomatic patients broken out by age group on the Diamond Princess which was a very well-studied population. [https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031104v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031104v1.full.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm curious what happened / is happening in Japan.

Here in Tokyo it looks __almost __like business as usual. Some companies are letting people stay at home but most are not. While cities in the USA are banning gatherings of 100 or more, here in Tokyo every train ever 3 minutes during rush hour has 8 to 16 cars stuffed with 100+ people per car.

I have no idea what the actual infection rate here is or the ICU usage rate. 2 weeks ago Japan was considered the place to avoid. Now it's the USA and Europe. Japan hasn't seemed to have taken any drastic measures so far or maybe I'm just not paying attention.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, given what I remember of Tokyo's morning peak hour density in subway cars it would have gone ballistic or will yet. Although they do use routinely use masks even in normal times.

The cynical take is that aging demographic is one of the biggest problems facing Japan today and this is _a_ way to deal with it.

<comment><USER17> > The cynical take is that aging demographic is one of the biggest problems > facing Japan today and this is a way to deal with it

The problem is aging population are people who 40 or 50 now, not people who are 70 and 80. The latter may die because of cv, but the problem of aging population goes nowhere because people in 40 or 50 will get older eventually.

This my cynical response to you cynical take.

<comment><USER4> The current 65+ bracket is already pretty heavy - heavier than Italy, the 40-50 bracket at the top of the inverted pyramid and will become a big problem couple of decades from now.

This is cynical nitpicking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's sort of weird to hear everyone talking about how social distancing is now the norm, when in the last few days up through today, there have been viral videos of massive crowds at airports, bars, and beaches. The governor of West Virginia just held a press conference encouraging people to go out to eat at restaurants. Several states are supposed to have democratic primary elections tomorrow. I didn't watch the debates, but apparently candidates were encouraging their supporters to go out and vote.

<comment><USER19> That's still happening at a massive scale.

I think it's fair to say that advising social distancing is the norm. But actually doing it very much isn't yet.

<comment><USER20> Telling the population to do social distancing and hoping they actually follow through is a fool's game. Several states have realized this and started taking measures into their own hands. This includes closing all resturaunts, schools and movie theaters. What they should do next is give the police P95 masks and disposable gloves and train them to use them. This would allow them to have the police drive around and distribute food to families that need it so they don't have to go to the store. They should also heavily incentivize all businesses to give their employees time paid off right now, or allow their employees to work from home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This article is really important. He is not making an economic argument about the value of social distancing. What's not being said often enough, because it's pretty scary to hear, is that no matter how much we lower the curve, _everyone_ will be infected with COVID-19. Angela Merkel stated it very clearly last week, and this is why policy makers come to Jesus so quickly when experts and eye witnesses explain to them what is going on in China and Italy. Normal flu has some resistance in the population, but this novel coronavirus does not, and so, to put it very plainly, without emergency medical intervention 3% of the population will die. Curve flattening alone doesn't change that in the slightest. Flattening the curve, as the author of this article says, buys critical time right now, and we need to use it to increase targeted emergency medical capacity _right now_.

<comment><USER22> > this novel flu

COVID-19 is as much a flu as you are a fish. Probably less so.

<comment><USER21> Fair. [https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and- diseas...](https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and- diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Second, flattening the curve assumes that you actually don't go too far and that much of the population actually becomes infected and then immune. Immunity from Covid-19 is still an open scientific question but, let's assume that is more likely to be true than not. If you reduce the infection rate too far, then most of the population does not become infected and that means that once you stop policies such as social distancing the virus can emerge once more and we all have to do this again."

So timing of such measures important and too early can be more damaging than too late, overall.

Guess more eye's will be upon the UK now after reading this.

<comment><USER23> The logic of the UK position is well articulated in this very HN-friendly article by a UK epidemiologist unaffiliated with the govt scientific advice team [complete with graphs, the Python code of his illustratory models and an appropriate caveat about the magnitude of the uncertainties of the assumptions the scientific advisory team's models will have made]

[https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/thomas.house/bl...](https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/thomas.house/blog/modelling- herd-immunity.html)

nb the UK has since issued stronger isolation guidelines and downplayed herd immunity in the media. Longer paper about their current model [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial- college/medicine/s...](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial- college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI- modelling-16-03-2020.pdf)

<comment><USER24> the article hints at a solution:

> The reason that this happens is that social distancing measures do not lead > to herd immunity, so once they are lifted the epidemic starts again. In the > absence of a vaccine, it is therefore meaningless to speak about whether a > policy 'aims' to get herd immunity or not, since every country in the world > will reach herd immunity unless it is able to implement social distancing > for an indefinite period of time.

i predict this is exactly what will happen: indefinite social distancing. impact may be reduced with fast tests and large scale testing so isolation and contact quarantining is immediate.

<comment><USER23> It's plausible that COVID-19 will lead to behavioural change around hygiene and remote work, greater travel restrictions and possibly even a degree of acceptance of periodic lockdowns, but the idea humanity as a whole is going to permanently shift towards social distancing after millennia of doing the opposite stretches credulity. At risk groups moving towards social distancing, maybe [for some old people that won't even be much of a change], but that's where the theoretical possibility of herd immunity of the general population not in permanent isolation comes into play.

<comment><USER24> indefinite does not mean infinite. effectively until a vaccine is deployed globally or global herd immunity is achieved after ten years of pandemic or however long it takes.

<comment><USER23> One of the few things epidemiologists can be certain of in their assumptions is that our economy and society won't sustain indefinite lockdowns. Extended localised lockdowns, until R0 drops below 1, yes. Repeated localized lockdowns, maybe but decreasingly so. _Let 's wait until we have a vaccine or something_, no.

<comment><USER24> I agree completely, that's what I had in mind, but wasn't really precise enough - basically whatever's South Korea doing right now. Access to testing, test all suspected cases, quarantine and isolate, and the economy can sort of be back to pre-pandemic order of magnitude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's not as easy as adding more beds. Each ICU unit has to have specific amount of staff around it, resource, which cannot be easily increased by planned economy.

There are workarounds and corners to cut, like making last year students into doctors without exams, moving doctors from other specialities to intensive care. But it's not exactly the same.

<comment><USER26> Its not as good as a doctors or even an RN degree, but I wonder could a crash course for health care workers tailored specifically to the symptoms of this disease be sufficient to fill that gap?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This same argument process--that to "flatten the curve" in the way all the cutesy diagrams show isn't going to be sufficient to avoid chaos unless we maintain social distancing for years, and that we are deluding everyone into thinking this is "the solution" and that life is somehow going to go back to normal in a couple months (which is where most of the people I know--normal people, not all of my super paranoid friends ;P--are with their mental timelines) to the point where we are not concentrating any effort on anything else (to the point where believing "flattening the curve" is some panacea is maybe even a "dangerous delusion"), including capacity expansion and explicit tracing--was made by someone in an article on medium a few days ago. The prior article had the same little modified graphs showing the true problem, but had actual math to back up their back of the envelope calculations for why it will take years. FWIW, that article was shat on... _hard_... by people here on Hacker News, and was even flagged, because people even here are apparently so bought into the narrative that they take arguments that it isn't sufficient as somehow "so don't do it: social distancing is bad" (which is bullshit, and not what either of these arguments were/are saying). It is absolutely frustrating how much of an uphill battle it is to even get people to analyze this stuff quickly: we keep having to wait until things get notably worse and then we are willing to look at something only slightly more drastic. I have had friends making this same argument for like a month now and everyone just treats them as if they were literally insane or something :(.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22575356](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22575356)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22581950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22581950)

<comment><USER28> I think you're conflating what the general public believes with what those in control believe.

It is in the public's best interest for the general public to only worry about what is within their control (so as to avoid panic). Therefore, the general public is being led to believe that all is going to be OK after a couple months of social distancing.

I guarantee you behind the scenes, those in control are scrambling to take immediate and drastic action to ramp up our medical treatment capacity.

<comment><USER27> ...but I am an elected government official (for a hyper local government, though in a good position where I get to peak behind the curtain of the regional government above me) and the vast majority of my friends work in government; and when I present the argument about capacity expansion moving the line on that cute graph upward as a critical thing we should be doing in addition to moving the peak down and to the right using capacity expansion, the reaction was literally "huh, I hadn't thought about it that way before" :(.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think "flattening the curve" is often misunderstood, because on diagrams it looks like both scenarios will lead to similar number of infected people. But in reality, the flatter curve can actually lead to significantly less people infected overall, because exponential growth is difficult to control if the disease is everywhere. So it is even possible, it seems to me, that the countries that flatten the curve more vigorously will actually deal with the problem faster. But, as other people noted, we will see.

</comment><comment><USER30> > It is very clear that capacity expansion has to be the priority now. It has > not seriously been addressed by any government as near as I can tell.

Germany _did_ address this. Currently there are 25k beds with ventilator, the federal government ordered 10k ventilators more from the largest local supplier (Drägerwerke) and explicitly bypassed normal procurement laws. That company is now extending manufacturing capacity, but it won't be fast enough.

<comment><USER30> Another thing they do is recruiting med students as emergency staff, but this seems to be in an early phase. And we're still comparatively early in the pandemic. In my perception our government is actually handling the situation surprisingly well until now. We even overcame years long blockades of our federalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> A little off topic, but I found this sentence to be incredibly odd - "by we I mean the generation who were adults in World War II"

So all the people who are 90+ years old?

<comment><USER32> It threw me at first, but I think it is supposed to make this point: Although this kind of forced economic shift would feel very new for most of us, humans have managed it before. Specifically, and most recently, in WW2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> How much would mandatory use of mask reduce R0/virus spread? I see in all Asian countries everybody with a mask by default and am wondering what % of spread reduction could be attributed to that factor alone. Are there any data on this?

</comment><comment><USER34> I really don't like the cavalier attitude with which this author treats the open question of Coronavirus immunity. "Let's assume it's more likely than not going to generate immunity" (paraphrased) seems unfair, and that a fair treatment would simply consider both alternatives.

<comment><USER35> I don't know who you are wanting to be "fair" to here. The stronger evidence seems to be on the side immunity.

<comment><USER36> Do you have links to solid evidence? I saw an article from an expert (I'm blanking on the specific article right now) that other "cov" viruses are known to have a limited immunity that lasts for possibly several weeks or so.

<comment><USER35> I wouldn't bet on "solid" evidence for a while. Hang around the /r/covid19 subreddit for the latest data. There have been very few reported cases of someone getting it again and of those a lot of evidence points to relapse rather than reinfection.

Given the large # of cases and their high concentrations in specific places, it seems likely that we would see many cases of reinfection if previous patients weren't immune.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This plan has several serious drawbacks: many deaths, possible long-term effects, the fear and anxiety of getting an illness with a 1% fatality rate, the discomfort and pain of being ill, overloaded healthcare system even if you build hospitals because then new bottlenecks like medical staff appear.

And probably more, this is just quick out of my mind.

Here's a better approach: Hardcore lockdown for 2 weeks, which stops the spread and reveals the vast majority of cases. Then switch to high-volume testing and targeted interventions (with would be much more efficient than now because many of the processes can be improved).

</comment><comment><USER38> Given that so many people are now staying home, working from home etc, I can't see how we can't slow the virus. Right now, I assume the people coming forward are those that have been possibly exposed a week ago before all the lock downs. I have hopes that this thing is thwarted quick, when the President (with info from the CDC) said this could last into July, I genuinely became worried about the state of the world after this. The state of the economy, I can't even say I'd have a job if it lasted that long.

</comment><comment><USER39> TFA closes with an interesting proposal, but somehow I doubt that we'll get there before social collapse and martial law.

> Immunity from Covid-19 is still an open scientific question but, let's > assume that is more likely to be true than not.

Huh? What's the basis for that?

> The concerns are that China, Japan, and South Korea may have actually pushed > social distancing too far. Israel and now Italy are going even further to > keep the virus out altogether.

I see no date on TFA, but this statement implies that it's maybe a week old.

<comment><USER40> There have been sufficient reports of people who either got reinfected or else had an extremely long "false recovery" period to cause the question of whether or not immunity can be relied on to be debated. Various explanations are available but none are as of yet proven.

<comment><USER39> I was unclear. Sorry.

I was wondering why we even expect persistent immunity.

<comment><USER40> I agree, no one that knows that they are talking about expects persistent immunity; the number I've heard floating about is along the lines of six months' immunity after recovering from the illness. I'm not clear on whether the article is written with that definition of immunity or not (and based off its suggestion that this would prevent a second wave next year, etc, I'm assuming not) but I assumed it was questioning whether even six months of immunity was on the table.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I think we're going to be in for a rough ride.

The mass exodus from Europe is going to bring back a bunch of infected and asymptomatic people to America. Nobody wore a mask, or used gloves, or probably even sanitized their hands. They were just all in one giant Petri dish at JFK.

This, and flights from Seattle have been going on for over a month now, that infected people were already traveling all over the country, and the world.

By the time 1 person is confirmed infected by a test, they have probably already infected 10 to 20 other people, depending on their rate of social interaction, within the past 5 to 14 days. The average number of days before displaying symptoms is about 4 days. And it could go as high as 13 days.

The only way to stay safe is to avoid other people. And when you interact with someone new, it restarts the clock again.

In another week, America might not have 1 Wuhan sized epicenter, instead, it might have 50! And all the people rushing to Costco and Target, to hoard toilet paper, are just going to make things worse. It's your local Petri dish, from just waiting in line, and re-breathing the same infected air from the recirculating HVAC.

If you can wear a mask in public, I would highly advise you do so. It may be imperfect, but it will at least help block something. This virus is airborne.

</comment><comment><USER42> For now I think governments should think about maintaining the essential necessities: food, water, electricity, while shutting down everything else. Stopping long range transports, including cars, should be a priority.

Anything that is not growing or transporting food or useful to treat patients should be shut down. It's difficult to say this, but sometimes you have to treat citizens like children. This is such a case.

</comment><comment><USER43> Surely it's better just to build as many ventilators as we can.

And then get old people to stay at home, perhaps with a family member or carer to assist them.

</comment><comment><USER44> It's pretty clear that the economic impact of this is much bigger that the 2008 GFC, than 9/11 and the 1987 stock market crash. 2008 and 1987 were financial/market crises which caused issues elsewhere.

9/11 shutdown the US economy for a couple of days.

This is shutting down production for weeks and global demand for many thing for months. It's completely unprecedented that I can think of.

</comment><comment><USER45> Isn't part of reducing cases now so we have time to get on a war footing for those things?

At least I hope to god that's what they're thinking.

</comment><comment><USER46> It it was possible to have a very reliable predictor of who will take the infection in an asymptomatic way, or with very trivial symptoms, a plan could be to infect all those, that are believed to be at least 50% of the population, to create a solid immunity base in the society.

<comment><USER4> That's basically the UK "herd immunity" which experts think is kinda crazy, also it's not even known that a long-lasting immunity is created for this virus in people who are infected either symptomatically or not.

iirc it requires numbers closer to 2/3rds of a population.

<comment><USER46> Nope it's very different than the UK pseudo plan (apparently they don't really have such plan). I mean, if there was a simple way to test _before_ people get infected, if they'll develop just very mild symptoms, we could do it. Even if you need more than 50%, 50% is still a lot of a barrier that lowers the virus R0 a lot.

<comment><USER4> Even if there was - testing and controlled-infecting 50% of the population would be a huge effort and probably not shorter than isolating old people and allowing an uncontained infection to burn through.

But the big problem is that it might not even help, the worst case scenario is that absent a vaccine the virus becomes just a more infectious and deadlier cold that people risk getting every season.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Firstly, is a physical shortage of _beds_ the problem? Capacity is not just physical, where do the doctors come from?

As for building additional capacity with a WW mindset... how about just annex the currently empty offices and buildings?

...now to train some doctors!

</comment><comment><USER48> The part of the article I did not find compelling is handing things over to the military. The army that I served in is not exactly led by the best and the brightest, and armies in other countries can be actively malicious entities.

</comment><comment><USER49> This actually sounds great. Why not basically have war economy for this, esp given how many people are becoming jobless - forcing a dramatic capacity increase could be a significant Keynesian stimulus.

</comment><comment><USER50> It seems like the countries that are doing the best are Taiwan, Singapore, and HK.

[https://time.com/5802293/coronavirus-covid19-singapore- hong-...](https://time.com/5802293/coronavirus-covid19-singapore-hong-kong- taiwan/)

Taiwan can produce 10M masks per day in country of 23M

[https://abcnews.go.com/Health/taiwan-sets-world-fight- corona...](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/taiwan-sets-world-fight- coronavirus/story?id=69552462&cid=social_twitter_abcn)

<comment><USER51> Singapore and HK are cities, really, and the Singapore approach, aggressive contact tracing with mandatory stay at home orders, doesn't scale.

Taiwan and Japan are outliers so far, and they are monocultures, with famous compliance rates.

Korea is somewhat similar to Japan, but took a hit early, and has managed to beat it back.

China appears to have peaked, but did this with massive application of governmental policies which would never fly in the West.

Flatten the curve doesn't change that a large number of people are going to get this disease. The best news is danger increases with age, unlike the Spanish Flu. Africa is very young (media age), the US and China are roughly the same, while the EU in general is older (Italy and Germany especially). What matters is not hospital beds per capita, but ICU beds per capita. The US does much better by that measure. You don't need an ICU bed to give oxygen, which is what most serious clinical cases require. MIT Sloan gave a prize last year for a less expensive, simpler ventilator designed for most cases in countries with limited resources. We have options that aren't explored yet.

<comment><USER52> I don't see why contact tracing doesn't scale. The only thing preventing Google and Apple from producing a contact history for everyone is privacy laws and people without phones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> You know what I'm interested in? What will the effect be on non-corona diseases with already lower RE?

Are we going to see some disease, such as measles, eliminated? What about chicken pox? The flu?

I'm really curious as to how this ends up affecting disease in society. I don't know if it will be enough to eliminate corona, but this may be enough to kill off other diseases.

</comment><comment><USER54> I have also been thinking about having the military come in and start building hospitals. The president seemed to have no qualms about using that power for his wall.

But on the other hand, doing so might greatly decrease military readiness. Let's not add a major war to the list of catastrophes. But I'd love to hear what military buffs think.

</comment><comment><USER55> "we ....the generation that were adults during World War Il..." Ummm he's 98?

</comment><comment><USER26> This is something that I've been afraid of for a while. I know a few nurses that work in some of the most best staffed, well funded Magnet hospitals and they say they run at 90% capacity on the best of days.

</comment><comment><USER56> I am not sure I agree with the thrust of this article. The gist seems to be: if we do a sufficiently good job with containment measures (e.g. social distancing), we might succeed in limiting short-term infections, but we will have to remain in this mode for years (with ruinous effects on the economy). The offered alternative is to acknowledge that a significant fraction of the population will be infected eventually, and so we should scale up hospital capacity to accommodate that.

This doesn't seem like a very good alternative. Even with adequate hospital care, the true fatality rate seems to be in the neighborhood of 0.5% to 1%, which would be quite harsh if allowed to spread throughout the population.

I am hoping that improvements in treatment can make the difference. A vaccine may not be available for quite some time, but drugs that reduce the fatality rate might be ready sooner.

Of course the actual course of action must include some mix of all-of-the- above: containment, new hospitals, new treatments.

EDIT: as voidmain notes, we might also hope to quickly reduce the number of infections to the point where we can contain them with testing and contact tracing, rather than blanket shutdowns.

<comment><USER57> > remain in this mode for years

What's your basis for that? It seems like a vaccine will be available well before years have gone by.

<comment><USER58> Drugs (a few of them are in Phase III and trials are already ongoing, with some results expected next month) will likely help first. If you can treat the severely sick patients, and even just cut one week out of the 3-4 they need to spend in the hospital, it would be a huge success. In fact I'd argue that _most_ of the problems we are facing are because there is no appropriate treatment.

Vaccines will likely take more time, due to long-term effects that need to be investigated (as many mentioned in some other HN story today).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> What I am still trying to understand is if we get variations of the flu virus every year so dramatic that sometimes they guess on the vaccine completely wrong (like this year) then why aren't we going to have a Covid-19 variant this winter that everyone can catch again?

<comment><USER60> My (low-information) understanding is that coronaviruses have much lower mutation rates than flu viruses!

<comment><USER58> They have a proofreading RNA polymerase, IIRC, which means that indeed they have a lower error rate than other viruses.

<comment><USER61> Apparently 30% of cases of the common cold are cause by coronavirus. And the worrying thing is that the immunity we acquire for those is only temporary.

<comment><USER58> At this point, I think it's just appropriate to say "we don't know yet". This is a new virus, and not much is known about it yet.

And that is why drug development needs to go parallel with a vaccine. If a vaccine fails, we can fall back to drugs to prevent people from going into ICUs (hopefully).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Article misses the angle that we could flatten the curve _and_ get herd immunity via a vaccine.

</comment><comment><USER10> It'll be interesting to see how Italy (lockdown) compares with the UK (just let it infect everyone) compares with South Korea (extensive testing & contact tracing, plus social distancing) in a couple months.

My sense is that the UK will probably fold and institute a lockdown once their ICU capacity gets overwhelmed and healthy young people start dying in the streets. Either that or they'll face a revolution and then have a lot more problems. Of course, by the time it gets to either of those points it'll be too late to effectively change course.

But it's interesting to see at least one country take the position that "Hey, we're going to let this run its course, take our lumps now, and try to get back to business as usual ASAP." I could be wrong, and maybe this is a genius application of heartless logic. Time will tell.

RemindMe!2months ;-)

<comment><USER63> Uk tactic looks very sensible to me. They will institute a lockdown long before that. But they recognize a lockdown for a prolonged time is very challenging in itself and there aren't many good reasons to be doing it too early.

<comment><USER64> The UK backed away from this insanity and will be implementing social distancing.

Thank god.

<comment><USER65> They were always going to eventually, and they said so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Also... I hesitate to say this because it smells of ad hominem, but in this view the enormous cost of extreme shutdowns is mostly the cost of a mulligan for poor decision making and actions early in the crisis. This may make this view less popular with the various organizations that made those mistakes.

<comment><USER66> This isn't a mulligan, that's the trouble. Previous contact tracing efforts had the advantage that we knew where the initial cases were coming from - China, primarily Wuhan - and could use that as a starting point. Those failed in most countries. After shrinking the epidemic down, the initial cases are basically just random people who have what looks like a cold. It'd be like searching for a few needles in a massive haystack.

<comment><USER67> South Korea did just fine, they managed to prevent the exponential curve so far. In the USA, the government just fucked up and did nothing, even actively engaged in disinformation.

<comment><USER68> Not quite, the U.S. began adopting measures almost immediately [0].

0: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/tra...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/travel- ban-halts-flights-between-wuhan-and-us-as-airports-prepare-to-screen- passengers-for-coronavirus/2020/01/23/00c1f1aa-3e22-11ea-baca- eb7ace0a3455_story.html)

<comment><USER69> Blocking direct flights from a single region? What else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Tl:dr also take over the economy and conscript people to make hospital beds

</comment><comment><USER71> Disappointed this article makes no mention accelerating development and distribution of vaccines by relaxing FDA approval processes.

Sure, that may take 9-18 months. But preventing the "second wave" is more important than reacting to it.

<comment><USER72> These approval processes are there for a reason though. If you are going to inject some pathogen to millions of people, you better be sure that it has no strong, even long term, undesirable effect.

<comment><USER71> It's not so much the injections, but just allowing the development of alternative processes that may scale much faster than the 70 year old egg- based process.

When we look back in retrospective, the CDC and FDA will be under scrutiny to take more preventative measures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> >There are nuances when it comes to ICUs and ventilators, etc. But the bottom line is: Even in optimistic flattening the curve scenarios, the curve cannot flatten enough.

This always felt intuitively true given exponential growth - <USER2> flatten the curve was more platitude than practical, an desperate appeal by media in democratic countries to position a "civilized" solution in order to avoid mass panic and draconian measures. Now they're elevating Korea as the exemplar response model when the country is practically an island like Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong. It's simply not applicable to geographic realities of most countries where borders can't be simply shut and where a lack of infrastructure investment make the kind of techno-authoritarian solutions that made agile responses in those countries possible. Canada doesn't even have an official Corona dashboard, instead news media as to collate information from an updated table using data from archive.org, people paying in cash, nothing is getting wiped down, minimal mask use etc. If anything, countries without Asian Tiger advantages need to crack down harsher to make up for these deficiencies. No one is going to build enough triage hospitals and medical material to outpace any variant of this curve. No developed country is civilized enough to sacrifice this much for the greater good. This is a stick, not carrot and certainly not rhetoric situation. If Corona is as bad as the numbers project, flatten the curve is going to kill a lot of people in retrospect because politicians can't stomach "lock it down".

<comment><USER74> Incrementally flattening the curve does save incrementally many lives. It's taken hold over "lock it down" because it rings better and is factual. You can accomplish something individually by staying inside instead of being fatalistic because nobody else will do it, and it isn't just a platitude .

<comment><USER73> Incremental is not a proportional response to exponential. Compared to a lock down, you're not saving incrementally more lives but allowing for exponentially more death. The only rationale for it is to slowly acclimatize the population to embrace more drastic action, i.e. panic management. Even stringent, well organized quarantines in Chinese provinces with less infection is running 6+ weeks with full compliance. Partial compliance means those who adhere will be stuck inside for a long time, it's not tenable even assuming the curve can be flattened in a sensible time frame in first place, which I don't believe it is. Basically we're dragging past the point where shutdown is a viable option with half measures, which will only leave to excess fatalities. Obviously I'm not an expert and hope I'm wrong.

<comment><USER74> If the system is out of ventilators and you keep from infecting a person who'd need a ventilator, that's one death prevented. If everybody is going to catch it, you want to maximize ventilator-hours, i.e. delay as much as possible or flatten the curve. This makes it beneficial conduct to avoid social contact whether other people are doing it or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Certainly, it seems like there's more bad information than good.

E.g. The beds are already full EVERY flu season. Do the researcher's know this? The flu has killed over 12,000 people every year in the US for the last 10 years _.

2 years ago_, the flu killed 61,000 people in the US.

So, the logical question might be: Why haven't we been "flattening the curve" for years?

Roll forward to Coronavirus and a news media publicizing a "novel" flu that spreads and kills and maims at about the same rate and suddenly we're all running around like crazy trying to destroy the economy and our livelyhoods to "flatten the curve".

Our politicians, who literally have no plan, are making grand pronouncements bravely shutting down everything they can think of because they completely f'd-up the testing and tracking of the coronavirus and literally have no idea what else to do, but know they don't want to be the one at the center of one of those circles showing the number of sick in each city.

*Source: [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html).

<comment><USER76> "a "novel" flu that spreads and kills and maims at about the same rate"

It's nowhere near "the same rate"?

<comment><USER77> And it's not a flu.</comment></comment></comment>


Groupon – Gnome Update - <AUTHOR> https://www.groupon.com/blog/cities/gnome-update

<comment><USER2> Instead of offering to pick a different name, why doesn't Groupon just go ahead and pick a different name? What was the point of angering everyone?

<comment><USER3> They like the name and, more importantly, have spent a substantial amount of money preparing to launch their brand. If they can reach an agreement with GNOME that is acceptable to both parties then why not?

I think this statement should remove any anger or resentment from both sides since at the end of the day they are willing to concede if they can't make everyone happy.

Although all things considered, they probably shouldn't have started developing their brand with this name in the first place.</comment></comment>


The female tech bosses who want zebras not unicorns - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42080487 <comment><USER2> This seems unfortunate to me that they're raising this as a gender/race issue where as they actually seem to be unaware of how business/engineering works.

The fact is, if you have a rather simple product like this, the idea will be copied and probably manufactured in China for 1/10th of the price.

Additionally, if you've approached over 100 VCs and 98% of them aren't interested then you should be looking at your product, not your race/gender

</comment><comment><USER3> "Her own experience was of a struggle to convince venture capitalists, known as VCs, about her idea."

Oh I didn't know convincing people of giving you money is easy if you are white and male... Maybe I should give it a try, sounds like very easy money! /s</comment>


"There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery." - <AUTHOR> http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2010/pr10_031.htm Just one of many signs that say "Yes Martha, the internet really has changed a lot about our lives" <comment><USER2> > Ten years ago, the average household received five pieces of mail every day. > Today, it receives four pieces and by 2020, that number will fall to three.

... And it would receive much less than that if the USPS wasn't mostly a delivery network for spam.

<comment><USER3> Here is what I hate about the USPS and spam. I opened a PO Box to receive rental payments on some properties I owned. The only people who got this address were tenants. It wasn't used for anything else. I'd check it once a month and it would be crammed full of ads. By crammed I mean seriously tightly wedged full of junk. I'd have to pick through it all to try and find my rent checks and not throw them out with the ads.

That was a pain but here's the question: How did they (advertisers) know this box was open and active? If mail was going to it before I opened it, what did they do with it? I tried complaining but got the "we have to deliver every piece of mail regardless of the originator". My best guess is mail was being sent there from a previous user and while it was vacated they just threw it away or something. Once the new user (me) opened it back up I just started getting it all.

At one point I just let the junk accumulate to see what would happen. I'd get the "real" mail but the junk (which could no longer really fit) stopped showing up. Then I got a note that I need to clear it out more often or they would close it though :(

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure they just pay the Post Office to put ads in every PO Box there.

<comment><USER5> Would there not have been an address on the mail?

<comment><USER6> US Postal makes money delivering marketing materials from local businesses (supermarkets and the like) to P.O. Boxes. They also offer no way to let you opt out of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I saw the chairman of their board speak not long ago, and it turns out the biggest problem is that USPS can't fire any of their union employees, who consistently get awarded UPS salaries + 15-20% in arbitration.

<comment><USER8> This is a _huge_ problem, and we need to shift the power balance away from unions. The original purpose of unions was to compensate for the imbalance of power. I don't have a problem to the extent that they merely divert executive pay down to the workers, but where they significantly increase the cost of doing business, unions are economically inefficient.

In Canada, we have a huge union called CUPE. They support an incredible variety of workers (including health care, university staff, airlines, public utilities, non-profit organizations, etc.). Each division contributes to a "national strike fund."

In my mind, this allows unions to act as a cartel. It doesn't make sense for workers in one company to be able to offset the cost of a strike in a completely different one. Of course the workers will always be able to afford a strike as long as they do it one company at a time, and wages will slowly be pushed to unsustainably high levels.

If I'm wrong on this, please correct me, because although it seems completely unintuitive, it is my understanding of the situation (Article XIV of the CUPE constitution outlines revenue collection).

They also discourage innovation to the extent that they limit businesses' ability to fire unneeded workers. There is little doubt in my mind that the transit system in Toronto uses human fare collectors because they are not allowed to replace them with machines. These folks can cost up to $40/hour. We wouldn't have had the industrial revolution if we couldn't fire the people who were no longer needed.

<comment><USER9> There is very little difference between union strikes (especially in "closed shop" states/countries) and the mafia extorting protection money from businesses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The postal service derives a significant amount of its revenue from pitching direct mail to businesses as an effective way to reach customers (4)

This whole report from USPS (1) is worth reading but some notable excerpts:

"In 2009, 84 billion pieces of first-class mail and 83 billion pieces of direct mail were handled."

Invoices and bills constitute a large part of first-class mail (and they continue to move online, become paperless)

"One top marketing agency observed companies moving one-third of direct-mail acquisition spending online"

Imagine UPS/DHL/FedEx's profits if they went from deliver-on-demand to deliver-to-everywhere-regardless-of-demand:

"A key driver to the costs of delivering mail is the obligation to deliver to virtually every mail address, regardless of volume, 6 days a week... These costs are largely fixed so they grow with the size of the network, which has been grown by an average of 1.4 million addresses every year"

"Wages and benefits account for 80 percent of operating costs." (And they are directly tied to the people infrastructure required to meet the obligation to deliver mail to virtually every mail address)

Obviously, you can't make it up on volume alone:

"A First-class stamp costs 44 cents, while other major posts charge an average of 78 cents."

(1) [http://www.usps.com/strategicplanning/_pdf/Ensuring_Viable_U...](http://www.usps.com/strategicplanning/_pdf/Ensuring_Viable_USPS_paper.pdf)

(2) <http://www.usps.com/postalhistory/PiecesofMail1789to2009.htm>

(3) [http://www.usps.com/householddiary/_pdf/USPS_HDS_FY08_FINAL_...](http://www.usps.com/householddiary/_pdf/USPS_HDS_FY08_FINAL_PUBLIC_web2.pdf)

(4)[http://www.usps.com/directmail/resourcecenter/research.htm?f...](http://www.usps.com/directmail/resourcecenter/research.htm?from=directmailhome&page=researchwhydirectmailworks)

[http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=direct+mail...](http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=direct+mail+%2B+USPS+%2B+volume+%2B+billions&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=bcdf8cbbf06dc4f)

<comment><USER11> > Imagine UPS/DHL/FedEx's profits if they went from deliver-on-demand to > deliver-to-everywhere-regardless-of-demand:

But UPS and FedEx already have something similar that occasionally leverages the USPS for the final leg of delivery. The FedEx version is called SmartPost.

<comment><USER12> UPS version of this is called UPS Basic. Don't mistake UPS Basic for UPS Ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why Saturday? They should cut out a day in the middle of the week. This way, you'll have to wait up to two days longer for a given item. It's better to distribute that wait time.

<comment><USER14> Most businesses want delivery (and pickup) during working days.

<comment><USER13> Every place I've ever worked had people working on Saturdays. I'm sure there are statistics on this somewhere, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The real loser here is netflix. 17% increase in delivery time and not a damn thing you can do about it. Ouch.

<comment><USER16> Not really, I see mail as a temporary problem. If Netflix Streaming contained all the top titles, I would use that almost exclusively. There really would be no reason for mail, it's slow and inefficient.

<comment><USER17> What's nice about mailing physical media is that the movie studios don't have much control. You can buy a widget and do whatever you want with it, including mailing it around.

You can't do this on the Internet, though, because computers are magical and Someone Could Copy It!1111!!

<comment><USER18> you would think they would catch on that physical media is easily copyable where the instant downloads aren't so why not do instant for everything first then DVD.

<comment><USER17> If someone knew the answer to this question, the movie industry wouldn't be driving itself out of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why can't I get/pay for a USPS.com email address of my physical address?

firstname.lastname@example.com?

Anything that is emailed to this address must pay postage, but the message body or attachment can be printed, certified and delivered to my physical location?

Maybe this isn't the perfect idea, but if the USPS would just embrace technology and innovate a little, they could really increase their revenues.

<comment><USER20> Agreed. The late 90s really presented an opportunity to the USPS, in that the postal service could have launched an ISP service to profit off the mail that was beginning to be sent online.

Today, most of the companies that send me bills or statements encourage me to get e-statements instead of paper statements, which saves the companies money -- money that used to go to USPS. If the postal service had innovated and come up with smart business solutions for sending secure, certified email to customers, they'd still be capturing that money (and possibly more.)

<comment><USER4> It's dubious to rely on a company's electronic records for your statements imo. They can delete or change anything they want. They can easily make an accusation that your e-mailed statement was forged. It'd be harder to make the same accusation on mailed statements, especially since most use paper with special watermarks or letterheads.

I still get paper statements because it makes things less scary!

<comment><USER21> And I've never _ever_ gotten such an offer that also includes a discount to recognize their savings and the problems you point out.

Well, come to think of it my account with Consumer Cellular is 100% paperless, that's probably their default and I'd probably have to pay to get paper from them.

(They're a _great_ AT&T reseller for people who spend very little time using their cell phones.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Amazing stats in their footer:

With 36,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, the Postal Service relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $68 billion and delivers nearly half the world's mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 28th in the 2009 Fortune 500.

<comment><USER23> Keep in mind that they also have a government-granted monopoly. They probably wouldn't be a big otherwise.

<comment><USER22> _Maybe_ \-- but that's a tough conclusion. While the USPS is a government agency, we still don't have enough data about the agency, or any agency's efficiency to be an accurate judge. It'd be great, for instance, if we could see what the average price per employee at the USPS was vs. UPS vs. FedEx. Sick leave comparisons, purchasing efficiencies, etc.

Lots of this data isn't available though (which is why I have my job)

<comment><USER23> That information isn't all that useful, since UPS and FedEx don't compete (and are forbidden to compete) in the marketplace for mail (as opposed to package) delivery. Regardless, though, I'm making a very modest claim: competitors would take away part of USPS's marketshare if they were allowed to compete. If you feel like there's a natural monopoly on mail delivery such that that wouldn't happen, you need to support that assertion.

<comment><USER21> Well, there's the cherry picking argument, something we can see with broadband build outs.

E.g. they'd offer low low low rates for delivering snail mail on Manhattan Island and leave it to the USPS to handle mail in Eagle Butte, South Dakota.

Hmmm, didn't AT&T do the same back in the bad old days?

<comment><USER23> So, you agree that competitors would take part of USPS's business. That's all I claimed.

<comment><USER21> I claim your thesis has a critical corollary that goes beyond "competitors would take away part of USPS's marketshare if they were allowed to compete". Specifically that the competitors would cherry pick the most profitable business of the Post Office and force it out of business leaving much of the nation unserved, or into a business model we don't think would be good for our society (first class mail to Eagle Butte, SD costing, say, $10/oz).

There's also friction issues. If I'm going to send out every month a set of bills to my customers, I know the cost will be X customers * the rate I pay (which I can decrease by making things cheaper for the USPS),

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> When I saw the title, I first thought it was another April Fool's joke. Like it currently takes six days on average to deliver something, but there is not enough mail anymore to keep that up, so they're forced to deliver it in five days...

OK, so I didn't have my coffee yet... =)

</comment><comment><USER25> Isn't their logic confusing latency and throughput?

Not enough mail to deliver suggests less mail volume, so less need for throughput, therefore we can hire fewer postal workers per post office.

Cutting out one day of deliveries reduces throughput and increases latency. For example, Netflix becomes a worse deal. A power user could once cycle 2 roundtrips of DVDs in one week and is now down to 1.5.

<comment><USER26> It's hard to address throughput that way when the Throughputers are in a union.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > _The five-day delivery proposal is part of comprehensive plan announced > March 2, "Delivering the Future,"_

Government program names just kill me sometimes.

<comment><USER21> Doesn't have to be government: when MIT had to tighten their belt in the late '80s or so they started cleaning a bunch of bathrooms every other day instead of daily (and that was largely OK, many have very little use (e.g. patterns changes as the Institute changed and grew)).

This new, improved system was called "Frequent Cleaning".

It's not the government types so much as the B Ark types.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This made me wonder whether it was a good deal to buy "forever" stamps:

<http://www.slate.com/id/2166475/fr/rss/>

</comment><comment><USER29> This wouldn't be such an issue if the postal service operated like a business instead of an institution. Why not commercialize it more? Where are the Coke stamps and IBM Express Mail envelopes? Why isn't the mail truck wrapped with an American Idol promo? Seems like the USPS could be a huge advertising vehicle. Why is this sacred?

<comment><USER30> Because the Postal Service is provided for in the Constitution: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause>

Can't have a Constitutionally-mandated service wrapped in third-party advertising.

<comment><USER31> Reading this it just seems to grant the congress the right to create a Post Office. Is this the same as a mandate to provide this service?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hopefully UPS and FedEx will make up the difference by delivering on Sunday.

The only stuff I get in the mail these days is some envelope warning me that I will go to jail if I don't tell the government my phone number.

<comment><USER27> If the USPS would make it legal to deliver small pieces of mail.

<comment><USER17> Do you receive small pieces of mail?

Personally, all my bills come online. If I lose my credit card, I get it via FedEx or UPS. When I order some physical goods, it's a package (so "small piece" is not relevant).

Basically, there is not much value is sending small pieces of mail anymore. I just want to order stuff from Amazon on Friday and have it on Sunday :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> interestingly enough, for a while i lived in a place that didn't have mail on saturdays.

i now live in a place that delivers and picks up mail twice a day, including saturdays.

i don't notice any difference.

</comment><comment><USER33> While I don't doubt volumes have fallen as a result of things like email, the US postal service also hasn't done itself any favors. You read anecdotes like this, and it's a wonder that volumes haven't plummeted even faster: [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/04/things-a...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/04/things- are-worse-at-the-post-office-than-i-thought/38356/)

<comment><USER34> Every time the US postal service comes up in discussion, someone invariably mentions how life would be so much better if the service was privatized. I think this argument represents a fundamental misunderstanding of public services; the post office is perhaps the canonical example of an extremely important service that only can exist in the public sector. As others have mentioned already (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1236487>), delivering a piece of paper from California to Maine for under a dollar is not something the private sector can provide.

As a rule of thumb, if your gut tells you that a particular service is essential to a civilized society the service belongs in the public sector. As a nation we've decided the ability to affordability correspond with others around the country is such a service. Education is another. These two examples are extraordinarily complex problems which the US public sector solves well, all things considered. Yet every time we discuss these services someone always wants to privatize them.

For the most fundamental components of our society, privatization is never the answer.

<comment><USER31> The essential service here is mail delivery, not mail delivery "under a dollar."

<comment><USER34> No, the essential service is mail delivery under a dollar to anywhere in the United States. That is a fundamentally different service than what is provided by Fedex or UPS.

<comment><USER31> Simply because it's different doesn't mean it's essential. Is there an inalienable right to mail delivery whose rate structure ignores distance? Why doesn't the same right protect people from paying a premium for mailing heavy objects?

<comment><USER35> Think of how revolutionary the internet is. The post office is the old version of the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe if this went through I could have home USPS delivery. The town I live in apparently adds enough new addresses to add two routes a year, but they can't hire that quickly. So half the residents have to use a PO Box for their address, and stuff shipped to their physical address gets returned.

Even one a day a week home delivery would be better for me. Stuff is rarely time sensitive, and we don't make it to the PO Box that often anyway.

</comment><comment><USER37> Privatize the system and outsource it to UPS/FedEX,etc. (I know easier said than done). If I ever need to send snail mail, I just send it via those guys.

<comment><USER38> The problem is the mandatory requirements for full service in unprofitable areas. The USPS literally has a plane that goes weekly to the most isolated part of Idaho: <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/us/30idaho.html>

There's no way a private contractor could/would do that.

<comment><USER27> In the long run I don't see that as a problem. People should pay a premium if their lifestyle takes up more resources like that.

<comment><USER39> You are not subsidizing their ability to receive mail from you. You are paying for _your_ ability to send mail to _them_. It's the same rationale as the universal service fund for phones. A network like the phone or mail network reaches it's full potential only when it connects _everybody_.

<comment><USER27> Well fair enough, if you want to send a package to a far-off area, you should pay for that too. Pay a premium to sent to or from remote areas. That's what happens with UPS, right?

I haven't used a land line in a long time, especially for long distance, but aren't the rates different by state?

Perhaps, like with electronic connections, when the price difference becomes small enough, they can make one flat rate because the simplicity pays off more via customer satisfaction. But international calls, for instance, still cost extra.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Most of the important packages I receive from USPS don't come on Saturdays anyhow. If I'm like most people, the 6th day won't be missed.

</comment><comment><USER41> Awesome. I never saw why the mail system should work longer than the normal working week anyway. Hopefully the UK will go the same way sometime soon. The threat of having mail turn up on a Saturday (that you might need to wait in for) isn't worth it.

<comment><USER42> And this is opposed to the threat of having mail that needs to be signed-for turn up at your house only on a weekday while you are at work. Currently I can tell USPS to just deliver it again when I know I will be home (on Saturday).

<comment><USER41> _And this is opposed to the threat of having mail that needs to be signed-for turn up at your house only on a weekday while you are at work._

Surely this is a universal and solved problem though? Most couriers (e.g. for most larger/heavier items you'd buy online) will not deliver on Saturday unless you pay quite a bit extra, so weekday-only delivery is already an institution of sorts.

That aside, maybe your issue is, secretly, USPS's primary motivation. If they don't have a Saturday service _at all_ , people like you can't request Saturday delivery and will need to go pick up your packages from the depot. That'll save them a _lot_ of time and money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> _"It's five days of delivery, six days of service and Express Mail seven days a week"_

 _"It also will save more than $3 billion a year"_

If both of those are true, the change is reasonable.

<comment><USER44> They still deliver 177 billion pieces of mail a year. By raising the price of delivery by 2 cents, they could make up the difference.

<comment><USER45> Raising prices by ~4.5 percent will probably reduce the flow of mail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> _"Ten years ago, the average household received five pieces of mail every day. Today, it receives four pieces and by 2020, that number will fall to three."_

It ain't linear, buddy.

<comment><USER47> Why not? I could see mail sending / receiving to be highly correlated with age, which is linear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Plus most of the mail (bills) get delivered digitally</comment>


Companies Don't Get Killed by Competition, They Commit Suicide - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zoho.com/general/companies-don-t-get-killed-by-competition-they-commit-suicide

<comment><USER2> This is very true. Unfortunately not enough entrepreneurs out there get this. There are exceptions to the rule but there are exceptions to everything somewhere. Generally speaking though, if your company fails, more often than not, it's because of you, your team (or lack of a team), your inexperience, etc... There is a long list of reasons why a startup my fail, but at the top of that list, it's usually because the founders fail.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. The fact that this was written a couple of years ago and that they have done just fine since that time adds weight to the article.

2\. Taking this concept at its word suggests a simple startup strategy: look for the largest, most successful companies and enter their space. You know there is a huge paying market, and, if competition isn't a killer, then why not move in?

</comment><comment><USER4> There is a lot of worry out there in the entrepreneurial community about competition. Almost no market is a zero-sum game, even when you could "get killed" by a huge player there is always room for you to form a niche. Pretend you have no competition at all, and unless you keep hearing from former and potential customers that they prefer MS whatever, don't worry about it.

</comment><comment><USER5> old comments:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=709452></comment>


Two years, 100 Million files - <AUTHOR> http://blog.inkmobility.com/post/82724917400/two-years-100-million-files

<comment><USER2> I've integrated this into a few products, such a time saver.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great work! Keep moving forward. Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> Good work Brett.</comment>


Writing custom ESLint rules for your picky developers - <AUTHOR> https://flexport.engineering/writing-custom-lint-rules-for-your-picky-developers-67732afa1803 <comment><USER2> Sometimes writing a custom rule makes sense, but it should be an exception and not the rule. Otherwise, you risk creating a sub-dialect only your team knows. That becomes a problem both for new hires, which have to take more time to ramp up, and for current dev switching jobs as they'll have a hard time abandoning what they learned.

That's why I like sticking as close as possible to AirBnB's guide[0], not because it's better than anything else, it's just that most developper seem to agree on it and it's familiar to most dev.

[0]: [https://github.com/airbnb/javascript](https://github.com/airbnb/javascript)

</comment><comment><USER3> One danger of having a bunch of custom eslint rules is that you may be papering over weak abstractions in your codebase. Sometimes it's a problem with lack of macros (or a powerful type system) but other times rethinking the way you are using libraries can be a bigger win for maintainability.

<comment><USER4> Right on. Flexport definitely has few custom rules that address things that would be better solved by nicer abstractions.

One great thing about lint rules though is that it's usually pretty easy to apply them to all existing code. That means you get the benefit of finding problems in older code without having to refactor into better abstractions or types.

Also: hi, BJ :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rather than trying to impose one style over another, (or worse, pretending one is standard and everyone else is wrong), it saves time to just let your devs set their editors to automatically open in the style they think best with (because the reason picky devs argue about syntax is to avoid frustration and losing focus when reading code), and let the commit hook format back to a common style.

Tools help you get the job done, not get in the way.

</comment><comment><USER6> Setting up [https://standardjs.com](https://standardjs.com) to format on save really helped me overcome my pointless formatting preferences, although gofmt was the catalyst.</comment>


Twitter for Android is released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twitter.com/2010/04/twitter-for-android-robots-like-to.html

<comment><USER2> Just installed it. The background animation is a nice touch, although there's a bit of choppiness at first. It can be disabled if it's an issue, so I don't see it being a problem. I've been using Seesmic for the last few months and like it, and there aren't any options I feel I'm missing with this, and it definitely seems easier to access lists, trending topics, and profiles.

I'm wondering what an official Twitter client is going to mean for third party clients like Seesmic and Twidroid. My guess is that it will just coexist with them, just like twitter.com exists with all of the desktop apps and Brizzly, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cannot believe it is only for Android 2.1 and above.

[http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform- ve...](http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform- versions.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> I like this very much. Much better than the HTC twitter app. Didn't get a chance to try twidroid or seesmic though, as I just got my incredible today.

I wonder if since this is by twitter, it doesn't affect your API limits.</comment>


Flexbox playground - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/enxaneta/full/adLPwv/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a pretty awesome tool to visualize the various flexbox properties. This and [http://flexboxfroggy.com/](http://flexboxfroggy.com/) are the most creative tools I've seen to learn flexbox.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best way to prepare for my SOC interview - <AUTHOR> I have recently been offered an interview for the role of a 1st line SOC analyst. This is my first real interview so i am not really sure how to prepare for it. There will be a technical exam, group exercises and technical questions within my 1 to 1 interview. If anyone could direct me into what would be the best way to prepare i.e. what to revise for the interview, how to act in the group task it would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> SOC as in, System On Chip? Google Summer Of Code? Sorry, I need more context.

<comment><USER3> Security Operations Center

[https://www.alienvault.com/resource- center/ebook/building-a-...](https://www.alienvault.com/resource- center/ebook/building-a-soc/soc-team) [https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what- security-operations-ce...](https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-security- operations-center-soc) [https://www.blackstratus.com/what-is-a-security- operations-c...](https://www.blackstratus.com/what-is-a-security-operations- center-and-why-is-it-important/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've just noticed the first link to alienvault. This is something the company i am applying for uses for monitoring and reporting. Do you know of any resources i could use to improve my knowledge on this?</comment></comment></comment>