Ask HN: How to learn about problems of other industries? - <AUTHOR> There are 100s of businesses, I'm only familiar with the one I'm in. For ideas, i need to know about problems that exist then to brainstorm and analyze. But I can't do that if i have no idea what's happening. So how can I learn about more industries. Go To businesses and ask them to let me sit there for no reason? <comment><USER2> Work at a B2B services firm for a while. You'll get exposure to hundreds of businesses over a few years.

I've seen industry outsiders solve a nonexistent problem, or fail to solve an existing problem without realizing it, or solve a non-generalized version of a problem that only applies to one company, or solve a problem excel solves better, or solve a problem which was just a bad (now permanent) process. The list goes on.

However it happens, you greatly increase your chances of providing a valuable piece of software if you have exposure to not just a single business in an industry, but dozens of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> what roles are best. I worked as dev once for b2b, never got to meet anyone but the kanban board.

<comment><USER2> Technical sales, project management, or engineering services. These are often combined. You want something that puts you on the ground with the customer. They'll start asking you for technology/software advice if they like you. It helps if you like traveling.

Alternately, instead of starting a new career, you could ask friends and family for an introduction where they work and just go with your original idea of shadowing people. Most SMB owners I know would be happy to let a software developer analyze their process and brainstorm about useful software. Just give them a perpetual free license for helping you develop it. They might even be interested in helping you bootstrap it. Business owners are often looking for a good investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Read their industry trade publications and go to their trade shows, that is the fastest way to understand some of the problems and industry is facing. There will be other problems an industry is facing that don't surface in those areas, the problems being discussed are the easiest ones to sell a solution.

<comment><USER4> I'll add to this that most business domains have online presence. Find the forums where the people discuss their business problems online and lurk there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you decide to approach people to find out about their business problems, they'll take you much more seriously if you already have some knowledge of their industry. They're not going to have confidence that you can solve (or even understand) their problems if you don't know the first thing about what they do.

I'd guess that every industry has its own specialized news sites (something like TechCrunch.com, but for bankers or civil engineers). You could try finding some of these on the web and reading them. You can also learn a lot about different industries by reading a good business paper, like the WSJ or the business section of the NY Times. There are also locally oriented news sources, like Crain's New York Business.

<comment><USER6> A lot of industries still have trade magazines.

I've not been consulting for big business for a while, but often if you went into a large organization they'll have a copy of trade magazines related to their field(s) in their reception.

A quick google shows there's still lots of trade magazines in print, so I assume it hasn't all migrated online because of their specialization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Attend Trade Shows -- I've found them target rich environments of people who are disposed to talking about what they're working. Nothing beats the live in- person conversation. > [https://www.thetradeshownetwork.com/tradeshow- calendar](https://www.thetradeshownetwork.com/tradeshow-calendar)

</comment><comment><USER8> Gale, part of Cengage, probably makes the best reference books that cover various industries in a single volume. This is the fastest way to learn and certainly the most agile. Wish I had a better link, but you should be able to find some via your local library or elsewhere besides Amazon: [https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Global-Industries- Gale/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Global-Industries- Gale/dp/1414435029)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Work as a consultant. As a management/IT/data/process consultant - it doesn't matter. You'll soon learn to ask the right questions of your customers and figure out different problems they face. It is a nuanced skill but can go a long way in learning how to find and solve real business problems.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why don't you solve this problem? The problem of learning about other industries. I'm sure other people have the same issue. Maybe create a vlog and document your journey?

<comment><AUTHOR> i thought about creating a video series on youtube where i go and document businesses day to day life.

other thing was to create website for open source business processes. For example you wanted to start a laundry business, you could just come to website and view best ways to do things. Like check lists and flow charts for all matters: accountability, customer service, repairs, monthly check ups.... this would put individual owned businesses on par with international chain businesses. they are constantly iterating and testing to improve. individually owned businesses are too busy to work on business sometimes. in doing this businesses would expose inefficiencies through their documented process and reveal opportunities for ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The easiest thing to do is rely on friends in certain industries. They'll be able to give you an in depth overview of the field as well as introduce you to other people who work in it.

</comment><comment><USER12> No direct experience, but I'd try consulting or freelancing first. That'll get you closer to other people's problems but while still staying technical.</comment>


The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-nsa-has-linked-the-wannacry-computer-worm-to-north-korea/2017/06/14/101395a2-508e-11e7-be25-3a519335381c_story.html <comment><USER2> The only rational response to this is deep, deep skepticism.

In the old days of the USSR, while very difficult, it was at least conceivable that you could _just fly to moscow and see_ if they were eating their children there or burning priests or god knows whatever else.

There was a natural limit to the deception that could occur _and further_ a normal person could make conclusions about the things they saw with their own eyes.

Now, the enemy that "we have always been at war with" is a completely isolated (and economically trivial) state that virtually nobody travels to and who is attacking us with secret cyber weapons that only a domain expert with highly specialized experience could even recognize, much less qualify.

And the people that are telling us are those same people that are, or are not, secretly recording all of our conversations.

There's not one little thing there you could take at face value.

<comment><USER3> I share your skepticism as well, but I wouldn't be too dismissive of North Korean Cyber capabilities either. They do have a specialized cyber warfare unit, handpick and train their soldiers extremely intensively ([https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/02/north- kor...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/02/north-korea-hack- sony-pictures-brad-pitt-fury)). Their performances in other international competitions, like the International Math Olympiad ([https://www.imo- official.org/country_team_r.aspx?code=PRK](https://www.imo- official.org/country_team_r.aspx?code=PRK)), also indicates that they have the ability to do so if they wish to.

Developing cyberwarfare capabilities seems like a relatively low cost (compared to developing ballistic missiles at least), low risk investment, with a potentially large payoff, so I would be surprised if they didn't try to develop these skills.

Of course, all evidence tying N.Korea to this specific attack is circumstantial and almost impossible to definitively prove unless they admit it and show proof themselves.

<comment><USER4> For that you need intellectuals, and the NK systems killed most of them, and is not tuned to produce new ones. It's very hard to destroy criticism and grow people who can think.

<comment><USER5> What make you think you need intellectuals to develop technical exploits?

<comment><USER4> Because it requires a brain. A drone can't do it.

<comment><USER5> Do you really think that technical proficiency requires "intellectualism" as it's normally understood? Because I sure don't. How many developers have you known who were extremely fascinated by the narrow details of a technical problem, and utterly uninterested in the wider application and impact of their work? I've worked with more than a few who fit that description.

<comment><USER4> Intellectual just mean people that use their intellect a lot. It's not limited to debating and philosophy. And mathematician is an intellectual.

And yes, somebody who has the skill to craft a very low level yet highly flexible malware requires skill that goes beyong copy/paste from stackoverflow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> OK, so I know this is going to come up in the comments, but this is not remotely a baseless allegation. The Lazarus group (one of the names for the DPRK-associated APT group) is somewhat well known and is quite sophisticated. This is the same group that hacked Sony a few years back. And to preempt people who are going to chime in with "Sony was just some insider leaking data" there is extensive evidence showing it was the work of a previously unidentified APT group. See here: [https://www.operationblockbuster.com/wp- content/uploads/2016...](https://www.operationblockbuster.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/Operation-Blockbuster-Report.pdf)

I can't comment about specifics linking WannaCry to the Lazarus group, but that seems to be the consensus in the security community.

DISCLAIMER: I worked with the people who wrote that report

<comment><USER7> It's not been fully confirmed/established that Lazarus group == DPRK: see "false flag" from Kaspersky researchers [https://www.wired.com/2017/05/wannacry-ransomware-link- suspe...](https://www.wired.com/2017/05/wannacry-ransomware-link-suspected- north-korean-hackers/)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I don't know. People tend to believe the narrative story they want to believe. When someone claims "the Russians" hacked the DNC and other operatives, there is very little "false flag" ("how do you know it really was the Russians?") claims (and for good reason), but when something does not fit their belief systems then it's "oh, false flag" despite reputable researchers putting their reputation on the line.

<comment><USER9> It's about broader context, or a lack thereof.

The DNC hack is self-consistent and aligned with known motives of suspected actors, so the public sees a false flag as possible but improbable. WannaCry came seemingly out of nowhere using a mixed bag of tricks from unfamiliar actors... absent context, the public will entertain any explanation.

<comment><USER8> That's a logical and plausible explanation for rational thinkers --I don't think I'm going out on a limb saying if it fit people's narrative preference, they'd say that "it fit too well", how can the Russians, so capable, leave so obvious trails, it must have been the Ukranians (or some other realistically unlikely but fitting a narrative).

The N Korea thing was the same even under Obama (the Sony hack) people wanted to believe the US was just trying to make the N Koreans "look bad" or create excuses for something (as if N KOrea needed any help in that regard).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Though the hackers raised $140,000 in bitcoin, a form of digital currency, so far they have not cashed it in, the analysts said. That is likely because an operational error has made the transactions easy to track, including by law enforcement.

As a result, no online currency exchange will touch it, said Jake Williams, founder of Rendition Infosec, a cybersecurity firm. "This is like knowingly taking tainted bills from a bank robbery," he said._

Could anyone give some more details about this?

Does a trustworthy bitcoin mixer exist? Would the attackers be able to use it to launder the coins?

EDIT: Does anyone know anything about the operational error mentioned in the article?

The coins are easy to track, but that's the default for bitcoin. Mixing the coins should restore anonymity in most cases, right? And at that point it would be possible to move the coins back to an exchange, or sell them on localbitcoins.

On the other hand, have the exchanges blacklisted most of the large mixers? It seems like it should be theoretically possible to track whether coins have been mixed. Then exchanges could simply close any account that receives significant sums of tumbled coins.

<comment> tuna-piano I don't understand. Isn't the point of bitcoin that it doesn't need a central authority?

If Bitcoin has evolved to the point where you need to have currency exchanges that act just like banks... what's the point?

<comment><USER11> It is more accurate to say that the point of Bitcoin is everyone has perfect information about how much money everyone has and who they transact with. The hackers are free to send the stolen money to someone else with no central authority to stop them, but an exchange is likely to reject that because they deal with fiat and therefore have to meet certain legal and ethical standards.

The hackers can still spend the money on something else provided the other party doesn't hold themselves to the same standards.

<comment><USER12> "likely to reject" \-- I haven't seen any history of exchanges stopping _specific_ withdrawals for certain coins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Of note: The Shadow Brokers hinted at the same thing a few weeks back.

"In May, No dumps, theshadowbrokers is eating popcorn and watching "Your Fired" and WannaCry. Is being very strange behavior for crimeware? Killswitch? Crimeware is caring about target country? The oracle is telling theshadowbrokers North Korea is being responsible for the global cyber attack Wanna Cry. Nukes and cyber attacks, America has to go to war, no other choices! (Sarcasm) No new ZeroDays."

<comment><USER14> Do you have a link for this? Where are they releasing these comms?

<comment><USER15> at steemit.

see: [https://steemit.com/shadowbrokers/@theshadowbrokers/oh- lordy...](https://steemit.com/shadowbrokers/@theshadowbrokers/oh-lordy-comey- wanna-cry-edition)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am not at all impressed with this article, it strikes me as another piece that simply summarizes information leaked by the US government or someone at one of the intelligence organizations.

They say "the NSA has linked the North Korean government..." then tell us the assessment was not made public, that it is inconclusive, and that the NSA has declined to comment. "One agency..." supposedly has a "building block for this assessment but they are not named. I understand that the government would like to protect their sources, but I don't think we should simply take them at their word. In my opinion, this piece is doing exactly that. What little concrete data I've managed to gather is all circumstantial, I've seen nothing that point to any sort of technical "smoking gun".

Maybe I am paranoid, but my concern is that this finger pointing at foreign governments does nothing but generate fear. When the legislature finally introduces a bill to defeat encryption across the board, they'll have widespread support and everyone who argues against it will be painted as some kind of imbecile. All of the sudden, the largest tech companies in the country will be accused of wanting to aid and abet North Korea and Russia.

And security doesn't materially improve. The assessment Reality Winner released isn't much better than these articles, but at least it's more straightforward and the means to the end were clearly disclosed. Yet no one is talking about putting training in place at the companies involved (to defeat phishing or social engineering attacks via phone or email) or source code audits (even private is better than nothing). It's infuriating.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's ~impossible to prove who's behind any attack these days given code-reuse, false flags & TOR. Anyone who claims to be able to do it reliably, is bullshitting you and likely has an agenda.

<comment><USER18> Not really. Very few attacks dedicate enough effort to evasion or anti- forensics to be completely untraceable.

There are plenty of things that get reused such as public keys that can be reliably tied to a group. There are also many private indicators that are not released to the general public Discovering who funds that group or where they operate from can be tougher, but APT groups are trackable.

<comment><USER19> Re-using a public key seems like an incredibly basic mistake.

How is the chain of custody for digital evidence handled by intelligence agencies and 3rd party researchers? Are there higher standards with regard to digital evidence? It seems to me that with digital evidence, ultimately you at least have to trust the investigatory agency at hand. But we're past that, because a huge number of Americans like myself will never trust any information from the US government.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> throwaway-1209 The job of NSA is getting easier by the day. Blame it on the boogeyman du jour and have the media present it to the masses as ironclad evidence. What happened to the actual, you know, national security? You can't have it without working on preventive measures. How about we start with something tangible, like government infrastructure, power grid, etc, and make them darn near impenetrable. Think you could do that, NSA?

<comment><USER20> > Blame it on the boogeyman du jour and have the media present it to the > masses as ironclad evidence

It says right in the article that the assessment was "issued internally last week and has not been made public". Until it's made public, it's unreasonable to expect them to provide evidence.

> government infrastructure That's not really their responsibility

> power grid That's the private sector's job. Congress has to yell at the > industry to get them to do it[1]. Yet they still fail [2].

I don't trust the NSA either, but come on, be reasonable. If everyone just rambled incoherently, they would overshadow the legitimate complaints.

[1]: [http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2008/05/hill- regulatory...](http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2008/05/hill-regulatory- groups-fail-to-protect-power-grid-from-cyberattacks/42098/) [2]: [http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/261310-congress- stru...](http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/261310-congress-struggles-to- secure-power-grid)

<comment> throwaway-1209 It has been "made public", since we, the public, are talking about it here. If it was some BS government agency, I'd assume the leak wasn't intentional, but with NSA I choose to assume otherwise, for obvious reasons.

>> that's not their responsibility

Then what the fuck are my taxes paying for? Weaponized zero days that leak out from there on a regular basis? Mass wiretapping? Undermining democratically elected government?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't want to write off everyone working for the NSA as liars, but NK seems like a good scapegoat. Why would we believe anything the NSA says/reports? They took our trust with our privacy.

</comment><comment><USER22> Maybe I'm old fashioned but I take any hacking blame from gov to gov as likely propaganda.

<comment><USER23> The idea that the US needs to actively spread propaganda about North Korea is pretty ridiculous. You are aware that they have been sending missiles on a regular basis and inviting criticism from pretty much everyone.

Who exactly is pro-North Korea that the US is trying to sway ?

<comment><USER24> While I don't think this is the case here, specifically, propaganda isn't always about swaying people from anti- to pro-; it could be for swaying people from "they are bad, but not that dangerous" to "they are dangerous enough that we should intervene with force"

<comment><USER25> Right. Watching the Noam Chomsky documentary, Manufacturing Consent, on YouTube really opened my eyes to this phenomena. Based on what I have observed recently, I think the decision was made some time ago on this, and we're being told what to think.

<comment><USER8> It's good to be skeptical but I think when you have preponderance of evidence in one way, it's not unreasonable to reach a conclusion. Remember Noam was the same guy who for political reasons did not want to believe Pol Pot was mowing through millions despite large amounts of information filtering out of the country corroborating the atrocities others claimed were taking place.

Additionally, there is no need to "manufacture consent" as only a very small minority would object to any action against N Korea at this point in time.

<comment><USER25> Did people think highly of Saddam in 2003?

<comment><USER8> There was lots of skepticism but in the end because of lack of good humint a lot of weight was placed on his behavior (his continued pretense/bluffing for the purpose of not disclosing weakness to Iran), the international community with the US at the lead reached a faulty conclusion.

With regard to DPRK S Korea has great humint and we have multiple defectors corroborating each other (whereas Iraq there was basically one guy feeding intelligence services lies) so I would say it's not the same.

In addition, the regime provides all the evidence necessary (not just boastful claims) we sample the atmosphere as well as have seismometers corroborating their claims of nuclear development. There is no question as toward their progress nor their intentions.

<comment><USER26> "the international community with the US at the lead reached a faulty conclusion"

Mistakes can happen and be forgiven but deception is seldom forgotten. It didn't go down quite so innocently as you portray. It appears painfully obvious that there were/are many parties with economic and other interests who were behind what turned into a giant expensive catastrophe and killed hundreds of thousands. No one has even been reprimanded much less punished. A lot of them are still around trying to beat war drums for Syria. Trust was broken. The effects of that will go on for a long time and they aren't good.

re. North Korea "There is no question as toward their progress nor their intentions."

Fully agree. Very much unlike Iraq (or even less Iran and Syria) NK is truly dangerous and leaving them to continue their present course doesn't seem wise.

Supporting almost no military adventures the US has engaged in over the last 30 years I would fully support any action necessary against NK. But hopefully it doesn't come to that.

It's a shame someone has been calling wolf every few years for economic gains and now when a real wolf is at the door lots of people won't listen. Look at the comments on this thread. People don't trust. And with very good reason. But in the case of NK I think they are mistaken. If there is a place a germ or technology comes out of that kills half the globe it will be there. ISIS are a bunch of circus clowns in comparison.

<comment><USER8> There is lots of blame to go around with re Iraq. Our intelligence, Saddam himself (calling a bluff he could not possibly win, the cat-mouse game, in addition to just being a tyrant), opposition, Shiites, many western countries (but curiously Russia opposed) etc.

It may not seem like it from the way I write, but I was utterly devastated when the congress approved the plans. But I take one incident at a time. I try not to color unrelated things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> lol yeah, the whole "It's the <russians|iranians|chinese|koreans|syrians|insert nation we desperately want to destroy because they don't subscribe to our bellicist agenda>" is getting very boring very quickly.

</comment><comment><USER28> And why should we believe in the NSA this time?

A scalded cat knows better than to dip its paw in hot fudge again.

<comment><USER29> Remind me what past incident you are referring to.

<comment><USER30> There's that little part where they claim to be dedicated to helping keep our information systems secure, while they simultaneously stockpile zero day exploits and work behind the scenes to subvert and weaken encryption practices.

<comment><USER31> The NSA has always been a mix of offense and defense.

You can argue that balance has tilted inappropriately in recent times (I do), but that's different from any sort of indication they'd misattribute something like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Hard to see how deep technical talent can develop in a country that has six or so web hosts.

<comment><USER33> A lot of smart North Koreans study abroad, especially in China. There are smart people all over the world, don't underestimate them just because they were born in some awkward country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> 1) It saddens me that a nuclear bomb in the hand of a dictator basically means that no one will come help you out. The revolution has to come on the inside. Many dictatorship or empire might still be standing had they had their hand on one.

2) For a country so isolated and brainwashed, how can they train and develop the talent needed for complex hack like that? It seems it would require quite a complete education system. Does NK have a full proper education system?

<comment><USER33> It's not nuclear bomb that is the biggest concern in Korea conflict (as of now, North Korea's nuclear capabilities are more of show-off kind, not real, tactical threat), but the insane numbers of conventional artillery in range of Seoul(0) that can turn it to rubble in few hours in case of war.

0\. [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/25/1656090/-North- Korea...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/25/1656090/-North-Korean- artillery-and-the-concept-of-flattening-Seoul-a-breakdown)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If this checks out, it's very surprising. I would assume they wouldn't have the skills for pulling out something so massive like this.

<comment><USER36> Basing your malware on a tool leaked from the NSA probably makes it easier.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The NSA has lost all credibility, as far as I am concerned.

<comment><USER23> And this is based on what, exactly ?

If you're going to make hyperbolic statements maybe some clarifications would be useful.

<comment><USER38> > _And this is based on what, exactly ?_

The NSA developed the exploits that WannaCry was based on. The NSA lost control of its weapon (EternalBlue) in the Shadow Brokers leak and the world suffered economic damage as a consequence.

The NSA doesn't seem interested in switching to a more defensive role where they will inform software makers of the security problems they find. Instead they seem intent on maintaining offensive capability by seeking out, cataloging, exploiting, weaponizing, and keeping silent about the software security flaws they discover.

<comment><USER39> To be fair, the NSA was never given the mission to take on that defensive role you state. Their mission includes the defense of classified systems. Defense of any other systems is not their responsibility.

The offensive capability you state is part of their mission and is what NSA was created for.

<comment><USER38> > _The NSA was never given the mission to take on that defensive role you > state._

It's both. James Clapper ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper)), former director of national intelligence, says the NSA has a review process to decide whether or not to disclose vulnerabilities to software vendors. Nothing in their mission prevents them from doing it. They're choosing not to do it.

Look at the slogan on the NSA's website ([https://www.nsa.gov/](https://www.nsa.gov/)): "Defending our Nation. Securing the Future". It's difficult to say with a straight face that they are defending the nation when they are willingly leaving domestic networks open to attack from zero days.

The NSA says ([https://www.nsa.gov/what-we-do/](https://www.nsa.gov/what-we- do/)) national decision makers "Must be able to outmaneuver those who would do us harm in cyberspace." How are you outmaneuvering anyone when you allow systems to remain open to harm?

<comment><USER40> Strategically there is sometimes advantage in not letting the enemy know what you know (how you define enemy is another question, but it's reasonable to observe that we have antagonistic relationships with some countries). The alternative is a siege mentality. If you systematically throw up defences ASAP every time you discover a vulnerability, and an enemy discovers a vulnerability but does observe any defensive preparations, the enemy now knows that they have an operational advantage over you and is incentivized to deploy it for maximum effect.

Obviously this is only a thumbnail sketch rather than an exhaustive exploration of strategy. But it's a subject I read and think about a good deal. Pretty much every military thinker through history has emphasized the value of surprise and the ability to set the tempo of battle.

<comment><USER40> I just noticed that the last sentence in the first paragraph above should read "but does _not_ observe any defensive preparations". sorry about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I wonder where hacking becomes an act of war vs a mere annoyance. Where is the red line? Shutting down a power plant? Shutting down hospitals? Disrupting a nuclear weapon factory? Any of these, if done with conventional weapons, would clearly constitute an act of war. But it seems that no one seems ready to take any action even when the aggressor is clearly identified.

One could argue: great, it means less wars, let's not overreact over a few bits flipped in a machine. I'd argue the contrary. If countries do not respond militarily to hacking aggressions, it will only make them escalate with increasingly serious consequences (disrupting hospitals to me is already a pretty severe consequence). There needs to be some form of accountability.

</comment><comment><USER42> > As a result, no online currency exchange will touch it, said Jake Williams, > founder of Rendition Infosec, a cybersecurity firm. "This is like knowingly > taking tainted bills from a bank robbery," he said.

This is incorrect - crypto exchanges have had no problem cashing in bags of dyed notes before, _e.g._ the coins from the Bitfinex hack. They really just do not care.

</comment><comment><USER43> I wonder why it's always North Korea. Is there no other private or governmental hacker group on the world?

<comment><USER44> You clearly haven't been following the front page of hacker news.

From yesterday: Russia hacking US elections [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14547091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14547091)

From 2 days ago: Russian government hacking Ukranian power grid [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14537138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14537138)

From 7 days ago: Russian government Turla group using satellites to hack other governments and pharmaceutical companies [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14503230](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14503230)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> While any sort of attribution claim should be taken with a lot of skepticism I wouldn't at all be surprised if it was NK. They routinely engage in behavior that keeps the region from getting too stable. The asymmetric nature of cyber- warfare is a perfect fit for them.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm sure Dennis Rodman will get to the bottom of this:

[http://time.com/4817638/north-korea-otto-warmbier-kim- jong-u...](http://time.com/4817638/north-korea-otto-warmbier-kim-jong-un- dennis-rodman/)

</comment><comment><USER47> It is so incredibly stupid that some people actually buy such bullshit, that I'm impressed from the makers of this propaganda. I never could assume total idiocy in my fellow human beings, but I stand corrected.

Chapeau!

</comment><comment><USER48> Bullcrap. Another made-up story from WaPo based on anonymous sources and internal leaks. The NSA has not confirmed anything from this story.

</comment><comment><USER49> We're are in an Orwellian decade.

</comment><comment><USER50> people create a tool to solve problem, but he could not solve the problem which created by the tool

<comment><USER40> See: guns, explosive, pretty much any weapon in history :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> When in doubt, blame North Korea?

</comment><comment><USER52> and we beleive what they say :D because they are always filled with truth and honesty@!

</comment><comment><USER53> lol...at some point there will have to be some type of specifc discussion on null-routing that shit-hole of a country...

<comment><USER44> And then they use a Chinese VPN.

You can't stop a nation state with by geoblocking.

<comment><USER53> heh, of course you are correct. i was using "null-routing" in a more borad methaphorical sense, in a weak attempt at humor.

Norks are China's useful idiots so nothing going to change in near term...</comment></comment></comment>


Airbnb bans 'party houses' after five die in Halloween shooting - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50276485 <comment><USER2> This title makes no sense. Airbnb's change in policy is not the news here. The Guardian's title is much better --- "'Horrific tragedy': five dead at Halloween party in California Airbnb rental". ([https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2019/nov/02/california-p...](https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2019/nov/02/california-party-orinda-shooting-five-dead))

In the BBC article they quote the governor near the bottom:

> Responding to the mass shooting, California Governor Gavin Newsom called for > Congress to pass gun control legislation. "This will barely make the news > today. That's how numb we have become to this," he said. "Our hearts are > aching for the victims and all those affected by this horrific tragedy."

Apparently it will make the news, but only because Airbnb changed some random policy in response.

</comment><comment><USER3> The story here, once again, is guns. Ease of access to guns is what results in gun violence. Whether or not someone can rent a house to throw a party in is completely insignificant.

</comment><comment><USER4>
      Mr Chesky said Airbnb would create a dedicated "party house" rapid response team

Why, if they are "banning" party houses in the first place?

What specific changes have they made to their TOS?</comment>


How to Easily Find & Instrument All Your Logs from Amazon Web Services EC2 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.logentries.com/2013/10/how-to-easily-get-all-your-logs-from-amazon-web-services-ec2/

<comment><USER2> How easy is this to setup? I have quite a large amount of EC2 instances and really would be interested in a "run once catch all" sort of setup.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there! So this set up will catch all of your EC2 instances and find all the associated logs. It actually is a "run once catch all" deal. One of our engineers would be happy to give you more technical detail if you want. Shoot an email to email@example.com.

Also, is you want to give it a try yourself, we have an unlimited free version for 30 days available on our site that has le_aws available, so you can try it for yourself. Check it out: [https://logentries.com](https://logentries.com)

Note: The first picture in the blog post is an actual screen shot of the script discovering all of one of our engineer's EC2 instances automatically.

Thanks!</comment></comment>


Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aetna-obamacare-pullout-humana-merger_us_57b3d747e4b04ff883996a13 <comment><USER4> Can anyone succinctly explain the benefits of having a market for private health insurance companies, rather than a single provider of health insurance (government, aka "public option")? Can a capitalist case be made for their existence? Does the lack of a large private insurance market in countries with government-provided health insurance cause lots of inefficiencies and waste?

<comment><USER5> The purpose of government is not to require the most efficient option. Government isn't capable of it anyway. Government is force - nothing more. The purpose of government is to protect our rights. "Single payer" (a euphemism for socialized medicine) by definition violates rights by forcing people to do things against their will. For example, in Canada (until recently) people were prohibited from using private health care even if they want to.

The health systems in Europe are not radically different from the US system. The efficiencies of each are difficult to quantify without context. For example, the US invents most of the drugs and medical technology used by the world. Would this still happen if there was more invasive regulation? We can't know.

Besides all of this, think of every other area of the market where the government insinuates itself. Are public schools better than private schools? Almost never. Is the US postal system better than FedEx? Of course not. The government is not a commercial entity. The incentives and influences on it are not conducive to producing quality products at good prices.

<comment><USER6> _For example, in Canada (until recently)_

Until recently. This means that all people can obtain health care regardless of their ability to pay, and that the system is flexible enough to continue to experiment with the ideal implementation.

 _Are public schools better than private schools?_

Public schools are exactly 100% better than private schools for students who can't afford to attend private schools.

 _Is the US postal system better than FedEx?_

They are if you want to get a letter delivered anywhere in the world cheaply.

You have made a lot of good arguments for socializing care here.

<comment><USER5> 1\. Try getting an MRI in Canada. Canada rations care via wait lists.

2\. Your argument implies that there wouldn't be low cost schools in the absence of public schools. The evidence is overwhelming that the opposite is true.

3\. I live in Panama. When I need something mailed here I use FedEx or DHL. The USPS is unreliable and takes far too long. If there weren't laws against private first class mail in the US they'd be undercut in that market as well.

<comment><USER7> Canadian here.

Firstly, diagnostic care is often privately managed throughout the provinces, so if you don't want to wait, you can often pay to expedite. It's about $900 for a joint MRI.

Secondly, if you really need an MRI for a critical diagnosis, as I once did in 2012 as a hospital inpatient, I got it within 2 days.

Canada's health system is a point of national pride.

<comment><USER5> It depends where you live. I know many Canadians who've had different experiences. This points to a major problem with socialized products - <USER2> they perform depend not on merit or ability to pay, but where you live, how good your representative is, etc. That is much worse.

<comment><USER7> I really don't agree. I've lived in three Canadian provinces, and four U.S. states, from towns of 1000 people, small cities of 10k, medium cities of 100k, to large cities of 1m+.

Having lived through the Ontario cuts in health care in the 90s ("the Harris common sense revolution"), I don't really think political reps Federally or Provincially had any say on quality of care or what hospitals we got, it was all redesigned top down (not all that different from an HMO really, in my experience). Did care access and waits times suffer at the time? Yes. Still wouldn't trade it for a private system.

The difference in access and amount of supply between a rural market and a city in Canada is not too different than in the US. There's a lot of land mass to cover in either country if you're not in a major population centre.

The Canadian system blows away the US system by an order of magnitude, IMO, in terms of what really matters - access and outcomes. Obamacare made the US a bit better, but that's not a tall order.

<comment><USER5> What's the worst condition (if you don't mind saying) you've had where you had to use the Canadian system? Generally, socialized medicine works fine for routine care but badly for catastrophic (i.e. expensive) care.

<comment><USER7> I don't mind saying.

\- Severe pneumonia (1 day in emerg, 9 days in ICU followed by 8 in an inpatient ward)

\- Total pericariectomy (2 days in postop ICU, 3 days in ward)

Among other stays/issues prior to these.

The latter surgery was the culmination of outpatient medical care over 3 years with multiple specialists (cardiologist, internist, and cardiac surgeon), along with multiple CT, MRI, cardiac catheterization, countless blood tests, many of which were sent to Winnipeg (the equivalent of the CDC) for rare disease scanning, and over a dozen echocardiograms ... none of which I had to wait for longer than a day or two ... And none of which I had to pay for (just my medication through private insurance). In fairness the surgery itself wasn't critical, so I waited 6 months. They were willing to expedite if my condition deteriorated (it didn't). And after regular cardiologist visits , after I was stable, it could take 8-10 months. If I had an issue they'd expedite me in though.

I am not saying the Canadian system is ideal. Just that it is a reasonably functioning system.

There are some cases where it is both very frustrating and inspiring. I have a dear friend who has a child with a congenital heart defect due to an extremely rare genetic connective issue disorder that is similar (but different) to Marfan syndrome. The Canadian system has been fantastic to senior levels of provincial administration in managing this case, involving international hospitals, breeding zebrafish to replicate the specific mutation, working to manage the treatment of this complex child who is close to turning 5 but likely would have died in the first few weeks after birth in another era.

Keeping this child alive (he is in and out of the hospital about 50%) has easily cost a tremendous amount of public money, but the insurance system risk pool is designed to handle these sorts of outlier cases to ensure future cases can benefit and that this child can have (mostly) a good life in between and during hospital stays. This child gets world class care and has been kept alive due to the system mostly working.

That's the good part. The bad part is that managing complex care in general is a mess as in many health systems, making it a full time job for at least one parent to juggle the various specialists, appointments, tests, medications, history, etc... Which is difficult if you're a single parent. It's almost easier to go on welfare than to work if you are a parent to a critically ill child. So you can get nursing staff to help at home but it's debatable what is covered and what is not, medical expense deductions have some arcane regs like you can't expense a trip under 40km, yet this child has on average 280 trips to the hospital or a clinic a year... Adding up to a lot of expense. Some things like specialized child formula weren't covered by health insurance either until recently (which can cost upwards of $1400 monthly, really sucks when your child can't eat anything due to esophageal issues and has a G-tube and needs this formula to stay alive..)

So, not ideal... But Is this all socialized medicine ills? Sort of I guess? I can see the same problems in a private system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Before the pitchforks come out, keep this in mind: before Obamacare increased access to affordable individual plans, employers were the typical purchasers of health care plans. When you have a 100+ person company, the company pays a rate that averages out their employee pool's healthcare needs. Now we have a situation where more people can more efficiently participate in the healthcare market. Individuals who are young and healthy will opt for a lower cost plan, and those who already have illnesses or higher risk for illness will spend more for their healthcare. This efficiency on the consumer side is destroying revenue for the healthcare companies.

I am _not_ saying that anything was even close to perfect before, but we're seeing the private sector responding to Obamacare - it's not profitable enough or even sustainable in some cases. Now the government wants to block companies from trying to salvage their profits? Yes, consumers are benefitting now, but what happens when there are 2 options left for healthcare in each state?

I think in this case, it's clear that the hybrid Capitalist / Socialist approach is not the way to go. Either the government needs to let health care companies operate the way the market allows them to, or move to a single payer system.

<comment><USER9> I fail to see how I as a consumer am personally benefitting. I have more expensive healthcare that covers less and it gets more expensive and covers less every year.

I'm sure there are a few very sick people out there who are benefitting. I'm glad that we as a society are able to help them out. But it's clear that I do not have choice in needing healthcare, whereas these providers do have a choice in providing healthcare.

I agree with you that the hybrid approach is not working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kind of ironic given that Aetna is largely responsible for the elimination of the public option from the Affordable Care Act.

Thanks again Joe Lieberman [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aetna#Lobbying_and_campaign_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aetna#Lobbying_and_campaign_contributions)

<comment><USER11> If you think a ~$100,000 a year to a politician (plus another couple million to some other politicians) is largely responsible for the rules that govern how 20% of our economy functions you are quite mistaken.

There are huge economic and political forces at work that render Aetna's tiny expenditure irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

<comment><USER12> > If you think a ~$100,000 a year to a politician (plus another couple million > to some other politicians) is largely responsible for the rules that govern > how 20% of our economy functions you are quite mistaken.

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

That was purchased pretty cheaply, and industries affected by copyright(books, movies, music, software, software) are a decent chunk of the economy.

<comment><USER11> The average member of the public doesn't care at all about copyright terms so policy in that area is much more susceptible to this sort of thing.

The average member of the public cares _a great deal_ about their health insurance so policy in this area is much much less susceptible to influence with small political donations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is precisely why single payer is desperately needed. And proof that Obamacare is a Rube Goldberg machine. I remember listening to a Kentucky senator who said they were gobsmacked that no insurance company signed up in his state. The program is based on wishes, not good practices. Having Justice tinker with antitrust to keep it alive will never work. Insurance companies could give a F about their policy holders, their shareholders and profits are the only ones who count.

<comment><USER14> This is not proof at all that "Obamacare is a Rube Goldberg machine." This is a major insurer pulling out the markets, but over trivial amounts of losses.

I don't know what you mean about Kentucky. There are plenty of health insurance companies with offering on the Kentucky exchanges (Anthem BCBS, CareSource Kentucky, Humana, Aetna, and Bluegrass Family Health). And in any event, even if there truly were no insurance companies with offerings on the Kentucky exchanges, I find it very implausible that either Mitch McConnell, or Rand Paul would have claimed to be "gobsmacked." They were leaders in the fight against ACA, and they certainly claimed before passage that the law would destroy the health care industry.

<comment><USER11> I don't think it's fair to categorize Aetna's annual loss of ~300M as trivial. That represents about 12.5% of their profits. If someone cut your salary by 12.5% I don't think you would think that was trivial.

<comment><USER14> I should clarify, I didn't mean it was trivial to Aetna. I meant it was trivial compared to the cost of the existing subsidies and risk corridors in the ACA, and that this is not an existential problem for ACA.

Over the past few months, several major insurers have either reduced or ended their participation in the ACA exchanges. That is troubling news. However, setting aside the political feasibility, it's hardly an unsolvable problem. If the risk pool does not improve, and insurers keep losing money, then we can raise funding for the risk corridors.

To put this in perspective, Aetna, one of the largest insurers in the marketplace, is losing about $300 million. We're spending about $200 billion/year on ACA currently.

<comment><USER11> OK that's fair. I pretty much agree with everything you say here.

I think I am more concerned than you are that the structure of the exchanges will make them untenable in the long term but that's certainly a judgement call and we won't know the real answer for several years at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So how can consumers respond to this corporate chicanery? In a capitalist system, the natural recourse is for citizens to turn to the private market for alternatives. Could this provide an incentive for Aetna's competitors to make it easier for Aetna's customers to switch to them?

One would assume that libertarians and free marketeers would cheer the concept of boycotts, as it is one of the mechanisms that citizens are empowered with in a laissez-faire society.

<comment><USER16> What corporate chicanery? They took a loss on exchange plans last year. They have every right to pull out of the exchanges until the government makes them stay.

I'm a supporter of single payer. But the health care market is a sterling example of the "worst of all solutions" espoused by the Democrats. Instead of simply raising everyone's taxes to pay for public services, they try to get companies to do hidden cross-subsidization, propping up money-losing individual plans with profits from group plans. And then they berate companies for pulling out of money-losing enterprises, as if providing healthcare for people who can't afford it is the job of private companies rather than the government.

<comment><USER17> You're a supporter of single payer? Health care is something like a fifth of the whole US economy. You're comfortable with the USG setting prices for it?

<comment><USER11> I don't know about single payer, but health care is tricky. What do we do (as a society) about this guy: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12307526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12307526)

He has his gallbladder out and all of a sudden he's a super risky person to insure. How do we get him in a risk pool where his premiums won't be unaffordable?

<comment><USER17> By shifting more of the group insurance market onto the individual market, perhaps mostly by eliminating current incentives for employer group coverage, to minimize the adverse selection problem.

Incidentally: two members of my immediate family have the same problem he does. No history of serious illness, no current health problems, probably healthier than the median in both cases for their age cohort, but uninsurable outside the exchanges due to bogus pre-existing condition rules.

<comment><USER11> 1) Can we make the individual mandate in the individual market strong enough to really eliminate (or at least minimize) the adverse selection problem?

I am unconvinced that we can. Perhaps though.

2) Are you really convinced that the pre-existing rules you encountered were bogus? Are insurance companies just dumb when it comes to this sort of thing? I tend to assume, absent other evidence, that insurance companies will be profit seeking so would only turn people down if they expected to (probabilistically) lose money on the deal. Perhaps they're just not smart enough to discern differences at this level though? I don't have much experience in this area.

<comment><USER17> I think penalties need to be sharply increased, but the problem isn't so much free riders as it is that statistically the most attractive segment of the market is overwhelmingly likely to be employed at a firm that offers group coverage.

<comment><USER11> I certainly agree that employer provided health care coverage should be taxable income (I assume that's the mechanism by which you would shift people).

It's interesting to note that McCain proposed this as part of his campaign in 2004 and Obama pilloried him for it.

<comment><USER17> Yep. Clinton wanted to tax employer-provided health care too. McCain and Clinton were right about that --- but Baucus, and I guess by extension Obama, was right about the individual mandate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The public is starting to get a peek at the 2017 rates. To put it lightly, they're not pretty. This post shows the proposed premium increases, averaging around 24%. It's likely these may land somewhere below those numbers, but the cost of simply being insured before any co-pays or paying any deductibles has rapidly become unsustainable for a huge percentage of the population, especially the middle-class who earn too much for subsidies but not enough to cover the costs of proper insurance and care.

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-15/obamacare- sticker-s...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-15/obamacare-sticker- shock-average-2017-premium-surges-24)

<comment><USER19> The "leaked" numbers have always been higher than what actually happens.

The insurance companies always propose higher increases in order to have a stronger bargaining position, and those numbers have historically been bargained down to something decent.

<comment><USER18> Absolutely. But I'd wager the vast majority of the increases land well above the rate of inflation. And since open-enrollment begins a few days before the Presidential election, it'll be interesting to see how those numbers are managed given that Hillary has hitched her campaign to the Affordable Care Act as an extension of her original campaign for universal health insurance when she was First Lady.

<comment><USER20> As it's unlikely to be a competitive race by then, I would expect that certain people will be reminded of certain aspects of the power of the executive branch and that will be that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You can either have a system where everyone is covered at great relative expense to the healthy, or one where everyone is covered at great expenses to taxpayers. Either way, quality of care, breadth of services and speed of access are going to suffer. Demographic reality is inescapable.

<comment><USER22> Only 5-10% pay the majority of taxes, but almost everyone is, eventually, not healthy.

Another way to put it is that average lifetime healthcare cost is about $250k for men, $350k for women.

So yes, definitely people should be paying for health insurance while they are healthy, so that they can also have it when they are sick.

In a sense, health insurance should be priced just like a $250k/$350k term- life policy that you take out at birth.

<comment><USER23> > Another way to put it is that average lifetime healthcare cost is about > $250k for men, $350k for women.

Do you have a source for these numbers?

<comment><USER22> The Lifetime Distribution of Health Care Costs [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361028/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361028/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't understand why so many private insurers participated in the exchanges in the first place. It seems pretty obvious that the people who need to purchase from the exchanges are less likely to be healthy than the general population, because they probably haven't had much preventative care in the past, due to their prior lack of insurance, and also because poverty and poor health are highly correlated.

Imagine that you ran a car insurance company, and the government set up an exchange where the least-skilled drivers could purchase insurance. Would you participate?

</comment><comment><USER25> This is a worst case scenario for Obamacare -- the leverage that empowered the insurers to dictate the terms of the ACA never went away, and it won't anytime soon.

Anything less than the Federal government threatening to nationalize Aetna would be insufficient, lest the Obama administration wants to appear weak and invite further dissent.

Just another reason why single-payer is the best option.

</comment><comment><USER26> And if the merger _isn 't_ blocked, what guarantee does Aetna make that they won't drop out of the exchanges anyway?

<comment><USER27> It does have the distinct smell of the broadband subsidies: "Give us money if you want us to roll out high-speed broadband."

"Thanks for the check. Oh, BTW, we decided high-speed broadband wasn't really working for us, so we nixed it."

Aetna deal goes through: "Shockingly, we're still losing money on exchanges, so we're not going to do that anymore. Thanks for letting that merger go through, though."

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Good riddance. Heath insurance in the US seems to benefit the insurance companies more than anyone else.

<comment><USER11> That's silly. Insurance is a great method of hedging risk. If my apartment burns down it would cost me A LOT of money to replace my stuff. But the chances of it burning down are really small. So I can purchase renters insurance for just a couple hundred bucks a year, an expense I can easily afford.

That benefits me a great deal!

Maybe when you said insurance you meant to say "health insurance" but the same principle applies. If I have a heart attack then treating it will be hideously expensive, but that's also unlikely to happen.

<comment><USER29> Except a building isn't almost certain to burn down during its lifespan. Humans, metaphorically, burn down at a much higher rate. Cancer, heart disease, systemic infection ...

"Spreading the risk" doesn't work when the likelihood of something bad happening approaches a percentage in the high double digits, especially with an ageing population and falling birth rates to keep paying into the ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER30> That actually raises an interesting question: what _have_ the changes in building fire risk been over the past 150 years or so?

Historically, instances of _entire cities_ burning were commonplace enough to be noted: the Great Fire of London (1666), the Great Chicago Fire (1871), the Baltimore Fire of 1904, the Great Fire and Earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco.

The Oakland Hills Fire of 1991 was actually the biggest urban fire in the US since the 1906 San Francisco event.

There's a list of fire-related losses here, though it includes terrorist (9/11) and industrial accident events: [http://www.nfpa.org/news-and- research/fire-statistics-and-re...](http://www.nfpa.org/news-and- research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/fires-in-the-us/large- property-loss/largest-fire-losses-in-the-united-states)

Among the changes I can think of:

1\. Better alerting systems.

2\. Standardisation. Baltimore and Oakland Hills both saw incompatible hose- hydrant couplings.

3\. Building standards. Everything from fireblocks and exits, to sprinkler systems.

4\. Replacement of candles, oil lanterns, and gas lighting by electricity. Electrical fires happen, but they're _far_ rarer. The Great Chicago Fire was caused by a lantern.

5\. Safety and certification ratings of equipment, appliances, and wiring. "Underwriters Laboratories", the source of the ubiquitous (in the US) "UL" logo, was created by insurance companies.

That is: _appropriately_ collectivising risks can result in _reduced overall risk_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Only tangently related, but I strongly encourage anyone who has interest in learning more about the state of the industry and how technology relates to it read this book: [https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Doctor-Hope-Medicines- Compute...](https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Doctor-Hope-Medicines- Computer/dp/0071849467)

</comment><comment><USER32> There is a solution to this..

If there was say a more market based price tier and that tier to Obamacare was made up of both US Federal workers plans and State workers plans than there would be a huge amount of healthy people in the whole group and private ins co's would be striving to be part of ObamaCare as their costs than would not exceed their revenues.

</comment><comment><USER6> If we are unwilling to confront the bloody, economy-crashing hellscape that is the foreseeable result of a system that only provides non-emergency care to people who can pay, then it seems like socializing the costs of care is the only method that could be made to be sustainable.

</comment><comment><USER33> We need a serious disruption of insurance industry. A paradigm change.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't really understand how this is a threat without understanding whether Humana is on the same exchanges and what other providers are on those exchanges. Journalists seem to get really excited when they get some inside scoop.

</comment><comment><USER35> Single Payer.

</comment><comment><USER36> Url changed from [http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2016/08/17/49020234...](http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2016/08/17/490202346/aetna-ceo-to-justice-department-block-our-deal-and- well-drop-out-of-exchanges), which points to this. Strange world when HuffPo has the more original source and the more substantive piece than NPR...

</comment><comment><USER37> Good. Block their deal, let them drop out of obamacare, and then give us the Single Payer that we've always deserved and watch those fuckers go bankrupt like they've always deserved.

<comment><USER38> i couldn't in any good conscience support single-payer or socialized medicine it's the same economic model that created breadlines

<comment><USER39> Gee, I missed the bread lines when I grew up in Norway, and I must've managed to miss them in the UK too.

<comment><USER38> I live in Canada so I get "free" healthcare as well.

Norway's system of delivering food isn't a full socialist/single-payer model, so you wouldn't get breadlines there.

<comment><USER39> So your earlier comment is entirely irrelevant then, seeing as we're not talking about bread delivery, but delivery of healthcare, where - <USER3> of whether we'd agree on the feasibility of efficient delivery of "singlepayer bread" \- it has been conclusively proven by example that efficient delivery in a single payer model is possible.

In fact, not only is it possible, but almost every country in the world that has it does it cheaper than the US (depending on currency fluctuations, Norway is ironically one of the less than a handful of countries that is occasionally more expensive than the US - largely driven up by high salaries).

<comment><USER38> Ask yourself what those studies measure and if you can honestly consider those measures fair measures of quality, quantity and equity in providing care.

It usually boils down to $5,000 for surgery X in one country, $8,000 for same surgery in another. What an analysis like this always skips is the care that wasn't provided that should have been provided.

<comment><USER39> The WHO ranking does not look at costs, but at overall health and treatment indicators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> How long would a government run tech company survive in the valley? Now tell me again why you want them centrally planning your healthcare?

<comment><USER41> I never understood this mindset. It assumes that the govn't is incompetent (which it often is in many areas, fair point), but then ignores the most obvious response, which is to diagnose and fix the problems at hand. Simply abandoning the government solution is not the only option. In fact, one of the government's biggest problems is that so many people are obsessed with neglecting/sabotaging it just to prove some point that it's bad.

<comment><USER42> > It assumes that the govn't is incompetent (which it often is in many areas, > fair point), but then ignores the most obvious response, which is to > diagnose and fix the problems at hand.

It's utterly impossible to fix the problems of government competence because Americans don't want their government to be competent. They want it to be supportive, and diverse, and all sorts of things, but competence is not one of them.

If American government were competent, it would hire precisely the people whose unions donate so much to American politicians.</comment></comment></comment>


What's Up at Ning? Apparently Not Much - Ning's Down  - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/ning-down <comment><USER2> _... company's valuation at over $560,000. Is unplanned downtime acceptable for a company thats in the half-a-billion club?_

May be it is acceptable for half-a- _million_ club? :-)</comment>


Happy 1st Birthday, Wolfram Alpha - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2010/04/28/happy-1st-birthday-wolframalpha-blog/ <comment><USER2> From their (estimated) first year of traffic, it looks like Wolfram Alpha is in the "trough of sorrow" right now:

<http://abstractnonsense.com/w_alpha.png>

<comment><USER3> As much as your statement is true, its invaluable for checking homework, quickly pulling together figures and truly a great resource for students.

<comment><USER4> And just outright not doing your homework. I used to have Maxima do my homework for me, then I had Wolfram Alpha do it, then I started rolling my own homework solvers. Now I think of the time non-programmers spend on math homework, and it's just jarring. Statistics is especially scary without programming ability.

If you have online homework (e.g. coursecompass.com) and it's due in 25 minutes because you, like me, are a legendary procrastinator, you learn to cut a few corners.

Site-specific (coursecompass.com): you get an unlimited number of attempts to solve a problem, and there seem to be a finite number of variations on each problem, so combining a list of known answers (obtained by purposely failing a few attempts with some educated guessing (or just brute-force guessing in many cases), you can get a 100% average on your homework without ever actually having done any real work.

Ok, I'm done ranting about homework.

<comment><USER5> The idea behind homework is not that you deliver the right answers but that you learn something from it. As long as you're confident that you learn as much from the programming as you would from doing the homework there is probably no issue, but some day after doing a bunch of homework there are the final examinations, and you won't be using the 'solver' then.

<comment><USER4> I can learn anything I want for free. College is just for getting a degree.

And as for the finals with no solvers: In other countries, they make you stand in front of the proctor and clear the memory of your calculator. Not so here, at least not from what I've seen. If they tell you you're allowed a TI-83 and not a TI-86, then by god, you should wring the absolute maximum amount of utility from that TI-83 that you possibly can. Extensive notes, other operating systems, magical apps, whatever. I've thought that, if I did live in another country, I'd just write an app that displays the memory cleared screen without actually clearing the memory.

Really, school is just a backup plan to earn money if my entrepreneurial endeavors fail. I don't intend to throw away potential earnings because I was too stupid to take advantage of everything I possibly could.

I've found complete question/answer keys to exams on the internet that my teachers had ripped off of websites/out of teaching manuals. They were meant to be example exams, to be modified, but they were reproduced to us verbatim. I'd be stupid not to memorize something like that.

In some cases, my instructors were literally too stupid to allow me to succeed in their classes by honorable means. They had tests with wrong answers. In such situations, you have one choice: cheat or fail, because the answer can't be learned.

Case in point: In an IP address, ____ defines how pages transfer on the Web.

a. FTP

b. http

c. TCP/IP

d. SMTP

The answer is B and the class was mandatory in community college. And that's a gentle example. There were some outrageous ones.

I become more misanthropic with every passing day :P

<comment><USER5> That test question is just sad.

I hope your entrepreneurial endeavors succeed, it looks like the education is less than interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wolfram Alpha's failure to get much traffic tells you something about how useful advanced math is to the average person.

<comment><USER7> It can be an incredible research tool as well. For example, you can calculate cost-of-living differences between different cities, or compare crime rates, or see how your SAT score compares to the national average.

The examples pages are rich (there are visual examples too), but would really benefit from some deep mashup-like examples. Wolfram|Alpha is really cool but I don't personally have much of a use for it; I'd like to be able to browse through it like Wikipedia.

<comment><USER6> How would I know what it can do without spending enormous amounts of time going through the examples?

<comment><USER5> Powerful tools require a significant investment in time. It takes longer to learn how to use a lathe compared to say a hammer.

<comment><USER6> The problem is that what Wolfram Alpha can do beyond mathematics is rather arbitrary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wolfram Alpha was launched on the 15th. This post is about the launch of the blog.

</comment><comment><USER9> I put in a request for a Wolfram Alpha API developer ID last year, but never heard back. Is anyone here using the API?

<comment><USER7> I could have sworn DuckDuckGo had it integrated, but I can't find it now.

<comment><USER10> [http://duckduckgo.com/?q=sin+x+cos+x&v=](http://duckduckgo.com/?q=sin+x+cos+x&v=)

<comment><USER11> duck duck go is rapidly becoming a new goto search engine. It hasn't quite replaced google, but it's farther along in doing so than any other engine.

<comment><USER12> Does DuckDuckGo have a following outside of the tech crowd?

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure, but it's growing fast.

<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/duckduckgo.com>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I find Wolfram Alpha better than most desktop softwares for quick checks on formulas, equations or random mathematical curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER7> Stephen Wolfram had an interesting TED talk that was just posted, about computing the theory of everything: [http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything.html)

For the answer [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=the+answer+to+the+ultim...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=the+answer+to+the+ultimate+question+about+life,+the+universe,+and+everything)

<comment><USER14> or this <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=theory+of+physics>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Fun conversion, convert carrots / Hr to Horsepower:#

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=((1+carrot+calories+in+...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=\(\(1+carrot+calories+in+btu\)+/+1+hour))

</comment><comment><USER16> Oh wolfram|alpha, have a little fun. <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Happy+Birthday>

<comment><USER12> <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+old+are+you%3F></comment></comment>


Network Solutions email servers blacklisted for outgoing spam - <AUTHOR> http://forums.networksolutions.com/nsmail-f47-ndr-non-delivery-reports-for-server-ips-being-blocked-t10332.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Network Solutions tries to explain-away the problem, asks for NDR's. Users post a flurry of NDR's, NS support requests that users stop posting them. NS appears to be clueless.</comment>


Journalist charged with helping Anonymous hack L.A. Times, TV station - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/03/journalist-accused-of-helping-anonymous-hack-la-times-tv-station.html

<comment><USER2> The charges in the indictment seem ludicrously disproportionate to the observed impact. I mean, giving away your workplace credentials is beyond stupid (and highly unprofessional), but I think it doesn't quite rise to "30 years in jail" as a valid punishment.</comment>


O'Reilly – In March 2020 the Members Library will be shutting down - <AUTHOR> Remember to download your ebooks until March 2020. https://members.oreilly.com/ <comment><USER2> What does this Members Library entail? Is it separate from the normal ebook library in some way? Is this basically saying they are getting rid of all their ebooks?

<comment><USER3> They announced a while ago that they were getting out of the "distributed books as files" (aka buying ebooks and getting the files on members.oreilly.com) game, and doubling down on the "subscription service to consume books online" game (aka Safari). This is just another step in that process. See [https://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/why-oreilly- media-n...](https://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/why-oreilly-media-no- longer-selling-books-online-607871) for the original announcement.</comment></comment>


Roland's A-88MKII keyboard is a sign that MIDI 2.0 is on the way - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/7/21028136/roland-a-88mkii-keyboard-support-midi-2-0-ces-namm-2020 <comment><USER2> Roland's original A-80 from the 1990s was superior as it supported polyphonic aftertouch (as did a number of keyboards and controllers from that era.)

It is still popular today.</comment>


The Media Really Has Neglected Puerto Rico - <AUTHOR> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-media-really-has-neglected-puerto-rico/ <comment><USER2> "Data from Media Cloud, a database that collects news published on the internet every day, shows that the devastation in Puerto Rico is getting comparatively little attention..."

But the graph (and data) cut off _before Maria even made landfall_ in P.R. It didn't make landfall until 10:15 on the 20th.

<comment><AUTHOR> The other 3 graphs in the article go up to the 24th or the 25th.</comment></comment>


The Chainlink Fraud Exposed - <AUTHOR> https://chainlink.docsend.com/view/nfrvnyuuzrf2d5va <comment><USER2> Hmm. Didn't know there are such researches in the crypto space. Well done Zeus

</comment><comment><USER3> Quite interesting research. Wondering why Chainlink are not dicussing it or disproving the issues pointed out.</comment>


CrashPlan Big sale - <AUTHOR> https://www.crashplan.com/bigsale/

<comment><USER2> I feel that discounts that don't apply to existing customers must be risky: I already have a Crashplan account and am not pleased that people who show up "after me" get to pay only a fifth of what I'm paying currently.

<comment><USER3> Hmmm. I just re-upped my 3 year subscription that had 3 months remaining to a new 4 year subscription. New customers only get a discount on one year's service, the way I read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Note: the longer the sale goes on, the more the discount decreases. (It decreases 1% every hour counting down from 100%).

I didn't notice that yesterday, and it's worth keeping in mind when reading this submission.

In my case, it might actually have had the effect of discouraging me from considering the offer, because the price went up since I last checked. Does anyone else feel the same way, or is this a discount model that you would recommend keeping in mind for another occasion?

<comment><USER5> 80% off is still a pretty good deal.

<comment><USER6> But, knowing that the same product was 100% off mere hours ago will certainly disgruntled potential buyers. I think this model is more likely to alienate customers than it is to entice them.

<comment><USER7> On your theory, products should never go on discount. Clearly the world feels differently.

<comment><USER6> Just, no. You lack a fundamental understanding of the psychology that underlies my point. Knowledge that you are missed out on a more lucrative deal makes the current price less appealing when juxtaposed against the missed deal. This is identical to the cognitive process that causes people distress when they miss refilling their parking meter by minutes. If you leave your car on the street for 3 days, it should not seem that unreasonable that you receive a ticket. However, in the cases where one approaches one's car while the ticket-writer is still present but the ticket has already been written, the person is more likely to flip their shit. The latter is far more upsetting because the person "missed it by that much."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are they a stable company that will exist in a year or two? They sometimes give away one year plans for free (go to slickdeals and search for crashplan), which makes me wonder if they are desperate to sign up new customers.

For something important like backup I don't want to start using a product that may fold in the near-term future.

edit: it seems the free deals are for people who want to switch from carbonite, but they work for anyone. So I guess it's not exactly what I thought: <https://www.crashplan.com/carboniteswitcher/>

<comment><USER9> I hope they will still be there... They are not just a random company. I have been using it at my previous work company (strongly suggested by our IT group) and have been really happy with it to the point that 2 years ago I purchased for their Black Friday offers a 3 years plan...

Since then I had one bad HD crash and I was happy to be able to restore from CrashPlan... After a little bit over a day of syncing the restore was complete and I lost only around the last 10 minutes of my work which is not bad at all.

So happy customer here for over 2 years now, and I have already extended my subscription by one more year at regular price.

<comment><USER9> I forgot to mention that a few big corporation like Apple, Google and a few others use their enterprise solution (aka CrashPlan backup solution hosted directly in house by the IT group)... So they definitely did strike some deals with big names.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would love to see the performance data for this campaign.</comment>


My OCD co-founder never stops tweaking the front page - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vittyo.com/tips-on-becoming-a-better-designer <comment><USER3> I like the comment on the original site:

 _"God damn it, this is not OCD. Being anal has nothing to do with OCD and vice versa"_

I don't see OCD behaviour in the design either - they are not tweaks, they are quite different iterations. I'm not sure it's even anal as such - more like experimental (and if they don't settle soon, indecisive).

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll be first to admit that I was experimenting with more catchy titles. My apologies to those who were mislead.

<comment><USER4> Is he going to write a blog post about his co-founder's obsessive attention to titles?

On a more serious note he needs to do a bit of tweaking with the contrast - the thin pale grey text doesn't stand out well against a white background on my monitor and the tagline below the logo is virtually unreadable.

FWIW I also think slide 8 is a cleaner design than the current iteration - <USER2> logo in the finished version looks a bit squashed and I think the left hand menu is more distracting than it needs to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Emulation has been scientifically proven to be the most powerful learning device known to man."

Has this really been proven? I notice I learn best when trying to reproduce examples, but I didn't know this was a "thing." Is this just hyperbole, or does anyone have a citation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hyperbole :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The designs are each unique enough that I wouldn't call them iterations or tweaking, but exploration of different ideas, which — especially for mockups — is normal in design.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's been deleted or moved, I take it?

<comment><USER5> I still see the post and the site referenced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> heh. It's a startup trying to tap the REAL VIDEO STREAMING market.

seriously?

<comment><USER9> what do you mean?</comment></comment>


Amazon's approach to product development and product management - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-is-Amazons-approach-to-product-development-and-product-management

<comment><AUTHOR> Ian McAllister's answer is so refreshingly insightful.</comment>


React UI components for Elasticsearch - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/appbaseio/reactivesearch <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone!

Today, we are launching a major release of Reactivesearch (v2).

Key highlights:

\- Compatible with any Elasticsearch index hosted anywhere.

\- Comes with over 30 pre-built components which are common in building data- driven UIs.

\- Can be extended to work with your own UI components. (Really handy if already have a designed component and want it to work with Elasticsearch).

\- We also provide designer templates of all our components, which is helpful for creating pixel-perfect UIs.

\- Consistent API for web and native mobile apps (Native version of the lib is in alpha today)

You can see a post for building an e-commerce UI using Reactivesearch - [https://codeburst.io/how-to-build-an-e-commerce-search-ui- wi...](https://codeburst.io/how-to-build-an-e-commerce-search-ui-with-react- and-elasticsearch-a581c823b2c3).

A lot of sweat and love has gone into building this, would appreciate any helpful feedback, improvements we can make, or issues you may be seeing. :)</comment>


Why Aren't Women Advancing at Work? Ask a Transgender Person - <AUTHOR> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119239/transgender-people-can-explain-why-women-dont-advance-work

<comment><USER2> This is an innovative approach: They compare the workplace experiences of the same person (i.e., same skills, personality, etc.) as woman and as a man, including people who changed both ways, man to woman and woman to man.</comment>


Downtime at 'Aging' Nuclear Plant - <AUTHOR> https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060108635 <comment><AUTHOR> Tucked near Mississippi's border with Louisiana, deep in Entergy Corp.'s territory, rests the largest single-unit U.S. nuclear power station.

It's called Grand Gulf, and it boasts a 1,443-megawatt capacity.

But it hasn't been acting like a dependable backbone of the power grid.

An E&E News review of federal daily reactor status reports from 2013 through last month found Grand Gulf listed at full power roughly 52.5 percent of the time. It was at zero percent power almost 21 percent of the days studied. On other days, it was at various reduced levels.

Does that sound like a baseload plant?

"No," said Ted Thomas, chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Commission.</comment>


Socket Programming Basics Presentation Tutorial - <AUTHOR> http://securitytube.net/Socket-Programming-Basics-Presentation-video.aspx <comment><USER2> I can't view the video (refuse to install flash on 64-bit linux), but just in case anybody hasn't seen it, beej's guide to networking is pretty nice. <http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/>

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are looking to do a bunch of network programming in Java look at Netty. I have been using the JBoss Netty Network Application Framework - <http://www.jboss.org/netty/> for about 3 months and have been very happy with it.

It is a great framework with a good community around it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Video is great! I loved it! thanks!</comment>


Twitter reinstates Richard Spencer's account - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/11/13911182/twitter-ban-richard-spencer-alt-right <comment><USER2> This just seems like ill-advised monday morning quarterbacking. The left is outraged that Trump won because they genuinely believe it would never happen. So instead of looking forward, defining issues, and pursuing the next 270+ electoral votes; they call everyone who supported Trump a racist, and call for silencing of minority opinion.

<comment><USER3> Hmm. Did you get the part in the article about:

 _Twitter banned Spencer for having too many accounts — not for the content of those accounts_

?</comment></comment>


Why Data Structures Are Irrelevant to Software Engineering Interviews - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jacobgreenleaf/why-data-structures-are-irrelevant-to-software-engineering-interviews-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-bd9b7a9a0bb8#.ui02ekfiz <comment><USER2> It's really annoying when somebody gives examples of difficult unsolvable problems when in fact they're pretty damn solvable.

For example, instead of an "indexable skip list" (whatever that is) I'd have said a red-black tree (or whatever) where each node keeps track of how many elements are in its subtree. At least if a simple log(n) solution is tolerable. And you know, I've never seen this problem before. I didn't "memorize the answer." You have to put together general background knowledge and find a solution. Putting summary information on the nodes of a tree is a general-purpose data structures trick.

Also, take, for example, the cycle finding problem. I came across that question once in a low-pressure situation and invented Brent's algorithm. Today, that is a bad interview question because it's too famous. But generally speaking it's very easy to solve if you've never seen it before: maintain a hash table of the pointers you've seen. Does that take up too much space? You can adapt that solution to use less space.

Granted, there are developers that can get some kinds of useful stuff done that can't figure out math problems or algorithms problems on the spot, but it's wrong to conclude that other people are memorizing answers to these questions. After all, interviewers at some companies are trying to come up with questions and tasks people _haven 't heard before_ and keep their questions secret.

<comment><AUTHOR> An indexable skip list is a skip list annotated with, like you said, the number of elements in the sub list. I think you are discounting the setting of the interview. It's not an impossible question, just like it's not an impossible question for an electrical engineer to discuss PID control tuning, but it's something that is not very appropriate for an interview. There's a reason these style interviews are called "grilling". Interviews are stressful without the pop quiz style questions. One could easily misread the question as "calculate the median of a list of integers" and forget the sliding window aspect of the question, and spend 15 minutes explaining sorting a list, grabbing the middle element, then getting thrown off when they realize it's a data structure question instead. These are reasonable problems outside the interview context, but not appropriate within.

<comment><USER2> You can always screw up an interview, or maybe some interview process is suboptimal, or some people feel pressure. But the claim _you_ made was that these are questions that you memorize the answers for, that they're trivia questions. I can tell you, I have not, in any interview, in the past 7 years, gotten a question that I already knew the answer for.

And I've asked questions that people didn't already know the answer for, and guess what they do? Many of them figure out the answer. After all, they're questions designed to be ones that you can figure out the answer to in 20-30 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> charles-salvia You can reduce a lot of specialized knowledge to "trivia" by noting how it can be easily looked up, nowadays. But asking candidates about data structures is hardly the same thing as asking them to spew out memorized responses. There's a big difference between "tell me the exact steps involved in the rebalancing algorithm for an AVL tree" and "here are some requirements for an application, what data structures would you consider using and why?" These sort of questions are designed to test for generalized background knowledge and experience working with data structures, not simply whether the candidate knows exactly what a skip list is. It also demonstrates a general ability to apply CS knowledge to real-world situations.

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe there's an unconscious fear that most programming jobs are a far cry from computer science. Most developers are gluing modules to each other without any concern for how they're implemented.

The author used the word "trivia" and I couldn't agree more since your can google the answer. Trivia interview questions are a result of our industry not having the resources to teach beginners. I'd much rather hire people who are intellectually curious and can learn on the job.

</comment><comment><USER4> For me, if a candidate doesn't know the solution right away, but can (in some reasonable time) come up with a solution on her own after some googling, it's a huge plus. Ability to improvise and apply known solutions to a completely new problem is a sign of a great engineer.

</comment><comment><USER5> i don't get the hate. yes, the bulk of your work might not be designing or implementing search structures. there may be better ways of predicting whether or not someone is going to have a positive contribution..but

if you don't have some basic understanding of costs and complexity, and have a vague notion about how things are implemented "under the hood", then you probably aren't really that useful.

<comment><USER6> Sure. The problem is, these questions don't test that, they only test your ability to memorize the answers software engineering interview questions.

If they really cared about a "basic understanding of costs and complexity" they'd ask questions about the basics. These are highly specialized "gotcha" questions that do not correlate with actual job performance.</comment></comment>


Robocop and the Future of Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.bing.com/blogs/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2014/02/13/robo.aspx

<comment><USER2> Looks a lot like [http://www.plexisearch.com/](http://www.plexisearch.com/)</comment>


Show HN: W: RoR dev environment in a terminal container - <AUTHOR> https://terminal.com/tiny/INIuKCmdKS

<comment><USER2> This is really novel concept and I hope it catches on as it presents many advantages.

Although, you have pointed it out in the comments, can't you enable iframing of the response so users are not confused. At lest, I didn't know why I was seeing blank frame.</comment>