Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better? - <AUTHOR>

Last year I doubled the subscriber count for Hacker Newsletter[0] to 14,000 and my goal for 2013 is to double it again. To accomplish that, I have several ideas I'm working on, but thought I would check here as well since the newsletter exists because of this community.
If you already are a subscriber, I would love to know how I could make it better and if you're not, is there anything I could do that would make you sign-up and check it out?
Thanks!
[0]: http://hackernewsletter.com <comment><USER2> Be sure to keep hilarious endorsements like

"Hacker Newsletter is great. It's reduced the time I spend on Hacker News from several times per hour to several times per hour plus the weekly newsletter." -Jason Seifer, Founder of Scheduling, Host of The Ruby Show

That's what just convinced me to sign up.

AFTER EDIT: And now that I have signed up, the usability suggestion I have for the archived issues is to make sure that each issue in the archive links to the previous issue, and all but the most recent issue in the archive links to the next issue. That's the expected browsing capability on most permalinks.

VERY IMPORTANT: Style the archives links to distinguish visited from unvisited links.

<http://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-10-mistakes-web-design/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I like to add some humor to everything, and Jason probably nailed it perfectly with that testimonial.

Regarding the archives, yeah, they need some work. They are currently hosted on MailChimp, but looking to bringing up my own archive so I can control things like that and maybe add some other features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Kale - this has had fantastic value for me and saves me a lot of time.

I agree with sazary that a line or two editorial about each link (similar to how Peter Cooper does it) would add even more value. Perhaps not necessary for all links - that could get overwhelming - but maybe for a few of your top recommended links.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can you ad one article of original content (as in original to the newsletter)? Something like an email interview from a founder, hacker, or person of interest. It would be very nice. Also, on my newsletters, I've found that adding something not related to the subject at hand keeps it fresh. I sometimes link a funny youtube video, and have even included a lolcat. Makes people want to see what I'm doing next. If you want to chat about newsletters and stuff, feel free to email me (on profile). Note: I have been publishing newsletters since the dawn of time. In fact, dinosaurs knew they were going to be extinct because my newsletter "News-O-Saurus" told them about the meteor impact. Too bad those dumb lizards didn't know how to read. :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://hackernewsletter.com/>

You can also check out the last 131 issues from the bottom of that page.

</comment><comment> simba-hiiipower kale, you seem pretty awesome by the way. and i'd say hacker newsletter is as well. feels exceptionally well put together and i appreciate you not cluttering it with ads (though i do enjoy the often cleverly delivered one that is there); hope the effort's been paying-off for you.

and i'm hard pressed to come-up with feedback for the content or structure of the newsletter itself, but (and this, understandably, may be taking things in a direction your wholly uninterested in) i've always thought it'd be nice to have this content delivered as an app.. in addition to offering an alternative way to monetize (i'd gladly pay for it), i think it could really enhance the user experience, particularly on mobile devices. some user-specific benefits i could see from such an approach:

\- open story links within the app (rather than switching between email and browser)

\- better comment viewing experience (viewing hn on mobile generally sucks)

\- direct access to all archived issues (would be nice)

thinking about it, and considering all the work that would have to be put in, it could make for a great mobile hn reader (integrated newsletter for highlights + mobile-optimized hn access for staying current).

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

also just want to add, that your _wayback letter_ [1] is beyond awesome! it's really cool being able to step back at various intervals in time and see what was going on. i find it pretty funny seeing what was in-focus as recent as a month ago, and actually quite insightful reaching back a few years. as i said, beyond awesome and very well put together, encourage people to check it out.

[1] <http://www.waybackletter.com/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Mine the comments. I typically get more information there, and you'd save everyone from engaging in "OMG! Someone is WRONG on the Internet!"

Hell, you could have a full newsletter: "Best of patio11 Weekly" :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> For what it's worth I think it serves my purposes very well. I would suggest being mindful of trying to add features that could ultimately clutter it.

I love the categories you put submissions into; one way to both provide a helpful feature to subscribers as well as prevent them receiving too much information that they're not interested in (clutter) would be to select specific categories you wish to receive a newsletter for when you sign up your email. Modularization is good.

</comment><comment><USER7> I just signed up, and I gotta give it to you that the look and layout of your site is very very nice :) Everything is very clear and from my five minutes of browsing the archives I cant personally find a single thing to criticize.

I read in other comments here that it´d be great to have a summary for each link. But I imagine that would be tedious and time consuming. Personally I think the titles of the links do just fine :)

</comment><comment><USER8> it seems that you yourself read articles that are in the email. so i think writing just a few lines that describes every link is a good idea. Dave Pell is doing a good job about this in NextDraft.

also points and number of comments are important things to be included in email, but they may clutter it. personally i prefer them to be there.

and the classics part is really good ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, and yes, I've gotten several requests for summaries. I tried doing that before, but I didn't like the results... but I might give that another try. You can hover over the title to get the points & # of comments.

If you like the classics, you'll probably enjoy my other newsletter as well - <http://waybackletter.com>.

<comment><USER9> I'm giving the newsletter a shot. As far as summaries, I can see how it could clutter the flow, maybe there is a way to put them out of the way of the main flow? Optional hover? It's a great place to expose a bit more 'curation' value if it can be done without causing problems.

I would also mention, one huge reason I use hacker news is for the comments. If the summary could just mention a couple major topics of discussion, e.g. the 'good stuff' it would make a summary useful to me there as well.

More broadly, I noticed that all your links are the articles, with companion comments. You do have a few 'ask HN' and similar thread posts, but perhaps consider highlighting those occasional remarkable discussion threads on their own, or quoting excellent posts. I've saved more than a few HN comments myself, and a couple great quotes at the end could be a nice 'wrap-up' and bring some of the community discussion feel to the format.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, there usually is a "Ask HN" section... but if there isn't any good ones or if they end up in other sections then it doesn't show. It is funny, at the beginning there use to be tons of them and then over the last year those started to thin out, but that seems to be reversing again here of late (which is good!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just signed for it, so I guess that asking how you can improve it actually improves it (in a user growth way).

<comment><USER11> That would suggest that additionally publicity would help. So I suppose convenient features to "share this" or "post this to twitter" might help growth. But it;s already an email (super easy to forward), and that wouldn't add value to the original recipient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Kale - your newsletter really save me time. Personally, I would love to see a selection of stories that _aren't_ so popular. I commonly comb through the list of new articles that are a bit outside the box. They usually talk about human nature, knowledge crossing domains etc.

Keep up the good work!

</comment><comment><USER13> I actually prefer the Wayback Letter (most things I see in HNL I've already seen on HN proper), but it frequently goes through spurts of not happening. I realize that you're a busy man and that, for example, having a new child is more important than sending out the day's Wayback Letter. But it'd be nice to have some sort of status indicator--if you anticipate an "outage", let us know ahead of time, or if you don't it'd be great to have an email or website that just said, "There's stuff going on in my life, expect the next few days to be canceled."

</comment><comment><USER14> Kale - I'm a subscriber and I think it's great in its current format. Outside of postings on Hacker News, how are you advertising its existence?

</comment><comment><USER15> Hey Kale, why don't you put a Gittip[0] button in the newsletter? That could get you some funding so you can keep doing what you're doing. Pycoders Weekly[1] is currently doing this too.

[0]: <http://www.gittip.com/>

[1]: <https://www.gittip.com/PycodersWeekly/>

</comment><comment><USER16> What is it written in/how does it work code-wise? Also, would you run another version/flavor for a subtopic like visualization?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote a custom Ruby/Sinatra app that helps me build it out each week and use that to hand-pick each article. The app scraps HN (although I'm about to convert it over to using the hnsearch api I think) and allows me to filter all the links each week in various ways. I then use MailChimp (and it's great api) to send it out each Friday.

I'm working on making the app more generic in terms of the source and I have a couple other topics that I want to do, but just haven't had the time to finish yet. Look for another one in a month or so though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just wanted to say thank you for the hacker newsletter! It's a huge time saver by being able to visit HN less often while shaking that feeling of missing out.

That said, I still have this compulsion of clicking open more links than I have time for. Any thoughts on a Hacker Newsletter Lite?

</comment><comment><USER17> Havent thought either of these to implementation: 1\. If you could somehow add a humorous one line caption to each post. 2\. ranking? ..linux article with 100 votes trumps web article with 400 votes. Adaptive ranking based on my click through would be boss too.

</comment><comment><USER18> Since your asking for feedback, I was wondering if I may have my own feedback being I am a start up as well. You have tons of reviews on your site. Did you ask for all those reviews or did they just come organically?

Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Several of them I got without asking and that prompted me to ask a couple more folks for them. I think the best advise is to just ask individuals for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Did you build the readership organically entirely from HN? Were there other sources from which folks signed up?

Also have you considered some kind of daily edition? Or might that be considered overkill?

<comment><USER11> I believe at one point he said he got a lot of subscribers from a cross- promotion with the Now I Know newsletter (<http://nowiknow.com/>). I'm not sure if he has done this with other newsletters.

For daily content, I recommend <http://dailyhn.com/>. It provides a list of top daily stories with automatically-generated digests. The digests are of decent quality, but I just use it as a daily top ten list.

<comment><USER19> Cool. Thanks for sharing. I'm wrestling with the daily/weekly question myself as I'm starting to publish my own newsletter. My own instincts run counter to wanting to receive an e-mail blast daily no matter how relevant it is. But I'm not sure whether others feel the same. Think I'll ultimately experiment with both to see if I can find a sweet spot.

<comment><USER11> Hard to say: lots of great and popular newsletters use both the daily and weekly models. You could offer the choice on signup I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there a preview available somewhere? I am looking for a way to read HN on my Kindle.

Nevermind, found the archive at the very bottom of the page. I guess it won't work for Kindle, though.

</comment><comment><USER21> An interview with popular HN users will be awesome. I often find myself looking up profiles of people who've left interesting comments/submissions to see the stuff they're working on.

</comment><comment><USER22> There's a newsletter?

Seriously, that is my response. Never knew one existed before this post. Perhaps marketing should be a goal.

</comment><comment><USER23> * ability to delete account

* ability to delete comments

* ability to edit comments after a month

</comment><comment><USER24> You can clear the subscribe box on focus rather than just on click.

</comment><comment><USER25> Do you monetize this in any way, or are you planning to?

<comment><AUTHOR> I run a single ad pretty much every issue, mainly served up by the great people at LaunchBit. That works well, but I'm looking into some other addition ways to monetize it just so I can fund more projects that I want to do. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Info on upcoming regional HN meetups might be cool

</comment><comment><USER27> Do you allow advertising?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I direct people to <http://lauchbit.com> if they want to advertise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How many new sign ups did this post get you? :)</comment>


Ask HN: How would you invest your money in 2014? - <AUTHOR>

Given that the future seems very unpredictable, how would you invest your money nowadays in a clever way (preferably not in a bank or real estate) <comment><USER2> There are never great risk-free ways to invest your money that earns you good return - whether its 2009 or 2014. If you have resources to keep track of micro and macro economic indicators you can probably do specific investment but otherwise you probably want to just diversify as much as possible that your level of capital allows.

For example, there are growing indicators that home rental business is going in the boom. You can see Berkshire Hathway grabbing tons of rental properties in anticipation for that with additional benefit that when rental boom dies down, housing would be in rise again (meaning that you can milk rental properties for next few years followed by selling them off as housing units).

However to do things like above you really need significant market research and may be even a team of economist processing away all data. Next best thing for regular folks is investing in index funds which allows you to diversity while still retaining liquidity.

</comment><comment><USER3> We're overdue for a market crash/correction. The advantage goes to contrarians who buy when others sell. Here's an interesting confirmation bias overload from Forbes...

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2014/07/01/these-23...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2014/07/01/these-23-charts- prove-that-stocks-are-heading-for-a-devastating-crash/)

<comment><USER4> The Fed's obsession with trying to control the market is horrifying. QE is a manipulation of capitalism. If this truly is a bubble, a crash will devastate the economy and take out housing with it. A third recession will have no easy fixes.

<comment><USER3> Indeed-- the Doom & Gloomers (Harry Dent) predict a Great Depression like scenario. I'm regular guy who pays attention to news & trends. Frankly, I'm surprised we haven't already followed the path of Greece. Hope you're sitting on some cash, canned foods, & ammo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > the future seems very unpredictable

Future is always unpredictable. It wouldn't be future if it was known.

> how would you invest your money nowadays in a clever way

You invest your money today as you did yesterday, last week, last month, last year, last decade, last century .... and so on. You should go in investing with long haul mindset. You can't be right all the time in making your calls so consistency in investing pays. You come up with a long term validated strategy and stick with it, rain or shine. And, you don't make decisions based on short-term fluctuations, emotions or your subjective opinions.

</comment><comment><USER6> Brazilian treasure direct is paying around 12% year or 6.5% + inflation rate in Brazil.

Get money in your american bank with a way lower rate and buy it. Beware that if the Real(brazilian currency) loses much of it's value(against your dollar) you would lose money proportionally to it.

But it's a reasonable investment as long as you diversify. There are many respectable US funds that do it.

</comment><comment> Alex-Galapagos I put it all in my startup

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd put it in Bitcoin, we're very likely to see a new bubble this year that will take us to $2000+.

<comment><USER8> OP said "invest", not "speculate".</comment></comment>


Web Quest - <AUTHOR> http://iamsmartandpromisetokeepthisinsecret.com

<comment><AUTHOR> BTW, I'll give a Kindle to the first persone who will sove the whole thing.

</comment><comment><USER2> Passed quite a few steps, but a little stumped by one of them now....

<comment><AUTHOR> Which one?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is this site for 2011.11.11? Not sure what it is...

<comment><AUTHOR> Kind of. How many have you passed?</comment></comment>


The writing interest paradox - <AUTHOR> http://www.naughtycomputer.uk/writing_interest_paradox.html <comment><USER2> I think this is one of Stack Exchange's great successes: persuading knowledgeable people to answer beginners' questions. There are plenty of other things going on there, too, but that's part of the success story.

<comment><USER3> If you are familiar with Jon Skeet (who last time I saw had #1 rep on StackOverflow), I will add one more - the most knowledgeable people frequently were also just damn good writers.

You can quite literally see the evolution in Jon's answers - as time went by his recent answers started becoming better. Today, most of his answers a) have almost zero ambiguity and b) round off the knowledge you gained by adding a few related points, preventing future ambiguity too.

Obviously I am a big fan of his writing, but I think he puts a lot of effort into his answers and even reflecting on those answers. For example, I saw an interview where he mentions the tradeoff between precision and concision in writing, and then making it readable on top of that! Very, very few people can succeed on all three fronts in technical writing.

<comment><USER2> I reckon this is another interesting consequence of the feedback system. Stack Exchange encourages fair writers to get really good, and discourages poor writers until they give up.

> Very, very few people can succeed on all three fronts in technical writing.

Indeed! A successful writer needn't be a brilliant writer. It's more important that they know which combinations of precision, concision and readability they can achieve, and they select the combination that is best suited to the task at hand.

More talented writers can achieve better trade offs, but even Vladimir Nabokov would get downvoted if he answered a hello world question with exhaustive documentation of compiler flags.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've absolutely noticed this. The only reason I write blog posts now are to (1) show off a project that I'm surprised I was capable of completing or (2) "bullshitting" about marketing because my work pays me $50 a post.

I would add a third explanation: Too technical for laymen, not technical enough for cutting edge experts. I sure do know a lot about my field, but the things I would write about are too complicated for beginners, and have been done before by experts. But I can definitely toss out a hypothetical and write 500 words about it once a week..

<comment><USER5> There was a recent episode of the Bikeshed podcast where the hosts had Sandi Metz on as a guest for their RubyConf panel. At one point they took an audience question along the lines of "What should I do a talk on? I'm sure everybody already knows whatever I'm going to talk about."

Sandi Metz had a great answer. Something like "What have you learned in the last year? Do your talk on that. No matter where you are now, there's somebody out there now who is where you were a year ago. They still have those things to learn."

I think this is a really healthy way of looking at blog posts as well. You may say what you want to write about is too complicated for beginners but been done before by experts, but that also means there are plenty of people out there that just don't know it yet, even though they are ready. It doesn't matter if you've been in your technical field 2 years or 10, there are other people out there just behind you waiting to learn the same things you have.

If you wrote about everything that came to mind in this manner I am sure you'd have some writing that goes over some basic stuff, but also writing that is extremely relevant to some readers and will help them immensely.

<comment><USER6> I've had a similar experience. I occasionally give talks, and often my best talks were about topics where I didn't have to prepare much, because I'm deeply familar their topic.

It's a win-win situation. Preparation mostly reduces to deciding on the order of topics. Maybe researching some details I don't feel confident about. Maybe drawing some diagrams and/or looking for nice pictures. That's it.

The only "trick" is to have an audience to which my topic is all news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like it's perfectly possible to be interested in something and yet still have a lot of experience in the subject matter. Lots of experts want to share their knowledge either to help the field move along a bit or to get more people interested in whatever their expertise is in.

The person on YouTube that makes tons of videos about the minute technical details of Super Mario 64 and talks about half button presses and parallel universes is obviously highly interested in the game and its mechanics and also has a lot of experience with it.

There are people whose main passion remains the same for 20+ years and who never get bored of learning more and more about the same subject till they retire or die.

And no, I don't think objectivity must be passionless or bore the reader. It's possible to present 'just the facts' in a way that's enjoyable to read and doesn't try and pass off any viewpoints as objective. A good nature documentary could still be interesting to watch after all.

</comment><comment><USER8> You can be inexperienced and still be completely objective, and vice versa. Objectivity is the skill, and experience is the asset. Interest is also a separate asset. The author seems to assume we get bored and lose interest with experience, which is observable, but I think this rings truer with entertainment (games) rather than craft (art, music, programming).

I wish I could be more entertaining, but the truth is not that exciting. That's probably another writing paradox. Most of our entertainment is fiction.

(Personally, I write to think and to document. There is also no way of knowing what people think of your thoughts if you don't share them.)

</comment><comment><USER9> That's basically why I don't have a blog. I know I would end up with a few posts and then a multi-year gap in it.

But I like discussions on HN. There is just enough variety and interesting mix of topics. Also the style is more conversational, while a blog is more narrative (fire-side chat vs a presentation in front of an audience).

There should be an "HN-post-history-to-blog-format" library or service. Maybe something that picks the most interesting discussions in last X years.

<comment><USER10> That sounds like a cool idea. HN has an API [0] ... not sure if this is possible or allowed though.

[0] [https://github.com/HackerNews/API](https://github.com/HackerNews/API)

Also, there's nothing really wrong with having a blog with no recent updates. I know there's this idea that a blog needs to be regularly updated. But a blog with just 2 valuable posts made 2 years ago, is a valuable thing!

If you just want to write some stuff and put it online, without the feeling of some ongoing obligation -- here are a few options:

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com/apps-for-super-fast-web- pub...](https://email@example.com/apps-for-super-fast-web- publishing-e1e3d96756e9#.3oq3y2q9t)

I hope you will be encouraged to post some stuff.

<comment><USER9> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Objectivity is not only overrated, but the desire for it is part of the problem here. Objectivity must be passionless, which bores the reader.

It's also very hard to achieve, which is why you find people going around calling themselves "objective" when they're just refusing to acknowledge their prejudices and privileges.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think there is some truth to this, but it isn't universally true. I have spent a lot of years trying to sort out certain things and I am finding myself blogging more these days on various topics. I remain interested in exploring and communicating about a number of different things.

Different strokes for different folks.

</comment><comment><USER10> I like this author's style. I don't think he's shown that blogging is a doomed project.

Having interest in a topic may compromise one's objectivity. But we can become aware of this, and correct for it. Other people's viewpoints can be helpful here.

And having experience in a topic doesn't necessarily mean you're bored of it. I've been web-developing for ~5 years and there's a whole bunch of stuff here I want to explore and write about.

Regarding writing for the sake of money, Schopenhauer had some commentary:

[https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/...](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/chapter1.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> At work we are forced to spend some of our free time writing "commercial interesting" articles mostly of topics that doesn't say a lot to me. It's something that I (and a lot of my coworkers) dread a lot.

On the other hand I have my own blog where I have the freedom to write about what I want and when I want. I'm having a lot more fun when writing for the latter.

I also get a lot more reactions regarding articles that I write for my own so I assume that fun or interest also shows in the quality of my writings.

</comment><comment><USER14> That's why it's a good idea to ask some experienced folks for feedback on your passionate writing before showing it to the public. The internet sentiment of "yay we don't need editors or reviewers" is certainly inspiring, but it also leads to a lot of writing that's passionate and wrong.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the reverse becomes true when you replace "writing" with "speaking" \-- most people love to talk about things they have a lot of experience in. So the solution would be... videos and podcasts?

</comment><comment><USER16> Two possible exceptions:

Posts that are intended as a launching point for critical discussion.

Posts that journal a learning process such as an original project.

</comment><comment><USER17> That 2-3 mins read on black background and green font killed my eye for a second there.

Anyone else got the feel?

<comment><USER18> Both Firefox and safari come with a built-in feature to display Web articles in a readable manner.

Almost every article I read on the Web benefit from using this function, and I'd recommend you start using it too, and save yourself from looking at the next horribly layed out article.

<comment><USER19> What is the function called? And is there a Chrome equivalent, by any chance?</comment></comment></comment>


Forget Revenue. Relevance Is The New Currency. - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2010/10/03/forget-revenue-relevance-is-the-new-currency/ <comment><USER2> It's worth pointing out that all those discussions about what is the new currency or what not are only even remotely possible in the very advanced, almost-post-scarcity economies that we live in.

If the global economy collapses or a world war erupts, for example, hackers, bankers, public speakers, and other intellectuals like us, may find that the _real_ currency becomes the ability to grow vegetables on a piece of land. Cue virtuoso pianists exchanging their £10k Steinberg concert grand piano for a sack of potatoes.

<comment><USER3> It won't need a global collapse for all but a tiny handful of startups that consider revenue irrelevant to run out of funding before turning a profit. "Relevance" is only a means to currency, whether it's coming from your user base or the perceived future value of your user base.

There are worse things than being an "irrelevant" behemoth that generates wads of cash and uses it to buy more innovative companies that don't too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Okay, you can have the relevancy while I take the revenue...

<comment><USER5> Thanks. :-)

<comment><USER6> I could help you forget revenue by taking all your money. That would free you up to focus on being relevant, which is what really matters. Deal?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I absolutely agree. There will be a bigger better thing than Facebook at some point. There is always something bigger and better. Facebook will represent a major plateau in social technology, no doubt about it. Facebook changed the social landscape of over 500 million people and counting.

Remember however that relevance is increasingly driven by the user's want of instant, here and now, access to information. Location sharing, augmented reality,RFID, Qr codes, and mobile social games are all very new and exciting. Add to that the ultracool mobile hardware out there from Androids to iPhones and the tee tablet market and I see unlimited possibilities here! It's exciting! There is so much possibility when you look at all of those variables, I can't believe that there wont be newer and shinier platform that catches us by storm! 5 years from today I'm sure we'll know the Facebook killers name...we may already know it.

</comment><comment><USER8> The great thing about the Old Currency is that I can spend it to buy things I want: food, clothes, books.

Until the New Currency can do that, I think I'll stick with the Old Currency.

<comment><USER5> You obviously haven't read the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This sounds a lot like those "new economy" screeds in Wired back in the dotcom days.

</comment><comment><USER10> Forget Gravity. Lift Is The New Currency.

Why should we forget fundamentals just because the models are constantly changing?

Just like an airplane can defy gravity for a while, so can a business without revenue. But sooner or later, both must return to earth.

<comment><USER11> Out of curiosity, did you actually read the article, or did you just comment on the title?

The article used facebook, which already has about $800m in revenue, as a starting point to discuss a major factor of success for social media. He had a good point.

edit/ In fact, his point could be applied very well to the recent Digg fiasco. If they had ranked "relevance to users" as high as "revenue maximization" then they may not have lost so many users.

<comment><USER12> Do you know how much of that $800 million is recurring income? They have >$100 million deals with both Google and Microsoft separately. From what I've heard their popularity with advertisers, their actual paying customer, is in the tank. They are also one of the costliest websites in the world to run.

<comment><USER13> Enough that they're telling people they're going to hit $2 Billion in revenue this year.

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/facebook-will- hit-2-billion...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/facebook-will- hit-2-billion-2010-revenue-says-mob-of-unofficial-facebook-spokespersons/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think I'll start paying my employees with "relevance checks" instead of real money...if they argue with me I'll just tell them "forget money! just be more relevant!"

</comment><comment><USER15> I remember back in the 90s when they said "content is king".

Cash is king, always was, always will be. Otherwise it's not _business_.

</comment><comment><USER16> If I had focused on 'relevance' or 'eyeballs' in stead of on 'turnover' and 'profits' I would have been out of business long ago.

Unless you are very well connected and have a clear exit route in sight please _don't_ forget revenue.

And nobody says you can't have both relevance _and_ revenue, it's not like they're opposites.

</comment><comment><USER17> It is probably true for platform companies, but in the end cash still rules. With respect, I think Facebook and Tencent are the only few "egoless" big players trying to stay relevant in the paranoid way. They will not give any chance to any threat in their game by copying ideas from startups fast. They know their games.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yeah, funny thing is that my bank won't let me pay my mortgage or credit card bills with "relevance".

</comment><comment><USER19> Summary: "Companies such as Facebook should worry more about staying relevant than making a profit".

</comment><comment><USER7> Customers=Currency So by proxy, anything that attracts the customer is currency. What attracts the customer is what us relevant to the user.

</comment><comment><USER20> To me it sounds a bit like "the old rules don't apply."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> i can't believe this post got buried.</comment>


California governor issues statewide 'stay at home' order - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-california-stay-at/california-governor-issues-statewide-stay-at-home-order-idUSKBN21707B <comment><USER2> Good move by Newsom considering there were photos of people in socal still going to bars.

Judging by how long the shelter in place has lasted and affected curves in Asia, we should be prepared for ~2 months as a baseline. From what we're hearing from friends, life is starting to return to normalcy in Hong Kong, with no new domestic cases reported (though now they're contending with new imported cases from overseas travelers returning home). They have a really effective screening/tracking quarantine system in place where they'll give you a location tracking wristband for remote monitoring.

Our family has been affected by this since late January, and there's a big mental challenge aspect to this. Being able to walk outside (unlike in Wuhan) is really big.

It's truly unfortunate that the the country's health services bungled their initial testing and screening ramp up.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand how we get to Newsom's claim that 25 million Californians will get infected in 8 weeks. The math doesn't check out.

The best data we have at this point is from China. They have 81,000 confirmed cases to date, most of them happened over an 8 week period. Obviously not all cases of the virus were confirmed but people were hospitalized and tested aggressively.

Even if only 10% of the cases in China were confirmed (and 10% is a low guess at the percentage that might need to go to the hospital with serious symptoms, and thus be confirmed), that means under a million cases in a population of 1.4 billion.

California's population is 35x smaller than China's but Newsom is predicting California will have over 25x more cases.

Sure you can argue that China is lying about their cases (WHO disagrees). Or that they are authoritarian superhumans with a superior response. Or whatever. But this discrepancy is just too big to make sense. I don't think CA will have 25 million cases in 8 weeks.

I think he is trying to scare people into staying home. Staying home is still a good idea, because the health care system will collapse at a lot fewer than 25M cases in 8 weeks. But I think it's fearmongering.

<comment><USER4> The best model I have seen so far is:

Take deaths, multiply by 400 and that's how many cases you have. This comes from the assumption of 1% mortality and 3 weeks to die.

So CA has ~8000. A doubling time is ~5 days. 8 weeks ~= 11 doublings. So 8000 * 2048 = 16M. Not too far off for a ballpark. Obviously, the exponential starts to breakdown somewhere... but where?

I don't think it's fear mongering. It's getting the public to understand the back of the envelope worst case... which is really bad. People NEED to panic... to get them to hunker down and take this seriously. The sooner than happens, the sooner we get it under control.

I had to yell at my inlaws to stop taking the train to work and going to the gym. They are 70 and have pre-existing conditions. This action will force them to take it seriously.

<comment><USER5> I think doubling time is a bit faster than 5 days from what I have seen elsewhere, and that might change the math to the 25.5M in that time frame.

<comment><USER6> Right, in some countries doubling was every 3 days.

<comment><USER7> Have a look at this site: [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/)

Scroll down to "Daily New Cases in the United States". No real need to extrapolate data from other countries. New cases are doubling every 2-3 days.

<comment><USER8> Those aren't cases, those are confirmed cases. Which has more to do with how much testing we have done than how many are sick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At some point we do have to consider that shutting down the majority of the economy will ruin more lives than letting the virus infect everyone.

Keeping in mind that most young people who get the virus will survive, this is a massive generational sacrifice by the same people who left college around the time of the 2008 crash to protect older people. Anyone who thinks this is only going to last 3 weeks is just not being realistic.

Of course nobody wants to callously stand by while older Americans die of the virus. My own parents are at risk. I myself have asthma and I don't really know what my chances would be. However, the worst-case scenario in 20 years is that the older people we saved by sheltering in place will be gone, but the consequences of shutting down the economy will still haunt everyone living.

There are long-term trade-offs to consider here, particularly ruining the lives of the young in order to save the old, and I don't think they are being considered properly.

In an ideal world we would not need to make choices like this, but the choice is real and we can't fumble it.

I feel like a bit of a dick for posting this, but after reflection I do think it's a valid point and we cannot escape the trade-offs I described.

<comment><USER10> "Letting the virus infect everyone" at a 1% death rate means 3 million deaths in the US, right up there with the worst catastrophes of the 20th century. You can change the death rate and projections of number infected needed to get herd immunity and move that number around, of course, but not enough to change the overall moral calculus.

<comment><USER11> 1% death rate assumes reasonable medical care. If you let everyone get infected, you'll have people dying on the streets. I bet this % jumps to 5% or more. We'd easily see 15m+ deaths.

<comment><USER12> There is no scenario in which we see 15 million deaths. I would like to see a single real academic you can find saying anything like that.

<comment><USER13> Have a calculator?

# Italian deaths / Italian cases = percentage dead [1]

2_978 / 35_713 = 0.0833870019

# USA population * percentage dead = USA death scenario [2]

329_414_824 * 0.0833870019 = 27_468_914

It's prob not gonna get that bad, but Italy didn't see a scenario where people would die at a rate over 8%. So there's a scenario. Don't panic, but also don't dismiss scenarios you'd rather not believe. Americans who get laid off lose access to cheap healthcare, and many as already don't have it. Lack of healthcare doesn't sound like a great a situation.

[1] Source: Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation reports # 59 for March 19

[2] [https://www.census.gov/popclock/](https://www.census.gov/popclock/)

<comment><USER14> That's confirmed cases. I doubt Italy is testing many people with mild symptoms, just like the US is also not testing many people with mild symptoms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This works for a while, but we can't realistically expect to just shut the country down for the next year or so. Surely there is some kind of plan to try to actively suppress the virus rather than just reduce the R0 slightly? While Congress throws around a trillion here, trillion there, why not make testing every last American (multiple times, as necessary) priority #1? Then we can get people back to work much sooner, and let the economy start to recover.

<comment><USER16> you're right, testing is the long term solution. you can't control what you can't measure.

the embarrassing point is that in the US, isolation is the only effective tool at this point. it's embarrassing because ramping up testing was what South Korea did, and they started much sooner, and that's why they are over the hump now. the US simply doesn't have the testing scaled up.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus- testin...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testing- specialrep/special-report-how-korea-trounced-u-s-in-race-to-test-people-for- coronavirus-idUSKBN2153BW)

<comment><USER17> Testing is rising extremely quickly in the US. Over 27,000 in the last 24 hours: [https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/](https://covidtracking.com/us- daily/)

<comment><USER18> Pence promised 4 million last week.

[https://www.usnews.com/news/health- news/articles/2020-03-10/...](https://www.usnews.com/news/health- news/articles/2020-03-10/millions-of-coronavirus-test-kits-available-soon- pence-says-as-us-cases-top-700)

<comment><USER17> There's a difference between distributed and utilized. Is that confusing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is fine for people like me that can work from home, no problem. But most of my neighbors are freaking out because they are not getting paid and have no way to pay bills, rent, etc. I can't see how this will not end up as the most major worldwide depression ever.

<comment><USER2> Hence they're trying to hand out cash to people (means tested), reduce our delay taxes, etc. Other countries have enacted similar measures.

<comment><USER20> $1000 for a month isn't quite enough to keep the lights on for middle class families living paycheck to paycheck.

<comment><USER21> Hopefully in addition to monetary grants there will also be suspension of rent, mortgage, utility, and student loan repayments while this is ongoing.

<comment> joe-collins Suspension of rents seems like one of the biggest things I see missing across the board. Suspended mortgages are great... for those wealthy enough not to be renting. $1k/adult will cover rent for many couples outside of tech hotspots, but it won't go a lot farther, and that doesn't begin to address singles.

<comment><USER20> Rental companies are already sending "we won't evict you" / "please speak to us if you have financial hardship" communications. These help, but the bills will still pile up and the government check won't cover 100% of expenses.

<comment><USER22> I'll keep looking for when my landlord says anything close to this, if anything at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm more and more worried this is an overreaction, even ignoring the economic impact. Look at the projections on page 19:

[https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial- college/medicine/s...](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial- college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI- modelling-16-03-2020.pdf)

They seem to have picked the green line and not the orange line. Hopefully they're planning for intermittent social distancing, or have some other medium term plan.

<comment><USER24> Read the f*cking thing to the end!

"Perhaps our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over. In the most effective mitigation strategy examined, which leads to a single, relatively short epidemic (case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly), the surge limits for both general ward and ICU beds would be exceeded by at least 8-fold under the more optimistic scenario for critical care requirements that we examined.In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US.

... We therefore conclude that epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time.

"

ONE MILLION DEAD AMERICANS.

You shit your pants after 3000 died at 9/11.

<comment><USER25> Bill Gates on the Imperial Study...

"Fortunately it appears the parameters used in that model were too negative. The experience in China is the most critical data we have. They did their "shut down" and were able to reduce the number of cases. They are testing widely so they see rebounds immediately and so far there have not been a lot. They avoided widespread infection. The Imperial model does not match this experience. Models are only as good as the assumptions put into them. People are working on models that match what we are seeing more closely and they will become a key tool. A group called Institute for Disease Modeling that I fund is one of the groups working with others on this."

<comment><USER26> At the risk of beating a dead horse, are the numbers coming out of China trustworthy?

We know for a fact there were some early suppression of the outbreak, so it wouldn't be too much to speculate that they're under-reporting new cases and/or over-reporting recoveries.

Even if so, there's the problem that totalitarian, high-control societies like China have tools to deal with these kinds of problems that other societies do not.. to put it lightly.

<comment><USER27> The generally seem to be, especially corroberated by other experience:

\- HK, SG, KR, and JP have similar trends.

\- No "patriotic virus" \-- infecting Chinese only after leaving China.

\- Limited spread / impacts outside Hubei.

\- Lifting quarantine.

Testing numbers are all but certainly low, but given shitshows elsewhere (IT, US, PH, DE, ES, likely IN and others), due to logistics and limitations. Comprehensive population antibody testing should be interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I haven't seen this reported elsewhere:

The executive order at [https://covid19.ca.gov/img/N-33-20.pdf](https://covid19.ca.gov/img/N-33-20.pdf) cites Government Law 8665 to enforce itself, which reads:

      CA Govt Code § 8665 (2017)

      Any person who violates any of the provisions of this chapter or who refuses or willfully neglects to obey any lawful order or regulation promulgated or issued as provided in this chapter, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punishable by a fine of not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000) or by imprisonment for not to exceed six months or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Six months of jail time and $1,000 is what they are threatening us with.

<comment><USER29> In SF at least it isn't really being enforced unless they absolutely have to. Based on the news Tesla has been the biggest offender so far. Plus people can still legally walk around outside, so the most tangible enforcement would come down to ensuring everyone in public is avoiding people they don't live with.

<comment><USER30> How has Tesla been an offender? They were specifically allowed to remain open by the shelter in place order...

<comment><USER29> They've been defying the order all week, and were specifically told by the sherrif's office that they are non-essential, but continued to run. I think they've only just started to come around, after a visit from the sherrif's office.

> Tesla said it would temporarily suspend electric-car production at its > Fremont plant after Monday, after days of apparent resistance to a county > health order requiring an immediate shutdown.[0]

[0][https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Inside- Tesla-s-...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Inside-Tesla-s- Fremont-factory-car-production-15143877.php)

<comment><USER30> Interesting, It seems that things have changed over the course of the last week. Thanks for letting me know

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> A little more info from SFGate:

[https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Coronavirus-Atria- Bur...](https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Coronavirus-Atria-Burlingame- nursing-home-SF-15142764.php)

> _The order is completely identical to the one in the Bay Area, meaning > individuals can also leave their houses to take a walk or go for a jog so > long as they are practicing the requisite precautions when coming into > contact with another individual._

<comment><USER32> Do you (or SFGate) have a reference for that?

I read what I thought was the most official version of the California order [1], and it's frustratingly short. After reading it, I can't tell whether I can go for a bike ride. Even the fact that I can go to a grocery store isn't stated explicitly. Is there a clearer, more detailed version?

By comparison, the SF order [2] impressed me by how clear it is. For instance, it clearly allows recreation with sensible caveats.

 _UPDATE_ : The video announcement [3] implies that the intent of the CA order is, indeed, to allow all the things the SF order allows. Not sure whether that has legal force, but good enough for me.

[1]: [https://covid19.ca.gov/img/N-33-20.pdf](https://covid19.ca.gov/img/N-33-20.pdf)

[2]: [https://www.sfdph.org/dph/alerts/files/HealthOrderC19-07-%20...](https://www.sfdph.org/dph/alerts/files/HealthOrderC19-07-%20Shelter- in-Place.pdf)

[3]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsVZ3EZEl60&t=28s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsVZ3EZEl60&t=28s)

<comment><USER30> The order is essentially meaningless without further refinement. "critical workers" includes essentially any commercial retail

[https://www.cisa.gov/critical-infrastructure- sectors](https://www.cisa.gov/critical-infrastructure-sectors)

>The Commercial Facilities Sector consists of eight subsectors:

Entertainment and Media (e.g., motion picture studios, broadcast media). Gaming (e.g., casinos). Lodging (e.g., hotels, motels, conference centers). Outdoor Events (e.g., theme and amusement parks, fairs, campgrounds, parades). Public Assembly (e.g., arenas, stadiums, aquariums, zoos, museums, convention centers). Real Estate (e.g., office and apartment buildings, condominiums, mixed use facilities, self-storage). Retail (e.g., retail centers and districts, shopping malls). Sports Leagues (e.g., professional sports leagues and federations).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> People look at the thousands of deaths in China and Italy and may think this is an overreaction.

What they don't realize is that those figures are the result of tough lockdowns, without which, the death toll would've been easier an order of magnitude greater.

California has shown true leadership in this crisis. I hope New York and Washington will soon follow.

<comment><USER34> Not sure how anyone can look at hundreds of additional daily deaths and think it's fine and business as usual.

<comment><USER35> The top comment above, for example. I think people are generally terrible at understanding exponential growth & systemic vs. one-off risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think that California and very soon the whole of US would need to shift to survival of the fittest mode. The US population cannot survive multiple weeks without a paycheck. Any unemployment that is received is just enough to put food on the table but not pay rent.

Some statistics on lower wage workers

* 152 Million people worked in US in Feb 2020

* 16 Million of those in retail (A huge majority of them would be unemployed ~50%)

* 17 Million people worked in Leisure and Hospitality (If bars/restaurants/movie theaters/theme parks/casinos stay closed around 80% of them are unemployed

* 3 Million people work in educational services . With schools and colleges closing a majority of them are unemployed.

Source of data [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm)

* You can only keep things shutdown until people are either begging on the streets or rioting

<comment><USER37> I think about this a lot too. China in general has a much higher savings rate. Where as the US has a large proportion of the population that live pay check to pay check. What happens after a month and things are still not contained?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have read a number of public health orders relating to COVID and this is by far the worst written.

The Bay area one allows people to get out and walk for exercise. This does not.

The article doesn't bother linking to the actual order. [https://covid19.ca.gov/img/N-33-20.pdf](https://covid19.ca.gov/img/N-33-20.pdf) has the text of the order. It just said the critical infrastructure sections. The (non-linked) URL for which is [https://www.cisa.gov/critical- infrastructure-sectors](https://www.cisa.gov/critical-infrastructure-sectors). Which is extremely vague.

For example should my local Best Buy remain open because it is part of the Information Technology sector? Or is providing people with headphone adaptors for work at home not critical infrastructure? I have no clue! I hope that they do.

</comment><comment><USER38> California has the biggest agriculture, port and manufacturing base in the US basically. The county orders contradict the state.

OC is letting factories stay open with conditions and LA is saying the port stays open as well as the trains, airports (especially KSBD which is Amazon's home base). What a mess.

<comment><USER39> If the county says "you need to stay home if X" and the state says "you need to stay home if Y" then the effect is "you need to stay home if X OR Y". There's no contradiction.

<comment><USER40> More frequently though the effect is that people think "our politicians do not know what are they doing; I will do what I think is reasonable" and do what they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> LA has also issued its own stay at home "order." During the initial part of the press conference, it was explicitly described as _not_ a lockdown.

The statewide order is similar. Strongly recommended that people stay indoors, but outdoor activities are still allowed.

In both cases, the orders do not include any potential punishments (to individuals) for violating the order. (There are punishments outlined for businesses.)

<comment><USER42> IANAL, but violating the county orders in the bay area was widely cited as a being a misdemeanor offense. There were also platitudes from law enforcement about "compassionate enforcement", but the potential for punishment is there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Now I'm waiting for the same thing from the US president and leaders of other "laggard" countries.

<comment><USER44> I am confused. Here in the midwest all the states that I know of have cancelled school, shut down bars, and made restaurants convert to delivery, curb side pickup, or drive through.

Further, we are supposed to avoid groups of more than ten people.

Is that not the case on the coasts?

<comment><USER45> The difference is you are merely _supposed_ to do it. Here you can be arrested for not doing it. This is a good move. A lot of people are not taking it as seriously as they should

<comment><USER46> > Here you can be arrested for not doing it.

What do they do with the arrested people? Stack them up in overcrowded jails?

<comment><USER47> They aren't actually going to arrest anyone, but the police are stopping people on the streets and questioning them (not guessing; I know people who have been pulled over). At most, they will hand out citations that will result in a fine. But with a huge number of immigrants in the Bay Area on temporary work visas, there's a chilling effect that a misdemeanor citation could result in being kicked out of the country ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Details and a link to the actual order here:

[https://covid19.ca.gov](https://covid19.ca.gov)

</comment><comment><USER30> This order is very vague with respect to what critical infrastructure and workers entials.

Based on the linked definition, every worker fits into one of the critical business types.

</comment><comment><USER49> This may buy some time but we can't be in lockdown forever. Testing infra really needs to ramp up during this time. S.Korea never actually ordered any stay at home order. People are voluntarily avoiding going outside and aggressive testing is paying off.

</comment><comment><USER50> A 65+ year old family member works in the defense industry as an engineer.

They are being asked to continue a commute into Los Angeles, continue a job that doesn't allow for social distancing, and isn't being provided with any protection items, whatsoever.

They are told that they are essential, and that they cannot have time off. Let me make this clear : They are a civilian, entirely.

I _SURE_ hope that those who do indeed get sick from the poor decisions of their employers will have some path available to them legally to make the irresponsibility righted in some way.

</comment><comment><USER51> The order is vague about shopping for groceries.

[https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-read- the-...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-read-the-gov- newsoms-order-to-stay-at-home/)

Given that at least one employee of a grocery store has tested positive in CA, it seems that grocery stores, where large numbers of people congregate and touch surfaces, could be a loophole to be addressed... somehow.

<comment><USER52> How? They are part of critical infrastructure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> In my Neighborhood, there is street sweeping on Wednesday and Thursday. A couple days ago, the Mayor of LA announced that they won't be giving parking tickets because of the situation. Well, this morning everyone got tickets. It's not that the residents are too lazy to move their cars. This is LA, there is no parking. We only get space if a good chunk of us are at work.

Yeah, let's all stay at Home. But let's also not get punished for it.

</comment><comment><USER54> Bond Beach in Sydney had several thousand people on it last night, pubs and bars are still operating as normal in my area - the only thing thats changed is most corporate people re working from home yet are still meeting with friends. I've had 4 invites to gatherings over the next few days.

We here in Sydney are (as usual) sleep walking into a big mess.

</comment><comment><USER55> Will we still be able to get food delivery?

The order says only those part of CISA define critical infrastructure should show up to work, which doesn't seem to include pizza delivery or short order cooks.

[https://www.cisa.gov/critical-infrastructure- sectors](https://www.cisa.gov/critical-infrastructure-sectors)

</comment><comment><USER56> Where can I read the details? Are restaurants allowed to stay open if they are doing food delivery?

<comment><USER57> [https://covid19.ca.gov/](https://covid19.ca.gov/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Okay, what's necessary? I think a paycheck is necessary, therefore, if I lived in California, I'd continue to go to work.

Tons of governors are issuing meaningless statements like these. Ping me when someone actually imposes martial law.

<comment><USER59> If you don't have an "essential job" like working at a hospital, grocery store, power company, etc. You're allowed to go outside and walk in your neighborhood, but apparently the police will enforce it (probably just at ticket) if you're out for a non-essential reason. They also forcibly closed all gun stores in the state.

It's not martial law to the letter, but it's damned close.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Completely offtopic but how the hell are those beaches in Florida not closed right now? Those idiots are going to fly home soon and insert this virus straight into their communities.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is a great move, but I'm not sure how this will hold up unless the state seals its border. If the entire country doesn't follow suite, is that the next step?

</comment><comment><USER62> At this point, what sort of narcissistic, psychopathic fool needs to be told to stay home unless you _really_ need to make a minimal trip out in order to survive?

<comment><USER58> Maybe someone who isn't a software engineer and doesn't make as much as you, and maybe has a family that depends on their income?

You need to check your privilege. Working from home isn't realistic for most people. For many, the decision is squarely between a paycheck and staying home. You're pretty out of touch if you would call someone narcissistic or psychopathic for struggling with that.

<comment><USER62> What part of "really need" did you not understand?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Considering what's going on in Spain, anything less than police enforced total shutdown will end up being an insufficient response.

</comment><comment><USER64> Pharmacies, Banks, Grocery stores and takeout restaurants will continue to operate.

</comment><comment><USER65> This is effectively stopping the economy and creates all sorts of rippling effects.

US has awful social support and this will hit the working population really hard.

The best case I see is we can ramp up testing kits and masks to 100s of millions. Test everyone repeatedly. Track and quarantine rigorously. At the same time give monthly stipends to everyone while "sit in a hole or die" order is going on.

Make sure banks don't foreclose, people still have insurance and jobs (too late for some parts like hotels and restaurants).

I can see why people are panicking and buying guns in poor neighborhoods. We're putting people on survival mode.

We first downplayed this for a long time when we had a 2 month head start (Thanks Trump and team) and still feel unprepared for the worst.

</comment><comment><USER66> For people with young kids this means no more nannies.

<comment><USER34> No more nannies required or available?

<comment><USER61> You are not allowed to employ a live out nanny unless you are in an essential occupation. (At least that was in the Bay area orders)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> The case fatality rate of being 80 years old is 5.77%. Each year this many people age 80 die of various ailments. I don't remember staying home for months praying this number goes down.

</comment><comment> Volker-E A bit late, but still so far best move of any US State. Originated myself in Central Europe and every day counts when I see the development in my home country and its neighbors!

</comment><comment><USER68> How is no one talking about ID2020?

</comment><comment><USER69> Shouldn't the least vulnerable, ie most of the population, go mingle and become immune to protect the vulnerable?

<comment><USER70> It kills plenty of young people.

<comment><USER69> Any more than the annual flu that no one freaks out about?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> It's more of a request for individuals, with the order being directed at businesses. There isn't any hard enforcement (at least none stated), and people can still go outside.

I think the LA times article is better: [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-19/gavin- ne...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-19/gavin-newsom- california-1-billion-federal-aid-coronavirus)

> The state projects that 25.5 million people in California will be infected > with the coronavirus over an eight-week period, Newsom said in a letter sent > to President Trump on Wednesday requesting the deployment of the U.S. Navy's > Mercy hospital ship to the Port of Los Angeles through Sept. 1.

<comment><USER72> That projection was absent any mitigation though.</comment></comment>


Complete Guide to Buying Lumber (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/primer-on-lumber/ <comment><USER3> None of these points address the hardest parts of buying lumber for a beginner. The hardest parts are in no particular order

* knowing the maximum dimensions you can fit into your vehicle. Are you sure it'll fit in through the door or hatch and you'll be able to close it?

* knowing what cuts you can make at home, and which ones you need to have done at the lumber yard / big box retailer.

* if you need cuts done at the store, does that store offer that service? For example the Menards I shop at has an amazing selection of wood, but they won't cut any of it for me. The Lowe's has a smaller selection, but they do cuts for free.

* if you're having cuts at the store, make sure the saw is working before doing the hard work of choosing your lumber. Too many times to count I've spent 30 minutes getting all the pieces loaded on the cart and then noticed the "Out of Order" sign and had to leave empty handed.

* are you strong enough to lift the piece? Plywood comes in 4 foot by 8 foot sheets, and they can be heavy and awkward to move. A store employee can help you, but at some point you're on your own and will need to do it yourself, have some help, or fashion some tools to assist you.

* For cuts at the store, do you know what dimensions to tell the employee to cut at? Store cuts should be considered rough cuts than you true up later on. Make sure you account for this when dictating the cuts.

* Lastly, just assume you'll make mistakes early on. Luckily construction lumber in the US is pretty cheap, so you can afford a few lessons.

<comment><USER4> Having just rebuilt a deck and installed 200sqft of wood flooring, I'd like to add that if you are just dabbling in around the house projects, you can get much further than you might expect with a hand saw. I have a circular saw, but it both scares the piss out of me and is hard to keep on the line.

A hand saw theoretically takes longer, but I also don't have to worry about my kids getting hold of it and killing themselves. If I was cutting plywood to size, I'd probably still get out the circular saw, but for basically everything else the handsaw is my tool of choice.

<comment><USER5> One of my favorite You-tubers Andrew Camarata told the story of how he got a chainsaw at 10 years old. He hid it from his dad for months and used it. Then when his dad saw it he allowed him to use it on the provisio that he "be careful".

The trouble with the world today is that we're no longer allowing our kids to do anything useful for fear that they "injure" themselves.

So everyone grow up not really knowing even how to hammer a nail. I sympathize with your feeling having a kid myself, but without exposing them to even some slight danger, they will not grow up learning how to navigate the dangers in the world.

<comment><USER6> Sawstop saws are pretty cool [0]. I've been in the woodshop of a nearby high school that has two of their table saws installed. On the wall are attached three wrecked blades from a student setting off the safety mechanism. Each one could have been some kid's finger or hand.

I'm sympathetic to your argument - but power tools aren't 'slight' danger.

[0][https://www.sawstop.com/](https://www.sawstop.com/)

<comment><USER5> They are not a problem if a parent teaches young kids how to use them properly. I'm not for just throwing power tools at kids.

The point i'm making is that in high school we had wood and metal shop. Welding. Electrical. NONE of those classes exist anymore. And with helicopter parenting kids aren't learning them either.

<comment><USER7> > They are not a problem if a parent teaches young kids how to use them > properly.

The statistics don't bear out that training or experience eliminates risk of serious injury. It's even trivially disprovable with anecdotes - tons of experienced woodworkers have had blade touches and/or kickback-induced blade touches. Here's 3:

[https://www.woodworkingfunhour.com/blog/2020/1/16/015-matts-...](https://www.woodworkingfunhour.com/blog/2020/1/16/015-matts- table-saw-accident)

[https://twitter.com/JimmyDiResta/status/318214766818635776](https://twitter.com/JimmyDiResta/status/318214766818635776)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fifjjacjLBE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fifjjacjLBE)

If anyone is learning advanced shop safety, a few years ago I made the advanced survey that I wished existed: [http://sawsafely.org/](http://sawsafely.org/) . [http://sawsafely.org/#injury- research-&-statistics](http://sawsafely.org/#injury-research-&-statistics) has table saw injury stats. In an era of flesh-detecting table saws, using a table saw without it (other than weird special-purpose saws) means underestimating either the probability or the consequences.

<comment><USER8> My father's trade was journeyman carpenter. His hands are so mangled and scarred from saws and air nailers. He has been doing it so long that he doesn't pay attention.

For myself, every time I pick up a saw, I imagine cutting my finger off and it makes me take care.

When I aim the air nailer, I make sure my hands are further away than the nail length. I've had nails deflect on unseen defects inside the wood and poke out the other side where I didn't expect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The explanation of dimensional sizing isn't quite correct. The lumber is indeed cut at the mill to its nominal size (like 2x4), but it's rough from the saw. (They use big, fast saws that tear up the wood.) Rough-sawn used to be sold, and you'll sometimes see nominal-size lumber in old houses. You may even be able to find it at some lumber yards, but it's rare.

To neaten up the board, the mill usually then surfaces it on all four sides, shaving off the rough cut to leave a nice smooth surface. This takes off around a quarter inch per side. Thus a 2x4 ends up as 1.5" x 3.5".

It's a little strange, but makes sense historically and per manufacturing practice. Kinda like a "quarter pounder". But what's really inexcusable is that plywood is no longer sticking to its nominal size. A 3/4" thick ply is actually 23/32" thick. For a full table see: [https://www.inchcalculator.com/actual-plywood-thickness- size...](https://www.inchcalculator.com/actual-plywood-thickness-size/)

<comment><USER10> "The lumber is indeed cut at the mill to its nominal size (like 2x4)"

That is still true today?

<comment><USER11> I do industrial IT for a Candian wood products manufacturer (dimension lumber, studs, veneer, plywood, OSB and previously Kraft paper) and I can say for certain that it is still sawed to a 2" by 4" shape in the sawmill and (after being kiln-dried) planed down in, well, the planermill. The 2x4 is "nominal" and doesn't represent the final dimensions of the finished product. And yes, rough 2x4 lumber is still sold, and it is in fact 2" x 4".

Wood products manufacturing is fascinating, and I could go on about various minutiae all day. AMA I guess?

<comment><USER10> Is the metric system on the horizon?

<comment><USER11> There is a mix of metric and non-metric products, with panel products having more than lumber. Occasionally you even run into other weird measuring systems such as in traditional Japanese beams. North America seems very stuck in imperial measures when it comes to lumber specifically, likely due to entrenched skills and thinking in carpentry. Even PET (precision end trimmed) products designed for cookie-cutter construction are in inches (eg 140 and 5/8"). There is even resistance by old guys against metric threading on machines since all the old tooling and warehouse stock is imperial!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Big box stores (Home Depot, Lowes, and Menards if you're in the midwest) are not generally great places to buy lumber. They're convenient if you're in a pinch and need a couple boards, but they're expensive, their framing lumber quality is really poor, and their hardwood selection is really limited.

For framing (softwood) lumber, you want to find a local lumberyard. Their prices will be more competitive than you expect (my local supplier is about 5% cheaper than Home Depot!), but what you're really going there for is the night and day difference in quality - boards that are supposed to be straight will actually be straight! Their hours are usually not convenient for a DIY-er (8-5 M-F, _maybe_ 8-noon on Saturday), but they'll usually deliver for free or a reasonable fee, and these days most of them will do business over email.

For hardwoods, you want to find a hardwood lumber supplier. These are pretty narrowly targeted at woodworkers, furniture makers, and cabinet makers, and don't sell much besides hardwoods and cabinet-grade plywood - you wouldn't even buy a 2x4 at these places. But they'll carry species and sizes of wood that neither a big box store or a normal lumberyard carry - you want some 4/4 wormy maple to build a tabletop out of? They'll be the only ones that have it.

As for finding these places, the best thing to do is just do some googling and ask your friends/family/coworkers. These places don't advertise much so it's not particularly obvious to a beginner how to find them or that they even exist.

<comment><USER4> > these days most of them will do business over email.

This has been super convenient for me. I email the guy at the lumber yard, "Hey, I'm thinking about doing X. I think I'll need these supplies. Can you get me a quote?"

He responds with a price list, maybe some substitution suggestions, and we barter back and forth a bit until I say "Yes, please order that for me." Then if it's a special order, he'll say, "Great, I'll let you know when it arrives."

It's a very satisfying process. Plus I always send pictures after I complete the project, which I think both of us enjoy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not relevant to the article, but I just want to say that woodworking is fun. Yes, there's a lot of things to learn, everything from the wood/material itself, to the tooling, to finishing. Just starting with small stuff is great, and doesn't need to be expensive.

We learned woodworking in school, and had a really great teacher throughout the years. I later started playing guitar, and use a ton of what we learned when building or fixing my instruments. Currently working on a mahogany body, and it's very soothing work.

</comment><comment><USER14> i'll throw out a mention of the youtube channel Sampson Boat Company: [https://www.youtube.com/c/SampsonBoatCo](https://www.youtube.com/c/SampsonBoatCo)

it's one guy and various volunteers working to restore a >100 year old wooden sailing yacht. while he isn't even trying to teach wood working, i've learned quite a bit, and he's certainly caused me to reevaluate what can be accomplished with wood.

</comment><comment><USER15> One piece of advice that I would like to offer is to not order wood for delivery - whether from your local hardware store or a lumber yard, etc.

You will receive the crummiest batch of warped, twisted, banana shaped boards. You're getting all of the rejected pieces that the smart people rejected.

While I typically bemoan the time I spend hand picking lumber at the lumber yard, it is always time well spent - even the high quality material (kiln dried, clear, etc.) has a very wide range of quality and defects.

<comment><USER4> > not order wood for delivery - whether from your local hardware store or a > lumber yard

I just had 45 1x8s delivered from the local lumberyard. After they dropped it off, they said, "We have some more in stock still, so if you find any that are bad, let us know and we'll swap them out. They all looked good to us though"

Having now gone through all of the wood, they were spot on. It's great wood.

<comment><USER15> Sorry - I should have qualified my comment as relating to framing lumber - <USER2> and 2x6, etc.

1x8 and so on is usually of decent quality and relatively uniform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "the complete guide to buying lumber at home depot for simple diy projects"

There is so much more about lumber to know than this. It's a mistake to (only) consider big box stores for lumber.

If you like to learn more about wood, wood grades, milling, drying and working wood, I can wholeheartedly recommend the "wood talk" podcast with Marc Spagnuolo, Matt Cremona and Shannon Rogers, as well as the "lumber industry update" podcast by Shannon Rogers. They all have great YouTube channels too.

</comment><comment><USER17> Plywood has become significantly more complicated. See [https://www.columbiaforestproducts.com/library/reference- gui...](https://www.columbiaforestproducts.com/library/reference- guides/grading-guide/core-types/) for example.

Agreed on going to a lumberyard or specialty wood store for hardwoods. It's great fun to check out coco bolo, ebony, zebra wood if you've never seen them before.

</comment><comment><USER18> > ... as a piece of softwood lumber dries, it shrinks. That can change plans > for how it's used on the job site.

This was quite a revelation when I first tried to build something with 2x4's. They weren't 2"x4"!

<comment><USER19> If you're referring to the fact that they were 1.5" by 3.5", that wasn't shrinkage. That's nominal vs. Actual size.

The lumber is indeed 2x4 at rough cut, but when you buy S4S (surfaced four sides) lumber, it's been surfaced down smooth. That process takes some material off, leaving you with the half-inch discrepancy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Surprised to not see any mention of avoiding heart-center containing boards.

In my experience those are much more prone to warping, twisting, and splitting as they continue drying and acclimating to the destination environment.

<comment><USER21> Yeah it's generally a bad idea to leave the center pith in your project.

However, I often buy a nice clear 2x10 (or 2x8 or whatever) that has pith down the middle, and then just rip it into 2x4s that avoid the pith. The overall quality of the wider boards tends to be much better than the garbage that gets made into 2x4s at the mill.

<comment><USER4> This reminds me of something I heard on a Woodwrights Shop episode I was watching. He mentioned that since 2x12s require such a big cross-section of a tree, you can usually rip them down and end up with really nice quarter sawn lumber from the two ends of the board. He was making a desk with the wood I think.

<comment><USER22> For anyone wondering about quarter-sawn wood, this article has a pretty good rundown of what it is, compared with other lumber cutting techniques and their properties. [https://www.grandior.net/what-is-the-difference-between- plai...](https://www.grandior.net/what-is-the-difference-between-plain-sawn- quarter-sawn-rift-sawn-and-live-sawn-lumber/)

<comment><USER23> God that article is so confusing because it says quarter sawn is one thing, then says it's another thing and has multiple diagrams directly in conflict with each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am told a really cute windmill driven saw yard in the Netherlands is one of the last refuges for restoration of period homes: everywhere else nearby is doing metric dimensional timber cutting.</comment>


The fusion energy dream is inching toward planet-saving reality - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/08/fusion-energy-dream-is-inching-toward-planet-saving-reality/ <comment><USER2> I don't begrudge money being spent on researching fusion. It is definitely a promising technology, but it's not coming to a power grid near you any time soon.

Even if we can figure out how to keep a reaction going with a useful energy surplus no one has any idea

a) How much a reactor will cost,

b) how long/hard will it be to build or

c) If there are any issues with the process - yes no nuclear fuel but there's still some nasty crap coming out of the reaction which you will have to deal with if you scale the technology.

Meanwhile there are a number of perfectly viable planet saving power sources - solar, wind, solar-thermal etc - already out there providing power.

Fusion is a nice idea, but it isn't the only way to save the world...

<comment><USER3> I too like the idea of Fusion reactors, (I am enamored with the dreamy prospect of fusion for space travel), but I think Elon Musk's observation is obligatory here:

Why spend huge sums in a fusion reactor, when we have a perfectly reliable funsion reactor right above us, the Sun, giving power at a convenient form (~500nm light -- far better than heat), at convenient power densities (not too high to overheat panels and not too low to be uneconomical), is available virtually everywhere, etc. It really is like we had already built a reactor and only need to add the last, least expensive, bit of energy harvesting.

The only thing Solar cannot compete well with are fossil fuels, which are essentially like discovering charged batteries buried in the ground (which is great, but they'll run out, and are ruining our environment), or wind/hydro in some places (where energy is begging to be harvested in the form of kinetic energy or potential).

Our salvation (for this crisis :) ) is indeed already within our reach, we only need to act...

<comment><USER4> The why is essentially density and availability. While solar is great for cheapness it has other constraints. It may still be more expensive in kWHr cost but it would certainly have its uses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the "meltdown" equivalent of fusion? What is the worst thing that could happen given unlikely sequence of failures? Is it possible it would go from controlled fusion to uncontrolled fusion?

<comment><USER6> Once containment fails the energy which is within the reactor escapes and the reaction stops. Fusion only occurs at these insane pressures/temperatures which won't be maintained if containment fails.

I wouldn't want to be in the building when it fails.

If it uses Tritium then that's going be an environmental hazard (it's radioactive and will get everywhere).

To be honest it's all conjecture right now because we don't have a viable reactor design and failure modes will depend what exactly we build.

<comment><USER7> Half life of Tritum is about 12.5 years, much more favorable than elements used in fission reactions.

<comment><USER6> True, but on the other side if it gets into the water system in any significant quantities then that's going to a bad for local residents.

However I can't see that happening. You'd have to have the tanks of it very close to the reactor. That's something you'd obviously not do.

There's probably a greater risk transporting the stuff (road accidents) or in bad maintenance of the tanks or human error (emptying the tanks by accident).

<comment><USER8> It seems to me that one could avoid storing any tritium as a liquid. Tritium gas is light will generally tend to rise. Insoluble tritium salts will be less likely to enter the ground water.

Although... an inexpensive risk mitigation would be to wrap any tritiated water tanks with sodium polyacrylate. Imagine a giant diaper. Leaks would be absorbed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >> ''In contrast to its international competitors, the United States brings a worldview that favors early involvement of industry in technology development and a greater appetite for tackling technology risk if it leads to commercial viability.''

As an aside, fusion technology feels like a good testbed for what economic model is best for the democratization of a public good. Is government investment in the ITER countries a better accelerator than the American model of private companies being allowed to take advantage of research in govt institutions? I suppose we will know in a few decades when fusion contributes to the power grid.

</comment><comment><USER10> Paywall bypass: [http://archive.is/b13zB](http://archive.is/b13zB)

</comment><comment><USER11> Tl;dr: The US tries smaller fusion reactors in partnership with industry in parallel to ITER.

Nothing really new from a tech standpoint, or what am I missing?

<comment><USER12> Well, I don't think you're wrong, but no need to be so cynical. :) This isn't like some industries where they might just pop up with a commercially viable product out of the blue and start making money. The nascent fusion industry needs support from the public in the form of public policy, research funding and investment. I wouldn't be surprised if this piece was basically fusion industry PR machine reminding us all that they still exist and could be interesting in the near future.

My understanding is that so far, it doesn't look like wind/hydro/solar can scale to our needs within the timeframe that fusion might be viable (and yes, I know, it's "always 20 years away", but hopefully that changes eventually), so it's still a worthwhile pursuit, IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> But is this just saving the planet from only the most pressing symptom of human over population? If we do get an abundance of cheap clean energy, what then?

<comment><USER14> An abundance of clean energy would solve a pretty huge amount of our problems for quite a while. That's not to say that everything would be great forever...but we'd have a whole lot more breathing room to figure things out.

<comment><USER13> More breathing room for mankind, yes, but not necessary the rest of the natural world.

<comment><USER14> I'm not really sure what you mean by that. Firstly, we are part of the natural world as much as anything else is. Secondly, having access to clean and abundant energy would allow us to do a lot of things to preserve the other parts of the natural world that we are currently not doing because it's too expensive.

<comment><USER13> I did say the _rest_ of the natural world.

If it turns out that the only way to bring down carbon emissions is to make low carbon energy much cheaper, then why would anyone think that we'd spend our newfound wealth on cleaning up our act in other matters?

There are a multitude of cases of human over-expansion proving catastrophic for other natural environments which have nothing at all to do with climate change yet have been totally eclipsed by the issue. I don't know why anyone would think that much cheaper energy would help those cases rather than make them worse.

<comment><USER14> > If it turns out that the only way to bring down carbon emissions is to make > low carbon energy much cheaper, then why would anyone think that we'd spend > our newfound wealth on cleaning up our act in other matters?

Humans are consistently willing to devote some percentage of their wealth to nature preservation. That percentage is probably more or less fixed. Therefore bringing down the cost of doing so substantially increases the amount of nature preservation that can be achieved.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Valuing Competence vs. Loyalty - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2008/12/valuing-competence-vs-loyalty.html <comment><USER2> I think this is the key: "For me, trust and respect is driven by competence, but assumes a bi-directional loyalty."

Anyone who assumes a uni-directional loyalty in a business (or really any) relationship is asking for trouble. These days, I don't think many employees will assume a company is loyal to them, therefore their default behavior will not be loyalty toward their employer.

The whole startup/VC relationship, when done well, aligns interests such that bi-directional loyalty becomes more of a win-win. In the same vein, employees with equity are more likely to be in a "bi-directional loyalty" relationship with their employer.

I also like Brad's one-mulligan rule. It recognizes that one breach can be a mistake; two is a pattern</comment>


The perfect play - <AUTHOR> http://joshgoldstein.me/post/31933920121/theperfectplay

<comment><USER2> > If it's true that poker is a skill game, then only the true greats should be > able to play perfectly.

No, even in a skill game, it is possible for someone who does not understand the rules to make the perfect play. It is just extremely unlikely, and it is extremely likely that a more skilled player will beat a less skilled player on average. The greater the skill disparity between two players, the more one- sided the competition should become.

I'm sure Josh realizes this, and I like the blog post as a whole, that quote just struck me as wrong enough I had to post something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Disagree with your first point, unless you are suggesting they fall into it (aka just luck out). Like the infinite monkey theorem.

I agree with everything else. Obviously a more skilled player will beat a less skilled player if the game they are playing requires skill (which poker obviously does).

<comment><USER2> >> No, even in a skill game, it is possible for someone who does not understand the rules to make the perfect play.

> Disagree with your first point

You may, but it is possible for a much better player to lose (even in a "skill game") to a player with very little or no knowledge of the game. You may consider this "lucking out" but even the most skill-based games have an element of luck, and in edge cases new / worse players will beat better / experienced players - this is simply how these things work (and part of what we as humans generally find exciting about contests of skill).

This is why many competitive games limit the element of randomness among professionals by various means. In poker, all players have the opportunity to play very many hands - no single hand decides the outcome (unless they decide to go all-in, for example). Similarly, in 9-ball and tennis (among other sports), professionals at the highest levels play sets of games - because the outcome of a single game is not indicative of the involved players' respective skill levels. On any given day, given enough games, I would beat Jeannette Lee at a game of 9-ball, even though her skill at the game is leaps and bounds above mine. At no time (ever, haha) would I realistically be able to beat her in a best-of-nine game format. That is why she is world ranked and I am commenting on a website.

Saying that "only poker greats will play a perfect hand" is erroneous, many people play perfect hands. The difference is a professional will probably know (or suspect) that they are about to make the perfect play. They also will attempt to do so regularly, and know the difference between perfect, good, and bad plays, whereas bad/new players will not (or will much less frequently).

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree that a worse player can beat a better player in a skill game (when there is some luck involved).

Trust me - that's how I used to make my living and no matter how much better you play than your opponent, sometimes you lose in the short run.

I think we are arguing the same thing now.

<comment><AUTHOR> now if only i could get more upvotes, that would be perfect :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I liked this post, Josh. You interested in meeting up to discuss startups and poker next time I'm in NYC?

I'm looking to meet startup people in the real world.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! shoot me an email or tweet.</comment></comment>