51 hours left to live - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fy6yz/51_hours_left_to_live/ <comment><USER2> I found this post on reddit uncomfortable, and I'm not sure why.

It's not because of death with dignity -- I'm a big fan. It's not because of not wanting to face my own mortality -- I know death awaits us all, and for me or some others it may come very soon indeed. Who knows when we will die?

But something about it just didn't ring true as something I would want to make happen over and over again. I think perhaps it is the forum and mechanics involved here. Would I want a site where people posted about their deaths and then others voted that post up or down? Then each comment was accordingly ranked? I don't think so.

Your life isn't the same as a news article or a blog entry, and it shouldn't be treated as such. Perhaps there is a site for broadcasting your last words to the world at large, and it sounds like something I would want to visit and participate in, but reddit ain't it.

<comment><USER3> It's heartbreaking.

I think there's an uncomfortable novelty in having access to such personal period in this person's life. Sometimes, technology can create distance and remove immediacy and impact - but I don't think that's true in this case. There's an obvious undeniable gravity at work - it's important.

This kind of story usually only touches us if we're unlucky enough to have friends or family who are experiencing the same.

But I find it so difficult to comprehend. Life is fleeting. I know every stage is finite - but it's easy to forget that everything really is temporary.

This brings that home for me.

<comment><USER2> I agree, and I would have never posted my comment over on the reddit thread. It was displeasurable enough to post it here.

I have thought that when faced with my last days, I would like to write a blog article (or, knowing me, a freaking series) kind of wrapping things up. I consider HN sort of my home audience, so I would post these articles over here.

But this has got me rethinking that idea. The problem is that then people's lives and final words start competing against each other. What if nobody upvoted my life? Would pg's final words be more important than say, tptacek's? It's just too weird.

So yes, every now and then it is humbling and good to be reminded of the extremely temporary nature of our existence. As an existentialist, I try to do so on a daily basis.

But in a community of 100K, sadly, somebody is going to be dying on a fairly regular basis. I cannot imagine that having their words competing with the latest iPad for the community's attention. It is not something I want to participate in.

But I might be wrong. Like I said, it got me thinking. I am still unsure how I feel about it. My heart goes out to the author of the post over on reddit.

<comment><USER3> I think, the issue is - we're still figuring out how to have conversations in crowds.

This is still relatively new to human society. Twitter provides a way to shout out sentences to the world in general - and to listen out for voices that we care about. Forums allow us to converse with multiple people and actually form relationships - relationships which might eventually cross over into meatspace.

The ability to converse in this way - in a 'third space', provides a lot of opportunities to encounter things that we're not used to encountering. This is an example of that.

What will happen in the future? Well - if there's a sharp increase in communication with people who are choosing to end their lives due to suffering, my guess is we'll all learn more about what those people are feeling and thinking. We'll all be a lot more educated and a lot more understanding as a result. It will be a positive thing.

I suppose that there's a chance that we'll become desensitized - but I think, when the stakes are this high and the subject is so earth-shatteringly significant to every one of us, it probably won't ever become so.

I really think that our society is worse off by treating death as a taboo. I don't particularly enjoy thinking about it, or talking about it - but I think it's worthwhile.

<comment><USER2> It's interesting that right now on HN there's another post about Facebook and how having one place for all of your conversations is harmful. I think the two topics are related.

It's not a matter of ignoring or running away from death, it's a matter of treating every piece of conversation that comes from my keyboard as all being the same.

There's been no time in human history where we had such a "flat" model of interactivity. Even in small hunter-gatherer societies it's common for information to be withheld from some, shared with only a select few, etc. Man is a social animal, and these types of channel-selection and social posturing are a critical part of his healthy existence.

We programmers have created the internet, and to us all of that social posturing stuff is just nonsense. Everything is just a bit on a disk somewhere.

While that's true in a physical sense, it's tragically false in practice. The way we discuss philosophy, death, religion, politics, science, history, and the rest of it varies according to the crowd and the mood. It's not all just bits.

But your point is spot on: we're still trying to figure out how to have conversations online.

I think we are making a LOT of mistakes that are going to come back and bite us one day, one of which is thinking that democratic metaphors are applicable in all situations, but that day may be many decades off, after I'm dead myself, so aside from complaining about it I'm really not worried about it too much :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> His best quotes:

On life:

 _Nothing we have is worth hurting anyone else for. It's all fleeting, people. Stop seeing race, color, sex, religion, etc... They're all just people, and if you try to love them you won't lose anything._

On suicide (of an otherwise healthy person):

 _It's not living that's failed him, it's life. We can always change our life as long as were living._

On regret:

 _Yes, one. I bought my high school sweetheart an engagement ring and never gave it to her. Life happened, meaning I was dumb. I went in the military after a dumb fight and... yeah just one._

On fear:

 _What long term risk is there in saying hello? I can't find any. Worst case is you get some possessive asshole that thinks your hitting on his sister, and you get a black eye. Total pain and shame lasts maybe a month. Meeting the right girl though lasts forever. So you tell me, would you trade a month of shame for a life of happiness?_

<comment><USER5> As a 38 year old bachelor, I wish I learned that lesson about fear in my youth, I was one of those "possessive assholes" due to being a Fundamentalist, and regret my social hostility to this day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Why do ordinary thoughts gain such credibility just because their source is dying?"

I feel a bit guilty for thinking like this while reading the thread. Maybe a raw vision of mortality makes us emotional, less cynical, and we're more receptive as a result. Maybe we look to last words as an encapsulation of a person's life philosophy, as if they became wiser in the knowledge of imminent death. Or maybe an overly detached analysis is just another reaction to a reminder that we're going to die.

<comment><USER7> Because dying people have few ulterior motives.

It's ancient wisdom that dying people speak the truth.

"Living" people with "stuff to say" are more often than not full of bullshit.

<comment><USER8> It used to be that a dying person's confession was considered unvarnished truth in a court of law. More on "Dying Declaration" at the Wikipedia site: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_declaration>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Someone on HN once suggested I do an AMAA on Reddit. I didn't get it. This post makes me want to do one.

I wish Lucidending well. My impetus has nothing to do with "rebutting" the idea of right to die. I got well in part because I stopped trying to live. At one time, my whole goal was to just hurt less. Suicide would have been gladly welcomed, so I understand why one would do that. I just think it's sad that this is what conventional medicine has to offer.

Of course, I completely suck at starting conversations and can't think of a Reddit handle to use.:-/ So this may never fly.

<comment><USER10> What is sad about what conventional medicine has to offer?

<comment><USER9> If you read his comments, he has been battling cancer for 6 years. He has apparently had multiple surgeries. He is stopping the medication so he can have a "lucid ending" and spend some quality time with family and friends. He has been tortured by chemo. He plans on having jello as his last meal so he doesn't "mess" himself again.

I have cystic fibrosis. I've gotten off of 8 or so prescription drugs. The drug side effects were crippling. I was miserable and unemployable. My sister has been battling cancer for 11 years or more. I belong to email lists for people with CF. I've heard lots of stories like this. What conventional medicine does is pretty gruesome. I am getting well. I only wish I could more effectively share that information. BTDT, got the t-shirt and it saddens me that so many people are doomed to the same fate as Lucidending.

Edit: I would be seriously interested in knowing why this is being downvoted. There is something wrong with finding a better way and wishing to share it and thinking it sucks that other people are suffering so horribly?

<comment><USER11> I'm assuming you were downvoted for the vague swipe at "traditional medicine". It can be a touchy subject, because of the large number of crackpots, "vaccines cause autism", etc.

To be clear, I suspect no HN readers will claim medicine has all the answers - far from it. I suspect the reaction is more to the false dichotomy between "traditional medicine" and "some other kind of medicine" (with the implied hints of conspiracy or willful incompetence), rather than "current medical knowledge" and "future medical knowledge".

I took a look at your site, and it's obvious you've been through a lot, and thought about it more than most people - so please take my comment only in the context it's meant: as an attempt at an explanation why your one specific post was downvoted (and not an endorsement of the downvote).

<comment><USER9> Thank you for the feedback. I routinely struggle with how to talk about offering a better solution. Most folks get all up in arms, like it is an attack, and then just do not listen to what I am really trying to say. Sigh.

Have an upvote.

<comment><USER11> Very understandable - the problem is that it's tough, based on a brief post, to judge whether someone is an "alternative medicine" nut, with all the negative baggage that can imply, or someone with genuinely unique insights and experiences (hell, it's tough to judge in general, when dealing with things that are both emotional and not well understood).

<comment><USER9> It doesn't help that I frequently sound like Elle Woods (a la the scene in _Legally Blonde_ that goes something like this: "He's gay. -- what kind of shoes do I have on?" ..."Uh, black?"..."See, he's gay.") But I don't have a good solution for that because I find that if I try to preemptively explain at length, that gets even worse reactions. :-/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For some reason I am reminded for Steve Jobs' Stanford graduation speech when he says "you will die one day." In the video, it seems to roll off the audience as a cliche. But, it seems to have tempered much of his career with fearlessness, and the willingness to take risks.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA>

<comment><USER13> It's so hard to think like this. I've read and watched this speech many times over the years, and I always thought it was awesome - but it never changed my behavior. I'm working on that more recently because I realize the power of understanding how many things "fall away in the face of death".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > 12,588 up votes 10,018 down votes

That's a fascinating look at peoples' reactions to this. A reminder of mortality split right down the middle.

<comment><USER15> There are many bots that downvote in order to promote other submissions.

I'm glad they have that choice, and the ability to share their story. In perspective there are many people in this world who die "unknown" - PBS airs the pictures weekly of teenage American soldiers who died in Iraq or Afghanistan - then there are those who were killed while trying to non- violently protest their unjust government (China, Iran, etc.) - then there are those who are too young to speak yet who are dying of starvation in certain parts of the world today.

Not trying to judge or weigh who is more worthy of a voice, I can only say it's good this one person got to be heard.

<comment><USER16> This isn't true. What evidence do you have that bots downvote on reddit? The reddit guys came by our Cloudkick office late last year and flat denied there are any bots they know of that downvote when I asked them. If you don't have any real reason to know about bots on Reddit you should probably not persist in continuing to pass on this fantasy.

<comment><USER17> > The reddit guys came by our Cloudkick office late last year and flat denied > there are any bots they know of that downvote when I asked them

I guess they forgot to explain that while it's not bots that do it, there's a feature in reddit code itself makes it look to many people that such bots exist: [http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/eaqnf/pardon_me_but_500...](http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/eaqnf/pardon_me_but_5000_downvotes_wtf_is_worldnews_for/c16omup)

I've linked that so many times in threads about tragic events or sensitive questions where people even a single downvote personally (ie. it can happen with very small scores but high activity)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What does this have to do with startups? If you're an entrepreneur there are times you wonder how you can get through the tough times. This post helps put that into perspective.

Most profound thoughts I think I've ever read on the interwebs. Hard for me not to get emotional reading through them.

</comment><comment> old-gregg The most shocking to me was this quote: _"I don't have a home, it was consumed in medical bills."_

<comment><USER19> why is that shocking? Not to sound heartless but doctors, nurses and medication are expensive. Treatment for cancer is expensive. People who work in healthcare deserve to get paid, right? Houses are usually people's largest source of savings. So when people deplete their savings to save their life, why is it shocking?

<comment> old-gregg Because charging money for medical treatment is medieval. But apparently one needs to be born and raised outside of the US to see that clearly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really enjoy HN commentary about Reddit. It's like an audit--a smaller, more focused group offering insight about all the stuff that goes on in the bigger group.

</comment><comment><USER21> I felt compelled to collect his responses.

<http://blog.dustingetz.com/51-hours-left-to-live>

</comment><comment><USER22> That thread provoked two distinct reactions in me. One was I shouldn't spend more the necessary at my desk working, when there's is an entire world out there to live and experience because you never know when the day will come. The other is I want to really accomplish what I'm working hard for, so that I could feel like I succeed in my goals.

<comment><USER23> which leaves you back to your desk working :-(

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was going to write on this yesterday but decided not to at the last minute for whatever reason. At that time there were 4 comments on this post. Between then and now there have been an additional 104. Whether you approve of the post or not, I think we can all agree that there is value to be found in the level of response it has received. Maybe the post is appropriate, maybe its not. But its gotten people talking about something we often try to ignore and in that sense I cant help but appreciate it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I feel saddened but fortunate this person shared their last days on Earth with a bunch of us strangers. I've done a lot of reflecting on what was said & discussing it with my family, one of whom (my mother) having terminal cancer herself. We faced a lot of uncomfortable issues honestly after we had read the thread.

I avoid Reddit these days, but this is gold. I'm indebted to this man/woman for their effect on my life. This person will leave strong echoes in the world after their passing.

</comment><comment><USER26> [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fy6yz/51_hours_left_to...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fy6yz/51_hours_left_to_live/c1jj0u4)

</comment><comment><USER27> What is AMA?

<comment><USER11> "Ask Me Anything".

<comment><USER27> I upvoted your response, because I guess that's the thing to do on a site like this. But then someone else apparently downvoted. ?!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> He just created a second thread within the last 10 minutes:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fyqpi/26_hours_left_to...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fyqpi/26_hours_left_to_live/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Humbling.

</comment><comment><USER30> Just an observation, the difference between Hacker News and reddit, in this instance, is stark.

</comment><comment><USER31> just wanted to say 'thank you' for submitting this.

the amount of love in the comments is overwhelming. (and it might be a naive and inappropriate thing to say but it's odd that it takes 'facing death' in order to gather that amount of love on the webs. or wherever.)

</comment><comment><USER32> Really sad, it made me think that I'm going to die in some unknown day and circumstances...

<comment><USER15> Men have a 1 in 2 chance of getting cancer and then 1 in 4 of dying from it.

Women 1 in 3 getting, 1 in 5 dying.

[http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerBasics/lifetime- probabili...](http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerBasics/lifetime-probability- of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer)

Make every day count!

<comment><USER33> Those are interesting statistics, because I would guess that if you asked people about gender-specific cancers, the first thing that would pop into their head would be breast cancer, perhaps testicular cancer, then cervical cancer.

<comment><USER34> I imagine prostate cancer would be in that list, too.

<comment><USER35> I'm pretty sure that was his point - I think it's widely known that breast cancer gets a lot of attention despite, as that table shows¹, not being more prevalent in those places than prostate cancer (indeed less risk of developing breast cancer in the table: 1-in-8 vs 1-in-6). Breast cancer does have a marginally higher mortality rate in those figures though (both are listed as 1-in-36 die).

\--

1 [http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerBasics/lifetime- probabili...](http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerBasics/lifetime-probability- of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Made a reddit throwaway to ask why he's not on a cryonics plan, I wonder if he'll reply.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is way too sad for Sunday morning. I wish you the best if you read HN.

</comment><comment><USER38> I feel like downvoting this post simply because it's so depressing. I think I just shot the rest of my day.

</comment><comment><USER39> only in death are you truly free.

</comment><comment><USER40> Isn't it a bit odd that everyone takes this at face value? Doesn't it seem like a bit of a fantastic story to appear on Reddit on Saturday? I'm suspicious that people are having their emotions toyed with for someone's entertainment.

<comment><USER41> A lot of IAMAs are trolls. But it doesn't mean everyone believes, it's just selection bias. The people who don't take it at face value stay quiet because you're not supposed to be skeptical about it, that would be "insensitive".

Personally I find it odd that someone who "has just found Reddit" would take the trouble to do an IAMA instead of, I dunno, anything else in their last hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> way off-topic post for HN. halfway to pictures of kittens.

</comment><comment><USER43> Okey this is ridiculous!!!! First the guy who patches a software with Morse code and then this guy who would rather have a AMA with strange people before he dies. News flash people, there are actual human beings around you who you should talk to rather than computers or an anonymous crowd you do not know.

<comment><USER44> What amazes me about this comment is that you honestly do feel you are better to advise someone _how to best spend their time before they die_. This person has battled with cancer for 6 years, and has probably spent a countless amount of time thinking about this decision and how he chooses to spend his final time in the world. Do you not think he has a better educated and more heightened perspective on this issue?

And yet you still have the arrogant audacity to tell the world that what he feels is right is wrong.

<comment><USER43> Whats the obsessions with the word audacity??

Anyways, this is my perspective of the issue. And I do feels its ridiculous.

<comment><USER44> Still well behind the great peak that was the 1900s.

[http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=audacity&year...](http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=audacity&year_start=1800&year_end=2010&corpus=0&smoothing=3)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


IRS Requests Bitcoin Buyer Records in Broad Tax Evasion Case - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2016/11/20/irs-bitcoin-tax-evasion-case/ <comment><USER3> This was just a matter of time. Welcome to the reality of being involved in the money business in the USA. Coinbase is concerned with the breadth of the request. That is actually kind of cute considering that your bank has to report any transaction over $10000 to the US Dept of Treasury and people are actively prosecuted on suspicion of making transactions under this threshold to avoid reporting requirements [1].

Whenever I hear someone talk about the dream of anonymous currency. I kind of laugh to myself because I know how far the government currently goes to monitor every little piece of your financial life to make sure you are paying what you owe in taxes.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- watch/wp/2014/03/24/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- watch/wp/2014/03/24/the-federal-structuring-laws-are-smurfin- ridiculous/?utm_term=.40575f1e297f)

<comment><USER4> This, absolutely. I'm actually surprised the government showed their hand so soon. There must be a lot of money in Bitcoin already. The government WANTS people to go 100% digital with their capital. It is infinitely easier to track digital money. Bitcoin is something they're against because the anonymity factor. I won't be surprised if we see some legislation to block or inhibit anonymous digital currency.

Let's not forget that the US will really want to "own" or be in control of any significant digital currency. Since the US dollar is the world reserve currency, the US wields unprecedented economic power on a global scale. Any currency that has the potential or shows signs of shaking that up will be on the radar for the US govt and the Fed, as controlling currency is the means by which one can control the economic destiny of any nation(s). As we saw with Egypt, for example, several years ago. A simple change in US monetary policy can result in the overthrowing of foreign governments!

Interesting side anecdote: A person very close to me purchased Bitcoin on the stock market, but Bank of America froze the account on suspicion / risk of money laundering or general FUD. It isn't clear how much of this was due to the bank or the government, as they are in bed together, but it prevented this person from being able to trade Bitcoin in his account anymore. Sadly, had his account not been frozen, he would have doubled his money.

N.B. Citations needed, obviously. Commenting on mobile makes this challenging.

<comment><USER5> The downvotes on this comment are confusing. Do people dispute that a cashless society would be a dream come true for the US government & Fed? Or that the US will do pretty much anything to protect its currency hegemony?

<comment><USER6> I would dispute that Bitcoin is likely to ever pose a threat to the US 'currency hegemony', at least as a currency in its own right rather than a glorified payment network with prices usually delimited in… US dollars.

More practically, I would dispute that the US regulators' concern about Bitcoin has much to do with speculation on its potential to pose such a threat in the future, as opposed to its current suitability for tax evasion and popularity for money laundering, crime, etc. (Please note that I'm not claiming Bitcoin is only or primarily used for those things, only that people who want to do those things often use Bitcoin.)

*edited to add tax evasion, which is of course the stated purpose in this instance...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I buy a small amount (about $20 worth) every paycheck, so I'm really not sure how to even report that reasonably. With such a volatile price, I don't really know how much it's gone up or down without some serious calculations. I'm not really sure what to do about that.

I was just about to sell some of it too, to help cover some recent expenses.

<comment><USER8> I am not an accountant or tax advisor.

Lots of little transactions are a pain, but I do believe you are required to track them in order to report your capital gains correctly. You only have capital gains when you sell, but you need to know your purchase prices and dates in order to compute it.

I used this website to analyze my CoinBase transactions: [https://bitcoin.tax/](https://bitcoin.tax/)

The site imports the transactions and computes your capital gains automatically. Then I entered my information into the IRS capital gains worksheet and reported the gains on my taxes.

<comment><USER9> When I visited Istanbul, I passed through a district with an endless number of exchange shops, and it seemed like a place where you could easily wash money without any bank account involved. I believe Turkey isn't alone in having such a culture of buying/selling US dollars by tracking the USD rate.

Do the IRS and say Turkey's tax office tracks these as well? Assuming that you don't try to deposit the exchanged for bills in a bank.

Couldn't someone offer Bitcoin exchange in existing currency shops or the same service via Bitcoin ATMs? How would the IRS and its equivalents track that without requiring identification and registration before use? I suppose a small amount would be allowed for the tourist aspect but then you could use a group of friends or employees to wash small amounts. If you require ID for that, including tourists, then you can track it.

<comment><USER10> This is not tax advice but from what I've seen in news reports, the IRS has different rules for currency. The reason bitcoin users have to report every little gain/loss is that the IRS doesn't consider it currency.

<comment><USER11> And the main reason they don't consider it currency is to impose a tax that discourages its use.

Without capital gains, if Bitcoin had ~0% inflation and the US got back up to 5%-10% inflation, then Bitcoin would become a better store of value.

However, with capital gains, the US would have to have _significant_ inflation, around 20% or more, before Bitcoin would really be competitive. (I'm assuming there are significant transaction costs related to the low acceptance of Bitcoin)

In this manner, the US can (1) gain some additional tax revenue, and (2) prevent Bitcoin from becoming a competitor to the national currency, which every nation wants complete control over.

<comment><USER9> I've been thinking about this and wondering how they could prevent people moving to a WeChat like app and doing all financial transactions within that. If you enable anonymity in that there's no need to identify your meat life persona with your WeChat profile, how would the control be retained? Short of illegalizing mobile devices that allow installing a banned app like WeChatAnonEdition and having traffic police carry inspection devices that would allow them to detect illegally open Android devices in a driver's pocket, I don't see how it can be prevented. If you sell and buy inside WeChatAnonEdition and also get your salary inside WeChatAnonEdition, there is no monitoring and control anymore.

Just to be clear, I'm not agains taxes, because not paying taxes is like swatting an apartment, and generally taxes make sense to be paid, although most places also have several unfair tax codes, so I understand the common perception of taxes as "highway robbery".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's really tempting to say that the IRS won't be able to do anything - <USER2> can't prove I spent/received this for <x> type of activity.... but that's not how the IRS works. Once the IRS decides to audit, you are guilty until proven innocent. They will be elbow-deep into your figurative financial rectum, and you will (almost always) lose.

<comment><USER13> That's because they are very good at picking who to audit. If you can document all your deductions, and have all your sources of income declared, and stored it all together an audit consists of hitting print, handing the scanned copies to them, and waiting.

<comment><USER5> US tax law is so dense and complicated that they can effectively implicate anyone they choose. Having worked with numerous small businesses in the past, do you know how many of them could readily provide carbon copy receipts for every single deduction they claimed in the last X years?

I think there is a valuable discussion to be had about the power of a federal agency that can so easily zero their sights on anyone they choose, especially when that same agency has admitted to targeting for political purposes in the past.

<comment><USER14> > do you know how many of them could readily provide carbon copy receipts for > every single deduction they claimed in the last X years?

So on what basis did they take those deductions in the first place, if they didn't have the documentation to figure out what their deduction was in the first place? Did they just guess? Or are you saying they had it for one tax season and then destroyed it?

<comment><USER5> Either they had it and destroyed it, lost it or did what lots of small businesses do and had a credit card or checking account only used for business, then referred against the statements to determine deductions (sans receipts)

<comment><USER15> Is an e-mail copy receipt sufficient for the IRS? As a small business, we travel a lot and obviously book travel online (as well as make a number of other business purchases online).

I've never even considered that the e-mail receipt or purchase history on Amazon.com might not be sufficient documentation. Is this something I should spend the next half-hour researching, or am I concerned over nothing?

<comment><USER16> IANAL, but looks like it's addressed on page 9 here: [https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-irbs/irb97-13.pdf](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- irbs/irb97-13.pdf)

I'd be shocked if it wasn't, since invoicing purely by e-mail is pretty common these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think this is a pretty reasonable request if they only want Americans who traded bitcoin.

The IRS and SEC have the power to compel brokerages to turn over trading records for people who bought/sold stocks on the stock market so the precedent is not only set but well established long, long, long ago.

I mean if you traded bitcoin but didn't claim the income on your taxes, then you just blatantly and almost certainly knowingly/intentionally lied on your taxes.

I'm not certain what there is to argue about or push back on here.

It's not like you can create something new like bitcoin and then with a straight face claim that its not an equity or currency so the law doesn't apply to you.

Capital gains are taxable, full stop, unless there is a specific law to override that, like selling your primary residence.

Can someone make the case that this isn't just a cut and dry issue?

<comment><USER18> Conflating coinbase with a brokerage seems a stretch to me.

Many people used it more like Paypal, a conduit to make or receive payments for sales of goods or services. With the conversion of bitcoin to regular currency happening very quickly. No buy/hold/trade activity, etc.

<comment><USER17> > Many people used it more like Paypal, a conduit to make or receive payments > for sales of goods or services. With the conversion of bitcoin to regular > currency happening very quickly. No buy/hold/trade activity, etc.

I'm glad you brought this up because it just strengthens my point. Paypal reports US account transactions to the IRS once they go over a certain size.

[https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/irs6050w](https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/irs6050w)

<comment><USER18> So does coinbase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What's interesting here is that bitcoin is both an "investment" and "currency" (since you can pay for [some] goods and services with btc directly).

From the "currency" point of view - exchange rate (FX) gains/losses technically only apply to officially recognized foreign currencies.

So that is an interesting can of worms. If I buy bitcoin at price point X, it goes up to X+Y, but instead of selling it I use that Y to pay for something - was that Y a taxable gain?

<comment><USER20> The IRS views crypto currency as property. In that context, they provided this recently:

[https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/irs-virtual-currency- guidan...](https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/irs-virtual-currency-guidance)

Which links to: [https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- drop/n-14-21.pdf](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf)

TL;DR - it's not currency, it's property, and as taxed as such in all ways (including recognizing gain/loss).

Specifically re: your question:

> Q-6: Does a taxpayer have gain or loss upon an exchange of virtual currency > for other property?

> A-6: Yes. If the fair market value of property received in exchange for > virtual currency exceeds the taxpayer's adjusted basis of the virtual > currency, the taxpayer has taxable gain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I made a whole $50 on Coinbase. I expected some tax form to arrive, and it never came. Honestly I completely forgot about it until I saw this.

I wonder if that $50 will end up being hundreds owed in some kind of late fees/etc.

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty sure they'll be overwhelmed by going after larger fish and nothing will ever come of it for such a small amount.

<comment><USER23> Well, unless they scale it - like for example going to Coinbase and asking for all accounts created between 2013 and 2015 :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would bet that unless you're a person who willfully hid large capital gains in bitcoin or faked some kind of large tax deductible expenses by purchase of Bitcoin you probably will have anything to worry about. If you are among those two group then you've probably been worrying anyway.

</comment><comment><USER25> Well, that was kind of inevitable.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if this in response to the recent launch of zcash: [http://z.cash](http://z.cash)

</comment><comment><USER27> I have always reported my virtual currency earnings by providing my deposits to Coinbase at tax time. Then again, I use Coinbase strictly to buy things with bitcoin, not as an investment tool.

<comment><USER8> Purchasing something with bitcoin can trigger capital gains/loss. If you buy 1 BTC at $700, it increases to $800, and you pay 1 BTC for something worth $800, then you have to report and pay taxes on $100 capital gains.

<comment><USER28> May be unrelated... but what happens when I purchase goods with a foreign currency which I had bought before (and reported the purchase) and said foreign currency value had increased 15% since the moment I reported its purchase?

<comment><USER29> Technically you have to report and pay capital gains if the change in value is more than $200. In your case 15% gain is probably not more than $200 so you wouldn't have to report it. However if you're talking about $100,000 initial FX transaction you would have to report the $15,000 as a long or short term capital gain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> remembering that time, we saw BTC spoke to the ~1000$us mark. my thoughts about his at the time was that the price spike was largely driven by Chinese demand for BTC.

Note that the price crashed after Beijing halted BTC exchanges with their state banks.

It could be part of some larger plan to leverage info against the sorts of folks who have enough RMB to help drive the price of BTC to +$1000.

<comment><USER31> I've read that Mt Gox, or someone who compromised it, caused the Nov-13 to Dec-14 bubble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> thats why on some level it is better to run your own wallet.

<comment><USER33> You still have to buy your bitcoin somewhere, unless you earn it or mine. This is about Coinbase's brokerage activities, not its wallet services.

<comment><USER31> OK, so you earn Bitcoin online, as an anonymous consultant. Cashing out is a risk. But at least, you can fund your anonymous online activity. Long term, I suppose that you could drop it somewhere as gold or real estate, and then emigrate. But that's also risky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This should be a good one.</comment>


Ntp – what time it is? - <AUTHOR> https://nix.engineering/ntp-what-time-it-is/ <comment><USER2> NTP stands for the "Network Time Protocol", and therefore should be treated as a proper initialism and be presented in all caps.

Alternatively, since the actual title at the page is "ntp – what time it is?", which you may note is all lowercase, then that could be considered an appropriate subject line according to the HN guidelines.

But the mixed case "Ntp" is definitely in violation of both of those principles.</comment>


Climate skeptics know their stuff - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/341034/title/Climate_skeptics_know_their_stuff

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the interesting meta debates that goes along with climate change is why don't people "Just get it?" This is an interesting look at why that might be true.</comment>


To Save a Neighborhood, Ban a Dollar Store? - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/07/save-neighborhood-ban-dollar-store/594196/ <comment><USER2> This kind of thing makes me sad WRT the realities of modern life. Why is it that when we think "Oh we lack local shops for basic food stuffs" that we think, "We need to entice multi-billion dollar operations into this area to service our poor people".

What about, "We need local people to open up local mom & pop stores"? Why can't we think, "We need to provide incentives, education and security for local people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and service themselves" instead of "We need to find a way to funnel money from poor people to rich people"?

I totally understand that I'm misrepresenting the actual thinking going on here :-). People in the west are so far removed from traditional ways of doing things that they think that the _only_ way to buy food is to have a 2 acre parking lot for minivans and a stadium sized store with razor thin margins selling pre-packaged food.

Around the world, poor people start small stores and sell things to other poor people. People walk to the store because they don't own cars. They carry their food for today because they don't own refrigerators. And it's definitely not as efficient, but it keeps the money local.

<comment><USER3> At least in the US I think it's an economy-of-scale thing. People get used to products at specific prices, because they're used to shopping at the big box stores. Then when an independent or mom-and-pop store opens, their prices are a bit higher because they can't survive on such small margins. Then there's sticker shock by the customer, the independent store gets bought out or closes due to lack of money, and the cycle repeats or another big box retailer moves in.

<comment><USER4> It is not always economically rational though. The US has a history of using eminent domain to grab neighbourhoods full of small businesses so that they can be turned over to a big development projects of nominally higher value. Then the big developer pulls out or goes bankrupt, and the result is a ruined, rat-infested empty lot.

Those cases involving eminent domain and rats are the most dramatic, but it works at a more pedestrian level too. Say a government wants to dispose of some disused rail-yard or something. A developer who says "I'm going build some big shiny shops and attractions here" has better optics than a developer who says "I'm going to lay down some infrastructure and parcel the land up to whoever wants to buy it, nature will decide what the land is used for".

The latter is actually quite likely to produce the higher economic value land use, but there is no good political narrative. And in a world of strict zoning rules, there might not even be a legal framework for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "It's hard to tell whether the increased dollar stores have harmed health, researchers say"

The cities are so worried but there is no evidence health is impacted.

Maybe they should look at the reasons why supermarkets don't want to open, but convenience stores do.

It may simply be that it is unprofitable. Supermarkets run on razor thin margins and require significant volume.

No amount of zoning will change that.

Edit: Maybe providing discounted/free public transport to new or existing supermarkets would change things.

<comment><USER6> As someone who was without a car for a while...

Have you tried using public transit for grocery shopping? Where?

Oklahoma City has 20 bus routes, which seem to run every 30 to 60 mins. Unless you're lucky enough to live right on a bus route that goes to those supermarkets, or happens to line up perfectly with a transfer to another bus that does, it's going to take forever to get to the supermarket via public transit.

I've done it (in a different, but seemingly similar city). You leave early to make sure you're not going to miss the bus, and then you wait. If you're lucky, your first bus isn't late and the second bus isn't early... If it's just one bus, you trip is hopefully only like 10-15 minutes (you've already spent at least that walking and waiting), and then you're there! You probably want to shop for about 45 minutes -- even if your bus comes every half hour, making it back to the bus stop in 20 minutes ( remember, buses can come early or late!) is probably not going to happen, especially given that this whole venture isn't something you're doing every day, and you've got to stock up! But not too much, because you've got to carry it back with you. Speaking of, easy-to-carry packages of toilet paper or paper towels are typically astronomically more expensive than the giant packs, wtf. So, you get back to the bus stop laden down with stuff, everything goes pretty well on the trip back, and it only took, let's say, an hour and a half! Yay. You're never buying ice cream again.

But, you didn't get enough for your family for the whole week. You do it all again two days later -- you could have waited a couple more days, but the restricted weekend hours don't work out, or maybe you only have two days a week where that 7pm-latest-bus-run isn't too late (assuming you're comfortable trusting the last bus to get you home). You head out again, but this time, your first bus is very late. Or your second bus never shows. Or you miss your bus home, the last bus of the night, and now you have to call a friend or Uber.

This is all if you're lucky enough to live anywhere where trying this even makes sense. This is assuming your schedule isn't entirely incompatible with the bus schedule, and you can afford to be gone for however long the ordeal takes (my grandmother is a retired nurse living with her friend, who has Parkinson's; my grandmother tries not to leave for more than about an hour without someone else to watch her friend).

The price of public transport is not the $ for the ride; that could often be accounted for simply by the price difference between convenience store milk and Walmart milk.

In many cities, public transportation is used nearly exclusively by 1) lucky people who live right on the most reliable routes, 2) unlucky people who have _very_ little else to do with their time.

The other day, I missed a bus in downtown Seattle. I could wait 5 minutes for the next bus (different route) coming by that stop, but have to walk an extra block at the end, or wait 10 minutes for the next bus of the route I missed. I said fuck it, didn't take any bus, and instead grabbed a delicious lunch at a hole-in-the-wall place a block away. This is not an accurate representation of public transportation in most cities.

<comment><USER7> I have found that shopping by bike is quite easy and much more practical. I have a trailer on my bike that can carry twice the amount I can carry by hand and it moves much faster than walking with no waiting time for the bus. Also cars drive much more carefully around me because they think my trailer is carrying kids.

<comment><USER6> That's actually what I ended up doing most often (albeit w/o a trailer)! I was living somewhere where it wasn't too dangerous to bike to the grocery store. I've also lived places where it would be an extra two miles to get around something like a narrow main road. Still faster than the bus though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dfeojm-zlib I would bet money this sort of FUD is promulgated by big name brand PR firms through blogger "journalists." And I wonder what Aaron Maté, Chris Hedges, Jesse Ventura or Jimmy Dore would have to say about this.

What the heck is wrong with them? They're awesome for many miscellaneous items. If there aren't grocery stores, that's on the local municipality to attract/incentivize the type of businesses they want in their area. Most dollar stores aren't grocery stores anyhow, nor should they be forced to be anything, they're more like bric-a-brac American drug/discount stores mixed with convenience stores. It's a strawman/red herring to blame dollar stores for people's health... that's their municipality's and personal responsibility to have farmer's markets, grocery stores, health food stores, fresh food stands. They are what they are.. vote with your feet, or tell the muncipalities to also bring other type of stores. And if they don't like Walmartification, keep them zoned out.

<comment><USER8> Asking what the heck is wrong with dollar stores is like asking what the heck is wrong with Amazon's predatory business tactics. There's nothing inherently "wrong" with either one, but both have extremely ill effects for the larger system they exist within.

Dollar Stores usurp business from grocery stores and turn neighborhoods into food deserts. What the heck is wrong with that? Dude, a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This type of thinking is obviously silly.

People with opportunities to eat healthy food keep choosing to eat unhealthy food. This isn't a secret. I have personally annoyed all my friends and my girlfriend with my constant hypochondriac nudging about nutrition.

If you want to change eating habits you have to _communicate_ with the consumers. You can't pull strings at the city-planning level and hope that the marionettes will march in tune. Even if dollar stores were prevented by magical aliens from selling produce (they're not), they still have freezers. They could still sell frozen vegetables. They could sell oats, beans or unsalted nuts in bulk. They could sell canned produce, high-fiber noodles, refrigerated tempeh...

They are _not_ selling these things because _people aren 't buying them_. Dollar General is not intentionally trying to kill people. That's not a good business model.

People are generally woefully uninformed about nutrition. People have been confused by the raging public debate about dietary theories that are almost never really practiced -- I had a friend tell me he didn't want to eat _a mango_ because of the sugar content. The same friend had no trouble ordering soda at a drive-thru. _That_ is how the average American thinks about food.

If you want change, put the Doritos behind the counter. That's how you get change.

<comment><USER10> Do you have any data that suggests that people are simply choosing unhealthy options vs healthy ones?

You claim that better food isn't available because people don't buy it, but I'm not convinced. Can you provide any examples of food deserts that once had great selections of produce and non-processed foods, which disappeared because people weren't choosing to shop there due to "too healthy" of a selection?

No ones saying Dollar General's business model is to ensure people only get access to unhealthy options. This is an absurd straw man that no one is claiming. What people _are_ pointing out is that Dollar General has virtually zero incentive to ensure consumers have access to healthy food. Grocery stores in America are essentially unregulated, and it appears that this is a clear example of the free market not providing a solution that ensures everyone has equal access to healthy food.

<comment><USER11> If people want to buy healthy food, then Dollar General will make money by providing it to them. That is the incentive, and it is a completely sufficient one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a complex problem rooted in the inexorable rise in property values that required 2 working to maintain a household by rent or purchase. In addition, automated food gathering and preparation in fast food style meant that there was not much of a saving by making your own meals at home. People grabbed takeout to save $$ as well as time. We see delivered food, ready to cook at home is dying - defeated by delivered take out food - it has tried and failed to get much traction. Now we have fast food container based takeout becoiming a run away success. 100 containers, parked in industrial areas, all over the place, equipped with food preparation and coooking gear and 50,000 foam plastic takeout clamshels all cooking the same menu, internet connected, orders accrue and are filled by the closest container. A mix of delivered and picked up food. No cash transactions - all debit or card based = nothing to rob and containers have good security. All driven by economics, customers as well as cookers are happy. The only problem is ease of new entries so there are so many container kitchens that many starve. Locals can limit numbers with the right laws.

<comment><USER13> > This is a complex problem rooted in the inexorable rise in property values > that required 2 working to maintain a household by rent or purchase.

Inexorable? Various cities have managed to prevent this phenomenon. Zoning is the root of the issue, but now everyone views their house as their primary investment and they'll fight to protect the eye-popping growth they've seen in their property value.

<comment><USER14> It's inexorable due to increasing urbanization.

More people want to live next to more people.

<comment><USER15> No. Many people want to live somewhere they can get decent Internet connectivity and public services, and probably also some job they can survive off of.

Neither are present in many rural areas and the amount of investment needed especially for infra to catch up is enormous - too much for governments facing a tax competition to rock bottom.

<comment><USER14> IDK about what level of "public services" are needed, but rural or rural-ish locations often have broadband connectivity, and are arguable _easier_ to earn a living wage due to the low cost of living.

I lived in Provo (college town, 50 miles south of Salt Lake City) a few years ago. Had Google Fiber, lots of jobs, and houses for <$200k.

People want to live next to other people.

<comment><USER16> I grew up in Orem. Provo is not small or an example of most rural towns. Provo is incredibly progressive given the local church culture and university. I live in rural Iowa and broadband internet and the issue of low-education and long standing segregation have caused exactly the same issues of a depressed economy in our 5,000 people community. The laws of small numbers make it very difficult to succeed in big numbers capitalism.

<comment><USER14> Unless it's immediately adjacent to other communities, 5,000 total population is indeed very rural. I've also lived in Belfair, WA which is <4,000 and isolated. [1].

The fiftieth largest high school stadium in Texas seats more than 2x that number. [2]

Yellowstone National Park staffs that many people during the summer. [3]

So, yeah, that's small.

I understand why _actually_ rural communities are popular for only a few people. But there's a lot that available between 10 people/sqmi farmland and NY/LA/DC/SF/Chicago metro area. Yet, big cities are still exploding. Because people like them.

[1] [https://suburbanstats.org/population/washington/how-many- peo...](https://suburbanstats.org/population/washington/how-many-people-live- in-belfair)

[2] [https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-high- school-...](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-high-school- stadiums-in-the-us.html)

[3] [https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/parkfacts.htm](https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/parkfacts.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why are dollar stores so popular in low-income neighborhoods? Maybe instead of banning them, we should figure why they're so prevalent in the first place.

Shopping for everyday necessities at a grocery store or supermarket is incredibly stressful if you're poor. You can quickly reach a $100+ shopping bill with just a handful of items in your cart. Dollar stores offer a decent selection of goods and, more importantly, consistent prices.

<comment><USER18> "Dollar" store prices are no different from supermarket prices. They often are a little higher. The article is about stores like Dollar General and Family Dollar, not whatever dollar stores used to be. Prices are not a dollar and prices are not in even dollars or anything.

I have asked many, many people the same question and the answer is always the same: convenience. The dollar store is five minutes away or less. DGs are practically weeds, I live in the country and there are more Dollar Generals around me than gas stations or anything else.

They have food, but it's a very poor selection and mostly processed junk food with a few staples thrown in.

Edit: reading the other comments, it's a little shocking to see how many people have evidently never set foot in a dollar general or family dollar. Definitely a reminder I live in a different world than most of HN.

<comment><USER19> My most recent dollar (really GBP) store purchases were superglue and sticky notes. Both were substantially cheaper than supermarket prices, with no obvious difference in quality. Both are commodity products that supermarkets only sell as expensive branded versions, which I refuse to buy because I don't like getting ripped off. The dollar store is actually less convenient.

<comment><USER18> Were they Dollar Generals or Family Dollars? These are the stores mentioned in the article and in my experience aside from a few loss leaders like cold drinks everything is more expensive.

I don't think the UK vs US situation is comparable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Perhaps I'm overly cynical but this feels like a pretense from people who dislike the poor and masking it as helping. There is sadly ample precedent of this sort of thing. The end goal seems to be "not my problem" and forcing them out / preventing them from taking root - perhaps motivated by property value concerns as much as prejudice. But it isn't acceptable to state such motives so openly, so they instead mask it with very strange kinds of 'concern' or 'helping' that just happen to pursue their goals. "It is for the sake of being humane that we want a minimum sizes of housing high."

There is the pattern of being willing to hoist restrictions and spend money on enforcement of the lower incomes but not being willing to add more to anything that would actually help them or reduce restrictions - and then rationalizing why that would be a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER21> I tend to think this, that its better to have diverse stores and prices, than one bad store with bad goods. But, its regulation. its the acceptance of a pluralist economy outcome but with forcing functions to prevent a completely economically rational outcome.

Its another way of saying "the cheapest list price isn't always the best price" but it also means accepting price support, income support, or, huge glaring inequality outcomes at point of sale.

The up-side is that economics isn't kitchen-economics its town-scale economics. More shops means more shopworkers means more jobs for money and slightly less welfare. So its a virtuous circle.

Small towns which keep a farmers coop alive survive. They often morph into the town coop petrol/gas, the town coop bank, the town coop pub/hotel, sports complex.. Because thats how resilient towns work. And, if it does work, they bring new small business alongside.

Sometimes they even bring the majors to town, but they have to fight back against the category-killer chain on the edge of town.

British high-streets have been hollowed out by Tesco on the edge of town.

Another part of this story is commercial rents, rates, and tenancy agreements. If the landlords are "my price or its empty" then its empty in the downturn. Renting property for commerce needs something different, but not 1000km away from the tenancy laws people need for homes. The town has an interest. The rent rate needs some limits. Just because amazon opened 3000 new people in a hi-rise next door doesn't mean the shop rent can go up to amazon rent prices. Thats the story of S.F. in some ways (except for the building controls NIMBYism)

</comment><comment><USER22> I just listened to a very relevant podcast, Planet Money episode 909: Dollar Stores Vs Lettuce [https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/26/717665452/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/26/717665452/episode-909-dollar- stores-vs-lettuce)

<comment><USER23> What did you learn from it?

<comment><USER24> Produce isn't the main profit driver maker for grocery stores. The presence of dollar stores can keep actual grocery stores from moving in, leaving communities with no access to fresh foods.

<comment><USER25> Should I feel bad that my healthy produce is subsized by suckers who buy boxed junk from the shelves?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> In theory, these stores could sell more nutritious food. They just need the incentives. Taxing sugar seems like the correct approach. Banning a type of store is very heavy handed, and likely to have unintended consequences.

Schools should probably also have cooking classes. Eating is something everyone does three or more times a day. Why not learn how to do it right. I'm sure something like that would have a huge ROI for state and local governments.

<comment><USER6> "Hey, you poor people can't afford to eat healthy food! We're going to tax the cheap food, so now you can choose between unaffordable off-brand Lucky Charms and unaffordable broccoli! Now it's your fault, not the job market, if you're fat."

Taxing sugar is not an incentive to sell more nutritious food, unless we're taking those taxes and subsidizing produce with them. Those sweet, highly- processed foods are also a way better purchase for grocery stores, which don't have to worry about the food going bad before it's purchased.

I do think banning these types of stores is likely to cause more harm than good, though. To take it to extremes, there's simply never going to be a farmer's market where my closest Dollar General is.

<comment><USER25> Subsidized produce sounds good to me. Or just a universal basic income funded by sin taxes.

Also, healthy food is cheap, but people buy junk because it is superficially more fun. Compare what you get from $10 of Lucky Charms vs $10 of veggies, beans and cheese, and, if you must, simple bread and low quality cuts of meat.

<comment><USER6> $10 in off-brand lucky charms is breakfast for a month.

$10 in dried beans is lunch for a month, but it's damn inconvenient, and yes, difficult to make taste good.

These are both extremes but yes, I am very confident that healthy food is more expensive than less healthy food. Yes, a cucumber is "cheap". But 8 cucumbers (.50/each) isn't going to get you nearly as far as a 6pack of GV mac and cheese ($3.98). Not even the same ballpark. 5 servings of GV thin-sliced honey ham costs $2.50, a loaf of the cheapest white bread is $1.50, 8 servings of GV block cheese goes for roughly $2.22, so now I have let's say 10 shitty sandwiches for roughly $8, when I could have had easily 12 meals of mac & cheese for half that and with less prep time.

Where cheap and healthy come closer together, I see the staples of my (well, my friends', but that's another story) childhoods; lots of potatoes, scrambled eggs, beans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It seems like Aldi's would be a no brainer to expand into poor areas but they seem to focus on higher income areas for some reason.

<comment><USER28> One of the primary flaws of capitalism is that there is little incentive to enter a lower margin business when a similar investment can still yield potential profit in a higher margin business. This is also generally why new housing is almost always "luxury" units instead of affordable units.

The end result is that poorer neighborhoods often don't have the type of service infrastructure that is generally provided by for profit companies. Retail banking and internet providers are two other examples beyond the grocery store example in the article.

<comment><USER29> In the age of e-banking, i would be surprised if physical retail bank offices matter that much. Personally, i visit it once a several years.

With regards to ISPs, i often see that richer neighborhoods have wore coverage than poorer neighborhoods, as it is much cheaper to cover big block of flats with fiber than villa neighborhoods (so these are often limited to wireless ISPs).

<comment><USER30> The poorer you are the more reliant you are on cash. When most of your transactions are in cash you'll go through the quota of free transactions quickly and you'll just be stuck with a lot of cash you're can't deposit anywhere and become a prime target to rob. This also assumes you're paid via check for your income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Tangentially related to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461175) "If You're Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and Hungry".

</comment><comment><USER31> Great plan. Ban one of the few businesses willing to operate in these areas. Where I am from people lament the "food desert" that exists in certain parts of town, and ignore the complete glut of new establishments that pop up elsewhere. How is it possible that it is more than economically productive to try and fail multiple times in one area, but not even try in another.

</comment><comment><USER32> Funny coincidence: I can literally see Dollar General CEO's house, Todd, from where I sit typing this, in my temporary office at my inlaws house while I'm on vacation. AMA. :-D

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not anti Dollar General, though I do think we need to take better care of each other. Was just very funny to see DG come up when I was looking at their house.

<comment><USER33> How do you know where he lives?

Does everything there look like it costs a dollar?

If you need a temporary office, are you really on vacation?

<comment><USER32> 1) My MIL makes friends with all the neighbors.

2) It is a very, very nice house. Gated house in a gated community.

3) You make a good point... But we are out here for a month and I only have a week and a half of vacation on hand, plus a big project due in 6 weeks, so...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "Research shows that dollar stores create fewer jobs than small grocery stores ... "

That's how they keep their prices down

"... sell products that are not actually much more affordable than those at Walmart or Costco"

"Not actually much more affordable" translated to plain English is "more affordable". Pennies, nickels, and dimes count more when you're poor.

"And push out full-service grocery stores"

Because people can't afford them.

Like all good liberals, I also find dollar stores aesthetically distasteful, and I wish they provided more nutritious food. Lawmakers who want to ban these stores, as usual, have their causation backwards - dollar stores and payday lenders don't cause poverty, they are created by poverty, and (sadly) serve to mitigate the crushing awfulness of being poor.

<comment><USER35> payday loans do not cause poverty but they make things worse by trapping people into a vicious cycle of high interest loans they will never pay off.

by no means do they mitigate poverty

<comment><USER36> they mitigate the awfulness, not the poverty.

When your options are let the power go out, or take a payday loan... Guess which option people with children are going to take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why don't normal grocery stores open in those neighborhoods? Less big ticket purchases, so lower margin? Crime? Curious to know the reason.

</comment><comment><USER38> Seems stupid to ban them? Their existence is the reflection of demand.

</comment><comment><USER11> To save a neighborhood, stop insufferable government meddling.

</comment><comment><USER39> City near us had Target, various drug stores, and some new grocery stores.

Then, they had riots where the police were told to do nothing. The black panthers and the organized crime gangs coordinated to knock over all of the drug stores, shoe stores, and liquor stores. However, many other stores were also hit.

Now, they have no Target, no drug stores, no grocery stores. It's highly unlikely without adequate security that they will ever come back.

The next city over, they had smaller riots, but several grocery and walmart/target projects were cancelled.

It seems to me that poorly run cities and politicians following misguided policies are far more hazardous to health.

<comment><USER40> Please tell me exactly where and when the Black Panthers worked with "organized crime gangs" and drove out the Target, and all of the grocery stores and pharmacies.</comment></comment>


Google Acquires Facial Recognition Technology Company - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/07/22/google-acquires-facial-recognition-technology-company/?mod=google_news_blog

<comment><USER2> This is the second such purchase since 2006, when they picked up Neven Vision. Then just as now, it gives me the creeps that any company of this size and technical capability would start hoovering up companies specializing in facial recognition. Planetary scale biometrics, anyone?

<comment><USER3> Google uses facial recognition to automatically blur out faces in Street View. I imagine they have some fun ideas concerning Android as well.

<comment><USER4> Street View is just face detection (ie figure out where the faces are), and that technology has been around for years (it's even in bundled with the open source OpenCV library). This company does face recognition, which is the identification of individual people based on an image -- it's a very complicated problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> According to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google> this is the 100th acquisition by Google!

</comment><comment><USER6> imagine being able to search for faces in images and videos on the internet as easily as we can search for words in documents.

it would be amusing to find oneself in various peripheral crow footage / holiday photos. it might also have an effect on the porn industry. any other consequences?

</comment><comment><USER7> Congrats to PittPatt! I work for one of their competitors, also from CMU.

</comment><comment><USER8> Congrats to the PittPatt people on HN (I know there are one or two here)!

</comment><comment><USER9> Go CMU!

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been tracking this company for a while. I wonder when they will acquire some Paul Ekman products.</comment>


Ask HN: Any recommendation for a help authoring tool for my web app? - <AUTHOR>

Dear fellow HNers, I need to put together a help site for my B2B SaaS app and I'd rather focus on the content than the implementation.
I've already identified helpIQ but I'd like to see a few alternatives before I make my choice.
main requirements: - hosted or self-hosted - provide table of content, search - no need for chm or whatever specific export format
Thanks! <comment><USER2> What about the likes of uservoice, getsatisfaction, userecho?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder why I haven't thought about them... thank you!</comment></comment>


Html-select: an alternative html 5 / css 3 select box. - <AUTHOR> http://thejacklawson.com/html-select/

<comment><USER2> While I agree that regular drop-downs are fine for everyday forms, the average user _STILL_ has a hard time understanding a multi-select box. Try seeing if your grandma knows to hold down CTRL to pick multiple items. Select2 and Chosen are really nice for those situations.

</comment><comment><USER3> 50 KB for a select box is silly. Having a post promoting native HTML 5 and css3 that uses jquery to throw an alert based on selection is just pricless.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The point is, 50kb of javascript and css seems silly.</comment>


"I've got nothing to hide" - <AUTHOR> What's the best argument against this statement? <comment><USER2> When you say, "I have nothing to hide" it means "I don't have this right". It means person under surveillance must justify the privacy, not those who are invading privacy.

If individuals have privacy rights, then invoking "nothing to hide" is irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER3> "How can you say that when you cannot imagine everything 'they' might be looking for? What if your faith, sexuality, technology, ideas or beliefs have become a target? Times change, so too do the things we have that we might need to hide".

</comment><comment><USER4> Wikipedia has some: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#Again...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#Against_the_argument)

</comment><comment><USER5> That statement could mean at least two things.

If someone doesn't care about his own privacy (but avoids endangering others' privacy when sharing information about himself), then that's his personal decision. One can list some of the possible but unlikely negative consequences that the person might not have thought of, but they aren't very strong counterarguments.

If the statement means "violating everyone's privacy is ok because I've got nothing to hide", then the counterargument is that some people legitimately have something to hide.

</comment><comment><USER6> Lawyer and professor, Daniel Solove, wrote an essay called "'I've Got Nothing To Hide' and Other Misunderstandings Of Privacy" back in 2007 for the San Diego Law Review. Even though it's a bit long, I found his arguments very sound and logical. [http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...](http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=faculty_publications)

<comment><AUTHOR> That seems like a good resource, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Then give me your banking logins and passwords."

"Then give me all of your internet logins and passwords."

"Then let me watch you and your SO every night."

"Then you won't mind if I take up residence in your bathroom."

</comment><comment><USER8> I have nothing to hide from my friends. You are not my friend.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's your credit card information?

</comment><comment><USER10> What is your email and facebook password?</comment>


What Consumers Cling to in Lean Times: Cell phones in, cable TV out - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090317_040642.htm?link_position=link6

<comment><USER2> I'm 24 and I've never owned a TV nor do I ever plan to. There's very little on TV that I want that I can't get in a much more convenient way (according to my own schedule, for example) online. A lot of my friends are the same way. I'm not sure if it's just me and my peers, or if in general people my age group and under are simply finding TV obsolete. I suspect it's the latter.

</comment><comment><USER3> I cancelled cable TV a couple of days ago. I was expecting the advisor to launch into a script designed to persuade me otherwise - probably offer me free TV for a month during which time I would reconsider. No, they seemed accustomed to my request and I was disconnected 5 minutes later. Moral of the story: easy way to save money right now.

<comment><USER4> Big foolishness on the part of your cable provider.

They (and others) are going to look back at this period and wonder why they sat around watching that part of their business dissolve instead of pouring money into keeping subscribers and figuring out how to reach more folks. (Such as more diverse programming plans at a lower rate.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Summer Internships in the Bay Area? - <AUTHOR> Who is looking for interns in the Bay Area this Summer?
Please post in the following format:
Company Name:
Company Size (number of people employed):
Company URL:
Position:
Contact Email:
Skills Needed: <comment><USER2> Company Name: NowJS

Company Size: 3 founders

Company URL: nowjs.com

Position: Software Engineering Intern (+full time/part time positions avail), working on core development on NowJS and distributed web architectures

Contact Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

Skills Needed/Wanted: JavaScript experience

Benefits:

\- Cool project

\- Experienced, fun founders

\- Great pay (free lunch/dinner/swag/monitors etc.)

\- Weekly team events (kayaking, gokart, paintball etc)

\- Beautiful office in SF

\- Rewarding, enjoyable summer

This is one of the best paying and most rewarding internships you'll get at a startup. If you're interested in starting your own startup, this is a great way to get started. Seriously just chat with us if you're remotely interested. Or even call me...

<comment><AUTHOR> What's the phone number to call?

<comment><USER2> Shoot me an email darshan@nowjs

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We are!!

Company Name: GazeHawk

Company Size: 4

Company URL: <http://www.gazehawk.com/>

Position: (a) Web Developer or (b) Blogger

Contact Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

Skills Needed: (a) JS/Python/PHP or (b) either statistics or UX plus writing (basically you run cool eye tracking studies and blog about them).

Both internships paid, open to possible full-time position after if you're interested.

<comment><USER4> I remember going into your office during an open house late last year and then laughing way to much at your company's name. Made things a bit awkward, but the table tennis was fun!

For what it's worth GazeHawk has a great location in downtown MV!

<comment><USER3> Thanks, we actually moved to our own office (the old one was at 500startups). We're still in downtown MV but closer to the Caltrain. We still have the ping pong table setup :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You might want to give InternMatch a try:

<http://www.internmatch.com>

They've also got a competition going. Not sure what timeframe its internships are for, but here's a link:

<http://www.internmatch.com/500-interns-competition>

<comment><USER6> The timeframe for these internships is rolling. I'm sure most of the startups would accept an intern tomorrow, but will wait for the summer as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Company Name: Opzi Location: SOMA, SF Company URL: <http://www.opzi.com> Position: (a) Software Engineer OR (b) Business Analyst

Skills Needed: (a) Ruby/JS, good all-around CS aptitude (our stack is Rails/Node), (b) Great writing ability and research skills, experience or strong interest in startups, marketing, and sales. Both positions paid and open to transition to full-time.

Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com

You'll work closely with the founders and learn & contribute as part of a small team. This means real responsibilities and hard work, but also a unique opportunity to dive right into startup life. Join us as we continue on our mission to deliver better designed and engineered enterprise software.

ps. Any designers also feel free to get in touch.

</comment><comment><USER8> PagerDuty (<http://www.pagerduty.com>) is hiring both interns and full-time software engineers. We're still quite small - 5 people. We're located in the SOMA district of San Francisco.

Email: email@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER9> Company Name: MedHelp

Company Size (number of people employed): 30-40

Company URL: <http://www.medhelp.org>

Position: Rails developer

Contact Email: email@example.com (mention that you saw this on HN)

Skills Needed: Since I'm mostly focused on iPhone dev, I can't speak with authority. However, this is an internship, so the only skill _needed_ should be general coding competence. However..

Skills Desired: Ruby on Rails or related MVC framework development experience, database experience (MySQL, NoSQL), AJAX, JS, prototype, CSS, and experience building scalable and performant applications

</comment><comment><USER10> My company, formed at the first SuperHappyDevHouse, would love to have you join us for a summer. Or longer. :) Come change the way millions of people work -- learn a real production environment and ship code from your first week!

Company Name: PBworks

Company Size: 22

Company URL: <http://pbworks.com/>

Position: Javascript Hacker

Contact Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

Skills Needed: The ability to dream in code.

Paid: Yes.

Also: Friday Massages, high fives, hugs, exposure to lots of interesting technologies, ability to change the world. :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Check out internmatch.com to find one. They're a 500 Startups company (most recent class), and seem to have some decent inventory on there already. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER12> Kind of late to be asking, isn't it? I'm doing an internship at Facebook, and I'm reasonably sure they've finished hiring interns (about 300 of 'em).

<comment><USER4> Oh Derek, always bragging about your internships at Facebook. Anyway, I think Google is still hiring summer interns. There are always a few stragglers.

<comment><USER13> Oh munn, always chiming in at unfortunate times!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Company Name: Nascent Development Corporation

Company Size (number of people employed): 1.

Location: Berkeley

Company URL: nascentdev.com

Position: developer writing performant numerical analysis code in a linux environment. this position is unpaid but you would get recognition in published material and a chance to work on something fresh.

Contact Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

Skills Needed: we're still building our product so you will have flexibility in language/architecture, but a good knowledge of C would help a lot. experience in AI algorithms and code debugging/analysis tools a plus.

Why join Nascent: you're tired of building Yet Another Social Web Service and would like to publish a paper based on your work. you're interested in pushing a new automated code analysis tool into the wild that takes a different approach.

</comment><comment><USER15> 1000Mememories

Currently at 5, +1 intern already hired for the summer

<http://1000memories.com/>

Software Engineering

firstname.lastname@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com

We're a Rails shop, but general web dev experience is all we require.

</comment><comment><USER16> Also, internships in the NYC Area: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2431089>

</comment><comment><USER17> Ginzametrics (YC S10) is looking for 3 interns.

Company Name: Ginzametrics

Company Size (number of people employed): 3

Company URL: <http://ginzametrics.com>

Position: (a) 2 engineering interns, (b) 1 sales / marketing / bizdev

Contact Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

Skills Needed: (a) Rails or similar background, plus UI / JavaScript / jQuery skills would be ideal. (b) Online marketing / bizdev / inside sales / good writer

</comment><comment><USER18> Company Name: Think Computer Corporation

Company Size (number of people employed): 4

Company URL: <http://www.thinkcomputer.com> / <https://www.facecash.com>

Position: Software Author

Contact Email: email@example.com

Skills Needed: Mobile development of any kind, PHP, MySQL, UI design

</comment><comment><USER19> Company Name: CloudCrowd (in SOMA SF)

Company Size (number of people employed): 17

Company URL: <http://cloudcrowd.com>

Position: a) Backend engineer b) Frontend engineer

Contact Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

Skills Needed: a) Ruby (on Rails), MySQL b) JavaScript and CSS

This is a paid internship with the intent that the intern may become a full time employee.

</comment><comment><USER20> CloudKick/RackSpace is hiring (full time and interns): [http://jobs.rackspace.com/search/?q=san+francisco&search...](http://jobs.rackspace.com/search/?q=san+francisco&search=&startrow=1&utm_source=CSSearchWidget)

</comment><comment><USER21> Name: Teens in Tech Labs Size: 4 URL: www.teensintech.com Position: Intern (Dev & Business) Email: daniel at teensintech.com Skills: Dev (HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript)

</comment><comment><USER22> Thomas Hogan Law Office

10

www.tomhoganlaw.com

Web Developer

email@example.com

PAID Internship

Skills: js, RoR, PHP, css, ability to smile, optimist preferred

Help us develop a suite of online tools to assist with information collection from clients in a fun and non-duplicative way.

</comment><comment><USER23> We're hiring engineering and (possibly) marketing interns.

Company Name: equipster

Company Size: 2 (soon to be 5-6)

Company URL: <http://www.equipster.com>

Position: (A) engineering intern (frontend and/or backend). (B) marketing intern.

Contact Email: email@example.com

Skills Needed: (A) js/php/python. bonus: experience with large, gnarly datasets. (B) Online marketing, good writing ability, interest in the outdoors

<comment><USER24> Love your website but you have some serious pixelation around your logo. You should consider changing the logo from a transparent png to just a regular block with the green background. Also, you should ensure that there is no fragmentation there.

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the heads up. I just checked out upout, really cool idea and great UI.

To try to return the favor: on your about page, you link to /karma.html, instead of /karma.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Company Name: Catch.com

Company Size: 15

Company URL: <https://catch.com>

Position: (a) Mobile Intern (b) Front-end Intern (c) Backend Intern

Contact Email: aschobel @catch.com

Position: (a) Android / iOS (b) JS (Google Closure) (c) Python (Pylons)and MongoDB.

We are looking for hackers to join our team in SOMA. We have a bunch of ex- Metaweb and Googlers hacking on cool stuffs!

</comment><comment><USER26> Company Name: Academia.edu

Company Size: 4

Company URL: <http://academia.edu>

Position: Web Developer

Contact Email: email@example.com

Skills Needed: Rails. More info on our internship program is here <http://academia.edu/hiring>.

</comment><comment><USER27> Please post in the following format:

Company Name: Bitbucket

Company Size: 10

Company URL: <http://blog.bitbucket.org/2011/04/13/summer-internship/>

Position: Intern developer

Contact Email: email@example.com

Skills Needed: Python / Django developer

</comment><comment><USER28> Flickr is currently looking for an intern. Email me at caudill at yahoo- inc.com if you want to write a bit of code for us this summer! We're set up in the Financial District in SF.

</comment><comment><USER29> Nobody is looking for Sys admin / network intern? (With a good background in dev also)</comment>


Ask HN: What are your best tips for organizing conferences? - <AUTHOR>

Getting speakers, finding cheaper venues, engaging attendees, etc.<p>Compiling a list for the startup I work for, BusyConf. <comment><USER2> Don't use PayPal. Usually a conference involves more money than usual. Another problem is that conferences are a big risk, people don't like speakers, too crowded, the sound or wifi is awful, the venue cancels at last minute and the alternative sucks, ... So there are too much chargebacks and PayPal usually frizzes the money until the chargeback period clears. (You can agree with them, you can disagree with them, but you can't ignore that they have this informal "rule".)

Some examples: [https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=paypal...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=paypal+conference&start=0)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I can't imagine how much it must suck to have your event funds withheld when you need to pay for venues, travel, equipment etc.

This is one of the reasons why we don't let people use their own payment gateways.

Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There is a wealth of advice from Chris Williams, creator of JSConf --> [http://jsconf.com/](http://jsconf.com/)

About three-quarters of his posts have something useful for a conference organizer.

His blog: [http://www.voodootikigod.com/](http://www.voodootikigod.com/)

He's trying out something to share how its done, called "Ask A Tech Event Organizer" AATEO [http://www.aateo.com/](http://www.aateo.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great, thanks for sharing.</comment></comment>


Alternatives to Antibiotics: Why and How (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://nam.edu/alternatives-to-antibiotics-why-and-how/ <comment><USER2> The real killer is the extreme use of antibiotics in livestock en masse for disease prevention. Increasing the antibiotic pressure on bacteria in livestock and therefore accelerating the potential of a drug resistant bacteria.

We need to be concerned of another major zoonotic disease.

</comment><comment><USER3> I get a winter sinus infection followed by a throat infection every year. Antibiotics was the only way to end it or I would end up bed-ridden. But the antibiotics really upset my gut.

For the past two years, once I start getting sick, I take high dosages of oregano and thyme essential oil mixed in olive oil, about 100 drops over a whole day. Two or three days of this and it never fully develops.

Oregano and Thyme oil should burn like hot sauce if it's not diluted.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23484421](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23484421)

<comment><USER4> I used to get sinus infections yearly and get antibiotics.

I changed one thing: I stopped blowing my nose.

That forces the infection deeper into your sinuses and Eustachian tubes.

<comment><USER5> I think excessive nose blowing can invite infections because a dry nose lacks the mucus which acts as a protective barrier. Nose blowing in moderation is fine, though, in my experience.

Nose picking can also lead to infection, because you're essentially inoculating yourself with whatever pathogens happen to be on your finger.

Aside from avoiding these, the things that have made the most dramatic difference for me is taking Vitamin D and getting flu shots.

Now I virtually never get sick, whereas in the past I'd pretty regularly get multiple colds and occasionally the flu pretty much every year.

<comment><USER4> I definitely recommend Vitamin D as well. It's one of the only supplements that I use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read a recent article [1.] about the state of the antibiotics companies. It was interesting and revealed how over-prescription, fear of over-prescription, and market economics have governed the fate of promising new drugs.

[1.] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/25/health/antibiotics-new- re...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/25/health/antibiotics-new- resistance.html)

I like the idea of bacteriophage therapy and would like to see this field researched more in the U.S. Here is an article about the limits on wider use of bacteriophage therapy: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3821673/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3821673/)

<comment><USER7> The current philosophy is bizarre. You get NPs and PAs who pretend to have never heard of secondary infections, refuse to prescribe antibiotics because virus, then you're back in a week and they magically discover bacteria.

<comment><AUTHOR> Diagnosing an infection is inexact in most outpatient settings. The healthcare provider takes into account a number of factors based on the history and physical exam. A rapid antigen test as is available for streptococcal pharyngitis makes it straightforward. Unfortunately, that's not the case for many infectious conditions which end up being treated empirically. For example, most upper respiratory infections' etiology is viral in both adults and children. It's very reasonable to prescribe medication for symptomatic relief and reassure the patient that should discomfort continue or worsen, antibiotics may be considered. Even though this should be the standard of care, many physicians and extenders still overprescribe antibiotics mostly to move the visit along or satisfy the patient. A good explanation with evidence takes longer than just acquiescing to the demand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had a chronic low-grade sinus infection for 3 years. It was miserable. Constant post-nasal drip, clogged ears, clicking, popping, etc. Oregano Oil and snorting Lactobacillus sakei is the only thing that cured things.</comment>


Guardrails: secure Rails apps by source translation - <AUTHOR> http://guardrails.cs.virginia.edu/

<comment><AUTHOR> Guardrails is a nice technique for adding security to Rails apps. You tag data items with access conditions and guardrails does a source translation in the background to ensure the data is protected accordingly.

Alpha version of the code is now on github:

<https://github.com/guardrails/guardrails>

Slides describing its design (paper to be presented later this year at USENIX WebApps 2011):

<http://www.owasp.org/images/c/cd/Guardrails_owasp_final.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER2> Seems a little overkill, when you can do the same things with: <https://github.com/stffn/declarative_authorization></comment>