The David Peters Problem - <AUTHOR> http://tetzoo.com/blog/2020/7/23/the-david-peters-problem <comment><USER2> I don't know anything about paleontology or zoology, but this general class of problem resonates with me. What do you do about people who are good at saying things confidently and quickly while you, in accordance with the norms of reliable science, want to say things slowly and tentatively after lots of research?

This is the old "A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on" problem, but exacerbated, I think, by modern communication. While it's genuinely good for science and for human knowledge that anyone can type up something on their blog and have it instantly readable to everyone around the world, and while it does open the possibility of a more meritocratic approach to science than journals controlled by established academics, we haven't really figured out how to apply our own skeptical eye to everything that we see in place of the traditional systems of review. And while others in the community technically can respond with "I'm not sure this is true yet, but my gut says it might not be, I'll spend a few days investigating it and let people know," it's unlikely to get anywhere near as much attention as the original flashy claim.

<comment><USER3> it certainly feels as if people have become markedly stupider due to this phenomenon and the internet. has anyone attempted to quantify this? some measure of falsely held beliefs over time? level of conspiratorial thinking over time?

<comment><USER2> I don't think people are stupider in the sense of less knowledge (or less _g_ , for sure), but there is a phenomenon where people are expected to know more and know it quickly. Before the internet, if you were a working scientist and you wanted to know about something that wasn't in your field, it was a fairly involved process to figure it out, not 10 seconds reading Wikipedia. Analogously, if you weren't a scientist at all, you'd have to ask a scientist, you couldn't spend 10 seconds reading and potentially misreading Wikipedia, you'd just say "I don't know."

I think this has consequences in other fields besides science too. The general public now has the ability to have well-formed opinions about government policy and its effects, for instance. That may in practice be making people more confident in their ill-formed opinions, where they would have previously deferred to experts. (Of course, it also is a great potential benefit if we use it right, because those experts will generally have their own biases and agendas.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a sad story but I really like the idea of "decrying the mainstream palaeontological world as if it's part of a conspiratorial cabal of blinkered elites".

I mean I can at least understand the _internal_ logic of, say the climate conspiracists who think that climate scientists somehow stand to profit from their reports. But paleontologists...seem beyond the pale, so to speak.

<comment><USER5> The problem is that in the past (up through about 1980) paleontology/biology was kind of ... hokum/voodoo.

There is a reason why the Tree of Life had to undergo a lot of rearrangement once we could sequence DNA.

However, now that we have DNA sequencing, the foundations of biology/paleontology on on _much_ more solid ground. If you want to attack them, you have a much higher bar to clear nowadays.

<comment><USER6> I assume you mean classification here, full biology is a lot more.

I wouldn't describe cladistics as hookum/voodoo. It's a quite well defined and successful method when used correctly, and has been in wide spread us since way before the 80ies.

The only problem is that it didn't really work for micro organisms, which is the majority of living things because they all look very similar. Sequencing has changed that, and that's why we see so many changes to the tree of life now (in fact it's not even a pure tree anymore)

For the specific problem of pterosaurs (which this article is about) sequencing doesn't help at all because there is no DNA. It's still all only bones and cladistics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it would have helped if the article had discussed the work Peters got published in Nature, Science and any other top journals. Was it good work, or was that a failure of peer review? In principle at least, a lot of the problem being discussed should be addressable by the peer review process: rather than adjudicate on all of Peters' work en bloc, evaluate it on an article-by- article basis, via peer review. And don't engage with him at all in other contexts. But it sounds like part of the problem is that comment threads under journal articles and blog posts are being taken as a serious part of scientific discourse.

<comment><USER2> Well, the problem is that they _are_ , in fact, a serious part of scientific discourse. Peer-reviewed publications are the output; the process of science also requires conversations in offices and labs and conferences, preprints, letters between researchers, etc. - and always has required it. You need to figure out what's interesting enough to research, what angles you may not have thought of yet, what ideas seem fruitful but lack someone pursuing them, etc. Blog comments (and mailing lists and newsgroups and Twitter) are a new way of accomplishing this at a larger scale, but they're not fundamentally anti- scientific - the conversations at Solvay weren't peer-reviewed either.

The major claim of the article is that Peters is pushing his ideas in that realm - not the realm of peer-reviewed articles - and taking mindshare away from legitimate and worthwhile ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's really astounding how he's clearly just pulling stuff out of thin air a lot of the time. Surely at some level he must realize he's just winging it?

It really bothers me when people act like they really _know_ something for certain, when actual experts aren't even as certain as they are. Is there just some sweet spot of ignorance where you can easily convince yourself you've learned all there is to know about something, or do they know they're bullshitting?</comment>


Student makes his own Air Conditioner to beat the summer heat. - <AUTHOR> http://www.gmilburn.ca/2005/06/15/the-black-beauty/

<comment><USER3> Let's calculate quickly: a typical small room might require 5000 Btu/h to cool. One Btu is equal to a 1F temperature rise for 1 pound of water. Assume that "Black Beauty" can get 20 degrees of thermal differential out of the water running through it (incoming: 50F, outgoing: 70F). That means we must pass 250 pounds, or just over 31 gallons, of water through the system each hour.

That wouldn't be so bad if the water could be put to another use, like bathing, watering a vegetable garden or flushing toilets. But, 750 gallons of water a day is A LOT to use just for cooling -- consider that this is equivalent to four times the typical American household usage for a day.

As with a lot of DIY geek hobbies, it's not so awful when one person does it, but it would be an environmental disaster if this was adopted by the general public.

EDIT: Corrected my units.

<comment><USER4> would be interesting to see something like this combined with a solar hot water heater.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Water is indeed an important resource, but it's not a particularly scarce one in many areas. It's not a waste to use something one is paying for, in those circumstances.

I've lived in areas where water is terribly scarce, and places of plenty, such a I do now. In the places of plenty, some municipalities subsidize the price of water because it's politically popular. Under the guise of helping the poor, they help the middle class that is most of their electorate. Others do not. The ones that subsidize scream about scarcity and waste. That doesn't make it true. Subsidies distort the market.

<comment><USER6> I don't see your point here. Encouraging waste because a resource doesn't have scarcity seems a bit strange. Perhaps it can be piped to areas that have scarcity? Many rivers etc are dammed to provide municipal water; so oversupply might encourage some muncipalities to un-dam water and let it flow naturally again, which is an env++.

Most importantly, it's good to be in the habit of conserving water, recycling and such because when you move into areas of scarcity, you don't have to force-change your habits and suffer quickly, but instead act responsibly all the way through.

I note your handle is 'capitalist' - being responsible isn't hippy anti- capitalism. Saving a few bucks here and there by using less subsidized water might mean that people will stop expecting subsidy, and instead want the money redirected elsewhere...

and everyone is still richer.

EDIT: i don't disagree that subsidies distort markets, but it's tangental to the parent post.

<comment><USER5> Usage is not waste. Simply because you don't agree with his usage of a tub of water to cool his room doesn't make it waste. He chooses on what to spend his money. As for the ad-hominem attack on my handle, I'll simply say it's unwarranted.

<comment><USER6> is it not a waste for someone to open a fire-hydrant so they can bathe their dog's paws? Your definition of "usage is not a waste" is really questionable.

BTW, there was no ad-hom attack on your handle, but rather an observation of your potential leaning -- i'm a capitalist too ( i think most HN'ers are) so I figured i'd respond to make sure you weren't going to write me off as a hippy- enviro.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> He doesn't do anything to handle condensation that will form on the cooling coil.

It is called air-conditioning because getting humidity right is just as important as temperature.

<comment><USER8> That's so true. That is actually why you want to size your AC unit to how large your house is otherwise you will either have the unit running too long and remove all the moisture in the house or have the unit on for only a minute at a time and it won't have the chance to remove any of the moisture. When the latter happens you are cool but it feels like a swamp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me when we lost power a few days during a blizzard, and we just ran hot water - supplied by the university, powered by generators - in a bathroom to make a sauna.

</comment><comment><USER10> Isn't this a tremendous waste of water?

<comment><USER11> It's only a waste of water if you assume the water is 'disappearing' afterward. In ontario water is mainly provided by lakes, then after treatment water is returned to the same lakes. The only waste is the power used to move/treat the water, but this is the equivalent of power used by the compressor/fan of a normal A/C anyway.

The situation is obviously different if the water supply is not a closed loop, like in Australia where water is supplied from dams and then waste water in dumped into the ocean...

<comment><USER10> Actually, I was thinking of my water bill...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I made one of these but used a single cooler with ice cubes+water+frozen saltwater Jars. The system was closed as opposed to wasting water like this guy did.

The big issue was that the water temperature rose very fast and the ice melted way to quickly. You'd get maybe 10 minutes of really cool air and it would be done.

I thought about maybe using hay to keep the ice colder but it was getting to elaborate when the fan would work just fine.

<comment><USER13> Were you making the ice in a freezer that was in the same room as your "air conditioner"?

<comment><USER14> I get where you are headed, but you should probably think about the ice as "fuel." The cost (in terms of heat/energy) of freezing the ice can be spent during times when you are not in the room and/or not using the "air conditioner."

Actually there are commercial HVAC systems that use ice as a coolant - <USER2> water is frozen at night when electricity demands are lower and then is used to cool the building during the day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a terrible waste of a very important resource: water. It's amazing to me how many people take it for granted.

<comment><USER16> In some places there is more than enough water for everyone, so wasting water isn't a concern.

<comment><USER17> Yes. And if you just have a pump in your garden, and let the water sink in again, after you use it, nothing's being wasted at all.</comment></comment></comment>


The Aging Brain Is Less Quick, But More Shrewd - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124118077 <comment><USER2> "Age and treachery will always beat youth and skill"

</comment><comment><USER3> It's like the brain is slowly figuring out the best way to operate, self- optimizing for years and years, so that when the clock speed goes down it can still keep up.</comment>


How to Say No to Data Science Projects? – Data Science Expert Interview - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/acing-ai/how-to-say-no-to-data-science-projects-8cadd29aef7f <comment><AUTHOR> Happy to discuss if there is any feedback.</comment>


OpenTransact - A simple spec for financial transactions - <AUTHOR> http://www.opentransact.org/ <comment><USER2> Something like this will never become widespread unfortunately. See, banking has it too good right now. They get to charge people strange fees, and credit interest AND they get to charge per transaction on credit cards as well. This means they get paid whenever transactions happen. With this system it becomes so laughably cheap to pass money around, it will be like going back to cash, which means there doesn't need to be a per-transaction overhead. As such, lots of institutions would lose out on the money they get now. Such things scare the large existing banks, so they won't support it until they have to. No merchants will accept it, for the reason that no one uses it. Thus you end up with a chicken/egg problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> While existing institutions could use it, I agree that they probably wont.

This is a classic innovators dilemma where a bunch of small new services could form, be ignored, grow and eventually replace the status quo.

I wrote a long 5 post article series about this last summer, which has spawned the Agile Banking community behind OpenTransact:

<http://stakeventures.com/articles/2009/06/29/risky-business>

<comment><USER2> Interesting -- looks like a good series. You're right about the potential, but honestly I'm pretty sure that this won't happen. There is just too much regulation in place that prevents you from doing anything money related unless you have a major backer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Regulators are absolutely our biggest headache, but while hard I don't think it's impossible. It is one of the biggest areas of discussion on the mailing list.

If you're interested you should join the Agile Banking group:

<http://groups.google.com/group/agile-banking?hl=en>

Regulation is definitely one of the biggest issues, but I theorize if you build small low value services via the grass roots I am convinced we can then work with regulators.

<comment><USER2> I am interested, thanks for the pointer.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The New Mind Control: How the Internet Flips Elections and Alters Our Thoughts - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts <comment><USER2> "Google and its top executives donated more than $800,000 to President Barack Obama and just $37,000 to his opponent, Mitt Romney."

Did you just Alter My Thoughts? How much of that $837,000 was Google versus its top executives (based on their personal preferences)?</comment>


Are you one of the 10% of programmers who can write a binary search? - <AUTHOR> https://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/are-you-one-of-the-10-percent/ <comment><USER2> Yes. Although the last time I did (in Perl), I had a vigorous discussion with the interviewer who claimed it was broken (this was before any code was run). Passed every single test in their test suite first time. Most gratifying.</comment>


Tragically Well Known - <AUTHOR> http://metadeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/07/tragically-well-known.html

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't assume, as this author suggests, that PG and Spolsky are blogging less frequently because of the tenor of their reception. Perhaps they're just _really busy_.

One of them is running a company and a popular site while composing a new version of Lisp, the other is running a company and a weekly podcast while co- developing a site... And those are just their _publicly known_ activities.

</comment><comment><USER3> Heheh. What's a metadeveloper? A developer who develops developers?

Also, I'm not surprised that people like PG or Joel get annoyed at the "barbs that get thrown at them". I imagine that writing essays (or blog posts) takes considerable effort; so, then, I would be rather upset if I had been put so much effort and care into something, just to have someone say: "Stop being fanboys! Let me call bullshit on PG this time. Etc Etc Etc." It's just rude, and unpleasant to readers _and_ writers. I try to be a bit more considerate when disagreeing.</comment>


Sketch - The designer's toolbox - <AUTHOR> http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/

<comment><USER2> Looks nice.. Has anyone used it for more than just a play around?

Edit: First snag I hit pretty early.. no "smooth path" ..</comment>


ITunes 9 to support DVD ripping and Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/print/09/08/19/report_itunes_9_to_support_dvd_ripping_facebook.html

<comment><USER2> The Facebook part doesn't bother me (seems like kind of a no brainer in fact) but the rest seems fishy.

The report claims iTunes 9 will be able to sync with other MP3 players. But if that's so why has Apple been fighting to keep the Pre off iTunes if they plan to implement a similar feature in the near future? Also the report mentions the Samsung YH-J70 but the supported formats for that player don't include AAC. Is Apple going to convert music files just to support other players? And what about DRM? Many earlier tracks still have DRM on them and Apple's making a decent amount of money selling "upgrades" that get rid of that DRM. So are they really going to strip it off for a rival player (which would allow the user to just copy them back onto the computer to get DRM free tracks)?

As for the DVD import I have to ask one question: Who is driving that decision? For Apple it represents fewer iTunes sales (since people can rip their existing DVDs) and the Studios will be worried about piracy so they aren't going to want the feature either. I mean, as a user it sounds great but I can't see anyone "in the room" who would want that feature implemented.

<comment><USER3> It may represent fewer iTunes sales but more Apple TV sales (see another rumor: [http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/08/20/apple_expected...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/08/20/apple_expected_to_push_for_greater_living_room_presence.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think a nice, lean music catalog and iPod sync version of iTunes is in order for those of us who don't care about the store/video/DVD ripping/facebook integration/julienne fries. Or better yet a modular version so that people who don't even want the iPod sync can opt out of that as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, I doubt it. Honestly, look what happened to RealDVD. Granted, Apple has way more clout than Real, but the only way I can see this happening is if they made some sort of evil back-room deal with the MPAA which tied ripping to some DRM scheme that only allowed the ripped DVD to play on your authorized iTunes account. In that case, I'll pass. DVDFab + Handbrake works fine for me, thank you very much.</comment>


Wide abuse of IPv4 addresses bought on secondary market - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/21/ipv4_secondary_market_abuse_research/ <comment><AUTHOR> Paper: _A first look at the misuse and abuse of the IPv4 Transfer Market_

\- Vasileios Giotsas [with Ioana Livadariu and Petros Gigis]

[https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/139789/1/VGiotsas_PAM2...](https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/139789/1/VGiotsas_PAM2020_IPv4_Transfers_abuse.pdf)</comment>


The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition, in Beta - <AUTHOR> https://pragprog.com/news/coming-soon-the-pragmatic-programmer-20th-anniversary-edition-in-beta <comment><USER2> I wrote this about the pragmatic programmer a while ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17031609#17031874](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17031609#17031874)

Long story short, great book if you read it in the first year of your career but you'll get alot less out of it if you read it later on in your career.

Again it wasn't a knock on the book, I also put the Mythical Man month in the same category.

The "problem" these books have is that they cover alot of foundational concepts about being a programmer that you'll eventually learn on your own if you are even half way introspective.

Reading them early can really jumpstart your programming abilities, reading them later on in your career could have you wondering why everyone recommends a book that just lists out all the common sense ideas that you already know because you earned that knowledge.

<comment><USER3> A lot of what you say about The Pragmatic Programmer, applies to the book Code Complete too, particularly your last paragraph, however, it has so many "good practices" points, that it is worth reviewing now and then, even for experienced programmers, IMO.

<comment><USER2> > A lot of what you say about The Pragmatic Programmer, applies to the book > Code Complete too

Agreed, that's why I listed that book in my linked comment:)

<comment><USER3> Oh cool, I did not read it since I thought you gave a summary of it in the comment I was replying to. Now I will :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Twenty years?!? My god I feel old.

Also, 1999 was an especially good year wasn't it? The Matrix, Fight Club, Eyes Wide Shut, American Beauty, The Iron Giant, Being John Malkovich, Magnolia...

...and The Pragmatic Programmer.

<comment><USER5> Cryptonomicon as well. Coming up on its 20 year anniversary (May 1999.)

Refactoring (Martin Fowler).

Speaking of the Matrix, eXistenZ (very strange), and the Thirteenth Floor (didn't watch it), and probably some others with a similar theme like that also came out that year.

<comment><USER6> >Refactoring (Martin Fowler)

I've heard very good things about this book, is it worth a read for a more seasoned dev?

<comment><USER7> The first one third is worth a read, the rest is kind of filler

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great news! I first found this book at the end of my first year in a corporate dev job, as I was becoming a bit bored/disillusioned with the industry. Most of the lessons were great and have improved my career. (Here's a succinct list of the Tips from the first edition: [https://pragprog.com/the-pragmatic- programmer/extracts/tips](https://pragprog.com/the-pragmatic- programmer/extracts/tips))

The only piece I'd probably eliminate was focused on code generation ("Write Code That Writes Code"). The idea is fascinating and led me down a rabbit hole. I've always looked for an opportunity to do code-gen since, and have never really found a good one.

<comment><USER9> I have run into the same situation as you, and it always seems to be bad timing to invest into code generation for projects. I am not affiliated with this project, but I have good success with [http://www.hygen.io/](http://www.hygen.io/) especially with component frameworks and resolver middleware boilerplate getting deeper and deeper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd already been pondering rereading my old copy because I haven't read through it in about a decade. Now I can just wait and get an updated edition. Perfect timing. I'm sort of excited for this because the first edition was a book I felt helped me a lot early in my career, though I read it so long ago I don't remember which specific lessons I took from it.

</comment><comment><USER11> I just finished reading this last week. I can see where certain sections need to be updated as they are less relevant in today's coding world.

Some of the topics covered in the book grew and became more popular (Unit testing frameworks like JUnit) and some did not (Blackboards).

<comment> jon-wood The general concept of a blackboard is basically describing pubsub systems like Kafka - you throw a bunch of data into a queue, and anything that's interested can grab that information, and potentially then publish further information built on top of it.

<comment><USER12> I may not remember correctly but I think blackboards were tuplespaces, which have some differences with plain pubsub, though they can both be used to solve some of the same problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting. I just started reading this (the original version) last week. Since I'm already a pretty experienced programmer, I'm not getting that much out of it, but it's been fun to read.

I'm not sure if I should abandon it now, and wait for the new version, or just keep reading the old version and enjoying all the dated references to 56k modems and all that stuff.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it true that: Pragmatic means logical, and Practical means real ?

And logical doesn't need to be real. (While being real means logical)

</comment><comment><USER15> Glad I just bought this a few months ago...</comment>


Bonobos' Andy Dunn Talks the Future of Retail - <AUTHOR> http://coveteur.com/2016/10/27/bonobo-andy-dunn-interview/ <comment><USER2> > To deliver on fit you can't just serve one body type. You have to look at > all body types and figure out how many silhouettes you need. In our case > it's four or five. Then, within each silhouette we offer really deep sizing. > We offer 37 waist and inseam combinations—it's really a custom fit.

Setting aside the value of an in-person fitting, it seems strange to me that Amazon (and its imitators) is so bad at handling product ranges like this. Chip vendors and electronics distributors have had tolerable-to-awesome parametric search for years, but with Amazon you're often lucky if there's even an include-only checkbox for a feature, and that checkbox probably won't filter correctly. Maybe they just don't care because these kinds of products don't represent much of their volume? Maybe they think people are too stupid to use a powerful search tool? I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone have experience with Bonobos clothing? I've really wanted to try out their suits.

<comment><USER4> I rate their quality along the lines of JCrew. Just like JCrew their clothing isn't worth the full price. Both do heavy discount promotions, so I would wait for those.

Not knowing your budget, but if you are looking for a suit (I am assuming you are looking at a modern cut given your interest in Bonobos) I highly recommend stopping by a SuitSupply store.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the SuitSupply store suggestion! Hadn't heard of them before.

<comment><USER5> I also like SuitSupply. Highly recommend.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN:  Comment ranking in Hacker News takes your history into account. - <AUTHOR>

It's not just based on votes for the comment in question.  It takes your history into account as well.  I don't know if it's automated or hand-tweaked per user though. <comment><USER2> Yeah, there is a ranking algorithm, same as for the story ranking: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38704>

And?

<comment><USER3> That's actually not completely accurate anymore. PG had changed it to take users' average comment scores into account as well. This happened fairly recently, I think. I'll try to find a link later, but I'm just about to eat dinner now.

<comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1398764>

Key pg quote: "I did recently (about 3 weeks ago) tweak the algorithm for ranking comments, and that has had a noticeable effect. Previously it was the same as the one for ranking frontpage stories. Now it also considers among other things the average comment score of the submitter."

The thread has some further back and forth as well on this point.</comment></comment></comment>


A woman who went to the library and read every book on the shelf (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/16/phyllis-rose-the-shelf-library-book <comment><USER2> Brought to mind the parable of the hunter guide shaman:

"The livelihood of an ancient indian tribe was buffalo hunting. If the hunters came back with a small amount of kill or, unimaginable, empty-handed, from their Springtime hunts, the village would go mostly hungry for the next four months and many people would die. Luckily, before each hunt the village's shaman gave the head of the hunters a map with lines drawn on a hide that will guide the group to where the buffalo is. Without this map, the hunters wouldn't find where the buffalo gathered on the Great Plains.

A young hunter was curious about how the shaman always knew where the buffalo gathered, so before the Springtime Hunting Festival, he hid in the shaman's tipi and secretly watched jim as he prepared the map. There were many steps involved but in essence the shaman did the following: After calling on divine powers he crumpled a large raw piece of hide that was softened with oils. That was it! Then the lines to guide the hunters appeared correctly drawn by gods' will every time the map was created."

I usually employ a similar random search strategy (e.g. [http://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume13/bergstra12a/bergstra12a....](http://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume13/bergstra12a/bergstra12a.pdf)) to select a book when I'm at a library, though not as extensive as the method described in the article.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to read a lot. I had a long, long to-read list in a spreadsheet, and I would add items to it faster than I would tick them off.

Competing demands for my time cured me of this list, and I came to view reading not as something indisputably virtuous (as my schooling had trained me to do), but as just another form of consumption.

There is such a thing as too much consumption. Junk books are no better than junk food, and even a diet of classics might be no better for your head than constant fine dining is for your gut.

I now take more care in choosing to give my time and energy to reading.

<comment><USER4> That idea that reading is inherently virtuous has bothered me my whole life! I read a lot (well, at least I did before I had children) and have always been complimented on it which annoyed me to no end because I knew much of what I read was pretty trashy. I've had to explain to people so many times that a good portion of the books I read are no better than the movies or TV shows they watch, I just happen to like reading to relax.

And by the way, I don't believe in giving up on junk books. I think a good mix of fun but trashy and serious books is better. Just like anything in life: I wouldn't want to have only deep meaningful conversations or eat only fine dining or only write computer programs that do something useful or stop playing basketball just because I'm terrible at it or learn only prestigious fields of math... I think it's OK to do something just for fun, not everything needs to be edifying.

<comment><USER5> Can you give some examples of 'fun but trashy' books?

<comment><USER6> The Destroyer Series, about Remo Wlliams, Chiun, and the martial art known as Sinanju. They even made a movie and a tv pilot.

They are absolutely horrible. They give you nothing of value, not even education. They were mostly written by two authors who grew to despise each other,

They take a couple of hours to read, maybe a little more. They are the pinnacle of pointless time wasting. I read most of them while in the service.

They are perfect in every way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A high school friend of mine did a 'Pi tour' of the library where they read the 'nth' book on the shelf for each 2 digits of Pi. So book 31 on the first shelf, but 41 on the next, 59th on the next. There wasn't anything magical about using Pi for this, it merely provided the backdrop and gave some 'flavor' to the choices other than random. He had to get creative when the shelf didn't have enough volumes on it (typically he would do banker's division by 2).

The result was he found some interesting books (and some turds too). I could not argue with his logic that 20 years later none of the information I got sitting through an hour of the "Six Million Dollar Man" would be useful but something he got from one of the books might be.

<comment><USER8> cool idea. I tried googling "banker's division" and got nothing, what is it?

<comment><USER9> Try "banker's rounding"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _" Rose isn't a dinosaur reader; she likes her Kindle."_

I am probably a "dinosaur" reader. I have, and use a Kindle, but given the choice of reading a physical book or same book on Kindle, I will choose physical book 99% of the time.

There is just something about a real book that is deeply satisfying to read.

<comment><USER11> It appears that paper content is better than electronic, at least for retention of material:

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers- absorb...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb-less- kindles-paper-study-plot-ereader-digitisation)

Ebooks also might negatively affect sleep:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30574260](http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30574260)

<comment><USER12> I need to bounce around in a book. Flipping physical pages is way easier than scrolling around in an ebook reader.

<comment><USER13> I do most of my reading on physical books, but I have the core of my library on a Kindle as well, and where it shines is search. I can phrase and keyword search the larger part of my library. It has become an invaluable research tool. I also import highlighted passages into a database on my computer. Granted there are things like books.google.com, which I could use for search, but that's not my library. I also prefer to read on a Kindle compared to my monitor, so I regularly email large documents to it. My wish for the next Kindle is for it to be faster (more responsive UI) and handle even larger libraries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Chiba-City Reading is more fun in discussion groups or even reading aloud with discussion. Immersive fiction reading is just one special mode of reading. The focus of research reading is more intensive than immersive. There is some social intent. HN is a lovely reading group.

<comment> Chiba-City The simplest things are not contextualized. The methods are sold like aspirin for any pain point. We confuse methods with instant "solutions." The best salad recipes fail of unripe or overripe ingredients. We might better contextualize method with case examples sharing some measurable comparative formalisms. Then we confuse project execution success with market penetration or buyout acquihire payday dreams.

Close attention and years of reading are important to writing code worth writing. I read literature oriented around "skunkworks" sized teams and applied them at somewhat similar scales. The better literature is fantastic. But the literature presumes too much of readers and means little outside operative exposure to multiple successful applications. Folks seeking method for quick home runs are barking up the wrong trees from the beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How do journalists hear about this type of story? Did the lady call up her local newspaper and say "hey I just read every book on the shelf at the library. Thought it was newsworthy."

<comment><USER15> Not at all. Most reporters have a beat. They accrue and build relationships with sources around a broad subject. If you're reporting on books (the author does), you'd probably know quite a few a librarians who you keep in touch with just to hear what's going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've tried this too during a lull in my undergrad studies - it's how I discovered my love for Kobo Abe. Didn't get much further than AB though...

<comment><USER17> I did the same in elementary school. I started at the first shelf with the intention of reading every book in the non-fiction section as my plan to know everything I needed to know. I made it 4 or 5 shelves but then lost my determination when a librarian informed me that she was adding new books to the shelves I had finished. I then switched to a more directed reading agenda based on a plan.

<comment><USER18> I'm learning Dutch on Duolingo, and they recently updated the "Tree". Basically whenever they do that, you lose a lot of your "progress", and have to revisit (months of) previous sections that you'd already completed (because some new things are added to previous subjects). It sounds similar to what you described (very demotivating), and seems (from comments on the site) to especially affect people who are relatively newer to the site. I'm not sure yet, but I think there's a mismatch between gamification and motivation for actual learning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Friend did something similar as a kid. Main advantage is not to find rare gems, but to filter out genres you do not like. No fear of missing out...

<comment><USER20> This was my plan as well, until I read Nausea. The Autodidact is not someone you come away wanting to emulate.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's not what you read, it's what you don't.</comment>


Inventing a Dating App That Women Will Actually Use - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/02/dating-app-for-women-that-isnt-awful.html <comment><USER2> _"On one hand, women are extremely powerful and we're leading the workforce and climbing to jobs that are simply amazing. But, on the same note, we want to be feminine, we may not necessarily want to be the ones approaching the guys. How does that work? You still want to be the girl at the bar where the guy is the one who comes up to you."_

Well... tough! If you want to be leaders, you have to take responsibility. It's hard to take initiative, it's scary to risk rejection, but someone has to. And if you want equality, that means you gotta step up and do your share of "approaching".

<comment><USER3> As a woman who is willing to initiate, I find it rarely works. It mostly backfires. Men typically react one of two ways: "Cool! Slut throwing herself at me!" or "OMFG! Stalker!" It almost always goes disastrously. I have been working on figuring out how it works to attract a man and let him initiate. I find it to be rather tricky to navigate.

<comment><USER4> What natrius said. Not meaning to sound mean here, I applaud your initiative. Really wish more girls had the balls to do the same. And there's probably a difference regarding how forward women and men are perceived (especially in the US, I don't get the same impression in Norway). But do you have any idea how many girls an average guy approaches for every one he actually has a mutual connection and attraction with?

In online dating, where I _put in some effort_ (sending a serious, thought-out message and not just boilerplate) I get a reply to about one out of every five messages I send. The total track record after about a year of effort is one date per 20 women messaged, or something like that. The picture is better when you're meeting people at parties where you already have something in common (one in ten, maybe?) but I'm assuming the bar scene would be somewhere around 1/20 or worse. I'm in my mid twenties.

<comment><USER3> Let me try to put that another way: I get the distinct impression that many men find it threatening to have the tables turned and struggle to remain in control of a process where they are used to initiating. I have put a lot of thought into how it works to signal receptivity selectively because it really has gone extremely poorly for me to initiate, even though I have a long track record of being heavily sought after by men. I have trouble reconciling the two sets of experiences without viewing it as mostly rooted in biased social expectations about who is allowed to do the asking.

<comment><USER5> a) Are the men who are "soughing after you" as desirable to you as the ones you are after when you take the initiative?

b) Are you more nervous when you take the initiative yourself?

<comment><USER3> In most cases, I was pretty sure they were interested before I decided to bring it up. Me initiating caused back pedaling. So the groups have substantial overlap. The problem seems to very much be that I am not supposed to be proactive, etc.

I don't know how to answer that second question. I initiated with my ex husband. We were married more than two decades. But he very likely qualifies for a diagnosis of Asperger's and was often clueless when women flirted with him. More "normal" men seem to be shocked and appalled that I would take an interest in them and express it. As best I can tell, it has nothing to do with me being nervous. As best I can tell, it has to do with being perceived as a dragon lady.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The biggest issue with dating applications/services today is that they are focusing entirely on the wrong thing: matchmaking.

No online service or the algorithms behind it is going to be sufficiently advanced and AI-ified enough to be able to determine whether or not person A and person B would be a good match.

There are too many variables. What even is a good match? Hell, MOST of the time humans get it wrong. How many times have you met someone who fits about 80% of the bill... but you don't find each other funny enough, or attractive enough, or the sex isn't so good. You can't determine ANY of that via an online service.

The real magic is going to happen in the real world. You put people together and see what happens, plain and simple. Dating sites need to stop focusing on match percentages, political affiliation, BMI, hair color, how many keywords match in your bio, etc...

I am an economically conservative person. I did not vote for Obama and do not want him to be our president. On the other hand, I could easily date and get along with a woman who disagrees with me. (most do actually) I tend to prefer brunettes, but I don't really care what color your hair is. If I was locked into some kind of algorithm or search query in a dating app, I might never meet a blonde girl who shared a lot of my common interests. Maybe you're great at writing a witty/funny bio but you're incredibly shy / dry in person. Maybe you look like you're killer in bed, but in actuality you don't even enjoy sex. None of this will come from a dating service. It all comes from meeting people and getting to know them through real life events.

I'd continue and explain what I think is a good solution to this problem but it will be easier for me to just link to the app when it hits the app store in the next week or two :)

<comment><USER7> > But those same women might tell me of a night they just "went crazy" and > slept with some guy they just met. And you know what, everyone does this.

That second sentence is very false, even if you replace "everyone" with "almost everyone". Just 52% of people surveyed by a Durham University study had had a one-night stand (1,743/3300). Furthermore, this sort of behavior is often regretted; of the women who had reported a one-night stand, only 54% said they had positive feeling about the experience.

> Women predominantly reported "regret at being used," with additional > comments including: "I felt cheap," "horrified afterward," and "I felt > degraded. Made myself look cheap and easy. Total regret."

Popular summary: [http://www.livescience.com/2678-realities-night-stands- revea...](http://www.livescience.com/2678-realities-night-stands- revealed.html)

Paywalled academic article: [http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12110-008-9036-2?L...](http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12110-008-9036-2?LI=true)

(I predict the results will only change moderately if you restrict the sample pool to whatever particular age range you're interested in.)

I think you're incorrectly generalizing from a very non-representative social circle. I know you're just writing off the cuff, but you don't do anyone any favors when you downplay the very real emotional risks people (especially women) take when behaving promiscuously.

<comment><USER6> I understand what you're saying but at a basic and common human level: we all make choices that we occasionally regret. Sometimes that leads to change, "I'll never do that again", while other times it just makes you look out for that particular scenario while continuing in the same behavior. I've had one night stands I regret purely because of the social stigma against it. Other times I've had mutually good one night stand experiences with people.

In relationships such as these, one person will be coming from a place of higher value and another will be coming from a place of lower value. That isn't to say the woman is always the one coming from a place of lower value.

Thanks for linking to the articles, adding them to my reading list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a project last year I wrote a locally-focused dating site with a friend. It has a similar premise to "Check Him Out", mentioned in the article, but we didn't use a shopper/product metaphor, opting instead to be straightforward in emphasizing discreetness for women and ease of use (laziness, effectively) for men.

You can see it at <http://www.ladieschoicevictoria.com/>

It's been very interesting so far. We've had a strong positive response from two groups of women: young women who have had bad experiences with more open dating sites, and older women who, speaking generally, aren't totally comfortable with online dating and prefer the privacy of having a profile only visible to people you select. We've got a similar ratio to "Check Him Out", about 60% women, and about 1600 users overall.

We haven't made any effort to monetize yet, but it seems clear that the relative success we have had (including being covered in a local paper) is thanks to both the privacy features and the local aspects.

I don't think we've solved the problem, but I do say that the experiment suggests to me that some combination of safe and local is the essential ingredient that the author is looking for.

<comment><USER9> I've always been interested in those first few days/weeks/months for dating applications. What's it like running a dating site with 30 members?

Obviously locality makes it a lot easier but even then, there had to be a point where you had 5 users and nobody else. How do you get past that?

<comment><USER8> Building the prototype took two noon-midnight Sundays, and we started promoting it after the second one.

First, I posted the site on a local subreddit, which got us up to about 20 users. We started telling friends and friends-of-friends, and my partner ponied up about $800 to run some radio ads. Fun fact: radio stations will whip up an ad for you as part of their fee. It was pretty fun hearing that on the radio.

After that first hundred users or so, we started sending press releases out to anyone we thought might care. This was much easier being local, and easier still because my wife is a writer with some experience being on the receiving end of PR press releases, and she wrote it up for us.

We were lucky enough to be featured in the local paper of note, got an interview on local radio, and a week later we were up to about 1000 users. The rest we've picked up more or less organically through word-of-mouth and/or google.

Edit: This was back in October. I wrote this mostly about the technical details, but it has some experiential stuff too: [http://adambard.com/blog/my- experiences-deploying-a-small-cl...](http://adambard.com/blog/my-experiences- deploying-a-small-clojuremongo/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> one huge problem (which the article does allude to) is that women simply do not feel as safe as men when interacting and meeting up with a stranger. it has little to do with attitudes to casual sex and everything to do with the relative perceptions of safety.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. I can't even think of a male-targeting pejorative term that carries anything like the emotional weight of certain words that a disinterested man could wield against a woman when rejecting her advances. That says a lot about the _actual_ differences in power between the sexes.

<comment><USER12> Not quite sure what you mean. I think the GP is talking about people who meet in real life after connecting through an online dating site.

In such a case there are obvious risks that one takes when meeting someone who is a) a stranger b) very likely significantly physically stronger c) already expressed some level of sexual interest.

<comment><USER10> yes, that was what i was talking about (phaedra starling's "schrodinger's rapist"[0] is a good if dramatic look at how the landscape is different for women in a way i will probably never fully realise). though the parent has a point too - there is an entire catalogue of abusive terms a man can apply to a woman who has rejected his advances, and the accumulated weight of social convention has given those utterances the power to hurt.

[0] [http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling- sch...](http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling- schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange- women-without-being-maced/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tinder is blowing up right now, and they cornered the coveted attractive 18-29 year old female demographic.

Why are these girls using it? Because other attractive girls are using it. IMO, they used _the_ growth model for social networks (the same that Facebook used:

Get sorority girls as users. In the case of Tinder, some top-tier sororities had rushees use the app and the number & quality of guys who 'liked' you influenced if you got in. Once sorority girls use it, then other high-status girls will use it. Then the guys start using it because the girls are there. Then it's a chain reaction until it circles back to the tech crowd who aren't a part of that culture, at which point tech journalists try and pinpoint why the app was successful and get it wrong because the original users are bored & gone by then.

Rather interesting to me that IAC acquired Tinder.

</comment><comment><USER14> Author Ann Friedman has a useful insight: "From the Web-based heavy hitters like OkCupid, eHarmony, and Plenty of Fish on down to newer apps like Skout, How About We, and MeetMoi, they're all developed by men."

The CEOs of every major online dating site are men, with the exclusion of newcomer Coffee Meets Bagel. OkCupid, for example, has about 30 people, and fewer than five team members are women. These women have relatively minor roles in product development.

Women don't like using online dating sites. Female users are harder to sign up, much less engaged than men, quit sites faster, and are less likely to convert to paid memberships. It's worth considering whether this has anything to do with online dating sites being designed primarily by men. Online dating sites monetize via their male users, which perpetuates designing for the male experience.

</comment><comment><USER15> Here's my stab at designing an online dating app.

People input basic information. Age, sex, location. How far you're willing to travel for a date, how many dates a month you want to go on. That's it. You pay $20 a month for the service and the software pairs you with someone else for a date randomly. No suffering through poorly-written and dishonest profiles and pics. If you don't like the person you're paired with, oh well, you'll have another date next week.

The idea is we are our own worst enemy when it comes to finding mates and to let nature take its course as much as possible.

<comment><USER16> Works fine for men. I don't know more than one woman who would try this. A woman may not be able to pick the eventual winner, but they have a better chance of avoiding Mr. Creepy. It might work if people are personally interviewed beforehand and weeded out, but I still don't think it has much chance to get traction.

Ask 50 women before you launch. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think it would be very simple to solve the problems indicated in the article. Just charge some amount of money to send a message on the dating site. It would cut down on the total number of messages and people(men) will start self-regulating who they send messages to. If it is free it incentivizes every 'creep' on the planet to spam every remotely attractive woman.

</comment><comment><USER18> no mention of tinder?

</comment><comment><USER19> That's a tough one, you can't make the internet not creepy. Facebook is actually the best dating site because it disguises it's purpose (and that _was_ it's original purpose) and even then you'll have better luck standing on a street corner talking to strangers.</comment>


ClearBank, UK's first clearing bank in 250 years, offers an API for banking - <AUTHOR> https://www.clear.bank/home <comment><AUTHOR> Three years in development, ClearBank has forged a partnership with the Bank of England [1] to set ClearBank up as UK's fifth clearing bank, joining the ranks of the Big Four — Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, and RBS [2].

ClearBank is not consumer-facing but instead offers an API [3] for its core banking platform.

[1]: [https://www.clear.bank/about#clearbank- partners](https://www.clear.bank/about#clearbank-partners)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_(banking)#United_King...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_\(banking\)#United_Kingdom)

[3]: [https://www.clear.bank/services/clearbank- api](https://www.clear.bank/services/clearbank-api)</comment>


Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/health/private-equity-dermatology.html <comment><USER2> This isn't discussed much, but the healthcare provider industry has traditionally been a major sector of interest for private equity. Hospital companies like HCA, dental clinics, ambulatory surgery centers, etc.

Healthcare providers are attractive to private equity 1) because of stable, non-cyclical cash flow, 2) benefits to scale (ie better negotiating leverage with payers), 3) ability to easily increase revenue at small clinics by "optimizing" billing (ie use more lucrative codes for the same procedure) and practice management (optimizing procedure mix and scheduling) and 4) regulatory protection -- local monopolies enjoy durable economic advantages and often are politically entrenched as healthcare providers are major employers

These factors aren't limited to private equity backed healthcare, though. Even non-profits take advantage of these things (sutter health in the bay area is an example). If you're looking for why US healthcare is so expensive, this isn't a bad place to start

<comment><USER3> There was an NPR (I think it was NPR) story about how medical helicopter rides have skyrocketed in cost.

The issue was a lot of private equity folks realized that you could just get in the market and if you didn't get enough rides... you just cranked up the price and went after individuals who where hardly in a position to shop around when they needed the ride.

Now there is an excess of medical helicopters, solution? Crank up the price...

<comment><USER4> In ancient Rome, Crassus owned the fire department. When there was a home on fire, Crassus would negotiate the price for extinguishing the fire with the owners or tenants.

Plus ça change...

<comment><USER5> I mean, this is close to being right, but it's wrong in every one of the details.

Crassus didn't own the fire department. Crassus owned a bunch of slaves who he had trained to put out fires.

Crassus didn't charge for extinguishing fires. If your house was on fire, Crassus took his team and negotiated _to buy your house_. If you sold it to him, he'd put out the fire. There was no flow of money from you to Crassus under any circumstances. (But he could get a low price, because the value of your house was constantly dropping while it burned.)

In imperial times, private firefighting groups were illegal since they were viewed as a potential source of rebellion. (Using your own slaves to put out fires on your own property was of course fully legal.) It's in my mind that Crassus benefited from similar laws, but he was active during the Republic. Maybe someone else knows more about the precise timings.

<comment><USER6> > Crassus didn't own the fire department. Crassus owned a bunch of slaves who > he had trained to put out fires.

That sounds like he literally owned the fire department? It was just made up of slaves.

Otherwise I really found what you said very interesting!

<comment><USER5> A fire department is a service that will put out fires for the public.

Crassus only put out fires on his own property. Rome didn't have a fire department. Firefighting was expected to occur on a volunteer, as-needed basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People often wonder what the point of tenure is. Well this is it. Those authors need to not back down, and call attention to this. If they're tenured researchers or professors, they should be able to make publications like this without fear or retaliation from the school or industry.

<comment><USER8> All tenure does is largely protect you from getting fired. They can still do a fair amount of damage though you still have employment. Lab space can be reduced, it can get harder to get approvals for research, decreased funding etc.

<comment><USER9> "At the University of Florida, our professors do fearless research" \-- title to a piece by the UoF PR department, milking an easy win for all it's worth.

<comment><USER10> You can't eat PR.

<comment><USER11> You can't eat dermatology products either.

I don't think it is reasonable to require research conclusions to be censored or changed just because big money is involved.

Why don't the opposition fund some independent research or independent replication study if they believe so strongly that this research needs to be shown incorrect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can someone link to the paper? The best thing we can do to combat this sort of thuggery is to shine light on it and try to go full-on Streisand effect.

Edit - here it is:

[https://www.docdroid.net/fhDjc7P/konda-article-pe- copy.pdf](https://www.docdroid.net/fhDjc7P/konda-article-pe-copy.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER13> It sounds to me that what is being monetized is the authority of doctors. There's a lot of medical conditions where you rely on the doctor to tell you what to do. After all, you don't have a degree in that.

Now I can buy a clinic and pressure all the doctors through an incentive scheme that they are not used to, and get them all to nudge the borderline cases into must-act cases. And chances are each individual case is somewhat defensible, and the doctor is still an authority. It's perfect, the doctors are not even going to admit their bias. But as a whole, a lot of people will be on treatments that they wouldn't have been on.

<comment><USER14> Are socialized medicine systems less evil?

<comment><USER15> Who do you expect to sell more? A salesperson on commission or a salesperson on salary?

<comment><USER16> A salaried person still has room for perverse incentives. The wine-ing and dining by drug companies is famous, and not counted on any salary form. It makes no difference.

<comment> your-nanny if it makes no difference tgen you must think that commissioned persons are less susceptible to wining and dining incentives

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Paper isn't even that bad really, just stating the obvious.

Academia isn't built to cope with well funded adversaries. Journalists handle the heat much better, at least the NYT got hold of it.

<comment><USER18> I doubt it is perfect. I agree they're probably built for it but in practice, theory and practice are not the same.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished-f...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished- for-questioning-the-gospel-of-guns.html)

Archived at [https://archive.fo/v5b1x](https://archive.fo/v5b1x)

I'm sure even the NY Times has its limits and so do the likes of al Jazeera and the BBC.

Another question: Could Intel or nVidia or Microsoft or Facebook do something similar for tech journalists?

<comment><USER19> Bloomberg has still not retracted its story about the Chinese spyware despite heavy pressure from Apple and Amazon. So I guess that shows that at least some journalist can cope with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What is the value that private equity and/or VC are adding to dermatology? I guess what I'm asking is, why would the physicians be interested in sharing some portion of their income with these non-physicians?

Medicine, like other guild professions like law, dentistry, and accounting, is an enterprise which seems to naturally fit the partnership model instead.

<comment><USER21> There is a strange bit about being a doctor or lawyer -- you aren't allowed to for a C corp for your own practice. However, if someone _else_ forms the corp and you work for them, then you get all the protections of a C corp, as long as you don't own the majority share.

So one thing they add is legal protection.

<comment><USER22> > _There is a strange bit about being a doctor or lawyer -- you aren 't > allowed to for a C corp for your own practice._

1\. In at least some U.S. jurisdictions (and possibly all), lawyers' practices can indeed be set up as corporations; my former firm was an example. The individual lawyers in the firm are still personally liable for their own malpractice and for that of any junior attorneys and/or staff whom they supervise. The corporate form does protect them from personal liability for the office lease, etc., unless they've personally guaranteed the lease, which is not uncommon. (Don't know how it works for doctors but I assume it's similar.)

2\. "C corp" is an income-tax classification; AFAIK it has nothing to do with non-tax liability.

<comment><USER23> C Corp is a legal entity classification, along the lines of S Corp, LLC, partnership, and sole proprietorship. What might be confusing is that S corps can use pass-through taxation or retained earnings (C Corp) depending on what the owners choose. There are various forms of partnerships with different levels of liabilities to the partners: general partnership, limited partnership (LP), limited liability partnership (LLP), etc. Partnerships generally provide much less protection than a C Corp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have no proof they are involved, but my wife and I both had a visit to a dermatologist last year. Both of us were then recommended for excisions. She was 29, I was 28.

Everything came back pretty much normal.

We were sent to this fern after a friend went there. He also had an excision. Also under 30.

Now, we feel pretty much like we were played. Maybe this is relevant to this issue.

<comment><USER25> This summer I made the mistake of going to a large dermatology practice with several locations because a dermatologist I had seen a few times before was unavailable. I had what turned out to be essentially contact dermatitis. The large corporate practice ended up billing almost $900 for this including an unnecessary biopsy. I assumed that this was simply a rogue practice, but this news story makes me see this in a new light. Apparently the field of dermatology has been identified as a lucrative profit center by P/E firms and these sort of dermatology practices are being built up to strip mine the out of control medical-insurance complex here in the US. The logical next step is for these equity-backed firms to use their capital to acquire the majority of dermatology practices in a region and be able to dictate pricing.

I'm sure that this area of medicine has been selected by equity firms because of the prevalence of cosmetic-related procedures that are inherently high- margin in this field. But there is so much money being sucked into this sector of the economy that this will encompass other types of medicine. The other area that seems to be active now is hospice care - the large insurer Anthem just bought a large palliative care provider this year. How this is not playing both sides of the trade kind of escapes me.

The whole health care sector is starting to resemble the payday loan market on a vast scale and with even less regulation. And with 2 profit-seeking players interested in shaking down the consumer in every transaction, not just one. Or, one player pretending to be two players for maximum profit.

<comment><USER26> Vertical integration is happening everywhere, especially due to advances in technology allowing for much greater economies of scale. Insurers have to combine with each other to get bigger to negotiate with providers and pharmacies, providers have to combine with each other to get bigger to negotiate with insurers, pharmacies have to combine with each other to negotiate with drug manufacturers and PBMs, drug manufacturers combine with each other to negotiate with insurance, and finally, insurance combines with pharmacy and PBM (Aetna/cvs) to negotiate with drug manufacturer and providers.

Telecoms, computers, retailing, everything is trending towards a handful of big players with enough vertical integration to be able to survive. Initially, this is could be good for consumers as the cost savings of economies of scale might be passed on to them, but we will pay for it at the end when there is only 2 vendors to choose from and they dictate the price.

<comment><USER27> That's why we should discourage company growth beyond a certain size. They grow because they are better than the competition but at some point they can just overpower any competition or just buy them out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Barbara Streisand effect in play. I never would have thought to be careful about this without this Push to silence criticism.

</comment><comment><USER29> So I wonder if there is an opportunity to create a service that let's you look up the center you are visiting, and seeing who the investors/ owners are. Then you can filter away any that has gotten bad stars/reviews based on bad practices.

Fight vc money with vc money basically.

<comment><USER30> You'll have a huge problem with uninformed reviewers. It usually doesn't become apparent you've been receiving substandard care (or over care) for quite a while, if ever. Maybe you could contact this by taking reviews only from patient advocates?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The core underlying issue is fee-for-service [1] which inherently incentivize overutilization of services.

We have been and should continue pushing for better alternatives. ACOs [2] and integrated managed care [3] are promising possibilities and there are assuredly others.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee-for- service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee-for-service)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountable_care_organization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountable_care_organization)

[3]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente)

</comment><comment><USER32> Young dermatologist here - its an interesting time for my and my derm friends. We frequently discuss if the introduction of a PE profit motive will shunt care away from the complex, comprehensive patient exam to a more 'problem- focused' model.

The proposed changes to Medicare reimbursement - which essentially pays the same for an office visit regardless of complexity - seems to be also pushing that way.

Speaking only from personal perspective, helping complex patients is incredibly rewarding and I would absolutely hate for the system to steer the specialty away from that.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Discussion on reddit in /r/medicine, by actual medical professionals AFAICS:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/9rpajq/dermatolog...](https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/9rpajq/dermatology_article_discusses_vc_buying_up/)

Copy of the starter comment by OP there:

> _Starter comment: NYTimes discusses an article that details Venture Capital > buying dermatology practices that do an unusually high proportion of high > dollar procedures. The article made it through peer review and was posted as > an article in press. It was suddenly pulled. The AAD's incoming president > works for an VC Owners clinic and sits on their board. Lawyers for one firm > called lead authors institution to demand changes. This is a huge assault on > academic freedom. More so than any nonsense from Washington. Coming on the > heels of AAD telling multiple people incorrectly that they failed the board > exam over the past few years, this is another major scandal that could > result huge changes. Or retaliation._

From another comment there that is a tl;dr of some the problem:

> _VC involvement in derm practices is a huge, huge issue. One of the bigger > practices in town recently was bought by a VC firm, and, lo and behold, all > their borderline melanomas now, after being read by their "new" pathologist, > need re-resections to get more ti$$ue. I no longer refer to them. Don't even > get me started on electronic brachytherapy._

</comment><comment><USER33> After just finishing "Bad Blood", the book by John Carreyrou on the Theranos fraud, this particular passage in the article had me incensed:

> This week a lawyer for Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, which is > backed by private equity and is the largest dermatology practice in the > United States, called the general counsel at the University of Florida, > where two of the authors are employed, demanding specific changes to the > paper.

I'm disgusted by these high-powered law firms using thuggish tactics to try to silence critics. I have no problem with these lawyers responding to the article, in public, after it is published, but using the threat of expensive litigation to shut people up is just gross and morally bankrupt.

<comment><USER34> Agree. Related thought: the influence of lawyers in tech firms - witness the draconian EULAs users are 'forced' to accept with a false binary choice of accept or not - and the role that corporate law staff have had in software development, by effectively limiting the rights of users.

It seems to me that many technology firms copy-and-paste the soul of EULAs to protect themselves (against the worse cases that _may_ arise) with little thought about the effect these long list of restrictions cause. It often seems it cascaded from Microsoft's use of EULAs from Windows 95, Office 95 and onwards, because it was the norm to consumers in that 'monopoly' environment.

The role of lawyers in suppressing ideas, choices and debate - be it in healthcare (the USA dermatology sector as per the OP article) or in technology - the Hacker News set - warrants further debate.

Especially if ethics are to play a greater role in the future of technology - as seems to be the general consensus of forward-thinking governments and progressive technologists.

<comment><USER35> I think this legal arms race is a consequence of America's overly-litigious and profitable legal system.

These EULAs are the equivalent of warning labels on soda bottles that loosely read "Warning: Contents under pressure, don't point at your eyes"... who is that written for? We laugh and call it unnecessary, but that warning exists because there is precedent that must now be defended against.

When those ludicrous cases are widely used as a means of attack or personal enrichment, _of course_ corporations will respond with excessive legal restrictions. Their shareholders don't want to lose money to frivolous lawsuits or be exposed to risks competitors have covered.

<comment><USER36> Do they actually write that on carbonated drinks in USA? That's brilliant.

<comment><USER37> There's a bag of almonds in my pantry that literally says "Contains almonds" on it in the fine print.

<comment><USER38> And cooking spray sometimes says "Fat free!" because an average 'serving' contains < 10 calories of fat. Yet its 100% fat. A spray can of fat.

<comment><USER37> Similarly, Tic Tacs are listed as containing 0 grams of sugar, despite being made of 94.5% sugar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> paywall source material alert...

<comment><USER40> [http://archive.is/VWgV3](http://archive.is/VWgV3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I don't care why because this is hacker news and I expect better article headlines than buzzfeed clickbait crap.

<comment><USER42> everybody does these headlines now besides maybe the wire services, it's inescapable

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Conflict of interests on one side, sociopaths isolating a few words out of their context to have a rant on the other side; both are more dangerous than bad science, to be fair, but this is the spirit of the times.

</comment><comment><USER44> The issue seems to come down as to wether or not the paper had factual inaccuracies. Many academic papers are withdrawn, just check out retractionwatch.com.</comment>


The Dirty Secret to Ranking #1 on Google - <AUTHOR> https://sparktoro.com/blog/the-dirty-secret-to-ranking-1-on-google-part-1-of-3 <comment><USER2> Excellent examples showing total monopoly is not necessary for anti- competitive behavior.</comment>


The Billion-Dollar Mistake - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_pointer#History <comment><USER2> I would definitely contribute $1K to the pot to get those hours back hunting for null bugs. One billion seems conservative :)</comment>


Apple's Startup Culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jun2010/id20100610_525759.htm <comment><USER2> If you listen to the whole interview, you hear that when Jobs was asked about supporting Flash, he said they had to pick carefully which technologies to support because they didn't have the resources to just support everything, like other firms.

This is the CEO of a company worth $1/4T that has something like $40B cash on hand. It seems like the underdog startup culture is really internalized at Apple, all the way to the top.

I suspect one of the reason that firms led by their founder lead in their markets is that the founder has often spent a lot of time poor or cash strapped and is very careful about not wasting money.

</comment><comment><USER3> Steve Jobs is great in marketing. Since startups makes great things, it doesn't hurt to tag myself as a startup.

<comment><USER4> That's a really bad article, failing at the fundamental task of putting the quote into the context it was said in.

Jobs was asked what he does all day and how Apple is run. He answered that Apple is sort of run like a startup. To expand on that he said that Apple is great at forming teams, he implied that they have flat hierarchies and he said that he meets with those teams, listens to ideas and brings in his own and has discussions and arguments. (Asked whether people dare to disagree with him he answered "Of course!" and said that the best wouldn't work for you if they couldn't disagree with you.)

It wasn't just a one-line marketing thing. You can certainly argue whether you really believe that Apple works like that on the inside or whether you think that what Steve Jobs outlined here is "like Startups work".</comment></comment>


Y Combinator 50th most innovative company - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2012/y-combinator

<comment><USER2> See that, I thought it was just a news aggregation site, learned something new.</comment>


Lidar Startup Oryx Vision Shuts Down - <AUTHOR> https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3768922,00.html <comment><AUTHOR> From the article:

...all the players in the field of LiDAR now understand that autonomous vehicles will take more time to become mainstream than was originally thought, Wellingstein said. "Currently, the architecture of the autonomous vehicle is simply not converging, so a venture-backed company will not be able to justify the investment that will still be needed," Wellingstein explained.</comment>


Norway: an Eden with wifi - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5749fbb8-100d-11e1-a468-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1e9fRYOFZ

<comment><USER2> We still complain.

About the high prices. How short the summer is. The cold. The rain. The snow. All the people on welfare. That we can't buy beer after 18:00 om weekdays and 20:00 on Saturdays (and not at all on Sundays).

Norway might not be very exciting, though. After all, we're only 5 million people, which is like half of Paris.

Although I don't work there anymore, Opera is hiring[0], and it has a multinational workforce and English is the working language.

Other benefits not mentioned in the article is 5 weeks paid vacation and Norwegian management style[1].

[0]: <http://www.opera.com/company/jobs/> [1]: [http://www.worldbusinessculture.com/Norwegian-Management- Sty...](http://www.worldbusinessculture.com/Norwegian-Management-Style.html)

<comment><USER3> Honestly I have never failed to meet people complaining about prices anywhere and as far as weather goes even the Russians and Lithuanians seem to do that.

That being said I wish I was a Finnish taxi driver in Norway instead of a Finnish taxi driver in Finland. ;(

<comment><USER4> Slightly (or completely) off-topic but you really are a taxi driver? I'm curious why you read HN and how you found it.

<comment><USER5> For the same reason that pizza delivery drivers (ahem) do. The Internet is wide open, and even aspirational hackers and wantrapreneurs can benefit from lessons learned. I read pg's essays starting in 2006.

<comment><USER4> I try to convert everyone I know to some of the topics found here, it's indeed very useful mainly in times like these where a job is something not available for everyone. I really like seeing all these different people reading HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Remarkable story of an Iraqi geologist who helped Norway spread the oil wealth around:

[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1eBlRc5lt)

<comment><USER7> And the related planet money podcast:

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/26/139972557/the- frid...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/26/139972557/the-friday- podcast-norways-got-advice-for-libya)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "We've become spoiled," one Norwegian told me. "Lazy," said another. > "Petroholics," diagnosed a third."

Does the Norwegian society as a whole feel this way? What about other oil- prosperous small countries such as the Emirates or Kuwait? Are the cases comparables?

What are the Norwegian govt plans for the long-time future when their oil is over? (it's long for that, i know).

<comment><USER9> "What about other oil-prosperous small countries such as the Emirates or Kuwait?"

For a long time, when a country became rich through oil, there were two paths. One was a fascist socialism in which the population was bought off with the proceeds, non-jobs flourished and foreigners did all the actual work (many of who were effectively slave labour). This is most of the oil-rich middle-east.

The other model is, horrifyingly, even less admirable. A handful at the top take everything, sell their souls to foreign oil giants, and everyone else is screwed over. This is Nigeria and chums.

Norway is the third option. Norway ploughs the money into a sovereign wealth fund, with long term plans. They've become world experts in getting "difficult" oil out of the wells which will see their services increasingly in demand around the world. Norway is a charming country to live in, despite being cursed with oil.

<comment><USER10> _"Norway is the third option. Norway ploughs the money into a sovereign wealth fund"_

The older I get the more impressed I become with how this was, and is, handled. Especially when you see how it could have tourned out ..

<comment><USER11> And almost did. Until the late 1980s/early 1990s they just squandered the money like the UK did, running large deficits. But they turned things around then.

<comment><USER12> Can we hire their government to come over here and steer for a little bit?

<comment><USER13> As soon as we find comparable oil wealth.

<comment><USER14> The UK had plenty of income from the North Sea - the difference being we squandered it and the Norwegians treated it as a long term investment:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/edmundconway/6505...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/edmundconway/6505670/North- Sea-oil-is-dragging-us-into-the-red.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I lived and worked in Oslo, Norway for the three last years. It was nice, but eventually got boring. And the dark winters were depressive.

Living in Berlin now, feels like a much more vivid city with a much more heterogenous society. Norway is very collectivistic.

<comment><USER16> For me it's the other way around. I grew up in Mexico, now working & living in Berlin, but I'd like to travel north and if possible stay for a time in Norway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "From Norway, even Sweden now looks gritty and hardscrabble, like something out of a Stieg Larsson novel."

Now, this is a case of national pride of course, but it really sounds like the author has heard just one side of a story here. My impression is that Sweden and Norway (like the other Scandinavian countries) are about equal in most aspects. That's not wrong, is it?

<comment><USER18> Right. (Swede here)

Norway and Sweden are virtually identical as far as I can tell. Though I haven't lived there, I work with norwegians and visit a few times a year since 2008.

Standard of living might be a bit higher, but not drastically.

Naturally, Salaries are a lot lower in Sweden, but so are the prices. Food prices in Norway are often double, rarely less than 150%.

One interesting detail is infrastructure. Due to all the mountains and fjords, building highways in Norway is super expensive. Lots of tunnels. Smaller roads tend to follow the natural, winding shape of the land, making them slow and long.

<comment><USER19> I've got tons of Swedish friends, some of who live in Oslo. They basically say that you can speak Swedish in Oslo nowadays because of how many Swedes have immigrated there. Why? Because there are better jobs and they pay more.

<comment><USER20> The same is true in every major scandinavian country. I think it's a case of several factors conspiring:

1\. There are more swedes in scandinavia than there are any other nationality.

2\. Young people move to the cities to find work.

3\. Youth unemployment rates are high across scandinavia.

4\. Ease of mobility across the scandinavian cultures. Olso in particular is close to sweden, and swedes understand norwegian with very little effort (and vice versa).

Thus, you have young swedes moving into all of the larger cities in scandinavia, including Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg.

<comment><USER21> "3. Youth unemployment rates are high across scandinavia."

No, there's a clear difference between Sweden/Finland and Norway/Denmark.

[http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_&...](http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_&met_y=unemployment_rate&idim=country:se&fdim_y=seasonality:sa&dl=en&hl=en&q=arbetsl%C3%B6shet+sverige#ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=unemployment_rate&fdim_y=age_group:y_lt25&fdim_y=seasonality:sa&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:se:no:dk:fi&ifdim=country_group&hl=sv&dl=sv)

<comment><USER20> I'd say the data backs my statement with the exception of Norway, but yes, especially high in Sweden and Finland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've lived most of my 24 years in Norway, but the lack of a proper startup eco-system (successful entrepreneurs, VCs and companies etc.) motivates me to move to Silicon Valley in a few years. Am I stupid, or just adventurous? :p

<comment><USER23> I have the opposite opinion. I've never experienced the system first-hand myself, but I know of a few who have. To me, it seems that as long as you have a business idea and actually check if it's possible to maintain, there's a lot of governmental and non-governmental organizations who'll support you financially.

I think Silicon Valley would be harder to start in, if not only for the (seemingly) fierce competition for VCs' money and because you might have to pay for the health insurance of your employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The article leaves out the most important aspect of Norwegian society: the distribution of wealth is fairly even. The difference between the affluent and less affluent is fairly small.

</comment><comment><USER25> On the subject of Norway, I can't resist recommending the brilliant dystopian sci-fi film The Bothersome Man. It complements that essay nicely.

</comment><comment><USER26> "Still, there are worse places in the world."

Really?

(Are there truly places more wealthy/luxurious than this?)

<comment><USER27> He meant the opposite.

But to answer your question: Liechtenstein and Luxembourg?

So, for all intents and purposes, no... At least, not for anyone who is not already ridiculously rich already and therefore you could live anywhere anyway.</comment></comment>


Ask PG: Can I change my handle and keep Karma? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a way? and if not can you do it for me, please? <comment><USER2> In "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy" <http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html> Clay Shirky explains why this is a bad idea:

"If you want a good reputation system, just let me remember who you are. And if you do me a favor, I'll remember it. And I won't store it in the front of my brain, I'll store it here, in the back. I'll just get a good feeling next time I get email from you; I won't even remember why. And if you do me a disservice and I get email from you, my temples will start to throb, and I won't even remember why. If you give users a way of remembering one another, reputation will happen, and that requires nothing more than simple and somewhat persistent handles.

Users have to be able to identify themselves and there has to be a penalty for switching handles. The penalty for switching doesn't have to be total. But if I change my handle on the system, I have to lose some kind of reputation or some kind of context. This keeps the system functioning."</comment>


Behind the scenes: Reinventing our Default Profile Pictures - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3104-behind-the-scenes-reinventing-our-default-profile-pictures <comment><USER2> This seems similar to the problem solved by Gravatar with their automatically generated avatars, as well as similar services like robohash[1].

[1]: <http://robohash.org/>

I've used several sites like StackOverflow that use the automatically generated images from Gravatar, and they really do make the site more pleasant. Additionally, they make it easier to visually follow who posted what in a discussion.

The one difference (unless I misunderstood the article) is that these sorts of images are generated randomly from a hash and so are basically guaranteed to be unique. I think this is a big advantage as having two identical avatars in a discussion would just make it visually confusing to see who is who.

</comment><comment><USER3> A little trick I learnt from a fellow designer: Make the default profile pic the opposite gender from what you guess the user to be. Users are fine staring at an androgynous avatar but they'll rapidly upload their own pic to avoid others thinking they're a woman/man.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is insightful especially since we have thought about this problem and had not come up with a solution. I am assuming all the icons will be unique though, else it may lead to a lot of confusion. Also, I believe people choose icons that they best identify with and if it is not unique their association with the icon may not be as strong.

Another thing I have experimented with is if you can upload a picture and create a hand drawn painting / image like Chris Dixon's or Fred Wilson's image which I think are brilliant in creating a brand and identity.

<comment><USER5> _I am assuming all the icons will be unique though, else it may lead to a lot of confusion_

I think this might just be a programmer's way of (over)thinking it : "the users are unique, so the avatars must be unique, or chaos ensues". In actuality it will just be mildly confusing at best, but nothing earth shattering. You still have the name next to the avatar for reference, as well as the project, and with several dozens of them, most will be different still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think these are great. Totally different, a really nice change on otherwise boring avatars!

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure if it is still the case, but HypeMachine used to have their default avatar be an angry looking picture of Dick Cheney.

I can only imagine the number of people rushing to upload their own image in place of our former veep.

</comment><comment><USER8> Or do something cool with the default. At the NASA astrobiology institute they have little astronaut silhouettes for the default profile pic:

<http://astrobiology-beta.arc.nasa.gov/directory/carey-sean/>

</comment><comment><USER9> They look very much like the original Mac OS icon/face.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/Mac_OS_Logo_wi...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/Mac_OS_Logo_with_Text.svg)

</comment><comment><USER10> Have the highest respect for the folks at 37signals, but this is definitely not a HN frontpage worthy post. I'm beginning to see almost every blog post by them on HN front page. No offense but it doesn't kindle the hacker's knowledge in any way.

<comment><USER11> I could not disagree more. I love posts like this. They took a very common idiom and re-imagined it in a fun and creative way. The insight into the process was interesting and really useful as a reference point for my own work.

More just like this please.

<comment><USER12> I have to agree. Getting insights on the small things like this demonstrate to me in simpler terms bigger ideas blogs like this communicate.</comment></comment></comment>


Nuclear Reactor Fits on a Semi and Cools Without External Power - <AUTHOR> http://www.drivethedistrict.com/2014/06/05/this-nuclear-power-plant-fits-on-a-semi-and-cant-melt-down/?utm_source=outbrain&utm_campaign=drivethedistrict_2014&utm_medium=cpc

<comment><USER2> I can't help but be skeptical on a number of levels here.

45MW is no where near "useful". A decent size normal plant produces 4000MW. Plus I'm not convinced that 100 mini reactors are safer than one well monitored big plant.

I'm also a little skeptical about the scale....45MW doesn't sound very "nuclear" to me. Nuclear scales badly on the low end. That combined with cooling based on convection and gravity suggests that this might be more along the lines of radioisotope driven rather than nuclear in the usual sense.

Hard to tell from an article with zero info, a nod toward Fukushima & green tech and a Grainy++ font.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm really curious why we haven't seen a datacenter with a nuclear reactor as power source. Presumably the regulatory hurdles and costs are very high, but it seems like a great long term way to cleanly power a ton of servers. Maybe you could use big evaporative cooling ponds to help cool the servers too.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks a bit bigger than your typical semi-articulated trailer... They make some good points favor nuclear power that I happen to agree with, but I think they do everyone a disservice if they claim this "can't melt down". There are aspects of design that make it a more robust reactor, intended to avoid problems that have contributed to previous melt downs. That doesn't mean it "can't melt down". The engineering needs to be reviewed and the designers need to continue to be vigilant. Operators need to be cautious and safe. I promise you there's SOME WAY you can make this melt down.</comment>