California's Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/California-Roadmap-to-Modify-the-Stay-at-Home-Order.pdf <comment><USER2> This entire plan is based on models that do not align with what we are seeing. The graph on slide two[1] of the official CA govt plan shows hospitalizations With Intervention rising exponentially, exceeding our hospital capacity in early June. The actual new infection data shows that the rate of new infections has been decreasing since at least 4/4 [2], meaning that the graph of active hospitalizations should be a bell curve with a maximum value of ~10,000 on ~4/20.

The mismatch between their models and the observed data does not engender confidence.

[1] [https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp- content/uploads/2020/04/California...](https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp- content/uploads/2020/04/California-Roadmap-to-Modify-the-Stay-at-Home- Order.pdf)

[2] [https://covid-19.direct/state/CA](https://covid-19.direct/state/CA)

<comment><USER3> Additionally, notice that the orange data points (actual hospitalizations) are significantly under the "With Intervention" plot. So why even include the slide? Clearly the assumptions behind the "With Intervention" plot do not match reality TODAY, let alone in a few weeks.

Not a good sign if people are making actual decisions based on this.

<comment><USER4> > Clearly the assumptions behind the "With Intervention" plot do not match > reality TODAY, let alone in a few weeks.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills with the way people are talking about this whole thing still being out of control, when data shows the situation is even better than the most optimistic models were predicting. And by that I mean, pretend I was on HN 3 weeks ago predicting 25K deaths in the USA by today. I'd have been downvoted into oblivion and told I was delusional. But here we are.

Clearly NYC was hit far harder than the rest of the country, but it seems like every state and municipality is simply basing their models on NYC case numbers scaled by population. I don't get it.

<comment><USER5> > I feel like I'm taking crazy pills with the way people are talking about > this whole thing still being out of control

A week ago, I remember reading how the Bay Area was bracing for a bracing for a surge and it was the calm before the storm. The Santa Clara county covid-19 dashboard told a different story: day-over-day, new cases were roughly the same for the past two weeks. 2+ weeks into the lockdown, there was obviously no surge coming.

[https://i.imgur.com/LrFZj3S.png](https://i.imgur.com/LrFZj3S.png)

Looking at that chart on the April 7th, nothing pointed to a surge.

<comment><USER6> Isn't this just California being in the "3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible" phase? I.e. number of new cases reported is limited by the number of tests that are able to be made?

<comment><USER7> Every region (and almost every country) is generally believed to be severely undercounting cases because of limited testing. There's not much reason to believe the problem is worse in California than elsewhere, and a severe surge would be evident in hospitalization and death rates no matter how bad testing is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A real plan would look like this [https://imgur.com/spemOeG](https://imgur.com/spemOeG) specifying the levels of restrictions and the metrics we will use to track the metrics. This allows people to understand what to expect the best possible. We already have huge uncertainty, we don't need to add uncertainty of government response on top of uncertainty of the virus. I think there is huge room to debate the numbers and what goes in what level, but this is what a real roadmap looks like.

This "roadmap" is quite scary as this is not a plan that would pass muster in in YC Boardroom. (1) The one chart with data is horribly innacurate: (a) It shows interventions causing worse than no interventions in the short term? (b) Shows hospitalizations increasing despite the fact that they have not for some time. (c) Shows "Surge Capacity" as a static value, which you would hope they are increasing if they really think this is the issue.

(2) It does not specify in any fashion what the different levels of coming back are. When can medical procedures resume? When can non-essential work where social distancing is easy resume (e.g. Los Angeles apparently has banned gardeners, who don't need to get near a soul)?

(3) If he believes masks work (as I do and as indicated in this presentation), why are masks not required and businesses shut down? Shouldn't we do the less painful and restrictive measure first before we shut down businesses?

(4) Most importantly there is not an actual goal clearly articulated here. Is he going for suppression? Is he going for mitigation?

I like many others are deeply upset by leadership from both parties, at all levels of government.

<comment><USER9> The reason why your solution is not good is because it pigeon holes the government into expectations. The government doesn't have a crystal ball as to how this all plays out, they need to have the flexibility to change how they want to respond to each situation without having to defend an ultimatum.

For example, even in your own example here are several situations you didn't account:

\-- The availability of tests for the public at large

\-- Whether we're doing temperature checks everywhere

\-- Whether we're requiring people to download a contact tracing app

\-- How much capacity we have in the hospital system even though cases are going down

\-- If we can find a drug that helps shorten the time people spend in a hospital

\-- If we find new information like masks don't help or they greatly help

\-- We run out of swabs but cases are low

There are a lot of factors that has to go into how the government changes the rules and while it might make it easier for the public to be at ease when the rules are hard, it also makes it a lot harder to adjust the rules.

I think being upset at the government is your right, but I also think you should channel your energy into something more productive and thank that at least in California we acted a lot faster than other areas of the country.

I think Governor Cuomo said something very interesting the other day, to paraphrase, when he was asked whether he should've started stay at home earlier and if that would've saved lives. Of course it would have, but the interviewer is not taking into account compliance and public sentiment. Likewise, for you, I think you're viewing this problem from a very individualistic point of view to get strict rules on what happens when, but you're not accounting for the edge cases where the government needs a backdoor to change the rules with new information and to play it close to public sentiment.

<comment><USER10> > I think Governor Cuomo said something very interesting the other day, to > paraphrase, when he was asked whether he should've started stay at home > earlier and if that would've saved lives. Of course it would have, but the > interviewer is not taking into account compliance and public sentiment.

I'm living on the West Coast, but the way _I_ remember the news from NY was that De Blasio wouldn't shutdown the city because he said he lacked the authority; he passed the buck to Cuomo to issue shutdown orders. Cuomo said that it was the Federal governments responsibility to organize and order shutdowns, passing the buck to Trump while implicitly admitting it was something that needed to be done. Trump in turn said that it was the states' responsibility. _Importantly_ , De Blasio and Cuomo knew the stance of the person they were passing the buck, which means they knew nothing would be done. Equally as importantly, they both ended up later ordering measures they previously refused, and otherwise contradicting their earlier selves.

Meanwhile, over here on the West Coast, we saw real leadership--making hard decisions in a moment of public paralysis.[1] Cuomo and De Blasio seem to be smart administrators, at least smart enough to recognize and follow expert, consensus opinion smacking them in the face. But they clearly suck as leaders.

I'm still astonished how quick we all are to retcon recent history. (And I don't mean to imply that _you_ are doing that, though I am responding to a sentiment that seems to defend Cuomo.) Similar revisionism happened after 9/11 and the Great Recession, where people ended up judging people and events according to narratives and sentiment that arose weeks and even days subsequent, despite obvious contradictions with then recently reported facts.

[1] Not just politicians. Noteworthy (and apropos HN) is how Seattle Flu Study researchers stuck their necks out and bent the law rather than twiddle their thumbs while the CDC fumbled.

<comment><USER11> I recommend you read this which details how Breed's actions seem somewhat politically motivated to steal show. Chiefly, there was an agreement that all counties would let their health director's announce the lock down order and Breed jumped ahead to announce it herself.

[https://missionlocal.org/2020/04/covid-atlantic-london- breed...](https://missionlocal.org/2020/04/covid-atlantic-london-breed/)

<comment><USER10> The story leaked that morning. The SF Chronicle reported on it at ~11:30AM, explaining "County authorities were expected to announce the move at 1 p.m. and gave a draft of the order to media outlets to prepare. The Chronicle is reporting the story after a television station published the news early." [https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/1239620219376504832](https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/1239620219376504832)

I knew Breed jumped the gun and thought it a little showy, but I _assumed_ she did it partly to get ahead of the rumor mill. Maybe her office coaxed the TV station (KTVU?) to leak it early?

Anyhow, this is all largely irrelevant. I purposefully didn't single out Breed in my previous comment. What's relevant is that these counties had clearly been working on this order long before the announcement, which means that for her part Breed would have known about it and approved of it days prior. Which is in stark contrast to mayors like De Blasio and most other politicians outside the West Coast and especially outside the Bay Area--Newsom was almost too late in ordering a state-wide shutdown, judging by how bad Los Angeles got. They were consistently days late, during a time when days and even hours mattered.

I'm not very concerned by Breed trying to capitalize on her decisions. What matters is that she has made decisions that could have easily resulted in intense blowback (and still might) while others sat around on their thumbs too afraid of the political costs. There's plenty to still criticize Breed for, but _relatively_ speaking she deserves some praise. And that's basically how the Mission Local article lands, too.

EDIT: See also Breed's first tweet at 11:57AM, which I _think_ comes before her press conference, though Youtube isn't showing the time of the video, just the date. [https://twitter.com/LondonBreed/status/1239626809865416704](https://twitter.com/LondonBreed/status/1239626809865416704) Speaking of which, it's highly annoying how the SF Chronicle and the Mercury News update their articles in ways that obscure the timeline of what was said and when.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Am I missing something? I don't see any kind of roadmap in here - it's just 6 generic talking points without any actual plan or timeline.

<comment><USER13> He said during the press conference that exact dates might be available in two-four weeks. He wants to see a further reduction in hospitalizations, an increase in testing, and a supply chain for PPE before committing to reopening dates.

<comment><USER12> Ok, thanks for the additional context. Was there any mention of actual targets for these things? Ex. "I'd like to see a 10% reduction of hospitalizations and at least 1M tests."

<comment><USER14> Why would there be? If something goes really wrong in one of those pushing it off a goal is going to be a problem.

<comment><USER12> Because without those things it's not a real plan. Anyone can say "we'll change policies when things get better". Defining what "better" means is the actual challenge and exactly what people as a whole are looking for.

<comment><USER15> Newsom said he was giving this information to the public in the interest of disclosure. He wants the public to know what they're doing behind the scenes. He said it was just what they've been talking about, not a plan. He stated that any of this could change at a moments notice and to keep on doing what CA residents are doing because we do seem to be plateauing a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would cynically summarize this as: lockdown is economically unsustainable. We need to go back to work. Let's hope we can control the epidemics this time better than before the lockdown. We _may_ have new tools this time (contact tracing, masks, test). But we're not really sure they'll work.

It's the exact same situation in France where we're planning to go out of lockdown in 4 weeks. It seems unclear that we'll have the needed tools by then. It's not even clear that they'll work but there are no other options.

At least the California roadmap isn't pretending they have the answers to the question they raised...

<comment><USER17> Isn't it amazing that an absolutely massive privacy invasion that is called contact tracing is already accepted as _inevitable_ if we are ever to be allowed to step out of our homes?

Talk about cynicism.

<comment><USER16> > if we are ever to be allowed to step out of our homes?

In France, we need to fill a form every time we want to leave our homes. Any non-work related trip should be limited to one hour and 1km, at most once a day.

This was decided with no vote or concertation within a couple of days. It also applies to people who live in rural area. They even fly drones in the mountains in order to catch lonely hikers breaking the rules. It's crazy.

Worth than that, part of the population is getting obsessed about rule- breakers, as if lone cyclists suddenly became a danger for the nation. The police is flooded with calls of people denouncing cyclists, hikers, or joggers...

Funny thing, our president said in his speech that this pandemics shall not restrict our freedom.

<comment><USER18> > Worth than that, part of the population is getting obsessed about rule- > breakers, as if lone cyclists suddenly became a danger for the nation. The > police is flooded with calls of people denouncing cyclists, hikers, or > joggers...

I've definitely noticed on Facebook, since the beginning of this, there's a lot of shaming of people doing X, virtue signalling, I'm doing this right, how about you? etc. There's a huge political correctness and peer pressure angle to the social distancing policies.

Most people seem onboard with this so far, but I think at some point, the tide will shift. There will be growing social unrest. We're a social species, we're not meant to live in isolation indefinitely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I personally think we need a county-by-county approach. There is a high variation of the infection at local levels. All the news is currently about how bad New York is and it's true but we're not all New York. [http://www.countycovid19.com/](http://www.countycovid19.com/)

<comment><USER20> It's true that regions are different, but I don't see how that translates. Can you be specific? How would a plan for Queens County, NY differ from one for Waukesha WI, except in trivial stuff like dates?

Some outbreaks are smaller, but you'll note that they all leveled off at roughly the same time and on the same schedule. That's because we locked down on "New York's schedule"[1]. If we didn't, these places which seem to have "handled" the outbreak would look like New York.

The plans should absolutely be regional in that the lockdown rules should be based on infection rate thresholds, etc... But to do that they all need exactly the same per-capita testing resources. It's the same plan.

[1] Really that's not true. We locked down on Seattle's schedule, because they moved first on most things. Seattle had by far the biggest early outbreak, but peaked earlier, peaked lower, and is now one of the better managed areas in the country. Cuomo gets all the attention but it's really Jay Inslee who saved us all.

<comment><USER21> Different regions have dramatically different population densities, and don't necessarily need shelter-in-place rules. In NYC, shelter-in-place is probably the only feasible way to reduce social interactions when case-count is exploding, but in Boise, where people mostly live in detached housing and drive cars and cases are measured in the hundreds, it might be sufficient to eliminate large gatherings and shut down restaurants. It's not just a matter of thresholds.

For all the various politicians are talking about "following the science", there's very little actual science backing up these measures. We're pretty much making it up as we go, and you would be hard-pressed to find "scientific" justifications for most of what we're currently doing.

<comment><USER20> > don't necessarily need shelter-in-place rules

Is there a cite for that? Because that's not the way the data looks.

Everywhere was growing with roughly the same exponent before lockdown. The numbers were bigger in NY because it grew longer pre-detection, but there's no reason to believe that everywhere else was any different. Really this disease's growth constant looks shockingly consistent almost everywhere in the world.

> It's unclear to me why we're making these policies at a federal level.

We... aren't. Literally every existing lockdown regime is being enforced at the state level or lower. For the Boise example you mention, the relevant regulation is a stay in place order from Gov. Little in late March.

Edit to show the point better: Go here (easily the best visualization site, FWIW), scroll to the bottom where you can see a log chart of per-capita infection rates normalized to a single "start time" metric, and compare the Idaho chart with the New York one.

[https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid- visualization/](https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/)

They are almost _exactly_ the same chart, modulo a vertical offset and a kink in NY data in the second week (which consensus says is the testing backlog finally catching up).

If Idaho's detached housing and automobile dependence was reducing its rate of infection spread, it should be visible in the slope of this line. And it clearly isn't.

<comment><USER21> _" Everywhere was growing with roughly the same exponent before lockdown."_

No, they weren't. You're just asserting that this is true. There's effectively no way to know _what_ the doubling rate was in a place like Boise before the national lockdown, because the numbers were in the low single digits:

[https://covid-19.direct/metro/Boise?tab=glance](https://covid-19.direct/metro/Boise?tab=glance)

But even ignoring that...the site you're linking to shows a wide range of slopes on the per-state graph. You just _think_ they look the same, because the log Y-axis compresses dramatic differences in scale, particularly near the origin. New York, NJ, Michigan and Louisiana are well above the diagonal line, while states like Wyoming, Montana, Vermont, Maine etc. are all well below it.

<comment><USER20> Idaho on 20 March was at 23 confirmed cases (above the "low single digits" metric you picked, but you can pick other points too and get the same result). On 31 March it hit 515.

That's a doubling period of less than three days. It was spreading every bit as fast as New York was. It looks like exactly the same chart with a different constant factor. Yet you insist that these identical results are somehow due to different underlying behavior? Why? Where's the research showing that?

Because the pretty obvious hypothesis is that the disease was spreading the same way because it's the same disease and doesn't care about whether you live in Boise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> From indicator #1:

> _How prepared is our state to test everyone who is symptomatic?_

Another view is that opening the economy should involve testing people who are NOT symptomatic.

Quoting from an MIT Technology Review article ([https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/08/998785/stop- covi...](https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/08/998785/stop-covid-or- save-the-economy-we-can-do-both/)):

> _The key, says Romer, is repeatedly testing everyone without symptoms to > identify who is infected. (People with symptoms should just be assumed to > have covid-19 and treated accordingly.) All those who test positive should > isolate themselves; those who test negative can return to work, traveling, > and socializing, but they should be tested every two weeks or so._

...

> _He calls the $2 trillion legislation passed by Congress "palliative care" > for the economy. If you took $100 billion and put it into testing, he says, > we would "be far better off."_

Obviously for medical intervention purposes, you need to sometimes test people with symptoms. But for epidemiological and economic ones, it may be more important to test those without. So maybe neither is wrong, just different purposes.

Incidentally, the same article presents a reasonable argument that while keeping the economy shut down causes damage, opening it too early might cause more _long-term economic_ damage than it prevents in the short term. If so, choosing between the economy and saving lives might be a false choice.

<comment><USER23> > Another view is that opening the economy should involve testing people who > are NOT symptomatic.

Testing people with symptoms is a waste of tests. When tests are in short supply assume everyone with symptoms is positive, isolate them and test their contacts who don't have symptoms. As of last week, Boston Medical Center had a 44% positive rate on the tests they were running on symptomatic people. They could find more positive cases per test by testing people without symptoms.

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.27.20043968v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.27.20043968v1)

<comment><USER24> > Testing people with symptoms is a waste of tests.

It's not, though. Someone suffering from severe symptoms that aren't COVID-19 may have other treatment options available, and may be placed in hospitals with less strict isolation requirements. In a perfect world we would have isolation beds and supplies for everybody, but that still doesn't get around the fact that treatment for COVID-19 and bacterial pneumonia are two different beasts, and both lead to similar end results.

<comment><USER23> > Someone suffering from severe symptoms that aren't COVID-19 may have other > treatment options available

And someone suffering from severe symptoms has other diagnostic options: a chest X-ray or CT.

If your goal is to find people with coronavirus (and this should be your goal if you want to slow its spread) you'll almost always find more of them by testing people without symptoms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why is it that hospitalizations are expected to keep increasing indefinitely even with the interventions in place? I assume the graph represents point-in- time hospitalizations and not accumulated # of interventions? If so it would be nice to see some of their assumptions, like average expected duration of hospitalization. I just don't understand why hospitalizations keep going up in this roadmap when every country that has put strict social distancing measures in effect starts to see a leveling-off and decrease in hospitalization after around the 3 week mark. In short, I wish they could put more details into what goes into these projections, and explain why they expect to see hospitalization number to keep going up even withs social distancing. Unless someone messed up and put the graph of accumulated hospitalizations since beginning of year instead of point-in-time # of hospitalizations.

<comment><USER26> > why hospitalizations keep going up in this roadmap when every country that > has put strict social distancing measures in effect starts to see a > leveling-off and decrease in hospitalization after around the 3 week mark

Because that's not a safe assumption. Hospitalizations are still going up in areas across the US, even in areas of US that are now on week 4 or 5 of lockdown.

Michigan, for example, is on week 4 and while the growth of the curve is slowing, hospitalizations still continue to rise every single day - [https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2020/04/13/mich...](https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2020/04/13/michigan- gov-whitmer-coronavirus-curve-starting-to-flatten-in-parts-of-state/)

<comment><USER25> Michigan's order started on March 23rd, so just 3 weeks and 1 day ago. I guess next week we'll have better data on the impact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's worth looking at Denmark, Austria, Czechia and other European countries that have already started loosening restrictions this week. Like California, they locked down fast and flattened the curve. Now, Denmark is opening school and all three (plus Germany and parts of Italy) are opening smaller non- essential shops.

I haven't found great info on how well these countries have implemented contact tracing, but they do have per capita testing rates much higher than the US (and _vastly_ higher than California).

Here's an interesting article that describes some of the specific precautions Denmark is taking as they open up some schools tomorrow: [https://www.thelocal.dk/20200413/schools-and-day-care- centre...](https://www.thelocal.dk/20200413/schools-and-day-care-centres-gear- up-for-staggered-and-restricted-reopening)

<comment><USER16> I don't think Europe is doing particularly well either. Well, at least France where I live.

France is going to release lockdown in a month. My impression is that this is mostly for economical reasons because it was unsustainable. I'm not confident we'll deal with the epidemics much better this time. The gvt still hasn't released their roadmap, but they hope to improve their testing capacity, the availability of masks, and to enable contact tracing using some hypothetical app. There's no silver bullet, but we just hope that it'll work, otherwise we'll have to go into lockdown again (or not if it appears too costly). Our gvt hasn't communicated clearly on the possible outcomes. The president speech was mostly unsatisfying politician rhetoric, trying to avoid the fact that they didn't anticipate the crisis, and that they had no satisfactory solutions.

<comment><USER27> "France is going to release lockdown in a month."

I highly doubt that will happen. The preferred approach seems to be incremental opening to try and control the transmission rate. There might be one or two very stupid leaders who want to open things up with a bang (cough Trump cough), but the European nations currently easing restrictions seem to being doing so very cautiously.

<comment><USER16> You are correct. Most shops and schools are expected to re-open but things won't be back to normal. Restaurants and cafe will remain closed, and people at risk should remain home. They still need to figure out the details.

It seems that France is not much better prepared now that we were before the lockdown (masks/tests/contract tracing apps are still nowhere to be seen at that point).

As for our leaders, they distinguish themselves in their rhetorics and in some symbolic measures, but I have the feeling everyone is following the same path.

Exceptions are some Asian countries who seem to have the epidemics under control). They are the big winners...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It doesn't make any sense that we continue the lockdown in its current state.

Hospitals in California aren't overrun. We were insisted upon that the "flattening the curve" was to prevent the medical system from being overwhelmed. With what we've been able to do, we're not even close to having overrun hospitals. By now, we should have ramped up the system to account for greater numbers of severe cases.

Given that, we should quarantine the vulnerable population and allow the rest of the population to get things back to normal. Otherwise, we'll come out of this with no herd immunity, potentially making the last month a total loss, and creating further loss in the near future.

<comment><USER29> Agreed, and it's worth noting that the death rate from economic damage could be significantly higher than the death rate from coronavirus.

For each 1% increase in unemployment, several thousand people die. Unemployment substantially increases the risk of mortality.

<comment><USER30> Let's say the unemployment jumps to 30%, which is conceivable, but awful.

That would mean 200-300k people die from increased unemployment. Terrible.

The new virus's worst case is more along the lines of 2-3 million, and at that point we're probably in health care meltdown which would make it much worse than even those staggering numbers.

So yes, we don't want to shut down the economy for 6 months, but it's critical that we don't swerve too far out of control. We can pay people to stay alive. We can't wave a financial wand and solve the virus.

<comment><USER7> We can pay people to stay alive in the short term. In the long term, the economy is what allows the average American to live better than the average Ghanaian. 6 months of an essentials only economy - a subsistence economy, it's typically called - would do incredible and irreparable damage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is a very strange Mckinsey-esque document. 1) Is this really a roadmap? 2) What does "Modify the Stay-at-Home Order" actually mean? 3) Is the state staking CA's economy and wellbeing on its ability to accomplishing the impossible?

</comment><comment><USER32> Why is the April section of the "removal of intervention" curve below the "with intervention" curve? Particularly since there are actual "hospitalizations" data points plotted along the former?

<comment><USER33> Because the graph was probably made in Powerpoint or Illustrator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'd like to see something that's clear and doesn't risk so much on rapid accurate testing and tracking of... everyone with significant delayed feedback. Something that could be done in rural areas or even developing countries. A reliable next step in the Hammer and the Dance.

I found this: [http://pandemicbreak.org/](http://pandemicbreak.org/)

<comment><USER35> Anecdote: My wife and I were tested at Stanford today. There was no line, the process took 5-10 minutes and we never left the car. We were told to expect results in 24 hours.

Widespread testing might not be that far off and feedback might not be that delayed.

Edit: Since HN won't let me comment fast enough I figured I'd share the information here.

We were referred to Stanford by our PCP yesterday. We were not members of Stanford Health prior. The process looked like this:

\- Video chatted with our PCP yesterday evening, who referred us to Stanford Health.

\- Video chatted a few hours later with a physician from Stanford Health who approved the test.

\- Scheduled the test for noon the next day

We are not overtly symptomatic for most of the symptoms (at the moment, it has been worse) and have not travelled abroad in a relevant timespan.

<comment><USER36> Are you part of Stanford Health Care or is the test site open to public?

<comment><USER37> Similar but more general question: is testing available to everyone, e.g. random asymptomatic passersby?

<comment><USER36> I found a source[0]. Stanford was testing a larger population to get an estimate of the spread.

[0] [https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/04/04/stanford- researcher...](https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/04/04/stanford-researchers- test-3200-people-for-covid-19-antibodies/)

<comment><USER38> That reference describes a separate antibody survey that Stanford ran on April 3 and 4. It's unrelated to great-great grandparent's test today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There is data suggesting that the current number of recognized infections is just 6% of the total infection count. This also means that case fatality rates are vastly overstated, since the rate would drop if we had enough testing to recognize the true total case count: [https://reason.com/2020/04/12/official- covid-19-numbers-repr...](https://reason.com/2020/04/12/official- covid-19-numbers-represent-just-6-of-total-infections-a-new-analysis- suggests/)

A new antibody study in LA may give us better numbers: [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-10/coronavi...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-10/coronavirus- antibodies-testing-los-angeles-county)

My one hope is that the leaders of these states (CA OR WA) do not follow the "noble lie" strategy adopted by the WHO and others to manipulate the population. Insofar as coercive orders are tolerated at all, they must be accompanied by truthful metrics, believable goalposts, and a practical mindset that doesn't aim for perfect outcomes.

</comment><comment><USER40> _> Slide 1: How prepared is our state to test everyone who is symptomatic?_

Positive tests could trigger notifications based on data collected by voluntary contact tracing apps. By only testing the symptomatic, mathematical models will continue to lack data for the subset of population that is already immune.

We also need to test asymptomatic cases that would benefit from therapeutics which work best in early stages. We need to avoid cases reaching late-stage, where e.g. > 80% of people on ventilators do not survive. The federal government has allowed pharmacies to administer tests, once these become available.

 _> Slide 5: Have we worked with businesses to support physical distancing practices and introduced guidelines to provide health checks when employees or the general public enter the premises?_

Is this alternate A/B work days for employees to reduce building occupancy by 50%? Do "health checks" mean forehead or long-distance thermal sensor temperature measurements before employees (customers?) enter buildings?

 _> Slide 6: Do we have the ability to quickly communicate the need to reinstate these measures?_

Existing SMS text messaging for government alerts. No need for dedicated/mandatory apps.

<comment><USER41> Yes, each county should have the ability to send sms messages countywide via their emergency management body.

That already exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Thanks for sharing this. The first slide throws two pretty big hurdles to reopening - testing and contact tracing. While Google and Amazon are working on contact tracing, it's not clear when it'll be widely implemented or when tests will become prevalent. If the stay-at-home order is conditioned on the implementation of those two indicators, then we may be waiting for a while.

<comment><USER14> Contact tracing requires shoe leather not tech.

<comment><USER43> Either works. South Korea applied tech pretty effectively.

<comment><USER44> They applied the combination of shoe leather and tech effectively. I think tech on its own without a robust public health infrastructure would be pretty ineffective, but the latter on its own could do well.

[https://khn.org/news/how-do-we-exit-the-shutdown-hire-an- arm...](https://khn.org/news/how-do-we-exit-the-shutdown-hire-an-army-of- public-health-workers/)

<comment><USER42> I totally agree that only the combo works. But my concern is that we don't have the cohesive, political and business structure to pull off something like that.

<comment><USER14> I hope you remember next November that competence matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This has far less content and fewer concrete action items than the lowest-tier Mckinsey or Accenture report. And that is setting a very low bar.

The roadmap appears to be "we have no idea, so we'll set un-measurable goals and pretend we've hit them, once the collateral damage of economic collapse is unbearably large"

<comment><USER20> I think that's largely true, because no one has good answers here. All reasonable plans cannot be feasibly financed at the state level in the USA.

Still, it seems like a properly framed argument like yours would need to start with "They have no plan" and then move on to... a plan.

There are no good plans. At the end of the day we stay home, wait for infection rates to go down, and then spend a ton of money on testing and tracing. The other alternatives are to re-spawn the outbreak or to wait for a vaccine, both of which are even more expensive.

But that plan needs to happen at the federal level, California doesn't have the money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> My favorite line so far. Opening up areas of the country in an uncoordinated fashion is like having a peeing section in a pool...

<comment><USER47> It's not actually a very good analogy.

A peeing section in a pool simply diffuses and doesn't spontaneously generate another high-density peeing section elsewhere in the pool.

We _wish_ Covid-19 would simply diffuse down with distance.

<comment><USER28> Did you ever swim in a pool and wonder why your eyes burned?

That's not the chlorine alone. The ammonia in the piss combines with the chlorine to create chloramine, which causes the eye burning and respiratory problems associated with pool water. It doesn't even take that much piss in the first place, and once it diffuses in the water, it will affect the whole pool.

I'd say it's an excellent analogy. Whether it's noticeable or not, if one person pisses in the pool, everyone's swimming through their piss.

<comment><USER48> That's a bit of a myth. Sweat also reacts with chlorine to create chloramine, so it doesn't actually require any urine. Cf. [https://www.premierhealth.com/your-health/articles/women- wis...](https://www.premierhealth.com/your-health/articles/women-wisdom- wellness-/pool-chlorine-can-t-live-without-how-to-live-with)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This doesn't say anything about when I can see my family again.

<comment><USER50> You can come into the state and you can leave the state, what state-level circumstance is preventing you?

I'm grasping at straws but maybe you are estranged and your family is on the street but they won't let you into the hobo-hotel?

Every other circumstance I can think of is a Federal issue closing borders for people that aren't Americans.

<comment><USER49> Isn't CA under lockdown? Only supposed to leave your apartment for groceries right?

<comment><USER51> They're not saying you can't return to your family, they're just saying not to congregate in large numbers. I've moved back from my apartment (Chicago) to the suburbs to stay with my parents until this lockdown ceases. Of course, we both started isolating two weeks before I came home, and they picked me up so I wouldn't have to take the train.

Just use your head, don't do things that will risk spreading the disease. Taking public transit to/from your family a few times a week is very dangerous. Going someplace and staying there is not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Maybe I'm the idiot but its pretty clear as to whats on the roadmap.

>defines a goal or desired outcome and includes the major steps or milestones needed to reach it.

Yeah its missing some specifics but there are certainly goals stated before the decision to relax the stay at home policy is reached.

</comment><comment><USER53> I don't understand why at risk people don't just stay at home. Why lock everybody else up? Enough is enough, kids need to go back to school and people need to go back to work.

This document seems hand-wavy and doesn't answer anything.

<comment><USER54> One passibility is: if some people are going to work then everyone's going to have to work, or else risk falling behind. It's the prisoner's dilemma, someone who wants to stay home would end up having to go to work anyways. This has already happened with the laughable amount of people considered "essential" when the governor of NYC made it optional (investment bankers taking the subway to go to work!)

Taken like that it becomes more like restrictions on pollution or laws against corporate espionage in how the government shapes the economy already.

<comment><USER53> >One passibility is: if some people are going to work then everyone's going to have to work, or else risk falling behind.

Then that's the reality. Again, I don't believe we should be forced to be locked down by the government, let alone some rinky dink local government politician on a power trip. Leave it to the individual.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I see a dozen questions with no answers.

Where is our leadership when we need it?

</comment><comment><USER56> For everyone who has tracked California's response over the past month (the good and the bad), the #1 problem is obvious:

a) California's testing and reporting infrastructure is _absolutely_ abysmal, arguably the worst in the country

b) there are very few signs that it will improve anytime soon

California leaders haven't had to confront this publicly because much of the last one month had been focused almost exclusively on reducing fatalities and increasing hospital capacity. Testing matters but not _that_ much for the most acute cases.

It matters a lot more in determining the the rate of incline/decline of new infections, both numbers that will increasingly matter more as fatalities and hospitalizations stabilize.

<comment><USER57> I would argue that reducing the rate of deaths is the #1 problem, followed by reducing the rate of infections, followed by being able to determine the rate of infections.

So, unless you believe california results are 10x off, based on empirical results and your assertion that the testing and reporting infrastructure is "the worst", the state of california has at least done a fair job of managing its effort in the face of a limited resource. Knowing in detail what's going on is strictly secondary to reducing deaths.

<comment><USER56> I believe California has done an amazing job so far on the whole; "fair" would be a gross understatement. So I think we are in agreement there.

That said, I do think as new casualties and hospitalizations are on the decline, test reporting and infrastructure matters disproportionately more for the next phase (planning for gradual reopening) and phases after.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> They should quit padding the numbers if they're so concerned about minimizing fatalities.

A man gets hit by a bus and tests positive for Coronavirus, I don't care what the science has to say about it, that is not a Coronavirus death and you can't change my mind.

<comment><USER59> Do you think it's likely that 26,000 people happened to get hit by a bus right after getting diagnosed with the coronavirus?

4% of the patients diagnosed with coronavirus in the US have already died (and many more of the currently diagnosed patients are still sick and have not yet died but will in the future). It's wildly implausible that a meaningful fraction of 4% of that sample could have coincidentally died within a few weeks of getting diagnosed with the coronavirus, but for entirely unrelated reasons. If 4% of the population were dying every few weeks, humanity would be virtually extinct within a few years. Your "stat-padding" theory doesn't pass a basic smell test.

You can construct far-fetched pathological scenarios for how 1 or 2 people might be wrongly identified as coronavirus victims, but you can't explain away 26k deaths with baseless conspiracy theories.

<comment><USER60> 2.8 million Americans die in a normal year, or about 7,500/day.

The risk factors for normal causes of death are basically identical to those of covid-19 ( age, vascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, ect). I think it is reasonable to wonder how many of the people who died from covid-19 were already loosing a battle with pre-existing condition.</comment></comment></comment>


Matt Cutts: Sharing a search story - <AUTHOR> http://mattcutts.com/blog/search-plus-your-world/

<comment><USER2> I may be in the minority here, but the focus on social search seems like a red herring.

Kudos to the search team for trying things to see what works, but this feels awkward to me. The implementation gives me a "hotel california" feeling -- that your social relationships follow you where you go, no matter what you're doing. Heck, it's much easier to be anonymous offline than online nowadays. This really feels like it's trying to be all things to all people.

The search results page is starting to look like salad. What used to be simple and streamlined is now jumbled together. It honestly looks like an implementation that server-side developers would create as a response to competition from Facebook and Bing. Seriously, the SERP is on a path to jump- the-shark territory.

I made the leap to DuckDuckGo and have basically quit Google (save for my legacy email.) As I said, I may be in the minority here, but this just feels like a slow crawl toward mediocrity.

<comment><USER3> Same here, I just made DuckDuckGo my default search engine. Going to give it a try for a few days and see how it goes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure about this one. On the one hand relevant search results and less spam are good things for me. On the other hand, one of the key things I have always enjoyed about the Web is being exposed to new people, new ideas and things that were unexpected but interesting. With the increasing focus on social and relevant it seems like the gap for unexpected and interesting is closing. To some extent aggregation sites like HN and Reddit take this role, but they also tend to be too focused and relevant.

The web used to remind me of the story of Butte, MT. Butte apparently had a mini gold rush that quickly died down when people realized there wasn't much gold. Many of the gold prospectors left, because no gold meant no fortune. For some of those who stayed, however, the hills yielded a larger fortune in Copper, Silver and other metals.

The web used to be like that. You went looking for gold, and occasionally found a fortune in copper and silver instead. As search becomes more and more focused, however, there's no more copper or silver. Just a dead end, and a sign that says "No Gold.".

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure if Google gets this, but the interaction between social search and general keyword search is pretty small. As others have noted, I rarely want results for general searches from those in my social network. And when I do, I actually would prefer to specifically invoke it. And if anything, when I do a social search I want the opposite of what they're doing -- I want social info from Twitter/Facebook of public info from people NOT in my network.

I feel Google is so concerned that they may be losing a monetization opportunity that they're screwing over their customer user experience. Google, your next billion dollar business is not Facebook or Twitter.

And BTW, if Matt is reading, WTF is up with GMail using contextual information, even if I turn it off? This to me is a HUGE no no. Maybe I turned it off incorrectly, but if someone like me gets it wrong, the mechanism to turn it off is broken.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hope this is and the obvious interest of twitter and facebook to get in on this action represents a crack in the closing web.

And in some sense, it always seemed like that's what G+ was all about: a moat to make sure they'd keep get/access to all the information that was flowing into closed social networks. Being included in search results is a powerful incentive.

The next step has to be open APIs, though, right? I should be able to add social signals outside of G+ and other closed social networks.

</comment><comment><USER7> Can I please have my old Google search back? The one that returns unpersonalized search results by default, didn't use javascript tricks in the URLs of search returns just to track clicks, and didn't have an annoying hideaway thing on the right side?

Pretty please?

<comment><USER8> 1\. Go to <https://www.google.com/preferences?hl=en> and disable your "personalized" results.

2\. Install "Google Search link fix" for FF [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/google-search...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/google-search-link-fix/) or "A Little Privacy" for Chrome [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kjhmfidomefgpbbebo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kjhmfidomefgpbbebodnbakelpabilga)

3\. I don't have an annoying hideaway thing?

<comment><USER9> Annoying hideaway thing = site preview I believe, that pops out when you hover over the right edge of the search result. I find it incredibly annoying.

<comment><USER8> Oh right. If you wait for one to come up, and then click the "X" in the corner of the preview pane, they won't come up again unless you specifically hover over the >> button for each result.

If you want something more permanent, I think this userscript <http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/90394> or these AdBlock rules will block it, but I haven't tried them:

      google.com##.vspi
      google.com##.vspib
      google.com###vspb

(remember to modify if you're using e.g. google.com.au)

<comment><USER7> I'll have to give those a try. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like and admire Matt, but I disagree 100% with his assertion (and Google as a whole) that searching for something and seeing pictures of me and my friends in the result is "magic." It's banal, and worse it's useless. I already know about those pictures -- obviously, because Google knows about them only because I know about them.

When I search I'm looking for answers, or at least, I'm looking for information I don't have on hand.

Cluttering up the results with information I already have available to me, and worse, modifying them in subtle ways based on information I already have available to me, is not helpful. It's the opposite of helpful.

I really think Google is opening themselves up to a competitor who is nothing but simpler and easier to use, in much the way that AltaVista and others opened themselves up to Google taking over by getting too complicated and becoming less and less useful.

Time will tell if I'm right.

<comment><USER11> Actually, I'm not sure Matt already knew about that picture of him. But regardless, not everyone is "looking for answers" when they search. Plenty of people type things into Google like "Christmas" or the name of the university they went to, and the majority of them would be amazed and delighted to see search results with long-forgotten pictures of loved ones opening presents or status updates about their college buddies' get-together at the last homecoming.

<comment><USER12> Here are the current search trends, you tell me which would benefit from posts from acquaintances.

<http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends>

<comment><USER11> "photos", "girl scout cookies", and the dozen or so politicians.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's a cute trick, and undoubtedly will attract interest. But the interest is as likely to be negative as positive - people think it's creepy. Has Google focus-group tested these changes? Has Google asked focus groups of random people (not Google employees) what they actually want in search? Or is the decision making process basically something like, "This is cool!" (from Google programmers) and "This will help us make money!" (from Google executives)?

Because I think it's the latter.

A search engine's value is in bringing new information to people. Matt Cutts knew that he was playing Werewolf with Brian Fitzpatrick. That photo of Matt Cutts returned to Matt Cutts' search was _duplicate information_. It's a dupe! Cutts already knew that! It might be new to anyone else in the world, but not Matt Cutts!

Google is busy attaching a tube from our anus back to our mouth to facilitate information consumption. (You can call it an echo chamber or living in a bubble if you like.) This will not end well.

<comment><USER6> Using focus group testing in the way you're describing is like the French revolutionary who says "There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them."

Google is notoriously one of the most (if not the most) data-driven companies in the history of the world. That doesn't mean they never make bad decisions, but I'm sure they've taken user behavior into account.

The duplication you mention isn't a bug. Just because I've seen something before, doesn't mean I never want to see it again, especially if it's relevant. Searches are often re-searches for information you've seen before. The most important thing is relevance, and your social interactions are relevant.

I think what many here are missing is that the exposure of social in search results is only the first-order effect. But the social signals themselves probably affect your personal relevancy algorithm, too. I imagine that's a valuable addition, and it will only get better with more social data.

<comment><USER14> Yes, they took user behavior into account and realized that it didn't matter because they have to get into the social space. Remember, social media success is tied into all Google employee bonuses. They are willing to make search worse in order to make G+ better.

Yes, relevance is everything. When I search for something in a search engine 95 times out of 100 I am searching for something new. Occasionally I am searching for something that I already found when searching before. I am never looking for photos of myself. I mean please.

This is corporate spin and you are eating it up! :)

<comment><USER6> _Yes, they took user behavior into account and realized that it didn't matter because they have to get into the social space._

I think you have the causality wrong. They realized they had to get into the social space and integrate it into their product because of user data.

 _They are willing to make search worse in order to make G+ better._

I think the point of this announcement is that they make no such distinction. Search and Plus are the same product.

 _When I search for something in a search engine 95 times out of 100 I am searching for something new._

Thank you for your data point. I'm sure Google has many others. Not only that, but how much of that is because you haven't even thought of using search for information retrieval purposes yet? How often do you access your photos? How often do you access your friends' photos? What's your primary way to access them? What percentage of that access would be made better using search?

 _I am never looking for photos of myself. I mean please._

I bet you're the exception.

<comment><USER15> """I think you have the causality wrong. They realized they had to get into the social space and integrate it into their product because of user data."""

They did it because of "user data" alright, but not in the way he means it. User's haven't told them: "wow, it would be great if you had Plus integrated into search".

Their data was more like: "hey, this social thing is lucrative, numbers show we can milk our users more if we get a stronghold in this area".

""" _I am never looking for photos of myself. I mean please._

I bet you're the exception."""

And I bet you that he is not.

At least non in Google searches --people weren't looking for photos of themselves there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Since "don't be evil" was abandoned a while a go in favor of greed (whatever your opinion may be on particular issues, doing a complete 180 on net neutrality to get in bed with telco was pretty definitively ended the credibility of that slogan), Google may try to make "don't be creepy" it's new motto, at least internally.

Because this, and some previous stuff like the introduction of Buzz, or the way Google fails to comprehend European concepts of privacy, shows that Google's company culture is deeply autistic when it comes to understanding how people experience its service.

Google is basically the corporate version of that socially awkward guy that tries to have way too personal conversations with you in which it becomes apparent that he knows way too much about you. If you could pepperspray a company, Google would be blind by now.</comment>


SpotCloud.com is now open to the public - <AUTHOR> http://spotcloud.com/

<comment><USER2> Nothing against SpotCloud team, but here is my blog post about why I think the idea will not work any time soon:

[http://somic.org/2011/01/19/my-doubts-about-idea-behind- spot...](http://somic.org/2011/01/19/my-doubts-about-idea-behind-spotcloud- com)</comment>


STL Hackathon Canceled After Social Backlash - <AUTHOR> http://philipithomas.com/2012/08/stl-hackathon-canceled-after-social-media-backlash/ <comment><USER2> Sad story. Back in the 90's I used to eat with friends at an Unamas! mexican restaurant which had a jar where you could drop your business card for a chance to win a free lunch. I asked them what they did with the cards, they didn't know. So I asked them how could I collect my free lunch if I won? They said "You will get a coupon which you can bring in for a lunch." I said "When does the winner get picked?" and they said "Every Friday, someone comes by to get the cards, they pick the winner over the weekend. So on Friday I went over at 5:30 and waited for the cards to be picked up. In comes a well dressed lady with another jar, same labelling, drops it off and picks up the one with cards. I intercept her on the way out, and ask what she is doing with the cards.

As it turns out, she was the receptionist for a recruiter in the valley, they took all of the business cards, added these people to the list of people who they told their clients were 'looking for jobs' and then tried to move them from one job to another. I pointed out that Calfornia state law required all of that information to be available at the point where you entered the 'contest.' She said she would pass it on.

On Wednesday when I went in the jar was gone.

<comment><USER3> That would also be illegal in the European Union. The Data Protection Directive requires all uses of personal data be opt in (ie you cannot use someone's personal data for a purpose they didn't opt in to), that personal data be kept accurately (you cannot say that someone is looking for a job if they are not) and it also limits how companies can contact you (so the recruiter would not be legally able to contact you nd they found a job)

<comment><USER3> I think it would also be illegal to share that personal data with other bodies (so the restaurant cannot give the business cards to someone else). It's all kinds of illegal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm pretty disappointed with Teralogix on this, front and back.

I reached out to them early to offer help since their organizer wasn't plugged in to the local dev or startup scenes. There was no follow up. Then when that nasty legal note was discovered, I reached out again and found out that their intent was to make it an _offer_ to join Teralogix and be funded by them, not a requirement. Alas, they fumbled both and I'm disappointed we won't get to see some new ideas from this event.

<comment><USER5> I feel like hackathons are going mainstream. Companies will run hackathons because they "heard" it helps with hiring, but won't change any of their standard legal paperwork for IP developed on their premises.

<comment><USER6> The sponsored hackathon is the new 40 year old guy throwing on a leather jacket attending indie shows to sign bands.

The value of the hackathon is rapidly diminishing. In fact I'd venture to say once they started to be formally organized they started to devalue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is an "STL Hackathon"? Is it related to the C++ standard library STL? The STL file format? Has it been mentioned on HN before?

<comment><USER8> I was so shocked that St Louis _had_ anything close to resembling a "hacker scene" that I swore it had to be some SF event being overly clever with its name.

I live about 30 minutes from STL (or as the cool kids say: StL) so maybe I'll check out their monthly Code Til Dawn <http://www.meetup.com/allnightlong/#past>

<comment><USER9> There's some great high-tech, hacker, and startup stuff going on in Saint Louis:

 _Yearly_

The Strange Loop Conference: <https://thestrangeloop.com/>

_Monthly_

Lambda Lounge: <http://lambdalounge.org/>

Saint Louis JavaScript Meetup (STLJS): <http://www.stljs.org/> <http://vimeo.com/stljs>

STLRuby: <http://stlruby.org>

Code Until Dawn: <http://www.meetup.com/allnightlong/>

StartLouis: <http://startlouis.com/>

Build Guild in St. Louis: <http://saintlouis.buildguild.org/>

There's lots more too, those are just ones I'm either involved in or hear about frequently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Haha. This is great. Seems young programmers are not so naive about IP after all, eh Teralogix? Nice try. Way to go St. Louis hacking community. Always read the fine print, and ask questions.

<comment><USER4> After talking to Teralogix, it seems this was the result of an overzealous legal team and a novice marketing lead on the project--as opposed to well informed and well orchestrated deviousness on behalf of the organizing company.

I agree, applause for those who discovered the clause, but the better outcome would have been for Teralogix to do it right. Sadly, that didn't happen either.

<comment><USER10> Every employee is a representative of the company. That includes the legal and marketing departments. And it is indeed, as another commenter calls it, lame for persons outside those departments to use them as an excuse. It's their responsibility to communicate with their colleagues and present a consistent face of the company. I know little about Teralogix, but from reading of this little stunt I am not sure I want to. Extremely unprofessional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Unrelated - these Svbtle clones are getting out of hand. I guess this one isn't so bad because the button placement and giant caricature are different, but still.

<comment><USER12> Just curious, why does this bother you?

<comment><USER11> It's too close for comfort. I'm not saying any layout with Helvetica and a sidebar is automatically a Svbtle clone, but this is clearly stolen design, and that doesn't sit well with me.

<comment><USER12> I can understand, however, did you know that Svbtle is 'inspired' from <http://drawar.com/> ?

<comment><USER11> Again, I'm not saying Dustin Curtis is the only one allowed to use Helvetica and a fixed sidebar. But this blog has copied fonts, spacing, kudos, and generally the layout is exact. Not similar, exact. There's a line that needs to be drawn, and I feel this crosses it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> First - I'm quite happy that the event has gotten shut down, for now.

Second - I've always felt like this was the case of a company trying to do something they didn't fully understand. I got the vibe that these terms were cooked up by a lawyer in order to "protect" and "provide value" to Teralogix.

I just wish they would have been more responsive to the community.

</comment><comment><USER14> The winning team comes up an with idea, it becomes IP of Teralogix who are then sued by a patent troll for infringement. The current state of affairs..

</comment><comment><USER15> The sad thing is I've seen hackathon's happen that have similar terms. One was a student one where 50% of whatever anyone made would be owned by the founder and he had the right to invest if he saw fit.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if you could 'hack' this by working on a project that won, and to use and depend on GPL (or even AGPL) software. If they use it, you've made them open source their code.

<comment><USER16> As long as they don't distribute the code, it's not a problem. Companies can maintain an in-house fork of GPL projects without having to release the source.

<comment><USER3> If it's AGPL they have to release it the software is publically available. That's the point of the AGPL.

<comment><USER16> > As long as they don't distribute the code

<comment><USER3> No. If you have Affero GPL (AGPL) licenced code, you have to make the source code available if you make the programme "accessible to the public over the internet", even if you don't distribute the code. It's a new licence from the FSF, designed for web applications and the modern 'cloud'/'internet' world.

<comment><USER17> please read between the lines here. "Companies can maintain an in-house fork..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wait, we have a hacking scene in St Louis? Crazy.

<comment><USER4> Come hang out with us!

This Friday is Code til Dawn: <http://meetup.com/allnightlong>

<comment><USER8> What, really? That's awesome!

How've you been liking it? It looks like there were 20 people last meetup.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love it! I'll be there.

<comment><USER19> How many of these folks are AFNIC-related? Is there a big non-DOD presence in STL for tech stuff?

<comment><AUTHOR> I honestly don't know of anybody who comes to code-until-dawn events that has military background. Ed Domain who started Techli was Air Force Reserves, but I don't know if hee was AFNIC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You seem like a smart guy, and I really like your writing style... but why use the flakey Svbtle clone... you can do better than that :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm open to suggestions :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is that a "pirated" svbtle theme?

<comment><USER4> "WP-Svbtle" by Gravity on Mars: [http://gravityonmars.com/2012/03/28/svbtle- based-on-wordpres...](http://gravityonmars.com/2012/03/28/svbtle-based-on- wordpress/)

<comment><USER21> ugh. Why would you copy some closed community's look? It gives a terrible impression. Wait a sec while I post about copyright on my techcrunch clone blog.

<comment><USER22> "Great artists steal," or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> derpa derp</comment>


'WarGames' and Cybersecurity's Debt to a Hollywood Hack - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/movies/wargames-and-cybersecuritys-debt-to-a-hollywood-hack.html <comment><USER2> Very interesting article. I particularly liked the paper linked to, the Wallis Ware one.</comment>


"Salt Iodization and the Enfranchisement of the American Worker" - <AUTHOR> http://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/academics/business/economics/faculty/bednar/MortonSalt_body_aug2013.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> > 'We study the economic consequences of the rapid nationwide introduction of > iodized salt in the United States. In 1924, Morton Salt Co., the largest > salt producer in the US, decided to iodize its salt supply. Through the > proliferation of fortified salt, access to iodine, a key determinant of > cognitive ability, increased intelligence quotients in areas where > deficiency rates were previously high. We compare outcomes for cohorts > exposed in utero to iodized salt to slightly older, unexposed cohorts, > across individuals born in states with previously high versus low iodine > deficiency rates. We find substantial impacts of salt iodization. High > school completion rose by 6 percentage points, and labor force participation > went up by 1 point. Analysis of income transitions by quantile shows that > the new labor force joiners entered at the bottom of the wage distribution > and took up blue collar labor, pulling down average wage income conditional > on employment. Our results inform the ongoing debate on salt iodization in > many low-income countries. We show that large-scale iodized salt > distribution had a targeted impact, benefiting the worker on the margin of > employment, and generating sizeable economic returns at low cost.'</comment>


Intel just open sourced Stephen Hawking's speech system - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cdndevs/2015/08/14/intel-just-open-sourced-stephen-hawkings-speech-system-and-its-a-net-4-5-winforms-app-that-you-can-try-for-yourself/ <comment><USER2> (2015)</comment>


Ask HN: Who is hiring interns? (October 2010 Edition) - <AUTHOR>

A take on the previous question, for the students browsing HN. <comment><USER3> Intelligent Robotics Group, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA. (<http://irg.arc.nasa.gov>)

We do satellite image processing (mostly Moon and Mars), computer vision, and robot software. We like developers and/or researchers. (email@example.com)

Some projects we have our hands in, in no particular order:

\- Mars/Moon 3d in Google Earth (<http://earth.google.com>)

\- WorldWide Telescope Mars (<http://www.worldwidetelescope.org>)

\- GigaPan Robotic Camera (<http://gigapan.org>)

\- Mars/Moon 2d (<http://mars.google.com> / <http://moon.google.com>)

\- Robotic Follow-up (<http://lunarscience.nasa.gov/robots>)

</comment><comment><USER4> Mountain View, CA. RethinkDB (<http://www.rethinkdb.com/jobs>).

Hard systems problems. Fun people. Good pay. Internships year round. Join us, together we will rule the [database] universe.

This is everything we stand for: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1747713>

</comment><comment><USER5> Academia.edu is hiring intern engineers in San Francisco.

Academia.edu helps academics follow the latest research in their field. Here are a few bullet points that sum up the atmosphere in our team:

\- obsession with exceptional engineering

\- obsession with building a great web product, and a great user experience

\- intellectually inquisitive - we like delving into ideas, whatever the ideas are about

\- fun and friendly - we enjoy each other's company a lot, and have a great deal of respect for each other.

We are hiring intern engineers. Here are some of the technologies we work with: Rails, Nginx, Node.js, Redis, Memcached. We are based in downtown San Francisco. More information about the team, and about how we think about software engineering and product development, is here <http://academia.edu/hiring>. Specifics on our developer internship program are here <http://academia.edu/hiring/developer_intern>

</comment><comment><USER6> We're in central London. We love interns.

We're a small (10 full time) but profitable internationally focused consumer internet start-up where you will get direct exposure to the founders and all aspects of the business.

<http://www.lokku.com/jobs/intern.html>

We look forward to hearing from you.

</comment><comment><USER7> Downtown San Francisco - KODA (KODA.us) is the online community that is changing how employers connect with and recruit the emerging workforce – Gen Y. We are looking for interns, as well as software engineers, for a variety of cool engineering projects: web crawlers, recommendation engines, scalibility challenges, analytics, upgrade to Rails 3... Our application is in the cloud, developed with Rails, jQuery, memcached and more! We love TDD but are not religious about it!

This is a paid internship. We are very flexible in terms of workload / work hours, so you could definitely fit it into your schedule. You can find more information about the position at <http://koda.us/employers/koda/jobs/1629875>

If you are interested or just want to hear more about KODA, drop me a line at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER8> We're looking for interns in Shanghai. Paid but not much (but more than enough to cover the cost of living in Shanghai)...

You would be working on Rails app and play with cool and fun things like cappuccino, redis and mongodb. Possibility of getting hired full time later on.

So, if you want to discover China and join a small growing startup (we do both consulting and our own products), send me a mail at guillaume -squiggly sign- agiletomato.com.

We're also interested in designers...

</comment><comment><USER9> Any internships available that allow for telecommuting? The internship job market has been pretty dismal down here in southern California (specifically the Inland Empire).

<comment><USER10> For an internship, you _really_ want to be on-site. The point of an internship isn't to make less money for the same amount of work while you don't have lines on your resume. Well, maybe it is for you. But, thats not what it should be imho.

To me, an internship is about learning how to work with people (or: how a business works) and meeting awesome people (or: making connections). Figure out what it actually means to ship a product, getting real world experience, etc. You can't do much of that if the only contact you have with the company is a Skype session every few days. Thats closer to freelancing than interning.

That said, if I didn't lose your interest, Justin.tv is looking for interns[1]. You should totally apply, if you're in the SF area. I can tell you firsthand that you'll have a great time and learn a ton -- I did an internship with them over the past summer. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions.

1\. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1724889>

<comment><USER9> I wish I could work for justin.tv! But I live way too far even if they were interested in me. I live in Riverside county - it's not a tech hub by any means. Most internships I've been able to find so far are either in the SF area or the LA/Long Beach area. Hence why I'm looking for internships that allow me to work remotely - some experience is better than none. But it seems highly improbable that I'll find one...

<comment><USER10> It's other peoples job to decide if they're interested in you or not. Not yours. That goes for all situations, really. Not just this one.

Do companies near you have job openings* ? Send them an email asking if they'll consider an intern filling the spot instead.

*They probably do. Even if it's not advertised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Paris, France. MLstate (<http://www.mlstate.com>)

We develop a new programming language for the web. Plenty of interesting problems, including system programming, web development, compilation, static analysis, concurrency. Internships for all seasons, from 1st year of university to post-doc.

There are 20+ of us in the R&D group, and we're out to change the web.

Contact firstname.lastname@example.com .

</comment><comment><USER12> Topguest, an LBS startup soon to be based in San Francisco.

We're a small but well-backed company, about to enter a rapid growth phase. If you think you could help us with engineering, biz dev or design, we'd love to hear from you right now (email@example.com)

If you live somewhere other than SF, we could potentially pick you up on our migratory drive from NY. Or give you a couch to crash on when we get there.

</comment><comment><USER13> Meebo, Mountain View, CA / NYC, NY <http://www.meebo.com/jobs/teams/internships/>

Example past intern projects: optimizing a javascript buddylist for thousands of buddies, implementing a web-based filetranfer, building out a cassandra cluster and moving an existing project from mysql->cassandra

</comment><comment><USER14> Boston, MA - Zazu (<http://getzazu.com>)

We're building Jarvis from Iron Man (mobile -- and everything else -- client, web server, augmented reality, etc).

Interesting data problems, interesting user experience problems, and we're all foodies :-)

Shoot me an email if you'd like to help out (firstname.lastname@example.com)

</comment><comment><USER15> Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Aeste (<http://www.aeste.my/careers>).

Swimming (and possibly drowning) at the software-hardware interface. Projects will largely involve building an ecosystem around the world's smallest and fastest 32-bit multi-threaded microprocessor core.

</comment><comment><USER16> Early startup based in San Francisco, working out of Dogpatch Labs. We're building Pieceable, a tool for creating native iPhone apps by piecing together different components (e.g. photo gallery, chat, blog content, etc). Would love to chat with folks interested in engineering / bizdev roles - <USER2> email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER17> We're working hard to make fitness fun at WorkSmart Labs, a startup in New York, NY doing mobile apps. Interns are very welcome and you can find details here: <http://sites.google.com/a/worksmartlabs.com/jobs/interns>

</comment><comment><USER18> Small YC startup in Palo Alto. Would be happy to speak with potential interns (local). email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER19> We are. We're a young but cash-flow positive SaaS startup in Redwood City, CA on the lookout for smart & driven folks for a part-time or internship position (both paid). Here's the req: <http://bit.ly/9p6RJj>

-nikita

<comment><USER20> Sorry, I can't seem to open your link. Has it expired?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> DoubleDutch (<http://www.doubledutch.me>) has three internship positions open: bizdev, engineering, marketing. Based in the Mission District of San Francisco, close to Bart.

<comment><USER22> Hi,

I'm interested to get in touch about the biz dev position.

Is there an e-mail address I can reach you at?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> San Diego Music & Technolog Conference is looking for interns. If you have interest in webdev, wordpress, conference design, social media marketing etc. Please send me a message to email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER24> Angel funded YC startup is looking for a part time journalism/writing intern. Can work remotely. email firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


Arguing With Peasants Shows a Lack of Self-Discipline - <AUTHOR> http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=192

<comment><USER2> The example "peasant comment" is an informal definition of when a person should consider themselves a socialist, made in response to the blog author's comment about the definition of "Socialism" (in context: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653525>). If you actually read it, he's simply saying "if you have this reaction to this tshirt, you're probably a socialist of some sort", which is probably true.

There is _nothing_ in the comment that should inspire such a mean-spirited ad hominem attack.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Quoting the comment the article is about:

>> if your first reaction to that slogan is anywhere in the range from "that's an exaggeration, but yeah, it's mostly true" to "HELL YEAH!"...

Then the article:

> (4) Has a strong opinion: "HELL YEAH!"

The original comment is quoting someone. They don't have that opinion themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would comment but this guy appears to tick all the boxes in my new checklist I just found on the web: _(1) Ignorant, (2) Tribal, (3) Has no power, (4) has a strong opinion, and (5) refuses to consider alternative opinions or change their mind_ , which means there's no point in bothering.

<comment><USER5> Well that was a predictable response to this article :)

<comment><USER6> ....but was dead on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You managed to avoid arguing with someone online by composing a lengthy blog post in response to their comment?

<comment><AUTHOR> a. It wasn't me - I just posted the link to someone else's article.

b. Your point is addressed and discussed in the comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is not a definition of ignorance:

"(1) Ignorant: The argument the person is making isn't cohesive or otherwise makes no sense."

</comment><comment><USER9> If I boil the ad hominem away, the essay points towards an ideal I strive to achieve (also fail to achieve, but my glass is half full).

My ideal is to only respond to posts or comments that are worth an upmod. Downmods are to be imposed silently: If something doesn't contribute to HN, how is it worth any of my words?

<comment><USER10> _If something doesn't contribute to HN, how is it worth any of my words?_

Even smart well meaning people are wrong sometimes. And when they are, they are likely to remain wrong until one of their peers takes the time to step back and explain where their facts or reasoning went off the rails.

<comment><USER9> If something is wrong in a way that doesn't contribute to HN, how is it worth any of my words? Am I supposed to believe that all of you intelligent, well- read folks are going to read it and be seduced by its faulty logic? Most "wrong" comments that don't contribute to HN are simply unfounded claims. I doubt HN will slide into chaos if I ignore them.

There are also arguments that I disagree with that contribute to HN. They're well-reasoned, or they have an interesting perspective. I think they're wrong, but I also think I will learn something by arguing the case. These are worth an upmod and worth some rebuttal.

In the end, if someone posts something that is wrong and not worth an upmod, I think a downmod signals my thoughts on the matter without requiring any explanation whatsoever.

JM2C, and yes I am upmodding you ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> He should add "Improve English" to his list of challenges.

</comment><comment><USER12> I predict few responses to this particular peasant.

</comment><comment><USER13> _Weakly held stupid opinions can be changed, and you're doing a nice thing._

You're doing a "nice thing" by changing someone's weakly-held opinions to match your own? That seems more than a little bit conceited.

<comment><USER14> That's not entirely fair. "Weakly held" can mean "based on limited information". E.g. if you are views as credible you can bring to light information that allows the person to change to a more strongly held opinion (that is not "stupid"; yes, your point about conceit does have some merit).

You can also do this sort of thing by providing another way to look at a broadly accepted set of facts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > There's obvious debunking that could be done – the first one I'd point out > (almost did) is that trade creates wealth, if for no other reason than > people like variety. So if you have 10 potatoes and I have 10 carrots, and > we swap some of them, we're both wealthier.

Wrong. No goods created or services rendered = no net change in wealth. What the OP is describing is more like inflation.

(I know, I know. I'm falling into his clever trap. This is why I never joined the debate team in high school.)

</comment><comment><USER16> Not arguing with people who are unable to competently argue doesn't mean stewing about it, then running to the safety of my blog and writing my own rant.

</comment><comment><USER17> Some narcissist explaining how smart and special he is in a self-promoting blog post on a personal site (indeed, he is so kind to explain his logic to mere mortals).

That is good for a facebook, but why here?

btw, next time we (ignorant, tribal peasants) probably should ask him to explain the meaning of words 'generalizations' and 'cliche'. ^_^

</comment><comment><USER18> The guy does have a point worth making, but didn't someone already beat him to it using only four words? "Don't feed the trolls."

<comment><USER19> A troll is someone who is deliberately attempted to derail conversation and waste people's time for his own amusement. A 'peasant' in this guys nomenclature is merely someone who is too opinionated for his own good.</comment></comment>


Some Venture Funds Hit 'Pause' on Big Deals - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203686204577116860581423438.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth

<comment><USER2> No I do not want to pay to read this article</comment>


Steve Jobs on why Apple doesn't do market research - <AUTHOR> http://bokardo.com/archives/steve-jobs-on-why-apple-doesnt-do-market-research/ <comment><USER2> This isn't even true. Apple does tons of market research and Steve Jobs even quotes it at his keynotes when he's releasing new products. (Remember what he said when he released garage band, and the reasons he gave for switching to Intel...) This whole article is just a PR piece designed to make them look cool and trip up their competitors who are dumb enough to believe it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think these articles are possibly quite damaging to startups.

Not everyone can design the product _they_ want - its quite a rare skill. You get wrapped up in irrelevant features.

<comment><USER4> Definitely agree with this. You have to know that there are enough of "you" to be able to produce a marketable product. There is also a difference between this and "eat your own dog food" software, aka using what you've built.

<comment><USER5> "Not everyone can design the product they want - its quite a rare skill. You get wrapped up in irrelevant features."

This skill is hard to find in a startup because founders have more technical acumen than the market. In other words founders are "power users," and most markets are not.

Also, editing your own work, as in looking at something that you've spent months on, saying, "this sucks," and restarting takes a lot of discipline. For a start-up that is worried about its runway, the stress of doing so can be overwhelming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "we design for ourselves"

Be very, very careful here. You can just as easily lose your shirt as you can come up with a hit. What your users will buy and use may be very different from what you think.

What sometimes works in the consumer market often doesn't work in the business to business space. There are cemetaries full of companies that designed for themselves, especially in software.

When I hear someone like Steve Jobs say he doesn't do market research, it reminds me of people saying they don't watch TV. Yea, right. Not in public anyway.

Sometimes I think posts like this are just part of the big PR machine to maintain the "Apple mystique". Would you bet a billion dollars of someone else's money without talking to anyone first?

<comment><USER7> "it reminds me of people saying they don't watch TV. Yea, right. Not in public anyway."

Fwiw, I don't want watch tv. (And I know a few people who choose not to watch TV) Too much of a time sink. I don't even own one. The one practical difficulty I found is that most game consoles seem to work with TV sets (and not with monitors, of which I have a few lying around the house) so I don't have a game console either.

<comment><USER8> I don't watch tv, exercise every day, get 8 hours sleep, read a classic novel every month, invest wisely, only listen to "good" music and never pop, never use a windows computer, never get sad, volunteer every other month, don't gossip, can live with waiting to find out which game console to buy after the market decides, never impulse shop, don't need the latest iphone, run a marathon every year, always dress in style, best friends with my in-laws, have a perfect marriage, eat the healthy choices at restaurants, never laugh at other peoples misfortunes, never send "funny" emails to my friends, always ignore spam, don't take photos of my cat...

<comment><USER7> @icefox, (abstractly) amusing, but I don't quite get it.

Is this some kind of American cultural assumption (that everyone watches TV and is lying about it if they say they don't)? I know many people (who can afford TV s) here in India who don't watch TV. Of course there are many people who are addicted to Tv as well, but someone not watching TV doesn't seem to evoke the kind of response in your post.

oh btw " "I don't watch tv, exercise every day, get 8 hours sleep,.." check, check and check. Is this so unusual?

<comment><USER9> The American cultural thing you're missing is that it's now considered gauche to brag about how you don't watch TV, even if it's true. For a while not owning a TV was fashionable; now there's a stereotype of "goody-two-shoes" people who go out of their way to avoid watching TV and brag about it repeatedly to anyone who will listen.

<comment><USER7> "The American cultural thing you're missing is ... there's a stereotype of "goody-two-shoes" people who go out of their way to avoid watching TV and brag about it repeatedly to anyone who will listen."

Thanks. very enlightening. Thanks. very enlightening. Hereabouts "I don't have a/watch TV" is neutral statement, not bragging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's a little gem in there 'we design for ourselves'. If you build stuff that you yourself would not use then you're on the wrong track, because you will be your own most critical customer and when you are happy then chances are that lots of other people will also be happy with what you have created.

<comment><USER11> That totally depends, though. If you're designing general computing or consumer goods, fine. If you're designing a custom point of sale program for a particular industry, that statement clearly doesn't apply.

<comment><USER10> That's absolutely true, that was not what I had in mind.

Websites, gadgets, consumer goods, the stuff that you interact with on a daily basis, the kind of stuff that apple produces.

Effectively that is the crux of the 'we don't do market research', if you are your own consumer then you can get away with that. As soon as you are selling to people that will use the stuff you build and you yourself will never use it you are going to have to do very much your best in order to make sure that your customer is happy because you can no longer look in to their head.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products_

And yet they are a publicly traded company, how does "our goal isn't to make money" work with their fiduciary duties?

<comment><USER13> "our goal isn't to make money" is not in their corporate guidebooks or manifesto, it's in their press-release. it contributes directly to their bottom-line, I say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Um... Apple does market research. It does a shit ton of it. It does it now and it's done it a long time ago. Back in the 90's, with children. They would truck us in, 3rd graders in the elementary schools nearby, and take us to meeting rooms and show us gadgets, educational toys but maybe they showed off software too, and asks us how we like them.

Even now there's a lot of teams dedicated to market research.

</comment><comment><USER15> Market research can be useful, but there are two significant drawbacks to it for innovative products:

1) the User Interface drawback, read any books on designing HCI and you will be told not to do as the prospective user initially says he wants, give him a mock-up and see how he uses it, he probably doesn't really know what he wants until he tries it; in this type of case without a mock-up or practice, an experienced designer will probably do better than market research would;

2) for something really innovative who is the prospective market and how will they use it?. If it is REALLY innovative, then even the designers are likely to mis-judge how it is likely to be used. This is related to pg's common refrain that a startup will likely change direction, sometimes more than once.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products…"

Sure - and Apple's messages to the press are also never carefully crafted for maximum effect.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products…"

Doesn't sound in-line with blocking google voice apps.

<comment><USER18> But isn't that possibly a result of their agreement with at&t?

<comment><USER19> Which is another thing I'm curious about... How does their agreement with AT&T help the end-user experience?

It seems there are plenty of people who would be happy to use another carrier. And, in other countries, you can apparently buy unlocked phones from Apple. So the agreement with AT&T seems to be more about making money than about making great products...

<comment><USER20> Probably a combination of that and three other important things:

a) compromise on things like this in order to gain bigger freedoms, namely, the App Store - carriers are usually getting a cut, but not in this case

b) poor consumer protection in the US - carrier unlocking is, at least in some countries, required by law

c) (related to above) young, immature mobile market in the US

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm a little skeptical about this one. For one, when doing corporate strategy and deciding what to build, you need to understand the dynamics and deficiencies in the marketplace. So at some level, someone within the organization had to evaluate using either primary (focus groups, surveys) or secondary (already published studies and facts) research to see if the idea or product was viable. Now I'm guessing that secondary research might be more the norm at Apple because primary research might give people that are in the potential target market an idea of what new products are in the pipeline. Apple wouldn't want to give hints at what it's doing by performing primary research.

I'm not staying they have to do tons, they need to have some understanding of who they're going after.

<comment><USER22> When Jobs returned, they already made Macs by default. The iPod was Tony Fadell's idea, but that was for a market that didn't really even exist yet, so it's hard to see how market research would help. They just tapped into the universal human need for music with that one. The iPhone was likely based on a deep understanding of how much cell phones generally suck and a vague recognition that cell phones are a huge enough market to accept a new niche player.

I'm not sure how product research would even help. It's great if you're refining an existing product or entering into a well-understood market, but Apple's game is to reshape the market around itself, rather than reshaping itself around the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> 1\. "Make the very best products. Business will follow" - if there's one company who knows this _not_ to be true, it's Apple, ca. mid-80s to late 90s. IMHO the web's rise as the main application was as responsible to Apple's comeback as anything, eroding Windows' software range advantage.

2\. This kind of articles are a bit troubling since some people read them and figure they can be Steve Jobs too. If you know someone like that, you know what I mean.

</comment><comment><USER24> Depending on your market size/slice it's possible in a good sized company to have folks that are so well entwined in that community that they can help give feedback about their favorite products. Part of the problem with marketing is that people don't know what they want. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIiAAhUeR6Y>

</comment><comment><USER25> Jobs is one of the most deliberate, careful and calculated when it comes to public statements. More on PR see <http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>

While the post highlights the PR bit you can see though, it does include a couple of useful links with good insights about the role of design in the product development process.

</comment><comment><USER26> Wait- can someone answer this for me? Why exactly does it claim Apple doesn't do market research? _Because_ it wants to be innovative?

</comment><comment><USER27> "Make the very best products. Business will follow."

Every startup should focus on that motto.</comment>