Vim celebrates 25 years - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.com/life/16/11/happy-birthday-vim-25 <comment><USER2> Sorry, wrong. Vim was based on Stevie, which was released in 1987, which effectively makes Vim 29. Though Vim wasn't released until 1991, Vim 1.0 already existed in 1988, unreleased.

(A historic unreleased something is exactly as real as a historic released something. Released versus unreleased is only a distinction that matters in the here and now.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_(text_editor)#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_\(text_editor\)#History)</comment>


Ask HN: Is it legal if my webapp rewards the winners with a gift certificate - <AUTHOR>

I am starting a website where users predict individual match outcomes. I am thinking of rewarding them with a gift certificate. Is it legal. Any insight will be very helpful. <comment><AUTHOR> Below is the extract from Google Code In Contest.

4\. ELIGIBILITY: The Contest is open to individual students who are at least thirteen (13) years of age and no older than eighteen (18) years of age on November 22, 2010 who are currently enrolled in a pre-university, high school or secondary school program, and who have agreed to these Rules ("Participants"). You must demonstrate the consent of a parent or legal guardian in order to be eligible to receive any prizes as well as written proof of age and proof of enrollment in a pre-university, high school or secondary school program. The Contest is not open to residents of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar (Burma), or to other individuals restricted by U.S. export controls and sanctions, and is void in any other nation, state, or province where prohibited or restricted by U.S. or local law. Employees, interns, contractors, and official office-holders of (1) Google, (2) participating Open Source Organizations, (3) the parent companies, affiliates and subsidiaries of either Google or any participating Open Source Organization, and members of their immediate families (defined as parents, children, siblings and spouse, regardless of where they reside, and/or those living in the same household of each) are ineligible to participate in the Contest. You must have access to the Internet and either have or sign up for a free Google Account in order to enter.

[http://www.google- melange.com/document/show/gci_program/goog...](http://www.google- melange.com/document/show/gci_program/google/gci2010/rules)

Will I be covered if I add similar text on the Eligibility page/section on my app. Is there anything else that I need to consider.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you are hosting your site in the US, this might fall under gambling statutes. Your options are probably: a) this is illegal just like other online casinos, or b) this isn't illegal but you may fall under contest regulations which are different from state to state. If you are hosting outside the US, you might fall under whatever gambling or contest statutes apply in that country.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you please elaborate why you consider it gambling or betting. All I am doing is picking the obvious winner from the participants and rewarding him for his expertise. Also I am not charging any money for participation. I am just trying to get more information to make the decision.

<comment><USER2> I wasn't sure what you meant by what you said regarding users picking outcomes - if it was something on the order of a lottery, that would probably be covered under betting laws. If it's something like a trivia quiz and whoever gets the most right answers wins, that would probably be covered under contest law, which is just as complex.

In the US at least, every state determines what is and isn't a contest and what rules apply, though most of them apply to any game where the reward is money or some sort of tangible item (even if players don't have to pay anything to play). That's why if you look closely, some of the fast food contests (like McDonalds Monopoly) say something in the fine print like "Not valid in New York or Rhode Island" or something to that effect. They've determined that their game won't meet the contest laws in those states so they simply say if you live there, you can't play.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the detail insight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Legal can sometime be a bit like coding, some laws in this domain are still changing (ie. France just recently allowed online casinos). My advise is use the most common denominator in your space, launch and tweak, it's like coding. That's what most successful companies have done. You don't get in much trouble until you have a certain level of success. Of course you need to have a good approach, good intentions and know what you are doing. But you can never really know it all, so that's my advice.

<comment><USER3> Btw if the users are paying, predicting the outcomes of a match is definitely gambling (like gambling on horses), so simply look at the laws for online gambling. Since it's online, most likely only the laws of the state where you host are applied (even for foreign countries, that's how French could play on online casinos before). You might simply host that feature and a subsidiary for it in a state with online-gambling friendly laws. Maybe Nevada, maybe some states or countries have no laws at all on it and even no taxes.

If it's free I'd say it either fall in (free) lottery or contest, it's hard to tell. Either way your best approach is simply host it in a state with no laws at all on the matter. Or if you have a good way to justify it is neither lottery or contest you might as well be fine anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a lawyer, I have no idea why it would be illegal. Are you giving them rewards for sexual favors, drugs, machine guns or votes?

Beyond the sort of obvious things, I don't know why you'd be breaking the law.

<comment><AUTHOR> The rewards is only for predicting the outcomes of the matches. But heard from friends that you need to check the legal aspect of it. Got concerned and wanted to double check and get HN user's feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I asked this question yesterday but it was kind of late and didn't get complete information. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2014626>

</comment><comment><USER5> There are a few comments from when this was submitted by the same person yesterday:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2014626>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I have mentioned it one of the comment. See below

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> why wouldnt it be legal?</comment>


Decorators, unwrapped: How do they work (PyCon 2017) - happy-go-lucky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBSyD1RkOX0 <comment> happy-go-lucky Slides can be found at: [https://speakerdeck.com/pycon2017/katie-silverio- decorators-...](https://speakerdeck.com/pycon2017/katie-silverio-decorators- unwrapped-how-do-they-work)</comment>


Ask HN: Where are 150k to 200k salary job in Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR>
 I always hear and have read quite a few times that there are thousands of people who earn 150k to 200k salary. I have 9 years of experience but my salary is 118k per year with 2k as stock options per year. I work in data analytics as tech lead without any direct reports. With $2300 rent in Peninsula it is really really hard to live in Bay area for 2 people.
Is 150k to 200k only paid at google / Facebook / Amazon / Uber?
Where do you find companies hiring managers or directors or tech leads offering such salary ?
I have no network. I tried networking and going to meetup but nothing happened. Even if I go networking way it is going to take longer to find job through that route. I am looking for immediate opportunity.  I have LinkedIn profile but it seems that most connections are there for namesake purpose only.
Any guidance and / or tips you can provide for landing such job in valley ? <comment><USER3> Ways to earn more money where I come from but probably applicable to SV. Some ideas:

1\. Get a job where people report to you

2\. Get a job with company with bigger budgets e.g. Google

3\. Get a job where you are closer to the money making e.g. sales, finance industry jobs

4\. Do something else where you control the flow of money rather than just get a paycheck. I am thinking real estate development or renovations, for example.

5\. Live somewhere where the cost of living is cheaper but earn the same money. You could get a remote job in SV then go move away. I don't know US that well but isn't Oakland cheaper? Or if you are remote working just go live in some dead town somewhere.

6\. Get a job contracting using some arcane skill that no-one wants to work with so it pays more. E.g. Microsoft SharePoint.

7\. Become a business analyst / project manager etc.

8\. Become a corporate C*O.

9\. Get a 9-5 tech job (literally) and then get a second job.

10\. Get a 9-5 tech job (literally) and do a side project money making.

<comment><USER4> Getting a second job seems to be hard. Despite all companies complaining about lack of tech talent, I've approached several about working 6-12 plus weekends (or other arrangements) but have had no interest despite being well regarded in my area of tech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For software engineering at least, any of the big companies here (FB/GOOG/AAPL/LNKD/TWTR/etc) will easily pay $150k+ for someone with 9 years of experience. If you perform well the first year or two, your yearly RSU package will easily equal the salary.

Just apply and be firm during negotiations.

<comment><USER6> Could you elaborate on being firm during negotiations? What aspects are you 'firm on'? I guess there is a technique to all this but not having changed a lot of jobs in my career and getting by on references I am probably less clued into negotiating tactics than someone who has moved every 2-3 years.

I would really like a site where they can teach you these skills or take care of it for you. A few premier sites that can act like agents already want you to have a GOOG/AMZN/APPL pedigree.

<comment><USER7> Don't give your current comp, and make it clear you're happy to walk away if they don't hit the number you have in mind (Ideally, you would actually be happy to walk away).

NB: It helps enormously to have competing offers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Join Hired or Indeed Prime, you will be able to see salaries of job offers.

And not to be condescending, but if you have no network after 9 years of experience, you might want to think about what it is about you that is causing that.

<comment><USER9> Not to be condescending, but I don't have a network and I think you're logic is wrong. Networking is a waste of time for rank and file workers in certain tech jobs. If you're not in a position of power or in a "social" profession no one gives a shit about networking with you. It is all about understanding how the industry works and what people's motivations are. What are the conditions under which some company would find and hire you at the salary you want? What are all the conditions. Is there a person out there that if you sent one email can and would hire you at the salary that you want? Just go to that person and forget everyone else. The only people that will want to network are the people that can't give you what you want. So it's just good for your personal life but not your career.

<comment><USER10> Yea so I've worked for multiple tech companies in Silicon Valley and was in the 150+ club before leaving the area and every company I was hired at was via a connection. So going to networking events is something I never did. Just made friends at work and also tried to do some social things outside of work.. So my take is that you should change jobs and make some more friends to increase your salary. ;)

<comment><USER9> Do what you need to do to get a job, but this makes you beholden to your friends for a job. Plus you can only work where your connections work. Could you get a job without connections just based on qualifications?

<comment><USER7> "Beholden"? How so?

It's not about making connections so that people will give you a job as a _favor_. It's about making connections so that you have social proof of your competence, plus to take advantage of the fact that someone telling your target "hey, take a look at this person" stands out much better than sending one more resume to a poorly monitored email account.

Which, in response to your last question, also means knowing someone who knows someone where you want to work is almost as good as a direct connection. You really don't need to know all that many people to have a usefully large second degree network (doubly so if you're in a tech hub).

<comment><USER9> Well, there are some foolish companies out there that trust in 'social proof' as you put it, so it is possible to get jobs that way. By beholden I mean that if the only reason you able to keep a job is on the word of another low level employee, then you are in a perilous position politically. No one except your connection believes your social proof because there are a lot of expert beginner people full of shit in technology. If they leave the company you are screwed and would probably have to go find another job. Yes, it is more difficult to get a job relying on skills and marketing, but it is better in the long term.

<comment><USER11> This attitude is unproductive.

As a general rule, if someone hands your resume to a hiring manager, or says "I know that guy; he's good" that carries a hell of a lot more weight than you evidently think it does.

Yes, of course you need to know what you're doing. The point is that knowing someone at the firm you're applying to, or knowing someone who know someone there is useful. Like it or not, we are social animals and we respond to that stuff.

<comment><USER9> No it's not unproductive. It's better and more realistic. What will happen is that your hiring manager goes away after three months because managers are always trying to reorg and hire people beneath them to save their ass. You friend that handed your resume can be fired or quits to go work somewhere else. Suddenly there is no reason that you should have a job at that company and lots of other people are handing resumes to your new manager for people that they are trying to give your job to. Maybe you can stretch it for 9-12 months. It's far better for job security to just have the credentials and background to get a job without going the social route.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Also, the Bay Area isn't your only option, if you're willing to move. DC area salaries are up a lot this year. I've had six recruiters in the last two weeks sell me on jobs in the 175-200k range. Plus, Northern Virginia is relatively cheap compared to the bay, and the startup scene has been building up for years while government, defense, and intel work has remained flat. I'm biased though because I want it to grow even more.

</comment><comment><USER13> No need to do networking and all that. Just apply to every public company in the valley and interview with who ever calls you for interview. If you pass the interview, they will hire your as Senior Software engineer or as staff engineer. These jobs will fetch $150K+

Of course, you can apply to startups also...but I am not aware of how much they pay.

</comment><comment><USER14> "I have no network" can be an important issue. I have similar problems, and don't know where to start. It's easy to give tips like that, but how in practice you'd build the network? You don't want results 20-30 years from now.

I got into most places by reference. That doesn't mean success - no high salaries, no good prospects, just barely managing to find the next place. I wouldn't say I'm too bad socially; young nerdish traits waned enough already. But with growing age finding Bay Area-adequate salary - kids, you know - <USER2> harder, not easier, even though experience and skills grow.

It's a real problem. Would be thankful for a good advice.

<comment><USER15> Network is not something you get overnight. It may take years of strategic planning to achieve.

I would say networking is less about meeting people and more about building a reputation. Commenting here on HN is one way to build that reputation. You can get go to meet ups to meet people, but giving talks is how you get reputation. The same applies to conferences. At work, especially in larger companies, you can build reputation as experts in one particular technology, lead brown bag sessions to demonstrate that expertise.

You sometimes notice other people that have good network. It's also important to stand out in front of these people to get second degree connections. If you also have good network, these people would gladly be your best friend.

<comment><USER10> Yea if your job is pretty technical, then being somebody that people "know as the guy/girl that really knows their shit and gets their shit done" is a good place to start. It also helps to ask people about their areas or if you hear somebody is struggling on something help them out from time to time. It goes a long way. For example, there were many times when I would be in a hardware lab and hear that somebody is struggling to properly capture some data on something, so I'd be like "hey I can write you a little script to help out with that.. just gimme 10 mins.." then I'd give it to them and they were happy to have the help, and later others would hear that I could help on that kinda stuff so people start to learn who you are and stuff like that so you build up a positive reputation in the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just having a LinkedIn profile won't work. You actually have to use the thing! Connect with old and current co-workers and congratulate them on their new gigs, follow interesting companies, join LinkedIn and other online groups, write articles about your expertise so people will notice you, contribute to open-source projects, and build a killer portfolio. Those are some of the things I try to do, which seem to work - and I don't even have a proper high- school diploma (barely passed my GED).

</comment><comment><USER17> Talk to technical recruiters, who do have a network. If you want to stay in the Bay area, talk to Aline Lerner ([http://blog.alinelerner.com/posts/](http://blog.alinelerner.com/posts/)) or if you want to move to Switzerland, talk to me.

<comment><USER18> Are you also a right person to contact if one wants to work for Swiss company but remotely, from Europe?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Tons of startups offer 150k+, not just unicorns.

<comment><USER15> That is so unfortunately true.

I have found the unicorns like to hand out RSUs like candy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> You haven't heard of Glassdoor?</comment>


Concurrency in Go (or, Erlang done right) - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=df36r82q_5gdq5gzth&pli=1

<comment><USER2> I like go and erlang, but the title is a troll.. Nowhere in the presentation does it compare the pros and cons of the go approach to how erlang does things.

Sometimes selective receive with erlang's pattern matching is really useful. How about erlang's supervision hierarchies and recovering from errors? Erlang's hot code upgrades on long-running systems to avoid _any_ downtime?

Since go has/needs mutexes, it's laughable to say it's "erlang done right". It's nothing like erlang in that sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree the title is misleading (I should also point out that this isn't my slide deck, but one done by Dmitry Vyukov).

> Since go has/needs mutexes

I'm not sure it's really fair to say Go _needs_ mutexes, just that they are available for you if you need the performance.

<comment><USER3> One funny thing is that the counting example has a really simple and very fast solution in Erlang. Shove the counter into an ETS table and use ets:update_counter as the call to manipulate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So suddenly I need to worry about mutexs and two processes accessing the same data.

As an Erlang programmer that smacks of Erlang done wrong to me. I don't want shared access. With no shared access I can 'let it crash' and know that I have process isolation. This also means that OTP and my restart libraries will 'just work' Erlang For The Win! Go For The Gone!

<comment><USER5> > So suddenly I need to worry about mutexs and two processes accessing the > same data.

Only if you're implementing higher-level concurrency primitives and want to maximize performance.

Did you completely ignore the context in which mutexes were mentioned in those slides?

<comment><USER6> To be fair the slides never really makes any comparisons with Erlang instead just used an inflammatory title, so it is understandable if responses are a little hand-wavy. It just goes along given the level of discussion.

<comment><USER5> > To be fair the slides never really makes any comparisons with Erlang instead > just used an inflammatory title, so it is understandable if responses are a > little hand-wavy.

Totally true - the Erlang too-dumb-to-be-a-cheap-shot was unwarranted. There are responses already posted in this thread along the lines of "This doesn't have anything to do with erlang at all" and they're completely justified.

The comment I responded to was calling out specific details out of context and making silly comparisons from there. That's all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Erlang takes another approach to many of these problems of concurrency. But I don't think you can argue that one is right while the other is wrong. Rather, right and wrong depends on your perspective and view on things.

Also, I am not sure there is _one_ solution that fits all problems. It depends on your problem what is easiest to use. I mostly program Erlang, but I _am_ following along on the Go-path since it is an interesting language - a modern C is my view of the language.

<comment><USER6> I actually prefer an actor-centric model vs a channel-centeric model. Don't know why, just makes more sense to me, and Go way might make more sense to others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Erlang is actually done right for its use case. Hard to tell about Go yet...

</comment><comment><USER8> Not logged in to Google so cant read. Why do public google docs links still need login?

<comment><USER9> That's weird. I am not logged into anything related to Google, but I can read the document at this link.

<comment><USER10> There seems to be a weird policy in Google Docs of asking you to log in if it knows you were logged into a Google account before.

Turn on the incognito mode of your browser or clear the cookies and try again, it should not prompt you to log in.</comment></comment></comment>


Does the future of mobile games lie with machine learning? - <AUTHOR> https://www.staticcatgames.com/2020/08/machine.html <comment><USER2> Google Stadia said they would introduce 'negative latency' for all games.

ie, they would predict what a user would do on their servers, before the user ask the server to perform that action from their own device</comment>


Ask HN SanFran: Good places to work in the Mission? - <AUTHOR>

I just moved to the Mission last week(off 23rd Street).
Currently I am working from home on a startup, alongside 3 other roommates who all are doing other startups(though none of the others are computer related).
It's a great environment, but I'd like to change it up every now and then.
Can anyone recommend any hangouts/coffee shops/co-working spaces nearby that are full of other startup hackers? <comment><USER3> Ritual (21st & Valencia) used to be _the_ place to be, but they removed all the power plugs because laptop lurkers overran the place. They also replaced most of the tables in the back with a coffee roaster, so there aren't as many places to sit. It is still probably the epicenter of hipsters, coffee and nerds in the Mission. However, it may be easier to get work done elsewhere.

Mission Creek Cafe (20th & Valencia) has power, but the coffee is terrible.

SugarLump (24th near Bryant) also has power with slightly better coffee. Cool space.

Personally I am a big fan of Philz coffee (24th & Folsom) but I wouldn't want to work there.

If you want someplace quiet where you can get work done, Que Tal on 22nd & Guerrero is nice, sunny, decent coffee.

Cafe Revolution on 22nd between Valencia and Mission is a fun hangout. Lots of hackers (and non hackers) are there at night for music, coffee, and beer - <USER2> definitely not doing any work. Theoretically you could get some work done there during the day.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Very, very helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cruise around on your (bianchi track) bike, maybe look a little further east: Potrero hill has Farley's, 18/missouri

and west: Dolores/17: Maxfield's house of caffeine, Mornig Due, and a bunch of other small ones, i can't remember heir names

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Will try to get to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ritual Coffee Roasters: [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/business/smallbusiness/04v...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/business/smallbusiness/04venture.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Really helpful article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm usually at Que Tal, Ritual, or Cafe Revolution. There are a few nice places on 24th street up the hill like Bernie's. If you want to hang out & work, my email is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> is it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Muddy Waters off of 16th and Valencia is good. The Kirkland North guys are there pretty often...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll check it out.</comment></comment>


City of Heroes closes down - <AUTHOR> http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/news_archive/thank_you.php <comment><USER2> The title deserves fixing, IMO. It's not just CoH, NCSoft is closing Paragon Studios.

I can certainly speculate that it's fallout from some other bad decisions on NCSoft's part, since they reported a $6 Million loss for Q2.

<comment><USER3> Probably that and an intense desire to devote as much resources as possible to Guild Wars 2, which is turning out to be quite a hit.</comment></comment>


Abandoning a Cat - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/07/abandoning-a-cat <comment><USER2> "All we can do is breathe the air of the period we live in, carry with us the special burdens of the time, and grow up within those confines. That's just how things are."

That is such a beautiful quote.

<comment><USER3> We can make our life purpose the awakening of humanity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> His book (fiction), The Wind Up Bird Chronicles, is about many things, but trying to find a missing cat, and an old soldiers memories of war, take up a good bit of the book.

I was told some of his books would be considered "I-Novels" or "watakushi shōsetsu". Which are meant to be books that are based on events in the authors life, yet still entirely fiction. I wonder if this article is speaking about the events that correspond to that particular book.

<comment><USER5> A great many of his books involve cats :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read this and, despite his parenthetical explanation of it being somehow normal at the time, rhetorically thought "what the hell is wrong with people and societies?".

<comment><USER3> The answer to your question is that societies are in transition from Spiral Dynamics stage blue/orange through high orange (late capitalism) and on their way to green, which will be a very painful but necessary evolution for our survival.

For more information, check out Clair Graves' model of psychological evolution, Spiral Dynamics, Leo Gura of Actualized dot org does an excellent video series on this model and the blog post about The Big Picture of Global Politics is an excellent application of this model to everything we're dealing with from China to Trump currently.

Humanity must awaken to it's devilry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I found out when I visited Japan last year that (some? all?) shinto temples are run as kind of private family business, handed down from father to son. Coming from a background in a christian country with an established religion this surprised me.

</comment><comment><USER8> Murakami is a great author. One of his most famous pieces is _A Slow Boat to China_ , which is definitely worth a read. It's not too long, and touches on very interesting social themes resulting from Japan's rapid post-war industrialization and the failure of the 1960's anti-ANPO student protests / riots.

Link: [https://www.jstor.org/stable/4384180](https://www.jstor.org/stable/4384180), also works in sci-hub if you don't have access.

</comment><comment><USER5> I enjoyed reading this. If you're a fan of an author writing about a passed father figure, check out Moonglow by Michael Chabon.</comment>


Think twice, Mahbod Moghadam haters - <AUTHOR> https://startupsanonymous.com/story/think-twice-mahbod-moghadam-haters/

<comment><USER2> I'm not a "hater" because he steals from Whole Foods. That's his karma, not mine.

I'm not a "hater" because he posted tips and tricks on how to shoplift from there. WF now has a checklist of things to fix.

I guess I'm a "hater" because his own sense of entitled self-importance is so high that he can justify, with a straight face, shoplifting from Whole Foods instead of buying groceries elsewhere, somewhere he could afford, albeit alongside the Unwashed Masses.

And they say Silicon Valley folks are out of touch. Pish!</comment>


How to refine your elevator pitch - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitegloveapps.com/2011/05/01/refine-elevator-pitch/

<comment><USER2> A very well-written post with practical, concrete advice--the best kind!</comment>


FamilyLeaf (YC W12), The Social Network For You And Your Kin, Adds 4 Advisors - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/07/familyleaf-the-yc-backed-social-network-for-you-and-your-kin-adds-4-advisors-and-a-snapchat-like-feature-for-sharing/

<comment><USER2> I would like it more if this were not a free service. By making it a free service, that means we (the users) are the product being sold. I'm guessing people moved away from Facebook because of the constant encroaching of user privacy so that Facebook can monetize each user.

Instead of making it free, if each family member paid $10/year for a FamilyLeaf account, that would (hopefully) allow the company to put forward a policy where users never need to worry about their privacy being violated for the sake of money _.

_ I'm not saying that FamilyLeaf is doing this, but the need to monetize a free service drives companies to do strange things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for giving us a shot! We definitely are not going to sell out our users and have other plans to monetize and move the company forward. We plan on providing value-added services for families such as helping families plan vacations, buy gifts for each other, order cards/pictures, etc. We've already been doing a few experiments with some of our families and things are going well!

In addition to that, we'll never charge any of our current users for what we are already offering them though in the future we may have additional features or plans that could be subscription based.

<comment><USER3> I think you should call that out on your site with a "Is it actually free?" or "How do we make money?" section.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the suggestion. We do have an answer on our FAQ page: <https://familyleaf.com/faq> but it might be a little too hidden.

<comment><USER5> Just an FYI, your layout seems broken [1] on the FAQ page. I'm on Windows XP, Firefox 14.0.1.

[1] <http://i.imgur.com/4gGz2.png>

\--edit: I just tested it on Firefox 17 and I'm seeing the same thing.

<comment><USER4> Uh oh - thanks for the bug report. Looks like it works in Chrome and Safari but not Firefox. Will get on that soon, appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Been using FamilyLeaf for a couple of months and it's been great. All the family loves it and it's very "private" something we missed from Facebook.</comment>


Purge MaxCDN with GitHub deploy - <AUTHOR> http://blog.maxcdn.com/purge-maxcdn-cache-github-services/

<comment><USER2> MaxCDN has been fantastic for us ([https://commando.io](https://commando.io)). We suggested this feature... And they delivered.

Purging a zone takes seconds, and they have the ability to add http headers from the CDN side which has been great to add Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*" on JavaScript assets. They also just released SPDY support on SSL zones.

</comment><comment><USER3> That is a great features. I will implement.</comment>


Swift package manager - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/apple/swift-package-manager <comment><USER2> Certainly nice that manifests are Swift themselves.

What does this mean for Cocoapods? Will Swift package manager also handle discovery/community? Cocoapods or someone else will step in there?</comment>


Mistakes we made in our company's first 8 years - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/8-mistakes-we-made-in-our-companys-first-8-years-3d38422333b <comment><USER2> I'm reminded of the story of Abe Wald: [https://medium.com/@penguinpress/an- excerpt-from-how-not-to-...](https://medium.com/@penguinpress/an-excerpt-from- how-not-to-be-wrong-by-jordan-ellenberg-664e708cfc3d)

He ran a statistics office during WW2, and collected data on surviving airplanes. To paraphrase his findings: reinforcements don't go where the bullet holes are. They go where the bullet holes _aren't_.

Similarly, when none of these mistakes killed the company, so to the extent that all companies are the same model of airplane flying in unfriendly skies, they shouldn't consider these mistakes necessarily existential.

<comment><USER3> Very good point! But keep in mind one difference: unlike crashed planes, crashed companies tend to leave survivors who can tell the tale.

So maybe read post-mortems of failed companies - and worry most about the reported mistakes that do _not_ also show up in post-mortems of successful companies.

<comment><USER4> I wonder what's the incidence of non-disparagement/disclosure clauses in severance packages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Most things in life are win-lose — someone gains, and someone loses. But > networks are one of the few things that are win-win._

That's one of the saddest things I've read all week, and I think profoundly wrong. Does one party or the other really lose in _most_ things in life? Surely it must be the opposite - both parties in a voluntary transaction or interaction have gained something by it.

I once had a friend who explained a similar idea this way: "There is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. Whenever anyone gains wealth, it always means that someone else has to lose wealth."

<comment><USER6> In economic theory, every trade is beneficial for both parties. You have too many cows, but need money and I have money and am hungry - you sell me a cow and we are both better off.

Reality is a little tougher. You and I both run hedge funds. One of us thinks Amazon will go up. The other down. One sells to the other. In a month, only one of us has made money. Exactly what the other missed out on making.

Conversely, I sell shoes. You sell supply chain software. You sell me the software for a million dollars. I save 20 million in costs. I want you to improve the software, so I tell the world about my savings. You sell to ten other customers, and I save another 20 million with improved software. Your investors make money, as do your employees. We grew the pie and we all win.

I don't know what the world is truly like, but I prefer pretending it's the latter.

<comment><USER7> and what about the people/services that were part of the 20 million dollar cost you reduced using that software?

<comment><USER8> If there is sufficient growth and economic diversity they can find different and hopefully better jobs.

Would you want a job as a copy clerk? These were people who copied documents by hand before copy machines were invented.

<comment><USER5> Or a job as a computer:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really enjoyed this article, but calling "being sales driven, not product driven" a mistake doesn't make any sense to me -- had they not made the call to be unit-economics-focused, they might have gotten into some product- perfecting rabbit hole and failed to generate the traction needed to actually keep their company afloat. This is something I notice in a lot of articles like this; they say "we should have done X instead" without acknowledging that doing X would have exposed you to a bunch of unknown unknowns, any one of which would have sunk you. I agree though that in general "make something that people love" is sage advice, but using the fact that your company succeeded, though not quite as quickly as you would have wished, as evidence for it just seems invalid.

<comment><USER10> If you own a company ran by sales you end up going for short term gains. You have to push back on sales requests that dont add long term value to your company (value others want into the future). Companies often die in a feature loop ran by sales that need a checkbox for their presentation.

<comment><USER9> "ran by sales that need a checkbox for their presentation" is a total strawman. I think we both agree that being entirely sales- and short-term profit-driven is a terrible strategy, but it is possible to have an appropriately long-term outlook yet uncompromising about the unit economics when the success of your business is still an unknown. Being sales-focused is perhaps even a way to keep "what people want" in top of mind, and works especially well for certain products/industries.

<comment><USER10> A strawman argument is when a person tries to disprove your point by attacking a presented argument that you did not present. I was not disproving anything you wrote. Eg. I didn't start with, "No that isn't correct, or actually I disagree, etc." I was just stating something I thought. Someone replying doesn't mean they want to argue or disagree. Personally, I feel people yelling strawman (especially when they don't know what it means) really ruins conversations.

<comment><USER11> Sorry to contribute to a diversion, but that's not how I've understood the phrase (and to add argument-from-authority to the mix, I did grad studies in philosophy). I understand a strawman to be an argument presented by the author in a particularly weak way, so as to be easy to attack. The origin is straw figures set up by medieval soldiers to attack while training... they never fight back.

The argument doesn't need to be put into your counterpart's mouth to be a strawman, just artificially weak.

<comment><USER10> The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition

^ striaght from Wikipedia

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Usually these articles are nothing but fluff, but this was an interesting one.

I realize that's (ironically) a fairly empty statement to make, but I'm sure the author will be pleased to hear it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> >>> ... in purchasing SoapBox for the entire company. They're an old school business. 500M Revenue and 23 people.

Err, wow. that's 20M per employee ... I am astounded - is that real? 100,000 to 300,000 is common in consultancy style services, I mean even Google has ~100k people on ~100bn which is 1M per person

So really 20M per employee is stupidly "out there".

# google numbers - yeah ok I mean Alphabet, but more accurately 90k people vs 110bn but few years ago it was 40k vs 50bn so not changed much - ratio of about 1.1M per seems consistent - and Google is rinsing the productivity making the 23 people at 500M seem even more ridiculous. Maybe some obscure fintech? maybe big revenue low income? would love to know more

<comment><USER14> It all depends. Instagram was ~13 employees when bought at $1B. WhatsApp was like ~30-40 employees and bought at $19B.

<comment><USER15> Neither had revenue so it is not comparable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Point #2 about being sales focus instead of product focused reminds me of a town hall that Jobs had when he came back to Apple...

[https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/20-years-ago-steve-jobs- de...](https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/20-years-ago-steve-jobs-demonstrated- the-perfect-w.html)

 _The hardest thing is: How does that fit into a cohesive, larger vision, that 's going to allow you to sell eight billion dollars, 10 billion dollars of product a year? And one of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it._

And doing the opposite led to the Apple Watch.

If Apple had been a smaller company, it wouldn't have had the chance to right the ship by version 3.

</comment><comment><USER17> The money quote for me was when he said:

"In today's tech, you definitely want to scale your business with electricity, not people. Let your people figure out how to do that."

Liked it so much I tweeted it.

<comment><USER18> I don't find that particularly insightful. The reality has always been that companies which find the most effective way to either produce or consume electrical power are the most profitable. Actually I'd argue that power consumption per capita corresponds quite well with prosperity. If you want to 'win big' in the long run, do it in power in one form or another.

<comment><USER19> Whoosh.

By electricity, he meant automation with computers.

<comment><USER18> As did I. Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. have found models to convert vast amount of electricity into $ via computing. My point was that this isn't a new thing, it's been true for a very long time that the largest most successful companies have found ways to either produce or consumer vast amounts of energy. It was true of Railways in the 1800's consuming vast amounts of coal, it was true of the steel conglomerates in the early 1900's consuming both coal and electricity, it was true of telephone companies consuming electricity in the mid 1900's and it's true now of computing companies consuming electricity. Of course it's also why energy generation companies have been as large as they have been throughout history. Overall point being: at a reductionist level pretty much all major businesses boil down to either producing or consuming energy, or helping other companies produce and/or consumer energy more efficiently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a really insightful article. However, I feel like point 2 somewhat contradicts point 1. I.e. In my opinion, being product-driven often forces you to _innovate_ in some way. I guess there is a balance to be struck here and in the end it comes down to feedback-loops from customers directly rather than pondering over what they may want to use.

<comment><USER21> I think he was saying evolution rather than revolution is a better business strategy, when bootstrapping at least

<comment><AUTHOR> Ooo, I like that! I'll use that phrasing next time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think in our startup we are at the part where we are making all kinds of mistakes. We are Starting our third year next month however we are still making mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow. This is spot on.

I am the CTO of growing startup and every single point resonated with me.

I wish I'd read this 3 years ago and heeded your advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Hopefully it helps the next person then :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great article, especially point #1 on innovation vs invention. Good stuff!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> My learning from this article:

1\. An app for 1:1s is a _real_ business!

2\. You need 30 people to run this business!

3\. Stay away from articles titled "M things for N things". You will find pointless regrets like "Not trusting my gut". So what's the solution? Trust your gut all the time?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Yup! Well, that's a feature in it. It's an employee engagement platform.

2\. Don't need 30 to run this business. Have 30 to create the next iteration of the business.

3\. Noted

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great article</comment>


In a Bering Sea battle of killer whales vs. fishermen, the whales are winning - <AUTHOR> https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2017/06/18/in-a-bering-sea-battle-of-killer-whales-vs-fishermen-the-orcas-are-winning/ <comment><USER2> > He would like to see pots, instead of hooks, introduced as a method for > catching halibut

I'm wonder if other countries in the area (Japan, the Koreas, Russia) allow pots, or have regulators who look the other way when a boat has pots. Seems like the whales deserve a break considering the Japanese position on whaling.</comment>


Show HN: Scratch – a simple editor for live coding graphics with JS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/htor/scratch <comment><USER2> Might want to look into changing the name, since Scratch is a block-based programming project MIT runs [https://scratch.mit.edu/](https://scratch.mit.edu/) and makes discoverability a lot more difficult.</comment>


Ask HN: I made $5000 from company options, how can I put them to good use? - <AUTHOR>

The startup I work for was acquired and to my and my coworkers' disappointment only a handful of people gained from the deal, while our share was a joke. Instead of resenting this money I'd rather not touch them personally and try to put them to good use it ways I wouldn't normally think of (since I'm just a twenty something dev from eastern Europe with no real savings)
It might be naive and far fetched, but maybe I could put together a small hackathon or something with collective impact (a physical event might be out of the question with this budget.) Problem is I have no experience in organizing anything since I've been on my own most of the time, which is why this would be most beneficial for me as well
Any ideas? <comment><USER2> Pay yourself first. If that is the only thing you take from this then I've done my job. Always pay yourself before anything else. You say you have no savings. Pay yourself the 5k and start savings. If you work in startups you should have 6mo+ saved up in liquid cash. That way you can pick your next job if your company folds. Having the savings gives you the flexibility to walk away from a bad situation, not accept an offer simply bc you need the money. Always pay yourself first.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand why you are thinking about spending $5000 like that if you have no savings

</comment><comment><USER4> Save it.

You said it yourself..."I have no experience in organizing anything". If you use it towards pretty much anything, it most likely won't give you a return on your money.

Investing in startups is something you do when you've already done all of your traditional investing and can afford to take in the HIGH risk that comes with startups.

</comment><comment><USER5> As others have said save the money considering you don't have any savings and if you are like many on HN these can come handy once you decide to start your own small business or startup. And even if you won't start anything or have the desire to do so they will come handy at a time you might need some money to get by.

</comment><comment><USER6> Dogecoin! my investment quadrupled just in the last two weeks.

www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin</comment>


Denial 101x: Making Sense of Climate Science Denial - <AUTHOR> https://www.edx.org/course/uqx/uqx-denial101x-making-sense-climate-4371#.VCF-YfldXD8

<comment><USER2> One of the problems with the current state of this issue is that both sides abuses of name calling. I think there are no "Climate Science Deniers" out there. There is a "Climate Science" for sure!

A better description is "Anthropogenic Climate Change Deniers" (or "Anthropogenic Global Warming Skeptics"). Are this changes created by the human activities?

<comment><USER3> Both are irrelevant - its just blame-throwing. The climate is changing regardless. What will we do about it? Doing nothing is not acceptable.</comment></comment>


Are CRDTs suitable for shared editing? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.kevinjahns.de/are-crdts-suitable-for-shared-editing/ <comment><USER2> What is a CRDT?

I would have appreciated a definition that didn't require me to go to a new site which pointed me at a paper.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this feedback. You are right, the article is not very accessible.</comment></comment>


Facebook Fatigue - Are Apps Driving Users Away? - <AUTHOR> http://www.socialmedian.com/2008/01/facebook_fatigue.html

<comment><USER2> I think the fundamental problem is that most of the apps are crap.

It reminds me a little of PalmOS development in the late 90s. Lots of the same thing, badly executed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes.</comment>


Study shows proof that a safer UV light effectively kills virus causing Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/en/news/60119 <comment><USER2> At my wife's office, one of the first things we did to prepare to reopen was install AirOasis units on each AC unit. It's a UV light inside the return that is designed to kill anything in the air. The bulbs need to be changed every 2 years.

It won't do any good in close contact, but at least as air is recirculated we can be confident that the air is being cleaned effectively.

Had them installed on my house years ago because of an air quality problem and they worked great.

<comment><USER3> Installing a HEPA filter is better because it removes pollutants, like smoke, along with viruses and bacteria.

A side effect people should be aware of is that living in a sterile environment can harm your children's immune systems, if you have children.

<comment><USER4> absolutely, hepa air filtration is great for all those other reasons, especially in polluted areas like beijing or (to a lesser extent) LA, but it, like uv lights, is going to be marginal at best against covid. despite the media aggrandizement, aerosolization is not a risk factor in most of our lives outside of relatively unique environments like hospitals.

we keep looking for silver bullets to covid when the most effective solution is simply distancing. even masks are of limited utility next to distancing (for a variety of reasons that highly limited and controlled studies don't negate).

also, we have a huge, free, high-powered wide-spectrum uv emitter bathing us in light and warmth every day (understanding that some of that specrum gets filtered out by our atmosphere). hang stuff outside if desired, but it's really not generally going to make a material difference for covid.

<comment><USER5> > we have a huge, free, high-powered wide-spectrum uv emitter bathing us in > light and warmth every day.

Iunno where you live, but my jurisdiction actively discourages drinking beers/wine outside and really wants you to drink on a patio next to a wall or entirely indoors. I can't understand why.

[https://nowtoronto.com/food-and-drink/drinks/public- drinking...](https://nowtoronto.com/food-and-drink/drinks/public-drinking- toronto-covid-19)

Debatable controls for "order" win out over public health. We're screwed.

<comment><USER4> yes, being outside is probably the most effective covid mitigation, both for disabling the virus particles more swiftly and diluting concentrations more rapidly.

you see this kind of thing a lot in (poorly constructed) regulations, where the intended effect is intentionally indirect, with lots of negative side effects that are simply unaccounted for (charitably speaking). it seems like that rule is primarily intended to prevent disorderly drunkenness and littering, but instead of addressing that directly, they made a rule saying don't drink outside anywhere, without regard to potentially negative consequences.

just brainstorming, targeting disorderly drunkenness with a night in jail would likely curtail that behavior quickly, if it was truly a problem in the first place. and just publicly shaming litterers by posting videos online would probably help curtail littering, along with more, and more visible, public trash cans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hope this will get popular during this pandemic so all public places will have some 222nm lights and we'll be able to enjoy way less cases of flu and colds in the future.

<comment><USER7> It kind of has to be done when people aren't there, or within the ventilation system. You can't have UV lights directly exposing people...

<comment><USER6> With 222nm you can. I think that's a game changer. Because current UV is unsafe and restricted to professional applications where risk of misuse is acceptably low. And 222nm could be applied in commercial and consumer setting because it's safe for humans.

<comment><USER8> It's safe for the skin, but I'd question deploying something like that widely until the other potential side effects are explored. For instance what if constantly disrupting the surface bacteria on skin had negative long term effects, even if the skin itself isn't damaged by the light? You can argue that some level of exposure to viruses is good for your immune system. It's not proven, but there are certainly some scientists suggesting that excessive hygiene could be linked to autoimmune diseases, too.

<comment><USER6> I don't think exposing skin bacteria would be the problem. We are walking around with plenty of skin covered to keep the reservoir of our microbiome. Also sunlight is pretty strong disinfectant too ans everybody used to bath in sunlight for centuries.

And as for hygienic hypothesis ... benefits from hygiene are huge and easy to observe while link to autoimmune diseases is disputed. And if it exists is probably through parasites we got rid of, not bateria or viruses that were not so easy to get rid of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm no expert on this and this isn't a political post although it's been politicized, please don't beat me up.

Can someone who is knowledgeable explain to me how this virus could have evolved in nature with such sensitivity to UV light? I've heard it explained that the driving belief that this virus was modified in a lab for study of SARS class viruses and escaped (not released, not as a weapon) is because it never had to adapt to sunlight. Is there a way that science could answer or prove this virus is in fact a natural mutation/evolution?

<comment><USER10> Almost all microorganisms as suspectible to UV light. The damage happens at the DNA level (UV light causes a thymine dimer when two thymine nuclobases are found together in DNA... thymine being the T in the AGCT of DNA code). This dimer can result in frameshift mutations which can result in a bunch of different damage depending on where the TT bases are (some mutations result in no change, some result in cells inability to replicate etc).

So that's the background on how the UV light acts and disrupts a cells ability to survive. Now, about your question on how could a virus evolve if UV light kills it. Easy... the virus doesn't spend a ton of time outside of your body. Most transmission is person-to-person, there isn't a ton of person-to-surface- to-person spread therefore it's not like the virus is sitting on a handrail in the sun for days. Also, as I mentioned above, some mutations don't result in any change. There is a lot of redundancy in the DNA code (see DNA codon table 1). Not every combination produces a unique aminoacid.

1 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_codon_table](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_codon_table)

My microbiology background is a bit dated, so my facts might be a bit off here and there.

<comment><USER11> > Most transmission is person-to-person, there isn't a ton of person-to- > surface-to-person spread

So I've heard. Doesn't this mean that the UV news is of little impact?

<comment><USER10> Yes, somewhat. I was involved in a project a few years ago where we installed specialized light housing in the ceiling at the hospital I worked at. These units had a UV system above it. Basically it would circulate air over UV lights and therefore would help to decrease the amount of virus floating in a room. So potentially this could help with a system like that but that only solves a small portion of person-to-person transmission. Much of it still happens with-in family groups where you are sitting and talking/hugging/kissing etc. That's why mask wearing and physical distancing are key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Tests were conducted using Ushio's Care222 krypton-chloride excimer lamp

This sounds like it is a limiting factor to use. Excimer lamps in general come with a host of environmental and production concerns. I can't even say anything about the availability or characteristics of krypton-chloride gas.

<comment><USER13> Why can't we make the same light using LEDs?

<comment><USER14> > The band gap of the semiconductor determines the wavelength of the light > created. The thing about LEDs is that their wavelength is fixed by the > material. If you want a different wavelength, you generally need a different > material. Designing materials is hard, which is why the blue led got the > nobel prize a few years ago.

> The type of material for UV LED is AlGaN, which will have a layer of > aluminum grown on top of GaN on either Sapphire or SiC substrate. Aluminum > as metal is conductive, but on AlGaN it is not. To get to a far UV band like > 222nm, high density of aluminum needs to grow, which becomes non-conductive. > You would need to compensate it with extremely high voltage current to > generate really low level of wattage, let alone all the heat it generates. > So there is no commercial vitality to it. That's the reason the whole > industry on 222nm is on excimer light.

This is a gist of some comments on: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Optics/comments/fyqhht/how_are_leds...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Optics/comments/fyqhht/how_are_leds_of_specific_wavelengths_designed_how/)

<comment><USER15> > _I didn 't use the quote feature because it makes reading on phones hard._

Quotes here generally look like the above, the indentation thing is meant for code and abused to show quotes.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the clarification, I misattributed users misusing quotes in code blocks as the method to quote a text (which causes some pain on small displays). I've edited the original comment to reflect this.

<comment><USER15> Glad to help!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Related question: is UV light useful or practical for household sanitizing? Specifically I'm thinking about dirty dishes in the kitchen. Say, a cutting board that had raw chicken on it. Would UV light render such a surface safe? What about in, say, a dishwasher? Could sanitize cycles use less energy that way?

<comment><USER17> UV light can't get into cracks, penetrate dirt, nooks and crannies, so steam in the dishwasher will do a better job.

It can create Ozone, which kills bacteria and damages respiratory tracks. It can be a bug or a feature in the right hands.

Hard UV also leaves a nasty sunburn.

In Russia it's used for domesric disinfection for a long time - you turn on a big lanp and leave the room for a few hours.

<comment><USER18> Oh god, homemade "ozonators" like this bare mercury lamp one.[1]

HN sometimes has a misplaced admiration of ex-USSR-ian resourcefulness, but the cultural climate of top-secret alternative cures and conspirology is exactly what popularizes breathing cures, DIY bleach injection, "bringing the light inside," and other desperate, dangerous self-experimentation.

A top result for "ozonator" in Russian advertises that ozone therapy is "used for wound-healing, immune system recovery, removal of cellulite, and obesity." Just breathe it in!

[1] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/0/00/Ozonator.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/0/00/Ozonator.jpg)

<comment><USER17> Dude, wth. I am talking about actual proper device that you place in a room, leave the room and it runs on a timer. That's what normal people have.

Sure there is a fascination with alternative medicine in Russia, but thats a separate problem, among many others.

<comment><USER18> I don't know what kind of modern luxury you live in, but the hobo arc lamp version is what my family and friends of the family had, and it's the primary illustration on Russian Wikipedia.

<comment><USER17> I mean it's still a mercury lamp, the same thing, just in a metal box and with a timer. I remember seeing it since age of 12, and noone was trying to make me breathe ozone.

There were folks advising my parents to treat skin burns with urine of a young piglet, but fortunately no-one was taking them seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is there any virus not imperiled by UV light?

<comment><USER6> [https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans](https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans) should be fairly resistant.

<comment><USER20> en: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm hearing about consumer grade UVC sanitizing devices[1] more, and also see "electrostatic cleaning"[2] touted by building management companies. I've had trouble determining if these are just buzzwords or if these really make a difference.

[1] [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/uvlyzer-sleek-uvc- sanitiz...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/uvlyzer-sleek-uvc-sanitizing- phone-accessory#/)

[2] [https://www.cloroxpro.com/products/clorox/total-360/](https://www.cloroxpro.com/products/clorox/total-360/)

</comment><comment><USER22> This is pretty interesting. It made me think that maybe in the end we'll see that the way the pandemic was finally brought under control was through a bunch of things, not just a single thing? It seems like many people are thinking something like "once we get a vaccine it'll be over", which might be true. But maybe it'll be a vaccine, and masks, and something like this, and advances in air filters and a dozen other things that just finally stamp it out, or reduce it to a level where we don't need to think/worry about it. And maybe at the same time that'll help greatly reduce the common cold, the flu, and maybe other things?

<comment><USER23> I think if we reduce the common things (like the cold and flu) too much we will have more serious infections sweeping across the planet. The immune system needs training too.

Just like for kids living in a clean environment (no dogs, dirt, etc.) are more prone to illnesses.

<comment><USER24> The hygiene hypothesis makes sense to me for allergies, but not for viral/bacterial illnesses. I'm sure that modern humans are exposed to a _lot_ more colds and flus than prehistoric humans were. Colds and flus spread and mutate a lot more easily when we have a population in the billions along with rapid transport.

<comment><USER25> You might be forgetting just what kind of things they were up to at that time. People got in contact with __a lot__ more dirt that we did. There was much more manual labor and much less cushy jobs like we have.

The levels of hygiene were nowhere close to the ones we have today. Simple things like bathing weren't by any means standard depending on which time in history and part of the world you're talking about.

<comment><USER24> Dirt doesn't generally contain human cold & flu viruses & bacteria.

<comment><USER25> Dirt doesn't contain bacteria and viruses? Really? So hospitals will rub their hands in dirt before a surgery, dab your arm with some dirt before giving you an injection, and recommend you eat your food on a floor instead of a plate.

Mate...

<comment><USER24> Bacteria, yes. For human cold & flu? Not so much. Not unless the dirt is where humans congregate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Highly recommended TED talk: [https://www.ted.com/talks/david_brenner_a_new_weapon_in_the_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/david_brenner_a_new_weapon_in_the_fight_against_superbugs)

And the longer interview: [https://www.ted.com/talks/david_brenner_can_light_stop_the_c...](https://www.ted.com/talks/david_brenner_can_light_stop_the_coronavirus)

<comment><USER27> My first question is wouldn't that cause strains of bacteria to develop UV resistance? Otherwise it's a pretty cool step forward

<comment> xkcd-sucks High energy photons being what they are, at some point only more mass will protect against it. The same reason 10 minutes of bleach exposire kills most bacteria/virii but humans just get superficial burns.

i.e., it's easier for multicellular life to develop resistance to these kinds of things than unicellular life

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is an important confirmation but it's not new. Researchers at Columbia have been studying far UV on coronaviruses for a long time, and it's well- established that far UV kills them.

The problem is that far UV lights are rather expensive at the moment.

[https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/far-uvc-light-safely- kil...](https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/far-uvc-light-safely-kills- airborne-coronaviruses)

<comment><USER29> Same here: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> What distance from the surface can these lights be and still effectively kill microorganism? 8 feet away? Or only a few centimeters?

<comment><USER31> I don't know the answer to your question, specifically.

But it might be helpful to know that the power/strength of light diminishes according to the inverse-square law. That is, if one doubles the distance, there is quarter the amount of light falling on a given area (vis: it is quarter of the strength), and, vice versa, if one halves the distance, the amount of light increases four-fold.

Due to this rate of fall-off, it means that it is much more effective if the light source is closer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What portion of sunlight is 222nm?

<comment><USER33> 0% is also the non-pedantic answer: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight) and [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_spectrum_en.sv...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_spectrum_en.svg)

222nm is blocked by the (upper, I believe) atmosphere.

<comment><USER34> Just wait for all the deniers to start smashing lights. Hopefully this is a nice easy way to safely deal with this issue. Combined with masks. It seems like a way you could really clamp down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> To avoid confusing presidents a better title would be:

"Safer UV light effective in destroying virus particle associated with transmission of Covid-19"

</comment><comment><USER36> This was pretty much guaranteed. There were multiple studies showing that UVC (not Far-UVC) quickly and effectively killed coronavirus. It was basically just crossing the t's and sorting the i's to test Far-UVC light that it did the same thing. But based on everything else it was obvious it would.

I'm hopeful we can see a lot of low cost Far-UVC appliances over the next year that safely killed coronavirus in indoor places so that we can start living a normal life before vaccines become widespread.

<comment><USER37> There's money to be made in spectrometers conforming proper spectrum of a given device. The market will be flooded by cheap lights, and most of them will be cutting every bit of cost to turn profit.

<comment><USER38> 222 nm UVC LEDs are cheap enough. Cost cutting is in number of them, power, cooling and looks of the lamp.

<comment><USER26> > 222 nm UVC LEDs are cheap enough

To my knowledge they don't exist yet. Do you know of any manufacturer that produces them?

<comment><USER39> It does not have to be 222nm UVC, actually the most common ones available in the market, 254nm, can also kill the virus. However, the researchers claim that the 222nm is safer. This article is a bit sensational.

<comment><USER40> [https://sites.google.com/view/far- uvccoronavirus/home](https://sites.google.com/view/far-uvccoronavirus/home) [https://medi-immune.com/protectivair/](https://medi-immune.com/protectivair/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b How much exposure does it need?

<comment><USER41> FTA:

>An in vitro experiment by HU researchers showed that 99.7% of the SARS-CoV-2 viral culture was killed after a 30-second exposure to 222 nm UVC irradiation at 0.1 mW/cm2.

<comment><USER38> This is slightly long to effectively remove the virus from air with people in there breathing it.

It's good for an airlock or surface disinfection though.

<comment><USER42> 30 seconds would be easy enough to fulfill for people queuing up at lines, such as at a point of sale though. Sure, if you're standing next to someone who's infected that's _probably_ not enough time, but combined with other measures it might reduce the spread to others.

One of the studies that was investigating the use of hydroxychloroquine came up with an interesting statistic that had nothing to do with HCQ: They found that individuals with no PPE interacting at less than 6' from someone infected with SARS-CoV-2 had about a 15% chance of contracting it after 10 minutes of exposure. I'd imagine UV would reduce this even further.

This study was covered in Dr. Seheult's update 81[1] video. It's a bit ironic, because the study showed a failure of HCQ, but I'm not _completely_ sure I'd suggest the study itself failed since there's valuable insight that came as a consequence of it!

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5w7FiDJe1g&t=2m32s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5w7FiDJe1g&t=2m32s)

<comment><USER43> Is UV-C dangerous to people? If so, after how long?

It'd be interesting to consider this for doctor's waiting rooms, boarding areas for planes & trains, and waiting areas for restaurants. Just waiting for your table or appointment could sanitize you with zero additional effort. Not 100% but reducing the impact/risk in otherwise close quarter space would reduce the overall spread.

<comment><USER42> The sibling comment posted to a general overview of UV light, but I think it's a shame that it seems so dismissive. UVC, while higher frequency, can't penetrate the outer layer of skin[1]. At low energies, I'd imagine it'd be dangerous enough to virions and safe enough to humans for it to be a useful area disinfectant.

Most of the studies I've seen use very low power sources that appear to be fairly safe, but I'd imagine there's long term exposure risk.

Here's another article[2] worth reading. It appears to me that the specific wavelengths most of the research has focused on is far-UVC which is _probably_ different from the frequencies of UVC currently more well studied.

So, I think the answer is "it depends."

[1] [https://www.klaran.com/is-uvc-safe](https://www.klaran.com/is-uvc-safe)

[2] [https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/are-ultraviolet- sani...](https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/are-ultraviolet-sanitizing- lights-safe-for-humans)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Link to (paywalled?) article:

[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2020.08.022](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2020.08.022)

</comment><comment><USER45> Remember when people went ballistic when Trump suggested UV light therapy could be a treatment. (probably still isnt but it was considered a scientific impossibility that UV light does anything to a virus at the time).

<comment><USER46> > it was considered a scientific impossibility that UV light does anything to > a virus at the time

Citation required. UV light as a disinfectant is fairly well known.

It's not because he suggested UV light that people went ballistic. It's because he suggested _shining it inside people 's bodies_. In that same press conference he also suggested using bleach inside the body.

<comment><USER47> He never used the word 'bleach'. Ironically, he used the word... 'disinfectant', as did you. The media started off the rumor of bleach, and before you know it, his accurate statement was twisted into him telling people to literally inject or guzzle bleach.

And you wonder why we call it fake news.

Here is the actual quote:

[https://www.statesman.com/news/20200713/fact-check-did- trump...](https://www.statesman.com/news/20200713/fact-check-did-trump-tell- people-to-drink-bleach-to-kill-coronavirus)

<comment><USER46> You're right, he didn't explicitly say the word "bleach". Totally fake news then, that's proved me an idiot that has. /s

In a briefing where they presented "a study that found sun exposure and cleaning agents like bleach can kill the virus when it lingers on surfaces." he suggested putting a "disinfectant" inside human bodies. Totally different thing. Let's just use one of the other disinfectants that's safe to put inside the body instead. [1] /s

It's fortunate that being a good communicator isn't one of the required skills in his job. /s

I think your bar for calling something "fake" needs to be revised.

1\. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-52407177](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177)

"Not only does consuming or injecting disinfectant risk poisoning and death, it's not even likely to be effective.

Equally, by the time the virus has taken hold inside your body, no amount of UV light on your skin is going to make a difference.

And since UV radiation damages the skin, using it to kill the virus could be a case of - to borrow a well-worn phrase - the cure being worse than the disease."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I mean, great? But sanitization doesn't seem to affect spread despite the obsession over cleaning surfaces.

If the virus transmits in aerosols, as we have determined, does this 222nm light kill that? No. It shows a smear of virus on a plate is killed by 222nm light. I think it's the right solution for the wrong problem.

<comment><USER38> Still useful for airlocks and perhaps disinfecting masks if tested on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's quite exciting - replacing existing overhead lighting with 222nm lightbulbs could make public spaces inhabitable again.

Alas I couldn't find any 222nm light bulbs for sale. I imagine hundreds of Chinese companies are setting up production lines as we speak.</comment>


Americans Receive Half The Amount Of Vacation Time Of Russians - <AUTHOR> http://press.hotels.com/en-us/news-releases/americans-receive-half-the-amount-of-vacation-time-of-russians/

<comment><USER2> What would have been really informative is to know how many of those aveerage vacation/sick days were mandated by the country in question, and how many weren't.

For example, I thought the various governments in Europe got cranky if you didn't take certain amount of time off. But in the US there is no minimum paid days off at all. Don't know what the story is in Mexico, for example, one of the cited countries with a lower vacation time policy that the US average of 10 vacation days.

</comment><comment><USER3> where's the news? is this for the use of americans ignorant on this matter?</comment>


Invisible Manipulation: ways our data is being used against us - <AUTHOR> https://privacyinternational.org/feature/1064/invisible-manipulation-10-ways-our-data-being-used-against-us <comment><USER3> I get annoyed even by the purported advantages of data collection, like Youtube or Amazon recommendations. Just because I curiously clicked on a stream of data points six weeks ago does not mean I suddenly want to be inundated with more of that random tangent today.

So I hate logical positivism. From logical positivism we get the philosophical foundation of modern tracking and advertising, that every data point obtained about a subject is necessarily meaningful and actionable, and that which cannot be measured does not exist. From there we get the unhealthy Nielsen- style reductionist tendencies in marketing that believes all it needs to know about you is your age, race, gender, sexuality, and income bracket. I think Frankl's discussion on dimensional ontology is the most complete picture I've found of why this is a flawed point of view, though I think any person who has been discriminated against based solely on one of those criteria should be able to understand the limitations of that model.

I hope we can start to understand better as a tech culture that, unfortunately, human beings are decidedly unscientific in the sense that past data collected will not always provide accurate conclusions about future behavior. People grow and change, and collecting data silently in the background and trying to draw actionable conclusions without active user input and feedback is a fundamentally inefficient process, with harms that can be quite difficult to measure, though this article articulates some of them quite well.

I suppose I can imagine that if we lived in a society free from the incentives generating the kind of abuses this article lists, and someone has generated an algorithm that could help you find meaning and success and fulfillment and loving relationships based on all the tracking data you provide, I can imagine this to be the dream of big data for which the sacrifice of privacy might be a necessary one. But given that we still live in a society that prefers exploitation to altruism, what we can salvage of our privacy is still probably the best option until we can reach that next stage of our evolution.

<comment><USER4> You realize that you're just complaining "they" are not using your data well enough. You certainly can't realistically sort through youtube yourself, nor can you realistically find what you need on Amazon.

Fact is you cannot use these sites realistically without these algorithms. It just can't be done. Or at least one can say, you can use Amazon and Youtube better when guided by these algorithms. I do think that it is the difference between not being able to use them at all and using them, but maybe you think it's just a bit less than that.

(also logical positivism and inferring things through statistics are pretty much diametrically opposite things. No logical positivist is ever going to accept statistical evidence about anything, but no matter)

> I suppose I can imagine that if we lived in a society free from > exploitation, and someone has generated an algorithm that could help you > find meaning and success and fulfillment based on all the tracking data.

That's exactly what these algorithms do. They try to find what YOU would find meaningful and fulfilling and they really do try to give it to you. When that means money will be exchanged they prefer one vendor (that has paid them) over another (which hasn't, or paid less), but does that really change anything ?

<comment><USER5> No, actually, I as an adult human being, am quite capable of using search, to find what I want.

Now, I agree, search is also governed by algorithms - but I'm also quite capable of sitting there for a few minutes, paging through until I get past them to find what I want. I do not want anything controlling my filters, except me. Edge cases can be dealt with. Latex lovers need to learn that it's a text editor first.

As for Amazon, I have never found their recommendations helpful, or bought anything via them. If Amazon wants to help me, it really needs to clean its house on fake recommendations, and bogus products.

<comment><USER4> A simple google search for, say, "string" confirms to me that what you say is not true. I program, so it shows me ... well not clothing. Things I would _not_ want to sort through.

So you should realize that even something as simple as search cannot work well without "using my information". And I very much want it to do that.

<comment><USER6> If that were true, people would not be able to find anything useful on DuckDuckGo.com and similar sites. Tracking is definitely not a prerequisite for quality search.

<comment><USER4> [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=string&t=h_&ia=web](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=string&t=h_&ia=web)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=string](https://www.google.com/search?q=string)

Judge for yourself whether context matters. I suppose the results will differ from person to person, but I feel comfortable saying that while Duckduckgo isn't a lost cause, it contains a lot of bullshit to filter through. Example:

> STRING: functional protein association networks > STRING is part of the > ELIXIR infrastructure: it is one of > ELIXIR's Core Data Resources. Learn > more > ...

I mean ... really ? I suppose it must be a string, but, and maybe this is just me, I'm not looking for genetic manipulation tips or databases when I search for "string".

<comment><USER7> What I find funny, is that you think some crappy algorithm, can beat the real neural network, your mind ;)

You convert a fixed problem ('locate search terms that have a high correlation to what I am searching for') to a fuzzy problem of "how can I guess what this person is searching for, based on a sequence of search terms, where I manipulate the results, thereby gauranteeing that the search sequence is poisoned by what I presume they are searching for').

Oddly enough, the latter, is how you get high dwell on a search engine (COUGH COUGH).

as soon as I started using duckduckgo - bang, back to 1 minute searches as I just altered my search terms and actually got back, what I wanted.

<comment><USER4> Actually, when you link up 2 neural networks, or even a neural network and, say, a search algorithm, the neural network rapidly learns to use the external algorithm to do what it was planning to do anyway.

So there is no "beating" a neural network. The reward for having such a search algorithm is simply the ability to put thoughts into your mind. Your mind may still reject them, and if you don't feed it enough relevant data, it will rapidly abandon you.

<comment><USER7> presuming you don't just abandon the search is irrelevant. :)

which is why I don't stress that "agree to disagree over similar premises". can be both a hindrance, and a benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >Soon the default will shift from us interacting directly with our devices to interacting with devices we have no control over and no knowledge that we are generating data.

That's already the case. The big problem is that no one cares about it, because it seems like everything just work fine. I don't know and I can't tell if bad things will happen to us with our data everywhere, but it's possible. But how could we possibly convince "normal" people that giving your data out for free is bad?

<comment><USER9> Because everything _is_ fine. The big conceit from privacy advocates is they think people don't know their data is being collected and used, but the reality is, they do know. They just don't care.

Show me a concrete negative impact on my life as a result of the passive data collection perpetrated by Google, Facebook, et. al., and you might change my mind, depending on how negative it is.

I get a _lot_ out of the products I pay for with my data. It feels like a bargain, honestly.

<comment><USER10> You believe this is all about _you_ , when in fact it's about our societies and vulnerable categories of people (mostly the poor, and various religious, political, ethnic, etc minorities).

You're basically declaring at first they came for everybody else than me, but that's okay because I'm still okay!

If the effects of pervasive surveillance are a negative to society it doesn't matter that you're benefitting - your "bargain" will have to cease existing.

<comment><USER9> My "bargain" is _my_ choice, and the choice of anyone who wants to make it, and no one gets to rip that away from us because they're afraid of some boogeyman who will never come.

The real conceit comes from people who think the rest of us don't know what we're doing; we do, and we don't care because it doesn't matter. Those people have no special information, and they're not smarter than us.

There is no boogeyman, there are no "dire consequences", and the people peddling that nonsense are tilting at windmills.

<comment><USER10> No one will come to you and forbid you from using Google or Facebook.

If everything goes right, government and society will instead pressure those companies to offer honest alternatives to their existing spying-based services and make it cristal clear how one pays.

The masochist, careless and indifferent will likely still be able to use the services they know and love, but their lack of interest will no longer be paid for by everyone.

Smoking was also pretty cool at one point...

<comment><USER9> "Spying-based services" is some truly disingenuous labeling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How is _calculation of health insurance premiums_ not #1 on this list ?

Recently I purchased a DIY mole removal product from Amazon. An expansive actuary table would show a "concern about moles" has a slight positive correlation with "skin cancer". Arguably my premium should go up because of this.

It also blows my mind that Amazon won't allow you to delete a purchase from your Amazon order history. It is there forever and there is no reason that data can't be sold even if the account is closed. To be fair I am making assumptions without having read the privacy policy in Amazon's EULA.

<comment><USER12> I agree that this is a glaring omission. Car insurance companies already have monitoring devices you can plug into your ODBII connector that monitors all your driving behavior. OnStar also has the ability to report driving behaviors to insurance companies. Or how about companies that claim your credit worthiness can be judged by your Facebook friends and posts. How long until these extremely invasive practices become so profitable that companies make it required? I worked for a company whose Heath insurance offered $50 to employees that got a heath screening through them. The next year it was no longer a discount, but a fee if you did not participate.

<comment><USER13> Insurance makes sense for random events, especially not under the insured's control. Ignoring healthcare, since it's not even an insurancable risk, people who drive safely are subsidizing people who drive in more risky ways, but only because in the past, the technology wasn't there (or cheap enough) to provide all of the data to accurately price them. Now that it is possible, I don't see why people who take more risks on the road should be subsidized by those who don't.

<comment><USER12> My comment is on the loss of privacy. I am not an aggressive driver and I suspect that I might get a discount if I joined one of these programs, but I value my privacy too much for that. I do not want my every move monitored by my insurance. OnStar would even have the ability to report GPS location. How much longer then until the locations you visit are also factored in- or perhaps that info is used to 'enrich' other insurance types. What if your car insurance shared with your health insurance that you visit fast food restaurants twice a week? That's hypothetical right now, but my point is that the data is so valuable that companies will become more and more invasive to get it- especially insurance. At some point these optional privacy violating practices will become required unless we have legislation protecting us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just look at the asymmetry. These organizations push to collect as much data as possible on every aspect of our lives.

But when it comes to information on what they are doing -- and the truth of their internal world? No, that's proprietary, a trade secret, etc., etc., and they slap non-disclosure and non-disparagement strictures on everything and everyone they can.

In other words, look at their _actions_ , not their words. That should tell you something about the value of all this data. And about their self-serving hypocrisy.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wish this article had actual substance and not just a listicle of off-the- cuff one-liners.

<comment><USER3> You can click into the links to see the full case-study length explanation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Instead of trying to prevent data collection, what if we made simple tools that let anyone make their data less useful: data pollution or telemetry vandalism if you will. Either generate a bunch of noise or try exploiting analysis such that a machine would not be able to tell real from fake.

Simple example: instead of an ad blocker, everyone runs a script that "clicks" on every single ad they see

<comment><USER17> Here you go: [https://adnauseam.io/](https://adnauseam.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Cities around the world are deploying collecting increasing amounts of data > and the public is not part of deciding if and how such systems are deployed.

Really now? Aren't city officials elected in North America and Europe - <USER2> most other places nowadays?

Go vote if you mind it.

</comment><comment><USER19> A short video would reach the non-choir audience better.

<comment><USER20> they've already done that here: [https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/uncovering- hidden...](https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/uncovering-hidden-data- ecosystem) as part of their campaign

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> why did '10' just disappear from the title? pretty sure I didn't edit it by accident ._.

<comment><USER21> HN has an explicit rule against "$N reasons why..." headlines, AKA listicles.</comment></comment>