The Chinese media model - <AUTHOR> https://china-underground.com/2019/03/26/chinese-media-model/ <comment><USER2> I'm always amused by the indignation expressed by people when some nation other than their own is shown to be using their resources to to exert international influence. The British Empire did. The USSR did. The United States does. Of course China does too.

<comment><USER3> I can't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of crime? And why the smug "amused" line? To me, it's all terribly demoralizing.

<comment><USER4> > _I can 't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything > have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if > somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of > crime?_

Because when you criticize one side, you are side-taking. And everything you say or write is used to justify global politics (and is primed to do just that). There's no "impartiality" when you single out one side to criticize.

Either put it in context, or make a statement criticizing all parties doing the same. It's not really difficult to study and learn about things, and put them in perspective, instead of singling out a party as some unique "evil".

And it is doubly insulting to countries and peoples who have suffered your version of doing the same thing to see you point out others and demand their heads for it. It's adding hypocrisy to injury.

> _To me, it 's all terribly demoralizing._

To me people making accusations only for others, and neglecting their side's serious complicity in the same thing, is not only terribly demoralizing, not only hypocritical, but also strategic.

The 60s anti-culture movement could simultaneously criticize USSR, the Prague invasion, etc AND Uncle Sam and Vietnam. Not just in their media, even in a single song oftentimes.

Now it's 1000 articles criticizing one side as uniquely evil with not even a whisper of own actions, and 10 giving the internal perspective. Not exactly balanced (talking about foreign politics here. In internal politics, I guess it's more like "Hurray for the democrats/republicans establishment ideas, down with Trump" what passes for criticism of both democrat/republicans and Trump).

(And anybody attempting to correct that is hit with the thought-stopping accusation of "whataboutism")

<comment><USER5> > There's no "impartiality" when you single out one side to criticize.

This "singling out" is a fabrication though, and that's the problem here.

> people making accusations only for others

Again, who's doing that? You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people who don't. You dodge the strongest interpretation in favor of a weaker position that is conjured before anyone even shows up who is actually holding it.

> neglecting their side's serious complicity in the same thing

Same here, just because some people are doing that, doesn't mean all do.

Either way, even the hypocrisy of that hypothetical person doing that would be utterly dwarved by the monstrosity of the atrocities the reaction to which is diluted by games such as this.

<comment><USER4> > _Again, who 's doing that? You use the people who do that as fig leaf to > ignore the people who don't. You dodge the strongest interpretation in favor > of a weaker position that is conjured before anyone even shows up who is > actually holding it._

You can read a forum or a media outlet for days, and you'll see single one- sided mentions 90% of the time, with no context, and with hypocritical framing as if it's only one side doing it.

And I remember times when they weren't doing so, where coverage was not so one sided, and where people (e.g. 60s and 70s media, influenced by people looking for wider truths, and looking into alternative media and counter-culture) would be critical of all sides, and offer more perspective.

> _Same here, just because some people are doing that, doesn 't mean all do._

I don't care for all, I care for what most do. Especially most media.

It's of little comfort if most of the people do X and some conscientious minority doesn't. The noise of what most do still prevails and informs public opinion and policy.

<comment><USER5> > You can read a forum or a media outlet for days

In other words, nobody is doing it here, in this context.

> And I remember times when they weren't doing so, where coverage was not so > one sided, and where people (e.g. 60s and 70s media, influenced by people > looking for wider truths, and looking into alternative media and counter- > culture) would be critical of all sides, and offer more perspective.

You call it "more perspective", I call it dilution and spam. It could be attached to any discussion, and it doesn't tell us anything new. All the hallmarks of comments that end up flagged and admonished by people piling on, if the context is different. That's the only interesting data here.

> I don't care for all, I care for what most do.

As I said, "You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people who don't."

> It's of little comfort if most of the people do X and some conscientious > minority doesn't.

That doesn't change what you and the comment you found so spot on are doing, which is not responding to the actual article, or any actual comment.

Does "but the US is doing it too" provide comfort to anyone? Nope. So the argument that X doesn't provide comfort falls flat in light of nothing else providing said "comfort" either, whatever that would even mean in concrete terms.

<comment><USER4> > _You call it "more perspective", I call it dilution and spam. It could be > attached to any discussion, and it doesn't tell us anything new._

It wouldn't tell someone "anything new" presumed they already knew their side was doing the same shit. Most don't. And being predominantly told about the evil others doing it (in accordance with whatever the current enemy/ally du jour is, and which agenda is to be pushed at any time), doesn't make them any favors. That's the actual noise.

> _As I said, "You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people > who don't."_

No, I'm interested in actual outcomes, and those have to do with frequency of something being done. You can find some people doing the right thing at every point in history and on every matter. Their existence doesn't make it less of a problem -- as long as the majority (or a big enough segment, or those with more power) are not doing the right thing.

I'm not sure what the "fig leaf" accusation is supposed to settle. If someone speaks about e.g. tourist's polluting a national park, would you go and tell them "there are some people who don't throw garbage when they visit there", as if that somehow makes the problem go away? And you'd be mad at them when insisting the problem exists, because they "use those that do as a fig leaf to hide those that don't"?

> _That doesn 't change what you and the comment you found so spot on are > doing, which is not responding to the actual article_

That's called "agency". As an individual, I don't have to respond to the way something is phrased and stick to that like an automaton.

Nor is it always to the detriment of the discussion not sticking to the narrow scope something was presented in. Especially in politics (this is not a technical matter).

<comment><USER5> > That's called "agency". As an individual, I don't have to respond to the way > something is phrased and stick to that like an automaton.

Speaking of that, I think I already have wasted more time on this tripe than I can justify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think Internet has become the easiest way to spread propoganda. China is not the only one doing this.

It's so easy to spread ideas using Internet these days, that almost all business, political and social entities around the world are involved in the spreading whatever ideas they deem worthy.

The bigger entities are able to spread them more effectively which is expected.

Internet may eventually turn out to be a bigger monster for modern human civilization than other threats in the past like World Wars and Cold War.

<comment><USER7> Easy to spread but easy to ignore. The internet cheapened communications to the point where propaganda has about the same worth as cat memes.

<comment><USER8> You can only ignore the propaganda if you recognize it as such. Western audiences don't really have the background knowledge to evaluate what they read, and Western media tend to focus on the foreign policy of their country as it relates to China.

The two highest-quality (in terms of professionalism and level of detail) English news sources reporting on China are [https://scmp.com](https://scmp.com) and [http://sixthtone.com](http://sixthtone.com) . The South China Morning Post has somewhat retained their independence, but Sixth Tone is a government- backed propaganda outlet, existing only to counter negative reporting on Chinese politics with news in other domains. Someone reading a lifestyle article on Sixth Tone isn't easily going to realize that they're reading propaganda unless it's pointed out to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> phoe-krk Mirror: [https://web.archive.org/web/20190326103055/https://china- und...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190326103055/https://china- underground.com/2019/03/26/chinese-media-model/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Speaking of propaganda, can we talk about how good the movies Wolf Warrior and Wolf Warrior 2 is? Both films feature Chinese military protagonists and both films feature western villains.

These films remind me of Rambo even including the jingoistic pro-nation-of- origin message.

I think the international market accepted Rambo because they thought USA was cool. I wonder if we will find ourselves consuming "Chinakana" (riff on "Americana") when we think China is "cool."

<comment><USER10> Rambo isn't pro-USA is it? Surely It's the story of man fucked over by his country, and the opposite of what you're saying?

<comment><USER11> The original Rambo film is a remarkably thoughtful study of the challenges Vietnam veterans faced reintegrating into society, including a look inside PTSD (the book even more so than the film... the book was commonly included in high school history and civics courses in the decade after it was written). The sequels, which are the films best remembered today, were of course nothing but pure adrenaline rides with nothing to recommend them, but don't taint the original film with the sins of its sequels. Even the portrayal of the "evil" small town sheriff Rambo battles is remarkably interesting and nuanced. Yes, it's still a popcorn film, but it's one of the most thoughtful and intelligent action films you're likely to find (there is much more than meets the eye in Sylvester Stallone, writer of both the original Rambo script and the Rocky script).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems to be blog spam of [https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/en_rapport_chine_web_fin...](https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/en_rapport_chine_web_final.pdf)

I thought they at least did some work to summarize the report, but even the text of the "Summary" section is lifted directly from the foreword.

</comment><comment><USER12> I cannot access this website (from London). I get "Web server is down" and ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT.

Since people are upvoting and commenting, can someone share this article?

<comment><USER13> Same here, from Sweden can't access

<comment><USER14> I'm accessing it from Sweden.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well the site is down for me, sort of seems to support the gist of the articles title (Got 521 error - Web site down), can ping the domain. Would "they" really bring down a site that is critical of "them" or is it coincidental?

</comment><comment><USER16> Moderators: Why was this submission removed from the front page as soon as it started to gain traction?

The risk of nationalistic flame wars needs to be weighed against important discussion potential. But the submission is interesting enough even if the comments are disabled.

Is there any statistics on changes to Hacker News censorship since Sam Altman's China strategy was announced?

<comment><USER8> Stories gaining traction in the form of comments affects the ranking negatively if it's not upvoted at the same tame. It indicates that people are more interested in voicing their opinion than whatever the submission had to say. If you disagree with that reasoning and want to see lively discussions anyway, you should probably browse [https://news.ycombinator.com/active](https://news.ycombinator.com/active) instead of or in addition to the traditional front page.

We've also had plenty of China-related flame wars stay on the front page for longer, so I don't think you can accuse the moderators of applying a double standard compared to other political topics. [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=China&dateRange=pastWeek](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=China&dateRange=pastWeek)

<comment><USER16> Was the removal from the front page algorithmic or a manual step by moderators?

The lack of transparency with the soft censorship is alarming, particularly given YC's financial conflict of interest.

<comment><USER8> Since the article title is different now, I assume a moderator looked at it at some point. IIRC, they check all instances of the flame war detector firing, to prevent false positives. In this case, they probably didn't find the comments salvageable.

On the other hand, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19493033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19493033) is currently on the front page after previously disappearing, so the mods seem to have intervened in that case.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Work During a Pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/01/how-to-work-during-a-pandemic/ <comment><USER2> >This is going to cost you money, time, and opportunity

herein lies the problem. everyone knows the virus is costing time and money. but how much do you want to bet that unscrupulous people are going to want to try to keep their employees working in-office or on their retail sites so that their bottom line doesn't get hammered as hard?

without a public health response mandating certain measures -- a response which the US public health bodies have been woefully slow to initiate -- many people will be left at risk.

then there's the other issue: what do we do about people who can't afford to stop working or work remotely? at present, we have no plan. these people are a ticking time bomb because our political apparatus refuses to mobilize in response to this threat.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious what would lead to more death and disease overall: shutting down retails sales, or trying to keep it running?

For really basic goods and services: production and sales of food, fuel, electricity, healthcare, etc., it's easy to imagine the health impact of a prolonged interruption.

But what about less urgent categories, such as building construction, automobile manufacturing, restaurants, and tourism? Is it possible that a prolonged reduction in economic activity from _those_ sectors would have a major impact on public health?

<comment><USER4> It's certainly an incredibly complex multifaceted issue. It would be interesting with the correct data to model the infection rate and mortality rate.

As a back of the envelop calculation from someone who doesn't do epidemiological modeling, the US has ~330M people. The flu itself infects 5-20% of the population from what I read so let's say this virus infects a conservative 3%, we're at 9.9M.

Based on the data I'm seeing, mortality rate is higher than 3% but there's a lot of factors that go into that (so who knows), so were at just shy of 300k deaths. I think those are conservative figures, personally. My guess is the transmission rate and mortality rates are both higher but there are again so many unknowns.

[https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/01/23/coronavirus-outbreak- mapping-...](https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/01/23/coronavirus-outbreak-mapping- tool-649-em1-art1-dtd-health/)

<comment><USER5> I think it's more and more looking like the mortality rate is lower than initially predicted due to massive underreporting of asympomatic/mild cases. Looking at the Diamond Princess there are (so far) 6 deaths out of 700+ cases in a population skewed towards risk groups.

<comment><USER6> So assuming 40% of the world gets it, and 1% mortality that's about 30,120,000 dead.

If it's 70% of the world gets it approximately 52,710,000 dead

however, I think once we're at 40% of the population having it I would expect things to go worse because that is a lot of people overloading the health system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Masks aren't really an individual thing that will keep you safe if only you wear it, but it helps if you look at a population that wears masks vs doesn't wear masks. If masks are worn by a certain percentage of the population, it's been shown to put a halt to influenza pandemics (according to a paper posted late last week). It stops people from touching their mouth, and stops infected people from spreading their germs to others. It's one of the reasons why the coronavirus hasn't taken hold in Hong Kong more than it has.

The reason it's not been recommended in the US is because it's not really part of our culture, and so we don't have a huge supply of them. Medical workers need them the most. But if we did have enough, yes they're definitely recommended.

<comment><USER8> Is there any evidence that masks stop healthy people from acquiring the virus? I think everyone agrees that sick people should wear one to stop it from spreading.

I'm also not convinced that a mask stops you from touching your mouth. Some experts are saying that it will actually cause you to touch your face more, and if the mask is not waterproof (are N95 respirators waterproof?) after less than an hour of wear the humidity of your breath will have created a large wet patch directly covering your mouth and nose. Now any time you touch a surface and then readjust your mask, you're planting more bacteria and viruses directly on that wet patch.

<comment><USER9> Masks, as most people wear them, don't do much. They'd need to be custom fitted to ensure no "leakage". The surgical masks do even less.

<comment><USER10> This is a very western approach the problem.

Even if the mask isn't perfect in protecting you, it's probably pretty good for protecting _others_ when/if you are sick.

Containing your own viral spread is as important as protecting yourself when you think at the societal level...

<comment><USER11> Especially because transmission can occur while there are no symptoms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Masks are actually not recommended, but won't make anything worse" \- sounds very short-sighted to me. If a lot of people start buying and wearing masks just because it makes them feel safer, people who might actually need masks (i.e. medical personnel) might have trouble getting them...

<comment><USER13> This is already happening: [https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct- biz-n95-face-mask...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-n95-face- mask-coronoavirus-20200228-43zikhw4ercbdma3lfeul4u6py-story.html)

<comment><USER14> It's already _happened_. Ever since the coronavirus hit _China_ , N95 masks have been sold or selling out in the US. I'm sure some were bought by preppers, but many were bought to export to China to help relieve acute shortages in Wuhan.

Also, US medical facilities and government _already_ don't have a sufficient stockpile, so there will be shortages and they're talking about changing usage practices to conserve the supply. 3M, at least, has said they're going to prioritize medical customers, but they're not going to catch up until April, at least.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion- an...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-and-poor- communication-complicate-coronavirus- preparations/2020/02/25/d9e56396-575d-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html)

<comment><USER15> Let's not forget price gouging. There are those despicable "entrepreneurs" that bought up masks to resell them on-line at high markup.

There's supply and demand, but then there's straight profiteering from a public health crisis.

<comment><USER16> To play devil's advocate: the profiteers are providing the mask manufacturers with cashflow and a strong market signal to manufacture more masks. Given that the coronavirus is spreading so slowly, this kind of market activity might actually increase the availability of masks when they're actually most necessary.

Of course, there are other ways to achieve this effect: governments could order the mask manufacturers to step up production, or the manufacturers could take a gamble on the future and step up production before seeing an increase in sales (and a bank could finance that if cashflow was an issue). But you know, you wouldn't criticize the mask manufacturers for increasing production and thereby profits, so it's a bit harsh to blame the intermediaries.

<comment><USER14> > They are providing the mask manufacturers with cashflow and a strong market > signal to manufacture more masks.

No they're not. The profiteers are resellers that bought masks/respirators from the manufacturers at regular price, then sell them with a crazy markup.

I've been watching the prices of these items throughout this whole crisis, and the prices of 3M respirators sold through reputable retailers has not budged. 3M is not increasing them either:

[https://news.3m.com/blog/3m-stories/3m-responds-2019-novel-c...](https://news.3m.com/blog/3m-stories/3m-responds-2019-novel- coronavirus):

> 3M has not changed the prices we charge for 3M respirators as a result of > the outbreak

<comment><USER17> Arguably, 3M _should_ have put the price up as soon as demand shot up, so that stock would not run out. Shortages are a market inefficiency. If masks are suddenly valuable because they are required to handle an ongoing health crisis, the price _ought_ to reflect that. The "price gougers" are correcting that inefficiency, and the profit that they make is their comission.

The trouble is that unlike in the perfect world we wish the market worked in, the most deserving are not always the best funded. So it would probably be more ethical for either 3M or the "price gougers" to offer some sort of preferential pricing - although deciding who to offer it _to_ might be tricky.

Perhaps, in an ideal world, the government is competently in charge of any urgent social emergency, and if resources are required the government can pluck them out of any incipient market bubble by gently requiring that the entire stock be sold to them, at a fair market price.

<comment><USER14> > Arguably, 3M should have put the price up as soon as demand shot up, so that > stock would not run out.

No. Raising prices is the econ 101 solution, but we don't live in an econ 101 world. There are other ways to deal with shortages, and 3M chose one of those other ways:

[https://news.3m.com/blog/3m-stories/3m-responds-2019-novel-c...](https://news.3m.com/blog/3m-stories/3m-responds-2019-novel- coronavirus):

> We notified 3M authorized distributors that we are prioritizing orders to > help serve our base business – including hospitals – due to high global > demand.

Some retailers are also implementing non-price-based solutions to the shortages:

[https://www.ajc.com/news/home-depot-limits-coronavirus- mask-...](https://www.ajc.com/news/home-depot-limits-coronavirus-mask-sales- per-person/mnD4dHzpSFPId34Qcg03zL/):

> As fears continue rising about the deadly coronavirus outbreak, Atlanta- > based The Home Depot is limiting the number of protective respirators to 10 > per purchase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's only a matter of time before school closures begin. For working parents with school-aged children, that essentially means no available working time. I'm surprised there's not more attention being paid to this.

<comment><USER2> school and business closures should have happened two or three weeks ago when it was clear that the US still had a chance to nip the infection in the bud.

now, it's way too late. we've had numerous instances of community transmission where we can't track the origin of the infection. we'll need to shutter everything for a longer period if we want to prevent widespread infections.

<comment><USER19> School closures can be enormously disruptive if not handled correctly. As OP notes, who is going to watch the kids if you close schools?

We have large numbers of essential services (medical, utility, food, etc.) that must keep running. - perhaps you could set up childcare for said workers, but again, you have to be careful here your prevention doesn't cause more harm.

<comment><USER20> The whole point of school closures is to avoid kids from many families being together and mingling, so setting up a community childcare service for said workers is not appropriate.

The counterpart to "who's going to work if they have to watch the kids?" is "who's going to work if they're infected because kids braught the virus from school?".

Also, the childcare argument applies to just the first few years of the school - most of school-aged kids are old enough to stay home unsupervised if it's needed, and high school kids can supervise younger siblings.

<comment><USER19> > Also, the childcare argument applies to just the first few years of the > school - most of school-aged kids are old enough to stay home unsupervised > if it's needed,

It's a problem for basically kids ages 0-11 (depending on where your cut-off is); that's strictly the majority of children and hits a huge percentage of the workforce. Again, you very well can end up worse off if you do this (someone needs to work on medical treatments, medical research, etc.)

<comment><USER20> In an epidemic, I'd put the cutoff much lower than that - I wouldn't feel entirely comfortable leaving an 8-year old home alone for the whole day in normal conditions, mostly because there's no really good reason for doing this, but during an epidemic that might be the safest option available; if you leave them appropriate lunch then 8 or 9 year old kid should be self- sufficient enough to not do stupid things and phone for assistance if needed;

Of course, that doesn't work for younger kids, but then the main focus should be not on schools closing but on preschools and other daycare options closing.

The actual practical solution would be the old non-nuclear family; i.e. send the kids (and food supplies) to grandparents and have them spend some time in isolation there, while the "middle generation" works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I got curious about the US laws related to involuntary quarantine, last night. The federal government can only quarantine you as you enter the country or cross state lines. In Massachusetts, the state can quarantine you to a hospital or your home, and the compensation for lost wages is not to exceed $2 a day! It's a good time to be working remotely.

<comment><USER22> Don't hospitals have the power to quarantine patients as well? So you go to hospital to get checked, one potentially end up being quarantined, depending on their assessment.

<comment><USER21> As I read the law, I think someone needs to be explicitly commissioned for those powers, on a disease-by-disease basis. I'm just going on my memory from reading for a different question, though. The relevant law is here:

[https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Ch...](https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Chapter111/Section94G) [https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Ch...](https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Chapter111/Section95)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> At the bottom of the article, I see an ad for TechCrunch SF in late April. Wonder if that's still going on ...

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm impressed by the Norwegian health authorities' response thus far, and society's receptability. We have 19 confirmed cases, and more or less everyone who has met a confirmed infected individual is (strongly) encouraged to self- quarantine for two weeks. Working from home if possible, staying off work if not. This means that 100-300 people are self-quarantining at the moment.

It's costly in terms of lost time, but it's much less costly than a full-scale epidemic will be. Will be very interesting to see whether these measures work. My gut feeling says we'll have a full-scale epidemic regardless, but hopefully with a lower peak that the healthcare system will be able to handle.

<comment><USER25> "Oh, hey, please don't infect anyone" isn't what I'd call an impressive response.

<comment><USER11> It's societally impressive if people take the request seriously enough that it works.

<comment><USER25> >>>I'm impressed by the _Norwegian health authorities ' response_ thus far, and society's receptability

<comment><USER11> I suppose I would italicize "society's receptability" too. Also, if the weak- seeming response of the authorities is actually effective, then one could find that impressive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Or you just don't.. 90% of the jobs are useless anyway.

<comment><USER27> If your goal is to earn money to continue to live they tend to be fairly important. We're talking animal needs here, not "is my job fulfilling or helping society?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I find this article a huge overreaction and at the same time an underestimation of the spread of the coming Corona pandemic.

To start with the latter: this virus cannot be contained anymore, at best it can be slowed down. Which means that sooner or later we all will get it. So the extreme measures to isolate yourself from your environment in hopes of not getting contaminated are a waste of time and resources.

On the other hand, for normal healthy people, who seem to be the group at which this article is targeted, the infection is not much worse than influenza. Many people don't even realize they have it.

"Take the loss" is the only reasonable paragraph in the article.

<comment><USER29> > To start with the latter: this virus cannot be contained anymore, at best it > can be slowed down. Which means that sooner or later we all will get it. So > the extreme measures to isolate yourself from your environment in hopes of > not getting contaminated are a waste of time and resources.

Not true at all. There is a great benefit to "flattening the curve" to spread out the infections over time, as a high percentage of cases for older individuals will require hospitalization, and there are a limited number of beds available. If reasonable isolation measure are in place, this could happen, as there would be fewer active carriers at any time to transmit the virus to vulnerable populations.

<comment><USER14> > Not true at all. There is a great benefit to "flattening the curve" to > spread out the infections over time, as a high percentage of cases for older > individuals will require hospitalization, and there are a limited number of > beds available. If reasonable isolation measure are in place, this could > happen, as there would be fewer active carriers at any time to transmit the > virus to vulnerable populations.

Also, delaying infections helps buy time to bring novel treatments to bear on the problem.</comment></comment></comment>


US overtakes Chinese supercomputer to take top spot for fastest in the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.teslarati.com/us-overtakes-chinese-supercomputer-to-take-top-spot-for-fastest-in-the-world/ <comment><USER2> USA USA !</comment>


Ask HN: What Do You Struggle With? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Time management and switching off from work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Life in general.</comment>


Snowflake Metadata powered by FoundationDB - <AUTHOR> https://www.snowflake.net/how-foundationdb-powers-snowflake-metadata-forward/ <comment><USER2> Will any of these layers on top be open-sourced? FDB itself is rather low- level and will result in duplicate efforts building another SQL/data layer.

It's rather interesting to see how many companies have been using FoundationDB silently this whole time...

<comment><AUTHOR> To be clear we haven't built a SQL layer on top of FDB. It's a metadata store for us where we store objects. We haven't decided whether to open source the object-mapping layer. It's plausible, and if we do it will take some work. But we are certain to contribute to the FDB community. So do keep an eye out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> @ashishnm, Thanks for sharing, after I read the HN excitement around the open sourcing of foundationdb, I had a question in my mind and I hope it's not to off-topic to ask here - do you happened to know is it feasible to implement a SQL Layer on top of foundationdb, using Sqlite's Virtual Table mechanism ([http://www.sqlite.org/vtab.html](http://www.sqlite.org/vtab.html))?

</comment><comment><USER4> So when FoundationDB was acquired, Snowflake kept using it as some sort of internal fork? Wow

<comment><USER5> not a fork. they got it via an escrow

<comment><USER6> You're right [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9262276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9262276)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Map of places suitable for remote work - petr-nagy https://workplacelist.co/#/at/-8.65478,115.13109/zoom/16/bearing/0/pitch/60/style/default/mode/map/ <comment> petr-nagy This is a second iteration of my little side project, now enhanced based on the feedback from previous round.

The problem: In my travels, I got into situations where it was difficult to find any proper workspace nearby my hotel/airbnb/hostel. This is a problem with areas not marked as "hot" nomad destinations.

What's new in version 2.0

≫ More data The first version relied only on data provided by website visitors and it caused major concerns. I've added new data sources. As a result, every place on Earth should be more or less covered even without user input.

≫ New [verified] badge to easily filter the TOP places. Place becomes verified when liked by user who did sign-in.

≫ Ability to sign in (fb/google) and Upvote places | Post comments | Upload place pictures

≫ New presets with images in the search widget so newcomers can find the hot locations faster.

≫ Sidebar with 3 sections: Recommended | Liked | History

≫ 2d/3d Map Toggle between the classic (2d) view on your phone or 3d view for bigger angle.

≫ Toggle between map view / list view

Cheers!</comment>


A new treatment promises to make little people taller - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2019/11/18/a-new-treatment-promises-to-make-little-people-taller-is-it-an-insult-to-dwarf-pride/ <comment><USER3> As far as ethically questionable drugs go, particularly around genetic abnormalities, this one seems like it is about as uncontroversial as it can get.

It doesn't confer benefits to someone who doesn't have the specific genetic issue. It works around the missing protein rather than trying to alter the broken gene. And there are significant co-morbidities that come along with dwarfism that make it more obviously a medical issue rather than just being about physical stature.

It doesn't change the underlying gene, so the issue can still be passed on to offspring. So nothing is being eradicated or erased. If it works as described it should be a highly effective treatment with minimal side effects which avoid a host of medical issues for the children that get it, besides giving them a good shot at > 1st percentile height.

I can imagine much more ethically dubious treatments that will certainly be coming down the line as we continue to identify, target, and find ways to enhance these genetic pathways.

</comment><comment><USER4> >Is it ethical to make a little person taller?

No [there is no ethical problem], why would something which has no negative effect on anyone else present an ethical challenge? It doesn't say make everyone into a 6'7" basketball athlete, it says make small people taller which translates into a more normal height range.

If everyone potentially affected by dwarfism in the future were diverted into normal growth via treatment, in a few generations there would be no one left who is affected by it physically.

<comment><USER5> Maybe its similar to what happens sometimes with young deaf children whose parents are deaf? The parents sometimes refuse to get cochlear implants for the child that would give the child normal or near normal hearing, on the grounds that they want the child to grow up fully in "deaf culture".

Many who have been deaf all their lives, as opposed to those who lost their hearing as adults, view deafness as just a difference, not as a disability to be cured or fixed, apparently similar to the way most see race and ethnicity. Telling them they need to "fix" their child's hearing apparently to them is like, say, telling a Jewish family they need to raise their kids Christian.

Achondroplasia has a hereditary component, so there will be families where both parents have it and their child has it, and they have many relatives with it. I would not be surprised if some of them feel that there is an achondroplasia culture, and it is wrong to "fix" a child to make them fit non- achondroplasia culture.

<comment><USER6> There are tons of nasty side effects that go with dwarfism; it's not as though it's _just_ being short. It can cause bowleggedness, hunchback, limited mobility of elbows, and all sorts of other issues [0] (yes, those refer to the specific kind of dwarfism this medicine treats). A parent can't subject his kid to those just so he can feel like his kid fits a "culture". It's wrong for the same reason mutilating girls' genitals to fit a "culture" is wrong. It is unethical to cause a child a lifetime of problems for personal gratification or because of a parent's insecurities. At least cochlear implants can be given at a later age; this is a developmental thing which a child cannot choose for himself at a later age.

[0] [https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases- conditions/dwarfism/symp...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases- conditions/dwarfism/symptoms-causes/syc-20371969)

<comment><USER7> When referencing baby genital mutilation, it might be worth dropping the "female". It's just as horrible to slice up a male baby's genitalia, and it's done much more often.

<comment><USER8> I wonder how much more prevalent phimosis would be if infant circumcision weren't a thing, though. Speaking from experience here, lol, adult circumcision was not fun.

<comment><USER9> Not very. Few countries practice widespread circumcision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The idea that dwarfism isn't a disadvantage is the kind absurdity now promoted by mainstream culture in the name of sensitivity.

<comment><USER11> That was my take on it as well. My view is the opposite: if you have a child with dwarfism, it's unethical to _refuse_ to treat them, if there's a safe treatment where the long term effects are understood (I get that this drug is not yet that, but hopefully someday could be).

Being short _is_ a disadvantage in our society, no matter how you try to slice it. Even people _without_ dwarfism tend to be looked on less favorably if they're shorter than average. It sucks, but pretending that being short isn't a disadvantage is just willful disillusionment.

And that's before we get into any of the health problems that dwarfism can cause. I look at this similarly to how I see vaccinations: I'd consider a parent unfit to raise a child if they'd refuse to treat their kid's dwarfism, if a treatment is possible and reasonably safe.

Pride in a disadvantage is helpful for people psychologically, in order to cope with the oppression or cruelty of others, but allowing it to turn into a desire to keep that disadvantage -- and deny others the ability to choose for themselves whether or not they want treatment -- is truly a bad thing.

<comment><USER10> >>Pride in a disadvantage is helpful for people psychologically, in order to cope with the oppression or cruelty of others, but allowing it to turn into a desire to keep that disadvantage -- and deny others the ability to choose for themselves whether or not they want treatment -- is truly a bad thing.

Exactly, the desire to boost the self-esteem and social acceptance of those with disorders is now having pathological consequences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a stupid argument.

If it was a mandatory treatment that would be a problem. If people want to be taller, go for it.

Like saying : "Oh we cant research cures/preventative procedures for downsyndrome because that might offend some people". Nonsense

</comment><comment><USER13> My view on this, if I knew my kids were going to be little: 1) I would absolutely get my children on that. 2) I don't want others to take it - <USER2> don't want to give my kid to have a chance to mate with someone else after the treatment. Chances of producing affected offspring are too high.

I'm a bit too tired right now to see a solution which isn't straight up eugenics, but it's an interesting problem to ponder about. Public record? Forced sterilization? Abortion? Of whom, carriers and affected or affected only?

<comment><USER14> If the medicine is easily available, then you shouldn't have any issues with your kids mating with people afflicted. Your grandkids can just take the medicine and it will become a non-issue in the same way that a cleft lip is today.

<comment><USER13> That's the issue I'm worried about - after a doomsday scenario like war / cataclysm / plague my descendants would most likely be deprived of that medicine, likely resulting in my direct ancestral line dying off.

In a more general sense, I'm very concerned about the point in human evolution when we can't live our lives and reproduce anymore without the aid of technology. Then it takes one cataclysm to wipe us out.

I see your point though, this kind of event seems unlikely.

<comment><USER15> After a cataclysm, wouldn't your short sighted descendents have trouble without glasses too? Does that mean you wouldn't date anyone who's shortsighted?

Also you're assuming we develop technology to cure all these genetic problems in the phenotype, without being able to CRISPR them away in the genotype too, which may happen in the nearish future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If someone is born with dwarfism and wants to be a dwarf (sorry if this is not the PC term), they can be a dwarf. If someone is born a dwarf and wants to be a normal height, they can be a normal height. Are there really dwarf organizations arguing that no dwarf people should even be allowed to be a normal height? Or is this just manufactured outrage for a news article?

<comment><USER11> I'm not really surprised. There are deaf parents who have deaf children and then refuse to allow their children to be fitted with cochlear implants, all in the name of something akin to "deaf pride", and a delusional denial that being deaf is any kind of disadvantage. It's understandable to build that sort of thing into one's identity to the point where it's a blind spot, but it's unfortunate that the kids end up suffering for it.

Part of the issue here is that -- presumably -- the drug must be administered during childhood, as it's too late to make a difference during adulthood. So the child isn't the one making the choice, legally: it's the parents.

Personally, I find the question asked of the article to be upside down; I think it's unethical for a parent to deny a child a treatment that would improve their quality of life, simply because they are "proud" of their in- group. It's almost as bad as the anti-vaxxers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why are people taking offence to this? If you find the treatment distasteful then don't use it. If no one uses it then it will disappear on its own. Problem fixed.

<comment><USER18> Because, before you can cure something, you have to admit that the condition was a kind of flaw in the first place. Maybe it's easy for most of us to say that dwarfism clearly is a flaw but, if you were a dwarf, you may see it differently.

There was a similar outcry some years ago when there was talk of a cure for some kind of deafness. And, it's a little different, but kind of similar to Iceland's near elimination of Down Syndrome.

<comment><USER19> Calling it a "flaw" is probably going too far. It is a simple acknowledgement that if your physical traits or abilities diverge significantly from what is average, then your quality of life will suffer in some way.

Depending on your condition, maybe you won't suffer much of a loss, or maybe you will suffer significantly. The simple reality is that society is not ever going to fully accommodate someone that is 4'6" (137cm).

As a somewhat irrelevant example, I'm colorblind, and I don't see any redeeming value in that trait. It's a mild inconvenience, and it there were a treatment to make it go away without significant side effects, that would be nice. There is no reason to be "proud" of your physical attributes that you had no part in creating. If you are part of a historically marginalized group, then pride in your group can emerge as a method of coping with that oppression, but otherwise there is no point.

<comment><USER18> Being short is not a flaw but dwarfism is not the same as simply being shorter than average. It is objectively a flaw because it can directly lead to various other health problems.

Van Gogh was colorblind. Had his parents been able to cure him of it at a young age, we would likely not have any of his works now. I'm not trying to make any argument by saying this. I don't know what it means.

<comment><USER20> Perhaps he would've been a better artist without being color blind.

Either way, a person's life and health should be up to them, or, if they're a child, to their parents with their involvement. We shouldn't be condemning people to preventable medical defects just because it might produce benefits in some impossible to imagine way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This (article) is ridiculous.

That was not the first "R" adjective I wanted to use to describe it.

People will find anything to get all PC and fussy about.

You can't make a blanket statement like "little people don't want to be taller, they celebrate their dwarfism" or whatever argument he's making. Certainly there are plenty of people affected by it who wish they could have had a treatment like this.

Hell, I'm 5'10" and I'd have gladly taken HGH or something when I was younger if I knew it was a chance to grow a few extra inches.

Like the song goes... I wish I was little bit taller, I wish I was a baller, I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her, I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat... lol

</comment><comment><USER21> 3, 2, 1 for celebrities accessing this treatments through Hollywood doctors, and then the spawning of a thriving cottage industry of shady tree doctors to satisfy the demand from their social media followers.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how long until rich parents are giving this to their kids who will "only" be 5'10" so they can be 6'2"?

<comment><USER23> Is there any implication in TFA that this would work? It appears to work on a pathway which converts collagen to bone, if that is already happening, would adding this drug make it happen more? is there any "more" to happen?

<comment><USER6> I am possibly wrong, but from what I've read, this medicine allows the body to produce its own natural supply of the protein in question (which would otherwise be defective). It shouldn't increase the quantity produced, just allow what is produced to work.</comment></comment></comment>


Coca-Cola is shutting down Odwalla juice - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/business/odwalla-juice-coca-cola/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> The only place I ever saw Odwalla is in tech company micro kitchens. They say the shutdown is not COVID related, but the loss of those huge corporate customers can't be helping.</comment>


Startup Discounts for Cyber Monday - <AUTHOR>

Pretty cool, looking for more discounts from startups, post yours and share. Link: https://www.tailorbrands.com/mini/cybermonday/ <comment><USER2> Click-able: [https://www.tailorbrands.com/mini/cybermonday/](https://www.tailorbrands.com/mini/cybermonday/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Coupon code: CYBERMONDAY @ [https://mbientlab.com/store](https://mbientlab.com/store)

</comment><comment><USER4> Thanks!</comment>


Ask HN: Share your experience with Basecamp Next, Asana, Trello, Do - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Trello is pretty much awesome. It is flexible, offers a general overview of what will be done, is doing now and has done. Checklists, activity logs and document uploading makes it even more useful for handling a project easily.

As far as I've checked/know Basecamp is the big daddy of this quartet, it has oodles of functionality without getting in the way but too expensive for a lonely developer (which is understandable because they aim for groups not individuals). Asana looks like Basecamp and... well I am an avid fan of Kanban boards so this top to bottom todo list approach does not work for me. Do is, I believe, an iphone app and invite only so I do not know about them.

</comment><comment><USER3> We are a very small team using Trello for our startup Roveb - <http://roveb.com>

So far it's been awesome. It serves as a private kanban for project management. We also tried it as a public feature request board for end-users, but later replaced it with a UserVoice forum instead, since end-users had to register a Trello account to comment or vote for features, which is a nuisance.</comment>


OpenBSD Jumpstart: Learn to Tame OpenBSD Quickly - vezzy-fnord http://openbsdjumpstart.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10793831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10793831)</comment>


Reddit Experiencing Elevated Error Rates - <AUTHOR> https://reddit.statuspage.io/incidents/3rfmfn4vxxrr <comment><USER2> Reddit has been so much slower since the update. Breaks all the time if you have ad blocker. I'm almost thankful for it though. I've been wanting to kill my reddit addiction for a while and this clunky redesign has made me only use mobile clients.

<comment><USER3> Reddit's nagging has been very user-hostile for a while now, especially on mobile.

Dark patterns like the big red button saying "CONTINUE" that opens the App Store, instead of letting you continue on the website.

The "redesign" is a buggy waste of screen space which loads noticeably slower and also, I think, prevents subreddits from having rich sidebars or custom themes, hindering the original promise of serving unique sub-communities.

I always use "old.reddit.com" to force the "classic" site but it still keeps jumping back to the redesign in some places like certain user profiles.

This frontend assault combined with the deplorable meatspace behavior like the Reddit admin(s) secretly editing user comments [0], threatening better apps for "stealing" their icon [1], among other scumminess [2], I think it's nigh approaching its Digg Moment.

[0] [https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+admin+editing+comment...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+admin+editing+comments)

[1] [https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/7l2ank/rip_good_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/7l2ank/rip_good_old_apollo_icon/)

[2] [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/07/reddi...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/07/reddit-ceo-tells-user-we-are-not-the-thought-police-then- suspends-that-user/)

<comment><USER4> Where could reddit's userbase go? The only other site like it that anyone has heard of is Voat, and reddit's userbase would never go there.

<comment><USER3> A true successor is the only element missing to fulfill the prophecy. The requirements of shooting themselves in the feet and alienating a portion of their userbase have already been met.

HN is already a much better place for certain topics, for example, but we need a more general platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey there! Sorry for the trouble. We're experiencing some elevated error rates at the moment that our infra team is working on at the moment.

\- /u/sodypop (Reddit Admin)

[https://redd.it/98yi74](https://redd.it/98yi74)

<comment><USER6> Also experiencing high censorship rates since last election

<comment><USER7> Try voat.co or gab.ai, there's some really lovely misunderstood people over there who have been poor victims of Reddit's "censorship" /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This outage lasted quite long. I hope we get a postmortem from Reddit as to why the site went down.

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems to be back up now. There was an outage a few days ago as well. [https://reddit.statuspage.io/incidents/ysbr3dq5rgh4](https://reddit.statuspage.io/incidents/ysbr3dq5rgh4)

There was no follow up from that Aug 15th outage, at-least as far as I can see via their social-media accounts. [https://twitter.com/redditstatus](https://twitter.com/redditstatus)

</comment></comment><comment> FLUX-YOU I don't mean to rag on reddit specifically, but it seems like another example of traffic light statuses being useless. Github had similar examples. I don't get why anyone uses them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I don't necessarily understand what you mean by "traffic light statuses" but I feel like the red=down; yellow=issues; green=all-good; indicators are pretty effective at quickly and concisely communicating the status of a service to the general public.

I don't see that as useless? Unless you are talking about such a system for the internal infra team. I doubt that they are looking at this public-facing "traffic light status" page, however.

<comment> FLUX-YOU Traffic light model means using red/yellow/green.

The problem I see with a lot of sites is that there is plainly a problem, but the status is still green. I was checking reddit's status page and Aug 20th was green throughout the entire downtime and still is. The amount of times I've seen it be inaccurate makes me think it is not a good model.

I would much rather have a graph of requests served and other metrics (which reddit has). You can very clearly see a dive on the graphs and know something is wrong.

This is what I'm referring to: [https://i.imgur.com/UAtFnfI.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/UAtFnfI.jpg)

<comment><USER9> Inaccurate status pages are fatiguing. Why are they not automated? It's such a drag to have to use Twitter and IRC to bully their CSRs into actually acknowledging problems.

The cynic in me says that these companies want to get away with not making any public statement about having an outage unless they absolutely have to. That's certainly the way it was when I worked in web hosting, the bosses would take every opportunity to avoid reporting incidents if nobody complained.

We've all seen the infamous AWS "all agreen" status page while an entire region is melting. Stripe have been slow on acknowledging their API being broken and then later deleted their eventual Tweets admitting a problem. I've sat in the Linode IRC channel with staff members acknowledging outages for the better part of an hour without Twitter or the status sites updated.

What's going on? Your engineers shouldn't have the status site and remediation competing for their time and attention. Either hook the status site up to Prometheus/Pingdom and deal with the occasional false positive, or sort your customer communication out.

Infuriating as a user and customer. Makes me really appreciate companies like OVH which have comprehensive public smokeping metrics in every region from many ASes.

<comment><USER10> There's this short paper called "How Complex Systems Fail" [1] and one of the points is that "Complex systems run in degraded mode." Basically it means that everything is always partially on-fire at any give time.

But keeping a "everything's OK" flag flying is a big part of a marketing image. I hate this too, but I get why they do it. A status page that shows things are constantly 1-10% broken doesn't inspire confidence.

For example the AWS "all green" event you mention, misleading public-facing information is the bread and butter of the seemingly never-ending line of people that want to browbeat me about switching to $cloud_service_x. I'm not saying AWS isn't great, nor making a point specifically about AWS, but how do you convince people that they're a better cost:value ratio than having a good ops team that keeps our internal-facing services redundant across the basements of the three buildings closest to me? By pretending like the fires don't happen and hiding the ops cost behind ridiculous hourly hardware rates.

[1] [http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Sys...](http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My mom browses Reddit now. Luckily I made her use adblock.

The CEO actively instigates political campaigns and stirs up drama on Reddit just like every news site does. I hate politics; I don't work for free.

Besides, I learn more from one comment here than thousands on Reddit. Most of it is memes and meta-jokes, there's little information anymore. It's the antithesis of efficiency, times change.

</comment><comment><USER12> Still having outages. Also sucks that when it gives you the fail page, it blames you, instead of them taking ownership for their lousy site.</comment>


George Orwell in Spain - <AUTHOR> http://www.signature-reads.com/2016/03/george-orwell-in-spain-where-he-first-fully-found-his-voice/ <comment> alan-crowe "Rome and Berlin, of course, supplied Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his Nationalists with aircraft, pilots, tanks, military advisors and much more, while London, Paris, and Washington refused to help the democratically-elected government of the Republic in any way."

That leaves out the twisty-turny story of tanks in the Spanish Civil War. By my count the story has five surprise twists.

ONE The germans were forbidden to have tanks by the Treaty of Versailles. So they had no tanks to give.

TWO With some creative rules lawyering the Germans came up with the Panzer I, a tracked armoured car with two machine guns instead of a cannon.

THREE The proper tanks of the period mostly had a small caliber, high velocity cannon. They could take out an enemy tank with solid shot. On the other hand a small caliber shell doesn't have much room for high explosive, and makes a poor anti-personnel weapon. In the circumstances of the Civil War, with Franco hoping to mow down Republican infantry with machines guns, the Panzer I is a splendid little tank, and I'm wrong to disparage it as a tracked armoured car.

FOUR Those weren't the actual circumstances. The Russians supply the Republicans with 281 of their T-26's. Nice little tanks, with a 45mm cannon, just the ticket for making mincemeat out of the crews of Panzer I's

FIVE So the Nationalists capture 178 of them from the Republicans and put around 50 of them back in service, killing Republicans. Not only were the Republicans well supplied with tanks from Moscow, Franco also got his best tanks from Moscow!

<comment><USER2> The primary weapon of the tank is not the cannon - it is the machine gun. Like, the point of a tank is not to blow up other tanks, the point is to be immune to small arms fire, go places, and suppress or destroy enemy ground forces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Homage remains one of my five favorite books of all time. It is rare to read a story that is true and full of political insight, yet also so gripping. Even the parts about boredom (which seems to come up in any war) seemed full of tension, since so much was changing. The alliances of factions that fought for the Spanish government was ever shifting, and Orwell had given his loyalty to a faction that was losing out, even among those who were fighting for the government (the Soviet factions were gaining power and putting pressure on other left factions). It's a rare combination of features for a book.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. 1984 gets all the attention and is the first thing anyone thinks when they hear "Orwell" but I think Homage to Catalonia was a much more interesting book and explored political ideas at a much deeper level than 1984. Don't get me wrong, they both have a spot in my top 10, but sadly Homage is relatively unheard of in comparison while (imho) being a better book.

<comment><USER5> Homage, though, requires some background knowledge of the war, and of the history leading up to the war. Whereas anyone can pick up 1984.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "In Homage, Orwell said he felt that if the revolution had been allowed to continue, Republican Spain could have won the war. But by five years later, he took a different view, writing in an essay that "the outcome of the Spanish War was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin." ... All too few writers about contentious political issues are willing to go public when they change their opinion."

It seems that the author is missing something crucial. Orwell was consistent in his later remarks. The resources marshaled to suppress the revolution were controlled and financed by the world powers he mentioned later.

Destroying the Anarchist revolution took the combined might of the most powerful forces in the world and clearly demonstrates their justified fear of a collective society.

<comment><USER7> > Destroying the Anarchist revolution took the combined might of the most > powerful forces in the world and clearly demonstrates their justified fear > of a collective society.

The anarchist movement was only one component of the Republican front. They were not crushed by the fascist side, they were brought down by the rest of the Republicans, under the influence of the Communists (who were almost as busy hunting any movement they considered rivals, such as the marxist-but-not- Stalinist POUM, as they were fighting fascists). The anarchist social experiment in Catalonia was something unique. The Stalin-backed Spanish communist party's line was to not antagonize the middle class (they were, obviously, to be taken care of later), and of course, the other members of the coalition, being closer to the center, were seeing the anarchists with a dim view.

Another factor was the mistaken hope that the French and the British would drop the farcical "non-intervention" policy (which meant "don't do anything and pretend that Germany, Italy and the USSR are violating"), which prevented Republican Spain from bringing in weapons from France. Unfortunately for them, the British had made clear that they would not support the French in case of conflict with Germany if they started supporting the Republicans, and a mixture of fear of igniting another world war, fear of revolutionaries and sympathy for the fascists (in particular in the Royal Navy), as well as diplomatic efforts by the Nazi, ensured they would not change their mind.

<comment><USER8> But it was far and away the _largest_ component. Also, they were brought down by both sides. It took the combination of treachery and fascist counter- revolution to bring it down. My own studies of it have been fairly superficial, and began with Homage, but the even itself is far from understood I believe, even by scholarship.

<comment><USER7> Like all wars, it's fairly complicated.

> But it was far and away the largest component.

I don't know if that's true. If we're talking number of troops, I don't think so. The bulk would be the loyalist part of the army and the Guardia Civil/Guardia Asalto. Then you had a number of political militias which would eventually be integrated into the regular army. In parallel, communists would introduce the political commissar system to enforce ideological "correctness" within the army, thus giving rise to entirely Communist regiments, based on the prototype of the 5th regiment (originally a communist-affiliated unit, later on integrated in the regular army as an elite corps).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> People from all over the world volunteered to fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War. It is estimated that about 35,000 people joined the international brigades.

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

This always makes me think how much the world has changed. Can you imagine travelling today to a foreign country ready to die for fighting oppression? I have never seen such kind of conviction in my life.

<comment><USER10> It's not just crazy communists or fundamentalist Muslims who travel abroad to fight in foreign wars. There are actually Americans fighting against ISIS right now: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/magazine/meet-the- american...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/magazine/meet-the-american- vigilantes-who-are-fighting-isis.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER7> You also have a number of foreign volunteers fighting alongside the Kurds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Homage to Catalonia is my favourite Orwell book. There is also a Ken Loach film called Land and Freedom that is similar to Orwell's story.

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


Junction design in the Netherlands [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpQMgbDJPok&feature=share <comment><AUTHOR> This is how to do it. Clean separation of road vehicles from bikes, none of this painted line in the parking lane nonsense. Engineer for the most vulnerable, give space for everybody.

Even as a driver, this is how I want things to be.

</comment><comment><USER2> It's not just the roads, it's the whole infrastructure. I live in a modern estate (cira 1990); from here I can cycle to three town centers within 15-20 minutes. Our local shopping center is 5 minutes cycle, or 7-8 minutes by car.

My wife cycles to work, and takes our 15 month old to daycare on her bike. Next year I'll be able to cycle too. Can't wait :)

</comment><comment><USER3> The future of transportation is; separate different modes of transportation as much as possible.

When I was younger, I was regularly biking in between the car lanes( sometimes very risky ), skipping the bicycle paths since they were much slower or simply missing. I would almost always get there before I would with a car or a bus, and parking wasn't a problem. If the lanes were completely separated this could be done safely.

From my experience the roundabouts where the bicycle lane isn't separated, are the least safe for bicyclists, out of any type of intersection. I think the cause is that apart from normal intersections with stop signs or lights, where stopping is the usual procedure, the roundabouts are fluid where drivers stop much less and thus "prefer" not to stop or just think they have the right of way.

<comment><USER4> Just as important as junction design is driver education. In the Netherlands they focus very hard on driving safely with respect to cyclists. A big part of that is indeed roundabouts. An average driving course will make you practice driving safely on different types of roundabouts many many times, and the main focus is on avoiding accidents with cyclists. This is important because on most roundabouts the cyclists do have priority when they are going around the roundabout over a car who is leaving or entering the roundabout, and cyclists _will_ take that priority without a second thought because they know that the driver will stop as he/she should.

This also means that it can be hard to pass a driving exam for foreigners who already have a drivers license in their home country. I know several people who have failed the exam multiple times despite driving for years in their home country.

<comment><USER5> Rather off topic, but have you already considered that the obligation of a driver's license is against the hacker ethics and thus hackers should campaign for an abolition of driver's licenses?

Let me explain: In Levy's hacker ethics ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic#The_hacker_ethics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic#The_hacker_ethics)) it is formulated as the first point:

"Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands- On Imperative!"

Since today's cars are computers on wheels (source: transcript of "The Coming War on General Computation" of Cory Doctorow: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg) from [https://github.com/jwise/28c3-doctorow/blob/master/transcrip...](https://github.com/jwise/28c3-doctorow/blob/master/transcript.md)):

"We don't have cars anymore, we have computers we ride in; we don't have airplanes anymore, we have flying Solaris boxes with a big bucketful of SCADA controllers [laughter]; a 3D printer is not a device, it's a peripheral, and it only works connected to a computer; a radio is no longer a crystal, it's a general-purpose computer with a fast ADC and a fast DAC and some software."

this rule should also apply to cars. Also for point 3 of Levy's hacker ethics

"Mistrust authority—promote decentralization"

it is clear how an mandatory driver's licenses violates it, since there is a central authority which allows/disallows driving.

To state one thing clear: If you want to drive a vehicle, I strongly recommend taking some driving lessons. But making a driver's license madatory is a clear violation of the hacker ethics and any hacker or supporter of the hacking scene should make in no uncertain manner clear that they espouse an abolition of mandatory driver's licenses.

<comment><USER6> You're arguing against trusting authority while insisting we all should do exactly what Steven Levy tells us to do.

Also, a drivers' license doesn't deny one access to a car, nor does it deny one the ability to drive (except perhaps legally.) So I fail to see how requiring a license to drive limits a hackers' access to the computer in a car in any meaningful way.

You could just as well argue we should all steal anything with a chip in it because stores are limiting access to electronic goods by requiring people to pay for them. Or that every network in existence which employs any privileged access (passwords, sudo, etc) violates that ethic because by definition, they're denying _someone_ access to some part of the code.

The hacker ethic is fine and all, but like anything, once you take it too far it just becomes another form of fascism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It gets even better. Look at this innovative traffic light for cyclists: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiznpGdVsiY&feature=share](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiznpGdVsiY&feature=share)

</comment><comment><USER8> Hans Monderman was a famous Dutch traffic engineer who hated traffic signs, which he considers an admission of failure.

He said: "The trouble with traffic engineers is that when there's a problem with a road, they always try to add something. To my mind, it's much better to remove things."

Wikipedia: Hans Monderman: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Monderman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Monderman)

Project for Public Places: Hans Monderman [http://www.pps.org/reference/hans- monderman](http://www.pps.org/reference/hans-monderman)

Urban Design London and Urban Design Group Multimedia: Hans Monderman: [http://www.urbannous.org.uk/Hans-Monderman- Presentation.htm](http://www.urbannous.org.uk/Hans-Monderman-Presentation.htm)

Roads Gone Wild: [http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html)

Hans Monderman on the Importance of Human Interaction: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOH9-DgJdTo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOH9-DgJdTo)

His philosophy reminds me of the premise of "Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical User Interface": "I argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users' goals can be better satisfied through other means."

Interactivity is a failure state of user interfaces that could have predicted what the user wanted by context and history, and presented it to them without demanding so much of their time and attention.

Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical User Interface [http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/](http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you want to learn more, this video also shows a good foreign perspective: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0GA901oGe4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0GA901oGe4)

</comment><comment><USER10> Wonder if cyclists there optimize their route for right turns (a la UPS) since it is so convenient in this setup.

<comment><USER11> Most definitely. I've been cycling in the Netherlands for three months now and I've found myself instinctively opting for a quasi-circular route when going to and from a destination to ensure maximum flow via right-hand turns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Quite a good insight. The Dutch design for the motorist last. Hence cycling is prevalent.

</comment><comment><USER13> Amusing no one wears helmets.

<comment><USER14> We Dutch are basically born on a bycicle and learn to ride it at a young age. Everybody can cycle, it's so...ingrained.

almost 17 milion people. 200 deaths a year. 65000 accidents required doctor treatment (maybe we are not zo great at cycling as we think). 15000 end up in a hospital. Especially old people tend to get killed.

[http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten-en- publicaties/public...](http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten-en- publicaties/publicaties/2014/04/24/tabellen-verkeersdoden-2013%5B2%5D.html)

Still, overall 570 traffic deaths (including cars and pedestrians etc) for 2013 is quite good.

<comment><USER15> Puts us in the top 15 with the usual suspects. United Kingdom was a surprising one for me though, would not have expected it to be better than say Finland or the Netherlands.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic- re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic- related_death_rate)</comment></comment></comment>


21 Pictures that Sum Up the Whole History of Science Fiction - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5962009/20-pictures-that-sum-up-the-whole-history-of-science-fiction

<comment><USER2> My favorite: 6. Foundation (1942) - Isaac Asimov invents psychohistory and cements science fiction as the genre of the technocrat. Image by Michael Whelan

The worst: Tron - The hockey helmets always ruin it for me.</comment>


Experimenting with Marketing on Fiverr (Case Study) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.fomo.com/fiverr-marketing-experiment/ <comment><USER2> thanks for sharing</comment>


Twitter, but for Math, with Toots - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.ams.org/blogonmathblogs/2017/06/08/twitter-but-for-math-with-toots/ <comment><USER2> I joined a few days ago, it's been great so far :) [https://mathstodon.xyz/@j2kun](https://mathstodon.xyz/@j2kun)

</comment><comment><USER3> In case you didn't get the Pi * z^2 * a joke (like me), the volume of a pizza with radius z and thickness a is = pi * z * z * a

Edit: formatting

</comment><comment><USER4> Since I see people annoyed in the comments by the lack of a timeline view: you can see the public timeline for this instance at [0], or fill mathstodon.xyz on [1].

[0] - [http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mathstodon.xyz&view=loca...](http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mathstodon.xyz&view=local)

[1] - [https://m6n-view.hnle.tk/](https://m6n-view.hnle.tk/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Mastodon is a really great piece of software, at least from the point of view from a user like me, and I really wish more people would use it. There's so much content out there, so many things to reply to and see, from different corners of the fediverse.

<comment><USER6> I actually signed up for a mastodon and thought it was a pretty nice and funky environment for a week or so.

Then, I realized the full ramifications of federation and I realized that Mastodon was likely to go the way of IRC if it ever "caught on" with the masses, in that open federation was doomed to outside abuse.

I then realized that because of this, my account being on a friends' small instance that he put up on a whim was probably not a good idea. However, I had no idea which other instance to migrate to, considering that there are a billion of them and it was hard to get a flavor for what instances are like with no obvious way to get a public feed.

Now it's months later, my friends' mastodon has been taken down from lack of use, and I still don't have a clear idea of what instance I should use instead. I really don't want to have to create an account on a half-dozen different servers just to find out.

<comment><USER7> Here are a few links with more info for picking an instance:

Projects default picker: [https://instances.mastodon.xyz/](https://instances.mastodon.xyz/) (will release a new version tomorrow)

Biggest instances list: [https://mnm.social/](https://mnm.social/)

Fediverse (GNU social + Mastodon) overview: [https://radar.amberstone.digital/chart/fediverse](https://radar.amberstone.digital/chart/fediverse)

If you want more details from an instance: [https://dashboards.mnm.social/dashboard/db/instance- detail?r...](https://dashboards.mnm.social/dashboard/db/instance- detail?refresh=30m&orgId=1&var-instance=mastodon.social)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> put a math problem in a box and put it behind a login. this is more annoying than anything.

</comment><comment><USER4> They might find this work useful [0]

[0] - [https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/2404](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/2404)

<comment><USER2> Latex is already enabled on Mathstodon, using \\( \\) syntax

<comment><USER4> Just noticed, unfortunately the period for deleting has expired, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is something inherently wrong with this I think. This trend with knowledge, like as any commodity, getting cut down into smallest intelligible or consumable piece and delivered that way is not suitable for disciplines like math. Sure twitter is good for memes, one liners, little nuggets of knowledge or headlines, and sometimes even tweet chains but math requires more context, more rigor, more attention by the consumer. Which is the opposite of Twitter.

Sure it can be used for link sharing, but in my opinion reddit offers a better kind of model for this with its structured comments section.

<comment><USER10> The 500 character limit is actually quite liberating after using Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> can we pick another mascot?</comment>


This MIT Student's Origami Building Blocks Could Make You More Creative - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcodesign.com/90126134/this-mit-students-origami-building-blocks-could-make-you-more-creative <comment><USER2> Looks like complex lego.

<comment><AUTHOR> Kind of like if Ikea made legos (but ideally without the arguing couples)</comment></comment>


Where to buy VPS with Bitcoin? - <AUTHOR> http://www.uncensoredhosting.com/buy-vps-with-bitcoin/ <comment><USER2> Why would it be important to spend Bitcoin here? Could you automate payments from a wallet so I dont' need to remember each to sign a tx each month?</comment>


Why Developers Shouldn't Use iCloud Syncing, Even If It Worked - <AUTHOR> http://inessential.com/2013/03/27/why_developers_shouldnt_use_icloud_sy <comment><USER2> I'm curious about the Mac App Store argument. If you already built an iOS app and got it through the app review process to sell on the App Store, why would you make a Mac port and not want or be able to get it in the Mac App Store? The iOS restrictions are much tougher than the Mac as far as app review goes. And you already willingly accepted selling through Apple for iOS.</comment>


"Code Push" for Flutter is postponed indefinitely - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/14330#issuecomment-485565194 <comment><USER2> Good. Apps shouldn't have code push imo. Run that shit on your web app if you need to. Flutter is getting a web target in any case soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> I generally agree. I get that it's annoying to wait for Apple's review just for fixing critical bugs for example, but I feel like knowing the review block is there means you have to be more thoughtful about what you're deploying in the first place. Prevention is pretty much always better than treatment, and having code push means you can afford to care less about testing.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Opinion of new startup Simplist? - <AUTHOR> http://mysimplist.com I couldn't find what I was looking for in a list-manager-slash-organization-tool, so I started working on this a couple months ago. I'd love to get some feedback! <comment><USER2> I visited your site, looked around the front page, and wanted to leave. Don't make me click to find out what your product is about. Use all that wasted banner space to explain what the product is with a few images to give me an idea of what I'm dealing with. That banner image looks a bit cheap and doesn't even come close to explaining to me what's going on. Anything in my life can be simpler. Keep it down to one nice looking logo, and widen the site up so you get more space to show images/demo.

After careful manipulation of the front page, you'll be able to fit all the content from 'what's a simplist' and 'how does simplist work.' Incorporate your links nicely, not just a stack at the bottom, too.

<comment><USER3> Why not...or how about todoist.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let possible users get a taste of using it before requiring registration. As is, I would never sign up.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would put the 'what can you use it for' stuff on the front page, to give people an idea who it's for.

...

Also - is this really a startup or just kind of a cool project? With all the other list things out there, how are you going to emerge enough to make money at it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I searched through the many list things out there, and none of them gave me the flexibility I wanted. This is something I wrote for myself, and I decided to make it something everyone can use.

Most other list apps are one-dimensional. You have a shopping list and a to-do list. This is a tree that lets you make lists of lists of lists. You can put your entire life into your Simplist and it won't be overwhelming or difficult to manage. My Simplist is seven layers deep in some places, which I didn't even realize until I counted.

<comment><USER6> Another question would be - why would you want your shopping list inside a to- do list?

(www.protopage.com has great to-do list functionality)

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess that's the real problem here: people assume this is a to-do list. It's a tree that can contain any type of list. Do I need to make that more clear in the docs?

I use it for everything--to-dos, favorites, projects, priorities, packing lists, shopping lists...

<comment><USER7> You can make any kind of list with tadalist as well, and the interface is much cleaner. You could argue that yours has more features, but to me, they're just unnecessary clutter. I don't want to have to guess at what your little icons represent when my needs are so uncomplicated. All I want is someplace online where I can put lists of text. I like what you've written, but none of it would compel me to use it over tadalist or other established sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Explain what it does on the main page - if I'd seen the link somewhere else, I never would've gone past the front page.

2\. Maybe some screenshots of the embeddable widget - it sounds cool but I'm not exactly sure what it does.

3\. A bookmarklet or something might be a good idea, so I can tag/add stuff as I browse other sites.

Overall seems pretty good, the UI looked really complicated at first but the help area was pretty good at explaining that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions! I put a screenshot on the home page and basically moved the "what" page content there, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _You should have a confirmation email in your inbox in just a few minutes._

I found a bug.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope. ;-)

I understand why you don't like this, if you're highly security conscious or mad about the spam you get. But my privacy policy is very simple and clear, and it's linked right next to the text input for the email. Some site features use your email address, and future features will, too.

<comment><USER9> What percentage of users do you want to turn away automatically? It's not a privacy issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, how would you suggest I change it? I would really like to have a valid email address because, as I said above, some site functionality depends on it. Should I allow them to immediately use the Simplist and just disable email- dependent features until it's confirmed?

<comment><USER10> Or trust them, and let them change their email later (or verify it later), if they decide they can't live without the features that need a valid email.

I've found that the vast majority of users enter a valid email to start with. Those who are really security-conscious might use a one-time email just to register, which won't work later on anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Watch Fitt's law in your design for the icons.

The smaller the icon, the harder it is for the user to click on it. Expand/collapse is realllly small -- too small for users to click on, and probably too small to make them want to.

The other thing from a visual standpoint you should watch out for is too many horizontal lines of alignment. (tab stops) The eye is hardwired to want to scan for order -- but hierarchical ordered lists like that make it hard for users to absorb the most important thing about your lists-- the content.

</comment><comment><USER12> Your site put a lot on weight keyword 'simple' and fail to tell the user what it's all about. I understand as your building the product you are convinced anyone should get it as much as you do; I've been there too, I think you must find people, have them try it and get usability feedback.

Also I think it has a lot of TV-commercial-like aspect to it with the oversized banner; I think it people don't like overkill signs. Make it a bit user friendly, use colors and a bit of style.

Overall I think the idea is pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would really like to see OpenID authentication. Clickpass would be ideal, but any OpenID would work.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm sorry but the product advertised SIMPLE and when I looked at the image on the right I could not see simple. I'm sure in use it is, but the image you had promoting it looked a bit like too much information and hard to keep track of

</comment><comment><USER15> For pete's sake, screenshots! I have no idea what this thing does. sounds like a todo list, but the interface is the differentiator in this market, so you need to SHOW us what it looks like!

<comment><USER6> Even better - let us create them without registering as people said earlier. One idea is to make them expire within 24hrs if they don't register.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 1\. I think your app is awesome 2\. A browser window around your screenshot would make it easier to get (I started clicking on it ;-) 3\. Drag and drop would make rearanging easier

</comment><comment><USER17> Solid design. Don't necessarily get the value prop. in a world of Google Docs/wikis - try to make that more obvious. Good start though.

</comment><comment><USER18> Simplist is old is it not?

edit: ahh..i was thinking simpy the social bookmarking site

</comment><comment><USER19> You might want to look into why www.mysimplist.com doesn't work.

</comment><comment><USER16> ...and I miss a dedicated stylesheet for printing

</comment><comment><USER20> Confirmation emails just puts me off ;(

</comment><comment><USER21> Notepad + tabbed indenting, anyone? ^^

<comment><AUTHOR> Tree expanding/collapsing, emailing, Quicklist (like bookmarks), widget, mobile version... No, notepad can't do all that! At least Vim could do folding ;-)

<comment><USER21> "No, notepad can't do all that"

That's why I like it. To each his own I guess. There's nothing like a blank white page that is lacking any UI clutter _at all_

Folding is already borderline for my tastes ^^

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> why not put the sample widget on the front page? And make it a realistic list too.</comment>


Ask HN: Mentors for Engineering Managers - <AUTHOR> Where have others found, in person or online a mentor or mentors specifically for your role as an engineering manager? <comment><USER2> I did not have explicit mentorship relations, but at some point I learnt to identify at jobs people I wanted to pick wisdom from. Then either watched them closely or talked to them: chief architect with pragmatic engineering reasoning, a CTO who helped me to understand how product and sales people think, their worries, and how to speak their language, etc.

When experienced people see you are eager to learn, open to listening and act on advice, they will share.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have managed in the past and here are some things that worked for me:

\- Ask the technology leaders at your company/past companies about the managers they used to work with and see if they can connect you.

\- Go on LinkedIn and message all of the managers from local companies you respect.

\- Do some mentoring yourself, you may meet a junior engineer with an awesome boss, and they may be willing to introduce you.

\- This is outside the box: have 1-1s with random managers in different parts of your company. You'll be surprised how similar the roles and challenges are.

When you get a chance to meet, make it as easy on the mentor as possible. Go to them, pick the restaurant, etc. Don't try to get them to help you solve your problems, they won't know how. Just ask them about their world.

</comment><comment><USER4> Try Plato ([http://www.platohq.com](http://www.platohq.com)). I used it for a few months and really liked it. It's a bit pricey, though, but if you find the right mentors it could be super valuable.

</comment><comment><USER5> I benefited greatly from my EM mentor, who was a senior manager at my last company. Our meeting was arranged as part of an internal mentor match up, and then we just continued it over nearly 4 years of working there. I think we were the longest running mentor/mentee arrangement from that first match up!

I attribute my success largely to his support. He leaned into the mentorship by meeting with me weekly initially, and then bi-weekly as our schedules got tighter (we both got promoted to manage larger and larger teams). He was always extremely generous with his time, and always helped me sort out sticky situations and gave me direct feedback.

</comment><comment><USER6> What area specifically do you need mentoring in? Is it more structural stuff like meeting organization and expectation management or soft skills like leadership and strategy?

</comment><comment><USER7> I have been thinking about joining [https://www.platohq.com/](https://www.platohq.com/) which is specifically what you are looking for.

</comment><comment><USER8> Let's keep it real, unless you're a 20 something relatively attractive female, nobody is going to "mentor" you worth a damn.

<comment><USER6> I don't see how this is true, especially in engineering? My experience is that there is rarely a formal mentoring relationship but mentoring happens all the time.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review my app, twitthegame.com (sports on twitter) - <AUTHOR>

I built http://twitthegame.com to try and bring together all the people talking about sports on twitter. I'm hoping centralization will lead to more interesting discussions.<p>I'm curious to hear what HN thinks. Thanks. <comment><USER2> 1\. I would like to know what I will be able to do after i login before i actually go through with the login

2\. Would like the automatic follow to be optional.

3\. How are you planning to popularize this ?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. I see what you're saying. Logging in does two things: it tells us who you are so we can follow you, and it let's you post from the app (the page updates in near realtime like stocktwits, so the idea is you leave it open during a game or w/e).

2\. The automatic follow is mostly to avoid bumping into our follow limits (following a bunch of people who don't follow you back makes you look like a spammer).

3\. That's the hard part, isn't it? We're starting by trying to reach out to the sports gambling community (who are heavy forum users), and have considered a few interesting things like running a retweet contest for football tickets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I hate to say this, but you are moving into an area with some mighty litigious organizations. They really don't care about fair use (..no account or description..) so watch out.

I like the idea and wish you success.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I'm not sure what you mean by fair use. Are you referring to our republishing of tweets? Twitter's TOS gives them the right to redistribute content through third parties (like twitthegame.com).

<comment><USER3> No, I'm more concerned about the actual sports leagues finding some way to come down on the service. Even frivolous lawsuits cost money.</comment></comment></comment>