Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/05/26/women-are-responsible-for-half-of-online-abuse-study-finds/ <comment><USER3> This is self-published research by a think-tank, not a peer reviewed scholarly publication; also, the actual paper for this finding doesn't yet seem to be available, just summaries by news organizations. This article does link to some older papers by them, which go into very little detail on methodology.

As such, it's really hard to say what kind of abuse they are talking about; slut shaming and rape threats, while both awful, can be quite different. Also, I am curious about how they accurately determine gender of Twitter users; there are many fake accounts on Twitter, and I don't believe Twitter even reports gender identity of users.

<comment><USER4> Is there any research that show being peer reviewed in fact makes a difference? General speaking, I would think research should just speak for itself.

<comment><USER5> Generally speaking, you think... well that's nice. Meanwhile, in the world of the scientific method, the issue is that everyone needs to know that you didn't just write something down for fun or profit. If your results can't be replicated... thbbpt.

<comment><USER6> > If your results can't be replicated

Results aren't replicated during peer review, are they?

<comment><USER5> Not necessarily, but at least the methods can be evaluated to see how likely it is that they can be. A black box with, "Trust us, here's what we found" is weak as hell, unless you're still into Pons and Fleischmann I guess.

<comment><USER4> Strange that you believe any science that's not reproducible is science. Or assume that if the science is not reproduced, it's sciencifically valid.

Science is not a singlar effort, nor is peer review without replication.

Please question your assumptions about what science really is.

<comment><USER5> _Strange that you believe any science that 's not reproducible is science. Or assume that if the science is not reproduced, it's sciencifically valid._

That's the exact opposite of what I said. What's wrong with you?

<comment><USER4> What did I say that's conflicted?

<comment><USER7> Try reading the thread closely, looking for nuances you may have missed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > When an article makes a politically correct claim:

"Yeah I totally feel this is true, this one time [insert anecdote here]"

> When an article makes a not-so politically correct claim:

"Well it's not peer reviewed / look at the paper that's publishing it / this is the wrong definition / headline is misleading / [insert criticism not related to the claim]"

<comment><USER9> It's not necessarily wrong to expect different standards of evidence for different kinds of claims, and to expect a very high standard of evidence for claims that might have profound social implications.

<comment><USER10> The problem is that it doesn't often come down to what will have profound social impacts, instead it tends to be what the loudest group of folks disagree with.

Those are two different things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Headline seems a bit misleading. "Half of online abuse" seems to suggest that this study is representative of the internet as a whole instead of just twitter. While the findings are still worthwhile, I think we'd see different results if the study could have included sites like 4chan, reddit, tumblr or even facebook. Of course, there are practical challenges to getting accurate demographic information on those platforms, but I suspect that fact also factors into the nature of abuse that persists on those sites.

<comment><USER12> Additionally it wasn't looking at broad online abuse, it was looking specifically at (according to the Guardian reporting of this study) the uses of the word "slut" and "whore" in terms of online misogyny.

<comment><USER13> It's like looking at mentions of the n-word and coming to the conclusion that NWA is the more racist than the KKK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Just like in real life, all kinds of people can be equally reprehensible to each other. It just varys in the ways. Men are typically assaultive, with in- your-face accusations and threats. Women often use exclusivity and shame as a weapon in equal parts. Because men are typically louder and more violent in their abuse, we tend to register it more often.

</comment><comment><USER14> The title should probably reflect the fact that the study focuses specifically on Tweets containing the words "slut" and "whore"

<comment><USER15> You forgot the word "rape". It was actually "rape", "slut" and "whore"

<comment><USER16> The article says:

> Women are responsible for half of all misogynistic Tweets

> using the words "slut and whore", a new study has found.

?

<comment><USER15> The article isn't accurate, here's the study: [http://www.demos.co.uk/project/misogyny-on- twitter/](http://www.demos.co.uk/project/misogyny-on-twitter/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A more accurate title:

Half of misogynistic abuse aimed at female twitter users in the UK found to be from other women.

The reality is that, in other countries, things may be very different. Also, this study in no way attempted to quantify all forms of online abuse. Heck, if women are this bad to each other, they may actually commit well more than half of all abuse if you include abuse aimed at males. Boys can be pretty nasty to each other too, but I suspect more of it is "offline".

<comment><USER18> I think the most important thing we can do is continue to try and bring people together by grouping them based on a single feature and then ascribing traits to them, then arguing about it on the internet. We need to keep telling our children to be nice to "black people" and "women are mean to men" and sometimes(honestly a lot of times) "men are mean to women".

We need to start censoring the internet immeadiately and NEVER identify as a diverse difficultly grouped species that cooperates and gets a long.

Now more than ever we need Democrats to hate Republicans, conservatives to hate transexuals and people who use Vim to continue to identify as the gods they are against inferior morons who use Emacs.

also, PCMaster race, if you use linux or microsoft you need to die.

This should be the next X Prize, finding interesting arbitrary (or obvious) distinctions and continuing to allow them to detract from solving real problems.

edit: inb4 Poe's law. If you didn't catch it, this is frustration-sarcasm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> And most likely if you parsed specifically tweets containing the n word, you'd find most of said tweets are authored by black people.

Not sure what the point of this article is.

<comment><USER11> Which "n word"? Do a simple twitter search with the two spelling variants and you'll immediately notice completely different results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Anecdotal hand-waving BS: Something I've noticed over the last several years are people who feel so victimized in some way that they actually begin acting like their victimizer. Gay people who anonymously act violently homophobic. Black people who paint KKK images on campus property. Weird.

I'd guess it's just a very small minority of people who are like that, but online, in aggregate form, it could turn into a significant number. It'd be interesting to see some stats about this.

<comment><USER21> Also related, IMO, would be politicians vehemently campaigning against X (where X is marriage equality, sexual promiscuity, abortions, or otherwise some social wedge issue), and then it turns out that the politician was directly and hypocritically involved in X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Honestly though, equating "online abuse" to some name calling on Twitter is totally disingenuous. What about harassment and rape threats and doxing and swatting?

<comment><USER23> don't worry, females are probably responsible for half of that other stuff too.

<comment><USER22> I don't see it that way at all. I think the sort of casually calling other women slags and hoes or whatever (ie normalised internalised misogyny) is a very different ball game to the gamergate style evil shit that happens.

<comment><USER24> Why not? Look at the case of Lori Drew [0]. She cyberbullied her daughter's friend into committing suicide. Women are not incapable of committing nasty stuff on the internet.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Drew](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Drew)

<comment><USER22> I'm not claiming they aren't, but again, saying "probably" and assuming the iceberg extends equally the whole way down is entirely unsubstantiated.

I was merely saying that name calling and harassment are often completely different mindsets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This actually mirrors what I've seen in the workplace over the last 35 years - women can be very brutal to each other (just like men). The main difference I've observed is that men tend to forgive each other and move on. Women seem more likely to hold a grudge. I'm obviously not interested in making sweeping generalizations - and this is not a scientific study.

<comment><USER26> > I'm obviously not interested in making sweeping generalizations

That is not obvious to me given the antecedent observations that ultimately brought us to this claim.

<comment><USER25> What I meant is that these characteristics were observed in only the small number of workplaces that have employed me. And I could have gone on to correlate these behaviors to other characteristics but purposely didn't do that. More importantly, I could elicit corroboration from others who worked in these locations including the woman who first pointed this trend out to me.

Of course, the better technique would be to collect aanonymized data from a wide range of HR departments and look for statistical trends. When complete you'd still see biases ... just like only studying trends by analyzing Twitter.

<comment><USER26> That makes _much_ more sense but wasn't clear from the way you put that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I do kind of wonder whether sock-puppet accounts were a significant factor. I wouldn't necessarily expect them to follow the same gender distribution as the folks abusing.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd like to know what percentage of online abuse was directed at women. My hunch would have been 50/50 for dealing it out, but I am not so sure the split is even for taking it.

<comment><USER29> The article does link to one investigation from The Guardian about abusive comments left on articles written by journalists whose genders are known.

<comment><USER16> I'm rather doubtful about what conclusions can be drawn from that investigation, given that it doesn't really present much clear data. It measures how many comments moderators have deleted, assuming most deleted comments are abusive. Sometimes moderators go rogue and start deleting large numbers of comments that are not abusive but which they don't like for some other reason, leading to more people posting the same comments, leading to more deletions. It's as much a study of moderator behaviour as of commenter behaviour.

Eg. I saw huge numbers of comments deleted for saying a lot of redditors turned against Ellen Pao because of the perception that she sacked Victoria Taylor. Which doesn't seem abusive to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I thought this was consistent with prevaling theories on how sexism works, and how abuse works more broadly?

There's a kindergarten-esque explanation of the phenomenon: humans tend to imitate each other, and we imitate more the people we're around more, and the targets of abuse tend to be around their abusers (or women in an abusive society) so they become like them.

It's not entirely accurate, but similar phenomena are known, most infamously the correlation between being abused as a child and:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_violence#Intergenerati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_violence#Intergenerational)

</comment><comment><USER31> Why wouldn't they frame the title as "Men and women are equally responsible for misogynistic tweets" instead of singling out women?

<comment><USER32> The popular myth is that men are responsible for the majority of online abuse. Its more dramatic to phrase the claim in a way that is more explicit in contradicting this myth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> trying to see the good in things, perhaps this bodes well for gender equality, suggesting (psychological underpinnings of the aggressors aside) that there is less bias in the feeling of personal empowerment on the internet.

<comment><USER4> Equality between genders is unlikely, there will likely always be imbalances one way or another. Studies like this to me help counter myths related to gender though, which is important; aka science is good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> this is super important research the institute for social media has conducted. the biggest threats humanity has ever faced are 140 charachters.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have an adequate supply of bile for the social justice advocates but this isn't a news story that plays against their beliefs.

If you exclude the mob then the majority of them would say that many women have internalized misogyny.

This isn't a fantastic claim as it may at first sound. Many people thinks ill of themselves, many people also hate themselves on a group level. The stereotype of the self hating Jew has some basis in fact. Each nation has people who dislike the people within it despite being members of it.

It is possible to hate your own class, race or culture. It is reasonable to extend that to sex.

I think like with many things there is often a reasonable kernel of truth to why you'd choose to go against your own tribe, but taken too far it can slip over into irrationality.

I am working class but I see a lot of toxic behaviors in it. It is true for example that they are more violent. On the flip side I would also say they are less dishonest than the middle class and much more reliable when the going gets tough. Many middle class people have noticed their neighours flake out easily over little things.

Of course I don't hate my class but at one point as a teen I struggled with it until I realized the other classes have their own suite of flaws as well, they're just less obvious to outsiders.

The most important thing.

Remember that in proximity like competes with like. If you understand this you'll see why the SJWs eat their young, why siblings fight and why in civil wars you're more likely to get attacked by some group that is more similar than different.

If you compete for the same resource you develop enemies. The modern focus on xenophobia ignores the internal competition. The No.1 enemy to Bernie Sanders supporters is Hilary until the nomination, and then Trump. Something like ISIS is at the end of a long list. This truth also explains the existence of fellow travelers.

When you get attacked by a foreign faction everybody joins together. The SJWs unite against non-SJWs. The siblings band together against bullies. The Sunnis and Shias band together as Muslims when faced with western forces. That's why many strategists think an alien invasion would generate world peace!

I'm sure you remember if you're old enough that shortly after 9/11 everybody bought flags. That day was when they realized they were in Team America. People who betray their tribe for whatever reason get torn to pieces because an enemy can use divide and conquer tactics to destroy all of you.

Evidence for my claim would probably be found in the study above. Those women are attacking other women, not other men.

</comment><comment><USER35> A woman calling another a whore is misogyny? Being against promiscuity is misogyny?

<comment> vertex-four Being against female promiscuity while praising or ignoring male promiscuity is definitely misogyny.

Edit: Additionally, being against both in the current society is, while not necessarily misogynist in itself, contributing to a misogynistic society - there's many more people who will speak up to tell a man that the weird-ass person who told them they're bad for being promiscuous is wrong then would tell a woman the same, the result being that telling a woman that she's bad for enjoying sex has more impact than telling a man the same. You don't actually see many masculine-gendered terms for shaming the enjoyment of sex, and those that do exist are not used in a derogatory context very often.

<comment><USER35> And how do you detect that with a bot that just skims through tweets? Nonsense.

<comment> vertex-four Well, how do you know that "whore" in all these cases was used as an insult to promiscuity, rather than a generic insult (with a certain bite) as it's more generally used, where a less sexually-focused insult might be used against men?

We could, of course, just point out that this is a terrible study in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It makes sense.

A 'whore/slut' women in a society has the most destructive effect on other women's sexual prospect. So I am surprised that there is a taboo against that - the only thing that surprised me is when men think its a bad thing - <USER2> it doesn't hurt them having many sexually adventurous women around.

<comment><USER37> It's probably about control of their partner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> A month from now there will be a debate/argument in HN comments about women being harassed online, someone will claim something along the lines of most online insults toward women are posted by men and someone will link this article. Tune in to next month's broadcast to see who gets down voted into oblivion, the person making the unsubstantiated claim or the person rebutting it.

</comment><comment><USER39> In my almost 40 years of living, I've learned one thing about women, they love attention, and you better learn when is necessary to give it to them and when is better for both if you ignore them.

<comment><USER40> True but trivial, in that what you say is also true for men.

It might still be useful to say, since some men occasionally need reminding that women are humans with human behavior.

<comment><USER39> >since some men occasionally need reminding that women are humans with human behavior.

I never implied the contrary.</comment></comment></comment>


Mysterious glowing object suddenly appears in Earth's orbit - <AUTHOR> https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/11069093/mysterious-glowing-object-appears-in-earths-orbit-scientists-baffled/ <comment><USER2> Mysterious glowing object suddenly appears in Earth's orbit -- The Sun is there!

(please forgive terrible old internet meme humour)

To contribute something, it isn't glowing very brightly, and probably is another temporary mini satellite. These appear somewhat often, and don't last long before being flung back out of our orbit.</comment>


Ask HN: Any advice on how to get VC in Latin America? - <AUTHOR>

Please share any resources on where to find VC capital for a mobile software company with lots of distribution channels open. I am interested in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, since I am not a US citizen. <comment><USER2> Check out Stratus, maybe they do mobile. Go through the portfolios of LAVCA <http://lavca.org/membership/current-members/>

I've looked at some portfolios of Brazil VCs and incubators if you are are interested in Brazil.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you share those links in Brazil?

I'd appreciate it

<comment><USER2> do you speak/read portuguese?

i think this is more of a 'support group' <http://www.endeavor.org.br/cases- empreendedores>

energy innovation awards: <http://www.edpbr.com.br/energia/>

government VC: <http://www.fundocriatec.com.br/>

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2010076,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2010076,00.html)

work backwards from this list (see who funded the mobile ones): <http://www.maisstartup.com.br/>

Please share any interesting findings about VCs or good links you find about startups in Latin America.

An ideal angel for mobile would be that guy in mexico that owns the big movile company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Don't know where but beware of government loans, they are a pain to get and usually involves bribery.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any recomendation?</comment></comment>


Apple is ditching its iconic startup chime with the new MacBook Pro - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/31/13472920/apple-macbook-pro-chime-gone <comment><USER2> Sure it's a nostalgic sound, but I can't tell you how many college lectures are punctuated at some point by this sound.</comment>


Creative work by ANTIVJ gets ripped off in new Microsoft Xbox launch - <AUTHOR> https://cdm.link/2019/12/xbox-antivj-ripoff/ <comment><USER2> The light crossing a landscape and plants growing as it goes seems inspired by the PS2 video game Ookami.</comment>


Show HN: Remember the login services you use (Twitter, Facebook etc.) - <AUTHOR> https://whatsign.in <comment><AUTHOR> Hi!

Before developing this extension I used to accidentally create extra accounts on websites where I didn't remember how I logged in in a certain website.

Does this happen to you to? How do you think I can improve my product?

<comment><USER2> It happens pretty frequently, esp. for service I barely use. I consider this is a UX issue but your tool seems nice and all :)

improvement idea: integrate with 1P and use its storage instead of localstorare?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a nice idea! Auto-selection of the login button (like password managers auto-fill fields) is also an idea that has been suggested.</comment></comment></comment>


Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/06/chatbot-donotpay-refugees-claim-asylum-legal-aid <comment><USER2> I bet you could do a lot of good with an equivalent for eviction proceedings. Most people being evicted don't have representation.

<comment><USER3> The author may already be working on this. He "decided to expand the bot's capabilities after DoNotPay began receiving messages about evictions and repossessions." [1] For now the evictions/homelessness feature seems to offer only assistance in applying for public housing.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/11/chatbot-l...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/11/chatbot- lawyer-beat-parking-fines-helping-homeless-do-not-pay) [1]

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great to see more chatbots that encourage real world civic action, not just make it easier to order pizza.

I did similar work with Hello.Vote for voter registration, and there are so many offline forms that could be improved with a bit of web/messaging UI. Also see snapfresh.org for a CfA project that helps find places that accept EBT cards.

<comment><USER5> Not sure if this is actual "civic action". At least if this is deployed in Europe, it sounds to me more like a deliberate action to completely destroy what remains of the asylum system, which is already struggling both technically and with its political and popular support, due to the large number of applicants who are economic migrants rather than actual refugees.

It may be different with U.S. and Canada, though - things are a bit easier when asylum applicants are not coming over unguarded land borders.

(FWIW, I've assisted an immigrant, an old woman, in composing her complaint to the national courts and ECHR. The system is rigged against honest applicants because of the overload caused by more or less frivolous cases. We lost, too, technically, but she was in too bad shape to be deported so eventually got permission to stay.)

<comment><USER6> Capital flows completely freely between borders, but people can't. I don't really blame anyone for being economic migrants - they're just refugees of a different type.

<comment><USER5> Of course I don't blame anyone for being an economic migrant. It's a very natural thing to do: search for a better life. It's what I would do. Economic and technical development has progressed in Africa and Asia so that larger numbers of people than ever are able to consider migration. We see that now on the Libyan coast.

However, particularly for European governments, it's now becoming visible that there is a selection to be made: you can have completely open borders, or you can have a welfare state, but you can't have both.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely true - if given the choice, most anyone would rather live in France than war torn Somalia. And given altruism doesn't work particularly well in unstable countries the current system is definitely in a bad state. Borders will have to be closed, as they marginally are now.

<comment><USER7> That, or we eventually get a dystopia/libertarian dreamworld where borders are replaced by walls around private properties, with a near infinite supply of bodies right at the gates, willing to do almost everything for scraps.

Depressing future scenarios like this make me miss the 1980ies, when popularly feared terrible futures had clearly good solutions ("don't blow up the planet") instead of a choice between two evils.

<comment><USER8> > with a near infinite supply of bodies right at the gates, willing to do > almost everything for scraps

It does not have to be like that, it is just what you believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone explain how the first chatbot was any better than an interactive form?

<comment><USER10> It's something I personally find very bizarre, but I've definitely noticed that a lot of people have a very strong mental block about doing things on a computer, or even a browser. These tasks instantly seem 10x more daunting, and people feel like they can mess it up easily. Chat interfaces that are thin wrappers over web forms don't provide any actual functional value, but on the basis of these observations I could understand them helping with people's feelings of being "overwhelmed by the system".

<comment><USER11> So it's like a 90's-esque UI wizard?

<comment><USER12> before you know it we're going to be using chatrooms with pound signs for each channel and addressing users with @ symbols again

at least I don't have to wait for the mod to +v me. we'll have a chatbot for that

<comment> vertex-four You should check out Matrix[0]. :)

[0] [https://matrix.org](https://matrix.org)

<comment><USER12> hm, I wonder if they allow custom URIs, I'd like to change mine Freenode

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What worries me about this is the liability- if you mess up someone's asylum claim, they can die, or suffer extreme harm (e.g. if they're tortured). I'd be interested in seeing how DoNotPay manages their liability.

<comment><USER6> At what level are they allowed to say something to the effect of "We are trying out very best to make this as useful and applicable to everyone, and in order to help as many people as possible we'd like you to agree to not hold us liable for anything bad that happens. Use us as a resource but we are not fully authoritative."

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure how close this is to being the practice of law, but lawyers are generally not allowed to contract away malpractice liability. As a lawyer, I feel like it would be beneficial for everyone to allow it in certain cases, like here, but as with everything, there's the potential for abuse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> dao- > The 20-year-old chose Facebook Messenger as a home for the latest > incarnation of his robot lawyer because of accessibility. "It works with > almost every device, making it accessible to over a billion people," he > said.

That can't be the whole story... A web app could have been at least as accessible. I guess Facebook offers APIs that make developing this kind of application easier than looking for other frameworks or starting from scratch.

<comment><USER15> The idea of Facebook platform being more accessible than the web is scary to me, but not surprising.

Think about non-tech-savvy users on low-end devices, Facebook is familiar, and there's no responsiveness or web accessibility issues, it can feel faster because Facebook can optimize what is getting downloaded.

It is scary when you extend this out a few years, FB and Google continue to extend the line of what gets consumed on their platform vs what sends people off to a web page.

Your company's branded app is already dead, soon your company's website will be dead.

<comment><USER16> This is partly a consequence of phone manufacturers implementing notification APIs for native apps first, and on several years later in browsers.

Although somewhat it's just the nature of the beast that these things take a little while to percolate into each browser.

I don't know how complete support is for web notifications, but eventually it will be a larger number than Facebook installed base. You can sometimes get some features early in apps, but the web browsers eventually cover everyone.

<comment><USER17> Are you using native notifications with websites? I'm really annoyed by the trend of actual websites asking for access to the notification feature when I just want to read an article then leave.

The last thing I need is more notifications.

<comment><USER16> You don't get notifications for messaging? Text, email, etc? And phone calls? Those are all things a person might want a web app to handle.

I agree the notification requests in browsers are too obtrusive. In an app store they have the property of only asking when you choose to install. On the web there is no install so the request for access is not in response to any action you took, which is annoying.

I think they should make the notification request block the whole app so that sites only put it up when it's the main thing they want to show.

That aside... the point ia for some apps, like messaging, it is necessary.

I am building an app for selling food, people need to know when to start prepping an order. notifications are a must.

<comment><USER17> I agree that there are good cases for notification. It's difficult to find the correct amount of them and it's too easy to get so much of them so that everything important is being lost in the noise.

I don't know what's the correct balance is but for my own usage I'm ok using emails as a notifications spooler and only use native notifications for some specific usages (mostly chat and email clients). What's sure is that I don't care about notifications from my browser.

Btw I can only say for myself, we all have different way to use our tools. If your clients are happy with your notifications, great. I know I would disable them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anyone knows what technology he is using in the background? Is it Facebooks own BOT-Framework?

<comment><USER19> Yes, Facebook has a Messenger bot framework.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think one of these processes is a lot easier than the other.

<comment><USER21> I totally agree. But the common denominator is that both of these battles can be won by deep knowledge of the beurouchratic process. I believe bots can be better equipped to deal with this than humans in the long run.

<comment><USER20> I can see that, especially with the language barrier (even if you want to apply for a visa for a foreign spouse, as I did, the paperwork is voluminous and complex), but if your case is anything other than dead-simple you can't really duplicate a lawyer's experience dealing with immigration officers (and judges? I don't know exactly how this process works), knowledge of their particular individual tendencies, etc.

<comment><USER22> "A good lawyer knows the law, a great lawyer knows the judge"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will Yahoo follow Delicious into the sunset? - <AUTHOR> http://nithinbekal.com/2010/will-yahoo-follow-delicious-into-the-sunset/ Now that Yahoo has decided to sell Delicious, who do you think would be good owners for Delicious? Is Yahoo heading towards a disaster? <comment><USER2> I also hope they don't "do a worse" than Yahoo. I'm a big Yahoo fan, actually. Call me crazy. I prefer their email service to gmail - I know that's not allowed, but I do. They have text email links that I can open in new tabs, look it up Google. Also I love Yahoo! Games, especially Chess and Go. Great service. Google, where are your games?

<comment><AUTHOR> "...that's not allowed..." LOL! Not liking Gmail might soon become a law rather than something that is frowned upon. ;-) I'm not much of a Yahoo fan myself, but Delicious is one awesome service.

PS. Thanks for catching the typo. :) I'm terrible at proofreading.</comment></comment>


Texas A&M pandemic expert: Coronavirus will have 5 stages. We're in stage 2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lifestyle/renew-houston/health/article/Texas-A-M-pandemic-expert-coronavirus-stages-15192147.php <comment><USER2> From a comment I posted on Reddit:

His main point is the only thing that works is aggressive containment based on exhaustive testing and contact tracing requiring a truly enormous amount of manpower. He elaborates in 3⃣

Watch any epidemic movie, and you'll see this. This is an epidemiologist's viewpoint: Continuously find the sick and who they came into contact with, isolate them all. Large-scale extreme lockdown quarantines do this more simply, but have obvious downsides.

So his stages could really just be said to be "keep working containment until we get it right while we wait for a vaccine."

If I would make one point that I feel he misses, it's that prevention in all aspects is important, not just planning.

Another point is that it's misleading to say "the U.S." since there federal, state and local levels can act independently of one another. That said, that is also true in much of world, but the U.S. is one of the largest and most fragmented countries in the world governmentally.

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He says 1⃣ is containment: "try to stop from entering, try to stop from spreading" — that usually involves exhaustive testing to allow contact tracing and isolating.

1.1 Very difficult to do, and the U.S. didn't even remotely achieve, primarily due to lack of testing.

1.1.1 This is however difficult to well, because leaders have to take strong action early, and then continue for a long time. Manpower and PPE/testing infrastructure need to be in place in advance (not true in the U.S.) or at least attempted. The U.S. failure at the federal level to even place any orders for months was insanely poor, but it still wouldn't have allowed containment, because of the initial lack of testing ability.

1.2 Many countries attempted this and did much, much better than the U.S. (an admittedly low bar).

1.3 How well has it worked where it was attempted well, and what does it bode for the future in those locations? This is a tough one, because

1.3.1 Exhaustive tracing is the first step, but must be followed by CONTINUOUS contact tracing and isolation, possibly for years, until a STRONG vaccine is WIDELY AVAILABLE

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2⃣ He calls "slow the spread", distancing, general quarantines.

2.1 Again, the U.S. has done this very, VERY poorly.

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3⃣ He says is containment again, to be able to "restart the economy".

We have to "target new infections more aggressively" using "greatly expanded lab testing" to create "surgically applied social distancing measures" via "isolating those [who are infected] and do contact tracing. It takes a lot of resources to do that. Our public health authorities don't have the manpower to do this. We need a lot more public-health soldiers."

3.1 It's somewhat artificial to say that 1⃣ and 3⃣ are the same step. He's coming back to it because the U.S. failed at 1⃣ and 2⃣.

More simply put, he's saying, as I pointed out initially, that containment is really all we have as a tool, and SOMEDAY we have to get it right. Everything until we do is stage "bad", everything after we do is stage "good"

3.2 He's also making these somewhat artificial "stage" distinctions to be able to address "restart[ing] the economy" after it partially shut down by failing at 1⃣

3.3 What he doesn't point out is that how containment is made nearly impossible by failing to do it initially, and then also failing to follow up by slowing the spread strongly.

3.4 He does point out that eventually, we have to accept a "new normal" of cough etiquette, hand washing, public disinfecting.

3.4.1 Here I strongly disagree: the new normal for the short- and medium-term is based around wearing masks.

3.5 He probably consciously chooses not to discuss advances in treatment much anywhere in this article, other than to say here "I'm optimistic that in three to six months we'll have (a better treatment for coronavirus symptoms), a therapeutic in our toolkit that can rescue those who become severely ill."

3.5.1 I think he should have also pointed out that many treatments being studied are to PREVENT those with the virus from BECOMING seriously ill. That's why so many health care workers have taken things they haven't taken in the past.

3.5.2 Treatments that prevent are the biggest hope we have for the future, in my opinion at the moment. Related: the new normal (hopefully) of wearing masks.

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4⃣ is "more containment...once we have a vaccine...to deal with this virus as it evolves". He says it's likely that we'll see "seasonal periodicity with COVID-19"

4.1 So you can see his stages are really "keep working containment until we get it right while we wait for a vaccine."

4.2 His main point here is that it's likely never, ever going away.

I think he does a poor job of making that point. It's not clear enough what he means when he says "but we know how to live like that. Coupled with our personal hygiene,we'll be in a much better place."

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5⃣ is preparation for the next pandemic.

5.1 I appreciate that he clearly points out, and provides examples, of how "we've entered a period where emerging infectious diseases are increasing with alarming frequency."

5.2 He says Bush-Obama was the "first time in human history that a society made a commitment to try to be as prepared as we can for a pandemic."

5.3 He points out how important infrastructure is, focusing on supply chains, and give examples.

5.3.1 Here I think he fails to point out that congress under the administration repeatedly stopped funding the plans that were in place. Funding made it into bills repeatedly, and was removed. So the existing "plan" had been essentially defunded.

5.3.2 Which made it CRITICAL that the current administration start placing order for PPE and ventilators as soon as it saw that the plan had been defunded—that what had been determined to be needed was missing.

5.3.3 Many politicians are not managers, and are barely leaders. They are politicians, rarely having any understanding of managing infrastructure, making and implementing strategic plans, etc. So government is lousy at getting things done because many of the people in charge are politicians with few relevant qualifications. Under 3⃣ he pointed out "Our public health authorities don't have the manpower to do this. We need a lot more public- health soldiers." I think he should have repeated that here. Just having a plan for the next event did NOT work in this case.

5.4 Big missed point here. I'm going to go ahead and again call it a "failure" of his message here: WHY is the frequency of "emerging infectious diseases ... increasing"?

5.4.1 First step is to say "Let's address CAUSES, not EFFECTS". PREVENTION, not mitigation. The wet markets and lack of international coordination would be points to bring up.

Overall, (as noted in 3.5.2 and 5.4.1) I think he misses too many opportunities to talk about prevention.</comment>


Deteriorating quality of content on Y Combinator  - <AUTHOR>

I want to open a discussion on the quality of content served by YCombinator in recent past.
I fell some of the articles submitted were a useless ramblings by a low paid content churner and didn't deserve the time I devoted clicking on it, glancing and then rejecting it.
I usually use the rss feed to get the links rather than visiting the website and going through top marked contents, but in general i feel content included in hacker news should go through a more rigorous process than being followed currently.
- A <comment><USER2> I have been thinking the same thing for the past week. In fact, I clicked around the website to make sure that I was reading the same news I was reading when I first found this site (about a month ago.) I was impressed with the logically valid articles I was reading. Now it seems that the site is turning into another reddit or digg. Sometimes I am under the impression that users submit stories that are really clever ruses for pushing a product or service. It's also baffling why every page is 3/4 filled with articles about Google +. I guess the site takes on a form suitable to the majority of its users so I should not complain.

<comment> alexis-d <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"

:)

<comment><AUTHOR> I am seriously worried about hacker news content. and my account is way older than 1 yr. Can somebody take it seriously now.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you handle your blog/website? - <AUTHOR> Is it medium || self-hosted / hosted Wordpress instance, Jekyll, nanoc, ghost or other CMS / static site generator? Or maybe you have your own system for that? I'm just curious. <comment><USER2> CMS: Hugo(because it supports markdown!) Hosting: S3 bucket + CloudFront + Route53 Deployment: Upon commit, upload to s3

check it out - [https://blog.envimate.com](https://blog.envimate.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Self hosted WordPress, medium size. We publish 1-4 posts per day. With less manpower & higher need of dynamic stuffs, WordPress is practical. Most like ours use WordPress.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't really actively maintain my personal website, but it is hand-written from back in the day. I probably should redo it to be slightly less archaic at some point.</comment>


We need to teach 10M Canadians to code or we'll get left behind - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/we-need-to-teach-10-million-canadians-to-code-or-well-get-left-behind/article32334031/?cmpid=rss1 <comment><USER2> No you don't. You just need to wait until Trump is elected as president in November and 10M coders will move to Canada from the USA.</comment>


Uganda Goes Through with Social Media Tax and People Are Pissed - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/uganda-goes-through-with-social-media-tax-and-people-ar-1827287611 <comment><AUTHOR> bad step to collect revenue

<comment><USER2> It's not about the revenue. It's censorship with a brilliant twist. I'd argue, more effective than the Chinese firewall.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Recawl - a search engine for your web history - <AUTHOR> http://www.recawl.com/

<comment><USER2> Doesn't Chrome already store full-text history?

<comment><AUTHOR> It does, but it also has bookmarks and there are a number of bookmarking services that all improve on the basic browser offering in some way.

When I first started Recawl Chrome's history search was somewhat unreliable/buggy although it has improved since then.

I also find Chrome's history search hard to use.

For example:

You cann't constrain a search by time period and you cann't block sites from appearing in the results.

Recawl suggests keywords related to your current search and it also learns to re-order results for search terms based on your previous click history.

Your Recawl history is available to search remotely whereas Chrome's history is only local.</comment></comment>


Five Myths About Millionaires - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-millionaires/2011/09/21/gIQAvyGqqK_story.html

<comment><USER2> My biggest issue with the current discussion about taxing 'millionaires' is that the media and politicians seem to define millionaire as 'earns over $1 million a year' - while a millionaire isn't that rich, somebody who earns over a million a year definitely is.

This article is a perfect example of this, and is even worse in that it first points out that a million dollars in saving isn't much, then segues into a bunch of points for which definition of millionaire has suddenly changed.</comment>


Hacker News for Agriculture and Ag Tech - <AUTHOR> http://news.agfunder.com/

<comment><USER2> Which engine drives it? Looks clean and neat.</comment>