Facebook's next project: American inequality - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/19/facebook-inequality-stanford-417093 <comment><USER2> We don't need more big data studies to figure out what is causing poverty or how to fix it. Poverty in America is caused by:

\- real wages decreasing since 1980

\- the commoditizing of labor (e.g. janitorial companies, the "sharing economy")

\- ever-decreasing investment in infrastructure

\- tying wealth to real estate prices

\- an educational system that leaves many young people mired in debt

\- tying healthcare to employment and the price of healthcare in general. The first kills labor mobility. The second either bankrupts or kills you.

\- mass incarceration destroying families and individuals

\- regulatory capture allowing big businesses to beat down all the small ones

\- a monoculture that tremendously decreases resiliency

<comment><USER3> Accurate breakdown. If you looked at my life as a 14 year old, you wouldn't have been able to picture me as a 28 year old. If you looked at me as a 28 year old, you wouldn't have been able to picture me as a 33 year old. In the last 5 years I found the top of my game where people didn't want a poor person there; got knocked down and it's been interesting adjusting to being chronically impoverished with issues increasingly piling up--relatives now comparing me to my cousins who can't hold down dish washing jobs. Meanwhile the tech giants are still trying to recruit me, and I know when I start work I'll be knocked out again because, like my last several high salary jobs in the BA, I've entered $1000s in debt with several years of poverty, causing rejection by coworkers (poor attire, untraveled). Crazy... miracle or relocation seem to be needed. I'm optimistic these last years will be a hilarious memory that toughened me up (in typical ign'nt American fashion, temporarily embarrassed millionaire).

<comment><USER4> Yup. I'm an entrepreneur who ran a sole proprietorship software business since 2007 or so. I've been at the top of my game to the point where I now enjoy a reputation as a key DSP guy in my industry (pro audio, recording studios etc) but I watched the income of my business collapse over the years, and got knocked down by that.

I observed that my troubles exactly tracked the Labor Share of wages as tracked by the Fed: I was impoverished to the exact proportion that the country (and the world: I did and do a lot of export) didn't itself have money. If labor boomed, so did I: if labor took a downturn, so did I.

I retained such a high reputation that I was able to withstand a switch over to Patreon when my payment processor went out of business owing me months of payments: from my observation if you transition to a patron model it literally decimates your earnings, but they become steady and may grow.

I am also typically American in that I figure if I double down and work ten times harder and don't die, it'll all work out, and I'm getting up to what would be minimum wage for a factory worker (this is 97th percentile of Patreon accounts, by the way: I'm in the top 3% of all Patreon and trying to get into ITS 'one percent') and doing things like releasing all my existing products for LinuxVST and methodically open-sourcing it all under the MIT license.

I figure even as an open-sourcer I will not succeed unless I can be ruthlessly exploited for my work, and even as a patron-supported person I'm still subject to the power-law factor of 2018 life where unless I'm exploding in success, I'm failing. So my motivation can only be: exploit and crush the world, or out-give the most generous people AS IF I was already that millionaire, a Bill Gates just looking for ways to give it away again.

So I'm doing the latter, and we'll see whether I literally live to do more of it. Any little financial thing crushes me and breaks my spirit for a while, costing me valuable work time. My only recourse is to charge off entreprenurially into new prospects and hope for the best. The funny thing is, that's the same recipe for if I was trying to prosper with new commercial products, and I do free everything now (increasingly including ideas).

In an America with a saner Gini coefficient, I would probably still be close to broke, but I'd have a much huger cash flow and would probably be employing people. I know I can't do everything I envision, and I would absolutely be hiring if that was remotely possible.

<comment><USER3> Hang in there man. You're going to be competing with me for the top spot on Patreon ;). I've been setting up the same style operation. Willing to live in car if I need to, the stuff I experienced in the workplace actually had me walk off my last two jobs ($150k range). For personal reasons I refuse to tolerate mistreatment, so I've 'dug my own grave' so to speak... although I really see light in this new economic model. Personally I'm shooting to form a B corporation.

I think you can do better on licensing. I'm doing AGPL, holding my power to individually licensee as necessary (with some pieces under more/fully permissive licenses where it makes sense--not cents :). I've got cool demos online, can track me down pretty easily. Indeed, studying all the Machiavellian stuff I can, given it's clearly being used at higher levels. I just want to be excellent to each other and make cool stuff, and eat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I believe this is a PR piece for FB -- in the end, ignoring the details, this piece leaves you feeling that 1) FB cares about people and 2) FB cares about America.

I'm not buying that. Check out how FB had no problem letting Philippines President Duterte get elected by using FB, including sending FB consultants to the Philippines -- [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/how- rodri...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/how-rodrigo- duterte-turned-facebook-into-a-weapon-with-a-little-help-from-facebook)

<comment><USER6> FB is an ad business. If a big customer want help to run its campaign, I don't see why FB wouldn't do it, on a business optic. Of course it FB wanted to select people it's doing business with on ethical grounds, I don't think there would be a lot of ads on FB.

<comment><USER7> Duterte is literally a mass murderer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Facebook is just a giant, very dangerous social experimentation platform where none of the participants get compensated and if the experiment goes horribly wrong, the response from Zuck is "we need to do better."

<comment><USER9> They do get compensated though, in a way - Facebook is not an utility, people don't have a right to use it, and yet they do which IMO means they get something out of it. Not money, but being connected.

A lot of people will probably object due to their romanticizing of the age before Facebook, but, I strongly believe people have never been as connected to others as they are today, never been as social with as many people as today. Sure, it's mostly in the form of text and pictures and shit which is not as er, "intense" as face to face, but it does allow people to extend their networks by a lot.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Slaves are compensated too, with food, water, and shelter. Does that mean it's ethical?

<comment><USER10> Did you seriously just compare slavery to Facebook users?

<comment> wu-ikkyu I was making the pertinent point that minimal "compensation" does not make the mass exploitation of unwitting persons ethical.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, because Facebook's user base are unwitting "slaves" with no idea that the free software they use is provided by a for profit company that has to make money.

You can disagree with Facebook's practices without being so absurd about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Person With 72 Billion Dollars Wonders Why Nobody Else Has Any Money"

<comment><USER12> "Person with Data on 3/5 Adults in America gives Access to University Professor"

<comment><USER13> "University Professor who analyzed plenty of data about people produces a convincing causes/effects analysis and hands it to political establishment"

<comment><USER14> "Political establishment continues to ignore provided data."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This will require lots of study. Mark should probably build another wall around his mansion in order to allow him to concentrate.

<comment><USER16> Hahaha. It's fucking obvious why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> They could start by paying every one of their employees a decent salary starting from janitors up. They could also not hire cheap contracting companies for a lot of services but instead hire people directly and pay them well. If they want to understand inequality they just have to look at their own company and see how the higher ups reap most of the benefits.

<comment><USER10> They aren't a janitorial company. They hire a service because it's cost- effective, even if said service pays very well.

> If they want to understand inequality they just have to look at their own > company and see how the higher ups reap most of the benefits.

I'm a Software Engineer at another big 4 tech company. While the higher ups are undoubtedly making a ton of money, my income puts me well within the top 5-10% of people in the US. I think bitching about salary inequality at Facebook is a weird place to start. Try Walmart.

<comment><USER18> Even if they wanted to keep the service separate for simplicity, Facebook could mandate its contracts pay a prevailing wage. That sort of contract provision is common.

>Try Walmart.

I bet walmart spends more of their revenue on salary than FB.

<comment><USER19> Walmart bumped their minimum hourly wage to $10 last year, and they're going to $11 this month. I wouldn't be at all surprised if those numbers are higher than what the cleaning staff at FB get.

<comment><USER20> Minimum wage in California is $11/hr as of Jan 1st this year.

<comment><USER19> That's interesting. I think that means McDonalds in California start at $12/hr. [http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/01/news/companies/mcdonalds- pay...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/01/news/companies/mcdonalds-pay- raise/index.html)

<comment><USER20> Anecdotally all the fast food restaurants I've seen hiring in the bay area are advertising $14-15/hr starting wages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I would imagine that it's an incomplete data set. There are probably societal factors, at all points in the spectrum, that limit FB use.

Also, will we get a number showing how much addictive FB use correlates to economic status? I have a feeling the corporate benefactor wouldn't allow that.

<comment><USER22> Also: Facebook is a very incomplete and often inaccurate view of our lives. I assume that most regular users create their Facebook timeline as an idealized, curated mental facsimile of their lives, filtering out real inadequacies, exaggerating stories that might make them look more wealthy, busy, free, etc.

Perhaps they're accounting for this but I'm not really a fan of doing social science based on a data set that's more fantasy than scientific measurement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What was their last big philanthropic project of this scope that was successful?.. If any. I am legitimately curious.

</comment><comment><USER24> And once they figure out the issues, how many of their billions of dollars will they donate to help solve them? Corporate greed has never once solved inequality, only made it worse. You'll have to pardon me if I find it hard to believe that a company whose sole purpose is to make money by selling ads is going to finally solve America's inequality problem, as though Facebook could make the justice system less racist, or the healthcare system less expensive, or the educational system less expensive, or the job market less competitive.

</comment><comment><USER25> For those interested, Raj Chetty, the young economist leading the study, taught course titled "Using Big Data to Solve Economic and Social Problem" that is available on Youtube[1].

The popular course is taught as an introduction to economics for Stanford freshman.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqAeKQJcaUU&list=PLDcD0S_1fQ...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqAeKQJcaUU&list=PLDcD0S_1fQj1nDjb5tRUK1WmvYam8xdwU)

</comment><comment><USER26> In other evidence of Facebook's success in leveraging big data approaches to manage participation in public discourse: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us- usa-election-facebook/fac...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election- facebook/facebook-plans-to-use-u-s-mail-to-verify-ids-of-election-ad-buyers- idUSKCN1G10VD)

</comment><comment><USER27> Trying to interpret the message: "Facebook struggles to seize the demographic of T. voters"

</comment><comment><USER28> Facebook is for old people

<comment><USER29> This is getting voted down but this is exactly what one of my kids told me the other day. With the younger generations not getting on to Facebook coupled with more and more "old people" realizing how bad Facebook is and leaving it, one has to wonder how valuable their data set is/is going to be in the coming years.

<comment><USER30> I agree, my younger siblings are longer on facebook, nor am I,4 yet all my aunts and uncles are, and they are very active. For all my friends we have other means of communication like Snapchat, IG, Slack, IRC, Discord, email, SMS, etc</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review my web app, a cli script repository - <AUTHOR>

I heavily modified Wordpress to create a community-based cli script repository, where users can sign up and submit their own whacky scripts:
http://scriptables.com
I chose WP mostly because I really like the new 2.7 dashboard, and wanted to see how hacked-up I could make it and still have it be functional.
Let me know any critiques you guys may have: it was a learning process at the very least... I descended deep into WP's innards, farther than no one man should ever have to go. <comment><USER2> How is this related to commandlinefu?

<http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=469656>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467692>

<comment><AUTHOR> It's pretty different; commandlinefu looks like shell scripting only, while mine is more geared towards python, php, c, etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think the design could be better. Right now, it looks like one of those typosquatting website.

</comment><comment><USER4> disable this: A password will be e-mailed to you.

make the domain not look like a typosquatting site. Eg, graphics.

add ruby syntax ;)</comment>


The Real History of the '@' reply on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://log.maniacalrage.net/post/26935842947/the-real-history-of-the-reply-on-twitter

<comment><USER2> Hmm.. and here I thought it was IRC influencing the collective consciousness, where @handlename was the only way to send a message to a user in between the random IRC noise.</comment>


The Trials of White Boy Rick (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://read.atavist.com/white-boy-rick <comment><USER2> Some high quality journalism right here. I think a lot of people involved with traditional newspapers believed his type of reporting would not happen online. The funding for drawn out investigations, the editorial oversight, the resources to get research information. But articles like this make me think maybe real journalism is still alive in the new medium.

</comment><comment><USER3> tl;dr: The article is a stunning account -- though it can hardly be surprising at this point -- of what pigs actually get up to.

It's about a white boy who was apparently hanging out with the major players in the Detroit coke/crack game in the 80s, and moving some weight as a juvie, though he certainly wasn't a central figure. He also was an underage informant (at 14!!!) for the FBI, something that could easily have gotten him killed. They and local cops got him out of a serious weapons charge: shooting at a moving vehicle, in order to allow him to keep informing.

These local cops, btw, were quite clearly actively helping certain dealers: guarding shipments, warning of homicide investigations, etc, including helping the mayor's niece who was dating various serious dealers. Anyway, kid got caught while 17 (I think) and was sentenced under a draconian so-called 650 law guaranteeing life in prison for possession of 650g of cocaine.

Now it gets interesting. The so-called 650 law was repealed and most people sentenced under it have been paroled. So why is this guy -- and remember, he went to prison at 17 -- so why are the adults all free and he's in jail? For example, the guys selling $55m/year of cocaine were out in 11. He maybe sold a million dollars total.

Roughly, it seems that he helped the FBI go after the corrupt local cops, and in revenge, at his parole hearing, the pigs sent a bunch of cops who were, at most, tenuously connected to him and uninvolved in the investigation to testify how dangerous he is. Using illegally leaked grand jury testimony. One of these cops who testified against him was later imprisoned for his own mortgage fraud scam, amongst other things.

Oh, and all the dirty cops sent to prison have naturally already been released while this guy rots in prison.

And don't forget the parole board who decided to uncritically listen to testimony from pigs who were completely uninvolved in the case, testimony informed by leaked grand jury testimony.

<comment><USER4> Calling law enforcement officers "pigs" seriously reduces your statement's credibility. We all know that it's a logical fallacy to consider the personal details of an arguer, but as humans with limited amount of time to evaluate each other, we often take these shortcuts. Using that word handicaps your otherwise informative comment.

I'm not telling you this not because of an emotional connection to cops, I'm telling you this because your word choice harms your credibility.

<comment><USER5> It's better to couch your prejudices in euphemistic language? Why is such minute dishonesty more credible? Do you fancy yourself capable of perfect impartiality?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The most interesting revelation in the entire piece to me was that a number of high level people close to the mayor were dirty. Mayor Coleman Young may have run Detroit into the ground (according to Time Magazine) but I never heard any allegations that he or his people were taking bribes.

A few years back we went though the trials of another Detroit Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick and his aides, who were taking bribes, lots of bribes and they were all convicted. Kilpatrick's Mother was a Congresswoman and was part of the group around Coleman Young. I have to think that a young Kwame who would have had a front row seat to all this craziness was merely trying to emulate his idol Coleman Young when he sought the office of Mayor of Detroit. The main difference is that unlike his idol Kwame got caught.</comment>


Ask HN: Secondary Market for Datacenter Equipment? - <AUTHOR> If I run a datacenter, where do I go to sell my equipment after a year or two?  They're still useful and valuable, just a little dusty! <comment><USER2> The classic in the valley is [https://www.recurrent.com/](https://www.recurrent.com/)</comment>


We need to talk about email clients. - <AUTHOR> http://inessential.com/2010/01/16/email_init

<comment><USER2> this is a perfect example of a project that will go nowhere.

 _The app would need not just coders but testers, designers, documentation writers, bloggers, at least one project manager, and so on. It would need a bug tracker. Repository. Wiki. Website. It will need a name. (I started a Twitter account, which I'll turn over to whoever leads this once we know who that person is.)_

oh my. surely a twitter account is needed for a successful open source project, right?

no, it needs none of those. write some code, put it up on github, let people hack on it, /then/ setup that stuff if you still need it.

trying to create a new piece of software (especially something as large as an e-mail client) by committee is a terrible idea. everyone will have opinions, they'll throw them into the hat, nobody will agree on anything, nobody will write any code, and the project will go nowhere. but hey it has a logo and a wiki and a "project manager" so that's useful, right?

a better idea would be to take an existing client like thunderbird, mutt, etc. and figure out what you don't like about it. i'd wager anything you don't like can be easily changed in the source code or even coded up as an add-on for thunderbird. i have a hard time believing the entire thing has to be redone from scratch.

<comment><USER3> The biggest problem, I think, is that there's no vision. He says we need a better email client, but we don't know what he thinks better means.

We don't even know what he doesn't like about existing clients.

Even if this project _does_ manage get started, it will almost certainly turn out to be something completely different than what he's imagining.

<comment><USER2> _The biggest problem, I think, is that there's no vision._

from experience, open source developers don't like writing code to someone else's vision; it feels like work. they write code to solve their own problems, according to their own vision. if their vision correlates with an existing project's, then all the better, and they can just work on that project. if not, they start their own. nobody's going to sign up for a mailing list and crank out code just because someone else is asking for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Uh... Did I miss the part where he explained what was wrong with existing clients? Without a clear, specific problem to solve, this is going to be an exercise in wasted time.

I was looking over the mailing list and just about everything I see mentioned can be done with Mutt (or Sup). Personally, I use gnus on emacs. Add in some org-mode magic and you have just about everything anyone could ask for (well, search is not as nice as I'd like it).

<comment><USER5> sup++

I just wish it was faster (on large mailboxes) and more stable. I'm stuck on gmail for now.

<http://sup.rubyforge.org/>

<comment><USER6> I'd love to try sup, but the incompatibility with other email clients makes it a non-starter for me. At minimum I need to use my phone's mail client without sup having to rebuild its index every time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gmail has everything I want from email. I consider email to be a solved problem.

<comment><USER3> I almost agree. Gmail has everything _I_ want in email, but it's tied to Google. You can (and I do) use your own domains with Google, but you still have to go through them.

Is that a problem for me right now? No, not really. Might it become a problem in the future? Maybe, although probably not for a while. Is it a problem for some people? Yes.

<comment><USER8> What we _do_ need is an open-source webmail implementation like GMail. SquirrelMail just doesn't cut it anymore.

<comment><USER9> Roundcube is slightly better.

Zimbra is definitely better if you're willing to put up with it's overhead.

But really, email is one of those things, where your preferences are unlikely to be the same as those of others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Color me naive, but doesn't an open source email client already exist, i'm pretty sure its called Thunderbird ... <http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en- US/thunderbird/>

Am i missing the point of the post?

<comment><USER11> Yes, you are. Thunderbird is a e-mail client that attempts to please the "masses". You may have noticed but the "masses" aren't developers, they aren't coders, they aren't testers, or designers.

They send e-mails to mother's web-tv, tell their boss they're sick, and talk to Nigerian princes.

<comment><USER12> Honestly, I can't think of anything I need that Thunderbird doesn't do. IMAP support? Yup, and the offline support works great too. Search got awesome in the new version. Calendar is supported with Lightning, and works well with Google Calendar. Multiple languages and encodings? Also just works.

So what if it can also be used by non-technical people? If you want something with more geek cred, set up emacs to do your email. Otherwise just write an extension to Thunderbird that implements whatever functionality it's currently missing. There is no need for more fragmentation.

<comment><USER13> It's not all that easy to write an extension. The threshold effort is enormous.

So for all practical intents and purposes, I can't define my own mail categories (tags, whatever), and I can't specify a simple script to run when something comes in, and I can't access my mail as a database for bulk processing.

I still use Thunderbird, of course, and have for years - but these are the things I periodically try to figure out in it, and I always end up entirely stymied. To the point where I've also seriously considered writing my own email client, if it just exposed its guts to Python or Perl or something.

<comment><USER12> I'd still say adding just one feature to an already working client is less work than writing one from the ground up. It's easy to think you can just grab a library to do IMAP. But what about attachments? Encodings? HTML mail? Storage? Search? Remember, all these will need a UI of some sort. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Thunderbird 3.0 has custom tags. OpenOffice eats Thunderbird address books and can do mail merge. The one thing that's left is running a script when a message is received. That is actually a good idea for an extension.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Clever satire on open source projects that go nowhere.

(If its not a satire, sorry.)

<comment><USER15> It doesn't appear to be a satire.

Mailing list: <http://lists.ranchero.com/pipermail/email-init-ranchero.com/>

Twitter: <http://twitter.com/emailinit>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Every couple of months I probably leave a comment here something like this:

Where is the "tweetdeck of email"? Columns, filtered lists, simple, and cross OS compliant. Let me plug in my IMAP info, then start creating columns based upon filters, people,etc. Make writing a message more like writing a tweet, so that things are more orientated towards being short. Give me some social context about the person similar to Xobni.

<comment><USER7> What you're describing isn't really email any longer. It sounds more like Google Wave.

<comment><USER16> sure it is. it's just a semi different way of visualizing it. I'm not talking about real-time updating and all the crazy stuff google wave does. I think the columns concept of tweetdeck works well, and it might make sense for email.

<comment><USER7> We discussed Google Wave a few days back: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1048227>

It sounds to me like it solves your problems; it certainly helped the author of that post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For anyone looking at this and wondering about the process of starting an open source project, I humbly recommend reading Karl Fogel's _Producing Open Source Software._

It's CC-SA 3.0, and available at <http://producingoss.com/>

</comment><comment><USER13> Can someone help me understand why the poster's first requirement is that this be a Cocoa app? Honest question; it's just tossed out there as though it were obvious and I have no idea why.

<comment><USER18> Brent Simmonds is a Mac developer and there's been a discussion about the Mac email client landscape brewing for a while. The Coccoa requirement is due to the unstated context that we're talking about an email client for Mac OS X.

By shipping Mail with every Mac, Apple basically makes it impossible for someone else to come along and compete with a commercial product. Thunderbird, while a fantastic piece of work, doesn't behave quite like a Mac-native application. By saying it's got to be Coccoa, Brent's saying it has to be through-and-though Mac-like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have to agree with many who've commented here. The author doesn't list a single problem with current email clients, except maybe that he hints at wanting one with keyboard accessibility rather than requiring a mouse. Either he has no idea what's available (in which case, he should search first), or he hasn't really thought about what he wants in an email client.

Regarding what he considers obvious: \- Cocoa? I have no idea why Cocoa would be obvious. Surely an email client for developers would need to run on at least Windows, Linux and Mac OSX since there are enough developers that use each of these. \- IMAP only? Good idea, but that's really the easiest part of the problem. I'd say defer this to fetchmail to start with and just read from a local directory. Add actual IMAP support once you've figured out the UI. That's the real hard part. \- twitter account? yeah. 'nuff said.

The biggest problem with email today is not that a client doesn't exist to satisfy your needs. Every developer I've met does in fact have at least one email client that satisfies all their requirements. For some it's thunderbird, for others it's gnus or mutt or pine, others like gmail, still others like Mail.app, and believe it or not, there are actually developers who like MS Outlook or Entourage. No, the biggest problem with email is that trust isn't yet built into it. PGP/GPG/DKIM/Authenticated SMTP, and others exist, but the majority of email users have no idea what these are or how to use them, and unless every email user in the world switches to using some kind of trusted authentication system, email will stay the way it is today.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also discussion thread on the new mailing list.

[http://lists.ranchero.com/pipermail/email-init- ranchero.com/...](http://lists.ranchero.com/pipermail/email-init- ranchero.com/2010-January/thread.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> I agree with the post that there needs to be a developer specific e-mail client, open source and designed from the ground up.

I disagree on: * Cocoa specific design * IMAP based specs * The community tools he's using. This is a perfect project for librelist.

</comment><comment><USER20> Would you like champagne with your happy meal, too?</comment>


Facebook news feed change is death to small businesses - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/refresh-magazine/facebook-news-feed-change-is-death-to-small-businesses-c1c9a777efc2 <comment><USER2> More like a "death to the viability of Facebook as a means of advertising your business."

Small businesses will do what they did before Facebook, as it turns out, small businesses did exist before the creation of Facebook...

<comment><AUTHOR> True but there are businesses that depend on Facebook stores without physical address and use Facebook to target users and connect with customers

<comment><USER2> > but there are businesses that depend on Facebook stores without physical > address and use Facebook to target users and connect with customers

My original comment still stands though. FB's timeline changes might damage those business that rely solely on FB, sure. That's to be expected if you're built around someone else's platform that you have zero control over. It still doesn't mean the "death of small businesses."</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I built inthing.io, realtime streams with a Python / REST API - <AUTHOR> https://www.willmcgugan.com/blog/tech/post/announcing-inthingio/ <comment><AUTHOR> Happy to answer your questions, if anyone is curious about this project.</comment>


Nasa launches $1M competition to turn Mars CO2 into sugar - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsweek.com/nasa-launches-competition-turn-co2-sugar-mars-1103017 <comment><USER2> That reminds me of

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-really- happened-a...](https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-really-happened-at- the-darpa-shredder-challenge-2011-12)

which was thought to be almost impossible to solve.

> DARPA, The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, created 5 coded- > documents of increasing complexity, ran them through an industrial paper- > shredder, scanned the pieces, and posted them online for anyone to attempt > to solve. Each document had a certain amount of 'intel', every piece of > which was given a point value. The competition, which launched October 27 > and would expire December 4, was offering a prize of $50,000 to the first > individual or team to find all the intel (first to 50 points).

> The competition gained popularity quickly, with over 9000 official entrants > and 50,000 folks downloading the first of the five puzzles. But skeptics had > already begun to question the contest after only 67 entrants could score any > points at all. "Lots of experts were skeptical that a solution could be > produced at all, let alone within the short time frame," said Dan Kaufman, > director, DARPA Information Innovation Office. But, with just 2 days > remaining before the competition was closed (only 33 days after it began) > one of the entrants had solved all 5 levels completely.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was going to suggest we should hold competitions for turning Earth's CO2 in sugar as well, but then I remembered you can just plant seeds.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash I think it was a sleight-of-hand move by NASA to spur the development of decarbonizarion technologies.

<comment><USER4> Good point, this would be a great way to present it without triggering some people's political reactions to the topic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Who is the target audience for this? Seems like you should solicit research proposals and provide grant funding to academic or industrial research groups to actually do the work. They can't just work for free in hopes they get 250k or 1M...

<comment><USER6> There are already grants and proposals for similar research. This competition targets two groups that aren't well-represented by that process:

1\. Individuals (hobbyists) who will work for free in hopes of winning.

2\. Well-funded academics and industry R&D who will bill their costs against their employers, who hope to profit from the publicity generated by the public contest.

<comment><USER7> Spot on with nº2, look at the winners of the similar "Horizon Prizes" that the EU offers: [https://ec.europa.eu/research/horizonprize/index.cfm?pg=priz...](https://ec.europa.eu/research/horizonprize/index.cfm?pg=prizes)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If someone can figure out CO2 -> C6H12O6, it's probably worth more than $1mm.

<comment><USER9> aren't there other -tose variants that may be easier? they are all pretty complex.

mars also has lots of interesting isotopes, which I guess helps the equation

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If NASA is really serious about people living on Mars, I would think that they should build a rotating space station with Mars level of pseudo-gravity. Two decent sized chambers connected by a tether might be the easiest to build. If one really wants to see if something complicated will work on Mars, running it in Martian G, is the only way to be sure.

Long term studies in the current space station seem to suggest that humans can't live years at zero G without serious health problems developing. It would useful to try out Mars gravity (38% of Earth's) somewhat closer to Earth than the surface of Mars.

<comment><USER11> Could you link/cite the studies you have in mind, njarboe

<comment><USER10> It is well known that zero g causes many problems with the human anatomy. Google "effect of zero g on astronauts site:nasa.gov" and you'll have a list of links to studies and descriptions of the problems from the reliable NASA website. What sort of studies in particular would you be interested in?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Straight out of Cookie Clicker: [http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/](http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Everyone seems to misunderstand photosynthesis. It can't occur without water, and in fact, the oxygen plants release is from the water, not the CO2.

The smart money on useful compounds is CO and O2, made possible with high temperatures, CO2, and not much else.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems a somewhat odd project, at least for the stated purpose, given that there's now evidence that there is not even enough CO2 on Mars to easily create a breathable atmosphere: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0529-6](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0529-6)

</comment><comment><USER15> A million bucks is a bit steep for a plant, no?

And yes, you do need water for plants, but you're probably going to need hydrogen from somewhere anyway. Mars does have a decent amount of water ice ripe for melting.

</comment><comment><USER16> Definitely thought this was going to be about the Mars Bar factory CO2 output, which would have been cool if they could reuse that in the product they're making.

<comment><USER17> How much would people pay for a Mars bar that was produced on planet Mars?

<comment><USER18> Potentially millions, which would really mess with the Mars Bar standard.

[https://www.ft.com/content/34859346-b023-11e7-8076-0a4bdda92...](https://www.ft.com/content/34859346-b023-11e7-8076-0a4bdda92ca2)</comment></comment></comment>


Hack Your Fujifilm Vintage Film Modes - <AUTHOR> http://petetakespictures.com/blog/filmandvision <comment><AUTHOR> It's really awesome that Fujifilm allows us to customize our film simulation choices and adjust various parameters such as Color, Highlight and Shadow Tones. This article in particular shows how to set up your camera to emulate some of the masters and their film types.</comment>


Easily capture, track and resolve feedback for your website - <AUTHOR> http://www.insite-feedback.com

<comment><USER2> One of the creators here - feel free to ask us anything :)</comment>


Why Obama's reelection is good for young startupers - <AUTHOR> http://jessepollak.me/2012/11/09/why-obamas-reelection-is-good-for-young-startupers/

<comment><USER2> I suppose these are great if you are never going to move from startup->business.

In the longer term, more government regulation won't be a good thing for your business.

I saw a similar article about startups in Norway sometime back.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know if there is such a stark contrast; a lot of these things (especially the Startup America Initiative and the health care changes) will help small businesses. I guess if you get into a _really_ big business, increased taxes could stunt growth, but for the most part taxes are being cut for businesses--just not the huge ones.

Are there other regulations besides taxes that you think have a negative effect here?

<comment><USER2> employment regulations. Telling you who you can and cannot fire, entanglement with the unions (France is a good example of this).</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Guide a college student - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys
In the last five months I've been reading through the discussions here at HN and right now Hacker News is my homepage. I absolutely love this place. I love the energy, the intellect and all the ideas that are being thrown around. I've watched StartupSchool, I've read most if not all of PG's articles, and I'm constantly writing down ideas that come up in my head. This has all been happening since my senior year in high school. Then again, I know there is a big difference from doing all of these little things, and actually putting them into play and executing them. In fact, I think I should have already started something up regardless of the time constraints I have with tennis.
A little bit about myself... I'm a college student at one of the U.C. schools and I'm also on their tennis team. It's hard to balance school, tennis and fun-time but I like the intensity of my schedule, the exercise and everything that comes with being a college athlete.
Well, aside from that, I've always been into building things, especially things that involve competition\rankings. I want to have my own startup, at least eventually, or at least work for one before I graduate. I want to know what knowledge\insight\tips you guys can offer me and what I can do as a college student (aside from educating myself) to get myself ahead of the game. I really want to do this, and I'm willing to eat shit, throw away sleep, and make major sacrifices. I know I can.
Right now, I'm an undeclared freshman and I am about to declare either a major in Economics and a minor in Computer Science. Would it be better if I majored in Comp Sci? UCSD doesn't have a business major....(wondering if I would have even needed one)
Well, that's all for now. Thanks much for reading this if you didn't already close the window! Appreciate it guys and I can't wait for your responses. <comment><USER2> An entire _major_ in business -- more than just a handful of courses and books -- isn't particularly useful, and even if it is you can get an MBA well after graduation, as most MBAs do. I wouldn't spend time on it now. You're better off with tennis.

I sometimes wish I'd taken more economics courses than I did (which is to say: none whatsoever) but don't make the mistake of majoring in economics with the idea that it's kind of like business. That would be like studying reproductive biology because you really like kids. Economics is about constructing highly abstracted mathematical models of poorly understood phenomena. It has potentially difficult math in it, which makes it hard, which is good: Your college major should challenge you. But it's not about building things people want. Unless your definition of "people" is "other economists".

If you want to help build complex stuff (which is what many startups do) take courses which are about building things. CS is a fine thing. Any form of engineering is a fine thing. Courses which make you write or speak are a fine thing. Courses which emphasize data gathering and analytics -- statistics, sociology -- are a fine thing. And, since building stuff often requires knowing how it works, sciences are a good thing. I don't regret having taken the hardest science courses I could stand.

(It also turns out that it would have been a good idea to study art.)

But the sad truth, for those of us who loved school, is that formal schooling need not matter that much. Building things is as much about practice as theory. Go build a website right now, in PHP and MySQL on a Linux VPN in the cloud. Or download the Stanford course on iPhone development and build an app right now. Don't let school and sports become some kind of excuse, as if you needed some kind of prerequisite or badge or four-year degree to start building things. Start the habit today.

<comment><AUTHOR> fish this response is inspiring. i appreciate this a lot. I admit to my fault that I let school and sports to be an excuse many times. I feel that I could get something going right now. Jeeze, all I need is a cup of caffeinated tea to start building things anyway.

Thanks for this. I appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you want to be a technical entrepreneur or even want to be in technology field, I would suggest CS. But again, your interest matters alot.

Dont go with trend but go with your interest. You can make money in every field (sometimes quickly sometimes not).

<comment><USER4> I agree with this completely. If you have an interest that leans either way, go with that.

If you don't know which to choose, I would suggest CS with an Economics minor. You'll learn enough in the basic Economic classes to run a business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am glad you came to those who have went through the struggle and not the school advisors. Never listen to the student advisor .. you will end up messing up a lot of courses you wished you took (prereq, coreq, easy courses, hard courses, audit classes ..etc). But in the end you should take a day, (or a week if you have that much) and do nothing except figure out what you want to do with no distraction. Hell make a report about it; make your argument solid as a rock; talk to the final year students they know the rough ends. Just make sure the last opinion/decision is yours and not some kind of 'inception'. Dont let the opinions of others get under your skin. This is what I wished I did at the start ..no worries life goes on for me and now I am finishing up a Software Eng Minor with a Chemical Engineering Major hoping to continue studies in Computer Science. It took me half or more of my academic span to have it click in my head , never listen to the advisors. Good Luck no... Great Success man. You already have your startup, positive visualization :D

</comment><comment><USER6> Follow your heart. Whatever you're passionate about - do that.

I personally love programming because I get to create and build whatever I can dream up. Give CS a shot, you might find that it's a really good fit.

If not, don't get too discouraged. Programming isn't for everyone and there are lots of opportunities to 'build things' without it.

If you're not sure what you're passionate about try asking yourself why you want to do a startup so badly. That'll probably lead you down the right track.

As long as you're working on the things you're _really_ interested in you can't go wrong.

</comment><comment><USER4> Best advice that I can give is to just try something. Build something and put it out there. IMO this is just as important as your classes.

I worked throughout my entire 4 years of college and am ahead of most of my classmates in my career because I suffered through 4 years of late nights to get relevant work experience while also going to school. Most of my classmates were doing internships for nothing while I was building things for a pretty good salary.

I learned just as much working as I did in the classroom.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Chris,

I feel that I am going to get an internship or job by the end of my freshman year. By then I will know what I will want to pursue in school and with tennis. I like your view of work and class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a freshman, i guess you would have had some introductory programming class. If you liked it a LOT, then declare CS as your major.

Having a CS degree from a U.C. school will definitely be helpful in the long run if you want to be in the tech/startup arena. Most of the startup internships(assuming you want to work for one before you graduate) are for developers and you would definitely have an edge with a CS major.</comment>


Stripe CEO Patrick Collison on management, rationalism, and the enlightenment - <AUTHOR> http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/panoply/the-ezra-klein-show/e/stripe-ceo-patrick-collison-on-management-rationalism-and-the-48455600?autoplay=true <comment><AUTHOR> Long, but great pod. Patrick Collison and Ezra Klein discuss:

\- Innovating in highly regulated markets \- Breaking into well established markets by challenging assumptions, fine tuning product experience, and using lean startup principles \- Using time horizons strategically... The discussion about Jeff Bezos "simply willing to wait longer than your competitors" at 1:12 in really resonated with me. \- Building company culture \- Avoiding group think</comment>


Alarming surge in drug-resistant HIV uncovered - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02316-x <comment><USER2> I had a scare and took PeP this year. I had to ER shop. First one denied me coverage and made assumptions. I ended up getting care at a cost of ~$6000 to my insurance. I paid $270. I have great healthcare but this is obscene. I don't want to get sick and die. I was being careful but accidents happen.

<comment><USER3> Are you sure it actually cost your insurance $6k? Usually they have a high rack rate and negotiate down.

<comment><USER4> PrEP was pretty expensive. It cost the NHS about £5000 per year in 2017.

<comment><USER5> I assume you meant per person?

<comment><USER6> No per year per person. The NHS prescribes it long term for various high risk groups.

$6000 for a 'one off' course of treatment sounds very expensive.

<comment><USER7> > No per year per person. The NHS prescribes it long term for various high > risk groups.

The NHS does not prescribe PEP long-term for anyone.

For HIV+ people, it prescribes HAART, which everyone who has HIV should be on.

HIV- people can take PrEP, which is different from PEP and does not include any NNRTIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, PrEP is a miracle drug that has gone criminally underutilized in the fight to eradicate HIV. It would be nice to see governments really push it hard for a change.

<comment><USER9> PrEP is hard to get, my doctor outright refused to prescribe it to me, they said they were not comfortable doing so

<comment><USER10> The get a new doctor, one who values your health more than their antiquated morals.

<comment><USER11> That's a big assumption that the doctor's decision was based on personal morality rather than the damage caused by side effects, etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I always felt like the only way you can eliminate the spread of a highly adaptive std is to develop a low barrier on-the-spot test administered just before intercourse at the latest or some point reasonably earlier in a date or whatever. This would still fail under the dormancy period viruses assume but it should improve the odds I'd imagine for those connected in one way or another to promiscuous sexual networks.

<comment><USER13> That assumes a degree of agency in your ability to refuse sex that is not necessarily the case in many high prevalence countries.

<comment><USER14> It's better to protect one party than neither party...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is why PrEP is so important and everyone at risk should be on it. We need to spread PrEP use as far and wide as possible.

<comment><USER16> I know nothing about this topic and I'll admit that I even had to google what 'PrEP' is, and I have a vague feeling I'm stepping into a minefield asking this question, but who is "everyone at risk" in this context?

<comment><USER17> That would be men-who-have-sex-with-men, those with infected partners, sex workers, and intravenous drug users.

That is a fairly large number of the population that would be placed on an expensive drug with several side effects.

<comment><USER18> I would honestly just say anyone that is not in a monogamous relationship.

Straight men/women can easily have it and one fuckup and you can be infected

<comment><USER19> > Straight men/women can easily have it and one fuckup and you can be infected

The probability is low though, and apparently there are side effects. We also don't preemptively dish out antibiotics for similar reasons: they won't do you any good unless under very specific circumstances and you will likely experience side-effects. Do no harm.

<comment><USER18> yes there are side effects.

But the plan for prep also specifically includes you going into the doctor every 3 months to not only test for those side effects but also for a full STD panel. (Source: my husband and me are both on prep)

Just saying that "at risk" people should be trying to prevent this ignores a large portion of the population to try to stop its spread.

Thankfully a vaccine is in testing now, but if this was a vaccine most people would probably not question taking it. So why is a pill to protect against something like HIV so much different?

<comment><USER19> My point was that "at risk" means "seriously at risk", not "well, you are theoretically at risk, so better safe than sorry". If you're statistically not very likely to be infected, the side effects may outweigh the good.

> if this was a vaccine most people would probably not question taking it

Doctors would, or so I hope, not recommend taking a vaccine with serious side- effects without a reason. You typically don't get vaccinated for Dengue fever when traveling to Helsinki.

<comment><USER18> I can agree with that.

Maybe I should rephrase that, anyone in not in a monogamous relationship (and having sex) should at least discuss it with their Doctor and see if it would be worth them being on.

I find it shocking when I am talking to someone and find out they have no idea that prep even exists.

<comment><USER20> You should further rephrase that to be:

Anyone not in a monogamous relationship that has (unprotected) anal sex with different men.

Nothing else makes statistical sense. There is such a thing as a precautionary principle for medicine and it goes against most of what you wish to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Because we haven't eradicated HIV but just slowed it down, it is the perfect situation for it to develop drug-resistance.

</comment><comment><USER22> #What -- In several geographically distant third world countries HIV is becoming antiretroviral resistant in ~10% of cases.

#Why -- No one is _really_ sure. The most popular hypothesis is that it happens when people go on and off the medicine. Why would people do this? Shame, access, and some mothers that went on only during pregnancy. WHO recommended a pregnancy only treatment until ~2015.

#Impact -- These resistant breeds can spread, presumably just like the other varieties. The people with it have a much worse prognosis than those without.

#PrEP -- All the other parent comments talk about it. Sure, it should be used more frequently. It's a bit of a pipe dream to see it used in the 3rd world.

<comment><USER23> What purpose does the phrase "geographically distant" serve here? Seriously, why include that? Because, for one thing, while this site was started by an american, in america, its absolutely read all over the world, and two, HIV rates are highest in these "geographically distant third world countries". This is a really strange thing to post.

<comment><USER16> It meant (to me) that there are several 'pockets' of this happening simultaneously, it's not some local 'strain' or 'outbreak'. I thought it was a crucial thing to add, for nuance. Not sure why you're so agitated over this.

<comment><USER24> I think it's because the poster understood it as saying they were geographically distant "from us", rather than that they are geographically distant from _each other_.

<comment><USER22> root comment here. For the record I intended to use the term to imply that they are geographically distant from each other and the mutation is probably not from single parent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > But drug-resistant HIV might develop when people interrupt treatment, she > suggests.

[...]

> People living with HIV might go on and off the drugs for several reasons.

They didn't mention the fact that in most countries for most medications people just don't take meds as they should. We see this for meds that are crucial to keep the person alive. Many organ transplants fail because the person fails to take meds correctly afterwards. We see this where patients need to pay for their meds and further treatment (the US) or where they get free meds and further treatment (the UK).

This isn't a few percent of people who take meds. It's over a third of them, maybe about half of them.

It's a big problem.

</comment><comment><USER25> Won't all drugs targeted at microbes fail eventually? Surely they create a strong selective pressure which favours the resistant strains.

The wider and more frequently the drug is used the faster this process occurs?

<comment><USER26> That is a real worry in all areas where chemicals are used to selectively kill something undesired. It isn't just microbes, weed killers have the same problems. There is a real worry that in "a few years" (how long is not defined) antibiotics will cease to be useful and deaths will skyrocket from things we currently considered minor infections.

There is some hope though: having a resistant trait is only useful if it helps you survive. Most resistant traits are "costly" to keep around. Thus if we stop using some treatment - completely stop - in 100 years it will likely become useful again as those "microbs" without resistance out compete those with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This article in Scientific American's April 2019 [0] is an excellent article that introduced me some of the details of HIV treatment.

While it isn't related to the primary focus of the parent article, it gives some useful context.

>> At the end of this first stage, the viral load stabilizes at a level that can, puzzlingly, last for many years. Doctors refer to this level as the set point. A patient who is untreated may survive for a decade with no HIV-related symptoms and no lab findings other than a persistent viral load and a low and slowly declining T cell count.

>> Eventually, however, the asymptomatic stage ends and AIDS sets in, marked by a further decrease in the T cell count and a sharp rise in the viral load. Once an untreated patient has full-blown AIDS, opportunistic infections, cancers and other complications usually cause the patient's death within two to three years.

>> The key to the mystery was in the decade-long asymptomatic stage. What was going on then? Was HIV lying dormant in the body? Other viruses were known to hibernate like that. The genital herpesvirus, for example, hunkers down in nerve ganglia to evade the immune system. The chicken pox virus also does this, hiding out in nerve cells for years and sometimes awakening to cause shingles. For HIV, the reason for the latency was unknown.

...

>> When the researchers reran the experiment, fit the data to the model's predictions and estimated its parameters again, they obtained results even more staggering than before: 10 billion virus particles were being produced and then cleared from the bloodstream each day. Moreover, they found that infected T cells lived only about two days. The surprisingly short life span added another piece to the puzzle, given that T cell depletion is the hallmark of HIV infection and AIDS.

>> The discovery that HIV replication was so astonishingly rapid changed the way that doctors treated their HIV-positive patients. Previously physicians waited until HIV emerged from its supposed hibernation before they prescribed antiviral drugs. The idea was to conserve forces until the patient's immune system really needed help because the virus would often become resistant to the drugs. So it was generally thought wiser to wait until patients were far along in their illness.

>> Ho and Perelson turned this picture upside down. There was no hibernation. HIV and the body were locked in a pitched struggle every second of every day, and the immune system needed all the help it could get and as soon as possible after the critical early period of infection. And now it was obvious why no single medication worked for very long. The virus replicated so rapidly and mutated so quickly, it could find a way to escape almost any therapeutic drug.

>> Perelson's mathematics gave a quantitative estimate of how many drugs had to be used in combination to beat HIV down and keep it down. By taking into account the measured mutation rate of HIV, the size of its genome and the newly estimated number of virus particles that were produced daily, he demonstrated mathematically that HIV was generating every possible mutation at every base in its genome many times a day. Because even a single mutation could confer drug resistance, there was little hope of success with single- drug therapy. Two drugs given at the same time would stand a better chance of working, but Perelson's calculations showed that a sizable fraction of all possible double mutations also occurred each day. Three drugs in combination, however, would be hard for the HIV virus to overcome. The math suggested that the odds were something like 10 million to one against HIV being able to undergo the necessary three simultaneous mutations to escape triple- combination therapy.

>> When Ho and his colleagues tested a three-drug cocktail on HIV-infected patients in clinical studies in 1996, the results were remarkable. The level of virus in the blood dropped about 100-fold in two weeks. Over the next month it became undetectable.

[0] [https://scientificamerican.express.pugpig.com/2019/03/13/how...](https://scientificamerican.express.pugpig.com/2019/03/13/how- calculus-was-the-unsung-hero-in-the-fight-against-hiv/)

</comment><comment><USER28> I think the scare of the HIV epidemic in the 90s is gone. Just from looking at how we have progressed thus far, just looking at HIV medication alone, gives me hope against news like this. Resistance will happen, but we will always outsmart it.

</comment><comment><USER29> Probably because homosexuality doesn't fit their 19th century worldview

<comment><USER30> Or some people take it and engage in risky sexual behavior because they're now on it. I know more than a few people like that. Not everyone is a backwards hick, you're just virtue signalling.

<comment><USER31> UpToDate.com:

STI incidence among MSM using PrEP Men who have sex with men (MSM), particularly those who have indications for pre-exposure prophylaxis against HIV (PrEP), are at high risk for sexually transmitted infections (STI). In a study of nearly 3000 MSM in Australia who were initiating PrEP, the incidence of new chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis over the subsequent year was 92 cases per 100 person-years [2]. Nearly half of the participants were diagnosed with an STI during the study period, with 25 percent of participants accounting for 75 percent of all STIs diagnosed; the risk of STI was proportional to the number of sexual partners and frequency of group sex. These data highlight the importance of frequent STI screening for MSM using PrEP.

2\. Traeger MW, Cornelisse VJ, Asselin J, et al. Association of HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis With Incidence of Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Individuals at High Risk of HIV Infection. JAMA 2019; 321:1380.

<comment><USER32> We should remember though that what this demonstrates is a high correlation between PrEP use and risky sexual behaviour. It does not suggest that PrEP use encourages that behaviour - I don't doubt that in some cases it does, but it's difficult to think it does so generally.

<comment><USER33> Honestly, if you ask just about anyone in the community you'll find the general agreement is that PrEP does result in the decreased use of condoms, so it's not surprising that there is a general increase of other STDs.

But as more people start using PrEP and get tested regularly due to the general requirements, it is possible that STD rates will decline, but we're probably a few years away from seeing that in the statistics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> PrEP has negative side effects (besides being quite expensive for the state), condoms on the other side, don't have side effects, and are cheap.

It's a matter of having some sense of personal responsibility really.

<comment><USER35> > It's a matter of having some sense of personal responsibility really.

This exact phrase was used to spin the deaths of thousands of gay men as a personal failing not many years ago. Stop doing it.

<comment><USER36> It is a matter of personal responsibility. Just like obesity, smoking, and often type 2 diabetes.</comment></comment></comment>


A Bitcoin Address with 782,000 BTC Moved Through It - <AUTHOR> https://blockchain.info/address/1Drt3c8pSdrkyjuBiwVcSSixZwQtMZ3Tew <comment><USER3> While I am still terribly sad that I didn't mine bitcoins with my workstation 3-4 years ago, I am glad I can stand at the sidelines and watch this _amazing_ drama unfold.

Incidentally, I never figured out how to pronounce "Mt.Gox" But now I know: "Empty Gox" sounds about right :-)

<comment><USER4> 7 - 8 years ago I was envying all my friends who were buying properties that keep going up and up ...

<comment><USER5> I bought my house 6 years ago. I bought some bitcoins this autumn.

<comment><USER6> It sounds like a winning investment strategy would be to go short on whatever you are investing in.

<comment><USER7> That was the best back-handed compliment I've heard since the last episode of Downtown Abbey. I'm sure csv hates you every tiny bit I love you right now. :)

<comment><USER5> I don't hate anyone. I love living in my house, and I was fully aware of the risk when I bought my bitcoins. And I actually bought them just after the collapse when China dropped out, so I bought them at EUR 470, and now they're EUR 430 or thereabouts. The loss isn't huge. Yet. I'm not sure if I should cut my losses at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So... for those that might not know how to read the blockchain.info site, this isn't 782,000 BTC moved today.

That's the total amount the address has ever been exposed to, ever. As you scroll down you'll see red arrows and green arrows, along with dates. Red = withdraws from the address, and green = deposits into the address. You can see the dates and note this is just an address that's been doing business(whatever that is) for awhile now. You see the pagination at the bottom and can view history for at least a year back.

In short, this isn't news. It's people who are angry looking for a target. Don't let this be a repeat of SheepMarketPlace fiasco... [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/09/recovering...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/09/recovering- stolen-bitcoin-sheep-marketplace-trading-digital-currency-money)

You can't catch bitcoin thieves this way. They need to make some other mistake somewhere else outside of blockchain world.

<comment><USER9> What are the Public Note: sections in the blockchain about?

One of the transactions from this account traces down to this address ([https://blockchain.info/address/16cou7Ht6WjTzuFyDBnht9hmvXyt...](https://blockchain.info/address/16cou7Ht6WjTzuFyDBnht9hmvXytg6XdVT)) that contains 53,000 BTC. Transactions into this account have Public Notes saying things like

\- Worth a shot. My sis really is dying man. [https://www.facebook.com/MySisterHasCancer](https://www.facebook.com/MySisterHasCancer). Debts around 310,000.00 now. I dont get it, its nothing to you..

\- I am from Russia. Help to buy a house. I need 100 BTC. 1MEmKEuJxXT71UgRCAhDpjDpYWSMSNcgKp I would be grateful :) Would century are numbered ;)

\- I am a Chinese college students, I have a loving father, but I can not help him, he needs to do heart bypass surgery, I can not help him, because the cost of 100,000 or so needed, please help me, lifelong You pray Thank you!

Any ideas what that's all about?

<comment><USER8> Just random people begging for money; trying their luck.

[https://blockchain.info/wallet/website- faq](https://blockchain.info/wallet/website-faq)

Scroll to the very bottom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This address was mentioned in November in Washington Post article about 194,993 BTC transaction:

[Sarah Meiklejohn: ] "About half of the transactions sending bitcoins to this 12sENw address between August 29 and November 14 were from addresses we had associated with Bitstamp. This could be true for a lot of reasons (a heavyweight user withdrawing their bitcoins, for example), but there were a few other weird things I saw that made me think otherwise.

For example, a lot of the bitcoins that flowed out of the 12sENw address went to one of two other addresses: 1Drt3c8 and (especially recently) 1HBa5. The former of these addresses we have tagged as Bitstamp, and the latter is often within one hop of a known Bitstamp address (e.g., it has also sent a lot of bitcoins to 1Drt3c8).

So, while a lot of things could explain many bitcoins being received from Bitstamp, it seems like fewer of them could be explained by many bitcoins flowing from Bitstamp and then back to Bitstamp in a small span of time which is what leads me to think this is an internal shuffling of some kind.

Of course, I could also be completely wrong! For example, I should definitely mention that, for the direct transaction of interest, I don't have any of the input addresses tagged (i.e., they might or might not belong to Bitstamp), so that my inferences are really just going on the past behavior of this small handful of addresses."

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/11/23...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/11/23/heres-who-probably-did-that-massive-150000000-bitcoin- transaction/)

So this address was tagged as "Bitstamp" in her database.

</comment><comment><USER11> I doubt this is the thief's wallet because it would mean that they somehow managed to execute withdrawals of 3k and 5k bitcoin 7 and 5 days ago respectively - MtGox has stopped all withdrawals for weeks/months now.

The number of transactions seems low as well, the malleability bug would have involved thousands of smaller transactions.

It would also be insanely stupid for a sophisticated hacker to funnel their loot through a single wallet. Someone who understands transaction malleability enough to exploit it likely won't be making that mistake.

It isn't hard to pick out a number of bitcoin and then dive into the blockchain and find a wallet that has a same/similar number of bitcoins. Similar types of misidentification happen during the Silk Road and Sheep Marketplace heists.

<comment><USER12> I don't think they are suggesting it's the thief's wallet - it's presumably the Gox hot storage wallet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It never had more than a few thousand BTC (except for a few peaks) at any point in time. [1]

[1] - [https://blockchain.info/charts/balance?address=1Drt3c8pSdrky...](https://blockchain.info/charts/balance?address=1Drt3c8pSdrkyjuBiwVcSSixZwQtMZ3Tew)

<comment><USER14> Do you think this means that it is less likely, or more likely to be related to the thefts?

According to Gox, the theft was happening over a long period of time, not one lump sum. Transfers to this address began in April of 2012, which is consistent with the story.

<comment><USER15> If this address does belong to the thief, why would they steal all the bitcoins with a single address? Surely using different addresses would make it less suspicious

<comment><USER14> I don't necessarily believe that this address was related to the theft, only pointing out that the expectation of one transaction containing all the stolen bitcoin is not correct. Yes, using different addresses would be less suspicious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How traceable are bitcoins? Would it be possible to track when someone tried to offload the stolen bitcoins on one of the major exchanges by tracing back to this address or some Gox logs?

Given the value of the stolen coins are in the range of 0.5B USD it's not unreasonable to suspect that some government capacity would investigate this.

If the stolen coins can indeed be detected - how would they go about extracting the value? Seems like a large scale, risky money laundry effort would be needed.

<comment><USER17> You can trace all transactions forever, they're all public in the Bitcoin ledger (blockchain). But since Bitcoins are fungible, if you transfer them to an address that holds BTC from many people, you can "mix" them and make it harder to tell to where did your amount go: [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service)

<comment><USER18> Keep in mind older transactions are pruned from the tree on most nodes. While you may see where a Bitcoin originated, not all intermediate addresses will be shown forever in some version of the Blockchain. That's not to say that someone somewhere doesn't have the full blockchain, so you should keep in mind that it depends on what blockchain you are viewing at the time of investigation.

<comment><USER19> If I were the NSA, I'd be keeping track of the full blockchain.

<comment><USER18> Based on current observations, I would assume they are and have for some time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So, what about it? Does it belong to some BTC exchange? Or is it all stolen, or something?

I'm pretty sure there are lots of company and governmental bank accounts with lots of money moving through them...

<comment><USER21> MtGox has about 700k+ BTC

<comment><USER20> Wasn't it said they lost 700k BTC? Also just comparing balances doesn't seem like a very strong indicator of identity to me.

<comment><USER22> Couldn't someone with a known withdrawal from mtgox use the address the money came from to trace up the blockchain? I don't know if gox used multiple wallets, but if not it should be pretty obvious where the money came from and went.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think in another 5-10 years bitcoin will finally be realized as one of the great scams of our time

<comment><USER24> The biggest scam of BitCoin is never even mentioned; that the creator reserved for himself vast numbers of them.

<comment><USER25> How dare he take profits for his work! How dare Zuckerberg keep 56% of Facebook for himself. Jesus the things we read on HN these days.

<comment><USER26> Well, now that you mention it, I think it is totally fair to take a critical view of the way we allocate the rewards for a successful enterprise. There's no natural law at play here. We live in a system that deliberately rewards founders and financiers over the other pieces of the puzzle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This whole situation reminds me of Michael Bolton's virus in Office Space.

<comment><USER28> Yeah or Richard Pryor in Superman III

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> If I was going to steal 782,000 BTC over a period of two years why would I steal them all from the same address? Doesn't pass the sniff test.

<comment><USER30> The hacker really only needs to be slightly smarter than whoever wrote that bad PHP in the first place. It's not implausible really that they'd send it through the same address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> To save you doing the math, that many bitcoins is about $375 million at today's prices - not that the market is deep enough to be able to sell it for anywhere near that price.

<comment><USER32> It really surprises me that Bitstamp has absorbed 100k+ in last 24 hours at current price range.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Seems that quite a lot of the volume on that address[1] is about 40% of the volume of the of the stuff going through MT Gox[2]. Might be a coincidence.

[1] [https://blockchain.info/charts/received-per- day?timespan=180...](https://blockchain.info/charts/received-per- day?timespan=180days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=1Drt3c8pSdrkyjuBiwVcSSixZwQtMZ3Tew)

[2] [http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10z...](http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv)

</comment><comment><USER34> Context would be nice.

<comment><USER35> The alleged Mt. Gox insolvency document claims that they lost about 744,408 BTC due to malleability-related theft which went unnoticed for several years. This is an address that just happens to have had 782,558 BTC flow through it over the last two years.

Of course, if the Mt. Gox document is a fake, the author could easily have chosen an amount that corresponded to an address that had such a number of Bitcoins flow through it.

It's difficult to know what's going on here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Well I don't know if this matters but it checks out against benford's law, or at least kinda... [http://i.imgur.com/nL9lO6r.png](http://i.imgur.com/nL9lO6r.png)

for comparison here is a dataset that doesn't checkout against benford's law (it's the city of Chicago's employee Salaries)

[IMG][http://i.imgur.com/SxAY1d2.png](http://i.imgur.com/SxAY1d2.png) (don't get too alarmed though, it fails because they've used estimations for hourly employees)

</comment><comment><USER37> It is possible for the exchanges and miners to get together and change the protocol, to mark the stolen bitcoins as invalid? The thief is probably going to dump the stolen bitcoins on the market - not exactly a good thing for the bitcoin price or the long term viability of bitcoin itself.

Especially since it will take quite some time to dump all thsoe bitcoins - <USER2> market isn't all that liquid.

<comment><USER38> Nobody can say for sure the bitcoins in that address are stolen.

But it would be very possible to reject bitcoins from certain addresses, and the protocol don't need to be changed. All it would take is make a client to reject to include transactions to/from blacklisted addresses into blockchain. And for everyone to update clients. That still would be vulnerable to 51% attack, but it is very real possibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Get the pitchforks and the torches! Looks like we've got ourselves a witch- hunt.

<comment><USER40> Don't worry, the internet is pretty good at these. I mean, Reddit did a great job with the ... oh, that's right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I hope, his USB-stick doesn't get corrupted or unreadable ...

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm sure you could find several addresses with a transaction amount in those heights. Exchanges don't operate from a single address - so any theft could only be traced back to several addresses.

</comment><comment><USER43> Same time MtGox Disappeared

<comment><USER17> No, it's not, the 780k were not from a recent transaction, they're the cumulative sum of all transactions in the last two years on that address.

<comment><USER44> Many of those transactions were recent. Though the account dates to April, 2012, the volume of TX seems to have accelerated through 2013 and 2014.

<comment><USER44> More (only because I'm learning this as I go): the balance shows the flow of funds in and out of that account. I've traced a bunch to various endpoints and through intermediaries:

[https://blockchain.info/charts/balance?timespan=all&showData...](https://blockchain.info/charts/balance?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=1Drt3c8pSdrkyjuBiwVcSSixZwQtMZ3Tew)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1yvdcd/heres_a_summ...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1yvdcd/heres_a_summary_of_what_has_happened_over_the/cfocqz3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> That was me.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the maximum number of YC rejections ever? (just curious) - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I have 2, I'm pretty sure plenty of people have me beat :).

I've read of people that were accepted on their 2nd or 3rd submission. I even think they have statistics on that.

Drew Houston / Dropbox is the most famous example.

Edit: this guy had 3 rejections and now got invited for an interview - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546643](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546643)</comment>


Facebook AI Creates Its Own Language in Creepy Preview of Our Potential Future - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2017/07/31/facebook-ai-creates-its-own-language-in-creepy-preview-of-our-potential-future/#6db06841292c <comment><USER2> Did some stoopid bot right that article?

</comment><comment><USER3> Great Info >>> Appreciable job</comment>


Chinese Hell Money (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.planetslade.com/hell-money.html <comment><USER2> Although I understand the need, I hate grouping all 1.3+ billion people into a single stereotype/culture as the "Chinese."

I've been to china and have spent a lot of time there both studying and working and the first thing you experience in China is the diversity. There's a small part of the Chinese population that would actually consider hell money as apart of their culture.

User "stupandaus" had a good point about the different waves of Chinese immigration to US/Canada which included different ethnicity and even language that would give a reason why hell money isn't seen in some areas.

<comment><USER3> I took it as an interesting, harmless, and creative funerary tradition and nothing more. It doesn't (IMO) reflect poorly on the Chinese people, and getting all defensive over it is silly.

<comment><USER2> You clearly took my comment the wrong way. I'm speaking on behalf of a philosophical standpoint, 1.3+ billion of an item....in this case a specific Human nationality cannot be used to generalize the whole. It's 1.3 BILLION, there's going to be so much diversity and difference in a population of that size no matter the circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I decided to use Hell Money for a project in art school and it was super easy to find in Vancouver's China Town ten or so years ago. It makes me wonder about the differences between Chinese immigrants to Canada versus the US...

<comment><USER5> There have been multiple waves of Chinese immigration to the US, with different concentrations of Mandarin vs. Cantonese speakers, education level, affluence, etc. Thus, there tends to be major differences between China Towns in different major cities.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I figured it was something like that, any reading suggestions?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> During visits to Taipei I would pass a shop that sells all sorts of items for the afterlife. Among the largest items are dollhouse-sized mansions made of wood and paper.

The tradition reminds me of the Egyptian rulers who were buried with everything they might need on the other side.

</comment><comment><USER7> I remember playing with these as a (culturally ignorant) kid. To me i was just a baller.</comment>


A Guide to Business Development 2.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/business_development_20.php <comment><USER2> From the article: "Besides being annoying, cold calling is no longer effective"

A friend of mine does this for a living, and he earns around $20.000 a month and has a 30 hour working week. In a previous startups I cold called potential customers myself and closed roughly 1 in 20.

I don't know where the author gets his numbers from, or if he moves in radically different cirsles from me, but I strongly disagree. I would say that cold-callling is one of the most effective sales methods out there. Depending on your product of course.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Cold calling is dead"? Uh, no it's not, and neither is direct marketing or spam. None of these things are dead because they work.</comment>


Apple took 40% of all profits in Silicon Valley last year - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2016/04/25/apple-continues-to-dominate-tech-companies-financially-took-40-of-all-profits-in-silicon-valley-last-year/ <comment><USER2> Title is somewhat incomplete. Apple accounted for 40% of profits for _the 150 biggest public companies in the Bay Area_. Private companies are not included, and neither are most of the big players in the mobile hardware space (ex. Samsung). Still very impressive, though, considering how long everyone has had to catch up in terms of product offerings.</comment>


Anthropologists in the Stock Exchange [Book] - <AUTHOR> http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo23151198.html <comment><USER2> If anyone is interested in this also look up the work of David Graeber. Living legend.</comment>