Apply HN: Mental Health Medication Self-Assesment App - <AUTHOR> Selection of medication used in mental health treatment is often a complicated process of trial and error. A prescriber will begin with an educated guess for the most effective treatment for a given patient and the patient begins a period of medication evaluation to determine if if the right ratio of efficacy and side-effects are met; if not, the process is repeated.
Sometimes during this process, patients will only meet with prescribers for 30-minutes once a month providing a narrow window for observation.  Patients are given the difficult question of answering if they feel the medication "is working". There are two main challenges to this evaluation:
1. In a study of 1, it is very difficult to control for other factors that effect mood or the effectiveness of the medication (e.g. sleep, diet, dosage timing, external life events)
2. The nature of these medications could change perception, so it is sometimes difficult for a patient to self-evaluate how their mood one day compared to the past. A patient may have one feeling about the effectiveness of their medication and another a week later when visiting their doctor.
I would like to build an app that acts as a friend during this difficult evaluation: regularly asking questions about sleep, diet, stress, mood, and general impressions of the medication. The patient and doctor could use the data from this app together to discuss a more complete picture of the patient's recent mood than may be revealed in a discussion on any one particular day.
With the correct privacy controls in place, this app could provide a source of research data for studies to help discover why some medications work better for certain patients.
I would like this to be a tool to help people and create greater efficiency in this are of mental health and would like to make it available to all patients. I am considering if a non-profit would be a better path than attaching a business model to this. <comment><AUTHOR> DISCLAIMER: I already submitted one 'Apply HN' ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11584508](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11584508)), but as the YCombinator application asks about other ideas founders are interested I thought I would post this as well.

This is an idea I am passionate about as over the years I have seen friends and family struggle with the difficulty of being part of a study of one; so aside from being my 'other idea' post, I was curious for any feedback on how to get a project like this started that does not have a business model attached (my thoughts are around non-profits and research grants, although I have not looked into the later).

I'd also be curious to get connected with anyone else interested in similar ideas.

<comment><USER3> My experience as an observer of the mental health system is that it's a complete disaster. See my submissions & comments.

If your app was combined with my "scrap & rebuild" of the System, it'd probably be quite useful. The worst of the patients are stuck in a tunnel, but such an app could be especially useful for helping family & friends keep track of how the patient is doing - what helps, and what makes their condition worse.

<comment><AUTHOR> > helping family & friends keep track of how the patient is doing - <USER2> > helps, and what makes their condition worse.

This relates to one of my motivations for this idea: there is only so much family and friends can do and when they are tasked (if at the request of the patient) with this sort of tracking it can put strains on relationships. Sometimes the friend or loved one asked to watch out for this things is not the right person to hear it from when the data matters.

I feel it would empower patients to have their own access to this information than it being held by a friend or family member---other users contributing to the patients data is a good idea I think.

EDIT: (below)

>If your app was combined with my "scrap & rebuild" of the System, it'd probably be quite useful.

What I am proposing is a way for patients to better understand data about themselves, which would be important in any mental health system.

There are many mental health success stories today; I'm not proposing a replacement but a way of improving an existing system. I think it is important to better understand these success so they can be duplicated (and failures in the evaluation-loop learned from).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think that tools like this are great, but there already are some in this space (e.g., mySymptoms [1]). How will you differentiate yourself?

[1] [http://skygazerlabs.com/wp/](http://skygazerlabs.com/wp/)

<comment><AUTHOR> The first differentiator will be price: I would like to figure out a way to offer this to patients without charging for the app or turning the patients into a product. As a tool to help people help themselves, I would like to lower barriers to entry as much as possible; which is why I'm exploring the possibility of pursuing this idea as a non-profit. Other apps that I have found are either paid apps or free with in-app purchases (e.g. in-app purchase to keep your mood log private; I wonder what privacy is like in an app whose default state is public posting).

There are many more mood trackers than apps that allow you to track one dimension such as mood and not both symptoms and potential contributing factors, but as you point out there are some apps doing this already. Existing apps that track both symptoms and mood have two challenges:

1\. Staying motivated to continue to log data daily as a patient goes through an evaluation is difficult if record keeping is done with pencil+paper or an app.

2\. Apps that track more than mood have a more complicated UX to handle input across a variety of dimensions.

Apps like mySymptoms do make self-evaluation and data collection easier because the patient will usually have their phone with them; but this is still a chore. mySymptoms was designed to track symptoms for Irritable Bowel Syndrome and the UX reflects the motivation level of that user group.

Instead of a log keeping app, I want to make an app that will act like a personal lab assistant guiding the patient through their study of 1. Here is how I am trying to make this process of record keeping easier:[EDIT: fixed line breaks]

1\. A UI/UX that allows data entry with as few touches as possible: each datapoint should be able to be entered with a single touch or gesture (voice interaction would be useful too, but one step at a time).

2\. Present the user with one question from the lab assistant at a time instead of providing a daily grid to update.

3\. Don't wait for user action, but prompt the user to interact with the app. Timing of prompts can be triggered by learned timing of user interaction with the app, desired medication/eating schedule, and sensor input to ask questions at the right time (some users my respond to prompts better while on the move while others when at home).

<comment><AUTHOR> After posting the above comment I was thinking that, if I mentioned 'free-app' as a differentiate, I should say something about revenue generation; even if going the non-profit route, charitable donations may provide enough cash flow.

How to pursue this idea without charging patients is still a problem I am trying to solve. Here are two ideas I have:

1\. If we are able to ethically collect anonymous data for use in research; institutions could pay a subscription for the data (This seems more suited to a non-profit company)

2\. With the increase in use of mobile applications in patient care and research, this app could be put out for free as a promotional tool for a company that specializes in creating mobile software for medical research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting idea. How are clinical standards and expertise to be incorporated into and expressed by the software?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a number of 'workbooks' used for self-evaluation and simple data collection between sessions in clinical treatment of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc. These workbooks will be used to develop the set of measurement dimensions used in the first prototypes.

Initially, development focus will be around designing a user experience that is easy to use and promotes consistent use of the app because this is needed to take advantage of any clinical expertise embodied by the software. In working on this design, I plan to consult existing research literature on the use of existing at-home evaluation methods and issues of non-compliance for general out-patient medical treatment.

After designing the initial experience, I would plan to consult with M.D.s and doctors of psychology both to find out ways to increase patient use of the software and to develop in-app analysis that would be beneficial clinically. (EDIT: forgot this sentence) I have a friend who is a M.D. working in research psychiatry here in Boston, as well as some other contacts that I plan to reach out to as I try to grow a network of possible consultants.

Another important part of this consultation would be to make sure this app is viewed a tool to help patient and doctor and not as a tool for patients to make their own medical choices without doctor consultation.

Being based in Boston/Cambridge, I am surrounded by a large hospital community with a lot of interesting mental health research going on outside of drug trials. If I could get this software involved with one of the studies on clinical methodologies it would be a great way to get user feedback and incorporate clinical standards into the software.</comment></comment>


Multigate Device - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multigate_device <comment><AUTHOR> >"Dual-gate MOSFETs are commonly used in very high frequency (VHF) mixers and in sensitive VHF front-end amplifiers."</comment>


Microsoft should stick to its guns and keep the Start button gone - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/microsoft-should-stick-to-its-guns-and-keep-the-start-button-gone/

<comment><USER2> The problem isn't the start button or the 'start screen' per se it is the combining two entirely separate user interfaces into one product.

I personally think that Microsoft should put up a firewall between the desktop and the metro environment. Just run metro apps in a windowed environment and give up trying to do everything through the metro interface. Microsoft is committed to Metro and its new UI Toolkit but the very poor discoverability of the Metro layer when used from the desktop is ironically hurting metro adoption for desktop users making app developers deal with a massive segment of windows that doesn't have any desire to use Metro apps.

Yes, Microsoft will have to make substantial changes and backtrack a bit but the alternative will be to maintain in perpetuity the Metro toolkit and environment for both touch and mouse environments.</comment>


Does Mark Zuckerberg think he's Steve Jobs? - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/04/02/does-mark-zuckerberg-think-hes-steve-jobs

<comment><USER2> Tsk! He's not the next Steve Jobs - he's the messiah! (or is that the same thing? hmmmm)</comment>


If Windows 3.11 required a 32-bit CPU, why was it called a 16-bit OS? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2010/05/17/10013609.aspx <comment><USER2> Every time I read about compatibility layers, I flash back to this passage:

 _Toilets in modern water closets rise up from the floor like white water lilies. The architect does all he can to make the body forget how paltry it is, and to make man ignore what happens to his intestinal wastes after the water from the tank flushes them down into the drain. Even though the sewer pipelines reach far into our houses with their tentacles they are carefully hidden from view, and we are happily ignorant of the invisible Venice of shit underlying our bathrooms, bedrooms, dance halls, and parliaments._

<comment><USER3> Eh. Milan Kundera, going on to "And as she voided her bowels, Tereza was overcome by a feeling of infinite grief and loneliness. Nothing could be more miserable than her naked body perched on the enlarged end of a sewer pipe."

Although today Google gives Philip K. Dick running a close 4th.

I take it you haven't seen a German toilet. A small kink in the porcelain forms a delicate watery bowl holding your offering, so that you can examine it before committing it to the underworld.

That probably explains a lot.

<comment><USER4> Eponysterical!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It was actually a 2-bit os.

/rimshot

<comment><USER6> I rather enjoyed Windows 3.11

<comment><USER7> I actually ran win32s (!) for a bit. Needed it for a PCB layout program, and couldn't swing NT at the time.</comment></comment></comment>


Business Models - <AUTHOR> https://axial.substack.com/p/axial-business-models <comment><USER2> I remember reading a comment on HN a while ago about the "basic" ways to create value (and make money) that really resonated with me. I can't for the life of me find it again. It was broken down into things people want like "information that others don't have" and "moving things from place A to place B where they wouldn't be otherwise" etc. Anyone remember that?

<comment><USER3> For once my slightly obsessive bookmarking habits come in handy!

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/10/catalog-of-wealth- creatio...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/10/catalog-of-wealth-creation- mechanisms.html)

From this comment tree on the original discussion of pg's "Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas": [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3687080](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3687080)

The whole tree is definitely interesting in addition to the blog post linked. Also, a follow-up post a few days later: [http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/10/wealth-production- mechani...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/10/wealth-production-mechanisms- followup.html)

<comment><USER4> Speaking of bookmarks, I'm curious how you organize your bookmarks and personal knowledge base. I'm currently using Evernote, and it's ok, but I'm looking for something better.

<comment><USER5> What's wrong with standard Chrome bookmarks?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did a visual version of this some years ago to reason about companies and products.

[https://www.qtra.io/hn-comment-bizmodels](https://www.qtra.io/hn-comment- bizmodels) (pdf)

The "Arbitrage" version isn't labelled properly, but it's basically taking money from a buyer in one market and buying from a seller in another market, then delivering the service back between markets.

It's convoluted and reflects thinking from 5 years ago, but if a product/company doesn't make money one of these ways, it probably doesn't make money, and if it does, metrics are just a matter of scaling numbers in one of the nodes.

<comment><USER7> That link appears dead to me. Typo? I'd love to see it

<comment><USER8> Link was dead for me as well. I took a look at the URL and took "s" off the end. Maybe that is it?

[https://www.qtra.io/hn-comment-bizmodel](https://www.qtra.io/hn-comment- bizmodel)

<comment><USER6> that's correct, I changed the url to the original.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Also useful: [https://reasonstreet.co/business-model- library/](https://reasonstreet.co/business-model-library/)

More like tear downs of each business model and what to measure when deciding

</comment><comment><USER10> Adding: Democratization of... Knowledge, Luxury, Trading, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> Odd to find advertisements not being mentioned. That seems to be the goto for publishers. Excellent list!

<comment><USER12> Indeed. Some of these models are partially-applied functions - they're missing the part that actually makes them money. For instance:

> _Network effects (can come in different forms such as direct, two-sided, > data): Facebook — the value of the product increases as more people use it_

Network effects keeps the users in, money is made by ads and surveillance.

> _Crowdsourcing: YouTube — aggregate content /product from users individuals > and distributes them at scale_

Really, it's also a form of network effects (viewers go where most content is; creators go where most viewers are), and again, money is made by ads and surveillance.

Also, missing models:

\- Regulatory arbitrage: Uber - conquering markets by breaking local laws faster than the regulators can react.

\- Exploiting social capital: AirBnB - facilitating illegal or highly undesirable behavior at scale, not caring about the neighbors of service's users.

Also2:

> _Open-source: Bitcoin_

Bitcoin is not a company and does not have a business model. Also, "Open Source" is not a business model. "Donations" and "Paid support" are.

<comment><USER13> "Donations"

What about companies with products that are "free", with a fixed priced attached when - over an unconstrained period of time - you want to pay (Sublime Text).

<comment><USER14> Github felt like it deserved a callout here (Free if open, paid if closed). And there's no mention of free to play games which is a business mdoel powering a large chunk of a big industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bitcoin is not a company and has no business model. Another day and another bad take about Bitcoin on HN.</comment>


NoSql Databases – Part 1 - Landscape - <AUTHOR> http://www.vineetgupta.com/2010/01/nosql-databases-part-1-landscape.html <comment><USER2> I am not sure what this sort of an article achieves - its neither succinct enough to be a synopsis nor is it detailed enough to be an in-depth explanation.

It reminds me of one of those MS-Word Specification documents bandied about in enterprises. I never could grok one of those , this is no different.

<comment><USER3> You have point, but it's a good first effort. It would be nice to see a short summary and recommendations at the top, with more info on separate pages or down below. Could even move this kind of thing over to a wiki (or maybe such a wiki already exists?).

<comment><USER2> Even paginating it would help in the readability, i think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find that I need transactional databases less and less. Whether I specifically don't need SQL is not clear -- it's a great abstraction for storing and manipulating data.

Specifically, what I loose with transactions is fault tolerance and predictable performance while I find I don't really need atomicity in most places.

Fundamentally fault-tolerance is achieved by having few interdependencies among computer systems. Transactions makes that really hard to do for replicated databases and you need replication to be fault tolerant. So usually people cheat and settle for async replication, but then you really don't have transaction anymore since different parts of your system are seeing different states.

Transactions also lead to difficult to debug blocking behavior either due to deadlocks (btw, where else in computer systems is the advice that you have to destroy all abstraction and understand the entire locking order of your program in one place?) or locks getting held too long due to programming errors etc. I hate when my entire site hangs because a key table has locks on it due to some transaction getting accidentally left open.

Understanding database consistency levels and their nuances is extremely difficult and error prone as well. So you may not really be operating in the pristine transactional environment you thought you were.

Finally, programming to a non-transactional model is actually pretty easy in most cases. You just have to go into your project thinking about this upfront. And the decisions you make building a non-transactional site will probably increase how decoupled all the parts are which will make it scale better anyway.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow. That's a lot of information there.

Nitpick; the presentation is almost impossible to digest. A few tables instead of endless bullet lists would work wonders here.

</comment><comment><USER6> Amazon S3 may not be readily classified as a key-value store. It seems better sit between distributed key-value store and distributed file system.</comment>


The lesser-known member of Facebook's original team is ready for the spotlight - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2015/02/04/andrew-mccollum-facebook/ <comment><USER2> Pretty in-depth and interesting, especially for Mashable. Is this kind of content common for them? I just thought they were another clickbait machine.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find the term "gastropub" amusing. In my experience it's not used much (if at all) here in Australia, where "gastro" is most frequently used as an abbreviation for "gastroenteritis". It does not seem to me to be the wisest of neologisms.

<comment><USER4> I (fellow Aussie) picked it up when living in London a few years back. We'd kind of been inculcated into the whole "the UK does Gastronomy" thing so it didn't seem weird, but it would take more Heston and less Buscopan in Australia before it would take off here.

Interestingly, the first Gastropub I ate at was owned by Guy Ritchie. I figured it had to be good, since he named a film after my favourite food...</comment></comment>


The Bike Repair Vending Machine That Sells Parts, Tools, And Snacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1768512/bike-repair-vending-machine-for-bikers-on-the-go <comment><USER2> i'd love to have one of these in my building.</comment>


TakeItBack - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wedoit.takeitback&hl=en <comment><AUTHOR> Would you like to limit your kids time on smart devices? Then this app is for you.

TakeItBack is for parents who would like to limit their kids time on smart devices and use saved time towards other child's development activities. If you like this app, please refer it friends & family. We would love to hear your feedback.</comment>


How Many Megapixels Are Needed for a Professional Photo? - tefo-mohapi http://www.iafrikan.com/2017/02/16/how-many-megapixels-are-needed-for-a-professional-photo-2/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a thinly-veiled ad for some image-compression software. The actual informative content is light and unsubstantiated. There's plenty of missed opportunity to _show_ the claims, e.g. by doing a comparison of the same scene shot at the same pixel size with different-sized sensors, or conversely fixing the image quality and seeing how big you can go without visible degradation.

<comment><USER2> Hardly surprising.

If you don't know 'tefo-mohapi' by now [or Special K, as I call him] s/he/it is a bot who only ever submits stories about 'Afrika' from iafrikan.com [That's 'Afrika' with a K, for some unfathomable reason]

[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=tefo- mohapi](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=tefo-mohapi)</comment></comment>


Wikimedia portrait case is about the future of museums, not the public domain - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/07/17/art-isnt-free-the-tragedy-of-the-wikimedia-commons/

<comment><USER2> This is curious. The author is worried about the future of museums, due to the points in U.K. law under question. And yet, while he notes that the photographs would be considered public-domain in the U.S., there doesn't seem to be any worry about U.S. museums. Or those in other countries.

Isn't that a bit odd?

Now, is there a serious problem here? Maybe, maybe not. But the rather provincial viewpoint of this article doesn't help us answer the question.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised by the amount of negative reaction the Wikipedia stance is getting, seems pretty sensible to me, not to mention ethically sound.

This guy doesn't seem to have much of a point. He thinks this is a case of "tragedy of the commons" when really, since you can't use up a digital image by looking at it or duplicating it, it's really a case of Public Goods (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good>) and the problems they have.

Why build a lighthouse if you can't charge people and exclude those who don't pay? Standard answer, get the government to do it and force people to pay via taxation. Since most of these museums are government funded already, problem solved.

I also don't understand the reference to the Van Gogh ([http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/07/17/art-isnt-free- the...](http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/07/17/art-isnt-free-the-tragedy- of-the-wikimedia-commons/attachment/mfa-houses-at-auvers/)). It seems like US institutions are pulling the same kind of nonsense, even after a court ruling against it.</comment>


Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in - <AUTHOR> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/google-says-googles-perks-are-overrated-and-belt-tightening-is-underrated/

<comment><USER3> Some day people will look back and pinpoint that the day the free snacks were taken away was the day that Google started to be just like every other company...

<comment><USER4> This will bite them in the ass.

Wages are rarely a source of satisfaction in a job. Employees consider them simply the fair exchange for their time.

The perks on the job and the company culture count for much more. I suspect that is everyone was given a 5% paycut, but the perks kept, they would be happier than they are now.

(I refer in general to all employees - not just the engineers)

<comment><USER5> Agree. "Just be happy that you're getting paid" is not an acceptable culture - petty things like snacks and freebies count.

<comment><USER6> As long as the perks are done well :)

eg "Wear a Hawaiian shirt to work day" != perk

<comment><USER7> I don't know if you were making a direct reference to Salesforce.com's "Employees have fun in the office, participating in foundation/volunteer activities with their peers and wearing Hawaiian shirts on Aloha Fridays." (<http://www.salesforce.com/company/careers/culture/>)

I consider the whole Hawaiian shirt thing to be a "gateway" perk. If the company promotes wearing fun attire, then you can be sure to expect other more exciting perks. I don't know of any Silicon Valley software companies that advertise Hawaiian shirts as their one and only perk...

I also think Salesforce.com's volunteering perk is very enjoyable and worthwhile. You essentially get paid to do a workday of community service each month. Didn't sound very exciting or interesting at first, but it turned out to be extremely rewarding. I'd love to see more software companies adopting similar programs and following suit.

<comment><USER8> I think it was an Office Space reference.

<comment><USER6> It was. I didn't know anywhere actually did it :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Article's rather disingenuous. Google's perks list is still Extensive - trimming services out of fiscal concern isn't the same thing as switching to a minimalistic "be glad we give you anything at all" approach.

And how much of it's just PR from Schmidt to avoid looking like they're out of touch with the current economic situation?

<comment><USER10> We did rework the micro-kitchens, but there's still some solidly awesome junk food there. (pocky!)

<comment><USER9> And there you have it. Given that Pocky is decidedly overpriced and overhyped, the fact that Google's serving it is proof that they're still perk-happy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "we decided to, for example, we significantly cut down all the snacks that had been available. [laughter]"

Sounds more like a joke to me. Are google perks like the gourmet food really being cut? (I heard about the child care changes. It sounded like a reasonable change to me but not being a Googler I wouldn't know and the details are hazy).

The head line seems sensationalistic and gives the impression that the folks at the top have made a actual decision to move more towards a "grey corporation".

I had also assumed(wrongly?) that the layoffs got rid of some dubious people who were hired. I personally know some not so great people who somehow got hired.

Do any quotes or facts bear this out? The linked article _seemed_ hyperbolic and twisting some quotes out of proportion. I sthere any difference "on the ground"? People don't get free food now? Sounds insane!

<comment><USER12> Well, I'm still getting free food up here in Google Kirkland, and it's great. The article seemed pretty odd to me, too.

<comment><USER11> Yes so _what_ perks are being cut exactly? The article is vague about that.

<comment><USER13> Tea time has gone the way of the dinosaur. (Well, technically not, since the dinosaur is still standing out in the courtyard, but tea time is just gone, but you know what I mean.)

Also, Charlie's Cafe now serves hamburgers and fries. Rumor has it that when Charlie was here, he banned the use of ketchup as a disincentive to the serving of foods that require it. Googlers are better than that!

<comment><USER10> No, Charlie actually wasn't into French Fries. They were quite rare. Even now, Fries are kind of a treat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> After this, re-read:

[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad- agile...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad- agile_27.html)

Start at the text "(cue happy rat)".

<comment><USER15> People are going to look back on those as the good days. Thanks for sharing that link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> interestingly, google's offered pay rates for system administrators when they've tried to recruit me have been industry standard--for Austin, TX. but the jobs were in silicon valley. maybe other roles have higher pay scales, but i turned them down because i didn't think they were paying well, and i am only used to salaries from state jobs, which have tended to be very nearly median for the industry.

last time they tried to recruit me was 3-4 years ago. perhaps they've changed. but it held true for at least 4 years before that as well.

</comment><comment><USER17> Maybe perks don't really scale so well.

It's surprising that he said the pay is very good, I was the impression people took paycuts for the google priviledge.

<comment><USER18> <http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Salaries-E9079.htm>

Looks pretty good to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The risk of instituting a new perk isn't the cost over the first N months -- it's the impact on morale, PR, etc. if you ever decide to take it away. Restaurants have "special pricing promotions" to set the expectation that the "lower price" perk won't be around forever (and to motivate people by through the creation of temporal scarcity). During the perk period, the restaurant gets more people in the door by offering a better deal. Google's perk cycle is opposite that of a restaurant. During good times, they have to make working there really attractive. But, right now, they don't have to give away so much, so they can scale back. The problem is that the expectation was explicitly set high (think about the IPO owner's manual).

</comment><comment><USER20> Definitely a bit of sensationalism going on with that headline even though it uses some of the words Schmidt did.

</comment><comment><USER21> My favorite shark-jump moment was when someone in HR sent out a blast email announcing a new HR initiative for a "wear pajamas to work day" highlighting Google culture. When HR has to manufacture culture and call it a perk, things are on their way downhill...

<comment><USER22> On a previous company they had "wear slippers day" and a couple of times the HR staff went around the office <b>selling</b> snacks...

<comment><USER23> A previous software company I worked for had its offices in what used to be nun's quarters. The rooms were small for living space, but very nice for an office, I hear. Apparently, the founder/CEO let the nuns come around once a year and talk to the employees about issues like their "salvation."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised people thought the perks would last. Every company goes through that phase, where employees are showered with perks (of bizarre variety - everything from free laundry to day care for kids to free pop soda). The company either grows to the point where many of the perks are no longer sustainable (employees grow older, have kids -> company spends a LOT more on day care etc.), and/or hits an economic recession where belts need to be tightened. These things don't last. The stuff that lasts are the quality of the people, the culture of the employees (and hence the company) and the products that they ship.

<comment><USER24> I disagree. I think the perks would have continued if it wasn't for the down encon.

<comment><USER25> Parent said that economy will go down at some point no matter what. Which is why perks don't last. That's only one of the many reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> They had better not get rid of that 20% of your time on a pet project perk. That is an inherent strategic advantage.

<comment><USER27> A lot of Googlers report 20% time is a bit of myth, because many engineers end up struggling more than 100% time to deliver their principle project.

<comment><USER11> "A lot of Googler reports 20% time is a bit of myth,"

I thought it could be accumulated and taken at at a stretch.

<comment><USER23> I used to do that at my _old_ company! And it was definitely an _old_ company!

<comment><USER28> Hewlett-Packard?

<comment><USER23> That level of old, but not HP. It was actually the first company to exist off of 100% _software_ sales/licensing revenue. (Not hardware sales, with accompanying software, like IBM in those days.)

<comment><USER29> SPSS?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is probably a much more balanced article about the current state of Google.

[http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/live-from-new- york-...](http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/live-from-new-york-google- cofounder-sergey-brin-meets-the-press/)

To be honest, the child-care cuts were on the cards for over a year. Having less of a choice when it comes to food is only natural, I can only imagine the amount of wasted food that was produced every day...

</comment><comment><USER31> The headline is quite unfair to the article's content and to what schmidt and Sergey actually say.

</comment><comment><USER32> Google provide better perks then most of the companies out there. Have to admit that all perks they provide make you feel more like being a start up by offering you chose of projects, freedom of actions and creative expression and corresponding intensives. It might be a perfect place for the once who love start up culture and want to create new things without corporate pressure but are willing to sacrifice true perks of starting one for stability and relative luck of risk. I still would go for perks of own start up that Google can not provide me.

</comment><comment><USER33> [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/why-google-employees- qu...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/why-google-employees-quit/)

It's basically very accurate.

</comment><comment><USER34> Perks are a really bad way of measuring the workplace.

Me, I wake up on Monday morning and think 'cool, there's work to do!' - <USER2> most of my coworkers feel the same way.

For me, that's the measure of a good job.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 The worker bees must be thrilled to hear this

 _The tightening that [CFO] Patrick [Pichette] in particular did, who I think is the current Google hero_

<comment><USER35> The free snacks, drinks, food are most definitely NOT gone. Have there been some cut-backs? Sure. So now the perks are merely incredible instead of ridiculous-verging-on-embarassingly-good.

So yeah, the micro-kitchens now have ~75 types of snacks instead of 100+ and we are now limited to 40-ish types of free drinks in the cooler instead of twice that. And now we drink filtered water instead of Smart-Water. Life is hard ;-)

Also there are still fresh-made sandwiches, sushi and salads delivered to the kitchen every day and I can still walk to one of the dozen-plus cafes and get three hot meals, prepared fresh each day by talented chefs.

Oh - the article neglected to mention the fact that Patrick's cost-cutting measured resulted in the annual bonus being paid out at over 100% this year, instead of the much lower amount that we were on target for before he showed up. So yeah - I would say a lot of people would consider Patrick to be a bit of a hero.

<comment><USER36> Would have to strongly disagree on the snacks. In 47, our snacks disappear very quickly, and there's definitely not 75 different types. There's maybe 10. Tech Stops have disappeared, they run out of bikes for interns, don't even get me started on how crowded the gyms have become, it's definitely worse than before. Perhaps I'm bitter because I got no annual bonus as an intern :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't see the attraction to working for Google. Unless they buy my company. o.O

</comment><comment><USER37> Umm... nobody talking about the social contract aspect of this?

Salary is soon forgotten, once it's regular, if you're not focused on it all the time.

But when a company provides so many perks, people feel like it's out of a social contract. Company X is my friend, Company X gives me free stuff, gives me time to work on my own things, takes me on vacations. I don't just work here for a salary -- look at this, they really treat us right. They care. They know that we are addicted to Pocky / need childcare / are too into working to drive out of Mtn View and find a burger.

Take them away and it's like your friend just revealed that they were only into you for your money. Or to find a way to get to your sister.

People feel betrayed.

Betrayal is a nasty, nasty feeling that leads people to do backlashy things.

</comment><comment><USER38> Totally didn't see that coming _cough_ bubble one _cough_

</comment><comment><USER39> The perks were meant to keep people in, to keep them working. I think it's a good thing that they're cutting this crap out.

That said, having worked as an intern at a place where they decided to get rid of free soda makes me positive that I won't do that again, though. IMHO, it's a "screw you" to developers.</comment>


The Can't-Lose Way for Your Business to Pop: Add Bitcoin to Its Name - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/technology/bitcoin-blockchain-stock-market.html <comment><USER2> It feels like the heady days of 1999, where anyone that could was "pivoting" to the web at ridiculous speed and IPO valuation. This isn't a dig on crypto itself though-- after the '00 bubble, it's not like the internet went away. I do wonder what crypto 2.0 will look like, a few years on from its bubble. Here's to hoping the pop comes early and quick, and the real progress can begin in earnest.

<comment><USER3> However, in '99/'00, even in '94-'96 there were many sorts of things one could say to a friend, "Hey look at this cool thing you can do on the web!" and your friend would say "Wow! Yeah that is cool!"

What are the equivalents with cryptocurrencies/blockchains? I ask this all the time, no one seems to have an answer.

The extent of the discussion around cryptocurrencies seems to be rambling on about things that either, no one understands, few people care about, or as a solution to a "problem" that few people if any, actually have. But people are "really excited" about these obscure curiosities, because if they can get other people about excited too they can sell their holdings for more than they paid for them.

The comparison between the web and cryptocoins seems really strained because not only can you not show the average Joe anything that would really impress him done with a cryptocurrency, beyond an irrational exuberance, but also because the two are so vastly different in scope.

The impetus of bitcoin was about an experiment of enacting a certain type of monetary system related to a certain political philosophy. In comparison the web is basically infinite. You can read about, write about, or discuss that political philosophy, or any of a hundred others, or you can do any of millions of other things having nothing to do with a political philosophy.

One of the great legacies of the web is the dematerialization and demonetization it wrought due to zeroing out reproduction and distribution costs.

Now we have people pretending that code that can be literally copy and pasted to start a new network of ____coin is somehow super wow! valuable!

<comment><USER4> _What are the equivalents with cryptocurrencies /blockchains?_

They aren't nearly as tangible. The big innovation here is the blockchain tech itself -- a distributed, immutable, public ledger. It's a very specific innovation, and it mostly benefits big businesses, but it's an innovation nonetheless.

<comment><USER5> Git (and similar) had that for ages. The technical innovation is in particular combination of proof-of-work with the hash chain.

But of course the social innovation might have been to make that long established technology cool and popular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its not 'Bitcoin', its 'BlockChain'.

Acquire a mining company on the down low, and add 'BlockChain' to your Company name and announce it. That's all you gotta do.

Exhibit 1: Longfin. Shot up 2000% after an obsure FinTech company that IPO-ed at $5-ish shot up to over $126 after announcing 2 days after the IPO that it acquired a (shady) blockchain mining company.

Watch the CNBC reporter RIP the CEO apart here. They were selling their 'Ziddu' currency over HTTP.. (no SSL) => [https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/12/18/small-cap-longfin- soar...](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/12/18/small-cap-longfin- soars-2000-percent-after-acquiring-blockchain-company.html?play=1)

Exhibit 2: RIOT "Blockchain". a weak pharma company with a sketchy past, acquires a blockchain mining company and add "BlockChain" to it's name. Overnight, stock shoots up from $5 to $45 = 900% increase. See [https://seekingalpha.com/article/4133208-kind-company- riot-b...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4133208-kind-company-riot- blockchain)

<comment><USER7> Not to forget FTFT, "Future FinTech Group Inc", that despite the fancy name is a tiny fruit juice company. 'pivoted' to blockchain, stock shot up more than 200%. What a time to be alive!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it bitcoin or blockchain to its name? One of the pervasive mistakes which keeps happening is equivocating bitcoin and blockchain. If a publication like NY Times can't differentiate, one can only think of average Joe.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice list of companies to consider shorting.

<comment><USER10> "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

<comment><USER11> In other words, short sells are tools to use against failing companies, not against markets you think can't deliver real value. Markets are much bigger than companies and can make short work of your maintenance margin even if they're going to crash in the end.

If you want to make a long term bet against a market, the best idea is to figure out who benefits when that market crashes and go long on them.

<comment><USER5> Shorts are also useful when you have private information the market doesn't have, yet. (As opposed to bad news the market already knows but chooses to ignore.)

Ie: dig up dirt on a company, short their stock, publish bad news, close out your short position.

Who wants to go long a company (ie invest in equity), should welcome the ability of others to short: it ensures you can buy for a fair price and that there's a smaller likelihood of skeletons hidden in their basement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Time it for right around your share lockup expires $^D

learn2finance, its the best MMORPG there is</comment>


Nearly a Third of Americans Are Arrested by the age of 23 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/us/nearly-a-third-of-americans-are-arrested-by-23-study-says.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share <comment><USER2> I guess my boys and their friends are luckier. None of them has been arrested, though they have been stopped by police several times- for offences like "walking around downtown while young and male", and "driving around on Prom night while young and male".

Helps that they are mostly Eagle Scouts, tops of their classes in school, half are planning to enlist, the other half going straight to Univeristy.

One was even accosted by an off-duty policeman when he was in a bar with a friend. He was only 18 but wasn't drinking, just having a good time before he shipped out to Iraq. When the policeman learned this, he bought him a drink! Then the officer called a buddy to drive him home when the night was over. Imagine his folks' surprise when a squad car pulled up and let their son out!

Anyway, the young people I know who have at least one parent that tried hard and kept them involved, haven't had any experiences like the study suggests. The stats are probably more a testament to the economy that keeps both parents working, than any statement about youth today.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems implausible to me, and I've known a number of kids (of my own generation and the next) that pushed the limits fairly hard. Now, if one simply takes the age cohort and divides it by the number of arrests, then maybe I could see the number as plausible.

To be sure, my sample doesn't extend much below the middle class (my day) and upper middle class now.

<comment><USER4> If it wasn't collected under controlled conditions then it is not data, it is merely an anecdote.

If it wasn't collected under controlled conditions and is then extrapolated to a wildly different sample group, then it isn't even an anecdote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, how much does it drop when you eliminate arrests for possession?

<comment><USER6> I'm curious about that to. I bet quite a bit.</comment></comment>


The SaaS Rent on Society - <AUTHOR> https://learnings.substack.com/p/dont-hate-the-playa-hate-the-game <comment><USER2> Most SaaS companies remain "failures" by his definition of success. For every Zoom there are thousands of SaaS companies that can't make payroll and require their founders to work at other daytime jobs.

While Zoom was successful before, Coronavirus helped being the accelerant for it. Now it will face real competition. There are no barriers to entry for competitors as all you need is a shared link.

Zoom has benfitted from their competitors being obsessed with awful UX like Microsoft Teams and Google Hangouts/Meet etc.

I have had to cancel many Microsoft Teams meetings because it won't let me join the call. Google requires you to sign in with gmail.

Zoom requires NOTHING to join a call.</comment>


Dalvik vs Mono - <AUTHOR> http://www.koushikdutta.com/2009/01/dalvik-vs-mono.html

<comment><USER3> Mono's greatest drawback is its garbage collection which wasn't sorted since its first version, this only is a reason not to use it on mobile devices.

I must command the bloke who wrote the article but he should have provided more details like how he performed the tests and benchmarks.

Last Dalvik was designed to work on low resources ARM devices, it can probably be ported to run on x86 systems, but it won't take their full advantage. Mono wasn't designed specifically for that purpose (running on a low resources device) which makes Dalvik a better solution. I'll give an example take a proper 4x4, an AWD SUV, and a Sedan. The 4x4 will go anywhere and will prove to be a great instrument in exploring the off road, on the highway it will suffer from low grip, terrible handling, a low gas mileage. An SUV can be taken off road, but isn't capable to pass hard terain, while on the highway it will go better then a 4x4. A sedan will do well on the highway but taking it down to the beach can result in a misfortune.

<comment><USER4> _Dalvik was designed to work on low resources ARM devices, ... Mono wasn't designed specifically for that purpose ... which makes Dalvik a better solution._

Where's the evidence? The purpose of the post is that the author could not find any.

And really, a car analogy? On HN?

<comment><USER3> Design patterns are the same across all engineering disciplines.

Mono was designed to port the .NET to other platforms

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if the dalvik VM is optimized for regular computer architectures or only for the G1.

Either way, I remember reading that Dalvik (or, well, Java) was chosen for the constraints it places on the programmer and access to verification tools? Security or some such?

<comment><USER6> Dalvik is register based byte code - from what little I have looked at it - <USER2> looks quite low level and apparently it is meant to run fast enough "interpreted" (ie a JIT isn't practical on small devices). However JVM bytecode (and similar) being stack based is much higher level, leaving more room for JITs to make a faster runtime (but for some cost which is not practical on small devices) - but slower when "interpreted". At least that is my understanding.

<comment><USER4> This is a good summary of the conventional wisdom, but I don't know if it's right. Phones are now about as powerful as PCs from ten years ago; IIRC we were using JITs on those PCs. Is Dalvik really "fast enough"? If, say, 5x more performance was available, would developers not use it?

<comment><USER6> hmm... 10 years ago I don't remember thinking that fondly of JITed runtimes - sure they worked in a server context with long running apps that had time to warm up, but not so much on the desktop.

I guess its a tradeoff - to a user a JITed app would appear a bit slow at first, but get faster the more you use it (plus you would then need to probably persist the JIT codes, as you close/open apps all the time in android) which has more complexity. A fast runtime like dalvik is the same speed pretty much all the time.

Yes, it is conventional wisdom, but I am not sure if phones are as fast as we think yet. Sure my iphone runs at what, 450Mhz ? which is quick, but we may forget that JIT'ing of client side apps only recently became fast enough (at least to my taste).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> wasnt one of the non-technical reasons dalvik was chosen so as to not having to pay royalties to sun over the JVM (and related technologies)?</comment>


Why undertakers are worried - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/international/21740399-bereaved-better-informed-no-longer-always-do-what-they-are-told-or-pay-whatever-they <comment><USER2> Good! They should be worried!

This is one of the greatest things about the internet: the reduction of information asymmetry.

Occupations like investment advice and sometimes auto repair exploit the heck out of information asymmetry.

The death business is especially nefarious because not only are they exploiting information asymmetry, they also exploit emotional overload.

When I was in college, my dad died in another country. The mortician had me over a barrel. The hospital had one funeral home they worked with and before I knew it, the funeral home was in possession of my dad's body. Want to transfer it to another funeral home? Well there's a charge for that. My only option was to pay them whatever they asked to cremate him. I paid some outrageous amount (I believe it was about $600, which was a fortune in the small 3rd world country he was in) for cremation and a little urn and box to carry him in.

Even as a guy who was emotionally relatively stable (I was mostly estranged from my father), it was still an infuriatingly weak position to be in as a "customer" of one of these predatory businesses.

<comment><USER3> Huh, what do they do if you just say "Alright, guess he's your problem now"? Pretty sure my parents would be cheering me on from the after life. We're not the most sentimental bunch.

<comment><USER2> Ha, good point. We had relatives back in the States that were expecting something to bury so I was stuck.

<comment><USER4> You could have burned something else of similar volume, maybe a load of his clothes, and put it in an urn.

<comment><USER5> Cremains are kind of distinctive, though. In fact, once you know what they look like you can find them at waterfalls and mountain tops all over the place.

<comment><USER6> err... Not sure if i should google or not...

Edit: got curious. I guess it's just white/pale ash?

<comment><USER5> It has little chunks, maybe 3 or 4 millimeters wide, where you can see the spongy, internal structure of the bones.

<comment><USER7> I heard that used to be true for older cremations, but not for newer ones (due to higher heat & efficiency) ?

<comment><USER5> Last time I saw a dateable sample (i.e. straight from the crematorium vs. at a mountaintop or waterfall) was about nine years ago, and it was quite chunky. This was from a crematorium in Arizona that was presumably using modern methods. I do recall that there was an episode of a TV show a while back (Dexter?) where someone did an ashes swap and it was discovered because the ashes looked like they were from the 70's, but that could have just been something the writer dreamed up.

<comment><USER8> You can almost imagine an eccentric subculture rife with debate over the preferences and arguments in favor of the virtues distinctive degrees of granularity in cremated human ashes, not unlike peanut butter varieties.

The defining aspect of the argument being whether you can tell the ashes came from a human, or whether you'd rather not know, or care to think about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The funeral industry is going through a bit of a transformation right now. Relatively unchanged for the past 100 years, a lot of funeral home owners haven't really felt the pressure to change.

2017 was the first time cremations eclipsed the traditional casketed burial in the U.S. This is a huge business problem as funeral homes rely heavily on ceremonies, merchandise, and other services to keep their businesses open. Now you're starting to see the innovators take off, while those that are not adapting lose market share. Those offering low-cost cremations are doing very well, while those still stuck and expecting the consumer behavior to change are suffering.

Being the CEO of a tech company in the funeral space (Parting and Parting Pro), we see this anti-change sentiment holding funeral businesses back. After interacting with many funeral directors, you realize they aren't the snake oil salesmen they are made out to be. However, their lack of understanding of tech really does hold them back from communicating with their customers. This leads to sticker shock that gets magnified by information asymmetry.

<comment><USER10> Interesting, I write the software that runs one of the largest custom memorial and headstone etc businesses in the UK.

It's strange to see an industry I directly know a bit about on here.

The company I work for is actually pretty forward thinking for a none- technology company, largely down to my boss been smart as hell.

It's interesting sofwware to work on as well bit of everything, C# for the sandblast orchestration software, java for he inventory terminals, php (the legacy system..is interesting), typescript.

It fits me because I like a varied set of skills and the ability to work in a bunch of domains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> We recently experienced a stillbirth after 38 weeks. I was thankful to have a level-headed, knowledgeable friend at our side to question most of the hospital norms. We were in no shape to push back. After asking the right questions, we were able to work with a local monastery to bury our child for a grand total of $0. IANAL, but at least in California, we determined that in our situation working with an undertaker was optional. State law clearly gave us rights to control and custody of our daughter's remains.

<comment><USER12> It's common for funeral homes, in the South East, to do no cost or very low cost infant ceremonies and burials. Maybe common in other areas too, but I can't say for certain.

I saw this first hand in Georgia, North Carolina and Virgina. I was licensed and worked in the industry in two of those states and attended mortuary college in the other. So, I know a good deal about the profession in those areas.

Glad to know that your friend and the monastery helped you. It is a difficult time and being asked/expected to make decisions makes it even harder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Big Lebowski said everything that needs to be said on this topic :)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vKjBFsyYC0g](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vKjBFsyYC0g)

<comment><USER14> Just cause we're bereaved doesn't make us saps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When my mom died a few months ago, none of the family wanted a funeral. Waste of money in our opinion. We went with direct cremation with a firm that does only direct cremation and saved thousands of dollars over direct cremation at a traditional funeral home. Shit is a racket.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's interesting that donating your body to science is nowhere to be seen, either in the article or the comments.

Many organizations will even provide a stipend to the next-of-kin, and some even still provide cremated remains (to the next-of-kin) once the body has served its purpose.

Furthermore, consenting to organ donation can serve an immediate life- threatening need.

</comment><comment><USER17> Speaking of which, would a DIY funeral pyre be legal in this country in some shape or form? Purely hypothetically. Seems like an interesting product idea. It doesn't have to be a pile of logs, could be just a thick body bag with enough burnable material to completely incinerate the body inside.

<comment><USER18> Probably not. A crematorium gets up to 1400 degrees F. I doubt a thick body bag could do that.

<comment><USER17> How about if it's something like thermite, or staged combustion with a very high temperature stage at the end?

<comment><USER19> Thermite is dangerous, essentially impossible to extinguish until it burns out, and would burn through any realistic oven. It also emits a dangerous amount of UV so you need welding goggles and distance from the burn. If you really wanted to burn a body (illegal in most cases) it's a matter of good airflow and the right accelerant. And disarticulstion of the limbs and head, which for me at least, would be a difficult thing emotionally. Once you've hacked your loved one into roughly even pieces, dig some ditches lined with steel drums, get some charcoal and wood, wrap the pieces of your loved one in natural fibers soaked with jet fuel, and light it up. Make sure that you layer their "chunks" on a scaffold or logs, and try to make sure that there is a clear "intake" and exhaust at opposite ends for airflow. If needed take the remaining remains and subject them to a second pass with jet fuel.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to do that to a total stranger, never mind someone I cared about.

<comment><USER17> What I had in mind is you buy a bag, put the person in it and it does its thing totally automatically. You'd need to do it outside city limits of course and in open air and you'd carefully watch the direction of the wind. I'm not really suggesting people should pursue it, I was merely wondering if it's even legal.

TBH, I don't see why human remains can't be disposed of the way other garbage is disposed of, through the same garbage processing facilities. Just literally take the deceased to the garbage processing center and chuck them into the shredder along with their old mattress.

When it comes to remains, I don't consider them to be "my loved one", that part is gone. I will honor whatever wishes they've had before they died, but my own wish will be that my loved ones just quickly get rid of my body at a minimal cost and move on. To remember me, just celebrate what I've left behind.

<comment><USER19> There are a few reasons, the most important three are these:

Public health. Corpses are breeding grounds for some very unpleasant pathogens, and you want to protect people from them. People working with the corpses or the machines to process them would be at risk. Back in the days of unregulated burial, it wasn't uncommon for earthquakes and floods to cause large numbers of shallow burials to erupt. So, public health on a number of levels is a concern.

Emotion. Most people don't have your attitude towards the deceased, although it's fair to say that some do. It's also true that how people think they'll react may differ from the reality of their reaction when they're grieving. Most people wouldn't be comfortable casually disposing of their loved one's corpses. There are many cultures around death in the world, but few could be thought of as treating the deceased remains casually.

Politics. The first and second reasons combine with cultural and sometimes religious norms and make such a proposal as yours difficult if not impossible politically.

<comment><USER17> Regarding public health, I'm not convinced dead humans are any worse than dead cattle TBH.

I do agree on the other two points you've made. This is one of those things that are fraught with irrationalities and taboos, and have been for millennia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://archive.today/4K797](http://archive.today/4K797)

</comment><comment><USER21> Two relatives of mine died recently, one had arranged his own funeral, the other did not.

TL;DR: If you want to make less stress for your loved ones, you'll plan your funeral yourself.

Also I remember seeing a post on HN a while back about water cremation. I thought it was interesting.

* Leaving Earth the Greenest Way Possible: Water Cremation - YouTube || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Le7rLbkFe4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Le7rLbkFe4)

<comment><USER22> Can you arrange but not pay for it? I'd be worried about paying for something that is never used (because of unforeseen circumstances).

<comment><USER23> Never used? Like if you somehow gain immortality or something (which is totally plausible)? I feel in that case money is the least of your problems.

(apologies if I misunderstood the question)

<comment><USER24> I think they meant what if your body is lost at sea, or blown up, or burned in a fire, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd prefer a sky burial, as the Tibetians and Zoroastrians use. This involves birds of prey. In at least the Tibetian style, the bones are handled in a second pass by breaking them up and mixing them with some sort of flour.

This seems unavailable.

Another choice I like is to become biodiesel and fertilizer pellets. This too appears to be unavailable.

<comment><USER26> I think you would love to read this article[0] about the confluence of antibiotics abuse in cattle, Zoroastrian sky burials and the declining vulture population in India.

[0] [http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/sil...](http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/silent_towers_empty_skies/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> i want to burn up on re-entry. Elon, you hear me?! I want a space burial.</comment>


As Andrew Yang Rises, Silicon Valley Questions Universal Basic Income - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/andrew-yang-injected-silicon-valleys-favorite-economic-idea <comment><USER2> I am against UBI because the soon as you give people $1000 dollars, their rent, transport, and other associated costs will go up by exactly $1000 over a relatively quick time frame. It will initially look good, but it will be extremely transient. You'll then have all the same problems you had before and a huge financial engine sucking in and spitting out tremendous amounts of money that needs to be managed to no practical effect.

These effects might not be visible with a "mincome" type RCT experiment because they rely on there being enough extra income lying around for it to be worth it to industry to design programs and policies around it.

Instead, we should nationalize certain industries and make them free of charge to end users (e.g. healthcare, public transit, housing, education, etc).

<comment><USER3> The whole point of a market based economy is allocation of resources. Yes, rent, transport, and other costs may go up in the short-term with a UBI. However that creates strong opportunities for companies to come in and compete to drive those costs down.

In contrast, when you nationalize those industries, there is no incentive to drive costs down. In fact, costs will likely go up because the more a nationalized industry spends, the more it gets from next year's budget.

<comment><USER2> A market economy distributes scarce resources to those with the most money. It is fundamentally irrational.

To reuse an example from Richard Wolfe, if there are ten people that need milk, and there are 5 units of milk, we should distribute them according to need (e.g. medical, children, vs someone baking a cake). Instead, under a market, the rich get to buy it for their cat while the poor are priced out of the market.

<comment><USER3> It may not seem moral, but allowing the rich to buy the milk for the cat often makes everyone better off.

The high price for milk and inflow of dollars from the high demand lead to more dairy farms, or research into milk alternatives. That does not happen if you seize the milk and distribute it according to need.

<comment><USER4> Why wouldn't the wealthy not having milk for their cat not also result in more dairy farms or research into milk alternatives?

Both ways there's less milk available than needed, so the problem (lack of milk) still exists.

<comment><USER5> Because in one case the one selling the milk gets money to invest into providing more milk, and in the other case said seller does not (or gets less of it).

If those five gallons are to be distributed by need, then that difference in return needs accounted for as well (i.e. the government doing the redistribution should also be putting resources into improving milk production to avoid that situation in the future).

<comment><USER4> Well what prevents the government putting resources into improving milk production? That just seems to be the logical next step.

It seems the same activity (more milk production) would happen regardless, but instead of placing the rate of milk production in the hands of the current milk suppliers, it would be democratically controlled by the people buying the milk.

<comment><USER3> In theory it could work, but the government would need experts in milk production to determine what to invest in. Expand this to every possible good, and it becomes un-manageable quickly, while also being ripe for corruption.

The producers of the good are typically much better positioned to determine how to _efficiently_ spend resources to increase production. It is their own profits, future, and livelihood on the line so they are much more likely to choose carefully.

<comment><USER4> I'm still not really following.

Can people with knowledge of milk production not be selected for government? Why would people choose to have those with less knowledge of milk production to run the milk production department?

<comment><USER3> Who decides who runs the milk production department?

In a market economy, everyone is free to compete, and everyone votes with his/her hard-earned dollars each time they purchase some milk.

With the government system, would you have people vote for the best milk producer? Is the general populace qualified or able to assess skill in milk production? If you instead decide to appoint this milk producer, how do you prevent corruption?

<comment><USER5> > Is the general populace qualified or able to assess skill in milk > production?

Is the general populace somehow more qualified or able to make that assessment if they're voicing said assessment in the form of dollars paid?

<comment><USER3> Yes, as it is a much simpler question: Is this gallon of milk worth my $3.27? Maybe this has been a good week and they choose the $4.27 organic variety.

In contrast, when voting for a national milk producer, voters need to take into account the needs of the general populace, the future efficiency of each producer, possibly the weather and health of cows in different regions of the country. It is a much better deal to have the producers take on that risk, and let the consumers choose once the price and final product are known.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who disagrees on most things with yang and sanders, I didnt see the most attractive thing about yangs proposal: this UBI replaces other social safety net programs and aims to gain efficiency by eliminating the overhead from multiple government offices.

<comment><USER7> This isn't a big selling point on the left. It would be in the general, but the make-up of the primary voters is further to the left. Dismantling government programs isn't their jam.

<comment><USER8> It's also an awfully big "if" that it would actually replace them. "I promise" isn't enough to risk ending up with both the UBI _and_ all the current programs. Therefore the qualifications aimed at those who disagree on fiscal grounds simply evaporate when the policy meets the real world. Bait and switch is older than politics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> UBI plus removing the minimum wage seems like an interesting option.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am against UBI, but credit where it's due: it's not easy these days to break into the national political conversation with a single issue platform so far outside the Overton Window as Yang has. This is like the old parties of yore that campaigned on things like a bimetallism or Prohibition.

<comment> forgot-my-pw It's definitely something that we should research more. It worked for Alaska, in a smaller scope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> America already has Universal Basic Income. Its called Social Security and it sucks.

</comment><comment><USER7> UBI is interesting politically. It combines the social welfare and income inequality that some like on the left and the libertarianism (people choosing what to do with their money rather than heavier government services) that's popular on the non-batshit right.

I doubt that the American electorate would go for it in the next fifty years. Given that it's gaining support first on the left combined with the impressive propensity of the Democratic Party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, navigating such a successfully nuanced political proposal seems to require one of the once-in-a-generation leader.

High hopes, no expectations of success.

</comment><comment><USER12> libertarians seem to embrace universal basic income, which is puzzling. instead, UBI should be viewed as an absolute affront to liberty and freedom, as it's designed to shackle everyone, rich and poor, to government largess (libertarian plank issue, not a personal opinion).

further, it's an insidious wealth concentration mechanism aimed at removing both the motivation and means for upward mobility.

the better policy is to equalize capital and labor power in the economy. we've had 50 years of granting capital great favor, and those experiments have only led to corruption, unfairness, and growing poverty and homelessness.

<comment><AUTHOR> > it's an insidious wealth concentration mechanism aimed at removing both the > motivation and means for upward mobility.

Wealth concentration mechanism? This seems like the exact opposite of wealth concentration to me. You're distributing money here.

The removal of upward mobility? Again, I fail to see how providing a basic income removes upward mobility. It's quite literally the exact opposite. One of the most difficult parts of getting yourself out of poverty and moving upward in class socioeconomically, is the seed level funding required to bootstrap yourself through your non-earning period to earning period. Usually in most cases, that's the time required to get an education when you're hemorrhaging money on both sides (i.e. having to pay tuition on one end while simultaneously having less time to work in favor of being able to have time to study/take the classes you're paying for on the other).

<comment><USER12> you've bought into the conceit of the whole thing. who doesn't want "free money"? but it's literally wealth redistribution, and which libertarian wants that? that "seed money" simply puts the poor in a deeper hole relative to the rest of the economy, as inflation stabilizes prices aronnd the new floor. moreso, wealthy folks have just staved off larger socioeconomic changes for what amounts to pennies.

then think of an alternative world where labor and capital are equal partners in the optimal allocation of resources (the central promise of capitalism). labor is no longer in the dark about opportunity costs and accrued benefits and their fair share of it. consumers negotiate with corporations on equal footing so we get the fairest prices. as a free person, you no longer need a handout because you can negotiate fair wages and fair prices.

<comment><AUTHOR> > but it's literally wealth redistribution, and which libertarian wants that?

To clarify, in your original comment you said that it was a wealth concentration mechanism. Are you now saying that it is in fact a wealth distribution mechanism?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Hacker News Trends - <AUTHOR> http://eliot-jones.com:5690/ <comment><AUTHOR> Some more background on what this is and why I built it here: [https://eliot- jones.com/2020/1/hackernews-trends](https://eliot-jones.com/2020/1/hackernews- trends) And the source code here: [https://github.com/EliotJones/HnTrends](https://github.com/EliotJones/HnTrends)

As I mention in the blog post this is hosted on the lowest tier DO droplet so will probably fall over soon.

<comment><USER2> FWIW your cache appears to be case sensitive but searches aren't.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good spot, I'll fix it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Frontend framework comparisons:

React: [http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=React&allwords=tru...](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=React&allwords=true)

Angular: [http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=Angular&allwords=t...](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=Angular&allwords=true)

Vue: [http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=Vue&allwords=true](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=Vue&allwords=true)

<comment><USER4> From a purely dataviz standpoint, this is a fail. The optimal visualization would allow for all 3 terms to be shown on the same graph, or at least the same page. 3 distinct graphs could be a decent comparison, if the y-axis remained constant. But since it doesn't, every graph peaks at the same approximate height, so really the only thing an end-user, seeking a comparison of similar concepts/terms, would likely find useful is the max displayed value on the y-axis.

I recognize this is little more than a proof-of-concept at this point, so perhaps "fail" is a strong word, but hey, it's what the author chose to submit.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a fair criticism and from the feedback represents a fairly major missing functionality in the site. For what it's worth I only realised this might be a useful feature after I finished version 1. From my write up[0]: "Allow multiple trends on the same plot. It would be interesting to compare Kubernetes with Docker directly, or PyTorch with Tensorflow to get an idea of the relative trends in attention".

Initially I built the front end to analyse a single term (recession) rather than for trend comparison but it would definitely be useful and I'll look at adding it.

[0]: [https://eliot-jones.com/2020/1/hackernews-trends](https://eliot- jones.com/2020/1/hackernews-trends)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For the monthly view, it should probably truncate the ending date so as to not show a partial month number. February just started so it makes every search term look like it is plunging.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah it's annoying, I think I'll add a toggle "Display data for incomplete period" or similar so the user can switch between views (for something like "coronavirus" the data from the first few days of the month exceeds that from the previous full month so I don't want to discard it entirely).

<comment><USER6> A simple linear projection could be a good additional option too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slow, steady upward trend for racket: [http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=racket](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=racket)

Would be nice, though, to compare relative to an evergreen term like "computer" the way stock performance gets compared to an index.

</comment><comment><USER8> I assume the amount of HN articles per day has increased over the years since 2007 along with the growth of HN popularity. So, when I see a trend in some subject would it take that into account? Otherwise it could easily not be a trend but an increased amount of HN users.

Just curious before I get excited.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, peaks in story count nowadays are relatively smaller than peaks from 2007-2009ish. You can use the "Display as % of stories" button which is right of the "Group data by" drop-down to show the data as a % of daily/weekly/monthly stories posted to the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> HN Bitcoin indicator [http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=BITCOIN&allwords=t...](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=BITCOIN&allwords=true)

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting searches: Bitcoin (2 peaks, now down) Drone (up and down) Machine learning (post peak) AI (post peak with a sudden new peak) SaaS (steady rise to steady high, then fall and return) Dropbox - rise and gradual fall Quora - sharp start, low gradual fall Kickstarter - stunning fall over time

and so on. These & Uber, Slack, Tesla and other company names give a good picture of how 'exciting' these companies are to this particular market of tech early adopters, where exciting is defined as either new or controversial, which is the very definition of "news".

</comment><comment><USER11> Neat:

[http://eliot-jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=APL&allwords=true](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=APL&allwords=true)

[http://eliot-jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=k&allwords=true](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=k&allwords=true)

[http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=arrays&allwords=tr...](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=arrays&allwords=true)

</comment><comment><USER12> It's now responding with

        An error occurred during a connection to eliot-jones.com:5690. SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length.

        Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

<comment><USER13> It's been doing that to me right from the beginning[0] and I've been bewildered as to how people are reading it at all[1].

No one has answered that question, and I've even been downvoted for asking it. I've given up.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22237285](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22237285)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22245516](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22245516)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice. One thought I had is it would be cool to be able to click on any (non- zero) point on the graph and see a list of the articles from that day, sort of a drill-down on WHY was that term peaking in popularity then?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea, thanks. It might challenge my limited JavaScript but it's definitely worth adding. At the moment you can get the full data from a graph using the API endpoint. For Tensorflow: [http://eliot- jones.com:5690/api/results/tensorflow](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/api/results/tensorflow)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Something I found a bit interesting (via trends)[0], did a search for "coronavirus" and there were a few small bumps several years ago[1]

[0] [http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=coronavirus&allwor...](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=coronavirus&allwords=true)

[1] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=23&prefix=true&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=23&prefix=true&query=coronavirus&sort=byDate&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really cool. Seems the backend is a bit slowed down with the traffic. Would be cool if the graph had more horizontal space on a small phone without rotating it and re running the query.

</comment><comment><USER16> Shouldn't you provide as a baseline the absolute number of posts? I tried three different searches and all showed monotonic growth.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can use the "Display as % of stories" button just above the results plot which should account for the growth in the total submissions per day, or did you mean something else?

<comment><USER16> I meant exactly that. Thanks!

<comment><USER16> (I apologize, I cannot edit my previous comment from the client I'm currently using.) I'm not seeing that % option, though. I'd be happy to send you a screenshot somehow, if it helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is odd sorry about that, you can email it to me "elioty at hotmail dot co dot uk" or stick it in a github issue: [https://github.com/EliotJones/HnTrends](https://github.com/EliotJones/HnTrends)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17>
       504 Gateway Time-out

When searching for "Google". I assume the number of mentions is too high.

</comment><comment><USER18> For those interested, if you'd like to compare trends (by sentiment or volume), I built a similar application.

[https://hnprofile.com/compare?search=AWS,GCP%20|%20Google%20...](https://hnprofile.com/compare?search=AWS,GCP%20|%20Google%20Cloud,Azure)

<comment><USER19> Hi, this is cool but you have hijacked the back button!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Robotics/robot: [http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=robotics%20robot&a...](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=robotics%20robot&allwords=false)

Potentially interpreted as interest peaking 2015-2019, currently in decline.

<comment><USER21> I was randomly thinking about that a few days ago, seems to me like robotics is not seen as the "future" as it was before, that's a shame.

I think the potential for home robots is huge, but people probably now realize they are also very dangerous because of all the information they could gather on individuals.

I guess I'll wait for selfhosted decentralized robots then :(

<comment><USER20> Here is a sarcastic view that has elements of truth.

The old sales is model is consumers owned houses. The could then buy an 'appliance' to last many years for goodly-portion-of-monthly-or-annual-wage, on the promise it will 'save you time' and 'improve quality of life'.

The new model is consumers rent forever. They buy an 'experience' to last a second for ripoff-price-but-compares-well-to-drinking-or-theater-tickets, on the premise it will keep them unfocused and temporarily fulfil their deeply vacuous lives, thus staving off an expensive shrink or a higher does prescription of antidepressants.

In this new model, robots will not be owned by consumers, but will be public service infrastructure. This is because the consumers have nowhere to put them (don't own a home), move too often to justify purchase, and cannot afford a substantial outlay anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Jap2-0 Every time I try to reach this site I get "This site can't be reached, eliot- jones.com took too long to respond." (ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT). Going to the website without the port works, but apparently the port is necessary to reach the trends page. Chrome(OS) 79.

</comment><comment><USER22> It would be illustrative to show the rate (%) as an alternate to the absolute number of posts.

<comment><AUTHOR> This should be possible using the "Display as % of stories" button, or does that do something different to what you want?

<comment><USER22> That's exactly it. I missed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Neat! Feature request: Let us graph a specific HN member's submission count per day.

</comment><comment><USER24> [http://eliot-jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=--&allwords=true](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=--&allwords=true)

Searching for "\--" results in an Error page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the bug report, I should probably add some front end validation for the search term since in the current design Lucene will only index letters and numbers (which is a problem for searching languages like C++).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How are people reading this? When I try to load it in either Chrome or Firefox I get "502 Bad Gateway" and "Secure Connection Failed" respectively.

I assume people are somehow accessing this ... how?

</comment><comment><USER25> the last data point is a little irritating.

maybe disregarding or scaling the last data point for the whole month would make the graph smoother

<comment><USER25> also, i am really enjoy it

it would be nice to add multiple terms for a search to compare them in the chart

<comment><USER3> Also was trying to compare multiple terms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> HN seems to be much more interested in Trump than it ever was in Obama:

[http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=obama&allwords=tru...](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=obama&allwords=true) [http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=trump&allwords=tru...](http://eliot- jones.com:5690/Home/Trend?id=trump&allwords=true)

</comment><comment><USER21> "NSA" keyword gives an interesting result

</comment><comment><USER27> Hacker News: Hyperventilating about Rust Since 2010.

</comment><comment><USER28> The link is dead for me. Anyone else?

<comment><AUTHOR> It should be back now, though you might be running into the same SSL issue ColinWright was elsewhere in the thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> great work! Is it possible to open source the 2.8 Million Hacker News posts database?

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely want to but I'm not sure what the situation would be with copyright (or indeed if I'm allowed to use the posts for indexing in the way I have). I'll email HN and see what they say.

<comment><USER29> thanks, great to see the data!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't think Hacker News trends are representation of popularity worldwide.

</comment><comment><USER31> Ah trends, the modern replacement for getting it.

</comment><comment><USER13>
        Secure Connection Failed

        An error occurred during a connection
        to eliot-jones.com:5690. SSL received
        a record that exceeded the maximum
        permissible length.  Error code:
        SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

        Please contact the web site owners to
        inform them of this problem.

Can't do that, this will have to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does Firefox do this by default or is there a setting to upgrade http to https?

As mentioned briefly on the blog I didn't want to spend any money on this (currently not employed and living off savings) so it's sitting on the droplet also running the blog, I assume only 1 thing can run off 443? If that's the case I won't be looking to enable ssl for this, apologies.

<comment><USER13> I have no idea, but I assume that if one asks for https and is only offered http, that would be a security hole. I just tried asking for http and it reverted to https.

I can't help, I have no knowledge of these things. Sorry 8-(

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, OK, sorry to hear it doesn't work. It's strange, it shouldn't be attempting to use https (though for security reasons it should so I assume Ive been testing against outdated browsers). Sorry.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interview with Charlie Munger - <AUTHOR> http://www.law.stanford.edu/publications/stanford_lawyer/issues/80/

<comment><AUTHOR> I love this quote - "Lawyers who only know a mass of legal doctrine and very little about the disciplines that are intertwined with that doctrine are a menace to the wider civilization."</comment>


Show HN: A quizbot powered by Twilio - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone, I am a new to OSS development and wanted to create something that we could use at work. The idea was to make a framework that could be easily reused by someone with some ruby/Sinatra development experience. I have included documentation in the github repository that will take you through everything from signing up for a texting number to populating the quizzes.
Scenario---
Imagine you are in your doctor's office and you see a poster that says:
"Text FLU to 213-263-5445 to test your knowledge about the flu." (this is a working example)
It also will work as a lead generator for those interested in marketing. Let me know what you think.
Feel free to reach out to me at: http://robotscissors.com/contact/
Christopher <comment><AUTHOR> I forgot to include the repository: [https://github.com/robotscissors/quizbot](https://github.com/robotscissors/quizbot)</comment>