You should never spend $825K on a domain – but here's why I'm glad I did - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@karnsaroya/you-should-never-spend-825k-on-a-domain-but-heres-why-i-m-glad-i-did-7139f9c00728 <comment><USER3> The author makes it sound like cover.com is a super intuitive domain name for an insurance company... personally if I heard 'cover' outside of the context of this article I would not have made that connection at all. He does a pretty bad job of justifying a pretty bad decision, in my opinion.

<comment><USER4> I think bedding not insurance. I guess its a lesson on if the first thing to come to your mind is as common as you think or can you make an advertising hook that puts it into everyone's mind.

<comment><USER5> I thought album cover

Edit: Why downvote a comment like this?

<comment><USER6> I have no idea. This was my first reaction as well. I agree with another comment in this branch: covered.com makes much more sense. A tagline like "we've got you covered" just flows naturally.

<comment><USER7> coverage.com would also be perfect.

"If you need coverage, just go to coverage.com!"

<comment><USER6> Looks like someone already snagged it. :)

<comment><USER8> All decent .com names already are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For nearly a million bucks you can build a brand on its own domain.

This is just an article trying to justify bad decisions in hindsight.

If you cant find a smarter way to spend a million dollars than buying a flashy .com then I would seriously question the entire business.

<comment><USER10> Why is it a bad decision? The name is forever, a million bucks is nothing in his line of business.

The brand with a "bad" domain name needs to be kept, you have to spend on it.

<comment><USER11> > a million bucks is nothing in his line of business

they are just a startup now, $1M is pretty big money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The proof is in the pudding. Get back to me when you're either profitable or bankrupt, and we can ask whether this was a good decision or not.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sounding in here - I bought the domain. Let's start with it was a lot of money, and to the credit of some of the folks here it remains to be seen whether or not the purchase was prescient or not from a ROI perspective. Whichever way it goes, the purchase won't be the reason that we succeed, or fail. Reasons for the purchase are enumerated in the article, but more than anything else, we're in the trust business and our customers cross-reference our web presence before spending thousands of dollars with us via our apps. Insurance is a business with consumer scale, and best in class SaaS-like economics (very low churn, predictable CF) - in this context, we became more comfortable pulling the trigger.

<comment><USER14> I think you made a fantastic decision on this. When you're going for a billion dollar valuation you need to be impeccable. This domain name gets you one step closer to that and saves on a costly rebrand later + it's a high value resalable asset.

Easy IPO if you hit all the right notes. Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reading between the lines, they had an existing app with some name recognition, probably following a bunch of advertising spend for that brand.

The mistake they made was not bothering to choose a branding friendly name at the earliest stage. But they made their bed and this is them lieing in it.

The fact this required reading between the lines shows this is a terribly written article.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm not a branding guy but covered.com seems like it would have been a more intuitive choice (and seems undeveloped).

</comment><comment><USER17> With all the new generic top-level domains out there like .biz .blog .pro even .ooo (a personal favorite lol), and a whole bunch more coming out next year, I'm surprised there's still a mad gold rush for .com domains. I was just telling my kids how domain squatting was a thing back in the 90's and early 2000's, but I guess I stand corrected.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_dom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_domains#English)

<comment><USER18> Most users are able to identify example.com as a URL but not example.gq because they have been trained for years to look for .com

This training will take some more time for other TLDs and will take more time to become normal.

Even now, companies that start with a strange TLD but grow large enough will eventually buy the .com which repeats the cycle that only .com is legit for commercial services.

Anyone know of popular companies in the USA that don't use .com?

<comment><USER19> Zoom.us

Twitch.tv

BoingBoing.net

Chorus.ai

ABC.xyz

<comment><USER18> This is a great list! Twitch.tv is #31 according to Alexa!

One thing to point out, is that 4 of those are country-specific TLDs (or the historic .net) which have been around for awhile so they might still have some familiarity.

It starts to look very unfamiliar to non-tech people when URLs have a long TLD, such as:

example.blog

example.website

example.foundation

example.engineering

example.international

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article is literally an advertisement, there is nothing interesting about the story at all.

<comment><USER10> Advertisement but all because of the name! Another company sees cover.com and says "they must be serious" and purchase through them. A few times and they get their domain name money. You rarely lose money on a domain name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The final pre-commission price here is normal range for a short, common-word dot-com bought by a motivated buyer from an unmotivated seller. It's fine. Above $1M is crazy though; I think the brokers were softening them up.

We paid much, much less for [https://fauna.com/](https://fauna.com/) during our seed stage and rolled up all associated domains along the way cheaply, but we were also willing to change the brand if necessary, and had done some investigation as to the "acquirability" of the domain when we were just starting out.

I question the use of multiple brokers, though, that seems needlessly expensive and guarantees that the negotiation will be hardball because no relationships can be built.

</comment><comment><USER22> This might have been dumb but I run a digital agency. Use to write code myself. Don't anymore (saying this so no one flames me for not being a dev!!)

Insurance is one of the stickiest industries. Churn is almost ALWAYS net negative. Referrals are HUGE and grow a biz that does no marketing whatsoever.

Just engaged with an insurance company for a project and saw some insight into their numbers. Blew my mind. Software biz with similar renewals + low cost per customer + profit margins would be very, very, very valuable.

So much money on a domain sounds outrageous. But even small insurance companies are generating $1mil in cash a year. With no risk of losing it (really-there's always risk).

Amortizing this out with the (possible) benefits might make it a sticker shock worthy of doing.

</comment><comment><USER23> This may be irrelevant but I'm curious why he chose a picture of himself to be at the top of his article? Seems completely irrelevant to the story but makes me wonder about him.

</comment><comment><USER24> I was immediately reminded of "color.com", the social network that bought the domain for $350,000. I remember that people thought that was preposterous at the time[1]. I'm not sure that $825,000 for cover.com a few years later makes a lot more sense. At least I hope for them that they'll be more successful than Color.

By the way I just checked and color.com seems to now belong to a genetic testing company, I wonder how much they paid for the domain, maybe the color.com app made a good investment in the end.

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2011/03/24/color-com-was-acquired- for...](https://techcrunch.com/2011/03/24/color-com-was-acquired- for-350000-the-domain-name-that-is/)

</comment><comment><USER25> It's definitely too early for them to declare victory on justifying the $825M domain purchase.

I wonder if this is a pattern for them to celebrate the vanity milestones - <USER2> also noticed another medium post about the $27M they raised that "puts us in a strong position to fundamentally change the insurance industry".

[https://medium.com/@coverinsurance/i-raised-27m-in-two- years...](https://medium.com/@coverinsurance/i-raised-27m-in-two-years-here- are-six-lessons-i-learned-4b4c48a934af)

Changing the insurance industry is a huge task and $27M is a drop in the bucket - if I were there investor I'd hope to see their medium articles focus more on real progress they are making to change the industry.

</comment><comment><USER26> Does it have to be .com? Actually, when I wanted a short .com domain for my project which was sort of a frontend for an S3 bucket I went to [https://www.expireddomains.net](https://www.expireddomains.net) and found that it was a great resource of short domain names! I don't remember exactly how long I was watching it waiting for a name I'd like, but it wasn't really long, maybe 7-10 days and my wait was rewarded with the name s3io.com, which, I think, was something I couldn't even dream of – 4 chars long and pretty much relevant! There's a Russian saying "It's the man who makes a name, not vice versa".

</comment><comment><USER27> So spending $825k on a domain "has translated into sales". Great. What kind of sales? It's telling that all the supposed benefits here are really vague.

Maybe they could have paid someone to come up with a domain name that doesn't cost $825k.

<comment><USER28> Agreed. hicover.com is $3.7k on Namecheap. They could have had 821k in the bank and just as good a domain name. They raised $8M on their series A according to Crunchbase, of which they spent _10%_ on a domain name. Say they sold 20% equity in that round, that's 2% of the company on a .com. That $820k could have gone a long way to delaying the need to raise a B (which they did 14 months later for another $16M), and get more favorable terms/valuation when the time came.

<comment><USER21> Correct, presumably the domain name is a capital asset that preserves its basis, so the real cost is the opportunity cost of not spending the money elsewhere. We don't really know this cost.

<comment><USER29> > presumably the domain name is a capital asset that preserves its basis

the domain name doesn't have an inherent value or basis, it's (presumably) unlikely that the next Cover Inc would be willing the same amount within a short timeframe of them wanting to disinvest from the name. Illiquid assets have to pay for liquidity in such cases.

<comment><USER10> History--so far--shows that good, .com, names do keep their value. Granted you may overpay and cannot sell at the bought price but cover.com is a name that can be used by many types of businesses. So if they go kaput, they have an asset :)

<comment><USER28> *The VCs/creditors would have an asset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> A competitor of this business is compare.com: [https://www.compare.com/](https://www.compare.com/)

compare and cover seem similar. Both are short, common names that begins with a 'c'

</comment><comment><USER31> This is one case where cover.me makes much more sense. I suspect within the next half generation or so the 'only. com' is for real business will be over.

<comment><USER32> We are selling now www.cover.life which can make even more sense when it comes to insurance industry. And it is 80k only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I am selling Pacemakers.com for 75K and its worth every penny if not more. Dot COM is king and the marketing value and name recognition is worth every bit you pay. If you want to start a new business do you want a name like Pacemakers.com that is recognized worldwide and easy to remember or do you want your clients and customers searching for you buried on Google - pace- makers.gg ?

</comment><comment><USER34> Some serious confirmation bias in this article.

</comment><comment><USER35> Reading the comments I wasn't the only one thinking WTF did I just read.

He tries to justify without anything tangible. Well the company is built on intangible things anyway.

</comment><comment><USER36> I absolutely love the beating this article is taking here in the HN comments.

</comment><comment><USER37> insurely.com is available.

<comment><USER38> I do not understand the "ly"-suffixed app name trend.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm going to interview my possible next manager, any tips? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a developer who's going to interview the lead dev for my team in a couple of days.  I've never really interviewed much before, and other than giving him technical trivia, testing to see if he has passion for software development, and if we would get along, what should I ask?   What would you wished you had done or could of tested in your possible manager to be? <comment><USER2> Both my current and previous managers have been excellent for one overarching reason: they each understood that developers are individual artists of a sort and are not interchangeable gears. This fact may seem obvious to HNers but if you've ever worked within a larger organization, you know how quickly this jewel of wisdom is often forgotten. Knowing where the interviewee stands on this point will be priceless for your whole team.

</comment><comment><USER3> Peer coding, coding tests and anything else you can do to evaluate actual technical skills. At the "small team" level, most leaders still drive their teams simply by being better developers that the other guys.

Interpersonal, leadership and operational skills only become critical at higher levels (they are of course great to have at all levels if you are lucky).

</comment><comment><USER4> Ask him hypotetical questions, ie. what would be your reaction that some of product managers come and say that you have critical bug that needs to be fixed NOW, and all other developers are not availaible (eg. weekend)...

That should help you to undestand how that person is thinking, and how will he react in different stressfull situations.</comment>


Ask HN: Does starting early have positive impact on a tech team's productivity? - <AUTHOR> 	Hey, I work at a fairly large startup and my management thinks tech team should start at 8.00 am in the morning. Every engineer in my team does not want to start at 8.00 am, although they have no problem working late.
1) How do make them understand they should measure the output and not the number of hours. 2) What kind of metrics/framework can I provide them to show the productivity of my team?
Thanks <comment><USER2> To me, a data driven argument is probably a losing battle. Punching a timeclock management like it's an assembly line is, in this context, likely to be more about control than productivity. If that's the company culture, and there are companies where it is, then the alternatives are compliance and its consequences, non-compliance and its consequences, or switching company cultures.

To put it another way, if there is strong buy-in from above, then the policy is likely to change when someone notices that a bunch of engineers have quit. If there isn't strong buy-in from above, then when your manager writes you up for not being there at 8am, the manager will get some training/coaching/mentoring/scolding.

But right now, the management didn't ask for staff's input when developing the policy, telling management they're wrong is unlikely to work.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on the individual.

Some sales people believe 8am or even earlier is the time to make calls. It is a way to stick out of the pack, and it works for some of them. If you are on the US east coast and selling into the west coast it is a non starter.

I have seen workplaces in Los Angeles that shift the workday earlier or later by 1 or 2 hours to avoid rush hour.</comment>


The Reason Fans Hate the Last Season of Game of Thrones - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/ <comment><USER2> Here's a different take, which I thought was quite interesting and compelling [https://twitter.com/DSilvermint/status/1125856091261136896](https://twitter.com/DSilvermint/status/1125856091261136896)

<comment><USER3> I agree that D&D are plotters now. The real problem is that they were panters for every season up to these last 2. They'd look at book characters and think "not that important" and leave them out, or wildly change events from the books to put out something that seemed more dramatic.

But like a kid who partied too hard senior year and found out his final project is due in a week, they seem to have woken up one day and realized they'd moved way, way too far from the source material, and then just jerked the wheel to steer it back in a straight line towards the intended book ending. Characters who've developed differently in the show than in the books? Whiplashed back to the book versions. The Night King taken down in a single episode, with no real understanding of what he was trying to do, or what any of it really meant. Dany destroying all of King's Landing, but instead of a culmination of increasingly morally grey choices as she takes the throne from a loved leader, she's murdering civilians who don't even like Cersei because a bunch of dudes kept saying she was crazy (or something).

Frankly I'd have preferred they just made up some hollywood ending that vaguely fit the direction they'd brought the show, instead of giving us all whiplash.

<comment><USER4> > Dany destroying all of King's Landing, but instead of a culmination of > increasingly morally grey choices as she takes the throne from a loved > leader, she's murdering civilians who don't even like Cersei because a bunch > of dudes kept saying she was crazy (or something).

From, like, season 1 on Dany is established to be explosively vindictive, especially to perceived betrayal by those who are either personally trusted or whom she feels owe her duty, as well as desperate for (and violence tempered only by) receiving love on both an individual and mass level.

And those factors are directly the source of the violence she turns to in S8E5. The direct lead up has been decidedly unsubtle and started before S8. It wasn't a culmination of increasingly morally gray choices, it was a simple continuation of a pattern of behavior that's been constant the whole show combined with a pattern of increasing erosion of the factors that were previously established as mitigators combined with an increasing accumulation of factors previously established as triggers.

That it was headed for something like this has been evident for some time, that it was likely to erupt at the particular time it did against the particular target was clear in S8E4 with Missandei's killing even before they laid on more triggers in the part of S8E5 preceding the break.

<comment><USER5> I stopped following GoT since S05E04 or around that so i did not see nor do i understand what's all this noise; but from the writing lessons i took years ago i learned that foreshadowing is NOT character development. If you use foreshadowing, especially if it's not subtle, you still have to "earn" your twist (see: Frodo if front of Mt Doom, Gollum).

You can only foreshadow and drop hints about a character changes if you do those change away from the action (the protagonist that will change is away from the limited narrator), or if the spectator do not know the character that well (he is one of the antagonist).

Let's compare to other "masterpieces" with a lot of public love. Does the character change feel as justified as Darth Vader's one in Return of the Jedi? Or even as Severus Rogue (Harry potter) change? Those change are not really well written imho (a bit too rushed for the 1rst one, a bit forced for the second, but that's only my opinion). If the character change in GOT is not at least on this level, i would understand why people are disapointed.

The error GoT have done for me is from way back. The first few seasons used realistic plot, few plothole, believable and clever characters, pretty realistic choices and political stuff. My suspension of credulity bar was set pretty low. Season 4 was weird regarding time and distance, but still mostly believable (and the dialogs were really good too). But S05 broke my suspension of credulity almost every 10 minutes and that made the show a bit boring (imo).

That's the issue for GoT: they did set the bar too high at first, then couldn't reach the same level again.

<comment><USER4> The thing is _Dany doesn 't have a character change_, just a change of location, available power, and other circumstances. She has a consistent pattern of "This is how she acts in in this kind for circumstance". And then those triggering circumstances recur in a different time and place and when she has vastly more power. And she acts _exactly the same way she always has_.

In fact, I'd argue that a distinguishing feature of GOT as a series (and ASOIAF, the book series) is that there is remarkably little character development in the narrative, and even further that a major theme of the narrative itself is that binary positive and negative character assessments tend to be made on the basis of circumstances when the same character in other circumstances would be assessed very differently, and that changes of circumstances are easily (and dangerously) mistaken for changes of character.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're familiar with manga(comics) and anime(manga comics adaptations to animation video) then this is a good and hilarious analogy that works perfectly for the latest season of game of thrones done by the meta anime Gintama - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4S9NuI6NKo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4S9NuI6NKo)

Looking forward to Game of Thrones: Brotherhood whenever it comes out

<comment><USER7> I love it!

But, I think that the main issue is the INCREDIBLY lazy writing for S8 in particular, and S7 to a large extent as well.

<comment><USER8> I think they're just arrogant and full of themselves. They don't have the chops to end what Martin started. They've got to use cheap plot twists to be compelling.

<comment><USER4> Martin provided outlines through the end of the series early on; this was widely reported at the time.

And what twists? Other than "who kills the Night King", most of the "twists" people have complained about are deeply flawed characters acting on accord with, rather than transcending, flaws that have been consistently shown since S1.

It's a twist only in that it defies narrative traditions of the medium, but then that's also in accord with the character the show has shown since S1 (notably with the execution of Ned Stark.)

<comment><USER7> even if we know that he provided outlines, we don't know to what extent if any the producers chose to follow them.

<comment><USER8> Good point. Maybe they rushed to the end. That can lose an audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems pretty obvious to me the issue is they just didn't put in the narrative work to make Dany's transition satisfying.

<comment><USER10> As a counter point to this, S8 was despised before E5 aired.

<comment><USER9> I think there was a clear turn. There were valid pacing complaints but not core plot issues like now.

<comment><USER10> Maybe. This isn't exactly scientific, but E4 was actually the lowest rated episode of the season so far here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/bpc20p/spoil...](https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/bpc20p/spoilers_postepisode_survey_results_s8e5_the/enr87fr/)

Those numbers do actually suggest a clear turn, but it seems to have happened going from E3 -> E4 rather than from E4 -> E5.

<comment><USER9> Hmm makes sense. Her change was telegraphed in E4.

<comment><USER10> You can read the corresponding thread and see that not many folks there were really talking about that at the time. I think this analysis is too retroactive. E4 had many issues, particularly centering on Jaime, Brienne, Euron and the Iron Fleet, and the nonsensical nature of the Cersei negotiation. It also declined to fix issues presented by E3 (e.g., other than the funeral, it was as if the NK and WW conflict never happened, it didn't expand on Bran, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Everyone is analyzing how the process of writing may have changed but I think we need to go deeper. The show is created by mere mortals with families and children who burn out like everyone else. They've also got contracts that pay them by the season rather than the episode, and a contract for a Star Wars trilogy in the waiting. They are just sick of the show and are doing the bare minimum to fulfill their contractual obligations.

<comment><USER6> Explanation fails when you take Marvel studios into account. Overall consistent product with some outstanding and satisfying movies. Disney/HBO seem like hacks in comparison. Now that Disney is assuming control of Marvel however i expect the quality to drop because of things like James Gunn incident etc. Companies that are too concerned with image and aligning with the cultural zeitgeist are consistently putting out mediocre products

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Although this is in Scientific American, it's an informal article about an informal pop-culture topic. However, I'd still prefer it to make its claim, and make its case.

Here, that means first defining "sociological/institutional storytelling" and "personal storytelling", then arguing that GoT is the former and not the latter, by reference to the source material (i.e. examples).

I can only infer these definitions: "sociological" means reacting to circumstance; "personal" means agency.

If we take the first season, the climax shows the two main actors acting with agency - against sociological forces: Ned chooses honour, against all circumstance, advice, sense and customs of the world. Joffrey chooses execution, again against all circumstance (protocol, advice, expectation of others - even self-interest).

The article mentions another aspect, of characters being killed off, and that this shows the story is sociological rather than personal. But not all characters have been killed off, notatable, the Stark children have only been top-and-tailed (Robb and Rickon), leaving Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran. They were present at the very beginning; they are present at the end. The story is about them.

The standard argument is that character deaths make us fear for the main characters, instead of assuming plot armour. Minor and major characters routinely die. Even within the family, Ned, Cat, Robb and Rickon die. Further, Bran and Jon also appear to die, though live on. But most of the children, the core, remain.

The claim of sociological storytelling would have more support if all major characters died, and were replaced with other characters, who behaved in similar ways under similar forces. Then the story would be about those forces.

Therefore the story is personal, not sociological. Of course, the world is deep and interconnected, and makes sense. In this sense, the novels are "sociological". But the _story_ itself is not.

It is not a story about circumstance and institution forces, but a story about personal agency.

</comment><comment><USER13> Other examples of sociological storytelling y'all might recommend—other than Game of Thrones and The Wire—and not necessarily from TV but in any medium?

</comment><comment><USER14> The biggest reason is that fans can't stand seeing someone that they thought was the epitome of good and someone they identified with, become evil before their eyes. Every other reason is secondary to that.

<comment><USER15> Most negative opinions I heard and read were not about the fact that Dany turned evil - this has been telegraphed for a long time and most have expected it. It's that the transition was almost completely unmotivated. It makes no sense whatsoever. People want to understand the characters, that's the central point of this article.

<comment><USER4> The underlying character needs and triggers were established over many seasons, and the multiple triggers were laid on heavily throughout S8 (and some pretty heavily in S7.)

The idea that the actions were unmotivated is bizarre; I get that some fans were hoping (and that narrative convention supports those hopes) that Dany would _transcend_ her clearly established flaws, but the idea that there was anything not clearly established, in either general orientation or specific triggers, is hard to believe.

<comment><USER16> Yes, she literally says many times "I will take what's mine with blood and fire".

<comment><USER15> Is that the same as saying "I will take what's mine and then burn it all to the ground, and everyone in it"?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Observations and lessons from two decades of writing about video games - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/?p=1417773 <comment><USER2> Interesting piece. I'm almost always impressed by what I find in Arts Technica</comment>


Silicon Valley's circus of innovation - <AUTHOR> http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/what-does-silicon-valley-tell-us-about-innovation

<comment><USER2> Now that's more like it.</comment>


Let me set the record straight - <AUTHOR> https://blog.revolut.com/let-me-sec-the-record-straight/ <comment><USER2> Top comment on the blog post : "I hope your KPI isn't tied to effectively running the company because I'd say your performance rating is "significantly below expectations" and we both know what that means."

Let's see if the PR damage people delete it.

VCs should observe this kind of behavior as a serious risk to company morale and productivity. In the modern age of social activists, we really can't have another Larry Ollisen escape through extortion of their employees. This issue needs to be exposed and put up as an example: your company's most important asset are the people. Treat them professionally and with respect or you're doomed to die. We are neither in a 80's regimented business era nor this is a military organization.

There are times when social media does good - exposing deep habitual issues of extortion and exploitation. I don't know how many other startups have this kind of toxic environment. It's legal but shouldn't be ok and should be met with the decline and demise of the company.

<comment><USER3> I find Monzo to be a great counter example to this. They've a great, employee supportive culture and are very open and transparent around it. They've great PR and said culture seems to be a major part of why.

Disclaimer: I invested a small amount in their last crowdfunding round

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Revolut insiders reveal the human cost of a fintech unicorn's wild rise"

[https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions- labour-...](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour- fintech-politics-storonsky)

 _CEO Nikolay Storonsky gave an interview to Business Insider where he said Revolut's philosophy was to "get shit done", a slogan that is emblazoned on the company 's London office walls in bright neon lights. In an echo to what was going on in these calls, Storonsky would go on to say in the interview that the company attracted people that want to grow and "growing is always through pain".

Sources say at least one former head of HR resigned after failing to convince Storonsky that the company had to change its dogmatic approach to performance targets. In the last two years a total of three different people have headed the HR department, the last one leaving two months before Revolut's use of the controversial home task was revealed. At the time of writing, Revolut has more than 200 vacancies listed on its website._

<comment><USER5> > Revolut's "home task" required applicants for various positions to recruit > new app users. "200 or more sign-ups would be a very strong indication that > you'd go into the next round of interview", the document read

Oh gross.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe he was not working on every weekend and his team hasn't hit the KPIs... yea, weekends... all for the bonus for the boss.

</comment><comment><USER7> A bank that lets you open accounts in a matter of minutes without background checks or personal ID. What could possibly go wrong.

<comment><USER8> Is that weird? I've opened savings accounts from traditional banks that way

<comment><USER9> They get ID sufficient to prove the identify of the person opening the account and for banks to report suspicious deposits. Every account I've opened in the last two decades has scanned or made a copy of my ID and required my social security number. The US is my only experience with opening bank accounts though. I'm pretty sure it is required to provide ID to open a traditional bank account.

<comment><USER8> I've definitely opened several US bank accounts without visiting in person or sending a scan of my ID. They do attempt to verify your identity through other means, like asking about stuff from your credit report.

<comment><USER10> Same here, and I think it's a better way to handle it.

If the person opening the account is physically standing in the bank lobby, showing ID is strong evidence they are who they say they are.

But accepting a scanned copy of an ID online is in many ways _more_ risky than alternative verification methods, it only tells you that the person had access to a picture of an ID. It's assumed that would be difficult if they weren't who they say they are, but that's not a reasonable assumption and banks clearly know that.

I wouldn't be surprised if identity thieves have access to real scans of IDs at this point. A lot of online services have been asking people to scan and upload them for things like "verifying" your Twitter or Facebook account, so people may not be as cautious about doing that as they should be.

<comment><USER8> It has to be trivial to photoshop an ID scan, too. None of the fancy anti- forgery measures they have would help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Watching the damage control efforts in real time is always fascinating to me.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Let me set the record straight" can almost always be reduced to "Let me dig this hole a little deeper."

</comment><comment><USER13> Doesn't seem to be working for me at the moment.

Seems promising for an online only bank.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't know anything about what happened, but something doesn't add up. Why would a CFO of a successful company resign just because he doesn't have global banking experience? Sounds like BS.

<comment><USER15> Large organizations generally provide people at the C-level options to tender their resignation rather than hitting the news with supposed firing (or letting go). Firing connotes a lot of negativity as well as from a public relations perspective, they want to ensure that this process would generate the least amount of noise.

<comment><USER14> Generally yes, but those are formal announcements, where the title is not ,,Let me set the record straight''.

It's like saying that I'll be honest with you, and continue lying.</comment></comment></comment>


Neuropathy Microsite Launched As New Startup Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/05/neuropathy-micr.php

<comment><USER2> Some guy launches some small site with the sole intent of slapping google ad sense and google custom search on it to cash on the people who stumble on his site off google search.

How is this relevant here on HN ?

PS: Is it that some people blatantly upmod anything with the 'startup' keyword in the title ? Kinda reminds me of the Swineflu t-shirt story which ran a week or so ago :)

<comment><USER3> This idea is about as old as google itself.

<comment><USER4> I'm wondering how it is different from mahalo or alltop or any of the other sites that do exactly the same thing...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This previous blog post by him is totally crass: [http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/05/allison- stokk...](http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/05/allison- stokke.php#more)

"For a $10 donation, I'll scour the internet and send you all the Allison Stokke pictures that you can find."

Followed later by: "I know that Allison definitely did not want in the spotlight -- that was one of the points of my original article."

No, actually the point of your original article was to drive traffic to your blog, which is why you keep saying her name over and over, intentionally including certain misspellings.

<comment><AUTHOR> You know -- he might actually be reading along.

Sorry you don't like the material. I've written over 500 blog articles in the last 4 years. Some suck, some don't. But I keep trying.

A little bit of kindness can go a long way, you know. If you don't like the article, don't upvote it. If you think it is off-topic, flag it.

But coming on here and trashing me is whacked. My articles may be bad, boring, crass, or whatever, but this site is better than that. Surely you have something better to do with your time than tearing up somebody else's work.

<comment><USER6> Actually, you trashed yourself by writing that other article.

This time, as soon as I saw it was your blog, I clicked the back button. I didn't even remember exactly why, but I had it in the back of my mind as something I did not want to waste time on.

bravura's comment just reminded me of the actual incident.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find your approach to making money using search engine traffic interesting, as you're using your name and face for this, which is a bit unusual. However, I think it would be a bit easier for you if you also allowed people to comment on your microsites, thus gaining content.

It's a bit uncool to use this site as a keyword backlink though.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love the "Hacker safe" and "trusted site" labels, which are served from the same domain! Nice touch.</comment>


I hate comments - <AUTHOR> http://timothyfitz.com/2012/12/17/I-hate-comments/

<comment><USER3> Hopefully no one even moderately unfamiliar with the language the code is written in needs to find out how to fix something that is broken. Citing breaking code by using some global that makes the comment no longer true? Sounds like an abuse of globals or someone not cleaning up the comments, not the comments themselves.

So many times I have had to repair code in languages I wasn't quite familiar in or that was simply using methods I hadn't learned yet. Those comments were life saving.

Comments describing intentions of code also allow for someone to come by later and quickly and concisely understand what the code was doing and where it was going.

I cannot think of a single instance where parsing 65 lines of a function definition was ever quicker than reading:

 _This method takes a foo object, applies HTML encoding, and returns an array of the original and the clean code._

In the same vein, saying that Unit Tests are a replacement for comments just brings me back to my original assertion: I already am looking for help understanding the code base, so I should look at more code elsewhere and parse another long list of assertions?

Bad comments are bad like bad code is bad, or like bad pie is bad. But comments, code and pie aren't bad.

Please don't stop commenting your code because you feel like you can be more clever with the language instead. Someone may be much more familiar with the language the comments are written in. They may may need to do something with what you wrote.

Whenever I read some new reason why comments aren't cool or why some programmer has decided they[1] can just be clever with the language, I can't help but think they just don't have enough experience to know why and how comments can be absolutely necessary and fantastic.

[1] not saying this is necessarily true in this case, it's just the impression I get.

<comment><USER4> "This method takes a foo object, applies HTML encoding, and returns an array of the original and the clean code." could be a 3-line unit test that's just as clear to read, but has the side effect of actually being true instead of maybe being true!

I would consider that comment just as bad as the ones in my examples, but maybe not quite as obviously so.

<comment><USER5> The main benefit of comments that you seem to be missing is that they are in the right context. Unit tests, while useful and required, make for boring reading and are not right where you need them. If I need to open up a separate file and scroll through tons of other tests to find the unit test "docs" on a function, you've lost me already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like the developers who wrote that code didn't know how to write comments. Here's some guidelines:

* Anything that duplicates the line they describe in prose should absolutely be removed. They're worthless and become out of date immediately.

* If you have logical "paragraphs" of code separated by newlines and comments summarizing the paragraph, that's a great indication that your parent method/function/whatever is in charge of doing too much. Turn the comments into names of new methods/functions and refactor accordingly.

* If the algorithm is sufficiently complicated, it definitely deserves a documentation block describing the "how"s and "what"s. But more often than not those comments are just a duplication, as specified in the first bullet point above. If you don't think any code ever deserves these sorts of comments: congratulations, you've never worked on anything non-trivial in your career. I suggest that you find more of a challenging project.

* Definitely leave a comment behind explaining the "why"s behind a particular block of code if its intentions are not immediately obvious.

* Definitely have headers of documenting comments for functions/classes/methods/parameters/etc. Is your first reply when someone asks "How do I learn to use Rails?" to say "Read the entire source code to Rails"? No, of course not. For the same reason, your reaction to "How do I use this block of code" should not be "Read the block of code." Abstractions and proper APIs people, come on. I should be able to glance at the docs above it along with the definition and know how to use it, what to pass to it, and what I might expect in terms of returns / side effects. Bonus points if you have a tool to auto-extract these into a static site that you host for your team.

</comment><comment><USER7> What a terrible and self-righteous post.

How is a test case supposed to explain _why_ MAX_COUNTER is set to 5 or 20? Comments are the single-most important thing when writing code, in my opinion. When feature specs are lost, and documentation goes out of the date, you only have code. And if you're supposed to jump through hoops like test case code to try to divine WHY things are as they are, then you're dealing with really hard-to-maintain code.

I strongly suggest all developers to ignore this blog post, and to comment as best as you can.

<comment><USER8> > I strongly suggest all developers to ignore this blog post, and to comment > as best as you can.

Bad or to many comments are better then no comments. Its not exactly hard to remove them, their absence will never break the build unlike not understanding the implementation!

<comment><USER9> That's not exactly true, if the comments and the code have at some point diverged, the comments can only serve to confuse the reader.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I helped the author edit this post for clarity, but it took all I had not to argue with him because I strongly disagree with his thesis. My main language (Objective-C) is relatively less readable (compared to his main language of Python), and I would absolutely not be able to function in a team, or even with code I'd written myself over a week ago, without heavy commenting. I do believe he's right though with respect to test coverage being effectively a runnable comment or explanation of how a particular module works. However, to me at least, tests are no more readable than the source code itself, so I still rely (and implore my teammates to rely) on heavily commenting their code. Especially when dealing with inscrutable things like OpenGL code.

<comment><USER10> Not to mention code is imperfect. My main platform is Obj-C/iOS and there are numerous API bugs, workarounds, and bits of ugliness involved when integrating with third-party APIs and libraries. These _definitely_ involve comments because they _are_ incantations that have a reason for existing, where the reason is entirely non-obvious on examination.

God help the guy who rips out a seemingly innocuous line of code only to subtly break things underneath. Even a simple:

        // Hack around time parsing bug in iOS3+, see [StackOverflow thread]

saves hours of lost productivity.

We can get rid of comments the moment we invent a perfectly expressive language, where every single line of code in your entire stack is under your control and everything works exactly as advertised out of the box.

Until then, I'll keep commenting where I need to, and never when I don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The comments that he shows are pretty worthless. However, comments are often necessary to explain WHY we are doing something.

oven.setTemp(350) // 400 will burn them, 300 they will be mushy

fluxCapacitor.setOption(THRESHOLD, 1.21E9) // lower thresholds will prevent return from time travel. Please see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeLorean_time_machine> to review the physics

<comment><USER12> Both these are fixed by method extraction though.

      function setTemperatureToCookPerfectly() {
        oven.setTemp(350);
      }

      function ensureReturnFromTimeTravelPossible() {
        fluxCapacitor.setOption(THRESHOLD, 1.21E9)
      }

Now wherever you see these lines in your code, you know exactly what they are for.

To quote one of the Ruby Rogues, "A comment is a lie waiting to happen."

<comment><USER13> Wouldn't that function name have to be more like setTemperatureTo350ToCookPerfectly400WillBurn300WillMush to match what the comment is saying?

What if later it is determined that the proper temperature should instead be 375 because at 350 they aren't quite cooked enough?

<comment><USER12> And what would happen in the original?

People have a tendency to believe what the comment says, even when the code says something completely different.

It's easy to say that you would update both the comment and the value at the same time. But I've seen mismatched comments in code all the time for even a contrived example like this. And then what do you believe? Is the comment right with an incorrect implementation, or is the implementation right with an incorrect comment?

<comment><USER14> Never replicate the code in the comment, then the comment won't be lying when the code changes.

This is a poor example to work off of. You'd probably have something like RECIPE_TEMPERATURE = 350, which you could then tweak to 375 if you needed to...

A more effective example would be

oven.Temp = RECIPE_TEMPERATURE

// we have to wait for the oven to preheat

thread.sleep(time.Minutes * 5)

oven.contents += cookies

Could you make that second line of code into a function preheatOven()? Sure. And your code would be less readable, because you have to break context to go see what the function does... only to find it's one stupid line.

Method names are not comments. They are hints at _what_ the code does. They should not explain _why_ the code is doing it (because the why almost always requires a lot more space than you can fit into a reasonably sized method name).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> B-Con I personally have four reasons for writing comments. If a comment does not fall squarely into one of them, I try to omit it:

1) Why the code is doing what it's doing. What's the motivation? Why is a check necessary? What's the context?

2) High-level overview. 20 lines of code may speak for themselves, but a quick sentence can easily summarize it. I love well-summarized code. "Do X with the Y unless it's Z" is a really fast read. (Function names obviously provide this sort of explanation, but sometimes a name is not obviously not always sufficient.)

3) Stubs / future notes. Sometimes you need to leave something stubbed out. If you have thoughts on what they code will need to be, leave a note about it. This is easily removed later.

4) Quirks. If the code does something that is not obvious, note that. Non- obvious side-effects, bugs, etc. Don't discover something painful, then leave the next person (possibly a future you) to re-learn that same painful lesson.

Code does stuff. Comments describe the code. Comments should not re-describe what the code does, they should be about the code and the code's context itself.

<comment><USER12> 3 & 4 are really the only two valid reasons to use comments, in my opinion.

1 & 2 are both better solved with method abstraction. Comments describing what code is doing is always a code-smell to me. If you have 20 lines of code that is non-obvious, think about extracting it to one or more well-named methods.

<comment><USER8> his 1st point was not about commenting what code does but why it is done the way it is. I don't see how you can extract all the required information (including web links or rational) explain the rational behind a implementation into a function name.

        // unroll loop for 50% speed increase. Optimal offset 4
        // 3: 25%
        // 4: 50%
        // 5: 40%
        for(i=0;i<x;i+=4) {
        ...
        }

How could you extract that into a function name?

2 is definitely more an opinion, but I use XML comments on every function, object, parameter, return value with a quick summery because it integrates into my IDE and is used to generate API and library documentation that is invaluable to developers who don't necessary have the code, only the documentation.

<comment><USER15> _I use XML comments on every function_

I'm not talking about your opinion on point 2 here specifically, but your comment reminded me of a discussion I had with someone about comments... well, they were arguing (like the OP) that you should not use comments in your code but they would gladly use XML comments for the same reasons you have stated. So they would go to the lengths of helping out external developers with comments but not their own internal developers. Seemed very strange to me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Comments are for why, code is for how.

Why is the counter < 5 or the balance >=0? Comments explain why your assertions are reality. Not every assertion is going to be as obvious as "balances have to be positive". If I had a dollar for every opaque assertion I blew up or ran into in code that had no explanation as to _why_ something had to not be 0 or >1mil or null or whatever I would be a rich man.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't mean to sound patronizing, but if you're implementing counters or banging out numbingly-boilerplate business logic for websites, comments are indeed useless.

But when you're reading an obtuse 50-line function that implements some weird algorithm acting on some weird data structure, full of magic-like assumptions, you'd wish no one had deleted comments from it, or... had written them in the first place.

<comment><USER4> Actually, that's EXACTLY the case I had in mind. Obviously I couldn't put a 50 line function with weird data structures in my blog post, or it would be unreadable. But the point is that comments for that function are bad! They'll rot if you ever change the function or the assumptions at all. Instead, you should break the 50-line function up into smaller functions, and add assertions and test cases for all of those "magic-lik assumptions." Then get in the habit of reading tests first. Now your code-as-comments will never rot.

<comment><USER18> No offence, but this is incredibly naïve, and it's kind of obviously an opinion that simply stems from working on things that just aren't that conceptually complicated. Some things are actually conceptually complicated, and the why is not at all obvious from the what, no matter how finely you slice the what. Code, inherently, describes what. A sparse set of higher level proper sentence comments describing the purpose of the overall goal for the next part is practically required to make code like this actually comprehensible. For some things, something approaching Literate Programming is best, which is nearly the polar opposite of "comments are bad".

Implementing an advanced data structure is a good example of this. Things that took theoreticians some time to discover, and write/publish in a paper, are not things a random programmer is just going to inherently know from a completely uncommented implementation.

Extrapolating "all comments are bad" from a few examples of pointless comments on mind-numbingly simple and obvious code (which are indeed bad) is silly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'll agree that _good_ comments don't reiterate what is plain from the code. Truly clear, self-explanatory code is a joy to read. But the process of coding usually boils away any notion of why, leaving only the brain-compiled machine that implements the how. It's the original use-case, high-level policies, implicit contracts and so on that comments should generally focus on. Especially, as the author notes, since TDD infrastructure and culture has gotten so much better at covering the "how" in recent years.

Also, sometimes the code is sufficiently brain-compiled that it's utterly inscrutable. Early in my career I wrote a fast interrupt driver for the company's main product that had become quite heavily optimized, and practically every line depended on nuances of the related hardware's functionality. This code was written in two-column code/comment form, and had more lines of comments than lines of code. This was necessary for it to be at all maintainable. In theory, a later refactoring might have simplified this state of affairs... but that opportunity never happened.

</comment><comment><USER20> the comments in the gc example are not there because the language this is implemented in is less readable than python; they are there because the problem the code solves is non-trivial and requires documenting. however clean, readable and trivial your code is, you can't express _your thought process_ with it. and when you're doing sophisticated things, that is very important to convey.

</comment><comment><USER21> Take it up with programming 101 instructors around the world, who beat it into their students' heads that "every line" / "every function" / "every class" etc _needs_ comments, no matter how redundant or bad the comment was, because "good code is commented". No joke, fairly well respected science & engineering university, every line of every program through the first three semesters of a CS program was required to be commented. After a while, slapping in useless and bad comments became habit, required for the assignment to even be considered for grading. It takes a while to break that habit.

<comment><USER22> Really? Find me one today. Find me a textbook that says that published in the last ten years. I'm tired of seeing this trotted out as a straw man of the crowd who thinks sometimes comments are good.

<comment><USER21> I just know what I and my classmates went through. The commenting requirement wasn't from any book, it was a requirement coming from the professors who taught the courses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've recently read Clean Code by Robert Martin and now totally agree with the OP; everyone should go and read it, though it's full of annoying Java, it does apply equally to proper languages.

<comment><USER24> The reason you call Java annoying is exactly the one why Java code is so conducive to refactoring practices described in Clean Code: it mandates great verbosity.

Everything in Java is Big Deal, even something like a simple loop going through a collection and applying a one-liner to every element. In Java, you have to divide things aggressively for code to remain readable and maintainable. Otherwise it's way to easy to lose the big picture.

When methods are few lines tops, their names are descriptive, and you have explicit types of arguments and return values, it's no wonder you hardly ever need to comment anything.

Other languages can be very different in this regard. Take Python, ironically the language author's using in his examples.

Python is terse and expressive; does not specify types in code; has everything as first-order values; prefers short names due_to_naming_convention; and makes extracting code into functions a significantly bigger deal (everything is public, needs to have docstring, etc.). Those traits often need to be offset by a little more prose than you would put into code in other languages.

So while Clean Code certainly sounds convincing (I know I treated it almost like a revelation), it needs a little more perspective. Commenting practices are just one more tool that you need to match to the job - and language - <USER2> hand.

<comment><USER23> Erm no... I'm a C++ developer. I call Java annoying because it is inefficient and has a garbage collector.

<comment><USER24> And how these particular flaws of Java are relevant to the comments-or-not discussion at hand?

<comment><USER23> They are not; I was simply correcting the assertion I didn't like Java because it is verbose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A conversation I once had with a junior developer:

      Him: I don't write comments. My code is self-documenting.
      Me: Apparently, you have never attempted to read those documents.

Comments should include the why's of code's existence (e.g. business rules) as well as any bigger picture information about the code for usage (e.g. "This function is for X, if you are looking for the function for Y, you are probably looking for Z").

</comment><comment><USER26> This doesn't address the practical real-world problem...

Most developers are under at least moderate pressure to deliver and usually their priority is this...

1) Make thing appear to work

2) Make thing actually work

3) Clean up code to pass a code review or not be yelled at by a coworker

4) Comment where things are necessary

In many cases we barely get past step 1 and a half and usually its not even our fault - the business case has been mostly satisfied and according to the mucky mucks its best to move onto the next feature. Yes most of us dream of places where we can craft our code to oblivion but its probably not the average reality unfortunately.

I think its great when somebody takes the time to comment - commenting is not fun and has very little upfront reward but can be a lifesaver when traversing complex logic. If you have the ability to leave a profuse amount of comments I can hide them when I dont need them and use them when I have no idea whats going on - comment as much as you like.

</comment><comment><USER8> Without comments how do you produce documentation for your code?

I put XML comments on every function, object, property etc giving them at the very least a short summary. These are then compiled into documentation xml that integrates with the IDE providing pop-up documentation for objects and functions without needing to see the source code. This xml is then compiled into actual html documentation is also used for APIs and libraries that other developers use without any access to the code.

Maybe documentation falls outside of the purview of source code comments... but i don't think so and i find it really handy to have the source code self documented with comments keeping docs and code in the same place.

</comment><comment><USER27> Ah, to be young and wild, and have most of my limbs again...

Try expressing a relatively complex state machine with asserts. Then come back in a month and try converting all those asserts back into few English sentences.

</comment><comment><USER12> Comments prove that naming is hard.

If we as developers spent more time on using better names for our objects/methods, we would need less comments.

</comment><comment><USER28> and also vi > emacs

But seriously. Comments are useful. Don't over use them, don't under use them. If you are being dogmatic about your comments, you are probably doing it wrong. Autodoc comments can be nice, when done properly.

</comment><comment><USER29> Comments can be super fun. Especially if you are into fabels and can liken the purpose of your code to the journey of a hobbit or similar creature from the shire.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's more accurate to say: I hate bad comments.

</comment><comment><USER31> You can start to use your commit log as the comments.

</comment><comment><USER32> tl;dr

Comments suck, documentation rocks.</comment>


John Turturro Introduces America to the World Wide Web in 1999 - <AUTHOR> http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/john-turturro-introduces-america-world-wide-web-1999-watch-beginners-guide-internet.html <comment><USER2> The part about it being just for video games teleported me back to childhood.

It was incredibly frustrating trying to learn linux and programming on my own in a household having religious parents who saw everything with a screen as corrupting Television/Videogames. It was, I shit you not, a constant war just to be able to study anything directly involving the computer.

It did give me a great appreciation for large textbooks though. Even if they were about computer topics, nobody gave me hell for spending hours with books about C or operating systems. Do the same thing interactively at the computer? Forget about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Love the exchange at 9:50, in which Turturro asks a boy if he uses the World Wide Web, and the boy responds by saying his dad doesn't like computers because, "Facts are facts" [https://youtu.be/M6xqxoTKWv0?t=9m50s](https://youtu.be/M6xqxoTKWv0?t=9m50s)

<comment><USER4> My favorite part is at 19:35, where Turturro assures us that credit card details are safe to use because "It's private. I've done it before and it's not a problem." [https://youtu.be/M6xqxoTKWv0?t=19m35s](https://youtu.be/M6xqxoTKWv0?t=19m35s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Relevant, perhaps:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/09/jennifer_aniston_and_matthew_perry_s_windows_95_tutorial_video_revisited.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> This was every inch a brutally arrogant and bigoted video.

Watching it it seemed to me it had little to do with anything but the patronizing and condescending view that some people might have of small town America.

It's ironic because the narrow-mindendness with which they painted these ostensible 'small town idiots', was in fact on full display by the authors themselves.

Edit: double irony, it's made by _Lycos_ i.e. one of the emblematic 'dot com crash companies' i.e. yes, they are on to something but are promoting ridiculous valuations trying to punch way, way above their economic weight, and to boot, not seeing the writing on the wall as the search landscape evolved. While Lycos has basically vanished, the auto-shop in my hometown is literally still there, same company though it's changed from one family to another.

<comment><USER7> It's an amusing stereotype. I grew up in a nice small town, circa mid-late 1990s. That market had five competing ISPs in 1997. Everyone of course had phone lines. The first two ISPs with local access were available sometime in 1994/95.

All of the various school libraries and the public library were online by 1997. We did have nice public schools and a solid public library, it gave me an immense appreciation for those. So even if a household didn't happen to have a PC, the family still had free or very low cost access to get online.

I'm sure there are some horror stories of small towns and access from that time. That wasn't my experience. The relatively low cost of setting up an ISP and the phone network access made it very easy to get online in the mid 1990s where I grew up. The nearest major metro was ~120 miles away. Intellectually and culturally the Web was an oasis in a desert, it gave me access to ideas and people from all over the world at a time when the Web still felt like a small experimental mosh pit of people interlinking. Growing up in a small town likely made my Web experience more vivid and energized than what you would have experienced had you grown up in NYC. I instantly got the value proposition it was offering the first time I used it, it was subtle like a bolt of lightning to the skull.

<comment><USER6> The rural/urban divide is one of the smaller predictors of broadband awareness. The biggest is age [1]

It's also funny because I think that the internet is still overrated, moreover, some of the supposed 'outdated' virtues lamented in the video (by virtue of the fact they are promoted by the out-of-touch luddite father) would be the 'your sister will appreciate her education more because she worked hard for it' ... I think that's a rather timelessly good piece of advice.

And the doofus mechanic _literally_ watching cartoons, while avoiding work, who could not find the engine on the car? How long do you think he lasts in a small town where word travels fast? In my 'home town' the mechanic guy is utterly competent and trustworthy. And frankly creative and smart, he actually enjoys solving problems all day every day.

[1] [http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/internet- broadband/](http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/)</comment></comment></comment>


The Atomic Soldiers: U.S. Veterans, Used as Guinea Pigs, Break the Silence - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/590299/atomic-soldiers/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone know of a way to obtain an official listing of participants in nuclear tests? My father had described in detail being taken out to one of the Nevada tests sometime in the '50s when he was in USMC. He passed away from cancer in the 1980's. I reckon with some cross checking of muster rolls and tests I should be able to piece it together.</comment>


Can you get sued for software that some people think encourages users to do bad things? - <AUTHOR>

As an example, my iPhone app idea for combating the swine flu could be used to get revenge on people you don't like, destroy businesses, etc.
The idea is described here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=586037.
If I build something like this, is there any chance I could get sued? <comment><USER2> This is a litigious (law-suit-prone) society.

If you're visible you _might_ get sued, just like you might get acclaimed... somebody just needs to feel injured enough to seek out an eager-beaver attorney who believes he can win the case. Plus: the deeper your pockets (or your company's), the more worthwhile it starts looking to sue you (but the better legal defense you may be able to mount).

One reason that startups form _corporations_ (LLC, etc.) is reduced risk that lawsuits could touch an entrepreneur's personal assets.

If you've got a (potentially) hot startup, you might want to CYA... and get an actual attorney to provide actually useful legal advice.</comment>


How many needless Covid-19 deaths were caused by delays in responding? - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/19/faster-response-prevented-most-us-covid-19-deaths/ <comment><USER4> Depends on your base-line. Take Taiwan.

Taiwan was masked up and implemented international quarantine in January along with full contract/tracing. Yes, they have characteristics and infrastructure we cannot perfectly replicate like a homogeneous population with _relatively_ even socio-economic status, social cohesions and a strong societal memory of SARs with infrastructure to go along with it and a complete mistrust of information coming from WHO and China.

But even if we did 80% as well as Taiwan we are talking about almost 100,000 deaths. I think the excess mortality is around 2x what we are seeing in the official death figures so more like 200,000 deaths.

Add in the trillions in the bailout and economic damage, this might be the worst decision ever.

Taleb et.al issued a warning on Jan 26 about this. As he said - <USER2> "did not want to spend pennies in January; now they are going to spend trillions." [1]

[1] [https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic- is...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-isnt-a-black- swan-but-a-portent-of-a-more-fragile-global-system)

<comment><USER5> > Add in the trillions in the bailout and economic damage, this might be the > worst decision ever.

This was caused by the pandemic itself, not by the reaction to it. There's no scenario in which a pandemic ravaging unchecked through the populace does not create massive economic damage.

<comment><USER6> It didn't have to be unchecked. That's the thing. Taiwan never closed down.

<comment><USER5> We would have needed a better president in the White House at the very minimum to have had a better response. And that's enough of a counterfactual that I'm just taking the current situation as a given. Given the president we do have, the current result seems to have been inevitable one way or another. We could've had fewer deaths here in NYC with a better governor and mayor who acted more quickly, but again, this is a hell of a counterfactual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Part of the problem is that as human beings, we are awful at assigning credit and blame for hypothetical scenarios.

When in the best-case scenario nothing happens, politicians aren't incentivized to take strong action at the expense of harming the economy. They'll be blamed for the unemployment and harsh actions when "the disease wasn't that bad" – even though it "wasn't that bad" due to the prevention measures taken in the first place.

Look at Seattle vs. NYC. NY's Governor Andrew Cuomo has been largely praised for his leadership, but that's purely optics. Had he acted sooner, lives would have been saved. [1]

[1] [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles- leade...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leaders-let- scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks-did-not)

<comment><USER8> The pandemic may also require us to conclude that a free market in health care, and individuals making purportedly rational decisions about the value of their own lives in the context of their economic status is not what should happen in a modern society.

<comment><USER9> "Our government response to the pandemic was terrible!"

...

"If the pandemic may also require us to conclude that we need more government!"

I'll never understand this line of thinking.

<comment><USER6> Okay, let me take a stab at it.

Linking health care directly to employment means that people CANNOT take off work if they're sick. This is dangerous in normal times. In a pandemic, this means that businesses shutting down isn't just an economic crisis, it's also a health care crisis.

The idea of individual responsibility for group problems, like a pandemic, leads to actors predictably behaving selfishly (staying open, no masks, going to work) -- it's predictable and preventable by socializing the responsibility.

And secondarily, because the US government is incompetent and has been for years does not mean that government, in general, is a failure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In another thread I commented that because of our knowledge of how the US government handled coronavirus and disasters such as Katrina, it's vitally important that individuals and families cast out any thought or hope of aid, assistance, or rescue from the US fed government in a disaster and instead work to prepare themselves and their community for events like this.

This article is demonstrating that this isn't a political position - it's just a fact of life in the USA.

<comment><USER11> What you've described is a political position, and the result of political policy - that of American conservatives, Republicans and libertarians.

It doesn't _have_ to be a fact of life in the US, but it is because half of the country believes taxation is theft and "the government that governs least, governs best."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Scaling up the population of one country and comparing to the US is not going to be a valid comparison. Korea is comparable in size and population to California, but you would not judge the timing of the response of California against the response of, say, Kentucky.

Singapore is a bit smaller in population than the SF Bay Area, but you wouldn't judge the timing of the response of Bay Area measures vs., say, Miami.

There are 3 very good comparisons to make in Europe. Three different approaches and 3 different outcomes, in terms of peak cases, peak deaths, and timing of implementing various measures. Italy, Germany and Sweden would be better comparison/contrasts than Singapore vs. the USA. For the USA, compare on a regional basis versus the countries in the study.

Exaggerating to make the point, It's valid to do this type of analysis, but comparing the attributes of a scaled up mouse to an elephant isn't going to be of much value.

</comment><comment><USER13> Or by not having masks freely available and required for public space? A couple billion dollars worth handed out as needed, with a social contract that wearing a mask is patriotic.

<comment><USER14> > a social contract that wearing a mask is patriotic.

I don't know when it happened exactly, but I feel like the general public has completely lost any sense of patriotism. I remember it being a big deal when I was a kid in the 90s. These days, there just isn't really any national pride. I guess probably related to 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan,etc.

<comment><USER15> Americans are rabidly patriotic.

To the point where it's all about symbols and not even about shared values.

<comment><USER13> If patriotic is declaring oneself to be a patriot, than your first statement is true.

And do they love their symbolism, to the point where they declare that they would die for a fucking flag.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a matter of preference America values commerce over life. The slow response is because in general America is trading lives for liberty. Essentially life is cheap. You might disagree with assessment and chalk up the bungled response to incompetence, but I don't think that makes sense in light of the reopening of public life as the virus spreading accelerates. We're still opting for this strategy now. And it might be the right decision for America. We'll just have to accept the loss of life as collateral damage. I don't agree, but I'm not making the decisions.

<comment><USER12> Life is not cheap in the USA. However, liberty is of greater value. Liberty is possibly what Americans value above all else, life being a close second.

Hence: "Give me Liberty or give me death.", Patrick Henry, 1775

And: "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.", Declaration of Independence, 1776

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here in FL we just added 4000+ more cases. Every day we break our own record. Our governor seems to think he can blame it on "Hispanics". Sigh.

Where did we go so wrong in this country? Why do people not _care_ about each other?

</comment><comment><USER18> How many mental health issues are caused by excessive lockdown measures?

</comment><comment><USER19> Effectively all of them... A decent response would have detected a new disease before it got past 30 cases, and a good lockdown or tracing campaign at that point would have eliminated it entirely.

<comment><USER20> The experiences of China and Korea strongly suggest that good lockdown and tracing campaigns cannot eliminate it entirely.

<comment><USER19> Both cases likely failed due to imports from other countries.

If action was prompt before the virus spread to other countries, that wouldn't happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's easy to say "we should have locked down sooner." Monday morning QB'ing; it's what humans do.

This is not hypothetical: Approx 50% of deaths are nursing homes related

However, allowing the ongoing attacks (i.e., we're at war) on nursing homes was, and often still is, very real. Before we get districted by what could have been, let's stay focused on reality.

Had nursing homes been hardened and protected - as they should have been - <USER3> whole story changes.</comment>


The economics of software correctness - <AUTHOR> http://www.drmaciver.com/2015/10/the-economics-of-software-correctness/ <comment><USER2> Everything in development is a cost-benefit trade off. Despite it's speed limitations, Ruby remains an excellent language for development because of its focus on developer efficiency. You can produce feature complete systems in a short period of time at the expense of slightly higher hosting costs, which is significantly cheaper than labor costs.

Monolith development is still much faster than microservice development even though microservice development is the better long term option by far.

It's all tradeoffs. I'm an architecture nut and for years I really wanted nothing more than to design the ultimate perfectly scalable and secure system but unless you're at a virtually competition free enterprise, like a telecom or an insurance company the time or budget to do so probably doesn't exist.

I've gone from "get it done" to "do it perfect" back to "get it done and avoid obvious problem starters". The reality is just that "get it done" wins the business case almost every single time.

<comment><USER3> I agree within reason. I believe there are certain things that must happen, even with a 'get it done' mentality or the subsequent gitrdone is not possible due to productivity issues.

Things like error detection and reporting in the system absolutely have to be useful. I've seen systems where that isn't the case, and it destroys productivity.

So I agree in general, but I think there are a few areas that you need to get right or you can't gitrdone effectively for very long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So this is all true, however it is surprising how often in development you find people spending more time and effort getting the 'pragmatic' hack to work acceptably than it would have taken to do it right.

People often underestimate the difficulties of getting a hack to work and overestimate how long doing something correctly will take. Even with short time horizons.

<comment><USER3> I personally hate working with people who put things in terms of 'right' and 'wrong', or 'correct' and 'incorrect'.

I honestly believe the key to software development is good decision making. If you're thinking in terms of right and wrong, correct and incorrect, then you're not making decisions, you're simply doing the right thing over and over again. Only it may not be the OPTIMAL thing, or the smart thing, in any specific instance.

For example, who here really believes proponents of unit tests have never painted themselves into a corner? How did that happen? By making poor decisions.

Stop thinking in terms of right and wrong. Seriously. Sometimes unit tests are a good decision, sometimes they're not. Sometimes that hack is a good decision, and sometimes it isn't.

You make a decision on a case by case basis, not because it's right.

<comment><USER5> I like the idea of finding a good decision in the context of a current situation. I don't like the idea that terms like 'correct' and 'incorrect' should not be used. For some problems, there exist exactly correct solutions (like adding integers). The _lack_ of a well-founded or at least well-known correct solution is what forces you to look for an optimal solution made of trade-offs.

<comment><USER3> If you read back over the the thread it will quickly become apparent that your example is not relevant within the context of this conversation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "The problem is not that we don't know how to write correct software. The problem is that correct software is too expensive."

That's something I've been saying for a while. It's all about the economics of the situation, rather than the impossibility if it.

Naturally, there _are_ also improvements here and there that decrease bugs without increasing efforts, and those are worth looking for.

<comment><USER7> But in a practical sense, the problem is that we don't know how to write correct software.

<comment><USER6> Actually, we do have some pretty good ideas about how to do it. That was covered in the article.

<comment><USER7> > Better monitoring is another. Code review processes. Static analysis. > Improved communication. There are many more.

Did you mean this? Or NASA's process? Because I wouldn't characterize any of the above as "good ideas about how to [build correct software]".

Reviewing some of your other comments, I think we fundamentally disagree about how close we are to optimal software development practices. Discussing this in economic terms is like discussing the economic reasons that Columbus didn't go to the moon.

<comment><USER8> I don't think that's a fair analogy. At this point, I believe we have pretty good ideas that make it _possible_ to write correct software. Most impressively, there has been progress on creating a completely verified C compiler named CompCert: [http://compcert.inria.fr/](http://compcert.inria.fr/). This really means "completely verified"\---they formalized the semantics both of C and of assembly, and used an automated theorem to prove that the semantics of the generated assembly are the same as the semantics of the source code.

Of course, building (and verifying) CompCert took something like 10 years, so it's certainly not a feasible way to write software yet. Maybe a better analogy would be around the invention of the first airplane---we have a long way to go before everyone's flying in a jumbo jet :)

<comment><USER9> > I don't think that's a fair analogy. At this point, I believe we have pretty > good ideas that make it possible to write correct software. Most > impressively, there has been progress on creating a completely verified C > compiler named CompCert: > [http://compcert.inria.fr/](http://compcert.inria.fr/). This really means > "completely verified"\---they formalized the semantics both of C and of > assembly, and used an automated theorem to prove that the semantics of the > generated assembly are the same as the semantics of the source code.

Note that Compcert has had bugs found in it too. Compcert has a verified core, but it's not a fully verified piece of software.

It's still a lot closer to bug free than almost any other software out there.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I was referring to the verified parts. To the best of my knowledge, these are bug free -- I believe the bugs were found in an unverified portion of the front-end (which I think was subsequently verified). I think the technique works in principle; it's just very, very expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Joel Spolsky published a blog post in 2000 named "Things You Should Never Do" ([http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html))

It's about why Microsoft with IE6 won the browser war against Netscape who made the single worst strategic mistake a software company can make by rewriting Netscape 6.0 throwing out all the code from Netscape 4.

Netscape was working with extremely buggy and convoluted code in the older version and trying to save the development community from the nightmare that is IE6, ended being late to the market with a superior product. Joel makes a very good observation that often people want to throw out old code because they think it's a mess, but the truth is counter intuitive that the old code contains vast amounts of knowledge.

A company can be first, best, or cheat and in this case while Netscape was trying to be best, Microsoft was first.

This is the reason iterative code development is best. Speed of iteration beats quality of iteration 9 out of 10 times. Boyd's Law of Iteration ([http://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of- iteration/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/)) The best software is software that released most often, not released the most correct.

If I was to release a browser in say 2008 to compete with the dominance of IE, what is the single most important feature I could put into that browser? I'd put a feature for forcing iteration, so that the browser can automatically update on the client finishing a development cycle rather than release the update preinstalled unable to remove on newly bought computers.

<comment><USER11> Funny thing is, Microsoft did almost the same thing with Windows NT. However, unlike Netscape, they had the resources to keep iterating their old junk while they worked on the totally new version.

<comment><USER10> Spolsky mentions that Microsoft was going to rewrite Word for Windows and Mac with the same code base, but someone decided because at the time Word Perfect was a better product, they should skip that idea.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rick_schaut/archive/2004/02/26/80193...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rick_schaut/archive/2004/02/26/80193.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think one of the other problems is that people value the economics of software correctness using their gut, rather than empirical analysis.

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

Everyone knows that bugs are problematic eventually, it just seems that they can't put that on a level playing field with the up front costs, be they in terms of time, features, or effectiveness.

As an example, if you asked Home Depot whether they were saving money with their self checkout machines, I'm sure the answer would be different before their data breach vs after. Even after being warned they simply couldn't properly discount the possibility of massive damage in the future when offered a short term benefit.

<comment><USER13> Hyperbolic discounting is rational when the availability of resources increases exponentially, as it often does for products that catch on.

A company that comes to market with a product that is useful but buggy will attract the attention of venture capitalists & other investors. It will receive user feedback from its existing user base. It will find it easier to hire top talent. It will be able to use collected data to make better products. All of these factors are in proportion to the company's size, which tends to make growth rates exponential.

It's pretty standard practice in the tech industry to bring a buggy, barely- working product to market; use interest in that to raise money; use money to hire engineers; and use the engineers to fix the bugs. You could even look at this as a net benefit to society, as long as existing customers would rather use the product in its buggy, incomplete state than go without it.

<comment><USER12> I see it continue long past the point where 'we needed to ship something to be able to eat next month', to the point where people handicap themselves for the next 5 years in a mature business to release a feature a month faster even though they've got 3 years of runway and ample revenue.

Also, hyperbolic discounting is explicitly not exponential in the way you might account for the future availability of resources (even at a very high exponential rate), it's valuing things on a different curve in the future than the present: would you rather have five dollars today or ten dollars next month, vs would you rather have five dollars a year from now or ten dollars a year and a month from now. People will say five dollars today, but ten dollars a year and a month from now, even though under rational analysis they should come out exactly the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > You have probably never written a significant piece of correct software.

So true.

When we were hiring for a senior engineer position a few months ago, one applicant said he wrote "bug free code."

I laughed, sent it around on slack. We all chuckled at it. The applicant did not get a call.

</comment><comment><USER15> > If you want better software, make or find tools that reduce the effort of > finding bugs. ... Better monitoring is another. Code review processes. > Static analysis. Improved communication. There are many more.

I'm going to come out and suggest that even THESE are more expensive than most businesses need. I believe code review processes are insanely expensive for what they usually return (wrt bug costs).

</comment><comment><USER16> Main takeaway: "Buggy software is not a moral failing."

</comment><comment><USER17> What about reducing bugs through code reuse, in the form of libraries and frameworks? Because they have more users, more bugs have been found, reported and fixed. e.g. using standard libraries instead of writing your own.

<comment><USER9> Most libraries found in the wild are kinda crap, because as an industry we have a massive problem where most of our stuff is built on free labour that people have performed in their spare time to scratch their own itch.

Using libraries is still generally a good idea, but its effect on software correctness is a bit of a coin toss.

<comment><USER17> Yes, libraries and frameworks vary in quality. My e.g, was for "standard libraries", meaning those that come with the language, though I didn't emphasise this.

Another problem with libraries in the wild is that as they add features, they add bugs. If they don't add features, they lose popularity and don't get used. If they are commercial, they are less popular, and get fewer bug reports (and fewer eyeballs checking for closed source). People don't want to pay for correctness.

I think you're right: correctness is pretty far down the priority list. Good enough is good enough.

BTW: static types have correctness benefits, but dynamically typed languages are very popular - and when static types are used, it's for performance and documentation. Languages using static types for correctness (e.g. ML family and haskell) are not mainstream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Reading this made me wonder...do SpaceX and other private space flight programs have similar standards of rigor?

<comment><USER19> Probably not, which is why I expect spacex to put a person on Mars long before NASA does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's possible to write software with very few bugs if you're very experienced in the language/framework and software development in general, writing all the code yourself, and perfectly understand the requirements. Otherwise, good luck.

<comment><USER21> Sometimes, writing bug-free code isn't even sufficient; sometimes, one needs proof that it is bug-free.

Then, your favorite language/framework will not help you much. You'll need strong verification tools, and a language and frameworks that are compatible with it.

<comment><USER22> While I won't deny this point, I think the industry at large would benefit quite a lot if we were able to agree on how to write probably bug-free code, even if empirically.

Reality is that within a group of 10, you might as well get 12 or more prescriptions of how to write quality software. About half of those prescriptions will be useless and at least one will be actively harmful, but the team will have a hard time to reach a consensus and tell which is which.

Actually, the people most likely to tell which is the obviously harmful prescription learn pretty fast to keep their mouths shut, because they are more likely to alienate their peers than to convince them. So, everybody knows that thousand-lines-long functions are bad, but nobody can tell exactly why besides the bland, non-threatening "style" argument.</comment></comment></comment>


Coronavirus Declared Pandemic by World Health Organization - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-coronavirus-cases-top-1-000-11583917794 <comment><USER2> I am on the east coast and all of the universities have closed -- but people are still acting strange about WFH at my product company(which has full remote devs and other employees, regular WFH days, etc).

It is disheartening to be made to feel 'tinfoil hat' for staying home. The stuff coming out of italy([https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7ex4a/coronavirus-has- no...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7ex4a/coronavirus-has-northern- italys-hospitals-on-the-brink-of-collapse)) is very scary.

<comment><USER3> It's better to be safe than sorry. I've cited "frequent contact with elderlies" and one of my reasons for a request to WFH (not easy as a contractor), as I don't want to increase the transmission surface area for them.

<comment><USER4> Thank you. A lot of people think there's no big deal. The major ones to suffer are the elderly, and to walk about because you're invincible doesn't mean you're doing the world a favor. You're possibly helping the spread to elderly people.

<comment><USER3> Cheers. I've been sitting on that email to my PM since the weekend, then yesterday finally I heard this on the radio which validated my feelings (listen from 26:00 onwards):

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000g3j9](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000g3j9)

Summary: Dr. Sarah Jarvis saying don't be so gung ho about the virus, because you might be a transmitter to the more vulnerable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yesterday article that is relevant:

"Critics take aim at 'failure' of bond designed to fight disease \ Instruments issued by World Bank have yet to pay out to combat the coronavirus"

[https://www.ft.com/content/a6239e12-5ec7-11ea-b0ab-339c2307b...](https://www.ft.com/content/a6239e12-5ec7-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4)

</comment><comment><USER6> What happens when the WHO classifies a pandemic? I imagine a number of processes and procedures come into effect--anybody know what they are?

<comment><USER7> My limited understanding understanding is that it automatically releases funding (from the WHO and other bodies) to help with the crisis. It should also trigger some catastrophe and pandemic bond clauses, meaning investors who bought these bonds will lose their money as it now goes towards relief funding.

<comment><USER8> Pandemic bond clauses? Why does this sound like people gambling against the world not having a pandemic

<comment><USER7> That's basically what it is. Another way to think about it is it's a way for the World Bank / WHO to buy _insurance_ against pandemics. Sell high yield bonds that default when a pandemic happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know how many times the WHO has declared Pandemics in its history?

<comment><USER3> The last was H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak, which killed hundreds of thousands of people. It was declared a pandemic by the WHO in 2009.

<comment><USER10> And they got a right old bludgeoning because it triggered a number of costly 'delay' \- as opposed to 'containment' processes in various countries which angered some people as unnecessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Better late than never

</comment><comment><USER12> Everyone with a half brain knew it weeks ago.

</comment><comment><USER13> congrats ?

<comment><USER14> Please don't do this here.</comment></comment>