Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/08/11/900895704/secret-gyms-and-the-economics-of-prohibition?s=09 <comment><USER3> There is a crossfit gym that I pass by every morning on the way to work. It is full, and never stopped during this pandemic. Even at 7AM, it is full of patrons.

I would call the "proper authorities", but since there is a State Police car parked outside every morning, and he is in there working out, just like before the pandemic, I doubt calling anyone would do anything.

Adding to the post, I read it earlier... it is really strange that people feel they have to go work out in groups. Or get together, or go to bars. I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.

<comment><USER4> > I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.

Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful.

You can't tell to people, you have no risk of dying (0.5% death rate for population, much much lower for healthy and young people), people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...) so this is not your fault if they catch it but you need to stop living your life. That can't work.

And above all, what is the long term strategy, we stop everything for the rest of our lives ? (a vaccine doesn't always work, example the flu vaccine, which works approximately).

It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone

<comment><USER5> US didn't have a federal strategy to deal with the pandemic. They shot at their own foot and didn't give themselves a chance to be successful.

The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm watching Champions league finals on TV and Wuhan pool party clips on twitter, thinking wtf went wrong here.

<comment><USER4> > The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and > are moving on.

I'm not really sure on that, lets take greece, which was praised for their strategy (I was in greece during the lockdown). They didnt have a strategy, they just locked down before there was an outbreak and blocked flights, so no spread. Now they have an outbreak because they stopped all there restrictions. They were just lucky

Look at New Zealand, their strategy is to prevent anyone to enter the country with covid, well that works as long as not a log of people fly to NZ. Now that flights have restarted, they have like 3 cases so they lockdown the entire city, well, doesnt seem very smart in my opinion.

The only countries which are doing well, are the Asian countries, China (can't really trust their figure), Taiwan, south korea same as NZ, but restricting all freedom of citizens.

The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning

<comment><USER6> > _The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to > citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without > any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time > will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for > winning_

I keep seeing this narrative but I can never find the data to support it. When you look at the data, Sweden has the worst of both worlds.

1\. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths.

2\. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down.

There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors.

<comment><USER7> >> 1\. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths.

Geographic comparisons are of limited usefulness; MA had 10x the death rate of near neighbors NH,VT& ME. There are too many other factors to consider. Sweden still did better than UK, France, Spain, Italy and many others.

>> 2\. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down.

Mobility data would suggest otherwise; no masks, kids still in school etc. Life has continued with some restrictions. We could have done the same with similar outcomes. Economy definitely took a hit, but less so than other eurorzone countries.

>> There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors. The fact that the pandemic is effectively done in Sweden is one. We still dont have an exit strategy.

<comment><USER8> >>The fact that the pandemic is effectively done in Sweden is one.

Acting like this is a foregone conclusion is the height of arrogance. Diseases spread in waves. They could just be at the low point between two waves.

We won't _know_ until years from now. Just asserting you're right when there are still this many unknown factors smacks of someone looking for data after coming to a conclusion.

<comment><USER7> >> We won't know until years from now.

fair point, but do you know that the under 65 excess deaths metrics for Sweden is already almost identical to previous years ie. if you were looking at the charts you would not even know they had a pandemic. I suspect "years from now" looking at the US metrics it will be similar.

<comment><USER9> Death rate is depended on level of D3 vitamin in blood. Wait for winter first.

<comment><USER10> This is a very specific claim. I don't doubt you but something like this should always be backed up with sources or people will dismiss you immediately.

<comment><USER9> See [https://borsche.de/res/Vitamin_D_Essentials_EN.pdf](https://borsche.de/res/Vitamin_D_Essentials_EN.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Unlike actual prohibition, the social agreement behind "lockdowns" is subject to time contingencies. The activities considered "essential" grow as time passes. While there are nominal categories of "essential" defined by community/political leaders, that contract depends on agreement. Since each person's conception of "essential" is different, as time passes "essential" grows exponentially instead of linearly.

<comment><USER12> An extension of this is the notion of emergency authorities and people's perception of the weight they carry.

An emergency is an emergent situation, which must be new, evolving, and carry the risk of serious harm. Emergency orders are based upon the idea that executive authority must be wielded to quickly mitigate an emergency situation. But a key attribute of an emergency (by definition) is "new" - <USER2> emergency powers are extended month after month then they are based on a situation that is no longer an emergency.

Now before you get angry, consider that we can agree that COVID-19 is a serious threat that requires government action _without_ it necessarily being an emergency or emergent situation. The threat has long since emerged.

Now we have a lot of governors issuing decrees based on emergency authorities that they've been using for six months. This is quite simply a conflict with our basic notion of democracy. We do not have rulers, yet our governors are issuing rules purportedly carrying the weight of law with no oversight from legislature.

Whether or not you agree with the orders, I think it's intuitively likely that you can see how this is essentially a disruption in the relationship between people and their government, and as such it's at least understandable how many people would feel these orders carry no moral weight (even if they're not thinking from a legal perspective). And so the existence of gray market gyms and parties is at least understandable, even if we don't condone such behavior.

<comment><USER13> > Now we have a lot of governors issuing decrees based on emergency > authorities that they've been using for six months. This is quite simply a > conflict with our basic notion of democracy. We do not have rulers, yet our > governors are issuing rules purportedly carrying the weight of law with no > oversight from legislature.

That was my biggest issue with the whole situation in the USA. All of these emergency measures were done without any mention of timelines, all the while a vocal part of the population was saying "fuck your freedoms", and "millions of people will die if they lift the lockdown". It's like everyone forgot about the Patriot Act overnight, and doesn't realize that the government doesn't like giving up control after whatever "emergency" situation happens. Something needed to be done, but this whole situation made me lose a lot of faith in the government and my fellow Americans.

<comment><USER14> _> doesn't like giving up control after whatever "emergency" situation happens_

I genuinely don't understand this fear re: COVID.

Why would governors want keep gyms and restaurants closed post-COVID? What do mayors gain by forcing people to wear masks post-COVID? It's in the government's interest, as an institution, to open things up ASAP. They're hemorrhaging money.

The things I'd actually worry about -- using COVID to justify suppressing protests and speech, for example -- aren't happening even now.

The only way this theory makes even the remotest bit of sense is if elected officials are malevolent villains hell-bent on literally any arbitrary form of control even in cases where it undermines their own self-interest and happiness. Believe it or not, governors and mayors enjoy eating out, some go to the gym, and _no one_ enjoys wearing masks.

I do believe there's a very real danger of emergency powers being extended indefinitely in general. But not in the case of health orders related to COVID. Because the powers being exercised aren't the sort of things even the most power-hungry person would want to enforce indefinitely. There's just no motivation to do so. And, for anyone not experiencing a literal and extreme psychotic break, lots of even completely self-interested incentives to get things back to normal.

<comment><USER15> The problem is, what's post-COVID? The virus won't be eradicated any time soon, even after a vaccine arrives; most experts predict a timeline of decades to never. I doubt many mayors are supervillains who want to keep people miserable just for the sake of it - but I worry that quite a few might feel like they _have_ to as long as cases are being detected. (Why do we still have strict TSA restrictions, even though everyone agrees they make flying miserable and everyone knows they're unreliable at actually detecting dangerous objects in luggage?)

<comment><USER14> _> I doubt many mayors are supervillains who want to keep people miserable just for the sake of it - but I worry that quite a few might feel like they have to as long as cases are being detected._

Why would they have to? It certainly wouldn't be in their electoral self- interest.

<comment><USER15> The concern is that we might end up in a state where COVID restrictions are considered so obvious that they're not even a matter of electoral self- interest; where abolishing COVID restrictions sounds as extreme as abolishing taxes or abolishing the military. Many people say they don't want the restrictions gone until COVID is eradicated, and I believe they're telling the truth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While trying to buy workout equipment off craig's list I was solicited twice to join "speakeasy" gyms. They had ads for a bunch of gear and when I inquired they sent me a detailed response on working out in their private gym. One was a large neighborhood garage that offered solo time by the hour, one was a shutdown normal gym. Pretty expensive too!

<comment><USER17> >Pretty expensive too!

Dumbbells are going for > $2-3/lb on various websites right now, which is insane. Adjustable dumbbells are going for > $10/lb, which is over twice their usual sticker price.

Gyms could lease out their equipment right now and make a killing.

<comment> 52-6F-62 > _Gyms could lease out their equipment right now and make a killing._

Many have done just that here in Toronto. The equipment went very fast, though.

<comment><USER18> I sought out adjustable dumbbells for a month. Ridiculous prices on Kijiji, and full of scams. Thankfully I eventually found a place out in Brampton that was welding their own, for relatively reasonable prices.

(And thankfully my gym is now open. Until we get a second wave and it shuts down again.)

<comment> 52-6F-62 Damn. Making weights would have been good business!

I have some resistance bands and used to use my buildings gym but they made the process very convoluted since reopening. And with max time limits of 30 minutes each and only 10 visits a month.

That said I was very sick recently and lost a lot of muscle mass and weight so I'm barely getting back to exercising now anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's not just gyms. It's underground bars, hair salons, hot stone yoga joints, and all kinds of things.

While the hair salons were closed, my wife's hairdresser was texting her every three days to get her into her underground makeshift totally illegal hair place.

And slightly realated, quarantines don't work when people aren't actually quarantined. There was an article in the newspaper last week or the week before about all the people from California driving into Nevada to get their hair done.

Just what the world needs: People who make poor health decision driving around the country.

<comment><USER20> "Totally illegal underground makeshift hair place"

I'm confused, if the participants wear a mask, will the virus be transmitted or not?

<comment><USER21> Masks aren't 100% effective so being in close contact with someone for such a long time (a haircut for women can take much longer than a typical trim for men) carries a high risk of transmission from an asymptomatic carrier.

<comment><USER22> I find this to be one of the funniest supposed differences between genders.

I'm trans male, so I've gotten both female and male haircuts. Female haircuts generally took _much_ less time. Put the hair in a ponytail, one snip, tidy up a little. Even a buzz cut takes a little bit longer. It's also much easier to cut long hair yourself than short hair, and people with long hair can go much longer between hair cuts. It took me a while to realize that men's haircut needs to be cut every 2-3 months instead of the once or maybe twice a year I was used to.

Hair dying definitely takes longer, but it seems that can be done at home easily as well.

<comment><USER23> Thanks for voicing this! I've been cutting hair as a hobby for years (it's funny, I got questioned a lot why I felt it was worth cutting my own hair and suddenly with the onset of the pandemic a lot of friends of mine are much more interested in the hobby), and the number of folks that think female haircuts are more involved/difficult is astounding. Unless long hair is very overgrown and needs to be relayered, it's generally really simple to trim it. Men's haircuts are short enough that small mistakes are glaringly obvious, and the haircuts need regular maintenance. My partner had some trepidation when I first cut her hair, but since then she's recommended me to her friends (well, pre-pandemic at least). She did short hair for a while and found the constant maintenance to be a huge pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think a lot of people in this discussion are pitting the argument at people prioritizing their individual choices over the collective health of the community. I think that is a very singular framing from one side. A lot of people I know just believe that the virus itself is not as deadly as the reaction warrants. The infectious mortality rate of Covid is at best twice that of the normal flu, which isn't nothing and warrants action but probably not 40M people unemployed and possible national depression. The fact is if your under 30 you have a better chance of being hit by lightning then dying of Covid. It's pretty rational for someone to understand that and make personal choices without feeling like they're causing real danger to the community.

<comment><USER25> > It's pretty rational for someone to understand that and make personal > choices...

No, it's not; it's arrogant.

All of the epidemiologists and experts seem to think otherwise. What do you know that they don't?

So far 172,000 people have died in the US due to Coronavirus, directly[1]. The actual number of people who have died, if you factor in the effect of the virus on infrastructure and missed diagnoses is about double that[2].

We're approaching the total death toll of World War II[3].

Your claim that it's comparable to lightning, which kills about 50 people per year in the USA, is completely inaccurate and displays a grandiose arrogance. An arrogance that, nationwide, has resulted in a staggering number of tragedies this year.

[1] [https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html](https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus- missing-deaths.html)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Total_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Total_deaths_by_country)

<comment><USER7> >> We're approaching the total death toll of World War II[3].

assuming you mean the US death toll also bear in mind the median age of WW II casualties was something like 26; while the median age for covid victims is 75+. Not to diminish the latter but they are very different.

<comment><USER26> Not sure if I follow your point? Are you saying this is less of a tragety because these people lived 50 years longer?

<comment><USER27> Yes, it is less of a tragedy when an old person dies. Old people have less of their life to lose and have less remaining potential to contribute to society. The death of children is always more tragic than the death of elderly people.

This isn't a perspective exclusive to young people either. Last year my grandfather died and my cousin had a miscarriage. My grandmother was far more distraught over the latter because she understood that her husband, who she'd loved for nearly 60 years, had already lived a full happy life. She said as much explicitly.

<comment><USER26> It may be a cultural thing too. It is a lot faster to produce young unqualified people than a really senior person. We are losing minds like John Conway.

Anyway, I'd say my grandfather and cousin deaths (non-covid related) had about the same impact on me. Dying is the tragedy of being alive, I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think it is a bit unfortunate that the conversation has completely derailed. The article wanted to talk about prohibition and how it doesn't work (it just makes the product unregulated and sometimes dangerous, either it be a gym or drugs), and the discussion here seems to go on and on about mask wearing and social distancing. I'm sure we've all seen this discussion before.

<comment><USER29> It works for 95% of the population. Good enouth

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> so many comments arguing about what everyone in aggregate is morally obligated to abstain from or morally permitted to partake in. meanwhile the article itself is just about what people end up doing. "the government closed the gyms. lots of people want to exercise together and/or with expensive bulky equipment so they make illegal gyms." no amount of ethics lawyering is going to change this

honestly I think the phased reopenings are partly to blame, once you say "this is important enough, that isn't" everyone wants to do their things and disparage other people's things. if they closed the gyms here again, I'd find an illegal one. if they closed the restaurants, or the churches, or the schools, I wouldn't care. but for the people who derive existential fulfillment from their religion, or can't tolerate taking care of their children 24/7, or [insert reason why people care about restaurants, I honestly don't understand the upside anymore], my desire to go to my gym is selfish and wrong but their need for their thing is inherently good and right

not to mention the fact that most of the country isn't locked down, and there's no internal borders, and most people didn't take lockdowns seriously after the first month or two of kumbaya we're all in this together stuff anyway. so your individual actions wouldn't even move the needle. there's a continuum between the hypervigilent closed societies where one person gets it and they shut down the city, and the endemic countries where it's already everywhere anyway so the best you can do is mitigate risk to a tolerable level and go on with your life. new zealand, south korea, taiwan vs. mexico, india, brazil. we're with india and brazil

and I don't think it could have gone any other way. americans are suspicious and callous toward their countrymen and deathly allergic to being told what to do. for better or worse, it's just in our blood. gotta make the best of it

<comment><USER31> > it's just in our blood.

How figurative is the blood you're referring to here?

I'm a naturalized US citizen from a country that dealt well with the pandemic. I wasn't born in my heritage country, and so have always identified first as an American. But, recent events demonstrating the "uglier" side of America's sociocultural norms has left me wondering if >~40% of the country I recognize as home don't consider me a worthwhile part of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Where I live gyms have been open for some time. There's been no outbreaks at fitness facilities thus far in my state. I have friends in various countries in Europe who also lift regularly and their fitness facilities have been open for months with no issues.

As always, a dose of perspective is necessary.

<comment><USER33> Did you read the article? It stated that the "underground" gyms had people close together without wearing masks. (This can be understood to be due to prohibition, of course.)

Is that the case with the fitness centers in your state?

<comment><USER34> It's definitely the case in my gym, which has been open for 3 months now. It's unavoidable that people get close to each other without a mask in a gym. No one is going to give a shit because the equipment is shared anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I saw an engineering services company I know of post a new job position for a "care coordinator" to babysit their employees kids, at work, while the employees work. My first thought was, isn't that a daycare? How is it different in the eyes of the law? Edited- spelling

<comment><USER36> Since about April I've seen a daycare go on a daily walk with the kids every morning and 3-4 adults supervising them.

<comment><USER35> Here (SF), my understanding is that day care is only able to be open of they are serving essential workers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Bad policies deserve to be violated.

> Please consider reporting the details to the appropriate authorities

No, on the contrary I'm encouraging people to go out and resume their normal activities.

</comment><comment><USER38> Working out in a mask is very tough. It is a difficulty enhancement. I dance in a mask at a pace similar to jogging and that is hard enough. I wouldn't want to try to do a full workout that way. That would be the first order to get ignored.

Is there a way to work out safely? Complete air replacement and surface disinfection. That can realistically only be done outdoors.

As a club kid who refuses to grow up, I bring my professional club lights and a mobile DJ speaker to the park to dance with a friend. She has a much harder time coping with isolation and it helps her. It is a system for events of 50-100 people, so it is loud enough to mimic the experience. I would actually be OK with us both wearing Bluetooth headphones like my JBL BT Reflect Mini, which are robust enough to wear while dancing and doing crazy head moves, but a club speaker sounds different because of the reverb from the surrounding environment.

We still wear masks despite not touching and being completely outdoors. We do not need to according to laws of physics, but not doing so would contribute to the attitude that masks are optional. They are not optional. As much as I trust my friend and she trusts me, there is no way to know with certainty we can not infect each other after a day of interaction with other people.

One way to setup a safe workout would be to use the gym's parking lot and set it up with gym flooring and 10x10' canopies. Portable patio heaters would keep the person warm when warm weather ends. They are expensive, but one way to solve that would be to setup a solar array and use electric heaters.

Another friend who is a Zumba instructor is hosting classes in a park's parking lot. That works for her and her students and it is safe.

<comment><USER39> > _Working out in a mask is very tough. It is a difficulty enhancement._

I bike 25km every day wearing a full P100 respirator, the kind with replaceable cartridges that catch organic vapors, like for spraying paint.

It's fine, and not a significant burden. People complaining about masks are just that: complaining. Respirators are built for doing hard, strenuous labor in hazardous conditions. If demo crews can manage it, so can anyone else.

<comment><USER40> Haha, okay, you're very fit, clearly. People whose objectives don't prioritize hitting your cardiovascular fitness won't want to do that.

<comment><USER39> I am decidedly not "very fit". I've a 33 BMI and a lung condition (hence my assiduous mask wearing).

Masks simply aren't that big of an imposition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Ironically, months of lockdown away from gym and weight gain has increased my risk for lethal covid outcomes. Though looking forward to cheap surplus sales.

</comment><comment><USER42> I can certainly understand people's need to continue their exercise routine. This is for their physical and mental health. As long as they keep the precaution in place, whip down and clean up and social distancing.

For me I've canceled the gym membership and taking up biking. It has been working out great. Discovered a lot more biking trials around the area. Got plenty of sua shine and vitamin D along the way.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm curious to check my ethics. I'm in Colorado. Currently climbing gyms are open, limited capacity, with masks. I'm currently planning for winter. My gut says in 6-8 weeks with schools + flu season starting there's good chance of either shut down of gyms again or just too much risk for me.

So I've been looking for private commercial space. I already have a personal wall need to move it indoors.

My question is what others think of the ethics of expanding from just myself to trying to get 5-10 people onboard with a 501c7 social group to lower costs and build more walls in a private space. Only allow one person in at a time - mask-less (or closed loop groups for instance me and my climbing partner are in a 2 person closed loop).

I'm currently trying to look at the last order to see if that's legal.

but now with this thread I'm questioning the ethics and curious what others think. Besides the obvious unequal privilege that I can afford this luxury.

</comment><comment><USER44> I started toying around with the idea of building something out for a gym sharing idea. [https://gymlender.com](https://gymlender.com)

<comment><USER45> Related, I really don't understand why gyms in my city haven't turned to renting out their equipment. I know people that bought dumbbells, over paid, and picked from really limited inventory. Meanwhile, the gym a block away has a giant pile of weights not being used, and has basically no revenue right now.

<comment><USER46> They won't make enough on rentals to break even on the amount that people steal and never return. A single 45 lb plate costs $60-$100 with covid pricing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Personally, I'm less concerned about gyms. People in gyms are adults and can theoretically stay 6-ft away from each other and wear a mask. I've seen high- impact classes like kick-boxing being held outside in parks for better airflow. Driving activities underground however, has well understood unintended consequences of causing violence and disregard of health rules, as we know from prohibition in the 20's and the drug war since the 70's.

The uniquely American issue, is with bars and clubs being closed. In the land of big houses, everyone knows someone with a bar in their backyard or basement. Keeping bars closed now, when everyone is fed up with the social isolation (sorry, Zoom doesn't cut it) just means actual underground speakeasies serving alcohol aka house parties. Where dedicated gym rats _aren 't_ drinking alcohol at the same time they're at the gym (it hurts gainz), and are _can_ be more responsible for their actions, people on alcohol _can 't_. I'm not saying that to excuse drunk people's behaviors, what I'm saying is that trying to get drunk people to stay 6-ft apart and wear a mask is an exercise in futility.

Since people are gonna be drinking anyway, _especially_ during a pandemic, and a recession, and in the face of great uncertainty, _and_ on the cusp of a presidential election, what's needed is to _open_ the bars, but require patrons scan-in via phone app using the bluetooth-based contact tracing (PEPP- PT), or else face suspension of liquor license. By making it required at bars, you get around some of the privacy issues since those that don't want to, can just not go to bars. Using bluetooth-based tracing gets around issues of using GPS-based tracking, and also helps amplify the effectiveness of an under- funded contact tracing corps by providing a technology based solution.

This is imperfect, but perfect is the enemy of the good, and even done imperfectly, contact tracing can very successfully drive Re (the local effective value calculated from a diseases' R0) down below 1, at which point the disease doesn't continue to spread and the pandemic can be controlled. For a disease like COVID-19 with an R0 of 2.5, it doesn't take too much to drive it down.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm no fan of lockdowns, but comparisons to the prohibition of alcohol in America are appeals to political mythology. You may argue it didn't work to the extent some have wanted it to, but it did produce "positive" results on almost every notable metric other than political satisfaction. By some measures alcohol consumption only recovered to pre-prohibition levels in the 1960s.

In the big scheme of things it's just not a good example of anything relating to effectiveness of government imposed restrictions.

</comment><comment><USER49> I had been going to legal gyms for two months. The intense focus on hygiene seems to be working since none of the 600 outbreaks inmy state has been traced to a gym.

</comment><comment><USER50> >Christina learned that these swole, maskless bros were refugees from big chain gyms like the YMCA and Planet Fitness

Seriously doubt anybody described as a 'swole bro' is coming from Planet Fitness. They're pretty heavy on the anti-bro advertising [0] and their business model is more about finding tons of people sign up that rarely actually work out in their gym.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Y4XY8Pl6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Y4XY8Pl6U)

</comment><comment><USER51> The responses here are precious. Gym dudes: "leave me alone." Non gym dudes: "you're going to kill us all by doing deadlifts." FWIIW in the interests of full disclosure, I am thoroughly a gym dude, but have my own equipment and a terrible case of misanthropy, so I've been working out at home for years.

I wonder how the paranoiacs who think deadlifters are going to cause mass death mentally deal with the facts on the ground in Sweden. They seem to be doing fine; all they did was prevent large gatherings; no masks, no shut down, yet 4x better covid death rate than, say, Massachusetts, which is still locked down as if we're in the black death. Nobody ever talks about Sweden, I guess because they appear to have gotten it right, making fools of most of the rest of the West.

<comment><USER38> [https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200813/swedens-no- lockdown...](https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200813/swedens-no-lockdown- policy-didnt-achieve-herd-immunity)

This from last week, cites studies. Short version: Sweden was wrong.

<comment><USER51> Your source (by some dimwit reporter) _still_ says 4x as many Massholes as Swedes died per capita; thank you, drive through. It is otherwise a non- sequitur.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I know of one "secret gym" that's extremely well ventilated, everyone wears masks, and everyone is socially distanced. They don't do things that require spots, etc. I think it's pretty safe. Only 6 people are allowed in at one time.

</comment><comment><USER53> That's fascinating, and I had wondered if it were happening. I guess I was right. Due to the timing of the last 6 months or so, I haven't been making it to the gym as much. I started focussing more on mountain biking, I broke my hand, then my clavicle, traveled to Japan, and then the pandemic showed up.

With all this more focused time during lockdown, I was tempted to buy my own equipment and toyed with the idea of letting some friends come use it, it got me thinking about the legalities and liabilities of that kind of thing.

If we go back into lockdown, I'll definitely be buying my own equipment. I do powerlifting, so bodyweight and a few dumbells don't really cut it.

<comment><USER54> There is a suprising amount of work you can do with resistance bands. That used to be the powerlifting equipment of choice before dumbbells and barbells became fashionable in the bodybuilding community a century ago. You can hit everything olympic lifting hits. Great reading here, along with tons of examples of workouts and movements:

[https://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable- Traini...](https://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable- Training-2.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> In ancient Greek army, they had a death penalty for losing your shield, the same as desertion. There was no such penalty for losing your helmet or armor. Why ? Because they fought in a phalanx, and a soldier losing his shield endangered not only himself, but also his companion on the left.

Fun fact: all Greek troops were named after the type of shield they used.

Source: [https://acoup.blog/2020/03/17/new-acquisitions-hoplite- style...](https://acoup.blog/2020/03/17/new-acquisitions-hoplite-style- disease-control-march-17-2020/)

</comment><comment><USER56> Jesus. All HN covid threads read like teenage internet trolls have taken over. No sources for claims and full of outrageus anecdotes. In my country its usually people living off the state that comment like this.

</comment><comment><USER57> We haven't evolved to constantly evaluate our actions against things we cannot see right in front of us (in this case a virus). Nothing actually happening during this pandemic is surprising in the least.

<comment><USER58> You think a disease with a case fatality rate of like 0.05 (probably like 0.01 for 20-30 somethings) would actually going put evolutionary pressure on anything? These people are looking at the risks and making rational decisions that its not worth shutting down your life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Anyone supporting Gyms or high-traffic transmission areas right now are clearly narcissistic. If this getting called out is an affront to you, you may need to visit your physician to get diagnosed.

</comment><comment><USER60> yep, i've been going to a gym + sauna of a friend of mine the whole lockdown. this is a thing :)

</comment><comment><USER61> The people denying the pandemic (or calling it a "plandemic"), or refusing to wear masks because muh freedoms, or protesting lockdowns are going to be _laughed_ at in history classes for decades. You are unbelievably ignorant, selfish and arrogant. You are the _reason_ this stuff needs to be enforced in the first place, because too many people completely lack empathy and critical thinking ability.

<comment><USER62> What do you think about Sweden, then? They seem to be done with this with no lockdown and a small amount of death (accounting for old people who would have died this year anyway, statistically)

<comment><USER61> They've done significantly worse than other countries in the same region of the world that did have lockdowns.

What do you think you're accomplishing by posting easily debunked misinformation?

<comment><USER62> >What do you think you're accomplishing by posting easily debunked misinformation?

The data on Sweden is clear, they are down to near zero covid deaths per day in a country of over 10 million people. Can't see how that can be debunked.

And how are they significantly worse? They are living normal lives.

Also, if something is 'easily debunked' then just do it.

<comment><USER61> Sweden has had many more deaths than neighboring countries. The death rate slowing now is not going to bring those people back to life.

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries)

Sort by deaths/million - Sweden is even higher than the USA.

I'm not going to reply to you any more, don't think you've won just because you gish gallop on to another falsehood in your reply.

<comment><USER48> You're just picking who to compare Sweden to. There's no reason why we should only compare it to neighboring countries.

Sweden had no lockdown and did about as bad as worst performers many of which had a heavy lockdown. This is absolutely a significant piece of information. If we had a no lockdown country getting the absolute worst result perhaps we could settle the debate. Would UK or some of the other bad performers be worse off without a lockdown? We don't know. There is no example to point to.

If UK could have had no lockdown and replicated Sweden's result then the lockdown was a huge waste.

I'm not saying that you cannot compare it to Norway, nor am I necessarily saying that Sweden couldn't get a better result with a lockdown. But even if that were to be true it doesn't mean Sweden isn't an interesting data point casting doubt on the effectiveness of lockdowns in some countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> This seems incredibly dangerous. Are the speakeasy gyms requiring negative COVID tests? Are they doing temperature screenings upon entry? How diligently are they sanitizing equipment? How well ventilated are these various areas?

Why are people ignoring all of these risks, what kind of threat model do they have?

<comment><USER64> You don't have to go if you don't want to. Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance.

<comment><USER65> This kind of answer shows why covid is hitting so hard in america. "I do whatever I want, you do whatever you want"

it's not about the individual, what he wants or do. It's about this individual spreading the virus to the community later on.

<comment><USER66> It makes me sad seeing a community I'd otherwise regard as intelligent being so profoundly ignorant.

But I also acknowledge this is a western culture issue more than one of intelligence alone.

Discouraging nonetheless. We've really messed up.

<comment><USER15> It seems terribly unfair to call it profound ignorance. As you say, it's a values difference. If you remember learning about "individualism", that's what it means; it's the idea that the collective doesn't have unbounded authority to tell individuals what to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Daily reminder that we have the technology to get society back to normal with cheap 15 minute 'good-enough' covid tests that can be manufactured now (millions per day). All we need is competent leadership in government to say 'go'

</comment><comment><USER68> Most commenters here seem to implicitly accept the framing of the discussion around stay-at-home orders as some sort of tradeoff between different values – for example, saving lives versus protecting the economy, or freedom versus safety. But has anyone considered whether stay-at-home orders have actually saved lives overall?

The UN estimated [0][1] that between 83 million and 132 million people will go hungry around the world because of anti-COVID measures. Some of these people will die from starvation or malnutrition. Some of them will die from other preventable health problems later in life.

According to the Stop TB Partnership, a three-month lockdown followed by a gradual return to normal over 10 months could result in an additional 6.3 million cases of tuberculosis and 1.4 million deaths between 2020 and 2025. [2][3]

It's also plausible that lockdowns could lead to hundreds of thousands of additional deaths from each of HIV/AIDS [4], malaria [5], and several other diseases, though I'm not as confident about these numbers.

I am sure someone will be tempted to respond with some variant on "we could have avoided these deaths by tuning the stay-at-home restrictions more competently." Of course, that's true; but the point is that _we didn 't_. We never do. Historically, every society that has tried to eliminate "non- essential" jobs through central planning has eventually found that even when the planners operate with the very best of intentions, they still make mistakes. Dealing with one problem causes a cascade of other subtle changes with real, harmful consequences, which are harder to mitigate when people aren't allowed to freely choose how to spend their own resources. Meanwhile, problems that are judged to be less important are forgotten, because planners can only focus on a limited number of tasks at one time. Human societies are incredibly complex. Trying to manage them from the top is like developing software using the waterfall model: it would work perfectly with perfect planning, but we all know how that works out in real life.

On a personal level: a relative passed away from cancer recently. Cancer isn't a good way to die at the best of times; and I'll be honest, she almost certainly would not have survived even with better medical treatment. But if hospitals hadn't shut down "elective" and "non-essential" care, she could have gone through a lot less pain and suffering. I am not trying to use this as a bludgeon – I understand there are also a lot of people who have suffered greatly from COVID, and of course, we should make policy based on what's best for everyone rather than a small number of anecdotes. But when I read comments saying things like "I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people"... let's just say that I don't know how to respond to that without severely violating HN guidelines.

[0]: [https://data.unicef.org/resources/sofi-2020/](https://data.unicef.org/resources/sofi-2020/)

[1]: [https://africa.cgtn.com/2020/07/17/who-urges-world-not-to- fo...](https://africa.cgtn.com/2020/07/17/who-urges-world-not-to-focus- entirely-on-covid-19-at-the-expense-of-other-crises/)

[2]: [http://www.stoptb.org/assets/documents/news/Modeling%20Repor...](http://www.stoptb.org/assets/documents/news/Modeling%20Report_1%20May%202020_FINAL.pdf)

[3]: [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/health/coronavirus- tuberc...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/health/coronavirus-tuberculosis- aids-malaria.html)

[4]: [https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/11-05-2020-the-cost- of-...](https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/11-05-2020-the-cost-of-inaction- covid-19-related-service-disruptions-could-cause-hundreds-of-thousands-of- extra-deaths-from-hiv)

[5]: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1025-y](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1025-y)

</comment><comment><USER69> Under conditions like these, a thriving black market is inevitable.

</comment><comment><USER46> Virtually all the people who died of covid were fat[1]. If the military forced everyone to exercise (and diet, but that's harder to mandate than exercising) it would have been much more effective than forcing everyone to wear masks. (Masks are still good though.) Most of us are going to get covid even if we stay inside all day (I got it twice) so this should be a wake-up call to be prepared to survive it. Or don't, stay overweight and choke on your own blood if you want--that's "freedom".

[1] [https://www.worldobesity.org/news/obesity-and- covid-19-polic...](https://www.worldobesity.org/news/obesity-and- covid-19-policy-statement)

<comment><USER70> In the cited article, the only statistic I see on weight specifically is that 74% of critically ill UK patients were overweight or obese, which makes it a risk factor but not the be all and end all, given what fraction of the whole pop fits that category (~65%).

It also says that 99% of deaths in Italy were from patients with pre-existing conditions, which would included weight related and non-weight related ones.

Regardless of COVID, maintaining a healthy weight is probably one of more important lifestyle changes one can make to reduce risk of overall mortality.

<comment><USER46> The summary statistic leaves out the effect of age. Most of the non-overweight people who died were old. The main reason you'd die of covid if you are young is being overweight or obese:

> Patients with BMIs greater than 40 kg/m2 had higher death rates overall, and > those with BMIs greater than 45 kg/m2 had a risk ratio of 4.18. Most > strikingly, however, those younger than 60 years had increased risk ratios > of 12 to 17 versus 1 to 3 if they were older; high BMI increased risk in men > more than in women.

[https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-5677](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-5677)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Wow with these comments. You going to the gym is not saving the economy. Yes, we can't shut everything down but you'd think the article was about shutting down grocery stores or the stock market. And by not doing your part, your whole community could be stunted for 2 years. Also congratulations for not caring about a 1 in 200 chance of death (pretty high by the way) because you're healthy and passing on the risk to some vulnerable person (probably your parents or a school teacher) with a 1 in 10 chance of death. You might be helping your personal economy, but you're not helping "the economy".

\- give up a few luxuries especially if they involve heavy breathing or eating in close quarters.

\- Work from home if you can

\- Socially distance

\- Wear a mask when you can't socially distance

\- Go to work if you need to. Don't go to other people's work if you don't need to

\- Support temporary benefits to your fellow citizens as you helpfully avoid going to their place of work.

<comment><USER72> I travelled all over Europe past two months and I must say Europe is quite laxed. And there cases haven't really gone up. Pretty much every outdoor cafes in Europe were open with a few exceptions and I didn't see much difference other than people wearing masks and social distancing between tables.

I think in US everything is polarized and politicized. To the point that wearing masks is somehow considered against freedom. I believe health officials have some blames to share. They still have not come clean for their initial mask guidelines that was blatantly wrong. I think health authorities will have long time to regain trusts in US.

I also feel we don't quite understand the transmission mechanism fully yet. It's airborne, at least we know that part but the clusters in nursing homes and indoor parties also indicate there is some mechanisms in play when indoor.

<comment><USER73> Europe has twice the population of the United States.

Yet despite this, United States has 4 TIMES the cases per day.

Europe can relax because they worked hard in the beginning to get everything under control. The US never did that, most states (like my home state of Texas) did a half-assed closing for 3 weeks, so the numbers never really got under control.

<comment><USER74> It's not that clear that a lockdown helps. NY closed the earliest in the US but was the hardest hit nevertheless. It has now mostly reopened and cases aren't going up. Chances are we may have reached herd immunity there.

I have seen recently that serology tests in Italy have shown the same outcome for people who were locked down than essential workers who were not locked down (and mortality stats in the UK told a similar story a couple of months ago).

Also the evolution of deaths in Sweden followed the same shape and timing than all the other european countries who locked down, suggesting the peak had more to do with the natural evolution of the infection than as a result of a lockdown.

And as far as I know, the WHO does not support lockdowns.

I suppose things like how well care homes were protected probably mattered a lot more.

<comment><USER75> >>It's not that clear that a lockdown helps. NY closed the earliest in the US but was the hardest hit nevertheless. It has now mostly reopened and cases aren't going up. Chances are we may have reached herd immunity there.

No, this is absolutely wrong, every single sentence. Lockdowns definitely help. New York was hit hardest because, despite closing the earliest, they still closed way too late. Cuomo resisted calls from his health experts for almost three weeks. By the time he gave the order, there were 5,000 daily cases reported and the virus was practically out of control.

New York doesn't have herd immunity - not even close. Majority of New Yorkers were not infected. [https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/nyc-hasnt-built- her...](https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/nyc-hasnt-built-herd- immunity-coronavirus-top-doctor)

<comment><USER76> How is this not true? It looks like NY city's cases are basically flat since July.

<comment><USER77> Because we started to lock down relatively early and stayed that way for a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Prohibition=war on drugs. Funny how few are willing to admit it.

</comment><comment><USER79> So this is the cause of community spread in the US..

</comment><comment><USER11> Once one gets past the sexist language like "swole, maskless bros," there is an interesting idea in the article that a societal risk of long duration prohibitions is the development of shadow economies and contract enforcement mechanisms. I'm surprised to see such a libertarian POV from NPR.

<comment><USER80> Really, is every man who works out considered a "bro" now in America? That word is used six times in the article.

I go to a gym with a lot of bodybuilders, and I often forget how much of the world sees them as mindless thugs. And yet among us are at least two real- estate executives, a famous death-metal singer, a handful of computer nerds, a very famous (regionally) pop singer, a former Ambassador, at least one former Olympian, and a bunch of Hollywood stars when they happened to be in town. Plus, you know, ordinary men, women, boys, and girls who like to be fit, or are trying to get fit. Some are large, some are not. The oldest is 75.

Evelyn should swing by the Bay Club and do a bro count, see how that goes. Might offend a judge or two, especially if they're swole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> this thread is a perfect example of why we are so fucked

</comment><comment><USER82> there is an amazing amount of garbage being said here.

wear a mask please.

</comment><comment><USER83> Did the "shutdown normal gym" mean that patrons would be violating whatever policies forced the gym to shutdown in the first place?

If so, that really bothers me. Any excess contagion would endanger everyone, not just the gym users. Please consider reporting the details to the appropriate authorities.

EDIT: If someone is inclined to downvote this comment, I'd be very grateful for a clarification why (comment or DM). I'm trying to address some problems in my communication style, and I can't always infer how I could have done better.

<comment><USER64> Downvoting because it's none of your business. Honest question - and if you choose to downvote me I'd ask you extend me the same courtesy you asked for - how is a gymgoer endangering you, if you are staying 6ft from all others, wearing a mask, washing your hands and not touching your face?

<comment><USER84> How is a reckless driver endangering you, if you are driving safely?

<comment><USER64> Off topic, and there are some who would argue reckless driving or even drunk driving is a victimless crime. The victimization occurs when (or if, since the vast majority of intoxicated driving incidents result in no damage) actual damage is caused to person or property.

<comment> WD-42 What kind of logic is this? Spraying bullets into a crowd is a victimless crime unless someone gets hit, so we shouldn't prosecute otherwise? That's some serious mental gymnastics.

<comment> 0-O-0 It is a victimless crime if there are no victims. Maybe shooter should be prosecuted for intent to kill someone in the crowd, but that's debatable.

<comment><USER84> ??? Shooter could easily be prosecuted for reckless endangerment without intent, and rightly so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> > Her work makes it hard for her to talk to reporters, so we're not using her > last name

Surely if you feel it necessary to omit someones last name you should err on the side of caution and omit their first name too? A fist name narrows a search down significantly.

<comment><USER86> How do you know they gave her real first name?

<comment><USER87> I didn't attend J-school, but that sounds like a questionable practice ethically. A person has a right to be anonymous, but it should be noted they are anonymous. Making up a name for someone without disclosing that fact is questionable.

<comment><USER88> Using their first name to pretend they are both anonymous and non-anonymous is worse than both endpoints of spectrum.

<comment><USER87> It is ethical and expected for a journalist to obscure facts to protect their sources. It is unethical for a journalist to fabricate facts to protect their sources.

Also as someone with experience being anonymously quoted by journalist before, it seems to be standard practice for the journalist to defer any decisions on how they would like to be referred to the source. Odds are Evelyn is the one who decided to just go by Evelyn. She probably doesn't care too much about absolute anonymity, but she also wants plausible deniability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> I can't help but chuckle. Soon mob will be running speak-easy gym you will need password to get in. Feds will start running sting operations. Fat Americans will become heroes of the pandemic.

<comment><USER90> 70%+ of population is a hero!

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> You want to massively decrease the deathrate of COVID? (and death rates in general)

Deal with the 40% obesity rate in the US.

Death rates are extremely low if you're not geriatric or not fat. All the top killers are attributable to being fat and living unhealthy lifestyles. COVID is the scapegoat here.

<comment><USER92> Old age isn't attributable to living unhealthy lifestyles, so I consider COVID a threat in its own right and not just a scapegoat. But I agree with your broader point that fighting obesity, smoking, and other health risks should also be priorities even though COVID has greater mindshare at the moment.

<comment><USER91> Its true that old people have a higher deathrate, but we'll see deathrates in general drop in the years following 2020. Most of the people that are dying right now already have a foot in the grave. We won't know the impact of COVID specifically until many years after and a lot of data engineering. At that time, people won't care and the sensationalist numbers will win out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Lol the shutdowns will fuck us up for a decade.

</comment><comment><USER94> This timeline sucks

</comment><comment><USER95> 63% of gym memberships go completely unused (Statistic Brain survey of 5,313 American gym members). I don't see this as a big thing.

</comment><comment><USER96> While they're at it, they should setup some speakeasy urgent care clinics for when they give themselves covid.

</comment><comment><USER97> Choose your own adventure

1\. Go to the gym during a pandemic

2.a. Your lungs are permanently damaged, with lower lung capacity for life. Your life expectancy is shortened.

2.b. You are dead.

2.c. You did not develop symptoms.

3\. You passed on the disease to many people, including your friends and family.

4\. Everything you wanted to achieve by going to the gym turned out wrong and everyone now thinks you are/were a selfish jerk.

</comment><comment><USER98> It's not even a secret. Outside, in Lake Merritt are roughly 50 people daily working out with weights in the grass. No distancing. No masks. No fuss. No china flu. No china cold.

<comment><USER99> I get that your comments are advocating for contrarian opinion, and that's a frustrating position to be in, but would you please stop doing it with snark, flamebait, and gratuitous provocation? It isn't just that it breaks the site guidelines. The problem is also that it discredits whatever truth there is in your view, because posts like this give people an extraneous reason to reject it: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=truth%20discredit%20responsibi...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=truth%20discredit%20responsibility%20by:dang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment).

This comment would be fine without the provocations at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> As a non-American in a more or less socially unified country, I am really enjoying all the responses from Americans in this thread.

</comment><comment><USER101> I could never understand the point of a gym. Just a pair of running shoes. Some dumbbells. I picked up slacklining and bosu ball training during the lockdown. Why does one need a "gym" ??

<comment><USER46> Because a barbell, olympic weight set, squat rack takes up half a room and costs $10k vs. a <$30 monthly gym membership.

<comment><USER54> You don't need all that equipment to work the same muscle groups. Honestly, a $45 set of resistance bands is a great buy and these haven't experienced the same supply runs that heavy, more obvious equipment has experienced.

Some great reading:

[https://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable- Traini...](https://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable- Training-2.pdf)

<comment><USER91> Resistance bands are not even close to real weights. The feel is completely different and the resistance scales in a way that is counter productive for a lot of exercises. You don't have a constant measure of strength and progressive overload is impossible. Resistance bands are already as a supplement to free weight training but you can't get the same experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> "Fancy fit", that is brutal haha. Some guy probably spent hours every week painfully doing the right mix of weightlifting, HIT and yoga to achieve that lean but muscular look popular with a certain class of women, probably thinks he looks tough and gets called "fancy". At some point I'd just embrace being fat.

</comment><comment><USER103> I see a lot of outdoor gyms in parks and what not. Outdoors is not only safer but also more pleasant. And if it rains a bit running through the rain will give an extra feat you don't find in regular gyms. Ok, kidding about the rain but I prefer doing my workouts outside the gym when the weather permits. Calistenics aka exercises with the weight of your body are quite efficient and don't make one look like an ogre

<comment><USER104> >Outdoors is not only safer but also more pleasant.

Speak for yourself. I live in a hot and humid place and exercising outside is incredibly unpleasant. It's 10 times worse if you're standing in direct sunlight.

>Calistenics aka exercises with the weight of your body are quite efficient and don't make one look like an ogre

What if I want to look like an ogre?

<comment><USER103> You're an exception and you are more than welcome to join a secret gym. I was just pointing out to others that outdoors is a good option for exercising, at least during the summer. If you want to look like an ogre you probably don't want to be seen outdoors anyways.

<comment><USER105> i find ogres attractive, maybe don't shame people for having different preferences from you?

<comment><USER103> People are free to do whatever they want and look however they want, I agree with that. I am not shaming anyone for striving to look like an ogre, it's their preference but I still think it is an unhealthy thing to do to your body and a fad. I have 2 friends who bulk up and are actually in a very bad shape mobility wise, their arms are so big that they can't reach arms behind their backs and stuff like that. Plus that they can lift big weights but don't have much endurance and tire easily.

Sure, adding a bit of shape to your body is not a bad thing but exaggerating it doesn't lead to good outcomes

<comment><USER104> You seem to have some pretty fundamental misunderstandings about strength training. Even very intense programs can be undertaken without turning into an immobile blob of muscle. Strength is gained not only through hypertrophy but also through neurological changes, particularly those related to motor unit recruitment. Technique is also critical and fixing flaws there can lead to large improvements.

>I have 2 friends who bulk up and are actually in a very bad shape mobility wise, their arms are so big that they can't reach arms behind their backs

Bodybuilding is only one type of strength training. Furthermore, the primary goal of bodybuilding is aesthetics, not necessarily strength. That's not to say that they're not strong, but there's a reason why body building competitions will involve flexing in front of the judges while olympic lifting competitions won't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> A lot of this fretting seems to come down to people who are bodybuilder types.

You don't need to be in a commercial gym to maintain solid functional fitness.

You might need to be in a commercial gym to maintain unnatural levels of muscle mass and body weight for bodybuilding & powerlifting. Even that stuff can still be done in a home gym setting though given an equipment budget.

This is not a health argument, it's not even proven bodybuilding is healthy.. excess mass from body building & powerlifting tends to have negative effects later in life due to the metabolic strain of the extra weight.

Just deal with the idea you can stay super fit but you might not weigh as much.

Gymnasts, rock climbers, etc.. are all ultra elite strength athletes that get by largely with bodyweight exercise & minimal equipment. They just don't have abnormally high body mass.

Outside of these arguments of "I'm too big and strong to get enough home equipment to keep my gains Bro!" it mostly seems to come down to narcissism.. desire to be seen in the gym and to socialize in the gym. If that's such an important part of being in the gym it's no different than not being able to handle avoiding bars.

You can still have a training partner for spotting... just make sure it's the same training partner and you both keep good behavior outside of workouts and it'll be pretty safe.

</comment><comment><USER86> I don't get it. Unless you're training for a very specific purpose (like an MMA fight or football season), why do you need specific indoor gym equipment? Shelter in place orders are largely lifted, so you can workout outside: run, do pull ups on a tree branch, ride a bike, lift a heavy stone, do an outdoor yoga class, etc. Hell, you only need maybe a 6' x 6' area for a perfectly effective body weight routine, even inside.

I get that some of this can be related to body dysmorphia, but that's probably a tiny corner case. Is it the thrill of doing something "illegal"/dangerous? Is it more denial about the impact of COVID? Hustlers trying to capitalize on a crisis?

Edit: based on some of the replies, it looks like it boils down to a sense of entitlement: people wanting to stick to their routines without a care of putting others at risk.

<comment><USER107> "Lift a heavy stone"? That's a joke, right?

Barbells and dumbbells are appropriately ergonomic (handles, balance, etc.) and won't ruin your back if you use proper technique. Lifting a heavy stone is a recipe for injuring yourself _severely_.

People need specific indoor gym equipment if they lift, which is a very valid form of exercise. Or, you know, if it's raining or thunderstorming or a humid 100°F outside.

And bodyweight exercises only get you so far, even if you're doing one-handed or one-legged versions.

You can't just dismiss the fitness routines people have spent years choosing and refining and getting better at. The fact that you seriously suggest lifting a heavy stone demonstrates you don't seem to know much about safe fitness at all.

<comment><USER86> _You can 't just dismiss the fitness routines people have spent years choosing and refining and getting better at. That's incredibly arrogant._

More arrogant than putting other lives at risk because you can't put your routine on hold, or alter it for a bit? No. It isn't.

 _" Lift a heavy stone"? That's a joke, right?_

No, and it's part of strongman competitions. It's not dangerous if you have the right form and don't overdo it. Same as dumbbells & barbells.

<comment><USER108> "More arrogant than putting other lives at risk because you can't put your routine on hold for a bit? No. It isn't."

This is the part I'm confused about. If gyms were open, people who's lives were at risk still wouldn't go to the gym. Only people who didn't care would go. They are consenting to the risk that would inherently come with it. It isn't the type of place that at risk people HAVE to go, so why shouldn't we open it for people that are fine with the consequences? Also, restaurants are all completely open for dine-in in many of the places that gyms have yet to open. How does that make any sense? No one magically stops breathing for the hour+ they're in the restaurant.

I think quarantine should be down to the individual and the rules they'd like to implement on their private property (including their business), but you've probably already gotten that by now.

<comment><USER109> >I think quarantine should be down to the individual and the rules they'd like to implement on their private property

Too bad most people leave their private property and interact with people in public spaces where their personal rules are moot.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What gadgets you didn't think of but found you could not leave without? - <AUTHOR> There are often gadgets we think are too pricey,  or maybe we thought the idea is just too silly to get, or we thought it was useless. But when we got it, found out that it actually changed everything. What was that gadget for you?
For me, there was two.
First is the Google Chromecast. I didn't think it would all that useful, but this $35 gadget changed the way I watch YouTube, Netflix, HBO Go, downloaded movies, listen to music through my TV!
The other is my Fitbit. Measuring the quality of sleep I get and also my average heart rate and the daily steps I get has been life-changing.
What's yours? <comment><USER2> Might be a stretch to say that it changed everything but my wife getting a Fitbit that displayed calls and texts reduced my frustration levels somewhat. My wife tends to keep her phone in the bottom of her bag and would often miss calls. Hardly ever happens now.

There is an irony here though. I have known my wife for nearly 30 years and for much of the earlier years we lived 100s to 1000s of miles apart. Any form of phone contact needed pre-planning. Textual contact required a stamp. Pretty much frustration free (well from a communication pov anyway).

So Fitbit was technology solving a problem that technology caused in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty much in the order that I acquired and used them:

MIG wire welder. (this saved weeks of labor building custom cars)

Duct tape. (yeah)

My first Mac computer. (A Mac Plus, it was truly an amazing and sucky computer and I learned an immense amount about computing using it.)

The Suzuki Samurai. (Best little 4x4 ever made.)

Recordable CD-ROM. (My first app ran on a CD-ROM.)

Mac OS X (I coded my very first web app on the very first beta version I could get my paws on.)

Netscape Navigator (It too was an amazing and sucky bit of tech.)

Digital Camera (Everyone should put that on their list.)

Cell Phones.

Handheld GPS with Topo Maps (My first was a Garmin eMap. More than anything these increased my confidence in "bushwhacking off trail in the wilderness by confirming I knew where I was. As a result I was able to go further and now I don't worry or think much about it and go wherever I want using a printed topo map. I still bring a GPS but rarely turn it on.)

Super bright LED headlamp (These made a huge difference in my ability to hike at night.)

Linux. (This (and the price) is why I won't be buying another Mac computer.)

A "Supercat" cook stove for backpacking. I shelved several expensive backpacking stoves when I found this.

Raspberry Pi. (I've learned more about using Linux mucking around with these than I ever thought I would or could. I have one on my desk connected to a USB switch and a monitor so I can switch between it and my Mac for work and I will be bringing one with me on a trip this week to use as a portable desktop PC to keep up with things.)

iPhone.

LED monitors and TVs.

Roku (this has saved me a few thousand bucks since I got one. I was able to ditch Dish and DirectTV after years of expensive and crappy service and DirectTV flat out trying to steal from me.)

</comment><comment><USER4> \- An usb-fan: It's quite silent, I can cool my hands and torso and I don't dry out my eyes.

\- A 200€ projector. It's all I need to watch on a big "screen" (given the sun has set) and so much better than I expected.

\- a battery pack (just so great when you forgot to charge your phone or need to teether internet to your laptop)

\- Measuring my room and fine-tuning an equalizer to it (mic + [http://www.roomeqwizard.com/](http://www.roomeqwizard.com/) \+ [https://sourceforge.net/projects/equalizerapo/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/equalizerapo/) ) I'm a nerd, ok, but everybody hears the difference. Base becomes dry instead of being mushy.

\- a 30€ bluetooth speaker to listen to articles saved to pocket read by Ivona text-to-speach (you need to find some old apk for that) while doing the household or in the park.

\- knifes: an opinel for in the bag and a cheap, but professional big knife for the kitchen (you can sharpen both sufficiently on the base of a ceramic plate, if not glazed there)

The rest is as expected: smartphone, headphones, speakers, laptop and chair. Most in the value sweet-spot of the upper middleclass (speakers above, but they also don't age).

I always did a lot of research before I bought any of these. I can name you the exact models if you ask.

</comment><comment><USER5> \- Instant Pot: I cook almost everything in it.

\- Google Chromecast: I use it daily for YouTube, Netflix and Spotify.

\- Kinesis Advantage: Typing on any other keyboard drives me insane.

<comment><USER6> I have an instant pot and have only used it once :(

Any ideas on recipes or good things to make that aren't just soup of some kind?

<comment><USER5> \- Steamed broccoli

\- Chili

\- Pot roast

\- Carnitas

\- Chicken stock

\- Creme fraiche

\- Whole chicken (from frozen)

\- Hard boiled eggs

\- Mussels

\- Ribs

\- Rice

\- Pulled pork

\- Butter chicken

Almost anything that doesn't require dry heat (baking) or a very high heat (steak) can be done in the Instant Pot.

<comment><USER6> I'll have to look into these!

It seems like a great way to prepare food. I just haven't found something simple enough to start with I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is Amazon Prime a "gadget"? Being able to not think about delivery speed or shipping costs is such a relief for me. I can pretty much order things as I need them instead of having to plan around going to a store or ordering a week+ ahead of time.

<comment><AUTHOR> That counts! Love it too, and all the other things that come with it like Amazon Music which is actually great!</comment></comment>


What Is a Sustainable Path to Open Access? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sigplan.org/2020/01/14/what-is-a-sustainable-path-to-open-access/ <comment><USER2> "Cows make milk. They milk themselves. Other cows check the milk (for free). Cows - get this - PAY THE FARMER to take the milk away. Then the farmer (you won't believe this, honestly) sells the milk _back to the cows_. Sometimes the farmer lets the cow drink a tiny bit of its own milk. The farmer calls it 'longstanding commitment to Open Access'."

[https://www.ned-potter.com/blog/how-to-explain-academic- publ...](https://www.ned-potter.com/blog/how-to-explain-academic-publishing- to-a-five-year-old)

I have a rough upper bound on the costs of collecting, hosting, distributing, archiving, and indexing academic papers across the world: arXiv.

The publishers provide no real value to the publishing process except their prestigious conference and/or journal names and the conference events themselves. The latter should be decoupled from the publishing process (and they charge through the nose for conference attendance, anyway).

<comment><USER3> Yes. All of this is based on a completely outdated publishing model. Because back in the day, publishing scientific results in a distributable medium actually required a dedicated industry (typesetting, printing, distributing). Nowadays this has become completely obsolete thanks to the internet and digital documents.

Reputation of journals exists only so that cheap metrics can be calculated. This way the funding bodies do not actually have to read the papers, but can simply judge them by a summary statistic. But plenty of times it is only a crude approximation of the value of scientific work.

<comment><USER4> > publishing scientific results actually required a dedicated industry > (typesetting, printing, distributing)

I'd say that many scholars still want that dedicated industry. Everyone appreciates having a proofreader and editor who is trained in the subject, but now working full-time professionally in editing services, so that this burden doesn't fall on actual scholars who are already overworked. And in many fields high-quality typesetting is still appreciated (and a quick visual way to distinguish reputable publications from less reputable ones).

The complaint is that mercenary publishers like Springer and Elsevier aren't even providing that industry any more. They no longer provide proofreading, cutglass typesetting, and all the other benefits which, once upon a time, they used to convince learned societies to hand the running of the journals over to them. Instead, the big publishers put all the grunt work onto the scholarly community and they simply expect authors to simply provide a camera-ready .doc or PDF for publication. These for-profit publishers simply collect charges without providing any value.

<comment><USER5> > they simply expect authors to simply provide a camera-ready .doc or PDF for > publication.

^This: the research, writing and editorial work is provided to the academic publisher at no cost. The publisher prints paper copies which they sell at outrageous markup, and usually hosts the PDFs behind an obnoxious paywall (again with outrageous markup over the hosting, indexing, and distribution costs.)

> These for-profit publishers simply collect charges without providing any > value.

For-profit academic publishers often provide negative value by making publications harder to access by polluting search results with links to their paywalls vs. links to author sites and free digital libraries like arXiv or sci-hub, and doing their best to shut down the latter.

This is harmful to authors and readers alike.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If it is the hosting cost that is the factor here then aren't there quite good distributed options (Bittorrent, Dat, IPFS) out here nowadays that would simply leave hosting up to who ever wanted to store the paper. Then all you need is a frontend for the hosting. Arxiv or whatever could serve that nicely. After that you can include these in whatever journal you want.

Sorry maybe I am missing something. I've never really felt like I understand scientific publishing, neither the traditional journal model or the Arxiv model.

</comment><comment><USER5> > the calculations of the "cost" that is proposed to mutualise seem to include > much more than the publication process alone

This is the basic problem. Publication charges should pay for publication and no more; they should not be a slush fund for the rest of ACM.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am extremely disappointed that ACM opposes open access for federally funded research.

Sorry, ACM - taxpayers paid for the research, and the authors and editors provided the camera-ready copy to you at no cost.</comment>


The Innovation of Loneliness - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Bkr_udado

<comment><USER2> "If we are not able to be alone, we will only know ... how to be lonely."

This counter-intuitive conclusion might be the most important statement in this video. It is not so much about technology being bad or social networks eroding our real connections to other human beings, but much more about losing the ability to be silent, thoughtful and ... well just be alone sometimes.

edit: typo</comment>


ChartSQL: Create Charts and Dashboards from SQL - <AUTHOR> http://fnordmetric.io/chartsql/ <comment><USER2> Chart.io et al are awesome. But all of them are extremely expensive. Chart.io for example starts at $1000 per month and periscope.io starts at $300 per month.

It is frankly not very affordable for a bootstrapped startup.

My questions are how easy is it to host this thing. (It would be perfect if someone makes a deploy to heroku button so that we can just do this in one click)

<comment><USER3> That's because it's targeted at the Enterprise, where it's not uncommon to pay $100-$200k in yearly licensing for comparable software.

<comment><USER4> That doesn't make it right.

<comment><USER5> How does that make it wrong? Obviously people are willing to pay that much for those solutions, otherwise they would lower their prices.

<comment><USER6> If you're in the GNU/free software camp, it's wrong to charge for closed- source software. Perhaps that's what your OP ment?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guess I am a bit dense here, this imports CSV files as a table and then adds a SQLish 'CHART' command ?

I'm guessing it is for automating Excel or another spreadsheet? I'm not seeing the whole tool chain and I'm wondering why this isn't built into an RRD of some sort rather than the middleware step of CSV files.

<comment><AUTHOR> FnordMetric allows you to query data from a number of sources. CSV Files are one of them, but there are other backends like MySQL and the built-in statsd server. So ideally there is no "middleware step": you generate charts using only sql from your backend data source in a single step.

<comment><USER2> There really is no documentation on how to use your own database as a data source.

Am I misunderstanding what FnordMetric is meant to do? Is it meant to allow me to generate charts from my existing postgres database or is it something where I have to feed data into it?

<comment><USER8> I too am wondering this. This tool would be great if it could directly use data from my own databases. But it seems data has to be imported first:

[http://fnordmetric.io/documentation/chartsql/external_data_s...](http://fnordmetric.io/documentation/chartsql/external_data_sources/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think we need to improve the wording in the documentation. The IMPORT statement only creates a "virtual table", it doesn't actually import any data. As much of the query as possible is pushed down into MySQL/the external data source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This may be a good place to ask this question -- We are a small startup that has its data in MySQL database and google analytics. We are now focusing a lot more on our marketing/advertising efforts, and would love to have a dashboard on a big screen that can collect, show, and update this data everyday (or better still, real-time). What do people use for something like this?

<comment><USER10> At InternMatch.com, we use Geckoboard - it pings our Rails app periodically for stats. Our Rails app uses this gem to expose endpoints to Geckoboard: [https://github.com/ejdraper/chameleon](https://github.com/ejdraper/chameleon)

We do a bunch of other cool stuff too for stats. I'd be happy to help you if you ping me :)

<comment><USER9> Thank you! I'll definitely have to ping you in a day or two. BTW, Geckoboard seems to have most integrations that we would need. I'm wondering if you used any of them and if you'll say that the integration was very straight forward or if it needed to be told a lot to be useful

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is pretty amazing. My team just started using Chart.io because we couldn't find an easy way to turn data in our relational database into charts. Chart.io is pretty great, but there are several other very expensive BI tools that don't offer much more value than this tool provides. Great job.

</comment><comment><USER12> Another project that tries to achieve something similar is Redash [https://github.com/EverythingMe/redash](https://github.com/EverythingMe/redash)

<comment><USER2> This is awesome and does almost everything I need.

The only thing on my wish list is the ability to embed charts. (So that I can generate charts here and embed the chart into admin dashboards)

Thanks for sharing this

<comment><USER13> (I'm re:dash project maintainer/creator)

Embedding is something that we want to add, although currently not a priority for us internally. You can follow #320 [1] for updates and details on when it will be implemented.

Also, if you just want to try re:dash out there is a Vagrant box [2] and GCE/AWS images [3].

You can always ping me for help or details, either through the mailing list, GitHub Issues, Gitter or just by email (arik at arikfr dot com).

[1] [https://github.com/EverythingMe/redash/issues/320](https://github.com/EverythingMe/redash/issues/320) [2] [https://vagrantcloud.com/redash/boxes/demo](https://vagrantcloud.com/redash/boxes/demo) [3] [https://github.com/EverythingMe/redash/wiki/Setting-up- re:da...](https://github.com/EverythingMe/redash/wiki/Setting-up-re:dash- instance)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is pretty cool! For anyone interested in a paid solution, I saw a demo by [http://www.looker.com/](http://www.looker.com/) at AWS re:Invent. It connects to your database (can be run on premises), can generate the required SQL so analysts can easily use it and looks like a very cool service for business intelligence. The person I spoke with said they were planning to open source their customized d3 visualizations.

</comment><comment><USER15> As someone who built a dashboard app, I tip my hat: this is a very powerful new feature.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is rather amazing. I applaud the idea of extending SQL for this, but honestly how hard is it to implement the middleware?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually fairly straightforward, you can check out the code here: [https://github.com/paulasmuth/fnordmetric/tree/master/fnordm...](https://github.com/paulasmuth/fnordmetric/tree/master/fnordmetric- core/src/sql_extensions)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Any reason for the selection of GPL3 for the license?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, actually: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not- lgpl.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Forena[1] is a Drupal module that has the following features:

1\. Connect to any relational database with a PDO supported database (SQLite, MySQL, MS SQL, etc). 2\. Write SQL to create tabular reports or charts in SVG

This is not a solution for everyone but works well for me because I use Drupal to store meta data about the reports and graphs I created using Forena

Yes I am aware of the recent security issues with Drupal.

[1][https://www.drupal.org/project/forena](https://www.drupal.org/project/forena)

</comment><comment><USER19> This looks neat. I'm curious to hear about the reasons for "competing" with Graphite / Statsd. What's the main motivation? and what makes fonrdmetric better than those alternatives?

(I personally find the composable graphite functions quite powerful and in some ways more accessible than SQL, but perhaps it's just because I'm used to it by now).

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks great but I can't get it to pass tests from a fairly vanilla Ubuntu machine. The errors aren't really informative.

'fnordmetric-core/build/cmake/stage/src/fnordmetric/util/datetime.h:85:24: error: specialization of 'template<class _Tp> struct std::numeric_limits' in different namespace [-fpermissive]'

<comment><AUTHOR> That should be fixed if you pull the latest master branch from github. We'll provide binary packages for apt-get and homebrew in the next weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting idea.

Sort of related:

plot.ly:

[http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2013/07/plotly-now-has- api.html](http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2013/07/plotly-now-has-api.html)

and Domino:

[http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2014/02/domino-python-paas-now- has...](http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2014/02/domino-python-paas-now-has-free- plan.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> Alternatively you can use Google Apps Script to pull SQL data into a Google Sheet, where you can manipulate the data and generate charts etc. [https://developers.google.com/apps- script/guides/jdbc](https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/jdbc)

</comment><comment><USER23> Looks like a tool I need. Unfortunately, it looks like the MySQL backend is more a promise than reality.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is a working example: [https://github.com/paulasmuth/fnordmetric/blob/master/fnordm...](https://github.com/paulasmuth/fnordmetric/blob/master/fnordmetric- doc/examples/queries/mysql_backend.sql)

And a few bits of documentation here [http://fnordmetric.io/documentation/chartsql/external_data_s...](http://fnordmetric.io/documentation/chartsql/external_data_sources/)

<comment><USER23> ./build/cmake/target/fnordmetric-server --http_port 8080 --storage_backend mysql [ERROR] unknown backend type: mysql

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does this allow Joins and Subqueries?

<comment><USER25> That's what I was wondering. Hard to tell from this: [http://fnordmetric.io/documentation/chartsql/syntax_referenc...](http://fnordmetric.io/documentation/chartsql/syntax_reference/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> We use and love [https://www.cloud9charts.com](https://www.cloud9charts.com). They support various databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and pricing is very affordable (they even have a free plan to get started).

<comment><USER27> Thanks for the love!

To plug in queries and visualize data, our database specific pages might be worth a look. Example: [https://www.cloud9charts.com/mysql](https://www.cloud9charts.com/mysql)

fnordmetric.io looks cool. Nice work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I see you are familiar with some dynamic languages such as javascript and ruby. How much more effort do you think it was to create this app in modern C++ instead of something like ruby?

</comment><comment><USER29> Eris is strong in this one.

</comment><comment><USER30> Amazing work.</comment>


Interactive Timeline of Twilio's Road to IPO - <AUTHOR> http://blog.datafox.com/an-interactive-timeline-of-twilios-road-to-ipo/ <comment><USER2> Awesomesauce</comment>


Ask HN: being offered stocks, how to estimate value? - <AUTHOR>

I am consulting local start up on some specific technical issues. I am charging quite a lot to do more work on this start up, so I was offered stocks as a part of payment. But I have no idea how to evaluate this offer. Any tips on what I should look for and what I should base my numbers on? <comment><USER2> Is the company publicly traded?

YES: Google can tell you; NO: $0.

If you get equity from a startup, your expected value is nil, or near enough to be without distinction. Either the equity is utterly dilute, or the founders are incompetent. Neither case looks like getting paid to me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ask how long it will take them to actually get you your stock certificate, should you accept. Doing anything stock related with a startup is can of worms - things always get delayed due to board meetings, valuations, fund raising, etc. These things all leave the door open to you, one way or another, not getting your stock. I'd definitely ask them about this. The answer will give you a preview of what the process of collecting your stock will be like.

</comment><comment><USER4> Two answers, first, the cynical:

Keep in mind that equity reflects possibilites, specially in startups. I would say that most of the value of a startup are just changes of succeeding. Read: How much does a lottery ticket is valued?

Second, more useful:

You need choose a target P/E ration, and calculate. PE == Share_value / Earnings_per_share.

30 is a reasonable target. The problem is, in tech you can get P/Es around 200-300 (which is stupid).

</comment><comment><USER5> You should really try to get cash if you can. The value of any stock the give you will be highly volatile and very illiquid. The only way you could try to value the equity would be to look at what other investors paid for their equity, also you could try to actually look at their books.

But really, there is no reasonable way for you to value their offer. I would take cash and possibly offer a payment plan instead.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm a consultant as well. I never take stock or equity as payment; cash only. Look at it this way: if the company's so cash-poor that they can't afford to pay for work, what are the odds their stock/equity will ever be worth anything?

<comment><USER7> This argument is valid except in a few exceptions, but the exceptions are so extreme that they make it dangerous to generalize.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/technology/for-founders- to...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/technology/for-founders-to- decorators-facebook-riches.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

<comment><USER8> It might be easier to generalize by kind of work. Unpaid engineers is a very bad sign.</comment></comment></comment>


Water Taxi in Minnesota's Northwest Angle - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911349835/water-taxi-helps-walleye-enthusiasts-reach-resorts-economically-hit-by-pandemic <comment><AUTHOR> Thought this was interesting since the article about the northwest angle was on the front page yesterday and I heard this on the radio this morning.</comment>


Thoughts on free will: We are all functions - <AUTHOR> http://www.feross.org/thoughts-on-free-will/

<comment><USER2> This is the age-old philosophical discussion on whether free will exists or whether it is just an illusion (the so-called free-will vs. determinism debate). The main argument against free will is that our actions are directly determined by the state of our brain, and that since we don't have complete access/control to our brains, we don't really have free will.

Yes, perhaps. But I do not think that this implies that we do not have any free will, but rather that our choices may be influenced by processes that are oblivious or transparent to our minds. Take the simple choice of picking an arbitrary 5-digit number. It's likely that most people will say the first digits that come to mind as an answer. I certainly did. These numbers may have popped in mind as a consequence of their current brain state. But the thing to remember is that a person still has the choice to purposefully alter or re- consider their response. They are not forced to simply choose what first comes to mind. In other words, they can choose whatever number that they want.

So yes, while we may not have total free will -- and there is experimental evidence to support this -- I don't think that we absolutely and positively have no free will either. The truth, I think, is somewhere in between.</comment>


Richard Branson - It's time to end the failed war on drugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9031855/Its-time-to-end-the-failed-war-on-drugs.html

<comment><USER2> On the one hand I don't understand how this guy can be considered an expert on the subject. On the other hand, legalizing drug use is not a panacea, just a tiny step in a better direction, as the data shows.

<comment><AUTHOR> If only politics was data-driven...

This study ranked alcohol as the fifth most harmful drug, behind heroin, cocaine, barbiturates, and street methadone, and yet it is not included in the 'war on drugs': [http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673...](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607604644/abstract)

See <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6474053.stm> for a second hand report.</comment></comment>