Oreos May Be As Addictive As Cocaine - <AUTHOR> http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/16/oreos-may-be-as-addictive-as-cocaine/

<comment><USER2> There is no peer review here. There isn't even an article. There is just a poster someone is going to present at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in a month [1] and a press release with a ridiculous headline. To put things in perspective, there are approximately 10,000 posters at SfN, and a large proportion of them never lead to a published paper.

[1] "Nucleus accumbens C-Fos expression is correlated with conditioned place preference to cocaine, morphine and high fat/sugar food consumption" [http://www.abstractsonline.com/Plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?sKey=2...](http://www.abstractsonline.com/Plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?sKey=20f88330-614a-445a-9037-4471e59c1d45&cKey=8e1870d1-fb19-4826-9571-b970acd6c869&mKey={8D2A5BEC-4825-4CD6-9439-B42BB151D1CF}) for the abstract, although this link will probably break

</comment><comment><USER3> "New study confirms Oreos are basically the cookie form of cocaine" is misleading (and not the original title "Oreos May Be As Addictive As Cocaine")

Anyway, the comparisons performed in the quoted study: preference over plain rice and amount of time spent in Oreo region (vs Morphine/Cocaine etc) seems a shaky correlation at best. Does addictiveness necessarily require withdrawal symptoms? If yes, the study seems to lack it any mention of it [1].

[1] [http://www.conncoll.edu/news/news-archive/2013/student- facul...](http://www.conncoll.edu/news/news-archive/2013/student-faculty- research-shows-oreos-are-just-as-addictive-as-drugs-in-lab- rats-.htm#.Ul94MWQ0Ah3)

</comment><comment><USER4> There have been plenty of studies that link salty, fatty foods to brain activity (highs) similar to addicts. Anecdotal explanations usually trend around our brains rewarding us for finding and gorging on life sustaining calories as a leftover attribute from earlier humans who lived when food was scarce.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd be interested in a follow-up with oreos pitted against cocaine/morphine/etc. It's believable sugar would be more attractive and great to have supporting data but I'm not sure this substantiates oreos equalling cocaine.

<comment><USER6> You should read the "Rat Park" experiment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> See this awesome comic for an explanation:

[http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat- park/](http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Lab rats routinely pick sugar over cocaine. Nothing to see here.

</comment><comment><USER9> A better way to phrase that experimental result would have been "Cocaine And Heroin No More Addictive Than Oreos".

</comment><comment><USER10> Where's the hack?</comment>


The Board reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective March 26 - <AUTHOR> https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm <comment><USER3> With the caveat that I'm by no means an economist...

The table at the bottom puts this in context: reserve requirements, which have never been reduced by more than $2 billion across the economy in any year prior, are suddenly reduced by $200 billion - the entire regulatory program seems to have been unwound.

Presumably this will give late banks desperately needed liquidity and ability to lend, but it also increases systemic risk. Desperate times these are indeed, but this is an unprecedented measure.

<comment><USER4> It's completely insane that they describe this in linear terms. The effects of reducing the reserve requirement is inverse-linear with respect to the ratio. Since the money multiplier is 1/r, reducing the reserve requirement to 0 means that any dollar has an unbounded limit as to how far it can be re-lent. That is quite literally infinitely more unprecedented than a 100x bigger dislodging of the "reduction in the reserve requirement".

<comment><USER5> The reserve requirement limit is purely theoretical anyway, since the Fed is obliged to pump more reserves into the system to maintain its interest rate targets when commercial banks [net] lend in excess of their current reserves anyway. The UK hasn't had a reserve requirement since 1981.

<comment><USER6> > _UK hasn 't had a reserve requirement since 1981_

Capital requirements remain in place, for both British and American banks. (As remain reserve requirements for most assets at American banks.)

<comment><USER5> Agreed (I nearly mentioned it in the original post), and stricter capital requirements now than for much of the period since 1981. (Capital requirements don't _entirely_ restrict the capability of the commercial banking sector to expand the money supply either, but they do require undercapitalised banks to raise more equity funding or similar if they want to continue to expand their loan portfolio)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yikes, this is kind of scary. This could magnify the losses dramatically as lenders start to implode due to the cascade of defaults. If anything, they should increase the reserve requirements to prevent instability and encourage a flight from risky assets. Yes, this will make the stocks go down now, but it would probably result in fewer people getting laid off and going broke in the future.

I'd rather see highly leveraged companies go under quickly, rather than postponing it. A small bang now is less bad than a massive explosion later.

<comment><USER8> In other words we, as a country, would be rise to rip the bandaid off. Instead, we're slowly tugging at the edges. This is going to be a long, and drawn out recovery. I hope everyone followed the general consensus and has their retirement properly adjusted to their risk tolerance. This recovery is probably going to take years, from the time we get the economy restarted.

<comment><USER9> We are following Japan's path to stagnation.

<comment><USER10> What other way is there? Japan and Europe is a preview, but there are few paths available as your structural demographics change and your economy tilts towards services instead of manufacturing.

Civilization matures, the foundational economics change, this is the result. Past performance does not guarantee future returns [1]. We can't rip the bandaid off because there are still too many people desperately clinging to a model of growth and wealth that is running out of runway. The bandaid will be ripped off for us. How many of those over 55 are likely to keep their jobs through this economic contraction [2] [3]? 48% of those folks (55 years old and older) in the US have _zero_ retirement savings [4], and will rely entirely on Social Security (which will exhaust its trust fund in 2035 [5], reducing benefits to 75%; Social Security keeps 15 million seniors out of poverty at current entitlement levels [6], not to mention over 1 million children). 10k people a day turn 65 in the US. This, fortunately, entitles them to Medicare, but their consumption pattern will be reduced for the remainder of their lives and our Medicare costs are going to skyrocket.

You need leadership, political and monetary, that will attempt bold changes to accommodate these realities. The longer we wait, the more radical the measures will need to be when the time for implementation is at hand. Change happens slowly, and then all of a sudden.

[1] [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/700-year-decline-of- interes...](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/700-year-decline-of-interest- rates/)

[2] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2017/03/30/disabled-o...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2017/03/30/disabled- or-just-desperate/)

[3] [https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/](https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for- work/)

[4] [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/these-people-are-on-the- verg...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/these-people-are-on-the-verge-of- retiring-and-they-have-nothing-saved.html)

[5] [https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/policy- basics-...](https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/policy-basics- understanding-the-social-security-trust-funds)

[6] [https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social- securit...](https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-security- lifts-more-americans-above-poverty-than-any-other-program)

<comment><USER8> We, the national we, need to have hard conversations about what changes must occur to balance the needs of all with our ability to provide. This obviously means some people will see reductions, others will see increases. The net result is overall more equitable society. The longer we delay the more hardship we all will have to endure. The mere fact that we have gone decades kicking cans is evidence of a deeply broken society without foresight and without leadership. I am not saying we do not have foresight or leaders, merely that our government is failing to foresee and lead.

These changes should have happened decades ago. Every day we delay is another day picking the edges of the bandaid while the wound beneath is septic.

I can suggest my ignorant idealsof potential solutions and delve into the weeds over things but that's a waste of effort. The people have spoken, and they are saying they would rather suffer more than consider how else the country could function.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's a point where: 1)traditional policy tools are ineffective because as rates get to zero, cutting them doesn't really provide any kind of incentive any more 2)interventions get more and more extreme and reach the point where they actually can increase panic rather than reduce it

It's pretty clear we're well past #1 and could be at #2.

The problem that policy-makers are facing here is the real economic impact of this crisis as unknowable but is very likely to be very large. So it's hard to incentivise lending.

For example if you're a bank in this environment it's pretty tough to have the courage to go out and lend to small businesses knowing the next few months are going to be brutal for their cashflow. The fed is going to have some difficulty convincing them to lend even in the presence of a zero reserve requirement ratio given that those banks will look at very serious potential writedowns on their loans in any downside scenario.

<comment><USER6> > _we 're well past #1 and could be at #2_

No we aren't. The discount window, central banks' original and most-powerful tool, was _only just_ accessed by big banks [1].

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/u-s- banki...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/u-s-banking- giants-tap-fed-s-discount-window-to-ease-stigma)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Fed has been obsessed with liquidity since this crisis has hit. From a high level, I understand why but this coupled with the repo market issues we've been having on and off for the past six months or so, the mortgage markets gumming up (avg 30Y mortgage rate went _up_ after the Fed cut rates), potential strain on dollars in the currency markets (lots of demand from foreign countries, no supply? Unsure about this one) make me think that something else is afoot that we're missing here.

Of course it could be as they say, and there are a bunch of overlevered businesses that need cheap capital or they'll go bust and cutting interest rates and injecting liquidity is the only way to save them.

<comment><USER13> "It helps to understand that the dollar has two layers:

The first layer is central bank money (reserves) and payments are ultimately settled in reserves. Reserves can either be cash (notes) or account balances that banks have with the Fed. This first layer money never leaves the banking system and only banks with access to the Fed can have it.

The second layer is money that banks can create themselves out of thin air. When they grant you a loan they create a claim against you on the left side of their balance sheed and they create your deposits on the right side of their balance sheet.

When you wire transfer your deposits to another bank you instruct them to transfer reserves to the other bank, since that is what payments are settled with. Therefore banks can create as many loans as they want and are only limited by their ability to generate reserves.

This is where central banks come in. In order to get reserves, banks participate in Repo auctions and can get reserves against collateral. It used to be that collateral needed to be really good, but the quality has decreased a lot lately so that the Fed even accepts CDOs or regular bank loans that they just created.

Since shadow banks (which is really just a fancy word for Asset Managers, Dealers/Brokers and SPVs or foreign banks) do not have access to the Fed, they rely on other banks that DO have access to the Fed to lend them reserves. This used to be the case in the unsecured LIBOR market overnight, and if there was any doubt that a player was not solvent, simply nobody would lend to them overnight. In order to stabilize this, the Fed was running QE in order to channel reserves into the shadow banking system by buying assets (CDOs, bonds, etc.). Nowdays, the secured Repo market has replaced the unsecured interbank market by a larger extent since the need for trust is lower.

In a crisis just like today even the interbank repo market is drying out a bit since the value of collateral in foreign markets is questioned and US banks are protecting their reserves. Therefore the Fed is jumping in to establish trust in market liquidity again by pumping reserves into the market and show their lender of last resort function (today also dealer of last resort)."

[https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/objects/58159/the- eurodoll...](https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/objects/58159/the-eurodollar- market-some-first-principles)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/fezfqi/the_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/fezfqi/the_ultimate_collapse_of_the_modern_financial/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Unintended Consequences. Wow -- this sets up all sorts of moral hazard for later. And unwinding this will be extraordinarily difficult.

<comment><USER15> No it won't. Reserve ratios are commonly modified, sometimes by a decent amount. Banks have been able to move money among accounts to effectively reduce reserve requirements nearly at will. And banks have always been able to lend past the reserve requirement, as long as they soon (after the fact) borrow to cover it, usually short term via the Fed overnight lending rate.

The average person has zero idea that this happens, but it's not going to somehow be impossible (or even hard) to undo it.

<comment><USER16> This is a major major change though. How do we know this isn't some kind of Klein-esque "Shock Doctrine" type of change to start undoing banking regulation as a whole?

<comment><USER15> Because we have models that have been tested, and we have evidence from hundred of countries for around 100 years.

Your question seems to imply that around every corner there are likely dragons. There are not. Mankind has extensive experience with central banking at this point, including this case and beyond.

There have effectively been zero reserve requirements for a long time. Go read on the difference between endogenous and exogenous money creation, and the resulting literature. Your understanding is far outdated, as the world has moved effectively to endogenous money over the past 40 years, as can be seen in the literature on the topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For net transaction accounts, _i.e._ "demand deposits, automatic transfer service (ATS) accounts, NOW accounts, share draft accounts, telephone or preauthorized transfer accounts, ineligible bankers acceptances, and obligations issued by affiliates maturing in seven days or less".

This isn't a wholesale elimination of reserve requirements.

<comment><USER17> So — checking accounts for businesses and consumers...?

This does not sound great. Can somebody clarify as to how this is a sensible move at all / what the intention is?

<comment><USER18> They are trying to keep banks liquid to avoid a panic and closure. People are already starting to pull cash.

This is a 9/11 like event, except the impacts are nationwide, not just in the NY Metro area. Companies and people are just going to stop paying bills. I'd guess you're looking at 2-4 million people out of work in the next week. The only saving grace is that this season is a low business period for retail and other sectors anyway, but they'll start dying in the summer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It would seem that the logical response to this announcement is go run the banks right now, before March 26, and before anyone on Fox and Friends thinks to mention to their viewers what this really means.

<comment><USER20> This would be my take on it as well. However, a pile of government printed paper may not be worth much anyway in a worst case scenario.

<comment><USER19> True. It might dilute right quick if the banks get to start printing it, too. I suspect the Nash equilibrium may be for them to do so with reckless abandon.

One would hope that the Fed wouldn't actually allow that to happen. But how does one re-impose reserve requirements without causing even more problems?

It's like in that one song: "And I don't know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she'll die."

On the upside, I suppose we'll now get to have an empirical test to settle that age old debate over whether the number of people allowed to print money should be one or many. Pity Bitcoin's in such a shambles, so we can't with clean conscience make it a test among zero, one and many.

<comment><USER21> Banks don't print money. They give out depositors' money to borrowers. If those depositors all demand their money back, then the FDIC covers it, so the borrowers owe the governemnt (taxpayers) money. If they pay back, crisis averted. If they don't, then it's a wealth transfer from taxpayers to the people who borrowed the money and spent it on consmption or waste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm not an economist, but it seems like the problem is a destruction of demand, so how does increasing supply help things?

<comment><USER6> > _how does increasing supply help things?_

 _Money_ supply.

If you're a company who invested in a great workforce, and is getting nuked due to demand destruction, borrowing to keep paying them is a savvy long-term bet.

If you can't borrow, you'll have to let them go. That not only creates human misery. It also destroys the human capital you carefully built.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> With most of currency being digital, this change of reserve ratio requirements has almost no effect in the way banking and economy works. Added a Wikipedia reference which has more references to empirical studies.

" Many economists and bankers now realize that the amount of money in circulation is limited only by the demand for loans, not by reserve requirements."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation#Credit_theory_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation#Credit_theory_of_money)

</comment><comment><USER24> it will be absolutely great for the economy, rocket fuel, for about 5 years. Eventually will lead to some insane fundamental that will require a bail out.

<comment><USER25> 5 years hmm, how politically convenient

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am no economist. What is being solved here? Allowing loans? Who will take out loans in the economy as it is?

I'd think a reserve at the banks is a good protection of solvency, and should be increased instead of decreased. Is my layman interpretation completely wrong? It feels like they ran out of bullets and have thrown the gun.

<comment><USER27> Typically, For every dollar a bank "keeps" in your bank account, they are allowed to loan out some fraction of the dollar. Let's say that this is usually 90 cents. The amount of cash your bank actually has on-hand is 10 cents. This process is known as fractional reserve banking. Now, with 0 reserve requirement, the bank can lend out the whole dollar.

Fractional reserve banking has produced a tremendous amount of wealth for the world over recent centuries. It encourages assets to be used in a productive manner rather than hoarded, which is essentially wasteful.

Typically, the loans get paid off to the bank over time, and the bank originates new loans to continue to make a profit. Currently, there are two systemic risks:

1\. If borrowers begin to default, the bank still must cover its expenses. Under stressful circumstances, they would normally not be allowed to draw down their reserve to meet their expenses. This change allows this. Once the economy recovers, the reserve requirements will be reimposed.

2\. It encourages banks to continue issuing new credit to borrowers. This keeps economic activity flowing and prevents a situation where borrowers have nowhere to turn to find money to keep their business afloat until profitable times return.

<comment><USER28> All of this looks good, except one statement that I'm willing to bet is false:

>Once the economy recovers, the reserve requirements will be reimposed.

I bet they aren't, until something awful happens, again.

<comment><USER27> Reserve requirements are typically made more stringent while the economy is doing well. The history of these changes by the Fed is available at the link below.

[https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm#table3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Doesn't this eliminate the protections from 2008? Will this cause a run on the banks?

<comment><USER6> > _Doesn 't this eliminate the protections from 2008?_

No, it doesn't. Broader capital requirements are still in place. This move just removes reserve requirements for certain categories of transaction accounts.

<comment><USER25> Thanks for this. Of course it stands to reason that this is a defacto reduction in capital requirements no, if reserve requirements are lowered?

<comment><USER6> > _this is a defacto reduction in capital requirements no, if reserve > requirements are lowered?_

Nope, though that's a reasonable assumption.

Reserve requirements regulate the fraction of deposits banks must hold at the central bank. Reserve requirements focus on liquidity.

Capital requirements regulate the fraction of assets banks must hold as equity (or other tiers of risk-absorbing capital). Capital reserves aren't held in a vault, and are more of an accounting fiction than reserves. Capital requirements focus on _solvency_.

Put another way, if half a bank's mortgages turn out to be shit, its total reserves won't change. It's total capital will.

So reducing reserve requirements _could_ reduce banks' capital, if the freed reserves are dumped into risk assets. Or it could leave them virtually unchanged, if the freed reserves are dumped into safer assets. Systemically, if the freed reserves support a continuation of orderly payment systems, they could _increase_ banks' capital by defending the value of their assets. (Bank balance sheets have a confusing circularity about them.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I am worried this could be a precursor to a bank run and possible wide-scale insolvency of banks.

I assume that someone will explain why I am an idiot and have no reason to worry.

</comment><comment><USER30> Probably a good step but it won't have much effect. Lending today is primarily limited by lack of credit-worthy borrowers, not by reserve requirements.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't know much about finance and I find this a bit terrifying. Are they hoping banks will buy lots of stocks or what is the rationale?

</comment><comment><USER32> Anyone know the current percentage of total U.S. deposits that are "insured" by the fdic?

</comment><comment><USER33> Should we be moving money from the banks into another value store? Gold? Investments?

<comment><USER34> That needed to be done in January to be on the upside of this

<comment><USER33> I don't mean as an investment per se, just as a more reliable store of money.

<comment><USER34> Just like anything else, diversify to reduce variance. But global catastrophes are hard to 1) see in advance and 2) do anything about because you're still buy trying to live your normal life without day to day concerns about solvency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> SO, we've summoned the monster that almost destroyed us all in 2008.

</comment><comment><USER36> I didn't expect to actually need those FDIC protections to guarantee that I'd be able to withdrw money but here we are...

</comment><comment><USER37> ELI5?

<comment><USER38> Say you have a bank account with $100 in it. At 100% reserve requirements, the bank must have that $100 actually in its possession at all times. This is very safe, because you are guaranteed to be able to withdraw your money in the event of a bank run. However, an economist might believe this is suboptimal because the $100 is just sitting there doing nothing rather than "circulating in the economy". Thus the concept of the reserve ratio is born: banks don't keep that $100 around, but instead lend a percentage of it out or do whatever weird trades they want to do to make money. This is called fractional-reserve banking.

Before this change, reserve requirements in the US were at 10% which means the bank could lend out $90. Now in general this is problematic because if everyone were to try to withdraw their money at once, the bank could not produce it. Thus we have the FDIC, which is a government program that insures bank account deposits up to $250k so people don't lose all their money if a bank run happens. A cynical way of looking at this is that taxpayers are on the hook for the bank's bad behavior if they go bust, and the lower the reserve ratio the more likely the bank is to overdo it.

Things also get really weird when other banks are in the picture. If you deposit $100 at bank A which has 10% reserve ratio, it will lend out $90 - <USER2> total money in the system is now $190. That $90 might end up deposited at bank B, which also has a 10% reserve ratio, so it lends out $81 making the total amount of money in the system $190 + $81 = $271. This process continues until it approaches the value of principal * (1 / reserve ratio), so in our case $100 * (1 / 0.1) = $1000 [0]. At 0% this means technically infinite money can be lent/created, although banks will presumably keep some percentage as reserves due to internal risk requirements (interesting assumption, I know).

Reserve requirement ratios are viewed as one of the levers the government can use to help steer the economy. Reducing the reserve requirement ratio has the effect of increasing the overall money supply, which has some nonlinear effect on the economy that the government wants to happen. This move to 0%, in addition to various other recent moves by the federal reserve, are all geared toward flooding the economy with cheap easy money to prop it up. They will all fail.

[0] [https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/67/money/money- multiplier...](https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/67/money/money-multiplier- and-reserve-ratio-in-us/)

<comment><USER39> > However, an economist might believe this is suboptimal because the $100 is > just sitting there doing nothing rather than "circulating in the economy".

A short-sighted economist, maybe. What needs to circulate is goods and services, not money. If you have $100 in the bank (or stuffed in your mattress), that means you produced stuff worth $100 more in total than what you consumed. Those extra goods are already being put to productive use. If your savings stay safely locked away and out of circulation that just means prices will be a bit lower due to the decrease in the money supply, which benefits everyone else. And when you take that saved money and spend it later _your_ prices will be a bit lower, too, which is your reward (interest) for basically letting everyone else borrow the _value_ of your money for the time you had it out of circulation.

If you can take your savings and invest them in some venture likely to provide a real return—after factoring in inflation and overhead—that would obviously be better than just stuffing the money in your mattress. However, taking money out of circulation is still better for the economy as a whole than "investing" it in something that can be expected to lose value, because that would divert goods and services away from _better_ investments. If the money supply were held constant than you could treat price inflation or deflation as indications that we need more or less targeted investment, respectively. Unfortunately that isn't the case, so we're missing a key economic signal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> One day people are going to look back to today and wonder why we have essentially given a license to print money to a privileged group of people with close to nil accountability. First to central bankers, and now to private bankers (which collect a profit from literally creating money out of thin air and lending it out). Our entire fiat monetary system really is incredibly bizarre and borderline fraudulent when you think about it in close enough detail, and yet it is still seemingly immune from mainstream criticism.

End central banking and you've single-handedly fixed systemic wealth inequality in the United States.

<comment><USER5> > End central banking and you've single-handedly fixed systemic wealth > inequality in the United States.

End central banking and San Francisco will still be full of homeless people and rich people

<comment><USER40> I doubt that the VC boom would have ever reached the heights it has without easy money policies and quantitative easing from global central banks. You would likely still have homeless people, but you would certainly have far less rich people.

<comment><USER5> Sure, we would certainly have less wealth in the absence of easy money. But we had paupers, merchants and nobility for several millennia's worth of limited quantities of precious metals being the only money, so it stretches credulity to pretend that hard money has any kind of egalitarian upside other than _levelling down_.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gmail on the iPad - <AUTHOR> http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/gmail-on-ipad.html <comment><USER2> This is my favourite part: "we're excited about the upcoming wave of tablet computers and the possibilities they bring". Upcoming wave of tablet computers - hint, hint.

How long before the first really killer Android- or Chrome OS-powered tablet? I bet it won't take nearly as long as it took to launch compelling competitors to the iPhone.

<comment><USER3> Sadly, I think it will take just as long for the rest of the industry to really catch up to Apple's new product, at which point Apple will have moved ahead again. It took more than a year for other smartphone makers to have a serious answer to the iPod, and in my opinion more than two years (with phones like the Droid and Nexus One) to bring a product to market that surpasses the iPhone in some of its own strengths, without sacrificing too much in software or hardware polish.

Why do I think the same thing will happen with the iPad? Because Apple is still among the only companies even trying to do world-class software design and world-class hardware design, and treating the two as a single product. (Others, with varying levels of success: Nintendo, Palm, Tivo, Nokia, some divisions of Microsoft.)

Tell any other computer maker that they should introduce a new operating system, or a software maker that they need to make their own hardware, and they'll look at you like you're crazy. Sure, there's a big risk of failure, but it's the only way you'll be able to innovate as radically and successfully as Apple.

And this saddens me. I think Apple products are great - my first computer was a Macintosh SE/30 in 1989, and my first programs were written in HyperCard. My parents are still happy Mac users two decades later - but I am not. I value open platforms enough to give up the many benefits of Apple's platform for the very different benefits of open source platforms. (I'm a former Debian Developer and current Mozilla employee.)

Maybe Google will start designing and making its own Chrome OS hardware someday. (They already worked closely with HTC on the design of Android phones like the Dream and Nexus One.) Maybe a hardware maker like Intel will really go all-in on a new Linux-based product. Maybe I can convince Mozilla that we need to design our own hardware platform! But until that happens, I think many aspects of our consumer products will still be trudging along in Apple's footsteps.

<comment><USER4> Very well put. I don't even know how other comapanies can overtake apple when they are constantly playing catch up. Google and others are behind in mindshare, marketshare, app installs, usability, buzz...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sigh, why do people give Google free passes on the UI left and right?

Scrolling has no momentum, there's no bounce-back, you can't select text in the email messages, you have to keep loading new messages cause they don't load nearly enough, etc etc

The fact that nobody here even brings it up says a lot about the quality of apps that Google fans accept

</comment><comment><USER6> +1 for firstname.lastname@example.com being the sample Johnny Appleseed email address used in the demo screenshot.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know why the Gmail app won't run full-screen when you launch it from the home screen? It really annoys me that so much of my iPhone's small screen is taken up by Safari instead of the app.

<comment><USER8> You can create a bookmark with the following address:

        javascript:var%20meta=document.createElement(%22meta%22);meta.name=%22apple-mobile-web-app-capable%22;meta.content=%22yes%22;document.getElementsByTagName('head')%5B0%5D.appendChild(meta);

Then you would open Safari on Gmail, select this bookmark, and then add it to your homescreen. Works on iPhone at least. I suppose iPad will work fine.

Note: on an iPhone 2G, a page set up like this loads very slowly compared to inside Safari. The iPad allegedly being much faster, it might not be a problem. You do have the issue with external links opening Safari, but with the iPhone, the difference in screen real-estate is fairly significant.

<comment><USER7> Good call! I was thinking that something like that could do it. (My default thought for that type of thing is a Greasemonkey script, which iPhone Safari doesn't support.)

Btw, an easier way is just to paste the code into the address bar.

<comment><USER8> The reason I mention a bookmark is to have it handy anytime you want to save a page to the homescreen, and because you can then create it from your Mac/PC and it can sync. Easier than typing it on an iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> On a side-note, it's interesting to observe that the screen shot shows how easy it is to organize things without Google Wave!

</comment><comment><USER10> It is remarkably similar to the native email application. However, so was the iPhone one. Just had a few much needed upgrades like the hovering menu bar.

Oh, and did I mention the threading? I could probably never switch from Gmail simply because of the threading.

<comment><USER11> This is deeply mysterious to me. My email client (Forte Agent) has done email threading for about 15 years. It's much better than Gmail's web interface for email lists in particular, because it can make them look like newsgroups. You can watch threads, ignore threads (and subsequent replies), etc.

Do other folks' desktop clients not do this?

<comment><USER12> I've never seen a mail reader other than gmail that will thread sent mail or mail from other "folders" from your inbox.

<comment><USER13> Postbox does this.

<comment><USER12> Interesting, thank you :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think Google is trying to position itself to have solid market share over mobile browsing. If you use gmail on the go instead of the Mail app, Google can give you targeted AdWords ads.

</comment><comment><USER13> Doesn't seem to be available for Google Apps email accounts yet.

</comment><comment><USER15> On the other hand, dialing out from Google Voice on the iPad seems to be completely broken.

<comment><USER16> In what way? To initiate dialing, it's just an HTTP post request. Of course, the real question is what phone you expect to ring when you're on your iPad.

(Hint: go to the mobile site instead of the desktop site. Although the Desktop site works fine on my Android tablet.)

<comment><USER15> Safari doesn't like the returned HTML and nothing happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is it just me or does that look a lot like Microsoft Entourage 2008 ?

</comment><comment><USER18> I tested this on safari, theres no scrolling

<comment><USER19> If you test it on the device that it was actually made for (which is not Safari with a hacked user agent), you'll find that scrolling works just fine.</comment></comment>


Vitamin B6 and B12 Supplements Appear to Cause Cancer in Men - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/08/b12-energy/537654/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I take a cheap men's Daily Vitamin with:

                   Amount per serving:    % Daily Value:
        Vitamin B6               3 mg               150%
        Vitamin B12            18 mcg               300%

which seems about typical for daily vitamins. The article states that: _The U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance for B6 is 1.7 milligrams per day, and for B12 it's 2.4 micrograms._

and that chances of cancer were found to be higher in men taking much higher doses:

 _Lung-cancer risk among men who took 20 milligrams of B6 daily for years was twice that of men who didn't. Among people who smoke, the effect appeared to be synergistic, with B6 usage increasing risk threefold. The risk was even worse among smokers taking B12. Using more than 55 micrograms daily appeared to almost quadruple lung-cancer risk._

</comment><comment><USER3> They suggest not taking more than 55mcg, while common store varieties are around 1000mcg.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very misleading title, and terrible article. And you can't actually read the studies, but the synopsis is far more informative then the article. And I'm guessing excessive folate is not a good thing when you have cancer cells.

EDIT: Seriously, the title is complete fraud. Is there no honest journalism?

</comment><comment><USER5> There are different forms of B6 and B12, and no actual relationship between vitamins that share the "B" name. Almost all categories invented in nutrition are bunk, and each individual molecule affects us differently.

P5P (B6) has different effects than the usual pyridoxine hcl (B6). Methylcobalamin (B12) has different effects than Cyanocobalamin (B12).

Sometimes different isomers of the same molecule affect us differently.

This study is behind a paywall, but the abstract doesn't seem to mention what forms were used. How unfortunate.

</comment><comment><USER6> > Brasky: But he deferred and said he hoped this article wouldn't be about > regulation. "I don't want to pick a fight with the vitamin industry for any > reason."

The researcher does not want an article about regulation.

Thus:

> So that falls to me.

The author of course disregards everything that an expert in his field says about the expected outcome of an article about regulation...

Why do journalists do this? Do they want scientists to begin saying "no comment" as much as politicians?

</comment><comment><USER7> Just eat enough raw/runny egg yolks [1]: "Eggs contain 0.89 micrograms of vitamin B-12 per 100 grams, or 15 percent of the daily value of 6 micrograms. Each large egg contains 0.44 micrograms of vitamin B-12, or 7 percent of the DV. This makes eggs the most concentrated source of vitamin B-12 by weight when compared to milk and chicken."

[1]: [http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/vitamin-b12-eggs-milk- chicke...](http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/vitamin-b12-eggs-milk- chicken-5518.html)

<comment><USER8> eating 14 large egg yolks per day doesn't seem feasible. this daily value seems pretty hard to reach without supplementation.

<comment><USER7> Well, I eat 4-6 and drink raw milk. I wonder how our predecessors survived without supplements... In general, the daily values are not very precise! In some cases, they are too low (vitamin C and D), and, in others, too high. It's very similar to the recommended water intake - can you imagine people not living near a stream getting 2-3 liters of water a day?

<comment><USER9> > I wonder how our predecessors survived without supplements

They survived worse. Worse health, smaller size, lower lifespan.

<comment><USER7> When you clean data from violent death, child mortality, and pandemics, our predecessors did not live much shorter lifespans!

<comment><USER9> Guess which body heals faster from a wound and epidemics, and is more likely to survive childhood: one with modern nutrition, or one with our predecessors'?

<comment><USER7> "Modern" nutrition is poor nutrition. Just because everybody's sipping on (anti-nutrient-rich) kale smoothies today, it doesn't mean that we have better nutrition. In fact, every meat has been grass-fed in the past, every fruit and vegetable - local and organic, and there're studies that plants today (even those that are local and organic) are much less nutritious than in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> goodbye lovely ZMA

<comment><USER11> I loved ZMA. It used to give me such a boost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In addition to B12, Vitamin K also increases the risk of lung cancer in smokers.

I didn't find any evidence linking B12 to cancer by itself though, only Folic Acid (B6).</comment>


The Strange Life and Mysterious Death of a Virtuoso Coder - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/strange-life-mysterious-death-of-virtuoso-coder/ <comment><AUTHOR> (Found via a friend of mine, who commented that she "knew this guy and once kicked him out of my apartment after he snorted all the medication in my bathroom cabinet." Just an interesting bit of extra context.)</comment>


Coding bootcamp uses squarespace for website - <AUTHOR>

A coding bootcamp in Toronto, Brainstation (www.brainstation.io) was recently acquired, and now has ~$10 million in funding for expansion to different cities. If you use dev tools, you can see there website was made with squarespace. This is a company that is supposed to teach you to code.<p>This is a new low for dev bootcamps... Hopeful developers - be careful what you're getting yourself into. This sets the bar to a new low. <comment><USER2> So you want a company to waste money coding a static website by hand when they could just as easily use Squarespace?

Entrepreneurship is about doing a lot with as little as possible. Groupon started as a WordPress site. That should be the goal of any MVP: if you can do it in 1 hour on WordPress or something similar that's pre-packaged, don't spend a week reinventing the wheel.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't see why hiring a developer to create yet another content management system would be money spend wisely. Wordpress/Typo3/Squarespace etc are excellent tools and give full power to the content creator (non-technical founder for example).</comment>


Poll - How many here are involved in a startup? Vote up the appropriate comment. - <AUTHOR>

Update: The options didn't come out in the order I wanted. "None of the above" came out in the wrong place, but I'm sure you all get the picture.<p>Update #2: Added another option that you should vote down in order to make this poll "Karma-neutral". <comment><USER2> Karma whoring! Unlike in Reddit, comments count for karma here. So having us vote up comments instead of the article still isn't karma-neutral. You'd need an additional "Vote this down when you vote up one of the other options" to have that.

But it's an interesting poll, so I'll vote up anyway.

<comment><USER3> Quality Karma whoring!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am in a startup full-time.

<comment><USER4> <http://www.mocospace.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry about this mess. I need to add support for polls.

<comment><USER6> It's too bad pollground isn't around to provide a poll widget for you.

<comment><USER7> Someone recently posted <http://www.submityourvote.com/> a few days ago. Seems like the same type of concept.

<comment><USER6> Interesting. Here's a link to my (now failed) poll site: <http://www.todotoh.com>

Instead of choosing an answer, you either left your own answer or joined up with a person who you agreed with. The intent was to build networks of people based on who you agreed with.

Didn't work though. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am in a startup part-time (I have a full-time job).

<comment><USER8> I'm at it part-time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> People should reply to the comments and not just upvote them so we see who is where. Otherwise, this looks a lot like a ploy for karma.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It would be nice to do a startup one day.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am actively working (part time) on a project that I intend to build a startup around, but it is not currently a startup.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have an idea for a startup.

</comment><comment><USER11> startup ?= website

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I do not want to be involved in a startup (but I enjoy reading about it).

<comment><USER12> Why?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the options in the poll (but it's a bit hard to tell now). This option was meant to see how many people visit Startup News who have no intention of doing a startup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> None of the above (reply to this comment if you want to elaborate).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Make your vote Karma-neutral, vote this down when you vote up one of the other options.

<comment><USER13> I would've upvoted this for being a hilarious hack. Then I'd need to pick another couterbalance :)</comment></comment>


Man's $1M Life Savings Stolen as Cell Number Is Hijacked - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/national-international/Mans-1M-Life-Savings-Stolen-In-Cell-Phone-Scam-509097961.html <comment><USER2> We have allowed institutions to frame this kind of fraud in the way that they prefer, but nothing was stolen from this man. A million dollars was stolen from the bank.

It is the same with "identity theft." There is no such thing. If someone takes out a loan or credit card in my name, they have taken nothing from me. I am not even involved, and the law should recognize that.

By framing it as theft from consumers, it allows the institutions which are actually responsible to avoid consequences.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you google this guy this story came out late last year...not sure why this is "news" now.

This specific story fails to mention a very important part - that the $1m was in a crypto exchange account.

They arrested the guy that stole the funds. Presumably he got it back now.

As an aside, the victim claims the $1m is 90% of his net worth and it's for his kid's education. To put it all in crypto is an...interesting decision.

<comment><USER4> Taking out loans and putting over 100% of my net worth into crypto was undoubtedly the best decision I have ever made. Keeping it there too long and losing nearly all of the profit was also the worst decision I've ever made. Funny how that works.

<comment><USER5> The quality of a decision is not determined by the resulting outcome. It is determined by how well the decision changed the likelihood of outcomes to fit what the decision maker desired.

My personal opinion would be that both decisions were of roughly equal quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If compromising a cell phone number alone is enough to steal funds, then it wasn't 2-factor authentication, it was 1-factor authentication. Unfortunately, many institutions are bad at computer security and designing authentication systems.

</comment><comment><USER7> This actually touches on a semi important issue: underpaid employees. From casinos, to fast food, to apparently carriers, people paid minimum wage just don't care enough about real issues, and rightly so IMHO. No, I don't want people's accounts to be stolen, but it is pure schadenfreude to watch this play out.

<comment><USER8> > semi important

I'd rate income inequality and poverty higher, personally.

<comment><USER9> If people are underpaid that also contributes to income inequality and poverty, no?

<comment><USER8> That was my point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why are banks liquidating such huge assets without proper ID or delay?

I guess people can't remember secrets, so you have to use something as a root of trust for password resets and so on.

Would be good if the banks realised that the available roots are all dubious and so they should require authentication on several for suspicious transactions.

Phone numbers aren't secure. Post isn't secure. Email isn't secure (and can often be rooted with the phone number---thanks shitty 2fa). Credit cards can be stolen.

But it's hard to get the phone number and the postal address and the physical debit card and the email all at once.

<comment><USER10> > But it's hard to get the phone number and the postal address and the > physical debit card and the email all at once.

Not much harder than getting the physical card plus, maybe, one of the other three. All the rest can frequently be traced from any one of the three, and sometimes the card, via the name on the card,is enough to find the rest.

<comment><USER8> I meant control of the postal address, which is quite hard. A little harder than access to the physical debit card.

Same for email and phone. Gaining control of the account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In some cases you can block withdrawals from accounts. I've done so after my information was compromised via the Equifax hack. I managed to lock things down as hard as I can and in at least one case (either Vanguard or Fidelity I forget) it will require a notarized document before any money can be removed from the account.

This story reminds me that I need to make another pass over accounts to see if I can lock things down further.

The disappointing thing is that although I was able to get a physical OTP device for my Wells Fargo account they still insist on using a telephone number backup for 2FA. There doesn't appear to be a way to disable it.

<comment><USER12> I've written about the Wells Fargo issue before, here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15562850](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15562850)

You can remove your phone number from your account to disable the security- defeating manner of how WF allows telephone 2FA to override the physical OTP 2FA.

I am still baffled that Wells Fargos effectively eliminates any security benefit of the RSA-style OTP 2FA token devices by allowing telephone/SMS authentication as an alternative at login-time. It's like they don't understand security or they don't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slightly related: the "Reply All" podcast had an episode called "The Snapchat Thief" where they discuss swim swapping, etc.

May be of interest to some of you: [https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply- all/v4he6k/130-the-snapc...](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply- all/v4he6k/130-the-snapchat-thief)

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/01/stole-24-million-but- sti...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/01/stole-24-million-but-still-cant- keep-a-friend/)

</comment><comment><USER15> No recourse eh? Magical internet beans are without mercy. Failed design unless you're an anarchist.

In a civilized society it would have been difficult to turn millions into cash, at least providing a buffer and perhaps way to get the stolen wealth back.

Bitcoin marked a potentially a dark turn; far superior technologies that respect our needs will emerge, however.

It's mind boggling that something like getting sim jacked through a major carrier no less can ruin someone's life so thoroughly, which speaks to the sad state of affairs for civilian digital security.</comment>


First flight of the Block 5 Falcon 9 - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/webcast?block5 <comment><AUTHOR> This is launching in about 13 minutes as I type this.</comment>


My run-in with unauthorised Litecoin mining on AWS - <AUTHOR> http://vertis.io/2013/12/16/unauthorised-litecoin-mining.html <comment><USER2> CPU mining of scrypt-based cryptocurrency is highly inefficient. Let's do some math.

A cc2.8xlarge is reported to mine at 85 kh/s, so 20 of them would give you 1700 kh/s. That's roughly equivalent to a couple of high-end AMD GPUs (say a couple of overclocked 290x). This hashing power gives you a little over 0.5 LTC per day. It mined for two days, so it gained a little over 1 LTC. Let's call it $40.

That's right, the idiot behind this cost the OP $3000+ for $40 profit. A smarter criminal would have spawn GPU instances on EC2.

<comment><USER3> Makes you wonder why the criminal didn't launch g2.2xlarge instances which would get 185 kH/s per instance. In fact for awhile there litecoin mining was profitable at spot prices.

[http://www.completefusion.com/profitable-litecoin-mining- on-...](http://www.completefusion.com/profitable-litecoin-mining-on-ec2/)

<comment><USER2> My guess would be ignorance. I don't think the criminal behind this knows what he is doing.

A smarter criminal would have opted for g2.2xlarge instances as well as mining for a currently more profitable coin. Granted he'd need to be careful not to leave a trail, he could essentially trade these coins for LTC and still obtain more litecoins.

<comment><USER3> An even smarter criminal would have "mined" the Ripple give away using EC2, there are still people paying for those instances as we speak so surely they would be more profitable than litecoin mining (assuming you sell them right away).

[https://www.computingforgood.org/](https://www.computingforgood.org/)

[https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4382](https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4382)

<comment><USER4> Uh, nope. I "mined" Ripple through that little project for a couple of days (using the g2 instances) and got a couple of dollars worth of Ripple back for over $100 ec2 bill (460 hours of WCG runtime).

I'll boinc on my desktop for science and goodwill but will not waste any more time on Ripple's program or indeed on Ripple itself, as brilliant as the idea is. Ripple's founders are hanging on to their 60%+ outstanding Ripples so tightly that I suspect the project will never truly get off the ground.

As much as people criticize it, I think some variation of Bitcoin's seignorage mining is the only realistic way to bootstrap a successful virtual currency, at least at this point.

<comment><USER5> Premined strategies like Ripple chose certainly aren't the road to success.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is rough luck, but getting specific servers hacked is more commonplace. In the AWS billing console [0] there is an "alert" option. It walks you through setting up the various types of alarms.

If you're hacked the most likely problem you'll get is a spike in data transfer costs. You can up the alarms to, for example, email you if the bandwidth usage goes above x (cost) over y time period.

I had a perl DOS bot get into a server, took about 2 hours to trigger the alarm. Shame I was fast asleep at the time, but the idea was there...

[0] [https://console.aws.amazon.com/billing/home](https://console.aws.amazon.com/billing/home)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think smarter usage of IAM roles would have also helped here. Keys created strictly for S3 access should not have the ability to launch new instances and so on. Limiting keys to their specific purpose is a good security practice even for dev environments.

<comment><USER8> AWS IAM supports the ability to permit or prevent specific types of instances from being started by a given key; if folks are worried about a key being used to start G2 or CG1 or any other specific instance, take a look at the instructions here: [http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/iam- polic...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/iam-policies-for- amazon-ec2.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if the author is going to be on the hook for the bill for this.

If he originally received this note from amazon, it makes me also wonder if amazon knew about the fraud while it was happening. I sense that they probably monitor the launch of many of the XXL servers more closely than others.

<comment><USER10> I had the _exact_ same thing happen to me. 2 days of 20 instances running and then amazon called me. I shut it down and revoked permissions immediately.

They did refund the money.

<comment><USER11> I just checked my EC2 page and have found $45 worth of charges from instances that I shut down weeks ago. Would it have automatically re ordered some if the bidding price dropped below a threshold? When I looked at my management console there were no EC2 instances running. This has turned out to be a very expensive experiment in LTC mining.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ugh, that sucks. Too late to help you now (but perhaps others) on your billing alerts points: check out [http://cloudability.com](http://cloudability.com) \-- alerts, analytics, prediction, suggestions, etc. Free for the most useful stuff.

</comment><comment><USER13> Another good habit to be in is never checking any kind of credentials into source control; even if it's some private personal project, just don't be tempted to check in your credentials to source control, because at some point you may find some portion of that that's useful that you import into a public project, accidentally preserving full history.

Sorry to the OP, hope that Amazon reverses those charges once you tell them what happened.

<comment><USER14> We know we shouldn't be committing password or personal key. But shit happens and it does happen very frequently, even top notched people do.

What we need is not to say "don't it", because no shit we shouldn't be doing that. instead we need defense mechanism. It would be helpful and interesting if git or hg has a plugin that detects when some credentials is leaking through and warn users "hey you better check this shit out" before doing a real commit.

The other thing is "don't commit key into a private repository". Don't chef and puppet users usually do that? How are people backing up their keys?

<comment><USER15> For rails, the Figaro gem is really helpful for managing environment variables, which is a good place to store credentials (the config file for Figaro is then added to .gitignore)

<comment><USER14> But how do you back up this set of environment variables. Yes, in practice I also use ignore file to prevent sensitive things leak into repository and I usually generate password dynamically on the fly or through some script.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I suggest the OP check out Cloudability[1], which provides realtime cost management for AWS and other cloud providers. We help over 10,000 customers make sure this doesn't happen to them. (disclosure: I work there)

[1]: [https://cloudability.com/](https://cloudability.com/)

</comment><comment><USER17> You can (and should) set up an AWS CloudWatch alert on your account that will send you an email or SMS notification when your monthly bill exceeds a set threshold.

<comment><USER18> I was surprised how incredibly difficult that is to set up. Eventually I dead- ended following the instructions when CloudWatch told me there were 0 metrics to choose from for monitoring...

<comment><USER19> Hi,

There are a couple of things that are easy to overlook when using billing metrics.

1\. All billing metrics are stored in us-east-1 even for usages in other regions.

2\. If you are using consolidated billing, billing metrics will be published under the linked account, and will only be visible to that account.

Hope that helps.

<comment><USER20> > 1\. All billing metrics are stored in us-east-1 even for usages in other > regions.

...what? Is this true? If so, can someone explain the logic behind this?

<comment><USER21> It's true, and probably means a set of instances in us-east-1 are the ones computing and storing billing costs for users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Shoot, as someone who made the same mistake of leaving my AWS keys in an open source project, I think I narrowly dodged a bullet. I didn't realize this risk was so high. Thanks for this post!

</comment><comment><USER23> Now I'm curious, how many litecoins would it have generated in two days?

<comment><USER3> One cc2.8xlarge instance will give you 85 kH/s so 20 instances would give 1700 kH/s which only nets about $18 at current market prices / difficulty. So over 2 days he would have made off with a whopping $36.

<comment> rkuykendall-com Writing a script that generated $38 every time somebody accidentally commits a AWS key sounds like an amazing source of extra cash, depending on your current income.

<comment><USER24> If he would have used an altcoin that is limited by CPU like Primecoin he could have earned around 8000$ in 2days. Not sure if my calculation is legit through. It's based on the chains/day from the list at [http://anty.info/primecoin-calculator/](http://anty.info/primecoin- calculator/)

Scary. I'm sure a lot of universities and servers will see an influx of hacks for coin-mining.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Exactly same thing happened to me. 20 x xlarge instances raking up a total bill of $1800. I've opened a support case with them.

<comment><USER26> I'm confused about this. Somebody got OPs account number and password because it was written down in a file he put on git?

<comment><AUTHOR> It wasn't my password it was my access token and secret key. But it has almost the same effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Audit code before open sourcing

It's important to remember that open-sourcing is generally one-way: once it's out there, it's impossible to completely eliminate all traces. Always audit code, and if there's even a remote possibility that you'll regret it you should check again

<comment><USER28> I'd recommend blowing away your repository's history before open sourcing as well.

<comment><USER29> If you decide to do this, using git replace so that you and other trusted people can see the history, but others can't is a particularly good idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is this illegal? Could he somehow go to some authority?

EDIT: Why is it unlikely the FBI will successfully investigate?

<comment><USER31> Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: it is obviously and unambiguously illegal. You can certainly refer this to the FBI computer crimes folks and your local law enforcement. It is unlikely they will successfully investigate.

<comment><USER32> What specifically is illegal about that? Someone gave you credentials to an online service. Now you use those credentials. What law did you brake? You probably broke the ToS/EULA/whatever, but that by itself is not illegal.

(I'm not saying otherwise, I'm asking)

<comment><USER33> Just because you have the means to do something does not mean you have the permission. If I drop my car key on the ground and you take it, it's still stealing. I gave you the means (accidentally), not the permission. Especially when using the ill-gotten item will cost me (gas, time, money).

Reminds me of the old phrase: What's the difference between hacking and penetration testing? Permission.

<comment><USER32> Yes, I see that difference. I also know there are laws protecting computer systems and such. But was wondering if it could be applied to an online service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> or "...with unauthorized account usage on AWS." I get that the unauthorized use was mining, but the mining operation itself isn't unauthorized by Amazon nor by the creator of the currency.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure guess that could have been clearer. Unauthorized account usage used for mining litecoins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> FYI all AWS keys start with AKIA - makes it easy to search for 'em.

</comment><comment><USER36> The author suggested enabling billing alerts. For those running on Azure, billing alerts are currently in preview mode, and can be enabled via [https://account.windowsazure.com/PreviewFeatures](https://account.windowsazure.com/PreviewFeatures)

</comment><comment><USER37> I know there are a few code-quality bots on Github, but is there any service that you can install as a webhook which automatically checks for things like Amazon key pairs (which, IIRC, _always_ start with "AKIA", at least the API keys anyway)?

<comment><USER38> I'm also curious if there's some utility or at least a list of regular expressions that can be used to scan for a number of credentials, not just AWS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> How did Amazon detect your key in the wild? Or did they notice based on usage patterns/activity in your instances?

<comment><USER7> All AWS keys I've seen start with 'AKIA'. I am assuming that they have bots that search Github and other search engines for access keys. At that point it is easy for them to tie them back to an account and notify the user.

<comment><AUTHOR> They must only have started doing that recently. This project has been out in the wild for at least a year.

<comment><USER40> Well, kudos to them for doing that, at least. Of course it's awful that you could be out ~$3k, but imagine how bad it could have been if they hadn't been so proactive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it would have been another day at least before I checked amazon again.

<comment><USER41> Luke, drop me a note at werner [at] amazon with a link to the support ticket you created, and we'll see what we can do.

<comment><USER42> Wow, talk about customer service!

<comment><USER43> horray AWS!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Amazon will refund you if you explain your situation.

</comment><comment><USER45> So are you liable?

</comment><comment><USER46> sorry dude :(

</comment><comment><USER47> "Having a poke around confirmed what I had already guessed. The unauthorised user had been mining litecoin with the mining pool pool-x.eu."

Hmmm..you already guessed someone hacked your account to mine litecoin? Astroturfing much? That's the last thing I would have guessed. I would have thought someone was using it as some crazy web server or mail server to generate spam or phony websites for bogus ad clicks.

<comment><AUTHOR> _shrug_ maybe I was wrong to make that kind of assumption.

It was probably the type and quantity of instance that tipped me off a little, having read about people trying to mine with EC2 again.</comment></comment>


'Pandemic ventilator' could offer solution in potential 'worst case' scenario - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/pandemic-ventilator-coronvirus-hospitals-1.5493830 <comment><USER2> If you read enough news and Twitter, you will find some really heartbreaking descriptions of the folks on ventilators. For most, this is a Hail Mary attempt with only 50% survival rate. Many will have significant lung damage if they survive. We need more ventilators to be sure. But we desperately need to find ways to halt the progression of runaway lung inflammation that leads to needing a ventilator.

Edit: this development looks very promising for 'sub-intensive' cases -- adapting decathlon masks to provide positive air pressure (to help reinflate lungs) without intubation or leaking contaminated exhaust: [https://www.isinnova.it/easy-covid19-eng/](https://www.isinnova.it/easy- covid19-eng/). Some emerging theories of pathology suggest that lung function can be increased by reinflating collapsed alveoli with constant pressure: [https://emcrit.org/pulmcrit/cpap-covid/](https://emcrit.org/pulmcrit/cpap- covid/)

<comment><USER3> > For most, this is a Hail Mary attempt with only 50% survival rate.

Non Hail-Mary Ventilators have only a 30% survival rate at 1 year mark:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8404197](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8404197)

Incidentally, that's exactly why medical systems to not stockpile ventilators. Under reasonable condition, the number of ventilators closely mirrors the expected number of Hail Mary procedures done at a given time and some spare units.

<comment><USER2> The links I added in my edit suggests that using non-invasive, constant positive air pressure (C-PAP) with a closed mask could help certain patients from needing intubation and ICU as early (or at all). If this turns out to be the case, this might reduce the overload on the hospital system. They might be attempting it in Italy. Hopefully, it works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What about a "Both Respirator"? [1]

In the 1930s polio epidemic there was a shortage of "iron lung" respirators, which were expensive to produce. Edward Both invented a plywood version, which was cheap and easy to produce. A re-purposed car factory then churned them out by the thousand.

Is a negative pressure ventilator relevant for COVID-19 treatment? (Any knowledgeable medicos here who can offer a critique?) If so, couldn't they be churned out by the thousand in a short space of time (ie. days)? My understanding is that the tooling is comparable to that used to produce a kitchen cabinet. They can even be manually operated in the absence of a motor or control system.

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

<comment><USER5> Med student here - so I know some of the theory only. The most relevant "law" is Fick's Law of Diffusion ([https://d2jmvrsizmvf4x.cloudfront.net/CTU792sKR2evT2ezizQp_f...](https://d2jmvrsizmvf4x.cloudfront.net/CTU792sKR2evT2ezizQp_ficks-1498D1741D90BC0C7D21.jpg)). Doctors can increase diffusion by increasing the partial pressure of oxygen.

In a diffuse infection a patient begins to lose both lung area (due to shunting) and the thickness of the diffusion barrier increases (due to inflammation). To help overcome this you want to increase pressure and oxygen concentration.

An iron lung helps ease the work of breathing by reducing thoracic pressure and thus creates a larger pressure gradient for inspiration. However, it does not cause an absolute partial pressure of oxygen change compared to the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, to bind haemoglobin in physiological lung conditions we need partial pressure of oxygen around 100mmHg. My guess is that an iron lung does not help increase the partial pressure of oxygen so it will do little but ease the work of breathing (which is better than nothing!).

<comment><USER6> It's too bad we can't put sick people in an airplane, put oxygen masks on them, shut the door, and pressurize the cabin. Like a hospital, but at the airport.

<comment><USER7> Very creative idea, I wouldn't have thought of that.

So standard pressure at sea level is 29.92inHg, a 737 MAX can sustain 39k ft altitude indefinitely I suppose, where the exterior air pressure would be 7.66inHg. The cabin is normally pressurized to the equivalent of 8k ft, giving 26.63inHg. The fuselage could withstand a pressure differential of 26.63inHg - 7.66inHg = 18.97inHg (at least, possibly more).

That's 63% higher than regular pressure at sea level. Not bad.

If you gave each patient a full economy row, that's about 60 patients per plane, so 48k patients across 800 grounded 737 MAXs.

<comment><USER8> What create the air pressure in an airplane? Is it external air speed? Or compression from the engines?

If the latter, how does it work on airplanes with needless engines?

<comment><USER7> I don't know much about it, but I think it's usually provided by pressurized bleed air from the engines.

There are cabin pressurization test carts for use on the ground, as well as start carts to provide bleed air for starting engines, and bleed air in turn can supply cabin pressurization in flight, although this probably requires some rigging on the ground.

Interestingly, they switched to electric compressors for the 787 [0] because those no longer provide bleed air from/to each engine to simplify the plumbing.

[0] [https://aerosavvy.com/aircraft- pressurization/](https://aerosavvy.com/aircraft-pressurization/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This seems pretty important:

> While the standard for a conventional ventilator uses a mask or nose tubes > and follows current guidelines, the pandemic ventilator is at a standard > from the 1970s and requires a patient be intubated, the medical word used to > describe putting a tube through someone's mouth and into their airway.

Do intubated patients need more attention from nurses/doctors? It certainly sounds harder then putting on the mask.

<comment><USER10> Do intubated patients have to be sedated/anesthetized?

<comment> hello-radio Very important question, surprised it hasn't been asked. Yes they do, the gag reflex is very strong. Source, wife is a nurse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From the article:

       "We're talking about a device that we want to
       have available in the worst case conditions and strangely
       enough, COVID-19 is not the worst case envisioned," he
       said.

Made me think.

Perhaps in 3, or 5, or 20 years....

Maybe we'll be thankful that COVID-19 was sort of a "training wheels" pandemic... something that helped to prepare us for the even worse pandemics that are sure to follow.

Deaths due to COVID-19 will be staggering, but it's somewhat mild as far as possible pandemic scenarios go. Imagine if it had mortality rates comparable to ebola, TB, etc.

When this blows over, the world _should_ be better prepared for the next one, with better procedures.... emergency stockpiles of ventilators, masks, etc.

(Or at least we will be... until we go ten years without a pandemic... and all those stockpiles get liquidated in order to help some politician to balance a budget or whatever...)

<comment><USER12> > for the even worse pandemics that are sure to follow

This is the first world pandemic in a hundred year, why should it become common ?

<comment><USER13> I think Climate change, population growth, travel, antimicrobial resistance are all good candidates in increasing the risk of this happening more often.

<comment><USER14> Everything else, yes, but climate change? I can't imagine how climate change can significantly affect probability of next pandemic.

<comment><USER15> Displaced people? Displaced animal populations?

<comment><USER11> Also, warmer temperatures will benefit a lot of diseases in a lot of places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks like similar portable ventilators already exist in the market: [https://mfimedical.com/products/allied-healthcare- epv200-por...](https://mfimedical.com/products/allied-healthcare- epv200-portable-ventilator-with-assist-control)

<comment><AUTHOR> The key insight that made me want to post this is we should actively try to move to an older ventilator design (does bulk of the work, not optimized but easier and simpler). I have encountered this in my life as a software engineer. MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) in the mid 90s was hard to grok .. you had this huge book by Jeff Prosise to absorb. I cracked it when I chanced upon a manual for MFC 1.0. It was super simple and down to the essentials. All the fancy stuff they added from 1.0 to 5.0 was icing and made things complex.

I think people who are actually working on ventilators should seriously consider going for a simpler design .. it might be this or might be something else. The person in this article also said he is happy to give the design away.

I think if the Malaria Med+Antibiotics treatment from the French study don't work (we'll know in about a week I think), we need to move to a war footing and start producing ventilators. My back of the envelope math has scared the crap out of me (best case 500K Canadians dead, worse case 3 million).

I really hope someone who can make a difference sees this.

<comment><USER17> There are people in the world who live with very serious lung issues who do home management daily in order to survive. Non-mechanical lung clearance methods are a part of their daily routine.

I've left some comments here on the possibility of doing lung clearance in the absence of sufficient numbers of ventilators:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22640905](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22640905)

I don't really care to argue it with anyone. Please go find somewhere else to vent your spleen about how stressful this is. My recommendation is and has always been: If you have no other option and you are going to die because of it, you can try this.

That's it. That's my entire point. All the accusations that I'm up to something nefarious and dangerous are completely unfounded.

Take care. Try to not stress too much. Thank you for trying to be part of the solution.

<comment><USER18> I just saw an interview with an Italian physician where he briefly mentioned therapies for the lung before things got to the stage where ventilators were needed: [https://youtu.be/3dmIzW3icRs](https://youtu.be/3dmIzW3icRs)

It was a brief reference without enough details to be sure that he was referring to clearance methods similar to our the same as what you reference, but it sounds as if this may be part of therapy already. So well in line with what you have described.

<comment><USER17> Thank you for that. I've watched it. It's nice to hear that the Italian doctors are concerned about the issue and trying to stave off use of ventilators.

The interviewer suggested this is a different policy from what is happening in the UK/English-speaking world where they/we are basically begging for more ventilator capacity.

<comment><USER18> And hopefully we can improve our practices based on their experience. Thanks for bringing it up, I may need to know this as the virus spreads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I keep wondering if the Iron Lung is going to make a comeback.

<comment><USER20> They're for people with paralysis or muscle problems. And they'd be ~useless for COVID-19.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been wondering, it seems like people have been setting up systems where multiple patients are connected to a single ventilator (with individual regulators?) If that works, maybe it might be more efficient to solve the supply problem, not by building a million cheap individual ventilitors, but rather a few thousand mega ventilators designed for multiple people.

<comment><USER22> Putting multiple people on one ventilator requires matching lung capacities, it seems like you can get away with 2-4 people on a ventilator if you really need to and have enough selection of patients to pick matching ones, but more than that wouldn't be feasible.

(I'm not a doctor and my only source of knowledge on this is other hacker news comments)

<comment><USER23> I think that algorithms/ML people will have something to offer here. This essentially changes triage into a hard optimization problem.

IANAD, but it's not just a problem of matching people in the current pool. You also have to plan for incoming patients. Having the parameters of the ventilator not perfectly match the patient likely affects the probability of survival in a smooth way (with in some bounds).

So now the problem becomes minimizing the total death by maximizing the average likelihood of survival. You have to take the patient ventilator parameters into account (tidal volume, lung-compliance, weaning, etc) , as well as information about the distribution of those likely to be sick at the same time (which will change over time based on behavior).

<comment><USER24> okay so how long does it take to certify that and how different is it going to be compared to just have General Motors produce under license on existing designs

<comment><USER23> You could have a workable system up in a matter of days.

Supply chains take a long time to spin up.

Why not both?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can a sleep apnea machine (cpap, bipap) help if you get it and run into problems?

<comment><USER26> Yes, and in theory could be rigged to serve as a very simple ventilator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is it possible to kill the virus inside the body, the same way we kill it outside?

For example, if one could hypothetically spray alcohol everywhere inside someone's lungs, would that kill the infection?

If so, could a liquid/gas mixture be developed to deliver the right virus- killer substance directly to the lungs?

Does anyone here know about PFCs-breathing treatments?[0]

0: [https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2019/08/15/can_humans_...](https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2019/08/15/can_humans_breathe_liquid.html)

<comment><USER28> We don't have anything that kills the virus but doesn't kill living tissue as well. Pouring alcohol over your hands is fine because skin evolved to protect you from a harsh environment. Pouring alcohol over mucous membranes is a very bad idea.</comment></comment>


Nintendo 2DS - <AUTHOR> http://www.nintendo.com/3ds/new/ <comment><USER2> The lack of a hinge between the two screens makes me wonder how this will interact with games that use closing the screen as a required game mechanic. For instance, "Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" has a puzzle where you have an emblem on one screen, and you close the lid to imprint the emblem on a map on the other screen.

<comment><USER3> There's a sleep slider. I bet it fires the "clamshell closed" event.

<comment><USER4> Thats not enough. I remember a DS game (trace memory, if I recall correctly) where you had to almost close the lid, so that you would see a reflection of one screen in the other, merging the images.

And figuring out you had to do that was just a part of the puzzle! Then you had to interpret the composite image. Those guys had some interesting puzzles.

<comment><USER5> That game was the main reason I got a DS.

<comment><USER4> Try the "spiritual sequel" Hotel Dusk. The pen and chalk dusk puzzle made me want to throw the DS to the wall when I figured it out.

It uses the DS's physicality and it's minor features. They not only implemented the real solution, they also implemented the most obvious one (that doesn't work).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I sincerely thought this was an April Fool's joke. Though, that's just a knee jerk reaction to the name and the appearance of the thing. I'm genuinely curious as to which consumer demand this product is meant to fulfill.

<comment><USER7> My 2 cents, I was considering a 3DS but was put off by the 3D not the price. I'll be buying this.

<comment><USER8> afaik you can turn off the 3DS 3D effect. Then you'll have the system with the proper clamshell hinge.

<comment><USER9> You can, there's a slider that controls the degree of 3D effect, which can go to zero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is entirely to lower the cost. There's one PCB. The two screens are actually one display with the bezel providing the separation. It's quite possible this model is more profitable at a lower price point than the standard clamshell DS.

</comment><comment><USER11> The main purpose of the device is for children (Nintendo's favorite demographic) who might otherwise break the hinges of a 3DS. The unibody design is much more sturdy.

Is it communicated poorly? Yes, although not as poorly as saying the 2DS plays 3DS games.

<comment><USER12> How many hinges have broken since the DS first came out? Or rather, the GBA SP? Why don't they just make a sturdier hinge?

I don't think that's enough to explain the epic fail that is this design. It's more than just the lack of a hinge. I can't think of a worse handheld design in the history of gaming.

<comment><USER13> This model is explicitly being marketed to the age groups of 7 and under. As for "how many hinges have been broken", and "why don't they make a sturdier hinge":

1\. I don't have any hard evidence, but if you do a search for "broken DS" or "broken 3DS" on eBay, an overwhelming majority of them are on there by reason of "broken hinge"

2\. As to why not make a sturdier hinge, the other part of this particular console is to bring the 3DS down into a cheaper price range in time for Pokemon-- which is why they additionally stripped it of the 3D and replaced the stereo speaker with a mono one.

I'm not personally a fan of the design, but in the short amount of time since it's been announced, I've seen a pretty impressive number of "I'd buy that"s from people on various forums, so I don't think this is as much of an "epic fail" as you think it is. Don't confuse "bad design" with "not marketed towards me".

<comment><USER14> I used to work in customer service at Nintendo. I didn't keep any statistics but I wouldn't be surprised if the most common reason for a DS repair was a broken hinge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I own a 3DS and it's alright, but what I actually want is the top half of the 2DS. Just give me a smartphone (probably minus the phone) with good gaming controls and a solid game library, Nintendo!

<comment><USER16> So, you want a gameboy advance?

<comment><USER15> An updated GBA more or less, yes.

<comment><USER17> Put a gameboy micro price on it and I'm sold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> No clamshell? Fuck that.

What were they thinking? Am I the only person perplexed by this?

<comment><USER19> Yes and no. Surprised maybe, but not perplexed. This is just a lower cost version of the 3DS. All they did was remove all the most expensive parts to manufacture.

By removing the hinge they simplify the design of the case, the PCB, the screens (or as some have speculated in this one, screen), and removed a point of failure. By switching to mono-audio they can get away with a single speaker, and no doubt a cheaper audio chip as well. By removing the 3D they eliminate some complicated and likely costly hardware from the screen, as well as the control slider from the side of the case. It may even be able to get away with a cheaper and less capable GPU now that it no longer needs to worry about 3D. Since there's no hinge, they can mount the whole thing one one giant PCB, and since the screens are smaller than the 3DS and 3DS XL they can use either two smaller screens, or else one giant screen that's masked by the case.

So they knock ~$30 off the price tag of the 3DS (which you know they're at least breaking even on if not making a profit), and based on all the stuff they eliminated on this thing, I'm sure they're making crazy profits off it. Yeah, Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank on this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If the screens on this were the same size as the 3DS XL I'd be way more interested:

 _Its two screens are the same size as those of the original 3DS, smaller than those on the Nintendo 3DS XL._

[http://kotaku.com/introducing-the-nintendo-2ds-no-thats- not-...](http://kotaku.com/introducing-the-nintendo-2ds-no-thats-not-a- typo-1214807721)

I think the form factor and the fact that the buttons are positioned beside the top screen could make it a little less comfortable to hold since you can't perch it on top of your palm.

</comment><comment><USER21> I like this. I was going to buy the 3DS for just two or three specific games and this is a much cheaper investment. I don't care about stupid 3D gimmicks either.

</comment><comment><USER7> So happy about this although I wish it was a clamshell. I've really been wanting to play a few of the 3DS games, specifically the new Pokemon and Mario games they're releasing but the 3D screen is completely unappealing to me.

<comment> qu4z-2 So turn the 3D off on a 3DS? I don't think the lower price point is worth it, especially if you like the clamshell design (I do).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> When I saw the title, I was secretly wishing for a DS Lite-style DS with the 3DS components, but no...

Instead, they make it non-closeable with no hinge. Really, Nintendo?

<comment><USER23> The 3DS is within a few mm in dimensions of the DS Lite.

What would a "DS Lite-style" 3DS look like?

<comment><USER22> Squared-off corners, symmetric design, and a matte interior with glossy exterior.

Would look pretty nice, I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looks slightly less portable because of the lack of clamshell, but I bet the battery life is improved enough to make up for it. I'm interested.

</comment><comment><USER25> 3DS homebrew is apparently not a thing, but if DS homebrew has become significantly less hellish in the last few years it could be worth the $130.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is not a 3DS without a 3D element just a DS? (Not that it's a bad thing, I'm a huge fan of the DS-lite.)

<comment><USER23> I am assuming this is a serious comment.

The answer is no, the 3DS is significantly different on the inside (processor, RAM, NAND) than a DS (or DSi).

The IPL is also significantly better (and is even OS-like). And there's a store.

Nb: I work for Nintendo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So Nintendo is the gaming world's Nokia?

And I'd definitely put the power button right where will my hand rest...

</comment><comment><USER28> It's interesting they removed the fold. Make it less portable IMO.

</comment><comment><USER29> Interesting, it does have the double cameras on the back.

</comment><comment><USER30> Choosing a color brings me to a 404.

<comment><USER31> Javascript. It just displays a red or blue stylus.</comment></comment>


Launching without social proof - <AUTHOR>

Hey all,
First time coming here for advice.
Back when I was running my consulting company last year I booked off my Lead Dev and put a lot of money into a startup. I designed it, he developed it and I finally got it done.
I then spent a good year battling the banks. Once that was finished, I lost a lot of my excitement. That cross between being unsure how to launch, I wanted to approach the main thing bugging me.
Social Proof. We all know that if we see a site with plenty of members, it makes us think that the service is good. And vica-versa.
I know a blog with about 600,000 subscribers who are willing to review the site. That helps. But the issue I'm having is: My startup is city-based. What can I do to avoid the "There are no people in this city" and thus the thinking that the service isn't worth it.
The few ideas I have is to: * Turn it into a positive thing. "Be the first!" * Launchrawk it. Get emails, and then slowly let people in. * ???
What have you done? What would you recommend in my shoes?
Any help is appreciated. Thanks guys. <comment><USER2> _What have you done?_

Basically - pretty much the exact opposite of what you've done :-)

I had an idea some time back. I went and found some users first. Then I observed what they did and what they valued. Then I changed my idea. Then I went and observed some more. Then I changed my idea again. Then I went and talked about the idea to a group of folk that I was 90% certain that I was solving a problem for - and they mostly liked it. Tweaked the idea a bit. Went back. They loved it. They told their friends. And they pre-registered. Based on word of mouth.

Now I've got to the point where I can build something.

I _know_ I have probably a couple of hundred users who are keen on the product. I know that they're keen enough about the idea to recommend it to friends. I'm not entirely sure whether they'll be entirely profitable or not - not sure yet. The only way to find that out is to build something (or the quickest and cheapest way anyway).

The point I'm trying to drive home is that having a way of getting to users is a core part of your business. It's not something that you should wait to figure out until after you've built your product (because figuring it out may well affect the way you build you product).

 _What would you recommend in my shoes?_

Find a group of users of your product that you can contact directly.

In real life - face to face.

Preferably find a sub-group of your market that is most passionate about whatever problem it is that you're solving. The ones with the most pain, or the ones with the most to gain.

Talk to them one-on-one, encourage them to use your product. Watch what they do. Where possible tweak the product to support that group in a total wonderful way.

Encourage testimonials and references (any forms of social proof that you can use before you get large numbers).

Encourage the people _using_ your product to invite other people who will _use_ the product. Look at the way FreeAgent and Rackspace referrals work for example.

Be prepared to put a lot of effort in.

In my experience getting actual real users is a long, hard slog that takes time and effort to pull off. Unfortunately I think you're actually at a disadvantage now by having a fully formed product without users - because you may find that the "generic" product that you have now is harder to pitch to the smaller market that might have pulled in your initial early adopters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I'll see who I can find in the area. Thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Launch in one area at a time. There's no sense in launching everywhere in the beginning if it's going to make your site seem abandoned. Like you said, people won't trust it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're right. I'll talk to a few local people first and gauge on how to improve it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Display how many followers your company has on Twitter. Some of those followers are probably spammers - but it doesn't matter short-term.</comment>


Knot DNS is a high-performance authoritative-only DNS server - <AUTHOR> http://labs.nic.cz/page/767/knot-dns/?language=en

<comment><USER2> (You have to click again on English at the top to get this site in English)

Very interesting that "secure" is not listed as one of the key features, and that "security" is not listed as one of the goals.

<comment><USER3> Yes, but at the same time, if this is the one server used to serve the .cz. root domain, I suppose it is part of the implicit features.

By the way, direct link to the project website: <http://www.knot-dns.cz/>

<comment><USER2> Then this will be the first time in history that software has been written specifically to be secure and this feature has not been trumpeted :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder how does it compare to NSD?

<http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/projects/nsd/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I got the following answer via Twitter (<https://twitter.com/#!/bortzmeyer/status/132090094067785728>) "@adulau Knot is faster, according to the benchmarks made by its authors. But NSD is production-ready and Knot is alpha (or less than that)."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is this needed over existing authoritative dns servers like djbdns or nsd?

<comment><USER6> Variety is a good thing: drives innovation, pushes change, keeps incumbents from self-satisfying lethargy.

<comment><USER7> While that's accurate, it's a truism that adds little to this discussion. Perhaps someone can explain the specific, concrete reasons why this solves a problem existing implementations do not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Found the English page, now ... where's the download link?

<comment><USER9> git clone git://git.nic.cz/knot-dns.git</comment></comment>


Astronomers watch a black hole's corona disappear, then reappear - <AUTHOR> https://news.mit.edu/2020/black-hole-corona-reappear-0716 <comment><USER2> This kinda reminds of when watching a flame from a a gas source, sometimes where the bottom of the flame starts shifts up and down.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have a pressure cooker at home, boil some chickpeas for a couple of whistles, wait 3 minutes, take the cover off, put it back on the stove and stir fast.

You will see all the steam doing the dance and shooting out like you'd expect from a black hole.

I'm not sure if only spinning Black Holes have a corona or even static ones do, that may be an interesting point to ponder.

The chickpeas stew is yum as well after (1 part chickpeas, two parts water) :)

<comment><USER4> My guess is the black hole was used for an interstellar gate by an alien ship warping into local space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice introductory TED talk on "How to find black holes" by one of the co- authors: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idsj47D719E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idsj47D719E)

</comment><comment><USER6> So 2nd wave of corona?

<comment><USER7> Hehehe</comment></comment>


Show HN: New variable-length integer algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pascaldekloe/flit <comment><USER2> It seems the algorithm is not very new as it looks pretty much like the one named varint-PU in the following paper: [http://stepanovpapers.com/CIKM_2011.pdf](http://stepanovpapers.com/CIKM_2011.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes the aim is to improve varint and I'm not the only one. This algorithm is the fastest I've seen yet. Also FLIT64 works well with common CPU operations.

<comment><USER2> The usual varint is called varint-SU in the Stepanov's paper. The varint-PU is just like what you call FLIT64, at least I don't see any difference.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a nonacadecic person I find the algorithm description in the paper very hard to read. It says the PU variant packs the "descriptor bits". Thus a 4 byte example would make suffix 0Bxxxx0111 whereas FLIT does 0Bxxxx1000. This minor difference means that one can unmarshall based on tailing zero count and bit shifts rather than the loops described in the paper. In other words, it trades the most expensive CPU operations (jumps) for the cheapest ones. Also FLIT64 has a worst case of 9 bytes rather than varints 10 bytes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Value of Experience - <AUTHOR> http://sachagreif.com/the-value-of-experience/

<comment><USER2> I've been doing HIT(high intensity training) for one and half year. I think I've built mussel and improved my training skill over time by measuring my results each time at gym. So I think recording your results is also important for improving any skill because it motivate me.</comment>