Bitcoin Mining's Three Body Problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.aniccaresearch.tech/blog/bitcoin-minings-three-body-problem <comment><USER2> This is an interesting article, but IMHO, its discussions on Hacker News lacks depth. Almost all threads are debating about superficial Bitcoin issues that has already been talked endlessly, and none of the thread focused on the main thesis of this article:

> Bitcoin mining is a complex phenomenon that connects hardware and software, > the energy and financial markets. Invisible rules govern every aspect of it. > The performance of an individual operation is determined by various external > factors that are often hard to quantify and almost impossible to forecast.

It stated that Bitcoin mining as a whole, is a complex social-economical- computational-environmental phenomenon with a huge number of moving parts and uncertainties. The most fascinating fact to me, is the direct impact of climate cycle in southern China on the mining industry, almost with a mythical tone found in some Sci-Fi novels. While Bitcoin is a highly artificial and technical construct, but its yield can be severely affected by weather, some Bitcoin miners even routinely migrate their operation according to seasonal changes like the nomadic groups of the past. The flood seasons are visible on the Bitcoin hash rate chart, and even dominates the date of trade shows and R&D schedule of new mining rigs.

> May-October is the flood season in Southwest China. It is also a festival > period for mining businesses as the large supply of surplus hydro capacity > significantly cuts down miners' operating expenses. For small-medium scale > miners, the flood season can reduce the cost by as much as 40%. For large > miners who own proprietary facilities, the flood season electricity cost is > practically negligible. Over 80% of the miners in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia > will migrate in flocks to Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou to take advantage of > the discount, and they move back or sell their equipment after the dry > season arrives in November.

> Gradually, the industry structured itself around these climate patterns. > Like ancient rituals, every year before the flood season arrives, major > mining conferences get organized in Sichuan's capital Chengdu. Some > facilities are only open to external customers during the flood season. > Manufacturers plan their new product release right before it arrives. Miners > race to source the latest and greatest machines in bulk.

<comment><USER3> It's a tremendous story - and all the details make explanatory sense. But I'm a little skeptical, because if the seasonal effects were big you would be able to see them in the overall hashrate graph at the bottom?

<comment><USER4> I suspect when there is very cheap electricity, income is much higher than the electricity costs, and money is ploughed into new hardware.

When electricity is expensive, it's still worth running the most of the equipment you already own, but it isn't worth buying more.

Hence, you wouldn't expect much seasonal variation in hashrate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 'Bitcoin is the product of hashpower. The industry wouldn't exist without incentivizing miners to continuously invest in hardware and burning electricity to augment Bitcoin network's settlement assurance'

I think this is a common misconception. People don't need to continually invest in mining hardware to keep it going. The entire Bitcoin network could technically be run off a single Rasberry Pi. The network hash rate is only so high because the ROI is there, but without it, people would still be mining.

Case in point, there are plenty of long forgotten altcoins out there that people are mining just for fun. At the end of the day your computer is no different from an expensive space heater. Might as well mine some crypto with it.

<comment><USER6> > At the end of the day your computer is no different from an expensive space > heater. Might as well mine some crypto with it.

Or, you know, you could just turn the computer off while you're not actively using it. It saves you money and does a small little good thing for the environment too.

<comment><USER7> The other common misconception is that the price of bitcoin is determined by the hashrate. It is actually the other way around, a higher price drives up the hashrate, because a higher price means more demand for bitcoin.

Some founders of altcoins apparently don't understand this and try to buy hashpower to artificially increase the hashrate, hoping to increase the price of their coins. If there is no demand for their coins, an ASIC farm is no different from a Rasberry Pi.

<comment><USER8> Wait... isn't it worse than that? If I buy enough hashpower to have a measurable effect on the price, shouldn't the price be driven down, by the increased supply? Thus an ASIC farm is _worse_ than a raspberry pi, at least as far as the effect on price goes.

(But, isn't there some majority attack? So maybe I want an ASIC farm as a way to protect my investment...)

<comment><USER5> Supply of what? The supply increase of coins is constant regardless of the hashrate.

This is exactly why there was no effect on bitcoin price when the reward rate halved. The value of the coin drives mining behavior, not the other way around.

<comment><USER9> Actually, it doesn't. The difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks, in theory every ~2 weeks, but if a large percentage of the hash power suddenly disappeared it could be much longer.

<comment><USER10> For a temporary period of time, before it self-corrects back to ~2weeks. It's easy to leave this part out as it is an edge case that doesn't need the extra sentences qualifying the "normal case" that will be observed 99.99% of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Fantastically written article, very to the point without too much flourish, and very in depth as others have noted.

This bit is funny imo:

 _But in late 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) removed mining from a list of activities to be eliminated. Note that the NDRC also oversees the energy industry. Massive amounts of hydropower squandered during flood season is a longstanding issue. The officials are beginning to realize that Bitcoin mining is a highly effective way of transforming excess local capacity into a global digital commodity._

One point of view would be that speculation and greed of bitcoin hodl-er fanboys is subsidizing China's renewables industry...

</comment><comment><USER12> This analysis misses altcoin mining. When mining adjusts on BTC, miners don't just turn off their rigs. They can go mine altcoins. This behavior introduces another dimension to mining economics. Miners are practical. They have to make money with their hardware and electricity. They can't afford to be ideological.

In the Bitcoin mining world (SHA256), miners like to have BCH, BSV and other alternatives. Altcoins allows them to diversify. That's why these chains will never die. They always have mining support.

<comment><USER13> They'll die if they can't make enough returns to pay for the electricity (and I'd be happy if we helped make that a reality through a tax on carbon and/or POW mining itself).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Mining revenue is the network cost of running the Bitcoin network.

What if you ran a business that spends billions per year on network cost, then somebody told you they could reduce it by 98% and make it a flat cost, forever. That's proof of stake.

Ethereum launches the first phase of proof of stake this year. When Ethereum v1.5 launches in ~18 to 24 months, Ethereum's network cost will undergo such a transformation. The millions per day paid to Ethereum miners will stop being paid, forever. It's a ~98% cost reduction in perpetuity.

<comment><USER15> To bring $1 worth of US currency into existence, it only costs a fraction of that amount.

But to bring $1 worth of bitcoin into existence, it costs $1.

So, it seems obvious to me hash based currency is a virus that is many orders of magnitude less efficient, but many people seem impossible to convince of this.

<comment><USER10> Nobody would be mining any crypto if their cost was exactly equal to their revenue. This fundamental misconception might be the reason why you can't convince anyone that crypto currency is a "virus".

<comment><USER15> In any efficient market, profits approach zero. I don't see the relevance of saying "well, actually, there is some profit". That profit is the mechanism that drives the mining cost to match the value of the currency, isn't it? Please explain more about what you think I am missing, because it sounds like you are just referencing the mechanism that causes the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the best, most in-depth and accurate Bitcoin articles to ever grace the front page of HN.

</comment><comment><USER17> >"If mining operations migrate to more diverse locations in the future and become less concentrated on a single power source, this cycle will cease to play such a significant role."

Why should that happen? After the initial very diverse mining, it only ever got more concentrated to places with cheap energy. The place my change but there will always be an optimum place.

</comment><comment><USER18> If an article is written in English for an English speaking audience, I wish it would include translations of non-English quotations.

<comment><USER19> The header quote is:

"The more transparent something was, the more mysterious it seemed. The universe itself was transparent; as long as you were sufficiently sharp-eyed, you could see as far as you liked. But the farther you looked, the more mysterious it became." ——Liu Cixin "Three Body Problem"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> That's a very thorough overview</comment>


Construction Employment Is At Its Lowest Level Since 1946 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/construction-jobs-are-at-their-lowest-level-since-1946/257980/

<comment><USER2> When I watch crews build a house, I am struck by how resistant this activity has been to automation and mass production techniques.

A truck will drive up to the site with a stack of lumber on it. Workers will individual measure, cut, and fit the pieces together. Wiring is all eyeballed by the electrian, and custom fit. The same for plumbing. Finish carpentry is all done piece by piece, by skilled craftsmen, and all hand fitted (and are a huge component of the expense of a house).

It all seems ripe for a revolution.

I'm not suggesting that houses be all cookie-cutter identical. But a custom design could largely be built in a factory, trucked in, and then you'd just have final assembly done on site. The result would be higher quality and lower cost (and less labor).

You can see some of this with roof trusses today, which are custom built in a factory and then trucked to the site.

<comment><USER3> Unions probably have a lot to do with this in the United States.

I seem to recall footage of a building-erecting robot in Japan. Basically it was a frame that went up and down on four pillars, with an armature that could move in two dimensions on the frame, almost like a "UFO catcher" or crane game machine.

<comment><USER4> Unions haven't really impacted the residential home building market. I don't think onsite automation will help much. Most of the easily automated steps (foundation laying, framing, roofing, sheetrocking) are actually outsourced by the general contractor to specialized subcontractors. They can frame out a house in a week easily and are very efficient. It's simply not worth all the effort of programming computer manufacturing instructions and setting up a machine to automate the construction of a house becuase it doesn't take long. The painful/expensive/time consuming part of building a house is the 'finishing'. Hanging windows, installing the kitchen, doing plumbing, etc. Making a machine do all of that just isn't worth it.

(Some offsite automation like bringing in pre built roof supports or foundation forms makes sense, but that is already happening.)

On the commercial side, unions are heavily entrenched. You absolutely can not build a sky scraper without heavy involvement from the metal workers trade union, the electricians union, etc. There is a lot of waste there.

I could see automation on the commercial side, but not really on the residential side.

Also working against you - construction workers are _cheap_ right now. The unemployement is due to lack of demand, not the cost of building. We can't even fill already built buildings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think this is "depressing". I see a post-WWII boom that was followed by a long downward trend that was temporarily broken by the housing bubble and is now continuing. In other words, for the last 50 years we have been figuring out how to build things with fewer people, freeing them up to do other things, and I see no reason why that will not continue or why we should wish that it should not.

<comment><USER6> Exactly; even though the article mentions the meaning of the graph, it seems to misinterpret it anyway.

From my perspective as a residential carpenter I see a continuing decline in the cost of labor combined with increases in efficiency due to new materials and equipment. Combine that with the high price of land in most urban areas, and I don't see much incentive for the big home builders to push manufactured homes and on-site automated fabrication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Curiously, in Canada the construction industry is experiencing the exact opposite effect and is at an all-time high:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/canadian- building-j...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/canadian-building- jobs-boom-while-u-s-busts-chart-of-the-day.html)

<comment><USER8> Construction employment in Canada is high for the same reason it was high in the US in 2006. Can you guess what that is? Hint: it eventually goes "pop".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While I can't say for sure with regards to residential construction, but the amount of NEW never leased business/retail space around here is staggering. I've seen several small to medium strip centers go up in the last five years just along routes I drive daily (or at least a few times a week) and much if it is sitting vacant having never had a tenant. Several have a single tenant with 3-7 empty bays.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm thankful that the construction companies have enough sense to not build more new houses when the is a 6-12 backlog in existing houses. This kind of common sense isn't common in the USA.</comment>


Windows Phone 7 developers – Obfuscate your app or have your source code stolen - <AUTHOR> http://www.winrumors.com/windows-phone-7-developers-obsfucate-your-app-or-have-your-source-code-stolen/

<comment><USER2> I completely fail to understand what the complaint is here.

It looks like users can download the application packages separately from the WP7 magic install marketplace app. OK. Once you download the package, since WP7 makes you write in .NET, anyone can just look at your executable and get the MSIL back out of it, and decompile to C# or whatever.

So...what? This has been true for every C# application written since .NET existed, on every platform. Welcome to the world of bytecode. What is Microsoft supposed to do to magically change this on Windows Phone? Even if they encrypted everything all the way down from the marketplace, as soon as someone roots the phone, they could just look at the executable on disk, right?

Why is bytecode obfuscation no longer an OK solution?

What am I missing here? I don't know anything about WP7.

EDIT: After looking around, I don't think I'm missing anything, I think it's just FUD. However, it looks like there's a different actual issue, which is that you can go download any app from the feed right now for free.

<comment><USER3> If by decompiling you mean turning machine-language (or bytecode) into equivalent human-readable source, it's also possible to do it in C.

<comment><USER4> The "fidelity" is typically much higher with .NET assemblies, because of the type metadata. (Still a silly article, though.)

<comment><USER5> Don't .NET assemblies also encode _name_ metadata, making the transformation from source to assembly mostly reversible?

<comment><USER4> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> isn't open code one of the reasons the web became the greatest achievement in history?

<comment><USER7> Indeed -- and the problem doesn't sound any worse than it is for (say) .NET or Java desktop apps.

<comment><USER3> Complainers will always complain.

Imagine how nasty would it be when someone decompiles their code and discover lots of, say, GPL code in there...

Is there a lot of GPL'ed C# code out there?

<comment><USER8> plenty of it, f-spot and banshee being 2 of the most popular. Most of them use Qt# or Gtk#

<comment><USER3> I bet a lot of it will find its way into proprietary closed-source applications on the WinMo 7 platform...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Phone Sharkthis App Turns Your Friend's Phone into Yours – Hotel My Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.urbandaddy.com/ntl/gear/33357/Hotel_My_Phone_This_App_Turns_Your_Friend_s_Phone_into_Yours_National_NTL_Application

<comment><USER2> I think this will be pretty useful when your battery dies or you forget your phone.</comment>


Cloud Computing: Vertical Scalability is Still Your Problem - <AUTHOR> http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/11/25/cloud-computing-vertical-scalability-is-still-your-problem.aspxCl

<comment><USER2> "Horizontal scalability achieved through the implementation of a load balancing solution is easy." - makes me giggle and not want to continue reading. If one is still relying on vertical scalability then perhaps therein lies your problem.

@poster: URL needs fixing

</comment><comment><USER3> Correct url is [http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/11/2...](http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/11/25/cloud- computing-vertical-scalability-is-still-your-problem.aspx)</comment>


Injecting the flu vaccine into a tumor gets the immune system to attack it - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/injecting-the-flu-vaccine-into-a-tumor-gets-the-immune-system-to-attack-it/ <comment><USER2> For those interested in this approach, I encourage you to read about the OG cancer immunotherapy, Coley's toxins:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coley%27s_toxins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coley%27s_toxins)

Approaches like this have been tried for a long time. Some of the best are using actual viruses, such as oncolytic viruses - see this recent article:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28886381](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28886381)

<comment><USER3> As a non-native speaker, I see OG and think "original grandfather", and that apparently isn't super far off, what does this mean? Sorry for the redirect.

<comment><USER4> Originally OG meant "original gangster", but now it has come to mean something like an early adaptation.

<comment><USER5> I've read a number of times over the years that OG was 80s slang for "old guy" (or "an old G"), and that the 90s Ice T song was a play on the older usage. Don't know if there are any citations though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This raises the question of whether infections trigger our bodies to get rid of bad cells such as cancerous cells as the immune system handles it?

If we are never sick in a clean environment does the cancer rate go up? Has this been studied?

</comment><comment><USER7> I read stories like this that are so promising and then never hear about them again. And people close to us keep dying from it.

<comment><USER8> Trying to be observant and not cynical here, but it appears the incentives of the medical system are not always aligned with curing cancer. In the current system, pharma won't funnel it unless there's billions in payoff, while medical oncology, imaging, and radiation are making out like bandits in the current system. How many ads a week do you encounter for "cancer treatment centers"?

We're left with government and charity funding for research, which are both minuscule compared to the above.

<comment><USER9> This makes no sense. Whoever invents a cure for cancer will have the market cornered and make a ton of money. Drug companies have tremendous incentives to do that. This isn't a theoretical economic point. It's exactly what's happening with Hep C.

<comment><USER10> > Whoever invents a cure for cancer will have the market cornered and make a > ton of money. Drug companies have tremendous incentives to do that.

Where to start ...

1) Cancer isn't one disease, it's hundreds. If you live to 110, you will die from cancer.

2) Pharmas don't want a cure. They want a daily dose for 40 years like Rogaine. That's how they make money.

<comment><USER11> > 2) Pharmas don't want a cure. They want a daily dose for 40 years like > Rogaine. That's how they make money.

Why did they invent Hep C cure then? Sofosbuvir was invented in 2007, and approved in the US for 2013. It cures Hepatitis C, which previously required regular doses of drugs. Why did Pharmasset decide to look for a cure instead of regular daily doses? Why did Gilead buy Pharmasset for $11B? Please, explain how it fits into your economic model of healthcare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Injecting anything bad to cells gets immune system to attack them. The problem is how to selectively inject it to cells you need, no?

<comment><USER13> Really? I assumed vaccines wouldn't destroy healthy tissue.

<comment><USER14> Tumors aren't healthy tissue. My guess is that an immune system on high alert in an area is more likely to notice bad stuff that otherwise gets ignored.

One effective way to get your immune system to kill warts is to induce a low grade infection in the wart. The immune system will "notice" the virus and kill it. If you just freeze them off they are likely to reappear elsewhere because the virus is still present.

<comment><USER15> How do you induce an infection in a wart?

<comment><USER16> Asking for a friend, right?

<comment><USER15> No I just wonder how.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The same thing is being done with polio.

[https://www.curetoday.com/articles/poliovirus-extends- surviv...](https://www.curetoday.com/articles/poliovirus-extends-survival-for- patients-with-glioblastoma-in-early-phase-trial)

</comment><comment><USER18> #inmice

<comment><USER19> Who knows, maybe in tapeworms too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Awesome news. This gives a lot oh hope for solid tumors.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's important to note they're using an active form of a flu vaccine for this experiment. I was originally wondering how they can do this with an inactive vaccine (which all flu vaccine used on humans are(?)). Nevertheless, this sounds really awesome!

<comment><USER22> For influenza, humans may receive either inactived vaccines (e.g. common shot) or live attenuated vaccines (e.g. nasal spray).[1]

I assume whether a live virus is attenuated in research like TFA depends on the hypothesis they're testing. ?

[1] [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/how-fluvaccine- made.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/how-fluvaccine-made.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wow, finally a reason to get flu shots.

</comment><comment><USER24> I would have guessed that the adjuvants were responsible, but it turns out that adjuvants were _negatively_ correlated with reduced tumor growth.</comment>


Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: "Thanks, But No Thanks" - <AUTHOR> http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2014/07/08/google-co-founders-thanks-but-no-thanks/ <comment><USER2> It's worth noting that highly regulated industries are not necessarily bad for startups to enter, exactly because they throw up particularly high barriers to large companies. Google _can 't_ enter health without accepting the full baggage that comes with that - people worried about their privacy, every random nutter looking to sue them and get a payday, FDA breathing down their neck every step of the way, etc. A small startup can be much more nimble and targeted and address a very specific niche in a clever way and be very successful.

<comment><USER3> Most people don't worry about their data privacy, or else they wouldn't be on FB, take those buzzfeed quizzes, etc.

The P in HIPAA stands for Portability. At it's heart, the act was supposed to guarantee patients have access to their health information, not bring health data liquidity to it's knees.

This is Jonathan Bush, of Athena, testifying (read: ranting) a couple weeks ago about regulations and innovation in healthcare. The big take away is that healthcare specifically sets these rules with incredibly high barriers of entry, and then at the last minute does a complete 180. We've seen it every step of the way with the EHR incentive program, CEHRT, ICD-10, payment reimbursement, etc. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CekfvGDiab8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CekfvGDiab8)

<comment><USER4> How many people do you see posting all of their conditions and the medications they're taking on Facebook? I can't think of any friend who is THAT open.

Also, whether or not people care about their privacy doesn't mean it shouldn't be protected. Not just for themselves, but for their family as well. --Let's say I don't allow my medical information to be used, by my brother does. If he has a genetic disease and a potential employer finds out about it, they might decide not to hire me because there's a chance I may have it as well, which could cause problems if it ended up needing treatment. Laws that prevent discrimination are all well and good, but the problem can be proving the reason they decided not to hire you.

<comment><USER3> Never said privacy shouldn't be protected, only that it's not exactly valued by BOTH sides of the equation (and of course, YMMV). Up until recently (Omnibus rule), HIPAA had little practical power in that department from both an audit perspective and a fine/mediation perspective. The largest fine levied? It was for inadequate patient access to their own health information, not a security breach.

And even with the new rule, there are currently no regulations surrounding de- identified PHI being used for marketing purposes, research, or sold for whatever other purposes. So now you have data wharehousers like IMS spinning up software dev depts with the specific goal of harvesting patient data.

As far as identity vs membership vs attribute disclosure, I linked to a good study below.

I find it interesting that there are more comments in the average HN healthcare-related thread than on any of the recent NPRM. Hell, there are more comments here than people who actually showed up for FDASIA.

I support regulation in a lot of cases, and feel that that FDA took a reasonable approach to the recent mobile medical device guidelines. What I, and pretty much everyone else (other than the AMA) rails against is the indiscriminate flip flopping of what regulations, standards, etc will be required, and on what time horizon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Basically, he's saying that it's too heavily regulated for them to want to dip their toe in. Seems reasonable, it's the same reason I never bothered with the healthcare ideas I've been interested in. Too many landmines, and not enough latitude to try creative things.

<comment><USER6> The whole mining data on health has so many wonderful possibilities, but giving so much of my privacy it's a big no for me.

<comment><USER7> The data would be anonymised. No one would be connecting your records to _you._

<comment><USER8> When "anonymization" is done poorly, it has consequences.

It was bad enough with Netflix recommendations getting de-anonymized; imagine what could happen with actual health records leaked.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/09/your-secrets- live...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/09/your-secrets-live-online- in-databases-of-ruin/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised the blog post mentions nothing about Google Health. Basically, Google has already tried this and failed.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Health](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Health)

<comment><USER10> Failed seems like an unfair characterization.

Another possibility is they thought it was a cool idea, then found out how regulated it was, how it would be nearly impossible to add any features without massive government oversight, and got out.

<comment><USER11> I was an intern on the Google Health team and witnessed many problems unrelated to external barriers.

1) The original codebase was a nightmarish mess of Java/GWT code that did very little (my first real-life encounter with a FactoryFactory). Most of the developers from this first version drifted away from the project and by the time I arrived there was a second team who were talented, but, unfortunately spent much of their time slowly refactoring other people's crappy code.

2) I didn't observe very much clear product vision. Instead, we had a paranoid obsession with matching the features of Microsoft Health Vault (which was equally meandering & useless).

3) There was a huge top-down pressure from Marissa M and other high level managers to make Google Health into something astoundingly successful, suffocating any possibility of incremental progress and disempowering the actual developers.

4) We had one MD on staff and very little other experience with medicine or healthcare. The developers were very far from the problem domain and relying on a game of managerial telephone to ascertain what the current state of medical record management is and what improvements are possible.

Anyway, in short, my experience was that Google screwed up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The site was extremely slow to load for me; here's the Google cache.

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http:/...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2014/07/08/google- co-founders-thanks-but-no-thanks/&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER13> Healthcare is heavily regulated, and I understand why some companies would be reluctant to branch out into it.

But that doesn't mean the privacy and legal concerns surrounding HIPAA regulations are unwarranted. Yea, it would be nice if we lived in an ethical utopia where we wouldn't have to feel worried about people looking through our health records. But we don't. I would not feel comfortable with my health records being easily accessible, even if that would lead to better data-mining opportunities.

<comment><USER14> Why don't they just buy an island make their own country with their own rules?? ;)

<comment><USER15> Not sure who downvoted you, but this is indeed the essence of one of the counterpoints against regulation-- that if we regulate an industry, the innovation in that industry will simply occur elsewhere in the world, outside of US regulation.

<comment><USER16> That is generally true for things like minimum wage laws or regulations on manufacturing. If it is expensive to manufacture in the US then companies can easily manufacture in China.

It doesn't really work for healthcare because you can't remove it from the jurisdiction. It isn't practical to fly to another country to receive emergency medical services or if all you need is to fill a prescription. Meanwhile the customers with the wealth to sustain research into novel health products are in the countries that impose heavy regulatory burdens on anyone who wants to service them.

<comment><USER14> Actually a lot of people do ... I know people who get their eyes lasered in Turkey for example (in this case it's because the treatment is cheap). Larry Page suggested the Island idea in last year's google IO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The page isn't loading, but I assume it's referencing their response to the question about healthcare asked in this session: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdnp_7atZ0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdnp_7atZ0M)

<comment><USER18> Do you have a timestamp?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> When you fuck up in health, people can die. Regulation exists for a reason.

<comment><USER20> A lot of the regulation has allowed people to die when there was a chance they would have lived without it. Regulations on advertising and OTC drugs are absolutely needed, but stopping a doctor from prescribing a risky drug to a terminally ill patient who will die without it anyway is counterproductive.

The main reason people aren't healthy has nothing to do with the medical system or regulation. It has everything to do with lifestyle. Technology will not help at all in that regard. The mobile-device generation will be less healthy and even more physically disconnected than the current one, which is a horrifying thought given how bad the state of affairs is right now.

Man is a physical animal, and movement will always beat analysis when it comes to improving health outcomes. We already know how to improve health, we choose not to do it.

<comment><USER21> _stopping a doctor from prescribing a risky drug to a terminally ill patient who will die without it anyway is counterproductive._

And if the patient survives, but has a debilitating condition that was a side- effect of that risky drug, then claims he was going to survive anyway and now his life has a shattered quality because the doctor prescribed an drug that hadn't been fully cleared yet? It's not as black and white as you're painting it, and drugs are not always silver bullets that save your life and send you back to playing the violin like the virtuoso you once were.

Conversely, if you didn't have that regulation, you'd have medication with a much lower quality - more people dying, and more negative side-effects for the ones who survived. Plenty of drugs look promising at the outset, then turn out to have serious issues.

<comment><USER22> > _stopping a doctor from prescribing a risky drug to a terminally ill patient > who will die without it anyway is counterproductive._

It's also about balancing incentives. If there were no such regulations whatsoever, you'd find yourself in a situation, where a patient with a mild cancer and a broken arm is potentially "terminally ill" and needs the New Risky Drug. It could degenerate to regular, systematic experimentation on humans in the guise of "doing everything we can".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Bringing a healthcare product to market is really hard. A friend just had a good one with a proven product and sales fail simply because institutional hospitals take to long to really implement a decision to the point they will actually pay for a piece of software they want to use even if it isn't something regulated.

Google certainly has the cash to sit this sort of thing out, hire sales and support people etc. Microsoft and others are doing so, see Microsoft Amalga for example.

However a more intriguing area, to me, is doing some more basic research without becoming a health company. Google is doing this with the glucose contacts and things. These are novel ideas with significant IP that could be spun off into an independent company and/or licensed to to an existing drug company to push through clinical trials and bring to market.

<comment><USER24> > Bringing a healthcare product to market is really hard.

I think this is the place that google might enter and play well. If google can develop a very high-level , fda certified development tool/operating-system ,such that developing fda certified products become much easier , they could have a very big win on their hands.

I've seen some research on such systems ,so it's a clear possibility. And since it's a new thing , it might need some changes in the fda, which google has the tools to push.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Brin's partner co-founded [https://www.23andme.com/](https://www.23andme.com/) and that got it's nose cut off by the FDA IIRC.

<comment> k-mcgrady Rightly so. If I recall correctly, instead of just providing the results to you they also included recommendations to try to prevent things their tests had shown you were at risk of. Their tests have never been vetted/proven accurate by anyone other than themselves so providing health advice based on them is reckless. If they were allowed to continue anyone could start their own 'DNA testing service' create bogus reports and bogus recommendations and people could get hurt.

<comment><USER26> So what? I want to see my results. They make it clear it's not an exact science and they link to the relevant studies so you can make your own decisions. Why should the FDA prevent them from sharing that information with me? I'm not even American!

<comment> k-mcgrady Did you read my comment? It wasn't about the results. You want your results - you got them. It was that they were providing recommendations based on the results which haven't been verified as accurate by anyone but 23andme.

<comment><USER26> AFAIK they're not showing health results at all anymore because of the FDA decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Misleading title. It should be "Google Co-Founders on being a health company"

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd love to see them take an altruistic approach and shift the focus to countries like Africa where health projects would provide a lot more utility and have a lot less regulatory burden. Once a product is visibly working in one country it's more difficult to make cases against it elsewhere.

<comment><USER23> I've heard Bill Gates state this as one of his philanthropic goals; to fund things with a cost/benefit analysis that doesn't make sense in the developed world but does elsewhere.

I've worked with people involved in HIV vaccine trials overseas and, in fact, things really don't change as much as you might think.

The basic tenant "first do no harm" is ingrained at an many different ethical, institutional and legal levels that it isn't like you can, say, justify a more risky vaccine in an area with a higher risk for HIV or whatever.

In fact trials have been cut short and research into entire vectors (ie the cold virus used as a transport for the HIV related material) cut off when trials in Africa started to appear (statistically) to be slightly harmful in any way.

I feel this is a good thing. Scientists and medical people holding themselves to this high standard is the reason the anti-vaccine crowd really doesn't have a leg to stand on.

<comment><USER29> Also because the history of unethical research is long and storied enough already. It's pretty well appreciated where that path leads.

<comment><USER30> You could say research is well researched.

Unfortunately, the same doesn't apply to unethical treatment. More and more patients get certain treatments or recommendations by doctors or hospitals not because they need them but because they're profitable for the doctors or hospitals.

This is the insurance/financial product salesman's spirit at work, and it needs to be stopped. Right now.

I think part of the problem is the "insurance" mentality - if you don't pay for the treatment yourself, but the insurance just pays for everything, you aren't interested in an economical solution (and maybe the minimally-invasive treatment), but you take what's recommended. If you have to pay for treatment yourself, you begin asking questions. (Disclaimer: I live in Germany, a country with "free" health insurance, which I pay for with an effective 15% tax on my income.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I tend to believe that Goog won't do it. Imagine going from kingpin of the Internet, making the rules as it suits you, to an area where you're subject to laws made by others, just like everyone else. They wouldn't be that special any more. Methinks, they're too spoilt for that.

</comment><comment><USER7> Google should take a look at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019)

Then buy Theranos.

</comment><comment><USER32> Waah... we can't let advertisers trawl through your health records because privacy rules won't let us

</comment><comment><USER33> didn't G+ out some transgender people? [http://www.zdnet.com/google-outed- me-7000025416/](http://www.zdnet.com/google-outed-me-7000025416/)

now imagine the same with Google having access to all medical records.

regulation around this exists for a very, very good reason.

<comment><USER34> By "outed", G+ exposed the user's public name to someone, connecting two public pieces of the user's data, that the user intended to keep separate.

It was a poor UI experience, but it wasn't a private-data leak.

<comment><USER28> You're kidding yourself if you don't think that is a private data leak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Google seems to avoid enterprise/gov, and especially highly regulated, business. One can see the advantage of it - that allows the company and the products to avoid bloat and culture corruption endemic to doing enterprise/gov/highly regulated business

</comment><comment><USER36> Why doesn't google innovate regulation first then? :)</comment>


Types don't substitute for tests - <AUTHOR> http://literateprogrammer.blogspot.com/2014/10/types-dont-substitute-for-tests.html

<comment><USER2> And tests don't substitute for well-thought architecture, what is often forgotten by proponents of test-driven design.</comment>


Scientists Put a Human Intelligence Gene into a Monkey - <AUTHOR> https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/scientists-put-a-human-intelligence-gene-into-a-monkey-other-scientists-are <comment><USER2> I wish people would spell out their "ethical concerns".

It makes sense me to question the idea of making monkeys with human-like intelligence just to experiment on. Is that any better than torturing humans?

But it seems like that is not the concern of Walker. If it was, then she wouldn't bring up the idea of enhancing human intelligence as though it were wrong in the same way.

To me, ethics involves some sort of framework for deciding what is moral. Saying "... is ethically dubious" is a conclusion, but where is the argument and what is its basis?</comment>


Ask HN: Hackers' Movies - <AUTHOR>

Hi all, It seems to me that even Hackers need to relax ! I think that we can learn <i>a lot</i> from movies so if you know movies that can help us in our hacker dailylife please share ! <comment><USER2> Primer. It's the only time travel movie that gets it right.

Not only is it about plucky young geek entrepreneurs, but by the end of the movie you'll be constructing Feynman diagrams to explain the plot.

You won't believe the movie cost only $6,000

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/>

<comment><USER3> Obligatory: <http://xkcd.com/657/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There was a related thread about "movies that motivate you" just a little while ago, too. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1349566>

</comment><comment><USER5> Pirates of Silicon Valley: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley>

<comment><USER6> The fan boy within me screams watch this! The best movie about start ups to date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Π</comment>


The laundry industry is in a spin to save water - open-source-ux https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45711230 <comment><AUTHOR> how about washing machines that don't fall apart after a few years? Surely that has a larger impact on the environment

[https://medium.com/@ryanfinlay/they-used-to- last-50-years-c3...](https://medium.com/@ryanfinlay/they-used-to- last-50-years-c3383ff28a8e)

<comment><USER2> I've read that before, and he neglects to mention that appliances used to cost a lot more. It's a bit hard to find pricing, but here's one reference I found with fridges in 1968 at prices between $350-450: [https://www.automatice.org/cgi- bin/index.cgi?showdoc~657~~](https://www.automatice.org/cgi- bin/index.cgi?showdoc~657~~)

In 2018 dollars, that's around $3000. You can get a low-end fridge today for under $400. When a product's price hasn't changed over 50 years, that's achieved by technology, and by cutting materials costs.

<comment><USER3> The price drop is probably because your fridge is built in China or Mexico instead of a neighboring city.

That, and it's made with more plastic. Compare the weight of an old fridge to a new one and you can see where the savings came from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've found anything marketed as "water saving" is pretty much inferior crap to be avoided. From dishwashers to laundry machines, to shower heads, to toilets. I probably end up using more water with the "water saving" models due to having to use them twice as much/long. Combined with the designed-to-fail nature wnevets points out in his/her comment, I would steer clear of any appliance built in the last 30 years or so, particularly anything marked as "energy saving" or "water saving", which are both synonymous for junk.

<comment><USER5> I wonder why a startup doesn't popup to eat the lunch of all these shitty products.

<comment><USER6> Water saving stuff has gotten better and better, but there's only so much you can do with less water. I don't know that a startup would be able to find efficiencies that haven't already been wrung out by established players.

And they can't just produce toilets/showerheads/etc. that just use more water. Regulations won't allow it.

<comment><USER7> I used to work in a place where the toilet-flush levers went two ways: down gets you a low-water flush for #1, up gets you a high-power one for #2. I thought that was interesting. Dunno the regulatory situation around it, though.

<comment><USER8> Dual-flush toilets have been used in Europe for many years. When we moved there in 1998, we had an apartment that was kitted out with one that looked to be more than a decade old at the time, and it worked fine.

I can confirm that modern Toto toilets are also a wonder of engineering. My wife and I are planning on replacing all the old toilets in the house, now that we have a Toto downstairs. Not only does it use much less water, it can also handle way more ... material ... than anything else I have ever seen. Worth the money at ten times the price.

And yes, you can get Toto toilets that also do the dual-flush.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Belgian hosting company starts preregistration for new domain extensions - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.org/2008/08/07/belgian-hosting-company-starts-preregistration-for-new-domain-extensions/

<comment><USER2> Can imageine a few (NSFW) 4 character words that would do well... ;-)</comment>


Notch (the Minecraft Developer) Answers Your Questions - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/djlsz/notchs_answers_to_your_questions/

<comment><USER2> Most technical question/answer:

 _"11. Ahawks This may be "confidential" information, but I have to ask: As a developer, I am amazed at the amazing world that's created dynamically. Towering mountains, twisting caves opening up to caverns, islands, precious ores sprinkled throughout, etc. Notch, could you explain at a high level how the world generation algorithm does this?

I'm not sure how to explain it without getting technical.. The complicated high level technical version is: First I generate a linearly interpolated 3d perlin noise offset along the y axis. I fill that in so that everything except the top x blocks is stone, then I do a second pass to add features like grass, trees, gravel, sand, caves and flowers. The world is generated in chunks of 16x16x128 blocks, based of pseudorandom seeds that are a mix of the level base seed and the chunk location in the world. This ensures that you always get the same terrain in an area regardless of what direction you traveled there from."_

<comment><USER3> _First I generate a linearly interpolated 3d perlin noise offset along the y axis_

What an interesting application of perlin noise. Anybody aware of any other similar applications?

<comment><USER4> Ken Musgrave's work on Terrain rendering is worth a look. He did similar things. The book 'Texturing and Modeling: A Procedural Approach' gives a nice explanation of a lot of the techniques and they used to give a course at SIGGRAPH on which the book was based but I can't find a link right now

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Notch (Markus Persson) interview on the Indie Games podcasts [http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/09/indiegamescom_podcast...](http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/09/indiegamescom_podcast_2_minecr.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Strange that nobody seems to have asked the obvious question: what does he think makes the game so much fun? More specifically, how much thought/effort did he think into getting the creeper/sound/cave mechanics just the right amount of scary/destructive? I imagine it's intentional that dying can easily make you lose all of your inventory (that is, 5 minute decay). How vital are these decisions to how fun the game is?

<comment><USER7> Some of his reasoning can be found in posts in that thread

<http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=6273.0>

I like to think that 'interesting decisions' are what make any game fun but that alone doesn't explain it... ludology?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Follow up to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1723677></comment>


Police Raid Yale Party With Assault Rifles To Catch Underage Drinkers - <AUTHOR> http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/02/administrators-comment-arrests-elevate/

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't put it in the title, but it's worth noting that a student was apparently tasered and beaten into unconsciousness during this incident, with the cops involved screaming "Anybody else? Who's next?" after it happened; several students got into trouble because the cops banned the use of cell phones during the raid. The task force responsible for the raid was tasked with cleaning up the violence on the streets of New Haven.

This is very sad, when I was at school years ago I always found the New Haven police to be pleasant and helpful, but the officers involved in this incident seem to have stepped over the line. From what I can tell, this was a fairly responsibly managed party (it was one of the yearly "screw" parties, not just some random gathering), they were actually checking IDs at the door, which is more than a lot of (most?) New Haven bars can say...

The Yale community is fuming over this, and I don't expect the issue to go away without at least a few heads rolling.

A couple other YDN links on this topic:

[http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/02/video-nhpd- rai...](http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/02/video-nhpd-raid- elevate/)

[http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/02/five- arrested-...](http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/02/five-arrested- raid-morse-stiles-screw/)

[http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/04/alchemy- lawyer...](http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/04/alchemy-lawyer-plans- legal-action/)

[http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/04/univ-may- launc...](http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/04/univ-may-launch- formal-investigation/)

</comment><comment><USER2> at least the police chief of new haven has recently avowed there's no problem video-recording NHPD officers at work, unlike some other jurisdictions.</comment>


The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001224.html <comment><USER2> On Paul's disagreement scale this comment is right down in the sewer, but please pardon me while I vent:

How come Jeff is always grumbling about Apple's "Monopoly" on music and now Google's "Monopoly" on search but he never grumbles about Microsoft's actual monopoly on desktop operating systems and office back ends?

In this post he even calls out the people who grumble about Miscosoft and asks them to grumble about Google. But somehow, he never makes the connection that perhaps people who grumble about Apple and Google might want to do a little grumbling about Microsoft?

> I find that talent is far less important than enthusiasm.

\--Jeff Atwood

<comment><USER3> I think his stance is that there's (more than?) sufficient grumbling about Microsoft, and insufficient grumbling about Apple and Google. There's an obvious bias to his writing, inasmuch as he just takes this as a given and moves on, but that doesn't mean he's totally wrong.

<comment><USER4> The fact Microsoft can still get away with their abuse of monopoly is sufficient proof there is not nearly enough grumbling about Microsoft.

<comment><USER3> Grumbling doesn't effect change. I'd say that there's more than enough grumbling, and precious little else.

<comment><USER4> Grumbling is one of the few ways grumblers can make the people who can effect change take some action. Be patient. Action will come.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google may not be a monopoly, but they are certainly a single point of failure for many businesses. As such, these businesses should not be happy that their continued survival depends on some algorithm not flagging them a 'false positive'. Monopoly or not, I can't help but think that this is not a healthy situation.

<comment><USER6> It's not a healthy situation, but that's largely due to the poor results other search engines provide. I tried using Yahoo! and Live for a while instead of Google. I had forgotten how awful the results were. It wasn't the formatting or the speed, but the lack of relevance the results had to my query. It's no wonder people don't use Google's competitors.

In the mean time, the rest of us have to pray that our site is considered "relevant" in Google's eyes.

<comment><USER7> It's not even the results for some people, but Google itself.

I've seen studies where the researchers show Yahoo results on Google's template, and vice-versa, and people still thought that Google had better results.

Google is a brand nowadays (and a verb ;). The tech will become secondary in a near future. It's like Coke vs. Pepsi, they taste 99% alike and blind tests show costumers have no preference on one over another.

I am not saying they don't have an edge on quality these days, but in the future, just relevant links on the page that appears after you type your search terms will not be enough.

<comment><USER8> Slightly off-topic, but:

"It's like Coke vs. Pepsi, they taste 99% alike and blind tests show costumers have no preference on one over another."

Sorry, but that's completely wrong. Pepsi is far sweeter. It wins on taste tests, whilst Coke wins in some tests where people drink an entire can.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cola_wars>

<comment><USER7> I stand corrected, thanks for the Cola war insight :)

I guess I let out my own personal taste and bias and some faulty memory...

<comment><USER8> ;) I actually can't stand the taste of Coke, but love Pepsi with a passion. Some people think I'm weird/being petty, but it's just a different taste.

<comment><USER8> (Reply to Zack who's comment is dead):

You can tell even by the _smell_. Perhaps you think I'm lying, but when served a brown fizzy drink in a cup, I can tell with 100% accuracy wether it is Coke, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, or Pepsi Max.

<comment><USER9> I don't know exactly why but that sounds very funny to me. I would boast of this ability all the time.

<comment><USER8> The long winter evenings of blind taste testing at our house simply fly by ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The reason people find Google less objectionable than Microsoft is that it is far easier for the average consumer to switch search engines than it is for them to switch operating systems. So while Microsoft could force out better competitors, there's no way for Google to stop people from using another search engine. There just needs to be one that is worth switching to.

<comment><USER4> Google also has not yet been convicted on monopoly abuse charges. Microsoft has. More than once.

And, quite frankly, their continuous defiance and misconduct does not help its image of a serious company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > I find it profoundly disturbing that if every other search engine in the > world shut down tomorrow, our website's traffic would be effectively > unchanged.

Jeff missed a major point here.

What is ACTUALLY a disturbing thought is that if Google decided for any reason to de-list stackoverflow.com they would lose 83% of their traffic. Like that, in an instant.

Worse, they would be left with little or no recourse. Joel is probably enough of a big-wig that he could place a few calls in to Google or raise hell about it on his blog, but otherwise there is no one to talk to at Google or nothing to be done. I've read horror stories about this kind of thing here and there, and it's terrifying.

The comparisons to Micrsoft miss the mark, because Google is a different kind of monopoly and poses a different set of problems to a different group of people.

</comment><comment><USER12> The single worst business decision I ever made was migrating a site on a .net extension over to the .com once the company bought it without making damn sure not to lose rankings in Google. I had heard that permanent redirects preserved pagerank/googleness, but dropped from top 5 on some important terms to outside the front page. This single poor decision/poor execution cost me and the company tens of thousands of dollars, which is orders of magnitude higher than the additional credibility the .com would've brought.

I suppose I had to learn that lesson sooner or later, so I'll go glass-half- full and be grateful that it was on tens of thousands early in life, instead of more later. But that was a pretty expensive lesson.

<comment><USER9> I also have a naive question, does a .com really have "additional credibility" over something else? Why? How about independent of what other websites are doing?

<comment><USER13> Its more due to the brand association people have with the .com domain.

When you're telling friends about sites "I found this great site, its called facebook" - for those people not in the know, the natural thing people do is to use the .com extension.

It's also why the .com domains command a higher premium on the domain name aftermarket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This page, linked from the article, is also a nice read: [http://whimsley.typepad.com/whimsley/2008/03/mr-googles- guid...](http://whimsley.typepad.com/whimsley/2008/03/mr-googles-guid.html)

 _Whimsley Hall is now strewn, like Miss Haversham's house, with cobwebs and dust. Most visitors no longer come in by the front door to take a tour. Instead, Mr. Google (a travel agent who doubles as our butler) directs them straight down to the basement where the family archives are kept and tells them to look at one particular historical document called The Netflix Prize: 300 Days Later. They read this and then they walk right out._

</comment><comment><USER15> My brother has a site that has just gone dark on Google. This is a site that uses no SEO "techniques" - it's just a plain site with content and a form to buy a product (not software) that actually uses Google's own "Checkout". Oddly, it turns up OK on Google's image search but never makes it into the regular key word search results.

Obviously, investigations are on-going but it is a worrying that a site supporting a legitimate commercial venture should just disappear from Google and thus (in effect) from the Internet.

<comment><USER16> This happens randomly. My Rutgers site (one page, edu domain), was de-listed for a couple of weeks (didn't exist, even when I specified "site:rutgers.edu"), then just re-appeared. I also noticed this with Oliver Steele's functional.js page - I was used to typing "functional js" into Google to find it, and at one point, it disappeared for a week or two from ranking alltogether, only to mysterious re-appear again.

Maybe it's some clever way to check whether or not people track their SEO? De- list sites, and watch if the person reverts to an earlier version of the page, or submits it for Google to crawl?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not sure if Jeff knows what a monopoly is.

<comment><USER2> Google is effectively a monopoly, however the issue here is that they do not _appear_ to be misusing their monopoly. Microsoft has been convicted of using illegal tactics to build and maintain their monopoly like licensing agreements that effectively shut competitors out of the OEM operating system business. Apple has been accused of abusing their monopoly by leveraging their position in music players into dominance in online music sales and then enchaining the two the way Microsoft enchained Office and Windows dominance.

What, exactly, have Google done to shut competitors out of the search business? What agreements have they forced on advertisers to discourage them from advertising with anyone else?

And while they ship other products that leverage their competence in search, they do not _appear_ to enchain them. For example, they dominate in online search and have a strong position in online mail. And yes, they can leverage scale to sell advertising on both properties. However, their does not appear to be a link between the two products. For example, when I perform a web search it does not appear to use my mail inbox to influence the relevance rankings of online search.

So far, Google appears to be following a different strategic path than Microsoft did.

<comment><USER18> On the other hand, they effectively pay Mozilla to make Google search the Firefox default homepage. They also distribute a free mobile phone operating system that is heavily integrated with Google services. And they make a web browser (advertised on the main Google page of other web browsers) that incorporates features important to widespread adoption of Google applications (Gears, high performance layout and Javascript engines, robust process model).

<comment><USER2> Paying Mozilla to be the default search engine is merely using money from a successful business to promote the same successful business.

 _They also distribute a free mobile phone operating system that is heavily integrated with Google services._

You might have something there, that is very similar to some of the things Microsoft and Apple both do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Have there existed good alternatives or proposals for alternatives to google that people haven't heard about possibly because google doesn't return them?

</comment><comment><USER20> Any thoughts on how google-integrated tools like HNSearch (webmynd) will play a role in the present-future of the post-google-"search monopoly"?</comment>


Ask HN: What languages / frameworks to learn now to become more employable - non-entity I've worked with a handful of technologies in my short career. My current position is mostly legacy ASP.NET (framework MVC and a bit of WebForms). Prior to that, I was using PHP and before that I did some really insignificant freelancing using Node.js and a few other JS technologies.
The problem is, it's a pain having such fragmented experience. I don't have a more then a couple years professional (i.e. on the job experience) with any of that tech. The only one I fell comfortable with at the moment, is ASP.NET and C# and hell, I don't even have a PC running Windows at home anymore.
When I stopped paying attention to the trends, I think Node.js and React was the popular stack, angular was (sort of) maturing and Vue was up and coming. I also remember Elixir and Phoenix being touted as a rails killer ans something to watch, but am not sure what became of it. But I'm wanting to learn tech that will get me a job I will enjoy more, but I have no idea what's best to invest in. My jobs have typically been full stack, but I'm more comfortable on the backend. I've looked at learning Python (Flask, Django), Elixir (And Erlang, but when I tried to last, I gave up after having issues mentally parsing the list comprehension syntax) and even Go, but I'm not sure how well the job market is for any of these, especially for someone with no experience. I also have very little experience with frontend JS frameworks, embarrassingly, but those seem to have slowed down form a while back.
What new(ish) tech would you recommend to learn, that will be valuable to employment at least in the short term? <comment><AUTHOR> First of all, I think C# as a language and .NET (Core) as a framework were good and are still good choice. You can build whatever you want with it. I don't see too much advantage when you now pick another language for the same purpose unless you are somehow limited with C#/.NET. If you want to be more valuable on the market you should focus more on what you are able to build. It's more valuable when you say, I'm able to build a web application (classic or SPA), work on the database projects (performance, complex queries), I'm able to setup an architecture for a distributed system, I'm able to build microservice cloud hosted systems etc...

For every single thing that you are able to build, you pick a language or tool that suits you the best and just keep improving. Each language has it's pros and cons but, IMO, what matters the most is the code quality, architecture and the things I mentioned above. Better focus on those skills.

If you write nice structured, good organized PHP code (e.q), that is stable in production and which is easy to maintain then you are far better engineer than someone who is showing off with his Rust or Haskell unstructured, not consistent and in the end unstable code. Don't let the trendsetters put pressure on you.

In the end, if you are are really bored with C#, try to learn some F#. It's also .NET but it's a different type of language and if nothing happens, in the end, you will write better C# :) Personally I think that SQL is also a good investment. Most of the people avoid it, I don't know why, but there are and there will be always jobs for a good SQL developer, especially in big companies where the salaries are also higher.

Good luck :)

<comment><USER2> \+ agree with F#, good place to go after C#

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Out of the things you mentioned and what you are looking for, the question might be simplified with technologies currently that will have legs. My opinion is Go, and my reasoning is it's probably going to be the same as if you started with C# back in the day when it was introduced. There is a large company behind it that is investing it the tech and stack, just like Microsoft isn't going to stop with C# anytime soon, I'd imagine Google is with Go on the long haul. I'm interested to hear opinions about this, since this is what I have chosen and reasoning behind it.

The other one is Javascript, just like PHP it's ubiquitous enough that it will offer opportunities on the long term, though they both have less high paying opportunities because there is a lot of supply to match the equally high demand.

</comment><comment><USER2> New technologies don't help as much in short term employment. There is usually a much smaller market.

For new interesting tech, Julia, NativeScript, and Rust look very promising. They will all have very different market appeal.

If you learn NativeScript then you can also consiquently learn Angular/Vue, TypeScript/JavaScript, and build Phone Apps + Websites. NativeScript is a very efficient learning platform.

Julia will grow your type-systems, metaprogramming, and mathematics applications. Move you in the direction of scientific computing; It is used by several of the National Labs in the States.

Rust can help change the way you think from many other languages. can result in you becoming Concurrency and Security aware and friendly.

<comment><USER4> Learning Julia and high performance scientific computing opened up a ton of opportunities for me. I would definitely recommend the same (and am now looking for students who know Julia!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're optimizing for pure employability and a low entry barrier then Java, but don't expect projects to be too interesting or well paid unless it's FinTech. Likewise with C#. JavaScript + React is a pretty sure bet with plenty of options if you're interested in frontend development. However, if you're optimizing for money and are wiling to invest time (at least one year) in learning then it's:

\- Swift + iOS.

\- Scala/Go + Backend development: distributed or real time systems.

\- Python + Machine Learning.

</comment><comment><USER6> For front end - react is still wildly popular. Svelte is a newer one that's beginning to gain traction. I wouldn't invest a ton of time in any specific framework (unless you really enjoy using it), but instead would focus on the pros/cons of each one and when they're good choices. For the most part JS frameworks / libs are easy to pick up if you have familiarity with js go begin with.

Back end is pretty open. As others have mentioned Go is an up and comer. Hard to predict the market pull for it this early, but it seems promising.

Java is still pretty popular, (spring in particular) for web servers. It's not talked about much in the blogosphere but there's a lot of companies that still need java devs.

I can't speak to python/erlang, as I don't have experience with either. I think python might possibly be a better sell just because its popular in data science fields.

Personally I think c# is still pretty marketable. I wouldn't worry too much about the specific tech stack. These days stack-specific dev's are some a dozen, but finding someone who can pick up a new framework/stack/language quickly and efficiently are rare.

<comment> non-entity > It's not talked about much in the blogosphere but there's a lot of companies > that still need java devs.

I've seen this too, but I haven't written Java since Java 7 lmao

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm starting to see the backend/frontend separation as being much less meaningful than it used to be. Plenty of technically client-side code that has incredibly sophisticated data architecture, and server-side code that's focused on responding to events with presentation logic. The most employable people now have strong fundamentals. The worst solutions I see are generally from the "when all you have is a hammer" kind of devs.

So if you're looking at specific en-vogue techs that help with that, I'd say TypeScript is leading the charge right now. Apollo is also good, since Apollo shops will love you, people with any graphql will still see it as an asset, and basically everyone cares about web services in general.

</comment><comment><USER8> I personally feel that Python engineers will always have jobs in some context. For backend webdev, obviously Python and Node are some web-app leaders. I've heard of a few Go jobs, but not too many. I wouldn't get too caught up in the frameworks part (Django, Flask, Hapi, React, etc). The framework is just the tool used to implement the concept, not the concept per se. Make sure you're familiar with the _concepts_ and any job worth having won't necessarily care _too_ much if you're a pro at the language/framework (that can easily be picked up in a few weeks on the job).

</comment><comment><USER9> Don't discount your C#/.NET experience. Anecdotally, .NET has had a bit of an uptick with .NET core being released.

<comment><USER7> I say this as someone who loathes .net: learning .net is a really good idea. If you're looking purely at making a decision based on the labour market, I doubt you'll find a bigger demand relative to supply, and among typically well funded and stable companies.

<comment><USER10> I've been doing .NET since 02 and very happy with the language and ecosystem and job opportunities. However nowadays a lot happens in JS land but with Typescript I enjoy programming there too. .Net + Typescript is a great combo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It really depends on where you are based and if you are wanting remote or not?

If you're in a major metro area like NYC/SF/London etc then I'd suggest Java/Scala/C++. If you want remote then JS seems to have the most opportunities going.

</comment><comment><USER12> In my opinion you should stick to the matured technologies, here is what i use 1)php for web. Framework if any used, depends on project 2)python or php for scripting 3)mysql/postgres for db

In real I experiment a lot with my side projects. I develope android apps, build linux desktop apps in c++, make js micro-utilities,built a unity3d game, write wordpress plugins and list goes on. But when it comes to solid sel3ction I prefer matured tech, they are well documented; major bugs are already solved and edge cases are well defined by community.

Tldr; Use mature tech for main work. Experiment others on side

</comment><comment><USER13> COBOL</comment>


QCL – A Programming Language for Quantum Computers - <AUTHOR> http://www.itp.tuwien.ac.at/~oemer/qcl.html <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, a language like QCL is a bit far away from being a practical language for quantum computers, in the sense that it will be difficult to use on upcoming machines. QCL is of course perfectly fit for experimentation. In my opinion, when you have a quantum computer that has resources akin to a classical computer with RAM measured in tens of bits with stable lifetimes measured in tens of microseconds, using a language that is similar to C gives you a somewhat wrong impression of what you're able to do. While not universally true with C programming, C often abstracts away the idea of finite memory/stack/etc. This is generally a good idea when resources are plentiful. But this very sharply contrasts with near-term quantum computers. Of course, just as with C, one could imagine compiling QCL into a simpler language, with the expectation that QCL programmers can intuit what the compiler will produce as "machine code".

As discussed in a recent paper [1][2], it's pragmatic to think of quantum computation in a coprocessor model. QCL takes a different approach: a high- level language that has a quantum datatype in the midst of the traditional classical datatypes along with their plethora of classical operations. I think that cordoning off the quantum computation as much as possible into a separate processing unit will make eventual adoption much easier. It also makes integration with existing languages much easier. QCL doesn't preclude this idea, but having a quantum coprocessor model implicitly manifest in QCL makes its implementation very difficult.

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03355](https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03355)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12277552](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12277552)

<comment><USER3> What do you think of it for pedagogical purposes? Even if it were impossible to implement, I wonder if an interface closer to traditional programming might lower some barriers to understanding what a quantum computer can do, and how a quantum algorithm might work. Perhaps "prototype in Python, rewrite the slow bits in C" could be adapted to quantum computing.

<comment><USER2> I think a problem with thinking "an interface closer to traditional programming" is that it's really difficult to get anywhere close to what traditional programming is in any meaningful sense. It, QCL, _looks_ traditional because it looks like C with qubit registers (i.e., on the surface, "just another datatype"), but quantum programming is anything but C. No printf'ing quantum states, no qmemcpy, no qmemset, no stepping debugger, no hexdumping, etc. These things are more-or-less quantum impossibilities of ever having, and so we need to think about things in a new way. Trying to hang on to C(-like) programming for pedagogical purposes is more or less a lost cause. With that said, I do not claim that there is no utility in something like QCL. I just don't think it's right, right now.

A very rough analogy, I suppose, would be "let's make Haskell more accessible by doing away with monads and referential transparency". At that point, you've departed from the paradigm Haskell puts forth, and you actually haven't made Haskell any bit accessible.

Your second point about "prototype in Python, rewrite slow bits in C". There isn't, as far as I'm concerned, that sort of problem with quantum programming at the moment. Maybe in a decade or two. It is difficult enough to even get an algorithm working altogether, let alone reasoning about speeding it up. To reason about speedups, you need a framework in which you can reason about performance on some machine model. One such machine model is described in the aforementioned reference.

<comment><USER4> This guy has some amazing videos on the basics of quantum computing and QCL:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO6TsdwxcwM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO6TsdwxcwM)

I wish he had the people and support to help make animations and present the formulas in the correct notations. It starts to make sense though.

I want to get into quantum computing, especially since IBM has one you can play with on-line (your program queues up like old fashion punch cards):

[https://quantumexperience.ng.bluemix.net/](https://quantumexperience.ng.bluemix.net/)

..but to really use it, you need to know how these super weird quantum gates work. From what I can tell with QCL, everything a quantum computer can do, we can do with traditional computers. It's just that simulating 100 qbits takes an ungodly amount of memory and processing power. Quantum computers can't replace traditional computers, they're for a very specific problem space that can be defined with these quantum gate concepts.

<comment><USER5> Try the video series Quantum Computing for the Determined [1]

My simulator, Quirk [2], is a bit easier to experiment with than IBM's. But it still assumes you know the basics.

1: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1826E60FD05B44E4](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1826E60FD05B44E4)

2: [http://algorithmicassertions.com/quirk](http://algorithmicassertions.com/quirk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A suggestion to the author: the documentation must be in HTML pages, not PDF files. That would help search immensely and make references much easier. Furthermore, how about loading the code on GitHub or the like instead of distributing tarballs? Both PDF and tarballs smell of 90s.

Actually I remember tuwien.ac.at from the times where I was downloading software sources from FTP mirrors in the early 90s, so that's a good nostalgic fit :-)

A suggestion for other researchers: start with a git repository and documentation written as .md files. Then write your thesis with LaTeX and export a PDF if you feel like, but for all the developers the source of truth will be the repository and the mds.

<comment><USER7> All of the docs on that site are from the early 2000's

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was reading the linked document titled "Quantum Programming in QCL" which contains the following definition of a Fibonacci function. As far as I can tell this thing calculates nothing like the Fibonacci sequence. Can anyone explain what the thinking is behind this code?

        int Fibonacci(int n) { // calculate the n-th
            int i; // Fibonacci number
            int f; // by iteration
            for i = 1 to n {
                f = 2*f+i;
            }
            return f;
        }

<comment><USER9> I don't even qualify as a novice, but it seems f(the first iteration) would need start with 0.

With this sequence of numbers 1,1,2,3,5,8 it seems to be calculating

f=0 as 2 * 0+1=1 ; f=1 as 2 * 1+1=3 ; f=2 as 2 * 2+1=5 ; f=3 as 2 * 3+2=8 ;

then f=4 should be 2*5+3=13

I'm not sure how 2 is calculated unless i=0, but this is why I'm not even a novice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Adds new keywords "INDECISIVE OR", "MAYBE IF" and "PROBABLY EQUALS" :-)

</comment><comment><USER11> Some recent work on rendering graphics with quantum computers: [http://machinelevel.com/qc/siggraph/hello_siggraph_2016.html](http://machinelevel.com/qc/siggraph/hello_siggraph_2016.html)

<comment><USER12> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12405428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12405428)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> These languages have been around for some time. QML is another ([http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~psztxa/publ/qml.pdf](http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~psztxa/publ/qml.pdf)) as is Quipper ([http://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/quipper/](http://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/quipper/)).

</comment><comment><USER14> It really needs a "show me the code" section, not links to a thesis.

</comment><comment><USER15> I feel like quantum computers are getting all the spotlight but optical computers are every bit as cool and quite a bit more viable right now. Furthermore we do need to develop this industry because it would be ridiculous to still be using wires with quantum computers.

<comment><USER14> Kind of reminds me of how the boeing 747 was only ever meant to be a stopgap and everyone thought the real future was supersonic.

Optical computers will be drop in replacements for our current ones won't they?

<comment><USER15> I think at least in our generation, yeah. But who knows. There's also optical quantum computing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For those interested [https://www.edx.org/course/quantum-mechanics-quantum- computa...](https://www.edx.org/course/quantum-mechanics-quantum-computation- uc-berkeleyx-cs-191x)

</comment><comment><USER17> "Changes in 0.6.4: Dump format supports polar coordinates" made me laugh: I'm sure it makes a lot of practical sense, but my non-qubit-enabled brain can't fathom why that would be necessary!</comment>


Porn maker sues 7,098 alleged film pirates - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20021438-261.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Boo! title change. My submission referred to "hardened criminals"</comment>


New technology is eroding your right to tinker with things you own - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21723679-digital-technology-eroding-peoples-right-tinker-things-they-own-end-ownership <comment><USER2> Name and shame the companies that use those techniques, then vote with your wallets and never buy their products again.

This is a problem that will mostly solve itself, given enough time...

Oh and never get tired to tell this to others, less technical folks why they shouldn't buy X from brand Y because Z, even if they don't fully understand why - tell them to give you a call, if in doubt...

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately this simplistic strategy doesn't work in many cases, that's why these victories in court are important.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/08/17/432...](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/08/17/432601480/diy- tractor-repair-runs-afoul-of-copyright-law)

<comment><USER4> Exactly. The most irritating thing to me these days is Apple's policies regarding running your own code on my iPad, but it's not like any other company is much better about it (even Microsoft is getting back into that game with Win10S, despite the massive court loss it got them back then).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Given the choice I always go with more open...

\- I have an Android because their app ecosystem is more open.

\- I have an Amazon Echo because you can write your own skills for it.

\- I have a Vera for home automation instead of those "Smart Hubs" because it runs Linux and I can SSH into it.

\- My Firewall is a homebuilt box running pfSense

\- etc

But I have long given up on the idea of being able to open up any of my consumer electronics and hack away at them.

<comment><USER6> _I have an Amazon Echo because you can write your own skills for it._

Yea, I got Google Home as a gift. I'm totally baffled by how locked up it is. You're not listening to/interacting with anything by anyone who doesn't have some type of agreement with Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wait does this mean I was committing a crime when fixing game consoles and laptops? No way...

<comment><USER8> Depends on what you're doing.

If you had to, for example, re-flash the firmware on a PS3, you probably broke the law. If you replaced the eject button, you didn't.

You only violate DMCA if you break some form of "copyright protection" mechanism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How to get past the paywall?

<comment> Digit-Al Open the link in a Private Browser window. This will prevent the site from reading your cookies, so it will not know how many articles you have read. Either that or find and delete the relevant cookie.</comment></comment>


The CEO of Stripe reveals what it's really like running a $9.2B startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/stripe-ceo-patrick-collison-on-running-a-startup-2018-6 <comment><AUTHOR> I read this and listened to the NPR podcast episode this morning, and just wanted to say: Patrick and John, you guys have done a great job with Stripe and have made starting an online business simple. I don't think I would have started the businesses I have if it weren't for Stripe making payments so simple. (I saw that you mentioned the negative emails that you get every morning, so if you're reading this, here's a positive message.)

</comment><comment><USER2> One must love the selection bias of all those articles about startups.

If you were the head of a 9B$ "startup", would you really say you "made it" ?. No , you would probably do like Patrick and John and say it is "so hard everyday", and we never "made it" to better subscribe to the startup narrative.

In summary, there is no content in this article as it is usually the case whenever successful founders are interviewed.

<comment><USER3> if you are smart you must talk about how hard it is not how hard you work and how lucky you are. anything else will earn you scorn from the people.

<comment><USER4> I get the difficulty component but surely acknowledging the luck component cannot be the scorn magnet? What is so bad about acknowledging that there was a component in the success (how ever small you want to make it) that wasnt truly you but just kismet?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No discussion at all of the actual content of what he was saying. In my experience he was right on the money. Problems just keep coming at you and you gotta deal. The only way to truly be successful and be able to look back and relax is to leave the business. Seems most founders aren't built that way though.

<comment><USER6> I tend to agree, though I doubt there's anything specific to unicorn success levels about that. Even the smallest business I ever started, with positive but very modest results financially, felt like that. I think it's probably the sense of building something completely new and open-ended that attracts a lot of us in the first place, and that drive doesn't disappear just because you finished your MVP or shipped v1 or hit this or that financial milestone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Patrick Collison, 29, and his brother John, 27, famously turned seven lines > of code into a startup called Stripe, which has been valued in fundraising > at $9.2 billion.

And it's the first sentence no less.

<comment><USER8> > $1 billion per line

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "startup"

<comment><USER10> I came here to say this, once you're calling a 9+ billion dollar company is 'startup' the word has no meaning.

<comment><USER11> Depends on the definition of startup and what definition is most meaningful to the user.

I find the definition of startup: "A business in the early stages" very limited and not that useful. Lots of old school business folk and baby boomer use startup with this in mind.

Paul Graham's definition is one where the number one priority is growth. A business in contrast the number one priority is the bottom line.

Priorities are a good way to differentiate between companies because they're trade offs and are specific/measurable. Companies will make decisions that reveal their priorities even if they profess to adhering to other priorities.

<comment><USER9> PG definition is a shitty definition. Many public and private businesses you ask will tell you their number one priority is growth. Startup by the literal name being used means a relatively new company. If you want to differentiate among the general public use "tech startup" instead.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. If your company is 9 years old and making billions in revenue, it's not a startup. If it's still very growth-oriented, call it a growth-oriented corporation.

<comment><USER11> People seem quick to provide criticism of definitions without presenting their own definition for reciprocated criticism.

So far your definition so far is limited to just precluding anything greater or equal in age to 9 years or anything above 2 Billion in revenue.

Typically what happens as companies scale is they switch priorities from being growth oriented to being a profit oriented one -- the reason being is not looking after bottom line is simply not sustainable.

Focusing on growth at the expense of profitability is sustainable for early stage companies as a someone will pay to see if the growth can be realized.

<comment><USER13> PG's definition is but one bastardization of the word "startup" and it is by far the most useless one.

A startup is a company that hasn't identified a profitable business model. Legally, the definition is further restricted to a company which hasn't begun revenue-generating activities.

It's okay to be a startup for a few months while you're getting everything together and launching. Once you've launched, if you're still a startup, that's an embarrassment--it means your product (or products) isn't generating sufficient revenue to be a real business.

<comment><USER14> _> A startup is a company that hasn't identified a profitable business model._

That seems like an equally useless definition. The profitability of many business models, especially ones in tech and manufacturing, is dependent on their scale so there's a circular dependency. More importantly, the meaning of "identifying a profitable business" is itself unclear. If I open up a new coffee shop in town, is my business model selling beverages, selling coffee, or selling coffee to the ~20k people who walk through my main street location (I'm using a small business example for simplicity's sake)?

That's why I often hear the term "product-market fit" as a way to describe startups. A coffee shop's market is set based on location and the product is a combination of the coffee and atmosphere but the area might be too competitive or too low volume to be profitable. In my opinion, even a coffee shop can be considered a startup until it is in the black and a small business afterwards because there is little opportunity to grow.

 _> Legally, the definition is further restricted to a company which hasn't begun revenue-generating activities._

This is better but then what is "revenue generating" activities? Putting up a Stripe form? Sending out sales people? Doing some marketing? Several of my previous startups had early stage partnerships which paid out a decent amount of money in exploratory contracts before we pivoted to the final iteration of the product. We may have even been profitable for a short while but I'd find it hard to argue that we weren't a startup or that we were a small business/established corporation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Both in terms of content and technology of the site, I've been consistently disappointed with Business Insider. Given its large reach, I consider it one of the worst outlets on the internet. Do others share this opinion?

<comment><USER16> The linked article uses ~300 cookies and ~30 ads. I'm starting to realize that with news sites, we're not looking at the news -- we _are_ the news!

<comment><USER17> I am Print+Digital subscriber of NYTimes and I consistently get reminders to disable ad-blocker on desktop site and consistently get terrible ads on their Android app.</comment></comment></comment>