Jacques Mattheij on: Networking without going places - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2011/2/21/jacques-mattheij-networking-without-going-places <comment><USER2> I have also found most networking (of any kind) to be an inefficient use of my time. At most events, I always had a little voice in my head saying things like, "Instead of being here, I could be building <x>," or "What could possibly come out of this discussion?" I'm also frustrated because so many events don't have my prospects, but "people who know people who know people who may know a potential prospect of mine".

I have taken a totally different approach. It's really simple and maybe even counter-intuitive. Hear me out:

Be excellent. Better yet, be _very_ excellent. In everything you do.

If my customer doesn't think I'm their best vendor, then I have failed.

This applies to _everything_. In the work that I do. In the products I supply. In the fun their people have with me. In the "outside their box" thinking about every project. In the communication. In the failsafe processes of doing business (Yes, I double check that some has double checked.) In thinking 2 steps ahead of them. In being a trusted partner in that part of their business. In pristine ethics (Don't underestimate this one; one slip neutralizes _everything else you've ever done_.)

When I conduct business this way, I become a magnet to those who need my services. I call this "passive networking". I spend no time networking, no time marketing, pay no referrals, and focus completely on my customers. They know and appreciate this. When one of their colleagues mentions a concern at _their_ networking meeting, their Tech Club, their restaurant, or in a discussion with their vendors and customers, they think of me. When they care about the people they know, they want the best for them. I always want to be thought of in this way. IMO, _this_ is the definition of totally efficient marketing.

I know it sounds awfully old school and like a cop-out, but doing everything I can to make myself a magnet is the best thing I ever did for my business. So instead of wasting 99% of my time with strangers, I spend it directly investing 100% of it in people that already matter.

<comment><USER3> This seems similar to some of my thoughts:

Networking for networking's sake: Bah.

Networking to get something done (it can just as easily be (genuinely) helping someone else out, as my own project): Yay!

Networking for networking's sake I find to founded on the wrong purpose; at least for my personality, it puts the cart before the horse.

OTOH, I can engaging in interesting, and deep, conversation with a _wide_ variety of people and topics. But as soon as I start thinking about "what's in this for me", it all goes to crap. And people who approach me with that attitude just make me want to take a shower (euch, get it off!). Actually, I feel a bit torn between wanting to be helpful but knowing I'm being manipulated (hopefully not too successfully).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I worked this way totally by accident when I first became a self-employed contractor.

I didn't plan it, nor did I consciously exploit it when it happened, but it did turn out that way. The upshot was I never had to spend a second on networking and getting clients. Just two good contacts kept coming up with referrals, and the most difficult thing I had to do was to say "no, I'm too busy" every so often.

</comment><comment><USER5> The best thing about this is that sometimes you don't even have to pay out the referral fee! I personally don't like to accept fees for anything where I'm already being compensated.

For example, if I am working with a client (or even plan to in the future) and I recommend Jacques, I will not accept 10%. It's a conflict of interest. Of course, if I'm not working for/with someone and I have no expectation of doing so in the future, I'm free to accept a referral fee.

</comment><comment><USER6> _I've been to a few networking events and, honestly, I feel like a fish on dry land when I'm there. I don't know who to talk to, I don't like the atmosphere, and I don't do alcohol, so typically I'm bored out of my skull and somewhat annoyed - not the best first impression to make on the others._

This is exactly what happened to me the last time I went someplace hoping to "network." The conversations were dominated by callow young guys (only a few years younger than me, but acting like teenagers) either making it clear how much they thought about themselves or making snarky comments about other people's architectures. With regard to the latter, I just stood there thinking, "You could be right, but you obviously don't know enough about the specifics of their technology to make a sound engineering judgment, much less convince anybody else," knowing that if I opened my mouth everyone would think I was an idiot who felt defensive about bad design. Personally, I do drink alcohol, and all I wanted to do was get drunk so I wouldn't feel so miserable standing there feeling out of place. To avoid that I just sat down and read a book on my iPhone until the technical presentation started. Total networking failure! I think I'm stuck relying on former coworkers to be my network, which is just fine with me.

</comment><comment><USER7> Having consulted in NYC roughly 2002-2010, I highly recommend finding a good agency. I got all my gigs that way and they were consistently longer lasting and higher paying than gigs I got through networking. Plus, I didn't have to lift a finger - no negotiations, late payments, collections, etc., and I never had any downtime as long as I gave my agent a couple weeks notice.

<comment><USER8> I'm new to contracting, what are some examples of a good agency? Would that be like a recruiter who specializes in contractors?

<comment><USER7> The best way to pick a good agent is to interview with several and see what gigs they throw your way. I've gotten a bad vibe off agencies with good clients, and vice versa, so I would ignore any secondary signifiers and look solely at what interviews they send you on. Having said that, I would avoid the big temp agencies. They are clearing houses for cheap temp labor so they waste your time on those stupid in-house computer tests but they don't have good clients for tech.

To answer your second question, I've never seen a recruiter that does full- time or contractor but not both. They always try to steer you toward full-time however those full-time positions usually start as contractor-to-hire anyway.

It's really quite easy to find good recruiters in NYC. They are usually subscribed to technical mailing lists and LinkedIn groups. Broadcast your availability and see who contacts you.

One last bit of advice: check out Freelancers Union for health insurance. The options aren't stellar but still better than anywhere else.

What kind of work do you do, if you don't mind my asking?

<comment><USER8> Thanks, very helpful.

I've done web development, database design & reporting, email marketing, and a brief stint at a small bond fund, but the only thing I really enjoyed was web development, so focusing back on that now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well this sounds the same setup as I'm using now. Except I work for a large consultancy company who takes 10% of my fee when they land a contract.

<comment><USER10> Is it customary for this kind of companies to take that little?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I was going to comment on this as well. This is a good deal compared with most consultancy shops I've subcontracted through, more typically 15-20%. Or in several cases, they expect me not to know the ultimate rate billed to the client and we just agree on my hourly rate.</comment></comment></comment>


Top oil firms spending millions lobbying to block climate change policies - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/22/top-oil-firms-spending-millions-lobbying-to-block-climate-change-policies-says-report <comment><USER2> Oil firms could gain a lot from climate change policies if they could be morphed into a worldwide cap and trade scheme... They could sit back and _not_ extract oil, while making more money than they would have if they were extracting oil.

I don't understand why they aren't pushing for that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is lobbying the latest euphemism for bribing?

<comment><USER4> Yes.</comment></comment>


The Free Coffee Test, or Lefkowitz's Law of Corporate Financial Health (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/05/introducing-lefkowitzs-law-of-corporate-financial-health/ <comment><USER2> From the experience of my friends, perks like beverages and snacks vary quite from industrie to industrie. For example in design related industries (agencies etc.), there often are an abundance of snack & beverages perks, in addition to a nicely furnished office etc.

On the other hand, in industries like investing and law firms, snack perks are reduced to bascially soda, coffee and maybe a banana (and furniture is rather of practical appearance). And those I have seen from the inside tendend to be financially very healthy.

A friend of mine explains this with the pay gap: As a designer he has a much smaller salary than his lawyer and investment friends, so his agency invests in these small (and comparably cheap perks) to keep him happy anyway, despite the pay being only okayish. This logic doesn't apply to people with six-digit salaries.

So I think the variety of snacks often has little to do with financial health, more with practice. Though I agree with the author, than any changes in it (like cutting perks) propably do correlate with financial health.

<comment><USER3> True that law firms offer very little in the way of snacks (although that is starting to change), but they offer other perks that can be far more expensive, a common one being free car service home if you work past 9. Most work till 7 or 8 anyway, and it provides a little incentive to stay another hour. I haven't seen this in other industries.

<comment><USER4> My cynicism about law firms makes me wonder if things like "free car service" can be charged back to clients.

<comment><USER5> Why's that cynical? If the client's work is causing the need for the transport then isn't it appropriate to charge it to the client?

<comment><USER4> The activity isn't cynical - my _view_ of why law firms (particularly large law firms) do things is very cynical - based upon many unhappy experiences.

<comment><USER6> I mean, in the end, the clients are paying for everything the firm does, right?

Who is paying for snacks? Eventually, the clients (or the vc, who is hoping the clients will eventually pay for them).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Now that I've seen this sequence play out at 3 different offices, I take this as gospel.

The desperate ineffectual cut hierarchy seems to go: free breakfast, then the free drinks/snacks, then coffee, then people.

Goldman Sachs was the funniest, they made the coffee cups 2 inches shorter to save money during a bad year.

<comment><USER8> I agree with this. I've seen it happen at a Fortune 100 oil company. Times were crappy post 2008, we had regular drip brew coffee. Then oil prices suddenly went up and we were getting literally billions of dollars of orders, and the fancy custom tea and coffee machine was installed.

Anndddd thenn the oil price dropped and a crappy drip machine was installed, and 80% of the staff was laid off.

The ideas I've read in this thread ring true!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I interned at Texas Instruments in Germany. Mostly engineers working there, mostly big expansive cars in the parking lot, so go figure our salary.. On each floor there was a coffee vending machine, a regular cup of coffee was 0,20€. On day, management sent an email to every employee "Free coffee during 1pm and 2pm". Guess what happened?

Everybody left their desks at 12:45 to stand in the queue, waiting for their coffee worth a few seconds of their time. At 2:15 everybody finished their coffee and went back to their chair.

I can't help but think management paid more in wasted salaries in these 1.5h than if they'd just made caffeine freely available all the time.

<comment><USER10> Or maybe they thought people were in their cubicles too much and coffee lines were good to get people chatting and mingling.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. There's plenty of evidence on the magic that comes from serendipitous interactions between employees who might otherwise never interact.

<comment><USER12> Why is this downvoted, it's true?

<comment><USER13> I suspect the militant anti open office crowd wants to suppress any potential concept of "mingling".

<comment> barrow-rider mingling =/= open office. I can still have a quiet space where I can actually get things done, but still interact with coworkers at, say, the coffee machine or water-cooler.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I work in academia, they actually opened a cafe in our lobby to milk more money from us. I've never gotten free anything, the snacks and soda are in overpriced vending machines no one can afford to use, and that pretty much sums up how I feel about the health of academia.

<comment><USER15> I worked in the Australian government. One day a group of big wigs had a meeting in our conference room, biscuits provided. Our group had the next meeting in the room. There was a plate with a few leftover biscuits on it in the conference room, so a few people took one. A memo came around the next day reprimanding people for taking a biscuit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Inpired by this classic from Steve Blank of lean startup Fame.

[https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle- ear...](https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle- earth-%e2%80%93-soda%e2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/)

</comment><comment><USER17> When I'm at work the cost of a beverage is not just one dollar. It is the cost of lost productivity and time in going out to fetch a coffee, which may be so high that I'll have to make do with what's on hand. Given that I spend a larger fraction of my waking hours at the office that means the refreshments available determine my quality of life to a non-trivial extent, and a fall in their quality may make me leave from this direct effect alone. Specially if I'm good enough to get other offers which are comparable professionally.

<comment><USER18> For what it's worth lots of good work-related ideas have come to me while I was being outside the office, apparently being unproductive (taking a walk, waiting in queue at the food-store outside the office to buy some yogurt and fruits etc). From what I've read on this website I'm not the only one experiencing this.

<comment><USER19> I think this is fairly normal for anything creative. During this downtime your brain plays around and that is often when the ideas come out. I frequently get these sparks when you're in the shower or on the toilet, your brain is free to explore.

It's different if you're just processing though, there is no creativity required to check a pile of 500 invoices; you just need to get on and plough though.

<comment><USER20> Agree about having good ideas in downtime!

But 'just processing' jobs also need breaks, especially if accuracy is required, even more especially if the job is safety critical. If you are doing something boring AND dangerous then you have an accident waiting to happen

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So the premise of this story is this

> The financial health of a company can be inferred from the quality, variety > and cost to the employee of the snacks and beverages it offers its > employees.

It's a fun thought experiment, but so obviously flawed. Plenty of failed companies offer these perks, plenty of successful companies don't. Obviously companies going down-hill will reduce non-essential items to make payroll, and obviously companies on the decline are more likely to fail than others.

There is no insight in this article.

<comment><USER21> The insight comes at the end:

 _If the snack and beverage options are better and more varied than they were on your last visit, you know that your client's management is feeling bullish. If they're the same, you know that the status quo is still in place.

And if they have gotten noticeably worse? Consider yourself notified that you may very well in the near future have to push hard to keep your services or products from being axed too._

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This law is only true for companies that poorly understand the value of perks. I work in startup where one of the main perk is that we have free lunch. This has been the case since I joined the startup, back then there were 10 people. We are now 75. Every time I tell my friends that my lunches are paid by the company, I get the same reaction which essentially is: "Man, that's so cool!" Well, you don't know what my salary is. What if I have free lunches, but I'm paid 20% less than the industry average ?

The lesson I've learned through this, is that from the company POV, money spent in perks is worth more than money spent in salary, i.e. employees implicitly would rather have 300$ of free lunches paid by the company every month than +300$ on their salary.

It is in the interest of the company to provide good perks, as the overall perceived employee benefits will be higher than the equivalent in 100% salary.

<comment><USER23> _> i.e. employees implicitly would rather have 300$ of free lunches paid by the company every month than +300$ on their salary._

I agree that companies sometimes spend money on questionable so-called "benefits" (e.g. company-paid bowling party or motivational speakers) -- that employees would rather have as extra cash in their pocket.

That said, I think company-paid lunch is an advantageous financial deal for employees since it's not taxed as income[0][1] and employees have to eat anyway.

I also hate having to get into a 150-degree hot car in the summer or fight freezing snow in the winter just to go buy a lunch. The alternative of bringing my own brown-bag lunch also has hassles because of the extra prep & planning at home. Sure, an on-site catered lunch benefits the employer -- but it also benefits the employees. It's a win-win.

[0] [https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/08/14/exclusiv...](https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/08/14/exclusiveno- more-free-meals-for-tech-workers-irs.html)

[1] daily free meals may be a gray-area tax loophole ( _it 's not "occasional"_) but IRS isn't enforcing a strict interpretation of the law: [https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/federal-state- local-...](https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/federal-state-local- governments/de-minimis-fringe-benefits)

<comment><USER22> I think you misunderstood what I meant, as my overall point is indeed that having good perks is most of the time a win-win for both the company and the employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Shortly after the dotcom bubble burst I did some consulting for a currency exchange startup in London that had the most amazing array of free and limitless snacks I've ever seen. Right up until the day they locked the doors. Things changed too quickly for them to alter the snack mix and pinch a penny.

</comment><comment><USER25> > cuts [...] to stop the bleeding

The way the two metaphors combine into an oxymoron gave me a smile.

Are free snacks a usual perk in USA companies? Where I'm at I've never seen a company offer free snacks, it's always snacks at bulk prices paid for on the honour system. Water and coffee are free, sometimes even tea.

<comment><USER26> As I posted elsewhere, in maybe half a dozen places I've been in the US there haven't been free snacks. But I did interview at one place with a fancy cafeteria; I got the impression they might have been trying to establish themselves as a silicon valley type of atmosphere, even though they were on the other side of the country.

Once at a place I worked at, some entrepreneurial employees started a very profitable guerrilla snack selling business, but eventually management got wind and shut them down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Also, moving to a worse off situation has a much greater negative psychological impact relative to the positive impact associated with an improvement of similar magnitude in the opposite direction. (this is also my naive explanation for the global outcry and lurch to the right as inflation has caught up with stagnating wages)

</comment><comment><USER28> Our free soda, crisps, and chocolate biscuits went away a long time ago. Not because the company wanted to save money, but because the company was more concerned about health. When we moved to a new building, we got an onsite Gym instead.

<comment> 0-_-0 I would take an onsite gym over crisps and such any day!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> By this measure, government agencies are tottering on the brink. If you want a beverage or snack, you often have to leave the office, or buy something from the meager selection, if available.

<comment><USER30> So is most retail, foodservice, call centers (even at stable companies), and anything else fairly low-paying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> My experience is more that the change in drinks and snacks is more an indicator than the snacks and drinks themselves. Some companies that are doing very well just have a culture of not having snacks and charging for drinks.

It is a change in the status quo that really means you are in trouble. Having been at companies that were in trouble and eventually shutdown and even being part of the decision making process in one of those, it is all cost saving in order to keep the lights on one more month, week, or day.

</comment><comment><USER32> This rings pretty true to me. I worked for a well known tech company in 2008 (been around since the 90s, survived the .com burst but barely). And sure enough once the snacks went the layoffs started happening.

It always struck me as odd because the snacks probably cost them next to nothing. I think someone thought the optics of keeping snacks while people laying people off was bad.

If anything they did worse then get rid of them, they actually replaced them with a overpriced vending machine.

</comment><comment><USER33> At the company I work for they don't offer free coffee. The reason they give as to why not is so the employees will actually have to go outside to get one.

<comment><USER34> Are there services that companies can use to settle their employee's tab at a local coffee shop?

<comment><USER35> Many companies have corporate credit cards.

Companies like Grubhub also offer corporate accounts where employers can give their employees money to spend on food.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> So I work on the Accounting side in my office so I can provide some numbers.

For a company of 50~ employees we spend over $2,000 a month in coffee/soda/water alone. The issue is that people drink a _lot_ of espresso so we have to buy pods and no one likes drip coffee so we also have a keurig on the side.

So yeah, the amount of money saved is pretty negligible.

<comment><USER26> I wonder if it might make sense to provide subsidized coffee/snacks rather than free. I used to work in a place that provided unlimited free K-cups and it seemed like maybe people were a bit wasteful. Charging a small amount might have a big impact on demand and still giving people a much cheaper option that Starbucks or whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> These perks an easy to see symptom. Certainly able employess - especially the ones with higher market value - aren't tone deaf to the current tune management / leadership is singing. That is many are already considering heading for the door. When the perks go the tune from the aggregate symptoms has turned to noise. And away they go.

</comment><comment><USER37> Relevant news story from today:

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/splinternews.com/thoughts- and-p...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/splinternews.com/thoughts-and-prayers- for-the-nra-which-cant-afford-cof-1830465382/amp)

</comment><comment><USER38> I disagree. At Amazon, I never saw anything free in the break room except drip coffee. Stock has soared 6 times in 6 years.

At a startup, we always had free lunches every day (virtually anything you want) despite up and downs in the business.

<comment><USER39> These are not bad counter examples, but I think they still hit the mark, just off center.

It's the changes of perks, that predicts _management_ s stance on future prospects.

Amazon didn't change perks, so at best Lefkowitz's Law predicts management is not bullish, not that management are fearing for the future and nothing about the state of the company [1]

Similarly, nobody starts a startup without being bullish about the companys prospects. Thus the law predicts start-ups often have good perks.

[1] or at least, the law is always 1 step removed from predicting the state of the business. E.g., if management have a bleak outlook, it is probably because things are indeed bleak.</comment></comment>


GSM turns 20 today, still rocking the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/01/gsm-turns-20-today-still-rocking-the-world/

<comment><USER2> For those of you who know what I'm talking about - did anyone else think CDMA was a much more elegant technology than GSM?

<comment><USER3> CDMA is cool and it had a lot of advantages back in the 2G days, but it's not good for bursty data traffic. It seems like everybody is going back to TDMA or OFDMA now.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Has PG ever used an idea from your YC application? - <AUTHOR>

I was just watching PG's Office Hours: http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/298808297 and at around 28:40 he has an insight that is almost word for word from our 2009 application: make a tool that targets the busybody matchmakers to circumvent the chicken and the egg program with dating sites. Don't make a dating site, just make a tool for matchmakers.
I guess the lesson here is that if you have a good idea, 10^n people have also had the same idea, 10^(n-2) are working on it right now and 10^(n-3) have a decent shot of making it work.
I was wondering, though, out of interest, how many other people have had the same experience of being unsuccessful with their YC application only to find their idea being touted, or, more gallingly, another team being accepted into YC with the same idea? <comment><USER2> And then they say that ideas on their own are of little worth and it is all about execution... and then they say that anybody can execute and that you are replaceable... in the end, the show is run by those with money. The rest are chess pieces. They win or lose because they are playing the game, not you. You are the pawns, the knights, the rooks, the bishops, the king, the queen. You are not moving the pieces, though. I could be wrong, but I'm not.

</comment><comment><USER3> I will refrain from commenting on your specific situation, but if you do the math, it seems highly unlikely that YC has _not_ accepted competitors of many, many rejects.

Execution matters. The idea matters. The people matter. The timing matters. Luck matters. It _all_ matters. Don't take it personally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed 100%.

Am interested to hear some other people's experiences, to see how often it happens etc. lessons learned etc.

(EDIT: and to be honest, there's about 1% of me that does take it personally, in that he loved the idea, but perhaps he wasn't sold that we were the ones to do it)

<comment><USER4> What gives you the idea that he loved the idea and/or something he'd fund?

<comment><USER5> If you watch the video, I think it's clear that he loved the idea, although he never really said if he'd fund it.

<comment><USER4> From the video it seems like he found a suitable pivot for them, that's about it, the rest are assumptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At a higher level, the same advice can be applied to any chicken and end problem. Job seekers and employers, renters and landlords, buyers and sellers etc.

Same problems offer same solutions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/298808297>

</comment><comment><USER7> I've had this exact idea pitched to me twice as well, and once but phrased around group outings.</comment>


Tips for growing SaaS business targeting 5.4m micro businesses cost effectively? - <AUTHOR> Does anybody has tips for growing a SaaS business by targeting micro business owners cost effectively?
Which advertising/social channel works best for acquiring micro and small business customers for a SaaS business?
This month, I have launched AXSAR Solo - 'One app to run your small business'. The idea is that small businesses can use ONE app to manage all aspects of running their small business (customers, sales, help desk, tasks, invoices, files, notes, diagrams and more). https://www.axsar.com/axsar-solo/
I have got good feedback from startup founders, other product managers and colleagues. I have few actual small businesses/startups who are using the platform, and they love it. The challenge I have is how do I find and get several hundred/thousand small business owners to try the platform, and provide genuine feedback around product experience, pricing and features?
On Betalist we got few hundred visitors to the site, but only a few dozen signed up. Apparently many of those users are not small business owners. I have to still try ProductHunt, have been keeping it for the end to improve my pitch in the meanwhile and was waiting for creation of AXSAR Solo promo video which is ready now.
I have tried Facebook/Google but the paid ads are way expensive as AXSAR Solo is partly a CRM. Currently I am trying Reddit Ads.
In UK alone, there are 5.4 million micro businesses (less than 10 employees).
Ideally I want to target these micro businesses as the product will simplify running their business (one app) and also cut down on their subscription costs. Micro businesses wouldn't have to deal with integrations across different systems.
As a solo tech founder, I have found a process to develop and bring a new product to market rather quickly, but now the challenge is how to find a repeatable and sustainable process to reach those micro businesses cost effectively.
Any suggestions/articles regarding these questions will be highly appreciated. <comment><AUTHOR> Below is the AXSAR Solo Website: [https://www.axsar.com/axsar- solo/](https://www.axsar.com/axsar-solo/)

and short intro video explaining the product: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-wh_r1risc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-wh_r1risc)</comment>


Ask HN: OS X Partitioning Advice - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,
I just upgraded my drive in my MacBook to a 500gb hybrid from Seagate as well as 8gb of RAM.
I am looking for partitioning advice. I know there are some work arounds that need to be done to accomplish this and I just don;t know the best approach.
I need:
-1 large snow leopard partition. My main partition.
-1 small Windows 7 partition
-1 small partition for "OS X Developer Previews" (obviously I cannot voilate any NDA's)
I don't really want to run virtual machines for Windows, but if I did, then this becomes easy as it is possible to run multiple OS X versions and I have done this many times.
I know that if I decided to throw in a small Linux partition (which I would only use once in a great while for testing) that it complicates even more.
Advice is appreciated. <comment><USER2> Depending on your usage ~20GB should be enough for Windows - but you'll want to get it right because resizing an NTFS volume is a pain (with something like WinClone).

The second OS X partition, I don't think there aren't any DPs other than 10.6.5 that have been released to Mac Developer Program members (unless you're a Select or Premier?) and you can always install and use the included reversioner.... now 10.7 will be a different story when it comes along, but another ~10GB should be enough.

I would put the rest of your disk to the main partition. You can startup the Mac from your boot DVD or find a Snow Leopard image and an external drive somewhere to use Disk Utility to repartition.

edit: of course repartitioning will erase the drive, so backup carefully.

edit2: actually, Disk Utility does have non-destructive partition editing but it hasn't worked the two times I've tried it, giving an error about unmovable files or something, but it might still be worth a try.</comment>


The Fix Is In? DraftKings "Insider Information"Scandal and Impending Regulation - <AUTHOR> https://legalviewpoints.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/the-fix-is-in-draft-kings-insider-information-scandal-and-impending-regulation/ <comment><USER2> I have noticed FanDuel commercials have disappeared for now on TV. But this was a long time coming..</comment>


Quirks of C - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/zneak/5ccbe684e6e56a7df8815c3486568f01 <comment><AUTHOR> on similar lines, i find this [http://jroweboy.github.io/c/asm/2015/01/26/when-is-main- not-...](http://jroweboy.github.io/c/asm/2015/01/26/when-is-main-not-a- function.html) quite entertaining !</comment>


Framework benchmarks round 13 - <AUTHOR> https://www.techempower.com/blog/2016/11/16/framework-benchmarks-round-13/ <comment><USER2> Why is Phoenix is ranked so low even lower than Django? it is supposed to be one of the fastest frameworks.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> ruby still slow.

c# on linux what a jump from the last report</comment>


Iran's Draft Data Protection Act - <AUTHOR> https://www.article19.org/resources/irans-draft-data-protection-act-too-little-but-not-too-late/ <comment><AUTHOR> Iran tries to co-opt data protection to pursue it's own techno-nationalism.</comment>


Coronavirus: Dexamethasone proves first life-saving drug? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53061281 <comment><USER3> Dexamethasone is a serious drug and corticosteroid [1]. It was prescribed for a friend after eye-surgery and having skin / eye inflammation problems, I used it (with no doctors advice) recklessly albeit with very small quantities.

The drug was hyper-effective. An unbelievably tiny quantity can remove any inflammation (eye, skin, hair skin rash, etc...). But the fall out and side- effects are no joke even for seemingly super minuscule doses. It was a horror story for me with horrible eye inflammation, small inflammations in different parts of the body and a skin rash I still struggle with until today. Mind you I took small localized doses and not an injection. I wasn't aware that it can travel through your skin, get into your blood and make a mess.

I think the research will need to specify potential side-effects and their probabilities. It's trade-off at the end of the day.

PS: Do not ever think of trying it without medical advice and doctor supervision.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexamethasone#Adverse_effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexamethasone#Adverse_effects)

<comment><USER4> Well, yeah, steroids are incredible, shame they have such severe side effects. Following a parvovirus B19 infection I developed severe joint problems(basically got advanced arthritis at the age of 28, how fun), and all it took to sort out was one steroid injection. I won't lie, for the next few days after the injection I felt like a superhuman, all the issues went away and in general I felt super great. Obviously that's not something you can continue doing because the side effects get really bad after a while, my doctor warned me that if the issues come back I probably won't be able to get another injection because the risk is too great, but for a one-off thing it was like a miracle cure.

<comment><USER5> That's the problem with evolution. Any protein in the body ends up with multiple completely unrelated functions.

If it's in the blood stream for enough generations, the body will find some alternate use for it. It's like a compression algorithm on your DNA.

...and so when we try to use meds to counter certain proteins or block receptors, we discover that it has a dozen totally unrelated impacts. "Oh, that blood pressure medication? Well let's just have it also randomly give you prostate cancer!" (real example).

Organic evolved animals are the worst type of spaghetti code - if there was ever something you'd want to redesign from the ground up, it's us.

Then add to that that there isn't even any "standard" type of human. We're all different - and even different groups of us have different smatterings of genes. Sometimes it correlates with our ancestors background - sometimes it doesn't. Who knows! Evolution! We're all each just individual experiments running around to see which genes can procreate the most.

...and it's not even as though each of us is a single experiment on a specific gene, that would be too easy. We're each an experiment on a unique collection of thousands of genes that evolution hopes will average out the results across the entire population. Try to wrap your statistics PhD around that!

Then also factor in that modern human evolutionary pressures are _totally_ different than they were even a couple of generations ago, and it becomes clearly evident that evolution is in a complete state of dysfunctional disarray.

<comment><USER6> Spaghetti code has more negative connotation than I'd attribute to our insanely adaptive, flexible, and efficient organism.

<comment><USER5> Evolution is romanticized, but its ability are limited, not infinite.

The more complex a species, the _less_ adaptivity it has to fundamental shifts in environmental pressures. The interconnections between protein functions are directly responsible for that trade-off, and become a liability.

The time scales for evolution far beyond our current level of genetic complexity, probably extend beyond the life span of the Earth.

Now the benefit of this speghetti-code situation is that no intelligent designer is required - obviously a fundamental ingredient of abiogenesis, but does it benefit an species that's capable of genetic editing?

Nope. At this point, it's really just a bottleneck to even repairing the most straight-forward genetic diseases.

As a species, we're approaching the time where we've obviated evolution. ...I won't say we've seen that _yet_ because reproduction rates are still very uneven across population segments, but it's only a matter of a few more generations (cataclysms not withstanding).

<comment><USER6> It's not spaghetti code... I just think your analogy is weak and misleading.

Not sure how you're defining complex but humans pretty soundly refute that adaptability thing.

It's not a "bottleneck" it's just... life. Can you point to an animal anywhere near as successful as humans that doesn't have.. genetic variability? No. It's a _requirement_ and _precondition_ for our success, not some flaw we overcame despite.

<comment><USER7> What's your definition of success?

<comment><USER8> To exist.

<comment><USER9> Existence is table stakes. All interesting things happen on top of it.

<comment><USER10> is there a greater mystery than existence itself?

<comment><USER11> Something being more mysterious doesn't make it more interesting.

What's my private key? It's a mystery, but not a very interesting one.

Why does the universe exist? It's mysterious, maybe the most mysterious thing of all, and 8lit's interesting, but I'd say it's not the most interesting question of them all.

<comment><USER10> by mystery, i mean much more than that which is not known.

i mean to convey: something that is difficult or impossible to explain. something that is deeply interesting and provokes wonderment.

what is more difficult to explain and understand than the fundamental nature of existence?

perhaps it is not apparently immediately _useful_.

but in a cosmic sense, of what use is it to understand thought objects in the world when there is a complete lack of understanding of the consciousness in which these thought objects arise?

i'm curious what are some candidates for "most interesting question of them all" in your view. this is something which sparks a genuine curiosity in me and would love to hear your perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> More informative article here:

[https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/16/major-study-finds- common...](https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/16/major-study-finds-common- steroid-reduces-deaths-among-patients-with-severe-covid-19/)

The problem is that there is little more than a press announcement at this point. There are no data. There is no paper. There are no details to consider.

We've seen this movie before, and it's gone badly (remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine). Safe and effective drugs require copious details, and you'll find none of them here.

<comment><USER13> What's bad about remdesivir?

<comment><USER14> It's simply not that effective, it has a very small treatment effect and isn't a great tool, but it's certainly much more justifiable than hydroxychloroquine, which took much of the oxygen out of the room when POTUS and the GOP hyped it FAR beyond its statistically shown merits.

<comment><USER15> Also: it has serious manufacturability issues, and it can only be administered by IV.

It's entirely plausible that giving remdesivir to COVID-19 patients when they first show symptoms would make a big difference, but it's impractical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As far as I can tell it is extremely common to give steroids (and dexamethasone is among the default choices) in those cases already. I can't quite tell but it doesn't sounds like it was compared to other steroids so I would hold judgement before we hear more.

At any rate, hype over initial briefly reported findings is rarely useful.

Edit: I was checking how common was it to give corticosteroids before the trial (pretty common as I suspected) but it's almost amusing that the WHO was recommending not to use it[0]. I wonder if this will be yet another miss for them.

0\. [https://www.contagionlive.com/news/is-there-any-reason-to- us...](https://www.contagionlive.com/news/is-there-any-reason-to-use- corticosteroids-in-coronavirus-treatment)

<comment><USER17> > it's almost amusing that the WHO was recommending not to use it

Why is everyone picking on the WHO constantly? It's like it's a reflex at this point, as far as I can tell designed to shift "blame" off of... other parties who got lots of stuff wrong.

In this case you're spinning really hard. The WHO guidance you're quoting, quoted in the article you link, was really mild: " _"Given lack of effectiveness and possible harm, routine corticosteroids should be avoided unless they are indicated for another reason," WHO authors wrote._ " Is that really unreasonable? In January they didn't have evidence of effectiveness, and drugs have side effects. Sounds like correct reasoning to me. Do you actually disagree?

And in any case that quote is from a document in January, the current version (from March, also linked from the article) is here, and makes a bunch of complicated points about steroid use, citing contemporary research which was inconsistent about effect: [https://www.who.int/docs/default- source/coronaviruse/clinica...](https://www.who.int/docs/default- source/coronaviruse/clinical-management-of-novel-cov.pdf)

<comment><USER16> >Why is everyone picking on the WHO constantly?

Because they've made multiple avoidable bad calls.

>In this case you're spinning really hard.

'WHO was recommending not to use it' is a quick summary of statements like "routine corticosteroids should be avoided unless they are indicated for another reason,". How is this not a recommendation against it and 'spinning really hard'?

At any rate, I didn't dig into that part much (WHO recommendations are much much less important than medical trials), I just found it interesting enough to mention.

<comment><USER18> > Because they've made multiple avoidable bad calls.

Could you say more about this ?

<comment><USER17> It all comes down to politics. Some people want covid to be the "fault" of someone else. The WHO is a good target, because they did indeed have some really bad communication work in the early days of the infection:

1\. They stated, more assertively than they probably should, that they believed the virus was contained in Wuhan and not spreading in the community (that's the "no human-to-human transmission" quote that gets taken out of context).

2\. Their statements that people should not try to acquire PPE masks were poorly phrased and seemed to imply that masks don't work (obviously they do).

3\. There was that one incident, not related to the outbreak really, where a WHO official hung up the phone rather than take questions about Taiwan (for geopolitical reasons, Taiwan is not a member of the WHO). This led to a thousand "WHO is in China's pocket" takes.

I mean, just in general the WHO has not comported themselves well here. There's been plenty of routine incompetence to complain about, and frankly they haven't really don't much to help.

But the political vitriol you hear about them is 100% blame shifting. Most of the people yelling loudest about the WHO failing to give good advice about this dangerous disease tend to argue in other contexts that the disease isn't so dangerous, we shouldn't be forced to wear masks, the economic damage is too great, liberty is at stake, etc...

<comment><USER19> Honestly I don't think it's true to say it's about politics. The WHO tweet from 14 January was very misleading and no doubt caused things to get worse:

> Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found > no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus > (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳.

<comment><USER20> As far as the WHO was aware, and at the time of posting, that tweet was entirely accurate.

They're not the CIA. They don't have an adversarial spy arm. They rely enormously on member nations' self-reporting, and they rely on those reports being honest. That clear evidence came later on doesn't mean the WHO had clear evidence _at the time_.

(And, as the saying goes, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Nothing in that tweet says "it can't spread"; it says "we can't solidly confirm it has been yet".)

<comment><USER21> Sure, and a lot of misleading stuff is true.

Consider this imaginary scenario. Imagine a dead body is found in the street in front of your house. The dead person has multiple stab wounds, and there is a knife 20 feet away from the body.

Imagine you inform the police, but they come 2 hours later, and announce that they'll investigate the death. Then 2 days later they come and announce that they had no evidence that this was a murder. They also announced that staying in and locking your doors had shown to not stop serial killers and was counter productive.

Do you want such an investigative agency?

I would prefer if the police said something like this within 1 hours of arriving at the crime scene "the stab wound and a bloody knife indicate that this might be a murder. In order to stay safe, the residents should stay in, take precautions and lock their doors"

In case you didn't get what I referred to, there is no reason to doubt via a SARS like virus with respiratory sickness may be transmitted via air. Their default reaction should have been to assume the worst. Further, saying that travel restrictions do not stop a disease is a stupid statement to make. Specially when we see South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, NZ etc exterminate the virus.

WHO is to blame as much as individual governments.

<comment><USER20> Per [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/17/trumps- fa...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/17/trumps-false-claim- that-who-said-coronavirus-was-not-communicable/), on _the same day_ , the WHO said this:

> Van Kerkhove added, however, that human-to-human transmission would not be > surprising given the WHO's experience with SARS, MERS and other respiratory > pathogens.

> Van Kerkhove's message was not lost on reporters. The Telegraph in Britain > headlined its article on the news conference: "WHO refuses to rule out > human-to-human spread in China's mystery coronavirus outbreak."

Within a week (Jan 20) they'd confirmed the human-to-human transmission, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> More detailed results on this trial are coming soon but the preliminary results can be found at [https://www.recoverytrial.net/results](https://www.recoverytrial.net/results)

<comment><USER23> This is quite big as a result, although it was done against standard of care (so it can mean a lot of things), because it improves survival.

This brings the list of currently effective pharmacological treatments to two:

\- remedisivir (reduces hospital stay, _might_ improve survival)

\- dexamethasone (improves survival if requiring oxygen)

<comment><USER24> Now that the "hydroxychloroquine is dangerous" research has been retracted, does HCQ count as a 3rd treatment? Or did we never get confirmation that it was effective?

Edit: what's with the downvotes? Go look at my post history, I'm not some Russian astroturfing bot. And I got a lot of informative replies, which is why I asked in the first place.

<comment><USER25> Are you referring to the retracted Lancet study or the just-breaking-news about the Oxford Recovery Trial where they were using lethal dosages of the drug? [1]

[1] [http://covexit.com/recovery-covid-19-research-blasted-for- to...](http://covexit.com/recovery-covid-19-research-blasted-for-toxic-dosage- towards-oxfordgate/)

<comment><USER26> This seems to be the response to every trial that shows chloroquine and friends to be ineffective, though. "Well, of course there was no positive effect, the dose was too low." "Well, of course there was no positive effect, the dose was too high". "Well, of course there was no positive effect, you didn't tape a halibut to the patient's head". "No, not a cooked one, you fools, a live one!"

At a certain point, it's possibly worth considering that there may be no there there.

<comment><USER27> I've noticed on Derek Lowe's blog that there seems to be a definite hydroxychloroquine brigade that doesn't exist for any other purported therapy. And as you noticed, this brigade will pick apart HCQ studies for not doing X for a bajillion different varieties of X. (Not simultaneously dosing with zinc and/or azithromycin is the one that tends to be mocked the hardest on the blogs).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The title is click-bait. This and other steroids have been used by doctors against COVID-19 from the beginning. So have blood thinners, and plenty of other medications, and even radiation. From what has been gathered so far, COVID leads to an attack on the endothelial layer of your blood vessels that is responsible for clotting. That causes potentially permanent damage and if immunity doesn't last long, also potentially accumulating cardiovascular, pulmonary, and renal damage. From there COVID or the body's immune response can hit multiple organs at different times turning your life into a flimsy house of cards. Medicines for one organ can kill another (blood thinner targeting a clot in your body can and does cause a stroke, or some other issue). Just like a little push of the gas pedal or the breaks. The driver's (your doctor's) skill is far more important than a single medicine at this point.

<comment><USER29> NYT seems to think it's a big deal [0]

> Assuming that when it goes through peer review it stands — and these are > well-established researchers — it's a huge breakthrough, a major > breakthrough," said Dr. Sam Parnia, a pulmonologist and associate professor > of medicine at the Grossman School of Medicine at New York University.

[0] - [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/world/coronavirus-live- up...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/world/coronavirus-live- updates.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln- coronavirus&region=TOP_BANNER&context=storylines_menu#link-2c3ace49)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Dex is an important part of a first aid kit for high altitude mountaineering as it's somewhat unpredictable who will be afflicted by various issues related to altitude or when.

</comment><comment><USER31> I thought that name was familiar. It's the miracle drug called "dex" and hyped in the Chris O'Donnell movie, Vertical Limit.

My bet is Vertical Limit is the next movie to trend (after Contagion): [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_Limit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_Limit)

<comment><USER32> Haven't seen the movie but it is one of the drugs prescribed for altitude sickness. Or rather, one of the ones often carried for use in life-threatening cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is good news, but it doesn't change anything from a public health perspective, because:

> Of those who are admitted, most also recover but some may need oxygen or > mechanical ventilation.

> And these are the high-risk patients dexamethasone appears to help.

At best this might take a little bit of pressure off the healthcare system in the treatment of the most severe cases. As others pointed, steroids are powerful/dangerous stuff so they won't be using this except in the most advanced cases.

<comment><USER26> I mean, most people who are dying receive oxygen and/or ventilation. If it does significantly reduce death rate there, that's not nothing.

<comment><USER33> Definitely not nothing. My point is that this treatment, however effective, isn't effective early enough in the disease's progression such that it allows us to reduce public health response measures by any significant amount, whereas a treatment that was very effective at an earlier stage of the disease would.

<comment><USER26> Oh, yeah, definitely. Such a treatment would be a game changer, and this one is not. Still, in the absence of such a treatment, this is very nice to have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I had idiopathic acute pericarditis several years ago with two months of anti inflammatories keeping it in check, but ultimately 3 days of low dose dexamethasone finished the job. My case was thought to be autoimmune - <USER2> to the cytokine storm spoken of with COVID-19. Very effective and potent steroid.

</comment><comment><USER35> How does this information

"About 19 out of 20 patients with coronavirus recover without being admitted to hospital.

Of those who are admitted, most also recover but some may need oxygen or mechanical ventilation."

Get said along side a published ~10% death rate. There have 300,000 cases in the UK and 40,000 deaths.

<comment><USER36> It's possible there are more than 300,000 cases, since not everyone with the virus gets tested, so you can't assume 40,000/300,000 is the true death rate. There are likely many with milder symptoms who do not get tested and recover without going to the hospital, so the true death rate is lower than the confirmed deaths/confirmed cases figure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This drug may be a hammer, and a better tool is desirable. But finally, a hammer that may work! I am hopeful this will move us faster along the direction of normalizing.

</comment><comment><USER38> Isn't administration of (potent) steroids the standard treatment for autoimmune reactions - what seems to happen on the extreme cases of COVID - already?

<comment><USER39> It's done commonly, but steroids are such a broad field of medicine that it's almost like saying "don't doctors already prescribe chemicals?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I only knew of Dexamethasone as cancer treatment. Which intuitively makes me wanna question how good of an idea this is. That said, my knowledge on medicine outside the sheer basics is practically none... I mean correct me if I'm wrong here but aren't cancer treatment drugs prone to cause severe side effects in general?

<comment><USER41> Dexamethasone is not cancer specific. It is used in cancer treatment but mostly to reduce swelling and the effects of tumors. It doesn't have the side effects of chemo. It has its own set of problems it brings with the benefits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Where is the study?

</comment><comment><USER43> This doesn't seem all that surprising --- I recall reading that steroids were also the choice of treatment for SARS many years ago.

<comment><USER44> That's probably why they tested it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> If this cuts deaths by 1/3rd, isn't that totally sufficient to end all lockdowns and border restrictions immediately? The death rate looks basically like the annual flu with this drug, particularly when we consider that it will just be one bad season then fairly minor from then on, when much of the population gets natural immunity.

<comment><USER46> It's baffling that you are comparing the death rate that happened DURING A LONG LOCKDOWN with a non-lockdown annual flu death rate.. and acting like if we can drop the numbers a bit it's the same thing.

Your logic is essentially saying the lockdown did _nothing_ to reduce deaths/infection.

<comment><USER47> They are talking about the death rate, not the absolute number of deaths.

<comment><USER26> I mean, that would still be wrong. IFR for flu is about 0.1% in a normal year. Most reputable estimates for the IFR for COVID are about 1%.

<comment><USER45> CDC estimated it at 0.26%:

[https://in.dental-tribune.com/news/new-estimate-by-the- cdc-b...](https://in.dental-tribune.com/news/new-estimate-by-the-cdc-brings- down-the-covid-19-death-rate-to-just-0-26-as-against-whos-3-4/)

<comment><USER26> That estimate wasn't particularly well-received, and the facts on the ground make it look especially dubious. NYC has has 17k deaths, for instance, mostly in April and early May. If you assume that _everyone_ in NYC has been infected, that would be an IFR of 0.2%. An antibody survey in late April found a prevalence of about 25% in New York City, which, assuming it's accurate (huge assumption, obviously) would indicate a rate of about 0.8%.

<comment><USER48> > That estimate wasn't particularly well-received

Of course not, _any_ estimate of this number is going to be controversial because it implies that _someone_ messed up. The "reception" from one side in an ongoing debate means precisely nothing to me.

> An antibody survey in late April found a prevalence of about 25% in New York > City, which, assuming it's accurate (huge assumption, obviously)

Yes, fairly big assumption. I wonder if the seropositive numbers have changed since then?

> NYC has...

NYC has/had a lot of uncommon things that you don't mention:

\- Filthy subway system with horrible ventilation that is used by _almost everyone_ many times a week.

\- Large proportion of residents living in apartment buildings with shared HVAC.

\- Public health protocols which were extremely quick to hospitalize and then intubate patients (even those without positive PCR tests).

\- A directive from the state government which forced nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'm a little frustrated that all the doctors seemed to have gotten this wrong. Using steroids was completely missed and ignored as a treatment for severe patients, as I understand dexamethasone was only shown to help people on oxygen or ventilators. It seems everybody was focused on covid being a respiratory disease, when in fact it looks like it's actually circulatory.

<comment><USER50> What do you mean it was missed?

Corticosteroids were recommended to reduce the body's overreaction.

What I am wondering about is whatever happened to Ivermectin, that was so promising back in April. MERCK makes Stromectol since the 70s. Clears the entire infection in 48 hours!

[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/could-an- antiparas...](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/could-an- antiparasitic-drug-kill-off-sars-cov-2-within-2-days)

<comment><USER51> *In cell cultures.

It's in at least one trial. [https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04374279](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04374279) Estimated completion date is this month, so keep an eye out.

<comment><USER50> When and bow will we know the results of this study?

<comment><USER52> If nothing else you'll hear news about it if the study looks promising

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> > A cheap and widely available drug called dexamethasone can help save the > lives of patients who are seriously ill with coronavirus.

Yes, cheap until it gets patented because that is what usually happens when a drug is repurposed.

<comment><USER54> Given that it was discovered in the 1950's, I don't think you're going to see a patent on the versions currently being used in clinic. Now,if someone creates a more bio-available/active functionalized variant of it, fine that might get patented. But I doubt it would have much of an impact on the suggested COVID19 treatment (and would likely be years away from market)

<comment><USER55> You can actually get patent protection on things like dosage and indications. But it's much weaker than for composition-of-matter patents and often courts rule in favor of challengers.</comment></comment></comment>


How They Work: WWI Firearms Animations - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/FCjOH <comment><USER2> This is really cool and well done.

The Gewehr 98 animation seems to have a much shorter trigger pull than my 98k - I'm not sure if somebody set it up that way on purpose when they sporterized it - kind of a shame, since it has all matching serial numbers and is stamped Obendorf 1918...</comment>


AUM -- a sensor that tracks how you use your computer. Beta, windows only. - <AUTHOR> http://factbased.blogspot.com/2012/06/aum-sensor-to-track-your-computer-usage.html

<comment><USER2> Really interested in this for some research I'm doing. Just installed it (XP 32-bit).

I wonder if knowing the title from my browser tab is enough to correlate it with my browser history to find the URL, or if that'll have to be a feature request.</comment>


Fully dressed and preserved 350-year-old corpse of French noblewoman found - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/03/fully-dressed-and-preserved-350-year-old-corpse-of-french-noblewoman-found <comment><USER2> Though the article does say that the body will be re buried, it does not specify that it will be in the same place. Are we to understand that they are just moving the bodies out of the way to build a convention center?

Real question: what will we learn from examining this body from 300 years ago? My understanding is that we have plenty of artifacts and knowledge left from that time period. Are we primarily interested in her cause of death? her diet?

<comment><AUTHOR> Bioarcheaologists have been finding out all sorts of new stuff recently using forensic tools to analyze human remains. One of my favorite blogs along these lines is Kristina Killgrove's "Powered by Osteons" which discusses her research into lead levels in the bones of ancient Romans, among other interesting things:

[http://www.poweredbyosteons.org](http://www.poweredbyosteons.org)

From a more specifically historical point of view, it's true that we know quite a lot about 17th century material culture (especially of France) due to probate records from wills, and the survival of many pieces in museums, etc. But it's still interesting to see the divergence between textual records of burials and belongings and how they actually played out in practice, especially because most museum pieces are completely decontextualized from the original context (i.e., we might have some cork-soled shoes that survive in other collections, but these ones are still on the feet of the wearer).

<comment><USER2> Thanks for that reply!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> From the title, I expected a surprise in how the body was found, not in a tomb.

</comment><comment><USER4> I read this article in order to compare this case with those of Catholic and Orthodox saints who are incorrupt. Sure enough, this woman lived her final years in a convent.

For some reason that I've never heard explained, living a holy life (according to Catholic and Orthodox Christian measures) sometimes has the effect of retarding the process of decay after death. I used to suspect the stories of incorruptible saints as being frauds perpetrated to advance the agenda of the Catholic Church, but as I have learned more, it has happened too many times in too many different ways for me to think that anymore. In the case of this French noblewoman, no one is trying to advance the cause of her canonization. She was found accidentally, seemingly by someone who has no interest in Catholic saints.

<comment><USER5> This doesn't even make sense from a Catholic/Greek Orthodox perspective. Why would the body be preserved without the soul? Strikes me as almost blasphemous.

<comment><USER6> > This doesn't even make sense from a Catholic/Greek Orthodox perspective.

Sure it does.

> Why would the body be preserved without the soul?

As a sign of God's power, as a message to others, the same as any other miracle.

<comment><USER5> > As a sign of God's power, as a message to others, the same as any other > miracle

Well sure, but you might as well point out the stain in the corner is a "sign of God's power". It seems to me the "correct" approach would be to appreciate the ineffability of what happened, not make ridiculous claims about holiness causing preservation when there is literally no rational implication of this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to Blend 'Minimalism/Low-Tech/Degrowth' with Software Development? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I've been working as a software developer for quite some time now, mostly in Web/React/Node.Js and SQL. I also have a few side projects that are mechanical engineering and close to production.
Lately, I feel like I'm at a crossroads and would like your input.
1) Minimalism, Low-Tech and Degrowth values are really important for me (for multiple reasons), I consider them core values. 2) My strength are creating physical products and websites for clients whose core values are the antithesis of mines.
Basically, I have a hard time blending my strength with my core values, which gets me very demotivated. I've refused job offer in various areas already (publicity, finance, chemical), but I can't seem to find one that ticks all the boxes.
Have you felt a similar way before? How did you manage?
What are some company/sector that would be more inline with my values (I don't mind to pivot)?
Thanks for you help! <comment><USER2> The same internal or custom CRUD app done with 90's tech was much quicker and much less code than current web stacks. Is it too much distraction with fads and JavaScript UI gizmos, CRUD-unfriendly web standards, a combo, or something else? Something is wrong. It's good for IT worker employment, but customers are paying an ARM chip and a leg (bad pun intended).

We de-evolved. Ooga Booga. We had Jetsons-like drag-and-drop IDE's and code that closely matched the screen and business logic, but then replaced them with Flintstone stone tablets, saying "It Must Be This Way" in case we go "mobile" in 2080 or whatnot. Now it's layers talking to layers talking to layers and we spend all our time wiring and rewiring the layers to layers. The buzzword is "separation of concerns", but I see separation of productivity and separation of money from wallets. "Enterprise" apps were always a bloated e-bureaucracy, but the bloat trickled down to smaller apps in a big buzzword chase to be "just like the big dogs". Maximalism rules IT.

(In well-run shops, such stacks can be done effectively, but most orgs are semi-dysfunctional. The tall stacks are not riff-raff proof. One duck moves out of alignment, and the results are quacked.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly how I feel about web dev. Then, even when you can convince a client that all those layers are useless, a sleazy competitor salesman can convince him otherwise...

<comment><USER2> Yip, the buzzword-slingers know how to sell the Swiss Army Kitchen Sink by making them fear what-if scenarios: What if you need internationalization? What if you need mobile? What if you need web-scale? What if you need microservices to connect to Foo.com's great web services? What if you need a pony?

Warren Buffett has often said that one key ingredient to his success is not fearing saying "no" to questionable or borderline opportunities. Most investment firms don't feel comfortable paying people to sit around all day and say "no". It looks like slacking to the bosses. But Buffett has no bosses, so he can say no for a decade if nothing good comes his way. He tunes out the bandwagon if the math isn't there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Well, I don't see a way to align software development with 'low-tech'. By definition, software development uses and promotes the use of computers, probably the most high tech humanity has created over the last years. So you would need to do a different job I guess.

You could try to align your job with minimalism and degrowth by trying to earn (and spend) as little as possible. You could try to work until you have enough to eat and pay your rent, and not more. You could work part-time for example. But by definition, working creates value which contributes to growth. So I guess the best 'degrowth' activity is slacking off :)

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel almost same way as you do. In 2020, I have secret plans to start consulting on the side. Instead of maximizing number of billable hours by suggesting custom everything in latest JS framework, I will be suggesting the simplest possible solution be it Shopify or Wix, or static sites.

Of course, my clients goals may not align with mine. I am hoping to empower small business owners like plumbers, barbers, etc and non-profits.

If owner is too busy to talk to me then probably that business is too big for me.

<comment><USER5> Be careful to not fall into the trap. The signal to noise ratio and the nature of the work is such that your brilliance/minimalism and so on will be neither recognised nor appreciated. This is the problem of a proud craftsman trying to be the sales person. The loud sleazy dishonest sales person who has no idea how any of this nerd shit works will win. He will over-promise and under- deliver and lie, cheat, and misrepresent. And he will get away with it, and get rewarded for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your values, your _actual_ values, are what you do, not what you say that you like because it sounded good on the internet.

<comment><USER7> Also known as: "We judge others by their actions and ourselves by intentions."

<comment><USER6> I think that's used in a completely different context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sounds like you are an engineer (a real one).

Consider that a lot of what you do will be done regardless of your participation and whether by you doing it less harm is caused because you maximise efficiency and economy.

Only if you think someone else could be doing it substantially better (in terms of economy) then you should be concerned.

</comment><comment><USER9> Post an email address, please!

<comment><AUTHOR> You can reach me at jacob at couteausuis.se !</comment></comment>


Next step for Qt and Nokia - separation? - <AUTHOR>

Qt doesn't play a role in the software future of Nokia.  Nokia could continue to hang onto it because they are both Finnish.  But perhaps it's time for the two to separate, for Qt to go its own way?<p>Alternatively crowds of disillusioned engineers could just resign from Qt until it has no more talent and fades away. <comment><USER2> _"Nokia could continue to hang onto it because they are both Finnish."_

Trolltech is (was) a Norwegian company. They still have development offices in Oslo.

<comment><AUTHOR> I stand corrected. Apologise to those who might take exception to the error.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Design for Developers? - <AUTHOR>

I am thinking about doing either a workshop or web class about design, especially for hackers.
For those that don't know me Ive been doing design and animation (plus frontend dev) for forever, and I have noticed that every developer seems to want to increase their design skills.
Here's the question - Should I focus on the theory, the tools (more photoshop/illustrator, less css/js that everyone already is pro at), or the a combination of both?
Would anyone even be interested?  Thanks in advance for the comments and suggestion! <comment><USER2> I would definitely be interested in this. Focusing on the theory would be best, since we can probably figure out the tools with practice.

David Kadavy is also writing a "Design for Hackers" book, so there is definitely an interest. <http://bit.ly/hazXRX>

</comment><comment><USER3> You should focus strictly on theory and css. For example, you can give advice on how to align certain things on a web page in order to make it visually appealing. Then you show the css required to make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would suggest using a rule/guideline based approach that will allow developers to rack up some quick wins with comparatively little effort.

1\. Show a horribly crowded page of text.

2\. Give them the rule: "For most text use a line-height of about 1.5 to increase readability."

3\. Show how much the page is improved.

In order to demonstrate all of the rules at work, you might want use one example page and show the process of applying one rule after another, till the end product is quite presentable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea! I can visually collect samples of typical issues, then give quick overall solutions that support a broader theory, so that they have tips to use immediately, as well as the theory to apply to other issues that may arise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd steer clear of Photoshop - it's a big investment, both in time and in money, for someone who occasionally does a little web design on the side.

Focus on typography, as joshuacc suggests: a simple page with good typography is fine for most purposes, and an extremely elaborate page with bad typography is almost always bad.

</comment><comment><USER6> Do the "Hello World" of design. Developers like that approach.

</comment><comment><USER7> Definitely would be interested.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> my portfolio : <http://storyofcarl.com></comment>


The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan, Stalin Did (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/ <comment><USER2> It took the "twin shocks" (both the atomic bomb and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria) to convince Japan to surrender. Even then, the supreme council was split 3-3, and the emperor had to decide. And even after the emperor decided, there was a coup attempt to with intent to prevent surrender. (Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan)).

Either the bomb or the Soviet attack, by itself, arguably would not have been enough.

</comment><comment><USER3> He seems to be arguing against himself, probably hoping that the reader only notices one half of each argument.

First he argues that the nuclear bombs weren't that important, or different from our other bombs. Okay, fine. Then he argues that we persist the myth that the bombings ended the war because it helps us feel better about having dropped them. But if they weren't that different from our other bombings, why would we even need the lie to feel better about them?

Similarly with his timing. August 6th -> 9th was (he feels) both too long a wait to deal with the crisis, but also too quick, since the preliminary report about the bombings didn't arrive until the 10th.

And invasions: they didn't surrender at the threat of a possible US invasion, but a possible soviet invasion caused an immediate surrender?

As an argument that the Japanese surrender was more complicated than "we dropped a bomb, they surrendered"—well, obviously that's true. History is never that simple outside of textbooks for children. But in his arguments that it was irrelevant, he spends too much time contradicting himself.

</comment><comment><USER4> This article is full of sophistry. That doesn't mean the theory is wrong, but this article gives no evidence in favor of it!

For example, it claims that they couldn't have surrendered because of the destructive power of the bomb, because there had been worse bombing raids. First of all, the Japanese could have considered those bombing raids to have been lucky. It is also possible that the raids that caused more damage were in much larger cities, such as Tokyo. It is also possible that the psychological effect was greater for nuclear weapons. The Japanese had no idea how many nuclear weapons we had. They may have thought that the first two were warnings, and if they didn't surrender we would start dropping 30 every hour until they were obliterated. If, as the article says, bombing raids were carried out by 500 bombers at a time, why didn't the Japanese have every reason to believe the next major raid would drop 500 nuclear weapons?

The article also contradicts itself. It says that the bomb couldn't have swayed the supreme council, since news only arrived after they had met and the vote to surrender was deadlocked... I mean, what? Only if they had already surrendered before they got the news would the bomb be proved irrelevant. They voted and did not surrender, and yet after news of the bomb arrived they in fact met again and then did vote to surrender.

There is no doubt that the bomb would have a huge psychological impact beyond merely the measurements of the damage it did.

Thought experiment: A boxer is set to fight the Champ. Which of these situations is more likely to cause the boxer to back out of the match?

1\. The boxer learns that the Champ once beat another boxer for round after round, and in the 12th round the boxer finally died from his cumulative injuries.

2\. The boxer learns that the Champ always carries a gun to the ring and shoots his opponent in the face before the fight even starts.

In one scenario you may think you are going to lose, but at least you'll go down swinging and maybe you'll get lucky somehow. In the other, he is going to murder you with a bullet and all you have is boxing gloves and no shirt.

</comment><comment><USER5> US industrial production beat Japan.

108 U.S. Aircraft Carriers bearing down on the Main Islands had a little bit to do with surrender.

<comment><USER6> 108?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_by_co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_by_country#Numbers_of_aircraft_carriers_by_country)

<comment><USER5> See header. Table doesn't include "escort carriers". U.S. was producing 1 escort carrier per week; and escort carriers did engage in combat: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Samar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Samar) (6 very surprised US escort carriers take on Imperial Japanese Navy Center Force)

British Pacific Fleet had 8 additional carriers: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Pacific_Fleet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Pacific_Fleet)

<comment><USER2> OK, but you made the claim for 108 carriers. Source?

<comment><USER7> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_in_World_War...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_in_World_War_II) claims 99 carriers at the end of the war, counting both types. I'm not sure where 108 comes from, but it's close.

<comment><USER2> Well, tosseraccount said that the US was building one escort carrier a week. If the invasion would have taken place 9 weeks after the actual end date of the war (plausible), the US could have had exactly 108 carriers at that time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Clipperz is moving out of the US - <AUTHOR> https://www.clipperz.com/blog/2013/12/27/leaving-the-US/ <comment><USER2> Brief synopsis: an _Italian_ -based startup with some of its technology infrastructure hosted with US companies was the subject of massive fraud in Italy due to its recent decision to accept (only) Bitcoins. Completely misunderstanding how the law works, they assumed that a US company would comply with an Italian court order because of an EU directive. Their solution? Move to Iceland, a member of the _European Economic Area_.

EU and US law doesn't work the way they think it does. For starters, FISC isn't relevant law here. But more importantly--simply relocating their servers to Iceland does nothing for them since _the company physically remains in Italy._

They (Clipperz) remain subject to Italian laws, meaning that they are still subject to Italian _subpoenas_ and discovery requests. Civil law countries like Italy don't have the same evidentiary protections that the US has. Italian prosecutors can simply use their refusal to provide access to those servers against them in court. (The same is generally true in the US for civil, i.e., tort, cases but not for criminal cases.)

However, since their servers are no longer hosted in the US or the EU, they're no longer protected by US or EU laws! So congratulations, Clipperz! You've accomplished the double whammy of not improving your legal situation at home while simultaneously _increasing_ the threat to your servers! Now the NSA, British Intelligence, and various other US and EU government agencies can _legally_ hack your servers, and the data they recover can _legally_ be used in any US or EU court even without a warrant and despite the illegal means by which the data was obtained. Congratulations!

Here's a suggestion guys: next time, consult a lawyer. You clearly need one.

<comment><USER3> Sorry to disagree with you, but I think that Iceland is a good place to host if you want data protection. Being inside the USA does nothing to stop the NSA from sweeping up all your data: didn't they break into Google and Yahoo private property to plant equipment to intercept private fiber communications (on private Property! no warrant!).

I expect some small tax jurisdictions (i.e., countries) to try to get more IT business by disassociating with the USA and EU. More power to them.

<comment><USER4> > _Sorry to disagree with you, but I think that Iceland is a good place to > host if you want data protection_

You've missed the point: they are not incorporated in Iceland. They are incorporated in Italy. Move their servers does them no good, and doesn't do anything to reduce their exposure.

An analogy: a company can move all its money offshore to reduce its tax liability, but only if _at the same time_ it sets up a offshore limited liability subsidiary to handle that. Just moving all your money one day to the Cayman Islands without any of the legal and corporate work associated with it doesn't reduce your tax bill.

Similarly, it doesn't matter if Clipperz servers are hosted in Iceland unless said servers are owned and managed by a Clipperz subsidiary based in Iceland and not subject to Italian law. It sounds like they think they've figured out a clever wheeze, but they haven't at all:

> _Clipperz was born as an Italian company subject to Italian laws and so it > will remain. We are not planning to move people or assets out of Italy, we > just moved the tech infrastructure to a place where our fundamental rights > enjoy better protection._

Moving the tech whilst keeping the entire company in Italy and subject to Italian laws doesn't give their fundamental rights any better protection.

<comment><USER5> Their worry is about servers being confiscated. They believe there's less chance of this happening in Iceland than with a US provider _obeying EU-US safeharbor treaties_. Of course their own exposure as a company and as individuals remain the same (under Italian law), but they believe the physical threat to servers has diminished - should they get arrested, they could "eat their ssh keys" and authorities could not just stop the service.

I'm pretty sure they do have a lawyer already (ever tried to do business in Italy? You'll need _a lot_ of lawyers). I do hope these attacks are from "usual" bad agents (i.e. organised crime, people interested in laundering BTC), rather than some dirty-trick Italian agency, but who knows, the country is crazy atm...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When dealing with bitcoin, be prepared to have big bankers and powerful countries as enemies..

They will use all dirty tatics available.. these are the guys ruling the world right now.. and bitcoin is a threat to their power..

The hope is that some of them will see bitcoin as a oportunity, or that the new emerging ruler class (the technology geeks) will create the new clash of the titans..

The NSA scandal already started the fire.. lets see what happens in the next chapters :)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://www.clipperz.com/pricing/financial_statement/](https://www.clipperz.com/pricing/financial_statement/)

"Fiat currencies" = Italian autocorrect?

The whole thing sounds crazy -- I wonder if it's a competitor trying to sink them. Or an even crazier twist would be a competitor trying to sink them while simultaneously leveraging their open code base...

</comment><comment><USER8> Someone obviously obtained their bank account wiring details. Why don't they switch accounts and/or banks? Leaving the U.S. won't seem to affect their situation.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, my thoughts exactly. It looks like the problem and solution don't exactly agree -- if your problem is someone having access to wire details for your bank account who should not, the solution should be fixing that compromise ASAP. Sure, moving your servers could help fix another problem, but it doesn't solve THIS one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This smells fishy. Why would this matter since they supposedly know nothing about who stores what? Is their zero-knowledge service not ZK? Are they logging IPs?</comment>


For The First Time Ever, iPhone Owner Loyalty Declines - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/iPhone-Apple-Consumers-iOS-Android,18843.html <comment><USER2> It's not their lack of innovation. It's their lack of supporting older devices and locking everything down.

The app ecosystem provides the innovation and that's the only reason why I'm still considering an iPhone for my next purchase.</comment>


L.A. San Francisco Bullet Train Bidding May Begin Next Year - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aUk_DvDbFah0&pos=14

<comment><USER3> 432 miles is farther that I expected.

Let's get high-speed trains running along the North East Corridor.

NYC to Philly - 95 miles NYC to Washington DC - 225 miles NYC to Boston - <USER2> miles Washington to Bostin - 420 miles

That Amtrak train isn't going 150mph. Gotta take the curves out the tracks.</comment>


Facebook is Just Fine (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://craigmod.com/sputnik/facebook/ <comment><USER2> Facebook doesn't keep anyone connected to anything but their stupid algorithms and hidden agendas, the only thing you can be sure of is that nothing is what it seems to be and that they're doing everything in their power to twist your brain and sell your integrity.</comment>


C-Section Babies Are Missing Key Microbes - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/c-section-babies-are-missing-key-microbes/ <comment><USER2> Earlier discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21007750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21007750)</comment>


Show HN: Online YouTube Gif Maker with Full Search - <AUTHOR> https://gifrun.com <comment><USER2> Pretty neat. Happy to see a youtube-to-gif online tool without invasive ads :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it! :)</comment></comment>


Start a startup while graduating ,possible ? - <AUTHOR>

hello , i am a guy at his 22 , graduating in engineering final year in india, i always wanted to start a startup but the problem here in india is that i cant find seed investment(not great startup culture) , so i decided to come to usa for MS(master of science), now i have following questions :
1) can i start a startup while graduating in usa having a american co founder and joining after an year ?
2) if its possible ,how much difference does reputation of college makes (i do not intend to to take a job) on finding future co founder ?
3) if thats not possible then what are my possible options?
p.s.  i asked this before but couldnt get any satisfactory answer.
your advice would be critical in my carrier decision
thanks <comment><USER2> 1) If the question concerns visas then i don't know. 2) none 3) Nothing is impossible. Entrepreneurs inherently do the impossible. If someone doesn't think what your doing is impossible, stupid, or ridiculous, you're not changing things.

regarding ps - what kind of answers are you looking for? Please specify and I would be happy to be more specific.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for reply frankly speaking i dont know about specific questions but here i`ll try to clear it out .

i have already worked on couple of startup , i have read almost all essays of paul graham , read Founders at Work , what i want to tell is that i really really want to start a startup and know things about it (make something people want , remain cheap and lean etc ), so right now i have decided to do MS in computers ,just to be in usa i am planning to find a a co founder as stated above . so my question : how could a indian college student (who has already worked on some startup) start a startup in USA . reply if thats not clear ...</comment></comment>


Who would use our upcoming service LinkCatch - <AUTHOR> http://linkcat.ch/

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't. I use trunk.ly for keeping tabs on the links I post to various sites, that's about all I need.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would just like to clarify for people that it doesn't monitor links you send out. It's the opposite, it ranks links that people are tweeting and appearing in your Twitter timeline.

</comment><comment><USER3> A lot of the links I post to Twitter come from Reddit or Hacker news, so no

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems interesting enough, i'd give it a shot.</comment>


Write Everything Twice - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/wuz/stop-trying-to-be-so-dry-instead-write-everything-twice-wet-5g33 <comment><USER2> This is good advice, but I'm a little disappointed to see it written up as a complete novelty. The principle appeared in Martin Fowler's 1999 book _Refactoring_ as the "rule of three", where he attributes it to programmer Don Roberts. I've heard it a zillion times in discussions about when and how to refactor.

<comment><USER3> I have my own rule of three that I also try to apply to use cases for adding functionality in a way that's not overly specific. Never heard of it before.

But now that you mention it, I haven't _actually_ read Refactoring :| The knowledge actually required for programming is tiny compared to what's available; people's exposure is all over the map.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This one seems to be this generation of newly minted senior devs' hot button issue.

Dogma in general is anethema to innovation, but that doesn't mean particular practices are wrong just because some people are dogmatic about them.

</comment><comment><USER5> The broader concept here is that "people can tolerate a little bit of smell." Code smell is bad, but it also tells you what needs fixing and where your design is lacking. As a principle, I like to operate under the assumption that hacks and nonstandard code is ok IF they can be explained and kept in mind by someone coming into the project. Usually that means a 3 or 4 warts can pop up before I begin to refactor and remove them.

</comment><comment><USER6> Live in the spirit of the law not the letter of the law. I never took DRY as an excuse for premature optimization or to it's logical extremity in practice. To me applying WET principles would be indistinguishable from DRY in practice. I think it's better to understand that than to redefine the law.

</comment><comment><USER7> Its always nice to see a developer realize this concept on their own. Self discovery is a sign of acquiring experience and a great thing. Don't mind the others putting you down because you didn't reference the rule of three.

I like the WET acronym counterbalancing DRY. Nice touch.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a good advice, but I feel to add a few points of mine:

1\. the author says "premature optmization", and it has the right context, however I prefer to use "premature abstraction" or even "speculative generalization".

2\. YAGNI and DRY can be counter-principles because at times "you aint gonna need that level of abstraction/genericity".

3\. Inadequately abstract and generic code hurts simplicity and readability.

</comment><comment><USER9> While this blog post is new, I've heard this acronym used in this context for at least a couple years.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not sure I'm on board with the premise if the article. Author presents duplication of HTML elements as a commonplace exception to DRY; This is not what DRY is.

Can't agree to overturn a tried and true best practice, in favour of the opposite, as the article suggests. While easy to play around and adhere to the dogma of DRY at all costs; namely making code difficult to reason and taking ages to do it; we just call this premature optimisation - DRY done with no critical thought about priorities.

Tldr; don't optimise for DRY too early or at the cost of what's most important or expedient. Use common sense and adopt DRY only as far as necessary for your team and to help others extend and be efficient working with your code. Not a bad article but maybe just complicating what we already have a name for.</comment>


Show HN: Crisp iOS keyboard for email and text templates - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crisp-email-template-keyboard/id1015801280?ls=1&mt=8 <comment><USER2> I'm still hoping that Apple with fix the issues regarding custom keyboards. One annoying issue is that when you are using dual keyboards (one custom keyboard, one non-English native keyboard like Japanese keyboard) and then tne custom keyboard crashes and you can't input using the other native keyboard.</comment>


Why learning coding online will never beat classroom training - <AUTHOR> http://coderfactory.com/posts/why-coding-online-will-never-beat-classroom-training

<comment><USER2> The (often unquestioned) assumption driving online learning is that it can be as good as face-to-face learning (or good enough not to matter). Online education's backers _must_ make this assumption because, as Upton Sinclair said, 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

What if they turn out to be horribly wrong?

</comment><comment><USER3> I see your point, but:

1) Most teachers aren't as awsome as you may be

2) Online tools are getting better and better

3) Web provides access to a much wider audience

4) You get the opportunity to learn from people that you couldn't in any other case.

I think we need to work hard to find the way to mix the best of both worlds in an efficient way.

</comment><comment><USER4> I skipped most of my classes as an undergraduate, now I am doing a PhD at a top-tier institution. How do we reconcille, the boring and wasteful experience of many classrooms with this article?

</comment><comment><USER5> there are many good reasons to go to college other than to gain the knowledge taught in class.

While I can see the point of using online education to learn a specific skill I need for my work, I very strongly prefer to attend a regular class.</comment>


An international union for IT ppl - <AUTHOR> I think we are smart ppl but we are not paid what we deserve in a lot of locations... do you know any union or some open source platfrom where you can go and
- check your rights - how much you are worth etc like glassdooor but opensource<p>it would great having an association to which we could join and create a real network - fu@@ off LI <comment><AUTHOR> I read this [https://www.techrepublic.com/article/it-unions-the-wrong- app...](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/it-unions-the-wrong-approach-to- achieving-a-noble-goal/)</comment>