Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/02/amazons-new-refunds-policy-will-crush-small-businesses-say-sellers.html <comment><USER2> Anecdotal experience buying on Amazon recently:

Bought a new induction cooking pan. A nice one at $90. Didn't really pay much attention to who was selling it, just bought it like I do everything else from Amazon. It took about two weeks to arrive because it was from an independent seller, and was not 'Prime eligible'.

When it arrived, I took it out of the box and was immediately disappointed. It was really heavy, and the handle was shaped and angled in a way that made it hard to maneuver such a heavy pan. It'd be really difficult to do the usual flip and toss motions when cooking things.

I didn't want to spend $90 on a pan I would hate using, so I put it back in the box and requested a return.

That was when I found out exactly what the independent seller's return policy was. 1) I have to pay for return shipping (USPS best price was $38), 2) I have to pay them for the original 'free' shipping as well (no idea how much that was), and 3) I also have to pay a 25% restocking fee for an item in perfect resell-able condition. So in returning my $90 pan I figured I wouldn't get more than ~$30 back. I decided between being out $90 and having a pan or being out $60 and having nothing, I might as well keep it.

So I suppose that was a win for the seller - they successfully discouraged me from returning the item, which I'm sure would have cost them money. But it also discouraged me from buying anything on Amazon that isn't Prime, and it doesn't reflect well on Amazon that I had an experience completely contrary to their customer service values.

<comment><USER3> Wow, I really am amazed how few consumer protections you seem to have!

In the UK we're protected on two levels: firstly the "Distance Selling Regulation" means we have the right to cancel many contracts/purchases made not-in-person within 14 days of delivery.

And secondly, if a good is faulty, not as described, or unfit for purpose then we have a right to a refund under those terms also.

Probably because of these already strong rights, Amazon UK (and most retailers) go beyond that and simply offer a 30 day "no questions asked" return policy in most cases.

I didn't realise until now how much I took it for granted!

<comment><USER4> Be that as it may, I had a similar experience with an independent seller at Amazon UK. I bought a pan that arrived with a small defect and they told me I would have to pay the postage back (25 Euros on a £30 or £40 pan - I was buying from abroad). I also ended up keeping the pan and now avoid independent sellers as much as possible.

<comment><USER5> Why not do a chargeback on your creditcard (or raise a PayPal claim)? The law is very clear, if an item is faulty or not as described the seller is on the hook for all costs. This includes return shipping and/or sending you a replacement.

A lot of sellers will try to strong-arm you but if you just do the chargeback/claim they have no option but to eat the loss. Creditcard companies and PayPal thankfully nearly always back buyers, tilting the power balance back to the consumers' side :)

<comment><USER6> In Europe, for some sad reason credit cards are very rarely used and many stores don't accept them. Not to mention, if you do a charge back against a store like Walmart or Amazon, you won't be able to shop there anymore because they will ban you.

<comment><USER5> In day-to-day shopping creditcards are very rarely used, but I'm pretty confident that for internet purchases creditcards aren't that rare. And as far as being banned goes: of course you first raise the issue with Amazon. Amazon says its an independent seller, go deal with them. You try to work it out with the seller, he doesn't budge, you show him the law. Still doesn't budge, you raise it with Amazon again. If Amazon doesn't budge, tell them that you are lawfully entitled and will do a chargeback, and that they can deal with the independent seller acting illegally (and if they're smart they just chargeback the seller). If they would still ban you then, that will be one hell of a juicy court case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Timely Onion article:

"My Advice To Anyone Starting A Business Is To Remember That Someday I Will Crush You"

[http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/my-advice-anyone- starting-b...](http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/my-advice-anyone-starting- business-remember-someda-56539)

But in all seriousness... as a consumer, I shop on Amazon to not think twice about having to deal much with returns, shipping, etc.

I understand that this is probably painful for a lot of people who built up businesses on the Amazon platform, but this is something that also seems pretty obvious.

</comment><comment><USER8> From a consumer point of view, this is a good thing. It sucks to have a different experience depending on whether something ships from Amazon or a third party, especially as their easy return policy is one of the main reasons I continue to use Amazon and pay for Prime.

I can understand sellers frustration, but to my mind that's the price of having your products featured on Amazon. I've never encountered a third party who has refused a refund, so in reality I don't know if that much will change for them, unless there's a huge amount of abuse of the returnless refunds.

<comment><USER9> it's a good thing in the short term, but it also feels like an exercise of monopoly power by Amazon, which is going to be bad for consumers in the long run. can a business afford not to be listed on Amazon? in the long term, does Amazon have any interest in listing third parties?

at some point I think the answer to both of these questions will be no, and then I'd expect the good customer experience to erode pretty quickly as Amazon realizes they can squeeze as much profit as they want out of customers and retailers.

<comment><USER10> Amazon is interested in listing 3rd parties: it's useful to have someone else take all of the product risk , while you offer the ideal store for your customers and do all the more low-risk parts like logistics, managing a site, selling low-risk products directly while someone else supply excess demand.

<comment><USER11> Frankly I don't see the benefit in this program for Amazon. 3rd party sellers often charge less, meaning less revenue for Amazon. The highly variable customer service also degrades Amazon's brand. Finally, Amazon still has to front the cost of any return/refund from a 3rd party seller, so there is still risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Additionally, Amazon said that it's introducing "returnless refunds," a > feature that the company said is "highly requested by sellers." The change > enables sellers to offer a refund without taking back an item that may be > expensive to ship and hard to resell.

Wow, I can literally just say "I don't like it", and there's a chance they'll literally just give me my money back, but let me keep it?

<comment><USER13> Amazon customer support has told me to discard items that've been defective, rather than ship them back, on multiple occasions. There's probably an internal policy about how many of these can be performed by a customer, but it's extremely convenient when they let you.

<comment><USER14> Can you give examples of what you mean by a defective product?

Do you mean the legal definition[1], more or less as in "unsafe"? Because if so, the reason they are likely telling you to discard defective product is so it can't be used as evidence in a liability case in the instance an unsafe product has caused any harm.

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

<comment><USER15> "A product defect is any characteristic of a product which hinders its usability for the purpose for which it was designed and manufactured."

This does not imply "unsafe".

<comment><USER14> I don't think you read the second sentence defining the legal definition:

>Product defects arise most prominently in legal contexts, where the term is applied to "anything that renders the product not reasonably safe"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's interesting how each market platform is trying to tweak the equilibrium of honest/dishonest buyers vs honest/dishonest sellers.

Beyond Amazon specifically, the big picture trend is that any marketplace of 3rd-party sellers which includes eBay, PayPal, Uber, Airbnb, etc will always tilt the advantage towards the buyers.

E.g. Buyer scams sellers by claiming he got a bad product and Paypal will instantly issue a chargeback without any investigation.

If sellers try to change the balance of power by shifting to a platform that's more favorable to sellers (e.g. p2p OpenBazaar, craigslist, etc), they'd have to calculate the revenue loss from a smaller marketplace (less buyers' eyeballs). It's going to depend on the type of items if the loss is worthwhile.

E.g. If you're a seller that happens to have the unreleased iPhone 8 prototype to sell, you can use OpenBazaar to sell it because there would be plenty of buyers that don't need refund assurances from Amazon. If the item gives the seller leverage, the seller could also demand more buyer-unfriendly terms such as mandatory payment in Bitcoin instead of Paypal.

When it's not a multi-sided platform, that's when rules can tighten up to favor the seller instead of the buyer. E.g. Costco stops generous 90-day returns on big-ticket electronics and computers because buyers were "renting" video cameras for free.

(Cynical conspiracy hat on: it's possible Amazon expected the sellers' backlash and they don't care because this new policy was their way to cull the "weak" sellers that couldn't take the financial hit from returnless refunds. E.g. The "returnless refunds" policy would drive away shady Amazon Marketplace sellers that scam buyers with faulty USB-C cables: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494))

<comment><USER17> Anecdotal, but I've had the opposite experience on Airbnb. A situation arose where I would have certainly received a partial refund from a hotel, and when in arbitration, Airbnb sided w/ the seller (landlord?) and there was no refund.

Basically my word vs the seller's, as things tend to be in online disputes. Not a lot of money spent, so it's not a huge issue, but makes me lean towards hotels unless Airbnb is much cheaper.

As a seller on many of the other platforms mentioned (and as a CC merchant), you are correct. Good luck winning any dispute. Best course of action is to simply try and get the product back and take the hit on shipping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In Germany, there is a law that anything (I'm sure there are exceptions) sold online can be returned in the 30 days after delivery. So Amazon or not, companies must allow this anyway. Also some non-Amazon online stores offer "returnless refunds" for some items or just ship a new one to you in case of damaged item. Apart from forcing the vendors to pay for retouring the new policy is similar to German regulations and businesses seem to be OK here. Amazon could help (if it doesn't already) vendors by providing some "rate" on a customer, if they buy a lot and return a little, then likely they are genuinely unhappy with product, and decide upon customer's history if they are entitled to refund or if they are abusing the system.

<comment><USER19> Are you sure it is not 14 days? [https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/So- funktioniert-der-Inter...](https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/So-funktioniert- der-Internet-Einkauf-2)

<comment><USER18> Nope, stand corrected. I suppose some other non-Amazon vendors offer 30 days as an extension! Or maybe some types of products?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am perennially amazed at the ire of sellers who build businesses on someone else's platform, and then complain when the purveyor of said platform changes the rules. If you want to get to determine the rules of the game, you have to build your own playing field.

<comment><USER21> I don't think that's a fair viewpoint, it's not realistic for most businesses to create international commerce powerhouses to sell their bespoke goods. Complaining is the only realistic leverage they have in this game.

When you get as big as Amazon it's reasonable to expect some concessions to the people who use your platform, just like if you get as big as GM your workers will want to unionize.

<comment><USER22> So they should create an "Amazon Sellers Association" or something like that?

<comment><USER23> Well, they can go to jet.com instead. It's not like Amazon is without competition.

<comment><USER24> You say that, yet I'd never heard of jet.com.

<comment><USER25> Jet.com is owned by Walmart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It makes sense for Amazon to rein in third-party sellers. Amazon needs them to fill out the catalog and cover the long tail of products, but poor customer experiences damage Amazon's brand. I'm sure it upsets sellers, but this is part of selling through Amazon. If I have to email back and forth with the seller before I can return a defective item, why should I buy on Amazon instead of eBay?

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if this is a push for sellers to move their goods to Amazon warehouses...

That said, Amazon should also provide buyer metrics to sellers so sellers can choose to sell items to customers unless that buyer has a "bad rating" (i.e. they do a lot of returns).

This has a chance at being good for everyone if done correctly, but it seems like only half the equation has been implemented.

</comment><comment><USER28> Observation:

Don't care in the slightest about the third-party vendors' complaints. Amazon can control THEIR SITE how they want to control it. They own the site. Don't like their policies? Take your shop elsewhere.

I already stopped trusting third-party vendors on Amazon a LONG time again.

</comment><comment><USER29> Phew thank god. Next they need a robust anti fraud department in their marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER30> Yes, this is very consumer friendly on the surface. But remember that Amazon operates is retail arm with little or no profit margin, even with the benefits of scale keeping their costs low. Small businesses don't have the same benefits of scale, and will be forced to close down when their revenue drops below their costs as a result of too many returns.

And that is ultimately bad for consumers.

<comment><USER31> Amazon doesn't need independent sellers anymore.

<comment><USER30> I'd say that most of their listings are dominated by independent sellers; you can't even tell if Amazon is offering an object without digging into the "see more sellers".

For example, find a coffee grinder sold by Amazon (note, not Amazon Warehouse Deals)

[https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_hi_eb?rh=n%3A1055398%2Cn%3A2...](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_hi_eb?rh=n%3A1055398%2Cn%3A284507%2Cn%3A915194%2Cn%3A289750%2Cn%3A14092841)

<comment><USER32> Amazon keeps indy sellers around so they can use shopping data to identify trends on high-margin, easy-to-produce good that can be readily copied and offered by Amazon for much cheaper.

IMHO.

<comment><USER31> Plus if you sell on Amazon I bet you buy more too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I am a big fan of internet platforms and everything but I just do not see a value in online shopping for physical goods. Sure it might be a good thing for shopping "disposable/every day use stuff" but why would I be buying something like a cooking pan (as someone mentioned) online ? If you know the cooking pan you want then yeah i agree amazong might be the most convenient thing but for stuff like that I just want to see them first and maybe I might buy other related stuff if I see it goes well together.

And I am telling you all this as a person that hates shopping in person.

<comment><USER34> > why would I be buying something like a cooking pan (as someone mentioned) > online

I don't know if similar applies to the US, but at least in the UK you get stronger protections when buying online (because you can't inspect the item before hand). If I buy stuff in person, then find it is not suitable for what I need, I might be stuck with it depending on the store (assuming it is as described and not faulty). If I buy it online, I can just send it back (possibly paying postage costs, but most places offer free returns).

For instance I've got a external hard drive on its way back to Amazon because, after testing, found that the performance isn't up to snuff. Had I purchased it in person, I may not have been able to return after use (because the packaging doesn't make any claims regarding performance, it'd be difficult to claim it is faulty/not as described).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> My experience on Amazon is that I try not to buy from sellers that aren't shipping directly through Amazon even if it's a lower price due to too many issues.

I broke my rule recently yet again and purchased a "new" book on Amazon from a third seller that was about 1/2 the price of any Amazon shipper for the same item. When it arrived the book was not only not new, but was seriously damaged. Pages were all stuck together where the book must have been wet at some time, a bunch of the pages were torn. This thing was damaged so badly that I about 1/3 of the pages aren't even readable. I contacted the seller and they told me they would send a replacement "right away". That was a month ago and still no replacement, but they have a "no refunds" policy.

</comment><comment></comment><comment>=Edit</comment><comment>===

Here's a picture of this "new" book. The packaging was not damaged at all so this had to be an issue with the reseller rather than USPS.

[http://imgur.com/a/UjOSt](http://imgur.com/a/UjOSt)

<comment><USER25> Just contact Amazon directly they will give you your money back right away. Same exact thing happened to me. When the seller balked I went right to Amazon.

(Was this shipped from India by any chance? Mine was.)

<comment><USER35> Yeah, that's what I'll end up doing as well.

This was shipped from Michigan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I do understand where sellers are coming from, but as a buyer, this would be a better relationship between them and myself. As is, I typically always prefer/only buy things sold or fulfilled by Amazon, because of this reason. This move would give me more confidence to begin more often considering third party vendors.

</comment><comment><USER37> Last year I made a little over $500k GROSS selling games on Amazon. This policy change is going to be a nightmare because fraud and bootlegging are rampant on their platform.

Small businesses and large ones too are being forced to become sharecroppers for Amazon if they want to stay in business.

<comment><USER38> The article mentioned sites sellers complain on. Do u read post to any? Which ones

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Are that many people returning items for any reason other than the item not being as advertised in some way? If I don't get the item in the state that it was advertised in, I'm already getting a refund one way or another: either through the seller or by doing a charge back on my credit card if the seller drags their feet for more than a few weeks or is giving me BS. And I just flat out won't buy from a seller that won't shoulder the responsibility if the item is damaged or defective.

I suppose some people might return an item because they changed their mind or misjudged what they needed, but I online shop a lot and I've literally never demanded a refund for something like that. Surely it can't be that bad...

</comment><comment><USER40> From a consumer POV this is great. The only bad experiences I've had with Amazon have been with crap itmems from 3rd party sellers and then realising the postage to send it back is half the cost of the order and just letting it go.

</comment><comment><USER41> Thank God they are making this change. I had so much bad experience with returning items to 3rd party sellers that I vowed to never buy anything that is not directly sold by Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER42> _> But increasingly, those upgrades come at the expense of sellers, who often build their businesses on Amazon and have few other places to generate revenue._

That's a huge risk that's been known from the beginning, though. I feel for these sellers, but building a business that's 100% dependent on a 3rd party (especially one like Amazon that you're also in competition with to some extent) seems like a poor situation to place yourself in.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is very, very good for Walmart and competition between Walmart and Amazon online.

Walmart has been making an aggressive effort to recruit sellers. They'll use this mistake by Amazon to their advantage. It'll also open up opportunities for other platforms such as eBay and perhaps something that doesn't yet exist. This is a mistake of perceived power by Amazon, I imagine they're going to make a lot more of them in the coming years.

</comment><comment><USER44> Arrrgh. Auto-playing audio suddenly starts among a forest of tabs. WTF is with that site. :(

And yeah, obviously didn't get to read the article due to that idiocy. :(

</comment><comment><USER45> eBay needs to reduce seller costs and they will take over with buying it now prices. Also no tax.

<comment><USER46> eBay is already tremendously hostile to sellers before the fees. Can't leave feedback for buyers, a refund policy via PayPal that seems tailor made to allow scam buyers to get free stuff, and so forth.

Basically it seems like the only thing a buyer can be sanctioned for is simple non-payment.

<comment><USER47> Also ebay's huge fees make it almost not worth bothering to sell on there.

<comment><USER48> Amazon's are as high or higher. [https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/seller/registration/part...](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/seller/registration/participationAgreement.html/ref=asus_soa_p_fees?itemID=200336920&language=en_US&ld=NSGoogle)

The "referral fee" ranges from 8%, to 15% (common), and up. Up can go pretty high, but mostly for Amazon's own stuff.

Ebay's are mostly just in the 10% range: [http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html](http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Amazon has no qualms about fucking over their customers and closing accounts for unspecified policy violations of non-existent policy. Now they're fucking over their vendors too. Maybe they actually have written policy this time? Anyway, everyone can now get fucked over by Amazon, vendor or customer. In the end everyone stands to lose while only Amazon stands to gain.

</comment><comment><USER50> It is outrageous, but it's not new. About 2 years ago I sold an item through the marketplace, shipped through Amazon, and at +30 days the buyer requested to return (my return policy stated no returns after 30 days). I ignored him, and then he filed a "Did not receive item" complaint with Amazon. They refunded him $250 and billed me $250. I fought it, using email, multiple phone calls (a trial in and of itself), showing them their own records of shipment, etc, the fact that the buyer had initially tried to return the item (and had sent messages to me saying he wanted to return it - implying that he had it).

 _I haven 't used Amazon to buy or sell anything since._ And you know what? It's great! I use Discogs (and my local music store!) for music, Alibris (alas, no good local book stores remain) for books, Newegg for electronics. I haven't yet found a great source for ordinary household goods online, but the local Home Depot/Costco/Target have me covered. When they get drone delivery and a good online experience, I'll be stoked.

In truth, I don't think Amazon can really compete within these niches. They get away with it because of an incredible focus on reducing transaction friction, and because they are usually "good enough" in _so many_ categories. My worry is that Amazon will expand their monopoly, and then really start abusing it's customers, and they won't have anywhere to go.

I guess I'm just saying don't wait for them to try and screw you out of $250, give up Amazon for a month, and see how it goes! I think you'll be surprised.

<comment><USER51> > _" About 2 years ago I sold an item through the marketplace, shipped through > Amazon, and at 30 days the buyer requested to return. I ignored him, and > then... (blah blah blah) I haven't used Amazon to buy or sell anything > since"_

So it sounds like buying on Amazon is great way to avoid merchants who ignore support requests. Thanks for the info.

<comment><USER50> There was nothing illegal or immoral about ignoring a request I wasn't going to accept. It was after 30 days and his window for returning had closed.

Certainly I wouldn't do business with someone like you who feels that _fraud_ is justified when some arbitrary condition you place on the other party isn't satisfied to your liking.

<comment><USER25> Amazon's policy says you have to respond to buyer's inquiries within 24 hours. You literary had to just reply "Sorry my return policy is 30 days and it's been 40 days." One single sentence and you probably could have avoided the return completely. You could do that in bed. What did you think would happen if you ignored the buyer? Of course they are going to complain to Amazon.

>Certainly I wouldn't do business with someone like you who feels that fraud is justified when some arbitrary condition you place on the other party isn't satisfied to your liking.

Read the comment you are replying to, it does not say that and it does not imply that.

<comment><USER50> Yes, he did. His response to me getting defrauded out of $250 was essentially, "Amazon did right. You deserved to be defrauded by them for not responding to a support request. I am happy they alienated you enough to get you off of their platform, because I wouldn't want to do business with bad people like you anyway." I'm exaggerating for clarity, but that's how I read his comment.

This pisses me off because it obscures the simple fact that Amazon had all the information it needed to see that he had actually received the item, but considered it "not delivered" anyway. It was fraud on the buyers part, theft and stupidity on Amazon's part for not seeing it, and it's emminently stupid for some random on the internet to say that ignoring an invalid return request deserved this response.

<comment><USER51> Again, this is not the case. Reread my comment. I didn't write anything at all from the perspective of you, the merchant.

As a _customer_ , I love dealing with Amazon. This doesn't mean that I'd enjoy being their partner, supplier, employee or anybody else they deal with.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


There is no reason why a $1,000 Chromebook should exist - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidauthority.com/expensive-chromebooks-811847 <comment><USER2> Chromebook Pixels have traditionally been very good _Linux_ laptops due to their hardware compatibility with ChromeOS's underlying kernel, beefy specs, and relative ease with which their regular distro can be wiped out. Even hybrid ChromeOS+Linux chroots via crouton can give the sometimes-developer enough leeway to get work done.

So that was my use-case.

The other use-case would be someone who wants the minimal functionality of a Chromebook, but wants one that will last for as many years as a Macbook.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can only think of one reason for it to exist: as a reasonable Linux laptop. But I don't think that it _is_ that. So I agree with the article: why would I pay that much to run a third-rate OS?

I'd love to get something _like_ the Pixelbook, but capable of easily running Debian.</comment>


Show HN: Find any email address on the web - <AUTHOR> https://maildb.io <comment><USER2> It's an interesting idea, I'll say that much. A way to find email addresses associated with a certain domain is a pretty neat thing to have.

That said, isn't this a spam nightmare waiting to happen? I mean, if you give a spammer or two hundred access to this site, then all hell is gonna break loose (especially with popular websites that spammers and scumbags might want emails associated with).

And with your crawler taking email addresses from blogs, articles, comments and other such sources, it seems like this is a doxing tool just waiting to be used. It's not uncommon for people to post email addresses associated with those they don't like on a personal level, especially if they're in the middle of a large controversy (like say, the recent US elections).

I really hope you've figured out a way to avoid that side. And considered adding a way for sites to opt out (either on a domain level or an individual email address level).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

For spammers specifically, you're correct in that our service could possibly be used to gather emails by someone with the intention of spamming. This is true though really for any lead generation type service.

While we will be offering a free plan level, it will be very limited in terms of the number of emails you can find. In order to get more requests, there will be paid monthly plans. To be honest, the crawler part of our service is something sophisticated spammers have probably been doing for awhile now, and wouldn't see the benefit of paying for, for their specific uses.

With regards to the privacy concern, our crawler only finds emails that have been publicly posted. It also follows the standard rules expected of web crawlers today. For users to find emails, they must do so by a specific domain name, so for instance you couldn't just search for John Doe and find a Gmail address.

<comment><USER3> So you've taken something that only companies with large budgets were able to do, and made it possible for everyone?

Any way I can remove my email from your website in case a website I've signed up to hasn't hidden my email sufficiently?

What robots.txt rules do I add to protect my users in case emails get posted to my site in comments/posts?

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly, our goal is to make this service something affordable for everyone. The current solutions, imho, are charging an insane amount for what they offer.

We haven't discussed this yet but it seems like a good idea, so we'll probably have a page dedicated to this where users can tell us to remove their email from our database.

Once we're in beta, our crawler will operate under a specific name which you can refer to in your robots.txt exclusion rules. We'll have an info page for this.

<comment><USER4> Something to consider, how about having the ability to delist domains?

I have a few domains that I use as pre-spam filters so that I can see immediately if my email address was spammed. e.g., I receive an email addressed to email@example.com but it's advertising something along the lines of rutabaga hentai.

If I could remove myhappydomain.com completely, that would be a happy making thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not a bad idea, could have it work on the same principles as the robot exclusion, but just have a simple web submission form for domains. To prevent malicious use, could maybe have it send a confirmation link for delisting to an email address associated with the domain.

We'll discuss this for beta, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This seems like an incredibly unethical tool on first glance.

<comment><USER5> Yes... it's a lead generation tool for sales and marketing people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So you have a tool to find emails, something that scammers and spammers may use, and the first thing you ask on your website is for my email address?! How trustful is that?

<comment><AUTHOR> We only track emails that have been publicly posted on the web.

Using emails that have been submitted to us through our signup form would obviously be a huge violation of privacy. We don't do this, and we never will.

You can view our privacy policy here [https://maildb.io/privacy](https://maildb.io/privacy)

<comment><USER7> On the topic of tracking emails that are "publicly posted on the web", how are you then making sure that the emails have been published with consent and don't originate in sources like database dumps etc.? As it does still sound somewhat unethical to use emails that aren't published with consent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Usually you'll see someone release site data, such as a database dump, via sites like pastebin. Either that or the release is zipped and hosted somewhere for download. We're most likely going to have crawler skip potentially risky sites, such as pastebin. Our crawler also will not have the ability to download and view actual files.

Also, we are probably going to implement specific pages that allow anyone to delist their domain and/or email address from our service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I disagree with the premise where time spent finding an email is wasted time. Personal control over the privacy of one's email is exactly what makes email valuable.

This is true for both sender and receiver because: Larger inbox load means less time/mental energy per message which in turn means lower value per message.

It's like the reverse of a network effect: the more users you have spamming people, the less valuable those emails become.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that an email address is something very valuable.

With our service though, it's simply storing emails found through a vast search of the web. If, for instance, a CEO at a company doesn't give out their email publicly, you'll never be able to find it using us because we will never find it. However, if they did post their email somewhere, chances are you could find it with enough time and clever searching.

Our service aims to minimize the time spent for the latter. In that sense, we simply give you an advantage. Not everyone will be using our service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're relying on crawlers to build your database how do you plan on dealing with spam traps? I see you have a verification aspect to your service but from what detail you have provided it would be incapable of distinguishing legitimate from trap.

Their presence in your lists could ultimately render the service useless as users risk blacklisting by contacting such addresses.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest, we probably won't try and filter out spam traps. Our service is really meant to aid you in finding specific emails.

Given that, we will be implementing multiple verification and confidence checks for each email address. This is to help ensure a given email address is for a real person, with multiple legitimate web sources listing it, before you ever send a message.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can already do this in Bing with the + modifier

<comment><AUTHOR> This is true, but you may have to go through hundreds of search results in order to find the right email. Also, we use extensive pattern matching which would be very hard to mimic through a search query.

In a sense, our service just saves you a lot of time from finding and then verifying an email.

<comment><USER10> yes, I do spend a lot of time finding emails. as a startup founder I did much of my sales development over email / linkedin. I learned the quirks of several search engines - and made it work. Bing was the best. Google, ironically, the worst. This service is something I'd be interested in for sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. Our goal is to create a quality, enterprise level piece of software, which is affordable for everyone and actually makes sense to use given the price point and benefits.

If you ever want to talk about business/startups or anything, send me an email.

<comment><USER11> I'm also curious to try it out... I spend all day searching for emails.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> alternatively emailhunter.co is great at this, they also have a Chrome extension you can just click when you're on a target domain</comment>


The Bootleg Video Vans of the Soviet Union - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/bootleg-video-vans-soviet-union/577060/ <comment><USER2> There was also _oral_ tradition of reciting the films. Typically one lucky kid who've seen the movie would be the playground hero reciting it to others over and over again: often with some added cool detail that wasn't there.

I got familiar with The Fly and Terminator that way years before watching them firsthand.

<comment><USER3> My experience is less extreme than that, but I became familiar with the Star Wars saga by reading the story in a weekly magazine which ran a few pages every week; it had still photos from the movies.

This was West of the Iron Curtain (Finland) but we had no movie theatres nearby.

<comment><USER4> It's odd, I suppose, but as a kid who grew up in America immersed in Hollywood movies ... we also recited movies to each other.

I'm in my 50s and have a friend who has uncles and cousins in the Colombo family of the Mafia. We would crack each other up at work by saying lines from The Godfather during boring meetings.

<comment><USER3> Citing lines from movies is perhaps a bit different. Well-known movies have for decades been a part of building culture (national and international).

For instance, I notice I regularly reference a pacifist war movie (from 1955, with two re-makes) that everyone here has seen (and most have read the novel the movies are based on), and at least most men know the dialogue well enough to understand the reference. Perhaps it's part of building cohesion: a reference to history that is shared by all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There was a period after the collapse of the USSR when there were a lot of private TV channels being set up, which would just show latest Hollywood bootlegs. Some movies which were still in theaters in the US would be shown on TV. That, and random soft porn after children's bed time.

</comment><comment><USER6> When interested in the whole east bloc bootleg culture topic, don't miss out on the 2105 documentary film _Chuck Norris vs. Communism_ who covers the organized structures of 80s Communist Romania.

[https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/18/5422606/communist- romania...](https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/18/5422606/communist-romania- dubbed-vhs-tapes)

<comment><USER7> Highly recommended! Watched it on Netflix a few years ago and teared up several times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The picture in the article shows a small minivan. But a lot of them were actual huge tourist busses "converted" to mobile movie theaters. 100's of huge busses all over the country showing "Terminator", "Rambo First blood" etc."Converted" as in they used already built in bus TV's to show movies , some had larger screens though.

Up until late 1990's there were huge open air bootleg markets in Moscow. All of the newest American movies were available there on VHS often the day of the release (or even before the official release in USA! directors cut/pre-view copies were illegally sold by Hollywood insiders to the video pirates for undisclosed amounts of money on the black market). One could buy any newest VHS or CD release for $1. Any computer software - Windows, Mac, Office - anything was available for pennies. All latest stuff illegally pirated/imported straight from California tech hub. A lot of Americans/foreigners loaded up on pirated movies, software and music there every weekend. $20 would get you a dosen latest release movies and a bunch of newest CD's. That was the golden age of piracy.

some fun photos from back then:

[https://pastvu.com/_p/d/b/c/k/bckpfvzzrnr6ciixto.jpg](https://pastvu.com/_p/d/b/c/k/bckpfvzzrnr6ciixto.jpg)

[https://pastvu.com/_p/a/1/5/9/15910ecqs8boyjgao4.jpg](https://pastvu.com/_p/a/1/5/9/15910ecqs8boyjgao4.jpg)

[https://pastvu.com/_p/a/4/d/1/4d1zuxoht8euiaykam.jpg](https://pastvu.com/_p/a/4/d/1/4d1zuxoht8euiaykam.jpg)

[http://osapple.ru/wp- content/uploads/2017/03/37fc6281ac3683c...](http://osapple.ru/wp- content/uploads/2017/03/37fc6281ac3683c27df752bf9f8ec1af.jpg)

[https://pastvu.com/_p/a/6/7/1/6715b7f1f96c3456f3e5dacf1bdc8f...](https://pastvu.com/_p/a/6/7/1/6715b7f1f96c3456f3e5dacf1bdc8f15.jpg)

[https://www.calvertjournal.com/images/uploads/embeddable_sli...](https://www.calvertjournal.com/images/uploads/embeddable_slideshows/Markets/Gorbushka/_large_crop/4.jpg)

[http://visualrian.ru/images/old_preview/54/28/542840_preview...](http://visualrian.ru/images/old_preview/54/28/542840_preview.jpg)

[http://leonpar.narod.ru/2.jpg](http://leonpar.narod.ru/2.jpg)

[http://movie-club.ru/pictures/f8/gorbushka/gorbushka_006.jpg](http://movie- club.ru/pictures/f8/gorbushka/gorbushka_006.jpg)

<comment><USER9> I grew up in the US in the middle of nowhere but within the shadow of a larger town. There was a small flea market that had a few stalls that carried stuff like this, but nothing on this scale.

Everything old is new again - I look at these pictures and I think of how big private BitTorrent trackers are with their curation, discovery, and exchange of materials. If you factor in the blank discs used for burning things, it works out to about $1 to turn a set of FLACs into a CD with a cue sheet, so the economics are the same even though the distribution is all online now.</comment></comment>


Userscript to tag paywalled posts - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/voltagex/hackernews-paywalltag

<comment><AUTHOR> This may not be worth a post, but a number of people in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989) want some kind of tagging for potentially paywalled posts. Pull requests are welcome.</comment>


Corona Vaccine: Israeli research center claims they're close - <AUTHOR> https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-coronavirus-vaccine-israel-biological-research-institute-develope-1.8665074 <comment><USER2> Meanwhile, Moderna (US) already shipped theirs 3 weeks ago. The issue is _testing_.

[https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/business/moderna- coronavirus-...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/business/moderna-coronavirus- vaccine/index.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope at least one of them is effective.</comment></comment>


Anna Merlan's "Republic of Lies" Explores Fixation with Conspiracy Theories - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/04/20/715211935/republic-of-lies-explores-the-fixation-with-conspiracy-theories <comment><USER2> For about ten thousand years now, human societies everywhere had haves and have-nots. Transition from have to have-not could be swift and brutal. The thing that you stopped having could be your wealth, or your liberty, or your life. Transition from have-nots to haves was an arduous process, most times multi-generational, and most times unsuccessful.

In such societies, survival required alliances, sometimes side switching, and most surely secrecy, misdirection and deceit. Conspiracies were the rule, not the exception. Actually there were no exceptions, there were only conspiracies everywhere.

The ability to guess what's going on was then a huge advantage, and you bet evolution has selected for that. Could evolution have erred on the side of being too trigger-happy? Little doubt about that. Innocent until proven guilty, benefit of doubt, right to due process, habeas corpus, etc, were all luxuries that few could afford until very recent times.

The fact that some people believe in conspiracy theories should not puzzle anyone. This is our natural state. Education and culture is how you exit this natural state, but even then, you are never completely immune to believing a good story. At least I know I'm not. Maybe I'm in a minority...

<comment><USER3> > that some people believe in conspiracy theories should not puzzle anyone.

Especially considering how many conspiracy theories turn out to be conspiracy facts..

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've never understood why it is controversial to say that some people seek fame, power, and money using dubious methods, and that those people might form social clubs to do it together. They might even not want to publish it because they know most people would think poorly of their methods... And I think that has been going on for a long time, at all sorts of levels.

I guess that would be a "conspiracy", even if it isn't little green aliens body-snatching. I think having a reasonable conversation about it isn't impossible. We just have to avoid both extremes, the "little green aliens" theorists and the "nope, nothing to see here, move along" crowd.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's ok to ask questions regardless of how outrageous they seem. When you are met with censorship and physical barriers are put in you way, there is probably something there.

The Illuminati is real, there are many blood oath secret societies and our presidents, most all of them, have been members of one, there is an agenda 21, agenda 2030, Vietnam gulf of Tonkin was fake, the sinking of the lusintania was staged Martin Luther king was killed by the government... these are all real, factual, provable things that are considered at one point to be conspiracy theories.

We have to be vigilant and we have to think for ourselves. We have to be able to ask the difficult questions.

<comment><USER3> FBI docs show Hitler ended up in Spanish America, etc</comment></comment>


Code sucks - <AUTHOR> http://leonsbox.com/blog/2012/12/01/your-code-sucks/ <comment><USER2> "The only thing that matters is Business value. "

Yes... and when it takes me 3 days to make a change to an undocumented, untestable pile of crap, when it should normally take 2-3 hours, any requirements more than, say, 2-3 changes should entail gutting and/or rewriting, and that's because of _business value_ , not because I'm some superawesome dude who likes to do nothing better than write code. I'm growing to hate it (the actually _code writing_ part - not the problem solving part). But when _I_ am responsible for delivering _business value_ with code that I didn't write, all options are on the table.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. "Business value" shouldn't be a justification for constant quick-and- dirty work; otherwise, the implication is that you don't see long term value in your business. If you always budget some portion of time for paying off technical debt or (hopefully) creating a more well-crafted solution in the first place, you can still keep your time-to-delivery reasonably short yet improve your ability to maintain pace.

<comment><USER2> I guess more to the point, 'business value' has to be measured - it's generally going to be measured in dollars.

If doing XYZ with the business will earn $50,000 over 6 months, let's consider doing it. Now, we need to look at the cost. If the cost is a few days of work - say... $5k for a team of people, it's a no brainer.

If, however, making the code do new things breaks old stuff, and ends up taking 4 weeks, the cost may be $20k now, as well as 3x the opportunity cost of the extra weeks, as well as potential lost good will or extra customer service required to deal with things that broke because we pushed out new functionality without any ability to comprehensively test.

Suddenly that potential $50k at the hard cost of > $20k might not be so appealing, and is far less a sure thing.

This is one of the reasons it's been hard for me to be an 'employee' for any length of time anywhere - the politics involved in trying to see a big picture, and convince other people you can, in fact, do this, is troubling in most organizations. However, as an outside consultant, you're treated differently. And to the extent that you still run in to obstinate politics... you get to move on instead of having to work in the same org for years on end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Of course it does! It isn't necessarily about premature optimization or temporary code or documentation. It is because _we don't know where we are going_.

Give anyone on this board a clearly defined waterfall project, five years, fifty million dollars and ten developers and I bet they'll make something beautiful. Even if you don't agree with their decisions by and large you should appreciate how well it would be written. This is because the first couple years will be spent prototyping and learning while the last couple of years will be spent building the finished product.

Our industry is permanently locked in prototyping and nobody knows where the keys are. Companies want the software out yesterday and when they see it they believe it is 'done'. I gave up telling people that I write applications, rather now I just say I'm adapt at building very complex prototypes.

This is why we hate our own code when revisited. Maybe it is because we are smarter, but it is also possible we don't remember what stress was forcing our decisions.

I don't see this changing anytime soon. Working with the subpar, the hastily decided and the rushed release is just something to be accepted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Good point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> To be sure, it makes sense to ship over making everything perfect under the hood. But to many who would read this post, it's granting implicit permission to write code that is utter drek. They hear you offering consent to make code that "just works" over actually giving thought to how users will ultimately use the code or how future coders will maintain and augment the project's codebase. Most developers I've met can't evaluate what "good enough" code is, and shouldn't be given license to release merely working code.

As a person who has spent the bulk of his career now cleaning up other people's lousy code and fighting technical debt, I would ask you to please stop telling other people that it's ok to ship code that, in reality, does suck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for response. I did't said that code should be awful, sure you should control code quality, to be maintainable. I mostly talked that premature optimizations and rewriting from scratch is bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think that the Twitter analogy was awful. It implies that you have to have an incredibly large team writing Java to be "enterprise", somewhat implying that Java is needed to handle load. It isn't. Facebook is a great example of a company that still survives uses a scripting language, and GitHub is as well. I worked on an excessively large Java team, and the main highlight was slow progress. I'd argue that the better way to look at it is that you often need to be fast-and-dirty in development in the beginning, but later you just need to slow down and be more careful and thoughtful- language and team size aren't equivalent to success at later stages.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, I don't think you can reasonably consider Facebook's mega-crazy (mega-crazy being applied without value judgement) PHP-to-C++ scaling method to be the same as surviving using a scripting language. You can also argue that (most) of the heavy lifting Github does is in git itself, which is an amalgamation of C, Bash and Perl.. and the "good" stuff is all in C. Bash is mostly interfaces and perl is for random stuff like sendmail, cvs import, etc.)

Just because your Java team was slow doesn't mean all of ours are ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article is loaded with implicit assumptions about what "business value" is and how it gets created. All software businesses are different and I dare say that most are not web startups. A company that develops SaaS, or compilers, or fluid modeling software are going to have different needs at different stages of development.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree. I was talking mostly about web-services, as its mine main specialization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What a nice call for mediocrity.

How about instead of "your code sucks, but you shouldn't care", you had used "your code sucks, improve it a bit and commit in a better one".

Also, writing readable and understandable code is not a premature optimization.Quite the opposite. What you are "selling" is to write quite and dirty site and then just patch them up. It is a road to unmanaged and intentional technical debt.

</comment><comment><USER10> Right on. This is related to "the big rewrite" that kills a lot of projects. Time and usage makes code value go up. Even if it's written in an old framework that you wouldn't use today, uses urllib instead of requests. Just ignore the urge and move on (for now).

I've recently worked on an old project (www.oath.is), dusted it and launched it as an app. It was a Django project and my urge was to rewrite the whole thing so I could use SQLAlchemy and Flask which I had picked up in the meantime. On the frontend I immediately wanted to rewrite everything in CoffeeScript and Backbone.js. But I resisted it and managed to spend my time adding features, a new design and unit tests and launched in like a week. After launching I had some extra time to rewrite the jQuery-spagetthi, which paved the way for some more advanced client side features without becoming a horrible mess. So I guess you have to make that decision multiple times over the lifetime of a project. But yes, holding off the urge is a good practise.

<comment> j-kidd When the existing code base is at least functional, then of course, a big rewrite is not warranted.

However, some of us are not as lucky. The situation is often such that the existing code base is full of bugs that it can cause a ton of support requests from the users, or even crash and bring down the production server.

In such situation, you can choose to firefight all days and have no time left to implement new stuffs, or choose to rewrite.

Not using the latest hippiest libraries is really the least of my problem.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. When it comes to code that's "not exactly how I would have done it" but _also_ bug ridden I think it's an easy decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is one of those big challenges. Deciding when to tear something out that is subpar to replace it. I'm going through this now with code inherited from others and stuff I've written in the past that I think I can do better. As a lead it's my job to "prune the tree" of code and guide it but I can't just roll over every decision ever made simply because I want something better.

It's never perfect.

So what I do is for every chunk of code I think needs to be replaced or solidified I ask myself first how it will impact my schedule, how it will impact other coders as they do maintenance, if the end goal is a better user experience, and if so does that serve the business? From answering these questions I can determine if we should make a change now, or if we want we can defer the change to a specific place in our timeline and plan it out. This has worked well for me in the past.

<comment><USER12> I agree. The temptation to roll over existing changes when inheriting a new codebase can be overwhelming at times, and the only sensible way that I've found to deal with it is to consider the impact to the schedule and how that ties into the overarching business need for whatever it is that you're working on. Without a bit of discipline here, I've found that it's way too easy to start working on things that don't advance the project towards its overall goals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _"Remember Twitter story. When it was first started it was super buggy Rails app, that was down all the time"_

For every one of these examples there are 10 where newly shipped code is not "super buggy".

I've stopped using many services because of their attention to bugs was poor. Business value diminishes quickly when your product fails all over the place. sure you can find examples of companies that pulled through even with glaring problems, but there are also ones that succeeded because of competitive advantage from great code, and i dare to opinionate that the latter has a higher success rate.

Should you rewrite entire code when it's bad? no, this is almost never the right move. <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html>

</comment><comment><USER14> <http://abstrusegoose.com/432>

<comment><USER15> OP's blog post wasn't about other people's code. It is about one's own code and how it's quite important one stiffle one's inner voice that says "Your code sucks"

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is always a lot of packaged up implied assumptions in stuff like this.

Maybe there are problem domains where immediately rewriting everything in Scala and applying TDD would be a huge win over some PHP that "seems to work".

Of course you have to weigh short term vs long term consequences and not rush to conclusions (especially if you are new). You may have hiring difficulties but that may work in your favour (see "python paradox").

Also I think that the best way to write code is to assume that bad code will be written and apply stuff like unit testing as a means to make replacing that bad code as easy as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Also I think that the best way to write code is to assume that bad code will > be written and apply stuff like unit testing as a means to make replacing > that bad code as easy as possible.

Can't agree more. Tests and code-reviews help a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Luckily there are people that write good code, is difficult to find them but they exsist.

If you want to speak about the average (or below average) coder I agree, they write crappy code and you have to deal with it, someday

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, sometimes, if the code looks like shit happens that it actually is this :)

For sure it works only if you have someone with good sense of code quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have really internaized this recently; more specifically I have made sure to think about my code from an outsider's perspective and address complaints this person might have.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hey man, speak for yourself. Not all of us write crappy code.

<comment><USER20> Yes we do. In 50 years a decent programmer looking at your code will think it's crap.

<comment><USER8> They'll think its old code. I work with plenty of old Fortran linear algebra libraries and I don't think they're crap, they're just old but they still get the job done more efficiently than any modern software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Proper grammar helps tooooo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, i'm working on it...

BTW, this blog is open-sourced, and if someone helps with grammar i'll be grateful :)

[https://github.com/buger/buger.github.com/blob/source/source...](https://github.com/buger/buger.github.com/blob/source/source/_posts/2012-12-01-your- code-sucks.markdown)

<comment><USER21> Very cool, far ahead of the curve.</comment></comment></comment>


The Ideal Domain-Driven Design Aggregate Store? - <AUTHOR> https://vaughnvernon.co/?p=942 <comment><USER2> In one project I was able to achieve an identical "ideal ddd aggregate store" using MSSQL.

\- The aggregates are XML serializable entities persisted into tables using the XML datatype (fairly comparable to PostreSQL's JSON datatype).

\- MSSQL has numerous methods for querying, updating, and reading from XML typed columns. They're certainly clunky, but they do work.

\- To simplify querying and indexing, we created computed columns with a user defined function to query from the XML column. By marking these columns as persisted, the UDF is only executed and the column updated when the row is written. And as persisted, the computed columns can be included in normal indexes to improve performance.

A lot of folks may scoff at using XML, and especially MSSQL's XML datatype. But I will say that it works. And after you've built a simple foundation, developing your aggregates and working with them almost becomes a breeze.

And as far as XML versus JSON... it almost doesn't matter in this case.

<comment><USER3> This sounds like the approach used by Couch-style incremental map reduce. For each JSON document, run a JavaScript function to determine the document's contribution to the map reduce index. (Basically a user-defined column with optional custom aggregation.)

So you can easily normalize multiple incoming JSON types to a single index (eg mix JSON data from different APIs into a single "column", etc.)

And that's not even getting into the reduce side. From [1] "if documents represent your company's financial transactions, a view can answer the question of what the spending was in the last week, month, or year."

[1] [http://guide.couchdb.org/draft/views.html](http://guide.couchdb.org/draft/views.html)

<comment><USER2> It's very much the same pattern.

Also check out RavenDB ([http://ravendb.net/](http://ravendb.net/)). It's another JSON document database with JavaScript powered map/reduce indexes. One caveat is that RavenDB updates its indexes async. It's a type of eventual consistency. That means that after a write, an index may not immediately have the updated data. Depending on the application, this may or may not be acceptable.

<comment><USER3> There are as many sync/async options for Couch map reduce as you could possibly need.

The key is for some of the patterns to work, you need to be able to know your index queries come from the same database snapshot as your event feed, which is easier to do when you aren't in clustered mode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone have real field experience with using Postgres as a JSON data store like this? Most notably, I'm curious about migrations and evolutionary database design.

With oldschool relational SQL, you'd write migration scripts that alter the database schema _and also_ port the data.

It is my understanding that many people who use MongoDB and the likes just tend to keep old data as it is, and make sure that the code just supports older versions (like missing keys, etc). So you'd get code like

        record = db.get(...)
        if(!record.subtype) record.subtype = "defaultSubType"

Or maybe something smarter with a version number in each document.

I prefer to not write that code, but I also really like the idea of (ab)using Postgres JSON stores, with identically structured JSON for each row.

Did anyone ever write JSON data migrations with something like Postgres? Or Mongo? If so, how? PL/pgSQL? Load everything into backend memory and manipulate it and store it back? What if you want to split aggregates? (i.e. you have 1M "Person" JSON blobs and want to split it into 1M "Person" blobs and ≤1M "Address" blobs)

<comment><USER5> Just write ordinary migrations with updates and such. I think you should able to manipulate the JSON without too much bother. Here's the functions available for JSON: [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/functions- json.htm...](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/functions-json.html)

Here's more about the JSON type in Postgres: [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/datatype- json.html](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/datatype-json.html)

There's also Postgres' hstore, which I believe now shares the same backing as JSON(B), but may have a different API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The author doesn't mention the go-to option in this scenario: write a data mapper[1] to dehydrate your object.

While I'm a huge proponent of PostgreSQL and the hstore[2]/JSON column types (hstore column type is not mentioned but it existed way before JSON columns), it's still more common to use PostgreSQL in a primarily relational fashion and the author could have touched on that more before giving us the scoop on the new shiny stuff.

[1] [http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/dataMapper.html](http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/dataMapper.html) [2] [http://postgresguide.com/sexy/hstore.html](http://postgresguide.com/sexy/hstore.html)

<comment><USER7> I think it's a general concensus that a "data mapper" isn't much better than an ORM (obviously a form of data mapper). While you can write a data mapper that is less intrusive than a typical ORM, it's still not as nice as using a schemaless type of store such as JSON.

<comment><USER8> Not a OOP wizard but from my experience ORMs tightly integrate with both your objects and your DB. So a "DataMapper" would indeed be my choice for a sane "persistence-layer" assuming:

* The objects don't know about the mapper * The DB doesn't know about the mapper

The "ideal DDD aggregate store" with a "schemaless type of store such as JSON" on the other hand binds the implicit schema to your objects. Seems more interlocking and less modular to me.

E.g. I'd rather settle on "this Mapper is the bridge, whatever it does" instead of "the bridge is implicitly defined by however I entangle objects and store".

Boils down to the old inheritance vs composition.

<comment><USER7> I'm not disagreeing, but I guess I was comparing a relational schema to a JSON "schema".

I do agree a mapper is less intrusive than either. I think I have a bias right now because I've been working on an event sourced model that's using JSON as the serialization mechanism :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm amazed that people still refer to DDD ('OOP on steroids').

<comment><USER10> Do you mean that the approach of DDD feels obsolete or antiquated? I'm genuinely curious...

<comment><USER11> It's neither obsolete, nor antiquated. People in this thread seem to conflate DDD and OOP which is understandable given that 90% of DDD resources target the typical enterprise Java/C# setting.

The truth is, DDD consists of two parts: tactical patterns, such as Entity, Value Object or Aggregate Root and strategic design patterns such as Ubiquituos Language, Bounded Context or Context Maps. Tactical patterns are much easier to understand and apply, but most of the benefits claimed by DDD are provided by the application of strategic design.

Sadly, most people starting with DDD focus on the tactical patterns and technology, then get demotivated when the benefits do not appear.

<comment><USER12> If you manage to just get something like Ubiquitous Language through you've already gotten a LOT of value from DDD.

It really helped me when I started when I had to reason about code, requirements, and communication mismatches.

<comment><USER9> AFAIK, "Ubiquitous Language" nowadays is considered impractical by DDD aficionados.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Datomic meets most or all of these criteria by design, per my understanding, most importantly not having an OR impedance mismatch while preserving ACID

<comment><USER14> Most definitely, EDN is obviously a nice format to work with if you already use Clojure.

Also, I think what all the DDD and Hibernate advocates failed to articulate when they hyped their paradigms 10 years ago was that their model of programming simply doesn't work that well. As soon as you introduce an ORM your class design will have some inane arbitrary limitations that actually fight the "principles of DDD" on every level. You end up with convoluted domain models and services and a huge monstrous cathedral of abstraction.</comment></comment>


Why Practice Insider Trading? Just Watch Buffett Instead - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703752404576178703369079820.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_markets

<comment><USER2> This analysis is pretty poor. The insider trade made a million dollars in a day. The author is arguing that he could have alternatively made $10mm in two years if he hadn't have sold.

But of course $1mm in a day is a much better return than $10mm in 2 years. And of course the trader's money wasn't sitting idly since this trade -- he was probably making other illegal trades based on non-public info -- so in the end his return might have been much higher than if he had bought and held after the private information became public.</comment>


"It's hard to know what Augustus does" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/derwinterbach/status/1271892093074579456 <comment><USER2> There's a piece of bioinformatics software by the same name, for which this quote would be quite fitting.</comment>


Misogyny and the Cult of Internet Openness  - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175829/tomgram%3A_astra_taylor%2C_misogyny_and_the_cult_of_internet_openness/

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually wanted to post the story beneath the title URL:

"Open Systems and Glass Ceilings"

but was not sure how to do it.....</comment>


Enterprise League – Free B2B Platform for small businesses - <AUTHOR> Hello everyone! Im part of the team behind Enterprise League and we offer a new free platform where small and medium businesses can market themselves, look for new clients and potential suppliers. If anyone wants to try it I will provide the code for beta access in comments. Any feedback is appreciated. https://enterpriseleague.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://enterpriseleague.com/register](https://enterpriseleague.com/register)

code: BETA-ACCESS</comment>


Now Available: Windows Server 2008 R2 on Amazon EC2 - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/03/now-available-windows-2008-r2-on-amazon-ec2.html

<comment><USER2> This is neat, 2008R2 actually lets you run Powershell on ServerCore (ie, you don't need a GUI on your server). You can set up an app called 'PowerShell server' and SSH in like a normal server.

</comment><comment><USER3> Though I mostly use linux on servers, this is good news. I've been hoping to hear they will open a region in South America one of these days.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am still hoping to hear that they will support bringing your own BizSpark licenses for Windows instances.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am really curious how popular this will be. PowerShell is crap compared to bash or ksh. It is actually kind of embarrassing how bad powershell is. I would love to hear from someone who likes powershell and is proficient with bash.

<comment><USER2> Really? Log onto a Windows box and run:

ps FOO.EXE | kill

(Yeah, ps is an alias to get-process, kill an alias to stop-process)

Notice how you didn't scrape text anywhere? No greps, or seds? No 'pkill' type alias apps?

That's because PoSH actually returns real objects. It's a much neater design.

I'm a *nix dude, and I still don't think Windows is ready for servers (the OS still needs restarts for application installation, eg, Office Web apps a few months ago) but PoSH is damn neat and there's been quite a few projects to clone it on various nixes.

<comment><USER6> That sounds useful, simple and elegant.

However, is it as flexible as UNIX-based command line wizardry? (I don't know anything about PoSH so this is an honest question.)

My common complain with Windows is that it makes cookie-cutter tasks easy to do, but once you stray a little from the established path you get into big trouble. Suddenly there is no GUI or simple shortcut, and you have to dive into sparsely documented registry settings, download or buy additional tools, and so on.</comment></comment></comment>


Open Source projects ranked by awesomeness - <AUTHOR> http://blog.masterbranch.com/post/20813500731/open-source-projects-ranked-by-awesomeness

<comment><USER2> _Ever wondered what projects are developed by the best kick ass hackers?_

Reads more like a list of the most well-known brogrammers to me.

<comment><USER3> Yep, this is a pretty lame ranking system. Projects are given more points the more people are registered in them with accounts on the system.

Compare this with what Ohloh does, where someone can be ranked in the top #10 of contributors (or projects) without even signing up.

Ohloh doesn't offer very interesting stats, so I was expecting something more for stats junkies, but this is considerably worse in most all respects.

It will result in Flickr-like interestingness numbers, where people who play in the social network have more ratings, rather than a system that identifies the most important projects or the most widely active developers.

<comment><AUTHOR> What kind of stats would you like to view?

We don't feel confortable ranking projects and people based on info from not registered people, just our choice.

One of the things that really differentiates our ranking from Ohloh's is the way we calculate the DevScore. The DevScore it's not a popularity rank and it's not based on the amount of lines. The DevScore tries to measure the impact of your contributions (measure the amount of code, the reputation of the project and the reputation of the people that you work with) and of course we are continuously improving it and open to heard feedback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fun fact: open source projects that host their own repos are categorically not awesome.

<comment><USER5> Fun fact #2:

In the top 9 most awesome Open Source projects in the world 6 out of 9 are ruby projects. Linux or Apache projects are not in the lists. Yep, seems about right... (I am sarcastic of course)

Plus, but it may only be me, rating open source projects by "awesomeness" is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of Open Source and the contribution that everybody can bring into this world.

<comment><USER6> > In the top 9 most awesome Open Source projects in the world 6 out of 9 are > ruby projects

Why did you pick the top 9?

<comment><USER7> We didn't pick them, it's the result of the sum of its contributors' DevScore. And we calculate the DevScore taking into account your contributions, the reputation of your projects and the reputation of the people you work with.

<comment><USER6> I'm sorry, my question was ambiguous. I'm not asking how the list was generated. I'm asking how the person my comment was in reply to, who criticized it as being too ruby heavy, decided to base his criticism on the top 9 elements of the top 10 list instead of basing it on all 10.

The natural sample would have been all 10 items in the top 10. Cutting it off at the rather weird 9, especially considering that the 10th is not a ruby item, gives the appearance that he massaged the data to support his position.

<comment><USER8> The screen grab in the blog post only shows the top 9.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Linux just barely squeaks by in the top 100 at 99.

Other well known open source projects and their ranks:

asterisk: 16286

nginx: 13540

emacs: 2447

vim: 2618

a github page with somebody's vim configuration: 2068

clang: 2315

busybox: 11186

gcc: Not listed except for some ps3 ports aroynd 12k

Well we now know that emacs is more awesome than vim, but vim's configuration format is more awesome than either.

</comment><comment><USER10> ohloh.net has been at this for a number of years. I've found it a useful way to make sure an open source project has enough lasting momentum before I start to rely on it.

See also: <https://github.com/mmcgrana/gitcred>

</comment><comment><USER11> In order to be awesome you have to register, wtf? I think this is proof that RMS is the awesomest.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's curious to see ruby on top of the leaderbord. I guess it's because your main source it's github, am I right? Anyway, It's a nice way to find newer projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not because Github is our main source but because we have more people from Github registered (we have connectors to support git, svn, cvs and hg open source projects from any forge).

Would be great to see people from other communities and/or languages (i.e jquery ranks 13 but John Resig is not even registered)

<comment><USER13> This makes the data much less interesting to those who come from communities that are generally not signed up.

You can't rank people without having them register?

<comment><USER7> Yes, we could rank non registered members, but we prefere not to use data from people that don't participate on Masterbranch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A very nice list of projects to avoid. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER15> the rails documentation branch at #1? apache maven? i think their algorithm needs a bit more tuning

</comment><comment><USER16> It's a very interesting way to rank open source projects and see who are the contributors :)

Good way to find new projects to contribute too

</comment><comment><USER17> Any list which doesn't have Linux, Apache, and Asterisk near the top = automatic fail.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks very cool - do you normalize based on the number of developers per project?

<comment><USER19> Not for now. Depends on the total registered developers and their personal score.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great idea. I develop many projects that are non-public and this is a nice way to get publicly credit for them as well. I guess that there are many people out there who don't actively contribute to open-source, but are still great developers.

</comment><comment><USER21> very cool!</comment>


Space radiation may damage astronauts' brains - <AUTHOR> http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2015/05/space-radiation-may-damage-astronauts-brains

<comment><USER2> Did i miss something or did they think high-energy radiation was not dangerous?</comment>


Ask HN: How long does the programmer hiring cycle last at your company? - <AUTHOR>

For each new hire, how many hours, on average, would you say it takes to do each of the following and what method do you use to accomplish it?
1. Analyzing skill/ability fit of a potential programming hire 2. Analyzing code samples 3. Narrowing down pool of applicants to those that you want to interview.
If you could add a bit of information about the sort of company you work for (large dev shop, small dev shop, startup, Google, etc.), that would be really helpful as well.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Sure.

I aim to have our interview cycle take under a week, although in honesty, I think it takes about 10 days. I often take on a little more work myself (especially in the phone screen) if I believe it helps speed up the process and saves others time. Speed is important. Keeping momentum during hiring really makes the experience better for everyone.

For background, I work for a startup lab in Boston (we build prototypes that we spin out into companies). We're about 35 employees.

Oh, and let me start by saying that while all the pre-interview work you've listed above does take some time, the real time cost to hiring is from the interview process itself since it involves multiple people.

1.) Resume review: 3 minutes. It took longer when I first got started. I used to agonize over "call/dont-call." But you'll usually have a gut reaction to the resume, and you'll eventually learn to trust that (for better or worse ;-)

2.) Code samples/Exercises: I don't bother with them, although another manager I work with uses them to good effect. Unfortunately, they can add between several days to a week to the process, so I do a more involved phone screen instead to keep things moving.

3.) Phone screen: I spend up to 90 minutes in the phone screen. This seems to be fairly unusual. 90 minutes is a lot of time to invest, but the key is, I only spend that long with the candidates I think I'd like to bring in. The call is setup so that I can cut it short at any point. Even still, I spend a lot of time here. I get to know the candidate, feel out their passions, and actually have them write code, live in an EtherPad derivative while talking to them.

4.) Almost 6 person-hours. Our amazing director of talent greets the candidate, and spends 15 minutes giving them the lay of the land, paperwork, etc. Then two different two-person teams interview the candidate for an hour each getting to know the candidate, sharing what life here is like, and working on one large technical problem. Then our CTO and I spend 45 minutes with the candidate answer questions, talking about the direction and strategy of the company, and gauging their interest in what we do here. Interestingly, the interview process we've been using on the UX side of things spends more time working on a single practical exercise (using computers, not whiteboards) and finishes with a broader meet-and-greet. Since I'm constantly experimenting with this process, I'm planning on trying a variant of this on the software engineer interviews as well.

But I aim to have the whole process from resume review to offer letter done in a week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the excellent feedback! I'm in Boston as well. I'd be interested in grabbing a coffee sometime if you're up for it.</comment></comment>


Banning the word 'difficult' - <AUTHOR> http://traviskuhl.posterous.com/im-officially-banning-the-word-difficult-from

<comment><USER2> Please include "trivial" as well. I cringe every time I hear that word.</comment>


The Alpha Engineer - <AUTHOR> http://blog.aha.io/index.php/the-alpha-engineer/

<comment><USER2> IMHO an alpha engineer should do one of two things:

1) Architect the application and divide the detail programming in enough well- defined subtasks that lesser gods can start working on these subtasks while the alpha starts engineering further. Well-defined subtasks need relatively little communication, and economies of scale are used. 2) Add the brilliance to an existing framework built by beta engineers (Like Rembrandt painting the lace on the painting of an apprentice).

It basically depends on where a product is in the life cycle which of the two strategies is most effective.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good addition. The Alpha needs to be cognizant of the lifecycle of a given project and be able to motivate a broader team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice essay, but backed by these horrible examples:

* a group of mediocre architects could have built a better dome in Florence than Brunelleschi

* a group of mediocre stock pickers could have outperformed Buffett

* a group of mediocre designers could have built a better computer than Jobs

* a group of mediocre basketball players could have beat Jordan in the NBA finals

* a group of mediocre humanitarians could have had a bigger impact than Schindler

when the truth is:

* Brunelleschi did not lay the 4 million bricks of the dome, a large team did that

* Buffet outperforms the average stock picker by about 13% to 20%, it so happens that in the financial business 13% to 20% is a big deal, while 13% to 20% better is not disruptice startup-level improvements

* Jobs never built a computer, he needed to lord power over a large team to do that

* I believe that a team of 5 mediocre players could easily beat a team of 1 Jordan

* 1 Schindler saved 1200, while 2 million mediocre Nazis killed about 9 billion who they felt where ethnically inferior. In this case, I think the mediocre Nazis had a bigger impact.

So while my heart tells me to believe in the point you're trying to make, that one alpha engineer is worth a ton of mediocres, the examples do not support that point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments. So you do agree that Brunelleschi lead with his brilliant design and Buffett does dramatically outperform his peers. Jordan never lost a championship and would handily beat 5 mediocre basketball players from the general population -- remember that every player who makes the NBA is an alpha. I edited out the final bullet as it unnecessarily complicates the post.

<comment><USER3> yes with Brunelleschi's lead (but he still needs a big team), but since Buffet only outperforms by about 15% I wouldn't call that "dramatic" in the context of your post. As for Jordan, I suspect five of me could beat one Michael Jordon, and I suck at basketball.

Maybe you could better make your point by avoiding analogies and staying within our hackery field for alpha examples. For example, a single Linus Torvalds in a weekend could put together git, which could then keep thousands of mediocre programmers confused for years :-)

<comment><USER4> Five of you would not beat Michael Jordan, even now that he's 50. You're underestimating how much better the best people are than the average. You're really underestimating how much better they are than people who suck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That alpha engineer is only going to make a successful system if they know how to work with others and produce maintainable code. For every one of the types of alpha engineers this article deifies there is at least one other alpha engineer that is difficult to work work, doesn't document their code and has a NIH attitude that refuses to incorporate the work of others even when suitable for the task at hand.

These guys are usually known as the BBM and are can appear to be awesome but by the time you realize their shortcomings ultimately make them impotent and their work irrelevant, it's too late.

I don't care how brilliant you are. If you don't produce maintainable code with well thought interfaces, your brilliant code is going to rot by itself after you are gone. Brilliant and productive programmers also exhibit empathy for other developers who will maintain and extend the code or build other systems to interface with the code written by the alpha coder.

<comment><USER6> You are missing the point a bit - I don't think the OP is saying that a bad engineer ("difficult to work with", "don't produce maintainable code", etc) suddenly becomes better when they work by themselves. The point is that one person working alone can sometimes be significantly more productive than if threw more people at the project.

The natural engineering management answer to so many problems is "I need more headcount" \- but often that can be the opposite of what the problem needs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I considered referencing The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Fred Brooks. The central theme is that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". I think that this theory can be applied to both new and late projects. More people does not typically increase productivity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not quite sure what is the point of this post. Being smart = good. Thanks for the heads up? And I'm sure that building aha.io is extremely intellectually demanding (judging by description on the splash page).

Also isn't this just that one thing that Steve Jobs used to say but in a blog post form?

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is simple. Find the Alpha Engineer and put him or her in a position to succeed, get rid of group think, and prosper.

<comment><USER6> I don't know that it is always the case that putting a productive developer in charge of a team is the best approach either. Just because someone can code doesn't mean that they can lead - and anyway, by putting them in charge you just added another distraction to the day anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you are misinterpreting the point and blog post. I am not arguing that a lead engineer should be in charge of every team or even the broader engineering team. The point is that great engineers are different and can have an exponential impact on a product and company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "There is also less fear of upsetting the original creator [...]" <\-- this part sounds childish on the side of the "alpha engineer".

Also, part of the team building process is done as a contingency plan on the part of the company. If "the plan" is in the head of just one person, then the rest of the company becomes that person's bitch and when that one leaves...

</comment><comment><USER9> I have led product in a number of software companies -- some with an Alpha Engineer and some without. The companies with a dominate engineer have outperformed the others when the lead engineer could relate to the other teams and customers. This is a fine reminder, but you should note that no matter how great the star is, he is still part of a team.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. @malandrew mentioned something similar. The Alpha Engineer can be a force for good if she works well and motivates the team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "a lovely group of third place finishers even with a ton of consensus will never outperform one genius"

...providing that genius is a Leader and not a Cowboy.

</comment><comment><USER11> problem is that too many mediocre programers identify themselves as the Alpha engineer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. 90% of people think they are in the top 10% of performers.

<comment><USER12> And the other 10% are told by psychologist that they have a Self-esteem problem.

Society as a whole is to blame for the 90% believing they are part of the 10% best. If society had its way it would be a 100% of people believing they are part of the 10%.

And the spark that created this was created by psychologist. Which are also responsible for the high percentage of narcissist (compared to previous generations) that our society have.

Before: you had to actually do something to prove you are an alpha.

Now: people believe by default that they are alphas while the rest are betas.

This is terrible, because those who would could actually become alphas would not do it, because they believe they are already alphas, so they do not work as hard.

Because of this society as a whole is getting worse, not better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can't tell if sarcastic.</comment>


NIH trial of remdesivir for COVID-19 begins in hospitalized adults in Nebraska - <AUTHOR> https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-remdesivir-treat-covid-19-begins <comment><USER2> > Remdesivir, developed by Gilead Sciences Inc.,

This is the same Gilead Sciences that developed a cure for Hepatitis C, but was crucified in the press because of the high upfront cost.

I want pharma to makes lots of money so they care hire lots of smart people. I want developing cures for viruses and diseases to be at least as a good a career path for smart kids in the future as working for a Silicon Valley company writing the next chat app or developing the next advertising platform.

<comment><USER3> Or you know, we can determine that the cost of keeping people healthy is a social good and invest in that. I don't think we need market indicators to show that we don't want people to die. And we know that that market signal distorts the needs addressed so that chronic alleviation things get more attention than one-time cures...

<comment><USER2> > Or you know, we can determine that the cost of keeping people healthy is a > social good and invest in that.

Social goods that we ostensibly invest in, often are crappy career paths in terms of pay. If you don't believe me, talk with a teacher. We know that few things contribute to the social good as much as a good education, but tell me honestly. If you knew a poor, smart, hard working kid, what career path would you suggest, teacher or software developer?

<comment><USER4> > what career path would you suggest, teacher or software developer?

Depends on what they like to do. There is a lot we can change so that people can do what they love without punishing careers that aren't directly tied to profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand why they aren't trialing chloroquine. Isn't it more readily available and cheaper?

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0)

<comment><USER6> [https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04261517?cond=covid-1...](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04261517?cond=covid-19&draw=6&rank=45)

That is studying hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic metabolite of chloroquine.

If you navigate up a bit on that web site and enter COVID-19 for your search you will find about 50 studies, roughly a dozen or so are checking drugs.

<comment><USER7> But how are they having 50 studies if there are barely 50 confirmed cases in the US? Are they testing these drugs on other viral pneumonia patients? Or is this a "once we have patients we will initiate testing" sort of thing?

<comment><USER8> Most of the trials are happening in China, not the US.

<comment><USER7> So if they do succeed they won't have any implications in the US since FDA doesn't approve of them and insurances will refuse pay, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> what about the mrna drug?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://time.com/5790545/first- covid-19-vaccine/](https://time.com/5790545/first-covid-19-vaccine/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That footer, though.

> NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®

<comment><AUTHOR> They had me at ®</comment></comment>


Dropbox buys Audiogalaxy - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/12/12/dropbox-audiogalaxy-acquisition/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=gigaom <comment><USER2> I'm curious to see where they take this. Amazon, Google, and Apple already will host your music and have stores to sell new music from; Dropbox has neither. What could they possibly do that would be more than just a "me too!"?

<comment><USER3> They already have a huge user base. If they can provide additional features and make money from it, why not do it?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Will more women study computer science after smartphones and tablets? - <AUTHOR> NPR study reveals women in computer science drops around 1984 when PC becomes popular toy for boys.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding
The curve flattens in 2007. Will more girls study computer science because of familiarity with smartphones and tablets? <comment><USER2> I think the devices alone will not have an impact. For one, the rise of smartphones and tablets is paralleled with the decline in laptops and desktops. (AKA. the machines most software is written on). So while computing platforms are becoming ubiquitous, the platforms required to develop software are seeing their market shares shrink. If someone chooses a tablet or phone as their main computing device then it will be much more inconvenient to actually generate code.</comment>


There's no trick question if the language isn't tricky to begin with - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2012/05/i.md <comment><USER2> In any language, you have to know the rules in order to be able to evaluate a statement. If the rule says that the result is undefined, is that more complicated than if the rule says it's defined in some arbitrary way?

I suppose you could argue that an acceptable way to learn a language is to try some code in the interpreter/compiler and see what it does. If that language and its behaviors are guaranteed to be consistent across all implementations, that might work. But, I don't think any of the mentioned languages fit the bill.

I doubt you can ever really answer a question like this by trying it to see what happens. It doesn't matter what language you're using; you have to know the rule. Even if the answer is "undefined," that doesn't make it a trick question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some languages have one thing, an expression, and you compute the value of an expression by computing the value of its sub-expressions in a defined order. Thus, JavaScript does not define the result in "some arbitrary way," it defines the result in the same simple way that holds throughout the language, the same way that Ruby and Lisp and a jillion other languages compute the value of expressions.

C has two things, an expression, and a statement, and you cannot compute the value of a statement by evaluating its sub-expressions in a defined order. trying it out in the interpreter or compiler is dangerous with an undefined result, because you could get one result today and another tomorrow.

It's a "trick" in the sense that the simplest explanation of what should happen is not what happens.</comment></comment>


Product design at GitHub - <AUTHOR> http://warpspire.com/posts/product-design/

<comment><USER2> > my two favorite questions to ask in an interview (or to people who don't > know they're interviewing) are:

> [...] What feature do you think we messed up

Really? You'd think hearing people say "issues" over and over again would get old. =)

Seriously though; good points in there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice insight into one of my favourite webapps.

I feel really good as a rails developer that I know what they're talking about in the commit messages in those screenshots.</comment>


How is NYC subway OMNY able to take payment while phone is locked? - <AUTHOR> Apple Pay requires confirmation with the double click and Face ID, but OMNY is able to take payment merely by device proximity. Guessing this is NFC-based. But without confirmation? Aren't there dangerous security implications to the mechanism behind whatever technique is being used here? Thanks <comment><USER2> Since the funds can only go to one party there is little opportunity for fraud. Likely you can only pay once at a turnstile (or station for that matter). Not sure how OMNY works but usually transport passes will not work unless you've checked-out before using it for another entry.

The pass is only an identifier, it contains no payment information (you could be using pre-paid, credit card, direct debit but that happens on the "server" end).

<comment><AUTHOR> What is the "pass" here? It's my phone with a card in the apple wallet. So you're saying there is no payment information in the phone?

You don't need to sign up for OMNY. Someone who's never used it before merely needs to hold up their phone (with Apple wallet set up) to a turnstile and the fare is deducted.</comment></comment>