How Much Does an Experienced Programmer Use Google? - <AUTHOR> http://two-wrongs.com/how-much-does-an-experienced-programmer-use-google <comment><USER2> I'm probably about to date myself, but here goes. When I started programming, there was no Google. There wasn't a search engine yet. There were BBS's (which were slow), books (which were expensive), and magazines (which were infrequent). More junior programmers often ask, "Did you look things up? How did you search for things without Google? It must have been so hard!"

Well, from my perspective, it was! It was a horrible pain! Sometimes you'd spend way too much time debugging a simple error or looking up in some magazine that you are sure you read somewhere a statement that you are pretty sure would help you out in this particular scenario. Oh, it was tedious.

On the up side, at the time I didn't use nearly as many complex technologies as I use today. Quite literally today I have written in Java, a bit of Ruby, a bit of Perl, and some bash. If we expand out to this week we can add in HTML, CSS, Javascript, and SQL. Back when I started I used Basic for long stints, or C for long stints, and that was it!

Google (or in my case DuckDuckGo), StackOverflow, and the like are AMAZING. I am grateful every time I get to use one of them to help me quickly solve a problem and move on to the exciting part, which for me is making working software.

<comment><USER3> Having grown up with google, I still sometimes look at code (that I just got to work after an exhausting search on Stackoverflow) and think, "man, future generations of coders must figure out something more practical" and I'll probably get to tell them, "yep, that's how tedious it was" stories as well. What strikes me the most is how often code repeats, how often mistakes repeat. You can google a quite specific problem and more or less _always_ find a result, likely a Stackoverflow article with tens of thousands of views. While it's great that we now have a collective knowledge tool to fight this, it also illustrates how much programming is still running in circles. We take pride in expertise and skill, but how much of this is memorizing workarounds and exotic quirks that shouldn't even be necessary?

What will be the next google? The next Stackoverflow? I doubt it will literally just be a better version of either. It will probably be better IDEs and debuggers. Heck, I doubt we'll continue to type as much as we do...

<comment><USER4> I wonder if there is (or could be) a program that collates the most common bugs for X programming language from SO. So you run it as a sort of preprocessor, and it picks up stuff that the compiler either doesn't or can't.

<comment><USER5> Google's Tricorder [http://research.google.com/pubs/pub43322.html](http://research.google.com/pubs/pub43322.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google usually finds StackOverflow answers which is great.

I once found an answer to my question from SO, tried to upvote it but SO didn't let me because it was my own answer to the problem written over a year ago.

It seems StackOverflow works well for seniles as well.

<comment><USER7> I'm embarrassed to say, but this has happened to me too. More than once!

<comment><USER8> Why is this embarrassing? You moved something from local memory to remote disk and found it when you needed it again using a sophisticated index. Seems like a well-functioning system to me!

<comment><USER9> A.k.a. "coping mechanism".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Almost 20 years in and I still use stackoverflow (via google) most days.

There are just so many weird things that take too much digging through other people's src to figure out while you're busy trying to solve another issue.

Something as simple as (last week) - why is my unicode printing ok in the terminal but not when running from upstart? You debug to that level and then you want to know the right way of configuring things. I normally read a bit more than I need to so I'm better armed for other scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER11> I miss the days when I was developing in mostly only one language (C) and mostly only one environment (X11/Motif), all the searching I needed to do could be done on my bookshelf that was filled by the awesome O'Reilly 'Definitive guides to the X11 system' series and other related books (like the great 'Software portability with Imake', for example)

It was so nice to have all the knowledge I needed at my fingertips and I was always sure to visit any technical bookstore if I was abroad to see if there were other O'Reilly books I didn't own; I remember when I went on vacation in England feeling so bad about not being able to buy all the books I wanted in London because I didn't have enough space in my luggage...

Nowadays having to switch at a moment's notice between perl, python, C and java, as well as many, many, many related environments/libraries I don't think I could function without google, there is just too much information available and it changes way too fast.

It's not like it's any more complicated than it used to be (I think at one point I ended up subclassing the XmText widget to support rectangular selections, which took a while to get working) it's just the volume that makes it difficult to keep more than a couple of environments fresh in your brain without having to be online to refresh your memory.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am considered a senior engineer in my specialization and I still Google a lot of things.

There are still many things that I don't know, some things on the tip of my tongue that I almost remember and some things I use once or twice a year and forget in the meantime.

However, the more I mature as a developer, the faster I can detect horrible StackOverflow answers which technically answer the question but cause a couple of more or less sneaky issues.

<comment><USER8> Yep, the good/bad pattern-matching is the important and hard (impossible?) to teach part.

<comment><USER9> If it's pattern matching then the most effective teaching method is probably exposure to patterns plus feedback on attempts at detecting/emulating those patterns.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. Interestingly, this is how gaining experience works – you become exposed to patterns by needing to search for them, and get feedback from interpreters, compilers, and code reviews from teammates on how well you have picked out the right approach. Presumably that process could be sped up with a more formal approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Using Google is ok, but mastering Google is art!

Although sometimes you are the first that hit an issue.

Solving the issue and sharing the results is the next greatest thing one could do. Reporting the issue is great too.

<comment><USER14> [https://xkcd.com/979/](https://xkcd.com/979/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This post is a good example of why fact based interview questions are not useful. It's how information is gathered and applied which separates the wheat from the chaff.

Einstein puts it best:

 _One of Einstein 's colleagues asked him for his telephone number one day. Einstein reached for a telephone directory and looked it up. "You don't remember your own number?" the man asked, startled. "No," Einstein answered. "Why should I memorize something I can so easily get from a book?"_

<comment><USER16> anytime I hear an Einstein story I assume it's made up.

<comment><USER17> This is my rule too. I actually use the stronger rule which is anything attributed to anyone famous was not ever said by them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can't agree with this article more. It's like the author read my mind. I have programmed in perl, C, C++ in linux, VC++ & COM, python, JAVA, JS, VB, assembly language, Prolog, Lex, Yacc. I am sure I missed a few in this list. I think of problems in abstractions and when I think of syntax/semantics its almost a vague haze a mix of libraries of various languages. Dont get me wrong, once I start programming in a particular language, I am in the "zone" so to speak. But I think I need Google too often.

</comment><comment><USER19> All I can say is that I've never regretted spending too much time looking for more information, on the web or otherwise, but I've _frequently_ regretted not spending enough time after re-implementing someone else's mistakes for the past several hours/weeks/whatever. It's the lesson that keeps on giving.

[Not that I'd call myself an experienced programmer, but I'd say the same is true of scientific research and many other things.]

</comment><comment><USER20> Sometimes I force myself to think for ~5 seconds to recall a functions name. I usually end up feeling that it would've been quicker to just google it.

<comment><USER21> When I was first learning, I googled everything.

When I grew comfortable, I took pride in my ability to look up the reference docs myself and figure out the correct solution.

When I grew comfortable with that, I googled everything because it was a lot faster.

<comment><USER22> Me too, but I have decided to never cease to learn, so I am stuck in step (1) :D.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Perhaps I am in a minority because I am currently involved in research / academia, but I find I am using Google less and less as time goes on. This is not meant specifically to be a dig at Google, nor am I saying I go without; however, it really isn't as useful to me now as it was when I first started programming.

The reason for this, I believe, is that I am less and less interested in the broad range of answers Google often returns. Sure, you can easily find an answer on StackOverflow as to why Visual Studio is giving you a LNKxxxx error at compile time, but this has limited utility (in my experience). As time has gone on, I find myself searching Github, API documentation / wiki's, and most importantly, my University library. I vastly prefer reading real code alongside documentation than to just get an answer. Sure, I memorize the easy things, like how to get the length of an array in Javascript or which library to import to access vector-fold in Scheme, and that's fine if you're able to do it (if you Google this information, you likely work with more than 3 languages per day or per week). Instead, I find myself searching for answers in 1) other implementations 2) documentation of that implementation, and 3) in the original work documenting the theory or concept (papers, journal articles, textbooks).

Certainly, I think it's okay to Google something, or just search in general. But as time has gone on, the value of my University's library, as well as specific documentation and the availability of open-source implementations of most general purpose materials / paradigms has made my life infinitely easier (and hell, possible). While I value what's possible to find on today's search engines, often times dedicated resources really are the best way to go over the much more broad search engine Google provides.

Note though, that despite this, I do realise that much of these "specialized resources" were discovered through Google, so perhaps I am in circles on this one.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you mainly look up documentation, DevDocs[0] is a great app to use. It's browser based, but you can make it offline.

[0]: [http://devdocs.io/](http://devdocs.io/)

<comment><USER25> Very nice, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If I'm using a language and platform that I'm very used to, then not very often. In that case, I'd only use Google if I hit a weird bug in the platform that I haven't seen before or wanted to use a new capability.

When I'm just starting out on a new platform I'll Google a lot though. I find it's good to keep a blog of everything with a new platform that took more than an hour to figure out.

These days, there's a definite lack of appreciation for rote learning of frequently used information.

</comment><comment><USER27> _More often than Bing?_

In the olden days you had to write a lot more stuff from scratch. This would be in a language that could be explained in a relatively concise manual. So everything you would need would be in that manual.

You could learn from things others did with the same manual/hardware by seeing the end result, but the art required for that result wasn't open source, you would have to work it out yourself and RTFM as often as needed. Magazines were as good as it got.

The knowledge to program wasn't easily obtained, for starters computer kit could cost many thousands. Computers weren't really networked back then either. Floppy disks were the distribution medium. Also computer screens actually flickered in glorious 1024 x 768. Plus they were noisy. You read your code in printouts side by side with the manual, probably hand-writing code before typing it in.

Back then it must have been possible for someone to actually know a language such as 'C' (or BASIC, or an 8 bit assembly language) completely as in know all the commands and understand all the concepts. This would be learning by rote to a certain extent as the 1-2 manuals would be memorised to all intents and purposes. I don't know if that sort of mastery of a subject is easier to obtain today.

</comment><comment><USER28> I usually force myself to use the documentation of a Language/Framework/Library/etc. with a tool like Dash[1], because I don't always have Internet Access.

I try to restrict myself to use google only for troubleshooting.

[1] [https://kapeli.com/dash](https://kapeli.com/dash)

</comment><comment><USER29> On any given day I use any combination of the following languages: Ruby, Python, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, Haskell, Bash.

If I could remember how each language handled list operations and JSON/Base64 encoding I could probably code much faster, but the real efficiency gain wouldn't come until I stop reading HN :P

</comment><comment><USER30> I've joked that if I only had a small program that would take my compiler errors, grab the important part (especially when C++ pukes a mountain of text) and automatically feed it into Google, my productivity would take a huge jump.

Now I'm wondering if there's a business model for it.

<comment><USER31> Google is obviously missing a trick. Instead of working as a search engine, it should work as an online compiler and code repository.

Then it could apply machine learning and AI to predict code before it's typed.

Maybe Google Code was an early prototype?

I regularly wonder how much code is repeated effort. I get the impression that some very non-trivial percentage of global business effort is thousands of different developers writing their own versions of code that does the same few things - especially in web land.

For some reason frameworks seem to make this problem worse instead of fixing it.

<comment><USER30> I think it's _all_ repeated code now.

The moment I get an error the first thing that crosses my mind is "someone has had this problem before, I just need to find the forum where they discussed it."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Memorizing documentation and obscure bash tricks is the last thing a developer should be expected to do.

Even reading the documentation (in its 'raw' form) can sometimes be harmful, because you miss out on the contextual information that a search engine provides. Especially if you're new to a language or domain, it's easy to fall victim to the XY problem [0] - you comb the docs trying to implement your perceived solution, when a simple Google search or Stack Overflow answer would give you the solution you're _really_ looking for in seconds.

If something is important to you, you'll absorb it over time anyways.

[0] [http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=XY+Problem](http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=XY+Problem)

</comment><comment><USER33> Over 30 years in. My second monitor is for google search when it's not moved due to multiple putty sessions overflowing the first :) I still have my original Kernighan and Ritchie. When I went to the bookshop there where two books, K&R and a Byte book on C. I used to remember many of the pages numbers of things I looked up a bit. Next I moved on to help files. I made my own CHM files or scabbed them. Now we have google, why not. I agree with the point. I use python all day now but still do a bit of JS and use google for the same things, size, len, .len(), .size, len(x).

This is how we rolled: [https://goo.gl/photos/VRyNYQMyVLxJjYVq7](https://goo.gl/photos/VRyNYQMyVLxJjYVq7)

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't even bother committing some easy stuff to memory. Living in a polyglot environment, there's just too much going on to worry about the little details that Google and StackExchange can give me in a moment.

<comment><USER35> I feel the same way. It worries me that it may come back to haunt me in an interview environment where the fact that you don't have something in RAM could make you look incompetent, when in fact it's just a conscious choice on where you are going to store your knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Grep was my google in the old days.

I kept a library of code I liked or found useful. For example, a bunch of nicely written code on SGI's that came free by guys like Paul Haeberli was quite useful say if looking for opengl examples.

</comment><comment><USER37> I miss the days where you could become an expert in one language and work completely offline. Things have changed so much though, with everyone expected to be "full stack" and have a working knowledge of a wide variety of constantly changing APIs. Now, having n years experience in one language no longer seems relevant. Your value comes from your ability to understand requirements and marry different pieces of technology together. I don't feel as smart having to constantly look things up.

<comment><USER38> There are still jobs like that; right now, Indeed.com has 2000 COBOL jobs offers. I wouldn't trade it, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Well, I'm a Scala developer these days so I certainly don't use the official documentation. :p That leaves Google/StackOverflow.

<comment><USER39> Not sure what you mean here, I use the official scaladoc constantly

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> If you never have to look anything up, you're likely not actually getting better. The last thing a developer can afford is to stagnate for extended periods of time (i.e. years rather than weeks).

The likelihood that you already know everything there is to know about your niche and that you will be able to stay in only that niche for your entire career is extremely low.

</comment><comment><USER41> To quote a great hacker, Joe Armstrong, ``The reason we write code is because we can't find it on Google.''

</comment><comment><USER42> One thing I appreciate about good autocomplete like Intellisense is that for problems like the length example, I can guess and confirm with the autocomplete even faster than going to another window and googling it. Even lets you know if it's a function or member.

</comment><comment><USER43> All this raises an interesting question: what tools does Google offer it's developers ,to search for help and code ? is it better than what we've got ?

Also ,the same goes for tools for patents and engineering knowledge search.

<comment><USER44> You can see a public version running on the Chromium source here [1], which is pretty nice. Notice that it understands symbols and so forth, which essentially involves building/compiling all the code. I think it is ahead of what you'll get elsewhere, at least for C++.

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#/](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I develop android apps and use Google to catch device specific bugs ie the mention of bugs and workarounds that way I only have to pay for one android device rather than have about 25 devices

</comment><comment><USER46> A lot.

Simply because it's impossible to remember everything unless you use it on a day to day basis. Every useful link I find is tagged and stored in a repository for future use.

</comment><comment><USER47> I write PHP and javascript for a living and C# and C++ for fun and school, so in my experience, a lot.

</comment><comment><USER48> Google is my hive-mind.

Stack Overflow* is where I find the most real answers.

* and sister sites like programmers.stackexchange.com

</comment><comment><USER49> wasting time remembering the unimportant fine details is a sign of a bad programmer imo.

good programmers use software to make themselves better and google is a very reliable alternative to excessive memory (but not understanding, or problem solving skills)

</comment><comment><USER50> Very rarely. In general, we use DuckDuckGo.</comment>


Google Storage for Developers - <AUTHOR> http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/05/google-storage-for-developers-preview.html

<comment><USER2> I just compared the pricing of S3 and Google Storage and at this stage, S3 wins hands down

<http://www.manu-j.com/blog/amazon-s3-vs-google-storage/490/>

<comment><USER3> I keep trying to find a cloud service that will let me back up all my computers (3TB) for a reasonable price ($<500/yr) and let me manage it (no Backblaze, Mozy, etc.)

It continues to amaze me that nothing comes close to simply colocating a NAS.

This has to be a problem that affects absolutely every computing professional (and even a lot of nonprofessionals--gamers, ad agencies, etc.). How can the only viable solution be roll-your-own?

And if you think about it, even colocating 3TB is horribly inefficient. Splitting a Backblaze Pod 20 ways might cut the cost in half.

<comment><USER4> _It continues to amaze me that nothing comes close to simply colocating a NAS._

If you colocate a NAS, there's a significant chance that you'll lose all your data.

Amazon and Google, quite sensibly, don't want the bad publicity which would come with losing their users' data, so they replicate across multiple datacenters -- even Amazon's reduced reliability storage replicates to two datacenters -- which obviously increases costs.

<comment><USER3> [edit: figures were wildly off]

By definition, it's already the second copy of my data (since it's a backup).

For the price of S3 (~$5500/yr, not even including bandwidth), I could colocate 7 RAIDed NASes ($700 NAS, 4-year life, $50/month colocation fee).

If me and a couple of friends agree to exchange NASes to save on colocation fees, I could have 31 NASes for the price of S3.

For maybe 50% the price of S3, I could colocate a Backblaze pod and have 67TB of data storage, 22x my need.

<comment><USER5> Amazon S3 just announced a "Reduced Redundancy" version of S3 priced about 33% cheaper.

<http://aws.amazon.com/s3/#pricing>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks like their 'waitlist' is a google docs spreadsheet+form. Which, incidentally isn't loading. I'm not sure how well that bodes from a capacity planning standpoint.

</comment><comment><USER7> Confusing.. why would I use this instead of S3 which costs less, has proven itself over the last four years (OK, not 100% but damn close), and has countless client programs and libraries?

<comment><USER4> You might want to use this if you were building an application on top of other Google infrastructure. But aside from that, I can't see anything here aside from some 20% googlers saying "Amazon S3 is cool, let's build our own version".

<comment><USER8> overtime it will integrate with other google stuff. We already see it with their other announcements building on top of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this makes more sense if you look at it in combination of one of the other things they just released - AppEngine for business. Sure on its own this is priced higher than S3 but in the context of a company running google apps + enterprise app engine + google storage it starts to make a lot more sense just from a convenience standpoint

<comment><USER10> That's a dangerous road to go down, though. Nobody should try to be the inferior option that piggy-backs on other, more competitive products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> ....but does it support a root index.html file? This is like the only thing that keeps me from hosting static sites entirely on S3.

<comment><USER6> You could do that on AppEngine already. Just put everything in your static_files directory and set it as the default responder in app.yaml

For more see [http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/gettingstarted/...](http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/gettingstarted/staticfiles.html)</comment></comment>


TT2020 is an advanced, open source, hyperrealistic, multilingual typewriter font - <AUTHOR> https://ctrlcctrlv.github.io/TT2020/docs/moreinfo.html <comment> java-man Thank you, have been looking for a good looking typewriter TTF font for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks great!</comment>


Scale-Free Vertical Tracking Microscopy, a.k.a. Gravity Machine - <AUTHOR> https://gravitymachine.org/about/ <comment><USER2> There is one problem, though.

The water column the microorganism travels is not uniform and endless. As it travels, the conditions change. Some can be easily adjusted (for example lighting), some would be much more difficult to get (pressure, chemical composition).

So while the microorganism can travel it can't actually get anywhere.

<comment><USER3> They have a method for imitating natural chemical, temperature, and light gradients even in the otherwise sealed tube. So they can simulate a great deal of those conditions and have observed some interesting behaviors at boundary layers, if you check the gallery.

<comment><USER2> Ah, missed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm probably just misunderstanding the physics involved, but wouldn't moving the container only impart movement on the fluid inside in proportion to the viscosity of the liquid? And once the fluid is moving wouldn't stopping it require movement in the opposite direction or waiting for friction to reduce the inertia of the fluid?

I'm thinking of the behavior of the semicircular canals of the ear, and how the inertia of the endolymph can cause dizziness after spinning for a while.

Maybe the critical part I'm missing is that the organism is actually sinking in the fluid around it and the effect of fluid current if present is minimal compared to the effect of gravity.

As an aside, the homepage for this project is quite nicely illustrated.

<comment><USER3> I had this exact question, and the researchers said it was a serious consideration. Turns out the critters at this scale move quite slowly and so does the wheel. There's some effect certainly but it's small enough that they can track a single organism for quite a long time. It wouldn't work in other circumstances or scales for sure.

I wrote it up here, in case anyone would like to read about it in article form: [https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/19/this-looping-aquatic- tread...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/19/this-looping-aquatic-treadmill- lets-tiny-ocean-creatures-swim-forever-under-the-microscope/)</comment></comment>


URL Driven - <AUTHOR> http://thenerdary.net/articles/entry/url_driven

<comment><USER2> This sort of thinking is one of my favorite features of Rails.</comment>


You Smell Like Outside - <AUTHOR> http://davidgaddy.com/you-smell-like-outside/ <comment><USER2> From the comments: "I live in Virginia and have always gotten this unfortunate smell when outside, but noticed most people do not. My brothers get it, and occasionally my husband, but not my mother or any other people I know. My husband and I call it smelling "sparkly" because the pungent, slightly metallic smell is initially so strong once I come indoors it makes me envision the smell actively jumping or popping around my skin, hair and clothes like tiny firecrackers. It calms down within a half hour or so, but doesn't completely disappear. I only have to be outside for couple minutes, but when I come back in I smell "sparkly." If I am around people I avoid any trips outside as much as possible."

This needs to be researched. Is this some sort of psychological affliction? There is no outside smell. What if you lived in a hut? What separates the outside from the inside?</comment>


EFF Warns That FCC Net Neutrality Rules Are a Bad, Bad Idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110204/23560912976/eff-warns-that-fcc-net-neutrality-rules-are-bad-bad-idea.shtml

<comment><AUTHOR> A recent HN thread had a spirited discussion on this a short while back (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2033261>).

My comment there makes the point now being emphasized by EFF:

"The FCC is way out of its league on this one. Basically, it is a creature of statute. It can do whatever Congress has authorized it to and no more. Nothing in its authorizing statute expressly permits it to impose the rules now known as net neutrality. Therefore, it sought to justify its ability to do so under the doctrine of so-called 'ancillary jurisdiction,' meaning that it had an implied power to do so in aid of its expressly granted powers. Unfortunately, a definitive federal appeals court ruling held that no such ancillary jurisdiction existed, leaving the matter for Congress to decide. Rather than deferring to Congress, the FCC chose to adopt a new rationale for its assertion of this authority. Congress overwhelmingly balked at the idea of any broad assertion of such authority and, in the back and forth, the FCC came up with the toe-in-the water approach just adopted to the satisfaction of almost no one. Even this assertion of jurisdiction will certainly be challenged in the courts in cases that will take years to decide, leaving this whole issue in a pathetic state of uncertainty for all concerned. Nothing good will come of this except for lots of employment for the lawyers who will be litigating whether this or that action is 'reasonable' and whether the internet is really like a public utility or not. All in all, a royal mess."

<comment><USER2> Perhaps the FCC should have just reclassified Internet service as a Title II Telecom service--something it clearly has the authority to do.

The Internet was initially classified as Title II by the FCC, then reclassified by the FCC. Congress has never classified the Internet in terms of its common carrier status.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> The TechDirt article advocates real competition as a much better solution than net neutrality regulations. But, as the market exists, we're not going to see widespread competition amongst ISPs. Most Americans have a choice between one or two ISPs.

So that leaves the author with three choices: government-imposed competition (open access regulation), government-imposed net neutrality (network management regulation) or laissez-faire (which he implies is problematic in its current state). Pick your poison.

<comment><USER3> > So that leaves the author with three choices: government-imposed competition > (open access regulation), government-imposed net neutrality (network > management regulation) or laissez-faire (which he implies is problematic in > its current state). Pick your poison.

Well, there's network regulation and there's network regulation. For example, what would happen if the FCC simply declared all ISPs and cellular broadband companies to be common carriers?

<comment><USER2> Then the ISPs would be forced to sell wholesale Internet access to new, competing ISPs. The mechanism for determining the rate-setting process is likely pretty cumbersome. It's not so clear that Title II reclassification would be less "regulatory" than net neutrality regs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I agree that net neutrality, as the FCC is currently trying to impose it anyway, isn't a good idea.

On the other hand, I disagree that some things the major ISPs have done is a simple result of lack of competition. Of course, the ISP market is in bed with the government. Of course, they get away with things they probably wouldn't in a less monopolistic market.

On the other hand, if the market were more open, who's to say favoring content or metered billing or whatever wouldn't emerge as optimal strategies. There are "private content network" companies out there who do precisely that - favor content on their networks - and the idea does not strike me as an inherently bad one.

Look at the problem posed by Netflix. They are a key driver in many of these discussions, because the bandwidth consumed by their online video services almost certainly is more costly than what they actually pay (and hence they can get away with charging customers far less than the cost of delivery). Yet, the government says ISPs can't "discriminate" against Netflix traffic by charging Netflix higher rates. What will end up happening is that the ISPs will just charge all of their users higher prices to make up for the bandwidth Netflix is using (see here for a good discussion: [http://seekingalpha.com/article/238107-netflix-now-we-re- coo...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/238107-netflix-now-we-re-cooking-the- business-model?source=commenter))

Is that really the best solution? What if users had the ability to access an ISP who solely provided Netflix content and perhaps a few other services, and blocked traffic for anything else? In that case, they might pay for a basic internet subscription, and then some amount more for access to the private network. At least in that case, only the users who want access to Netflix content would pay more for it. I am sure the commenters here could think of many other problems with that business model, but it would be better than having everyone pay higher rates so that high bandwidth users can avoid "discrimination."

<comment><USER5> I am pretty sure that Netflix pays to ISP's properly for all the outbound traffic from their data centers, problem mainly originates when a bunch of users from same area hog up the network with streaming services - then they might want to charge those users.

And I don't understand why they want to do that also. They are enjoying near monopoly and are getting paid by the mild users also. ISPs should monitor spikes in usage and adjust the infrastructure accordingly.

<comment><USER4> Well you're right in a sense that Netflix probably pays the appropriate amount purely for what's outbound from their servers, but that last cost _does_ count and the cost will be borne by someone - either by what Netflix pays the ISP for its data in particular, or by the users that use it. The problem with Net Neutrality is that you're basically saying "everyone should pay for what some content providers provide to some users." Either ISPs "discriminate" against the content provider or the end users, or everyone ends up paying more. Currently IMO, the best world would be to allow the ISPs to charge Netflix properly for the total cost of providing it, which would build in to Netflix's subscription price and properly reflect to end users the true cost of Netflix's services.

<comment><USER6> _Currently IMO, the best world would be to allow the ISPs to charge Netflix properly for the total cost of providing it_

How is that better than charging customers directly for the bandwidth they use? The problem with the recent Canada fiasco wasn't (IMO) the concept of metered billing itself, but trying to charge hundreds of times the actual cost.

<comment><USER4> It may be more of an aesthetic preference, but the pricing signal makes more sense to me on a per-service basis than it does on a tiered internet service basis. Tiered bandwidth plans are inexact - should I buy the 250 MB plan or the 5 GB - and require a lot of thought as to what you will actually use. If the charge is per-service, you know exactly what you're buying with each additional service you consume. That's my thinking anyway.

<comment><USER6> _Tiered bandwidth plans are inexact - should I buy the 250 MB plan or the 5 GB_

That's still more accurate than charging you a Netflix access fee whether you download one movie or 20. And charging per-service opens the door to all sorts of anti-competitive agreements.

 _and require a lot of thought as to what you will actually use._

That seems like a feature. The alleged problem isn't "customers accessing netflix.com", it's "customers using lots of data". If you want to use pricing signals to correct that, then charge directly for the scarce resource.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reading between the lines, it sounds like the EFF has given up on net neutrality and has arrived at the same position as the TLF crowd: since any regulation will inevitably be captured by ISPs, better to just give up.</comment>


Do you "get" our super-short explanatory video? - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/19872277

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys, it would be great to get some feedback on our latest video, explaining our product. We had some trouble to make people "get" it quickly what our product is all about. Have we improved?

</comment><comment><USER2> is this mostly for marketing agencies and stuff? i'm not sure why i'd want to buffer my tweets, instead of just send them right away.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. Actually it's not specifically for marketing and agencies, although they will certainly find it useful. The main reason, why many people want to buffer their tweets atm, is because they are intersted in having a planned out timeline on twitter. They can sit down at one point, whilst they are browsing the web and then add tweets to their buffer. It just optimises twitter efforts, if you can't be around all day. Sometimes you come across more than one great article you want to share, so instead of flooding your followers, you can spread them out with Buffer. You think that would help? :)

<comment><USER3> Why not start the video with some form of that explanation? Right now, it seems to assume a visitor already wants to delay batches of tweets, but has been frustrated by 'scheduling' in other tools.

Also, my questions about any such tool would be _when_ do the buffered tweets actually fire, and if I can control that timing, and if Chrome has to be open when they do. The video offers no hints.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gojomo, really good stuff, many thanks. Well, we have pre-set the times at time slots which are best for most people. Anyone can easily change these times though. Nope, chrome is not a "have to" thing, you can if you wish. You can be sleeping in your bed and the tweets will fire! :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Engineers launched crash programs for ventilators. What will happen to them? - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/the-great-ventilator-rush <comment><USER2> People spend a month on a ventilator, and they end up brain damaged. It's probably due to the anesthesia needed to restrain a person who has tubes jammed into the lungs.

People went half a century on iron lungs. They were fine. They could talk and eat.

It's clear what the best solution for the patients is. We aren't using it because it is annoying for the hospitals. It is really bulky, it slows down access to the torso, and nobody wants to pay for that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it interesting that this article implies that the US will not need more than the number of ventilators it already has, while at the same time another article linked here on HN (Experts warn parts of U.S. on verge of being overwhelmed by Covid-19 resurgence [https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/coronavirus- covid19-world-june...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/coronavirus- covid19-world-june24-1.5624885) ) warns of the US being overwhelmed by a resurgence of COVID-19. I'm somewhat more inclined to give credibility to IEEE, but a lot of news outlets are reporting significant increases in cases lately.

Who am I supposed to believe?

<comment><USER4> See the other comment about how up to 90% of patients put on a ventilator died and those who lived have terrible problems.

Also, we learned some since the start of the pandemic and have better techniques of preventing hospitalized cases from needing ventilators.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Like most get rich quick schemes, they will disintegrate and disinvest a few people of their money as they go.

</comment><comment><USER6> As I said at the time corona arrived in the US, hospitals would rather watch patients die than use unapproved ventilators in the US because of legal and insurance liability issues.

Even though the FDA granted an exception, I doubt if that changed the above.

In the end, DIY ventilators didn't matter because approved ventilators ended up killing 65% to 90% of patients that used them for corona, generated a bill of $1 million for 3 weeks per patient, and destroyed the lung tissue (and other organs) of most survivors.

The CDC had from SARS-1 (2003) to 2019 to do their job, and they didn't. It's a stunning failure on so many levels that I have to ask what that department does all day?</comment>


Wintersmith – a flexible static site generator - <AUTHOR> http://wintersmith.io/

<comment><USER2> I've updated my mini-review of static-site generators to include it:

<https://github.com/skx/static-site-generators>

Early testing looks good, but like so many existing tools it mishandles symbolic links.

<comment><USER3> Is Middleman (middlemanapp.com) an intentional omission? (Meaning, did it fail one of your requirements for review?)

<comment><USER2> I knew I'd heard of that name. THere are a couple of projects listed in the README that I've not yet gotten round to.

A user submitted a bug-report to draw attention to Middleman & Yeoman, but then closed it before I got round to looking at them.

<https://github.com/skx/static-site-generators/issues/2>

I'll try to find some time soon to add them, and work on the repository some more.

<comment><USER4> You have reviewed Jekyll but not Hyde(still in _todo_ ), that is literally an one sided story :-)

<comment><USER2> My bias is towards my own tool; the rest were picked at random, based on recommendations and my free time.

No explicit bias intended :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"Write rich web applications using the latest technologies without having to host your own node.js servers [...] No matter what plugins you use, the output will always be a static website you can host anywhere."_

I don't think that's a very common definition of "rich web application".

<comment><USER6> Why not?

<comment><USER7> Because it excludes most forms of interactivity.

<comment><USER8> I disagree, many applications can be defined entirely in client-side code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know that this makes me look like a grumpy old man, but is there anyone left who _didn't_ write a static site generator yet?

<comment><USER10> I did, and I'm like the worst programmer ever. So yes.

<comment><USER11> I did too, and my site is even running on it now.

Though hacker news isn't going to see either anytime soon because both are terrible. Still... it's a good learning experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I got scared when it said node.js, then I saw it was only using node.js for the customization part, not the hosting part and I got relieved. I really think they should emphasize that you can use your own web-server, using node.js to host a static site just doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER13> The fact that it's static should mean you can host it on any platform that hosts static files. The technology only kicks in when you are writing blogposts and (re)generating your static files before you sync/upload them to your host.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It seems like just about everyone's written a static site generator. Mine is Kerouac (<https://github.com/jaredhanson/kerouac>), another Node.js-based generator.

I specifically wanted to apply the middleware concept to generating pages, which turned out to be a decent fit. It ends up being a very similar API to Express, so its instantly familiar to Node.js developers. Check it out.

</comment><comment><USER15> Really like this little framework, was just checking it out a week ago. To the author or anyone else interested, I'm making a little tool that does something very similar (<http://roots.cx>) and am aggressively adding functionality in order to make almost anything feasible to build as a static site.

Would love to talk about this stuff any time!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hit me up on irc, i'm trying to get a wintersmith irc channel started. #wintersmith on freenode. i'm jn

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone else find it funny that a language originally designed to add _dynamic_ content to the _client_ side is being used to generate _static_ content on the _server_ side?

Makes sense to me though ... It's a natural fit for a front end dev who knows HTML/CSS/JS and also a good way to learn proper templating.

</comment><comment><USER17> Who wants a static site these days?

<comment><USER10> I do! No maintenance, no security risks, blazing speed, cheap hosting. Seems ideal for a blog you don't update that often, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What flavour of markdown is this? Can I use pandoc's markdown with a little tinkering?

<comment><AUTHOR> The default markdown plug uses marked, so gfm. But there is a pandoc plugin: <https://github.com/lhagan/wintersmith-pandoc>

<comment><USER18> Thanks, this makes it vastly more useful for me :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> gfm md > plain md

<comment><USER20> I'm okay with most of the changes, but the treatment of of newlines would be pretty much a dealbreaker for anything beyond a comment or message.</comment></comment>


Microsoft introduces Surface Book, a convertible for Surface fans - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/microsoft-introduces-surface-book-a-laptop-for-surface-fans/ <comment><USER2> This is simply amazing. I always thought choosing a 2 in 1 device would always be some compromise with a wobbly top-heavy screen with an inferior keyboard compared to a traditional laptop. This seems to solve all those problems.</comment>


Tennessee doctors earn big money denying disability claims - <AUTHOR> https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2019/01/06/tennessee-doctors-disability-claims/1077220002/ <comment><USER3> This is everything that is wrong with health care in the US. From the article:

"Staff doctors take more time. The state employed a small number of staff doctors whose compensation is not tied to the number of cases they review. These doctors reviewed cases at a rate that is in line with federal recommendations. They typically earned less than $150,000 annually, according to the state's salary database. Beginning this year, however, the state is terminating all doctors on salary and relying only on contract physicians."

So essentially, salaried state doctors took their time to review cases, perhaps realizing that these are real people on the other end of the paper work. The state doctors were paid less than the private doctors and the state is going to lay them off to go full private despite the fact that some of the private doctors are clearly just plowing through the reviews to boost their income.

A whistle blower then called this out and was let go.

Seems like corporate lobbying is alive and well in TN. Don't worry about the individuals, there's money to be made.

<comment><USER4> Seems like a simple 10X fine for screwing up would fix the problem. But the government has run by people that hate government will never fix the problem.

<comment><USER5> "But the government has run by people that hate government will never fix the problem."

Who, exactly, are you referring to?

It's not like the stuff the article covers started in January of 2017. Who, exactly, in the chain of command here "hates government"?

<comment><USER6> This problem didn't start in 2017, it started with the Reagan presidency.

<comment><USER7> This started long before Reagan. Even Andrew Jackson allowed the Charter of the ancestor of the Federal Reserve to expire.

<comment><USER6> The consequences of which affect precisely nobody today.

In 2019, we are living in a world where one of the two parties made bad government a cornerstone of their party's policy, ~35 years ago. We are now reaping the wages of that decision.

<comment><USER8> Yes, this is largely because disability has become the defacto welfare system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A couple of great articles for those who aren't aware that disability is the new welfare.

This is in no way meant to justify the absolutely insane process outlined in the Tennesseean article. I just see a lot of people questioning why disability claims would be up when unemployment is down. This is a decades-long trend.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/disabil...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/disability- insurance-americas-124-billion-secret-welfare-program/274302/)

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

<comment><USER10> The reason it is "the new welfare" is that states don't pay a share, it's a purely Federal program paid for out of payroll taxes. Certain states make it very difficult to get safety net benefits, and those who do can only get them for a limited period of time. SSDI is the last stop.

Administrative law judges make judgements based on individual and regional considerations. Someone who may not meet the standard in NYC for disability may qualify in Tennessee, due to the makeup of the employment environment.

The fact that the state is so aggressive about denials is interesting, as it is probably increasing costs to the state due to increased litigation.

<comment><USER11> > The fact that the state is so aggressive about denials is interesting, as it > is probably increasing costs to the state due to increased litigation.

This could be a case of one department making their metrics look better at the expense of other departments.

<comment><USER12> Yes, it goes into detail about this in the npr article linked by GP.

There is even a consulting company whose job it is to recommend people who are on welfare that could be on disability, and then help them fill out the forms and get Dr. consent. This company gets paid 2k+ for each person they switch over..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The centerpiece case for the story is an odd one to support the assertion.

The article vilifies the evil doctors who carelessly churn through disability claims, but it also notes that the doctor for the article's centerpiece was not provided any medical records indicating the patient's cancer was metastasized and inoperable. Absent that information, the determination may have been correct.

The doctor made $420k/yr for full time work processing claims. That puts him somewhere between dermatologists and urologists for doctor compensation, which is on the higher end of specialists. Is that too much? I have no idea, it seems like the job requires a great deal of breadth.

<comment><USER14> "In Chrisman's case, Thrush failed to obtain one critical piece of evidence: a discharge paper from a hospital that stated Chrisman's cancer was inoperable and had metastasized. The prognosis clearly qualified him for disability, even under the complex rules set by the Social Security Administration. The mistake was discovered only after Chrisman hired a lawyer."

Sounds like the doctor screwed up.

<comment><USER13> _Sounds like the doctor screwed up._

That probably turns on "failed to obtain". The state collects and dumps case files onto the contract doctors. Is it the doctor's responsibility to search all sources of records for ones which were omitted and might be pertinent? Do privacy rules even allow this? I assume there is some waiver signed by the applicant to allow the state to request medical records, but is that then granted to the contract doctors?

<comment><USER15> It wouldn't have to be provided to the contract doctors, you'd just need a process where the doctor says "this paperwork is missing a discharge document, without that I can't make a determination" and the state/patient can get it. (I'm not a doctor so I don't know if a discharge document is something you would expect to see in a medical history)

<comment><USER16> How would the doctor know that a document is missing?

<comment><USER15> That was the caveat in parentheses.

<comment><USER17> You would only know there was a discharge summary if there was a corresponding admission history and physical.

If no indication of an admission to a hospital was made, then you have no reason to expect a discharge summary. However, I would imagine the radiology reports would have included the metastases...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here is my similar story from Washington state.

I was a happy fully sighted software developer up until a few years ago an eye disease started all of a sudden. Now I am blind. I applied for disability and got denied. I appealed and was denied again. In the end I hired a lawyer and won the case. Judge told me he was surprised that I had to go this far as my case seemed so clear to him.

To make things fair, I wasn't fully blind at the time when I applied for disagbility. My doctor thought I was blind enough to be considered disabled. Social security's doctor didn't think so.

<comment><USER19> Maybe something you don't feel comfortable discussing, and feel free to disregard if it is. But I've often thought about what I would do if this, or a major injury to my hands, were to happen to me.

Programming is a big part of my life, and I don't know what I'd do if I suddenly couldn't do it anymore. You're able to read and write posts on HN, so it seems that you're able to edit text again, albeit at a (significantly) reduced rate? Have you picked up programming as a hobby again? Or have you moved on to other things now that you don't have to?

<comment><USER18> It took me a few years to adjust, but I'm back in the workforce. I am working in a big IT company now. Blind people can use screenreaders - <USER2> software - to write code and leave comments on hacker news. If something happens to your hands, I've heard of a software developer who is using dictation software to write code. There are ways you can work around your disabilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You can have your case re-reviewed. Urban legend is that after the third time they just magically approve it. There's a whole group of lawyers that specialize in getting people approved for disability benefits.

People on disability skyrocketed after the turn of the century. It's very easy for the overweight to qualify for heart/breathing problems.

At first glance you would assume that $804/month is a low enough amount to keep people from applying. It won't even cover rent in many places. Even a $10/hr job will pay double that in gross pay in a month.

<comment><USER21> Anecdata: My fiancee has lupus and a kidney transplant. There are days where they are completely bedbound and days where they can walk around just fine, depending on if they are in a lupus flare and what it is attacking. All of their doctors (rheumatologist, nephrologist, and internist) have urged her to apply for disability as they all consider them firmly in the permanently disabled camp.

> Urban legend is that after the third time they just magically approve it.

The state you are in seems to make a big difference. My fiance applied three times in the state of Florida and were denied all three times. They were approved on their first application in Wisconsin.

Your medical situation also seems to make a big difference. In Florida, my fiance's doctors were spread around, requiring several trips to get paperwork. In Wisconsin, they are all at a single hospital, so requesting records was simple, and the medical records department sent all of them at once from all of their doctors with a single request.

> There's a whole group of lawyers that specialize in getting people approved > for disability benefits.

Many of them work on contingency, taking a cut of the back pay that you get when a previously rejected application is ultimately approved. I understand that lawyers need to be paid, but taking a cut of someone's disability benefits seems pretty low to me. (That said, there are firms that work on a pro-bono, sliding scale, or a fee-for-service basis where they do not take a cut of your back payment.)

> It's very easy for the overweight to qualify for heart/breathing problems.

I wish this myth would die. The morbidly obese very rarely qualify for disability.

> [Y]ou would assume that $804/month is a low enough amount to keep people > from applying. It won't even cover rent in many places.

Many places have supplemental rent assistance and other benefits that you become eligible for once you are on disability, which mitigates some of that.

<comment><USER22> There are some counties in the US where 1 out of 5 people are on disability. I can't see how you get a rate that high unless it was easy to qualify for disability.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2017/03/30/disabled-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2017/03/30/disabled- or-just-desperate/?utm_term=.d0d902acedfe)

<comment><USER23> > I can't see how you get a rate that high unless it was easy to qualify for > disability.

Poverty tends to be a very unhealthy situation - it leads to a poor diet, you skip medical treatment for initially small issues, jobs available are more likely to be of the sort that cause back and joint pain.

Now add in the fact that disabled folks need to live in cheaper, low cost-of- living areas, and you'll get big concentrations.

<comment><USER22> Poor people don't move because they lack funds to do so. It's one of the big problems in the US that hits the fixed income people who live in high expense areas. Access to healthcare for the poor is a lot better than in it was in 2005 because of Obamacare that expanded medicaid yet disability rate is at an all-time high. Indicators for health care access like high cholesterol levels and untreated cavities is at a 20 year low.

<comment><USER23> > Poor people don't move because they lack funds to do so.

They do when they get evicted.

Uninsured rates are down, but a lot of Boomers are now in the decade before retirement where abused bodies tend to break down more and more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The most powerful word in the American justice system is:

LAWSUIT

If all of the patients who are being denied file one, then it will make denying these claims so expensive that no doctor will want to touch them with a 10 foot pole.

This word can be applied to all kinds of ills plaguing us in these times. I'm amazed that lawtech isn't right up there with biotech and fintech, but I'm guessing that as messed up as things are right now, law is ripe for disruption.

<comment><USER3> Issue is that most state and federal level organizations enjoy Sovereign Immunity. Makes them immune to most forms of lawsuits. They can do what they want without issue.

<comment><USER24> I'm not certain about this (maybe someone who knows for sure can chime in).

I'm pretty sure you can sue anyone for anything, and then the judge throws it out if the case doesn't have merit. But if enough people do it, somebody somewhere has to make a decision about whether to keep hearing cases or change the law to make filing illegal somehow. That's the point where people get seriously pissed off and protests form and somebody stands to lose an election.

I saw a documentary along similar lines where a town didn't want a pig farm (due to smell etc). The county wanted to force them to do it, so they said no and sued the county. Then the state said no so they sued the state. I think it went all the way to the supreme court. They worked their way up the ladder until finally the law was changed so that towns had their own say in whether they wanted to smell like a pig farm (which no town does).

This technique works well for environmental laws and when corporations poison neighborhoods with pollution, things of that nature.

Edit: I went to find the case but there are so many that I think the results stand on their own:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=pig+farm+lawsuit](https://www.google.com/search?q=pig+farm+lawsuit)

<comment><USER25> >I'm pretty sure you can sue anyone for anything, and then the judge throws it out if the case doesn't have merit.

You can file almost anything you want, but it costs money to do so, and in some cases you can be forced to pay the defendant's legal fees. Lawyers can also face disciplinary action for filing suit that they know will be dismissed.

Assuming you learn how to file on your own, and you continue filing meritless lawsuits, you can be declared a vexatious litigant, and the court will bar you from taking further legal action without prior approval by a judge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> When ever you concentrate a large enough wad of cash(i.e. the incentive) to a simple metric. Sooner or later that metric will be gamed. Metrics should be more nuanced and well studied and flexible to change and behavioral study needs to be incorporated into fraud detection and prevention.

Libor, No Child Left Behind policy that ties test scores to school funding are some of the other examples that have similar issues.

<comment><USER27> You are exactly right but you always get what you optimize for. In this case, it worked _exactly_ as intended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It seems they should just feed the reviewers some small percentage of redundant claims, and use statistics to direct oversight and scrutiny. The high-volume reviewers who statistically disagree with their peers would be easy to spot.

<comment><USER29> Are the reviews entirely based on paperwork? It seems like the human element of the claimant would be a confounding variable.

If they know they've been rejected, they'll behave differently for the 'redundant' review.

If they don't know they've been rejected, they'll be annoyed at being asked to attend identical meetings that are in their view unnecessary.

<comment><USER28> I think the article says some reviewers assess at a rate greater than 4 per hour, so I assume they are largely if not entirely paperwork.

<comment><USER29> Well then it's an obvious first step to take, I think. Good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Thrush's productivity has paid off. He earned $420,000 for reviewing the applications of 9,088 Tennesseans applying for disability during the year ending June 30. He has made more than $2.2 million since 2013."

Did someone code up an AI model for him?

<comment><USER31>
      while read app; echo "DENIED" >> ${app}; done

<comment><USER32> Needs more nested ifs to be truly AI.

<comment><USER33> It's just gotta pass the Turing Test. The doctor in question could be represented by this pseudocode with no nesting:

claimstatus = rejected

randomvalue = GetRandomValue(1,100)

If (randomvalue <= 20), Then claimstatus = approved

return claimstatus

Doesn't even have to read the application. Well, maybe the name or app number just so it can reference it in the official response. That might be another application, though, with this one being the review application.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is purely anecdotal, but I am from Tennessee, grew up near a poorer community...and it is seemingly normal for people to fraudulently claim disability as a supplement for welfare. People even brag about it. There are certainly perverse incentives for both doctors and people claiming disability claims to cheat the system.

The article seems to tie denying disability with receiving more pay...but that's not even how it works. It doesn't matter if you are denying or approving, what matters is speed of your review. So, while I do view this as a problem, the headline is highly misleading. They aren't getting "big money" for denying disability. They are getting big money from reviewing fast, period. Approval or denial.

<comment><USER35> Something mentioned in the article - the social security administration is required by law to double-check half of all approvals, but not denials. So the incentive is definitely to deny as quickly as possible - if you approve everyone you'll be caught, but if you deny everyone that's far less likely.

<comment><USER34> But it offers no data to support the general idea that this is the case (that denials are through the roof, even if TN is a higher rate than the national level, it is marginal. Also it leaves out the median which would be more interesting, since a few states could greatly bring down the average.) The approvals are reviewed because denials can be appealed. It's a safe guard against fraud. I'm not saying there aren't perverse incentives, but "doctors earn big money approving disability claims" has less of a moral outcry from the reverse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Same story with worker's compensation in Washington State. It's really not even worth applying without a lawyer and a few thousand dollars at least to gamble that you can prove that the pain is caused by work. The word of your actual doctors means nothing and only the five minute consultation by their hacks determines your fate, a consultation whose result is known ahead of time: denied. And this is a state run program allegedly ran for the benefits of the workers paying into it. Yeah right. A bunch of bullshit we wouldn't need to deal with if we had proper healthcare in this country. But instead, this is the way America treats its workers. Why would we expect anything better for disability?

</comment><comment><USER37> This highlights the dangers of KPIs in general.

Sure, a good doctor goes through more claims than a bad doctor... but if you take away the ultimately outcome goal of helping patients, you can go through a lot more a lot faster. "My goal is to close tickets... anything I can do to reject a claim gets me to a closed ticket and gets me a bonus."

Multi-dimensional KPIs can help, but any time you have a raw number metric you'll need to sanity check on them. When dealing with customers, including customer satisfaction scores is a no-brainer. A lot of companies, Amazon comes to mind, have a "how's my driving" link in their email signatures.

</comment><comment><USER38> I wonder if putting a cap on the total annual payout, along with including "dummy claims" that need to be approved / rejected to test the doctors and keep them honest would be useful.

This also seems like a good job for machine learning eventually.

<comment><USER39> > This also seems like a good job for machine learning eventually.

I'm not sure what "this" you mean (testing the doctors or testing the patients), but I'd argue the opposite. ML is great at performing tests we understand, and is terrible at determining things we aren't sure how to determine.

In this case, either you are checking to see if someone is truly disabled (which we don't have a good test for other than doctors, and see how that's working out) or you are checking to see if a doctor is being wrong in their evaluation, and if you can't perform the evaluation, figuring out if the doctor is skimping won't be easier.

And of course, even if you develop a perfect test, because of the incentives people will find a way to abuse it, and machines aren't likely to notice that they are now being played.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Why is there a focus on one type of error? Is there some reason why doctors would be biased toward wrongly denying disability benefits, rather than wrongly allowing?

What are the economic incentives to bias the decision one way or another?

<comment><USER41> The article does not go into detail, but I expect a doctor with a high false positive rate to not get much applications his way in the future as it costs the state a lot of money.

<comment><USER42> This is a key point, and points to so many thing being broken at the same time it hurts my head. The real smoking gun would be to find some sort of defacto evidence that doctors got the hint that denial gets them more business. That would sit in the next layer up, the assignment of cases. Alternatively, could it just be a big pool e.g. the race to get through them is a cash grab, so the faster you go you'll get to drink more of the milkshake? In that case denial is more of a way to avoid scrutiny.

<comment><USER43> Cutting government staff doctors in favor or more expensive contractor doctors is a red flag. You can't fire a staff doctor for approving too many applications, but you can direct more contract business towards doctors with a proven track record of denials.

It is also possible that there is some form of administrative punishment that makes false positives more burdensome than false negatives. If you are fined $1 for each false positive, and $0 for each false negative, you deny by default. If approvals are flagged for automatic recheck by the computer, and denials are only rechecked if an appeal is filed, you deny by default and let the real work fall to the appeals doctor. If the system branches in any way based on the APPROVE/DENY bit, that may affect how the bit is evaluated in the first place.

It's broken all the way down to the foundations. The state government in Tennessee is controlled by the state politics. And the state politics is very far from liberal democratic socialism. This is the state that had to have a literal gun battle in order to fight local government corruption [0], and is is equally important to note that shooting live rounds at the bastards didn't even get them to behave for an entire year. The veterans' coalition assembled to vote out the corruption was itself co-opted and re-corrupted almost immediately.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> > On average, 80 percent of the cases he reviewed were denied.

What does this mean? Is it 80% of "average" cases? Or is it simply 80% of all cases and the "On average" part of the sentence just sloppy writing?

<comment><USER45> It means one of two things:

\- Of the cases he reviewed since 2013, approximately 80% were denied. This would, as you note, be better phrased as "80 percent of the cases he reviewed were denied".

\- Each year since 2013, he reviewed an unknown number of cases, and a certain percentage of those cases were denied. The arithmetic mean of those 6 yearly percentages is approximately 80%.

In the second case, the 80% figure is meaningless, but it's a calculation people often perform despite that fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Well, this should be defined as practicing medicine. (Ultimately, you are controlling whether and what treatment occurs.)

Correspondingly, their licenses should be on the line, as well as liability for malpractice.

Let regulation and tort law take a few of them out. See what happens, then. Maybe even criminal law, as inevitably some patients will die due to lack of proper care.

</comment><comment><USER47> So.. if a MD has made a determination upon reviewing medical records submitted, that makes them a "patient", no?

So if they made a bad determination, I see no reason why the doctors can't be sued directly. Surely Social Security knows who reviewed it, so the records can be produced by FOIA.

Sure, these docs made .5M$ . But when these things are brought to light, have a way to make them much more painful and costly. Fraud by "rich people" usually isn't looked highly upon at jury trials.

<comment><USER48> The MD cause more damage than he can possibly pay for if found guilty. The state was the beneficiary of this fraud.

<comment><USER47> Potentially true. However that's what medical malpractice insurance is usually for. And if they're found to be doing fraud according to a court, lets just say they are in for a very unpleasant time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> As an ambulance chaser I am confident most disability claims should be denied. These cases have exploded over the last decade as job opportunities for obese middle aged workers have been obliterated, dependence on opioids has surged, and the shame of not supporting yourself has largely gone away.

<comment><USER50> I largely agree with this.

My wife is a physician and the stories you hear are unbelievably sad but most people don't fit the definition of disability by social security. Most people are able to perform another job, however, their training and personality limits them in being reintroduced to the labor markets.

The problem isn't a simple one but there are other solutions such as retraining</comment></comment>


Preorders begin for Spark, the open Linux/Mer/KDE tablet - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/02/preorders-begin-for-spark-the-open-kde-tablet.ars

<comment><USER2> The hardware specs are underwhelming, to say the least. This thing is about equivalent to an iPad 1.

</comment><comment><USER3> Already preordered one, at last a fully open Linux tablet (apart from the binary graphics driver).

<comment><USER4> it might still have e.g. a binary wifi driver, not many of these are fully open either...

<comment><USER5> The Spark is a Zenthink ZT180 so the Wifi module will be a RTL8192, which afaik has open source drivers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm taking a wait and see position. Eg, I'm not convinced by the UI: superposed UI elements as seen on the screenshots don't seem a good idea for a tablet.</comment>


Rybka disqualified and banned from World Computer Chess Championships - <AUTHOR> http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/rybka-disqualified-and-banned-from-world-computer-chess-championships/ <comment><USER2> I haven't followed computer chess for a few years, so wasn't aware there was such a growing controversy, especially considering how dominant Rybka has been(or was).

Maybe someone who is more familiar with the case can explain what happened to warrant such an action?

Crafy(free/open source though not GPL) by <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hyatt> has been one of the cornerstones in computer chess.

I am sure most aspiring computer chess programmers have looked at its source and techniques.

Fruit I also believe was open source(not sure what licence).

Now, both Crafty and Fruit are very strong GM level programs on a modern computer but are far from being the best. In fact, I(a lowly FM) routinely was able to find flaws in their algorithms (especially Crafty) and draw or win games using standard tricks(closed openings, passive no obvious weakness openings, etc.).

Rybka is pretty much immune to such anti computer chess shenigans. It has a much better "knowledge" of human chess somewhat explained by fact that Rajlich is an IM.

In fact, Rybka stood heads and shoulders above all the other contenders for a while.

<comment><USER3> There have been rumblings for years, at least since Strelka came out. I happen to think the GPLed code of Fruit was the best thing to happen to computer chess for a long while (thank you to Fabian). IMHO, cloning is not a bad thing since allows incremental improvement by multiple authors. Cloning without respecting the license of the source, however, it not okay and it seems clear now that's what Rajlich did.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the explanation!

I took the time to read the official report on Rybka Investigation and Summary of Findings for the ICGA [http://www.chessvibes.com/plaatjes/rybkaevidence/RybkaInvest...](http://www.chessvibes.com/plaatjes/rybkaevidence/RybkaInvestigation.pdf)

For those interested in the issue, I recommend you read the report, as well.

Some real heavies weight in on the issue including Ken Thompson. All are in agreement that early versions of Rybka show disturbing similarities to Crafty and then Fruit(this is when the big jump in rating performance was made).

Rajlich has continued to claim that his code is all original which is highly doubtful.

To me the real damning evidence was by Hyatt, which showed that the early version of Rybka has whole bunch of useless code from Crafty, which Hyatt had used:

"Summary: Pre-Rybka 1.6.1 contains much identical code to Crafty, even including large blocks of code with obsolete code inside them, and code that performs tests that make no sense today (code that was left in Crafty by accident, by Robert Hyatt, also shows up in Rybka 1.6.1)."

Off course, most of the code must be gone by the later versions, but it is seriously in such a bad taste to be so disrespectful to other programmers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I haven't seen the evidence, but it seems to me to accuse him of code theft because the moves end up being the same seems a bit much.

Did he refuse to show his source code?

Also, claiming that he knew he was in the wrong because he denies being in the wrong is too much, too. He's more guilty because he claims to be innocent? Jeez.

Also, demanding the trophies and prize money back is fine, but if they take him to court over them, that's going too far. He might very well not have the money any more. That it took them 6 years to figure out he was cheating says it wasn't very obvious, to me. And now they claim that there is overwhelming evidence.

I dunno, something smells fishy to me. I'd certainly want more proof than 'it does the same moves'.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell "demands that he returns the trophies and prize money of the World Computer Chess Championships in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010."

What if he just says "no". Is there anything legally compelling him to comply?

<comment><USER5> If they have a good case for plaigarism, I'm sure they could successfully sue him for that money, and then some.

<comment><USER6> But will they? It looks very bad and lawsuits cost a lot of money.

<comment><USER5> I don't think it looks bad; it helps to maintain the integrity of the tournament, encouraging fair contestants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a little confused about what he's been accused of here. Are they saying he cut and pasted code from other chess bots? Or that he examined other chess bots and used the ideas they implemented? Or...? What exactly do they mean by plagiarism?

<comment><USER8> The attached document indicates that Rybka contains the exact logic that is supposedly uniquely implemented in either Crafty or Fruit. These are not standard algorithms, and the likelihood of a closed implementation of a chess engine exactly matching the logic of an open sourced version on a number of unusual algorithms cannot be down to pure coincidence.

I guess the developer behind Rybka studied the code behind both Crafty and Fruit, and elected to use pieces of code from them, but didn't acknowledge/give credit for those pieces of code.

One of the example pieces of code is a hack to avoid enpassant specifically in a King and pawn versus a King and pawn endgame - something rather unusual considering the same issue occurs if either/both sides have more than 1 pawn. Fruit's approach was just to treat the KPvKP, and so to did Rybkas.

Again, the algorithms documeted were based around unique approaches to evaluating various facets of evaluating the score of a position, not something as simple as "can the White king castle in this position". So they don't make a massive difference in playing strength, which suggests more strongly that there's been some uncredited copying going on.

Rybka has been the strongest rated chess engine for a few years now. Granted that the developer has found definite improvements over the other chess engines out there. But, for the purposes of World Computer Chess Champion, the developer must own the program he runs (or document/credit the sections of the code he doesn't own)

Definitely have a look through the evidence. It's quite surprising how detailed it is. Comparing Crafty/Fruit source code to a decompiled Rybka codebase and looking at specific unusual engine-specific edge-cases and exceptions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Let this be a lesson, kids: cheaters never win.

<comment><USER10> While I'd love it if it were true, that's not a valid conclusion. How many cases of winning cheaters are out there that never got caught?

Only "cheaters that get caught never win" would be true, but that's kinda obvious.

<comment><USER9> I know. I meant it somewhat ironically. ;P</comment></comment></comment>