Scheduling in React - <AUTHOR> https://philippspiess.com/scheduling-in-react/ <comment><USER4> Dan from React team checking in, just wanted to post a few extra thoughts about this!

[https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1103768273064259590](https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1103768273064259590)

<comment><USER5> This is really interesting work. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out. Someone below mentioned that it won't play nicely with mobx - can you point to more details about the limitions that we will run into?

Also just wanted to say a quick thank you to the whole React team for the work you're doing. After some initial scepticism about the necessity of hooks, we've been really enjoying the mental model they bring to implementing more interesting behaviours in our components.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We used this technique in the IE6 days (with settimeout nonetheless). We had a very big list that was being filtered as the user typed, and we would perform 10 dom operations (they were all creating and appending elements to the dom), then timeout for 15ms, then 10 more operations, etc. If the user changed the text, we would clear the most recent timeout which would stop the chain, it was very clean actually. I suppose with requestAnimationFrame it's a bit nastier as you 'd need like a __dirtyRequestStop boolean check to break the scheduling, but probably much more elegant performance wise.

The concept behind it, is that you give "air to the UI thread to breath". Basically instead of locking it for 100ms you lock it for less at the time, which is perceivable as just a delay, rather that the window completely freezing. Users would see the list progressively be created sometimes which was cool too, gave it a feeling of "this is doing some heavy work behind the scenes" without really doing much.

documentFragment also was used for constructing the elements before appending the fragment to the main element :) I am wondering if that technique has any merit today, since it really helped back then.

What is old will be new again :)

<comment><USER7> Oh, it goes back quite a bit further than that :)

[https://blog.codinghorror.com/is-doevents- evil/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/is-doevents-evil/)

<comment><USER6> Hah, of course, spoke too soon! And it's by Jeff Atwood! I got the idea back then from some game devs who used a variation of this technique (though theirs was a queue mechanism for prioritizing disk reads to speed up loading of important assets and defer the rest in the old magnetic days). Anyway, congrats to the react team, really cool.

I am wondering if they plan to abstract it completely so that everyone uses it without even realizing it.

<comment><USER8> A lot of gamedev networking is like this too. Half making sure your game model works in a latent environment/can be extrapolated. The other half is clever tricks(particle systems! sound effects!) to make the player think something is happening when you're just waiting to reconverge the state with an authorative response from the server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As users, don't you get mad when you type "mustang" in an input and it displays "msutgna" because of some badly handled onChange event? We are overriding so much of the browser's default behavior that we need to reimplement its basic features.

<comment><USER10> I've never experienced that. Mind sharing an example?

<comment><USER11> That would happen when, for example, you're saving the value of the text input in redux, and the input is then updated with that value on change, although it's also updated by the user typing and the thread is blocked at the same time, thus we have a race condition.

That said — it only happens when one over-engineers stuff. Make sure to have a single source of truth, and that will be avoided.

<comment> philipp-spiess The best approach is to always updated the input synchronously in React (in the same tick when the event is handled). If you do it in another tick, you will always have to handle race conditions. This is a problem for all input elements though, not specific to React or even the Web.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel that this low-level performance stuff should exist in browser-land and not in framework-land. Kudos to React for finding a good implementation though

<comment><USER13> We'll end up with threads in JS one day.

<comment><USER4> Relevant: [https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/7942#issuecomment-2...](https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/7942#issuecomment-254984862)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You can significantly improve on the baseline performance simply by doing:

      handleChange = event => {
        const value = event.target.value;
        this.setState({ inputValue: value });

        setTimeout(() => {
          this.props.onChange(value);
        }, 1);

        setTimeout(() => {
          sendAnalyticsPing(value);
        }, 1);
      };

And wrapping mining function inside Name():

      setTimeout(() => {
        miningBitcoin(2);
      }, 1);

In fact, to me this pretty much seems as fast as their fancy solution. But what do I know, I'm just an idiot full-stack developer who doesn't use JS frameworks.

<comment><USER7> How does this "improve" at all?

In fact, that example will eliminate any chance React might have of batching multiple updates into a single render pass.

React wraps all event handlers in a call to `unstable_batchedUpdates()`. All updates that are queued in that event handler will be batched together.

Splitting updates into multiple ticks will keep them from being batched.

<comment><USER14> Try it instead of theorizing:

[https://codesandbox.io/s/07293kpnn](https://codesandbox.io/s/07293kpnn)

The UI is nearly as responsive as their improved example.

I'm not a React expert, but I do know that browsers defer timeouts until they have time to process them. This can be used to take heavy-hitting functions out of events that block UI interactions. It can also be used for self- throttling recursive IIFEs.

<comment> philipp-spiess If you delay the artificial slowness that I added in the Text component after the rendering, it sure will be faster. The point is to simulate an expensive component tree with this.

If we keep that in ([https://codesandbox.io/s/93yv4j129p](https://codesandbox.io/s/93yv4j129p)), my previous comment holds true: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19332577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19332577)

Here is by the way a version with all artificial slowness removed: [https://codesandbox.io/s/9859x0wm9p](https://codesandbox.io/s/9859x0wm9p) You can see that this example does not need any optimizations out of the box. This is why I added the slowness to simulate a more complex app.

<comment><USER4> The important part btw is that in Concurrent Mode we can _interrupt_ a render in the middle if user does an interaction, and handle that interaction first. Without blocking the thread.

This is something setTimeout is incapable of helping with. Because even if you delay the work, at some point it's still gonna block.

In either case this example is very simplified and doesn't illustrate the subtle difference as much. We'll prepare our own examples when the features are stable.

<comment><USER14> _> in Concurrent Mode we can interrupt a render in the middle if user does an interaction_

Can you interrupt an arbitrary user-written function that's called inside the rendering stack?

<comment> philipp-spiess No, that's not possible in JavaScript. The important part is that React components are lazily evaluated[1] and are not rendered as a stack. So React can render a few components and then pause for higher priority work.

As a user of the framework, you don't need to care about this though. So your mental model can be that of an interruptable function.

[1]: [https://overreacted.io/react-as-a-ui-runtime/#lazy- evaluatio...](https://overreacted.io/react-as-a-ui-runtime/#lazy-evaluation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I understand the need but this adds serious complexity and wouldn't recommend that this becomes the standard for UX in React. A user is often ok with a delay and it may not worth the tech debt. That said, a very well written article.

<comment><USER16> _A user is often ok with a delay..._

Every user group focus test I've ever done on an app with a janky UI has brought it up as a significant "The app is so slow!" issue. On the things I build users _hate_ UI delays.

<comment><USER17> This is a tough one. If asked, most everyone will complain about delays. Just like, if asked, most people will complain about the color choice. Doesn't mean it is the best place to focus on at first.

In areas where the latency has been solved, don't make the options worse for the user. There are bare minimums, but they are usually hard to mess up. Such that, if you are bringing something new to the table, focus on that first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think React is becoming a browser in a browser.

</comment><comment><USER19> There's definitely some very cool work here... I do think that it's important to remember that the simplest solution is usually the best one to start with. I typically start with redux and redux-thunks with react apps, mostly because I will nearly always hit a point in complexity where it is worth separating state management from the main UI, and thunks is the simplest extension to support async interactions to a server.

From there, debounce or concurrent interactions are probably an easier stopgap first. At least until these APIs are distilled a bit, and abstractions make them easier to work with.

This can all be summed up with: YAGNI and "Don't prematurely optimize" I've only had a handful of cases where I had to make things more difficult because of behavioral issues in browser applications.

<comment><USER20> >> simplest solution is usually the best one to start with. I typically start with redux

?? Redux is definitely not the simplest solution :) I'd argue that starting with local state (which is what hooks seems to be headed towards), then profiling, testing, and adding small amounts of debouncing code where appropriate is more aligned with your sentiment of "don't prematurely optimize" vs starting with redux.

<comment><USER21> You'll eventually need data in the global state in anything but a toy app.

<comment><USER22> I generally agree but actually the new hooks allow you to pass certain values down to all children automatically, so I think just hoisting this logic to the highest point that makes sense has this covered to some degree.

<comment><USER21> I think you're talking about context, which isn't specific to hooks. Hooks give functional components features that only existed for classes.

First of all, context is slow, at least currently. Secondly, it's just a vehicle for delivering deep updates. It should be used when local state is not enough, but it's only an intermediate step before needing redux-like state Management and all the convenience it provides.

<comment><USER23> There's also a big piece that people who see useContext/useReducer as a replacement for Redux usually miss: server side rendering.

The Redux store lives _outside_ of the React component tree and has a getState() method to capture the state of the store and deliver in the SSR payload. With useContext/useReducer, the state lives in the lifecycle of a top-level component. Unless you build something equivalent to Redux's store anyway, you're not going to be able to easily get a snapshot of its state out of that component. Unless, I suppose, that component itself knows to put its own payload in a <script> tag in its render() on the server only (in which case you'd still get a hydration mismatch).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This seems pretty nice! Personally, for most cases, I would just fix the actual problem instead (long-running tasks) by either moving them to a Worker, batching the work or using some LOD algorithm to only run to work for the needed granularity. This would improve the UX a lot and is not something that you have to do to often anyway.

<comment><USER25> The worker approach doesn't work if you need to update lots of Dom nodes. The example being a highlighter for a search term.

While LOD would work (e.g., only update on screen names), the work featured to set that up is non trivial

<comment><USER4> This might also add some context of why we're not going with just workers (btw we tried that): [https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/7942#issuecomment-2...](https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/7942#issuecomment-254984862)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> AFAIK concurrent React breaks a lot of the currently existing ecosystem. For example, I think right now the current versions of redux and MobX don't work with it. Granted, concurrent mode is not even close to out yet, but I'm curious what the migration path looks like.

<comment><USER27> I don't know the answer (or if there is a fully formed answer at this point), but I have heard the React team talk about this a bit.

Facebook internally has a MASSIVE number of components, and apparently a lot of them are using older APIs and older paradigms. Because React is ultimately by and for Facebook, they simply can't afford to make lare breaking changes, it's just not a realistic option. Everything they do has to have a good mostly-automatable path forward.

I don't know for sure how they will handle it, but I have a feeling it will be using the StrictMode stuff that they introduced a few versions ago. I'd wager they will have a way to enable concurrent react for a Component and the tree of children nodes, and will stick to the current implementation for everything that isn't compatible. This will let you enable the new features in only parts of your app that need it, or slowly migrate over to it and opt-in over time. And I believe I read somewhere that if a component runs happily in StrictMode that it's already concurrent-react ready (but please don't take that as fact!).

<comment><USER7> Yeah, ConcurrentMode is going to be entirely opt-in, per subtree, as a component: `<ConcurrentMode>`. And yes, that's the point of `<StrictMode>`: a form of runtime linting for known patterns that will cause problems in CM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think this is a great point made. I wonder if it makes sense to build into the core of react to have render method execute on priority levels configured for the components themselves. I agree that this adds a good deal of complexity otherwise for quicker projects.

<comment><USER4> What complexity are you referring to? If you don't use finer grained control then your React apps work exactly the same ways as they did before. The extra control is opt-in and you don't have to use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Isn't this some of what Fiber was supposed to take care of?

<comment><USER7> "Fiber" was the codename for the internal rewrite that was completed and delivered as React 16.0.

That rewrite has enabled all of the further functionality that's been implemented in 16.x, including the first stages of "Concurrent Mode".

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Thanks for the article! Well written and clearly explained Concurrent to me. Looking forward to trying out the API myself.

</comment><comment><USER31> Impressive, but I don't think there's much of a use case for this.

Sure that last example ran at close to 60fps, according to the meter, but did it really?

I mean, as a user I experienced no performance gains, because I was focused on that lower part of the UI and I think most users would as well.

<comment><USER32> People are highly aware of when their input is locked up. It's like trying to type commands over SSH on a bad or laggy connection: you have to keep pausing, wait for it to catch up, and ensure there are no typos or anything. Oops, need to backspace, wait, and edit that character. Oops, backed up too far.

Classic example of this is a naive markdown preview box that updates on every keypress. As the input grows, the experience becomes more intolerable until you're left typing the post in notepad and pasting it into the <textarea>.

You are only able to look past it here because of the contrived example. Though I found the demonstration intolerable and would hope, as a user of your application, that you wouldn't settle on "meh, the user won't notice/care." Especially since you don't notice it on your developer workstation and I'm stuck using it from my low powered mobile device.

<comment><USER31> _Though I found the demonstration intolerable and would hope, as a user of your application, that you wouldn 't settle on "meh, the user won't notice/care."_

Actually I would just debounce it and add a spinner. No need to shoehorn additional operations in between, which are going be outdated in a split second anyway.

<comment><USER32> Debouncing just means the UI lock happens slightly less often. Not sure how a spinner is going to work when we're talking about synchronous updates which the article's `mineBitcoin()` is trying to simulate.

So it just depends on how much you care about UX. And consider my markdown preview example where UI lock on every Nth keypress is hardly better than every keypress.

If you don't care, then why bother with auto-updating on keypress at all? Just wait for user to press enter. Much less jarring for the user than a shoddy half-solution.

<comment><USER31> _Debouncing just means the UI lock happens slightly less often._

No, it means it happens only after the user stopped typing for a while - <USER2> very different experience.

 _If you don 't care, then why bother with auto-updating on keypress at all? Just wait for user to press enter._

Doesn't cover all the cases and you have to update eventually - after the first debounced event goes through is a good moment.

<comment> philipp-spiess The batching effect of a debounced input is very important. Running an update for every keystroke is expensive and you only want to run it with the latest input anyway. This is why Concurrent React will make batching the default behavior.

Internally, React manages a list of updates. Whenever you trigger one, it will be added to the list but the next re-render will only start after the previous one has finished (this is of course a simplified explanation but you get the idea).

This batching gives us the best of both worlds: We start rendering as soon as we have data and don't have "idle" time in which the UI is unresponsive (like a long debounce function) but we still batch all updates between the different renderings so that we can skip individual updates to save time.

<comment><USER31> ELI5, what's the _benefit_ here?

Because now I see mostly the cost of having pieces of the render function shoehorned between input events just so that they can be discarded, because once the render function finishes it's grossly outdated.

<comment> philipp-spiess Your users still want feedback _as they type_. The idea of this example though is that you want to see an update as soon as possible. If you use blur, you're also deferring the updates until the timeout is over for the first time - <USER3> timeout can only be approximated and will ultimately be more keystrokes behind as if we start rendering ASAP.

There is also the other problem with debounce that was pointed out earlier: The main thread _will be blocked_ when a long running tasks is executed, no matter _when_. You mentioned that the block would happen _after_ the user type in so it would be less noticeable but this is only an approximation. If you have animations on your website that use rAF, the block will still be very visible. Also if the user continues to type.

That said, I know that this is a contrived example and it might not be used as-such in a real world application. I also think it's not comparable to your auto-saving input example that would maybe be better off with using a debounce call. I'm sure that better examples for this use case will follow.

Edit: I can recommend Dan's talk at JSConf Iceland last year. He speaks about debounce as well: [https://reactjs.org/blog/2018/03/01/sneak-peek-beyond- react-...](https://reactjs.org/blog/2018/03/01/sneak-peek-beyond- react-16.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> great article, thank you</comment>


Google Hire - <AUTHOR> https://hire.withgoogle.com/sign-in <comment><USER2> is it a place for candidates or a service for companies to hire?</comment>


Ask HN: What are you hacking on instead of watching the Super Bowl? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> This: <http://zacharymaril.com/HN-Visual-Comments/>

Wanted to learn d3.js

HN thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3555877>

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorting a bunch of files that mysteriously became 0-bytes and appeared after restoring an off-site backup.

</comment><comment><USER4> Publishing articles on <http://www.ampedasia.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> A time-lapse image processing/cataloging site for security cameras.

</comment><comment><USER6> A social network for stalking cheerleaders...

</comment><comment><USER7> yes :)</comment>


Early 20th Century Technocracy Movement - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement <comment><USER2> Soviet Union tried to do this through 1960's computers, surveys and experts.

Adam Curtis "documentary" is the extent of my knowledge on their attempts

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3gwyHNo7MI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3gwyHNo7MI)

It's a monumental complex systems problem. Besides the 1960's computers the Soviets were hampered by their utilitarian ideology that didn't take home decor into consideration.

<comment><USER3> Today, Wal-Mart runs a centralized economy bigger than Soviet consumer production in the 1970s. It's all run out of Bentonville, Arkansas. Wal-Mart is so centralized that the thermostats in the stores are controlled from Bentonville. Purchasing is centralized in Bentonville. Store managers don't determine what they sell.

The Soviet GOSPLAN planning cycle was just too slow. They had an annual planning cycle and a monthly information cycle. Wal-Mart has a weekly planning cycle and a daily information cycle.

China has a national 5-year plan. Here's an analysis of the last 5-year plan (2011-2015) by a US consulting firm.[1]

[1] [http://www.kpmg.com/CN/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublicat...](http://www.kpmg.com/CN/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Publicationseries/5-years- plan/Documents/China-12th-Five-Year-Plan-Overview-201104.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Wal-Mart doe not run a centralized economy. It runs a business that buys items for one price in one location, then sells them at another price in another.

Running an economy is a political affair. People can decide not to go to Wal- Mart; they cannot as easily decide not to be a citizen.

Quite frankly, a large majority of the horrors of the 20th century were due to folks thinking "Oh, I understand where we went wrong this last time with our centralized planning. This time will be much better!" There's a ton of reasons for this -- enough to put in a book. Or several books. And those books are out there if you are interested in them.

A related question is this: can you run just a simple store like Wal-Mart through a technocracy? You probably can to a certain degree, then it falls apart. The more you can automate, of course, the less actual value you are creating. Software continues to eat the world.

But no, feedback cycle time is not the issue. Not even close.

<comment><USER2> Yea the overall economy makes decisions on what to manufacture. Do you make a bunch of entertaining fluff or focus on essentials? Wal-mart merely optimizes the supply chain of fluff.

As far as markets vs centralization, it was always this way. There was never a purely capitalist or communist society that lasted long and supported a large population. The argument was always the implementation and balance of centralization and privatization.

Starting from scratch in a radically different system is too disruptive, even if the final result would have been better. A lot has to do with culture, as people say you can write Java in any language. You have to change an existing system very slowly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Alwayhs thought this was a nice depiction, I am guessing it comes from the same time: [http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0e8cy88A01qzcdwho1_1280.j...](http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0e8cy88A01qzcdwho1_1280.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER6> AFAIK China is trying a similar approach right now.

</comment><comment><USER7> Was pondering over this myself. You go to the dentist for your oral health. You ask a civil engineer to build your home. You have a teacher to teach your kids. So you need people with knowledge to run your country as well.

<comment><USER8> Say what you want about monarchies and the aristocracy, but they were bred, educated, and raised specifically to govern, and had a vested interest in governing well -- lest they and their progeny be eliminated violently by the governed.

<comment><USER9> The problem with that idea is that there wasn't an orderly way to replace rulers when they ceased to govern effectively. So you might get one good king then a string of bad ones. Example: Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus.

Being bred and raised to govern isn't a good thing in some people. It gives them a sense of entitlement that makes them ineffective. Far better people should have to try out for the position. Which is of course how many dynasties originally begin.

Democracy kind of sucks in ways, but it mostly works better than government by "specialists".

Really I can't wait for government by machine. I have to suppose it's inevitable given time.

<comment><USER10> > Really I can't wait for government by machine.

It's the same problem. What if you get a bad machine?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> See also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa)</comment>


Ask HN: What's with the errors lately? - <AUTHOR> An error occurred. Sorry, the page you are looking for is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
If you are the system administrator of this resource then you should check the error log for details.
Faithfully yours, nginx. <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17228704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17228704)</comment>


Booting Detroit residents out of foreclosed homes must end - <AUTHOR> http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/john-gallagher/2017/10/31/wayne-county-tax-auction-foreclosure/816376001/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just to give a little background for those not in Michigan:

1\. There's a law that lets homeowners over 65 not pay taxes at all. But few seniors know about it or even how to apply so they lose their homes.

2\. Property values in Detroit collapsed after 2008 and have yet to recover. But the city never redid the valuations so you have homes being taxed at four to six times their actual value. But to get valuations appealed you need to hire a lawyer. So as a result landlords buy dozens of properties, then have their taxes slashed by up to 80% and rent them out sometimes to the same person who owned the house originally. Or sometimes the house burns, they collect the insurance policy and go away.

The policy is so lucrative for Wayne county they're resistant to changing it. They even refused a foundation's money that offered to buy 600 homes and work with the owners on a payment plan.</comment>


Retailers win case against Kelora for Faceted Search Patent - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/05/22/big-patent-win-e-retailers

<comment><USER2> We were targeted by Kelora and threatened by them multiple times. Glad to see this ruling come down and to see common sense prevail. This is a great day for internet retailers and the internet at large. Last line of summary from judge states... "Defendants shall recover their costs from Kelora." This is great news too because it is a shot at other Patent Trolls. You can't bring frivolous suits without fear of paying defendant's costs when you lose. In my opinion Kelora knew they would probably lose this all along, but dragged it out as long as they could so they could scare other retailers in to paying for a license to use "their technology".</comment>


Ask HN: Possible benefits of Covid-19 pandemic? - <AUTHOR> The COVID-19 pandemic is a terrible thing. In both the short- and long-terms, it will cause immense suffering throughout the world. But it's conceivable that some good things will also result. Any ideas for what those might be? <comment><USER2> There have apparently been good effects related to pollution and therefore climate change.

Like you say, these effects don't counter the immense human suffering happening.

<comment><USER3> The lack of aerosols from pollution and jets might actually let more sun light through and increase temperatures.

<comment><USER4> Are you saying that less greenhouse effect gases emissions will lead to more global warming ?

<comment><USER5> no, the loss of particulate, which contributes to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming) \- not greenhouse gasses.

<comment><USER4> I had no idea of this concept. This is awesome. Thank you sir.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Face to face time will be appreciated.

People will wash their hands more thoroughly and more often.

Wearing masks when sick won't be stigmatized.

Governments might increase funding for healthcare, even as a military "health force".

National healthcare might be possible politically in some countries that don't yet have it.

</comment><comment><USER7> A lot more workplaces realizing that remote work is super viable.

<comment><USER8> I don't get why this is good for the average worker in developed countries, to be honest. Doesn't this just open every job up to insane amounts of competition with the lowest price of living areas in the country, not to mention other countries? I feel like I must be missing something

<comment><USER9> > Doesn't this just open every job up to insane amounts of competition with > the lowest price of living areas in the country

Remote jobs will have a much bigger pool of applicants to choose from, but likewise applicants will have a much bigger jobs to choose from too. So the two should cancel each other out.

<comment><USER10> I think the main downside of this is it dramatically increases the amount of crap that recruiters will have to sift through to find viable candidates

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If this pushes the US to finally separate health care from employment, that would be a very good thing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Newton did his best work on calculus, gravity etc during the Bubonic Plague shutdown - [https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/woolsthorpe- manor/features/...](https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/woolsthorpe- manor/features/year-of-wonders)

</comment><comment><USER13> The realization that local manufacturing capacity is a national security imperative.

</comment><comment><USER14> Stress testing the system. Imagine if this viral of a disease had a 25% mortality rate on all age brackets. It would be pandemonium.

Businesses get more robust, start having a larger margin of safety. It reminds me of how banks got deleveraged after 2008 because Dodd Frank forced them to keep more cash on hand.

People eat all those random items in their pantry that would sit there uneaten for 10 years without a virus.

People realize that it's possible to survive and thrive under the constraints of not going out much at all.

Parents are forced to cope and learn how to parent their kids instead of putting responsibility on teachers and schools.

Online education because more normal.

Work from home will be desirable if people successfully adjust.

</comment><comment><USER15> People are going to spend more time with themselves - learning more about themselves and their families, improve closest relationships, find new hobbies, learn new things. A lot of people will come out of this with their habits changed in a positive way.

Many countries will have their economies halt - causing them to bring forward new laws and cut on taxes and different costs associated with owning a business, a lot of extraneous work and spending will be cut away and bureaucracy will be slashed, healthcare will be taken more seriously.

Startups that were gonna die in 1-2-3 years because they dont have any real market fit will die out and the overblown ones will have to reform the way they approach business.

But mostly, this will be a push for Universal basic income and into a "more socialist" direction for many countries.

A fun new world awaits us.

</comment><comment><USER16> I mean ... none? This thing has been a disaster of information. The John Hopkins map was made by engineers and it's arcgis in a damn iframe. It has terrible visualizations. No one seems to remotely be displaying any of the data in ways that are helpful. No one knows the actual infected to confirmed rate or even has a decent guess.

We're told ~70% of people won't need to be hospitalized .. we're also seeing hospitals overrun in Italy with perfectly healthy people in their 40s dying.

We're in a wash of really bad information and panic and we have people criticizing those who are trying not to panic. And none of us are really talking to each other, because we can't.

It's a 1984 style cluster fuck.

</comment><comment><USER17> sciugo.com is a site which gives biomedical researchers sharable repositories for their research.

If the site gains traction amongst COVID-19 researchers, it will be the first time researchers document their results in a format that can be easily be reused by other researchers across the world forever.

Any data shared on sciugo.com can be exported with a few mouse clicks to a clean spreadsheet for reuse by other researchers.

If this platform for data sharing gains tractions, it will significantly accelerate the rate of scientific discovery!

We're always looking for feedback from biomedical researchers. Also, we're hoping to recruit software engineers to help build the product.

If you have any questions, I'd love to chat more!

<comment><USER5> is sciugo your site? there is almost no information on the page about why i'd want to use this. Show me other papers or organisations that are using it, allow me to browse datasets. Have a paragraph about what it's for. Also, there needs to be some sort of guarantee that the data will survive for a long time, even if your company/organisation dies/you lose interest. Maybe partner with archive.org, or automatically generate dois for dataset versions.

<comment><USER17> Yea, you're right, thanks. We're working on this dataset browsing.

What don't you like about the lefthand side?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Many people are becoming familiar with technologies for remote work.

People are spending more time with their kids. Maybe eating healthier, cooking at home. Maybe breaking fast food habits.

Workers are getting a chance to not commute. To get a few weeks break from the commute.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hopefully good hand washing habits will stay with us

</comment><comment><USER20> There are many more people walking outside with their families. I've never seen so many people in the parks. If this helps stop the obesity epidemic that would be great, because realistically overweight & obesity related disease is much more of a problem than coronavirus. This is assuming we didn't do anything to stop coronavirus at all it would still be less deadly than heart disease/diabetes/cancer.

We're also seeing a rise in remote work. If we can go to the office 1-2days a week for 6hrs and work from home for the rest I think that will be a much better for us.

Universal basic income is being more seriously considered. When we realize that all these service industry jobs were non-essential. I don't think they're coming back to the extent that we would all imagine.

We also are in the middle of an unprecedented tax upon the healthcare system. Right now is absolutely the time to switch to a Medicare for all system. Coronavirus does not know rich vs poor and it will infect and kill both.

Lastly I think we're going to take a long hard look as as a nation about what kind of education we need and how to pay for it. We will have a lot of young workers not working right now. What if we started to make CS/IT degrees free for all the people who were laid off? Something like [https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/online- degrees/undergraduate...](https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/online- degrees/undergraduate/computer-science/) but actually free and taught by laid off developers.

TL;DR M4A, UBI, and Yang was right..

</comment><comment><USER21> No April fools day on the internet.... hopefully.

</comment><comment><USER22> Cheaper real estate.

</comment><comment><USER23> Bit cleaner air.</comment>


Google is letting celebrities and businesses post directly to search results - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/4/11164046/google-posts-search-results-self-promotion-advertising <comment><USER2> This should have been G+ without the creation of a whole social sub domain.</comment>


Show HN: Calculus Revisited - <AUTHOR> http://lambdaway.free.fr/lambdaspeech/?view=lambda-calcul <comment><AUTHOR> Obviously, this post is not about "calculus" but about lambda-calculus.</comment>


An Early-20th-Century British Map of the Global Drug Trade - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2015/10/19/history_of_the_drug_trade_map_of_drug_trade_in_the_early_20th_century.html <comment><USER2> Love it how opium growing regions are exactly the same ones on the ancient silk road.</comment>


Drawingboard.js: Been there done that. - <AUTHOR> http://wpaint.websanova.com

<comment><USER2> It needs to be vector based and infinitely zoomable. There's another site that does this but it's not open source.</comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on Brand New Social Online Dating Site - <AUTHOR>

SoWink brings you the next generation of social online dating, an unparalleled experience unlike any other. Sign up today and discover for yourself how SoWink will revolutionize your dating world!
http://sowink.com
Please take a moment and provide some feedback, good or bad. Our team is always open to suggestions and requests.
Don't forget to Like Us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter! <comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.sowink.com> \- SoWink Landing Page

<http://www.facebook.com/sowink> Like Us, Thanks

<http://www.twitter.com/sowink_inc> Follow Us, Thanks

Clickable links for your convenience.

</comment><comment><USER2> At this point, you're basically spamming HN. This is your 3rd posting of your site in a week—you haven't even incorporated the majority of the feedback from your previous go-round.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2316652>

</comment><comment><USER3> There's nothing to provide feedback on? Looks like it could be a fun concept but I have no idea how you plan to revolutionise my dating world?

</comment><comment><USER4> Definitely need to see more stuff before we can give real feedback. It's just a Coming Soon page right now.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's nothing there, it's just a landing page.</comment>


Save ARM - <AUTHOR> https://savearm.co.uk <comment><USER2> If the cofounder of ARM wanted it to stay a British owned company, why did they let it go public in the first place? And then did they make the same case when it was bought by Softbank?

"If you do not make Arm a British owned company again with a Golden Share for national economic security, history will remember you as the person who, when the chips are down, failed to act in the national interest."

And then they blame this on the Prime Minister?

<comment><USER3> I wondered the same thing. Isn't it already a Japanese company now via Softbank? Can the UK actually halt this transaction in any way?

<comment><USER4> Not a lawyer, but there is a UK legal entity with the Arm name still. It might be owned by Softbank but that doesn't change the fact that it's an UK company bound by UK laws.

<comment><USER5> Correct, the company is registered in the UK: [https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/02557590](https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/02557590)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > This puts Britain in the invidious position

Nice.

> in·vid·i·ous /inˈvidēəs/ adjective (of an action or situation) likely to > arouse or incur resentment or anger in others.

<comment><USER7> It took me a moment to realise that this was a play of words on "Nvidia".

<comment><USER8> Took me your comment to realize that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> IMO this is lovely, but innocuous, such plead should be made a long time ago when ARMs was sold to SoftBank

<comment><USER10> That happened in the midst of Brexit and it feels like it was over before it began for the public.

It's relatively dismissive of the past to imply that it was not a lamented loss at the time, but it was a loss we learned of after the fact- not before it.

This is the earliest indication I can find:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12112850](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12112850)

That was the same day the acquisition completed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> All good points. All will fall on deaf ears.

With Brexit looming, the UK needs a trade deal with the US. They aren't in a position of power to demand something like this.

The issues with a sale of this nature were obvious when it was sold to Softbank, much like the trade issues with Brexit were obvious years ago too. The UK governments decided to ignore both.

</comment><comment><USER12> > The UK has suffered from American technology dominance by companies like > Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Apple and others.

For there to be suffering there must be people who suffer. So who, concretely, in the UK has suffered from American technology dominance?

> As you have spent £500m to help OneWeb out of Chapter 11, which arguably is > not as important to Britain as Arm, you could spend £1-2bn as the anchor > investor for an IPO on the London Stock Exchange and get a Golden Share for > it so that this problem cannot happen again.

Half a billion here, a few billion there. I cannot stand this kind of thinkig. Do you know how much a billion is? A million people will have to pay a thousand pounds more in taxes due to this jingoistic bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER13> (Edit: It actually appears to be ARM Limited) Save what? What's left in the UK seems to be ARM Holdings Ltd.[0] which is registered as dormant and it's last accounts suggest it has a whopping 100 pounds in the bank[1].

[0] [https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11299879](https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11299879) [1] [https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11299879/filing-h...](https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11299879/filing- history/MzI0MzY4MTgxN2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0)

<comment><USER5> I believe the current primary entity is Arm Limited [https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/02557590](https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/02557590)

<comment><USER13> That appears to be it, thanks!

It's financial records[0] make a lot more sense.

[0] [https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/02557590/filing-h...](https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/02557590/filing- history/MzI1MjQ1Mjk3M2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Too late. ARM should not have been sold to SoftBank in the first place.

<comment><USER15> To be fair, he did campaign against that too.

At the same time, which do you think is worse for the chip industry, ARM being owned by softbank or being owned by Nvidia?

<comment><USER16> Not much difference, it seems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems to me like keeping ARM in the UK -- either being incorporated there, or just the offices and workers -- would be a huge benefit for the UK in the context of Brexit.

<comment><USER17> I was actually wondering if ARM would have been harder to sell under the EU market rule... We'll never know, I guess.

<comment><USER16> What rule? Originally? Or now?

Isn't UK still under most EU law until the end of this year?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Petitions like this have a better chance when they've been been given a once- over by an editor...

<comment><USER5> What's wrong with the letter?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Shocking to see that Hideo Kojima, Mao Zedong, Leon Trotsky, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin are all against the ARM sale.

<comment><USER15> I find it very funny that someone said "why do you need my name" when being asked to co-sign an open letter.</comment></comment>


DoorDash drivers use arbitration clause to force DoorDash into arbitration - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135474/doordash-workers-forced-arbitration-william-alsup <comment><USER2> Good ol' Judge William Alsup. His decisions are always fun to read. He was the judge that learnt how to code so he could understand the Google Oracle case.

I wonder if consumers could use forced arbitration in the same way.

<comment><USER3> >I wonder if consumers could use forced arbitration in the same way.

They can. Patreon is about to be hit really hard for playing thought policeman.

[https://www.cernovich.com/patreon-mandatory- arbitration/](https://www.cernovich.com/patreon-mandatory-arbitration/)

<comment><USER4> I don't see why this is getting downvoted – it seems like a materially correct claim:

> "You're going to pay that money," U.S. District Judge William Alsup said [to > DoorDash] in court. "You don't want to pay millions of dollars, but that's > what you bargained to do and you're going to do it."

There really isn't much room for interpretation, is there? Patreon is a tiny company, $5 million is ~1% of their value. If nothing else it would cause trouble with the liquidity.

<comment><USER5> It's probably being down voted for a couple of reasons.

1\. The claim in the link that Patreon banning someone from using them to receive funding is tortious interference with a business relationship giving the people who wanted to donate that person a cause of action is extremely tenuous at best.

For an act to be tortious interference there has to be something wrong about that act other than just that it impacted the relationship between two other parties.

For example, if Patreon decided to kick off all black creators, that would be wrong regardless of whether or not it impacted any business relationships between those creators and others. A claim for tortious interference might be viable.

The bannings being complained about don't fall into any such protected category as far as I know.

2\. The link is to a site that is generally unreliable. The author is a major pusher of conspiracy theories, pedophilia accusations, and the like which almost never stand up to scrutiny. For those rare things he publishes that are not those kind of things, there should always be a better source you can link to.

No one has time to fact check every article they read, so you want to get your articles from places that are mostly right with at most a rare goof, not places that are the other way around. Many people down vote for linking to the later kind of site, even if the particular article is one of their rare reasonable ones, because it makes more work for the reader than linking to a better site would have.

<comment><USER6> Although I find the claim of tortuous interference as extremely tenuous as you do your description of what is required for an act to be "wrong" is poor bordering on incorrect.

An act can be wrong for the purposes of tortuous interference if it is done to appropriate the benefits of the plaintiff's contract, is an independent or illegal wrong, or if the conduct was done for the sole purpose of injuring the plaintiff.

In this case it will be extremely difficult to proof that Patreon acted solely to injure the defendants.

<comment><USER5> What I was trying to get at was the idea stated by the Supreme Court of Oregon in Top Serv. Body Shop, Inc. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 582 P.2d 1365 (1978) [1], cited by the California court in Della Penna v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., 11 Cal. 4th 376 (1995) [2]:

> In summary, such a claim is made out when interference resulting in injury > to another is wrongful by some measure beyond the fact of the interference > itself. Defendant's liability may arise from improper motives or from the > use of improper means. They may be wrongful by reason of a statute or other > regulation, or a recognized rule of common law, or perhaps an established > standard of a trade or profession

which I came across in this article on the elements of tortuous interference claims under California law [3].

[1] [https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme- court/1978/283-o...](https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme- court/1978/283-or-201-0.html)

[2] [https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme- court/4th/11...](https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme- court/4th/11/376.html)

[3] [https://www.businessjustice.com/what-are-the-elements- for-a-...](https://www.businessjustice.com/what-are-the-elements-for-a- tortious-interference-claim-under-ca.html)

<comment><USER6> Another good reference from the American Bar Association can be found at [https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/bus...](https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/business- torts-unfair-competition/practice/2019/wrongful-conduct-interference- contractual-economic-relations/)

"Defendant's liability may arise from improper motives or from the use of improper means." Given this quote from your source the description you presented of what is required to meet the standard is still inaccurate. Based upon the quote the action taken doesn't have to be improper. Only the motivation for the action has to be improper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is great news. Making it uneconomical for companies to enforce arbitration will be a big step in consumer/labor protection.

</comment><comment><USER8> Always nice to see "move fast and break things" scum getting a bit of their own medicine.

<comment><USER9> > "move fast and break things" scum

this is a gratuitous and useless slur.

<comment><USER8> The slur seems totally justified considering the company is trying to exploit workers and uses the arbitration clause to prevent them from suing (though it now backfired on them).

The sad part is that they're not alone. Most of these new "disruptive" startups are equally nasty.

<comment><USER10> Phrases like "exploit workers" and "nasty" are judgements, not factual descriptions. Some argue that every employer since the beginning of history has been an exploiter. Others argue, you are a free agent and if you dislike the conditions of employment you can simply go elsewhere. This is particularly true in the highly fluid gig economy.

<comment><USER11> The state of California implemented AB5 to prevent further worker exploration perpetrated by gig economy companies. It stands to reason that the exploitation is not a judgment, but observable fact and therefore the impetus for the legislation I mention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How is forced arbitration even legal? "all of the legal issues you might have with us must go through the private judge we choose"

<comment><USER13> In theory, the parties both agree to arbitration and mutually waive their right to trial in the contract at the beginning, voluntarily, before any dispute arises.

You're not forced to work for DoorDash in the first place, so it's not really forcing anyone. In theory.

<comment><USER14> 'contract of adhesion' is the term of art here

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In case anyone was wondering:

> 5\. How much does arbitration cost?

> If the court orders a case to arbitration (following a stipulation or at the > Case Management Conference), and the parties elect to use an arbitrator on > the court's Arbitration Panel, the court pays the arbitrator ($150 for up to > four hours and a maximum of $300 regardless of the number of arbitration > sessions).

> If the parties choose a private arbitrator, they will be required to pay the > arbitrator's regular hourly rate and other charges. The market rates for > private arbitrators can range from $200-$1,000 per hour.

[http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1555406&_da...](http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1555406&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&a=5#5)

<comment><USER16> > If the court orders a case to arbitration

If it's not by court order, but in the clause of a contract, then the company just never bothers to schedule the arbitration at all. That's actually going on with some companies.

So no law suit and no arbitration. Win-win for the company.

<comment><USER17> Yep. Uber got some bad press for this a while ago.</comment></comment></comment>


The Devil Is in the Digits: Evidence That Iran's Election Was Rigged - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/20/AR2009062000004.html <comment><USER2> For a counterpoint: [http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/last-digits-analysis-of- uk-a...](http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/last-digits-analysis-of-uk-and- iranian.html)

Use more detailed results from the Iranian election and you don't see this effect.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, that comment looks much less fishy than the original article. I wonder whether the Washington Post authors tried to run their test on past known rigged and non-rigged elections. If not, that would be a good idea.

<comment><USER4> Why does it look less fishy - because it contains charts? Or strange words like "chi-squared" that signify a high level of competence?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are a number of causes for caution here, such as the possibility of publication bias. There could be 100 other statistical tests that the election passes, but who would publish those boring results?

Another problem is how reasonable the null hypotheses are. Should we really expect Iranian vote counts to fit Benford's Law in a fair election, for example? I don't know.

I have no reason to believe the election was fair, but I think any scientific results reported directly in news media without peer review a week after a very controversial election are highly suspect.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is actually pretty poor statistics. They are basing their entire argument on ~100 provincial results. The deviations they are talking about with this few number of samples isn't likely to be significant.

<comment><USER7> I thought that too until I re-read the article and started trying to do the math myself.

They sum it up nicely but it's too easy to miss:

"The probability that a fair election would produce [these number distribution disparities] is less than .005. In other words, a bet that the numbers are clean is a one in two-hundred long shot."

Key thing to take away from the article if you're going to perform election fraud, use a computer to produce your random numbers.

<comment><USER8> "The probability that a fair election would produce [these number distribution disparities] is less than .005."

Careful with that reasoning. Suppose there are four candidates, and the last digits of their total vote counts are 8,7,2,8. Fewer than 1 in 9999 fair elections would produce a vote count with exactly those digits!

Does this mean that the vote was rigged?

Post-factum searching for (perceived) oddities and calculating probabilities of their occurences in uniform distributions shows some misunderstanding of statistics.

<comment><USER9> _The probability that a fair election would produce [these number distribution disparities] is less than .005._

How did they calculate this probability. I can see what they did in other spots, but this number seems to come out of nowhere to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if the first digits comform to Benford's Law. Basically, the first digits of the vote counts should be 1, 2, 3 much more often than they should be 7, 8, 9

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

<comment> brown9-2 Fivethirtyeight.com took a look at this, and found some oddities: [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/karroubis- unlucky-7s....](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/karroubis- unlucky-7s.html)

<comment><USER11> I think this article from 538 does a much better job covering the subject than the original one, who's methodology is questionable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> At this point it doesn't matter if it was rigged or not. The regime has voided the social contract with the people of Iran and is therefore illegitimate.

<comment><USER3> The question whether the election was rigged matters for the same reason that the question of Iraq's WMDs mattered: this information is influencing Western public opinion and government decisions right now. Also, going "it doesn't matter 'cause you're bad anyway" whenever someone calls attention to the substance of your accusations strikes me as a bad faith tactic.

<comment><USER13> I don't think the argument is that "you're bad anyway". Regardless of who you are, how you got into that situation and whether the protesters have a point, with a protest movement that big and motivated your options are same: crush the protests, re-run the election or form a unity government. If you choose to crush the protest then you give up the "government by consent of the people" type contract that you have with society. I think it's that fact that will drive western opinion more than the actual legitimacy of the result.

<comment><USER3> At this point I can't sincerely pick any side as the good guys. On one hand, I'm already sick of cookie-cutter "color revolutions" where "nonviolent" protestors oh-so-conveniently invite the support of Western nuclear superpowers to topple regimes unfavorable to the latter. On the other hand, I'm already sick of the only offered alternative, the emerging "multipolar world" fraternity of Ahmadinejad, Putin, Chavez et al.

I kind of envy you Westerners. You have a simple moral principle that tells you which side to pick, a never-failing axiom: _democracy is always best_. But the recent history of my country (Russia) has given me a huge and readily observable data point against your axiom. So I can't honestly share your faith, even though I'd like to.

<comment><USER13> So what's your point? That the people who want a say in how they're governed shouldn't express a view because the people who don't like to have a say are sick of hearing it?

<comment><USER3> I assume you're referring to the second sentence of my comment.

The idea of protesting against bad governments, all the way to armed rebellion, is perfectly okay with me. But I intensely dislike the idea of appealing to a foreign power to settle an internal dispute, especially if the appeal gets prompted by same foreign power. The classical conception of sovereignty, now sadly defunct, had an apt name for this technique: treason. Today it's called "color revolution".

<comment><USER14> So protest is right if people go to kill their government by themselves?

And when they can't do it by themselves and call for help, this is treason even when they didn't wanted the government that rules them in the first place?

Now that's black and whit simplistic view of world.

Is the concept of treason even relevant when you live in a your country and somebody rules it without your (and other people living there) agreement?

I mean - I live in Poland, after WW2 Soviet Union ruled here (ok, not directly but by proxy:), is treason of such proxy government really treason? For me it's heroism, because people in Poland didn't wanted that government in the first place.

Also - for me peaceful revolution is better than blood bath revolution any time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article is pure shit. Anyone with a reasonable math education should know why, and should know about data mining. That you can get away with such things in major newspapers is simply shameful.

</comment><comment><USER16> Uh, forgive me if this doesn't make any sense, but why would the numbers of the actual votes be generated fradulently?

Wouldn't it be easiest to say, "Okay, Ahmadi is going to win 57% to 65% in all reporting districts," and so on and so forth and then use those fractions and the known eligible voter numbers to come up with the actual counts?

In which case, shouldn't we be looking at the last digits of the percentage of votes won by district?

<comment><USER17> Well, the thing about percentages in an election is that a lot of them don't _have_ last digits. Further, if the percentages came out to nice numbers like 57% and 65%, we wouldn't even be having this discussion - it would be really, really obvious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The statistics is completely wrong - and the conclusion is (probably) completely right...

</comment><comment><USER19> I hate to be a credentialist, but I would have more confidence in this analysis if it came from statisticians rather than political scientists.</comment>


Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/us/concerns-about-adhd-practices-and-amphetamine-addiction.html?hp <comment><USER3>
        > "...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted,
        > daydreamed and got A's. he has been an A-B student
        > until mid college when he became scattered and he
        > wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently
        > without medication, his mind thinks most of the time,
        > he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a
        > timely manner."

        > His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never
        > shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from
        > nursery school through high school,

This is precisely how my parents reacted when they found out I was taking amphetamine to control some sort of abject ADHD specter in university.

"But Dan, you never had problems with focus and performance. You're a smart kid! You always made A's in school!"

There's a jarring problem with this analysis. The truth is I've struggled with focus my entire life. It just so happened that university is the first time school surmounted my lack of focus or, more precisely, my willpower.

Thankfully I arrived at a low dose of amphetamine which is the only reason I've been able to work towards my life ambitions.

Addiction is always serious. And the cases in this article involve classic stimulant abuse. There are certainly conversations to be had. Not just about amphetamines, but also about the structures of our society that make amphetamine so sought after. Why was I psychoanalyzed in grade school when I didn't want to sit in a chair for 8 hours? Why do people only see "drug problem" when they hear about amphetamine availability across campuses instead of "systemic education system failure"?

But what I'm concerned about is an encroaching universal condemnation of ADHD medication where people may eventually roll their eyes at you when you seek help for a problem that inhibits your ambitions and squares your life away at a fraction of your full potential.

<comment><USER4> It's been so overly diagnosed that right now the opposite is started to happen. There's a lot of doctors and people diminishing it, and even saying it's no real sickness.

I was a straight A student until I finished high school. Not because I focused and studied but because the level was shitty and it was enough for me to be sitting in class to known enough about the subjects. I started failing when classes became so boring and I became old enough to be skipping class.

I was diagnosed at 22-23 and took medication for almost a year. My productivity was better on those months and it helped me gain some structure and organization I lacked. I stopped taking medication because I moved to a different part of the country and I didn't want to waste time seeing doctors (I needed to change meds as the ones I was taking were making me angry all the time).

I'm good enough now. Sure, I'm still more or less a mess and I do procrastinate a lot, but those months gave me enough willpower and organizative skills to be able to get things done.

<comment><USER5> _I needed to change meds as the ones I was taking were making me angry all the time_

It's worth pointing out that this is most likely a sign that you don't have ADHD, and possibly have some other disorder that looks a lot like it.

Believe it or not, it's not all that uncommon for Bipolar people to be diagnosed with ADHD. During the depressive stage, Bipolar people tend to be unfocused and lacking in motivation. During the Manic phase, they tend to be impulsive and hyperactive.

Same with anxiety disorders (like OCD). Those kinds of people tend to be so worried that they have difficulty paying attention.

Hell, even thyroid disorders can look like ADHD.

Either way, you're probably not taking medication right now because you don't need it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am taking Methyphenidat/Amphetamine for nearly 10 years now and it totally changed my life in a positive way. I wasn't able to read anything longer than a few sentences (which means no newspaper, no books etc). School was horror for me. I nearly failed in the lower secondary education. Then I was diagnosed with ADHD by a German mental research institute and they began to treat ADHD with medications and my situation improved very quickly.

I am very skeptical when I am confronted with overly critical statements about the current ADHD treatment. These statements come up every two weeks or so. Maybe they are correct - maybe they are wrong. The only thing I know is that the medication helped me like nothing else in my life. Maybe I am living in a dream world where my sense of reality is somehow disturbed. The good things a proper ADHD treatment can do are more or less always never mentioned - <USER2> least that is my perception.

<comment><USER7> As with all drugs, this is not a simple, binary matter. For some people, there is a very real risk that stimulants and antidepressants will cause serious psychological problems; that risk increases with dose, and even a person who is fine with low doses will probably have a psychotic episode at very high doses. Just look at the doses being discussed in the article -- this kid was blowing through a month's prescription in two weeks time, and his prescription was for 60mg/day (sometimes higher). He was past the point of therapeutic doses and that he had psychotic delusions is not terribly surprising.

I have heard of people succumbing to stimulant psychosis after drinking too much coffee for too many days. This happens with cocaine, amphetamines, cathinones, etc. Moderation is essential for using these drugs safely, though that statement is equally true for any drug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a college student, and while I've never seen first-hand a situation like this, I can attest to the widespread casual use and sale of adderall on campus. During finals last December, I was offered a pill more times than I can remember, just $5 or $10 bucks a pop.

I don't think I knew anyone that was actually diagnosed with ADHD that was taking the pill to study. Some of my close friends joked about how easy it was to lie to the doctor about your symptoms. Most of them got a prescription on their first visit.

Looking at LinaLauneBaer's comment shows that there's always two sides to a story, that sometimes these drugs can be a godsend. But I'm going to side with the NY Times on this - adderall is really, really easy to get ahold of on a college campus. It's a casual use study-enhancer that dictates sleeping, eating and reading habits for kids during that final crunch week of each semester.

I'm thankful nobody I know has endured anything worse than temporary dependence.

<comment> steve-howard I would guess that nobody you know who takes drugs for ADHD -- and actually needs it -- feels like talking about it. When drugs are a game, people talk about them. When drugs are quietly taken to keep one's life stable, they keep quiet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> ADHD is a real disease with real (and severe) symptoms.

That said, I personally believe that _responsible_ use of these stimulants by people without ADHD can be of net benefit to individuals and society. Prominent bioethicists have agreed [1,2]. Just because something can be addictive or is abusable by some (c.f., TV, food, video games) doesn't mean it should be banned.

The real crime here, in my opinion, is not that people are faking symptoms to get medication, but that they should have to. Also, as others have mentioned, the kid in the story very likely had other problems beyond his Adderall addiction.

[1] [http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039...](http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=neuroethics_pubs)

[2] <http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080409/full/452674a.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> Mathematician Paul Erdos heavily consumed amphetamines, and they did not consume him.

This guy most likely had some psychological issues to begin with. You'd have to be a medical student, end up in a psychiatric hospital and not see that as a big red warning sign.

Sadly, policy is made around these incidents.

<comment><USER11>
      > Sadly, policy is made around these incidents.

You're offering equally fallacious reasoning: that Erdos managed to handle his amphetamine consumption tells us nothing at all. Policy should be made around solid data, not carefully chosen data points that confirm our respective biases in the matter.

<comment><USER10> It does, it shows that not all cases are similar and that there is potentially a large variance in outcomes and thus calls for collecting more data. It's a proof by existence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We're debating the semantics of ADHD diagnosis and ignoring the real story:

 _It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall._

No legitimate doctor would prescribe amphetamines to a patient with a history of psychosis, ever, under any circumstances. It is an egregious failure of care, resulting from either indifference of incompetence.

America is beset with an epidemic of physician-facilitated drug abuse. The back pages of local newspapers all over America are full of advertisements for "pain clinics" prescribing opiates to all comers. 20,000 Americans are dying each year from overdoses of prescribed painkillers. 80% of all the world's opiates and stimulants are prescribed in the US.

It's a situation akin to patent medicines and prohibition - booze was officially banned, but you could buy "medicinal" tonics that just happen to be 80 proof.

</comment><comment><USER5> I find it difficult to feel anything other than contempt for Fee's parents.

It seems to be accepted without question that ADHD is _overdiagnosed_ , but I don't think that's true. I think it's more accurate to say that ADHD is _misdiagnosed_. That is, ADHD frequently isn't diagnosed when it should be, and is also frequently diagnosed when it shouldn't be.

I think it's the primarily-hyperactive variant that's overdiagnosed, and that's so for very adult-serving reasons. Children who are primarily hyperactive are the ones that will tend to "act out". They're constantly causing trouble, disrupting the classroom, and generally creating havoc. Of course, teachers/parents/adults tend to be very quick to want a diagnosis of ADHD for hyperactive kids: they make their jobs tough.

Primarily-inattentive ADHD (which Fee was diagnosed with) is different. They tend to lack the motivation to get into any serious trouble. Thus, they tend to be experienced as good, smart children who just need a bit more motivation and focus. The incentives here are a bit more perverse. These children tend to make the adults in their lives _not want_ an ADHD diagnosis, because these children tend to make adults' lives easier. They don't have to discipline their kids for acting out. Of course, that leaves out the question of whether a diagnosis is best for _the child_. Sure they don't cause trouble, but they're also not really living and having a healthy childhood.

This is why I have contempt for Fee's parents. More than likely, Fee needed to be diagnosed with ADHD _sooner_. Had he been diagnosed sooner, he could have been put on medication by a doctor who could control his dosage. He probably would have started causing some amount of trouble, and that would have been more work for his parents. But he would also have been more capable of succeeding in life.

Instead, Fee (like lots of undiagnosed people with ADHD) self-medicated, and got himself addicted.

<comment><USER3> And our discourse is further complicated when we try to describe ADHD and our vocabulary sounds like it was torn from the thesaurus page for the word "lazy". Work-shy, lethargic, idle.

We spurn each other for lack of self-control and the audacity to seek _treatment_ for something that's ostensibly ameliorated with a little bit of elbow grease.

Then we medicate each other with the same family of platitudes that tell the poor to work harder and the depressed to just smile.

When you finally venture out to confront the competitive credentialization colossus that entangles your identity with performance marks on entrance exams that will dictate the rest of your life, you find yourself reaching for your Kokiri sword and shield that everyone said you had within.

But instead you realize you were only given the Sword of Banality, etched into it the fine print: "Does no damage but can be given to others".

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have been prescribed Ritalin or Concerta since I was a child. It helps me, immensely. Where I once attended special ed schools, now am a college graduate living successfully in NYC. Since I became an adult, once a month I must go to my doctor's office to pick up a physical prescription then take that form to a pharmacy to fill. I can not call it in. I can not get refills. All because Ritalin is a controlled substance. I wish the government would keep its laws off of my body.

<comment><USER14> I think those laws are there for a reason, and that Ritalin has a high probability of abuse or "resale".

Some doctors will e-prescribe Class II prescription renewals, if they know/trust the patient, without physically seeing them. Most require at least a ~5 minute consult, sometimes with a Nurse Practitioner. I personally think the laws are there to avoid fatally tragic stupidity, like this article describes.

My shortest consult was 30 seconds in the hall with a NP, but yes, I take prescribed C II stimulants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received > prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention > deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Adderall is not "an amphetamine-based medication". It is simply mixed amphetamine salts and nothing else. Amphetamines are the only active ingredients.

This makes it sound as if it's in some way only related to amphetamine.

Edit: This is equivalent to saying: "rain, a water-based type of precipitation". Rain isn't simply "water-based" — it IS water.

<comment><USER16> It's four main active ingredients are all types of Amphetamines, therefore it is an Amphetamine based drug by definition.

<comment><USER17> I think the point of GP is that basically Adderall IS Amphetamine, rather than some kind of special derivative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The FDA themselves warn Adderrall has a high potential for abuse, not to mention the risks of sudden death or cardiovascular incidents that must be checked for before prescribing it. It doesn't sound like any doctor did the proper diagnosing and checking on this kid before this tragedy happened, and those doctors should be held accountable for his death.

Not to mention the other potential side effects like Psychosis, Aggression, Seizures... I don't understand why anyone would ever take a drug like this, the list of side effects sounds worse than the problem it's trying to cure... [http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2007/011...](http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2007/011522s040lbl.pdf)

I think the scariest thing in the article though is the way he got the prescription: by answering a questionnaire given by a nurse. All the kid had to do to "get his fix" was lie on the form and bam, diagnosed, pills in hand, he walks out and wrecks his life.

This for me highlights the bigger issue with mental health care today, that the science is bogus, it's all based on opinion (just like the DSM where disorders are "voted into existence" by a few psychiatrists every year at the American Psych association convention) and not actual science.

If I go to a doctor complaining of chest pain, I can get a cholesterol test, and he can prescribe me a powerful blood thinner fully knowing it will save me from having a stroke. If I go to a psychiatrist, he will ask me a few questions and prescribe a powerful psychotropic that could make me go insane and hang myself. Sad but true.

<comment><USER19> I can't vote this up high enough.

I'm fairly ADHD (though I realized I was not an extreme case when I met some ADHD people who require hospitalization/safety measures simply as a result of their ADHD) , and I was on ritalin well before it was popular, (IE early-mid 80's). From there I moved to other stimulant variations over the course of 20+ years as they stopped working due to me building up a resistance.

Over the years i've seen quite a number psychiatrists for medication management/etc. Every single one i've seen since the age of 7 has required me to do more frequent GP visits to make sure heart rate/blood pressure/etc stayed normal.

Nowadays, there are actually non-stimulants like Straterra that can be used (though it depends on your exact symptons,etc). There were definitely blood pressure differences for me after being on stimulants for a very long time, and then moving off them.

Yet most doctors try stimulants first (some i've met who claim to specialize in ADHD didn't even know straterra existed).

It's clear that ADHD is over-diagnosed, and like you, i'm surprised how easily you can get stimulants. I would have expected you'd at least have to have gotten various learning disability testing done (which an actually quantify your level of detriment). Instead, as you say, you can just walk into an office, and walk out with adderall. The sad truth is that all this seems to end up doing is making it harder for those of us who need treatment to be taken seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not a physician, but I will note that it involves lack of sleep. Sleep is important, and most of these type events involve chronic lack of sleep, and/or doubling up on prescriptions.

Note: The medical judgement of multiple providers in this case seems troubling and lacking.

</comment><comment><USER20> While I admit I have a problem with focus, I have been able to control it with self-discipline. Others may not be so lucky.

There's a marked difference between actual ADHD and just normal fidgetiness or lack of focus. For years, psychologists prescribed children who may not have had ADHD with medication. There have been so many misdiagnoses and ADHD has received so much press attention that physicians are now much more wary of diagnosing it in an attempt to please the family of the suspected patient. Since that has happened, people with true ADHD are now not getting the help they need.

There's a simple way to test for ADHD. Give a person a deadline, and give them an hour until that deadline to complete an essay. Tell them the essay will count on one of their formal records (even though it won't). If they buckle down and finish the essay, the person most likely has a lack of discipline. If the person continues to have a lack of focus up until the last minute, you can be safely sure that that person has ADHD.

(Note that this is personal anecdote and should not be used as a substitute for proper medical attention. If you suspect you have trouble with focus, seek psychiatric help. The above is ONLY a topic for discussion.)

<comment><USER21> You've made a strong statement concerning how one should diagnose a disorder. What evidence do you have that this is an effective diagnostic tool? Or is this based on your experience as a physician or therapist in a clinical context?

<comment><USER20> My father was a psychologist for 7 years and he has seen many patients with attention deficit problems. One of his methods to see if a person would have problems with focus is the one written above. It is by no means a clinical diagnostic method or a replacement for professional help, it merely exists as a point for discussion and food for thought. (See added disclaimer above.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> When I was in fourth grade, my teacher pulled my father aside and told him, "I think your son may have ADD or ADHD." His response: "No."

While I understand his desire to believe I was okay, I wasn't. I've had extreme difficulty focusing since I was very young -- it's impacted my school work, my career, my relationships, everything.

After dropping out of college, I began to try to understand my problem better. I bought books for behaviorally challenged kids, came up with strategies to help me focus -- but nothing really worked. After over a year of trying to avoid medication, I went to my doctor and asked for a prescription for Adderall.

It worked flawlessly.

I'm a 6' 2", 180lb male, and I take a maximum of 10mg a day, up to three days of every seven. I know it's not good for me -- for all intents and purposes, it's speed -- but it's actually helped me function "normally." I'm not addicted to it. My prescription will run out, and I'll usually wait a month or two before renewing it -- but it's nice to have it there when I need to focus.

ADHD is hard to diagnose properly, and people can get addicted to Adderall, but that's why good doctors only prescribe it as a last resort to people that have the self-control necessary to properly use it.

</comment><comment><USER23> This article (the one I've linked) outlines some great points surrounding the issue of ADHD and the use of medications. In general, North America loves to throw medication at every problem. Big Pharma plays a huge role in this. Big Pharma loves to medicalize simple facts of life, or take a real issue and broaden the definition so that more people fit within that definition. There is very little money in curing the sick, but there is some great profit in treating the living and healthy. ADHD, Social Anxiety (which isn't even the name of it, it's Social Phobia in the DSM), and PMDD just to name of a few examples.

My point is this: Be a skeptic, be overly critical of diagnosis, and look for other forms of treatments outside of medicine where appropriate. You would be amazed at what you can accomplish with therapy, but where it makes sense take medicine as a treatment.

[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the- children/2012...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the- children/201203/why-french-kids-dont-have-adhd)

</comment><comment><USER24> Whenever I see comments about ADHD over diagnosis and abuse, I look at <http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/prevalence.html> and remind myself that over diagnosis is a regional problem. If you're from North Carolina and claim to have ADHD, I'm frankly going to doubt you. California, not so much. (Disclaimer of bias, my son has ADHD, diagnosed in California. I've seen the process by which that diagnosis is arrived at here, and I don't think it will create a lot of false positives.)

As for college, according to the medical literature about 1/3 of ADHD cases disappear when your brain finishes developing. Maybe there really are a lot of low-level cases that only show up in adulthood. I haven't looked into the topic. It is not impossible - after all a lot of teenagers use their parents as external organizers, which can really help. But the reported numbers and frequency are too high for a mental disease which is believed to be in the 5-7% range.

</comment><comment><USER25> I took Ritalin all through grammer and high school. Obviously it helped me concentrate, but when I got to college, all I could think was "I'm not me, I am this drug."

So I stopped taking it. I flunked out of college, I moved back home, I failed out of community college. Then I moved west, joined the dot com boom, got a great job, a wife, a spectacular career, and I've founded a non-profit.

I am fairly certain that I don't have ADHD. Instead, I think that the real problem is that school is fucking boring as shit! I always loved working for money, since I was 13 and mowed lawns, but I always hated school because it was boring and I was ostracized.

Today, I don't take anything for my so-called ADD. Frankly, I think it's all a buncha bullshit, and ADD is an excuse for teachers who hate their students.

At the end of the day, ADD is just another personality quirk you have to learn how to manage. Drugging it into submission creates weakness in the sufferer.

You know what cured my ADHD? Working from home.

<comment><USER26> So you were on a medicine and when you stopped taking it you failed out of school but its all just a bunch of bullshit?

<comment><USER27> What is the problem with that reasoning? Not liking and failing out of school is not a medical problem.

<comment><USER25> I never claimed ADHD/ADD didn't exist. I'm just saying I was called a prime example of ADD, and I was able to eventually control myself. I'm sure there are people out there that can't, but I'd personally wager that most folks who have ADD ADHD just need to find out where they fit in life, not take a drug that allows them to do something they otherwise couldn't.

If it works for you, fine, more power to you. My real point is that calling someone broken because they are diagnosed with ADHD ADD is wrong, in my opinion. It's a character trait or flaw that can be useful if you find the right place for you.

The right place for an ADHD ADD person might just not be in an office sitting at a chair all day. Maybe it's out running a trade show, or a frantic diner or store, or maybe it's being a professional gamer. Who knows? ADD ADHD doesn't mean yer broken and only fixable with drugs. You can find your own way in life, is what I am saying, and drugs are not the only option.

Dropping out of school is the best decision I ever made, frankly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is why learning how to be good at doing drugs is easily the best thing you can do for your health in terms of ROI. Drug use kills or contributes to the deaths of something like 1 in 3 Americans, meaning that if you want to live a long and health life then being good at doing drugs is just as important as eating healthy and exercising. Except for that unlikely eating healthy and exercising, which you have to do every day, when it comes to learning how to be good at doing drugs you just spending a couple months reading a handful of books and then you're done, that's it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I recently wrote a short paper that involved reviewing some recent literature on ADHD diagnosis, faking, treatment options, and abuse. I've created a pastebin with my references for those interested in these topics.

<http://pastebin.com/Kf6W2vUA>

I'm also happy to discuss the topic with anyone without access to these journals. I'm not an expert, but it's something I'm learning about.</comment>