Show HN: MightyName.com – Search over 4.7M available English .com domains - <AUTHOR> http://www.mightyname.com/_hn <comment><USER2> Be nice to merge it with a 2gram corpus sorted by frequency, so that word pairs that simply don't occur in English (like "autonomous frown", "voice glockenspiel", "harp speedboat") are less likely to be shown than words that might conceivably make sense.

Another idea might be to POS tag the words and only present verb noun combinations, but you'd have to play around a bit to see which parts of speech rendered the best domains.

Anyway, here are some nice sounding domains I've found with this tool:

historicalreading.com

brokencurrency.com

bagelmoon.com

sofacake.com

dancebrick.com

wholesalerreport.com

slimyslime.com (if you're a slime retailer, this is a perfect domain!)

and some not-so-good ones:

tramprugby.com (I would pay to see this)

aftershavejustice.com

beanslime.com

depressedtuesday.com (can we make this a national holiday?)

<comment><USER3> 2gram corpus is not that easy to implement, but here is my implementation with POS and frequency sorting. [http://buzzdomain.com](http://buzzdomain.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> IMHO 2-gram corpus is _very_ easy to implement, what do you find difficult with it?

<comment><USER4> I've done this before. You're right. The CPU intensive part is the word search itself. Building the combinations and finding adjacent words, which you've already done. The ngram piece is straightforward by comparison. Just compare the domain (with any hyphens removed) against a dictionary of concatenated ngrams. You'll have to veryify that any hyphens occur on word breaks afterwards, but it's a small price to pay for the simplicity of a string compare (or key lookup). You will probably want to load all of your ngram dictionaries into memory, though, or the search will be horribly slow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome! Definitely some good and funny domain name suggestions in there.

One thing though: When searching for a word, such as "reed", it discovers domains that have two different words that spell "reed" when placed together such as "TreeDaisy.com". For the example "reed", I also get a lot of results like "AgreedSummer.com" where the word I'm searching for makes up a different, unrelated word.

Good job! I am bookmarking this site. Thank you.

<comment><USER6> Besides "reed" here's another example "fee". It gives me feel and feet and even coffee. I'd also like to search for a specific word and not part of other words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Feedback: It is a little bit frustrating being able to see only 10 per page. It makes me think about scrapping the site for the keywords that I am interested.

Good job. Some cool domains there, added to tools bookmark.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll see how the domain list could be improved.

edit: It seems someone else decided to scrape too, please don't.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note that currently the word list is not that big (~2400 nouns), we'll be adding more based on search terms so if the search gives you empty page you might want to try again in few days.

<comment><USER8> Is there a way to anchor searches, so I can find names that start or end with a particular string?

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment no. The search matches words, not full domains.

edit: Now you can use suffix or prefix searches by using prefix* or *suffix

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For a moment I thought this service was the same as: [http://searchdns.netcraft.com/](http://searchdns.netcraft.com/)

But then I realized it was the exact opposite.

</comment><comment><USER10> The results for searching for "fucking" are hilarious .

</comment><comment><USER11> This is pretty cool. My preferred tool is [http://leandomainsearch.com/](http://leandomainsearch.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I like the site. If a search returns no results you might want to alert the user of this (i.e. 'no results found' or something similar). I couldn't tell if it just wasn't loading or if my search actually didn't get any matches.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not sure how the search works. I searched for 'amortize', 'amortization' etc. because I am looking to host a script that generates amortization schedule. Nothing returned.

<comment><AUTHOR> The word list is quite small at the moment, there are no amortize or amortization words yet.

I'll probably add custom word search later.

<comment><USER13> Okay!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How are you determining which domain names are available?

Also, you may want to add some sort of contact feature for people to leave suggestions.

</comment><comment><USER15> idea for a realllllly naive ranking metric...

Take the words for the domain, so "airport smell" for airportsmell.com (yes that was one of the random domains heh). Then do a search on Google for the phrase, and fetch the number of results as a 'score'.

I'd be interested to see if this can pluck out "better" names from the pile.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's quite difficult to use because it takes ~10 seconds to refresh the list. It's hard to get into a rhythm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that, we are having some some heavy traffic right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Any chance to release the source code to people reuse this using another languages? I'm kinda interested.

</comment><comment><USER18> For the search you should add a dropdown: domain begins with keyword, domain ends with keyword & either

<comment><USER19> You can use * in a search to fine tune the results. Also, the length parameter in the URL is editable.

<comment><USER18> Makes sense, honestly though I'm a fairly tech savvy dude and I didn't realize this at first. Probably more of a UX debate than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Amazed by the quality of some of the names, knownhell.com for instance.

Not as amazed by others, like stepbrotherdrizzle.com.

</comment><comment><USER21> Slightly OT, but the randomly generated names would make fantastic names for bands.

<comment><USER22> Party game: view this site, posit that each link is to a band's website, and debate what genre of music they play.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> A lot of the names have given me great business ideas.

</comment><comment><USER24> I definitely going to buy livingstepgrandmother.com

</comment><comment><USER25> Hmm... underpantsniece.com...

</comment><comment><USER26> www.racialmayonnaise.com</comment>


Linux 3.15 and continuation of merge window - <AUTHOR> https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/6/8/70

<comment><USER2> With file locks that aren't broken by design! [https://lwn.net/Articles/586904/](https://lwn.net/Articles/586904/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Linux 3.15 will also include a better renameat2 function with parameters that allow to write better pid file placing and handling without race conditions.

[http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man2/renameat2.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man2/renameat2.2.html)

<comment><USER4> Of course, it'd be nice if we could solve PID races entirely. The POSIX system is unbelievably broken compared to how NT does it. (No, "PID wraparound happens slow enough not to matter" is not a good foundation for a robust system.)

<comment><USER5> Doesn't e.g. systemd solve this problem? (PID files are just a bad idea.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's the LKML listing, because that little asp classic site seems to be having some slowness, and they didn't really include much more than a small summary, which is about as big as the whole lkml article anyway.

[https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/6/8/70](https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/6/8/70)

<comment><USER7> worse, it redirected me to VistaPrint on some sort of auto-timeout :(

<comment><USER6> Yep that happened to me as well after spinning on the page for 30+seconds.</comment></comment></comment>


The Cheater's Guide to Love by Junot Díaz - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/the-cheaters-guide-to-love

<comment><USER2> This is an awesome read, thanks for sharing.</comment>


Ask HN: why no (big|known) Gmail alternative? (for non gmail.com addresses) - <AUTHOR>

I use Gmail as my mail client, but not really using the @gmail.com address, rather with my personal and university address. Now I was wondering why there isn't an alternative that offers similar functionality (ie. good client and great spam filter). Maybe I just don't know it, but I take it that it cannot be very famous then...<p>I was just thinking about this being a great startup idea. You could immediately make it a paid product, argumenting that you solve the privacy concerns many (especially here) have. <comment><USER2> Did you try outlook.com? And notice that gmail could pick up your mail using POP3/IMAP or auto-forwarding, and could reply using your other address

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out FastMail.

</comment><comment><USER4> zoho office / email. Fast mail. If you want a good client, go with Thunderbird. Who cares about web clients anyway? Any email worth anything has IMAP and let's you retrive / delete locally.</comment>


A Linguistic Enclave in Central Europe - <AUTHOR> https://culture.pl/en/article/central-europes-most-mysterious-language <comment><USER2> Poland was a frontier country during the 1100s, 1200s, 1300s and into the 1400s. People poured into Poland from all over Europe. Especially before 1492, Poland was the great frontier where people could go and get rich. Merchants criss crossed the territories. And after the Union with Lithuania, the territory was immense. So it is all together believable that Flemish merchants might have started this community. I was just recently reading a good history of Poland and I posted my notes, and some excerpts, here:

[http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/poland-was- shockingly...](http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/poland-was-shockingly- liberal-in-the-1400s)

<comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uerdingen_line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uerdingen_line)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benrath_line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benrath_line)

Seems related, those isoglosses stretch from Belgium to Poland.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Translated trying to use approximating modern Flemish-Dutch words ("slaap- voerde af" isn't really an existing word, but its meaning should be obvious).

      ny ołys ej gułd, wos zih fynklt, glanct oba łiöeht?
      Niet alles is geld, wat zo fonkelt, glanst vol{?} licht
      All that glitters is not gold

      Fylón yr wełt an ganc ałłán
      Verloren in de wereld en gans alleen
      Lost in the world and quite alone

      ząs ych óm mjer óf hóhym śtán;
      zat ik aan zee op een hoge steen
      I sat down by the sea on a high stone.

      der mond kąm raus hyndróm gybjég,
      de maan kwam van ginder om de berg
      the moon came up behind the mountain

      szłyfyt myjch áj, wi s kynt yr wig.
      slaap-voerde mij af, als een kind in de wieg
      he puts me to sleep like a child in a cradle

<comment><USER3> Nicht alles ist Geld, was funkelt, glänzt im Licht

verloren in der Welt, ganz allein

saß ich an der See, auf einem hohen Stein

der Mond kam hinter dem Berg hervor

wog mich in den Schlaf, wie ein Kind in der Wiege

<comment><USER5> I'd go with:

der Mond kam raus hinterm Gebirg, schläfert mich ein, wie's Kind in der Wieg'.

(the latter being a rhyme in many Austro-Bavarian dialects)

<comment><USER6> also "ząs ych óm mjer" = "saß ich am Meer"

why unnecessarily divert from original?

It's more about orthography/dialect than being a truly different language.

<comment><USER7> Looks like it... I wonder if the same can be said about Yiddish.

<comment><USER6> It sure can.

One fascinating feat of Yiddish is that you could often interpret words as either German or English (given two plausible mappings of their signs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the listed words only two have immediately obvious Polish connotations (dźjada (grandpa), and dziadek is grandpa in Polish; śpjelik (sparrow), where śpiewać is "to sing"). Most words have German-ish sound to them, somewhat similar to Silesian subdialect of Polish (though Silesia was occupied by Germany, which is the reason for its influence). The spelling is mostly Polish-like, perhaps from older centuries though; except for some umlauts which clearly originate in German and similar.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if modern Dutch speakers can understand any of this?

[https://youtu.be/lfg3jHV1TzE?t=246](https://youtu.be/lfg3jHV1TzE?t=246) [https://youtu.be/9bfgEgFKccw?t=3](https://youtu.be/9bfgEgFKccw?t=3)

<comment><USER10> I speak (Austrian) German and it sounds a lot more like a German dialect than Dutch to me (there are so many of them, though, this is not really saying an awful lot). Like the Dutch speakers who've chimed in, I don't understand much of it but can pick out enough words to tell where the other, incomprehensible words are.

<comment><USER11> I agree, I have no idea how to pronounce the words unfortunately, but lots of it resembles bavarian, or even allemanic dialect.

E.g. "s'błimła ('flower')" \- "s'Blüamle" (allemanic)

Obviously this comparison would benefit from using a phonetic scripture.

At first I thought it was related to yiddish...

<comment><USER11> Having listened to the above youtube video, I think resemblance to allemanic might be coincidental, as it is so often.

Judging from the pronunciation, I would also put some "idioms" of this dialect in Dutch/Flemish regions (there is maybe a distinct polish influence in there that throws one off?).

As so often for me, the written word it seems is way more understandable than the spoken word. I had the same experience with Swedish. Weird how some languages kept similarities in writing longer than similar pronunciation.

<comment><USER10> There are also a lot of strange tricks personal perception and familiarity play on you. I found this easier to listen to first and then listen and look at the text together later. I similarly find myself thrown for a loop whenever I see Viennese/Bavarian written. 'Wir sind' \- easy to read and hear, 'mia san' easily matches up with the former when heard. 'Mia san' written down and for a moment I have no idea what I'm looking at. Feels weird to even type it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Theres plenty of linguistic oddities across Europe. On the opposite side of this (Slavs in Germany as opposed to Germans in Slavic countries) there's the Sorbs. Other isolated languages/peoples include the Cimbrians (German dialect in Italy), Istriot and Istriot-Romanian (Romance language in Croatia), Italiot-Greek, Arbëresh (Albanian dialects in Italy), Gagauz (Turkic dialect in Moldova), etc.

<comment><USER13> Basque is a language isolate.

<comment><USER6> I liked the possible paleolithic stratum of adze, axe, Erz(ore) ... in Basque

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I had a former student who wanted to work on Wymysorys.

<comment><USER15> Please say more.

<comment><USER14> He is interested in Polish and German (and, I suppose, Slavic and Germanic more generally) and he had wanted to do field work on Wymysorys. He did an MA with me (not on Wymysorys), and now is doing a PhD (at a different university on another continent). I've sent him a link to the 'parent' article; I"m not sure if Wymysorys is still something he plans to work on or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've personally listened to Tymoteusz Król giving a seminar lecture on Wilamowian. Lots of historical background in there. This guy is a heck of a geek, of the rarely-encountered kind.

</comment><comment><USER17> It seems to me that Europeans will use any excuse under the sun to fork language, branch and create a new dialect. If one Austrian village has brown goats, and the other white, or if there is a lake between them, or maybe a mountain, or if maybe there's an apocryphal tale of a farmers daughter going off to live with a shoe-makers son, across a few days of travel - well then, its time for a new dialect ...

And I honestly think its not productive, in the sense that dialects are intentionally propagated in a fashion as to cause one "in-group" to have its detractors. It really seems to me that the forces driving us to create new, unintelligible dialects, are the same forces which allow us to justify heinous crimes against others - just at a different scale. Speaking in such a way as to differentiate oneself from others, I believe, is a root cause of so much of humanities stress.

But the quandary is, I also believe we should not let these odd languages die. As an Australian, I find it a terrible shame that we've lost 70,000 years of this factor, in the genocides against the Australian aborigines. But, on the other hand, I think Europeans have taken the tribalism just a little too far. Its a contradiction that I haven't quite resolved, although I've come close: perhaps the solution is to continue to encourage the creation of dialects, as long as there are tools such as the Internet around to assist with overcoming the confusion that results when two dialects clash...

<comment><USER18> These forks (for the most part) occurred organically, not just in order to sound different. After the fact they became a matter of pride, culture and nationalism, but originally they were not. People just spoke in the way that felt the most convenient and pleasing to them, at the time there was no widespread long distance communication and the vast majority of the population never left a relatively small radius around where they were born. Languages diverged because there was no external force unifying them (like, say, the roman empire). Eventually due to the lack of contact languages drift apart and become mutually unintelligible.

Imagine a world where there's no TV, radio or internet and you could only travel by horse and most people use the language mainly in its spoken form (if they can even read at all). How long do you think the Australian language would remain unified in these conditions? One generation? Three? Ten?

<comment><USER19> To add to this: the Australian aborigines actually split their languages a lot, and on purpose. Groups of young people would split off from their tribe and form a new group, and deliberately changed their language (as young people are wont to do to express difference to their parents).

So it's actually opposite to what mmjaa claims: Europeans didn't split their languages on purpose, while non-Europeans did.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm an SDE1 at Amazon. Is no compensation adjustment this year typical? - <AUTHOR> Last year, after the annual performance review, I got a 3% raise and stock to vest in 2017. This year there was no change to my compensation. My boss said that because the stock has been doing well, many people were over the compensation targets that Amazon had set for them and would not be getting an adjustment. Is that typical for Amazon, or for the industry in general? <comment> amzn-336495 Why don't you quit? Serious question. Your boss says the stock is doing well and that's a reason to screw you on pay? Does anyone believe this shit? Compensation target is beyond stupid. At best it is a deferred compensation plan Amazon has manufactured to use in screwing employees while also boosting their income statement. RSU forfeitures at Amazon are in the billions. Hundreds of millions of their EBITDA can be explained by RSU forfeitures which Amazon controls the timing of.

</comment><comment><USER2> The answer is maybe. The user amzn-tway8 is actually referencing two distinct cases.

Case 1, Total Compensation. Amazon does "total comp", which is your base plus RSUs. Suppose your grants were rather large, or "timed" at a downswing for AMZN. Your current vesting schedule for 2016 could exceed the planned target & salary band. I find no base adjustment whatsoever mildly surprising. But I would not be shocked.

Case 2, performance based compensation. As amzn-tway8 also mentioned your yearly compensation at amazon is related to your annual performance review. Read and understand the definitions of "Performance Rating" and "Leadership." Your manager will have discussed this with you in your annual review. Average and exceptional performance reviews will yield relevant compensation adjustments. Individuals with a very low performance review can expect a low, or possibly no, increase.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a similar question. I am in the process of transferring teams; does doing so during comp adjustment time mean that I will not get an adjustment this year? I got a good rating (exceeds/solid strengths) from my previous manager and am scheduled to start on my new team in early May.

<comment><USER2> No. Transferring teams should have no bearing on compensation for the year. I would not be concerned in your case. Changing managers more frequently than once per year is a concern. At those rates your managers will be challenged to provide career planning or relevant reviews due to lack of continuity.

PS: The two of you, and others reading this thread, TALK TO YOUR MANAGEMENT or senior individual contributors. These questions are all very reasonable and should be part of your ongoing conversation.

</comment></comment><comment> amzn-tway8 Yes. Typical for Amazon. Usually low/mid performers can expect a small increase, but because of stock last year most will get no adjustment this year

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. What is the compensation difference when you're promoted from SDE1 to SDE2. I've heard it's something like 15%, but I've also heard people say that they didn't get raises when they were promoted for budget reasons.

<comment> amzn-tway8 10-20%. There are those that get the promotion without the pay, they are in orgs than need warm bodies to stay to keep the lights on. Get out of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> amzn-thway6 What was your rating?

<comment><USER4> This info can reveal his identity inside the company, please dont ask</comment></comment>


Helloworld program in 100+ langauges - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld <comment><USER2> And it still surprises me there are new languages where 'hello world' is more complicated than:

        print('hello world')

Dart, which was released two years ago, after JavaScript had been around for two decades and ASI was still considered an issue, still required a semicolon after each statement.

I half feel like pulling out an AST and doing a ModernDart, getting rid of all the redundant tokens and compiling to the } } } } } language we all know and ignore.

<comment><USER3> Why does this surprise you? The goal of most languages isn't to have a very terse way of writing a program that does nothing but print "hello world".

<comment><USER2> One of the goals of language development is to avoid errors.

Redundancy leads to inconsistencies and is thus poor design. DRY applies to syntax too.

<comment><USER3> What I'm saying is I don't see a language where hello world is

        module Main

        main = println "Hello World"

as inferior to a language where it is

        println "Hello World"

simply because of that. That's a particularly superficial way of looking at languages.

<comment><USER2> I don't either. It's an important consideration, but not the only one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Hello_world/Text](http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Hello_world/Text)

</comment><comment><USER5> So basically a less complete version of [https://github.com/leachim6/hello- world](https://github.com/leachim6/hello-world)

</comment><comment><USER6> "Hello World" is a little too simple to even begin to compare languages. Is there a slightly more complex pattern that is (can be) used in these things?

<comment><USER7> [http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net](http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The c example uses puts(). I was a little surprised as this is not the typical version I have seen.

<comment><USER9> Also, the Racket example starts a web server with an html "hello world" page, which is unlike the other lisp-based examples.

edit: my pull request with a fix was accepted

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is pretty cool. Helloworld isn't the best way to judge how high-level a language is, right? From what I understood, CoffeeScript is supposed to improve Javascript's readability, but JavaScript had a much simpler Helloworld program.

It would be cool to see something like this but tiered by some kind of language evolution (group all the Lisps, all the Javascript-functionality languages, the C's, etc).

<comment><USER11> Helloworld was historically more like a way to make sure your dev environment was setup right (libraries on the path, compiler actually installed). It's short pulls in a library and produces visible results. That's why it was always the intro example not because it was in any way a valid tour of the language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is coffeescript example:

        hello = ->
            alert "Hello, world!"
        hello()

Why complicate things?

<comment><USER13> I don't know coffeescript, but "= ->" looks like one token too many already - why complicate things indeed.

<comment><USER14> It creates a thunk so that alert is called as a result of calling `main` instead of as a result of defining it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From [http://www.roesler-ac.de/wolfram/hello.htm](http://www.roesler- ac.de/wolfram/hello.htm)

> This collection includes 441 Hello World programs in many more-or-less well > known programming languages, plus 64 human languages.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would have liked to see something more substantial. As it stands (and I'm sorry, I mean no disrespect..), this is quite worthless. I'll spend 30 seconds clicking around random ones and then leaving.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you want a real quick tour of different programming languages I would instead recommend.

[http://learnxinyminutes.com/](http://learnxinyminutes.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Which language required the most lines of code?

<comment><USER19> git clone [https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld](https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld) && wc -l helloworld/* | sort

<comment><USER20> What's the output? (For people like me who don't have access to a git client right now)

<comment><USER21> Probably chef.

[https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/blob/master/ch...](https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/blob/master/chef.chef)

The best (esoteric) programming language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> hehe, it really confuses github language detector, Github: it looks like PASCAL to me.

This repo should become a testcase

<comment><USER23> Looks pretty accurate to me, actually. Delphi's a Pascal derivative, so Github counts two files[1] towards the Pascal total, and the other top languages [2][3][4] are pretty verbose.

[1] [https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/search?l=pasca...](https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/search?l=pascal)

[2] [https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/search?l=actio...](https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/search?l=actionscript)

[3] [https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/search?l=omgro...](https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/search?l=omgrofl)

[4] [https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/search?l=xtend](https://github.com/Prithvirajbilla/helloworld/search?l=xtend)</comment></comment>


Moderna's SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Phase I Data - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/15/modernas-phase-i-data <comment><USER3> Pasting from linked twitter thread, while this is encouraging, some things are left to be desired:

1) No data for the most vulnerable older (>55) population

2) Second dose absolutely necessary

3) Safety profile less than desirable

4) Durability of neutralizing Ab not so encouraging (decline from day 43~57)

5) Very low CD8 T-cell responses

Novavas phase I results (NVX-CoV2373), probably due to be out soon, will be interesting.

<comment><USER4> Which vaccines are more promising in terms of longer term immunity? Bloomberg reports CanSino one seems to be better than Moderna on that and it only requires one shot.

<comment><USER5> It's possible that longer term immunity (> 3 months) isn't even possible. There's initial evidence of reinfections in that time frame, which means that vaccines would only last about that long and "herd immunity" is impossible:

[https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting- covid-19-twic...](https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting- covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity)

<comment><USER6> So do we solve that with 4x a year vaccination?

<comment><USER7> At least until something better comes along.

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't it be sufficient to just keep it up until you reach a point where you've had a couple weeks with no known active cases in your country? (Assuming similar for the rest of the world, with travel restrictions or quarantines on people traveling from places where there are active cases).

In places with good contact tracing, they should mostly be able to keep it at near zero after that point by tracing and self-quarantine, occasionally needing to use the vaccine on a whole city if you find that you had a super- spreader event.

In places without good contract tracing, it would be similar except the threshold at which you need to vaccinate the city would be lower.

<comment><USER9> > up until you reach a point where you've had a couple weeks with no known > active cases in your country?

This point never came for influenza anywhere, why would you think it will come for COVID19, a much more contagious and invisible in many more cases virus?

<comment><USER4> Is that the same influenza that keeps spreading year over year? Can you please explain how does the virus stay viable over long periods of time without spreading from host to host?

<comment><USER9> I would very much like a real explanation for this question from some expert in virology. But I just assume in some kind of similar way to how measles came back in Canada among the antivax community in recent years.

They are anti-vaxxers, yes, so no wonder that they could technically get measles, but where did it come from? It was completely irradicated because most people had the immunity. The virus should have died off and disappeared from the face of the planet. And yet here were are. There must mechanisms for viruses to survive this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author of that article also writes these fascinating articles "Things I won't work with"

[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/thin...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/things- i-wont-work-with)

<comment><USER11> Derek Lowe's base blog is better, and more active, currently: [https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "But one thing that you do notice as you look over the data was that day 43 was the best – there was a further evaluation at day 57, and all three groups had gone down a bit in just those two weeks."

Interesting that it was slightly weaker at day 57.

If people don't gain permanent immunity once they get covid, will this sort of drug still work?

<comment><USER13> If enough people take the vaccine with that expected length of protection, it would certainly tamp down the spread at minimum. So it might still 'work' by collective standards.

<comment><USER14> 40% of vaccine recipients experienced fever after administration. I'm not sure people would rush to take the vaccine with those odds, if only a few months of immunity is conveyed. There's a psychological element to this beyond whatever the science shows.

<comment><USER15> Vaccines aren't completely harmless, but this would be expected. You can do a self test with a flu vaccine. Your doctor probably will recommend no exhausting activities for a few days after taking the shot. If you, for science, ignore that advice, you might feel quite horrible.

<comment><USER16> Every time I get the flu shot it feels like someone punched me hard on the shoulder where it was administered for a couple days, and I feel generally unwell (but not 'bad' per-se).

But the alternative is I could end up in the ICU with pneumonia without it (and have, in the past, from the flu), so the risk/annoyance is worth it.

<comment><USER17> My experience with DTP shots is that one of my arms is a useless-but-painful dead weight for a week or so. I'd still take that over getting tetanus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> AZD1222 vaccine by Oxford and AstraZeneca looks the most promising so far:

\+ already in late-stage trials

\+ they are pre-producing it at large capacity

\+ verified safe, no side-effects

~ may be very efficient in preventing diseases, but not enough to prevent spread, just slows it

~ may need second shoot after 4 months

~ long-term immunity is questionable for covid and you can get only two shoots of this type of vaccine in lifetime while maintaining it efficiency

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus- vaccine-update-oxford.html)

<comment><USER19> Can you please explain the last bullet or post a link?

"~ long-term immunity is questionable for covid and you can get only two shoots of this type of vaccine in lifetime while maintaining it efficiency"

This suggests some fundamental misunderstanding in how I think about the immune system (which is unsurprising given I have no formal background there), and I think I'd learn a lot of important things from understanding why or how this works.

If it's hard or deep, I'm glad to do long-form reading if you have a link.

<comment><USER20> The Oxford vaccine (ChAdOx1) uses another vector virus called the adenovirus to deliver the coronavirus genes which the body can fight against. The issue is that some people might have pre-existing immunity to the adenovirus, making the vaccine ineffective. Since ChAdOx1 uses an adenovirus which infects chimpanzees, it is likely that most people will not have any pre-existing immunity to the vector virus. I guess the parent comment is referring to the fact that the body might develop immunity to the chimpanzee vector virus after two doses, making booster shots ineffective.

<comment><USER19> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm currently enrolled in the only currently active phase III trial for a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford Unviersity. [https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/news/covid-19-vaccine- development](https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/news/covid-19-vaccine-development)

It's supposedly a "front-runner" but also who knows!

<comment><USER22> How frequently do you get tested for the virus?

<comment><USER21> Weekly with a PCR swab. 2-monthly for antibodies via a blood sample.

<comment><USER22> Ouch!

<comment><USER21> It's not that bad. You get used to it pretty quickly!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This NY Times overview of various candidate vaccines is interesting:

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus- vaccine-tracker.html)

Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker

<comment><USER24> Oh wow! Thanks for this. I didn't know there were candidates in Phase III already or that there's already a vaccine that's been approved.

<comment><USER23> It is approved only for use within the Chinese military.

<comment><USER25> It's also unlikely to be very effective due to it using the adenovirus Ad5 as a vector, which is a human adenovirus that many people have antibodies against. This means a marked loss of efficacy if you have them.

<comment><USER26> Well, the trials show that is effective in essentially everyone. The use of the Ad5 vector does not require replication, it's therefore unlikely that antibodies will be effective at stopping a significant amount of the vector implantation of a large fraction of the viral particles in cells.

If you read the study, it states that even in recipients with high Ad5 immunity, as long as the dose is sufficient (high-dose or medium dose) long- term seroconversion is high - 84% to 100% in medium or high dose after 28 days for recipients with strong antibodies against Ad5, and for high-dose seroconversion and interferon gamma response was indistinguishable from those without strong Ad5 immunity. [0, fig 1 - Specific T-cell response measured by ELISpot].

So I don't really think it will be an issue. You just need the proper dose. : [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(20\)31208-3/fulltext)

<comment><USER25> Like with Moderna, if I recall (on mobile, so I can't refresh my memory by rereading it) the highest doses had some Grade 3 level fevers. So probably medium dose would be used.

<comment><USER26> Yep, side effects seem to be comparable. Medium dose would probably be used, or likely something between medium dose and high dose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Note Moderna's vaccine is using newish technology in that rather than being injected with bits of the virus, dead virus or attenuated virus, so your body can mount an immune response, you are given RNA which encodes the bit of the virus - so your body makes the virus bit itself, which then leads to the immune response.

How this compares to the other approaches will be interesting.

<comment><USER28> For the record, other companies are having (early) success with RNA too.

BioNTech [https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release- det...](https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release- details/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-early-positive-data-ongoing-phase/)

CureVac [https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-s-optimized-mrna- platfo...](https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-s-optimized-mrna-platform- provides-positive-pre-clinical-results-at-low-dose-for-coronavirus-vaccine- candidate)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Very interesting but an ELI5 of the implications would be welcome:

Okay it needs 2 injection. Do they need to be spaced by 42 days? If so that would induce nuisible inertia.

How many percents of the patients recovered from the covid thanks to to the injection? I see 80% of response but I don't know how that translate into chance de of curing. Also how fast did they recover? The second injection has an adverse response, how bad is it? Too much for mainstream?

It's always fascinated me, this paradox of reporting: The author has made a lot of researchs and a great write-up but fail to answer the most pressing questions that both mainstream people and shareholders wants!

<comment><USER30> On the linked Twitter thread from the article there is a link to the AE chart

[https://twitter.com/RNAiAnalyst/status/1283149377427701761/p...](https://twitter.com/RNAiAnalyst/status/1283149377427701761/photo/1)

<comment><USER29> Thanks! I would love to see a similar chart of competing vaccines.

So the side effects are huge relative to standard vaccines but rationally, if it works everybody should still take it. This will need to be enforced by politicians as I doubt people would have the maturity to take it voluntarily. It's the kind of wicked problem where we want that everybody take it _except ourselves_

<comment><USER31> >So the side effects are huge

Those side effects are very mild. Headache. Myalgia. etc.

How many times in your life has your arm been sore after a flu shot? These need to be measured but are not 'huge side effects'. No observed adverse event met the pre-defined cutoffs for stopping the trial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Human challenge studies need to be seriously lined up right now as a part of phase III work. (Human challenge studies mean giving people the full vaccine dose, checking for antibodies, then giving a dose of the actual disease).

The consensus seems to be "they are not ethical", which is an extreme, beaucratic, twisted set of ethics.

Small challenge studies of 100 people, who have a low risk profile, who volunteer to help their friends, family, and humanity will give us a lot of confidence to move forward.

The fatality rate of a soldier volunteering in the US for world war Ii was about 2%. For young healthy volunteers, we are talking something like 2 orders of magnitude less risk, for more clear marginal benefit than being one extra soldier in a war.

I feel that this isn't being lined up is negligent insanity.

(If you want to volunteer without any commitment [https://1daysooner.org/](https://1daysooner.org/) \- no affiliation although I volunteered).

<comment><USER33> Remember that is just the risk of death.

My wife is young (40 yo) fit and healthy, and 115 days after contracting covid she is still ill with post covid symptoms - there is no way she could work still and cannot look after or even play with our kids.

On her post covid support group it mainly seems to be women over 40 and men from 20 to 50 - though only about 7000 people who self selected to join the group so that might not be representative.

Just saying that while risk of death are low, there are other risks - <USER2> as yet poorly understood and researched.

<comment><USER34> I had this experience, though with a different virus. It's no joke. I was in above average shape, able to run fast and far, lift heavy things, free dive deep and long, etc. After a two week illness, I couldn't lift my hands above my head and I haven't run more than 10km since, let alone at <5m per km. It has been 4 years. It wrecked my lungs and I think even caused mild nerve damage.

If COVID is doing similar things to people, it's very serious. It's potentially life altering. I genuinely suspect I will never be as healthy or as strong as I was. I didn't believe this could happen to healthy people in their 20s, especially not someone who could run a half marathon on a whim, but humans simply aren't invulnerable.

<comment><USER33> So sorry to hear that - the more we have read about the post viral issues from SARs, ebola and the 'spanish flu', the more we see that there are a huge number of people affected in very different ways. For the first 3 months we totally felt disbelieved by doctors and even some friends - 'are you sure it isn't just anxiety?'.

Slowly doctors are realising that while the majority do recover, a not insignificant group will be affected for a lager period of time. Total guess but even if the number of long term cases is the same as those that die, and if on average they can't work for 6 months (conservative) then the economic impacts on those people and their families can be huge.

I really hope you see light at the end of the tunnel and take it easy.

<comment><USER34> Thank you, and likewise - I hope your wife continues to recover and it doesn't impact your family too much.

I think the reality of sickness is often a revelation once it happens. It's hard to believe what an impact it can have, seemingly arbitrarily. But with the right support and the right state of mind, recovery is often possible despite being difficult. After a point it just doesn't happen on its own. It's another part of life, something to learn from I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So, long story short: encouraging first phase, with a whole lot of caveats, it will need to wait on phase 2 and phase 3 even if everything goes well, there are some negative reactions (but in this small group nothing too serious), and it would take at least two doses and the effect starts to fade after a couple months (which doesn't mean it would go away entirely). Plus we really only know that there was _some_ response, not that it would protect you in the way we normally expect a vaccine to.

In other words, long story short, probably not this year.

<comment><USER29> * Plus we really only know that there was _some_ response, not that it would protect you in the way we normally expect a vaccine to.*

I don't understand, did the tested patients recovered from covid? They did not inject on them the virus in order to test the vaccine? So many people die and we're too shy to test volunteers? So many humans on earth would risk their lives for a few hundred dollars, it is the reality where we live in. Let's take advantage of this reality, give them more than they would expect + glory and so much more lives would be saved. By doing heuristic guessing of if the vaccin works without really testing it we're going to do order of magnitude more harm to humanity.

<comment><USER36> Why should only the financially desperate be asked to sacrifice for their species? What a repugnant stance you've adopted.

<comment><USER29> You can randomize it in an authoritarian way if you reject here the free market, the way of selection matter far less than the discussion of how much lives could be saved.

 _What a repugnant stance you 've adopted._ Thinking like you think is consenting to mass murder, do you realize it ?

Here's my calculus: The phase I trial has approximately lasted 2 months. I checked the number of total deaths from 01 may to 01 July -> [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide- graphs/#...](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide- graphs/#total-deaths)

This give us 277,145 human deaths in this trial period. According to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_due_to_COVID-19#Mort...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_due_to_COVID-19#Mortality_by_age) mortality rate for a ~20 years old should be at least lower than 0.1%.

With all those data in mind, here's the reasoning: The metric of effectiveness for this Moderna vaccine candidate is epistemologically LOW. They use fuzzy heuristics of matching approximately the immune response of naturally recovering patients as a claim of being effective. So firstly this reasoning is simplistic especially since researchers do not understand precisely how the working immune response work. So there is a risk of the vaccine to be a disappointment. If it is, those 277,145 human lifes would have been wasted and far more will die until we find the true vaccin. But what you need to understand is that researchers are condemned to match the existing immune response as otherwise, _without_ testing on infected young humans, they cannot predict the vaccine expected performance. This alone is far enough for defending that they should have tested on a few dozen of infected patients the effectiveness. If they did: two possible scenarios: (lets suppose they tested 30 humans in their twenties that would make 0.3% of chance of deaths (comparatively to 277,145 human deaths) and the likelihood would be actually far lower as they would be actively monitored) scenario A) the vaccine doesn't work and it shows empirically, it save them weeks of evidence and therefore make them reconsider another paradigm for the virus. That alone would save at the very least thousands of lives by allowing the true vaccine to be found earlier. So you must realize that your "repugnant stance" of inaction is responsible in this likely scenario of far more deaths, sadly numbers quickly become unproportional to the emotional empathic response for a homo sapiens, this kind of brain failure honestly give a taste of vomit in my mouth, but yeah everybody is victim of this cognitive bias, even myself so no offense. In the second scenario, the empiricism would show them that their vaccine works: here again it would accelerate the delivery, and crucially the data would give them insights and allow for far better fine tuning of how the vaccine works and the optimal dosage. Is is not unreasonable to think that such speedup would allow to save a similar order of magnitude than 277,145 human deaths but could actually be far more (imagine 6 months of work saved y avoiding empirically invalidated or fine tuned research directions ? Even if it were to be lower, even if the data sped up the research by only one day (an insanely pessimistic view that I only show to defend your reasoning to the extreme, to its limit) would still save more than 5000 lives which is indeed far bigger than the likely lower than 0.3% of death rate for ~30 persons, so even in the ridiculous limit we talk about 5000+ vs 0.3 death.

<comment><USER37> What is the error rate of the immune system response currently used, compared to actual immune response? If it is small, then the value of infecting humans directly goes way down. Further, what is the probability that the control group and the vaccine groups will not be exposed naturally and accidentally to Covid19 during the Phase II, Phase III studies? If they are likely to be accidentally exposed, then purposefully exposing them has even less value. Given the current infection rates in the US, this likelihood seems pretty good.

The 277,145 number is meaningless. The vaccine was not known to help in any way 2 months ago. For all we knew at the time, if we had started giving this to people on mass 2 months ago, we would have had 300k deaths from the vaccine by now.

Then, the vaccine is not yet known to be effective. We only have proof that it is safe, but we don't have rigorous control studies showing that it is effective yet (we need the Phase II & III trials for that). Before that, there is only a "hunch" that it will help at all, so taking death numbers for the next few months is also going to be meaningless.

Finally, your "even if the data sped up the research by only one day" calculation is pure sophism. Why not assume that the data could slow down the research? What if one of the patients dies because of complications after being infected, and that affects team morale, slowing down the research? What if one of the researchers accidentally gets sick themselves because of improper handling of the live virus, again slowing down the research?

The final point is: we are already rushing this. There are good reasons we have stopped testing drugs on volunteers, we have a horrible history behind us of the effects, often without much better results (and often much worse results) than current methods. There methods we have for estimating actual immunity based on immune system response have been studied for some time and are considered good. Putting people's lives in danger is needless complication, more likely to slow everything down than to speed it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Our immune systems are very complex and unique! If you want to apply scientific method and improve outcomes (safety, efficacy), then there is a lot more data to collect. Sharing that data and allowing recipients to own their data, would go a long way towards improving vaccine safety and allow for customization as needed. My children have had ~minor/moderate reactions to the varicella vaccine (fluid on my son's hip joint ~2" from injection site at 23 days--ER doctors just shrug), my daughter a moderate rash. How could these be improved? Guillain-Barre is very real side effect as well. How can it be avoided? I accumulate metals easily, so Al, a potent neurotoxin hangs out in my system much longer than others (possible/probable HLA variant). Shouldn't the adjuvant for my vaccines exclude Al?

Measuring temperature & physical symptoms is a good start. It would be great if these trials would measure each recipients HLA SNPs (see GSK MERS 2009 fiasco and others), T-cells (CD4/8/57/etc), inflammation markers like C3a,C4a,TGF-b, MMP-9, and cytokines like TNF-a -- before and after each vaccine dose. Measuring for all ingredients pre-post each dose is also important because the metabolization for each component is not uniform. Stop using 2010+ technology to make vaccines & medications and then evaluating the applied result with 1990s (or earlier) methods.

So if you want to shut up 'anti-vaxxers' than collect/share the data from everyone who receives a vaccine and improve the process instead of shrouding results or conducting half-assed studies (AstraZeneca using meningitis vaccine as control instead of true placebo).

<comment><USER39> Spending a bunch more time collecting data to convince people who reflexively put their fingers in their ears when presented with evidence seems a decidedly wrong-headed approach.

<comment><USER38> Spending time collecting data is for improving our understanding of an individual's immune system. Sharing that data helps educate those who are unfamiliar with, but have complete ownership of their body.

<comment><USER40> Data needs a narrative attached, otherwise it's just noise. There is a point where adding more data doesn't change the narrative, so it's pointless to continue gathering data.

<comment><USER38> Are the immune responses to the vaccine identical across the trial group? No. Is everyone's response to sars-cov-2 identical? No. Is everyone's immune system unique in its signaling and adaptive behavior? Yes. How is it possible to correlate immune responses by measuring 0.000x percent of the available data? We do not have complete understanding of our immune systems, thus we need more data and most of it can be relevant.

<comment><USER40> Ok, you can sit in a corner for the next 1000 years while all of that data is gathered for you. A glimpse at your username suggests you have intense bias with regards to the human body and its immune system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> this is encouraging - hope the side effects at those lower doses don't turn out to be significant.

How does the Moderna mRNA vaccine differ from the other mRNA vaccine in Phase 1/2 trials - BioNTech/Pfizer?

<comment><USER42> Derek Lowe's last blog post was about Pfizer/BioNTech. He discussed Pfizer's CEO comments and their Phase I data. Lowe seems optimistic. [https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/14/pf...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/14/pfizers- progress)

<comment><USER41> nice. Looking forward to his Moderna results blog post.

Oxford/AstraZeneca paper being published tomorrow too in Lancet I think.

Fingers crossed one of these will pan out quick! Winter wave would be ruthless

<comment><USER42> Oh, good. Sooner than I thought for Chaddox.

Chaddox has its downsides, but I think it'll be an effective band aid solution. As far as mRNA vaccines, I read that blog post and think Lowe, (and other biologists) have more hope for Pfizer than they do for Moderna. However, Pfizer's vaccine needs more time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Nice

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm very nervous about the safety of any vaccine based on a complete spike protein, and worried that if one is rushed to market it will have such disastrous side effects that it will be an antivaxxer talking point for the next century.

The only vaccines I'm really excited about are the ones based on S1 Receptor Binding Domain (RBD), none of which are yet in stage 1.

<comment><USER45> Very thoughtful point. I was concerned about it as well. Rushing a half-backed vaccine that has serious side-effects will fuel antivaxxers for decades.

<comment><USER46> Frankly I don't buy that.

There has actually been something like this during the swine flu pandemic. There was a vaccine that is believed to have caused some cases of narcolepsy. This was a real, bad sideeffect with a vaccine that was rushed to market.

Surprisingly this isn't a big talking point in antivaccine circles. Yeah you'll hear about it sometimes, but compare it to the number of times you hear "somethingsomething MMR aluminium autism" which is all debunked bullshit - you'll hear that far more often.

What I want to say is: Antivaccine people largely don't care about real issues with vaccines. They're happy with their pseudoscientific nonsense, that's good enough for them to reject every vaccine ever made.

<comment><USER4> I also happen to agree with you it is very unlikely that more people will become anti-vaxer just because covid vaccine was not effective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> How does this compare to the Oxford/AZ vaccine?

</comment><comment><USER48> Taking relatively healthy aged population group and feeding them placebo could achieve similar outcome?

<comment><USER49> Phase 1 trials are primarily to demonstrate safety. Data about efficacy is a nice bonus, but a Phase 2 trial should be large enough to show more clearly whether it's effective.

<comment><USER50> But they already are testing their blood for effectiveness. I have to say, if a placebo can cause your blood cells to fight off a disease better even when removed from your body, that would be something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> It's quite incredible. This chemical appears to have a safety profile comparable with the coronavirus itself, and yet the stock market appears to anticipate a possibility that people will get injected with it en masse.

<comment><USER42> That's because the one thing certainly Moderna has been good at is hype. Many biologists have been pretty skeptical about an mRNA vaccine and yet Moderna has been riding high.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Resources for minimal web design - <AUTHOR> I've been doing hobby web design but want to advertise myself professionally. What resources or other tools are helpful for minimal design? I mean small, fast sites. Little to no use of JS, simple CSS, no silly parallax animation.
True minimal design, not the Squarespace-y, hipster design that many sites have embraced.
My target market is small businesses who need a clean, fast site to avoid clutter and distractions. <comment><USER2> You could try using Turbo360's theme feature([https://www.turbo360.co/service/theme](https://www.turbo360.co/service/theme)). It's a pretty simple way to make good looking websites by just using a couple simple terminal commands.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://tachyons.io/gallery/](http://tachyons.io/gallery/)</comment>


Coffee Linked to Vision Loss - <AUTHOR> http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/coffee-linked-vision-loss <comment><USER2> This not being a causal study, I wonder if higher coffee consumption is linked to other factors that may or may not cause glaucoma... say, computer work.</comment>


Fundamental Mistakes - <AUTHOR> http://www.inter-sections.net/2008/01/22/fundamental-mistakes/

<comment><USER2> Interesting! I would like to see a collection of such errors for community use Howto</comment>


What advertising can't fix - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/09/what-advertisin.html

<comment><USER2> First paragraph:

 _If you spend more than a quarter of a billion dollars on an ad campaign for a tech company, people will talk about it. If you give Jerry Seinfeld, the most famous comedian ever, $10 million to be in a few of the commercials you do, people will talk about it even more._</comment>


Senate hearing on Bitcoin [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/beyond-silk-road-potential-risks-threats-and-promises-of-virtual-currencies <comment><USER2> I've been watching since about 20 minutes in; it is overwhelmingly positive.

There seem to be 2 'groups' of testimonies, the first coming from law enforcement and government bodies; the overwhelming consensus was that existing laws are satisfactory to prosecute bad actors using bitcoin.

The second group is still talking; again extremely positive.. analogies to bitcoin being similar to the internet in the mid nineties; its scary but overall good. The lawyer from the bitcoin foundation is really driving home the idea that the main problem right now is that bankers are too scared to give bitcoin business bank accounts.

I see overall nothing negative; and the chairman seems extremely reasonable and open to the notion of bitcoin and brought up the bitcoin-now <-> internet- in-the-nineties analogy himself.

No one is asking for stricter laws, everyone is asking for clarity. Much, much more positive than I expected; only the secret service guy seemed to be very cautious; he never said the word bitcoin and mostly spent his time saying the secret service was awesome.

<comment><USER3> I think a possible reason they're overwhelmingly positive is because the FBI has a pretty good cache of bc.

<comment><USER4> They wouldn't care if those coins were worth $5 billion. The federal budget is silly compared to a few hundred thousand bitcoins. Or maybe that's the other way around.

<comment><USER5> The FBI and CIA can use Bitcoin to anonymously pay off foreign informants though

<comment><USER6> We'd see them spend it and ask what they've spent it on.

<comment><USER7> I'd expect the CIA to know how to launder money competently. It seems like a ridiculously obvious thing for them to learn how to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The chairman asked the panel about the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by the creator or creators of Bitcoin. When one of the panelists was going to respond, the chair cut him off and said "you don't think it was Al Gore, do you?" The panelist said "well, he hasn't denied it!"

I've never seen decent humor in a Senate hearing haha

<comment><USER9> The anonymity of Satoshi definitely gives the origins of BTC some mythos. I can picture historical fiction a hundred years from now speculating (assuming BTC takes over)

<comment><USER10> I suspect that historians, given free access to a very very wide range of writings (and of course all the works attributed to Satoshi) and whatever the modern analysis techniques will be will make quick work of figuring out who Satoshi was.

Few writings remain truly anonymous if the author also wrote significant amounts non-anonymously (and these days, who doesn't?).

For his sake, I hope he isn't uncovered during his lifetime, but assuming bitcoin remains relevant I greatly suspect that history books will eventually have his name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's interesting to watch Jeremy Allaire repeatedly say that only well-funded companies should be trusted to hold consumers' bitcoins.

Companies like, well, his.

<comment><USER9> It's nothing new. You _want_ banks to have considerable reserve capital, and if you are a company whose function is to "hold BTC" you are a bank.

<comment><USER12> The definition of bank is not an entity that holds currency, otherwise any company or you or I are a bank.

To keep it simple, Banks hold reserves because they lend. Paypal, for instance, is not a bank.

If your tiny Bitcoin startup holds $1000 in bitcoin, and your obligations are $1000, I don't see the problem.

<comment><USER13> > Paypal, for instance, is not a bank.

Paypal is a bank in Europe. A paypal account is legally a bank account here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> WSJ: _Despite interest in bitcoin, Monday 's hearing was attended by only one member of the Senate panel, Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.), who chairs the committee. Other senators were still en route to Washington after spending the weekend in their home states._

Marketwatch: _More than one hour into the hearing, and Sen. Carper is the sole lawmaker to ask questions. It appears no others are there._

Embarassing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Alright, the market has remained irrational longer than I've remained solvent in resolve. So I'll admit it: This would have been a nice bandwagon to have jumped on.

But hollow disruption porn and worse-is-better are still fucking tragedies.

<comment><USER16> > "But hollow disruption porn and worse-is-better are still fucking > tragedies."

What do you mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Positive attitudes regarding Bitcoin by the powers that be give me pause.

Why would law enforcement be eager to support a technology which, on the face of it, seems to reduce the power of law enforcement?

<comment><USER18> I'm unclear on why everyone seems to think that Bitcoin reduces governmental power. It makes all transactions public -- no more cash deals, hard-to- subpoena international wire transfers, etc. It makes the job of law enforcement much easier.

<comment><USER19> It doesn't reduce police powers, but in the long term if it pans out it'll reduce the power of fiat currency. That's what people talk about when they say it reduces the power of the government.

<comment><USER20> Can't NSA datacenters with specialized crypto chips simply get 51% of bitcoin mining power for some time, if they want? Now _that_ would be 'fiat currency'.

<comment><USER21> 51% attacks don't allow you to mine arbitrary amounts of Bitcoin. At worst they could DoS the Bitcoin network and double-spend their funds, but the recipients (their own citizens? other governments?) would find out and be _pissed_.

<comment><USER22> The citizenry is _already_ pissed and it means nothing. They do what they want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "You don't think it was Al Gore, do you?" \- quip from the senator running the hearings on the subject of Satoshi's real identity.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm reminded of a course I took which was co-taught by the CTO at the Department of Homeland Security. He once said that "The criminals will always be better at using cryptography than the people who use them in positive ways."

<comment><USER25> Except that the NSA and FBI have been defining crypto as suspicious activity, so kind of a double-bind there.

<comment><USER26> Well it's no wonder: they only use it for suspicious activities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The FBI and government have considerable bitcoin holdings, assuming they acquired the silk road wealth + what they already have their total BTC is at least 524,000. src: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.0)

<comment><USER28> Is this the same entity that has ~ $16,000,000,000,000 external debt?

source: a part of the government

[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2079rank.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's refreshing that the overall tone of the hearing is not one of 'we don't understand this cryptocurrency thing, we need to shut it down', but rather, 'this thing is happening, we have some concerns, but we need to adapt so we aren't left behind'.

</comment><comment><USER30> Kicking myself for all eternity...

EDIT: Or not... [1]

[1]: [http://imgur.com/cp01D2m](http://imgur.com/cp01D2m)

<comment><USER31> You are not alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Slightly off-topic, but I don't understand how a deflationary currency could be practical. Why would you ever spend it, except begrudgingly, if whatever you buy will be worth less tomorrow (thinking exclusively "in bitcoin," without regard to other currencies)? This is a question, not a criticism.

<comment><USER33> Why would you spend your USD if you can convert it to BTC instead and it will be worth more tomorrow?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This sounds very encouraging to me. A number of panelists have talked about how banks aren't allowing btc businesses to setup up basic checking accounts and how this needs to be fixed if the US isn't going to be left behind.

</comment><comment><USER35> Once goods and services are available ubiquitously to buy in bitcoin fiat money will become worthless.

This isn't a bubble IMO, it's just that USD won't hold it's value compared to available currency that has at least has _some_ value.

:-D

</comment><comment><USER36> Just sold off my bitcoin at $700. Who knows where the price will go next. Hope I won't regret this too much... :)

<comment><USER37> Congratulations on your massive profit, and thank you for stimulating the Bitcoin economy! However, I think that you will eventually regret this decision.

<comment><USER36> Hehe. How do you know I made a massive profit. I could have bought it just hours ago. ;) You're correct though, I got mine for $100 dollars a little while back. I may regret it but $700 is not to be sniffed at. I feel that although it may go up massively it could of course go down too. The economy is just too unstable for me at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> My comments:

[http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20131118.hsgacstatemen...](http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20131118.hsgacstatement.pdf)

Jerry Brito's testimony was quite good.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is great for those that invested just before the hearings. All the attention given to it will get more people in the US involved. I wonder how much longer can this growth last.

<comment><USER40> I think that depends on to what extent Bitcoin will replace the current money system. [1] looks into the price of Bitcoin if it becomes as widespread as Bitcoin or PayPal.

[1] [http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/11/17/bitcoin-bubble-or- val...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/11/17/bitcoin-bubble-or-value/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> As a staffer who works down the hall from this hearing, I am glad to see all the anti-Congress sentiment usually expressed on HN digressed for true discussion of subject matter.

</comment><comment><USER42> related: [http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-on- bitcoin-2013-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-on- bitcoin-2013-11) BERNANKE: Bitcoin 'May Hold Long-Term Promise'

</comment><comment><USER43> This looks very positive indeed.

</comment><comment><USER44> I heard PATRIOT Act....

<comment><USER45> Considering the PATRIOT Act is what established the "know your customer" due- diligence rules for financial institutions (i.e. why your bank wants to see ID when you open an account), there's nothing ominous about the name of that bill coming up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Can't view without Flash, I won't install Flash, therefore I can't view.

<comment><USER7> Do the Hacker News thing and spin up a VM with Flash on it, watch, and then delete the VM afterwards.

<comment><USER47> That works for technical reasons but not legal reasons. You can't "virtually" agree to the terms&conditions and then delete your agree-ment along with the VM. (Unless the terms or the law let you do so. Sometimes they do.)

<comment><USER48> What are the terms of the Flash EULA that you might violate while spinning up a VM to read something? You're not planning to copy it, publish it, etc, and since you're destroying the VM later you don't care about stability/etc -- outside of the reading event, you are not doing any actions with the product.

I'm genuinely curious. I can understand an argument from principle like RMS might use, but I am unsure what the difference is between agreeing on a VM and agreeing not-on-a-VM.

I'm really trying to see an edge case where doing it on a VM that you destroy later is in any way worse (or even different) than doing it on a laptop that you buy, use, and then later incinerate.

<comment><USER47> My point applies in the same way to a laptop you buy, use, then incinerate. Even after you incinerate it, you are still bound by the terms you agreed to (to the debatable extent to which [1] is enforcable at all, anyway).

[1] The download page states "By clicking the "Download now" button, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to the Adobe Software Licensing Agreement.". That statement is hundreds of pixels away from the actual download button.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>