New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41351159 <comment><USER2> HIV evolves with amazing (super-villian-ic) speed. Many "cures" attack 99% of cells, or similar. Resistance is evolved during treatment, and is usually uniform within just a few months. It mutates/evolves so fast that given just virus samples, it is possible to determine sequence of infection.

I think it needs to kill more than 6-9's before it has a good chance at being a cure.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of a lesson about misleading statistics I tell my nephews. We've all see the hand sanitizers that advertize killing 99.99% of germs, but what does that actually mean? 99.99% equates to 1/10,000 survivors and assuming for each generation the population doubles means it takes just 14 generations for the original colony to be back at full strength again. For extra creepy effect, e coli can reproduce in optimal conditions as fast as every 20 minutes which buys you only a couple hours of hygiene[0].

Given this drug kills 99/100 HIV virus units, then this really only helps you for log2(100) or ~7 generations

The math is pretty easy, but the results are something that always surprise me: it turns out humans are pretty bad at estimating exponential growth.

0: real life conditions are probably slower than this, I concede.

<comment><USER4> The idea is that it kills 99% of them, and then your immune system is up to the task of killing the remaining 1%.

<comment><USER5> But it's not a simple, linear battle.

That most virulent 1% then multiplies and infects systemwide... and adds new mutations all the time.

<comment><USER4> It's not the most virulent 1%, it's 1% which have unusual mutations that cause them to be resistant to this treatment, but which usually reduce their fitness in other respects. (This can be seen in humans as well, e.g. malaria resistance->sickle-cell). The fastest-multiplying viruses are also (obviously) going to be the most common, in the absence of treatment.

<comment><USER6> This is really fascinating how being really good at something often correlates with being less good at other things (in this case antibiotic resistance seems to be inversely proportional to the potency of the bacteria).

This is true not just for bacteria but also for other living creatures; for example animals that have lots of children have very short average lifespans.

It makes me think that every living species must be at the absolute cutting edge of its capabilities genetically-speaking.

<comment><USER7> Natural selection tends to work on traits that are relevant till the ability to reproduce ends. If the trait can dominate by rapid reproduction, life span does not matter and robustness is not selected for. Generally it is not an inherent trade-off between certain traits, apart from energy consumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hopefully it's cheap and/or Bill Gates starts throwing money into producing it if it passes clinical trials. I have a feeling that Africa is where AIDS does the most damage, and I doubt they can afford the $1000/mo. it will certainly cost in the States.

<comment><USER9> Antibody manufacture is not cheap. The antibodies are made by fusing the b-memory cells with mouse cancer, then putting the result in a bioreactor and filtering out the desired product, which must then be refrigerated. Drugs that use this technique commonly end in -MAB (for monoclonal antibody).

<comment><USER10> Given the entrenched nature of the American pharmaceutical industry, I'm unconvinced that any of them have actually tried to solve the problem of cheap antibody manufacturing at scale.

<comment><USER11> Why wouldn't they? Any reduction in cost is pure profit for them.

<comment><USER12> Reflexive paranoia rather than calm business analysis tends to rule the day when pharmaceutical companies are under consideration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can someone knowledgeable provide more details about the "tri-specific" nature of the attack and what effects this might have on the selective resistance of the remaining strains? (e.g. is it something that would take three simultaneous mutations to overcome, thus being much less likely than any resistance that only takes one, due to HIV's incredibly high mutation rate, though those that do achieve all three would still be resistant?)

<comment><USER14> I cannot personally do so, but I know who can and almost certainly will. The 'This Week In Virology' podcast. It's run by the head of the Columbia University virology department and a few other respected researchers in the field and is an absolutely phenomenal resource whenever there is news about virology. It doesn't look like they've covered this yet (too new) but I expect it to feature large in their next episode. If you're interested in a real technical dive into the topic, that is the place to go.

[http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/](http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/)

(Related personal anecdote and why I recommend them so highly: I'd been listening to them for awhile, then a research paper came out showing a possible link between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and XMRV in mice. People online had taken the paper and went crazy with it and some people were finding sources for murine (mouse) cancer drugs and dosing themselves with it in hopes of curing their CFS. They went through the paper and recognized the researcher and lab who wrote it. And noted that the lab had previously published XMRV research. XMRV is apparently remarkably difficult to eliminate contamination from. Basically if a lab has ever worked with it, you have to burn down the lab and build anew if you want to be sure it isn't around. So they advocated skepticism and said wait for independent verification before getting too worked up. A couple months later, the original paper was retracted as the researchers announced no other lab could reproduce their findings and it was down to XMRV contamination of their samples. That is the kind of thing you only get when you're listening to bona fide experts in their field and it blew my mind.

<comment><USER15> This is why I love HN. Thanks for the resource!

<comment><USER16> Right. There's almost always someone that can do a deep dive on an interesting, esoteric technical topic. No resource on the web like it with this level of diversity and depth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What else does it attack?

<comment><USER18> The study looked at SHIV, so they did it in monkeys. A little different. I haven't looked at most of the study but I would imagine that as an antibody it would have some sort of specificity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> HIV must be the most almost cured disease ever.

<comment><USER20> In the 1980s, getting HIV was a quick death sentence.

In the 2010s, getting HIV means that you are likely to live until... Your 70s. (Assuming you have access to medication.)

The problem is that you need to take expensive medication for the rest of your life. And that you can infect other people.

<comment><USER14> The infecting other people is mostly theoretical. As far as I know there is no actual instance of transmission from a person with an undetectable viral load on antiretroviral drugs to an uninfected person.

<comment><USER21> > an undetectable viral load on antiretroviral drugs to an uninfected person

Can you please put this into simpler terms? I am pretty confused. Because HIV transmission is not a theoretical and is not a myth. My understanding is, OP meant to say "transmission of HIV via known risky activities."

\--EDIT--

Thank you for those clarifying. Often the unfamiliar technical terms can throw me off.

<comment><USER22> If you're getting treatment, the amount of HIV in your blood is regularly measured as your "viral load".

It's possible, with treatment, for people with HIV to have a viral load labelled undetectable.

To date, from an article I read, there have been no recorded transmissions from people with an undetectable viral load.

[https://www.preventionaccess.org/faq](https://www.preventionaccess.org/faq)

<comment><USER20> Two questions arise:

How many people taking retrovirals have undetectable levels of HIV?

Are those people using condoms?

<comment><USER23> Not a professional, but my wife has HIV (and I don't), so I have a personal interest in the subject.

> How many people taking retrovirals have undetectable levels of HIV?

According to my wife's doctor, most of them. And if that changes, they attempt to adjust treatment to return to that state.

BTW, undetectable appears to mean 20 copies of viral DNA per ml of blood.

> Are those people using condoms?

Well, we were, for many years. But we wanted children, and so after her doctor actually encouraged us we conceived them the old-fashioned way. I really, really enjoyed sex without a condom after so many years, I must say.

Now we have all the children we want, and we ought to go back to condoms, but I find myself wondering about the risk vs. reward. I suppose we'll go back to condoms, but I yearn to forgo them -- it's just less intimate. I wonder how other couples feel.

<comment><USER24> There was a study a few days ago that found out that below threshold viral load means that the patient isn't infectious anymore.

[https://www.intomore.com/impact/cdc-acknowledges-that- undete...](https://www.intomore.com/impact/cdc-acknowledges-that-undetectable- people-dont-transmit-hiv)

Don't take my word for it though, would check with doctors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well, 99% means eradication of the virus very quickly. People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave.

<comment><USER26> > People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive > shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as > antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no > threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave.

The way you've phrased this, it sounds like you are casting "other hard to cure STDs" as a _protective_ measure against the "threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave."

Isn't sexual freedom a goal?

<comment><USER27> > _Isn 't sexual freedom a goal?_

You always have the risk of undesired pregnancy and the best cure for that is the condom, since birth control pills are basically hormone bombs, not very healthy for women in the long run, or you could undergo surgery, which is invasive and not without peril. So just use the condom already, those minty ones are actually cool.

And if we don't have "sexual freedom" it's probably because there are really good reasons for it. We shouldn't dismiss taboos without considering that some of them is why we've survived for so long.

<comment><USER28> > And if we don't have "sexual freedom" it's probably because there are really > good reasons for it. We shouldn't dismiss taboos without considering that > some of them is why we've survived for so long.

If that's the way you want to live your life, it is fine. But don't try to impose your ideas to other people.

<comment><USER27> Do you feel like that about vaccines and people refusing them as well? Or what about smoking in public places?

Because the way I see it, this is more than the health of the individual at risk, being about the health of the group.

<comment><USER29> I didn't see you "imposing" your views on anyone. People can adopt what they will. I don't advocate for laws against free choice, but I am for social pressures against unprotected sex. It's a good thing, saves a lot of pain and lives and there's absolutely no need to apologize if someone wants to take that out of context. As if you're advocating for the police to round up sexually active teens.

<comment><USER28> > I am for social pressures against unprotected sex

What is this if not trying to make other people live their lives following your way of thinking?

<comment><USER29> I'm more than willing to bet you are happy to voice your opinion on any given subject, including this one as you try to snuff my viewpoint out with claims about my attempt at oppression. Why can't I add my own opinion and voice? Just because you don't like what I think.

This is the same misguided logic you tried to use on bad_user. You really don't get it and honestly I don't care if you ever do or not.

<comment><USER30> I find you comical that you are for social pressure to avoid behavior you don't like, but are complaining when others apply social pressure.

Free speech does not mean freedom from criticism.

<comment><USER29> You can find it as comical as you want but you're making the same mistake noncoml did. He said bad_user was trying to _impose_ his view on others and that I'm trying to _make_ people think my way.

bad_user and myself are both _influencing_ others. We're not imposing anything at all. He's fine to criticize if he wants, that wasn't the issue at all. He didn't understand the difference between social pressure (which I'm advocating along with bad_user) and imposing. They aren't the same thing.

He's trying to split hairs with everyone on HN and not be intellectually honest so it's not worth discussing. Very easy to see what bad_user and myself meant. But the downvotes on noncoml's post speak for itself, most people are getting it.

<comment><USER28> I don't know man. I am just presenting my arguments. You are the one who is taking it personal, counting votes, and have to resort to personal attacks("splitting hairs with everyone", "not be intellectually honest")

Just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn't mean you have the intellectual honestly and he doesn't.

Also, if it's not worth discussing, just stop discussing. What's with this passive aggressive statement?

Btw, since downvotes seem to be important to you: every single reply of yours in this thread is negative.

<comment><USER29> I did stop discussing, especially with you but here you are again. You just can't resist, which shows how you are. You're welcome to disagree, but you didn't just disagree, you said we were trying to force our will on others. That's called intellectual dishonesty and someone not worth spending time on. Meaning, you just want to argue. Go look through your post history and check the downvotes, not good. I'll leave you to it, good luck bud.

<comment><USER28> > I did stop discussing, especially with you but here you are again

You mentioned my name. What did you expect?

Furthermore I never said I stopped discussing, unlike you.

Finally, you are the one who is trying to split a hair: "Imposing your opinion" might be a bit strong, but it's closer to "social pressure" than "influencing" is.

Discussing with you can be considered influencing.

"Social pressure" can be a whole town marginalizing you and your family because you are gay.

I don't think I am trying to split hair. They are very different things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> y-c-o-m-b This is also good news for people with elevated risks of acquiring HIV (such as people with Herpes). Hopefully they can use similar tactics to eradicate HSV and HPV next.

<comment><USER31> From a medical standpoint, HSV and HPV are largely cosmetic and very low priority. HPV is/was perhaps a slightly higher priority because it can rarely lead to certain cancers, but the vaccine Gardasil aims at those types of HPV.

<comment><USER5> Only four strains, not all strains. Others kill up to _nine_ different strains, but that's still not _all_ potentially carcinogenic strains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The clinical trials should be interesting. Hopefully it maintains efficacy.

</comment><comment> r-w I wonder if we can do the same thing with the common cold…

</comment><comment><USER32> If a vaccine becomes available, I wonder if somebody will pay to help poor countries fight it.

I mean does the UN have existing programs that offer vaccines in the third world?

I mean it would be a shame to have a vaccine and not see it being used.

</comment><comment><USER33> is 99% good enough? I thought cancer hides and comes back, so that 1% can grow again, so you still have to take the drug the rest of you life.

</comment><comment><USER34> So does chloride.

</comment><comment><USER35> Now that they're on a roll we need to get them on the cure for cancer!

</comment><comment><USER36> Reddit discussion: [https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/71neat/new_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/71neat/new_antibody_attacks_99_of_hiv_strains/)

I like how the ID is 71 __neat __

<comment><USER37> Why would you link to that discussion? Here is what I see as the "top" comments:

      -what about that 1%? I'd fear if it became the new super HIV
      --Can you not appreciate the 99%?
      ---He's a 1%er for sure...
      ----Let's git im!
      -----ANGRY AT OP? WANT TO JOIN THE MOB? I'VE GOT YOU COVERED! COME ON DOWN TO /r/pitchforkemporium...
      </comment></comment><comment>Here you go Comrade
      </comment><comment>-!redditsilver
      </comment><comment>--Here's your Reddit Silver, ZarathustraV!
      </comment><comment>---Good bot

<comment><USER38> unfortunately /r/upliftingnews isn't exactly the high-level discussion you're probably looking for.

thankfully, /r/science has you covered. [https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/71ndtd/scientists_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/71ndtd/scientists_have_engineered_an_antibody_that/)

<comment><USER36> Thanks, I definitely should have linked to that.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Simple multiplayer game in Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://hajdarevic.net:3000/ <comment><USER2> There are a lot of stopped tanks. I wonder if they lost their connection or if they are still reading the instructions. (I shot them anyway...)

<comment><AUTHOR> They would have timed out if they lost connection, my best bet is that someone viewed the game via their cellphone and then didn't close the tab. Not sure, but they're alive :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Neat. Bullets are a bit too slow, you can run into your own bullets when moving forwards.

<comment><AUTHOR> Kinda wanted them to be that way, so the other tanks can avoid them a bit easier, the fun part is running around with no ammo :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can you share source code? Thx!

<comment><AUTHOR> I need to polish it a bit before I release... It's a bit crap since I did it in an hour... at 3 AM, so yeah :-)

I plan on improving on this, adding team play, better maps, more projectiles, some physics etc... :-)</comment></comment>


Will virtualization cut the legs from the IT economy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/hardware/129214/will-virtualization-cut-legs-it-economy <comment><USER2> They are equating hardware sales with "the IT economy". That seems myopic.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone monetizing their sideproject with direct ads / sponsorships? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Yes! My side project turned into my day job several years ago but to this day one of the largest source of income it brings in is from ads. I now use more of a niche ad network provider to serve our ads but at the beginning everything was google adsense. While its true that day 1 ads didn't generate enough to cover costs but since I self hosted and worked hard to optimize everything I didn't have huge AWS bills to pay and costs were really low anyway. It was only six month ago that we finally made the jump to the cloud.

Anyway the point is, at least if you're not targeting an user base that has ad block enabled, ads, and I'm not talking about annoying ads, still can work just fine. What we do is offer our users a fairly cheap subscription option to disable the ads too along with getting some extra features so a lot of people jumped on that too... but I love being able to offer most of our services to everyone without any cost so thank you advertisers!

</comment><comment><USER3> While I charge for some sideprojects, I can't really do that for the blog I run. Since it is semi-popular, it runs ads and I charge for text ads, about $5 a month. Before it was popular, I was only charging $2 a month, but when I began to see a demand to be on certain pages, I increased the price just slightly. I don't get too many, but I've had a few buyers. I don't personally keep the money, it usually just goes right back into the hosting costs. So I still have to go to my day job to make up for the mortgage, credit card, gas, etc.

The money makers on the website are the banner ads, though lately, it seems like the more visitors I get, the less money I make. When I was getting far less, I was making more. Go figure that one out.

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

</comment><comment><USER4> I am unable to answer your questions for you, but I wanted to talk on the topic because it is something I've been thinking a lot about lately

There recently was a lot of talk and reporting surrounding YouTube 'changing their algorithm' and hurting a lot of YouTubers I watch frequently

One of my thoughts was that unfortunately the best solution would probably mean content creators would need to seek their own advertising'sponsorships

I can tell you the only ads I have clicked on in any recent memory are all, every single ad, of the ones that 3blue1brown places at the end of thaer videos(o)

Considerate effort like this really made me think how inconsiderate and detrimental the current hands off one size fits all ad networks are

Some content creators will surely protest 'im a creator stead a salesman' which is a fair complaint but I'd argue 3blue1brown really brings an artistry to the personal ad network the channel is creating.. self curated ads has the potential to be another medium of self expression

(o) [https://youtu.be/mvmuCPvRoWQ?t=22m41s](https://youtu.be/mvmuCPvRoWQ?t=22m41s)

.. an aside: the ad that YouTube ran in front of the video I linked when I first clicked on it was offensive and jarring, it depicted an animated Albert Einstein literally scribbling on a black board while a student looked on in dread and three words came in the screen, two of which I can remember 'math ___ sucks' the middle was either: teachers, lessons, or tutors; this ad actually upset me.. contrast that with this great 3blue1brown ad(i) and I am more confident in my conviction that a new collective effort in this direction would be both beneficial to all parties and is seemingly compelled by the momentum of inevitably

(i) [https://youtu.be/gB9n2gHsHN4?t=19m52s](https://youtu.be/gB9n2gHsHN4?t=19m52s)

</comment><comment><USER5> Just starting this process on a side project. Currently reaching out to advertisers I think would be a good fit. Too bad there's not a more premium google ad sense for niche verticals.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> * How are you doing it? * How much do you know how to charge? * Do you recommend it as a way of monetising your (side)project?</comment>


Ksh-2020.0.0-alpha1 is now available - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/att/ast/releases/tag/2020.0.0-alpha1 <comment><USER2> The switch to a modern, understandable, build system coupled cleaning up a lot of the bit rot that accumulated over the years has made the project more appealing to work on. Hopefully people who would like to contribute fixes and improvements will be more inclined to do so now that builds no longer take 20 minutes and compiling no longer emits hundreds of warnings.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link[1] to announcement on mailing list.

[1] [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/korn- shell/7VAqQg1N5D8/XniWn...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/korn- shell/7VAqQg1N5D8/XniWn__RBgAJ)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's alive! Congrats :)</comment>


Why the US' response to Covid-19 is terrible - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/inside-the-us-pandemic-incompetence-it-starts-at-the-top/ <comment><USER2> I think the origin of this is with Global Warming. The Republican party became devoted to contesting this, which over time has meant consistently opposing the scientific consensus. Once you spend a couple decades saying/being told that the experts are all wrong, they are conspiring against you, telling you lies etc. then what do you think is going to happen?

<comment><USER3> The "experts" have destroyed their own credibility. Do you remember the mass protests in every major and minor city a few weeks ago, where the "experts" responded by encouraging the protests, because "racism is a deadly pandemic too" or some equivocating nonsense like that? Doctors and nurses were participating in these mass protests. People were packed shoulder to shoulder for multiple city blocks. This was right after all of the "experts" forcefully condemned tiny anti-lockdown protests. Even the NYT was forced to confront the stunning hypocrisy [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/Epidemiologists- corona...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/Epidemiologists-coronavirus- protests-quarantine.html) . The vast majority of news outlets are still pretending that the protests had nothing to do with the spike in cases.

It also damages their credibility when they cross the line from "here are the epidemiological facts" to "here are the appropriate tradeoffs between economic stability and acute illness prevention". The latter is not a question that an epidemiologist is any more qualified to speak to than anyone else. Those are political decisions.

They do the same for global warming. The nature and extent of anthropogenic climate change is a question for scientists. But they have all also latched onto the conclusion that global wealth redistribution is the only solution. Again, they are laundering their scientific expertise into political authority. I more or less think that the scientific process moves us to toward better understanding, but the collective political opinions of scientists should not be mistaken for science.

When the experts are abusing their status to pursue political ends, then it's no surprise that the people they seek to politically vanquish put up a resistance by attacking that expertise.

<comment><USER4> In my opinion this has nothing to do with science and with experts being right or wrong.

It's people deciding stopping the spread of COVID-19 isn't as important as protesting for their civil rights.

You can't dismiss the science just because people have different priorities and decide to act against it because of that.

I also wouldn't say it's hypocrisy at least not by the protestors and scientist.

Maybe it's hypocrisy by the media because they didn't state that they agree or disagree with protests because they think another issue is more or less important than the pandemic.

<comment><USER3> People died alone and couldn't have funerals because epidemiologists said it was too dangerous. A week later, those same epidemiologists were cheering on mass demonstrations.

It's pretty clear that these "experts" are abusing their status as supposedly objective scientists to advance a political movement. Why should anyone trust anything they say?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This graph is a nice illustration of the principle that getting the virus under control and economic interest are not opposed, but in fact closely track each other: [https://twitter.com/bopinion/status/1285517303141072898](https://twitter.com/bopinion/status/1285517303141072898)

</comment><comment><USER6> Whilst I think there is some insight here, taking what trump says in an interview at face value seems like a poor way to divine what his actual beliefs are. Particularly on fox he's speaking to his audience, not from his innermost thoughts.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's very generous to assume he has inner thoughts. For all we have observed in the past years, he has as much internal state as a probabilistic prose generator.

<comment><USER6> He's a career criminal, he hasn't lived a life outside of a jail cell by saying everything he's thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's great to see Fox News asking some questions on this.

</comment><comment><USER8> The article simply assumes that all responsibility for Covid-19 lies with Donald Trump (who coincidentally was elected the president of the United States by its citizens).

There's not even a hand wave to Red China for first quarantining and then spewing out thousands of Covid-19 infected civilians to the USA and the rest of the world. Nothing is said about the WHO, CDC, NIH all of whom obviously had no part to play in this story. No regard is shown for our nations laws, which vest powers of control mostly with the states in regard to the control of epidemics.

<comment><USER9> > who coincidentally was elected the president of the United States by its > citizens

US Presidents are not elected by the citizens, though the way they are elected tends usually in practice to align with the expressed will of the citizens, at least since the electors themselves have been elected by citizens, albeit disproportionately. But not in the case of Trump, among several other exceptions.

<comment><USER8> dragonwriter says >"US Presidents are not elected by the citizens, though the way they are elected tends usually in practice to align with the expressed will of the citizens, at least since the electors themselves have been elected by citizens, albeit disproportionately. But not in the case of Trump, among several other exceptions."<

Pedantry and sophistry. "Elected" merely means "chosen by vote".

Q. Who voted for President of the USA in the 2016 USA elections?

A. The citizens of the USA.

Q. Who was elected president of the USA in 2016?

A. Donald Trump.

Therefore, Donald Trump was elected president of the USA by its citizens. Q.E.D.

Or perhaps you know of someone else who was elected president of the USA in 2016? If so, please name them, tell us why we neither hear their voice nor see them issuing decrees. Why do you not speak for them, man or woman, whichever ye be? Are you a traitor to their cause and, by your inactions, a traitor to your country (only if you're a US citizen, of course)?

<comment><USER9> > "Elected" merely means "chosen by vote".

Yes, and the President of the United States is not chosen by a vote of the citizens, but by a vote of the Electoral College.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CDC considering recommending general public wear face coverings in public - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/cdc-considering-recommending-general-public-wear-face-coverings-in-public/2020/03/30/6a3e495c-7280-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html <comment><USER2> Posted this two days ago but it was flagged, maybe now it won't be?

[https://medium.com/@thejanellemj/please-join-me-in- wearing-a...](https://medium.com/@thejanellemj/please-join-me-in-wearing-a- mask-71e0e3f4fe4a)

We have made a big stumble in the US by falsely claiming masks don't work, seemingly for political reasons. If we can get mask production in place and made available to the public it will help us ease our lock down restrictions which is something we all want to do. We are starting from so far behind so I don't know if that's possible now, but we should all be honest and factual, so we can develop solutions and innovate.

<comment><USER3> HN has been pretty hostile to the idea. I submitted Jeremy Howards video and research collation, and got a single borderline insulting comment. Unfortunately people have largely made up their minds thanks to the plethora of attacks on masks.

moral "Your stealing them from healthcare" (lots of people have a couple old masks, or can make one from a t-shirt)

paternalistic "You'll go do stupid stuff if you have a mask" (Exactly why we shouldn't have people wash their hands)

ridiculous "You'll touch the mask and get it on your hands" (Is that worse than inhaling it? Plus it physically prevents you from touching you mouth or nose, which is the real danger.)

insulting "You can't possibly wear a mask correctly" (and why can't we figure that out? Plus it still helps both for protecting other people and ourselves. If something doesn't work perfectly then we shouldn't do anything at all?)

just false "it doesn't work" (except in asian countries and for healthcare workers, and in studies, and in common sense)

<comment><USER4> I agree that wearing a mask is a good idea but I think the risk is that as you breath or cough through a cloth mask it very quickly becomes wet and saturated with virus particles (if you're sick) and then every breath you exhale goes through a sieve full of virus particles greatly increasing the number of droplets in it.

If you touch it, you touch a reservoir of virus particles.

And it probably doesn't protect you significantly from other people's droplets or airborne virus particles as they are too small for the holes in the fabric.

On the other hand even if it reduces the risk 20% it still helps to reduce the R0

<comment><USER5> If you're coughing enough to "very quickly saturate" a cloth mask into a sopping wet rag...don't go out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If nothing else you won't be touching your face uncontrollably if there's a mask. I already wear it when going on grocery runs etc, for that reason, and I notice an increasing number of people are doing the same. If distancing is in place, the main risk is not that you'd inhale something, it's that you touch something and then bring it into your mouth, nose, or eyes. Eyes are not an issue for me since I wear glasses. Mouth and nose are covered by a mask, so I can't touch them directly.

And you can reuse the masks by exposing them to 70C/158F heat for an hour.

<comment><USER7> I thought I read that there was a risk of people touching their mask too much (to adjust it or because it itches), and thus increasing the risk.

<comment><USER8> Just watching people in the store and you can tell they think they're protected but the masks are definitely not helping. Especially when they take them off incorrectly.

A full face covering might help people with touching their face but too many people think it will filter out particles.

<comment><USER9> What's the correct and incorrect way to take the masks off?

<comment><USER10> CDC provides guidelines for donning/doffing N95 masks here: [https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/ppe- training/n95respirator...](https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/ppe- training/n95respirator_coveralls/doffing_16.html)

The process is straightforward. I was shown a different technique than they provided, and am not a fan of having dirty gloves on or around my head and face as they show there.

I have been trained to usa a gloved hand and place it over the center of the mask, use your other hand to lift the straps over your head, and then pull away and discard the mask and gloves. The key is to prevent any contact between the exterior of the mask and your face, and certainly not to touch your face with the gloves.

Removing the mask incorrectly risks exposure to whatever was outside the mask in the first place. For the kind of exposure nonmedical personnel ought to experience, and for extended wear periods, I would think the mask would act to integrate whatever you've been surrounded by. In other words, you've collected 8 hours of crap on the front of it, so you'd want to be extra careful with the dirty part.

<comment><USER11> > not a fan of having dirty gloves on or around my head

For what it's worth, the earlier steps include removing outer gloves, and disinfecting the inner gloves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sadly the article itself conflates N95 respirators with surgical/home-made masks. Former protect the wearer; latter protect others (primarily).

>the health department there does not recommend that people without illness wear a mask, both because the benefit is uncertain and because there's a shortage of face masks for health-care workers.

Better to never write "respirator mask" nor "face mask". Those terms perpetuate the confusion.

<comment><USER13> Shouldn't any covering help? Like catching 50% is much better than 0%, even if the N95 can catch 95% of particles.

<comment><USER14> Masks offer very limited protection. It's similar to wearing medieval platemail to protect against a high powered rifle. Partial protection at best.

Direct sneezes or coughs right in front of you are safer but you also need eye protection. That still leaves the ears open and microabrasians on your skin.

False confidence with the expectation they're safe with an N95 mask is even worse than no mask at all. It's like those kids in the news some years ago that held up a book to stop a bullet and killed someone.

If you wear the mask in a constrained area with a group of people, such as an elevator, you may as well not even have it on.

The only sure way to not get the virus is avoiding people.

<comment><USER15> Ears aren't connected to the respiratory system. Lacrimal ducts are, that's why eye protection is important. The virus doesn't enter your lungs through your skin pores either.

<comment><USER16> Ears are directly connected to the sinuses (via the Eustachian tubes), which is part of the upper respiratory system. There's a reason we have Eye, Ear, Nose, Throat doctors. It's all connected.

<comment><USER17> As far as I know ear, nose, throat doctors (Otolaryngologists) don't treat eyes and they are called 'Ear, Nose, Throat' doctors, there's no eye in the name. Doctors that treat eyes are Ophthalmologists and Optometrists.

<comment><USER16> [https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/EENT](https://medical- dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/EENT)

It's possible it has fallen out of favor. I'm a tad on the old side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Moving forward, masks should be readily available in public places in the same way tissues are.

For example, a large box or auto dispensing machine for individually wrapped, single masks, in libraries, grocery stores, offices, classrooms, movie theaters, etc.

And might as well add motion activated hand sanitizer dispensers at the entrances too.

<comment><USER19> Some countries are struggling to ban single use plastic bags, now we want everyone to use disposable masks everywhere, the waste from this must horrific

<comment><USER20> They aren't made of plastic, so I don't think they'll cause even a fraction of as much problematic waste

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interestingly, official Singaporean advice recommends masks only for people feeling symptoms. See strategy point 5:

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-31/coronavirus- singapore...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-31/coronavirus-singapore- how-it-fought-the-virus/12100072)

Also interesting, in a bad way: Strategies 1-4 are plainly beyond the ability of US to implement any time soon.

<comment><USER21> It's also beyond much of the US to implement 80-90 degree temperatures that dramatically limit the ability for SARS-Cov-2 to spread as in Singapore.

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767)

See: Hawaii, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, much of California and a lot of the warmer south. Which are all seeing between extremely low and low localized per capita transmission levels and hospitalizations, despite the very lagged (and overall mediocre) US response.

The Las Vegas metro area will be 80 degrees on Wednesday. Take a look at their deaths and hospitalizations (despite having millions of people). With their international traffic, vast number of casinos and casino workers, slow speed at which they shut it all down and the initially lagged testing rates, they should be absolutely buried in Covid cases and deaths. They're anything but and they're seeing no big surge in cases.

These temps are the reason why the experts are hopefully anticipating the infection rates to rapidly bend down in the coming weeks, and perhaps peak in May or June. Even very informed people like Bill Gates have spoken publicly about being hopeful about this (see his recent Ted Connects talk, it's about an hour long and almost exclusively about this situation). It's the seasonal temperature increase (and to an extent humidity) factor.

edit: I understand why some people don't like these facts, I understand the emotional response. The numbers don't lie: hotter climates in the US are not seeing the surge in cases, they're not seeing the same hospitalization rates and as a consequence they're not seeing the deaths as in the other climates like NY, NJ, MA, IL, CT, MI.

Check out all the cities in Texas (huge population), their metro areas, and look at the per capita rates of infection, hospitalization and death. Then compare.

<comment><USER22> > See: Hawaii, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, much of California and a > lot of the warmer south. Which are all seeing between extremely low and low > localized per capita transmission levels and hospitalizations, despite the > very lagged (and overall mediocre) US response.

And yet Lousiana is getting pounded because of Mardi Gras.

And Florida is likely to follow due to Spring Break.

No state yet has evidence that they have turned their curve over from the standard R0. And, last I checked, practically every state was on the same trajectory past the 100th case.

<comment><USER21> Hotter temperatures do not guarantee the cessation of all possible transmission of SARS-CoV-2, it impedes it in relation to the increase in temperature (and also ideally humidity, particularly indoors). It helps make everything else you might do for slowing the spread more effective and easier. There is very strong evidence at this point that SARS-Cov-2 is susceptible to the same seasonality factors as influenza. We're seeing this demonstrated all around the world simultaneously in warmer climates, from Mexico to sub Sahara Africa to hotter countries in Asia. It's why none of the major cities in Latin America are seeing the kind of infection rates as NYC or Milan (or as Wuhan previously did). It's why sub Sahara Africa isn't getting hammered (despite plenty of international traffic and trade, including previously from China, that should have massively spread it). It's why India still isn't seeing a massive explosion in cases, as has been feared since the beginning of the outbreak in China.

Check out: Mobile & Birmingham & Montgomery Alabama, the Western handle of Florida, Jackson Mississippi, look at other cities in Louisiana that didn't hold Mardi Gras (and one assumes those cities still got a burst of their cases from the Mardi Gras spread event).

<comment><USER23> Latin America is not testing people Nearly enough. That's the main reason for low counts.

In my country, it is only possible to be tested if you say you were in direct contact with the current 4 confirmed cases (1 deceased), and they would have to confirm that too.

<comment><USER21> Yes, I understand the reason for the low counts. As I keep repeating, you want to pay attention to the flooding of hospitals with Covid patients, that you can't hide (unless you're very authoritarian with strict media control).

These places are not buried in dead people either. Their intensive care systems are not being flooded. Their hospitals are not being flooded by a million cases.

Mexico is not seeing what NY and other high-infection climates have. Given the poverty, poor healthcare system, poorly prepared healthcare system, high traffic and trade with the US via NAFTA and in general, it should have an enormous number of cases by now, and as a consequence a large number of daily deaths and intensive care cases hammering their healthcare systems in every major city. None of that is happening. It's not happening for the same reason it's not happening in Texas.

<comment><USER24> From everything I've read about COVID-19 and flu-like infections, I'm also inclined to believe that warmer climates help slow COVID-19 outbreaks. It is (in my opinion) the most plausible explanation why certain regions are hit so much worse than others thus far. I also believe a paper I recently read supports this hypothesis.

I've seen the media publish articles with titles like "coronavirus myths busted: warm weather stops the virus". Ironically, these attempts to combat misinformation are dubious themselves, as the truth is probably somewhere in the middle; that is, warm climates may not outright stop COVID-19, but they may certainly hinder it. The fact is, while we can't make definitive statements at the moment due to limited data and understanding of the virus's pathology, we can make educated guesses through observation.

Another contentious point (particularly here in Australia) is the sentiment that children are mostly immune to the virus. The Aus government is pushing this line very strongly as an excuse to keep schools open (i.e. economical reasons).

So yeah, I don't know why I wrote this comment. Probably to stress the fine line that exists between having a mindset which is open to observational theories, while also being critical of "facts" which are pushed to drive political agendas amidst the coronavirus outbreak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Better late than never, but they'll need to put some work into countering all the anti-mask propaganda that's been flying around for weeks now.

<comment><USER12> Propaganda? Example?

<comment><USER25> Yesterday morning the surgeon general tweeted _" They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus"_

There has been tons of rhetoric designed to discourage the public from buying masks that gives the impression that public wearing masks won't help. A lot of headlines to that effect that lack any nuance at all.

<comment><USER26> That's true though, isn't it? A mask will not prevent you from getting the virus, since covering your own mouth from others coughing doesn't really help you. If you are sick though, it protects others.

<comment><USER27> > A mask will not prevent you from getting the virus, since covering your own > mouth from others coughing doesn't really help you. If you are sick though, > it protects others.

What is the mechanism for this?

At first, I'd expect it to be the other way around--if I'm wearing a mask and cough the mask is going to bear the full force of my cough. All of the cough is hitting the mask, and the cough is moving at its fastest speed.

If I'm not wearing a mask and you are, my cough is going to be spread out some when it reaches you and slowed by air resistance, so your mask should only have to deal with a fraction of my cough and at lower velocity.

Thus, I'd expect your mask to have a much easier task than mine.

Is it that the drops of moisture (and phlegm and whatever else might be in a cough) are bigger at the point of emission and break apart as they disperse, and so they have a harder time going through a mask at my end than at your end?

If that is the case, I still have to wonder what happens on subsequent coughs. I cough, producing big drops that the mask stops. Still, the viruses in the drops have to go somewhere when the mask absorbs the droplets, right? Does my mask end up moistened with virus-contaminated water? Will my subsequent coughs as they blast air through the mask then be able to knock small virus laden droplets off my mask?

<comment><USER26> My understanding is that, as you said, the purpose of the mask is to stop droplets from coughs and sneezes from getting to other people and surfaces. However if others cough on you when you are wearing a mask, the rest of your face is still exposed so you are not fully protected, and you can still be infected by touching contaminated surfaces and then touching your face. Surgical masks are also not sealed off, so you can breath in aerosol from other people's coughs even with the mask.

Certainly masks will help to some degree, as they will filter out some particles and protect you if someone directly coughs into the mask, but I don't think they are effective compared to things like hand washing.

I am not a doctor, not medical advice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This would have been helpful weeks ago. Now I fear that Americans are set in their coronavirus way - we expect grocery stores to sanitize every item but don't think twice about walking right in front of a cashier with no mask!

<comment><USER28> Not sure what you've been experiencing, but in my town everyone is thinking twice before getting close to anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> That's great now if we could only could produce a couple billion masks

<comment><USER30> It looks like a typical machine can manufacture a mask 50~100 per minute. For 40 hour work week that is 200k masks per week. So technically we only need 5000 of these machines to produce 1bn a week.

<comment><USER31> Are the machines made in China?

<comment><USER30> [https://www.kingsing.com/product/561-en.html?gclid=EAIaIQobC...](https://www.kingsing.com/product/561-en.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6LTNmOnD6AIV06uWCh3RGgypEAAYAyAAEgKZm_D_BwE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I honestly don't know, aren't face masks in public illegal?

<comment><USER33> No, not in the US, why would they be illegal? Some places, like a bank, may want to not let you in (though I even doubt that these days). But certainly not illegal.

<comment><USER34> In Virginia, it's a Class 6 felony. There are two medical exemptions. One requires carrying "an affidavit" from a licensed physician or osteopath, which specifies "the medical necessity for wearing the device and the date on which the wearing of the device will no longer be necessary and providing a brief description of the device,"

The second is "the declaration of a disaster or state of emergency by the Governor in response to a public health emergency where the emergency declaration expressly waives this section, defines the mask appropriate for the emergency, and provides for the duration of the waiver"

Although the Governor issued an Executive Order, yesterday, telling people to stay at home, he did not include a declaration about masks.

<comment><USER20> There is a specific exemption for medical use...

[https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter9/secti...](https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter9/section18.2-422/)

<comment><AUTHOR> No, that exemption requires a doctor's affidavit or an explicit disaster waiver from the Governor. iii) can only be read with its a) and b) subparts.

ii) is more useful here.

> engaged in ... other activities and wearing protective masks which are > deemed necessary for the physical safety of the wearer or other persons

<comment><USER20> No, that's your interpretation - not what any court has determined. I would argue that direction from the NIH, CDC, Virginia Department of Health, and/or literally everyone's current doctor constitutes "the advice" needed under the law.

Not a single court on the planet right now would be so idiotic as to side with your interpretation of that law.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not my interpretation. Just read the thing.

Section iv.) says "upon a) or b)". a) says "carrying on his person an affidavit from the physician"; b) says "the declaration of a disaster or state of emergency by the Governor in response to a public health emergency _where the emergency declaration expressly waives this section_ , defines the mask appropriate for the emergency, and provides for the duration of the waiver"

It's quite clear. Section ii.) gives much more wiggle room; you could cite the NIH, CDC, etc. there. Section iv.) says only the Governor's declaration (with very specific requirements the current emergency declaration doesn't give) or an actual physical affidavit you're carrying with you count for its exemption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> American masks are ugly. Other country's masks look stylish.</comment>


Facebook could reboot and we'd mess it up again - <AUTHOR> http://www.hunterwalk.com/2012/01/sorry-mike-facebook-could-reboot-and.html

<comment><USER3> The trouble is this assumption that Facebook as it is now is "messed up". What if it's not messed up? What if, for the simple majority, even the vast majority of people, Facebook is actually just fine? Maybe we _like_ the fact that we see updates from people we don't know as closely. Maybe we _enjoy_ being able to stay in touch with people we maybe weren't that close with in person? What if perhaps we're interested in hearing at least the stuff they post on Facebook? Maybe we establish relationships that couldn't have been established otherwise, because of circumstances, distance, opportunity, whatever? Maybe we're willing to deal with the noise, because we end up with signal we wouldn't have otherwise? Maybe it's just an appeal to a base desire for gossip?

In short, maybe Michael Arrington's (and the author's) aspect of what could make Facebook better is just... Wrong? Maybe the reason Facebook is so successful is because they picked the _right_ path, not the wrong one.

<comment><USER4> The question of "is this assumption even right for most people" is certainly a fair one. My observations which were driven from personal experience as well as various data/user research suggest that at least SOME meaningful percentage of people find utility decay in social network design.

My main point is that just restarting these systems won't solve this problem for those who have it, because we'll rush towards this same race condition. Rather my product suggestions allow for release valves without fundamentally altering the value that a Facebook, G+, Twitter, etc deliver.

<comment><USER5> "...that at least SOME meaningful percentage of people find utility decay in social network design."

Define "Some"? I mean, you can never please 100% of your user base. Ever.

And to be crude, who cares if 5% of the user base doesn't like the service? Then leave. You don't _have_ to be on Facebook. You don't _have_ to be on Twitter. Or do you?

I mean, people want to be popular.

<comment><USER4> my hypothesis is that (a) no one likes "noise" (b) everyone has a different notion of what "noise" is and (c) these systems are designed to amplify noise (but there are ways to create noise dampeners).

Personally I find my direct usage of some mature social networks decreasing for the reasons that Mike and I outlined.

<comment><USER6> But it's also important to know that the tools are there in all service sto decrease the noise and increase the signal.

You can unfriend people. You can unfollow. You can unsubscribe. You can hide/block/remove almost everything you don't like.

I get your point that human nature makes it a lot harder to do these things, but the tools are there. Every time I meet people who complain about some social services I tell them that the services are exactly what you make them, and not the other way around. They are so broad, so general, and so open that you can make your experience exactly as you want it.

And that's important to remember. If Facebook sucks for you, it's mostly because YOU made it suck. :)

<comment><USER7> That doesn't mean we can't look for ways to make the situation better. To cut along the grain of human nature, so to speak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _"we say we love high signal, low noise services but then proceed to bring the noise."_

I wrote about this 2 years ago:

 _"People will jump to the next great thing, somewhere along the facebook- twitter-friendfeed trajectory, and they'll find it works so much better! They'll think it's because of some shiny new feature in the new tool. They'll never realize it's just that they're subscribed to less crap. So they'll start subscribing to crap again, and the cycle will repeat."_

<http://akkartik.name/blog/2009-05-19-21-30-46-soc>

<comment><USER4> right on! thanks for sharing

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _"Imagine Twitter without public follower/following counts..."_

I suspect it wouldn't work -- due in some part to vanity, and in a large part to the well established social-psychological phenomenon of "social proof." As a species, we like things that are popular. Conversely, we are hesitant to sample things, let alone subscribe to them, until they've been validated by others. Ideally, we seek things that have been validated by others of high social status. But in a pinch, validation by a large number of people will do the trick.

We keep social score. And, even if we don't consciously realize or even accept it, we want others to know our own score.

I tend to agree with most of your points, though. As you very eloquently put it, our natural tendency is to accumulate noise -- even if we claim to want signal clarity. Google+'s circles are a great attempt to let us have our cake (noise) and eat it, too (signal). But over time, I imagine that the act of constant social curation and message-filtering will grow more tiresome than it's worth for many users. That's just a hunch, and it's totally unsubstantiated by any data I have, or could ever hope to get my hands on. At least for now.

<comment><USER4> i had heard, and don't know how credible this is, that early on there was discussion at Twitter about hiding follower/following counts from public view. The notion was they were designing a system w constraints (140 characters) and were willing to buck convention. Would love to hear from Jack or Ev on this one day.

<comment><USER9> If such a discussion was had, I'd also be very curious to hear the details of it. I imagine the followers display was carefully considered, and I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for the conversations on reasons why vs. reasons why not.

Part of me thinks, well, maybe they could just split the difference and make the display an opt-outable feature.

But I think the genie is well out of the bottle at this point. We now inhabit a world in which a lot of people make their livings based on Twitter fanbase reach (or, really, on the public display thereof, given that they're not _actually_ capable of engaging every single follower with every single tweet). And I think there'd be an interesting psychological game afoot if various people started opting out of the display. Would others see that as some sort of admission of lower status? Would they see it as somehow antisocial? Personally speaking, I think it would be a nice feature to have, and I wouldn't care about who did and did not display his counts. But if I've learned anything in my life, it's that my preferences are atypical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > When he invented the telephone, Thomas Edison called Watson, not someone he > barely met at the town bar.

I think the author meant Alexander Graham Bell :)

Also, Google Plus added a "Volume Control" feature to control noise. I've got high hopes for it - you can increase or decrease the output from one circle into the main stream. [http://www.simplyzesty.com/google/have-google-cracked- the-bi...](http://www.simplyzesty.com/google/have-google-cracked-the-biggest- problem-in-social-media/)

<comment><USER4> yeah, duh, fixed that now. You should be proud that thousands of other people didn't catch that. Or maybe we should be scared thousands of other people didn't catch that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have quite literally never heard anyone brag even jokingly, or for that matter even mention their friend count on Facebook. The few friend counts I've noticed and remembered, including my own, have all hovered around 150-200. I think his claim that Facebook friend count is a motivating popularity metric like Twitter's follower count is spurious.

<comment><USER4> Really? That's certainly not my experience. I'd be curious to hear from other folks on this thread. I bet your view here is pretty unique.

<comment><USER6> I have about 200 friends, I have met all of them in real life, I occasionally add new people, but I also remove people when I realize I don't care about them and what they do. I care about my friend count, but in the opposite way, I want to keep it low, and meaningful. The same is true for most of my friends. Most of them only add other people they actually know.

As for posting, neither me nor my friends use Facebook for chatting. It's photos and status updates about what we are doing or going to do. It's almost never questions, only statements. Then again, me and my friends are in our mid-thirties, none of us "grew up" with Facebook, none of us used it at university, and the common topics are work and kids and vacations.

I have a number of friends on Facebook that are younger around 20, extended family and the like, and they use it in a completely different way: They add more friends. They never remove friends. They have no critera for friends other than "doesn't dislike", it doesn't matter if they don't know the person well or not.

They also use it a lot more for public chatting. Someone posts a status update, and then two or three people have an unrelated conversation in the comments to that, because... it's an input field and it was there and they know the relevant friends will see it.

And that's just two different ways of using it, I'm sure there are a myriad more and I have absolutely no idea which way is the most common. But it's pretty clear from your post, and from the piece by Arrington that both of you bring your own biases into it. You both think that most other people have the same Facebook experience as you do.

So Arrington goes "Facebook sucks for me, therefore all of Facebook is broken!". You're much, much less egocentric, but still, I wouldn't make the bet that you did that the grandparent post's view was unique. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Hunter's rule: Any communication service which publicly displays a metric serving as a proxy for popularity will cause users to take steps to increase that number._

I'm sorry, but as a "ground rule", this seems just wrong to me.

There are many ways and many reasons to use e.g. Facebook as a communication service that have nothing to do with "being popular". Let me describe just one: I have a pseudonymous Facebook profile which gathers a number of people I have worked and played with before; some of them I know for more than 30 years already. Additions to this group happen, but are rare; these people are special to me, a status which is not for everybody. Each one in there is an important voice in my life, representing their values as they post their daily findings to my feed. Since I'm also all locked down against games and other apps, I have no problems with my signal-to-noise ratio being low.

</comment><comment><USER4> thanks for adding this to hacker news. I wrote it and happy to discuss if folks have comments

<comment><AUTHOR> you're welcome :). I personally miss the early 2006 days of Twitter. Twitter now is a fundamentally different product than what it used to be. Alas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have got _really_ into Path since leaving Facebook. I have been very strict about who I accept and it has given me the best parts of Facebook without all the dross. I am in love with social networking again. You can follow me on twitter here: www.twitter.com/ricburton ;)

</comment><comment><USER14> Isn't this obvious? This is the human ego at play. We all like to imagine we have a lot of friends. To feel important. So we add lots of people, bigger numbers, more people, more contacts etc. It's just human nature, isn't it?

<comment><USER15> I don't care if I have a lot of friends. I actually have actively prevented forming potential friendships. I think you are overgeneralizing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Twitter/Facebook need a "refresh" button that would unfollow/unfriend everyone and let you start over.

<comment><USER4> of all the services, Twitter makes it the easiest to unfollow albeit at the individual level. Try severing a LinkedIn connection w someone - <USER2> challenging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anyone watch that South Park episode with Walmart?</comment>


The dawn of a new Cloudera - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2008/10/15/the-dawn-of-a-new-cloudera/

<comment><USER2> Congrats to my old friend Mike Olson - Hadoop is a beast and anything that makes it easier for startups to scale is good. The stuff Cloudera will do will surely seep into the project as a whole.</comment>


Show HN: My new weekend project - <AUTHOR>

I built a site for people who loves collecting and sharing cute(in Chinese means "可爱", in Japanes means "kawaii"[可愛い]) pictures. You guys can click here(http://cuter.cc) for a glance. Currently, Chinese version only. Any comments and suggestions are welcomed :) <comment><USER2> How is this a startup and not just a website? How will it make you a ton of money?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry..I misused the word "startup", maybe it just a weekend project. Yep, it's not just a website, there's also a mobile app which I'm currently working on it.</comment></comment>


How you clear your HTML5 Canvas matters - <AUTHOR> http://simonsarris.com/blog/346-how-you-clear-your-canvas-matters

<comment><USER2> Ehh, last time I messed with canvas (sometime around February this year) any approach to clearing the entire canvas was too slow. In order to get any decent performance I had to layer multiple canvases on top of each other and keep the dimensions of the last draw operation saved so I'd only have to clear that bit of the canvas. The layering was so that I wouldn't have to bother redrawing things like the background after clearing something on top of it.</comment>


Mt. Gox Resigns Bitcoin Foundation Board Seat - <AUTHOR> https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=462 <comment><USER2> Pardon my naivety, I don't follow much Bitcoin news except for what I read here in passing. What happened to Mt Gox? Having trouble finding unbiased news on the subject

<comment><USER3> MtGox wrote their own Bitcoin wallet software.

MtGox had a bug in the wallet software that caused it to lose track of outgoing Bitcoin transactions.

People exploited that bug to take out more Bitcoin than they had in their MtGox account.

MtGox shut down Bitcoin withdrawals to fix the bug.

MtGox has not fixed the bug three weeks later and a lot of their customers are anxious.

<comment><USER2> So people with money frozen by MtGox are w/o recourse while the funds crash? Yikes...

Kind of reminds me of that online poker company that got in trouble with the law and people were trading "[name of company, I forgot] dollars" for below value in an attempt to recoup some of their funds.

<comment><USER4> Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet were the 3 affected by what is known as "black friday" in the poker community. Poker Stars paid back players relatively quickly so I'm not sure anyone sold any of their frozen assets on that site. For Absolute Poker, the exchange rate began at 50 cents on the dollar and plummeted quickly from there all the way down to 1 cent on the dollar. For Full Tilt, the exchange rate started higher but also eventually went as low as 1 cent on the dollar. 14 months after black friday, Poker Stars bought Full Tilt Poker and has since returned all funds owed to Full Tilt players. Ultimate Bet still has not paid any players back and likely never will.

Fun story: I was a professional online poker player when black friday happened. And I just happened to be in Guatemala, on my honeymoon. Prior to going on my honeymoon, I had experienced the worst downswing in my career and all we had left (about 20k) was now frozen in my Poker Stars account. When we returned home, we didn't have enough to make the next month's mortgage payment. What we did have was about 1k in cash from our wedding gifts. The night after we got back, I took that 1k to the local casino and played in the highest cash game I could buy into. It was high risk but I didn't have time to grind it out at lower stakes. Luckily I went on an amazing heater, ran the 1k up to 10k and that was enough to last us until Poker Stars unfroze my account.

<comment><USER5> "The night after we got back, I took that 1k to the local casino and played in the highest cash game I could buy into. It was high risk but I didn't have time to grind it out at lower stakes. Luckily I went on an amazing heater, ran the 1k up to 10k and that was enough to last us until Poker Stars unfroze my account."

That's a fantastic story my friend. It took some luck but also a lot of guts and self confidence to do that. Glad you managed it.

<comment><USER6> > That's a fantastic story my friend. It took some luck but also a lot of guts > and self confidence to do that. Glad you managed it.

Story is fantastic, but I'm not glad he did it. I would like it much more if he understood that gambling is a zero sum game except for gambling companies, and stopped playing it after learning a lesson.

<comment><USER4> I'm well aware that poker is a zero sum game, at least as far as the exchange of money is concerned. That being said, that doesn't mean that playing professionally provides no value to society. As with any game or sport, there's a certain entertainment value provided to those that play as well as those that watch. Even those players that never make it on tv help to provide the foundation for the ecosystem needed to provide the entertainment on a global level, in the same manner that minor league sporting athletes help support the majors.

All that being said, the entire reason I was devoting time and effort to my side projects was the belief that I could derive more meaning from life doing something other than poker. I was already trying to transition to something new. Black Friday just gave me a giant kick in the ass.

Also, poker is not gambling, at least not the way I play.

<comment><USER6> Well, in that case I can only congratulate you for getting rid of the poker. I'm glad that you had a rational approach and kept kalm that allowed you way out.

And about poker being not gambling, well I don't agree. However smart you play, as much as you count on the statistics, in the end of the day, there's still luck involved. Even if it were only pure skill game, you can't always know skill level of your opponents :)

<comment><USER7> "However smart you play, as much as you count on the statistics, in the end of the day, there's still luck involved."

I guess absolutely everything we do in life is gambling, then :)

<comment><USER8> Not everything I do involves competing with someone else for both my own and their money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Charlie Shrem (of Bitinstant fame) claims that he had a lengthy talk with Mark Karpeles and "good news on the horizon for people who have funds stuck in MtGox". [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1yre42/mt_gox_ceo_r...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1yre42/mt_gox_ceo_resigns_from_bitcoin_foundation/cfn38sq)

<comment><USER9> I think we're in a bad spot when the only BitCoin figure Mark Karpeles is willing to talk to just got arrested himself.

<comment><USER10> If Mt. Gox crashes owing as much money as I think they do, Charlie and Mark will be sharing a cell.

<comment><USER9> I'd be hoping for the safety of a prison cell if I were Karpeles. I'd imagine the security situation is very bad for them right now. It seems like the BTC are there, though, especially if Gox was following even rudimentary security procedures...

BitCoin just got very serious and much less fun. I guess that's what happens when it suddenly accounts for real, actual money and real actual livelihoods. I sincerely hope everyone gets through safely.

I use CoinBase which (seems like it) is slightly more reputable.

Edit: Madoff was much more. Still, this would be significant.

<comment><USER11> _If those BTC are gone, this is either the largest-scale loss of money in history or the largest scale theft of money, dwarfing even Madoff._

12,437,700 bitcoins have been mined, with a market cap today of around $7.4B [1]. Madoff scammed investors to the tune of around $50B [2], so even if MtGox owned every bitcoin ever mined, they would have a bit of catching up to do.

[1] [http://bitcoinwatch.com/](http://bitcoinwatch.com/)

[2] [http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii- in...](http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii- in_rl_1212croesus_inl.html)

<comment><USER12> The final tally of Madoff's scam was $57 billion, but that number is based off the fictional account balances, including both fictional profits and reinvestments of fictional profits.

Apparently about $36 billion was paid in, and $18 billion paid out, and about $10 billion recovered, leaving about $8 billion(!) "missing". All the numbers are still bigger than both BTC and Gox, though.

Although, didn't the US literally lose something like $10 billion in cash in Iraq/Afghanistan?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So are we supposed to conclude from this that we won't be getting our Bitcoin out of Mt Gox?

<comment><USER3> It is anyone's guess. The MtGox developers have been far from transparent about their current roadblocks. The MtGox BTC price will continue to fall the longer this charade continues. The other exchanges will likely rebound once MtGox is out of the press. MtGox has deviated too much to be relevant in the fast pace of Bitcoin trading. No rational consumer is going to trust them going forward.

<comment><USER14> Could this be a plan to drive down the BTC price on MtGox, let the MtGox admins buy out their entire supply at bargain prices and then they can manually transfer their coins out? They might be able to make enough profit there to cover the losses from the hack, depending on how much they lost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone with a lot of knowledge about this have any idea on whether or not Mt. Gox will return? I've got a small amount of BTC in there (so small that it isn't an issue to lose). However, I'd prefer to move it to another exchange than just punt it.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Money? What money?"

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting, the Bitcoin Foundation logo is still visible on the MtGox front page as of 8:43 PM PST on Sunday.

<comment><AUTHOR> He resigned from the board but he will likely remain a member. Those are two distinct things.

<comment><USER18> It's not "He"(Mark) anymore. Article has since been updated, it's MtGox as a whole that resigned.

<comment><USER19> Mt Gox resigned the board seat Karpeles currently holds. Karpeles is still a founding member of the foundation, and Mt Gox is still a gold sponsor of the foundation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Should I move my BTC to a different exchange? Which one would you suggest?

<comment><USER21> Um... the whole point of all this hoopla is that you can't.

<comment><USER20> Yeah... good point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have USD and Bitcoin in Mt. Gox. Will I still be able to withdraw my USD?

<comment><USER23> I tried to withdraw at the start of January. Their site says it should take 4 weeks. It's been almost 2 months and I still haven't gotten it. Not that I'm surprised or anything, but I wouldn't expect to be able to withdraw any time soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Gosh, that doesn't seem like a good sign?

</comment><comment><USER25> every new technology/revolution goes through turmoil, just like BitCoin is going through now. GodSpeed BitCoin!!</comment>


Google Shows How To Scale Apps From Zero To One Million RPS, For $10 - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2013/11/26/google-shows-how-to-scale-apps-from-zero-to-one-million-requests-per-second-for-10/ <comment><USER2> I only skimmed the gist with the instructions for reproducing the test [1], but in that skimming I could not figure out what the request and response were in this simulation. Were these responses 100 bytes, 1k, 10k, 100k? I guess small responses, but I'm not certain.

I know the goal of the test is to demonstrate how capacity can be scaled upward in _very little time_ and with comparatively little effort. And for that this demonstration is impressive!

That said, the requests per second number is not especially impressive given that a modest single server can easily saturate gigabit Ethernet with 100-byte responses (and it's even easier to do so with larger responses) [2]. I am left wondering, does the $10 cost cover the cost of server instances _and_ bandwidth? If so, that is a very good deal. The bandwidth charges for exceeding the capacity of a gigabit Ethernet connection (1M RPS with even the most trivial requests requires more than 1 gigabit) would be substantial with many hosting providers.

[1] [https://gist.github.com/voellm/1370e09f7f394e3be724](https://gist.github.com/voellm/1370e09f7f394e3be724)

[2] [http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r7&hw=i7...](http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r7&hw=i7&test=plaintext)

<comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more. As I (poorly) tried to point out in my earlier off-the- cuff comment, requests-per-second is a meaningless measure without the context of the size of those requests. The Forbes repost and the original google marketing article are both vague on details, and appear to conflate requests- per-second with throughput.

<comment><USER4> Marketing Post.. Ouch :) One of the things I love about working at Google is we in engineering are empowered to share our knowledge. For those wanting the details check out the step-by-step instructions in the Gist ([https://gist.github.com/voellm/1370e09f7f394e3be724](https://gist.github.com/voellm/1370e09f7f394e3be724)).

The goal was to measure the speed of scaling and load balancing vs egress. Bigger egress would not change the load balancing decisions.

Anthony F. Voellm Google Cloud Performance Engineering Manager @p3rfguy

<comment><USER5> I wish there were more posts here on HN where the OP linked items such as yours, but alas, clickbait rules apply.

I think I'm going to play with your script package over the long weekend in our dev cluster - Thanks! And nice work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> $10 for a 10 minute test, okay. A month of 200 US-hosted n1-standard-1 machines would cost 200 * $.115 * 30 (days) * 24 (hours)... over $16,000. That doesn't include load-balancing, bandwidth, or any additional charges there may be. The price shouldn't be mentioned anywhere in the article.

Demand is elastic of course, and if you really want to scale in a cost- effective manner you also need to do auto-scaling. As far as I can tell (I have no direct experience with GAE), it's much easier on AWS. It would also be interesting to see if you can scale your pool of webservers from 1 -> 200 faster on AWS or GCE.

The article does quote @cloudpundit, who hits on the true point of the exercise: _Relevance of GCE LB load test: With AWS ELB, if you expect a big spike load, must contact AWS support to have ELB pre-warmed to handle load._ I would also guess that Amazon is working to improve ELB to behave similarly, especially now that Google's product has less restrictions than theirs.

<comment><USER7> GCE instances are charged in 1 min increments ([https://cloud.google.com/pricing/compute- engine](https://cloud.google.com/pricing/compute-engine)), not 1 hour increments like AWS ([http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/](http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/)).

1 min increment billing enables you to spin up massive Web clusters to handle spikes or Hadoop clusters so big that you can process the entire dataset it a few minutes, while paying less than you would for a smaller AWS cluster that's billed by the hour.

<comment><USER8> It's definitely finer-grained, but there's still a 10-minute minimum per instance: billing is only per-minute above 10 minutes. So if you run a massively parallel 2-minute Hadoop job, you pay num_instances x 10min. Admittedly that's still a win, since AWS would bill you for 6x as much instance time. But it's not a 30x differential as you might guess from the headline "hourly" vs. "per-minute" pricing.

<comment><USER5> A fair point, but the scaling granularity advantage is a powerful cost win nonetheless

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am pretty excited and yet shocked to see what Compute Engine has evolved into. The original Compute Engine was about scaling (as cluster) in scientific experiment and yet this news makes me think Compute Engine is becoming the new App Engine but with full control of the VM (plus the amazing autoscaling feature). I always like to control my own VM because I can do much more with a VM than a sandbox (to me an App Engine is just a sandbox loaded with X framework and X database). I have always wanted to work on Compute Engine :(

This is an interesting marketing stragery. People who wish to launch a VM can choose CE and people who just want a sandbox quickly they can use App Engine? Though I am really skeptical about the future of App Engine if the CE became cheaper. I am sure if that happens, Google will do everything it can to migrate things over to CE. This is probably many years down the road...

I still think CE is really good for computations.

<comment><USER10> App Engine is not just a place to run your code. It has a nice deployment system with the ability to flip between versions instantly. It provides a few great pieces of core infrastructure: the datastore, task queues, and memcache (there are many others, but those are the essentials). The SDK gives you a stand-alone development server for testing locally. If you want to build web apps (or a backend for mobile apps), App Engine is a great way to go.

Compute Engine is for all the other stuff that you can't run on App Engine.

Incidentally, the datastore is now available as a stand-alone service, Google Cloud Datastore: [https://developers.google.com/datastore/](https://developers.google.com/datastore/) This should benefit Compute Engine users.

<comment><USER11> I like App-Engine and now that there are open-source, API compatible alternatives, there is no lock-in to worry about either.

The biggest drawback for App Engine is lack of async support. The only ways to scale are: multiple-threads (slow) or multiple instances (costly).

<comment><USER10> Or you can use Go and get high performance concurrency in a single-threaded instance. The best of both worlds. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Original post [http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.ca/2013/11/compute- engin...](http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.ca/2013/11/compute-engine-load- balancing-hits-1-million-requests-per-second.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> Having beta tested the Google Compute Engine while working at Google, I have only good things to say about it. They've come along way in an extremely short space of time and knowing what they have internally, this is just the beginning. They'll far surpass AWS for performance, ease of use and cost.

<comment><USER14> > They'll far surpass AWS for performance, ease of use and cost.

Most likely. But those aren't the only things developers care about when looking for PAAS.

There is that whole "Platform" aspect. And AWS destroys Google in this respect. It has far more offerings and more importantly it has a very large ecosystem of companies who will be in the same data centre who you can leverage e.g. Iron.io.

<comment><USER15> Don't forget support. I _know_ I can get decent AWS support if I pay Amazon. Google? HAH!

<comment><USER16> We actually have come a long way in Support and now offer affordable paid support options and some very high end packages for mission critical operations. Check out [https://cloud.google.com/support/packages](https://cloud.google.com/support/packages) where we have the details.

-Brian Head of Marketing, Google Cloud Platform

<comment><USER17> I know these are entirely different departments, and likely have little correlation to reality.. but google has a worse track record than microsoft for supporting some of their most popular products (iGoogle, Reader, free apps account levels)... it's hard for me to trust services to be around in the long run (this is probably more of an emotional bias here).

I know that there are api compatible systems out there, and one could roll your own (so to speak), it will get very interesting over time. I'm also curious what happens in the application space for docker.io based cloud offerings in the next year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The only reason I can see for this being this high on the front-page [18 points and only one comment(from a googler)] is the google employee block vote (apparently tech-savvy isn't a prerequisite in the google upvote marketing department):

 _1 million requests per second is 20 times greater than the throughput in last year's Eurovision Song Contest, which served 125 million users in Europe_ No, r/s != Gb/s.*

(Cue the down vote from the google up voters)

<comment><USER18> Have you worked extensively with ELBs? They need pre-warming in advance of significant traffic changes, they can't handle spikes well because they take many minutes to respond to changes in traffic volume, and they use an ever- changing set of IP addresses for your load balancer nodes.

The GCE load balancer has none of these problems, which makes it a huge advantage over AWS and ELBs.

Disclaimer: I'm an engineer at Heroku. We manage dozens of ELBs for ourselves, and thousands of them for our customers.

<comment><USER19> >They need pre-warming in advance of significant traffic changes

Why?

<comment><USER18> Because they consist of a set of EC2 instances, the vertical and horizontal scale of which is determined automatically based on the average traffic profile of each node. Once the traffic has increased enough to warrant a scaling event, it takes minutes for new ELB nodes to come online and go into DNS rotation before they can start serving traffic.

<comment><USER15> It's obnoxious that AWS hasn't developed an API call or web interface option for the ELBs to pre-warm them yourself, vs having to contact AWS support to get the pre-warming done "manually".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I keep checking to see whether or not I can run my own images yet but Google Compute Engine so far supports less things than even Digital Ocean.

What if I don't want to run your version(s) of CentOS/Debian, guys? Hmm? (I hope somebody from there reads this) :)

Still, its a very very interesting offering and something to keep an eye on. I bet nobody here is using it yet because its still early days and the thread devolves into such old classics like "you'll never be able to reach a human at Google" and "they changed up their pricing with Google App Engine that one time and my app was no longer free to run all of a sudden!". Sigh.

I personally think it would be great if you could spin up the same instances on either cloud and load-balance/fail-over as needed/cheapest. Docker makes it doubly exciting.

<comment><USER16> Stay tuned - Getting custom image support and custom kernels so you can run things like Docker is just around the corner.

-Brian (@bgoldy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> AWS has a really interesting feature in their auto-scaling groups, coupled with their ELB (elastic load balancer). You can configure an auto-scaling group with a variable number of instances that ads or removes instances automatically, based on the ELB's measured latency or the number of requests coming in or many other such metrics.

This works out great and results in cost savings, as it can survive spikes, plus during the night the traffic is at most half or even less than the traffic you get during the day. I had a setup that was handling over 30,000 reqs/sec and during the night it kept about 6 h1.medium instances active, while during the day it could go upward to 20 instances, but was usually stable at around 14 instances.

This article mentions ELB, but I don't understand - does Google's Cloud Compute offer something similar? Can one vary the number of instances based on the incoming traffic or other metrics?

<comment><USER22> Google Compute added an ELB equivalent (the "GCLB"), but it doesn't have autoscaling built-in.

To get autoscaling, you can either roll your own — Google explains how here[0] —, or use a multicloud autoscaling solution (disclaimer: I work for such a provider).

[0]: [https://cloud.google.com/resources/articles/auto-scaling- on-...](https://cloud.google.com/resources/articles/auto-scaling-on-the- google-cloud-platform)

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the link. I wonder how well it works. Did you try implementing it?

<comment><USER22> Well, that's what our software does too, so I didn't really have an incentive to do so!

Now, judging from how busy the engineers are here, I'd say this is a bit harder than it seems!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> RPS and $ are not interconvertible units, unless that 1M RPS is financed by the interest on a $10 investment.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is the reason that our site. [http://plexisearch.com](http://plexisearch.com) uses Google App Engine.

Google has allowed us to run "Code" rather than worry about infrastructure. Because it is an "Engine" we don't have to configure much, and the autoscaling is fantastic.

Google Edge Cache means we get Better than CDN performance on static assets.

There are limitation to AppEngine, but because we can also leverage virtual servers we can create a hybrid environments that let us do things AppEngine won't like install C Libraries, or run Windows (we aren't doing that, but we could).

We have been very happy with Google App Engine and since we are running millions of pages a day through our Natural Language Engine it has worked out really well for us.

-Brandon Wirtz CTO Stremor.com

<comment><USER18> AFAICT this article is talking strictly about Google Compute Engine and its GCLB load balancer product, not about App Engine.

<comment><USER24> How do you think App Engine works? AppEngine runs on the same hardware and the same process described as a how to is nearly identical to what is obfuscated and provided to AppEngine users via a GUI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is the original post [http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.ca/2013/11/compute- engin...](http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.ca/2013/11/compute-engine-load- balancing-hits-1-million-requests-per-second.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> The gist describing how to reproduce the test yourself: [https://gist.github.com/voellm/1370e09f7f394e3be724](https://gist.github.com/voellm/1370e09f7f394e3be724)

</comment><comment><USER27> The big thing they're crowing about is because you can spin something like this up quickly on demand in the G cloud.

Most sites aren't remotely close to this artificial traffic pattern (1 packet request, 1 packet response).

It's kinda cool from an L4 load balancing perspective that it's only one fault tolerant IP address. In terms of L4 LB throughput though, a single box with IPVS will happily do 1M pps.

</comment><comment><USER28> BTW, the Gartner analyst (Lydia Leong[1]) who's tweet was quoted is worth following. She tells it like it is, with no bullshit (read some of her stuff about the various OpenStack debacles for example).

[1] [https://twitter.com/cloudpundit](https://twitter.com/cloudpundit)

</comment><comment><USER29> The cake is a lie, they don't teach howto scale yourself. They teach howto use THEIR infrastructure to scale. I mean it's still really useful to know and all, but the headline makes the impression that Google teaches you howto scale your own company's App from Zero to 1Million RPS.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is misleading, $10 is just for the duration of the test. Roughly $58k/mo if $1.33/min.

</comment><comment><USER31> you do need context... a million things a second is not a great metric. these are small numbers compared to a lot of things. e.g. how many pixels your graphics card is pushing right now.</comment>