Should I put number combinations like 1111111 onto my lottery ticket? - <AUTHOR> http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/467575/should-i-put-number-combinations-like-1111111-onto-my-lottery-ticket

<comment><USER2> When I was thirteen or fourteen, my father—who was pretty well-off but played the lotto very regularly—let me fill in one of his tickets for a bit of fun. I, being the precocious young person that I was, entered 1,2,3,4,5,6, reasoning that since the lotto was random, any given combination was equally likely to come up. Pleased with myself and with the laws of mathematics, I showed it to my dad, who immediately gave me a massive bollocking-out for having wasted a ticket on a number that was sure never to come up.

So I can answer the OP: No, you shouldn't, because you'll really piss off your dad.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is actually one of the better ways of illustrating how low the probability of winning is.

When you pick random numbers, you might think that those look like the numbers that are usually drawn, and "almost every time, somebody wins so why not me?" etc. But then imagine that you chose 11111111. The idea that _this_ is the combination that will be drawn is laughable. You couldn't possibly imagine it. It would be on the news, everybody would talk about it. Well, you have those same odds with your random numbers!

<comment><USER4> "The idea that this is the combination that will be drawn is laughable"

It's impossible actually with the lotteries I'm familiar with because no number can be chosen more than one time.

The stat that did it for me was when I heard that I'm far more likely to be murdered than win the lottery

<comment><USER5> I live in Africa, so my odds of winning the lottery isn't too bad...

<comment><USER6> That just makes you more likely to be murdered. You're still going to be "far more likely" to be murdered than to win the lottery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've heard picking a lot of high numbers is a better strategy than picking pseudo-random numbers.

The logic is, sharing the prize greatly hurts the expected value (when N people win with the same numbers, they split the jackpot 1/N). Certain people like to play numbers corresponding to their birthday, anniversary, or other meaningful dates that range from 1 to 31. In the big US lotteries (Mega Millions and Powerball), the numbers range as high as 59, so picking a bunch of numbers in the 40s and 50s greatly reduces the chance of having to share the prize.

Another interesting story I've heard (no source sadly): one time the winning numbers were exactly the same as the "lucky numbers" printed on the back of a fortune cookie. An inordinate number of winners shared the prize, all Chinese food eaters who received the same fortune that week.

<comment><USER8> Picking _some_ high numbers is good, but you have to be careful about picking _all_ high numbers, since many other lottery players have also heard of this strategy. In a 6/46 game, of the 9.3 million combinations, only 5005 consist entirely of numbers higher than 31, while 736,281 are entirely "birthday" numbers. So if for every 150 people who play birthday numbers, there's one person who thinks they're outsmarting everyone and plays all high numbers, they're not actually improving their chances of picking an unpopular number.

<comment><USER9> Ideally you want to pick the set of numbers that's least likely to be shared with other players. However, the data used to derive any algorithm you use to determine that set of numbers will be publicly available.

That makes me wonder what's the best meta-algorithm to use when deciding on algorithms to use. Any good way to improve your number generating process is likely to be used by other people, ipso facto. And even if you try to derive a process that takes that into account, the more powerful your process is, the fewer the number of people it would take to moot your strategy.

And yet some processes--pulling numbers off of a fortune cookie--are genuinely horrible. Which seems like a mind-bendy paradox to me. There's this odd space between using a simple random number generator and using some kind of smart algorithm to do it that seems good. But the very fact that an algorithm exists to choose sone set of numbers seems to negate its value, so it seems almost beyond us to beat a random number generator.

<comment><USER10> I bet choosing randomly is going to come very close to being ideal. The amount of numbers that other people can buy up will be an insignificant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1093277/Identical- lottery...](http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1093277/Identical-lottery- numbers-drawn-twice-in-a-row)

I'm reminded of this incident in bulgaria where the lottery came up with the same numbers two weeks in a row

Notice how EIGHTEEN people had to share the pot (presumably) because they thought they were being clever in picking numbers noone else would pick.

<comment><USER12> My wife picked the previous drawing's numbers once. Once.

I was so damn excited for about 3 minutes until I compared the dates on the lottery site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> People who think all lottery numbers have equal value are mistaken. Division payouts are divided among the number of winners, so combinations that are less frequently used have a higher expected value.

Eg. numbers 1-12 and 1-31 are more often used as people play significant dates, leading to high numbers having higher ev (still negative though).

I remember reading a paper somewhere on this but can't for the life of me source it.

</comment><comment><USER14> It should be noted that for the actual lottery, the advice given is wrong. Because in many real lotteries the first five digits can be in any order, 1 1 1 1 1 would be less likely than, say, 13 23 42 33 2, because, though there is only one way to end up with 1 1 1 1 1, there are 5! == 120 ways to achieve the latter (I am ignoring the "bonus ball").

<comment><USER15> I think that's incorrect. If you secretly label the "1" balls with secondary numbers, do the odds change?

There are still 5 separate "1" balls, so still 120 ways to draw 5 1's in a row.

EDIT: Never mind, I get it. Removing the first "1" reduces the chances of getting the second "1", etc.

<comment><USER16> > EDIT: Never mind, I get it. Removing the first "1" reduces the chances of > getting the second "1", etc.

That is a point, but it's not the point maxjus was making. Two different issues:

First, whether order matters - whether a drawing of "17, 23, 31" is the same as a drawing of "23, 31, 17".

Second, whether balls are replaced - whether you put back the "17" ball after it's been drawn, before you pick the next number.

Assuming balls numbered 0 through 49:

\- If order matters and balls are replaced, then "1, 1, 1" is as likely as "1, 17, 23".

\- If order doesn't matter and balls are replaced, then it depends on how many of each number there are. If there's one of each number, "1, 1, 1" is six times less likely than "1, 17, 23", as there' six different ways to make the latter (since "1, 17, 23" and "23, 17, 1" are the same), but only one to make the former. If there's three balls of each number, they're equally likely.

\- If order matters and balls are not replaced, then it depends on how many balls of each number there are. If there's one of each number, "1, 1, 1" is impossible. With three of each number, "1, 1, 1" is still less likely than "1, 17, 23", as, e.g. for the second number, there's two "1"s but three "17"s. (More specifically, there's six ways to draw "1, 1, 1" (3x2x1), but 27 ways to draw "1, 17, 23" (3x3x3)).

\- If order doesn't matter and balls are not replaced, then it depends on how many balls of each number there are. If there's one of each number, "1, 1, 1" is impossible. If there's three of each number, "1, 1, 1" is way less likely than "1, 17, 23" \- there's six ways to draw "1, 1, 1", but 162 ways to draw "1, 17, 23" (9x6x3).

Edit: posted the above as an answer on stackexchange, since all answered posted so far have silently assumed that order matters and balls are replaced(!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised no answer mentions the Kolmogorov complexity [1]. There's a fascinating link between how a given series seems "probable" to humans and its Kolmogorov complexity.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity)

<comment><USER18> Humans are notoriously bad at generating random numbers. [1] Very random strings are described by very complex programs.

The human mind, taken as an algorithm, might prefer short programs that are fast to execute and require little energy to run.

Vitanyi proved that highly random strings must include repetition and patterns. Very crudely (and because I don't quite get all the maths):

A string-generating program is more random when its output is less predictable. If you don't have to worry about predicting patterns and repetitions, this makes the rest of the program output more predictable. Thus, highly random generators should output patterns and repetitions too.

So, if we take the lottery numbers to be randomly generated (this is important), we must expect patterns like 1111111111 too.

We can approach Kolmogorov complexity (not computable) through compression. Basic Run-Length Encoding (RLE) of 1111111111 gives us (10,1). This is a very short and simple program and it seems that humans prefer such programs over more complex ones.

If we don't want to share the lottery with people who look for patterns in previous draws, we should generate a string, that, when added to the previous draws and compressed produces the longest output.

Let's say the previous two draws were 1111111111 and 22222222222, or compressed with RLE (10,1),(10,2). Humans who will optimize for patterns will produce strings that result in a shorter size. Let's say some humans play the numbers of latest draw (222222222). That will result in a compressed string of all 3 draws: (10,1),(20,2). This has the exact same length as the compressed string of only 2 draws. The previous draws and the prediction share patterns that allow the compressor to produce smaller strings.

Optimizing for maximum complexity would have you pick a draw like "2453160798" (not possible to compress with RLE). A string like "1234567890" also does not compress with RLE, but it easy to spot the simple, short program generating it (n+1..).

What happens when some humans increasingly pick numbers that appear random, but in fact are very short programs or carry cultural relevance (a range starting at _n_th decimal of Pi, validation key of pirated windows XP, dates of birth of my first two children, my lucky 100-digit number).

If our compression algorithms were perfect they would be able to generate the shortest program that describes another, bigger (or equal size) string. But compression is not perfect. Most compression algo's would struggle to compress a range of decimals of pi at n, as something smaller than a completely random number string. There is a simple pattern, but it won't be found in a reasonable time.

Luckily we can use search engine indexes as our compression algorithm! If a string like "12345" has 1 million hits and string "67890" has 1 million hits and both strings together have 500k hits, we can say that these strings often co-occur (probably in the form 1234567890).

If a certain date carries cultural significance (1970-01-01), it would have more hits/results, than a date that carries zero, to little, significance (2641-10-02). If 8 is your lucky number, chances are (Chinese) people local to you, also have picked this as their lucky number.

Then the key to picking a less predictable sequence is to pick a sequence that doesn't appear (a lot) in the search engine index. With a little luck we don't even have to get the hits for previous draws, as a large search engine index is likely to already contain these draws.

So if we want to optimize for not sharing with a large amount of people, and we assume that the lottery numbers are highly random: pick number ranges that do not compress well with the previous draws and pick number ranges that have a low result count in a search engine like Google.

[1] Tasked to pick a random number between 1 and 4, there is a bias to picking 3. When between 1 and 10, there is a bias to picking 7. Why this is? 3 and 7 may appear more special than 6 (2 _3) or 4 (2_ 2). Also the phrasing of picking _between_ 1 and 4 might throw of humans to NOT pick 1 or 4. A randomrange program doesn't care for such human subtleties.

Random passwords are harder to remember for humans (this might be because the "mind program" to generate them is complex and requires more energy). Human passwords often contain dictionary words and commonly used patterns (which are faster and cheaper to regenerate).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I dont play the lotto because the odds are terrible and I dont like the "OMG my life is awful but would be awesome if only I got lucky and hit the jackpot" attitude.

Whenever theres a big draw here I just buy 1 ticket of 123456. I really want it to win one day and watch the idiots come out of the woodworks and call it rigged. You would be surprised how many relatively smart people think that such numbers are more unlikely.

Its also funny to hand 35 cents over at the newsagents while everyone use is dropping at least $5 on the draw

<comment><USER20> _Whenever theres a big draw here I just buy 1 ticket of 123456._

Given that I've heard people repeating this advice for probably at least 15 years, I imagine that 123456 is probably among the most popular combinations played.

<comment><USER19> Its hard to know for sure, my guess is your right but its hard to know without the data.

I suspect that numbers with pattens are more commonly picked and like someone else said the numbers inline with birthdays

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Back in the 1970's, the Mafia ran a numbers racket in NYC (and Chicago and presumably other cities) that was very similar to the "Pick 3" game run by the New York Lottery. That is, you would pick a 3 digit number and if it matched the last three digits of the balance of the U.S. Treasury that day.

To add to the vig, the Mafia would not let you bet on numbers like 100, 111 and such, because they didn't want to have a big payout day. Of course, if any of those numbers came up they wouldn't pay anybody out.

</comment><comment><USER5> Another point to consider is how is the winning number selected. Here the lottery numbers is decided through a powerball mechanism ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerball](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerball)). So given that there is only a fixed amount of numbered balls the winning number is drawn from, this skews the probability of the winning number being 111111 versus another random number.

For example normally, if the numbers chosen are truly random, the odds of 1111111 being the winning number is 1 / 10 000 000.

But lets say in the powerball bin, there is 7 '1' balls, 7 '2' balls and so forth, then the odds that first drawn number will be '1' is 7 / 63\. That ball is then removed from the bin. The odds that second number will be '1' is now 6 / 62 etc.

That brings the odds of 1111111 to 7x6x5x4x3x2x1 / 63x62x61x60x59x58x57 = 2 / 1 000 000 000.

Quite a bit less... The effect will vary depending on how many balls of each number there is in the bin, and how balls are replaced once selected. Some powerball lotteries has a preselection draw which determines which balls are in the final draw, but the same argument is still valid.

</comment><comment><USER22> Since lottery jackpots are traditionally shared among everyone who picked the winning combination, the only skill/logic in picking a number is picking one that you believe is an uncommon choice. That way, should you win, there's less people to share it with. And there probably is statistical evidence to back up the the idea that some numbers are chosen by people more often than others (ie: somehow everyone's lucky number is 7).

</comment><comment><USER23> Take a coin. The winning flip combination will be a somewhat random sequence like:

> heads-tails-heads-tails-tails-heads

Now what are the chances that you're going to flip:

> heads-heads-heads-heads-heads-heads

Is that chance equal to you flipping the winning combination?

And I don't mean for this to happen anywhere between the first and the million'th try, _but the first try_.

Sequences have different entropy values, which means they are not equally random. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_\(information_theory\))

Edit:

Also (but unrelated to the above), can you look at it this way?

There are X amount of same-number sequences (ex: 2222222, 3333333).

There are Y amount of non-same-number sequences (ex: 2449776, 4553219).

Y >> X

If that is true, then getting a same-number sequence is not just as likely as getting a non-same-number sequence because if the lotto draws from a pool of all sequence numbers, there are much much more non-same-number sequences in there.

<comment><USER24> My answer is 'yes', that those two are equal. And that it doesn't matter if the first try is specified -- it is an equal chance for either of those to occur on the first try.

If that is wrong, I'd love to know why. Can someone summarize why entropy would make those sequences unequally random for a fair coin? I guess it's not clear to me why they'd have 'different entropy values'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Of course, 1111111 has as good a chance of winning as any other number, but since most lotteries are parimutuel (i.e. the prize is divided evenly among all winners), it makes sense to try and pick a number that no one else is going to pick.

The Quebec lottery published their most popular numbers a few years ago [1]. They were:

      7-14-21-28-35-42
      1-2-3-4-5-6
      4-8-15-16-23-42 (the numbers from the tv show Lost)

Also, from personal experience, it seems that more people play "birthday" numbers (numbers 1-31) than higher numbers.

And, while I haven't confirmed it, I suspect that in games like Powerball, where winning tickets are determined by two independent sets of balls, people stick with their habit of choosing numbers in numerical order and not repeating numbers, so 4-12-17-24-36 (42) would be a more common pick than 4-12-17-24-36 (24).

[1] [http://lotoquebec.com/loteries/nav/en/useful- information/pop...](http://lotoquebec.com/loteries/nav/en/useful- information/popular-selections/accueil)

<comment><USER10> And yet I bet no winner of a divided prize wishes they had picked a less popular number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Stupid question: the reason he's questioning the equal probability of 1111111 being drawn is because it _seems_ significant. It looks like it is less likely to be drawn. But we know it is equally likely.

But forgetting the actual fair drawing process and just focussing on randomly choosing a number from a set of numbers...if you divide a set of numbers into significant-looking and insignificant-looking, would it not be true to say that a random choice is more likely to look insignificant and random, than significant and ordered, purely because there are far more insignificant looking ones?

(I'm not saying that 11111111 isn't equally likely to be drawn in a lotto here)

</comment><comment><USER26> I remember reading several years ago that in the UK lottery 10000 people every week play 123456. And thus would be very disappointed at their £500 payout.

</comment><comment><USER27> Yes you can use 1111111. The chance that you win is 50%, you do or you don't.

Now the 50% is ofcourse a little joke. But there is some truth in it. Randomness doesn't mean the numbers change all the time. The probability that the numbers change is ofcourse very very high. But random doesn't equal change.

</comment><comment><USER28> No; you shouldn't put any numbers onto your lottery ticket because you shouldn't have a lottery ticket.

</comment><comment><USER29> For me, the easiest way to visualise that you have equal probability between the two sets of numbers is to simply visualise the balls, but without the numbers. Now, what are the odds of drawing blank set of balls A. Then, what are the odds of drawing blank set of balls B.

</comment><comment><USER30> This needs to be clarified, because there are some games that play out of a single bin for all numbers and some games that play out of separate bins for each number. In the case of a single bin, a series like 111111111 is less likely to appear than a series like 123456789. The reason is that there are a finite number of balls in the bin. If there 9 count of each number of ball, then the probability of each ball i (from 0 to 8) coming up X in turn is (9 - i) : (81 - i), whereas any other number, in its turn, would be 9 : (81 - i).

<comment><USER31> Which lotteries use single bin? That seems to have a non-uniform distribution. All of the ones I know use one bin per digit.

<comment><USER32> Pretty sure that the major lotteries in Australia are single bin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Has anyone ever analyzed the distribution of past lottery numbers for randomness?

<comment><USER34> On the Texas lottery site they list counts of how often every number is picked. It wouldn't surprise me if other state lotteries were similar.

<comment><USER33> Correct, you are.

[http://txlottery.org/export/sites/lottery/Games/Lotto_Texas/...](http://txlottery.org/export/sites/lottery/Games/Lotto_Texas/Winning_Numbers/lottotexas.csv)

<comment><USER35> there is a sudden drop in frequency of numbers above 48

<comment><USER34> Numbers above 48 were added after the program had run for a few years. I am not sure if they changed providers or just the program but they went from a straight pick 6 to a powerball setup with a different number range. It is easy to see they didn't reset the stats when they made the change because the "mega ball" count is much lower than the regular number count.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Make. Publish. Share. 3 Minute Screencasts. - <AUTHOR> https://quickcast.io/

<comment><USER2> I don't understand how any screencast company can not provide a screencast demo of their app as the main feature on their homescreen.

They've buried theirs at the bottom of the page [http://quick.as/qlckk](http://quick.as/qlckk), but why is it called mixture? Not to mention, why is this such a bad screencast. I have no idea what this guy is showing me.</comment>


Inflation targeting is 25 years old, but has it worked? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/31559074

<comment><USER2> Economists and central banks debating inflation targeting is a somewhat ridiculous distraction... much of the data they use is based on surveys, adjustments, theoretical models, or comes from inherently biased entities such as banks and governments.

There is no real reason to think that 2% vs. 3% vs. 4% vs. whatever rate is, as a general rule, "correct". It is just an excuse to manipulate interest rates and make policies to benefit parties that thrive on financial engineering.

When asked about if the the US social security system could remain solvent, Alan Greenspan pointed out that they can always create as much money as needed to meet the nominal obligations of the system; however without the production of real goods and services, the details of legal financing are irrelevant.

Economic growth only comes from real labor, resources, goods, and service - not from finance.

</comment><comment><USER3> What does "it works" mean? Most of the criticisms quoted are that inflation targeting is providing insufficient stimulus. But is this a problem of inflation targeting per se or inflation targets that are too low (i.e., 2% or lower). Compare the experience of Australia, which has IIRC an inflation target of 3% and a really astonishing history of economic growth.

</comment><comment><USER4> Inflation targeting, it appears, is a failing experiment. Unfortunately monetary policy is far too slow to see it yet.

The concept of a positive inflation rate is a noble one, but unachievable. This is because, imho, it is just a high level way to reach for what is actually an unattainable goal, which is control over spending habits.

On the outset, a policy maker realizes a 'simple solution' is to increase spending when a recession or pullback arises. If they can force everyone to spend, then recessions obviously cannot happen. On its face, we all can see immediately that this can't work; if you reach into peoples' pockets and force their money on the table there will be knock off effects on other discretionary spending habits; besides that it is politically distasteful as well.

So some bright policy maker realized, well, if we can't force them to do it, how about we apply more carrot and less stick instead. Then we can achieve the impossible without the use of force. This creates a false environment where people feel they have control, but really they are doing just what policy makers asked. It can be done through inflation targeting.

Viewed through this lens, the rest of what happened should begin to come clear. It reached the desired goal immediately, and the unattainable was suddenly possible! That is until the knock off effects are piled so high and so deep that the whole thing craters, only now it is much worse.

It is a bit like forest fires. At first blush it is obvious to anyone that the fires cause the damage. Stop the fires, and stop the damage. So we tried this for years with Smokey the Bear, fire lines, and other measures with success. Eventually fires became less frequent, but highly destructive events. After years passed someone realized that controlled burns were probably a smarter idea. At some point it should become clear that it is probably not necessary due to the considerable expense and effort to create controlled burns. Maybe we should just let them unfold naturally, with minimal interference where needed, and just move people and property away from the areas of danger.

Just like in the case of forest fires, inflationary targets won't be recognized as the menace they are until we are all forced to suffer from it. Then, and only then, politicians will feel forced to move.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" \- Upton Sinclair

</comment><comment><USER5> Inflation is wealth transfer from deposit holders to the state. It is, in other words, a stealth tax.

I think people accept inflation because they don't understand Economics.

Moving to my commentary of this article, it is basically a puff piece that seemingly educates but really doesn't.

Don't waste your time.

As bcg1 points out, the figures are bogus anyway and are constructed to conform to whatever story they want to tell at the time.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why do people seem to think that central bankers are beyond self interest? Even more so, given their great power.

</comment><comment><USER7> Dunno why the original is 404'd Google cache still has it.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:G653i10...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:G653i10OAl8J:www.bbc.com/news/31559074)

</comment><comment><USER8> 404?</comment>


iFixit App Pulled from Apple's Store - <AUTHOR> http://ifixit.org/blog/7401/ifixit-app-pulled/ <comment><USER2> "Not too long ago, we tore down the Apple TV and Siri Remote. The developer unit we disassembled was sent to us by Apple. Evidently, they didn't intend for us to take it apart."</comment>


72 Hours of Pwnage: A Paranoid N00b Goes to Def Con - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/read/72-hours-of-pwnage-a-paranoid-n00b-goes-to-def-con <comment><USER2>
        > "Aren't those the people who break into computers?"
        >
        > "Yes—also phones, cars, airplanes, and human bodies."
        >
        > "I thought that stuff was illegal."

While I think they're truly innovative and inevitable, the advent of "secure CPUs" [1] over the last decade or two will eventually become the norm. And once they do -- lookout, brother. The woman who was having this conversation scoffs at how Def Con can even take place if the subject matter is what she thinks it is. In a short time, the computer attacks which cause embarrassing leaks and expensive losses will add up to legislators deciding something must be done. At that time, the number of us who will still like and prefer to be able to run whatever code on whatever processor we care to will be so small that it won't matter.

[1] by "secure CPUs" I'm referring to ones that support signed bootloaders, facilitating good things like more-difficult-to-pwn-by-attackers and bad things like DRM and limiting code to proprietary walled garden app stores.

<comment><USER3> The trouble with "secure CPUs" is that they really only secure the boot process. It is then up to the OS (as usual) to secure itself which is where most failures of security occur anyway.

Consider all the phone "OSes" (aka ROMs) you can install on phones with locked boot loaders that just replace a few binaries/files here and there in an existing OS to change how it works/feels. The maker of said ROMs may not have the ability to replace the kernel but any vulnerability in said kernel will allow them to replace everything else which is precisely where userland security lives.

So the hardware may be "secure" from the perspective of the manufacturer but not from the perspective of the user. They can still be pwned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He should have gone to BlackHat if he wanted to see anything really interesting. Def Con is mostly a big party with life style talks and people talking about old stuff.

Thats not to say there isn't neat stuff to do at Def Con (I've seen plenty of neat talks) but its mostly a big party. There's nothing really scary going on there.

<comment><USER5> It sounds weird that they're selling key-logging sticks for $50 and spoofing routers for $100 at a convention where you'd think everyone can build that stuff by themselves for a much lower price.

Just to add to your point, I suppose.

<comment><USER6> Even if you value your time as worthless then maybe you could build a hardware key logger for less than $50 in parts but I really doubt it.

<comment><USER3> There's no need to "build" anything for this purpose. Just buy a general- purpose microcontroller like this:

[http://www.freetronics.com.au/products/leostick](http://www.freetronics.com.au/products/leostick)

...and stick it inside a generic keyboard (which has plenty of room).

I always thought that the fact that big corporations hand out _the same_ keyboard to everyone _enables_ these sorts of attacks. Any would-be spy could just make a handful of hardware key-logging generic HP and Dell keyboards and easily swap out any given keyboard at any given big company without having to even think.

I never use my employer's provided mouse/keyboard combo. Mostly because they're always absolute crap but also because I want to give any potential attackers a hard time. I can only imagine the look on some attacker's face when they show up at my desk and see custom hardware everywhere =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> TL;DR: author did some gambling in casinos and got drunk in strip clubs, barely attended any talks because he doesn't understand the jargon, almost got pwnd by connecting to the wrong WiFi.

Not really worth the time to read.

<comment><USER8> Things like this make me wonder if paid writers for (in this case) Motherboard ever know what the fuck they're talking about.

As an active DEF CON attendee and seeing the press coverage over the years, I can start to "see the matrix" of how to lazily assemble a news story. He even links to the Hacker Manifesto FFS. I thought VICE was aiming higher than this kind of trash.

It makes me distrust reporters. Do they just turn off the "I'm a noob" angle, assume the standard authoritative tone they always use and cover other topics with just as flimsy of an understanding?

<comment><USER9> >Do they just turn off the "I'm a noob" angle, assume the standard authoritative tone they always use and cover other topics with just as flimsy of an understanding?

Yes. See [Murray] Gell-Mann Amnesia:

"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

― Michael Crichton

[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the- ge...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann- amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you)

<comment><USER10> Rather ironically, you can get the same effect reading Michael Crichton ;-)

<comment><USER11> At least it's _supposed_ to be fiction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There ought to be a way, at the OS level, to configure a machine so no network traffic goes in or out over an unsecured link except for the VPN application's traffic.

Then, if you configure secure links to be WPA at work, WPA at home, and your VPN, there should be little risk to joining an open network to bring up a VPN.

<comment><USER13> You can do that with the routing table.

<comment><USER14> Interesting - links/details?

<comment><USER15> This is a must read if you're interested in non-standard Linux networking: [http://lartc.org/lartc.html](http://lartc.org/lartc.html)

Look for "Split access", it's pretty similar to what you're talking about. Basically you'd just send all your traffic on your default routes table to 127.0.0.1 (nowhere), and all the traffic on your VPN routes table to the VPN. That way when the VPN isn't active all your traffic gets blackhole'd, when your VPN is active it'll all get sent over the encrypted tunnel though.

<comment><USER14> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you can't afford Def Con or can't be arsed then [https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec](https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec) is fun.

</comment><comment><USER17> Vegas smells like cigarettes and garbage. Skip the long lines and absurd Vegas expenses and watch the talks from YouTube.

<comment> TD-Linux Or still suffer Vegas, but do all of the contests at DEF CON instead of the talks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Venture there with just one piece of non-hackable soft and hardware - a key generator that renews its key every h. If you are the only holder and perciver of the key after the next hour while this laptop stays on the internet -the money on a anonymous account is yours. Else The money returns into the jackpot.

In greed we thrust.

</comment><comment><USER19> I can't find anywhere in the article that says those photos were taken with permission.

I was under the impression that photographs were not allowed.

</comment><comment><USER20> I see Defcon doesn't have quite as stringent a media policy as HOPE, which booted Vice in response to blatant violation of the signed-consent requirement.

</comment><comment><USER21> First I've heard of demonsaw. I can't tell from quickly perusing the website. Is it open source? Has anyone tried it?

</comment><comment><USER22> Really boring article</comment>


Beyond Flat - <AUTHOR> http://jackg.org/beyond-flat

<comment><USER2> Flat is poor design, the fad of the moment, and will hopefully be gone in short order. If anything, Flat as a design trend is elitist: it creates "secret knowledge" of how to operate a visually unhelpful interface, enabling "those who know" to help those confused by fucking awful design.

<comment><USER3> I agree with your point. Not sure why the down vote, so I'll add to your thought stream…

I dislike Flat design because it removes visual affordances that help novice users navigate a new interface. I loathe Google Maps on iOS because it is unclear to me that certain icons act as both buttons and draggable inputs. I've been casually using the app since its release, and I continue to be frustrated by it today.

While the original iOS design provided visual embellishments that served two purposes. First, textures provide familiar context giving new users a sense of immediate understanding. Second, basic features were obvious to intuit. It was clear what was a button and what was interface chrome. The same cannot be said with iOS7. Yes, it's easy to learn that colorized text is a button. But, it must be learned, and is easy to miss when quickly scanning the interface.

For these reasons I believe the parent's points are valid. I do not however want to abandon flat design, but personally hope that we find a balance between styles rather than adhere to flat design orthodoxy.

<comment><USER4> I've heard a lot of complaints against flat mentioning novice users specifically and I have 2 things to say to that in regards to iOS7:

1) It's a tool people use daily that they'll get used to quickly, I don't mind if new users have a slightly higher learning curve (in theory, I don't concede that it's actually the case here).

2) Anecdotally it seems to not be difficult to figure out. My 3y/o has had no additional trouble navigating my iphone/ipad since I upgraded to iOS7. Neither has my wife or my 4y/o.

<comment><USER3> The key point is flat tends to remove visual affordances. E.g. The iOS6 video player has a bright blue 'done' button. A quick visual scan finds that button immediately. iOS7 foregoes the button for just the text, so now it looks like every other UI control, requiring the user to now read instead of scan. Yes, it's small, but I've noticed that since using the iOS 7 betas I feel a little less connected to my phone for lots of small reasons like this.

Regarding your second point, it is still quite easy to figure things out. But, I'd contend that it is harder than before. I just wish we could have a balance between extreme skeumorphism and flat designs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great article, though mis-titled.

A more appropriate title might be something like, "iOS vs Android native app design, similarities & differences".

</comment><comment><USER6> This failed to go beyond Flat UI concepts, it merely compared iOS and Android guidelines. It's more of a "contemporary Flat UI design".

When viewed that way, it actually is a good article.

<comment><USER7> I was expecting something more along the lines of this post that I wrote a few months ago: [http://interuserface.net/2013/05/flat-is-not-the-opposite- of...](http://interuserface.net/2013/05/flat-is-not-the-opposite-of- skeuomorphic/) One of my draft titles for it was "moving beyond flat and skeuomorphic."

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I smiled looking at first screen-shot of "overskeumorphic" iOS 6 which shows both flat-designed and double skeumorphic power level indicator (;

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're going to discuss flat UI and compare the major platforms, omitting WP8 is absurd. WP7 jumped straight into the deep end of modern flat design, and WP8 continued the trend - some of the new iOS screens look like palette- swaps of Windows Phone.

<comment><USER10> How is omitting WP8 in an article like this "absurd"? The author shares what he learned from designing for the most popular platforms. WP8 isn't among them. I prefer having a well researched article where the author obviously deeply analyzed the nuances instead of some random collection of differences someone found comparing screenshots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good comparison, but I found the point about the back button being needless and confusing a bit weird. Using Android as my primary mobile OS, I feel like someone's cut off a thumb whenever I use iOS devices. The back button, to me, is fairly critical.

<comment><USER12> The point about the back button was just weird. It's a button, which is for going "back". In literally every app with multiple screens this is a fairly obvious concept, but on Android you have the benefit of not having to allocate screen real estate to it, and having the button conveniently thumb-reachable.

<comment><USER13> I have only used Android as my primary phone. But, I am still confounded by the back button. For example, I am using twitter and get a notification ( from say Facebook ) and jump in to the app from the notification drawer. I see the photo, like it and want to go back to the twitter app. I hit back expecting to go to Twitter but it takes me to the facebook feed. This is not "wrong" but seems messy.

I wish that Android makes it more clear to app makers what the back button should/can do, and then make them adopt a similar behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Skeuomorphism used to be a huge red line that divided iOS and Android design_

Not true. The original Android design was not flat. It's WP7 that introduced flat design; and Android basically copied it.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure how the passage you quoted is in disagreement with your comment.

Sure, WP7 was the first major phone operating system to go flat. However, that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that a major design difference between iOS and Android in the last year or two has been that Android is 'flat' and iOS is not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This site went out of its way to give me a bad experience on mobile (bad enough that I didn't finish reading the article): the page I received on Android/Chrome was so narrow that I couldn't unzoom enough to fit what I consider a reasonable amount of text on the screen.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why does this obnoxious website hide my scroll bar? I've absolutely no idea how long the article is without it.

<comment><USER18> I'm seeing it as a very faint gray outline. My guess is that the svbtle theme is using the shadow DOM to customize scrollbar appearance (couldn't find where he's doing it in a cursory search of the applied styles though). Check out Chris Coyier's article on the subject here: [http://css-tricks.com/custom- scrollbars-in-webkit/](http://css-tricks.com/custom-scrollbars-in-webkit/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Minor point. I think the article is incorrect regarding long press being absent on iOS. I think it's been available for some time as UILongPressGestureRecognizer.

</comment><comment><USER20> Interesting. I'd also be curious to see a post that only compares iOS 6 against iOS 7.</comment>


Health-records software pushed opioids to doctors in secret deal with drugmaker - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-29/health-records-company-pushed-opioids-to-doctors-in-secret-deal <comment><USER3> _[when opening a patients records] a pop-up would appear, asking about a patient's level of pain. Then, a drop-down menu would list treatments ranging from a referral to a pain specialist to a prescription for an opioid painkiller.

Click a button, and the program would create a treatment plan. From 2016 to spring 2019, the alert went off about 230 million times.

The tool existed thanks to a secret deal. Its maker, a software company called Practice Fusion, was paid by a major opioid manufacturer to design it in an effort to boost prescriptions for addictive pain pills ...

Its existence was revealed this week thanks to a government investigation._

Holy shit

<comment><USER4> People are going to go to prison for this, right?

Or has all white crime been made legal in America? Because I can't tell anymore.

<comment><USER5>
      Or has all white crime been made legal in America?

Can you think of a time when it was significantly more likely for something like this to end up with execs in jail?

<comment><USER6> I can think of a time about 125 years ago that it was significantly more likely that execs of the company would end up with a bullet in their head or their loved ones kidnapped and ransomed for such shenanigans. (Note; This is obviously bad and I'm not advocating for it, but it's more than just "no jail time and you have to sell your third and fourth house to pay the fine".)

<comment><USER7> > _" no jail time and you have to sell your third and fourth house to pay the > fine"_

I might be too cynical, but I half-expect the company to have _insurance_ to cover it.

<comment><USER6> Most insurance policies exclude willful criminal acts perpetrated by the policy owner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A murder trial for an MD who was over-prescribing opioids just started in my city [1].

How are the developers of this software not being criminally charged? It literally seems like the same thing and if nothing else, they made it easier for doctors to potentially kill people and face charges themselves.

1 - [https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10643995-181/murder- trial...](https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10643995-181/murder-trial- against-santa-rosa)

<comment><USER9> I think punishing the engineer would be much less practical than the CEO. There will always be an engineer (perhaps a remote contractor) who will build this.

<comment><USER8> > _I think punishing the engineer would be much less practical than the CEO._

Of course. I wouldn't really ever consider engineers to be to blame - <USER2> could whistleblow of course, but the people that inked the deal and brought it to the engineers should be held responsible.

If we can't hold the tech industry responsible for this, what hope do we have holding them responsible for murkier issues like privacy/data collection?

edit: by "developers" in my parent post, I meant "the EHR company"

<comment><USER10> A fundamental part of engineering accreditation in most countries is ethics and enforcing the fact that you are to blame for the things you build and you are obligated to raise objection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> " The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2005 and became known for its unique model of providing free, ad-supported health-records software to independent doctors."

I thought we have some of the most expensive doctors in the world, why can't we get paid ehr software? The ceo responsible for this mess is __Tom Langan __. Why we are not able to put him in jail for a year is still a mystery. This is pure evil.

</comment><comment><USER12> In retrospect doesn't seem like a very big surprise that they would resort to something like this as Practice Fusion was initially launched as free for a long time, and costed only $99 per month later.

One should be increasingly wary of using free software for crucial applications and sensitive data. Being HIPAA compliant isn't enough.

There's a regulatory body called POC3 ([https://www.poc3.org](https://www.poc3.org)) for communication device (and software) providers who make money from pharmaceutical ads to lay down ethical guidelines. Hopefully a body like this should be formed for partnerships between pharmaceutical companies and EHR (& similar) software products too.

<comment><USER13> I think you mean free as in free beer and software as in software services.

IMO the medical industry could use more free as in freedom software, and that may be an alternative way to prevent things like this.

<comment><USER14> The healthcare industry is VERY conservative. Even the thought of moving EHR hosting to the cloud was a huge effort. Things in this industry are simply done at a different pace. Even digitization of medical records required millions of dollars in federal incentives (the carrot), and even more money at stake for not adopting (the stick).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think this creates an interesting discussion on the part of the designers and programmers. Did they understand that what they were building was going to increase opioid dependence? Did they ask about it?

And, the most interesting question of all: If they found out that was the case did they try to justify building it to themselves in some way?

Full disclaimer: I have built software that I had ethical reservations about myself. I am in no way a saint, I don't claim to know what I would've done in the same situation but I think it's for the benefit of software development to acknowledge that we _do_ make ethical decisions when we build things and that the solution to something as complicated and diverse as ethics is not to just ignore it.

<comment><USER16> I'm a doctor. During medical school and residency, I was taught in good faith that "only as much as necessary" opioid was OK to give and wouldn't create dependence - it was only an "excess" of opioid that would cause a problem. So under the banner of reducing the suffering of our patients, and a mandate to reduce patient-reported pain scores, opioids flowed relatively freely.

Now we know that was a terrible idea with devastating consequences. But we didn't know better and truly thought we were doing right by our patients. It's hard to imagine a programmer without medical training could be blamed.

<comment><USER17> The problem is things have gone to far the other way now. Those with Chronic Pain are now committing suicide (as did my wife) when they are let to suffer.

The CDC itself stated in April of 2019:

"CDC Advises Against Misapplication of the Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain Some policies, practices attributed to the Guideline are inconsistent with its recommendations"

Sadly the medical community is not getting that message due to this mater now becoming political.

[https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/s0424-advises- misapp...](https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/s0424-advises- misapplication-guideline-prescribing-opioids.html)

<comment><USER18> Incredible that this is another comment of yours that manifests the answer I gave you in this topic.

Providers are under the microscope for opioids now, so why risk it, it's not their pain. Medicine is a rough field.

<comment><USER17> We posted at the same time, see my comment above yours about the documentary Pain Warriors.

Dr Mark Ibsen is one of the five stories. He lost everything for helping those with Chronic Pain. Five of his patients killed themselves when he was no longer able to prescribe. The medical board said he was over prescribing, that blood is on the boards hands. The arbitrator/judge in the case said that Mark did not do anything wrong, yet The System destroyed him.

Yes it is a rough field. I see it every single day in advocating for those that the Medical Establishment has forsaken.

There are bad doctors, there are bad people writing medical software as this thread explains. They need dealt with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yet all that happens is they pay a small fine and promise not to do it again. Tell that to all the families who lost people to opioids.

<comment><USER20> According to the "statement of facts" the US Attorney's office released, this action resulted in "tens of thousands" of additional prescriptions of highly addictive extended release opioids. Without a doubt this resulted in lives and families destroyed.

I'm not sure the fine is "small" though (not that any fine could be sufficient), Practice Fusion was acquired last year for "only" $100M.

<comment><USER21> Civil suits are a possibility. Someone bought a whole lot of liability.

<comment><USER22> Class action lawsuits are a money making machine for lawyers but it seems this is the use case they were designed for

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As a non-American I'm also curious about the mass necessity of opioid painkillers to begin with. From what I hear, people are prescribed opioids post surgery etc. which is bonkers to me as a foreigner. I'm a middle aged person and I have never seen anyone using opioid painkillers anywhere in my life. They give stuff to you when you are having surgery, and when you are in hospital's care, but something very extraordinary has to happen here to have access to those medications outside of a hospital setting. In the USA it seems to me like most people are prescribed these painkillers at least once in their life between 1-50 years but here, it is very exceptional and people are doing just fine.

<comment><USER24> In 2007 an oral surgeon gave me a prescription for opioid painkillers after a wisdom tooth extraction, just in case I needed it for pain. The pain wasn't very bad and I never filled the prescription, but in retrospect giving me that prescription in the first place was just crazy!

Another doctor gave my wife an opioid painkiller prescription upon hospital discharge after a normal childbirth, just in case she needed it. Also never filled or used.

In the past few years doctors and pharmacists have become more aware of the risks and now write fewer opioid prescriptions. But for a while it was totally out of control. (I don't think either doctor was using Practice Fusion.)

<comment><USER25> this is to prevent you from going to the ER and getting an enormous bill. sometimes after tooth extraction a condition called "dry socket" can develop and it will cause enormous pain. opioids solve that until your next regular visit to a doctor. otherwise you could feel terrible pain and go to ER in the night with all the consequences

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

<comment><USER24> Thanks but I'm already familiar with the potential complications. The reality is that many people have become addicted following dental procedures.

[https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/12/opioid- prescr...](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/12/opioid- prescriptions-from-dentists-linked-to-youth-addiction-risk.html)

<comment><USER25> if teenagers wanna get wasted, they will find plenty of junk on the streets. That's why kids should have parental oversight. You may fill the prescription with opioids - but you dont have to use them. I went to dentist couple times, and filled the opioid prescription once just in case, but never used them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My wife used to work on an EMR that basically did the opposite of this - if a patient came in, and the dr was going to prescribe opiates, it would pop up a big window saying "Are you sure? There is potential for abuse..." for patients with a history of abuse (not sure what it did for other patients).

</comment><comment><USER27> Story from VTDigger: [https://vtdigger.org/2020/01/27/health-records-firm- agrees-t...](https://vtdigger.org/2020/01/27/health-records-firm-agrees- to-145m-fine-the-largest-ever-in-vermont/)

Spoiler alert: "Pharma Co. X" is Purdue. Shocking! /s

</comment><comment><USER28> If I would know that my MD is using a free, cloud based, ad-supported platform to keep my health records I'd be rather ticked off...

<comment><USER20> The age old adage... If you're not paying for the product, you are the product...

<comment><USER29> I'd think Americans are paying enough for their Healthcare to not be the product but....

<comment><USER30> For the first time, this year my tax document shows how much my employer is paying for my health insurance.

34k/year. Yeah, that's a lot.

<comment><USER27> I hope that also covers your spouse and six kids, with no deductibles and on- demand housecalls from specialists...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This was Practice Fusion, which was a startup in SV/SF.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22165946&ref=hvper.com&...](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22165946&ref=hvper.com&utm_source=hvper.com&utm_medium=website)

</comment><comment><USER32> "Practice Fusion admitted to the scheme with an unnamed opioid maker, though the details of the government case closely match a public research partnership between Practice Fusion and Purdue Pharma Inc., which makes OxyContin."

Color me surprised that it's probably Purdue. Every asset that the Sackler family owns should be seized.

<comment><USER33> We really need to bring back the Stocks/Pillory for the Sacklers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I remember the shock about 10 years ago when I saw that PracticeFusion wholesale-copied the website design of Mint.com and then just customized it to their own business[0]. It struck me as boldly unethical, and 10 years later this opioid popup scheme rings the same.

Perhaps we as an industry should just refuse to participate when the company clearly prioritizes profits over doing the right thing, or in this case killing patients.

[0a] Mint in June 2010: [https://web.archive.org/web/20100628142953/http://www.mint.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20100628142953/http://www.mint.com/)

[0b] PracticeFusion in Feb 2010 (though rendering required Flash at the time): [https://web.archive.org/web/20100228002944/http://www.practi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20100228002944/http://www.practicefusion.com/)

</comment><comment><USER35> I was curious who the people behind Practice Fusion, the company in question, were so I did some digging:

Executive team: [https://web.archive.org/web/20131108114711/http://www.practi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20131108114711/http://www.practicefusion.com/pages/executive_team.html)

Board of directors: [https://web.archive.org/web/20131022222205/http://www.practi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20131022222205/http://www.practicefusion.com/pages/advisory_board.html)

They've removed all this information from their website.

I wonder how these people can sleep at night knowing what kind of crimes against innocent people they've (allegedly) committed.

<comment><USER36> That page looks to have been removed after Allscripts bought them. Part of the deferred prosecution agreement is that PF will have to have information about the prosecution on their website, so I'm looking forward to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Candy Crush adverts in Windows 10 was bad enough, but this is next-level evil.

Time for the software industry to wake up and realize it's not the advertising industry.

<comment><USER38> Most software is streamlined automated bureaucracy. Not in the pejorative sense, but in the "basic infrastructure of a human enterprise" sense.

Seen that way, it's absolutely criminal for software to allow the highest bidder to inject arbitrary bias into this infrastructure. On the other hand, it's absolutely foolish for organizations, which in the paper days hand-grew their infrastructure, to not closely scrutinize the nervous system/potential- trojan-horse that they're taking off the shelf and installing right into their core.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Who'd a thought that drug dealing was so lucrative?

<comment><USER40> There's a certain irony on how the U.S. has spent billions on the war on drugs, yet they still have a gigantic drug dealing problem, right under their nose.

<comment><USER41> Irony is not the word I'd used.

People are using their government influence to rob citizens blind for their self-enrichment. The war on drugs was used to enrich police forces and suppliers while the opioid problem was for the benefit of the pharmacy and insurance companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is one of the reason some things should never be left to the market or be driven by profit. Healthcare is a clear example of that.

</comment><comment><USER43> They put pop-up stealth advertisements, targeted at your doctor, into your electronic medical record, so that he or she would get you addicted to painkillers.

Software developers did this. For drug money. That's just terrible, isn't it? They shouldn't have done that.

But even if the developers had ethical concerns, they had no recourse but to quit, and be replaced by someone else--who might get six months of work in before realizing that they are working for the baddies, and also deciding to either quit or die a little inside.

I would do that job. I would take that money. I don't get a stupidly-inflated Valley salary with bonus RSUs, and I have bills to pay. I don't have a union that can protect me from nonsense. I know it's wrong. I would do it anyway, because I have been screwed by every company I have ever worked for, such that I learned that my ethics don't matter. Money matters.

I want my kids to get an education without student loans, if they want it. I want to drive a car that isn't older than they are. And I want to retire before I die. My ethics would only keep me from that. Apparently, the companies that aren't managed by money-grubbing sociopaths just don't hire where I live. So if you don't want stuff like this to happen, make it actually mean something to have ethical objections, even for people working outside of California.

I build software that has probably contributed in a material way to human suffering. For far less money than a Silicon Valley developer might get paid to make a mobile app for on-demand dog-walking. Everyone in my building does it. Everyone in the building across the street does it. Companies that don't hurt people as part of their business model aren't hiring here. People that have a problem with it--or at least those who can't hide that they do--don't get the jobs.

So if you are currently on a high horse, I hope you enjoy the view from up there. You haven't yet used your influence to help other workers--those with nigh-nonexistent power as an individual to influence the corporate employers that reluctantly hire them, and then reserve the right to fire at any time for any reason, or no reason.

<comment><USER44> >But even if the developers had ethical concerns, they had no recourse but to quit, and be replaced by someone else

I'm not saying that everyone who touched the software should be indicted, but there were options beyond quitting. They could've told the customers, the news outlets, or the government.

Of course, when you're surrounded by people doing the same thing and nobody else is speaking up, it's not unreasonable to think you're the only one who sees it as shady.

<comment><USER45> Whistleblowing is likely worse than quitting.

<comment><USER46> Yes, by whistleblowing they would have gone from unemployed developers to unemployed developers in prison. FBI targets security researchers with no business connection to health software companies. [0] How much worse would it be for _ex-employees_?

[0] [https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/justin-shafer-fbi- raid/](https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/justin-shafer-fbi-raid/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I believe opioid addiction is not well understood among general practitioners. Here in the UK, they accept as common sense that your patient won't get addicted if they're taking opioids for pain. Similarly for ADHD, when I was started on meds my psychiatrist reassured there was no risk of addiction because I had ADHD. In practice, whenever I spend more than 3 days without them I get terrible headaches.

</comment><comment><USER48> [http://archive.md/5HYTs](http://archive.md/5HYTs)

</comment><comment><USER49> [https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/evt5vz/electron...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/evt5vz/electronic_patient_records_systems_used_by)

</comment><comment><USER50> Wow, less than 50 years of internet and already people are designing software to manipulate doctors into recommending opioids. Just think what might happen with younger peoples.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'll definitely put that on my list of arguments against proprietary software (although I'm aware that's not the primary issue).

</comment><comment><USER52> Enough people have pointed to the problems of for-profit healthcare and drug markets in the comments but I'd also want to stress that this is also an issue of privacy. These patient informations should never have made it through so many hands and there should be no pop-up ads in a doctors record file.

Before anyone complains about burdensome regulations, these are the situations were respecting people's information prevents deaths an family tragedy.

</comment><comment><USER46> _...free, ad-supported health-records software to independent doctors..._

You're not the customer...

</comment><comment><USER53> The people defending these types of actions here make me sick. What the hell.

</comment><comment><USER54> If a doctor is unable to think independently of a pop-up recommendation for a drug, the doctor should have his/her license taken away. This should be the next step in the process for real social justice.

</comment><comment><USER55> doesn't texas still have death penalty? pity it doesn't apply to corporations. both of them deserve it

<comment><USER56> I don't think the crimes technically qualify as a capital crime despite the major and obvious ethical and moral lapses. Even with more blatant and callous examples like "miracle mineral solution" (read: bleach as medicine for internal use) fraudsters don't reach that level. Nor even "knowingly selling possibly tainted products". Not a lawyer but I think it essentially would call for say deliberately adding cyanide to your products to be outright murder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> What horrid business. Embarrassing.

</comment><comment><USER55> surely this is jailable fraud?

</comment><comment><USER58> Another slap on the wrist for corporate malfeasance. And the executives who dream up and sign these deals get away with murder.

</comment><comment><USER18> Designing the tools that providers use to treat patients is exceedingly difficult and filled with moral hazards.

What makes this instance so pernicious is that it was involved in what is now a national crisis, but it's not very different to what a flu vaccination manufacturer could do, and which would raise no eyebrows in the eyes of the public or the government.

Medicine is one of those fields where the discrepancy of what patients think it is and what it actually is is wide enough to cause outrage at every single thing.

<comment><USER59> > Designing the tools that providers use to treat patients is exceedingly > difficult and filled with moral hazards.

I don't doubt that—but I also have a lot of trouble believing that the people who designed _this_ tool didn't know exactly what they were incentivizing. A UI designed with the user's interests in mind simply would not have come out this way.

The degree to which we've normalized the creation of dark patterns is scary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> the market will always gravitate towards products that scale, that's all drugs are. when you become more efficient it is intangible easily replicable things.

I think a quadrant based graph makes this more apparent and can influence public policy

<comment><USER46> Could you flesh this out a bit more? What are the two axes of the quadrant?

<comment><USER60> Liquidity, overhead

Maybe a z-axis for margins

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Profit motive is great for simple products, ones that have few social implications, ones where defects or issues appear quickly. Maybe that used to be the case in medicine. But its not anymore.

</comment><comment><USER62> Remember when physicians said they should be the only ones to give out antibiotics for our safety?

Can we totally kill that excuse for their monopoly?

We trusted the physician cartel for decades and they have made healthcare worse.

<comment><USER17> Fluoroquinolone antibiotics such as Levaquin (no longer manufactured, only generics now [you can not sue the makers of generics in most states]), Cipro etc. should be removed from the market due to their devastating side effects.

My late wife's Journal was part of the 2015 FDA hearing about getting these restricted from doctors giving them out like candy. Alas all we got was yet more "Black Box" warnings that you and the doctors never see.

Karen ultimately killed herself from the Chronic Pain cause by the Levaquin and Cerebrospinal Leaks (CSF Leaks). Her saga is one of the five stories in the upcoming documentary Pain Warriors being released to distribution this spring.

I'm now up to 44 people that have told me that their own CSF Leak started after taking Levaquin, Cipro etc. Something that there is ZERO medical research on. The Leak doctors are aware of this as I spoke about it at their first ever CSF Leak conference.

Someone here will inevitably say "I took Cipro et.al just fine". Many people do take it may times until they have a reaction or they don't associate their new health problems with the delayed reaction months later.

Antibiotics in general are a good thing, however we must never assume they are safe in and of themselves without consequences.

<comment><USER63> _Someone here will inevitably say "I took Cipro et.al just fine"._

A lot of my childhood was spent in hospitals, and I've had a variety of antibiotics over the years. And anesthetics, I've become quite the connoisseur. I'm not allergic to anything, I've never had a reaction of any kind to any drug. Not even allergic to any foods. Bring on the shrimp and peanuts!

I was recently given Cipro. My entire back broke out in a rash. Not a devastating side effect, but after a lifetime of a variety of drugs of all sorts without any but the desired effect, it sure made me go "WTF? You sure this shit's safe?"

<comment><USER17> If you look into their history you find that they are decedents of failed chemotherapy drugs.

No, they are not safe.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mining Bitcoin on an Apple II: A Highly Impractical Guide - <AUTHOR> https://retroconnector.com/mining-bitcoin-on-an-apple-ii-a-highly-impractical-guide/ <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: Mining Bitcoin on a 1MHz 8-bit processor will cost you more than the world's combined economies, and take roughly 256 trillion years.</comment>


Cover your trails - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/97wnt/reddit_exclusive_george_sodini_documents_la/

<comment><AUTHOR> This guy was an apparently-successful programmer and yet every damn account he had was hacked in a matter of hours. Not to sympathize with a murderer, but it's an object lesson in personal security.</comment>


Facebook's Like Buttons Will Soon Track Your Web Browsing to Target Ads - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/541351/facebooks-like-buttons-will-soon-track-your-web-browsing-to-target-ads/ <comment><USER2> Good to know. I use noscript, ublock, and ghostery, but after reading this, I am going to fiddle with application boundary enforcement in noscript.

Unfortunately, while I remain uber paranoid about data collection, I struggle to articulate why. I need a good elevator pitch for privacy.</comment>


We Created the Most Clapped Story on Medium Ever - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Rjdlee/how-we-created-the-most-clapped-story-on-medium-ever-57b9c37c5471 <comment><AUTHOR> We submitted a bug report to Medium last week, but they haven't gotten back to us yet. In the meantime, we've redacted the steps to reproduce the bug.

</comment><comment><USER2> Cool!</comment>


WebChoices: Digital Advertising Alliance's Consumer Choice Tool for Web US - <AUTHOR> http://optout.aboutads.info/?c=2&lang=EN <comment><AUTHOR> I'm torn about the title – this is a tool for opting out of advertising (supposedly? it's linked to by Google in their "why am I seeing this advertisement" pop-up), which is totally not clear given the title of the page.</comment>


Show HN: Morning Cup of Coding – A curated newsletter of programming articles - <AUTHOR> https://www.humanreadablemag.com/morningcupofcoding <comment><USER2> For those interested in such newsletters and curated content, I run [https://discoverdev.io](https://discoverdev.io)

High quality software engineering articles - both newsletter and RSS feed.

Been running it for about an year - curating over 1200+ links! 8-10 links every weekday, newsletter every weekend!

Sorry for the shameless plug! Just thought people who'd like this would also find Discover Dev helpful!

<comment><USER3> I've just subscribed. No shame in my eyes, the more the merrier. Things like this help me keep afloat of what's going on. Thank you for the great resource :)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the encouragement :)

I've tried to make the site as accessible as possible - lightweight, minimalistic, no JS. Served over netlify's CDN.

<comment> purple-again Maybe when you get a free day you could add some screen reader support. Nice tool, thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just read Issue #35 and subscribed - congrats on getting this off the ground. I have some feedback as I run a similar newsletter for long form books and articles over at [https://theconsider.com](https://theconsider.com). The following has come from subscribers and been helpful to me:

\- The paragraph to paragraph format can be a little jarring in teams of reading through. When you move from OpenAI to QT in #35, for instance, there's no clear transition. In my newsletter, I'll use bold titles to break up recommendations

\- Add a time estimation on how long it will take to complete the article / blog post / whatever. When something can be done in < 15 minutes, people generally read on the spot. If longer, people will make time for it if they're interested. Either way, it's helpful to the reader to just let them know how big a time investment something is

\- Add a place for people to e-mail you their favorite coding articles, papers, etc. Some of my most clicked recommendations have come from subscribers

Awesome job again. I'm excited to get this on the daily.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow. Thank you so much! Your project, from the writing to the design, is pretty much what I am working towards. Subscribed!

\- I am fully aware of how jarring my paragraphs transitions are. Adding titles sounds like a good solution.

\- I expect people to subscribe specifically because the linked articles are long, but I can see why time estimates are useful.

\- Already added a form (rather hastily, I will admit).

Thank you for all of this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Latest article has a typo: "program that let's a user". Should be: "program that lets a user".

I think a daily newsletter is too frequent. It'll get harder to maintain as time goes by; when doing something like this people expect consistency.

Not a big fan of the daily programming language section. Based on this list [0] you'll run out of items for it after two year. Better start pumping out new programming languages every day to keep things going!

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing out the typo. Wish I could fix it :/ I'll be more diligent about them in the future.

It's every work day, so five days a week, but your point still stands. I think the daily part is pretty integral to the premise, although I understand your concerns. Currently, and for the foreseeable future, I have the time to invest in this. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I can promise that I will be listening to feedback.

From what I've seen during the time I have been doing this, there's more than enough languages right now to fill at least 5 years, and this is assuming no other languages are being developed during this time. Also, I have a list of my own which contains languages that are not in the link you provided but have a Wikipedia page (Befunge for example), so that list is definitely not exhaustive. And finally, two years is a pretty good runtime :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> And if instead of email I was interested in just a RSS feed? An email is expensive to me. It seeks me out instead of the other way around.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here you go: [https://us18.campaign- archive.com/feed?u=ab0f46cf302c0ed836e...](https://us18.campaign- archive.com/feed?u=ab0f46cf302c0ed836e0bf0ad&id=56b5f64c5f)

<comment><USER7> Now that's awesome! Thanks for the speedy customer service!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The name remind me of Chris Alcock's [The Morning Brew]([http://blog.cwa.me.uk](http://blog.cwa.me.uk)), a .NET orientated daily roundup of articles that I've followed for years now. I recommend it.

<comment><USER9> I love the morning brew but it has gone down in quality over the years. There used to be a short summary of every link but these days it is just a list of links.

I still check it every day but I find that I click through less and less of the links.

You gotta respect Chris though for keeping it going for over 11 years now!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can I just get a permalink I can bookmark to the latest article?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.humanreadablemag.com/morningcupofcoding/latest](https://www.humanreadablemag.com/morningcupofcoding/latest)

This should do the trick. For now I will be manually updating this until I create an automated workflow. I do not guarantee that this will work forever (the update process is rather clunky right now).

I am open to suggestions.

<comment><USER11> If you're able to copy the archives across to your own site, it might be worth it for the SEO benefits (and you can put the signup form at the top of each page). But your focus on automated workflow seems very wise.

One suggestion - you might want to add an actual unsubscribe link on the site. I once had somebody subscribe to one of my lists, who then wanted to unsubscribe before receiving the first email and was quite upset that they couldn't find an unsubscribe link on the site itself.

Love your logo and how clean everything is!

<comment><AUTHOR> I want to keep this primarily as a newsletter because it allows me to speak directly to my readers in many different ways. While I will have an RSS link and post the emails on the website, those are there mostly to give an idea of the newsletter rather than the preferred way of reading it.

Thanks for the unsubscribe link suggestion. I went ahead and added it.

I'm glad you liked it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> would this not be better every other day or 3rd day? Every day is just too much and maintaining quality is not sustainable unless there is a team working full time on this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Technically it's every work day, so five days a week, but I understand what you mean. I think only time will tell. I can promise to listen to feedback and if daily doesn't work I'm willing to switch it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am bring sincere with this question: what does this offer that HN (which is somewhat manually curated itself) or existing HN newsletters don't already?

<comment><AUTHOR> The newsletter focuses strictly on content with the following attributes:

      - Recent, no more than a week old
      - Strictly in an article format, no videos or other media formats
      - Technical deep dives, not short tutorial-like content
      - Educational, something new or interesting

It is designed to be read once every morning before work.

HN has no such restrictions. I do not think they are mutually exclusive.

(edit: formatting)

<comment><USER14> > It is designed to be read once every morning before work.

Is that particularly important? Those of us that aren't West of the Atlantic will probably read it at lunchtime or later.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's what I strive for in terms of time of publish, selection of content, aesthetics, etc, etc. I understand that realistically not everybody will receive it in the morning. I think reading at lunchtime is a good time as well :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dude, please, don't use JavaScript to load content. With uMatrix enabled your site is dead on water.

<comment><USER16> So what? That's something you and I chose to use. Self-inflicted pain that surely you're used to by now?

Enable Squarespace's CDN and move on. Don't be helpless nor expect the world to bend to your whims.

<comment><USER17> Or better yet add Decentraleyes for local CDN emulation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks interesting.

Does this site really need JavaScript? It's some text and a form. It's a completely blank page in Brave.

<comment><USER19> I was going to say something similar. I have JS disabled and auto reader mode enabled, and get a blank page.

On average, I've found news sites render a bit better with JavaScript off (on iOS 11.x), due to misguided attempts to improve on default browser behavior, and this site is clearly in the minority on that front. I also wonder what serving an empty page with a pile of JavaScript does for SEO, but I have no practical experience with that.</comment></comment>


Shit-Umbrella (Managementterm) - <AUTHOR> https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Shit%20Umbrella <comment><USER2> For more me that is a real software management "bad smell" that your boss thinks their job is to isolate you from "bullshit".

If that's your goal (as opposed to "facilitating communication" or something expressed positively) you are as likely to make things worse rather than better.</comment>


AsteroidOS: A Free and Open-Source Smartwatch Platform - <AUTHOR> http://asteroidos.org/ <comment><USER2> This sounds awesome. Looking forward to an excuse to buy a smartwatch now.</comment>


Automatically configure your MX Records for Google Apps on Godaddy - <AUTHOR> https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/google/gmail_login.asp <comment><USER2> i have this bookmarked and find it very very useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, definitely. I wish they'd publicize it more! It'd also be nice to have a similar tool for adding the default CNAMES for mail, calendar, docs, etc.</comment></comment>


Save the Honeybee, Sterilize the Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/save-the-honeybee-sterilize-the-earth-pollination-industrial-complex-95566

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion (23 days ago) : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8880812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8880812)</comment>


Why do opensource developers and communities prefer IRC? - <AUTHOR> What do you like about it? What do you hate about it? <comment><USER2> I think also because it's not run by companies who wants profit from their users. There is no risk of someone spamming ads, no risk of someone suddenly changing it. People are not the product.

</comment><comment><USER3> Like: it's just simple text. Lots of freedom in clients. no notifications/unread counters/... unless you want them. I can easily join yet another channel without any extra software or having to switch accounts. No visual noise.

Dislike: kind of difficult to bring newcomers into. Requires work to really make work for bigger groups.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the world really needs a good IRC For N00bs document or five.</comment></comment>