Experimental Drug Likely Saved Ebola Patients - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/ <comment><USER2> It's a Monoclonal antibody - those are some of the most expensive drugs there are (i.e. hard to make in bulk). Add to that how difficult it is to administer (keep frozen, thaw slowly).

We (appear to) have a way to stop the epidemic, yet we can't actually do it.

<comment><USER3> I think we can all rest easy knowing that the ultra wealthy are safe.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, the ultra wealthy were already safe. It's pretty easy to avoid sick people (particularly sick people spewing blood) when you can just hang out on your island or on a large estate.

<comment><USER5> Or any estate, or literally anywhere that isn't Africa...

<comment><USER6> Or any room that lacks someone currently dying of Ebola or recently dead from Ebola. I'm pretty sure the only victims are caregivers and people who deal with the dead - it's not easy to catch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While I understand that giving people experimental drugs is extraordinarily dangerous, it still saddens me that, in all likelihood, these guys only got the rules bent because they were doctors. Anybody else would likely not have had the option.

<comment><USER8> Doctors risk their lives. If and when they get ill during their work we should spare absolutely no expense to get them well again.

Also, if I were a doctor in a situation like that it would be good to know that my back is covered in case I do get ill. It would substantially increase the likelihood of me continuing to risk my life. If I saw other doctors around me being abandoned if they got ill then I might have second thoughts about staying in that line of work.

<comment><USER7> To be clear: I think it's _great_ that we went out of our way to get those doctors back to the US for treatment. If it would be resource-prohibitive to help everyone, I think it's important to help the helpers first, and we owe that to them.

But the issue with experimental drugs is not one of resource constraint. We _could_ give them to anybody who asks. It's not that we gave them to the doctors because they are more deserving, but rather because they are insiders to the system and thus can get strings pulled and rules bent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For anyone interested, here is a good article on the science behind the drug: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/08/05/ebola- secr...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/08/05/ebola-secret-serum- small-biopharma-the-army-and-big-tobacco/)

The antibodies are produced in tobacco plants on a farm owned by RJ Reynolds Tobacco.

<comment><USER10> > "This same tobacco species is one also used by Medicago USA for development > of a pandemic influenza virus."

I hope the above paragraph from the Forbes article was a typo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If the choice was between certain death and an experimental drug that might or might not work, I'd certainly choose the latter no matter how unsafe it could be.

<comment><USER12> Right now, the lethality of this outbreak of Ebola is around 60%, so an infection is definitely not certain death, particularly with the supportive care possible in the U.S.'s best hospitals.

When you've already dedicated yourself by traveling across the world to help people fight a highly-contagious disease, it makes sense that you'd be first in line to test a serum (which, while experimental, uses a method that has had great success in the past).

<comment><USER13> I'll just mention that although many mAbs have been tremendously successful in controlling various diseases (and being a staple of many lymphoma treatments used currently) there are indeed very good reasons for caution, see e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGN1412#Clinical_trials](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGN1412#Clinical_trials)

In this case this was a phase I trial. For those unfamiliar with trial design, phase I is not meant to assess the efficacy of the drug but just its safety in humans. It was provided at 1/500th of the maximum safe dose determined in macaques.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> More description on how its created, and issues with this use. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-05/ebola-drug-made- fro...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-05/ebola-drug-made-from-tobacco- plant-saves-u-s-aid-workers.html)

Interesting they used tobacco plants in the process and how this drug is not scheduled for clinical trials until next year

</comment><comment><USER15> Isn't it a bit early to be declaring victory? Especially given the fact that this particular drug hasn't been used in humans before, I wouldn't say the patients are out of the woods yet.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does these antibodies actually train the recipients immune system to produce more of them? Why or why not?

Why can't we pursue a similar technology to treat the common cold, or MRSA for that matter?

<comment><USER17> No. The human immune system needs to interact with something that "looks" a lot like the actual virus to go through the process of developing antibodies. An antibody would need the ability to enter a functioning cell and to use the cell to create copies of itself. That is an unlikely thing.

Also, the rate of change of a virus means that antibodies for one strain may not be totally or even partially effective against a slightly different strain. (See flu, cold, etc.)

[http://cnx.org/content/m49785/latest/](http://cnx.org/content/m49785/latest/)

I'm guessing that this was a flood of antibodies that attach to the free virus in the body that block the spots on the virus that would enable the entry into healthy cells or hinder replication. The article indicates stopping infection of healthy cells, so I'm further guessing the former.

Evolution is an arms race. The tech hope would be the ability to quickly isolate, understand, and be able to generate vaccines or serums which would have extremely high probabilities of being safe and effective in humans without the long and complex trials needed to OK new treatments. By building better vaccines, we merely put selective pressure on pathogens.

As far as we know, these people could die in weeks to years of kidney or liver problems. They could develop neuro or muscular issues or cancer. This may have only saved them for now.

<comment><USER16> Thanks. How about producing memory B cells from the patient's own stem cells, and genetically altering them to produce the correct antibody?

<comment><USER18> That takes a while, much much longer then how long it takes a mouse to react to a virus injected directly into its bloodstream. Human cells don't really enjoy growing outside the body.

Genetic alteration involves infecting a cell with a virus that cuts DNA and splices in its own (along with the correct antibody). You have the slight possibility that the virus cuts randomly, turning off some cancer-inhibitory pathways. B cells also have this really interesting maturation pathway where they splice their own DNA randomly in the process of becoming an antibody- producing cell.

Edit, to add: The B-cell maturation pathway is called V(D)J recombination. Cool stuff. It's how the immune system can create cells that respond to things it's never seen before. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V(D)J_recombination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V\(D\)J_recombination)

<comment><USER16> Thanks. It still seems like there must be some way to transfer what one individual's immune system has learned to another person. I'll have to read up on it some more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19>
        "As doctors, trying an untested drug on
        patients is a very difficult choice since
        our first priority is to do no harm, and
        we would not be sure that the experimental
        treatment would do more harm than good."

Uh, we're talking about a virus with a 90% mortality rate. What are you afraid the drug might do? _Kill them_?

<comment><USER20> Damage their genome? So, they live but their children will have horrible deformations? Or they live but their bodies get damaged so bad that they are basically bound to bed and medical machines for the rest of their lives? Or ...

There are fates worse than death. And then ethics: Is it right to use patients who fear for their live as medical test subjects? Is it really an "informed consent" if a person who fears for its live gets promised a "possible cure", even if that cure could do ANYTHING? If someone tortured you and you started saying "I do everything, just stop it!" \- would that be informed consent? Isn't Ebola a natural version of torture? And so on ...

It's easy to say "it worked! We cannot justify to not help those people who will die anyway", but there is NO guarantee that it will work a third time. It could dissolve the organs of the next person. And then it wouldn't sound so great anymore, would it?

<comment><USER21> _It 's easy to say "it worked! We cannot justify to not help those people who will die anyway", but there is NO guarantee that it will work a third time. It could dissolve the organs of the next person. And then it wouldn't sound so great anymore, would it?_

Even if it dissolved the organs of the next 2 people it'd still be a better survival rate than Ebola itself (I understand this strain has a 60% mortality rate, not 90%), so yes, it would still be great.

Either way, this is a choice that the patient should make for themselves. It may be ethically dubious to offer experimental drugs to dying patients, but it is obviously and completely morally and ethically reprehensible to deny a possible cure to someone who is dying and wants to give the cure a try.

<comment><USER22> This is a poorly considered view of experimental treatments. Particularly in the case of aid work, experimentation on the patient population is not only unethical in every formalizable sense, it is quite likely to inculcate a sense of distrust in the treated (justifiably, and moreso if there are unanticipated side effects), making treatment and control of future outbreaks more difficult. A chance at life for a single patient may damage the chance for hundreds if not thousands of future patients.

<comment><USER21> I'm not advocating experimentation on the patient population. I'm just saying it is frankly unethical and immoral to withhold a potential cure from a patient with a very high chance of dying, when you have that potential cure at hand and they are making an informed choice that they want to give it a try.

I don't see how treating that one patient will prevent "treatment and control of future outbreaks", either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm curious who foot the bill for all this.

These people were "missionaries" \- does that mean they were over there proselytizing? Did they have any right to be there?

<comment><USER24> I'm betting the Mapp Pharma, pharmaceutical company, paid for everything. After all, this represents an incredible opportunity for them to test their drug.

<comment><USER25> More importantly, they get public exposure and the government sponsor for their research will more likely resume this project. It was shelved due to budgetary reasons.

However, their project is not really going to be able to compete with companies like Tekmira who have begun human testing, having a much higher efficacy in Primates (and likely humans) and are simply further along.

Ebola would unlikely be a block buster drug for any company - however, it allows them to research technologies and systems for other, more profitable things.</comment></comment></comment>


What is the trendiest generic top level domain? - <AUTHOR>

Besides .com .org and all those other mainstays...<p>Is .club catching steam? Curious <comment><USER2> It was .ly, then it became .co, and now it's .io.

Note, though, that the implicit "I/O" reference in .io means that it's more often used for products aimed at a technical audience. So as a replacement for .com, I'm not really sure what the frontrunner is now.

A few other trends that are similarly related to the .com shortage: adding "get" to the beginning of the domain or "app"/"hq" to the end.

We're probably at the end of the "everyone wants a .com/.co/.io" era though. People will start to use TLDs that have semantic value ("beer.club" instead of "beerclubapp.com" for example)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, thanks, how do you know this? Is there data that backs this up? Would be a cool interactive infographic...

<comment><USER3> > Is there data that backs this up? Would be a cool interactive infographic...

Not definitive, and only targets a small part of what smt88 said, but scroll to the bottom: [http://www.bram.gg/post/analyzing-hacker- news](http://www.bram.gg/post/analyzing-hacker-news)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> .io</comment>


Earl Grey tea intoxication [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.docente.unicas.it/useruploads/000811/files/earl_grey_tea_intoxication.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: Don't drink 4L of the stuff per day.

<comment><USER2> That is an inaccurate summary, the patient was fine on 4L of black tea per day, it was the Bergamont essence in Earl Grey that caused his issues.

I also learned about a new thing, phototoxic chemicals.

<comment><USER3> Excessive black tea consumption can also cause fluorosis. It's quite difficult to say just how much tea one would have to drink to cause any symptoms though.

Bottom line, moderation is usually a good idea.

<comment><USER4> What's fluorosis?

<comment><USER5> The result of consuming too much fluoride. I believe it usually manifests as white marks on your teeth, but only as they grow in, so I'm not sure adults should care about fluorosis or not.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately fluorosis can be a bit more serious than just some marks on your teeth.

In severe cases of skeletal fluorosis, patients can experience pain/damage to the bones and joints.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is amazing. I drink about half a pitcher of tea a day. I picked up the habit as a replacement for soda about 15 years ago. I usually drop an Earl Grey tea bag in with about 4 regular black tea bags. I am going to have to try to drop the Earl Grey habit and see, but I do get strange muscle cramps in my legs and ribcage. I've been attributing them to injuries I obtained while playing sports when I was younger.

<comment><USER7> I've been making "tea water" for a while now as a supplement to plain water, as I rarely drink any soda or juices. 1-2 teabags in a 2L pitcher goes in the fridge, cold brew for at least a couple hours. Same thing for fruit/herb infusions.

It gives me a hint of the flavor of tea, and it is very diluted compared to regular iced/hot tea preparations. I don't have any qualms about drinking a lot of it. 1 teabag for black/stronger teas, 2 for the lighter greens/weirder teas (like Korean/Asian roasted barley or corn tea).

<comment><USER6> Interesting. I'll have to give that a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not sure why they conclude that "bergamot essence may induce muscle cramps" etc based on a single case. What if the man had an allergic response of some kind and 99.99% of the population would be fine drinking so much earl grey tea?

<comment><USER3> Because the proposed mechanism has nothing to do with histamine or immune response. Such a K+ channel blocker should hypothetically have the same effect in the vast majority of the general population.

<comment><USER9> So, if I really like Earl Grey, what would be the antidote to the K+ channel blocker?

<comment><USER3> Hypothetically if a person did experience myalgia as a direct result of drinking Earl Grey tea and their proposed mechanism is accurate, the treatment would probably involve K+ channel opener with a lower K_d (higher affinity) than the culprit bergapten, perhaps Diazoxide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Most essential oils are poisonous except in very limited quantities. The effects might be different, but this isn't specially surprising.

</comment><comment><USER11> I enjoyed reading this article, with a nicely brewed cup of Earl Grey.

The alternative _Lady Grey_ tea [0] has lower concentrations of oil of bergamot.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Grey_(tea)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Grey_\(tea\))

<comment><USER12> i will have the 8L lady grey, please.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I normally drink black coffee. After reading the article I now want some tea, Earl Grey, hot.

<comment><USER14> I think it says something perverse about our desires but I too would like some Earl Grey tea.</comment></comment>


Django plugins you shouldn't start without - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hndigest.com/django-plugins-i-start-my-with/ <comment><USER3> Maybe I'm delusional, but even as someone who has worked pretty extensively (4 months of full stack Django development) with Django, posts like these things make me want to stay away from Django.

I read this post, and I see bandaids. I see bloat, and I see warts. I don't want to build on a codebase that needs 5 extensions out of the box to be sane.

Granted, I know this is _not_ the real story with Django. It is a rather lovely, if rather rigid and stubborn framework (at least it was when I was writing with in circa 1.3). And it is powerful.

But, and this is my point, it seems to me that there is almost no reason I would use Django over something like flask for anything but the most basic of apps. Any time you need to do "serious" work — beyond cookie-cutter stuff — you're going to need to seriously extend Django (or any other web framework for that matter, in my experience/humble opinion). And then it gets ugly, and you're better off building from the ground up on a minimal codebase than trying to contort an existing one to do what you need it to.

Actually, most of my thoughts have been summed up 5 years ago by one of Flikr's lead architects (iirc) at DjangoCon '08 in a brilliant (and hilarious) talk: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Fr65PFqfk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Fr65PFqfk)

<comment><USER4> If it helps any, as someone who's been building Django sites for years, I will say that while all of those are at least handy, absolutely none of them is needed.

On the list, the only one I use with any regularity is South, which I do consider must-have. That said, it seems that the Django core team agrees, as it's being (or maybe is even finished) pulled into Django core.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. The only must have on this list is south.

After that, I personally add allauth, storages, and s3-folder-storages as well, but that's a personal preference thing and there are very good reasons to use alternatives to each of those components.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is Django Debug Toolbar not on that list?

If you are doing anything more than a simple CRUD, and heck, even if that's all, you should at least peek at how many queries are happening in views and how page render timing is broken down.

[https://github.com/django-debug-toolbar/django-debug- toolbar](https://github.com/django-debug-toolbar/django-debug-toolbar)

</comment><comment><USER7> What, no django-annoying? That's the first thing I ever use:

[https://github.com/skorokithakis/django- annoying](https://github.com/skorokithakis/django-annoying)

That, and shortuuid:

[https://pypi.python.org/pypi/shortuuid/](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/shortuuid/)

Disclosure: I maintain one and wrote the other, but they and South are the three things I use for every project.

<comment><USER8> django core here, some feedback on -annoying:

It'd be nice if you were clear about what versions of django and python are supported.

From django-annoying's feature list:

        * render_to - seems to be roughly equivalent to django.shortcuts.render
        * signals decorator - now in core[1] (since 1.3)
        * ajax_response - seems useful, though might make sense to check request.is_ajax[2]
        * autostrip - hmm, seems oddly edge case-y, I definitely wouldn't apply it to all my forms
        * get_object_or_None - nifty
        * AutoOneToOneField - assumes the related model is valid with only the FK filled in, which seems fairly unlikely in many OneToOne cases.  I'm not sure if this was proposed to core, but I'd think it would need some sort of default= fillin feature to be more generally useful.
        * JSONField - soo many competing and variously featureful implementations. This has been discussed a few times; it seems fairly easy to implement and hard to gain consensus. I wish we could get it in core, but the juice doesn't seem worth the squeeze.
        * get_config - I don't think I understand the purpose of this, unless you're just trying to be more intention-revealing than getattr(settings, ...)
        * HttpResponseReload - <USER2>
        * StaticServer - I don't think I understand why you wouldn't want to config urls.py instead.

[1] [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/signals/#connec...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/signals/#connecting- receiver-functions)

[2] [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/request- response/#...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/request- response/#django.http.HttpRequest.is_ajax)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for your feedback, let me reply to it:

As JshWright said, the appeal of render_to is that it's a decorator, it does clean up views by a lot.

The signals decorator is now obsolete, I also find ajax_response very handy (when I'm not using CBVs), autostrip is a bit edge-casey, I agree.

get_object_or_None is pretty much 1.6's .first(), but there was no alternative until 1.6. AutOneToOne/JSON fields are there because of convenience, get_config I have no idea about (I didn't write these), StaticServer, also no idea.

The thing is that this library has been out for years, and most of these things didn't exist in core when it came out, so it was really handy in its time. I've been using it for quite a few years, and that's also why I took up maintenance of it.

In the long run, I'd like to see the things that make sense in it integrated into core, especially the @render decorator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Excellent. Pile up your django with extensions, then look forward to the fun when you have to port your app from e.g. django 1.3 to 1.5 and find a new set of versions of all of your dependencies that work nicely together. And of course figure out a migration path for it all. That is, if extension xyz is still maintained at all.

Lean is beautiful, people. Carefully assess every dependency you add, as each one has the potential to become a burden.

<comment><USER7> Wait. If you need a piece of functionality, you either get something that works out of the box, or you spend X hours writing it. If the out-of-the-box thing breaks and you spend Y hours fixing it, then Y has to be much greater than X to not be worth it, which, in my experience, it never is.

Not to mention that, if the library broke, then the thing you would have written would have probably broken as well, and you wouldn't have the benefit of a thousand other users who might have had (and fixed) the problem before you. This just smells of FUD to me, as it rarely is a problem to me in practice.

<comment><USER9> > If you need a piece of functionality

Depends what you mean by "need". Often when you need a piece of functionality, what you actually "need" is a small subset of what a third party app is wanting to provide, and I've often found simply using out-of-the-box apps for this adds a fairly huge amount of complexity that is just not needed.

My favourite case in point would be adding very simple blog functionality to something - which is fairly quick & trivial in django, but out-of-the-box blog solutions promote themselves with tempting-features-that-you-dont-really-need that inadvertently add a lot of complexity and before you know it you're a few releases down the line and you realize that the author doesn't really know how to use South properly and your db ends up in a slight migration-state-limbo forevermore.

Though note that I am _not_ saying don't use external dependencies - I use several of those listed in the article (I am a big fan of django-reversion) - but remember to look at everything with a critical eye before inclusion.

> This just smells of FUD to me

It's all very well and good saying that but a stack of previous bad experiences doesn't smell like FUD when you're on this end of them.

<comment><USER7> Ah, you're right there, if you're talking about a blog app, I agree with you. I had much smaller pieces in mind, such as the packages I mentioned before. Each one of those does one specific thing and does it well. Blogging is pretty much the worst example here because it's highly, highly custom to each person and easy enough to write that you wouldn't bother with a library, which would end up not doing what you want in the long run anyway.

Something like shortuuid, on the other hand, is pretty much a slot-in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable starting a Django project of any size without using South. Wish I had known about it since the beginning of my time with Django.

Migration implementations for any platform have always been somewhat vexing for me, but South has been all but automatic for me. I've never had to deviate from `schemamigration app --auto && migrate app`.

<comment><USER11> I'm in the unfortunate situation where we use Oracle as the backend database on our projects, which South has never really properly supported. I've done without it, and it isn't very nice.

On the other hand, I ensure that every change that needs to be made to the schema can happen at any time, and both new and old versions of the code will happily work. I believe this helps with upgrading in that there is no delay during deployment and migration. Having not used south on a real project though, I'm unsure if this is a false benefit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're using or considering using class based views, I have found Django Vanilla Views to be pretty much a pure win. They really make class based views feel so much more natural. I'm not going back.

[http://django-vanilla-views.org](http://django-vanilla-views.org)

</comment><comment><USER13> This seems pretty excessive and I'm not even a purist (does one really need to graph models?). Only Django specific plugins that I rely on are South, django- annoying [1] and djorm-ext-expressions [2] but I couldn't see myself building anything larger without Celery anymore.

[1]: [https://bitbucket.org/offline/django- annoying](https://bitbucket.org/offline/django-annoying) [2]: [https://github.com/niwibe/djorm-ext- expressions](https://github.com/niwibe/djorm-ext-expressions)

</comment><comment><USER14> As someone who is just starting to dive into Django and Python in general I have to admit being confused by benchmark after benchmark that puts Python near to the bottom of the performance curve when compared to other technologies (Go being one that jumps out at me).

I have to admit that part of me is wondering if I am making the right decision in investing time, effort and money getting up to speed on Python/Django for new projects rather than devoting that time to something like Go. Can't do both. Not enough time and we need to get things done.

Now, I do appreciate that Python has a huge ecosystem and lots of very useful libraries out there. That alone might make the price of admission worth it. I also look at these benchmarks and it seems that PHP (something I am really trying to leave behind) frequently scored above the various Python ecosystems.

Can someone put this into perspective for me? In the end performance can and is hugely important. What am I missing when looking at all of this?

<comment><USER15> For many web programming tasks, your user-perceptible speed and/or maximum system loads will not be dominated by the performance of your web application but rather by database, I/O (including networking), and client performance (JS performance, aggressive asset caching, CDN usage, etc etc).

Go or Java are wonderful languages if you have serious number-crunching needs or if cutting your server budget in half would save you a billion dollars. My server budget is $500 a month and if you doubled the performance of all of my servers it would be $500 a month. I'll elide the detailed explanation of the whole "User clicks a button" to "User sees something happen" HTTP request waterfall chart but my Rails app is generally less than 5% of it.

YMMV if you're Google, but I'm not Google.

<comment><USER11> Not entirely true that the database is the main concern[0]. The overhead of the framework/language has a massive impact.

That said, I'm not Google either, and I'm happily using django and love using it.

[0] [http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/03/28/frameworks- round-...](http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/03/28/frameworks-round-1/)

<comment><USER16> How about in Round 7 that Python surpasses Nodejs?

[http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r7](http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r7)

Python didn't beat NodeJS in Database queries though.

Yes Go is fast, but Go is also cluttered with its static type system.

Personally I feel pain to deal with flexible JSON marshal/unmarshal, in Python dict() is nearly 100% identical with JS objects in value.

<comment><USER11> > How about in Round 7 that Python surpasses Nodejs

I can't find what you're referring to. Node was still infront of Django in the JSON benchmark.

Django (until 1.6) hasn't had connection pooling for the database either. Updating those benchmarks with pooling should make significant differences.

But my point was that the framework itself can have a huge impact. Database and other I/O does have overhead, and it may even be significant. But it's not necessarily the biggest factor.

<comment><USER16> You are comparing a Web framework (Django) with a language+network runtime (Nodejs).

The Nodejs web framework is Express, behind Bottle and Falcon.

<comment><USER11> Oh, I see. But "python" wasn't represented, which confused me. There is still a large discrepancy between the different frameworks in the javascript and python set.

But the original point was that database and I/O make the largest difference. After restricting the set of languages and frameworks to python and javascript, I can only (now) agree.

109,000-5700 rps for JSON requests, and 4800-117 rps for multiple database queries. Quite significant.

<comment><USER16> I agree with ya. There's big room for db connection improvement in Django.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I respectfully disagree with OP.

I would say that _django_extensions_ is handy enough to have it included (mainly for the sake of shell_plus and runserver_plus), _South_ is invaluable (although migrations are going into the core in near future[0]), but others—it very much depends on the project.

 _sekizai_ is one I've never heard about before. Judging from the first sight, I think it can make templating more flexible, but at the cost of increased complexity.

Earlier I thought that _reversion_ is great to have by default, and I was adding it to every project. Then, as I recall, mysterious errors started popping up one day in one project after Django update. They turned out to have something to do with reversion compatibility. I looked into it and found that we had _no_ use cases for reversion—I could simply throw it away without any consequences, which I promptly did.

I've used _grappelli_ for a while, but in the end I found its UI less usable than native Django admin UI. (Recently I stumbled across [http://djangosuit.com/](http://djangosuit.com/) — this one does seem more functional, although I've never used it in my projects yet.)

[0] [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/migrations/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/migrations/)

</comment><comment><USER18> We are all eagerly waiting south to be merged into Django. [https://github.com/django/django/commit/9aa358cedd1ad93c0f4c...](https://github.com/django/django/commit/9aa358cedd1ad93c0f4c20700db7016651dc0598)

Or have we?

<comment><USER13> We are but it will still need South or other app to actually command the migrations if I have understood correctly.

<comment><USER11> Nope. Schema Migrations are built directly into django (scheduled for 1.7), and includes the runner. It's not just an API for other tools to use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If we're just plugging useful packages, I'd suggest these as useful and broadly applicable:

        * django-debug-toolbar
        * django-secure
        * django-celery
        * django_compressor

</comment><comment><USER19> FWIW, South won't totally be necessary after Django 1.7. Django 1.7 is getting support for migrations built-in.

</comment><comment><USER20> In context of this article (at least), Sekizai is useless. You've been able to do this out-of-the-box with Django for a very long time. You can always reference inherited content in a Django block with {{ block.super }}. This feature has been around since AT LEAST v1.1. That's when I found the feature.

<comment><USER21> author of sekizai here. you seem to misunderstand what sekizai does. it's not a replacement for block.super. it's main points are support for included templates, for loops and being able to put content anywhere in the template from anywhere. It is however entirely possible that you have no use case for it, but dismissing it as useless is a bit harsh in my opinion.

Further reading on why sekizai and what it does in this blog post: [http://ojii.ch/post/why-sekizai/](http://ojii.ch/post/why-sekizai/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yes `select email from auth_user;` is hard.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow, sekizai looks great. Removes many of my headaches with django's limited block system.

<comment><USER24> {{ block.super }} does the trick for me.

<comment><USER25> That only works with templates that extend a base template, not ones included inline.

<comment><USER24> This is true. But I've never felt that the need for something like sekizai in practice based on how I structure templates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why is south not number one in flaming gold letters? Seriously, south should just be part of django at this point and it is insane that there isn't this functionality built in. Is changing your data models after you started development so crazy?

<comment><USER27> Database migrations are being added to Django core, by the author of South.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This app proves also very helpful if you use Nginx: [https://github.com/andreiko/django_graceful](https://github.com/andreiko/django_graceful)

<comment><USER29> > Django Graceful is a set of commands for deployment

> of django projects as fastcgi backends.

Or just use uwsgi[1] and supervisord[2] if possible.

[1] [http://uwsgi-docs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/](http://uwsgi- docs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/)

[2] [http://supervisord.org/](http://supervisord.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> isn't the South functionality there out of the box in rails? I've only ever written one rails app in my life, and I now use (non-Django) python all the time, but needing a 3rd party library to handle db migrations sounds like madness, and makes me want to re-learn ruby rather than use Django.</comment>


The Mature Optimization Handbook (ePub, Mobi, PDF) - <AUTHOR> http://carlos.bueno.org/optimization/

<comment><USER2> Linus Torvalds (if I remember correctly) points out that there is no reason to optimize code beyond the point that the user cannot see the difference in performance.

It makes sense that if I click a button, and whatever that button is meant to do takes place apparently instantaneously, there is no point to making the code any faster.

However it is worthwhile to consider the effect of one's code on energy consumption as well as the performance of other parts of the system, generation of waste heat &c.</comment>


How much do rockets pollute? - <AUTHOR> https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-pollution/ <comment><USER2> Injecting combustion products into the upper atmosphere is something we really need to study more.

I supported the Ozone Hole studies in the mid 80's, and we found CFCs destroyed a protective part of our atmosphere. That recovered over time, but there are some rogue manufacturers using CFCs again, and leaking massive quantities.

We know airborne nuclei like soot cause localized precipitation, so that does change weather (it's called cloud seeding.)

We really need to know more about the effect of rockets at high altitudes, and airliner jet engines at 30,000'.

I have a strong feeling airliners have a significant effect due to the volume of air traffic and how dirty burning jet fuel is.

To see how jet engines could have a significant effect, there are around 10,000 airliners worldwide, which are in the air more than 12 hours each per day typically.

The break in air travel due do corona virus is an excellent time to compare atmospheric samples before and after the pause.

<comment><USER3> The data does not support the common opinion that airplanes are terrible for the environment. Their total contribution to for example CO2 is tiny compared to industry and electricity generation.

Somehow the climate activists have decided to make a lot of noise about flying but it's mostly unfounded. They go as far as using very old models of planes in their calculations (e.g. a 737-400 model) and claiming that's the amount of CO2 per passenger of all air travel. While that model is out of use by the airline for at least 15 years already. It was designed in 1985.

So beware of the data and tricks like this when you're told flying is so bad for the environment.

<comment><USER4> I think the reason flying is so often vilified is because it represents a huge proportion of an individual's emissions.

The reason flying represented only 2.5% of global emissions is because most people never do it. There's a small subset of people, mainly in the West, who do the vast majority of flying.

As this BBC article makes clear, a return flight from London to San Francisco represents half the emissions of the average London resident. If you fly a couple of return long haul trips a year, they'll emit the same as everything else you do for the rest of the year.

[https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200218-climate- change-h...](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200218-climate-change-how- to-cut-your-carbon-emissions-when-flying)

Looking at old aircraft will make the figures seem worse, but it's not like new aircraft are an order of magnitude more efficient.

The best case budget airlines (high seat density and high seat utilisation) today get about 2.27L/100km for each seat. The 737-300 was about 3.46L/100km - so about 65% of what it used to be. Better for sure, but not "we've fixed the problem" better. I'm not sure to what extent those figures take into account changing seat density and utilisation.

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

<comment><USER5> The average London resident emits unusually low amounts of CO2. A 5,369 miles flight, which is extremely long, at ~100MPG = 54 gallons of fuel. A 30 MPG car driven 15,000 miles per year is 500 gallons of fuel.

A far more common round trip London to Paris flight is ~6 gallons of fuel. So, someone doing that _every weekend_ is still using 38% less fuel per year is using our 15,000 mile driver.

Flying only emits 2.5% of global CO2 because it's surprisingly efficient and most people don't travel ultra long distances frequently. LA to London takes a ~10 hour travel day each way making it unappealing to do frequently.

<comment><USER6> 15000 miles per year is 41 miles a day _every day_. If we see it as a work commute (plus some grocery shopping on the way), it's about 56 miles a day. Is this realistic in UK? (I can imagine it can be that bad in some parts of the US.)

<comment><USER7> People don't do that in the UK. Public transport is much more convenient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was pretty surprised to see that Starship flying point-to-point is only about twice as bad on emissions per passenger as a 747.

<comment><USER9> Zero drag for 99% of your trip is pretty awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> something that tends to annoy me about hydrogen fuels - people emphasize that the combustion product is water. okay .. so that step is clean.

but how was the hydrogen in the fuel cell produced in the first place? i guess it's an energy consuming process that produces a decent level of pollution, whether it's by electrolysis, heating of a chemical in the presence of a catalyst, etc.

<comment><USER11> Electrolysis does not produce pollution. If you are suggesting a mechanism by which it does, I would love to hear it.

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

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

<comment><USER12> The power generation mechanism you use to get the electric current for electrolysis may or may not be clean.

<comment><USER11> That's entirely the point of hydrogen fuel. The process of producing or using hydrogen does not pollute. You have decoupled pollution from energy storage.

Hydrocarbons pollute by their very nature. In order to have a carbon neutral hydrocarbon cycle you need an impractical number of CO2 capture facilities.

<comment><USER13> > The process of producing or using hydrogen does not pollute.

There's no way this can be correct.

You can't use hydrogen to produce the electricity used in hydrogen electrolysis, because that's not permitted in this universe.[1]

Therefore the electricity has to come from some other source, which all generate life-cycle carbon emissions.[2]

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse- gas_emis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse- gas_emissions_of_energy_sources)

<comment><USER12> In theory you could produce the H2 off planet.

Also, that tidal power looks pretty good...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Elon Musk plans on refueling his rockets on Mars using locally produced methane. Using solar power, he'll create methane and liquid oxygen from CO2 and water. If he then burns the methane and liquid oxygen in a rocket engine you get your CO2 and water back. Thus the process is carbon neutral.

Before he does it on Mars he'll have to perfect it on Earth first. I hope he does more than that and starts using carbon neutral methane for all his Starship flights on Earth.

<comment><USER8> Yep, the article talks about that.

</comment></comment><comment> orbital-decay The article implies that rockets burn 100% of their fuel, which is an oversimplification for most thrusters. There's also a fair amount of residual fuel and oxidizer in the piping, at least part of which is dumped into the environment. While it isn't that scary for something like kerolox, it's a concern for hypergolics.

<comment><USER15> Actually, this is mentioned in the article, in the "HOW MUCH DO DIFFERENT ROCKETS EMIT?" section, and gets more into it in the linked raptor article[1]

> Although all rocket engines do run fuel rich for the right balance of heat > management and performance, so there is likely going to be unburnt fuel > expelled regardless of the cycle type, but much more when it is an open > cycle engine.

1: [https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor- engine/](https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Socially-Beneficial Uses of DeepFakes - <AUTHOR> Seems DeepFakes have been getting growing attention in the media for their use in comedy, while also giving glimpse of potential danger in "fake news". I'm curious if folks have come across any positively impactful uses (or have heard of any)? <comment><USER2> I'm working on a startup called Longform, which helps book conversations between people and various organizations and, with the consent of both parties, forwards it to podcast feeds of both parties. One of the projects I've considered is creating a marketplace of other voices you can use, and directly stream that over the call. The primary motivation was to remove some apprehensions about hearing your own voice, help with anonymity, make them more comfortable with marking the material public, etc. Also its pretty whimsical so that's always good</comment>


The cost of financial ignorance - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-cost-of-financial-ignorance/2011/10/03/gIQAEU3yTL_print.html

<comment><USER2> Good article by Hernando de Soto. TLDR: US and Europe forgot one of the primary lessons of the Washington Consensus which was used to stabilize the financial sectors and economies of the developed world the past ~20 years: Collateral ownership underlying debt assets _must_ be well documented and publicly available. Without that, credit becomes untrustworthy and lending and financial markets don't work or are prone to failure.</comment>


The U.S. Health Care System Found a Way to Make Peanuts Cost $4,200 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/dangers-peanut-allergy-drug/597997/ <comment><USER2> I know this company well and knew this was going to become a PR issue. Aimmune's product is just purified peanut flour. Convincing everyone it's worth thousands (to tens of thousands) of dollars is going to be tough.

That said, you're not paying for the peanut flour, you're paying for the comprehensive set of data the company had to develop to _prove the product actually works_.

Just rough numbers, a phase 3 clinical trials costs about $15K per patient per year. Aimmune ran a year long trial with 1000 patients (from clinicaltrials.gov), so the trial alone cost them almost $160M dollars. Add in manufacturing regulations, etc, you can understand why they raised $400M over the past 8 years since they were formed.[1]

The other thing to keep in mind is the pharmacoeconomic arguments. If insurance companies are paying thousands of dollars each time a child goes to the ER for a allergic response, pay $10,000 for this drug to reduce those may make total sense.

Also interesting that this article comes out the same day the stock is halted because the FDA review committee is meeting. You can peruse the briefing document to see what they'll be discussing.[2]

[1][https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/allergen-research- co...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/allergen-research-corporation) [2][https://www.fda.gov/media/130654/download](https://www.fda.gov/media/130654/download)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Obviously, the high cost of the therapy is news in and of itself, and it's very illustrative of the fact that high R&D costs need to be wrapped up in the cost of the drug, even if the drug itself costs peanuts to make. (LITERAL PEANUTS, get it?!?)

But what's more worrisome is that although oral immunotherapy appears to desensitize patients to the allergen, real-world evidence shows that these people actually end up experiencing allergic reactions more frequently than those who practice strict avoidance, the article reports.

Whether that's because the patients who've undergone therapy are letting their guard down, or because the drug is only semi-protective, is unknown. But the article argues that the therapy might lead to a net increase, rather than a decrease, in allergic episodes.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the studies describes the exact doses:

> AR101, a powder, was administered in graduated doses ... from capsules > containing 0.5, 1, 10, 20, or 100 mg of peanut protein, formulated with > bulking and flow agents ... Study product was consumed after opening the > capsules and mixing its content into an age-appropriate, nonallergenic, > vehicle food (eg, applesauce, pudding).

[https://www.jaci- inpractice.org/article/S2213-2198(17)30742-...](https://www.jaci- inpractice.org/article/S2213-2198\(17\)30742-0/pdf)

Their website claims that 1 peanut is 250-300 mg peanut protein.

[https://www.aimmune.com/ar101-peanut- allergy/](https://www.aimmune.com/ar101-peanut-allergy/)

So while $4,200 might be a bit high, there is probably still some value in isolating a 1/500 peanut dose.

</comment><comment> m-p-3 In case someone cannot get past the paywall

[https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVmaUKkcZwyWRZ5ZyK8MkxDzYPWL4dGdSLrfjN...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVmaUKkcZwyWRZ5ZyK8MkxDzYPWL4dGdSLrfjNMWNWTt5/)

[https://cloudflare- ipfs.com/ipfs/QmVmaUKkcZwyWRZ5ZyK8MkxDzYP...](https://cloudflare- ipfs.com/ipfs/QmVmaUKkcZwyWRZ5ZyK8MkxDzYPWL4dGdSLrfjNMWNWTt5/)</comment>


Using Trello for Project Management - <AUTHOR> https://hackpad.com/C8sALYK813R#Using-Trello-for-Project-Management If for any reason the introduction header of the page gets erased (it's a wiki), here it is: Hi! I just posted this on Hacker News because I wanted some help to define how Trello can be used for project management. I made my own take on it and I'd love if people could help me and add some of their own concepts on the list. Feel free to add, edit or remove anything. Thanks! Tommy Bergeron http://brainpad.org <comment><AUTHOR> If for any reason the introduction header of the page gets erased (it's a wiki), here it is:

Hi! I just posted this on Hacker News because I wanted some help to define how Trello can be used for project management. I made my own take on it and I'd love if people could help me and add some of their own concepts on the list. Feel free to add, edit or remove anything.

Thanks!

Tommy Bergeron <http://brainpad.org></comment>


The strange story of "Extended Random" - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2017/12/19/the-strange-story-of-extended-random/ <comment><USER2> The IETF TLS working group has included a relevant suggestion in the TLS1.3 draft RFC:

[https://github.com/tlswg/tls13-spec/commit/465de0e189b2b5909...](https://github.com/tlswg/tls13-spec/commit/465de0e189b2b59090d0eac0acbc42942af9ca77)

The idea is simple: use two different instances of a secure RNG. One for "public" material that can be seen on the wire, which would include server and client random data. Another for "secret" material such as the private parts of DH parameters. With that set up, it's hard to impossible for DUAL_EC style attacks to work. Even if the RNG is "broken", there's nothing public to go-on to hint at what the state might be.

We've been doing this in Amazon s2n since the first version, and I believe BouncyCastle does it too. Hopefully we'll see more implementations pick up the technique.

<comment><USER3> > use two different instances of a secure RNG. One for "public" material that > can be seen on the wire, which would include server and client random data. > Another for "secret" material such as the private parts of DH parameters.

Wow that's an incredibly simple solution. I feel like that general approach (where possible split client facing vs internal states) could be applied to many other places as well.

Are there any problems with the additional initial entropy requirements to maintain separate RNGs (two per connection)? Or is it globally static, internal vs external?

<comment><USER4> RNG state entropy is not a resource that is exhausted by using the RNG.

But even if it were, and assuming entropy limitations are relevant in this context (which I'd argue they are not), the total entropy requirement would not change by merely deriving the same set of values in another way. You might only need more bytes (!= entropy) from your root RNG to seed two separate RNGs. In which case you could just stretch the same number of bytes you'd normally request using e.g. HKDF.

But again, it doesn't make much sense to think of entropy as something you can count or use up, really. There is no way to tell, and just a few bits (say 128) of entropy would be sufficient for almost anything...

<comment><USER5> > RNG state entropy is not a resource that is exhausted by using the RNG.

I thought so too, but a couple of years ago I was writing a comment on LWN ([https://lwn.net/Articles/642839/](https://lwn.net/Articles/642839/)) and it suddenly clicked.

Entropy is a measure of unpredictability, that is, if you have 32 bits of entropy, there are 2^32 possible states. Suppose you generate an 8-bit value from that, assuming a function which uniformly mixes your state. For each of the possible 256 output values, on average 2^24 of the possible states would generate the same output value. Therefore, once you know the output value, you can discard the other 2^32 - 2^24 possibilities; only 2^24 possible states remain, so you now have only 24 bits of entropy left.

The reason this is not a problem in practice is that, since the output function is one-way, an attacker would have to enumerate all possible states to find which ones would generate the same outputs. This becomes unfeasible once you have enough entropy in your state (256 bits or more).

(The whole trick with Dual-EC was that, if you know the secret key, the output function is not one-way. Supposedly, either the key was discarded once generated, or the points were generated at random and not from a secret key, but nobody really believes that.)

<comment><USER6> In reality, all mainstream CSPRNGs are essentially just stream cipher keystreams (PRFs). Some of them run AES in CTR mode, some of them run HMAC. The commonality is that the "raw entropy" (from system timings and whatnot) is run through what is essentially a KDF and fed to the PRF.

To believe that tapping 128 bits of "entropy" from /dev/urandom is equivalent to "depleting" 128 bit of entropy from the "system entropy pool", you must also believe that encrypting 16 bytes with AES-CTR somehow materially weakens the key.

Obviously, that's not happening. We don't "run out of key" as we encrypt with a PRF. As Dan Bernstein puts it, securely expanding small secrets into very, very long secrets of one of the core functions of cryptography. Look at the key schedule of any block cipher for a very basic example. We reject ciphers in designs based on their inability to encrypt _2^64 blocks_ worth of data without potentially creating artifacts.

<comment><USER5> > To believe that tapping 128 bits of "entropy" from /dev/urandom is > equivalent to "depleting" 128 bit of entropy from the "system entropy pool", > you must also believe that encrypting 16 bytes with AES-CTR somehow > materially weakens the key.

As long as none of the 128 bits of the plaintext is known, we're also adding 128 bits of unpredictability, so the net result is zero.

If some of the plaintext bits are known, in theory the unpredictability should decrease. For an extreme example: if all 128 bits of plaintext are known, and all 128 bits of ciphertext are also known, there should be a single 128 bit AES key that maps that input to that output, so the entropy left in the key would be zero.

However, there is no known way to find that single key other than through a brute force search through all the 2^128 keys, so it's still safe. That also applies to the CSPRNGs: even if the entropy has decreased to zero, as long as an attacker has to brute force through a large enough number of possible states to take advantage of that fact, it's safe. It doesn't change the fact that, when the entropy left is zero, there is a single state which could lead to the observed outputs.

Yes, this means that after the entropy in the CSPRNG has passed the point where brute force is no longer viable, the amount of entropy left on the pool becomes a useless measurement. What matters is how much work an attacker would have to do, not how much theoretical entropy is left.

<comment><USER6> I've had a couple beers and am having trouble holding all these paragraphs in my head.

But, at the risk of being repetitive, because maybe this simplifies things:

Generate a random 128 bit key by hashing something. This is what the Linux KRNG does with raw entropy.

Initialize AES-128 with that key and start running it in CTR mode. Encrypt a file with known contents, like /etc/ttys. That's ~1300 bytes of known plaintext.

Now, recover the AES-CTR keystream (just XOR /etc/ttys against the AES-CTR ciphertext).

Is it your contention that, having done that, you've placed yourself closer to guessing the underlying 128 bit AES key?

If not, you see also why drawing out 1300 bytes of Linux KRNG randomness doesn't help you predict future values. The randomness you read from /dev/urandom is fundamentally just PRF keystream.

If you could look at AES-CTR keystream and use it to make an advantaged guess at the underlying AES key, AES would be grievously broken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> All I could think of when I read 'why would the government spy on the government' was the CIA director having to admit and apologize for the CIA hacking into the servers holding documents being reviewed by the Congressional committee investigating them for their torture program... Different agencies in the government certainly have incentive and historical precedent for spying on and manipulating the others.

</comment><comment><USER8> The last part of the article made me think: Are there any printers whose software is open?

Printers where always a blackbox for me that wasted ink and did not work when I needed it...

<comment><USER9> I'm afraid I can't answer your question directly, but printers being made proprietary was one of the things that led Richard Stallman to starting the GNU project, and the fight for companies to provide source code for the products they were selling to users.

>In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused access to the source code for the software of a newly installed laser printer, the Xerox 9700. Stallman had modified the software for the Lab's previous laser printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer), so it electronically messaged a user when the person's job was printed, and would message all logged-in users waiting for print jobs if the printer was jammed. Not being able to add these features to the new printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This experience convinced Stallman of people's need to be able to freely modify the software they use.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Events_leadin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Events_leading_to_GNU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Do these printers use _Dual_EC_DRBG_ too (in addition to _Extended Random_ ), to make them actually vulnerable?

> Ironically, the printers are now the only thing that still exhibits the > features of this (now deprecated) version of BSAFE. This is not because the > NSA was targeting printers. Whatever devices they were targeting are > probably gone by now. It's because printer firmware tends to be obsolete and > yet highly persistent. It's like a remote pool buried beneath the arctic > circle that preserves software species that would otherwise vanish from the > Internet.

Pretty chilling, but on the other hand: If this was true it should be possible to prove digging through firmware archives and actually finding these targeted devices.

<comment><USER6> This is a really good question. Is it published anywhere that this version of BSAFE enabled Dual_EC?

<comment><USER11> > From 2004 to 2013, the default CSPRNG in BSAFE was Dual_EC_DRBG

<comment><USER6> I believe you, and think I remember reading this before. BSAFE is batshit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The annoying thing is that, if they change the key_share extension to another number (and mark the current one as "reserved"), they'll have to run the TLS 1.3 experiments all over again (to see if there's anything on the new number), delaying TLS 1.3 even more.

</comment><comment><USER12> > In 2013, the Snowden revelations revealed the existence of a campaign to > sabotage U.S. encryption systems.

Is the information assurance directorate even active any more? It's interesting that they played a role (perhaps unwitting) in reducing security, or at least that their efforts to improve things were surfed by the people who gave RSA $10M.

Back in the days when Brian Snow ran it I actually thought the ISD was on the side of the good guys, especially when we learned (via IBM) that their changes to the s-box had improved things.

</comment><comment><USER13> Does the IETF still take cryptographic advice from the NSA?

<comment><USER14> Yes. It's also hard not to, given the revolving door and the incestous nature of the industry.

<comment><USER6> There is no "revolving door" between the industry and NSA, or really between the industry and any part of the USG. This is something you've made up.

<comment><USER14> I actually work in this space, and yes it is often the case that you find people on standards bodies with prior experience at major government IT contractors with classified gaps in their CVs, and/or former private sector people who rotate into those same government contracting positions. These also tend to be the people making more ... weird ... proposals that are likely backdoors.

<comment><USER6> Point to one of such proposal, and we'll look at the resume.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: A question about 60 minutes - <AUTHOR>

The second clip on the site said that a nation-state had developed a bios bug that would brick a computer[1], but aren't there lots of problems with creating a bug for each bios? I forget the name of the post, but this problem came up quite recently with badbios.<p>[1]:http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nsa-speaks-out-on-snowden-spying/ <comment><USER2> It's pretty sensationalist.

There are so many little things that have to line up for a BIOS virus to work. The idea that it would just spread like nuts and brick computers is laughable. So either the NSA is lying and they know it to try to legitimize their operations, or they don't know what the fuck they are talking about.</comment>


Water-stabilized hydrogen promises twice the range of gasoline at half the price - <AUTHOR> https://newatlas.com/electriq-global-hydrogen-liquid-wonder-fuel/57488/ <comment><USER2> "When it's fully loaded, the fuel contains about three percent hydrogen and 97 percent supporting material."

This fuel, which is 97% inert material, is supposed to have energy density comparable to gasoline? Either I'm fundamentally misunderstanding something or this is buulllllshiiiit.

<comment><USER3> The Toyota Mirai can store 5kg of hydrogen (giving it a 500km range). This system would require about 150kg of inert material to store the same amount of hydrogen. That's only about three times the weight of a full tank of gas and doesn't seem totally impractical. The other claims sound pretty far-fetched though. For twice the range of an ICE car, it would need a much larger tank.

1\. [https://insideevs.com/toyota-mirai-fuel-cell-sedan-priced- at...](https://insideevs.com/toyota-mirai-fuel-cell-sedan-priced- at-57500-specs-videos/)

<comment><USER2> It seems reasonable to assume this stuff has a density similar to water, since it's mostly water anyway. That means you'd need a 150 liter tank to achieve 500km of range. A typical car has, what, a 40 liter tank? And they're promising more like 1,200km of range from that size tank.

<comment><USER4> 60% water, so it depends on what the other 37% is

<comment><USER2> Even if the other 37% takes up no space at all, it still doesn't come close to adding up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This company is the successor to Terragenic, which has been around since 2013.[1] Same people. Same claims. Still no demo. Now, with better graphics on the web site.

What they're probably hyping is water-stabilized hydrogen peroxide. Habo, a hydrogen peroxide manufacturer in Shanghai, showed a hydrogen peroxide fueled car in 2004.[2] There's been work on hydrogen peroxide fuel cells.[3][4] So it's sort of possible to do something like this. But the cost and range claims are based on nothing.

[1] [https://www.smh.com.au/business/fuel-saving-cars- showcased-i...](https://www.smh.com.au/business/fuel-saving-cars-showcased-in- china-20041018-gdjxrn.html)

[2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/research//stocks/private/snapshot....](https://www.bloomberg.com/research//stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=432107790)

[3] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03787...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378775314019119)

[4] [https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/cc/c8cc0...](https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/cc/c8cc06802j#!divAbstract)

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds vaguely related to this tech - [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03787...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378775306021264)

'Direct NaBH4/H2O2 fuel cells'

"A fuel cell (FC) using liquid fuel and oxidizer is under investigation. H2O2 is used in this FC directly at the cathode. Either of two types of reactant, namely a gas-phase hydrogen or an aqueous NaBH4 solution, are utilized as fuel at the anode. Experiments demonstrate that the direct utilization of H2O2 and NaBH4 at the electrodes results in >30% higher voltage output compared to the ordinary H2/O2 FC. Further, the use of this combination of all liquid fuels, provides numerous advantages (ease of storage, reduced pumping requirements, simplified heat removal, etc.) from an operational point of view. This design is inherently compact compared to other cells that use gas phase reactants. Further, regeneration is possible using an electrical input, e.g. from power lines or a solar panel. While the peroxide-based FC is ideally suited for applications such as space power where air is not available and a high energy density fuel is essential, other distributed and mobile power uses are of interest."

</comment><comment><USER7> Storing energy as hydrogen is much less efficient than storing energy in batteries. The channel Real Engineering explains: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7MzFfuNOtY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7MzFfuNOtY) ; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPheEg-K2qc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPheEg-K2qc)

<comment><USER8> But on the plus side, hydrogen fuel cell cars refuel faster than battery electrics. The Hyundai Nexo refuels in 5 minutes for a range of 600+ KMs:

[https://www.hyundai.de/Modelle/NEXO.html](https://www.hyundai.de/Modelle/NEXO.html)

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

That said, Porsche and BMW are working on a fast charger than can deliver 100km of range in 3 minutes, 80% charge in 15 minutes:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-13/bmw- porsc...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-13/bmw-porsche- boast-three-minute-charging-jolt-for-electric-cars)

I think battery electrics will win out over hydrogen fuel cell cars in the long run just because more of the infrastructure is already there and it's easier to build out fast charger stations than hydrogen fueling stations. But hydrogen will be part of the mix, maybe more for heavy vehicles than cars.

<comment><USER9> Time to charge isn't as important as you think. It's more important to have chargers where you're going. This way you don't have to go out of your way to fuel.

For example, imagine if you could charge your car at the grocery store, at a restaurant, at the amusement park, parking garage by a concert, ect, ect.

<comment><USER8> I never said it was ultra-important. I'm just saying faster chargers are eroding a benefit hydrogen fuel cell cars have over battery electrics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You lost me at dispensing spent "fuel" at the gas station, that is a massive infrastructure change. Sorry, no buena.

<comment><USER11> Not any bigger of a change than electric chargers and that's working very well

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The "switch" unit sounds like it's just a chemical catalyst for electrolysis of water into Hydrogen and Oxygen...

<comment><USER13> Also the catalyst is patented and only made in one country (Israel).

<comment><USER14> If, as another comment says, it is hydrogen peroxide then the catalyst is probably a variant of something already well known.

There are lots of catalysts, but as it says in the article that it has to be replaced at intervals of something like a year it also has to be cheap, so probably not platinum. There are organic catalysts too and it's not unreasonable to think that there are usable catalysts that would not be covered by a patent; if the process works at all that is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This sort of reads like an advertisement.

>Using a standard sized fuel tank, the Electriq system would, according to modeling, cost less than half the equivalent gasoline price to fill up, and it would deliver around twice the range, while being completely emissions-free – at least, back to the fuel production plant.

Huge if true, but I'd like to see their methods.

<comment> mark-r If you read further into the article, there's no chance it will be half the price of gas - if there's any differential the middlemen are going to eat it up.</comment></comment>


How Germany Became the China of Europe - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2053595,00.html

<comment><USER2> I'm annoyed by this quote:

       > "There is frustration with Germany," says André Sapir, a senior fellow
       > at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank. "Germany is moving ahead,
       > but what are they doing for the rest of Europe?"

I'm having a hard time reading this as anything but "Where's our handout?".

<comment><USER3> I understand the sentiment, but you're overlooking one big factor.

In a true free market scenario with freely floating currencies, currencies in countries like Spain, Italy, Ireland, Greece would have devalued. Germany's currency would have strengthened. This would have made German exports (to other EU countries) much less competitive than they currently are.

However, the Euro tightly integrates these other countries with Germany and makes it very difficult for them to revive their economies.

Using a single currency without a single federal government was a risk for all countries involved. Germany has a huge interest in keeping the Euro alive and the EU as a single unit. It shouldn't be surprising that many people in other European countries expect something in return (for having given up the options that they had before the Euro)

<comment><USER4> people in germany are very pissed about the "rettungsschirm" which guarantees in principle the bail-out of all the other euro countries (PIIGS, portugal, italy, ireland, greece, spain) because it is german money that is given to the other countries. if there would be a referendum about the euro, german people would vote for leaving the euro zone. they want their deutschmarks back. the euro is a political instrument and was never welcome by the people in euroland.

<comment><USER5> Don't use terms as "people in Germany" (implying all), "german people would vote" and "was never welcome (sic) by the people".

I'm from Germany, I'm not pissed. I wouldn't vote against the currency and was actually glad when it was introduced. qed.

<comment><USER4> [http://www.manager- magazin.de/politik/deutschland/0,2828,736...](http://www.manager- magazin.de/politik/deutschland/0,2828,736655,00.html)

Jeder Zweite will zurück zur D-Mark

Every second german wants the D-mark back

Date: 27.12.2010

<comment><USER6> From this follows that every second german doesn't want the D-mark back. Far from "people in Germany". Also, this poll was done after a big campaign by BILD (german tabloid) that other european countries are bleeding Germany, which probably skewed results in favor of abandoning the Euro.

<comment><USER7> Telling people the facts "skewed" results in favor of abandoning the Euro?

<comment><USER8> How do you conflate a tabloid campaign with "telling facts"?

<comment><USER7> Sgift described the campaign as informing readers that other countries are "bleeding Germany" (presumably money, not literal blood).

That doesn't sound inaccurate. Tabloid != incorrect, you know. Tabloid is merely a pejorative label applied to newspapers which don't attempt to hide their opinions.

<comment><USER5> Biggest newspaper, heavily self-opinionated. Even _if_ (big if, I don't buy it) the "the Euro is costing us poor Germans too much" would be right: What do you think what would be the outcome of a report like this for the following survey?

They reach (according to Wikipedia. YMMV) > 12 million readers. If after their anti Euro campaign (again, ignoring the facts at all) still 50% of the population are in favor, how does this even remotely make the non-supporters a majority?

Having done the numbers: The track record for facts from that specific newspaper is poor. Even if you like their agenda in this point, please don't implicate that they are NOT largely misleading (to avoid harsher terms).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Europe in general (perhaps with the exception of the UK) is much less saturated with Made in China goods than the rest of the world, perhaps due to more stringent adherence to standards and quality, or perhaps as a result of its trade laws that still somewhat protect European-made goods.

Germany has benefited greatly from the expansion of the European internal market, and has always had, and still does have, a very good name. Everything from cars to electronics, down to appliances and kitchenware, Made in Germany still speaks volume on the continent.

Despite the somewhat higher prices of German goods (and they are actually kept quite low due to various work-sharing labour arrangements), weighing things on a quality-price scale, they still come out better value than a lot of alternatives. So it's really no surprise that the country is running such a huge trade surplus against the rest of the continent.

<comment><USER10> I have a German car - best car I ever owned :)

On the other hand China does export a lot to Europe, especially in Eastern Countries; since they are cheaper. I don't have any stats, but I see "made in China" stuff everywhere.

<comment><USER9> I can see how that's very likely, my experience is limited to Western Europe at the moment:) We still see quite a lot of goods in cheaper stores that come from China, but nothing like the market domination I see back in North America. Over here in NL for example, I see way more stuff coming from France, Germany, Italy, etc, than just China. I think consumers in some parts of Europe prefer goods that are better quality, even if they are a bit more expensive. From a longer term cost-benefit stand point, it usually works out cheaper anyway.

<comment><USER10> When speaking about finished products, I also saw lots of stuff made in UE in Eastern Europe.

But for example China exports a lot of textiles. Many clothes are still made in Europe, but a large percent of textiles come from China.

That said, I'm glad that Germany can be the powerhouse that it is by focusing on quality rather than cheap-labor. It shows that it is possible. Good for them.

<comment><USER9> It's good to know that quality still sells, and prices aren't everything.

Maybe because of Europe's location, I see textiles sourced from places like Turkey and even Latin America, rather than purely from China/Asia in general. What kind of things do you see coming out of the UE?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Being from Germany I'd also like to point out that that there's another country that did very well throughout the recent recession, namely our neighbor Poland.

The reasons there are probably quite different and also have very little to do with China.

GDP growth Germany: [http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/GDP- Growth.aspx?Sy...](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/GDP- Growth.aspx?Symbol=DEM) GDP growth Poland: [http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/GDP- Growth.aspx?Sy...](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/GDP- Growth.aspx?Symbol=PLN)

<comment><USER12> The Zloty is now worth 18% less than in 2008. That translates into 18% cheaper wages. So for Poland, one important aspect is that they had their own currency. The PIIGS are forced into years of deep depression and painful wage cuts to achieve the same increase in competitiveness.

<comment><USER13> What everybody forgets is that Germany did proactively cut the real income with other means than inflating the currency. The wage cuts did happen proactively before they became really painfull.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > "Germany is moving ahead, but what are they doing for the rest of Europe?"

Being the No. 1 financial contributor in the European Union, maybe?

<comment><USER15> Indeed (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union>), but whats interesting that per capita benefit the Netherlands is paying the most (1467€) followed by Denmark and Sweden, with Germany on 4th position.

But one must take notice that Germany's eastern half has more in common with Poland, Czech and Slovakia than with western Germany - the workforce is still socialistic,... So real contribution of western population is enormous.

<comment><USER16> How do you describe a "socialistic" workforce?

<comment><USER17> "working hard" vs "hardly working"

The eastern part of Germany has big unemployment problems ([http://ryouready.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/germany_by_unem...](http://ryouready.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/germany_by_unemployment.png))

Baden Württemberg (South West) and Bavaria (South East) and basically the powerhouse inside the powerhouse

<comment><USER16> What about Saarland? :)

<comment><USER17> Only a million people and an unemployment rate of 7.5% (vs BW: 4.5%, Bavaria: 4.6%). But compared to the east, they're doing all right.

(also: nice wine and good weather)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> With so many countries borrowing so much to make their bubbles grow and regrow, citizens of countries that don't go for this false growth are supplying the funds by deferring consumption and saving their money.

And countries like Germany and China run trade surpluses, because the bubble countries are not borrowing paper; they're borrowing the labor of all those savers.

That labor must be delivered somehow and that's why there has to be a trade surplus.

The bubble countries can't resolve this imbalance by cajoling the savers into not saving or somehow obstructing trade. The trade imbalance HAS to equal the net borrowing of the country.

The only way is to correct the trade imbalance is balance their budgets AND stop artificially lowering their own interest rates, which causes the private sector to borrow more than it otherwise would.

Policymakers have bought into the idea that somehow there is a shell game to be played that magically creates prosperity. But the reality is that all the game playing wastes an enormous amount of resources.

<comment><USER19> It feels like you are saying something insightful here but I struggle to parse your writing. Could you somehow rephrase what you just said in more layman- readable English?

<comment><USER18> What phrases are you having difficulty with? Maybe you can give me some examples?

<comment><USER19> Basically, it is this sentence:

> That labor must be delivered somehow and that's why there has to be a trade > surplus.

How so? How can labor be borrowed? How can it be delivered?

<comment><USER18> It's more accurate to say that the results of labor are delivered. That might be a product or service.

And these things can be exchanged for money, which can then be given to other people in exchange for their labor.

Yes, technically you are borrowing money, but it has no effect until its used to purchase the results of labor, which is what you actually want to borrow. Your mortgage is actually borrowing the results of all of the labor required to build it, including the labor to make the sheet rock.

If there's a disaster in Haiti and the US lends Haiti a billion dollars, that money will be used to buy things. Or pay people to do things, who will then go and buy things with the money.

Demand then rises for these things and more of them must be imported. Even if they come from a third country, that additional demand causes imports to increase there. Ultimately, that additional demand affects exports from the US.

And, if Haiti ever pays the money back, Haiti will be the one experiencing an increase in its exports.

The beauty is that we are not locked into buying just the products and services the lender offers. We can get anybody's.

To learn more about this, you could check out Austrian economics and the division of labor.

<comment><USER19> Thank you for clarifying this. There is indeed wisdom in what you say.

<comment><USER18> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Given the financial benefits of producing and manufacturing in asia, Germany has to emphasize the quality of its products and exports to stay competitive.

A good example is a very new running shoe brand named Lunge that manufactures its premium running shoes very close to my hometown here in germany, a product that is usually produced in asian low-cost-countries. As far as i know and in contrast to their competitors Lunge refuses to put their money into marketing and instead focuses its efforts solely on the development and manufacturing of their products. Of course they can't compete on the price level, but I hear lots of good feedback from customers that won't go back to asics, nike & co. and don't mind paying the bonus for substantial products. This also applies to me. More here: <http://www.lunge.com>

</comment><comment><USER21> Germany is an export oriented economic powerhouse far longer than China. Chine is looking to become Germany, not the other way around.

<comment><USER22> Thats true but Germany is still too expensive. While other countries are getting better at the quality point Germany doesn't get much cheaper for production. I think if these thinks don't change Germany will get into trouble.

(I'm from Germany)

<comment><USER23> Cheap labour in other countries isn't an infinite resource, I've seen estimates that in about 40-50 years the difference will be gone: China and other countries that currently have cheap labour will have become so enriched that they will have a middle class and social makeup similar to ours, and not so cheap labour anymore.

<comment><USER24> Predicting 40-50 years ahead , in today's world is pretty meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Single page <http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2053595,00.html>

</comment><comment><USER24> This strategy doesn't seem very helpful to the middle class :

"estimates that the disposable income of the German middle class hasn't increased at all in the past decade. About a fifth of the workforce, he says, is stuck in insecure and poorly paid jobs, often earning a dismal $550 a month."

And doesn't concentrating on the high end exposes Germany to improving capabilities of Chinese companies , and improvements in the Chinese brands ? china is working on those capabilities , how can Germany defend against those ? move to the higher end ?

<comment><USER15> A person earning $550 a month in Germani (or most of Europe) may be waaay better off than a person making $50k in US. You have your education, kindergarten, medical care, social security, retirement, etc... Already covered - so with these $550 (and this is just not true, minimal wages in Germany are higher - this has to be eastern German minimal wage) you only need to get through month for food and utilities (quite a lot of people earning minimum wages are living in nonprofit apartments).

So it's not just black and white.

AFAIK $550 is something I can hardly believe to be true, except in Eastern Germany for people aged 40/50+ without any knowhow or qualifications.

<comment><USER24> That's interesting.

Could you please share more details ?

1\. What is the minimum wages in Germany ?

2\. What's the rent for nonprofit apartments , or are they free and provided by government ? decent size , reasonable quality neighborhood , or small apartments and shitty neighborhood (junkies , etc ? ) ?

3\. What's the starting age for state provided kindergarten , what happens before that age , do women get social security ?

4\. In short could german people earning those minimum salaries have a stable living with all the basics provided ?

<comment><USER6> 1\. There is no minimum wage, but if you earn less than the guaranteed minimum (359 Euro), the state will pay you the difference ("Aufstocker")

2\. The rent is provided by state for jobless for the apartments. There are also programs for poor people which aren't jobless to get the rent from the state. The allowed size of the apartment depends on family size afaik. The quality depends on the city you life in, but is usually not too bad (no junkies).

3\. Half-time from the 3rd year is guaranteed. There are programs for younger children and full-time places, but that's not guaranteed (but usually one can get a place). I do not understand the question if women get social security?

4\. This is a topic of heated debate within Germany, so no conclusion here.

<comment><USER24> regarding "social security" : before they go back to full employment, do women get money from the state , and how much.

<comment><USER6> The topic is a bit complex, but yes women get money from the state:

1\. 13 Euro/day for a period of 14 weeks (6 weeks before the birth of the child, 8 weeks after the birth)

2\. 67% of their last wage (maximum 1800 Euro) until the child is one year old.

3\. 184 Euro "Kindergeld" (money for the child, roughly translated) from the day of birth till the child is at least 18 years old (and maybe longer .. as said: complex)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It is because of the slightly less socialist government we have here. If we can manage to trim some more of the huge government bureaucratic fat we can expect even more economic health. Germany will always be reasonably socialist, and probably for Germany (considering the culture, total state addicts here, even rich families get child support benefits, you can't change that overnight) a reasonable amount of socialism will be optimal, compared to English speaking countries, but I am sure we have a way to go as far as turning down the socialism dial, and turning up the free market dial.

<comment><USER27> German citizen who moved out of Germany here. The country rebooted from scratch in '48 with the most unsocialistic / market-libertarian constitution / law landscape the country has ever had so far. Immediately there was the "German economic miracle" (not a miracle at all) but since then socialism has grown every year. Notably faster paced since 1990 but "dialling down socialism a bit and the free market up a bit" is optimistic and illusory. Once this beast feeds and grows, there is no real turning back, all you can possibly adjust is timing. They now have not just income taxes but taxes on everything that moves and every step of every transaction or value chain. Once these taxes exist, they are never removed and keep being raised. Continuous talk about new taxes. All political parties are various shades of socialism and this is apparent in legislation. They make it harder for productive people and firms every year and the real miracle is that there is still "power in the power house", and I'm convinced they're still riding on the momentum of the 50s-70s. All these various 100s of "social state insurances" schemes and constructions are about to collapse a few years down the road and every euro spent on them whether through taxation or debt will not prevent this and just be a waste and destruction of productive human energy.

I dropped out, I stay a perpetual traveller and out of Germany because my conscience forbids me to feed this corrupt destructive apparatus and the greater EU with the fruits of my labour. The only legal way for me to still be able do this and keep my citizenship is to stay outside the country for 180 days or more a year, and not stay inside more than 2 months in a row -- roughly. But hey they the left was already calling to tax permanent travellers so I guess I'm not the only one.

<comment><USER28> Wow, I for one enjoy free, good quality kindergarden, highschool, university and healthcare.

I am not saying there are no problems here, but I do enjoy the social benefits and I am happy to pay 50% tax for that.

<comment><USER26> Well if you include healthcare, you should really add another 13.5% to that, as it is funded by compulsory health insurance rather than tax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Well they have a imbalanced trade balance. By cutting wages of the middle class they will never get their domestic trade in order because these people won't have the money to buy their own products.

</comment><comment><USER19> Can someone explain to me just how Germany is supposed to be like China? It seems to me that all the article is saying is that both countries are export driven, but that is just about it.

<comment><USER30> The basic idea is that when countries go into surplus an increased foreign demand for their products should push up wage levels, domestic demand and, in turn, price levels. With the rising prices there is less demand and the current account surplus equalizes.

I think the general argument is that Germany and China both run huge current account surpluses. China accomplishes this partly through structural regulations and by holding the yuan at an undervalued rate. Germany, on the other hand, cut taxes and reformed its labor and welfare systems in the mid-2000's but in a way that prevents the system from equalizing. The main reason the author gives is that wages don't rise because workers are willing to accept reduced pay raises for job security.</comment></comment>


Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://mikehadlow.blogspot.is/2015/12/learn-to-code-its-harder-than-you-think.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10709371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10709371)</comment>