Bill Gates calls for nationwide shutdown - <AUTHOR> https://thehill.com/policy/technology/490523-bill-gates-calls-for-nationwide-shutdown-shutdown-anywhere-means-shutdown <comment><USER2> I definitely feel the US is constantly behind the curve in this. After trying to downplay it for a while the administration had to accept reality but instead of taking strong measures they still do things only very reluctantly. Then on the other hand they close parks while at the same people are crowding in stores without masks or gloves.

<comment><USER3> One of the characteristics of an exponential spread is that you _will_ be either behind or ahead. If it seems like nobody is at "just right", it's because "just right" is an exponentially small target.

I would suggest cutting people _some_ slack in both directions.

(It wasn't _that_ long ago when our government was being criticized as moving too fast and xenophobically shutting the borders before it was justified. Moving back and forth between "too far ahead" and "too far behind" is also a thing that will continue to happen.)

<comment> shock-value In this situation most would agree it's better to be ahead; the criticism is justified.

<comment><USER3> Would they? First of all, the criticism I mentioned _was_ when the governent was "ahead"; experience indicates people were not "agreeing it was good to be ahead". "Ahead" in this case may be shutting down the economy far more than is justified. While it may be fun to talk about "the rich" and stuff, remember that "the economy" is what feeds all of us, clothes us, houses us, and keeps us in electricity and clean water. It is even now not necessarily clear that we _aren 't_ "ahead", once you put aside the partisan political sniping, and doing ourselves much greater damage than is actually justified. Thousands of deaths are bad, but a 30% employment rate (and presumably growing) is going to be bad too. I am _not_ implicitly claiming one is worse than the other... I'm saying right here, right now, we don't actually _know_.

The "correct" response is an exponentially small target. Right now in the fog of war we don't even know what it would be. It would fit the evidence that the coronavirus fatality rate really is sub-.5%, if you count all the asymptomatic cases that _may_ exist, and that we're badly overreacting. It would fit the evidence that coronavirus is still, if anything, downplayed, that there is no reserve of asymptomatic cases, and that even if it doesn't kill you there will be a generation of people crippled by it just like there was by polio. The nastier end of the rumors I'm hearing are _really nasty_ [1]. It will only be visible in hindsight.

[1]: Can the virus kill the part of the brain responsible for determining whether or not you have enough oxygen in your blood, and then also kill your lungs, so that you think you're recovered and doing well and everything's fine even as your blood oxygen level sinks until you just keel over dead? Is that what the videos of people literally keeling over dead in the streets of China were? Dunno. Won't know for a while yet. But _if_ it can do stuff like that, it could be a scar on us for the rest of our lives. Or that could be something else entirely, up to and including some intelligence agency's way of fearmongering. Heck if I know. Maybe it is ultimately just a bad cold that tends to cause pneumonia and everything else is just the Internet doing its echo-y thing. Zoonoses (diseases that jump the species barrier) have a history of that sort of thing.

<comment><USER4> > _It is even now not necessarily clear that we aren 't "ahead", once you put > aside the partisan political sniping, and doing ourselves much greater > damage than is actually justified_

I haven't been out in over a week, but have we actually gotten to the point where everybody now wears a mask in public?

The shutdowns were partly necessitated by an utter failure to produce and distribute PPE (whether by market or by fiat), which made it impossible for most people to just take reasonable precautions and then continue about (most of) their daily lives. Until the supply catches up until everybody who wants a mask has one, and front line grocery store workers have them provided by their employers, I would say we're most definitely still "behind".

<comment><USER5> >I haven't been out in over a week, but have we actually gotten to the point where everybody now wears a mask in public?

Certainly not in the bay area. I just got back from shopping (first time I've been out in about a week and a half). I couldn't find a mask in stock online, so I cut up and old shirt and some coffee filters and sewed my own. No one looked at me funny, but I was a bit surprised to find that maybe 1/3 of the people in the store had any kind of mask on. Most people seemed to be making very little effort to keep their distance either. Lots of good the little markers for the checkout lines are going to do when people are still walking past each other barely a foot apart in the aisles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As the saying goes, you can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility. (Not by Churchill [1].) Plus, it's not a given that it _is_ the right thing to do, especially if there's no plan for what comes after; and there reportedly are early signs of social unrest on this side of the pond [2]. A shutdown can't last until there's a vaccine. At best it buys you time.

[1]: [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust- alternative...](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust- alternatives/)

[2]: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/singing- stops-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/singing-stops-italy- fear-social-unrest-mount-coronavirus-lockdown)

<comment><USER7> > At best it buys you time.

That's the very point. It takes some (or a lot of) burden off the health infra. Lockdown is being done in many countries so that not everybody will need hospitalisation at the same time.

<comment><USER6> Sure, but for how long will it remain sustainable? The lockdown hasn't lasted a month in Italy and they're already seeing early signs of food theft that could potentially degenerate into food riots. I'm struggling to imagine how any country will make it sustainable for more than a month or two. Yet on paper, a prerequisite for stopping the lockdown seems to be that you've been testing on a fairly large scale, which only Korea seems to have pulled off.

The situation in France, for instance, is unenviable at the moment and absolutely not sustainable: albeit to a lesser degree as in the US, there's not enough PPE for essential staff, not enough masks for everyone else, and most crucially not enough tests to go about. Yet there's a full lockdown with fines and all, and insofar as I'm aware there isn't enough financial help for employers or employees or the self-employed or anyone else. It's only a matter of time before everyone realizes that they're going into this like it's 1914, expecting it'll all be over by the autumn.

It won't.

It won't, because of asymptomatic cases and because the virus is spreading in developing countries. Rich countries won't want to shell out the trillions that might be needed so the latter can cope with the situation. (And that will translate into yet another migration crisis to boot. Etc. Etc.)

For better or worse, the current lockdown measures in a growing number of countries are only postponing the inevitable mass outbreak by a few weeks. That is, unless countries get their act together and find a huge pot of money to tap into -- and in periods with a collapsing economy, the only sane pot of money to tap into is wealth. I'm not holding my breath.

<comment><USER7> Till the time widespread testing is ensured (and hospitals have some breather). Then test and isolate the clusters and keep relatively relaxed other "relatively unaffected" areas and not impose full blown lockdown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I live in a country going through the second week of Shutdown. This is simply stupid and irresponsible. Unlike China which had a limited regional shutdown and where the government controlled lots of everyday life; most of the other countries are running with the private sector.

A 3-4 months shutdown is going to bankrupt pretty much everyone. Those who were running thin but also those who were saving a bit. Unless you have a 1 year expenses upfront and probably own your house in your name, you are going bankrupt and will be relying on the government for help.

Next we are going to see massive disruption for pretty much everything and every consumer good. This is a good opportunity for government intervention and for government (or Big Co) to own pretty much everything.

The virus might kill 100k in the US (or millions) let's just assume that cost and prepare for a future outbreak.

<comment><USER9> What number of deaths would it take to convince you to agree to a 3-4 month shutdown?

What qualifications do you have to assume this virus might kill 100k and not 10 million? Are you ok with 10 million?

Assuming you have friends who have elderly parents, are you ok with visiting them to tell them they are likely to die but it's for a good cause - 'the economy'.

<comment><USER8> > What number of deaths would it take to convince you to agree to a 3-4 month > shutdown?

None. You are either ready for a massive shutdown or you are not. I actually was convinced of the shutdown until just a couple days ago. Things start to break. Your car insurance might expire. Your heater might go down but there is no one to repair it. Cabin fever (even though I'm an introvert and probably handling it better than most people out there). Some people are stuck in one place and need to move to another place.

As time goes by, I can see more and more people changing to the opinion that this was a bad idea. They are not ready and the shutdown risk completely devastating their life or worse.

> What qualifications do you have to assume this virus might kill 100k and not > 10 million? Are you ok with 10 million?

We know it's deadly but not that deadly. The numbers from Korea, Italy and the Diamond princess are not good but they are not world-ending either. They are painful but that's it.

> Assuming you have friends who have elderly parents, are you ok with visiting > them to tell them they are likely to die but it's for a good cause - 'the > economy'.

I have elderly parents. The guideline is that they stay at home. They have a garden, a couple dogs and enough food. But at some point I expect that they'll probably be okay with the risk and seeing me rather than spending 2 year confined with no human contact.

<comment><USER10> > Cabin fever (even though I'm an introvert and probably handling it better > than most people out there).

This part has been interesting - I live alone, and have worked from home for a while, but it's still starting to get to me. I can't imagine people that live by themselves and are used to going to the office every day / are more extroverted.

<comment><USER8> They are going bonkers. I live in a small compound with gardens. I have a strict policy for not interacting with neighbors or not getting into their affairs (for lengthy reasons). A couple days ago I was about to call the police for what's possibly a bad fight/domestic violence for the neighbors next door. The neighbor above me had decided she wants to become a singer and now (as I am typing) is loudly signing. The one above that (second floor) is dropping kitchen object every other day and comes to collect/apologize for that.

This is fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Mr. Gates is already rich and insulated from a likely downturn. It's important to balance the welfare of Americans with their financial welfare, and we can't just borrow our way out of the economic fallout that a months-long shutdown would produce.

Edit: ITT people saying I want to sacrifice 2 million for the economy. I didn't say remove all preventative measures, I said we need to balance. I'd guess this looks something like a production possibilities frontier graph: we'll be sacrificing a lot of economy to get a little more health past a certain point, and vice-versa. It's the job of lawmen to strike that balance.

<comment><USER12> I think you will be surprised that you can borrow your way out of it. what do you think is going to happen, humans are going to survive coronavirus only to be killed because the economy is no longer functioning? the market is there for the benefit of humans not the other way round.

<comment><USER11> Okay, fair points. Here are some of the issues I see with that. You have two options, borrow or print, right? If you borrow, you pay it back. If you print, you don't, but your citizens absorb a serious financial blow. So let's say we don't want to ruin the savings of Americans, so we borrow. Who lends? As of Dec. 2019, 74% of our debt was held by the public [0]. Odds are on that Americans fleeing to financial security would buy the better part of new debt issued, too.

So, you've kicked the can for 10 years; now it's time to pay back. Where do we get the money now? If you cancel it, you're destroying the retirements of millions of Americans, not just hurting some abstract entity of "the Market". Remember that a large number of people feel the effects of a market downturn, even if through a retirement account or pension plan.

So, to avoid retirees eating dog food, you now have to pay back. How do you propose to do this, given we already have a truly colossal $23.6 trillion in debt?

[0]: [https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national- debt-33...](https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124)

<comment><USER12> look you were able to find $2.4trillion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and your economy didn't collapse. that is 10% of your total national debt. this is not going to cost that much (and even if it does it's money better spent than on those wars).

now you are asking how do you pay it back? well you could start by taxing some of the ~600 billionaires that live there. the top eight richest billionaires own as much combined wealth as "half the human race".

so it's not like there isn't a pot of money there, and taking some of it certainly is not going to cause those people hardship. now you look at some of the major corporations and they're very low tax compared to revenue and profit and you have another pot of money that you can access again without causing too much hardship on the company.

the money is out there it's just very unfairly distributed.

<comment><USER13> I completely agree. It's incredible to me how many people in this and similar threads argue that we should just give up on isolation and allow many more millions to die. This pandemic is the perfect argument for UBI and universal healthcare and yet many are still unwilling to even entertain such ideas. Human life is worth saving and we have the means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The ads on this page are ridiculous. Here's a link to the actual op-ed: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres- how...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how-to-make- up-for-lost-time-on- covid-19/2020/03/31/ab5c3cf2-738c-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres- how...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how-to-make- up-for-lost-time-on- covid-19/2020/03/31/ab5c3cf2-738c-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html) would be the better link, no?

<comment><USER16> Paywall, no?

<comment><USER15> > The Washington Post is providing this story for free so that all readers > have access to this important information about the coronavirus. For more > free stories, sign up for our daily Coronavirus Updates newsletter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Having places shut down and places not shut down is like having a peeing section in the pool."

\-- Fun comment on Reddit from user deafmute88

<comment><USER18> I also saw that comment and laughed. However, I really don't think it is a good comparison at all. It's more just funny to think about.

<comment><USER19> How about a smoking section on an airplane or in a restaurant?

<comment><USER20> Man I miss those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This Gates dude has a 66,000 sq/ft house. Easy for him to say that everyone should just stay at home with no access to public parks and beaches. And he has a private waterfront.

For the rest of us, there's no no scientific study that says staying 24hrs/day in our little hovels is more healthful than occasionally walking and enjoying public amenities while maintaining appropriate physical separation from others.

<comment><USER22> No one is saying you shouldn't take the occasional walk while maintaining physical separation, in fact, that's what's being encouraged here. The reality is that the physical separation part needs to be enforced across the country in order to make a dent.

<comment><USER21> The article referenced a closure of beaches. New York recently closed "parks." This is counterproductive. People need spaces in order to be socially distant. If you close all the spaces, they will not be distant.

<comment><USER22> This is not counterproductive. People have been mobbing the parks. The parks need to be closed. I live in Brooklyn and the groups I've been seeing until VERY recently are disturbing. When you close the parks, there's no where for groups of people to hang out. Need to go on a walk? Sure go on a walk and stay away from people. Not everyone needs to be on the street at the same time either. The reality is that in a densely populated city, parks or not, you can't find the distance unless you go out early morning or late at night and stay off the beaten path.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sorry, I'm not really aware about the situation of COVID-19 in the US, is it that serious so that there are shutdown opinions? What is the current status in the US?

Big clusters or unprecedented outbreaks can be controlled with mass/rapid testing and selective quarantine - is the US's situation that bad to all-stop the economy?

<comment><USER22> Mass/rapid testing is not a thing here due to gross incompetence at a federal level. Some regions are outliers and have been able to ramp up on their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> .... and just yesterday HN had an NPR article explaining that Germany is doing so much better because they have local regions that can make autonomous decisions, unencumbered by a one-size fits all mandate.

There are lots of opinions on how to fight coronavirus. It's hard to tell which ones are right.

// Yesterday's contradictory words of wisdom [https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/820595489/why-germanys- corona...](https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/820595489/why-germanys-coronavirus- death-rate-is-far-lower-than-in-other-countries)

</comment><comment><USER25> US seems to be going through different stages of denial. First it was that only Chinese will spread the disease. Then it was dismissed as mere flu. Now they seem to have acknowledged the severity of the situation.

It is disheartening to read in this thread some comment taking the human life so lightly. Is not that the US going to support those going through unemployment with cheques and other benefits? Is it not more important for the people to be healthy so that the economy can be restarted once all this is over? It is depressing to read the comments from citizens of the wealthiest country in the world.

<comment><USER26> It's not necessarily that people are taking human life lightly, just that priorities may not be the same for everyone.

In the UK we've already had cancer patients who have died because their treatment was cancelled to free-up hospitals for COVID patients. Nine murders have been attributed to people not being able to cope with lockdown in their own homes. Why are the lives of ( primarily ) old people with comorbidities considered of higher priority than them?

Pragmatically one could argue that economically and socially it would be fairer to just let people who contract COVID die. But politics intervenes and forbids that.

<comment><USER27> > Pragmatically one could argue that economically and socially it would be > fairer to just let people who contract COVID die. But politics intervenes > and forbids that.

Really? And what if two thirds of the world contracted it and ~3% of those died. I ask you to provide your own proof, models or what not, that letting this virus run rampant won't have equally or even more disastrous affects economically and socially.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is ignorant. The country is the size of a continent. Each subregion should be managed based on current and developing conditions, density of population, weather conditions, etc. Some states have zero deaths, presently and only a few dozen cases. Even China didn't shut down the whole country. Masks and fever checks along with testing should be enough to slow the spread without triggering Great Depression 2.

<comment><USER29> _This is ignorant._

What makes you think that you are better informed on infectious diseases than the guy whose charity has been engaged with the issue for about 20 years now?

It is buried in [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/27/scient...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/27/scientists- track-coronavirus-strains-mutation/5080571002/) but among the other useful tidbits is this. In California today, about 50% of new COVID-19 cases are from out of state travel. 30% are from people known to be at high risk (medical workers and family members of people who have it). And 20% from community spread. Which means that California's biggest problem now is that __other states __aren 't taking sufficient action to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

<comment><USER28> You want to argue that Bill Gates has never made a bad judgment call in his life? Are you kidding me? I know the guy called a future pandemic. I watched his TED talk. Doesn't change the fact that he's wrong on this call. I am saying with caveats: 1) leave the country open 2) require masks in public 3) temp checks for fevers 4) expand and continue drive thru testing

It's not hard to grasp that rural areas are going to have a slower rate of transmission as a matter of course because social distancing is built into those communities. For one, there's less public transportation. Two, all major gatherings have already been cancelled. Three, people are already voluntarily limiting social contact.

This disease is going to fester for another year or so. It's not practical any more to try to contain the outbreak. The idea at this point is to limit the number of cases at any given time to prevent overburdening the local community's medical resources. My mother is a nurse. They've cancelled all elective surgery in preparation for a tsunami of patients in central Florida. As a result their hospital has less than 50% utilization right now. It's slower than it normally is for their hospital! All these other health problems are getting the back burner for COVID-19. How long can you carry that on for? The disease may peak in NYC in 2 weeks but peak in Montana in 2 months. New Mexico may peak in October. You've got to have a rolling adaptable policy for each region. You cannot do blanket policies.

<comment><USER27> Where did he argue that Bill Gates has never made a bad judgment call? You still have zero evidence for your take on this, no matter how practical it may seem. You are going on your intuition and common sense on how to solve this crisis for an entire country?

Your mothers' hospital should be running tests with that other 50% of unused utility right now. Conduct trials on patients found to be positive, etc. That's literally the second point Gates made.

> It's not practical any more to try to contain the outbreak. The idea at this > point is to limit the number of cases at any given time to prevent > overburdening the local community's medical resources.

Lockdown is the most effective way of limiting the number of cases.

The only thing your intuition and experts agree on is the knock that the world economy is going to take. I challenge you to provide models that show that your "practical" handling of this situation won't have the same disastrous effects on the economy when instead of 3% of a smaller number of the population die, 10% of a much larger portion of the population die. These numbers are in line with countries that implemented lockdown early or have very strong government influence versus countries that implemented lockdown too late.

<comment><USER30> Ok, let's say we lockdown for 2-3 months. What do you think will happen again after we open back up?

<comment><USER27> A lot will have to happen _during_ lockdown, you can't just sit idly by. Basically it will buy time.

Of course the virus will still spread once lockdown is lifted, but for countries like the US (not even to mention Italy and Spain) who started behind the curve any time you can buy to bolster your response should be taken.

<comment><USER30> To that end, I agree with you there.

3blue1brown's latest video on YouTube demonstrates that we can also buy time by using a combination of mitigation techniques short of a full lockdown. It's a video of a computer simulation created by a mathematician fwiw, but it shows some of our options, and that brute force may not be required.

Sometimes I want to advocate for a full global lockdown, but I think about the random emergency appendectomy, and other weird edge cases that would be complicated by a lockdown of any magnitude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "We can start now by building the facilities where these vaccines will be made," Gates wrote. "Because many of the top candidates are made using unique equipment, we'll have to build facilities for each of them, knowing that some won't get used."

"Private companies can't take that kind of risk, but the federal government can. It's a great sign that the administration made deals this week with at least two companies to prepare for vaccine manufacturing. I hope more deals will follow," he added.

Arguably, this is precisely the kind of risk that venture capital and startups take every day. Yes, government needs to co-ordinate funding for this and execute where it can. Anything that helps them is great.

However, if someone wants to put $10 million (total of large seed rounds or a small A) into building these facilities as well, open it up, as there is a huge amount of cash sitting on the sidelines right now, and if a small team can get these built, it's worth examining the potential.

</comment><comment><USER32> Nations need to have a soul but companies need not. Health is wealth and sometimes, life is more valuable than dollars.

</comment><comment><USER33> Easy for Bill Gates, he won't be standing in the food lines in 12 months when the result of this shutdown starts to really hit home.

We are going to look back on this as a huge mistake. Its one thing if 50% of the population dies and your trying to save them. Its another thing when its somewhere around 2%, which is roughly the yearly death toll, which means about 2x the number of people who were going to die this year are going to die.

<comment><USER34> Wouldn't it be the original death toll + 2%? Ie, double the death total for the year? That sounds like a BFD to me.

Not to mention the rest of the deaths that will happen due to the medical system being overloaded after free-transmission period took place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Unless they're going to scale up grocery delivery or contactless pickups, I'm not sure it's going to matter.

I had to pick up a prescription yesterday and everyone was mad rushing and hanging out at the store because nothing else is open. Never seen the parking lot that full and this was in the middle of the day, well into a lockdown.

<comment><USER12> shut down or lockdown generally means you can't leave unless you have a good reason such as getting food or medicine it doesn't mean nobody can leave the house ever without the express permission of the government

<comment><USER35> I understand full well what it means, but if you have no limits on how these stores operate and everyone congregating at them, you're undercutting a lot of your response. See also how businesses are skirting the limits and lobbying behind the scenes about essential vs non-essential work.

<comment><USER10> I've been surprised by the number of businesses that are classified as "essential". I have a friend that works for a place that is essential, so she still went to the office a few times a week despite being fully able to work remotely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The bill to implement it would have to be called the "START" Bill.

</comment><comment><USER37> Ideally if we closed off the borders early to non-citizens + temporary residents, we'd be in an entirely different situation.

The administration did things half-assed. At the first notice of the virus, Trump was in denial. The first case was on Jan 20th. After 40 days they were still downplaying it saying it will go to zero.

The borders and airports were where it would spread. Ideally every incoming passenger would have been tested. Every single one.

The other way would be to lock down hotspots. Like China locked out Wuhan from rest of country. However in US many things are just hard to achieve since we are a democracy.

US most likely will have more deaths than other countries, mostly because we have third highest population. China and India seem somewhat competent. I guess time will tell.

</comment><comment><USER38> Is Bill willing to pay for it? I really don't want to see anything from the mega billionaires right now other than zeros on the checks they are giving to charity, government, and people.

<comment><USER39> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation)

> As of 2018, Bill and Melinda Gates had donated around $36 billion to the > foundation.

Yes, he is.

<comment><USER38> "As of 2018..donated around $36 billion to the foundation.."

You mean Bill's foundation? How about as of April 1st, 2020 how much as Bill and Melinda given in billions separate from their foundation? Is there something more...current you can find?

<comment><USER39> You've moved the goalposts so far we're playing a different sport. I know March 2020 seemed like a decade, but 2018 is a pretty recent number, and $36B is a pretty big number even if it's two years old.

<comment><USER38> Forgive me for second commenting, but I missed one salient point: the genesis of this discussion is that Bill Gates would like the entire economy to shut down. My argument is that gates should instead be looking to inject significantly more cash separate from his foundation, directly into our economy, before he starts demanding the economy shut down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Interesting fact

27% of the Senate are over 70, 66% over 60. This disease almost exclusively affects people over 60.

<comment><USER40> It affects people with particular underlying medical conditions more than those who are older. It's just that those who are older tend to have more underlying medical conditions, but any young person with particular underlying medical conditions is at greater risk than a 99 year old with no underlying medical conditions. I saw yesterday a healthy 99 year old survived it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Bill Gates for president!

<comment><USER41> downvoters: relax! it's April's fools day

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> More like you need to turn it off and on again.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm not impressed by Gate's OpEd. Nothing about making the social changes necessary to keep functioning the way places like Korea have been able to. No mention of Facemasks. All he says is that we should shut everything down for months, test more, and make a vaccine. If you look at his suggestions from a month ago[1] they seemed to be mainly to help poor countries and fast track vaccines. Just a month ago he was completely blind to how much of a problem this would be for wealthy countries, and how weak their response to it was.

[1] [https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to- COVID-19](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19)

<comment><USER44> That's funny, I just read the article you linked from a month. It mostly says that it'll take a ton of investment and immediate action because COVID-19 will become a pandemic. That all seems correct in hindsight.

And why do you think Bill Gates should be talking about facemasks?

<comment><USER43> > It mostly says that it'll take a ton of investment and immediate action > because COVID-19 will become a pandemic. That all seems correct in > hindsight.

None of what Gates' recommended in his article from a month ago would have made an impact on things now. He didn't criticize the way governments in the West were handling the outbreaks in their countries, or suggest that we start locking things down. More investment in vaccines is great, but that's something that wont have an impact anytime soon. Gates' newest piece says that the U.S. missed the opportunity to get ahead of the virus, but he didn't suggest a different course when things were actually unfolding.

As for masks, there's a lot of evidence that they might be vital to the effort to slow the spread of this[1], and our inability to act on this is yet another example of our poor response.

[1] [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4pt4oFDBhsC_jpblXpNtQ/preview#)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> > "Private companies can't take that kind of risk, but the federal government > can. It's a great sign that the administration made deals this week with at > least two companies to prepare for vaccine manufacturing. I hope more deals > will follow," he added.

I assume this is Gates trying to bait Trump and his handlers into making this all a 'Greatest deal in the world!' ego massage for the one person both legally capable yet emotionally incapable of acting.

</comment><comment><USER46> Bill Gates should stick to writing software that works, instead of preaching destruction of the economy /s

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm tired of the "shutdown everything" acting like the underpants gnomes. Gates argues for a 10 week or more shutdown and then says we are ~18 months from a vaccine. If we are 18 months from the definitive solution shutting down for 10 weeks doesn't solve much.

Sure, it might knock the infection load back down to what it was in late January. But then 2-3 months later we will be right back where we are now. What's the plan then? Another 10+ week shut down?

Covid-19 is with us for the foreseeable future and we have to figure out how to live a normal life with it. The effort should be focused on getting us to that place. Ubiquitous masks, temperature checks at public places like work, stores, etc. and a culture shift to stay home when you're sick.

<comment><USER48> > temperature checks at public places like work,

People infected with covid-19 may not ever get a temperature. We've focussed heavily on that because it seems obvious, but it's possible that plenty of people spreading covid-19 have anosmia but no other symptoms.

Some people will get temperature, but they can spread covid-19 before their temperature starts and after it's finished.

<comment><USER47> We don't need one method to stop all transmissions. Some will be stopped with a temperature check, some by masks, some by symptomatic people staying home, some by washing hands, etc. The goal is for all of those "somes" to add up to infected people, on average, transmitting it to fewer than 1 other person. That will lead to it eventually dying out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I doubt Mr Gates has been to most of the country or is really capable of understanding he people who live there

<comment><USER50> Very true. This idea is an extreme measure and there are costs that are outside the virus, costs that could cost more lives:

[https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two- disease...](https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-diseases/)

<comment><USER49> Right. And a lot of the middle of the country 'flyover states', are incredibly rural and already enact social distancing. They are currently not as affected. People think the United States is one homogenous entity, and that if New York City is endangered, the entire country is. Nothing can be further from the truth.

New York City is 1400 miles from Oklahoma City. To put that in perspective, if a simultaneous lockdown of the entire United States is warranted based on an outbreak in New York City, then a lockdown of Mo i Rana Norway is warranted due to the spread in Lombardy. Or, being 3800 miles away, locking down Nome, AK because of New York, is like locking down Darwin Australia in December due to the outbreak in Wuhan.

In other words, the distances make these suggestions absolutely ridiculous.

In reality, the virus takes _time_ to spread over land, and the US has a lot of empty land. Lockdowns will need to happen in the interior to flatten the curve, but only after the virus starts to manifest there. The goal with lockdown is to not overwhelm the healthcare system while simultaneously insuring enough people get it to ensure herd immunity.

Interior states should encourage people to prepare and suggest those especially at risk to limit interactions. For the most part they are. As they become more affected, they should institute a lockdown at the latest possible moment they can to avoid an overwhelmed healthcare system. In the meantime, they should take advantage of their working economy to prepare.

The rest of the country benefits from the continued industry of the middle states while they are in lockdown. When it comes time for us to open back up, and them to start lockdown, we should return the favor, by maintaining some semblance of our economy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> He has a point. People in shutdown states/cities try to "escape" to other places that don't have a shutdown yet. States with very few cases might feel safe but it's shown already that acting early is best.

</comment><comment><USER52> Is Bill Gates an elected official? Is he a medical doctor?

Sorry, I understand that he means well, but we need more democratic engagement and less opinions from billionaire industrialists.

<comment><USER53> He played a big part in polio eradication efforts. I'd say he has some credibility to speak on this

<comment><USER54> His part was paying experts who know how to deal with infectious diseases to eradicate polio. Don't get me wrong, he's an awesome person, and we should all be thankful to him for helping. But I agree with GP that we need more democratic engagement and less opinions from billionaires.

It just so happens that we think Bill Gates is a good person and listening to him due to his billions ends up being good. This is clearly not always the case, so taking someone's opinion just because they're immensely rich is a slippery slope.

EDIT: As a disclaimer, I agree with him on this, we need a national shut down.

<comment><USER55> He's presumably still paying experts who know how to deal with infectious diseases, and listening to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I disagree here. I don't think a total shut down of the economy is necessary, and I would like to see the nations billionaires stepping up with more cold hard cash. I appreciate what Bill and Melinda have done through their foundation, but I'm a little suspicious. I guess I just like to see more from him then shut down the economy and everybody stay home in our mansions… I mean homes.

</comment><comment><USER57> A $19 trillion dollar economy is largely shut down to protect - mostly but not entirely - those 65 and older. That's fine, but let's be direct about it. We're sacrificing our doctors, nurses, jobs, national security and much more for our aged and elderly. I'm not saying this is wrong. I'm not saying we should do differently. I really just want to see is clearly stated in this thread.

<comment><USER58> How many times will this have to be repeated: not doing anything will cause more people to die because of overcrowded hospitals, health workers would be even more stressed and people under 65 would die of unrelated health issues due to lack of beds and available health worker. People will be sick, sick people can't work (dead people too), the economy would tank either way.

This isn't on on/off switch: "let the old die and keep 100% of the economy" VS "try to save the old and destroy the economy"

<comment><USER59> >the economy would tank either way.

If we look at the Spanish flu, the economy recovered pretty well after that, although the war also ended which may have had something to do with it. Look at it this way: even if 20% of people are really sick and can't work, that's still 80% of people working, which is way more than the near 0% of people working if there's a complete lockdown. And even in the worse case of 2% of the population dying (and all being working age; in practice we'd expect most to be retirees), that would on average reduce GDP by 2%, which is way less than it's predicted to fall if there's a 2+ month long complete shutdown.

What about if people panic and stop shopping / going to bars, restaurants etc? Well clearly there's still a non-insignificant proportion of people interested in patronising those businesses even with the virus around, otherwise lockdown measures wouldn't be necessary because everyone would be staying at home anyway.

<comment><USER60> 20% are sick and can't work. Then a good chunk of other 80% are not needed because a good chunk of customers are gone. Then quite a bit of people are scared of getting virus, ain't in the mood because of their relatives dying and/or economic situation and don't consume. Demand goes even lower. More people loose their jobs and demand goes even lower. And the spiral continues.

Bars and restaurants are great for spreading the virus. Once people learn it the hard way, remaining people won't go there that much.

In my country patronising of bars and restaurants fell down the cliff in a couple days mid-march. Closing them down due to quarantine was just a formality in many cases. Sure, some people would still go. But they wouldn't have enough traffic to cover fixed costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is an unprecedented measure. I can understand the need to do everything possible, but there are other costs. Shutting down rural areas could shut down food supplies, which we're already seeing with seasonal fruit pickers in Europe.

COVID-19 becomes critical in people because their immune system overacts and ends up hurting living cells. If they recover, it's just some dead bloodcells and they can be replaced. When our society starts overrating with out social immune system, people die. I wrote about this hidden cost last week:

[https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two- disease...](https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-diseases/)

<comment><USER58> > Shutting down rural areas could shut down food supplies, which we're already > seeing with seasonal fruit pickers in Europe.

Do you really thing the government didn't think about that question ... It's not like two weeks down the line all the experts will be like "damn, we forgot about the food".

The only affected crops are hand picked fruits, which aren't a necessity. All grains, potatoes, most veggies are picked by machines, there won't be any food shortage, unless you only feed on raspberries.

<comment><USER50> > Do you really thing the government didn't think about that question

Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Bill Gates' meddling is a big part of what got us into this mess. He's practically bought out the WHO, here's some good reading on that: [https://www.politico.eu/article/bill-gates-who-most- powerful...](https://www.politico.eu/article/bill-gates-who-most-powerful- doctor/)

So we have a weak WHO that people are manipulating for their personal goals, altruistic or not. Then there's this outbreak in China, and the WHO just completely screwed up every opportunity to contain the thing. They went right along with the Chinese government and announced no evidence of human to human transmission (their travel advisory said if you go to Wuhan you should wash your hands).

Now in my opinion the WHO should be tearing into the Chinese government for an apparent coverup and allowing the virus to spread internationally. Instead Tedros, WHO head and Bill Gates connection, is praising China.</comment>


Ask HN: How can I monetize GitHub Issues? - <AUTHOR> Hello everyone! I'm an author of TLSharp (https://github.com/sochix/TLSharp) - open source Telegram library. I got a lot of issues from users on my GitHub profile. At the very first time, I tried to answer everyone and help with project. But as time goes, I got annoyed by it. Also there is a lot of silly question, not connected to library development.
I noticed that it's a common problem of open-source projects on GitHub. After some time contributor got annoyed/not interested in working with community.
I decided, that some small amount of money to answer a question or help user using your library is a win-win for user and the OSS project.
Do you know any way to monetize GitHubs issues? <comment><USER2> I looked into something similar (albeit briefly) and found BountySource, which is _almost_ what I wanted: [https://www.bountysource.com/](https://www.bountysource.com/)

Preferably, like you, I'd rather this be user-oriented, like a kickstarter for features or issues, rather than just paying developers for implementations, but I will confess I didn't look at BountySource too closely. Perhaps it would fit both our needs.

<comment><USER3> Hi, what is your contact info ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Signal has a pay-per-PR system that might be just want you want. [https://whispersystems.org/blog/bithub/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/bithub/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I reckon what you suggest is not a bad idea: when someone posts an issue that you do not particularly feel like working on, set a price on it! When/if anyone pays, you work on it.

Or someone else can come in and say "I'll do it for X".

Most successful projects that I know of are those where the developer is actually getting paid for his work. QGIS is a great example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly what I mean!

<comment><USER5> Go for it then, and good luck! ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I suggest you looking into Gratipay. It's a service that's in progress that allow for contributors of FOSS software to get paid for their contributions.

</comment><comment><USER7> I work in a blockchain company and I'm building a tool that allows users to vote on pull requests to be merged to github, all done on the blockchain.

Naturally reading this has spun some ideas in my mind - it would be cool to build a system where people are incentivized to respond to issues, and having it on the blockchain removes a lot of the trust issues that comes along with payouts and rewards.

Any thoughts on this?

</comment><comment><USER8> That's not going to go well. If you aren't motivated working on it for free, then consider trying to find someone who can take over maintainership.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried to find someone who can take maintainership, but it's very hard. I'm motivated to work on the code, but I hate to answer silly questions about C# syntax</comment></comment>


Amazon sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books last quarter - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/technology/20kindle.html

<comment><USER2> Before you dismiss this because it's limited to hardcover books, keep in mind that, for general books, a hardcover version is often released before a paperback one is made available. This means that many new hot books will only be available as hardcover or Kindle editions. And the Kindle format is winning.

This is a remarkable result and should be considered as a sign that we are reaching a tipping point for ebooks, to phrase it in a Gladwell-esque way.

<comment><USER3> I don't think we're at a tipping point yet. Amazon sold Kindles to its most regular book customers. We'll reach a tipping point when the general public begins to purchase ebooks, but I don't think we're there yet.

We don't know how many of these purchases are to Amazon's best customers. I would be very curious to see the purchases broken down by the number of customers purchasing ebooks vs those purchasing paper books. And by quantity, how many ebooks are purchased vs paper books per customer. Is this simply a fact of frequent customers now buying ebooks, or many more customers now buying ebooks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Making the Kindle app available on a multitude of devices (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, etc.) was a very smart move by Amazon. If someone has a kindle now, it is absolutely no problem for them to get an iPad or other device and continue reading/purchasing books.

<comment><USER5> Yep, you can read it anywhere Amazon _allows_ you to read it.

<comment><USER6> "Disallows" and "hasn't finished writing software for yet" are two different beasts. Amazon wants you to be able to read your books wherever you want; the more places you can read them, and the happier you are, the more ebooks they sell.

<comment><USER7> How about on a Sony eReader touch? You're saying they have plans for that as well?

<comment><USER6> No more than they could possibly be having plans for the iTouch (and by extension iPhone), which is billed as the answer to the Kindle.

Well, that's not true really. There's not a snowball's chance in hell Sony would ever LET them distribute a reader app, no matter how much Amazon wanted to.

<comment><USER7> Amazon doesn't need to distribute an app for the Sony reader touch. Just the books themselves in epub format instead of their current kindle/mobipocket format.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I keep looking to make a kindle purchase of a newer book. The price floor of $10 on a digital item has so far been hard to swallow. I've downloaded plenty of out of copyright classics, but why buy the kindle edition for $10 when I can get a gently used paperback for around $6 shipped with the ability to resell it for anywhere between $4-$8 depending on supply?

<comment><USER9> Reselling paperbacks and getting a good price for them? What's your time worth?

<comment><USER8> It isn't just my time. It's about making sure books get read. I can't throw a book out so I figure I'll ship it off to someone else.

A box of padded envelopes and the post office is 100ft from where I eat lunch nearly every day. It isn't so much of a hassle.

Not only that, but the kindle actually slows down my reading. Overall a paperbook is less of a time commitment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is just for hardcovers - not paperbacks. Outside of textbooks, we have very few hardcovers in our house.

<comment><USER11> Also, keeping in mind that online book sales account for only 15.5% of all books sold (at least in Germany), it's not the end of the printed book by a longshot.

<comment><USER12> Germany's online booksellers have ridiculous prices. I don't know what the marketshare figures look like in the rest of the world, but I would be very surprised if they were comparable to Germany.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a problem with the term "Sold" when it comes to Kindle books. Nobody actually "buys" one, they license it.

DRM is toxic.

<comment><USER13> The Kindle DRM is pretty easy to strip off. Then you have a mobipocket ebook that can be easily converted to epub, pdf, etc.

<comment><USER5> You not really advising me to break the law, are you?

<comment><USER13> I didn't advise you to do anything. I'm just stating a simple fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This means Apple, out of nowhere, could soon become the #1 or #2 book retailer in the world by next year. Apple has sold 3M iPads, roughly the same as the Kindle - [http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/201...](http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2010/01/amazon_ceo_millions_of_kindles_sold.html)

There will probably be around 2:1 iPads to Kindles and Nooks by the end of the year. They are doing what they did with music with books.

<comment><USER15> But also remember that many people don't own kindles, but buy books & use the software on other devices -- quite often Apple devices.

<comment><USER14> For now anyways. I doubt many people with iPads will buy Kindles in the future and Apple's eReader will scale far beyond the kindle because it offers so much more. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Android tablets roll out.

<comment><USER16> did you actually comprehend what lallysingh was saying?

I'll summarize - many people who are buying kindle books are not using amazon hardware.

<comment><USER14> A year from now there will be 2-3 times as many iPads in circulation as there are Kindles. 2 years, way more. Most of these people obviously will not have prior Kindle accounts and they will buy via iBooks rather than a third party app. The size of the pie is increasing, Kindle's slice can't keep pace.

<comment><USER15> I have my doubts on people preferring iBooks. Amazon.com is a much better place to shop, and as long as I have _any_ other type of machine, the kindle books are more flexible for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> And yet for all the books I wanted to buy last week paperbacks were cheaper compared to Kindle books. So much for digital copies being easier to manufacture and all that.

I only see myself buying Kindle books for something unavailable in paper form or with a serious discount.</comment>


Food barcode database - <AUTHOR> What is the best food barcode database in UK ? in the US ? in France ? in Australia  ? in germany? <comment><USER2> If best=largest, I would guess Tesco's, Walmart's, Carrefour's, Woolworth'ses, and Edeka's (the largest food retailers in those countries), but chances are that's not your sole criterion. What are your criteria for 'best'?

</comment><comment><USER3> Which databases have you found so far?</comment>


PS4 5.05 BPF Double Free Kernel Exploit Writeup - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Cryptogenic/Exploit-Writeups/blob/master/FreeBSD/PS4%205.05%20BPF%20Double%20Free%20Kernel%20Exploit%20Writeup.md <comment><USER2> What is Microsoft doing right that Nintendo and Sony can't seem to figure out? Near as I can tell, the Xbox 360 is still pretty ironclad short of risky hardware modifications. However all recent Sony and Nintendo consoles have been broken wide open with purely software exploits.

<comment><USER3> IIRC, while the 360 required hardware modifications, the later generations of mods were not that hard or that risky (of course, your definition of risky is dependent on confidence and skill level for those mods).

Addendum - the original XBox hardware mods were pretty easy too.

<comment><USER2> While it may not be risky for those of us who are comfortable dismantling hardware and soldering third party chips to the motherboard, you have to admit that is a much higher barrier to entry than browsing to a website designed to leverage the latest webkit exploit. I think it's enough to severely limit the size of a given platforms homebrew community.</comment></comment></comment>


How People Learn – The Brain Basics - <AUTHOR> https://iuliangulea.com/blog/how-people-learn-the-brain-basics/ <comment><USER2> I found this to be a very good explainer. I particularly found the diagrams to be very illustrative. Congratulations on a great post!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your kind words, @trufas!</comment></comment>


PyCon 2017 – Talk videos - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrJhliKNQ8g0qoE_zvL8eVg/feed <comment><USER2> My talk at Pycon was about building modern commandline shells using python.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJhZhLg3obk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJhZhLg3obk)

I'd love some feedback.

<comment><USER3> You talk about [https://bpython-interpreter.org/](https://bpython- interpreter.org/), do you actually use that? That looks pretty awesome!

Otherwise I really like the 10min demo at the end. Your library really looks amazing. I do not have any tools that would need it at the moment but I'm definitely bookmarking that :)

Actually I know someone who might benefit from that ([http://www.pappyproxy.com/](http://www.pappyproxy.com/))

<comment><USER2> Yes! I always use bpython never the default python repl. That's one of the very few python packages that gets installed system wide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought David Wolever's talk on exploring CPython internals was quite good. Doesn't assume any prior knowledge on how CPython functions.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5_5XmmwMx8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5_5XmmwMx8)

</comment><comment><USER5> That's fast! Thanks PyCon 2017 organizers!

</comment><comment><USER6> Every tech conference have some presentations that look good, but go out as boring, and some hidden gems.

Would you recommend some of the videos?

<comment><USER7> My favorite so far: Raymond Hettinger Modern Python Dictionaries A confluence of a dozen great ideas

<comment><USER8> YT video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npw4s1QTmPg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npw4s1QTmPg) slides for the 2016 talk: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3967849/sfmu2/_build/htm...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3967849/sfmu2/_build/html/main.html)

The 2017 slides are better, but I can't find them they are mentioned in the beginning of the talk though.

<comment><USER9> Slides are below the video. Click on "show more" to see them.

[https://github.com/PyCon/2017-slides](https://github.com/PyCon/2017-slides)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> First of all, I'm glad Beazley wasnt there. That dude never does talks geared towards most python programmers. Always talks about mystical and niche shit.

Second of all, The talks are getting repetitive. There were really any new fresh talks this year. Most of them were either very close to earlier talks or just exact copies. It was more like how comedians repeat their jokes in order to perfect them. But these guys are repeating the same old talks but to no end.

If you've seen earlier talks, you can easily skip this one.

</comment><comment><USER11> what, no beazley?

</comment><comment><USER12> I find all the video titles in PyCon 2017 aren't well presented or worth to watch than PyCon 2016. Displaying code against the white background is awful.</comment>


Dynamic PNG shadow position & opacity with jQuery - <AUTHOR> http://pushingpixels.at/experiments/dynamic_shadow/

<comment><USER2> once I noticed the light switch, I was really impressed. Great work.

<comment><USER3> Yeah the switch in the bottom left corner was not obvious.

I thought the demo was broken at first.</comment></comment>


Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/13/exit-scammers-run-off-with-660-million-in-ico-earnings/ <comment><USER2> > "Investors have been told that they would enjoy a profit rate of 48 percent > a month from their initial investment, and recoup all investments after four > months. People would also be rewarded with an eight percent commission for > every new member they have introduced to the network."

There's your red flags right there.

<comment><USER3> This is one thing most people don't understand. If someone is selling you a financial instrument with >6-7% annual returns, it's as ridiculous as someone selling you a time machine or the cure to death.

The top 500 companies by market cap don't do much better than 6-7% annually on average.

<comment><USER4> Take look at Argentina's market. You can get 20% of return on yearly bonds in dollars. Yes, its a bubble but its more mature than any kids ICO

<comment><USER5> I know nothing of Argentina finance, but if I take your sentence a facevalue, my assumption is that they have a high rate of estimated future inflation.

There is no free money in finance.

<comment><USER6> Argentina is legendary for bad credit, so that's why returns have to be so high

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Dollar figures in cases like this shouldn't be trusted. ICO scammers have an incentive to make it look like they're getting more investment than they really are, since that gets them more attention. They can easily achieve this through self-dealing--taking their own money and giving it to themselves under another identity. They can even reuse the same money to do this multiple times; that would leave evidence on the blockchain, but I'm not aware of anyone who checks for such things.

<comment><USER8> And article authors have an incentive to make the numbers as big as possible to attract the most attention. They happily use the highest wild estimate in the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> At this point you really can feel no sympathy towards anyone who gets suckered into these types of scams. Same thing with facebook scams or instagram/snapchat pyramid schemes. If you really are that _nice word for lacking intelligence or any ability to think for yourself_ , then you deserve what you get in terms of financial loss or social backlash. There isn't even a target demographic for this, people from all over the board are falling victim. From old people with their retirement savings to young adults who spend their minimum wage paychecks on it, all in the hopes of getting a quick turnaround. That's not meant to come off as mean or condescending, you can only say to someone "It's okay, everyone makes mistakes" so many times before you stop feeling pity towards their poor decision making.

A thing to note in my eyes is that different to social media scams, these ICO scams aren't even being that pushy in terms of advertising. When engaged with a pyramid scheme, people tend to be pretty aggressive in getting you to join. With these scam coins, people are willingly going up to them with little to no previous information and dumping their bucket of pennies in the well.

EDIT: Getting down voted for being blunt. Sucks to lose rep because people don't like to hear the truth.

<comment><USER10> Actually, normal people do deserve protection from financial scams; and they don't deserve what they get just because they are not as sophisticated as a HN reader.

<comment><USER11> I don't think it takes a particularly high amount or sophistication to google "ico", see that most of them are scams, and stay away. People shouldn't invest in things they don't understand.

<comment><USER12> You'd think so but literally no one in my family was able to do this.

You're coming from a place of higher-than-average technical knowledge. Many who do not, especially folks who never learned how to think critically, have no idea how to verify a claim or to verify that something is what it says it is. Many, in fact, take what is said on TV as the "correct" thing and rely on that to help steer their knowledge.

People just see everyone getting stupid rich around them on TV by investing in "crypto" so they obviously would like to do the same thing. But crypto is hard. Even the hard core crypto fans have many blind spots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm also skeptical about the $660M number. To put that in perspective, Vietnam's GDP is $232B, so this is about 0.3% of Vietnamese GDP. 0.3% of the US GDP would be about $50 billion.

FWIW most articles I'm finding source the $660M number to the linked Tuoi Tre News story. Their quote is "The victims said the company had conned them out of VND15 trillion (US$660.79 million)." [https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/business/20180409/vietnamese- cry...](https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/business/20180409/vietnamese- cryptocurrency-scam-allegedly-deceives-thousands-to-swindle-660mn/45001.html)

I have no doubt there was yet another ICO scam with someone walking away with the money, but I wonder how much money it was.

<comment><USER14> The "investors" ( _ahem_ ) are no doubt counting their expected returns as the amount they are out, rather than their capital outlay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Did it actually raise 660m or was that the size of the "market cap" when it collapsed?

if I sell 100 tokens for a dollar then convince someone to buy 1 token for 10 dollars, if I run off with the money I've not run off with $1000 even if it feels like it for the people left with tokens.

<comment><USER16> In these situations they sell their bullshit tokens for real money (or BTC/ETH), so they would have run away with the actual money or something within an order of magnitude, not some fantasy "market cap".

<comment><USER17> It sounds like they pulled the plug after as little as 2-3 months of supposed ~50% monthly increases. So the chance that the real money stolen is somewhere in the vicinity of 1/4 the apparent loss seems high.

Your figure of 1/10 to be conservative sounds sadly sensible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Where's the smart contract that collected those funds? I'm really skeptical about that $660M number.

Filecoin raised $257M and they had the support of a bunch of VCs, top crypto funds, smart crypto whales, and thousands of supporters around the world.

$660M for a coin no one has heard of? Doesn't add up.

<comment><USER19> Haven't found the ICO contract, but the ERC20 contract says there are 1,912 token holders while OP says there were 32,000 investors.

[https://etherscan.io/token/0xC8a8D2A81cc86b95beb04E5a320D7E5...](https://etherscan.io/token/0xC8a8D2A81cc86b95beb04E5a320D7E53F3c627dd)

<comment><USER18> Seems like Techcrunch may have regurgitated some alarmist articles without any fact-checking. I'm not finding the evidence either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's no way they raised $660M. Even $66M would be pushing it. I hope TechCrunch edits this article with a more accurate number.

Filecoin and Tezos both raised about $200M and were considered massive ICOs, not to mention they happened in the wealthiest countries on earth and were heavily backed by institutional investors. It's simply impossible that an obviously scammy ICO in a relatively poor country raised $660M.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm old enough to remember StockGeneration.com [1].

Different decade, different suckers.

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

</comment><comment><USER22> This is super sad & bad for the space and for those of us that work in the industry and just want to build real stuff.

$600m is a ton for anywhere, but especially for Vietnam! I hope there is an international manhunt ongoing.

<comment><USER23> Man if only we had regulation! Oh wait

<comment><USER24> [https://twitter.com/stephendpalley/status/982353358915801088](https://twitter.com/stephendpalley/status/982353358915801088)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is another one going around in Vietnam called Polynetwork which is a clear scam: [https://polynetwork.org/](https://polynetwork.org/)

<comment><USER26> Looks like it was always going down from the initial offering and the price now is basically 0 [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/poly- ai/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/poly-ai/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > _raising $660 million from approximately 32,000 people._

Honestly where is this money coming from? Is there just that much money sloshing around in the world chasing after these harebrained ideas?

<comment><USER28> > Is there just that much money sloshing around in the world chasing after > these harebrained ideas?

No, it's probably based off market cap. Let's say I generate 100B tokens. I happen to con you into buying one for $0.01. Boom, the price of my token is $0.01 per coin, and I have 99,999,999,999 of them at a market cap of $1B. Only $0.01 of actual value has been exchanged, but I can now "exit scam" with $1B in supposed value.

In reality, they probably had a few million, maybe tens of millions at most. $660M is a ridiculous number, probably only achieved by factoring their stupid coin's market cap in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't understand how we have all this information on the internet and people still get sucked into these scams. 48%...that is not a realistic guaranteed return! :/

<comment><USER30> 10-15 years ago, I was certain that "bullshitting" people was going to disappear in the near future. It seemed inevitable that people would just pull out their phone and fact check any scam or lie. In a bizarre twist, it appears the opposite has happened.

<comment><USER31> Yeah... with 1000 conflicting versions of any event, it's more difficult than ever to sift through the misinformation. Then one brilliant soul will say "aha, I know the solution, I will hire experts and engineers to efficiently sift through information sources and present people with a version of truth we can be confident about!", behold the birth of the 1001st version of events.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> _Again we find that the current, unregulated, ICO market is the most interesting system for parting fools from their money in recent history._

Jokes apart, I think it's a good thing. It's 2018, if people are exposed to that kind of scam today, they will evolve quickly, especially the kids. They will develop critical thinking and bullshit detectors. They will stop believing in advertisement and, more importantly, propaganda.

<comment><USER33> And hopefully remember why we have things like the SEC and securities regulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Classic pyramid scheme, I think 660mil in Viet currency?

<comment><USER35> No, that's less than $30k. The article says USD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> _> > "Investors have been told that they would enjoy a profit rate of 48 percent a month from their initial investment, and recoup all investments after four months. People would also be rewarded with an eight percent commission for every new member they have introduced to the network."_

Scammers don't deserve the money but fools and their money...

<comment><USER37> "You can't con an honest person" (Not actually always true, but applies to many scenarios)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> How is this different then Bitconnect or any of the other 100's of ICO scams that have happened in the last year?

</comment><comment><USER39> It's not that ICOs are bad, it's that there are people naive enough to believe this kind of shit.

</comment><comment><USER40> Can anyone help ? I have been trying to find a site that was submitted to HN a week or two ago. It was a fake site about a blockchain scheme but the author's intention was to highlight the shortcomings. It was before 1st april.

Thanks :).

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm especially dismayed that they brought the Ethereum name into it.

Ethereum already gets a bad rap because it's easy to write insecure smart contracts, if someone uses the platform to pull off a scam that's even worse.

I doubt they even created a dapp or wrote any code though.

<comment><USER28> Maybe Ethereum is stupid for encouraging "tokens" in the first place, and maybe their name should be dragged through the mud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> People buying cryptocurrencies are NOT investors. Period.

</comment><comment><USER42> I like that we've just come to accept daily occurences of billion dollar ponzi schemes as a cost of doing business. This is great. You crypto people should be proud of yourselves.

</comment><comment><USER43> The story is unbelievable on many levels.

</comment><comment><USER44> Initial. Clown. Outwitting.

<comment><USER45> I tried warning people that 99% of alt coins die.

They rather believe in unicorns.

<comment><USER46> > I tried warning people that 99% of alt coins die.

I love this logic. Everything but Bitcoin is somehow a shitcoin. Maybe, just maybe, Bitcoin belongs in the same stack as all the rest...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Greed is a motherfucker.</comment>


One Night Of Sleep Not Enough To Make Up Deficit - <AUTHOR> http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/007378.html

<comment><USER2> Really though, the math is pretty unsurprising isn't it? Optimum sleep time is usually considered 7 or 8 hours, we'll say 7.

If you sleep 4 hours a night for 5 nights, you wind up 15 hours short. Why would one expect to make up for that with 3 "extra" hours?

<comment><USER3> In my experience sleeping "extra" 1.5 hours in two night in row is much more helpful than sleeping 3 "extra" hours in one night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Check out the Stanford Sleep Book to learn more about sleep debt: <http://stanfordsleep.ning.com/>

<comment><USER5> Warning: the above link autoplays audio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Melatonin has really helped me regularize my sleep pattern and get better sleep quality. I recommend it. So far I've been taking 3 mg supplements, but I've read that this might be overkill, and plan on moving to 1 mg.

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

<comment><USER7> Melatonin works alright as long as you wind yourself down a half hour or so before you take it. I found that if I took it while still up late on the computer, I would get tired, but not enough to fall asleep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting... I just started a biphasic sleep schedule (4.5 hours of sleep from 1:00 to 5:30, and then 1.5 hours of sleep from 19:00 to 20:30) but now I'm wondering if the cost will outweigh the benefits.

<comment><USER9> I've done a 6 and 2 biphasic schedule (or sometimes 7 and 3), and I felt better than I ever had before. It's difficult to fit the nap in with work though.

I think in many ways the "Italian" sleep schedule (up at 7, awake till 2, sleep till 5, awake till 2) is very natural. It's no less sleep, but it feels more refreshing somehow.

<comment><USER10> Depending on where you live, the hottest hours of the day are usually between 12 - 5. Maybe it's instinctual for predators to not want to do stuff during those hours?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interestingly, this submission was perfectly timed for me. I slept 4 hours each on Sunday and Monday night, then I stayed up all night Tuesday night. Wednesday I slept 13 hours, and then last night I got tired around 10 pm and slept 10 more hours. Before seeing this submission, I thought it was a little weird to sleep so much two nights in a row.

Now I'm feeling truly refreshed, and I'm ready for another late-night weekend :)

</comment><comment><USER12> <http://www.xkcd.com/776/>

</comment><comment><USER13> I've known this forever.

<comment><USER14> You win

<comment><USER13> It just seemed self-evident, and not worth an article.

<comment> lobo-tuerto It isn't self evident. That's why research and studies are performed.

We can assume or think a lot of things are self evident, but if there isn't any hard facts lying around, we can never be sure.

<comment><USER13> Ok, self-evident is the wrong word. Properly expressed, what they describe and conclude is exactly what I have experienced all my life. If I stay up all night, or close to all night, the following night I will sleep for 10+ hours. The following night after, another 10+ and the 3rd night 8-9. Not by choice, I just can't be woken by my alarms.

This pattern repeats almost without fail.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Of Algebirds, Monoids, Monads, and Other Bestiary for Large-Scale Data (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.michael-noll.com/blog/2013/12/02/twitter-algebird-monoid-monad-for-large-scala-data-analytics/ <comment><USER2> I find that monads are easier to explain in the context of programming that in category theory.

First, start with a functor. In terms of programming, a functor is container with an associated function (often called map or fmap -- I'll call it map since fmap simply stands for "functor map"). map takes the contents out of the container, applies a function (which you pass to map) and puts the results back into the container again.

It's important to understand that the function may change the type, so while you have the same kind of container, the type of data inside may change. For example, imagine your functor (container) is an array of integers and your function takes an integer and returns a char. The result of running map on your functor is an array of chars. This may seem trivial, but it is important later.

One other thing to realise is that anything that can "hold on" to a value and for which you can implement map is a functor. So arrays, lists, tuples, hashes/dictionaries/objects etc are all examples of functors. Even a function that has a closure over a parameter can be a functor -- as long as you have a way of implementing map (left as an exercise for the reader).

Monoids are usually not explicitly identified in most programming languages. You can make functors that can contain anything (i.e. the set that represents the values it can contain is allowed to be empty). So basically, you can contain a functor that contains only nothing. A monoid is a functor in which the set that represents the values it can contain can not be empty. In other words, it must be able to contain a value. Also it must have an "identity" value for a given operation. The identity value is one for which when you perform the operation, you get the same value back. For addition and integers the identity value is 0 (n + 0 = n). For multiplication and integers, the identity value is 1 (n * 1 = n). For concatenation and strings, the identity value is "" (s.concat("") = s). Most functors (remember, just a fancy word for container in the context or programming) are monoids for a given operation.

An endofunctor is just a functor (container that you can implement map on) for which the type you start with is exactly the same as the type you end up with. For example, if you have an array of integers, apply a function to the contents with map, and you end up with an array of integers again, then you have an endofunctor ("endo" just means that it's the same on both ends). If you ended up with an array of strings, then it's not an endofunctor because an array of integers is different than an array of strings, even though they are both arrays.

A monad is just a monoid (container that can hold at least 1 element and for which there is an identity element for the function you will be applying) in the category of endofunctors (you'll get exactly the same type after you apply the function).

Usually instead of map (which automatically puts the transformed values into the container) you use a function called bind with monads. bind works pretty much the same as map, except that the function you pass to bind needs to put the transformed value into the container. You would think that this is a PITA, but it's very necessary in many situations (easiest way to see this that I know of is to try to implement an "either monad" with only map -- you'll see right away that it's not possible).

And that's it, really. I find it really interesting to understand how category theory works, but it is not at all necessary for understanding how to use functors and monads while programming.

Edit: I forgot the most important part! Why do a want a monad? Since it always returns the same type from bind as what you started with, it means you can chain functions. I've found that it's also really helpful in non-type checking languages for reasoning about the type of things. If you are using bind on a monad, you _know_ that chaining will work every time -- you never need to check for null, etc.

<comment><USER3> >For example, if you have an array of integers, apply a function to the contents with map, and you end up with an array of integers again, then you have an endofunctor

sorry i'm confused. been learning haskell in parallel with cat theory. isn't the only category in haskell Hask? whose objects are types? in that sense aren't all of the `Functor`s in haskell endofunctors?

<comment><USER4> There are many many categories in Haskell. All you need for a category is to identify _something_ as the objects, _something_ as the arrows, and make sure your identifications result in something that matches the category laws.

As a simple example, every monoid is a category with a single object (hence the mono- prefix). Hence every monoid in Haskell is a category.

Now it is true that all `Functor`s in the sense of the Haskell typeclass are endofunctors in category theory, because a higher-kinded type can be thought of as a mapping between types in Haskell (e.g. `Maybe` maps `Int` to the new type `Maybe Int`) and `fmap` can be thought of as a mapping of functions between types to their remapped types (we take `a -> b` and replace it with `Maybe a -> Maybe b`), which results in a functor from Hask to Hask.

However, it is not true that the only functors (in the category theory sense) are instances of the `Functor` typeclass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice blog post.

When we're at it, have a look at "Functors, Applicatives, And Monads In Pictures"[1]. No silly comparisons to burritos or something like that, only a few pictures that everybody can easily remember.

[1] [http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_...](http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_monads_in_pictures.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Shot in the dark here, but I vaguely remember a blog post that used birds in an explanation for monads and I can't seem to find it again. It had hand-drawn birds, and I think it started out with the identity monad, with the bird representing it only able to speak their own name.

Does anyone remember that post? I'd love to find it again, I got really excited when I saw the title, thinking that it had finally come around again.

<comment> pm-mk Are you referring to the bird songs from Raymond Smullyan's "To Mock a Mockingbird?"

I found this breakdown after a cursory search [http://dkeenan.com/Lambda/](http://dkeenan.com/Lambda/)

<comment><USER6> Ah you know what, I think I am. I guess I was stuck thinking about Monads rather than the lambda calculus. Thank you so much!</comment></comment></comment>


Single Minecraft universe with infinite worlds, larger than Earth - <AUTHOR> https://minecraftly.com/ <comment><USER2> This is meaningless, a single Minecraft world is practically infinite and "bigger than Earth".</comment>


Fuchsia OS Introduction - <AUTHOR> https://bzdww.com/article/163937/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19485121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19485121).</comment>


Startup idea for helping people better understand their printed books - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> It was a failed idea from Radio Shack (?) in 1998 - I still have the stuff they gave away for free when it failed - the scanner shaped like a d****. But if you are interested in this, then why dont you look at my post http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=1890 \- Anil

<comment><AUTHOR> There's no scanner involved here.

<comment><USER2> I have been doing what you have in mind, with juwo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please contact me if you might be interested in pursuing such a startup: firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER3> I'm actually working on a similar problem to this now, not as a startup but as a long essay / short book. I'm taking a literacy class this semester, not because I want to be a teacher but because I'm really fascinated by just how illiterate our country is. 1/3 of Americans never read another book after HS for the rest of their lives. We talk about marketing to the base of the pyramid in Africa, but how about the base of the literacy pyramid in the US. You have this huge market that generally has enough money to buy books, but because of a combination of poor literacy skills and lack of interest there is nothing happening. It's not just lower class people either; my dad doesn't read very many books and he was at Davos last month. Granted he's on email and reading reports all day, but still.

I can send you my writing in a couple weeks when I at least have a coherent draft if you want.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I would be interested in reading your essay/book draft. It might provide excellent motivation for this startup idea :)</comment></comment></comment>


Amber Smalltalk - <AUTHOR> http://www.amber-lang.net/ <comment><USER2> Relatively little work on it in a long time. I think to bring smalltalk into the web world takes a different kind of think than a straight port to Js. The dev environment needs to seamlessly cover backend and frontend and be live editable. That would also need protections. Few of this has been accomplished to date. Good project for an undergraduate Cs degree student I guess.

<comment><USER3> Here are two other approaches:

[https://lively-kernel.org/lively4/lively4-core/start.html](https://lively- kernel.org/lively4/lively4-core/start.html)

[https://squeak.js.org/demo/simple.html#fullscreen](https://squeak.js.org/demo/simple.html#fullscreen)

<comment><USER2> Neither of these do justice to the paradigm introduced by smalltalk. Both cases are lifting the least significant aspect of smalltalk - the single self- contained VM - and making it available within a browser. This is far from acceptable from the perspective of developing systems today. It is an SPA in the extreme and you got to take care of the backend in some other way.

What if the entire system is visible and editable live within a single IDE? - the "entire system" including everything that's running within clients of your service and everything that's running on all your scaled out servers .. and everything that's running in your "IDE".

Without having to make it smalltalk, can we borrow this idea today and implement it in JS?

<comment><USER4> Designing a reliable system which combines widely distributed computing and Smalltalk-style integration appears to be a significant CS research problem.

In the short term, I can imagine a system which exposes a REPL from each backend instance and a websocket-driven REPL from each browser client, and ties them together in a unified interface that allows enumeration and provides convenient syntax for evaluation against multiple targets. Such a system might offer some interesting possibilities around realtime client and server hot- patching and problem investigation, if it could be made bulletproof enough not to also serve as a gigantic SPoF or security vulnerability. But I don't know if it's really similar to what you're thinking of.

<comment><USER2> The REPL way of thinking may not be the right level for this kind of a system.

I may be underestimating the complexity of this, but it does seem doable with some clarifications to concepts. For example, in the smalltalk world, every GUI object created is expected to be inspectable and modifiable. If we then require that we want to call a button instantiated in every browser an independent object, that would be a misfit. It might be adequate to treat that button presented in the IDE context as the object that manifests on all connected browsers. So when I look for messages sent by the button, I tap into the logstream for those events that the system received from all browsers connected. But when I manipulate its appearance, it reflects on all connected browsers. I don't literally need to tap into each connected browser client.

<comment><USER4> I probably wouldn't want to use a REPL like that much in its own right, but it might make a good foundation on which to build something Smalltalk-esque.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Actually there is one more approach: [https://pharojs.github.io/](https://pharojs.github.io/)

Amber is interesting because of how it evolves and what it can do, like having real compiler producing JS as output.

One can learn quite a bit by studying it.

Tools have to be better and there are some limitations but still, an interesting experience.

</comment><comment><USER6> Code sample on the homepage please!

<comment><USER7> Click on the Try Amber button and freely look at all of the code.

<comment><USER8> Clicking it does nothing.

<comment><USER7> Are you blocking Javascript or anything? See the bottom third of this screenshot for what I expect you to see: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/klcother/ambersmalltalk.png](https://s3.amazonaws.com/klcother/ambersmalltalk.png)

<comment><USER8> Oh hey it worked this time. Perhaps I didn't give it enough time to load before.

<comment><USER9> I had a similar experience. It worked the second time I clicked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not a big fan of the Smalltalk language, but I think Smalltalk's greatest contribution to development was putting forward the idea that development environments are important for productivity.

<comment><USER11> Actually, Lisp did that first (as did Emacs). But yes, ST popularized the idea (which is somewhat paradoxical, as, like Lisp, ST never actually caught on).

<comment><USER12> You have to thank Sun and Java for it.

Enterprise was adopting Smalltalk when Java came out.

Even Eclipse was actually Visual Age for Smalltalk refurbished.

<comment><USER13> You're not wrong, but I read that as 'thank': had it not been for Sun & Java, then maybe — _just_ maybe — the development industry would have advanced beyond the 1960s/early 1970s.

Can you imagine if the standard language of enterprise development today were Smalltalk? Can you imagine if the standard language of the Web were Lisp (or Scheme)? Can you imagine if we'd sunk all the work into making Lisp & Smalltalk great that we instead sunk into making Java & JavaScript not so terrible that they cause spontaneous seppuku?

<comment><USER14> If I'm not mistaken, Brendan Eich _wanted_ Scheme to be the language of the browser. We ended up with JavaScript because Netscape pushed the whole "make it look like Java" agenda. We still got first-class functions out of it. But we also inherited a direct port of Java's Date class.

*Edit Netscape, not Sun

<comment><USER12> Netscape

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of [http://witheve.com](http://witheve.com), similar intentions at least.</comment>


Duktape – embeddable JavaScript engine with a focus on portability and compact footprint - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/svaarala/duktape/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8701228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8701228)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This sounds like something that would benefit mainstream browsers, for cold spots:

[https://github.com/svaarala/duktape/blob/master/doc/low- memo...](https://github.com/svaarala/duktape/blob/master/doc/low-memory.rst)

"Notes on pointer compression

Pointer compression can be applied throughout (where it matters) for three pointer types:

* Compressed 16-bit Duktape heap pointers, assuming Duktape heap pointers can fit into 16 bits, e.g. max 256kB memory pool with 4-byte alignment

* Compressed 16-bit function pointers, assuming C function pointers can fit into 16 bits

* Compressed 16-bit non-Duktape-heap data pointers, assuming C data pointers can fit into 16 bits "</comment>


Ask HN: Techniques for achieving *flow* - <AUTHOR>

Basically, how do you get back on task after a break? E.g getting straight into work when you start, straight into the next task when you finish something?<p>I tried using an alarm that went off every 15 minutes, not so successful - pulling out my Ethernet cable works pretty well though. <comment><USER2> After the first pomodoro, the other pomodoros are easier. For me the difficult is to start!</comment>


Ask HN: What are you using in place of Google Hire after it's sunsetting? - <AUTHOR> Our company lost a very valuable tool in Google Hire. Prior to this we were loosely managing things in Google Drive for things like resumes and Google Sheets for capturing information about the interviews.
1. Are there other solutions people have transitioned to that seem to be a competent replacement? 2. Do people have any recommendations for processes or templates on how to execute and capture information?
I feel like we were doing things largely off-the-cuff before and now we are back to the drawing board. <comment><USER2> Why not continue with the shared drive of files and spreadsheet method?

It can grow pretty well to manage a pipeline of thousands of employees if the people involved care deeply enough about making it work.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm definitely okay with this. The problem is your second point. Nobody seems to care deeply enough as you put it. I do because I want to make our process better. Appreciate the input.

<comment><USER2> Cool, sorry if I seemed a bit curt originally :) What you've highlighted is a big challenge facing all organizations today. Behind the glitz of the latest SaaS offerings and trainings, business operations are just stuck in the mud in terms of employees really caring about the outcome of a business process.

For some people, uploading 100 resumes from their local computer to a shared drive is easy and consistently repeatable with no human error. For others, it feels like a gigantic waste of time and can be inefficient. When you multiply this by hundreds of employees over many months of work, the SaaS solution (if it actually works) ends up being the more efficient and cost effective route.

For me though, the choice is clear. I'd much rather the drive and a simple spreadsheet. It's like the simplicity and ubiquity of Whatsapp compared to the horrific mess that is Webex :)</comment></comment></comment>