Why aren't we talking more about airborne transmission? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/why-arent-we-talking-more-about-airborne-transmission/614737/ <comment><USER2> After this pandemic, doctors and scientists are going to have to come up with more media-friendly terms from now on.

The problem is that "airborne droplets" and "airborne" sound too similar and it's very hard for regular people to understand what that means. "Airborne droplets" means that viruses need saliva to transmit between people. "Airborne" means that the virus only needs dust particles to transmit to other people. Measles is airborne transmission, which means that if someone with measles enters a room, that room can be infectious for 12+ hours because viruses will be infectious in the dust. If someone with coronavirus sneezes in a room, the large heavy droplets will quickly fall to the ground. If you breathe in the droplets then you can catch the virus, but these only stay in the air for seconds. However, there are microdroplets which stay in the air for 30+ minutes depending on the air currents.

So there is a distinction between them. If coronavirus were truly airborne, then we would all need to wear masks all the time, even when no one is around. No where would be safe and we would have to implement extremely strict lockdowns.

But the fact that scientists and doctors have chosen to use the term "airborne" in both have made it extremely confusing and given how quickly information and misinformation is disseminated these days, they need to choose terms with care from now on.

<comment><USER3> > we would have to implement extremely strict lockdowns...

if we assume that the goal is not to flatten the curve but to completely stop the virus in its tracks. Most people and countries don't have this goal.

Edit: To those downvoting, I'll just say that my statement is factual, so argue the facts. Long-term, we want a vaccine, yes. In the meantime, most people and countries are simply not willing to do what it takes to completely eliminate this virus. They think it would be nice if the virus went away, but they are not working towards that as their goal.

<comment><USER2> If the virus were truly airborne, which it isn't, then simply walking through an empty room could get you infected. The levels of people getting infected, and subsequently getting hospitalized would be far worse than the worst scenes we saw in Italy and NYC. Lockdowns absolutely would have been mandatory for months upon months.

Coronavirus is not by itself a tremendously deadly disease. The problem is how infectious it is, and how quickly it can overrun a limited hospital system. Even at a sub-10% hospitalization rate for people younger than 60, we are seeing many hospitals getting full. It being truly airborne would make things worse by many orders of magnitude. The way coronavirus spreads is basically the same mechanism as the flu and the cold, yet the levels of people getting infected are much much worse. Imagine if simply walking through a room could get you infected. The spread would be undeniably worse than anything we had every seen before. Even stores like Costco and all factories would have to shut down. So yes, very strict lockdowns would need to be in place.

Thank goodness it's not.

<comment><USER4> > If the virus were truly airborne, which it isn't

why do you say this? The article is saying otherwise, quite literally "The coronavirus reproduces in our upper and lower respiratory tracts, and is emitted when we breathe, talk, sing, cough, or sneeze"

> then simply walking through an empty room could get you infected

You're presuming it has to be empty.

If you walked through a full room _without touching anyone or anything_ and you caught covid, would you accept that it is airborne? Or are you saying that is impossible?

Do I misunderstand you?

<comment><USER5> It's because it seems to be mostly ballistic droplets, except for a (small?) percentage were it is not. This is also stated in text for measles (that spreads throughout a house) which Corona seems to not do.

<comment><USER4> From the article, that's exactly what's being questioned:

"There is a big dispute in the scientific community, however, about both the size and the behavior of these particles, and the resolution of that question would change many recommendations about staying safe. Many scientists believe that the virus is emitted from our mouths also in much smaller particles, which are infectious but also tiny enough that they can remain suspended in the air, float around, be pushed by air currents, and accumulate in enclosed spaces"

<comment><USER5> Yes but, and this is the important part : not as potent as for instance measles (which spreads and infects 90%)

Or we'd see far more indoor cases. And we do see in events with lots of expiration, where there is singing for example, very potent transmission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a good article.

I work at a biotech company that studies virus transmission and helps others study it. It was clear from the very beginning that transmission was airborne. Why would it not be? That the WHO and some doctors were assuming it was not seriously damages their credibility as healthcare professionals.

Current events should lead people to seriously question deference given to doctors. They need to be held accountable for their actions and must be made to listen to professionals in other fields.

<comment><USER7> Why wasn't there a large spike with the recent protests in the participating demographic?

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/07/01/research-d...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/07/01/research- determines-protests-did-not-cause-spike-in-coronavirus-cases/)

The chants "no justice, no peace"? "I can't breath"?

Those were clear chants. Everyone breathing on each other while chanting. Unencumbered by a mask.

<comment><USER8> They're in the extremely well ventilated outdoors, and at least at the protests I was at there were very few people not wearing masks. Also, people in these gatherings tend to mill about, which means any contact with a stream of virus-infused exhalations will be brief and less likely to introduce a viable quantity into you.

<comment><USER9> I haven't seen any research on this, but is there a chance being introduced to very small viral loads could actually improve your expected future health? We know that larger loads are harder to fight and produce worse symptoms, but what of "mico-loads"? It would seem they should almost act as a semi-vaccine: you get an easy to fight and low symptom load once, then you've created antibodies for the future. So long as you continue to be exposed to micro- loads in day to day life, those antibodies shouldn't go away, and you'll be safe from any potential "mega-load".

<comment><USER8> I don't know if there's data specific to SARS-CoV-2, but this is the mechanism behind inoculation (as opposed to vaccination). This method was used to reduce smallpox deaths before vaccination had been developed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, what a good article. Finally an article in a well respected publication that goes over the science of the Covid19 transmission, and appears to be non- partisan as well (what a tragedy that the approach to combat the disease has become a partisan issue). I really hope this article will, dare I say, "become viral". If it does, this article by itself could help save tens or hundreds of thousands of lives.

<comment><USER11> But it won't. The reason things became "partisan" is precisely because things like the article are useless and ineffective. You're assuming a shared reality that doesn't exist.

<comment><USER12> I can only assume you're being downvoted because you've confused the chicken and the egg.

Partisan issues don't exist because articles like this are useless and ineffective. Partisan stances on this sort of thing is what _makes people believe articles like this are useless_. You have it backwards.

I would absolutely agree, though, that there is no such thing as a cultural 'shared reality' anymore. That is the base of the problem. There are very, very few shared experiences, and a section of the population is not, seemingly, even interested in trying to understand someone else's viewpoint.

<comment><USER13> But the whole point of the chicken and the egg problem is that it is not apparent which came first.

<comment><USER14> Yes, I think an analogy about a cart and horse was instead called for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am still shocked: months after research has shown that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne stable in aerosol form for over 3 hours, we still aren't telling the public that room air purifiers are a 'good thing' (for making indoor air like outdoor air - in regards to virion density per cubic air volume)

The filter technology is essentially the same as in the N95, orders of magnitude more effective than cloth masks.

Put these indoors, multiple per classroom/working space to help the air refresh in sub 5 minute intervals.

<comment><USER15> Added benefit: post-covid pandemic, improved indoor air quality with all the included benefits!

Air quality associated with:

Alzheimers: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-new- alzheimer...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-new-alzheimers- air-pollution-link/)

Cancers, plural: [https://www.aacr.org/patients-caregivers/progress-against- ca...](https://www.aacr.org/patients-caregivers/progress-against-cancer/air- pollution-associated-cancer/)

Sperm Quality: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4443398/#sec995...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4443398/#sec99552title)

Female Fertility: [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207560-exposure-to- air...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207560-exposure-to-air- pollution-seems-to-negatively-affect-womens-fertility/)

Autism: [https://www.sciencealert.com/particulate-matter-in-air- pollu...](https://www.sciencealert.com/particulate-matter-in-air-pollution- raises-autism-risks-in-the-first-few-years)

Bipolar/Depression: [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/air-p...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/air- pollution-linked-to-bipolar-disorder-depression/)

side note: please make the ICE>Electric transition happen faster... sigh

<comment><USER16> Thanks for these links. I've saved them for future reference!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> When I look at this heat map of recent cases per capita in the US

[https://globalepidemics.org/key-metrics-for-covid- suppressio...](https://globalepidemics.org/key-metrics-for-covid-suppression/)

the first thing I see is hot spots all across the southeast and desert southwest. These places have widely varying governments and cultures, but the one thing they do have in common right now is: they're hot.

My suspicion is that many of the outbreaks we've seen recently are caused by people from different households congregating indoors in buildings with air conditioning and closed windows. The article mentions this, but I rarely here it talked about on the news:

"The importance of aerosols may even help explain why the disease is now exploding in the southern United States, where people often go into air- conditioned spaces to avoid the sweltering heat."

<comment><USER18> This is something I currently speculate too. Hotter states really benefited from AC allowing people to live there comfortably. I think it might show us what's coming as people move indoors in colder months elsewhere.

It's getting harder and harder to stay away from people from a purely psychological standpoint, and I think fall is going to get bad in the PNW as people congregate indoors to stay out of the wet and cold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My company took steps to address this months ago. The re-circulation rate was set to zero so all air is fresh make up air from outside. This has significantly increased our cooling bill since it's summer, but it was something that we felt important even though there hasn't been much science to back it up. We also have a UV system hooked up to our system, but this has been installed for the last 2-3 years now.

<comment><USER20> I wonder if air-to-air heat exchangers could address that cost issue.

<comment><USER21> Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV)

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

<comment><USER20> Yes. I was wondering if the wheel-based ones had some means of killing pathogens on the wheel, rather than transfering them back to the incoming air stream.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> One issue is that we seem to have an all-or-nothing view of infection. People think that either a virus gets in your nose and you get sick, or it doesn't and you're fine. This extends to thinking that either there is a risk or there isn't, which motivates incorrect anti-mask arguments.

In reality, the _probability_ of infection varies continuously with the degree of exposure, and the _minimal infective dose_ might be prevented even if not all viral particles can be blocked.

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

With airborne transmission, it is practically impossible to reduce the transmission probability to zero in many situations, and we have overlooked the value of finite improvements. However, the circumstantial evidence suggests that, since super-spreader events are correlated with apparently high airborne concentrations of viral particles, that reducing the duration and intensity of exposure may yield significant benefits even if inhaled air cannot be made completely free of virions.

<comment><USER23> Exactly, that "all or nothing" is the main problem in in how most of the people think about the whole topic.

I've read one work that gave the very simple estimates: if the infected person wears the surgical mask it will emit 50% less in the air, and if the non- infected person wears the surgical mask that person will get 60% of what's in the air. But combined, that means that the non-infected person will get around only 30% of what it would get when nobody would wear a mask. Which seems to be way too little for personal "full" protection, but looking more globally:

If the R factor (reproduction number) is 2.7 with no measures, and if everybody wears a mask and other limitations are respected (physical distancing, limiting the number or people in the closed spaces, ventilation, etc.), all together it can result in the R factor being reduced to less than 1: With the known no-measures factor 2.7 we have exponential growth. With the factor under 1, we have a steady decay in the number of infected people.

There we also "just" have to reduce that factor to 30% of the no-measures one. It's not so easy as some people spread to many, and a lot already don't pass the virus to others. That's why groups of people near each other change everything too much.

But just by maintaining the factor under 1 (the lower the better) we guarantee that the relative number of infected around us will be always be smaller and smaller, and that's can be more than enough for the population as the whole.

That's why wearing the masks and any additional good measures together do help, even if every measure, evaluated alone, for only one person, "doesn't protect" enough.

So it is not just either 0 or 100%, but everything in between: not everybody has to use the same protection that the medical workers have to to improve the chances for everybody. But everybody should do it. One person who's actually infected and not wearing its mask changes the number of viruses passed to anybody in its vicinity from 30% to 60%, when all the rest wear the masks, or to 0 to somebody who's also not wearing the mask. From the starting 50% and 60% of masks "working" we get all the other outcomes too.

And the same is valid for testing. Rapid wide scale cheap testing to identify who should enter the building doesn't have to be as good as PCR tests to still give us immense benefits, if we have it and use it. We just have to be clear that we want it, and that we know now it's not about "either 0 or 100%."

Also, the pictures (and the video) explaining much more than many words:

"Face coverings and mask to minimise droplet dispersion and aerosolisation: a video case study"

[https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2020/07/24/thoraxjnl-20...](https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2020/07/24/thoraxjnl-2020-215748)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Short-distance aerosol transmission changes things a bit:

* Social distancing isn't enough to guarantee safety in indoors spaces: bad news for bars, clubs, gyms, concerts, and restaurants

* Outdoors spaces are probably safer than we previously thought

* Indoor mask-wearing becomes CRITICAL in public spaces

* Indoor ventilation becomes extra important, using fresh air from outside or filtered/UV-sanitized air

* Indoor air purifiers with HEPA ratings or UV sterilizer features may become valuable

But the same overall guidance still applies: avoid crowds, wear a mask, keep your distance, outdoors activities are safer than indoors activities

<comment><USER25> > Indoor mask-wearing becomes CRITICAL in public spaces

Mask wearing provides minimal benefits against droplet transmission, but they do nothing at all for small droplet aerosol transmission.

<comment><USER26> Studies have found that a combination of multi-layered cotton and chiffon/silk masks prevents intake of both large and small droplets. Silk/chiffon act magnetically on smaller particles to keep you from breathing them in, while the thick cotton layers stop large droplets. The aggregate effect is similar to N95, but more washable and reusable. It blows my mind that this was discovered a couple months ago and the government still hasn't funded the mass production of such masks. After I read the study, I bought 2 masks on Etsy.com: a multilayered cotton mask and a silk mask. I wear both when I go out. What's great is that I don't just protect others from me, but I also protect myself from others to a large extent (as opposed to just wearing the cotton mask). As for comfort, silk is light and thin, so it doesn't add any noticeable discomfort on top of the cotton mask.

[https://news.uchicago.edu/story/homemade-masks-made-silk- and...](https://news.uchicago.edu/story/homemade-masks-made-silk-and-cotton- may-boost-protection)

Note: Newer studies have found that even just a thick cotton mask does somewhat protect you (not as much as cotton + silk of course, but they protect others from you quite effectively). You still need to be careful, generally avoid indoor environments with strangers, and socially distance. Not that that disclaimer is super necessary, because other studies have found that masks do not make people behave more recklessly :) If anything, they make you more careful and acutely aware of COVID risks.

<comment><USER25> > Newer studies have found that even just a thick cotton mask does somewhat > protect you

No they haven't. If the effect of masks was so strong it would be easy to find that when we do trials. We've done the trials and we struggle to see the effect. Once we drop down the quality requirements we start to see an effect, but even that is mild.

[https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820...](https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2931142-9)

> Although direct evidence is limited, the optimum use of face masks, in > particular N95 or similar respirators in health-care settings and > 12–16-layer cotton or surgical masks in the community, could depend on > contextual factors; action is needed at all levels to address the paucity of > better evidence. Eye protection might provide additional benefits. Globally > collaborative and well conducted studies, including randomised trials, of > different personal protective strategies are needed regardless of the > challenges, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available > evidence could be considered to inform interim guidance

There's no way to spin phrases like "direct evidence is limited" and "paucity of evidence" to mean "we've got good quality evidence that shows an effect".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The article makes an excellent argument for the _plausibility_ of indoor airflows being a major transmission vector. But I didn't see anything about ongoing research to quantify the transmission risks posed by aerosols vs. other transmission mechanisms. (Maybe I missed it?)

It's hard to make policy recommendations regarding aerosols if (a) we're not really sure how big a risk factor they pose _and_ (b) the mitigations would be very expensive.

</comment><comment><USER28> If anyone is in an indoor environment and wants to gauge risk, a portable co2 meter can be had for about $100-$150. Cod2 is a good proxy for indoor pollutants/air exchange, and I'm assuming it is a good proxy for aerosols too.

I use one of these, you can use a portable battery to power it.

[https://www.amazon.com/AutoPilot-APCEMDL-Desktop-Data- Storag...](https://www.amazon.com/AutoPilot-APCEMDL-Desktop-Data- Storage/dp/B07JDJP4HH/ref=sr_1_15?dchild=1&keywords=Co2+meter+autopilot&qid=1596467296&sr=8-15)

<comment><USER29> Is there a reliable portable Co2/Pm2.5 logger?

I've heard the accuracy on the Pm2.5 ones at least is way off.

I just moved to a place where I need to keep an eye on Pm2.5 in particular.

<comment><USER28> It doesn't log pm2.5. Only co2. For pm 2.5 I recommend a laseregg

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> One key result of this evidence is that we should take all the money going into deep cleaning, and spend it on higher quality masks for everyone. Also perhaps makeshift ventilation systems (being careful not to replicate that Hong Kong restaurant) or outdoor tents where feasible.

<comment><USER31> What was the restaurant doing wrong? Was it recirculating indoor air? Or was it actually exchanging the air? Replacing indoor air with fresh air from outside.

<comment><USER30> The article links to the study. The issue was more than certain people sat downwind of others indoors, rather than where the air came from. Let me know if you read a different conclusion from it.

<comment><USER31> Now I'm really curious. How does one exchange indoor air safely?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> There is a weird disconnect. Everyone seems to acknowledge the most likely way to transmit COVID is via droplets when indoor. Yet, there is little discussion about ventilation. Maybe people felt like there was less they could do?

<comment><USER33> Gyms and restaurants have had their air conditioning off in Aus. Israel turned off their bus air conditioning.

This isn't breaking news but I suspect it would be a new angle to the media rhetoric for a few countries and media outlets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> We probably aren't hearing about it because it's something we have less ability to protect against.

I remember a popular comment here a while back mentioning that epidemeologists' job is partly public relations, trying to figure out what they can tell the general public that will minimize the viral spread.

Making sure everyone wears masks will, at the scale of the general population, reduce the infection rate by some noticable percent. It's also something everyone can do, and it gives everyone a sense of control over the situation - enough of a sense, at least, to prevent chaos.

Talking about airborne transmission, though? The kind of masks that can protect against that are hard to come by. Not to mention that the virus could enter via the fluid of the eyes (not trying to add conspiracy here, just trying to make a point about the difficult reality of preventing infection [0]). Bio-rated goggles and N95+ rated masks are more than we can expect from a public that's making face masks out of bandannas.

I think we're seeing very pragmatic statements being made, that are tailored to a public that can't enter full biohazard mode and need to not panic.

[0] [https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.09.085613v2](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.09.085613v2)

<comment><USER35> > Talking about airborne transmission, though? The kind of masks that can > protect against that are hard to come by. Not to mention that the virus > could enter via the fluid of the eyes (not trying to add conspiracy here, > just trying to make a point about the difficult reality of preventing > infection [0]). Bio-rated goggles and N95+ rated masks are more than we can > expect from a public that's making face masks out of bandannas.

plenty of evidence that even a little bit of protective gear helps. it isn't a matter of hazmat-suit-or-GTFO.

<comment><USER36> I think that's what the parent was saying. The widespread wearing of just about any face covering seems to help on net even if it's probably >50% about protecting other people. Even if higher-level protective gear were readily available, most people wouldn't wear for any length of time and it wouldn't be fitted properly. So just wear _something_ seems to be the most reasonable advice for the general population.

<comment><USER37> Do you have proof that people would not wear better protection and that it would be ineffective even if they did to due fit issues? Or are you just making an assumption?

The fact that N95 masks were and still are selling for such high prices seems to be evidence against this view. I assume this view is most popular among Americans because Americans seem to represent the majority of anti-maskers.

Where I live everyone wears a mask but very few people wear N95 masks simply because they are more expensive and hard to find. If COVID is short range aerosol infectious as some evidence suggests greater N95 mask availability and usage may affect infection rates at least outside of the US. How significant a difference this might make is simply unknown at this time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> One problem is that no one seems to know that AC systems recirculate air. I literally can't get people to believe me when I tell them this. When buying a window unit recently, some models had the ability to incorporate fresh outside air but the cheaper ones didn't. My home is leaky enough that I worry more about keeping outside air out rather than in, though.

<comment><USER39> Do people not use the recirc switch in their car?

<comment><USER38> I think this actually makes it more understandable. If recirc is a special mode you have to activate in your car's AC, then it's reasonable to assume it's not the default mode for your house AC too. Since they never had a 'recirc' button to press at home, they'd assume it doesn't recirculate. Reasonable, but inaccurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's one key paragraph buried in the article that will help a lot of people:

> However, to date, there is also no evidence of truly long-range transmission > of COVID-19, or any pattern of spread like that of measles. Screaming "it's > airborne!" can give the wrong impression to an already weary and panicked > public, and that's one reason that some public-health specialists have been > understandably wary of the term, sometimes even if they agreed aerosol > transmission was possible. Cowling told me that it's better to call these > "short-range aerosols," as that communicates the nature of the threat more > accurately: Most of these particles are concentrated around the infected > person, but, under the right circumstances, they can accumulate and get > around.

Translation: people _can_ get infected further away than with larger droplets -- especially in stuffy, enclosed environments -- but distance still reduces the risks.

<comment><USER40> > people can get infected further away than with larger droplets

Minor nitpick, you can think of aerosol transmission as plume of virus particles. Technically you can get infected long after the carrier has left a closed room, at which point the concept of being "further away" stops applying.

<comment><USER24> That's true, in this case "further away" is a 4-dimensional distance vector (it includes time). :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A couple other articles I've read in the last few days also cover this topic:

 _Yes, the Coronavirus Is in the Air_

> Transmission through aerosols matters — and probably a lot more than we've > been able to prove yet.

...

> I am a civil and environmental engineer who studies how viruses and bacteria > spread through the air — as well as one of the 239 scientists who signed an > open letter in late June pressing the W.H.O. to consider the risk of > airborne transmission more seriously.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/coronavirus- aeros...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/coronavirus- aerosols.html)

 _Aboard the Diamond Princess, a Case Study in Aerosol Transmission_

> A computer model of the cruise-ship outbreak found that the virus spread > most readily in microscopic droplets light enough to linger in the air.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/health/diamond- princess-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/health/diamond-princess- coronavirus-aerosol.html)

And here's an article from two weeks ago that goes into some depth on superspreading events:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/18/coronavirus...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/18/coronavirus- superspreading-events-drive-pandemic/)

> He believes ventilation may also be to blame for a case involving a young > man from China's Hunan province, who sat in the back of a bus but ended up > infecting seven others in various areas of the vehicle and then two more on > a second minibus he hopped onto next. Li interviewed the patient, driver, > passengers and reviewed video footage and found it odd that few of those who > became infected were nearby. In fact, at least one passenger who fell ill > was as far away as possible at the front of the bus — 31 feet away — from > the coronavirus-positive man. […] In the case of the Hunan man who > transmitted the virus while riding two buses, Li said that "amazingly" after > that four-hour window of infectivity, he is not known to have infected > anyone else at all.

</comment><comment> prof-dr-ir I would like to make a small point about the letter signed by "hundreds of scientists around the world".

According to the NY Times there were in fact 239 signatories, which coincidentally is almost the same number as the "253 ... scientists from 44 nations" warning of the dangers of electromagnetic radiation (!) that can be found at [https://emfscientist.org/](https://emfscientist.org/) . If you trust one, do you trust the other also?

Regardless of the merits of the rest of the article, I would caution against trusting a claim just because two hundred odd scientists from all sorts of disciplines were willing to sign an open letter. Science is not a democracy.

<comment><USER42> The "appeal to authority" is also used to sell toothbrushes. I agree that it's foolish to trust an article or "fact" because 9 out of 10 doctors agree. I am very interested in why that 10th doctor didn't agree..

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> The amount of unknown and disagreement after all this time and money spent is a big failure of science. Laymen have a unique peak into how science works day to day, which might be good or bad depending on how you see it.

</comment><comment><USER37> Yes it's a well written article by a clearly intelligent author who did his homework and knows his sources and of course we should never have ruled out short range aerosols. It's ridiculous. I think it only happened because so many people just believe whatever authorities like the CDC and WHO tell them without any critical reasoning applied. If these health agencies had not effectively ruled out the possibility afaik without any supporting evidence maybe there would have been more research to figure out droplet sizes and travel paths under various airflow conditions. Currently everyone seems to just want to make assumptions and stick to them, but that isn't science even if you call yourself a scientist.

Maybe also N95 masks would have been considered essential not only just to health care workers and maybe more effort might have been made to supply some to the general population. Currently 3M for instance voluntarily stopped selling their masks except to hospitals and speaking of those masks there is also not enough research on effective ways of decontaminating those masks without reducing their filtration effectiveness so that they can be reused more often and so that more can be made available to the public instead of effectively making them hospital only.

</comment><comment><USER35> i wish target and home depot would stop making us wait in line while they futz about wiping things down. it's been clear that time spent in line with other people is a bigger concern than the possibility that something is lingering on the barcode scanner and will be transferred onto my box of nails, or bananas.

</comment><comment><USER44> At the beginning of the epidemic, joe rogan hosted M.Osterholm for an interview where he warned about a lot of the things to come: the rapid spread, the small effect of washing hands or masks, the airborne spread etc. It's sad that the epidemic seems to have turned worse than most ppl assume it would.

</comment><comment><USER45> [https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/ataglance/855/](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/ataglance/855/)

From April, Japan has been on top of this for a little while. Impressive science imho.

<comment><USER39> And yet Japanese government _declared_ victory and campaigned against protective measures leading to a massive re-ourbreak, "for the economy"

<comment><USER46> Japan has some really impressive universities and, as a rich country, is able to nurture all sorts of talent.

The Japanese ruling party is a bunch of old people from a few traditional families mixed with some new faces.

It's very unfortunate how little these two worlds (talented people and politicians) collide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This comes to mind every time I see a company/business emphasize how much priority they're putting on keeping people safe, and then only speaking about disinfecting every surface throughout the day.

While it doesn't hurt to keep surfaces clean, we continue to see evidence that the majority of cases have come from airborne spread in an enclosed environment with poor ventilation.

If there's any lasting change to building environments that comes out of this, I think it should be an overhaul of building ventilation codes to require/heavily incentivize systems that replace air rather than circulate it.

<comment><USER47> Because wiping high-contact surfaces a few times a day is cheap, easy to do, and highly visible. And, hopefully, an easy extension of nightly cleaning that was already happening.

Reworking your HVAC system to provide better circulation, filtration, and/or more fresh air is expensive, often an ongoing cost, and probably invisible to the end customer.

I guess you could say it's well-intentioned virtue signaling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> in the UK the LNER train company highlights ventilation amongst other things, but the ventilation bit I found suprising when I encountered it.

[https://www.lner.co.uk/travel-information/lets-travel- togeth...](https://www.lner.co.uk/travel-information/lets-travel-together- safely/)

" Our onboard ventilation systems are providing a continuing supply of fresh air which is cycled every 6 minutes limiting droplet transmission between passengers." With the graphics implying that ventilation is spatially limited.

<comment><USER49> The closest to air-conditioning possible in trains like LNER's is more similar to individual window units (except mounted in the ceiling) than the integrated systems in larger homes or offices.

LNER operates two types of multiple-unit from the same family (a conventional EMU and then a bi-modal hack of that concept because the Tories don't want to spend money electrifying more of the railway), and then an older loco-hauled passenger service where a type 91 is pulling and there's a train of mostly passive passenger stock behind it.

In both these designs there is electricity available, to run the air conditioning units, but it's not practical to pump air around the train so they don't. The air in your part of the train will get recirculated by the fans that make the air conditioning unit work, so I'd expect that if you spent an hour on a train four seats from an infectious person there's a decent chance you'll be infected. But air from other carriages isn't recirculated into yours at more than negligible level.

Because these are mostly doing intercity journeys (thus fewer stops, and perhaps dwelling for longer at each) even the newer EMUs were not designed as a single huge tube like the modern Tube stuck or some local EMUs. So there's a "double airlock" partition between one carriage and the next which reduces noise and discomfort but makes getting on and off take a little longer. In this particular case it probably makes the train slightly safer to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am sympathetic to what the WHO did here, they realize that the average person is going to be extremely fearful when they realize that stagnant air could contain virion particles hours after being sneezed in (which is what the data show).

They should have erred on telling people, because then we would have had months to ramp up room air purifiers before school starts... (I have been saying this for months, and am surprised by the lack of scientific leadership in 'science' organizations).

<comment><USER50> Why should the WHO not incite fear if the fear is entirely rational and justified? People not being afraid enough is exactly how people die.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Just look at the list of people who signed the letter.

They are experts in their field but they don't have the expertise to consider the whole picture.

It's possible, that there is some airborne transmission besides droplets, but there is no evidence that it's significant transmission route. To get infected you need big enough dose of virus at once. Just some dry floating particles in the air is not enough.

</comment><comment><USER52> There is this startup which came up with the solution for the airborne problem.

[https://yourstory.com/2020/07/startup-bharat-kanpur- crestkit...](https://yourstory.com/2020/07/startup-bharat-kanpur-crestkiting- retail-air-purification)

</comment><comment><USER53> There are no receptors in the mouth, only nose and eyes. So the mouth does not need to be protected passively, the only problem is that the mouth is the only actor to spread the virus effectively.

</comment><comment><USER54> I think we can't talk about it because there is no agreement on terms, modes of transmission, etc. and public policy cannot be based on ambiguous terms (though it can be based on imperfect data).

</comment><comment><USER55> Talking about airborne transmission would make it too obvious that masks are pointless security theatre. Can't have that</comment>


First Time Node.js or: How I Built a Simple Instant Message API in an Evening - <AUTHOR> https://zapier.com/blog/2012/02/01/first-time-nodejs-or-how-i-built-simple-instant-message-api-evening/

<comment><USER2> Nice implementation of XMPP on Node.JS!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Its a bummer to see Tropo sunsetting their IM API, but such decisions must be made.</comment></comment>


Ethical Issues In Fashion - <AUTHOR> http://shefunfreestuffvids.blogspot.com/2011/08/ethical-issues-in-fashion.html#.TlVlZt8d3jc.hackernews <comment><USER2> with that url? are you kidding?</comment>


Strobe (1995) - <AUTHOR> https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/contrib/potluck/src/strobe/strobe.c <comment><USER2> in case, like me, you're wondering: it's a port scanner

manpage: [https://linux.die.net/man/1/strobe](https://linux.die.net/man/1/strobe)

github mirror: [https://github.com/whackashoe/strobe](https://github.com/whackashoe/strobe)

</comment><comment><USER3> For those whose eyes glaze over at the sight of C code, take a look at the author.</comment>


Standard way for Authoratitive DNS servers to refuse ANY query - <AUTHOR> https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ogud-dnsop-any-notimp-00

<comment><USER2> Short back-story: the ANY query type returns every record matching a name regardless of its record type; it's a kind of wildcard query.

That would be innocuous, except that it's a way to send a very small UDP packet to a DNS server and generate a very large UDP packet in response. Since UDP is easily spoofed, attackers can use ANY to amplify DDOS attacks. It's painfully effective in practice.

So far as I can tell, no normal part of the DNS process ever relies on ANY queries; there isn't a thing your browser or OS or SSH or access point does that ever calls for a "give me every regard regardless of its type" query.

From TFA:

 _As there is no good reason for applications to ever issue an ANY query this document codifies how an authoritative server can reject such queries._

This raised my eyebrow, because the standard argument DNSSEC apologists have for that (terrible) protocol's in-built DDOS reflection capability is that DNS also inescapably has that property due to ANY.

I've tried arguing that ANY is pointless and filter-able, to little avail. It's good to see Gudmundsson, an unimpeachable IETF authority, saying the same thing: ANY queries are bad, and not a fundamental part of the DNS service model.

<comment><USER3> I wish I had time to cite a reference, but my memory is that an ANY query is not guaranteed to return all RRs, anyway. Running a quick experiment against bind 9.8.4 (as packaged in Debian stable), I can confirm that:

* When no entry already exists in the cache, bind will forward the ANY query to an authoritative server and return the result.

* When some information is already present in the cache, bind will return only the information already cached, without querying more information from an authoritative server

Thus, if you need to know if a specific RR exists, you must query for that specific RR.

Still, to aid humans in debugging DNS problems, a nice compromise might be to allow ANY queries only over TCP. That would alleviate the spoofing problem.

<comment><USER4> Yes, this is why implementers trying to tackle this often just return TC. Changing the implementation or not allowing ANY queries at all breaks things, qmail for one iirc.

<comment><USER5> The result of an ANY query is cache dependant. Software that relies on ANY queries is likely subtly broken already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know this is a draft, but it would seem the authors are not taking this very seriously. It has numerous mistakes and is written almost sarcastically tersely.

Further, expecting recursive resolvers to do anything at all is an uphill battle. A lot of the reason DNS moves at a 'glacial phase' is that millions of DNS servers exist in all forms and ages. Changes can and do 'break the internet' for folks.

I don't understand why they just don't return TC and call it done.</comment>


The child, the tablet and the developing mind - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/disruptions-what-does-a-tablet-do-to-the-childs-mind/

<comment><USER2> One of my coworkers bought his three-year-old nephew a picture book as a birthday present. The three-year-old tried to "pinch-to-zoom" on one of the book's pictures and threw the book away in disgust when he realized it wasn't interactive.

When I first heard this story, I thought it indicated a worrisome trend in the youngest generation. Now I'm not so sure. The article notes that kids growing up with tablets isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the reasoning given makes sense.

The kids in the article play with iPads at the dinner table silently, but the author notes that it would be similarly bad for them to be coloring at the table silently. The current hypothesis is that spending less time interacting with people harms the development of some communication skills.

This is only relatively related to the article's content, but I would be interested in a study that analyzes the effects of children using tablets for creative purposes like drawing, puzzles and games, etc. versus consuming content passively.

<comment><AUTHOR> My youngest child is "using" an iPad before she was 1 year old while the eldest a multitouch mobile a little bit after her first year of life. My perspective is very simple: use this technologies as part of the weekly activities if they are interested on such gadgets but it is more important to socialize, play with REAL physical things and without directions.

At the same time talking about tablets is a bit generic. One thing is to play Angry Birds and another <http://www.fungooms.com></comment></comment>


Building a Mini Google: High Performance computing in Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/15008618/Building-a-MiniGoogle-HighPerformance-Computing-in-Ruby

<comment><USER2> Does anyone have a non-scribd link ?

<comment><USER3> Probably not much better, but here's the slideshare version:

[http://www.slideshare.net/igrigorik/building-mini-google- in-...](http://www.slideshare.net/igrigorik/building-mini-google-in-ruby)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> HPC in Ruby...

HPC in... Ruby?

<comment><USER3> ...gluing together C libraries. Why not? :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you spend $10K marketing a business consultant? - <AUTHOR> Two services: - $20K/month operating model (processes, org structure, management systems) improvement consulting for businesses (mostly Fortune 500, some large startups) - $1K annual mentoring course for individuals<p>How would you spend $10K marketing this business consulting business? <comment><USER2> I agree with the network comment in this thread.

Also give yourself some authority, by authoring a book, and/or speaking at relevant conferences. The 10K could be used to hire a ghost writer, or for travel to said conferences.

</comment><comment><USER3> Start with your network or referrals first.</comment>


Ask HN: HN not working properly? - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8168569 shows "Sorry,this is temporarily unvailable." <comment><USER2> Sorry: it's an emergency measure to try to mitigate HN's slowness today. We're being hammered by unusually high load, as described here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13756819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13756819).</comment>


Twitter must tackle trolls say police - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/9451514/Twitter-must-tackle-trolls-say-police.html <comment><USER2> Reporter Pierce Gardner asked Will Rogers how he would deal with the Nazi U-boats:

"Boil the ocean." said Rogers.

"But how would you do that?" asked Gardner.

Without a beat Rogers replied, "I'm just the idea man here. Get someone else to work out the details."

It's easy enough to say that something must be done, and that the details are then up to someone else.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There are a few choice quotes to pick from. My favourite is:

"If people come to us and say 'I am really upset, I've been offended, my life has been made a misery and I want somebody to do something about it', then yes the police should, whenever possible, try to help."

So, I'm wondering: how much of this is an example of the new intolerance to freedom of speech in the UK and how much is due to newly created 'e-crime' positions trying to justify their existance?</comment>


Secure Code Is Hard, Let's Make It Harder - <AUTHOR> http://emergentchaos.com/archives/2016/02/secure-code-is-hard-lets-make-it-harder.html <comment><USER2> The example of sudo is not a good one. Sudo actually has an incredibly large feature set, most of which is related to it having fine-grained access control. Things like "sudo -e" allow a sysadmin to allow a user to only modify _certain files_ using their editor (while the editor itself doesn't run as root so it can execute malicious code as root). Sudo is a very cool program (there's even a book on it buy the OpenBSD guy who maintains it IIRC). The point being there's a reason for the complexity, and pretending that the solution to making secure programs is to make them simple is ignoring the constraints of the real world. We need complex programs that are also secure. Yes security is hard, if it wasn't lots of people I know would be out of a job.

<comment><USER3> Well, OpenBSD deprecated sudo(1) in the base install in favor of the vastly simpler doas(1), because of complexity concerns.

Sudo is now available only as a port/package.</comment></comment>


Apple Is Tracking You To Build Something Very Valuable: Its Location Database - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/21/apple-tracking-location-database/ <comment><USER2> F-Secure's article on this, <http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002145.html>, shows that the location database is uploaded to Apple _twice_ a day

<comment><USER3> They make all sorts of claims in that article but never do they show the data is sent to Apple.

Alex Levinson (cited in the above link) actually states that it has not been shown that Apple is collecting this data: [https://alexlevinson.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/3-major- issues...](https://alexlevinson.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/3-major-issues-with- the-latest-iphone-tracking-discovery/)

<comment><USER2> Alex Levinson says that it's illegal to determine the location or movement of a person.

Apple's lead counsel Bruce Sewell says this is not the case as the identifier is randomized, and that _Apple does collect anonymous location data from iPhones in an effort to improve its own database of cell tower and WiFi hotspot locations._

See: [http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/07/apple-responds- to-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/07/apple-responds-to-congress- swears-location-data-is-private.ars)

<comment><USER3> That's a far cry from "the [iPhone] location database is uploaded to Apple twice a day".

<comment><USER2> Not really. Many articles discuss that they send the data every 12 hours.

For example, here's one: [http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and- SOA/Apple-T...](http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Apple- Tells-Congressmen-it-Batches-Encrypts-Location-Data-411968/)

<comment><USER3> They send data every 12 hours, not "the iphone location database", there is a difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In light of the discussions from yesterday, this speculative article comes across as patently wrong.</comment>


Any lawful device: 40 years after the Carterfone decision - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/carterfone-40-years.ars

<comment><USER2> This example will make a good lead-in for any argument to abolish the FCC or other regulators. When encountering passages like, "Within a few years of the FCC's Carterfone decision, America had become a motley world of funny receivers, slick switch boxes, and rickety answering machines," always my question is "What would the world be like now if we had gotten a few years head start on such development?"

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought this was a very prescient article, and also drove home the fact that corporations have dominated our government long before the present era.

<comment><USER4> And very often people will bash free markets with examples of corporations like that, but few will point out that there is a big difference between the corporatism we live in and truly free markets.</comment></comment>


Ruby's Symbol#to_proc in Python - <AUTHOR> http://jz.posterous.com/rubys-symboltoproc-in-python-partial-implemen

<comment><USER2> This habit of monkeypatching core functions was what drove me away from Ruby. Even adorable little trapdoors like the map() example can lead to issues with performance, stability, documentation, or ( _ahem_ ) unit tests that now have to reflect this new behavior but only in certain circumstances.

I understand the coolness of it. All I object to is this "__builtin__.old_map = map" fuckery. It's what people mean when they say "too clever, by half".</comment>


Hacker Jobs is live and we want your feedback - <AUTHOR> http://hackerjobs.co.uk/blog/2012/3/26/when-jonny-met-stevie

<comment><USER3> First of all let me say kudos on the launch; I'm giving this feedback because it was my reaction and others might have the same:

The two claims in your site header made me curious: "Dealing in only the finest jobs for the finest people in tech" and "Post a Job It's free and it only takes 5 minutes." This made me scratch my head... how are they offering only the best listings if I can post in 5 minutes? Does that mean anyone can post anything? Because that doesn't sound like it will be a collection of "the finest jobs."

I did a test[1][2] and sure enough, there is no process of vetting the jobs. This, to me, says that the site will have all the same issues as e.g. Craigslist; perhaps more because craigslist actually charges to post a job in Boston. Basically: another random assortment of good jobs, bad jobs, scams, and time wasters. If you are claiming that your site deals with "only the finest jobs," you need to back that up with some actual mechanism to filter out bad jobs.

To your credit: the posting has been removed in the time it took me to write this comment. :) (Unfortunately most spammy/scammy/crappy job listings aren't as obvious as mine.)

[1] <http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/best> [2: screenshot of 1] <http://i.imgur.com/d0r7E.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> We made the decision to keep job posting free for now purely to help drive content and to give people a reason to return. The off-shoot of that is that we are manually vetting every single ad that gets posted.

Your test ad wasn't removed by a spam filter, it was removed by either myself or Jon manually.

Eventually you will have to pay to post your job on our site as well as more secure email verification but for now, we are happy staying up all hours of the night making sure that the quality remains high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Care to share how did you guys get started with a whole bunch of job listings? Contacting tech companies to provide free listings on your job board? Employers actually discovering your site and posting their jobs? Thanks!

I'm currently working on a job board in an entire different niche so I'd really appreciate your comments!

<comment><USER5> Also to add to Peroni - you can scrape recruitment sites (monster, gumtree, craigslist), get in touch with the relevant company asking if you can copy the job over to your site.

Most don't mind, and some are even happy if they do get a good applicant through your website instead of wherever they had initially posted their vacancy.

Just make sure there's no effort on their part, nor any hidden fees and they aren't signed up to your newsletter unless they specifically asked to be.

A mixture of scraping and contacts got us around 500 vacancies to launch qreer.com.

<comment><USER4> Thank you Peroni, DancesDrunk. I did not come from a recruitment background so I'd really appreciate the suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If a posting is marked as being contract and permanent such as [http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/javascript- applicatio...](http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/javascript-application- developer) perhaps have the ability for the advertiser to add seperate salaries for both? It reminds me of my daily CWjobs jobs alert offering roles for £50,000 per hour :)

</comment><comment><USER7> \- In the main job list, clicking anywhere in the cell should bring you to the job (since it does highlight the cell), not just clicking on the job title.

\- Maybe this is a decimal vs space vs coma thing, but one just has a salary of "42.000" EUR while the other is "EUR 45000". The system should be able to make this consistent. Does the currency come before or after? And, FWIW, I read the first one as paying $42.

\- As a foreigner, it's always nice to know any language expectation (I assume english, but that isn't always the case), as well as if they assist with relocation. I realize that's up to them to put in the description, but some hand holding would be nice.

\- Qubit's salary of "£50k + bonus + shares + insurance + free food + the rest!" is lame..it expands the UI unecessarily. I'd put a lenght limit (and again, structure salary better overall)

\- RSS? Most boards have it (or, I find a better structured json feed much better)

<comment><AUTHOR> _In the main job list, clicking anywhere in the cell should bring you to the job (since it does highlight the cell), not just clicking on the job title._

Not sure I agree with you on this one mate but I'll keep it in mind.

 _Maybe this is a decimal vs space vs coma thing, but one just has a salary of "42.000" EUR while the other is "EUR 45000". The system should be able to make this consistent. Does the currency come before or after? And, FWIW, I read the first one as paying $42._

Salaries are entered in a freetext box currently. That will change down the line. Just trying to get a feel for what works at the moment.

 _Qubit's salary of "£50k + bonus + shares + insurance + free food + the rest!" is lame..it expands the UI unecessarily. I'd put a lenght limit (and again, structure salary better overall)_

As above

 _RSS_

Really high on the priority list.

<comment> mike-cardwell Re RSS, please let people create their own custom RSS feeds. Eg, I might only want to see opportunities within 50 miles of Nottingham above 30 grand:

[http://hackerjobs.co.uk/rss/search?location=Nottingham&r...](http://hackerjobs.co.uk/rss/search?location=Nottingham&range=50miles&minSalary=30)

Most of the listed jobs will end up being in London and there are a lot of developers (like me) who don't want to work there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Having had experience with recruiters who were either clueless or merely rude/unprofessional it is indeed a good idea to try to produce something aimed at hackers (or at least moderately intelligent people) which hopefully isn't completely lame.

However, a quick review of the site didn't uncover anything which I wouldn't find elsewhere. Describing it as a UK jobs site, then allowing postings for jobs in Germany seems off topic.

Why do job-related web sites often suck? Usually it's that the job descriptions are too vague, are ineptly categorized, don't describe what the application is, or are excessively wordy and packed with 'buzz' terms or other meaningless fluff. These descriptions are often asking for highly capable people, but seem to have been written by someone who is only semi-literate or who only has the vaguest idea of what they want.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't care who the job comes via, as long as it's fair salary and a role I'm interested in. I've never used a recruiter so I can't comment on whether they'd get me a good job or not.

However, looking at the board there is a senior UX job for 6 weeks that is offering just £80 per day for a 9 hour day! [http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/mid-senior-ux- designe...](http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/mid-senior-ux-designer)

If it's about the quality of jobs then surely this one falls short?

I would love to see a jobs board where salary is a mandatory field because calling a position Mid, Senior, Lead etc means something different at every company.

<comment><USER6> Also agree with a mandatory salary field which is tied to an actual monetary amount. 'Negotiable' doesn't mean anything without some sort of range, surely every salary/perk is negotiable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Right now job at the top of the list has its location 'Anywhere', but if I click on the Remote Friendly tab it doesn't show up.

I see this sort of thing all the time on job boards. I'd love to trust the filters but somehow I have to look through all the ads to be sure.

So I looked at the posting form and location is one entry with a text input and three rows below it is the job type section with checkboxes, one of which is remote.

I think you need to constrain the inputs more. Make it harder for people to mess up. Or, in this particular case, maybe put the remote checkbox up in the location row?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. In this circumstance it appears they simply forgot to check the box which I've since updated.

We are looking at different methods for job posting so today is a big learning curve for us!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Steve, I think the idea is terrific and am a fan of yours. I'm a recruiter, but I'm very pro any solution that cuts the amount of noise in this industry. I recently posted about this problem here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771806>

That said, what incentive do recruiters have to email you and justify their existence when there are no constraints on posting a job?

</comment><comment><USER12> So what is really different compared to other job boards besides the good will of the admins to keep it clean of recruiters spam?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now? Not a whole lot being honest. We have plenty of plans and features in the pipeline but the initial plan is to fill out our currently minimal feature set with what you'd expect a decent board to have, then add some more that we think are missing and can improve on what previous boards have done.

We're doing lots of offline work to make sure we get a good calibre of user, candidates and advertisers alike. we're not going to just throw money at PPC campaign, we want to build a good brand by going out and getting engaged in the community (we do it already, after all).

<comment><USER13> One of the jobs posted says "we pay in kit, holidays and (a little) cash".

That screams the complete opposite of a good calibre of advertiser to me I'm afraid. Which is a real shame because everything you've written in the past about the London recruitment scene is correct and I'd love to see some real changes in the industry!

<comment><AUTHOR> We had a bit of an internal debate about that particular vacancy. The company are legit and the job is a bit of a unique one in the sense that it's a travel blog where you get to do something completely different.

We are going to do our best to ensure the calibre remains high but high salary doesn't automatically mean high calibre. We want to offer something a bit different too.

That being said, the site is about the users so if this is the sort of ad you don't want to see then we will absolutely keep it in mind next time something like that pops up.

<comment><USER14> It would be good if there was some sort of karma system in place, so that user accounts who consistently post worthwhile jobs were rewarded, and sucky jobs were down modded. Open to abuse, so you'd have to watch it, but would definitely be an interesting concept.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great minds...

It is a great concept and one we have already considered for The Obair Company - the parent company to HJ.

We have a really different concept coming soon that will put a very different spin on the job market.

<comment><USER14> Look forward to seeing what you have planned!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It would be nice if the interface to signing up for hacker jobs and looking at available jobs be only through the command line.

</comment><comment><USER16> For now, there is not a lot of offers as the site just launched but will you add the possibility to filter by experience and salary too ? Another important thing for me as I'm planning to move to London soon is the geographic location of the company as it may mean having 1.5hours of transport instead of 20 minutes each morning/evening.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. All in good time. As the jobs list grow, the search functionality will grow to match.

<comment><USER17> To follow up on this and what Steve's mentioned elsehwere, the locaation stuff is a prime example of the kind of thing we have in mind for future developments where we feel other sites lack.

Right now though this is just a minimal feature set. At midnight last night when I looked at 'add filtering to the search options' on my todo list I decided that with only a handful of jobs on launch day, this can wait. I guarantee though there will be better search filtering by the time the number of jobs has grown enough to warrant that.

<comment><USER18> Day 1 and there's jobs listed in Newcastle upon Tyne, Huddersfield and Birmingham. I'm absolutely gobsmacked. More of this please. It looks like you're already aware, but just to re-inforce the point: once the number of jobs is too large to comfortably browser, then for people outside of London, sites like this will live or die based on their location specific search. (Around here, Jobserve is a big deal for precisely that reason - <USER2> eventually even managed to distinguish between Newcastle upon Tyne and Newcastle-under-Lyme.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is a button for job offer "remote friendly" but no "tag" associated in the posting. And when reading the offer nothing indicates that the offer is really "remote friendly". Is it a hidden field selected by the recruiter when posting the offer? Are the tags added by you?

<comment><AUTHOR> When the employer fills out the job form they have the option to select remote friendly if they are willing to consider remote workers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I had a similar idea for a startup, so I find it really interesting to see what you've done. My biggest question is:

How do you plan to monetize it?

Really nice looking site!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Monetization: Charge for job postings further down the line once the site gets a bit of traction and regular traffic.

<comment><USER5> Have you considered doing the opposite - charging applicants a minor fee per application?

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't see it working at all to be honest. The ratio of quality applicant to job advert is drastically low across all job sites, introducing a barrier to entry will have a further negative affect on that I think.

<comment><USER5> I really don't know - it's an idea I've been thinking about.

It may have the opposite affect - having a monetary barrier will force applicants to only apply to jobs they want / are qualified for vs the current state where they apply to everything remotely close to where they want to work.

The number of applicants will definitely be 1/10 or even 1/100 of what it was before - but you will get folks who _want_ the job enough to pay for it, and are definitely qualified for it.

Free for recruiters and you'll get plenty advertising their vacancies, which should entice more applicants.

Then again, the system now works and has been this way for decades - not sure if a role reversal would work at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Nice, looks great. There's a bug though; when you post a job with the same title on the same day, the slug is the same which obviously causes issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. We spotted that bug a bit too late last night (3am to be precise) and implemented an ugly work-around.

Jon (my co-founder and lead dev on the site) will be tackling that particular issue this evening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Any chance of having a mailing list for new job postings at some point? Looks like a sweet board though!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's on the list. It's down the line but it's on there!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I haven't received my email to tell me that, are they going to be sent out?

<comment><AUTHOR> They are being sent as we speak

<comment><USER22> Got it, sorry for being impatient ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is no good way of "drilling down" when browsing the jobs. Meaning I cannot look for existing locations and then by language etc.

Also, where are all the tags? I can see the popular ones, but none of the others.

These are the major problems that I see standing out.

Personally I really hate these "follow us on twitter and like us on facebook" kind of things. Be your own company.

If you ever implement a login system do not make it "connect with facebook" or similar, as people looking for or posting jobs deserve their privacy.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Also, where are all the tags? I can see the popular ones, but none of the others._

The search functionality will improve over time and the tags are intended as a secondary measure of searching. They are more of a guide than anything else. If you want to find a Ruby related role simply stick Ruby into the search box.

 _Personally I really hate these "follow us on twitter and like us on facebook" kind of things. Be your own company._

We've been incredibly light on the social media links compared to every other job site out there. Regardless of whether you like them or not, gaining a following on popular social media sites is integral to getting your name out there.

 _If you ever implement a login system do not make it "connect with facebook" or similar, as people looking for or posting jobs deserve their privacy._

We will implement a login system but forcing people to connect to any other account will not be mandatory as I also feel like it's just overdone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Nice work guys, but I have a bug for you - if two people list jobs with the same title on the same day, the URL is identical, and whichever one got there first gets the page - see the "blubolt" listings on <http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs> that link through to Blooie's listing.

<comment><USER24> Oh, and I recommend making the preview page more obviously a preview page, as the "confirm and review" and the info text is below the fold, on a page that looks identical to a completed listing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Off topic, is "Hacker" the new trend? Like we 'll see hacker food, hacker cars, hacker pillows etc?

<comment><USER26> I don't think so. If there are only programming and tech jobs on the site then the name is perfect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> <http://www.jobsmanifesto.com>

... another new UK jobs site, over 25,000 jobs, exactly zero agencies/recruiters. Generic site, but over 1000 IT Jobs.

Disclaimer: I know the dev team.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not even remotely comparable. The site you mention is essentially a link aggregator.

<comment><USER27> I guess it is a link aggregator. But they've got 25000+ links to real jobs, with not an agency or recruiter in sight. What's wrong with it being a link aggregator? I'm no expert, but I've not seen any other UK site that advertises so many non-recruiter jobs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed.co.uk does the exact same job. You simply select 'Direct Employer' jobs only and there you go.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fact Check - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jack/status/1265837138114830336 <comment> kalium-xyz Bad time to be holding twitter stock I suppose. Do they even care about the principles a normal company works by?

<comment><USER2> From a business standpoint, being proactive about misinformation being spread is going to make them stand out as a seemingly more moral company. More people will read and engage. The perception of the feature is slightly muddied right now because the fact check is being painted as politically biased. But the bigger picture is that helping people vote and be more informed helps people of every political background. If a tweet had the wrong date for election day and twitter had fact checked that, would correcting that be wrong as well? And would everyday consumers support a company that doesn't do fact checking or one that does?

<comment> kalium-xyz Their stockprice is going down, I do not care about US politics nor made any statement relating to those.

<comment><USER2> I am not sure I understand your point about what business principles Twitter is not caring about. The twitter stock has been going down since before the introduction of fact checking. Their revenue is down due to lower ad sales as a consequence of covid19.

Political tweets by Trump have affected the performance of the market for a while now. [https://www.bloomberg.com/features/trump-tweets- market/](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/trump-tweets-market/)

<comment> kalium-xyz Thats a cool page, you should submit it</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Real Programmer: The Story of Mel (1983) - <AUTHOR> http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html <comment><USER2> Oldie but goodie.

I feel it must have been really satisfying to be able to get your instructions arranged so that you can just switch from sector (track?) to sector on the drum memory and have the head be in just the right place at the right time. Annoying if your loop is one byte too long though.

Now our hard drive controllers are more powerful than this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. The fact that Mel had enough control to place an instruction at the "most pessimum" location too! I sometimes feel that I missed a "golden age" of computing when one person could make such a tremendous difference with such a small amount of code.</comment></comment>


Disasters That Worry Emergency Planners Most - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/09/the-disaster-next-time/403063/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Another factor is that successful preparedness for past events produces a false sense of complacency for future events. The more disaster planners succeed, the less people think their work is necessary.

<comment><USER3> See also: Y2K. What a waste of money all that was, amiright?

<comment><USER4> No

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't find the exact quote, but a former Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Police said something like "On my patch I have to worry about an international airport, a nuclear power station, and Glastonbury Festival". I once volunteered to be a pseudo-casualty needing a decontamination shower from the Fire & Rescue Service on site there. By the time they had rigged up fire appliance vehicles for showers and dug a waste water pit the sun was going down and it wasn't great weather for an outdoor cold shower.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds obvious, but was that billion-dollar disaster graph adjusted for inflation?

<comment><USER7> Yes. If you click the NOAA link on that graph, it'll take you to a Summary Stats page where you can switch between CPI adjusted and unadjusted. The link is:

[http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/summary- stats](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/summary-stats)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Surprised to not see "civil war" mentioned.

<comment><USER9> Civil war in the west is just not going to happen. There is localised political violence, but a proper civil war requires the defection of some or all of the military. The most likely country for this that counts as "western" is Turkey.

<comment><USER10> Uhmmm ... Spain ?

That was only 75 years ago ...

<comment><USER11> And a close call in 1981 and 1982.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23-F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23-F)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Spanish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Spanish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ""To me it's about numbers," Fugate said. "How big can the numbers get? [Those] will produce the biggest numbers.""

This comes out of the guy who is supposed to be in charge of coordinating our disaster relief.

To me, it's about potatoes. How tasty can our potatoes get? Those will be the tastiest potatoes.

<comment><USER13> _> This comes out of the guy who is supposed to be in charge of coordinating our disaster relief._

When I read this, I remembered that the FEMA administrator at the time of Hurricane Katrina was a political appointee with zero relevant experience, so I went looking to see if Fugate is any different. Boy, is he!

Fugate has spent his entire career in this space, starting as a volunteer firefighter in high school, then working as a paramedic before spending ten years as emergency manager at the county level, then deputy director and director at the state level (in Florida). He turned down the FEMA administrator job in 2005 (when the aforementioned political appointee resigned in the aftermath of Katrina).

His reaction to being nominated by Obama for the role was to tweet "Pigs do fly" \- [https://twitter.com/disastersrus/status/1279506490](https://twitter.com/disastersrus/status/1279506490)

He supports the use of technology, including social media as a communications tool in the aftermath of disasters - [http://www.dhs.gov/news/2011/05/04/written-statement- craig-f...](http://www.dhs.gov/news/2011/05/04/written-statement-craig-fugate- administrator-federal-emergency-management-agency) \- and crowdsourcing of disaster reporting via smartphone apps - [http://www.fema.gov/disaster- reporter](http://www.fema.gov/disaster-reporter)

He is a licensed ham radio operator and he used to run a website (domain registered in 2000; now inactive) with links, information and advice on how to prepare for disasters - [http://www.disastersrus.org/bio.htm](http://www.disastersrus.org/bio.htm)

This guy is awesome. If he says it's about numbers, I believe him.

<comment><USER14> There was a great essay a few days ago by that FEMA director, who apparently was not at all unqualified for his role.

[http://www.mediaite.com/online/ex-fema-director-michael- brow...](http://www.mediaite.com/online/ex-fema-director-michael-brown-stop- blaming-me-for-hurricane-katrina/)

<comment><USER13> To be fair, I'm sure he did the best he could. The responsibility lies with the guy who appointed him into that role.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: You guys are beating back the crap - <AUTHOR> In the last 24 hours, I've seen at least two ridiculous threads of speech get killed faster than I can even rant about it. I think you've got this now. The bullshit isn't taking hold like I thought. I'm starting to really want to rep HN again, and join in. I doubt <i>this</i> is necessary to say, but I'm stoked. <comment><USER2> Can you explain a little better?

Maybe your point is valid, but I completely miss what you are talking about.

Without an explanation your point comes across just as a noisy random rant... Maybe you are right, but as long as I can't understand what you are saying you are wasting time (yours and mine...)

<comment><AUTHOR> It probably does come off as a random rant unless you read all the comment threads on here. Lately, a lot of the nonsense opinions are finally being killed instead of being upvoted to the top. My random post was my way of saying, thank God. Just proud of the community.

<comment><USER3> I don't know the context but if these opinions are being upvoted don't they have a bit of value? Or at least they should be analysed on why people hold that opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12044213](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12044213)

This is an example of a type of comment that used to get upvoted but is now killed. I think most of us are tired of analyzing at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> please explain what a "thread of speech" is? which issue does this relate to?</comment>


Toilet paper makers: 'What we are dealing with here is uncharted' - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/17/business/toilet-paper-supply-chain-coronavirus/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> _So what happens when there 's an unexpected demand spike? "Most mills are 24 hours, 7 days a week operations already. They are running on fixed capacity," said [paper processing company CEO] Sellars. "It's not like there's an idle machine that can be cranked up to increase production."_</comment>


Live-capture forensics of a CIN injecting fake Chrome install - <AUTHOR> https://cryptostorm.org/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=8713 <comment><USER2> I manage SSL operations at Google and, as far I can tell, this is all nonsense.

It's too long to deal with point-by-point, but I can do a few:

* It's not odd that a cert for * .google.com would be served for google.fr. Check the SANs.

* Google does not use EV certificates.

* Google's frontends have many IP addresses. Seeing differences at different times and places is normal.

* Our leaf certificates really are issued for only a few months.

* We will be off SHA-1 by the end of the year but, at the time the article was written, one certainly could have received a SHA-1 signed certificate from us.

* [http://clients1.google.com/ocsp](http://clients1.google.com/ocsp) is our OCSP responder and, yes, you'll get 404 unless you send a correct OCSP request with a Host header.

<comment><USER3> I just came here to point out the same thing. This is just the ramblings of someone with a medium level of technical experience and a high level of paranoia drawing some very odd conclusions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lots of nonsense here. Google routinely generates new ssl certificates with low TTLs. Anycast DNS will yield changing IP addresses over time and also between networks. Netscape-remote sounds like something that hails back to the Netscape 4.x era where, I believe, there was a command line argument to open a web page in an existing browser session by specifying -remote and the URL. 1e100(.net) is the value for a "googol" and it's pretty well known to be used in google's reverse DNS. And I can totally see sha1 still in use to maximize browser support, especially for a web page that is likely set as browser homepage on millions of outdated computers and android 2.x era phones. Anyways, don't use reverse DNS to try to determine IP ownership - looking up the netblock owners in WHOIS is much better.

</comment><comment><USER5> This appears to be a conspiracy theory. As far as I can tell, they have no evidence the Chrome install has been maliciously modified, no evidence that the certificate or IP address is fake, and are spouting nonsense about faking SHA1 hashes (which as far as we know no-one can do, and would be easy to detect and prove).

<comment><USER6> Hah. I knew it was too juicy to be true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very long article that is worded vaguely (a Corruptor-Injector Network? Wtf.)

From what I understand:

TL;DR: CDNs often have certificates that are valid for a lot of domain names[1]. Getting a valid certificate for any of these would allow you -- or an intelligence agency -- to hijack the https connection via MITM, and in this case, serve an altered binary (e.g. malware) instead of the real Google Chrome browser.

[1] More info: [http://security.stackexchange.com/q/23042/10863](http://security.stackexchange.com/q/23042/10863)

<comment><USER8> That's a separate problem, the "Cloudflare MITM as a service" issue.

Seeing a multi-domain cert from Google is kind of strange. They certainly don't need to share IP addresses or certs.

<comment><USER9> Google has a lot of domains, most of which support SSL. If they didn't use SAN certificates, they'd have to allocate an IP address for every domain in each of their locations, which could get pretty complicated. Much simplier to just use one big certificate for everything!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Might I ask why the title on this was changed from "Live-Capture Forensics of Corrupt-Injector Network Injecting Fake Chrome" to "Live-Capture Forensics of Corrupt-Injector Network Installing Fake Chrome"? There's quite the difference between the two verbs in this context. The CIN doesn't perform any install on the user's machine. The original "... injecting fake chrome install" title from the thread makes most sense.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been trying to figure out that attack from the posting, which is months old. They have SSL certs for Google sites which they argue are bogus. They're both signed by "Google Internet Authority G2", using a certificate that expired on 04/04/2015.

Firefox has two pre-installed certs for "Google Internet Authority G2", one of which is still valid, and the other (serial 02:3A:69) has expired. The expired one may have been compromised, allowing the creation of sites which can impersonate Google sites. It's hard to tell from that article, though.

<comment><USER11> An expired cert in the cert chain will not validate.

<comment><USER8> The attack reported in the original posting happened when that cert was valid.</comment></comment></comment>


Words Related to Magic in Sanskrit - <AUTHOR> http://spokensanskrit.org/index.php?tran_input=magic&direct=es&script=ia&link=yes&mode=3 <comment><AUTHOR> Strange Conjecture: What if the words of or relating to "magic" in Sanskrit really meant "technological"? In other words, what if the civilization which spoke Sanskrit was really a technological civilization?</comment>


Ask HN: Binary versioning for designers? - <AUTHOR> http://www.designfiles.io

<comment><AUTHOR> Wondering what the HN community thought of a startup I'm working on. Tentatively I'm calling it DesignFiles.io, and it's a combination desktop and web app that lets designers check in/out projects they're working on. Designers can save comments with a revision and control access to their projects.

There are tons of so-called "digital asset management" tools out there that combine some form of versioning with reviews and other features, all of which are too heavyweight for many of the teams I've worked on. The sweetspot appears to be somewhere between Dropbox and these enterprise tools.

In terms of implementation, I have about half of the product built. The desktop app saves files to S3 (using temporary credentials via a token vending machine). The web app then monitors the usage. A client can have an unlimited number of projects and team members for a tiered monthly fee.

I'd love to get feedback on this. Thanks!</comment>


Python's List Comprehension is Turing-complete - t-sin https://ideone.com/zrQWwa <comment> t-sin Its explanation (Japanese): [https://qiita.com/KTakahiro1729/items/c9cb757473de50652374](https://qiita.com/KTakahiro1729/items/c9cb757473de50652374)

And we can implement Lisp interpreter with list comprehension: [https://github.com/t-sin/lisc](https://github.com/t-sin/lisc)</comment>


April 2013 Startup Index: 1,183 Companies - 71% Are Growing - <AUTHOR> http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/05/april-2013-startup-index-1183-companies-71-are-growing/

<comment><USER2> "In case it wasn't obvious, this is our startup and these posts are our MVP".

It was funny reading the "go back to working on your startup! Do you need an intervention?" posts, since I knew a few weeks ago that this is what Refer.ly had pivoted to. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been following dmor on this stuff for a bit, its pretty interesting to see the overall startup trends. I'm happy to see a lot of growth frankly.</comment>


What happens if I don't pay my taxes?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2216218/ <comment><USER2> I didn't pay my taxes in 2000. I owed about $3000 federal and $3000 to California.

California will eventually catch up with you (it took 7 years for me) and take the money directly out of your checking account. They will send you letters telling you that they are going to take the money out of your bank before they do it.

The federal IRS will just keep sending you letters. It's worth paying up ASAP because the interest is substantial. I ended up paying about $800 in interest.

None of these things ended up on my credit report, which was a relief but I thought was a bit weird.

I've also heard that your passport won't be renewed if you owe the government money. However, I'm not convinced the IRS and the state department are well coordinated. I'm assuming it's more about preventing huge tax evaders from fleeing the country.

<comment><USER3> Is there a threshold that your interest account has to pass before the IRS will take more drastic action?

<comment><USER4> I fell behind in filing by a couple of years back when I was doing a lot of daytrading, and because of the way the IRS gets its data feed of stock sales, but not associated cost basis, they were sending me bills for literally 7 figures of overdue taxes. (I'd done about $6mm of stock sales that year, naturally with a cost basis of somewhere pretty close to that $6mm.)

They see $6mm in sales, treat it all as capital gains, compute the tax I owed on it (and obviously hadn't remitted), stacked up huge penalties and failure to timely file fees, etc.

When I finally got around to filing the correct information (you have 3 years from the original due date of the return to file to claim a refund), they took the updated schedule D information, and cleared the account.

In the 18+ months that they were sending me notices for over a million bucks, they never took any further action. So, I don't think it's a dollar threshold, but rather a time threshold at which point they start attaching wages, subjecting you to backup withholding, etc.

Also, the stress totally isn't worth it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Instead, they'll just file a tax return for you and charge you a fee for the trouble."

Why can't I just check an 'opt-in' box somewhere and have this as the default? It just seems inane that every year I have to go through this ritual of copying numbers from one form to another form when the gov't already gets its own copies. I mean, why can't this be automated where you get an intial version from the gov't and if you want to file an amendment to correct or include other items then you can but if you just accept the default you can do that too? Too efficient maybe?

<comment><USER6> They do that in New Zealand. Your employer(s) send all your income details to the tax department and at tax time the tax office just sends you a bill. Pretty convenient by the sound of it.

<comment><USER7> Japan does that, even further. Your employer not only files for you but also calculates all adjustments and pay you (if you paid too much tax) or deduct from your wage (if you owe some). If you work for one company and have no extra income, which had been typical for majority of Japanese until recently, you'll never have to deal with the department of taxation.

But I think it has downside. Those who do not touch their own tax calculation don't tend to think about taxes; most of my acquaintances when I was in Japan had very vague idea of how much they paid for tax. After moving to US I noticed that people are much more aware of tax they're paying, hence how the government spends them.

I now even think Japan should make everyone file, like US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It depends.

Most people have already paid their taxes and just have to file some paperwork confirming it. Many people have overpaid and if they don't fill out that paperwork, the government gets extra money. The IRS isn't going to care much then.

If you owe a small amount of money (probably the most likely case) they are going to care, but it's just not worth their while to deal too much with it. By small amount of money, I mean like $100. At that point, they'll want you to pay it, but it might cost them more to get you to pay it than the $100. Having a staffer spend 3 hours dealing with you would probably wipe out that $100. So, they'll take measures to make you pay, but they aren't going to waste too much effort.

If you're underpaying your taxes by a good deal, they'll make your life hell if you decide to brush them off.

The IRS operates similarly to how you'd expect - some things are worth their time, others aren't. Yeah, there are always humorous stories about someone getting a bill for less than a dollar, but overall the IRS wants to spend its time chasing the money. That means going after the egregious violators who are rich because those are easy to spot and have the most benefit to them. Going after someone earning $50k who forgot to report $30 worth of interest income on one of their bank accounts just isn't worth it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I noticed a potential "loophole" in interest income this year. If it's less than $10 from a single institution, you don't need to report it. In fact, they will not even issue a 1099. I called my bank and they confirmed that I don't need to do anything.

So, in theory, you could have 100 bank accounts each with $9.99 interest and not pay any taxes.

But then again, maybe having 100 bank accounts would automatically trigger an audit.

<comment><USER9> _then again, maybe having 100 bank accounts would automatically trigger an audit_

Don't you have to mention your Social Security number every time you open a bank account? Yes, I think having 100 different bank accounts would get attention from some government agency, perhaps the Department of Treasury office that tracks money-laundering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm surprised to find that the tax situation in the US is so lax. Here in the UK it's a massive and _very_ serious deal if you don't pay your income taxes (to the point of people wrongly accused of not paying taxes being _declared bankrupt_ within months and losing their homes, etc.)

Short lesson is, never, never, _never_ dick with the tax man if you're a British tax payer.

<comment><USER11> The good ole USofA will be there soon enough...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have had requests from the IRS and state taxing authorities to garnish wages for employees that didn't pay their taxes in both of the past two years and were hit with liens. They send me a bill, due immediately, and then leave it to me to subtract the funds from payroll to pay myself back. In one case it was more than the total post tax payroll amount for the employee for the month.

</comment><comment><USER13> How stuff works has a good article that lists some of the late fees and penalties [http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/personal- inc...](http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/personal-income- taxes/filing-tax-extensions.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> I bet the author just made the "make sure to audit him" list.

</comment><comment><USER15> don't worry about it too much. report and pay taxes on things that have a paper trail, don't for things that don't. under reporting things for which there is a paper trail isn't worth the effort.

</comment><comment><USER16> Do people really queue up at the post office still? I do all of my taxes online. Granted, my income is low enough that the federal TurboTax online is free, and the state I'm a resident in has its own online system.

<comment><USER17> I always just drop mine in the mailbox. I don't file electronically because of the fee. Hm, $10 (or whatever) to file electronically, or $0.42 to use the mail? Easy choice.

<comment><USER14> Proof that IRS received your information or worrying daily whether or not they got it

<comment><USER18> U.S. Mail with Delivery Confirmation is still cheaper, if your income is such that you don't qualify for free e-File.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> old-gregg I wonder how state residency is enforced. NY has very high state income tax and I'm thinking of getting an apartment there while keeping my house in another state - how do I make sure that I won't be counted as NY resident?

<comment><USER19> Don't get a NY state ID. You have to file paperwork to become an official citizen of New York (eg, your primary residence). My wife and I had to do this when I moved from Ohio to NY for university. Naturally, I'm not a lawyer/accountant/etc; contact a CPA for full information.

<comment><USER20> > Don't get a NY state ID. You have to file paperwork to become an official > citizen of New York (eg, your primary residence).

I'd be surprised if NY was that lenient.

CA isn't. I know of cases where they went after folks who had no CA property and hadn't been in the state for months before receiving income that CA wanted to tax.

CA says that you're a resident after a small number of days for the purposes of car registration. I'd be surprised if they were more lenient when income was involved.

CA wants income taxes from folks who win money in golf tournaments or play professional sports a couple of times a year in CA.

Residency is tricky. There's an infamous case where >100% of an estate was owed in taxes because several states managed to claim that the deceased was a resident of their state for the purposes of taxation.

<comment><USER21> That is how I thought it usually works. When you start filing paperwork with the state, eg: getting a driver's license and renting, they try to tax you.

<comment><USER20> > When you start filing paperwork with the state, eg: getting a driver's > license and renting

Renting doesn't involve filing paperwork with the state, at least not in the US. (FWIW, ownership does not establish residency - you can own property in a state where you're not a resident.)

My point is that states often think that you're a resident even if you haven't filed any paperwork with them. Yes, there are cases (such as driving or bringing a car into the state) where they penalize you for not filing paperwork, but in others, they just tax you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Regardless of whether you pay your taxes or not, make sure you file them. Failure to file has much larger penalties associated with it than paying late.

</comment><comment><USER23>
        * I pay TAXES.
        * With them I buy CIVILIZATION.

</comment><comment><USER24> I am made to understand that the IRS will accept tea bags in lieu of the balance owed.

</comment><comment><USER25> then you're not a patriot

<comment><USER20> Why are folks downvoting someone for quoting Vice President Biden?</comment></comment>