Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-begins-universal-basic-income-trial-three-years-2020-8 <comment><USER3> These studies don't really prove anything.

Common arguments in favor of these studies -

 _" They prove people don't quit work on UBI!"_

\- No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing.

 _" They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!"_

\- No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program each month, you spend the $1k from the pilot on legitimate bills and now you have $1k to spend however you like. The study can't trace that money. (This isn't to say everyone on UBI uses it for drugs, rather, it's to point out that you cannot deduce they don't just by tracing the way the transfer payments are spent)

 _" The studies prove people's life and happiness improved because of UBI!"_

\- No kidding. You gave someone several thousand dollars no strings attached in a situation where neither taxes nor inflation would rise as a result.

What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions.

<comment><USER4> Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities, depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are certainly feasible because the net effect is small.

UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That's important because symbols of equality are important. But from an economics standpoint it's not a complete plan, and it's a bit nebulous because the choice of which taxes to include in your analysis is arbitrary.

Assuming a progressive tax system, though, it does mean automatic benefits for people without other income and more financial security for almost everyone, assuming you think you have some risk of losing your job.

This is similar to insurance. We don't buy it because we think we will make money on average.

<comment><USER5> And that is why it will fail.

Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.

<comment><USER6> Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. People who are born in wealthier families are not playing under the same rules (just imagine if a person playing Monopoly started with ten times the initial amount of money).

I prefer a definition of fairness that is actually achievable[1]: everyone has at least the bare minimum, regardless of fitness and deserving. You can quibble about what the definition of bare minimum, but to me it should include housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair, as people who don't have access to those don't have the minimum to compete with those who do.

We can't have an equal playing field. But we can perhaps make the bare minimum livable.

[1]This is almost impossible, as opposed to entirely impossible

<comment><USER7> What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor?

They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone. Sure, your Hollywood actor is probably driving an exotic sports car and their iphone is diamond studded, but fundamentally, what does it matter?

> housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get > those things by asking for them is not fair

I agree in the general but I suspect we disagree quite differently on the details. We do provide housing for the poor, and short term homelessness outcomes are actually generally positive - we tend to get people who lose their home back into another house. We provide free education through a high school diploma and community college in most areas is exceedingly affordable with massive scholarship opportunities available for ivy leagues. You can walk into any hospital and it's illegal for them to refuse you treatment.

Does this mean our society is without fault? Of course not - we've shown repeatedly that we're terrible at finding real solutions for the persistently homeless (and no, shoving them into homes doesn't actually fix their problems as much as it fixes the stats), and healthcare is at best described as "horrifically abberant".

And we should fix those things. But that some Hollywood starlett is flying around in a gulfstream has nothing to do with those fundamental problems - <USER2> is not a lack of resources but a lack of willingness and deep understanding of the problem space.

It's easy to blame the wealthy, it's much harder to solve the actual problem set.

<comment><USER8> And this is why UBI was supported by right leaning economists like Milton Friedman. If we believe that people in wealthy societies should have a minimal standard of living including basic food, housing and health care then we can provide it through the market in the form of a basic income

It will avoid the perverse incentives that lead people to get costly health care in the ER (which is then covered by other patients) instead of having health insurance and receiving preventative care

It can prevent people from avoiding getting a higher income lest they start earning too much to qualify for the social programs they depend on

No UBI won't fix all problems - but it may very well pay for itself through better externalities

<comment><USER9> Friedman proposed a negative income tax which is different, and arguably better, than a standard flat payment.

<comment><USER10> It's barely distinguishable from UBI for any practical purpose.

<comment><USER9> Not really. It scales with income, motivates working, is more fair, and avoids a blanket handout which would just raise the prices of everything in response.

<comment><USER10> I think you are confused about how either UBI or negative income tax works. The most important difference is that negative income tax would do payouts once a year, and even that is not a hard requirement. Other differences are accounting differences and not practical differences in how much money people have available (as they can be made identical by tweaking the tax rates and tax brackets).

<comment><USER9> Of course both programs will guarantee a certain income, that's the point after all.

But UBI decreases motivation while also inflating the cost of goods and services so that they rise to meet the new money supply.

NIT avoids both problems by scaling with income. It provides motivation without paying every one. More fair, less cost, and better purchasing power.

<comment><USER10> You are, frankly, just making stuff up. UBI proposals are not necessarily (nor usually) funded by creating new money supply.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps that was the wrong wording, but giving everyone money would only inflate costs as they rise to meet the new income levels (whether that money is printed or redistributed). What else are you claiming is made up?

<comment><USER10> > What else are you claiming is made up

"Motivates working, avoids a blanket handout which would just raise the prices of everything in response"

"More fair, less cost, and better purchasing power"

I mean that it's a made up difference between UBI and NIT, they are simply equal in this regard, for better or for worse.

It makes no sense that they would be different, as the net money flow between individual (or household) and the government can be made exactly the same between UBI and NIT scheme, and how much money someone actually has in their hands is what determines motivation, fairness, purchasing power, inflation etc.

Under UBI: NetMonthlyIncome = income + UBI - taxes_ubi(income)

Under NIT (where taxes_nit can yield a negative value): NetMonthlyIncome = income - taxes_nit(income)

You can make taxes_ubi(income) == taxes_nit(income) + UBI and you get the same exact real life result, it's just that the accounting is different.

<comment><USER9> UBI and NIT are two different systems that provide the same minimum income guarantee. Saying they both provide a min income is obvious. That's what they're designed to do.

However _the way they do it_ is very different and that's what changes everything. NIT guarantees min. income without just paying everyone. This costs less than UBI. NIT pays a (negative tax) bonus on the first dollars instead of immediately taxing earnings. This provides more motivation. Not giving everyone the same helicopter money prevents cost of living inflation. This provides better purchasing power.

How you provide the income is more important the final amount because the economy is an interconnected system with secondary effects. This is why Friedman recommended NIT instead of UBI. The mechanics of the system matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later.

Now the only question is: how to you phase in UBI while still rewarding extra productive people to keep creating/innovating?

Some will say "those people will innovate out of love". This is not always the case, many people are good at what they do and create many awesome things but given the chance they would rather do something less productive because on some level they don't like what they do that much.

<comment><USER12> Isn't this like saying that the invention of agriculture will mean society has to start feeding hunter gatherers for free? That's not how it went. People find new ways to create value all the time, and yet every time we invent anything new people keep saying "all the jobs are going away." It has yet to happen in spite of the agricultural, industrial, and now tech revolutions.

<comment><USER13> Which new way of creating value will be immune to automation?

<comment><USER14> Maintenance of automation objects, although that's not entirely new it will expand at the same rate as the automation itself, maybe slightly lagging behind.

Improvements to automation; automation on top of automation.

Planetary colonisation planning.

<comment><USER15> I can see all of those being done better by an AI in the future. Maintenance is already done a lot by machines right now, I don't see that changing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I see the claims that this won't produce inflation with extreme scepticism.

And I say this, living in a country that has had something similar to a basic income for years, although not fully universal (universal for kids, and people below certain income line), the vast majority of people get it and ended up resulting in that around half the public budget goes to social expenses. Every year that bag gets bigger, deficit gets bigger and having more currency flowing, inflation gets bigger and bigger.

So, this income is increased and salaries get adjusted, and it ends up in a never-ending cycle of income trying to catch up with inflation.

It's very hard to get out of that situation once you are in it, because now people depend on this money, and the political cost to cut it is so enormous that nobody dares trying to do it. It would mean the end of their political careers.

Maybe Germany can show us that it can be done, it will be very interesting to see the results. But from what I've experienced, this is not as simple as many people think it is.

<comment><USER17> > I see the claims that this won't produce inflation with extreme scepticism.

I haven't seen price drops since many people stopped working and can afford less, so I don't expect the system to work logically in the other direction either.

<comment><USER16> You probably won't see prices dropping, as many businesses are selling much less and they need to keep prices to cover the costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Basic-income already exists.

New money is created by chartered banks as debt on their balance sheets by fiat through fractional reserve banking practices. This is how money is created and distributed in the USA; centralized in ~4500 institutions and a few tens of thousands of people deciding things. It would be just as easy, though controversial, to remove this pure profit stream from the banks and instead give it directly to people.

Of course people would probably re-invent the banking system in a distributed way. But then at least it would be clear that the money banks are literally making isn't through some business skill or value addition or even the physical services they provide: it's from being able to magic up new money for circulation.

There is plenty of money for basic income. The system for basic income already exists and is the foundation of modern society. It just needs to be made universal.

</comment><comment><USER19> [https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/gehaltsrechner- geh...](https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/gehaltsrechner-gehoeren-sie- zu-den-oberen-zehn-prozent-a-f5a19d00-84b3-407f-aff2-bce27e8088cf) An article in German, but 1943 Euros a month in Germany is the median income. And it takes only around 6100/month to be 1%.

<comment><USER20> Is that gross or net income?

<comment><USER21> net. also, calling it "only 6100" is completely crazy by german standards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The one thing I've not seen discussed, and maybe I'm just not using the right terminology, is how inflation is controlled in a UBI world. If everyone is on UBI then it would be very simple to peg things like rent or auto payments to the current UBI rate - the same way apartments in New York City today are often priced based on the average bonus paid financial services workers. Granted that not having to worry about housing would relieve a huge burden for many people, but if other necessities like food or fuel are similarly pegged to the UBI, in the same way food costs changed during the Euro conversion, then it seems like we might ultimately end up in the same place where a percentage of the population needs assistance beyond UBI.

</comment><comment><USER23> Last time I asked this question here, I got downvoted without any answers. So here is my second try, this time specifically for Germany:

Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying their entire adult population this amount. And let's assume everyone will keep working at their current job. (Which they won't since at a "Basic Income" pricepoint, lots of people would prefer spending more time with their family and so would opt-in working part-time etc).

So yeah, were is that realistic calculation of how to pay for full country UBI?

<comment> dane-pgp Here's a proposal for how it could be gradually implemented in the UK by simplifying the tax code:

[https://atlaspragmatica.com/arguments-for-a-ubi- conclusion/](https://atlaspragmatica.com/arguments-for-a-ubi-conclusion/)

It seems to roughly involve the top 22% of earners having a tax bill that is up to 10% bigger than currently, while everyone in the bottom 78% of earners is unaffected or a net beneficiary.

<comment><USER23> Let me get this straight, the starting point is taxed like this, assuming the average wage in UK which seems to be 35k for a full-time job ([https://www.findcourses.co.uk/inspiration/articles/average-s...](https://www.findcourses.co.uk/inspiration/articles/average- salary- uk-2018-14105#:~:text=Their%20yearly%20survey%20showed%20that,for%20those%20in%20part%2Dtime.))

35k makes net 12k (not taxed) + 18.4k (at 20% tax rate) = 30.4k net

In the conclusion, everyone gets a "UBI" of 666 per month, which basically doesn't even cover rent ([https://www.statista.com/statistics/752203/average- cost-of-r...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/752203/average-cost-of-rent- by-region-uk/)). If they would follow this German test, it would need to rise to 1100 pounds per month.

So in this scenario, that average full-time employee pays 48% flat tax on income:

35k taxed at 48% = 18.2k net, plus the 8k UBI leaves this average full-time employee at 26.2k. That is 4.2K less than before.

Looking at that graph at the end, I think there is some "creative graph- plotting" going on, unless I'm seriously mistaken in my calculation.

So how can this be the ideal calculation? The graph and conclusion seems to be in complete error. And even then, 8k per year barely seems like a 'basic income'.

<comment><USER24> £35k is about £27.4k after tax. You have forgotten about national insurance.

<comment> dane-pgp Well spotted. I actually asked the article's author to address the concerns above, and they responded here:

[https://atlaspragmatica.com/a-united-federal- britain/#commen...](https://atlaspragmatica.com/a-united-federal- britain/#comment-71)

Like you, they calculated the current take-home pay of this hypothetical person as £27,442 and, under the proposed UBI system, a take-home pay of £26,550. That's a one-off decrease of £892 which is about 2.5% of their gross salary.

For an imperfect comparison, Figure 5 here:

[https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/lessons- dec...](https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/lessons-decade- failed-austerity?page=2)

shows a similar real terms wage decrease in 2011, supposedly due to the political choice of austerity.

As another comparison, the Department for Work and Pensions estimated that 3.5% of their 2010-2011 budget was spent on administration:

[https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/what_percentage_of_th...](https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/what_percentage_of_the_dwps_budg#incoming-288818)

Obviously replacing most benefits with a UBI won't remove all government administration costs, but it could lead to multiple society-improving outcomes (like improved health) which could reduce the over all tax level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How do you make people work under UBI system? I think most people underestimate how basic people needs are. Get me food, place to sleep and some videogames and I can live like that forever. I won't be seeking new ventures and constantly improving myself, and most people will do the same. Which might be ok in itself, but we don't have robots working for us so we can't switch to full UBI.

</comment><comment><USER26> I would think this study with suffer from a pretty obvious case of the hawthorne effect: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect) And a sample size orders of magnitude higher would be necessary to negate that, or even be significant to a "universal" scale.

</comment><comment><USER27> Some goods are virtually in infinite supply in Western World societies. Basic food, cloths, healthcare (most of Europe AFAIK, not the USA, by choice), even cars and housing. It could make sense to give them for free or give the amount of money that buys them.

However if one wants that kind of food which very few farmers produce and very few chefs cook, or that car that is made in 100 units, or that house on that hill (1 unit) then it's inevitable that you must pay a lot. This means you have to find a way to get a lot of money. UBI won't buy special things and special lifes. It's work as we know it that does.

So, I don't see problems with UBI. If you want to be Musk or Bezos you will (very few persons anyway), if you care only about drinking beer you will (a lot of people) and work to gain some extra for the occasional special thing.

The problem is where all that money comes from. Countries are printing money now and nobody cares anymore. Is it possible to keep doing that for 100 years if everybody agrees?

</comment><comment><USER28> It's only 120. I don't think this is going to teach us anything new.

I think the main objection is whether it will work when made universal. We know giving a small number of people money is both liked by those people and economically viable.

I think to really add new information to the debate, we need something that is self-funded by at least a state/province/prefecture/etc.

</comment><comment><USER29> A lot of these tests miss validating one of the key arguments against means- tested assistance - that there is a cliff to scale for people who were on that assistance, but crossed the imaginary line to slightly better means and are now significantly worse off.

Consider a family who are receiving affordable housing program benefits in an expensive urban area. If they strive to improve their incomes, they are unlikely to afford the same home in the same area at market rate. However, the threshold for that assistance is often a lot lower than the actual income needed for the market rate unit. What would a rational self-interested person do in this situation? Avoid going over the threshold at all costs, in other words stay poorer than they could have been.

A test that would be super beneficial is to see what choices would people make if you removed means-testing - would they feel empowered? Would outcomes improve?

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't have a very good grasp of economics, but can anyone explain why it makes sense to give someone $1000 to do nothing when you can pay them $1000 to do something productive, like build a road? Ideas like negative income tax, government supplemented minimum wages, or increasing EITC makes more sense to me.

<comment><USER31> It's not $1000 to do "nothing", it's $1000 so they can do whatever they want. If they're building some useless road (and many of the public works projects of the past whose aim was to provide "full employment", were busy-work projects moving rocks from one pile to another), then they don't have the time/energy to work on something else that they deem more fulfilling or productive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The headline makes it look like this would come from official sources, but it doesn't. It's a private initiative by some non-profit/charity, financed by private donations, and supervised by some researchers. Duration: 3 years. Amount: 1200€ per month. Participants: 120. Control Group: 1300+. Start: 2021.

This is roughly the same as our unemployment benefits, supposedly without the hassle. How health insurance is handled I can't see.

edit: People under 25 would probably benefit more, because currently they are disadvantaged. Something about parents liable for them, having to live at home, getting less because living at home with parents, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER33> The problem with UBI trials is that they cost a lot of money to be remotely effective. That is because for it to be somewhat meaningful the amount has to be high, it has to involve a lot of people, and it has to last a long time. I was wondering, what if researchers try it in a very poor country where $10 a month is meaningful. Many countries won't want to do it presumably because money will be leaving their country. However, it will be a relatively cheap way of seeing how UBI would effect inflation, self choice unemployment, and creative inventions.

</comment><comment><USER34> Why is the title of this "Germany begins..." when there's only 120 people in the trial? This would be an appropriate title if it were a trial with 120,000 people.

</comment><comment><USER35> UBI is only relevant if it's universal. Doing such a study on a small sample is rather irrelevant and inconclusive.

A better idea might be to do it in a village and compare with another village that doesn't have it. But even this cannot fully replicate the nation wide effects of UBI. How about immigration laws? Germany is in EU, anyone can move to Germany and ask for UBI.

Waste of effort and money to prove nothing.

</comment><comment><USER36> Rather than funding programs like this, people would be far better served by being educated on how to better use the money they have.

Just look at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on how people spend their money. [https://www.bls.gov/cex/2018/CrossTabs/sizbyinc/xtwo.PDF](https://www.bls.gov/cex/2018/CrossTabs/sizbyinc/xtwo.PDF)

For example, a couple making less than 15K a year is spending 2K on restaurants! A couple with that income shouldn't know what the inside of a restaurant looks like. But I don't blame people for that. I think we've let people like this down by not educating them.

Nobody teaches you how to use money to improve your life.

And this isn't just for lower income folks. I can't tell you how many high income people I know that foolishly spend their money (buying boats, new cars, etc) and hardly have anything left for retirement.

</comment><comment><USER37> Why do I read this here? (German here).

It really baffles me that these things seldomly make it to our media.

<comment><USER38> It did though, I read it on Tagesschau: [https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/grundeinkommen- studie-101.h...](https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/grundeinkommen- studie-101.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Most countries give so many tax rebates to low-income individuals it's essentially UBI. Welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, lowest taxable income level.

The $1,400US/month Germany is proposing is less than their minimum wage of $11US.

<comment><USER40> It's a really interesting point because, at least in the USA, we sort of make people work for their 'tax rebates'.

They have to fill out complicated tax forms (really, a tax preparation company fills it out and takes a cut) to get rebates like EITC. They have to spend time visiting government offices to renew their food stamps. They have to be subject to relatively invasive life inspections for welfare- and 'workfare' programs that require people to leave their house, put their kids in daycare, and rake leaves for 8 hours a day are always going in and out of fashion, with over half the states usually implementing a form of that program under some name.

I feel like if it were my choice, I'd like to get a little less money but have it 'guaranteed' without a bunch of time obligations that would interfere with my attempts to raise my kids, learn a skill, or get a basic job. Of course, 80%+ of people in the USA who are in poverty are children, carers, disabled or the elderly, so it's not like they're learning a new skill or trying to find other work. Their time is still valuable though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I've said this before here on HN, but Naval Ravikant (of AngelList) nailed the problem with government pay subsidies and universal basic income on a podcast with Joe Rogan.

"A slippery slide transfer straight into socialism. The moment people can start voting themselves money, combined with democracy it's just a matter of time before the bottom 51 votes themselves into the top 49. By the way, the slippery slope fallacy is not a fallacy; they haven't thought it through."

"The moment you start having a direct transfer mechanism like that in democracy, you're basically doing away with capitalism which is the engine of economic growth. You're also forcing the entrepreneur out, or telling them not to come here."

"People who are down on their luck, they're not looking for handouts. It's not just about money, it's also about status and meaning. The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class citizen."

"You have to teach a man to fish, not to basically throw your rod in and eat the leftover scraps."

<comment><USER42> > The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made > you a second class citizen.

This is why the "Universal" part of UBI is important. Having everybody get it reduces the social stigma. (Also providing the bonus side-effect of reducing the admin overhead that comes with means testing)

<comment><USER41> But you are going to have outrage by people being upset that wealthy people are getting UBI, even though the UBI amount for wealthy people is inconsequential. This is exactly why the COVID-19 stimulus checks were only sent to people making less than $100k.

The media will start writing posts and articles about X millionaire or X billionaire getting a UBI or stimulus check and outrage ensues.

<comment><USER42> > This is exactly why the COVID-19 stimulus checks were only sent to people > making less than $100k.

I agree that this was why, but the end result was that many people fell through the cracks, largely due to situations changing for many since the 2018 tax return it was based on. People who earned 90k in 2018 and 120k in 2020 were eligible, where people earning 100k in 2018 and unemployed due to covid in 2020 were ineligible.

> ... X billionaire getting a UBI or stimulus check and outrage ensues.

If accidentally giving money to people who are "too wealthy" is really that big of a deal, it can always be taxed back at the end of the year. Anyone who earns over $X that received UBI has to pay it back in taxes or opt out themselves? It doesn't seem like an unsolvable problem, and it avoids the many pitfalls of means testing. I'd lean towards accidentally giving one of the ~600 billionaires in the U.S. a few thousand dollars over accidentally leaving tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans excluded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> UBI won't work at scale without fundamental changes in any government to ensure that a UBI wouldn't be exploited by the renting infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER44> ... 120 people will receive ...

</comment><comment><USER45> Well as Science continues to steal everyone's privacy, and Capitalism is the defacto remuneration system in place, I think its only fair we get a universal income if Govt's want us to be good little citizens. Considering the current laws in place, like Copyright, Patents etc etc, its very hard for new comers to enter the market and compete, not to mention the massive setup costs to get into some lines of business. Financial cleansing is perfectly legal in this day and age.

</comment><comment><USER46> About 4 billion people will now ask themselves : Where is Germany and how can I immigrate ?

<comment><USER47> If what you say is true...why not all 7 billion?

<comment><USER37> Dibs on the US

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I think UBI is a failed project from the beginning. We dont need UBI per se we need to provide basic utilities at fraction of the cost or for free.

Housing should be free so should be food. We are incredibly efficient when it comes to building real estate or producing food.

We can set a basic standard for quality of housing and food (you get seasonal fruits,veggies,bread,flour,chicken etc etc).

You should be incentivized to learn how to cook and take care of yourself and acquire additional skills.

The usefulness of UBI will be diminished by inflation and market behavior.The money you get wont actually help you to get things that you need.

<comment><USER49> Producing food makes more sense. Certain types of food is very cheap. Housing and real estate though, it seems is much more expensive and difficult to provide.

<comment><USER48> Housing is actually very easy to do. And should be insanely cheap to do in the US. You could build entire cities from scratch while providing jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'm not even going to bother to read this article. I'm not a fan of UBI and I think this is an admission that we don't have real solutions for the pandemic and we aren't even going to try to come up with real solutions, like helping people get into remote work and creating germ control solutions (like Little Caesar's pizza portal) for things where remote work is not an option.

I mean, glad to see they don't want their people to just starve. Three years is maybe a good time frame for helping people come up with real solutions.

The problem is that if you aren't explicitly stating up front that we are giving you three years to adjust to the new reality and we need you working on solutions, then those three years are going to fly by without people working on solutions and then the checks will stop coming and then what? You are just delaying disaster, not resolving anything.

<comment><USER51> This isn't the government carrying out the trial, but a crowd-sourced private non-profit.

<comment><USER50> Then the title is inaccurate. "Trial begins in Germany." would be fine. But "Germany begins trial" means the nation-state -- the government -- is beginning a trial. If the government isn't hosting it, it isn't "Germany" beginning this trial.

It's also a minor detail that doesn't significantly impact my opinion of the whole thing.

<comment><USER51> Yes, the title is inaccurate. Titles on the Internet often are. That is precisely why it is generally a good idea to actually _read_ the article before firing off a flaming reply.

Basically, you were trashing the German government for something they never did, based on a faulty assumption.

<comment><USER50> No, I wasn't trashing the German government.

I'm well aware what I did is not a best practice. I've been on HN 11 years.

I've also thought a great deal about certain kinds of issues and formally studied them etc and I'm extremely frustrated with how certain things are being handled. I'm quite confident that reading the article wouldn't fundamentally change my opinion. It would only allow me to say it in a slightly more socially acceptable fashion.

The qualifier I gave covers any such inaccuracies and it's unimportant anyway because no one takes me all that seriously, though they really should.

And I don't really feel like pointlessly rehashing that fact. It never changes. It's the same BS as always and there's nothing I can do to fix that.

I'm done being silenced by that fact on subjects I'm knowledgeable about. I have enough karma to withstand a few downvotes for the crime of admitting I know something useful and never mind that no one is ever going to have a goddamned ounce of real respect for me. Whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Unless Germany has a secret fleet of human-level AIs that can do anything a regular German worker can for free, this will fail. Even worse is that this failure will make them think UBIs will never work.

<comment><USER53> You're making the hard assumption that, by distributing a UBI, people will just sit around and do nothing. There is no data to back this statement up, and it's very likely that people will actually work more while on UBI. UBI is designed to provide _choice_ for workers, not force them to do something they don't want to do.

For all we know, UBI could lead to solving some of the worlds biggest problems by giving people, who otherwise wouldn't be able to, the freedom to solve problems they're interested in, not just work some dead end job to barely make ends meet. You'd be surprised at how much better humans are at doing things when they actually like doing them.

Let's let the studies roll out before making assumptions. I do, however, believe these studies are much too removed from reality to prove much of anything. The dataset is much too small and 36 months isn't a great deal of time. We will see.

<comment><USER52> I find it interesting that even after a worldwide pandemic has proved that the majority of humans will prefer to act selfishly to maintain their own comfort level, you still somehow hold out hope that given literally free money, that the majority wouldn't also use this money selfishly to maintain their comfort level.

<comment><USER54> > find it interesting that even after a worldwide pandemic has proved that the > majority of humans will prefer to act selfishly to maintain their own > comfort level

Has that been proven?

<comment><USER52> The majority of humans are indeed acting selfishly to maintain their own comfort level, yes. You can argue that they aren't, in which case I'd like to see the indication that either A) the majority of people are acting in the interest of others when they go about their daily business spreading the illness, or B) the majority of people are not preferring to maintain their comfort level.

It is proven for me as I can see both A and B are false.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> tuna-piano Am I the only one who hates both the term, the idea and frequent discussions of "Universal Basic Income"?

-The term feels like just a rebranding of slightly-modified concepts that have been around forever

-The term also says "income" when it's really just "Forced Redistribution (FR)". ... why does the term focus on the money people receive and not the money people pay?

-The discussions in favor of UBI/FR generally revolve around new inventions which could lead to mass unemployment. These are such old arguments that have been debunked with every new mass-unemployment causing invention, from the rake to the tractor to the sewing machine. UBI/FR supporters have the same arguments as those who burned down sewing machine factories in the 1800s.

-What would the world look like if we implemented UBI/FR after the sewing machine or tractor? And would year 2500 look better with or without UBI/FR?

-Why do people support a government policy that they wouldn't support for their own children? Most of us have known of or heard of rich families where the kids got all the money and resources they need into adulthood vs those who were forced to earn their own way... it's obvious which parenting strategy turns out better.

<comment><USER42> > Why do people support a government policy that they wouldn't support for > their own children? Most of us have known of or heard of rich families where > the kids got all the money and resources they need into adulthood vs those > who were forced to earn their own way... it's obvious which parenting > strategy turns out better.

UBI is about providing a floor for people. Most people like the idea of their children having access to food, shelter, healthcare and education. From the article, the amount here is "just above Germany's poverty line", so it's not fair to compare it to "rich families where the kids got all the money and resources". People earning this UBI have enough to survive, but not much more. This isn't enough money to go on family vacations, buy fancy cars, live in lavish homes, etc. There is still a strong incentive to work and improve your personal circumstances, the main difference is that losing your job, or having a medical issue, shouldn't be enough to put you or your family on the street.</comment></comment>


Hacked Twitter Accounts Post Swastikas, Pro-Erdogan Content - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/twitter-accounts-appear-to-be-hacked-with-swastikas-and-pro-erdogan-content <comment><USER2> TheCounter: "We're aware that our service was hacked and have started an investigation into the matter.We've already taken measures to contain such abuse"

[https://twitter.com/thecounter/status/841935867925139458](https://twitter.com/thecounter/status/841935867925139458)

"This isn't TwitterCounter's first time. It's happened before. If you rely on it, it's time to pick better tools."

[https://twitter.com/FR314/status/841925814417555460](https://twitter.com/FR314/status/841925814417555460)

[http://press.twittercounter.com/139716-twitter-counter- accou...](http://press.twittercounter.com/139716-twitter-counter-accounts- secured-following-a-hack)

UPD TheCounter: "Assuming this abuse is indeed done using our system, we've blocked all ability to post tweets and changed our Twitter app key."

[https://twitter.com/thecounter/status/841941624238284800](https://twitter.com/thecounter/status/841941624238284800)

<comment><USER3> What does this service do exactly? Why does it need to have write access to the account if it's only a stat thing?

<comment><USER4> Looks like they run a followers scam as well with the promoted twitter account. How can they guarantee 1% views conversion. They probably make accounts that sign up for their service secretly follow the promoted accounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Someone is very interested in pushing people towards far right pro-kremlim parties in Europe right before elections..

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't be that sure - the tensions escalated before today's Dutch elections, but the cause of the escalation was the _current_ ruling party (the PM banned some turkish gatherings/protests, and then blocked a Turkish minister's plane from landing in the Netherlands). So one could argue that the mainstream party tried to woo right-wing-ish voters by taking a stronger stance against Turks/muslims.

<comment><USER7> The stance taken wasn't against Turks or Muslims though. It was against an authoritarian ruler campaigning in another country to grab even more power for himself.

<comment><USER8> Exactly this

The one with dictatorial tendencies here is Erdogan

<comment><USER9> I agree, but the PM (Rutte) and his party are definitely benefiting. He had many opportunities before to go harder on Erdogan i.e. when Erdogan bought oil from IS but "we" needed him to keep refugees out of Europe.

The stance is certainly not against Muslims although people might feel it that way. It is against the fact the pro-Erdogan Turks and anti-Erdogan Turks and Curds etc cause unrest in the Netherlands. Most people are welcoming of other cultures but not when they bring their political unrest with them. This whole circus was a signal to Turkey to keep Turkish politics within Turkey. Still, I'm certain our PM would have been less strong if there weren't any elections.

I don't understand Erdogan though, he called on the dutch Turks to not vote for the current PM and Geert Wilders (PVV, far right, anti immigration, pro Netherlands), and now this?! He must know that the couple of Turks that will listen to this will be overwhelmed by Dutchies wanting to vote anything that Erdogan doesn't like... It's like he is intentionally putting oil on the fire, helping PVV. Why is the very important questions, what does he or some other party have to gain? Who benefits from poor EU/Turkey relations?

Edit: after thinking some more: Of course Erdogan is the one who benefits greatly from the created "us against them sentiment" of the Turks. It distracts from all the turmoil and the approaching power grab.

<comment><USER10> Putting oil on the fire is a core part of Erdoğan's strategy. He's afraid that not enough Turks will vote in a couple weeks for the constitutional reform that will establish himself as dictator for life, so he has been trying to stoke nationalist resentment against EU countries for the last months, so that when they respond to his provocations he can represent himself as defender of the Turkish nation from outside attacks.

Erdoğan never missed an opportunity to escalate the situation.

The German government remained mostly calm despite numerous incidents such as preventing government officials from visiting German soldiers stationed in Turkey, the frivolous lawsuit where German citizen and journalist Deniz Yücel is accused of "terrorism", threats of sanctions for preventing public speeches of Turkish government officials (foreign officials have no free-speech rights in Germany, their speeches happen entirely at the pleasure of the German government), and regular Nazi name-calling of German politicians.

The Netherlands however have elections this week where a far-right populist could get many votes, so the current ruling party there (VVD) wants to position itself strongly against Erdoğan's aggressive antics in order to retain conservative voters. This is understandable, but of course it has the disadvantage that it plays right into Erdoğan's strategy.

<comment><USER11> Of all the governments in the world today, I am most impressed by Merkel's Germany. She has remarkable ability to stand strong in the face of criticism and do what's right without bowing to populism.

<comment><USER12> There's a great profile that shows she's a sleuth politican, despite appearances of being a "Let's wait and see" sort of person. [http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/31/angela-merkel-has-a- play...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/31/angela-merkel-has-a-playbook-for- bullies-like-trump/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every now and then I end up helping someone I know out with their twitter strategy or something on their PC. The number of full access 3rd party integrations people willingly sign up to and the number of browser plugins people happily add always shocks me.

Part of the problem is that getting your account hacked is such a widespread problem that people just accept it and there isn't much incentive for developers to invest heavily in preventing poor user decisions that exacerbate the situation.

Ideally developers of services like Twitter - and all those random SaaS apps you pipeline important business information to - should invest in:

* Better language about granting access rights up front. Chrome is always impressing me with their approach to language on HTTPS warning dialogs etc. Anyone allowing API access should spend lots of time crafting how they explain their token system to users.

* Requiring manual re-confirmation of access rights for integrations after a certain period of no use.

* Detecting unusual access patterns for integrations - usually this integration posts once per day per account, now it's posting continually.

Hopefully there are machine learning startup teams working on this. I'm sure at least some companies would care enough to send a log of 3rd party integration interactions to a machine learning startup and receive alerts of anonymous behaviour back.

(Yes, I know the irony of suggesting the answer to excessive 3rd party integration is a startup that provides anomaly detection as a service - but I doubt most small services offering integrations would be able to engineer a strong system like this...)

</comment><comment><USER14> Is Twitter Counter related to Twitter? if not, how come they are authorized to use the word Twitter in their product name?

<comment><USER15> Not related, but they have licensed the name (also have been around for very long).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yes lets hijack AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL to prove our point that We are not the facsists but the Dutch are... that will totally work...

<comment><USER17> Sesame Street, too, just to clinch the deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So they basically had already access to all those accounts for presumably a long time (months?) just to make that one coordinated post today?

Kinda scary...the amount of effort put in to make this possible as well as the intended (unknown? NL?) goal from the attackers POV.

</comment><comment><USER19> Who ever that was, just handed Geet Wilder's the election. Well played.

<comment><USER20> >Who ever that was, just handed Geet Wilder's the election. Well played

I'm not sure you understand the mechanics of the election in the NL. The parties campain for seats in the Tweede Kamer, and no party will win a clear majority of seats. Therefore a coalition government will have to be formed among the leading parties. The other leading parties have refused to work with Wilders due to his anti-Muslim statements, and recent polls have shown fewer expected seats for the PVV. In no way has the election been handed to PVV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> ...or maybe someone is trying to defame Erdogan by associating Erdogan with Nazi?

<comment><USER22> Not taking any stance on the matter of who's the hacker and what are their intentions, but Erdogan has compared the German and Dutch administration Nazi multiple times by now in public speeches, so the tweets content are pretty much his stance boiled down to 140 chars.</comment></comment>


Detroit fire department has alert system made of pop cans, doorbells - <AUTHOR> http://www.freep.com/article/20140905/NEWS01/309050185/Detroit-fire-pop-can-fax

<comment><USER2> There's only a little over 24 hours left to order, but if you want to help a group of guys trying to make the best of a ridiculous situation, Ladder 22 is trying to raise some funds here:

[http://teespring.com/DetroitTruck22TheDoubleDeuce#pid=212&ci...](http://teespring.com/DetroitTruck22TheDoubleDeuce#pid=212&cid=5819&sid=front)</comment>


Why I'm Close to Giving Up on Windows Phone 7, as a User and a Developer - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dantup.com/2011/03/why-im-close-to-giving-up-on-windows-phone-7-as-a-user-and-a-developer

<comment><USER2> Microsoft's an interesting beast. Things that "should" matter to them, like Windows, somehow reach the point of almost falling apart (see Windows Me or Vista). Then, groups that are practically losing money build great things like the Xbox 360 and Kinect. Some products that stumble end up dead, like the Zune, while others are dragged back up to par (see IE9 and Windows 7). This current mess could mean anything from "WP7 is doomed, sell your stock" to "the Eye of Sauron just hasn't shone on that product group yet". We'll see. Personally, I'm thinking WP7 will pull a Vista or two and then become a cool phone OS, but the competition isn't standing still either.

When Apple was launching the iPhone, they pulled engineers from their flagship Mac OS X to work on new phone software. They seemed to think it was pretty important to launch with a strong product and have all the details right; to them, even delaying a product from another part of their business was an acceptable risk. When was the last time Microsoft did anything like that? Instead of slapping together product groups to shove their way into every has- been market, they could stand to divert some developers, developers, developers to products that need a polished launch, such as WP7.

<comment><USER3> That's the thing I never understood about Microsoft. When they really focus, and spend more time on producing a product versus marketing a product, the seem to do some great things (SEE: Windows 2000/NT).

It seems like MS could really use from some user centric project managers or something to really get them on the course to consistent delivery, because that's what's lacking.

Vista was a bust, 7 was a phenom by MS standards. The 360 did OK, the Kinect was brilliant. By the logic that is the Windows development cycle, Windows 8 is going to be an abysmal failure. I'm an OS X user now, but I'll still say how great Win7 is, and the only thing I wish to see come from the company is some form in consistency with their products and marketing. These "To the cloud" commercials NEED to stop.

<comment><USER4> Without making a judgment one way or the other in regards to the people at Microsoft I'd make one point about what you said. The problem with looking at Microsoft through the lens of Windows NT to Windows 7 is that Microsoft consists of completely different people in those two eras. The people who spearheaded windows in the time of Windows NT and Windows 2000 were worth tens of millions of dollars by the time Vista went out to door. So most had long moved on to personal ventures.

<comment><USER3> You have a very valid point, however I'm not per se making the argument of a dichotomy between Windows NT and Windows 7. I am however saying that Microsoft CAN, when they narrow down build some great products. And it seems like every time, as soon as they do, they trip up on their own two feet and fall face first on the very next one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this attitude has been the downfall of a lot of developers over the years. You fall in love with the development environment and then you transfer that love to the platform itself. The problem is sometimes great platforms aren't paired with great products.

Microsoft is at least two generations behind Google and Apple at this point. Some would argue three generations. I'm a .net developer who loves C# too so I'm sympathetic. But putting a lot of resources into Windows phone 7 at this point is just folly

<comment><USER5> _But putting a lot of resources into Windows phone 7 at this point is just folly_

It feels like MS isn't putting enough skin in the game. They shipped the OS in September. Great. That gets you a toe in the door. They should have rev'ed that OS at least as many times as Apple has theirs. Apple has shipped 5 updates to iOS since September. MS -- one (the update to prepare for future updates, so really not even a real update). That's embarrassing that the market leader, with 300k apps in the appstore and 100M devices on the market is more agile. And as a developer, you have to ask yourself, "Is this a platform I want to get in bed with?" At this point, I wouldn't.

<comment><USER6> And to complete this, even if you compare W7P with the early iPhone OS (arguing that both are version ones, not that they're both living in 2011), the first 6 months Apple shipped 1 major updates, 3 bugfix updates and 1 compatibility update (for the 1st gen iPod Touch).

And a second major update in month 7.

2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 were all followed by 2 major and 2 bugfix updates in the first 6 months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> alok-g Is it any better with Android? Here's a list of issues:

\-- Android resets your phone to factory settings without asking you or even giving a warning if you port a number to it. This deserves a class-action lawsuit. See here: [http://androidforums.com/droid-x-support- troubleshooting/131...](http://androidforums.com/droid-x-support- troubleshooting/131476-hard-reset-when-porting-new-number-x.html)

\-- Using the built in email application, sent emails often stuck in the outbox. See here: [http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=6d4...](http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=6d4b97299085cebe&hl=en)

\-- Wifi on the phone does not work if SSID is hidden. See here: <http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1041>

\-- Bluetooth on the device is unable to connect to a desktop to transfer files or sync. See here: [http://www.bing.com/search?q=android+bluetooth+paired+but+no...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=android+bluetooth+paired+but+not+connected)

\-- Once you sign in into Google Account using any Google app (like Gmail), you cannot sign out, ever! Only way to "sign out" is to reset the phone to factory defaults, which means loosing all your data and needing phone activation again. See here: [http://www.sizzledcore.com/2009/12/27/how-to- remove-change-g...](http://www.sizzledcore.com/2009/12/27/how-to-remove- change-google-account-from-android/)

\-- They have artificially blocked use of Google Calendar app on the phone from functioning unless using a Google Account. Of course Google isn't interested in Outlook Sync, but even third-party developers suffer. Many have started providing their own calendar apps. See here: <http://www.syncdroid.net/>

If you follow the links, you may notice that many of the issues have been open for a few years, some since Android version 1.6, etc. Google just does not care.

To fix the issue with sent emails stuck in the outbox, people have started from the source code of the built-in email app and created K-9 mail, which is 10X more powerful, and works.

<comment><USER7> Actually you are wrong on a few of those points, for one, I use bluetooth to transfer files to my phone(2.1 device) all the time, but I have seen some android phones where that does work, it seems to be dependent on whether or not the manufacturer has lock that feature down or not.

Also you can remove or unlink you google account in the "Accounts & Sync" area of the settings menu.

<comment> alok-g You could be right about Bluetooth issue being linked to manufacturers.

My Android (v2.2) does not allow removing Google account.

<comment><USER8> My HTC Desire does allow that, which phone do you use?

<comment> alok-g Motorola Droid 2 Global

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TL;DR: A very long cover letter for the guy's job application to the Microsoft Windows Phone team.

<comment><USER10> And power to him - if only everyone on the WP7 team cared this much. IMO these certainly aren't the words of someone just trolling for a job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am not in any position to give advice to Microsoft, but it seems to me that they are trying to apply the winning strategies they used in one game to all the others.

Example: WP7.

What is expected: They ship fast and they update fast and agile, they don't have giant compatibility legacy to maintain.

What actually happens: WP7 took forever to ship and never got updated.

My speculation why it happened: they've got some lengthy and fairly bureaucratic process of approving new features, new versions, etc. They apply the same methodic they used with windows to their WP7, like, always maintain backward compatibility, be very reliable (well, you all know what happened) and predictable. They're, like, four years late and they keep wasting time.

Not to mention that WinMo wasn't too great either. I had an iPaq, which was sort of okay, but it didn't rock. It wasn't "cool" in any sense. And they probably vastly underestimate the coolness factor.

My $0.02.

<comment><USER12> I don't think that's their strategy generally.

Their current development strategy for things like MVC and Silverlight is to pre-release new functionality as an unsupported project, full source and iterate fast. They're quite agile in areas.

WP7 feels like some one has suddenly put the breaks on it.

<comment><USER13> It's one thing to ship MVC & Silverlight as unsupported projects and iterate fast, but quite another to iterate phone software quickly where you could potentially brick millions of phones with one small software update.

As noted in this blog post, an update applied to the phone broke it and the user had to get a brand new phone. This added a customer service burden to the mobile provider / network - which in turn means they will moan to Microsoft when they do this and give them less enthuiasm for WP7 devices in future if it keeps happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is just another example of Microsoft not having their act together. I mean, forget Windows Phone 7, but Vista was just a disaster. The company nearly sacrificed it's main revenue source. Apple isn't exactly known for being transparent on matters either, but you can imagine if something goes wrong there what the internal pressure must be to get it fixed ASAP. Because soon enough they do fix it. As Steve Jobs himself said, "great artists ship"

I still really feel Microsoft can get back on track if they had new executive level management. Someone younger, bolder, a little audacious but with the ability to execute - like for example bringing back Gundotra at the CEO level. It's just that they need to do it sooner rather than later.

</comment><comment><USER15> The marketing for Windows Phone 7 was pretty extensive in the US. I don't watch much TV, but I definitely saw plenty of the "We need a phone to save us from our phones" ads. Was it really that much smaller in the UK?

And have there really been NO bugfixes or patches (other than the notorious one he mentioned)? That's insane. Microsoft has got to know how far behind the ball they are... why aren't they pulling out all the stops on this?

For Microsoft: This isn't Windows. You can't wait 3 years (or more) for every release.

<comment><USER16> I don't know about the UK, but there has been zero windows Phone 7 advertising in Sweden. No TV, no billboards, no in store promotion, hell I haven't even a working WP7 demo phone in any electronics store. If you don't follow tech blogs there would be no way to know that WP7 was even out. Compare this to Android where there is plenty of promotion on all fronts and it looks like Microsoft doesn't really want to sell phones here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> His Microsoft-centricity is pretty annoying.

</comment><comment><USER18> tl;dr: Guy keeps buying shitty MS mobile products, MS dutifully keeps making shitty mobile products.

Very reminiscent of Apple fans in the '90s, buying crap products because they've defined themselves to be on Team Apple.

<comment><USER5> That's possibly the worst most inaccurate tldr I've seen. Did you read the article or just project what you'd like it to say. You do no one any favors by posting an inaccurate tldr.

<comment><USER19> tl;dr: Legion's tl;dr sucked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The worst thing about Microsoft is that they launch technologies / platforms without much success and then just close them up. I read that "Windows Live Spaces" is closing down, now Zune is closing shop... Imagine you invest time and energy in the Spaces network or a Zune setup, you're out of luck.

Worse, there is no upgrade path.

<comment><USER21> Nowadays, I suspect Microsoft's strategy is "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks"

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm always under the impression Microsoft is counting on luck when it comes to bringing out software. The kinect (or what's the name) is a big success, but is this because of the hardware or the software? I'm wondering too if Microsoft takes itself serious at times.

<comment><USER23> It's an interesting point. I think MS's courting of kinect hackers signifies that they haven't quite figured out what it's for yet. They know they're sitting on an awesome piece of hardware, and damned if they know what to make of it. Right now it's Wii++ and they know it could be so much more, but they don't know what. They're looking for inspiration from those who really do see its potential.

Really, this is a microcosm of MS in the Ballmer era. They still have incredible engineering talent, but they have no vision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm happy to see a thoughtful, objective post on WP7 by a generally pro-MS developer.

Well done.

<comment><USER25> It's got the same flavor of sadness that an Amiga ST fan has when describing their favorite computer.

I hate to say it but by the time Windows Phone 8 comes out, if it ever does, the iPhone, Android and quite possibly RIM will be way ahead. Seems like 2013 at the absolute earliest for Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why are you only close to giving up? Is this windows phone thing a significant platform?

[http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/12/07/microsoft-doesnt- expe...](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/12/07/microsoft-doesnt-expect- windows-phone-7-sales-to-catch-up-to-ios-or-android-any-time-soon/)

Mossberg asked: "So.. how long before you're back into the market… back up to a good marketshare, up there with Android and Apple?"

"I don't know.."

"Couple months?"

"Longer than that."

"Couple years?"

"Maybe."

Isn't it time to stop developing for OS/2?

<comment><USER27> That sounds realistic for a nascent platform. Even a super awesome OS will take time to displace the incumbents. You're disappointed that you didn't get BS marketing speak that it would defeat Apple and Google in 2 weeks or what?

<comment><USER28> > You're disappointed that you didn't get BS marketing speak that it would > defeat Apple and Google in 2 weeks

[http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/10/microsoft-celebrates- wind...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/10/microsoft-celebrates-windows- phone-7-rtm-with-funeral-parade-for/)

I'll just leave that there ;)

<comment><USER27> Where's the marketing speak there?

That seems to be an internal joke for the team after their hard work over 2 years for meeting the deadline of the 2010 holiday season and to "rally the troops".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hasn't this been the same story for every windows mobile OS though? I gotta say I would be in the "gotta see it to believe it" phase if I were a mobile developer.

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder what this experience is like compared to early Android adopters? Was there similar issues, with bugs and then updates not coming for them?

<comment><USER31> Android has some pretty wacky longstanding bugs, even now. My friend and I both have HTC Incredibles, and whenever I text him I come up as his friend Frank, with Frank's picture.

I got a bunch of very confused texts from him before we figured that one out. Now whenever I text him, I have to append (This is Erik).

<comment><USER5> If you were dating a couple of girls, that could end up with some really embarrassing situations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Was the first release of iPhone or Android really that flawless compared to WM7?

<comment><USER21> I bought an original iPhone because a colleague said "there's an awful lot it doesn't do but what it does do is so good you won't miss the rest".

I may be miremembering but I don't recall any real issues with it, and it still is the best phone I've owned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> _I even started working on iPhone apps. I really hate Mac OSX, Objective-C, and XCode. But I had to go with the market._

Stopped reading here.

<comment><USER34> Why?

<comment><USER33> I don't understand why a web developer would _have_ to go and develop applications for mobile platform when (s)he doesn't enjoy it. If I had to work with in an OS that I hate, with developer tools that I hate in a programing language that I hate I would rather change jobs.

<comment><USER35> But it's not a job for him; it's his business.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sweden prepares for possible tighter coronavirus measures as deaths rise - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/sweden-prepares-to-tighten-coronavirus-measures-as-death-toll-climbs <comment><USER2> This is a headline we're gonna repeat as long as Sweden stays on their course, no? Because it's then perpetually always true.

It's laughably juvenile, like countries exerting peer pressure as if they're in kindergarten.</comment>


Zero Zero lands $25M for Hover Camera, selfie stick with wings - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2016/04/26/the-hover-camera-a-selfie-stick-with-wings-lands-15-million-in-funding/ <comment><USER2> The video shows its really, really, loud. $25M for a selfie stick seems like a little much.

Now, if you have an intelligent drone that follows me and takes videos and pictures and automatically makes movies out of it, plays theme music while I'm walking, and is an IoT voice commanded device over 4GLTE now we are talking!

Until then, I'll keep my money.</comment>


Google Was Willing to Beat Facebook's $19B Offer for WhatsApp - k-mcgrady https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Was-Willing-to-Beat-Facebook-s-19-Billion-Offer-for-WhatsApp

<comment><AUTHOR> PAYWALLED. Sigh!

<comment><USER2> Seriously annoying, there's been a bunch of them posted on HN as of late. Bad trend.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Like system for web links? - <AUTHOR> Would love to get your thoughts. What if there was a chrome extension that allowed you to upvote any link you run into over the internet. This way you have a meta layer of human curation over the internet, giving contextual clues as to whether something is really useful or not! <comment><USER2> The way the question is worded, it seems to me that you have a product idea which you want validated. I'd be wary of this method of building sideprojects because it will close you off to other, possibly better ways of achieving your end goal.

/metaAnswer

If you look at this idea with squint eyes, in a way, it has already been implemented. Facebook and Google show you posts you are likelier to read ("trust") because of all the profile information they have on you. Each Like and Share you do raises that article's "trust" score.

Will you be able to become the Verisign of trust? Maybe. Verisign's business is built around maths. What are you going to build your "Trust" number on?

</comment><comment><USER3> Great idea, major issue to overcome is going to be reaching critical mass. You could probably overcome the apparent lack of pre-existing users and data by stealing data from web of trust and digg clones.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a fantastic idea! I was thinking about the critical mass, and this never occurred to me! Do you think shipping it as a chrome extension is the best medium, or is there another avenue I'm not seeing?

<comment><USER3> I can't think of another avenue to try.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft is pulling the plug on Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 next Tuesday - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10722426/internet-explorer-8-9-10-dying <comment><USER2> Mostly false. IE9 remains supported until Vista hits EOL. Various other minor editions of Windows also have other versions of IE supported.

Microsoft is merely pulling support for older versions of IE than the latest any given Windows supports.</comment>


Amazon Payments account holders are required to provide a Date of Birth - <AUTHOR>

Just got an e-mail from Amazon stating:
"To ensure compliance with federal law, Amazon Payments account holders are required to provide a Date of Birth. You must provide this information before Sunday, March 31st, 2013 to ensure your account activity is not interrupted..."
The same statements can be found on this site:
https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/helpTab/Personal-Accounts/User-Agreement-Policies/Federal-Regulations
My question is: Why do they need date of birth? Perhaps they want to confirm that one is "over 18" but this still seems odd - and doesn't seem to be in response to any federal law that I know about (but I'm not a lawyer)
What's even more lame is when you click on the FAQ / and the question: "Why do you need my date of birth?" you will find the answer: "To make sure of compliance with federal laws, Amazon Payments Personal Account holders and some Business Account holders are required to provide their date of birth." <comment><USER2> Patriot act, at a guess - transfers of $10k or more are required to be accompanied per personal identifying information, and Amazon may also be required to collect PII to the extent that it's viewed as a broker, collecting money on behalf of others for distribution thereto. But I can't tell you for sure which law; most likely you're hearing about it now because either a new regulation has been promulgated or as a result of some holding in a recent court case.</comment>


Tom Perkins: Taxes will lead to 'economic extinction' of the 1% - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/14/investing/tom-perkins.fortune/

<comment><USER2> Clickbait headline. He said:

'Ultimately, the biggest issue Perkins claimed to have with the treatment of the 1% is taxes. "I wouldn't say taxation is a form of persecution," he said. "But the extreme progressivism of the tax system is."'

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, that's the intent. Fuck the 1%, distribute their wealth to the 99% and have a booming economy.</comment>


Why electric cars still don't live up to the hype - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-electric-cars-still-dont-live-up-to-the-hype/2019/12/30/242ce200-2b29-11ea-bcd4-24597950008f_story.html <comment><USER2> Oh boy, somehow the authour leaves out the detail that more and more of the grid gets it's power from renewable sources.

They also leave out the detail that the amount of pollution released into the environment is lower even when an electric car if powered from a coal plant than what an ICE car generates driving the same distance.

And last but not least, somehow they forget than more and more people who have a BEV also have their own solar panels and charge the car with ZERO pollution.

<comment><USER3> The author admits that he doesn't understand why Tesla succeeded, so I think it's not worth to even read the whole article. I suspect he gets money from gas companies indirectly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A substantial percent of households have two or more vehicles. These households do not need all of their vehicles to be able to do what gasoline powered vehicles can do--just one of them. So one of the vehicles can be a small electric car with limited travel distance capacity for commuting, general errands and charged overnight.

Gasoline prices are low now because of an excess of oil extracted from the ground because of fracking. This can't last that many years.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a service to exchange Bitcoins/ETHEREUM for unused gift cards - <AUTHOR> exchange bitcoins for unused gift cards<p>Received a $539 Nordstroms prepaid gift card as a birthday present, would like to exchange for BTC.  Never used one of these cards, but I understand I can link it to my paypal.  As much as I hate paypal+BTC, any offers? my email is hn username at google gmail service <comment><USER2> The gift card exchange subreddit might be a good starting point: [https://www.reddit.com/r/giftcardexchange/](https://www.reddit.com/r/giftcardexchange/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The last time I had to do something similar was back in early 2011(?), and I used the #bitcoin-otc IRC channel. Got a bunch of Bitcoin for $5/each.</comment>


6 simple digital hacks to get more freelance work this year - <AUTHOR> http://www.saharahacker.com/post/72309016821/6-simple-digital-hacks-to-get-more-freelance-work-this

<comment><USER2> I found the last "hack" (Bonus: suggest new projects to existing clients) to be very effective in the past. It really can't hurt to suggest features or changes to a client. If they are eager to improve their business, they will be interested in your ideas. That's also the first step to become a consultant if that's your thing.</comment>


Scala Tutorials Part #2 – Type Inference and Types in Scala – Madusudanan - <AUTHOR> http://madusudanan.com/blog/scala-tutorials-part-2-type-inference-in-scala/#kudo <comment> nv-vn This article kind of ignored the difference between local and global type inference when grouping languages with inferred types into a list, even though the concepts are entirely different (both in implementation details and in the way they affect use of the language). For example, having local type inference makes it impossible to share a syntax between functions and variables, plus the process of 'inferring' these types simply involves looking up the type of the expression by looking at the functions/values/operators used (which already have a known type at that point). With global type inference, looking at a term alone will not give you all the information that you need because there's no annotated information about what the types of arguments to your function will be. The difference means that local type inference is just taking information from the right side and placing it on the left, while global inference is a recursive process of unifying information that is not necessarily connected in a clear way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I sort of skipped over that detail, thanks for pointing it out, ill include it in the post.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any veteran feedback from the SOA era? - <AUTHOR> My old grumpy mentor from France Télécom was often joking about the failure of the SOA Java stack (and particularly the state of RPC and Service Buses).
I don't remember his argumentation, but now that microservices put back SOA in fashion, I would like to hear some feedbacks and opinions about it.
What's different now which makes SOA more relevant ? What was good about the old tooling ? There's some very good pieces of blog about SOA architectures out there, are they still relevant ? <comment><AUTHOR> This is relevant to the discussion:

\- [http://udidahan.com/2007/12/29/wcf-everywhere-not-on-my- watc...](http://udidahan.com/2007/12/29/wcf-everywhere-not-on-my-watch/) (MS SOA technology)

\- [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/issue- archive/2015/15-mar/...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/issue- archive/2015/15-mar/o25architect-2458702.html)

\- Also this: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25501098/difference- betwe...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25501098/difference-between- microservices-architecture-and-soa)

\- [http://service- architecture.blogspot.co.at/2014/03/microserv...](http://service- architecture.blogspot.co.at/2014/03/microservices-is-soa-for-those-who- know.html)</comment>


Ask HN: How best to get CISSP certified? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN! I have a background in non-technical aspects of security, from physical security to policy, and am looking to get my CISSP certification for work. Looking for advice. If at a physical location, preference is for proximity to Palo Alto. Also interested in online programs, but the bias is for in-person learning. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Are you _sure_ you want the CISSP?

[http://daveshackleford.com/?p=838](http://daveshackleford.com/?p=838)

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't bother.</comment>


$26.7 Billion Revenue; 7 Million iPads, 16 Million iPhones Sold - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/18/apple-q1-2011/ <comment><USER2> 7 million iPads is a pretty good market to develop for. How many Windows users where there in, say, 1990?

<comment><USER3> "7 million iPads is a pretty good market to develop for."

That's just the quarter. I think there's 15 million total running around. For a product that is not even a year old. Astounding.

<comment><USER4> And nearly twice their per-unit Mac sales for the quarter.

Ten years of work on OSX barely shifts the needle; less than a year of iPad sales breaks the gauge. It's pretty clear which OS is more important to Apple now.

<comment><USER5> "Ten years of work on OSX barely shifts the needle; less than a year of iPad sales breaks the gauge. It's pretty clear which OS is more important to Apple now."

It's unfortunate, but I think you're right. OS X is BY FAR my favorite Apple product (even over the hardware, which is beautiful, but seems to be trending down with regards to quality). iOS is the money-maker though; Apple would be hard pressed to not see it as the future of the company. Boo.

Dear Apple,

I don't want iOS on my desktop. I want OS X on my desktop. Please.

<comment><USER6> I've gone full circle in the last few years regarding my choice of desktop. I used to love only Linux. Then I bought a mac, and thought OSX was the shizz.

But more recently, I've been tending to use Linux more, and more and more.

I'm not sure if it's because Linux has gotten better, or because OSX has just enough quirks to be annoying. (eg: launchctl, Apple Python).

OSX is probably the best consumer / business desktop in existence. But personally, I'm falling in love with Linux again.

<comment><USER7> You should spend some time w/ FreeBSD.

<comment><USER5> Care to elaborate on why you feel that way? I'm not a BSD user, but I am interested in why you might feel it a good alternative to Linux or OS X.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Excellence Has Become a Habit"… nice snippet from Tim Cook.

<comment><USER9> Alluding to this Aristotle quote, which I recall being quoted in one of Steve Jobs' speeches: [http://thinkexist.com/quotation/we_are_what_we_repeatedly_do...](http://thinkexist.com/quotation/we_are_what_we_repeatedly_do- excellence_then-is/12820.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is anyone feeling that Apple products are particularly sticky and viral? I found myself keep wanting to buy more Apple products ever since I bought my first MacBook. And I tend to recommend Apple products to my friends much more than any other brands I love before. Or am I just hooked…

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd imagine that the number of iPhones sold are only going to go up now that it's coming to Verizon.

</comment><comment><USER12> Insanely great.

</comment><comment><USER13> Since this is an earnings report ... would you buy AAPL right now?

<comment><USER14> Don't know- but I did buy some this morning the second I realized that Steve Job's announcement was coming right before earnings. If nothing else, Apple knows how to time things. Also, Tim Cook has been speaking more publicly and being put in a higher profile ever since Steve's last leave in 2009.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hmm. IBM's revenue in 2009 was around $95Bn, near as I can tell.

Has Apple now overtaken IBM in revenue? If so, that's an astonishing turnaround from 20 years ago ...

<comment><USER16> it looks like IBM pulled in $29 billion last quarter, so still ahead, but just barely. Regardless, it has been a remarkable turnaround.</comment></comment>


Severe Outcomes Among U.S. Patients with Covid-19, Feb 12–Mar 16, 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm <comment><USER2> > _fatality was highest in persons aged ≥85, ranging from 10% to 27%, followed > by 3% to 11% among persons aged 65–84 years, 1% to 3% among persons aged > 55-64 years, <1% among persons aged 20–54 years, and no fatalities among > persons aged ≤19 years._

The problem with all of these numbers is that they assume sufficient medical care and access to an ICU.

This report here breaks down how many people need an ICU by age: [https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/18/coronavirus-new-age- anal...](https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/18/coronavirus-new-age-analysis-of- risk-confirms-young-adults-not-invincible/)

> _In contrast, among people 20 to 44, 14% to 21% of 705 cases were admitted > to hospitals and 2% to 4% to ICUs; 0.1% to 0.2% died._

If we assume that ICUs are overloaded, how many of the that 2-4% would die?

Not that this doesn't count the people who won't catch the virus because of herd immunity. There may also be some people who are immune, or who defeat the virus quickly enough to not show positive on an RNA test.

<comment><USER3> That report just sources the same CDC report, but I think it gets some of its conclusions wrong.

It says:

>In contrast, among people 20 to 44, 14% to 21% of 705 cases were admitted to hospitals and 2% to 4% to ICUs; 0.1% to 0.2% died.

But the CDC report indicates that 12% total (of all cases) are known to have been hospitalized, and _of that_ number, 20% were age 20-44. So that would mean that (0.12*.2=) 2.4% of people total were 20-44 and in the hospital. Now 29% of all cases were in that age group, so that would mean for the 20-44 age group there was a (2.4/29=)8.3% chance of hospitalization.

Maybe I misunderstood something there, but I think I'm right.

<comment><USER4> Actually that's not correct. The CDC study has a lot of null data and there's some very inconsistent excluding of data while calculating these numbers. I had to work with it in Excel for awhile to reconstruct the approximate raw numbers.

Out of 4226 cases

2449 have known ages

705 were 20 to 44

~488 of that age have a known age and hospitalization status

~101 of that age were hospitalized

~14 of that age went to ICU

(14.3% of the known # of cases for that age and 20.8% of the known # of cases for that age with a known hospitalization status were hospitalized)

Check this against Figure 2 in the CDC study and you will see where the StatNews article is pulling its data from.

This is very sobering information. Please stay safe!

<comment><USER5> It says "Among 508 (12%) patients". 508 is 12% of the whole 4226, not just the 2449 with known ages. 20% (102) of those 508 were aged 20-44.

It's not known how many of the 4226 were aged 22-44, but if it's roughly the same as the 29% of known ages, that would be 1226.

102/1226 is 8.3%.

I hate to say it, but it seems the table at the bottom is overestimating the proportion of hospitalizations by ignoring 1777 patients who _have an age_ even if it's unknown, instead of making an estimate for them.

<comment><USER4> The reason that the unknown ages were excluded from Figure 2 is because the hospitalization status is also unknown. You assumed that 0 of the unknown cases were hospitalized. Instead, you could also assume that hospitalization rates for the unknown cases are roughly the same as for the known cases. If you do that you actually get the higher of the 2 numbers in Figure 2's range. So for the 20-44 age group, that's 20.3%. If you instead assume that people with a known age, but an unknown hospitalization status were not hospitalized, then you get he lower number in the range, 14.3%.

It's a very fair point that any of these assumptions could be inflating the rates. There are a whole bunch of other factors around asymptomatic, what the eventual outcome will be in the cases that are early-stage and who gets the limited number of tests in the USA that makes it currently impossible to know the true infection fatality rate or infection hospitalization rate.

<comment><USER5> I see, you're right. What I wrongly assumed was that they were receiving spotty data about overall cases but more thorough data about cases leading to hospitalization.

I also just noticed the age brackets for the 508 known hospitalizations only add up to about 91%, so apparently 9% of those are also unknown age.

It's too bad they didn't publish this in a live form so we could see how it changes as more data comes in. Maybe they will do a follow-up using the same methods at some point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From Gregory Rigano:

UPDATE:

Full peer reviewed study has been released by Didier Raoult MD, PhD drive.google.com/file/d/186Bel9….

After 6 days 100% of patients treated with HCQ + Azithromycin were virologically cured

p-value <.0001

covidtrial.io

[https://twitter.com/riganoesq/status/1240273631604809728?s=2...](https://twitter.com/riganoesq/status/1240273631604809728?s=21)

<comment><USER7> note that Gregory Rigano is a lawyer with no medical training who has been writing about this with a cryptotrader (James M. Todaro).

Distribution of preprint by google drive remains highly suspect, as does the fact that the nominally illustrious first author communicates by a gmail address despite google scholar listing him as having a normal educational email address [https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=n8EF_6kAAAAJ...](https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=n8EF_6kAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate)

That said, i know plenty of intensely brilliant weirdo researchers -- but i'd take this with big grains of salt. and i have _no_ idea why a z-pak is a booster for an antiviral therapy.

<comment><USER8> I really want this study to be legit, but there are a few more weird things:

1\. the evidence-free claim of "full peer review", 2. the fact that patients who refused or met "exclusion criteria" for the drug served as a portion of the control group, and were the only members of the control group from the same region as the experimental group, 3. the removal of people from the experiment group because they went to the ICU or _died_ (only three of first and one of second, but a rather bizarre thing to happen before claiming 100% cure), 4. the lack of coverage from any major news source, despite this being reported about a day ago.

<comment><USER7> i'm with you, i want this to be onto something but i'm like, constitutionally ill equipped to reject the null on this evidence. Too much time in the lab during normal life, maybe. To your points:

\- The twitter guy makes the peer review claim, and i think it's wrong. he is not an author of the paper or affiliated with them, he's just shilling it to elon musk for reasons.

\- regionality isn't something i'd considered. I can understand the exclusion group being the control in exeptional cases, like a global pandemic.

\- of more concern to me are the either confusing or cargo-culted figures at the end. what in the world is a t- and p value column doing next to age data? why are there nominal p-values per day of administration?

\- there might not be coverage, but merck is shipping a boatload of the stuff anyway: [https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/bayer-preps-u-s- donation...](https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/bayer-preps-u-s-donation- malaria-med-chloroquine-to-help-covid-19-fight-report)

<comment><USER9> [https://www.businessinsider.com/malaria-pill-chloroquine- tes...](https://www.businessinsider.com/malaria-pill-chloroquine-tested-as- coronavirus-treatment-2020-3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Note the caveat here: "the initial approach to testing was to identify patients among those with travel histories or persons with more severe disease, and these data might overestimate the prevalence of severe disease". One of the things that makes it frustratingly hard to tell the real likelihoods is that almost all data has this problem to some extent, except maybe the Diamond Princess cases, and there weren't enough young people on there to get good numbers.

<comment><USER11> Another thing to remember is that the scientific medical terms are "grade deflated"

Scientific -> what a layperson would say

Mild -> sick

Moderate -> hospitalized

Severe -> deathly ill

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I freaking love that summary format. What is already known? What does this add? What are the policy implications? Boom!

<comment><USER13> Yep. Very reminiscent of "Bottom Line Up Front" (BLUF).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> My very naive take: could the difference in mortality between South Korea and Italy be explained by how SK tried antiviral drugs even when there was no strong evidence yet, while Europe stuck to anti inflammatory which we know now to be linked to severe outcomes?

Also, the probability of receiving a prescription drug is almost linear with respect to age.

So, could the highest death of >60 y.o. with comobidities be explained similarly by them taking drugs that have a negative impact on the disease?

<comment><USER15> Hypertension being a highly prevalent comorbidity seems suggestive of something.

<comment><USER16> On that note: [https://www.escardio.org/Councils/Council-on- Hypertension-(C...](https://www.escardio.org/Councils/Council-on- Hypertension-\(CHT\)/News/position-statement-of-the-esc-council-on- hypertension-on-ace-inhibitors-and-ang)

Some threads on the internet say to stop taking ACE inhibitors because they boost ACE2, the gate that the virus uses to get into our cells. However, other threads on the internet says that while ACE inhibitors boost ACE2, they also cause them to be blocked (bound) by ATR-1, so you're good. Unless you stop, in which case now you have twice as many ACE2 and they're all unblocked.

So I'm listening to what the doctors say and not the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could this be skewed at the moment due to the number of nursing homes in Washington State that were hit early on?

<comment> blaser-waffle I believe it was just one big one that had a lot of very old and very frail. Staff didn't pick up on what was going on and by the time they connected the dots people were dying.

Regardless of the number of nursing homes, the point stands that the figures are skewed by a few clear outliers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Please just stay at home. At all times. I've locked myself in weeks ago, before the government of my country ordered lockdowns. Even if the true fatality rate in your age range is low - you'll kill some old person out there. Perhaps dozens. It's the most you can do. Bill Ackman does a good job of explaining why you should do that (and why should all countries be shut down):

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/bill-ackman-pleads-to- trump-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/bill-ackman-pleads-to-trump-to- increase-closures-to-save-the-economy-shut-it-down-now.html)

<comment><USER19> Shutting down the country destroys everything. I'm not sure it's worth it.

<comment><USER20> > I'm not sure it's worth it.

It is. The quarantines/border-restrictions are not permanent measures, and acting swiftly is the correct way to nip it in the bud.

> Shutting down the country destroys everything.

Empty hyperbole. Death tolls in the tens of millions is a far worse outcome, as is stressing our current healthcare systems well beyond their capacities.

<comment><USER18> Mind boggling that someone could think that a month or two months shutdown "destroys the economy", but all Americans infected and several % dead doesn't "destroy the economy".

<comment><USER21> We've had one week of shut down in Seattle and there's already been a huge wave of layoffs.

Two months? It's difficult to think what will happen.

Economies don't have a pause button. Companies, banks, and families quickly become insolvent.

<comment><USER18> I agree, this clearly needs a govt bailout. Fed already rains liquidity into the treasuries like a madman, just wait till it buys corporates and God knows what else. Treasury should now simply guarantee salaries. The unconditional helicopter money is a good idea too. This will bridge the discrepancy between financial time (which has not stopped) and economic time (which is stopping, slowly, but has to come to a full stop).

But at any rate, lives > economy. Only one of those is a renewable resource.

<comment><USER19> > lives > economy. Only one of those is a renewable resource.

Not sure I follow. Are you saying the economy is not a renewable resource? Cause I'm creating a new life as we speak.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


California town asked permission to thin surrounding forest before burning down - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-california-towns-fire-protection-plans-hit-red-tape-then-it-burned-to-the-ground-11600335002 <comment><USER2> Do the insurers of local homes and businesses know about this? If so I'm sure they are going to push pretty hard for protections like these elsewhere.</comment>


A/B Testing With Visual Website Optimizer - <AUTHOR> http://web.appstorm.net/reviews/web-dev/ab-testing-with-visual-website-optimizer/

<comment><USER2> Great review Paras, congratulations! How did you go about getting that review? Or did it just come naturally?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I wrote to Collis (the co-founder of Envato) and he said one or more of their sites would love to cover the tool. Though there is a long period of 2 months between first contact and eventual writeup.

What I love about this review is that the writer actually cared to check out the tool in detail and offer his suggestions (like lower price point).

<comment><USER2> Yeah, wow, a very in depth review. Would love to know the results of the post.</comment></comment></comment>


Big Brother is smartwatching you: China's workers monitored by wearable tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/big-brother-smartwatching-you-chinas-workers-monitored-wearable-tech/article/3004627 <comment><USER2> In the US, there was a strike last year by teachers in West Virginia where one of the demand was to shelve a program that would force them to war Fitbit or pay $500 in premiums more every year: [https://www.thenation.com/article/the- west-virginia-teachers...](https://www.thenation.com/article/the-west- virginia-teachers-strike-shows-that-winning-big-requires-creating-a-crisis/)

<comment><USER3> You can get cheaper car insurance if you plug in a monitoring device in your car. I thought nobody would ever resort to doing that but then I saw one of my friends had one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems to be a non-AI system monitored by humans or simple algorithms - nevertheless the irony of the promise of AI and hi-tech revolutionizing the workplace just resulting in more oppression of low-wage workers is glaring.</comment>


Programming for Marketers - <AUTHOR> http://programmingformarketers.com/

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is a great take on the classic infoproduct genre :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Justin and I teamed up on this after independently realizing that there was really no solid resource out there for helping marketers learn useful technical skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is exactly the type of course I'm interested in as an SEO and analytics guy with some technical background. Looking forward to seeing what it has to offer.

Just a heads up, this is also the type of course I'd pay for, depending on the quality and topics covered of course. I'm always on the look out for courses or products that can teach me how to do something very concise and actionable.

Where can I find other courses from you? Udemy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

The plan is that if this course goes well, people seem to be getting value from it, etc. we'll expand it later on to a bigger and better paid course.

Justin has a course on SQL for Marketers on Udemy if you want to check that out: [https://www.udemy.com/sql-for-marketers/](https://www.udemy.com/sql-for- marketers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What language do you teach people to program the crawler in? Tech-ish marketer here already, but would love an easy MVP.

<comment><AUTHOR> Python! And yeah we walk them through it and provide a script just in case they need it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey there is a typo in the about justin section

"myself myself"</comment>