For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/08/794568118/raising-the-minimum-wage-by-1-may-prevent-thousands-of-suicides-study-shows <comment><USER3> I wonder what would happen to the suicide rate with medicare for all, and creating a max-wage that is (avg of contractors + employees * 150), or something similar, w/ additional 'bonus' multipliers for increasing # of U.S. hired.

UBI would also probably help. As a freelancer I've had some really slim months and depression hits hard when money is tight.

There's a very direct correlation between income security, insecurity, stress, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

<comment><USER4> Re/ medicare for all ... Canada has universal health care yet a very similar suicide rate to the USA.[1] Canada doesn't have a livable minimum wage either. Each province sets its own. There is talk of UBI experiments.

[1] [https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-vs- can...](https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-vs-canada- suicide-edition.html)

<comment><USER5> I really hope we do not get a UBI in any current forms. I know the second the stores realize that every person now has 'x' amount of dollars to spend, they will raise the prices to match the most they can extract. What I wish Canada would do instead is establish some sort of Universal Basic Rights like every man woman and child is entitled to 5lbs of potatoes a week, 1 gallon of milk, 1 pound of carrots, ect. I as a Canadian do not want a check every week, the next day I can be told my cost of living has gone up. I want to know I can eat and shelter myself at the end of the day. How we can do that I do not know and am thankful I am in a good financial position to not have to worry about it.

<comment><USER6> > I know the second the stores realize that every person now has 'x' amount of > dollars to spend, they will raise the prices to match the most they can > extract.

That's not how economics works. The prices most stores charge is limited by competition. The only areas you might see an effect are in ones where supply is highly, and likely artificially, constrained.

<comment><USER7> Housing is artificially constrained due to zoning regulation, and in any given area there is a small number of major landlords, who all know each other and who all are politically well connected. UBI will be a conduit to funnel money from the taxpayers to large landowners.

<comment><USER8> However with ubi more people might have the means to move out of the cities sooner than they otherwise would have. This reducing demand.

<comment><USER9> I think this is why people want 'less government'. What they really mean is there are too many governments, the basic three levels, plus other institutions like home owners associations. Moving means dealing with a whole different bureaucracy, and falling to the bottom of a new list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I see income inequality as a key issue here. I recently read the "Triumph of injustice" and came away with a changed view in our tax system. After reading the book, I now believe that any household with a net worth over $100 million should be subject to both an income and __capital gains __tax of 99%. In short folks with income come and or net worth at levels that surpass their ability to buy a life of finical security for several generations only increase income inequality.

High historically high levels of income inequality have torn countries apart.

[https://wwnorton.com/books/the-triumph-of- injustice](https://wwnorton.com/books/the-triumph-of-injustice)

<comment><USER11> That's interesting because... right now we have a system that examines income and taxes income.

The "wealth tax" is a system that examines wealth and taxes wealth (not income). It's theorized that it's unconstitutional, and even if it isn't, the conservative US court might cause it problems anyway.

But if instead you examine wealth and tax _income_ , maybe that gets around the issue. Higher income tax brackets for those with more wealth?

<comment><USER12> -

<comment><USER13> Seeing as wealth is rarely in the form of cash, and you need to pay taxes in cash. You would need to sell the wealth, creating income, which in turn is used to pay the taxes. So it seems right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was reading the other day that typically mass shootings happen during a recession, and right now is a confusing time because the economy is supposedly doing fantastic, yet we keep having mass shootings.

Could this have to do with the mounting inequality? It seems the standard indicators for the health of the economy are breaking because wealth just keeps pooling near the top. So what this study could be saying is, "make changes so that more people get the benefits of the booming economy."

<comment><USER15> My suspicion is yes. Doesn't much matter if mean economic indicators are trending up while the majority of people are becoming worse-off.

I also think social media/internet is to blame for this though, because it makes the realities of economic inequality much more real than just tangentially hearing about celebrities in rags and trashtv.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Alternatively stop exporting jobs and outsourcing joining a race to the bottom.

Stop buying cheap, disposable stuff and buy durable things affording locals a living wage. Minimum wages are only slightly better. In my mind minimum wages are wages to minimally support a teenager or similar who has no other responsibilities. People with responsibilities need actually decent jobs.

Hollowing our decent paying blue collar jobs will drive some people to despair.

<comment><USER17> You mean domestic policies have been negatively impacting the labor force for decades now? Get outta town! It's almost like low-to-no tariffs and importing literal slave-produced goods has created economic incentives to produce things overseas.

<comment><USER16> I agree with Bernie and Trump on protecting American workers. Everyone else just goes along with the siren song of more better value add jobs that never materialized for the affected population.

No one listened to the crazy Texan when he warned us.

Now their supposed to be happy having access to $5 T-shirts which last a week and should be mad that tariffs could push that up but could make s better paying job viable for an employer who no longer gets undersold.

<comment><USER18> It worked out great for the rich, which is exactly who was telling us about the Siren song. So in a very toxic way they weren't lying, they just weren't talking about (the metaphorical) you.

If you haven't seen it, you might appreciate this article by Eric Weinstein. It details explicitly how the NSF went about betraying us. [https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why- gove...](https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why-government- universities-industry-create-domestic-labor-shortages-of-scientists-high-tech- workers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> crooked-v As the old saying goes: Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a jet ski. And you never see an unhappy person riding a jet ski.

<comment><USER19> That's rubbish. A lot of rich people suffer from depression, to the point of suicide.

<comment> crooked-v Beyond the surface-level pithiness of the joke, the point is that having money may not guarantee happiness, but it makes it a lot easier to distract oneself with viscerally pleasant experiences and engage in new hobbies that may in fact lead to genuine happiness.

<comment><USER16> Hmmm. Bourdain, Robin Williams. I don't think you can distract yourself from depression.

<comment><USER20> Robin Williams actually had a degenerative brain disease. I know a lot of the news didn't wait long enough for that information about his situation to come out, but it's on Wikipedia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> New Zealand has a high minimum wage [https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=RMW](https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=RMW)

New Zealand also has a terrible youth suicide rate. [http://socialreport.msd.govt.nz/health/suicide.html](http://socialreport.msd.govt.nz/health/suicide.html) "New Zealand's youth (15–24 years) suicide rate was the highest among the 34 OECD countries, ahead of Finland for males and Korea for females."

</comment><comment><USER22> Aren't there studies that show the suicide rate among married men is drastically lower than unmarried men? I really don't think it has anything to do with income (or at least to a significant degree) than it does with loneliness. Men's self worth is tied to his friends and wealth. It's hard to share your wealth if everybody else makes the same as you. So making more poor people "less poor" still wouldn't solve the problem among men not acquiring prestige or status that attracts people to them. It makes it incredibly easy to feel like a loser and ponder "whats the point?"

</comment><comment><USER23> Something I think gets lost in discussions about mental health is that sometimes people's lives are just really really shitty.

It doesn't take a genetic predisposition to get to a dark place when your life is falling apart.

</comment><comment><USER24> What would increased minimum wage due to small business (<$50m/yr in revenue)? Wouldn't it force them to cut shifts/hours/consolidate positions?

<comment><USER25> Or raise prices, or accept less pay at the top.

<comment><USER22> >accept less pay at the top.

For a second there I thought you we're being serious!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> money won't make you happy, but being poor will make you miserable, especially in the US

<comment><USER27> It seems like you need to be pretty damned sure before you try this. If they were to raise the minimum wage and suicides don't drop, do you put the minimum wage back where it was?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What about people who lose their jobs or don't get hired in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER29> I'd also like to see the inclusion of compulsory personal finance and budgeting education in our education system, both during high school and college/university years. A lot of the stress that encompassed my life back when I was working in a retail environment came from worrying over bills which ballooned because of my own lack of budgeting. It's an important skill that everyone should be exposed to early on.

</comment><comment><USER30> > Kaufman is planning future work to see whether depression, a risk factor for > suicide, also decreases with wage hikes

It doesn't. A good working environment does. £1/hr more is nothing if you're on minimum wage working for Amazon Fulfillment or Facebook Moderation, being treated like a slave.

Source: totally unscientific experience with factory work and workers.

</comment><comment><USER31> Eh, I might kill myself in a year or two - more money would not change anything. The recent realization that I will never find a romantic partner despite being (relatively) rich, tall, good looking, sociable and sane has been crushing. At least if I had money problems I'd have something else to blame than myself.

</comment><comment><USER32> Isn't it obvious that most of America's problems stem from life being shitty for very many people?

<comment><USER33> Yes, but the specifics are important. It's different for different people. Perverted justice system, news hysteria, jobs that are either awful or great, bad medical system, seems like every institution trying to rob you, war culture, political corruption from all sides, corporate dominance, civil forfeiture, bad public schools, expensive college, government encroachment on basic liberties, mob mentality laws, decades of the above; that's just off the top of my head. It's amazing we aren't worse off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not too surprising. Suicide is a death of despair, which are closely linked to job loss, income loss, love loss, family loss, pain, etc. Easing any of those scenarios should help reduce suicide.

</comment><comment><USER35> Obligatory Mitchell and Webb: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg)

</comment><comment><USER36> Minimum wage: if you can't produce $X/hr in value, you're prohibited from producing at all.

I suspect raising that cutoff would _increase_ suicides.

<comment><USER37> Real world data disagrees with your suspicion. Might want to rethink your reasoning.

<comment><USER36> Point me to the data. Those who get higher wages may be happier, but those unemployed due to their work being ended for want of value would understandably despair. Seems like data easily shifted for sociopolitical benefit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> wow, how about..

1) NO taxes till $40k-50k for a family 2) Free healthcare 3) Not so crazy tution fees

all these are doable.. just like raising minimum wage..

<comment><USER22> >NO taxes till $40k-50k for a family

You're talking about quite literally like 80% of the entire tax revenue generated by the government. Income taxes we're devised because an industrial nation cannot collect property taxes on non land owning tax payers. As the cities grew, governments realized that they could only tax the wealthy and prominent land owners so much before they had to generate it in another way.

<comment><USER39> _You 're talking about quite literally like 80% of the entire tax revenue generated by the government. _

This is wrong.

$50k/yr is below median household income so we're talking about eliminating income taxes for the bottom half of taxpayers (less than that actually, but whatever). The bottom half pays roughly 3% of income taxes.

Now, that number gets somewhat bigger when you take into account payroll taxes but it's nowhere close to 80%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Correlation isn't causation.

Its actively harmful to pretend it is because it diverts from real research and actual solutions and

</comment><comment><USER41> Does the effect last, or is it a short-term windfall effect?

</comment><comment><USER42> The minimum wage should be 0 \- sincerely any good economist

<comment><USER43> That's a common trope, but there have been studies indicating that minimum wage doesn't have a significant effect on unemployment. [0] [1]

Assuming that's accurate, then shouldn't we mandate that these corporations pay their workers a livable wage? If they _don 't_ pay the workers a livable wage, guess who does? The taxpayers, in the form of food stamps, welfare, and increased prison population. I really don't see why the American public should be forced to subsidize Walmart (or any large megacorporation) just because they won't pay their employees enough.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-104](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-104) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-105](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-105)

EDIT: Before anyone says it, I know forcing Walmart to pay more to their workers would increase the prices of their goods; that's still almost certainly cheaper than increasing welfare.

<comment><USER44> Economists can't run experiments like other scientists. In a way, they are more like historians.

In my opinion, almost all of the actual past raises to minimum wage have been on the small side, and have not significantly affected unemployment. You're right about that.

But if my opinion is true, then there's a huge leap with no scientific basis to saying "therefore this specific large increase in minimum wage will not raise unemployment."

Unfortunately, there aren't any scientific studies of increasing the US minimum wage by 100% because it has not been done multiple times in the past. So no one really knows what would happen if we did it now.

<comment><USER45> Economists _aren 't_ scientists, which is important to remember. "Artists" is a better term, especially for the fellows at GMU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> infinite minimum wage = zero suicide

</comment><comment><USER47> [https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum- wage/2018/home.htm](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum- wage/2018/home.htm)

In the US, 434,000 make the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Another 1.3 million make wages _below_ the federal minimum.

The article mentions raising the minimum wage by 10%, or 73 cents an hour, which would save 1230 lives per year (plus a 10% increase in federal EITC as well). Assuming a 2000 hr work year, this increase in minimum wage would cost $633.64 million nationally for those making exactly minimum wage, and some larger value at least 3x that, if we also bring those 1.3 million making below minimum wage up to minimum wage + 10%. (It's unclear who is making below minimum wage, it might be family farmworkers? $2.13/hr service employees who aren't getting tips? Students exempt from the minimum wage? All of the above?) In any case the cost per life saved using this method at a minimum comes to $1,745,921, but probably around twice that. That might be a good value. Or it might be that there are other methods of saving those lives that would be more effective at lower cost, allowing even more lives to be saved.

</comment><comment><USER48> Doesn't seem plausible, _especially_ when unemployment is high.

Retail is the land of the minimum wage jobs, and margins are fairly thin there as it is. Raising the minimum wage simply means some employees become former employees. If the unemployment is at historic lows as it is today, there's a good chance those former employees will be able to find another job, so I see how the conclusion of the paper could be plausible, although loss of a job is still a very stressful event regardless.

When the unemployment rate is high (as it was in the studied date range), however, the effective wage becomes whatever unemployment pays, which isn't very much, and then it goes away entirely at some point. I don't see how this would reduce suicide.

Seems to me like another study crafted to produce the outcome the author wanted. The hypothesis isn't really testable anyway.

</comment><comment><USER49> I always thought about more of a hybrid model for the US. Something like a market socialism a la Singapore.

I would try to commoditize housing,healthcare and food. It would be essential to make sure that these fundamental needs of people working for minimum wage are take care of.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is dumb.

We know sucides and death goes down the more money you get up to at least $120,000.

They don't seem to have quantified anything?

What's the cost per life saved here?

</comment><comment><USER49> Well America has a difficult problem to solve. And that is its workforce is insanely expensive. Or lets say the rest of the world is insanely poor compared to the americans.

We often joked here in Eastern Europe that we would be better off leaving our current IT jobs and just go to the US to work at McDonalds.

</comment><comment><USER51> Really doubt this. Instead I would look into the connection between anti depressants/anti psychotics and suicide. There's research of strong connections, but immunity is claimed by the drug companies, "because they were already depressed/mentally unhealthy when put on the drugs". Mental health professionals and managers at large drug companies need to start going to jail for over-prescribing psychiatric drugs.

The next big culprit is other drug addiction, like fentanyl and heroin. Stemming the flow of cheap fentanyl dumped into the United States by China and throwing doctors in jail who over prescribe these drugs would do wonders for people.

<comment><USER52> SSRIs saved my life, I don't like such wild claims. Don't be afraid of psychiatric drugs if you are hurting.

<comment><USER53> These things are not mutually exclusive:

> _studies showed that children and adolescents taking antidepressants were > almost twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts or to attempt suicide, > compared to patients taking a sugar pill._

[http://www.center4research.org/antidepressants-increase- suic...](http://www.center4research.org/antidepressants-increase-suicide- attempts-risks/)

<comment><USER54> Not arguing either way, as I don't think I am knowledgeable enough on the subject to do so, but I feel like there is a lot of potential to confuse correlation and causation. It simply could just be that "children and adolescents taking antidepressants" are already in a high risk group that is 3 times as likely "to have suicidal thoughts or to attempt suicide", and antidepressants reduce that number to "twice as likely".

<comment><USER51> Right and this is where plausible deniability comes in from the point of view of the pharmaceutical companies. Drug studies are problematic because nothing happens in a vacuum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Raising minimum wage will push automation even further, making currently productive people switch to be welfare-dependent. Financed by taxes on the tech industry. This is a recipe for dystopia.

<comment><USER56> You have provided, and I'm not aware of any empirical evidence that this is true. There is also plenty of evidence to the contrary, see min wage increases in individual states, Australia, and NZ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Does anyone have access to the paper? Raising the minimum wage means less jobs will be available, as employers cut costs and perform layoffs. My assumption is the paper neglects to factors this into their analysis, but if they do, I'd love to read it.

edit: paper shared below!

<comment><USER58> please read any study on cities that have substantially raised min wage in recent years (like Seattle) and understand how wrong you are about there being "fewer jobs" as a result before making such ridiculous statements

<comment><USER59> Seattle's raising of the minimum wage was arguably symbolic.

Seattle--a world-class tech nexus point--raising its minimum wage affected a relatively small percent of businesses compared to a "normal" city, as businesses in Seattle would have long since needed to offer higher wages in order to keep employees.

I'd be much more interested in seeing the effects of a $15 wage in Nowheresville, USA than in Seattle.

<comment><USER60> Symbolic for maybe people that are making above minimum wage but an increase in minimum wage to $15 made so many people lives easier.

<comment><USER59> Well, that's both the point and missing the point. Seattle's higher minimum wage represented an already-existing reality in Seattle: their top-heavy economy.

"Normal" towns' leaders would recognize it as virtue-signaling rather than transformative change, because it would've affected proportionally few people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I'm all for fair pay, even if it means things (products or services) become more expensive. But therein is the problem: If the minimum wage is ten dollars an hour and you're making twelve dollars an hour, that's very different from minimum wage being twelve dollars and you're making twelve dollars. Raising the minimum doesn't just give minimum wage earners more money, it simultaneously devalues the money they receive. Does it devalue it at a rate proportionate to how much more they now make (on paper)? I don't know. We almost certainly have to increase it (x+n)% to realize a benefit that on paper would come from an x% increase alone.

Globalization and protectionism also play a role here, and are a critical factor in the answer (think global minimum wage vs local minimum wage).

<comment><USER62> It does not devalue it if they're sharing demand for those products with people who make $50 an hour and a select few who make $1000 an hour - <USER2> those incomes don't go up proportional to the increase in minimum wage.

<comment><USER61> No, it definitely does. I'm not talking about the old "everyone's income will just go up" defense. There is a "time added" cost that is a part of the price of any good or service (which may comprise only a part of the value added measure). Imagine a product that is created from raw materials so abundant as to be in and of themselves worthless. Its cost is purely the cost of the time (and effort, which is actually convertible into time) that went into it (amortizing the cost of tools and equipment, overhead, utilities, etc). This "time cost" is a component of any product or service for sale. If the wheel on your car used the same exact materials and the same exact manufacturing process but took ten times longer (just stretch every step out) it would cost more, and not only because they can make less of them.

This time cost cannot be less than a factor directly proportionate to minimum wage (local minimum wage or global minimum wage depending on economic policy).

In a sense, minimum wage is the cost of (human) time itself. You're saying "regardless of the labor involved or otherwise, the skill involved or otherwise, the care involved or otherwise, the social skills involved or otherwise, the know-how involved or otherwise, this is the lowest you can pay someone to do something on an hourly basis (with many caveats, such as allowing employers to deduct the cost of services they provide their employees from said wage, etc). You can't raise that cost without the cost of everything else shifting upwards _by some extent_ with it. No one that understand economics debates that. The question is just how big this shift is.

<comment><USER63> I think that ignores, in a holistic sense, the effect of increased consumer spending, health benefits/better health outcomes, tax revenue etc.

If people are buying more because of wage increases, what is the macroeconomic effect? If people have better health care and take less sick days, what is the effect? If the government has more revenue to spend on programs to benefit people like public transit, job training, drug treatment, what is the effect?

Also worth it to a look at this paper, that shows that there aren't less jobs when you raise minimum wage.

[https://www.sole-jole.org/17722.pdf](https://www.sole-jole.org/17722.pdf)

Also CEO income (an exec compensation in general) has risen dramatically over the past 20 years while regular wage growth has been anemic. Are CEOs dramatically more productive, and workers barely so? That seems illogical, much more likely that the executives are capturing the value of their workers increased productivity. A company doesn't have to raise costs to consumers, it can always cut executive compensation.

[https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2018/8/16/17693198/c...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2018/8/16/17693198/ceo-pay-gap-income-inequality)

<comment><USER64> If people are buying more then it means more demand, leading to increased price, unless there was an excess in supply (production capacity) in the first place.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to help elderly grandparent with technology? - <AUTHOR> My grandfather sadly has dementia, and is finding it harder and harder to use his computer. He has a Macbook Air and mostly uses 5 websites (gmail / Google, Netflix, Amazon, Times of India, and CNN).
I'm concerned about the following: + People send him email spam, or even corporate emails, and he can't tell the difference between a real email and a phishing email / corporate marketing email + He'll make small changes, such as accidentally logging out of Netflix or removing a bookmark, and then get stuck trying to get back to the site + I haven't have a good way to remotely connect to his computer to help him out that. Even with common remote access apps they require him to click on a few buttons, which takes 20 minutes to figure out
Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> 1\. If those 6-10 websites is all he uses, may be switch to some tablet and create shortcuts for those. If you are up to it, jailbreak the tablet and change the UI completely which has customized fonts, icons/shortcuts.

2\. For email, use Gmail as it seems to be the current best w.r.t. filtering. You should keep access to this account as well and check yourself from time to time. May be increase spam setting to max, to lean on false positive side.

I feel that this whole technical revolution of last 2 decades has really left out all elderly, not just people with medical conditions. What is needed, may be, is a generic interfacing layer which can map any app's UI to simpler interface and yet maintain core functionality of the app. I dont know if there is any, or if it's even feasible.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is good advice. I'm hesitant to switch to a tablet because he already knows how to use a laptop and has never used a tablet before.

I agree with you. Especially the focus on security / 2FA has made it very hard to monitor his accounts, which is good and bad I suppose. For example, I changed his gmail 2FA phone number to mine yesterday, and they changed it back today. That's already a huge task when helping him remotely.

Websites are also getting much more complex which makes everything worse. For example, the new gmail minimizes the navigation tab on the left unless you hover over it. That's awesome for me, but TERRIBLE for him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My support life and my mom's tech life became much easier and more pleasant when I switched her to iPad.

She has 2 iPads and a glass side-table:

When she needs help with an iPad, she puts it down under the glass table, puts the other iPad on top of the glass table, and calls me on FaceTime video from the top one, to show me the bottom iPad.

I tell her what to press on the bottom iPad, and we're done in seconds.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is genius. It's a little crazy that this is what it takes though??</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Could a digital collectible be as valuable as a physical collectible? - <AUTHOR> I am curious to know of any digital collectibles that exist (only as data in a cloud) can be traded, sold & grow in worth over time, similar to a physical collectible such as a baseball card or antique. <comment><USER2> Bitcoin, csgo skins, virtual items in plenty of games, property in secondlife are a few examples.

</comment><comment><USER3> There was a post on io9 a few months ago about the value of "cards" in the Star Wars Card Trader app: [http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-the-hell-is-this-jpg- of-han-solo-...](http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-the-hell-is-this-jpg-of-han-solo- worth-225-1726156785)

</comment><comment><USER4> Magic: The Gathering has a full online game where you can buy boosters, trade cards, etc etc etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out some of the items traded on Steam, specifically for CS:GO, and Dota2. The 'value' can be shocking, considering they're generated items with zero certainty around further duplication.

</comment><comment><USER6> I urge you to look into the price of 'party hats' in runescape. They were released only on Christmas 2001, and since then have blown up in real dollars.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems like the TF2 economy is a good example of this.</comment>


GPS Flaw: Security Expert Says He Won't Fly April 6 - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomsguide.com/us/gps-mini-y2k-rsa2019,news-29583.html <comment><USER2> Most GPS devices made at least after 1999 implement an unwrapping algorithm that has an epoch at some random date set by the maker in the firmware.

Essentially the firmware knows that the day is later than say, July 4th 2004 because that's when it was built. If the GPS date is less than that date, it adds 1024 weeks repeated until its greater than the hardcoded date.

This means that the exact wrap date will depend on the receiver, though some will wrap on April 6th

Fortunately GPS rollover doesn't normally get in the way of positioning. The only way it would is if the 'wrong' dates triggered some other bug.

<comment><USER3> Apparently it did cause positioning issues last time around. One major problem was that GPS receivers calculate which satellites they expect to see in the sky based on the current time and the almanac+ephemeris data, and at the wraparound some receivers started expecting all the satellites to be where they would've been 1024 weeks ago and completely lost lock. I think there were some problems caused by individual satellites wrapping their counts slightly before the actual GPS time too. Receivers which are started up after the 6th should be fine though.

<comment><USER4> Wrong almanac means a somewhat longer time for first fix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ok so just to be clear this isn't the first time a gps time rollover has occurred. The only real difference between this time and last time is that god technology is widely deployed at the consumer level.

As for the risk to flights:

* this has happened before, and I don't recall any plane accidents then

* I assume pilots would notice if they're suddenly substantially off course - it's not a gradual drifting change, it's a big kachunk change if software isn't handling it correctly.

* there are many other (non-gps) signals including radio that are used to track where an aircraft is.

If anything I'd be more concerned about drivers getting lost in their cars

<comment><USER6> > this has happened before, and I don't recall any plane accidents then

ADSB (the "non-gps" radio signals you mention) broadcasts the planes location... sourced from GPS. Because of deployment requirements there are tons of sub-$2000 ADSB out boxes on the market now that didn't exist in 1999, and hardware wise they are a race to the bottom. (Edit: I also just realized the software could have been written by someone who wasn't alive in 1999).

I don't think anything is going to happen. But I also don't like saying nothing is going to happen, because that is when you get a complex failure.

<comment><USER7> I think the parent meant radio beacons on the ground. These give an angle or distance to a known location.

ADSB does broadcast the planes location. But this is only used in a very limited fashion. ATC use radar as the main source of information.

<comment><USER6> ADSB is how planes see each other without relying on ATC, and feeds collision avoidance systems. The FAA instructs pilots to believe these systems over ATC because it updates faster than radar.

In a very hypothetical worst case scenario, a malfunctioning ADSB transmitter could suddenly put itself right in the path of a large commercial aircraft, forcing it to make dangerous maneuvers to avoid a collision.

<comment><USER8> TCAS[1] doesn't rely on GPS though, it builds a picture of the airspace around it through triangulation and radar-style ranging - I believe it only relies on altitude to be reported by the other aircraft, which is generally very accurate.

I suppose anything is possible, but I've never heard of it actually getting plane positions wrong due to sensor malfunctions. Far more likely is pilots not following, or improperly following, its warnings. It's not capable of assuming control over the plane, as far as I know...

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_sy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_system)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not GPS related, but the day I am really worried about is January 19th 2038 3:14:07AM... Unix time will roll over if stored in a signed four byte integer field.

<comment><USER10> Or slightly later the use of a 2-digit year in x509 certificates. The standard assumes that dates with year <50 are 20xx, and >=50 are 19xx. It doesn't help that this is one of the best designed, most understandable, and well-thought- out parts of the x509 standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What he is pertaining to is WNRO, the 10-bit binary counter representing the GPS Week Number, a key piece of the date and time information. Every 19.7 years this week number counter reaches its limit and rolls back to zero. [0]

[0] [https://www.trimble.com/wnro/](https://www.trimble.com/wnro/)

</comment><comment><USER12> In the US at least I'm not aware of a single certified aircraft that relies on GPS as the primary and only means of navigation. Even brand new Airbus 320/321s and Boeing 737-700/800/900s have INS installed and is considered primary. GPS and radio based navigation add correction and cross checking to the INS derived position. GPS is necessary for RNP but RNP procedures are not yet widespread enough to cause major disruption to the national airspace system.

As we move closer and closer to primarily an RNP system a GPS outage may become more disruptive but for at least several more decades the infrastructure and equipment to navigate using INS and radio based means such as VORs will provide a proven and safe backup.

</comment><comment><USER13> > So that this doesn't happen again any time soon, GPS devices made in the > past decade use 13 bits for the week counter, yielding a total of 8,192 > weeks or 157 years. Those devices will not have to restart time until 2137, > by which time our descendants will have created a whole new set of > technological problems.

I love the snarky final sarcasm.

</comment><comment><USER14> For the majority of us, probably the only thing that will happen is some power outages in some areas. Charge some portable batteries and buy some bottled water (mains pumps maybe?). It won't be a problem for more than about a day.

<comment><USER15> I think you commented on the wrong article? Why would gps-derived date issues cause problems with electrical generation and distribution?

<comment><USER16> Gps timestamped electrical measurements are sent over fiber optic cables between substations on either end of transmission lines to make sure current in is the same as current out, roughly. Also for measuring and controlling power flows.

[https://www.smartgrid.gov/recovery_act/program_impacts/appli...](https://www.smartgrid.gov/recovery_act/program_impacts/applications_synchrophasor_technology.html)

<comment><USER15> Interesting! Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> He probably won't fly April 5, or April 7, either.

</comment><comment><USER18> > _Universal Time Code (UTC)_

Uh, Coordinated Universal Time [0]?

I can't be the only one who, upon seeing little things like this, immediately has doubts about the accuracy of everything else in the article.

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

<comment><USER8> Apropos: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell- Mann_amnesia_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect)

<comment><USER19> That keeps getting quoted but with no evidence that it exists on a large scale.

If I read a $NEWS_SOURCE article and they get something wildly incorrect I don't just proceed to the next article, I close the tab / newspaper.

<comment><USER20> > _If I read a $NEWS_SOURCE article and they get something wildly incorrect I > don 't just proceed to the next article, I close the tab / newspaper._

Then couple hours or days later you get an article on a different topic from the same $NEWS_SOURCE, and you read it like gospel.

What changed over past decades is the way we consume news - it's "unbundled" now; much like we consume movies per-title and not per-channel, we consume news per-story, not per-newspaper. But this didn't improve news quality.

Gell-Mann amnesia exists at scale, it's one of the most trivial things to verify - you just need to talk with people. With your family, friends, or with folks on any social media site / on-line bulletin board. You'll see countless of examples of people who suffer from this amnesia, who can't perform the most obvious generalization from observation - to conclude that, since for any topic they know anything about every news article is utter bullshit, and since their friends report the same observations for their domains, the news on the topics they're not experts on must be bullshit too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can someone sensible with expertise comment on this please?

<comment><USER22> Sure, gps geek and time-nut here.

The rollover problem is a hard one to fix, because there's no reasonable way for a GPS (at least one using LNAV (legacy) signals -- pretty much all of them, though I don't know what modern passenger jets use) to know which GPS "epoch" they're in. If you don't know what epoch you're in, you don't know what the date is.

Some GPSs solve this by recording the week number of their firmware build, and if the signals they get indicate the week number is less than that, they assume they're in the next epoch and update accordingly. Still means you run out of time, but you get a full ~19 years of life first (and then fail at some random GPS week). Some use fuses to record when an epoch has passed. Some use out of band information. Some store the current epoch in flash or battery- backed RAM. Some just never address the problem.

Thing is, though -- the only effect this has, is that it makes the GPS return the wrong date. That's it. The week rollover has _no_ effect on navigation unless there's some significant bugs in the unit, or something external to the GPS relies on the date being output and doesn't deal well with the date suddenly going back in time. That's it.

I'd be kinda shocked if airplanes were just jam-syncing the clocks of their nav computers to the output of a GPS, and then had those nav systems be dependent on that time. But then again, I work in the tech industry, and I've seen the kinda code that goes into most products, so maybe I _wouldn 't_ be that shocked.

(I also can't imagine that GPS units used in aircraft aren't directly tested for their behavior during the week rollover. It's a well known and understood problem, and even if some random GPS manufacturer drops the ball, stuff that goes into aircraft has to go through certification for a reason...)

<comment><USER23> > gps geek and time-nut here.

This is off topic, but since you describe yourself as "gps geek" I thought I ask. Is it possible to gain access to the actual operational code where GPS operators correct for General Relativity? I'm not disputing GR, I just want to find out if this is a myth or true. Thanks.

<comment><USER22> If you want this straight from the spec, grab a copy of IS-GPS-200J (it's free, just google it), look at section 18.104.22.168, which talks about the carrier frequencies of the various signals. From that:

"The carrier frequencies for the L1 and L2 signals shall be coherently derived from a common frequency source within the SV. The nominal frequency of this source -- as it appears to an observer on the ground -- is 10.23 MHz. The SV carrier frequency and clock rates -- as they would appear to an observer located in the SV -- are offset to compensate for relativistic effects. The clock rates are offset by (delta f)/f = -4.4647E-10, equivalent to a change in the P-code chipping rate of 10.23 MHz offset by (delta)f = -4.5674E-3 Hz. This is equal to 10.2299999954326 MHz. The nominal carrier frequencies (f0) shall be 1575.42 MHz, and 1227.6 MHz for L1 and L2, respectively."

In this context, "SV" is "Space Vehicle", a.k.a. a GPS satellite.

You also have to make a relativistic adjustment in the user segment (aka "your GPS"). You can see an example of doing this correction in open-source software GPS receivers, for example [https://github.com/jks- prv/Beagle_SDR_GPS/blob/de895035e93ba...](https://github.com/jks- prv/Beagle_SDR_GPS/blob/de895035e93ba1b1b5b8f58df4149c32a4cdbfde/gps/ephemeris.cpp#L188) . This adjustment is documented in the above spec, in section 220.127.116.11.3.1 (which you'll see is almost verbatim copied into the the code linked above)

<comment><USER23> Great! Thanks. I'll study these.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Man Confesses to Killing Someone in Promotional Video for New Startup - <AUTHOR> http://betabeat.com/2013/09/man-confesses-to-killing-someone-in-promotional-video-for-new-startup/

<comment><USER2> To anyone reading the comments before the article like I did: the title is misleading. A person was not killed on video to promote a startup. The article is about a video of a man confessing killing someone, and the man is using the video to promote his startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> As the submitter, I'll just point out that I'm following HN's rules and used the OP's title. However, in defense of the OP, the title is not misleading. This man is confessing to killing a man and the source of this video, i.e. its original poster, is a new startup

Here's how a local newspaper covered it: [http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/public/2013/09/05/ma...](http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/public/2013/09/05/man- uses-youtube-to-admit-to-drunk-driving- killing.html?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer78e90&utm_medium=twitter)

edit: Also in reply to the parent comment, the man who is confessing is not the man who owns the startup (though that would create a pretty interesting legal/business situation)

<comment><USER3> Most people, I would guess, read the headline as "Man Confesses to (Killing Someone in Promotional Video ...)", even though it's meant to be read as "(Man Confesses to Killing Someone) in Promotional Video ...". It's very easy to misunderstand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If this is real, confession to a murder is good. It offers closure to the family of the bereaved.

However, confession to advertise, before doing it to the police, is bad. It cheapens the worth of the life of the person that's killed. He's expecting backlash because he deserves it; in doing so, he's reducing the value of life.

I can only hope that in the end, good comes out of this.

<comment><AUTHOR> In defense of the confessor...I have to disagree. He made this statement _before being charged_...some HN readers might remember the lawyer from this video:

[http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc](http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc)

That lawyer would go ballistic at this video...the confessor has basically given up any easy way to get a reduced charge, even though, with a good lawyer, you can bring charges down quite a bit. For starters, this was not a murder. At most, this was a _vehicular homicide_ , and while all murders are homicides, the reverse is not true. Furthermore, vehicular homicide has to show (in most states) gross and reckless negligence. And yes, while the average person would agree that being drunk and driving seems to automatically to fill that bill, courts have shown otherwise. At the very least, I think we can applaud this man for not making a horrible situation worse by prolonging the court battle.

The startup-side of this seems crass, but in their defense, they did not solicit this confession:

[http://becauseisaidiwould.com/saveyourvictim/](http://becauseisaidiwould.com/saveyourvictim/)

<comment><USER5> "The startup-side of this seems crass, but in their defense, they did not solicit this confession"

No - they're just happy to exploit the death and name of a man, who can't possibly consent, in order to promote their shitty Wordpress blog.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that the website looks sloppy and the viability of its mission is doubtful, but what's the insinuation here? That if they hired a better designer and followed the lean startup book, that what they've done here would be more acceptable?

Like most everyone here, I know of a few people personally who've either been killed or nearly destroyed by drunk drivers. When I was younger and more idealistic, I couldn't understand why it was so hard for people to get a goddamn designated driver. Now I kind of shrug...we have a culture of denial and selfishness, and carelessness comes naturally and fuck-it-it'll-never- happen-to-me is easy to be lulled into. Add to that, the ability for those with money and charisma to talk their way out of serious punishment, and there doesn't seem to be much else to feel but cynicism about it all.

But I'll admit this video surprised me with its message. Statements of sorrow are common after you've been sentenced to prison and had time to think about it and nothing to lose...they're pretty rare between the indictment phase and the verdict, and virtually unheard of before the charging process. So some website I'll never go to again will get an upsurge in traffic...small price to pay if it means more people watch the video and, hopefully, really understand the tragedy and take it to heart.

<comment><USER5> What I'm saying is that the blog using this as a marketing platform is crass and offensive to me. The video was on YouTube - bound to get far more traffic than any promotion they'd compel, and could have been produced without their promotion.

And we're supposed to be impressed that this idiot has now decided to take responsibility for his actions? You're supposed to - it's part of the social contract you enter into with the world when you decide to drink.

Take a look at their twitter feed. They're reaching out to media outlets boasting that they "made the video" and that it's "going viral". To them, this isn't about awareness, or honoring the guy that got killed ... it's about themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I want to say that a confession does very little and life altering changes like not drinking and driving might have done more good in the long run. Imagine if the guy confessing dedicated his life to charity work, instead of languishing in a prison cell?

<comment><USER7> I wonder if that's how Scandinavian countries, who are renowned for having much better prison conditions and rehabilitation programs, would handle such a case. For a repentant person convicted of manslaughter, assign them a lifetime of community service to make up for their crimes.

<comment><USER8> The challenge is to correctly identify the deserving candidates. You can fake remorse.

And there also is the other side. The lives that were lost and the lives that got shattered for no mistake of theirs. Not everyone has a large heart. Its difficult for some to see one of your close relation's killer walking free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is fake.

<comment><USER10> I would suspect so. Otherwise this has to be the strangest thing I have read in a while.

<comment><USER9> Just Google "Vincent Kanzani", zero hits except for this story. Normally, I wouldn't complain, but I think that the idea of using fabricated, emotionally charged stories to try to "teach" is awful. People eat this kind of manipulation up, even here.

<comment><USER11> It's Vincent Canzani.

[http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dispatch/obituary.aspx?n=vi...](http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dispatch/obituary.aspx?n=vincent- v-canzani&pid=165659783&fhid=8706#fbLoggedOut)

[http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2013/06/24/columbus- vict...](http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2013/06/24/columbus-victim-in- wrong-way-driver-crash-identified.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


There's Experimental Work on a Vulkan Renderer for KDE's KWin - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KDE-KWin-On-Vulkan-Experimental <comment><AUTHOR> it desperately needs it, 2c system mainly idle, but running opengl compositor, lots of alpha, etc: load average: 3.01, 2.56, 2.74</comment>


Convert PC Power Supply into a Car Battery Charger [ Car PC Gadgets ] - <AUTHOR> http://www.carpcgadgets.com/?Id=8&Desc=Convert-PC-Power-Supply-into-a-Car-Battery-Charger <comment><USER2> This is a terrible idea. I shall enumerate:

• Lead acid batteries are 12.6 volts or so at full charge. You will not get there with a 12 volt power supply. You charge a 12v lead acid battery at 14.2 volts or so.

• The blocking diode he suggests will make this even worse, by a bit over a half volt.

• He alludes to changing the computer power supply to something over 12 volts but doesn't say how. I promise: These is not a knob inside. You will reverse engineer the whole thing to figure it out and even then it may not be possible and you may be taking other components out of their safe design limits.

• This scheme has no overcurrent protection for the power supply. A very low, large battery can take significantly more current than most PC power supplies will supply on the 12v rail. Maybe not for long, but long enough to cause a failure in the power supply.

</comment><comment><USER2> And pons_saravana, are you a human? Your submission history looks a little, shall we say, robotic?</comment>


Ask HN: I am cheated by rpl-it.com - <AUTHOR> I am preparing for the Australian Computer Society Skilled Assessment because I have no ICT related degrees, though I have physics Bachelor degree.<p>The story start from I bought the rpl report writing service from rpl-it.com, it'not cheap, 99.9 pounds. My english is poor, that is why I bought from them, they declared they will write the rpl report according to my CV. If they really did what they said, I think it is worth the price. But, I just received a template which I can download from other website for free. It's nothing relative to my CV, it's totally faked. And they refuse to refund, also refuse to write a real document according to my CV. I tried Paypal dispute, but Paypal closed it with: "We've now completed our review of your case. Unfortunately, we were unable to decide this case in your favor. If you wish to pursue this further, we encourage you to contact your seller directly for resolution." I am so angry and disappointed, and if anyone enounter a situation like this? <comment><USER2> It sounds like you were trying to commit fraud by not writing it yourself, which is why you have no legal recourse with that website.

It doesn't sound like you ought to pass the certification.. if this is for your visa or something I might point out it is outright fraud.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I am not try to commit fraud. If this website is support to do like this, I will never pay it. I think they are agent who can write the document according to the materials I provided, I can do this, but my english is not good, this is only why I paided them. I dont want any fake content inside the report, so I am so disappointed.

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry but the service this website offers is to prove you have the skills necessary for ACS, which includes proving your own English is good in addition to those skills.

Trying to use this in place of your own is fraud. You're disappointed that you got a sample for whatever reason, you should look at that as lucky and got HNers to stop you.

Look at the wording on the website frog God's sake, "We safeguard your ACS RPL from any plagiarism" (it will be unique to you), Your privacy and confidentiality is always protected when you use our service. We will never release any personal info to any third parties. (that you bought it will be private).

So yes it is fraud to do this. Ask yourself what you're paying for, its a demonstration that you know these skills.

You wont be able to hide your bad English, don't forget Australia is TOEFL country.

You're also signing this:

The applicant confirms that the explanation of their knowledge and project reports submitted in this application truthfully and accurately describe the applicant and the applicant's personal involvement in the projects. The applicant is aware that plagiarism by the applicant will automatically invalidate this application, will jeopardise any future applications from the applicant and will be reported by the Australian Computer Society to the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

If someone writes it for you that is plagiarism.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much. I was not aware of this before, and I think ask agent for help on english is ok, because the assessment is not a test on english. After read your detailed explain, I think ask the agent write the report for me is not good, I will write it from scratch by myself. Anyone who's english is not good as me, please dont do the stupid thing like me, dont waste money on rpl- it.com

Thank you, happy new year!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SF hospital charged $15K 'trauma response fee' for baby that needed no treatment - <AUTHOR> https://khn.org/news/how-er-bills-can-balloon-by-as-much-as-50k-for-trauma-response/ <comment><USER2> previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17468788](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17468788)

</comment><comment><USER3> My personal story from Germany:

My 14 month old son got a deaseae in the spine so he could not walk anymore.

We spent 4 weeks in the hospital. 1 week until it was diagnosed in the MRT, 3 weeks with 3 different antibiotic treatment and another two month antibiotics at home.

All this while my wife continued to study for her PHD so I stayed away from work and lived with my son in the hospital.

This whole experience did cost us around 200€ (incl. gasoline to drive to the hospital) while still getting full income from my employer.

</comment><comment><USER4> My wife has sleep apnea, so during her normal annual checkup the doc wrote her a prescription for a CPAP.

She goes to the local vendor, they tell her to pick out whichever machine she'd like. She would rent it for a few months to make sure she liked it. The insurance company would pick up the bill.

Many months later we just got a bill for $500.

She calls them. They tell her that this is the balance owed on the machine. Now they've already billed the insurance company four thousand dollars for the machine. The insurance company paid about a quarter of that. Then she the rents on top of that. And now they want the balance. The bill came completely out of the blue.

They won't take it back. So she's thinking about selling it. Going online the machine is only worth 500 bucks brand new. They're basically selling the same machine three different times: once to the insurance company, once on a rent- to-own deal, and once as a bill coming from nowhere.

I don't know in what universe this is not considered plain old fraud. The billing situation in healthcare in the U.S. has become so byzantine and complicated that's it has basically turned into a shell game of screw-the- consumer.

I don't want to talk about why it happens. I don't want to talk about solutions. I will say that the politics of healthcare has led us here -- nothing else but that. And the more we argue the worst it will continue getting. I _do_ want to note that it seems like every month or so there's some new horror story. It's so bad that the vast majority of the time nobody talks about it. It's an awful mess.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ok, in the US we are one medical trip away from complete bankruptcy. Not too long ago there was an article saying the average person in America doesn't have $400 stashed away for an emergency.

So what do you do when you get this bill? You can't pay, you don't have the money. What do you do?

<comment><USER6> You contest what you can, and then you arrange a payment plan... also I believe the median surplus income (mean is higher) per month in America is ~$1k, most Americans just do something with it (leave it in checking account, invest it, or spend it) instead of putting it in a separate savings account.

Your general complaint about high medical costs is on point of course, but for most people in America they could pay off a dumb $18k bill over a period of time if they had to.

<comment><USER7> What if something else happens during that time?

1k$ surplus income per month on a 18k$ bill means you'd have to forfeit all surplus income for 18 months.

If any other medical emergency happens and you have another 18k bill? Or a car accident (of which there are a lot)? Or car just breaks down? What if you get fired and spend a few months searching a new job?

This isn't exactly financial security with such a bill pending over your head plus numerous other bills being a possibility.

<comment><USER6> > 1k$ surplus income per month on a 18k$ bill means you'd have to forfeit all > surplus income for 18 months.

Sure, if you were intent on paying it off as quickly as possible. Most likely your payment plan would be less than that.

Ultimately if enough "what if something else happens?" happen, you file for bankruptcy.

There's no such thing as financial security for anyone when you deal in the world of what-ifs.

<comment><USER7> There is financial security for me. I don't have to worry about not being able to pay my hospital bill. I won't have to file for bankruptcy because I'm unable to pay because that doesn't happen.

So there is certainly some financial security for anyone in the world of what- ifs, atleast as far as medical coverage is concerned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the reasons I have basically given up my fantasy of moving to the USA is the russian roulette that you seem to have to play with your health and its insurance.

<comment><USER9> If you have insurance through your employer you'll be ok. If you don't you'll pay anywhere between $800 and $3000, a month, for healtcare.

<comment><USER10> What happens if you get fired from your job suddenly? And if you happen to have pre-existing conditions, such as a type 1 diabetes, that is known for being very expensive to treat?

How can you live with this fear?

<comment><USER6> My mom lost her job with benefits, and a month later fell down some stairs and broke her arm. Eventually she was able to get an insurance plan (after getting a new job) for something like $200 or $300 per month (there are in fact cheaper ones depending on your need of coverage and state), while paying off the bills from the broken arm event.

Personally speaking, I have no fear of a similar event happening to me. If it happened, I'd figure something out, or die. Generally speaking, "what we think is unbearable proves to be bearable."

<comment><USER11> "figure something out, or die"

The Republican party salutes you, you speak their disgusting and morally bereft "truth" with extreme accuracy.

<comment><USER6> You left out a very important contraction from that quote, namely "I'd". The subject of the sentence changes its meaning entirely. As you quoted, it reads as an imperative, something I did not say.

<comment><USER11> Fair, I upvoted you because that's a wrong interpretation of what you said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In Australia we went to the doctor after my kid had an allergic reaction. They medicated him, had a nurse within 10 feet and kept him for 6 hours until symptons receded. Total cost - AUD$40. The US systom is absolutely insane, expensive and delivers worse results.

<comment><USER12> I am pretty sure $40 isn't the cost of the exams. It is being subsidised by other tax payers. We can discuss the merits of this approach but it is not necessarily cheaper overall.

<comment><USER13> The US government pays more for healthcare in the US than many other countries. When you add in private insurance the US far outspends outher countries for healthcare. But they don't have better results. For example, the US has a shorter average lifespan than many countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It sounds like this "trauma activation", has replaced the triage system. Where a triage department will determine the severity of the emergency injury, and associate an appropriate medical response.

The triage activation assembles a team of experts that treats every emergency patient with the same high level response, similarly because doing so attracts a higher fee.

</comment><comment><USER15> How is this practice of inflating prices while exploiting urgency and lack of choice not clearly fradulent and illegal?

<comment><USER16> There are emerging alternatives on the market:

[https://reason.com/reasontv/2017/10/16/doctors-direct- primar...](https://reason.com/reasontv/2017/10/16/doctors-direct-primary-care)

Note that the current system is actively fighting off the development of such alternatives...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What's the long term stable state for American health care? Given the difference between the rate at which healthcare costs grow and the rate at which wages grow, it will only take a couple decades before the former is larger than the latter -- and at that point, only a few years until it starts becoming (large) integer multiples of the latter.

So what's the plan then? Obviously, nobody will actually be capable of paying those costs. Will people simply choose to die, or leave untreated most medical issues? Even in the case in the article's title, how could any non-billionaire justify paying such a cost? They don't even live here -- I could never imagine what sort of calculus would lead me to even pay a single dollar to someone requesting such an obscene price for so few services rendered.

<comment><USER18> US Healthcare costs are fake, hospitals don't really expect to get the whole sum after they apply discounts for insurance companies, so they make them appear bigger just to get what they intended. It's only people who don't have a strong insurance company to fight on their side who get ripped to shreds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can medical tourism grow enough to bring medical costs down by competition?

<comment><USER20> Mean while corrupting and wrecking other countries healthy(ish) national health systems? No thank you.

<comment><USER19> Could you clarify how? I don't see how that follows.

<comment><USER21> a country healthcare system is not designed to support people of _other_ countries that come because their own healthcare sucks.

<comment><USER22> Many countries have arranged to do just that because they make a profit from it. The popular medical tourism desitinations provide world class care at a fraction of the cost of the same or inferior care in the US. The medical tourists pay cash on delivery. The providers make handsome profits, despite charging substantially less. Lots of factors behind why it works. Mostly rooted in market forces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Not a huge loss for the US, but I will probably never go back due to this. Even if you have insurace, your life will be hell for a while due to having to fight your insurance company over a tremendous bill. I don't want to have to think twice if I should bring in my son to the hospital or not, and frankly, the US doesn't have anything unique enough to offer to offset that risk. I'm also doing my best to stay away from conferences, preferring instead Canada, European or Asian destinations.

</comment><comment><USER24> Is this a case where having better insurance would protect you from the hospital? Not sure how insurance or billing in the US works, but in the article one person broke their ankle and their insurance negotiated the price with the hospital, and then the hospital still came after the person for the costs that the insurance company negotiated to not pay.

</comment><comment><USER25> The hospitals are assembling a team of experts to deal with extreme injuries of patients. Patients then refuse to pay this bill but forget that if this team was not there they could have lost their life. Any trauma to the head is life threatening - people die from slipping in the bathroom.

</comment><comment><USER26> Giving an upfront indication of the costs would have been the least they could have done.

<comment><USER27> That is near impossible, and still gives folks little to no choice in an emergency.

"to keep your child from possibly dying, you'll wind up paying at least $15,000, depending on the diagnosis"

Of course, that last bit was completely unknown upfront. It is hard enough to shop around for non-emergency gall bladder surgery, let alone actual emergencies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The medical system in the US is rampant with this sort of thing, what a shame.</comment>


Why the New MacBook Pro Will Cost You Twice as Much - <AUTHOR> http://tumbledry.org/2016/12/14/the_cost_of_owning_a_macbook <comment><USER2> There are a few things I feel are missed in this write-up.

The calculation on needed drive size may be misleading in the long run as we move more to cloud storage. It seems the method you get data from your iPhone to your computer is to use iCloud or other cloud provider, so your data is already in the cloud.

The battery issue is not addressed by apple, but Microsoft seems to be leading the way here with continuum and the surface book where replacing a part of the hardware extends the life of the overall device. A new surface book base gives new life to an existing tablet.

In the phone arena, we could see a phone that plugs into a doc which has it's own GPU and higher powered processor. The phone is essentially managing your settings and apps, data is in the cloud.

It's a very interesting time...</comment>


Can Rawls' Theory of Justice Help Us Design Fairer MMOs? - <AUTHOR> https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2019/03/john-rawls-theory-of-justice-seed-mmo.html <comment><USER2> Humans are the _only_ species on the planet that systematically exhibit selfless, cooperative behavior with non family members. Our notions of fairness likely have strong genetic components. Indeed, the genetic foundation for our conceptions of fairness almost certainly _must_ have preceded our ability to consciously reflect on the meaning and implications of fairness.

I say this because while philosophical and game theoretic models are interesting and informative, in the 21st century we really should be looking to our _unique_ genetic evolution for better answers.</comment>