Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men from Labor Force - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/opioid-use-explains-20-of-drop-in-american-men-from-labor-force <comment><USER3> From the actual study (p.36): [https://www.brookings.edu/wp- content/uploads/2017/09/1_krueg...](https://www.brookings.edu/wp- content/uploads/2017/09/1_krueger.pdf)

 _" These regressions are difficult to interpret for a number of reasons, but if cross-county differences in opioid prescription rates can be taken as an exogenous result of differences in medical practices and norms conditional on personal characteristics and broad region dummies, the effect of the growth in opioid prescriptions on labor force can be estimated. In particular, I assume that the based opioid prescription rate coefficient reflects inherent differences across regions, and the interaction between prescriptions and time captures the effect of changes in prescriptions on labor force participation over time. This is a big leap, and ideally I would have preferred to have a baseline measure of prescriptions (country-level MME data are unavailable before 2010), so this calculation is at best considered illustrative. These caveats aside, opioid prescriptions per capita increased by a factor of 3.5 nationwide between 1999 and 2015, which is the equivalent of 0.55 log units. Multiplying 0.55 by the coefficient on the interaction between opioids and the second period (.011), suggests that the increase in opioid prescriptions could account for perhaps a 0.6 percentage point decline in male labor force participation, which is 20 percent of the observed decline in this period."_

<comment><USER4> Scientist: "difficult to interpret... I assume... This is a big leap... ideally I would have preferred... this calculation is at best considered illustrative... caveats aside..."

Reporter: "Opioid Use Explains 20% of Drop in American Men From Labor Force"

<comment><USER5> While genuine 'Fake News' is a real problem, hyperbolic reporting that disregards nuance to attract clicks from the lowest common denominator is much more widespread and insidiously damaging. I'd argue that it plays a large role in the polarization of society.

<comment><USER6> > _hyperbolic reporting that disregards nuance to attract clicks from the > lowest common denominator is much more widespread and insidiously damaging. > I 'd argue that it plays a large role in the polarization of society._

So, which is better? That? Or accurate, nuanced reporting that the everyman does not even attempt to read because his eyes glaze over before he's done parsing the first sentence?

The problem is not with the news, the problem is that this is what human nature is. The vast majority of people are amazingly bad at absorbing information regarding things beyond their immediate interests and horizon.

<comment><USER7> You assume that everyman doesn't attempt to read it. Everyman read it for years. The news dumbed everything down when they chased the tabloid dollars.

<comment><USER8> Again. Remember an early symbol countering the yellow journals was the Old Gray Lady.

And thorough, well researched, objective journalism has atrophied or gone underground in the wake of the digital readership monetization crisis.

And AFK, how many reporters are there now versus news readers? When you can buy your rhetoric and blurbs right from the think tanks in partnership with SocialCo(TM) and have anyone who looks the part read off the script, it makes sense not to spend the money on originality and depth.

It takes some mental acrobatics not to want to call that an ersatz representation or a fools interpretation of what journalism is.

<comment><USER7> The NYT just seems so one sided since Trump (and probably before). I mean there are two sides to DACA and both have merit. There was an article the other day that tried to explain away whites being killed by cops as suicide by cop. That's not good reporting, that borders on propaganda. I mean I know opinion pages are garbage, but damn.

EDIT: Suicide by cop article was Wapo, not NYT. I need to stop reading Wapo.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post- nation/wp/2016/07/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post- nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by- police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.ee9ffa098d0a)

I don't even mind that much that they pick a side if they do it at the end, I just want them to present both arguments, and their merits so I can decide.

When the best out there does what the NYT is doing now, we're in trouble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have an uncle who owns a factory in Northeast Ohio. I saw him over the summer and this is easily the number one issue affecting his day to day operations. He showed me a few security camera videos of people coming to work high and literally going crazy, and then a video of someone who had arrived for a job interview, but just sat in the lobby dazed and unresponsive to commands to leave. The videos were shocking, people were like zombies. He can't find people to hire, and he can't keep the people he has, if they don't overdose at work, they overdose at home. I knew it was an issue, but didn't know it was the main issue facing American industry.

<comment><USER10> Yet somehow Jeff Sessions can't stop talking about "urban pot epidemic" and how pot, including medical pot, needs to be cracked down upon.

Meanwhile opioids and meth are completely out of control, but because they are largely white rural/suburban drug users, they have been getting a free pass for decades.

<comment><USER11> They haven't been getting a pass, criminalization is just totally ineffective at dealing with the problem. As far as disproportionate enforcement goes, rural and suburban Americans haven't been murdering anyone at nearly the rate of inner city gangs, which is a big part of why there's more enforcement in urban areas.

<comment><USER12> > As far as disproportionate enforcement goes, rural and suburban Americans > haven't been murdering anyone at nearly the rate of inner city gang

Certainly, more ruled-as-murders per population unit happen in urban areas, but I'm aware of no statistics by urban/rural residence of killer (where a crime happens doesn't tell you where the criminal is from, and people who live in rural areas obviously can commit crimes in cities.)

And rural areas have higher death rates and it's at least plausible that the decreased population density makes it easier for evidence of homicide to be concealed and murders to be passed off as death by other causes, so the relative rates of ruled-as-murders may not accurately reflect the relative rate of actually-is-murder.

<comment><USER13> Race is a proxy for urban/rural and income. Population density is correlated with increased crime rates. Certainly that's not to say urban living _causes_ crime.

The idea that so many rural deaths could be covered-up murders is simply fanciful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The title implys the opposite of the last lines of the article...

> "I do think it is related to declining labor-force participation among > prime-age workers,"Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said in a July Senate > hearing when asked about the crisis. "I don't know if it's causal or if it's > a symptom of long-running economic maladies that have affected these > communities and particularly affected workers who have seen their job > opportunities decline."

Edit: added the full quote.

<comment><USER15> A business news organization seems like it would be biased toward explaining unemployment as a symptom of drug use rather than the other way around. It may be constitutionally incapable of considering that rising poverty and its ills are a result of mindless outsourcing and automation leading to structural unemployment.

<comment><USER16> Another example of externality not priced into costs -- if businesses had to bear retraining/unemployment costs to society, they may not outsource as much, or they may still outsource, but be better community citizens.

It might also spur governments to do more to stay competitive in a _sustainable_ way, e.g. investing more in education.

<comment><USER17> Nonsense. Unemployed people in poverty is no more the fault of businesses who don't need their skills than it is the fault of workers who fail to provide skills that businesses need...

<comment><USER18> This isn't about fault or blame. This is about keeping a healthy surviving economy and society over the long term.

The fact that many people are becoming unemploy _able_ is no fault of their own, and it's not the business' fault that don't need their labor. But as a society we need to decide what to do about it, because covering our ears and closing our eyes and yelling LALALALA and pretending it doesn't exist or will go away on its own is only going to make the problem worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've heard a lot of people say the arrow of causality goes the other way -- between globalization and automation, our society's struggling to provide enough jobs, so the unemployed turn to idleness, despair and drug use.

Low interest rates are supposed to help, but for the most part they've just led to bidding wars for real estate and financial assets, instead of building new businesses and increasing payrolls.

The 2016 US election is a sign of despair -- our politicians are seen as out- of-touch, barely acknowledging there is even a problem. You know it's bad if people are desperate enough that they're willing to vote for a guy like Donald Trump.

<comment><USER20> Here's a good counter-argument to your assertion that people voted for Trump out of economic despair:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the- fir...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white- president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Several people are asking about the "why" of this, much of it stems from legitimate prescriptions for Oxycontin which due to the "12 hour problem" [1] balloons into a heroin (cheaper, easier to get) addiction [2]

1 - [http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin- part1/](http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/)

2 - [http://www.narconon.org/blog/heroin-addiction/5-reasons- pres...](http://www.narconon.org/blog/heroin-addiction/5-reasons-prescription- addiction-turns-to-heroin/)

<comment><USER22> Yeah, much of the 'opioid crisis' is entirely manufactured by how we've dealt with things. If doctors had recognized opioids as habit-forming and planned ahead of time to wean patients off of them with a long period of gradual tapering down in dosage (so if it takes 6 months or more, so what?) before quitting. Instead, they decided 'addiction' was a moral failing and simply stopping giving anyone prescriptions no matter how legitimate the need.

One thing that rarely gets mentioned is how abundantly SAFE opiates are. If you know what you're getting, know what dosage it is, and know it's not adulterated with other substances, you can use opiates for decades without significant health complications (aside from constipation). Overdoses primarily happen with people mixing medications, trying to use unfamiliar medications recreationally (nothing can save a stupid person who wants to get high but can't be bothered to figure out what the right dose for that is for their body mass), or, most often now, having to get things from a black market where the supply is unknown potency or contents.

Fundamentally there is one group of people who is angry that other people are using a chemical to feel good because they feel that if other people aren't suffering as much as they have then they were cheated somehow. And they've been driving policy since the 80s, costing countless lives and monumental amounts of resources. Just to make sure no one has an easier time of life than they had.

<comment><USER23> > One thing that rarely gets mentioned is how abundantly SAFE opiates are. If > you know what you're getting, know what dosage it is, and know it's not > adulterated with other substances, you can use opiates for decades without > significant health complications (aside from constipation).

But there's little evidence that opioids are effective for treating long term pain.

We know about 10% of people who take prescription opioids will become addicted, and that tends to be the people using them for chronic (long term) pain.

> Fundamentally there is one group of people who is angry that other people > are using a chemical to feel good because they feel that if other people > aren't suffering as much as they have then they were cheated somehow. And > they've been driving policy since the 80s, costing countless lives and > monumental amounts of resources. Just to make sure no one has an easier time > of life than they had

No, that's wrong. There are people who see that opioids are massively over prescribed in the US, which is causing untold harm and death. Trying to cut back on that massive over-prescribing has to happen.

The problem lies with a fucked up health system that doesn't provide drug & alcohol rehab; and just cuts people off from their meds cold turkey.

<comment><USER22> My original comment was unclear, I can see that from both replies I got. I was not claiming that opiates were effective for long-term pain relief. I wasn't addressing their ability to relieve pain at all. I was referring only to the toxicity and health consequences of long-term opiate use alone. I also do not specifically consider 'dependence' to be a negative consequences in the scenario I described because I specifically mentioned a reliable, known clean supply. SSRI anti-depressants are similarly heavily prescribed and cause tremendous dependence. That only becomes an issue if a substance has other health consequences, or supply is disrupted.

There are a surprisingly large number of long-term wealthy opiate addicts who are not suffering from any sort of physical pain they are trying to cure. They are addicted, certainly, but manage their addiction like an alcoholic or smoker manages theirs. Unlike the alcoholic or smoker, however, they are unlikely to develop any cancers, cirrhosis, or other significant complications other than the constipation I mentioned. Constipation is inevitable because the gut has opioid receptors just like the brain does, only when those in the gut meet a receptor agonist, they stop gut movement. That's how Immodium A-D works. It's actually an opiate. But one formulated such that it will not cross the blood-brain barrier.

Also, my later statement, about the people who want to make sure no one is having it easier than they are, was in reference to the moralizers and the original drives to make various substances illegal as well as the 1980s 'war on drugs' push and similar. Drugs are not illegal because they're bad for you. That was never the basis of any of the laws. Poisons are not illegal to produce, possess, or ingest, generally speaking. Only chemicals which make people happy are.

Those concerned with dealing with the current opiate crisis certainly are not among that group of people simply angry that they didn't have the 'easy out' of popping a pill to be happy. I count myself among those deeply concerned. I live in West Virginia, a state with one of the highest rates of deaths from heroin overdose due to the restriction of the availability of prescription opiates with absolutely no attempt to provide any alternative to those dependent upon prescription opiates other than turning to heroin.

Dependence is simply a fact of opiate use. It's not evil. And it's not intractable. It CAN be dealt with by doctors, if they educate themselves through sources other than lying pharma company reps and avoid the inane moral stance that a patient should be able to stop taking them suddenly and any failure to do so is a moral one. Taper their dosage down. Do it over 6 months or a year if necessary. They're not blowing out their liver or kidneys or anything, and opiates are among the cheapest drugs there are (the non- synthetics at least), so there is no reason to hurry and try to force the patient to bear the discomfort of withdrawal. There is a hidden big problem behind that, though. It will only really work with patients who do not have other issues in their life which make stopping the use of opiates untenable. As we know from animal research, if you put mammals in a restrictive, unstimulating environment, they will naturally turn to addiction. If put in a stimulating, pleasant environment, they will avoid addiction and even wean themselves off automatically... but that requires providing people with a better life. The simple fact is that many people have terrible lives and desperately want an escape. I'm not sure what can be done in those situations... it almost seems immoral to ask them to drop the only thing that makes them feel good and simply bear their situation because we don't like the idea the pills are helping them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> From listening to Jordan Peterson talk about psych, he says if men get unemployed, they're going to develop depression and chronic pain(and he says the two are almost one in the same), and then turn to opioids, especially if they're conscientious.

<comment><USER25> I've noticed Jordan Peterson getting mentioned a lot around here lately. Do you have a link to his lecture on this topic?

<comment><USER26> Not the video, but found the quote:

"Partly what you need to do is decide what your highest value is. It's the star. What are you aiming for? You can decide. But there are some criteria. It should be good for you in a way that facilitates your moving forward. Maybe it should be good for you in a way that's also good for your family, as well as for the larger community. It should cover the domain of life. There's constraints on what you should regard as a value, but within those constraints you have the choice. You have choice. The thing is that people will carry a heavy load if they get to pick the load. And they think, 'well, I won't carry any load.' Ok, fine, but then you'll be like the sled dog that has nothing to pull. You'll get bored. People are pack animals. They need to pull against a wait. And that's not true for everyone. It's not true for conscientious people. For the typical person, they'll eat themselves up unless they have a load. This is why there's such an opiate epidemic among so many dispossessed white, middle aged, unemployed men in the U.S. They lose their job, and then they're done. They despise themselves. They develop chronic pain syndromes and depression. And the chronic pain is treated with opiates. That's what we're doing. And you should watch when you talk to young men about responsibility. They're so thrilled about it. It just blows me away. Really?! That's what the counter-culture is? Grow up and do something useful. Really? I can do that? Oh, I'm so excited by that idea. No one ever mentioned that before. Rights, rights, rights, rights. Jesus. It's appalling. People have had enough of that. And they better have, because it's a non-productive mode of being. Responsibility, man. That's where the meaning in life is." \--Jordan B Peterson

<comment><USER27> This seems like something I'd hear from a mediocre pastor, not from an academic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Where do they get the money to afford all those opoids? Most people with jobs can barely afford to make ends meat, so how are the growing ranks of unemployed able to afford that, year after year after year?

Why wouldn't they rather spend the money on things that mattered? like shelter/rent or food.

<comment><USER29>
        > Where do they get the money to afford all those opoids?

They can't afford them forever. When the money runs out, they switch to heroin which is MUCH cheaper than the abused prescription drugs which got them addicted in the first place.

"Shelter", when someone hits the bottom, consists of a flop-house or couch- surfing.

<comment><USER30> I should probably use a throwaway, but I am not scaed.

During the peak of my very long addiction, post retirement, I was spending $250/day - not counting the habits of friends that I helped to feed.

The only difference between what people call a junkie and myself is that I can afford it. That's also the reason why I was able to get adequate assistance to minimize the harmful behaviors. Err... I am on Suboxone, and probably will be for a very long time. I used for 35 years.

Anyhow, it can be expensive. Users equate use with life. Life always finds a way.

<comment><USER31> The only difference between you and what people call a junkie is people are being polite to your face. If you're on subs and have used opiates for 35 years, it seems pretty clear to me.

<comment><USER30> Pretty much. I can afford to maintain an air of functionality. I was a functional addict, for much of that time. When I sold and retired, I no longer needed to function. Things escalated quickly.

Nobody calls a guy a junkie, if said guy drives a new BMW and has a big house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'd like to turn this around somewhat and find a study that shows just how many "productive", employed citizens are actually using prescribed opioids and ADD medicines (methamphetamines) that _help_ them to work harder and longer hours, because my bet is that it would be at least a significant fraction.

My point? Maybe just because someone is taking opioids, people shouldn't automatically label them as unhireable.

People on suboxone and methadone would test positive for opioids as well...are these people also considered unhireable?

</comment><comment><USER33> With the offshoring of manufacturing jobs men with nothing to do end up taking drugs. In poor areas drug use is very common, so it is easy to eventually give in and try it, then you are hooked the first time and can't stop.

<comment><USER34> That's, not how addiction works. Also, drug use is common ... everywhere. Rich people can afford to hide their drug use, and can also afford legal protection if they are caught.

<comment><USER33> So people don't get addicted because they have nothing better to do? I lived in Lakeside California where so many people are addicted to meth, it is crazy. If there was manufacturing people would have something to do, have something to look forward to, an idea of a future and stay off drugs. Not everyone can do white collar work and not everyone wants to work in fast food or 7/11\. The outsourcing of work an average everyday person does leads to ideas of no future, which leads to boredom & self-pity, which leads to drug use. For $10 you can get high, be happy and not worry about a thing. That high solves all problems. Then the person just thinks about their next high and how to get it.

<comment><USER35> You misunderstand. It's not one hit and you're hooked.

<comment><USER36> Does it matter if it is one hit and you are hooked or five hits and you are hooked? The end result is that we still have people addicted because of how good it makes them feel about their shitty circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The book to read about the opioid crisis is Dreamland by Sam Quinones.

It is really well written and researched and lays out the several separate events and trends that converged to make this perfect storm happen when and where it did:

[https://www.amazon.com/Dreamland-True-Americas-Opiate- Epidem...](https://www.amazon.com/Dreamland-True-Americas-Opiate- Epidemic/dp/1620402521)

</comment><comment><USER38> Interesting, because yeah, I think people who fall out of the workforce should often be considered a social or psychological problem rather than an economic problem.

You are 'unemployed' if you have looked for work in the last month. I'm only exaggerating a little when I say I haven't gone more than a month without looking for work... ever, past the age of fourteen or so. Even when I was happy with my current gig.

You are a 'discouraged worker' if you've looked for work in the last year. Year. A lot changes in a year. I personally do my best to interview at all of the top-tier silicon valley companies every year, because there's a lot of randomness in interviews, and I'm not completely unqualified, and getting a fte job at, say, netflix would net me a lot more than what I get as a contractor now, so I roll the dice. I can't imagine spending a year without looking for work.

I mean, I'm not saying these people shouldn't be helped; it's just that if you want to work, but you think there are no jobs for you, the rational thing to do is to re-evaluate that belief periodically. My own perception is that demand for my own labor varies sharply, opportunities come and go in a very short period of time. If you find logging into dice and sending some emails once a month too difficult, you have some other problem; I'm no shrink, but it sounds like depression to me.... Which is actually reasonably treatable these days; really, getting you treatment for depression so you can get a job is probably an incredibly good return on my social-services tax dollar.

</comment><comment><USER39> There's been a lot of work done on the effects of long-term unemployment -- I'd wager that a lack of purpose drives opioid use rather than the other way around...

<comment><USER40> It works both directions. I'll give you a pretty common example for my neck of the woods. A good friend of mine worked in a machine shop and had a great job for rural America ran his own small lawn-care business on his days off. One day he hurt his back bad, he didn't have time or money for physical therapy (who else would pay the bills) which would've probably been best instead the doctor prescribed opioids and insurance paid. So he went for a few months and it got worse, which was probably just him building up a tolerance, rinse and repeat a few times and he was a fully burned out addict. Couldn't hold his job because of how fried he was.

This isn't an isolated incident it's an all too common pattern I've seen. The cycle works: you go to work and work as hard as you can, you get hurt, you can't afford the best care option, you take the cheaper meds so you can continue working, tolerance builds up, you can't perform, then you're let go. In the end you're left broke, hurting, unemployed, and addicted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The rest of the world manages to get by on the 15% of the world's opioid supply that's left after the US uses 85%.

Opioids have never been found effective at managing chronic pain.

</comment><comment><USER42> Wow, didn't know that 1/5 of US guys IDGAFed on society. Must be quite hostile society to men when they can't find anything keeping them interested. I think that's close to rates in Soviet Union after collapse.

<comment><USER43> Male participation didn't drop by 20%. Rather, 20% of the drop that has been experienced might be linked to opioids.

<comment><USER42> Ah OK, got it. How big was the overall drop? I assume a lot less than 20%.

<comment><USER44> The overall drop was from 66% of the population to 63% in the last 15 years. But really the drop was from 2007-2014. [https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300061](https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300061) Basically an entire major metro area of people who would have worked but don't. The fraction of people on Social Security Disability is only up by 1%, so the other 2/3rds aren't bringing in money. Another way of looking at it is to say that in 2000 only 8% of "prime working age" males didn't have a job. By 2014 it was 11%. A relative increase of more than a third in less than a generation.

The other interesting thing is that women's labor participation is also down. There was pretty much an unbroken increase going back to the 50s, and then around 2000 it started to drop. The thing is, the drop in percentage points (the total number of non-working people) is about the same for men and for women, as far as I can see. So I don't understand where the idea comes from that it's men who are getting hit particularly hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I heard them talking about this on the radio and they were talking about how, supposedly, one of their problems is young people would rather become drug dealers than work in the factories because it pays so much better. But if that is really true (nothing was offered as proof except a factory manager's assertion, so it seems kind of dubious to me) it seems like the obvious solution is to pay more so that isn't the case.

<comment><USER46> Most factories in my area will start you off at less than $14/hr. Granted it's full time, but that's roughly less than $20k/yr after taxes, which is hardly enough to live on, let alone raise a family on. I worked for 6 months putting rolls of tape in a box for a smidgen over $10/hr. And at the end I walked out the door because there were no prospects of moving up.

Most of the people I know have (single?) parents who are in the same boat, making it almost impossible to move out on their own. Plus, you need reliable transportation, and vehicles are expensive. For someone just getting out of high school it's likely not an option.

Basically what I'm saying is, there are a lot of barriers that any employer would need to help overcome (wage being perhaps the biggest part) before you see any changes in this sector of society.

No kid my age wants to be a drug dealer. I don't care who you are or how poor your home life was. I would much rather go to work, get a loan for a half- decent (or even somewhat nice) vehicle that'll last me a decade if I take care of it, have my own apartment so I can have a few friends or my girlfriend over, etc.

I wouldn't say my generation is lazy. I just don't think factories or employers in general should require stable state of mind or hard work without paying enough to really make a difference in someone's life, i.e. enough to support a stable, independent way of life.

<comment><USER45> I am perhaps not making it explicit, but that is more or less what I wanted to say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Or, the _dropping of_ American men from the labor force (i.e. not by their choice nor volition) could explain x% of opiod use...

Actually, this seems to be borne out be reporting of newer surveys and studies. Those in stable employment and social settings are less vulnerable to addiction. Even when they "experiment"; they have more reasons not to chase the experience down the rabbit hole.

I've heard this specifically from several recent sources of reporting. Different shows and segments, largely on public radio.

That's not to mention the growing media and public re-evaluation of addiction and its causes, treatments, remediations, and possible solutions -- alongside comparison with the increasingly obviously counter-productive _and expensive_ "tough on crime" practices with respect to it -- now taking place in the U.S.

</comment><comment> pow_pp_-1_v I just don't understand why politicians don't take this seriously[1]. A smart and savvy politician could build presidency reaching career if they spent time talking about this and trying to find solutions.

[1] I could be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm sure it's both A and B. If you're one of the people that have been left behind in the economy, drugs look awfully good.

</comment><comment><USER49> Pretty sure the drop in the labour force is the cause, and the opioid use the result.

</comment><comment><USER50> What's causing the opioid use? I'd imagine the causation goes both ways.

Has anybody actually asked these people why they use opioids? Or is it just economists running statistical regressions from their ivory towers?

</comment><comment><USER51> My hometown - located on the edge of the rust belt - is in the midst of a national news-making opioid and heroin epidemic.

Anecdotally, I believe the converse is true.

</comment><comment><USER52> Where does the other 80% come from?

<comment> d--b Don't know if that's true or not, but some people blame video games...

<comment><USER7> If it were the 80s, they would blame heavy metal.

<comment><USER14> Don't forget D&D as well as Devil worship...

I wonder if "opioid addict" will replace the "welfare queen" stereotype for blame-the-victim-and-gov't memes.

<comment><USER53> Opioid addicts tend to be white, so they seem to be getting more sympathy and less blame in the memeosphere than black drug addicts and welfare dependents did in the 80s.

<comment><USER7> Ya but just barely. Based on deaths, blacks make up about 10% while the black population is 12%.

[http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose- dea...](http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-deaths-by- raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D)

The biggest problem with the 80s is the same problem we have now, Americans are easily scared shitless about every damn thing and the news just fuels it. In the 80's it was crack epidemic, devil worship and super predators. In the 90s, it was ecstasy and raves. In the 2000s it was meth, terrorism and trailer parks. Today it's opioids and ISIS.

As a country, we do irrational things because we always have an irrational fear. Who plants that fear? News.

Did you know we turned away boatloads of Jews during the holocaust because we were afraid German spies would be on the ships?

[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/jewish-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/jewish- refugees-in-the-us/514742/)

Remember Ebola? Zika? Anthrax? That scared the shit out of everyone and it ended up being a whole lot of not much.

When FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," he knew how afraid Americans are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Funny how we've been protecting poppy fields in Afghanistan for 15 years. Probably just a coincidence.

<comment><USER55> Oh honey America's role in Afghan poppy industry goes so much further back than 15 years ago. America built a dam in Afghanistan in the 1950s. The dam changed the soil conditions and what could grow in the region. It was found that opium would grow well in the conditions, which meant that people would grow it to provide food for their families. Then the Taliban started controlling the trade, and profited tidily, and expanded it significantly. Destroying the opium trade would likely just add to the misery, by now.

[http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-03-29/news/1997088009_...](http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-03-29/news/1997088009_1_opium- poppy-helmand-river)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> The white male privilege.

</comment><comment><USER57> There are a lot of assumptions at work here, (pardon the pun) the main basis of this ASSumption is based on invalid surveys, conducted online without any verification and or face to face interviews which are done in any valid scientific determination. Much like the flawed polls of the 2016 election cycle which proved to be problematic for the political predictions of the political process we now see a illogical jump to conclusions not found in valid scientific evidentiary procedures. Quote, "In the Paper published by Alan B Kruger he states that the focus of the paper is focus on the role of pain and pain medication in the lives of prime age men who are not in the labor force and prime age women who are not in the labor force and not primarily taking care of household responsibilities, because these groups express the greatest degree of distress and dissatisfaction with their lives. "

According to the paper, what follows is apparently what constitutes science these days.

To better understand the role of pain and pain medication in the life of prime age men who are neither working nor looking for work, I conducted a short online panel survey of 571 NLF prime men age 25-54 using an internet panel provided by Survey Sampling Inc, henceforth called the Princeton Pain Survey (PPS).20

That did an online survey of 571 persons and somehow they believe that this is real evidence?

Additionally they state that

Thus, on any given day, 31 percent of NLF prime age men take pain medication, most likely an opioid-based medication. And these figures likely understate the actual proportion of men taking prescription pain medication given the stigma and legal risk associated with reporting taking narcotics.

Consider the statement contained in the quote above.

most likely an opioid-based medication.

Now excuse me but the word most likely does not belong in any kind of scientific document.

Using an online form to gain information and then publish it as if it were valid is just ridiculous.

I cannot begin to understand why a "Real Study" was not conducted.

This paper while well meaning is in effect meaningless because of the lack of proper scientific investigation and procedures.

Additionally the number of Men surveyed, is in itself not a sufficient number to accurately predict any type of medical evidence of prescription drug use as a mediator for the so called, Opioid Crisis. In effect what has happened here is that there has been no scientific distinction between deaths associated with multiple drug use and prescription pain medication use. Even The CDC admits that they did not separate prescription drug deaths from illegal IV drug use, (Heroin) There is a need to call this what it is.

You can never expect to solve a problem when you are not willing to address what the problem actually is.

The problem is multiple illegal drug use involving IV Heroin, street drugs where the contents of those drugs is unknown.

Alcohol use along with multiple drug use most often is the common denominator for drug overdose deaths. How can anyone be expected to take this kind of nonsense seriously when the body of science as a whole "lumps" all conditions and all manner of drug induced deaths together and then "Label" it as a Crisis.

This is simply the War on Drugs 2.0

</comment><comment><USER58> correlation != causation

</comment><comment><USER59> Title is somewhat confusing at first - it's saying that it explains 20% _of the drop_ , not that it explains a drop of 20%.

<comment><USER60> Thanks, we added a "Could" and a "the" to help clarify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Drug use is a symptom of lack of opportunities rather than the cause.

American men are using opioids because of the war on men waged by the elite and business elite.

When women are favored for jobs while men are being discriminated against and can't get jobs, then they turn to drugs.

Drug use is a result of lack of opportunities, it doesn't cause the lack of opportunities.

Look at what happened to china in the 1800s with their opium crisis when their society was attack by european powers.

Look at what happened to russia in the 1990s when lack of opportunities cause their male population to resort to drugs and alcohol.

This is a problem caused by bloomberg and the media.

When men are systematically disadvantaged in job prospects, when men are attacked as rapists in college campus and when the media wages a war against men in america, you can't offload the blame to "opioids".

The problem in america isn't opioids. It's the media and the elite.

<comment><USER62> Are you seriously suggesting that the decline of the acceptance of rape or the increasing awareness of discrimination against women in America is causing men to use opioids?

<comment><USER63> To me, he's suggesting that the prevalence of general anti-men sentiment within the culture at large is partly responsible for men dropping out of society. College campuses declaring that all men are rapists until proven otherwise is symptomatic of that culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Europe handles pain management a lot better than America...

</comment><comment><USER65> What I've never understood is why anyone does opiates to begin with, under any circumstances. Why even try it? I feel in the media _everywhere_ it is said how terrible it is.

<comment><USER66> Even though you don't drink, imagine you get into a minor accident on the way home from work today. You seem alright but your knee hurts the next morning, so you go to the doctor just to get it checked out. There's a strong chance that in the event of a minor injury you'd be (over-)prescribed oxycontin, percocet or another opiate. Doctors have been handing them out like candy in the US thanks to heavy promotion by pharma companies & pressure to get patients processed as quickly as possible (easier to give pills than really get to know a patient). The doctor says it's safe and it's a medical prescription so it's fine, right.

Your pain is gone and you're able to function normally. After a few weeks your supply runs out and the doctor refuses to renew your prescription despite your injury still causing you pain. The doctor provides no after-care or advice to avoid addiction, writes on your chart that you've exhibited "drug seeking behavior" and tells you to leave.

Your buddy says he has a friend, who hooks you up with a few Oxies (at least you think they're Oxy, the writing is in Chinese), and you're back to feeling "normal" again. After a while you run out of money, but your friend can supply you heroin at a lower price. Congrats you're a junkie, despite being a tee- totaler just a few months before.

Kinda condensed and I'm sure many people on HN will say "but that wouldn't be me". But it is the slope for many, many people in this country.

<comment><USER67> WOW there is a lot of incorrect crap in your comment.

Yes the US proscribes opiate based pain killers at a higher level then Socialized Medicine nations, mainly because American Patients do not accept the "live with the pain" treatment you get from Government run care where they refuse to provide pain killers unless you are screaming in pain, and even then they give you a Advil and tell you to "suck it up butter cup"

Screw that.

There are all kinds of people that cant not get the medication they have a legitimate medical need for because the these new crack downs on Opiate based pain killers, now these people are having to live with chronic pain because the doctor fear being sent to prison by the DEA, because the DEA knows more about medicine than a doctor does clearly

In your Hypothetical from Prescription to Heroin you blame the doctor, I blame the DEA. The artificial limits and constraints the DEA is placing on medical professionals is interfering with patient care, and causing some patients to turn on street drugs instead of proper medication

Contrary to what the DEA thinks, combating Drug abuse is not a police matter, it is a medical matter and should be left in the hand of medical doctors not the legal system

<comment><USER23> You've made a few mistakes in this post.

The first, and perhaps most important, is that you think opioids are a suitable treatment for long term pain. They aren't. There is little evidence of efficacy of opioids for treatment of long term pain. Your suggestion - <USER2> we treat pain using opioids - i) doesn't treat pain, and ii) creates addicts.

More information here: [https://www.fpm.ac.uk/faculty-of-pain- medicine/opioids-aware](https://www.fpm.ac.uk/faculty-of-pain- medicine/opioids-aware)

> "live with the pain" treatment you get from Government run care where they > refuse to provide pain killers unless you are screaming in pain

Quite clearly nonsense.

> The artificial limits

No, these are evidence based restrictions.

<comment><USER67> Umm, Number 1 in your link contradicts number 2, first they claim it is not helpful for long term relief, then go on to say it is helpful for long term relief.

Further in typical UK practice they claim it is not helpful but offer no alternative treatments, claiming it should be discontinued even if there are no alternative.

basically what I said "Suck it up buttercup" but they state it in a more PC and nanny government terminology

>Quite clearly nonsense.

hmmm

[http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Pain/Pages/Longtermpain.aspx](http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Pain/Pages/Longtermpain.aspx)

"You may also be referred for complementary therapy to see if that helps with the pain. You should be offered advice on how to better manage your pain on a day-to-day basis, such as by using self-help techniques."

Again, No pain Killer, just walk it off or deal with it. That is the UK policy on long term chronic Pain. Suck it up and learn to live with it.

>No, these are evidence based restrictions.

No infact they are not, not in the case of the DEA/US Drug Control Policy anyway

There is not a single drug control policy in the US that is "evidence based" most of is not even about the actual drugs, it is about power, control, money, and about 100 other things but not public safety or drugs

<comment><USER23> > Further in typical UK practice they claim it is not helpful but offer no > alternative treatments, claiming it should be discontinued even if there are > no alternative.

Untrue.

[https://www.nice.org.uk/search?q=pain](https://www.nice.org.uk/search?q=pain)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: TuSimple achieves state-of-the-art results on KITTI and Cityscapes - <AUTHOR> Chinese company TuSimple just achieved new state-of-the-art results on KITTI and Cityscapes. The company started a autonomous driving project a month ago.<p>What do the results mean? How does the them related to the real autopilot system? Are there any benchmarks for autopilot system? <comment><AUTHOR> Chinese company TuSimple just achieved new state-of-the-art results on KITTI and Cityscapes. They obtained best results on object detection, object tracking and road segmentation on KITTI and image segmentation on Cityscapes.

\- [http://www.cvlibs.net/datasets/kitti/eval_object.php](http://www.cvlibs.net/datasets/kitti/eval_object.php)

\- [http://www.cvlibs.net/datasets/kitti/eval_tracking.php](http://www.cvlibs.net/datasets/kitti/eval_tracking.php)

\- [http://www.cvlibs.net/datasets/kitti/eval_road.php](http://www.cvlibs.net/datasets/kitti/eval_road.php)

\- [https://www.cityscapes-dataset.com/benchmarks/#pixel- level-r...](https://www.cityscapes-dataset.com/benchmarks/#pixel-level- results)

And They just started their autonomous driving project

\- [http://www.tusimple.com/index_en.html](http://www.tusimple.com/index_en.html)</comment>


How Low Can Unemployment Really Go? Economists Have No Idea - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/upshot/how-low-can-unemployment-really-go-economists-have-no-idea.html <comment><USER2> I'm thinking it can't go much below 0%, but I'm not an economist.

<comment><USER3> Just for fun: the unemployment rate is the percentage of working age people who do not have a job and are looking for one. So, a negative unemployment rate could be a situation where there are more people with two full-time salaries than there are looking for work. Unlikely, but plausible with enough demand, remote work and results-oriented scope of duties. Again, just a little fun with a wonky number!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any good hacker mentors out there? - <AUTHOR> Recently I have tried approaching a few good developers through their blogs about various matters including advice on how to go about some projects I'm undertaking but I am surprised at the unfriendly responses I have received. Maybe I have been going about it the wrong way but it got me thinking; Shouldn't the guys whose work we look up to be keen on what some of us young aspiring developers have to contribute to the community? I mean sure, we don't have the experience or skills some of these guys have(yet) but we still have some ideas that are viable with the right technical skills to back them. If any of them want to reach out and help nurture some potential talent, it may very well benefit all them in the end, whether financially or in terms of new ideas and experiences. <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm misunderstanding what it is you're trying to do, and I may be misjudging your approach entirely (so forgive me if I'm way off the point), but I would recommend trying things yourself more. That is, ultimately, a huge aspect of "hacking". It's also, IMO, a much better way to learn most of the time, than being taught by someone else.

Another reason I say that is that, as someone who helps run a programming- focussed forum, I can tell you that hacker's generally help other hacker's once they've seen some of their work. I'm sure the bloggers you have contacted get a ton of requests for help by people who have made no attempt to solve their own problems - naturally they might assume the same of you, and thus gave you a rude response. When you've contacted these developers, have you shown them what you have so far? Have you asked very specific questions about the things they talk about in their blogs? If you haven't, and if those aren't the kind of questions you want to ask, I think you should try another medium. Forums, IRC, etc...

edit: There's also a huge amount of discussion on this site about start ups, independent projects, hacking, etc... Just be a regular reader - you'll learn a lot!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your comment. In retrospect I may not have adequately detailed the work I have done so far, so that explains the responses.On the other hand though,sometimes its not just about the programming aspect of a project,for instance, if I have an idea for an app that I want to develop, but my technical skills limit me, it would be nice to have people to bounce the idea off and have it implemented. In short, great projects are made up of good product vision and adequate technical skills to implement it, some people have the two skill sets while in other cases its not that easy to bring two different people with the complementing skills together.

<comment><USER3> When you say _have it implemented_ , it almost sounds like you're looking for a 'hacker' you respect to enjoy your idea so much that they'll build it for you. That would turn off anyone.

I think what the parent commenter meant by showing your work is to have either a list of related projects you've finished and details on how they relate or all the material you've gathered so far and a very specific question regarding your current stumbling block.

If you approach a guru (or anyone, for that matter) with a question that would only take five minutes to google, of course you'll get the shaft. On technical issues, everyone is guilty of ignorance until proven innocent, and willful ignorance is not lightly tolerated.

Lots of folks just aren't looking for mentorship opportunities, too. I'd say scan the list of current and previous mentors for something like Google's "summer of code" and use it as a jumping off point for contacts that have a track record of providing mentoring to aspirant hackers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have written a few articles in the web about programming topics and have published a few pages of source code too. Some of these articles are in the top results of Google for the right keywords. Now the problem is that I get emails asking about these topics, and _I am surprised at the un-professional questions I have received_ from _most_ of these people. I don't want to sound like a veteran-know-it-all-programming-guru who is whining about the stupid people who are asking his help. I am sincerely not. I am just another programmer who feels that people need to know how to ask for help.

Here are some types of questions I get:

 _Can you please send me the codes for XXXX?_

\- I put up the code in the website. That is where you are coming from. Take it from there. I really don't understand what exactly you want.

 _Can you please help me implement XXXX for PEP platform?_

\- I have no idea what PEP means. I implemented XXXX in C/C++. That is all I know, and that is all I can.

 _Can you help me do XXXX taking input from a file?_

\- I have given implementation for XXXX. Just open the file and give the input to the function!

 _Your code is a very complicated. Can I use the following code [code attached]_

\- The code you have given is plain wrong and it does not work. You may want to read some more on the topic, just to get the basics covered.

Then the guy responds again: _OK. Can you tell me something about graphics in C?_

\- What? How is it related?! I am sorry. You can use these articles to learn more about that.

(Those are not the exact replies I sent. I am not that rude!)

I get at least one email per day asking for help about these things, and I am not claiming that all are of the emails are like these. But most are, and these people make life worse for everyone.

If it is a real a question about something specific that I can answer, I do take time to respond to that, even if I have to work a few extra hours for that. I think that people will help you if they think that you really are putting in the effort. They will help you if they think that you will do a lot better if they help you a little. But sometimes people ask silly things and they write stuff like _"Sir, it is very urgent"_ or _"I have to submit project soon"_ etc. They basically sound like you have to do the whole project for them. Obviously you cannot do that.

Of course all this is not an excuse for being rude though.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm amazed that no one has suggested the most obvious answer: a lot of developers are just plain rude!

Even if you don't want to help someone, there's a polite way of wording it. Unfortunately a lot of people in the SW dev community haven't figured that out yet.

@Rayzar: They're under no obligation to help you, but at the same time they don't need to be unfriendly about it either.

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's limited to just developers. A lot of _people_ are just plain rude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In their defense if they are active developers or entreps then they are likely extremely busy. As much as they'd love to help you, there are a lot of people like yourself asking for their time too, you're not the only one. So don't take their response too personally, you can likely try again later.

Egotists aside, I think you should evaluate their response and you might considering changing your approach if they are active and not retired. Being a mentor takes time, so think about ways for it to be mutual. Can you provide knowledge or assistance to their current goals before asking for it back? You may also try to show what you've done and that there is more substance to you than just an email talking about lofty ideas — ideas are a dime a dozen, it's all about execution.

Another general rule of thumb, don't send a 4-paragraph email professing your admiration or telling them things they probably already know, do your research. Sometimes this is received well, sometimes it is not. I had someone approach me recently, sent 3 paragraph email suggesting & instructing me how to embed an iPhone bookmark icon into a clients' website; I've been making iPhone apps for 8 months. I've made this mistake a few times trying to prove my smarts, use your Draft folder which is a good habit to get into anyway.

Sometimes you need to get in front of them. If you see them at a happy hour or developer meetup, approach them. Seeing people try is a lot more meaningful, it improves your odds and first impression. Twitter is great for this, follow people that interest you — they'll often RT developer meetups and speaking events.

Lastly, pick a mentor that compliments you and do your research. Finding a good fit should naturally improve your chances of connecting with them.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sure, drop me a line. All my contact info is in my HN profile. I might not be the most experienced, funded, awesome hacker but I can pull my weight in a few areas and answer things I know the answer to, or at least point you in the right direction.

We've all been there.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Recently I have tried approaching a few good developers through their blogs about various matters including advice on how to go about some projects I'm undertaking but I am surprised at the unfriendly responses I have received."

I have some experience in this, so let me try to explain a couple of things that I learned in the "school of hard knocks".

Once upon a time I was in a situation where I thought I could contribute to something one of _the_ best programmers in the world was working on so I sent an email (I got the address from his webpage) and said something to the effect of " you say on this webpage you need this code and I could write it for you over the next few months because I am interested in what you are doing" and I got a 2 line reply which said (paraphrased) " A lot of people write to me saying they'll do this , but I've never seen any code yet so I am a little skeptical. Don't take it personally. Thanks. bye.".

So in the next email (sent a minute after I received his reply) I sent him a zipped file of code with an explanation that "this is what I've done so far which is about 70% of what you want" and he said "Whoa you are serious ...' and opened up completely, giving me a lot of useful feedback and very specific advice. I sent him a _lot_ more code over the years. He is a (very valued) mentor to this day.

Another time, I was reading a paper from a (very famous) professor at Stanford, and I thought I could fill in some gaps in that paper so I wrote a "You know your paper could be expanded to give results X and Y. Do you think I should work on it?" email and I got a very dismissive one line email along he lines of " That is an old paper and incomplete in certain respects, Thanks".

So I sent along a detailed algorithm that expanded his idea, with a formal proof of correctness and a code implementation and he suddenly switched to a more expansive mode, sending friendly emails with long and detailed corrections and ideas for me to explore.

Now I am not in the league of the above two gentlemen, but perhaps because I work in AI and Robotics in India,which isn't too common, I receive frequent emails to the effect of "please mentor me", often from students. I receive too _many_ of these emails to answer any in any detail, but if I _ever_ get an email with "I am interested in AI/ Robotics. This is what I've done so far. Here is the code. I am stuck at point X. I tried A, B, C nothing worked. What you wrote at [url] suggests you may be the right person to ask. can you help?" I would pay much more attention than to a "please mentor me" email.

In other words, when you asks for a busy person's time for "mentorship" or "advice" or whatever, show (a) you are serious and have gone as far as you can by yourself (b) have taken _concrete_ steps to address whatever your needs are and (optionally)(c) how helping you could benefit them.

Very good (and therefore famous) developers are _very_ busy and have so much stuff happening in their lives and more work than they could ever hope to complete that they really don't have any time to answer vague emails from some one they've never heard of before.

As an (exaggerated) analogy, think of writing an email to a famous director or movie star or rock star, saying "I have these cool ideas about directing/acting/ music. Can you mentor me/give me advice?"

I am replacing the words "app" and "technical" in your sentence below with "film" and "film making".

"if I have an idea for a film that I want to develop, but my film making skills limit me, it would be nice to have people to bounce the idea off and have it implemented. "(so .. please mentor me/give me advice/make this film for me).

Do you think a top grade director (say Spielberg) would respond to this?

The fact that you at least got a 2 line response shows that the developers you wrote to are much nicer than you may think.

As someone else advised you, just roll up your sleeves and get to work. If your work is good enough, you'll get all the "mentoring" you'll need. "Mentoring" from the best people in your field is a _very_ rare and precious resource and like anything else in life that is precious, should be _earned_.

My 2 cents. Fwiw. YMMV.

<comment><USER10> Agreed entirely.

Years ago, I volunteered to work on a project for the Free Software Foundation that had been started and stopped more than once, as no-one seemed motivated to actually complete it. I whipped out a very rough demo, and within days I was being mentored and having my work reviewed & critiqued by Richard Stallman.

His interest in me was surely toward getting the work done for the FSF, but what I learned from him has been very useful to me in other projects as well. I doubt I would have been taken seriously if I hadn't actually made a real effort at getting something done that Richard wanted done.

I've also worked with some top jazz musicians, and learned a lot from them, because... I paid them to help me on projects. I didn't go to them asking for advice; I hired them in their professional capacity to help me get something done, and they brought their advice with them. They may be willing to answer random questions from random people as well, but I'm sure I got a whole lot more out of hours in the studio with their undivided attention than I would have by sending an email or trying to talk to them after a concert.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "...surprised at the unfriendly responses I have received..."

It's hard to comment on responses I haven't seen, but let me take a guess.

Perhaps the responses aren't so much "unfriendly" as "tough programmer love". They already know something you may have not learned yet. That all the mentoring in the world will make little difference. What really makes a difference is rolling up your sleeves, jumping into your work, and figuring it out. That's probably how they got to be where they are, and I'm guessing that's what they want you to do.

I'd be less concerned about finding a mentor than finding a place to go with questions, if you ever need it. For now, be your own mentor; find your own programming voice first, then the questions you ask may get "friendlier" responses.

<comment><USER12> We haven't even seen the 'question'(s), let alone the answers. We really need that too, to judge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The best way to get this feedback, imho (and it worked for me) is to start contributing to an active open source project you use.

Specifically, contribute to one you _use_ , not one you think is cool or would be fun to hack on. If you have to ask "what would be something useful I could work on?" on the mailing list, you're doing it wrong. Look at your use and start implementing something that is missing, awkward, or doesn't work well.

Submit patches with explanations of why you did it the way you did. Assuming it isn't a totally anti-social project, you will get feedback and advice. The key thing is that you are coming to the folks offering something useful to their baby rather than begging ;-)

</comment><comment><USER14> As the others are saying it's not clear what your trying to achieve when getting in touch.

For example if you ask a direct question in a field they have experience I am sure they would help!

You talk about experience and skills: I assume your looking to learn such things from them. Perhaps your askign for them to send you some general tips? That is likely to get you a stock rejection (indeed the fact they reply at all says a lot about them - in a good way :D). It's the kind of question you should probably ask somewhere like here (or similar places more specific toyour field). Giving general help is a pain.

For example I often get emails asking for my advice on entering the forensics field. Most I send a very quick stock email (along the lines of - no time to write much but here are a few pointers). Those that show an actual interest by having done some background reading / having worked on some code or something get something more meaningful and personal (and usually a whole conversation).

Why not post the sort of thing your sending and we can give you some pointers too :D

</comment><comment><USER15> Stackoverflow seems like the perfect place to be asking these getting started questions. As people say, once you have something, bloggers will probably be more responsive.

</comment><comment><USER16> Learning new skills is hard work. But thanks to the internet - its easier now than every before. Find a good forum to ask questions. There are lots of video lectures (paid and free) on various technologies. If you want to get someone to coach you, then prepare to compensate them. That is why taking a class is often a good idea because the instructor plays the role of a coach. Ultimately, coding on your own is the fastest way to learn. But its also often the most frustrating, at first :)

</comment><comment><USER17> If you are more clear on what type of thing you are looking for/working on, you might get help right here. I, for one, am happy to help where I can.

</comment><comment><USER18> Have you tried IRC? (freenode, etc.)

<comment><USER19> yes, but could you expand on the 'etc' ?

<comment><USER14> chatterous, mailing lists

(the last one is a wealth of untapped info even today - depending on the community / subject)

Not IRC but _shrugs_ same basic idea</comment></comment></comment>


Javascript hoisting explained - <AUTHOR> http://www.kenneth-truyers.net/2013/04/20/javascript-hoisting-explained/

<comment><USER2> A nice follow up would be to explain the pattern of using immediately executing functions in loops to introduce scope, and how the let keyword proposed for ES6 will alleviate the need.</comment>


Fossil SCM (from SQLite's creator) - <AUTHOR> http://www.fossil-scm.org/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. Fossil has many good ideas. Since I rather like learning about source control systems, I took this one for a spin.

It's definitely pretty fast, although I didn't stress-test it. It noticed that I have GPG set up, and prompted me to sign all my commits by default. Very nice. It has no Git-style index, but commits straight to the repository like Mercurial. I did not find anything like "git add --patch" or darcs partial commits, so saving work seem to be all-or-nothing. Like any good modern VCS, Fossil seems to do real branching and merging, although I did not stress-test that, either.

One major downside: if Fossil has file move detection, I didn't find it. So you have to either spend some time informing it that you moved or renamed things (luckily, you can do this after the fact), or you need to use Fossil- aware tools.

<comment><USER3> _One major downside: if Fossil has file move detection, I didn't find it._

i couldn't find it on the website, so i downloaded it and it does appear to support renaming files.

       jcs@smug:~/Downloads% ./fossil help mv
       Usage: ./fossil mv|rename OLDNAME NEWNAME
          or: ./fossil mv|rename OLDNAME... DIR

       Move or rename one or more files within the tree

<comment><USER2> Yes, that's an explicit move. That's what I mean by informing the VCS that you renamed a file. It amounts to holding the VCS's hand and means that even trivial code rearrangements require considerable extra care, or explicit support for that precise VCS type from the IDE. Git and Mercurial autodetect moves, so you can freely use any regular tools you want to manipulate your files (command shell, Windows Explorer, Finder, IDE), and "git add -A" or "hg addremove" will properly record your changes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks interesting. A lightweight (fully self-contained in one <2mb file) distributed version control system, with built-in wiki and bugtracker, written by the author of SQLite. Since it stores everything in SQLite, the entire repo can be copied around as one file, and solid transactions are already implemented. (It's probably quite portable.) It doesn't look like it has a library/API to use it as a storage backend, yet. Oh, and it's released under the GPL v. 2.

Word of warning: _fossil open_ (checking out a project from the repo file) tarbombs the project into the current directory by default.

At a quick glance: it looks easy to use, the bug tracker and wiki look decent. It seems to be focused heavily on reliability (never corrupting the repo), at the possible expense of speed. It seemed slower than git, but likely still faster for day-to-day usage than non-distributed VCs. I don't have any pressing reason to switch from git, but I'm curious if anybody else here has comments from more than a few hours experience with it.

<comment><USER5> Sure, I've got a bunch, since I rather infamously screwed around with it after Eric Sink said it was the DVCS he was most interested in. In particular order:

Fossil wants to GPG-sign everything by default, and doesn't get along well with gnupg2. That means no gpg-agent, which means typing your password every time you make a commit.

Until recently, Fossil lacked private branches. Fossil now has private branches, with a twist: merging a private branch into a named branch shows up as a single commit, much as if you had qfold/git rebase -i'd them in Mercurial or Git. Multiple private branch support is still clumsy. Selectively pushing branches, as in Mercurial, is impossible.

Merging support is still very young. Fossil does not handle renaming a file in one branch and making changes in another at all; you'll lose either the changes, the rename, or both. Thankfully, the autosync feature, enabled by default, encourages you to stay rigorously up-to-date, lessening the chance of this occurring.

The SQLite schema still changes fairly often, so you'll need to "fossil rebuild all" fairly often, if you're keeping up-to-date.

Fossil is quite dependent on the integrated web server for using the tool. While most of the functionality is available from the command line, some isn't, and that which is, is frequently undocumented. The web interface, thankfully, is quite easy to use.

Fossil lacks any real patch management, which will be a disappointment for projects used to sending patches by email. It also lacks any support for git- diffs or similar, meaning that some changes stored by Fossil cannot be properly represented to the user.

I find Fossil's separation of repository from working directory highly annoying. Other users love it, and others don't care. Your mileage may vary.

I'm continuing to keep an eye on Fossil, if only because, with Mercurial and Git increasingly well-established, it's the only DVCS that brings anything remotely new to the table. That said, it's got a ways to go before I think it'll be of interest to most projects.

<comment><USER4> > That means no gpg-agent, which means typing your password every time you > make a commit.

Yikes. Monotone also made you do crypto auth setup upfront, which meant that starting up a new repository had a couple key/user-related steps that made it seem cumbersome compared to git or hg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those interested, I found an answer to one of the less-frequently asked questions in a recent mailing list message.

Q. How large of an individual file is Fossil designed to comfortably work with?

A. Under 10 MB.

[http://firstname.lastname@example.com- scm.or...](http://email@example.com- scm.org/msg00344.html)

So, as you would expect for an SQLite-backed system, it's only useful for source-code-sized files. Look elsewhere for archiving and versioning your data sources unless they're tiny (< 0.007% of a MacBook hard drive).

<comment><AUTHOR> When do you have files that large in a project?

<comment><USER7> Photoshop mockup of a page?

On one hand "don't store binaries" on the other, it's a work product for the project, and it makes sense to be stored and versioned.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose, I never really version control those, just track the revisions by uploading updates of the comps for the client, or using share drives if I'm working with other designers. I don't think you can merge PSDs, so many of the benefits of an SCM vanish.

<comment><USER7> I agree, you lose the merging when you work with binaries (for the most part).

But when I was at HP, our little team was behind the curve in tool use, and I was pushing for a comprehensive scm, instead of the patchwork we had. My big selling point was that given a stack of windows and database install disks, and the scm, you should be able to bootstrap the project up, and get it running.

I really like that point of view when it comes to SCMs. It's the official repository of everything project related. You have code, docs, graphics, everything needed. You do lose out on merging and stuff with binaries, but that's a small price to pay for the peace of mind you get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There are some nice ideas here, but it's too different from what I'm used to for me to use it full time (I use Git). I am interested if there is a way to get bug tracking and a wiki and store it in a git repo somewhere in the .git directory. Might be a nice feature for git 2.0 :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting. I wonder if it could be ported to a "real" SQL-server like PostgreSQL, for greater performance in multi-user environment (ie. central server).

<comment><USER5> At the moment, no. The DB access is hard-coded to use SQLite, and some SQLite- specific features are used.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Description, and what led me to submit this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=809480>

<comment><USER10> Any idea about performance, robustness, etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> Very robust (SQLite, and it expects HTTP for transmission). Fairly performant, though not quite as fast as Git. I agree with the creator's take on this,

 _Fossil takes the philosophy of the tortoise: reliability is more important than raw speed. The developers of fossil see no merit in getting the wrong answer quickly._

[http://www.fossil- scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/selfcheck.w...](http://www.fossil- scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/selfcheck.wiki)

The website also makes the bold claim on the homepage that

 _In over two years of operation, no work has ever been lost after having been committed to a Fossil repository._

<comment><USER11> _Fossil takes the philosophy of the tortoise: reliability is more important than raw speed. The developers of fossil see no merit in getting the wrong answer quickly._

Considering that Git and Hg are as reliable as Fossil (AFAIK) but faster, this sounds like an excuse.

<comment><USER12> I dunno what you consider reliable, but I don't trust git in the slightest. 3rd link down on a quick google search shows an august 2009 date (1st 2 links are both from 2006 on the git mailing list):

<http://pastebin.ca/1549372>

I've had git fuck with my code/data one too many times to fully trust it.

<comment><AUTHOR> That stinks. On one hand, the beauty of DVCS is that you can clone from another repos that isn't corrupt, but this would still be a big problem in a bare (central) repository during a merge or if you were working offline for an extended period of time (in which case you just lose your diffs). Of course we all keep local projects with just one copy of the repository.

One great thing about Fossil is how easy it is to back up since it's a single file. I've always felt that million-file approach was clumsy, even when centralized in a single directory.

<comment><USER4> Monotone (<http://www.monotone.ca/> : a DVCS that predates git by several years, and was a major inspiration) keeps its repositories in SQLite databases, as well. I used it for a while, kept my home directory in mtn, etc. SQLite databases are indeed quite easy to back up. (You're better off putting "echo .dump | sqlite3 dbfile.sql > dbfile.sql.bak" in cron, though - the dump is more portable.)

Using SQLite dbs for serialization is a great idea, particularly for prototyping. It's not quite as efficient as bespoke file formats and data structures, but frequently good enough, and getting transactions for free is a huge bonus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One binary might be a good idea, but it seems like trac.edgewall.org is superior. Design and big community matters.</comment>


When noexcept? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.quasardb.net/when-noexcept-2/ <comment><USER2> It is probably also worth noting that there is a good optimization opportunity when using noexcept move constructors. std::vector::push_back has a strong exception safety guarantee, so the normal behavior when the vector is at capacity is to create a new buffer and copy construct each item in the vector into it. If the copy constructor of any element throws, the original buffer is still in a coherent state.

If the type has a move constructor that is noexcept, then each element can be move-constructed without fear of an exception occurring. For many types, this is vastly more efficient.

</comment><comment><USER3> These are my uses for unconditional noexcept, they are not all encompassing but they work for me, in all cases the exception guarantee of the code should be noted:

* Code that will never throw an exception

* Code where throwing an unanticipated and therefore uncaught exception should trigger a failfast and crashing is not only the right behavior but the desired behavior. This should be the rarest of cases, but it does happen.

* Code that is called across an ABI boundary that it is not safe for an exception to cross. This is the most common case as OS callbacks fit this. This should be noexcept because having the exception propagate across exception unaware code causes bad things to happen, it's also undefined behavior to boot.

</comment><comment><USER4> My dream exception-related feature would be compile-time verification of noexcept.

I don't care _what_ gets thrown, because it's in the end going to be an std::exception (this is the part that Java messed up)

I do care if a function will throw, because it radically changes its behavior.

The problem I want to avoid is a silly function such as stoi throwing and having the exception propagated up to main, after which the whole program (orderly) shuts down. Right now this can be avoided only with careful exception design and making sure all exception "escape points" to C functions, message loops, etc are covered.

Swift I think is one of the few languages supporting this.

<comment><USER5> > I don't care what gets thrown, because it's in the end going to be an > std::exception (this is the part that Java messed up)

I don't understand: std::exception is entirely optional (and I, for example, never use it: I always build my own exception hierarchy; but, even though I write my native code almost exclusively in C++, I believe it is absolutely incorrect to expose a C++ API from a library, so you'd never know or care) while in Java you absolutely have to implement Throwable and Exception is actually designed well enough that most people (not me, of course ;P) generally use it... I mean, in C++ you literally can just throw a "const char *" and catch that.

<comment><USER6> I happen to believe the inverse of all of this. Yes std::exception is optional, but _why not_ use it to root your hierarchy? The only time I've answered in the negative is when the project specifically required no standard library could be used (yes, great that it's optional!). I sympathize with C-compatible API's to simplify an interface, though it's not my first choice. Rooting hierarchies in std::exception integrates library code safely and consistently -- especially over time and code revision to both the library and your end -- because at some point after specific exceptions are all missed some `catch(std::exception)` is hit on errors from both you and the library, and a consistent `what()` call can eventually inform the user with a message.

<comment><USER5> > I happen to believe the inverse of all of this.

I will say that I didn't provide an argument for not using std::exception, nor was I trying to convince someone else not to do so; I was simply stating that C++ does not require it and a lot of code doesn't use it: it sounded like the person I was responding to was claiming that in C++ you knew everything was eventually std::exception while that wasn't the case for Java, when the exact opposite is actually true (that in C++ you can and often do run into cases where an exception is just some random data type, and in Java all exceptions fundamentally must implement Throwable as an engine constraint). I only used the fact that I don't use it as an example of someone who doesn't. FWIW, I actually use a lot of my code in environments where I can't use the standard library, so even your paragraph of why you supposedly believe the opposite of some ancillary point I wasn't trying to make you have admitted why I do what I do is valid even to you.

> I sympathize with C-compatible API's to simplify an interface, though it's > not my first choice.

It isn't about simplifying an interface: it is because in addition to the C++ ABI being itself fundamentally brittle (due to vtable ordering), you have to remember that some people use libstdc++ while others are now annoyingly using libc++ (I blame Apple, and I have absolutely no sympathy: they have ruined what little interoperability we used to have in this ecosystem they cared absolutely nothing for), and the ABIs between popular compilers is different; so when someone uses a C++ interface for their library I spend the next three days cursing their name and adding them to my "never let this person program anything ever again" list while I waste my time pulling crazy stunts to dynamically look up mangled symbol names and working around egregious incompatibilities in basic things like "when a C++ member function returns a structure, MinGW puts the hidden structure return pointer first while MSVC puts it after the hidden this pointer".

At this point I know the ABI of every major compiler on every major architecture, and I have been considering switching entirely to gcc and contributing a ton of patches that let me #pragma mark entire regions of code (due to header files) with specific calling conventions and layout ABIs, as this attitude that C++ is somehow appropriate for this purpose is creeping into more and more places as C++11 has caused more and more people to start using C++ without understanding its limits :/.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is also the nuclear option of telling the compiler not to use exceptions at all: -fno-exceptions.

In the 3+ years I'm working in C++ without exceptions, I haven't missed them once.

<comment><USER8> Do you do RAII? It effectively forces exceptions, because nontrivial initialization necessarily means the possibility of failure, but exceptions are the only mechanism available for constructors to report failure (well, except for even worse things like an errno-like global variable).

<comment><USER9> I've gotten in the habit of doing "RAII"-like as:

      - basic non-throwing initialization only constructor
      - a "bool Initialize" method which does what the constructor would have done, but returns false on fail
      - destructor as usual to clean up

But this is because I'm at Google where exceptions-are-no.

<comment><USER10> GOOG is a big company, and not everyone handles this the same way. At least some teams are doing what the sibling mentioned: A static factory-like method that returns a discriminated union of either T or an error type. It is _conceptually_ similar to std::variant<T, std::error_condition>, but syntactically optimized for this use case.

<comment><USER7> Google has StatusOr<T> for this purpose: [https://github.com/google/protobuf/blob/master/src/google/pr...](https://github.com/google/protobuf/blob/master/src/google/protobuf/stubs/statusor.h)

<comment><USER10> Yep, that's the one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The entire concept of an unending exception chain seems flawed to me, and having to carefully annotate or check everywhere is still error-prone for programmers.

It ought to be possible to create impenetrable exception boundaries, such as:

\- A compilation unit / file.

\- Something identified as a "library" (perhaps based on namespace).

\- The program itself.

If I want my "library" to automatically trap all exceptions that I throw, I should be able to. I shouldn't have to worry that _entire programs may crash_ because of mistakes from exceptions. Similarly, a programmer should be able to say, ONCE (regardless of any functions added in the future), "trap all exceptions from code in this file using this function" and be done with it.

And, if the language had been designed with this kind of visibility into exceptions, one would also have more useful information at the time they are trapped. For instance, obviously exceptions propagating all the way to main() have very little useful context but knowing that an exception is trapped in a _file scope_ would be huge for debugging.

<comment><USER12> > I shouldn't have to worry that entire programs may crash because of mistakes > from exceptions.

Why? This is the best possible outcome. Continuing to run is the worst possible outcome from a correctness, security, and stability perspective. I can't imagine more of an anti-feature.

<comment><USER13> Haha, tell that to the user who did not get his work saved because the programming language terminates the program. All because the programmer made a mistake of defining code noexcept when in reality an exception was thrown.

noexcept is a bullshit feature if you care about stability

<comment><USER14> An assertion failure or unhandled exception is the last of your worries: segfaults, external kills, power loss, etc are all more likely.

A program that loses user data on a crash (any crash), is just not designed for reliability, period.

A reliable program will probably use transactional storage and periodic checkpoints.

Look-up "crash only software".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They _still_ made it a runtime failure rather than a compile-time enforcement of no exceptions? What is the point of that?

<comment><USER16> One of the ground rules for the old exception specifications was that it had to be possible to link code compiled at different times. Which meant that there might never be a moment when the compiler had access to all the source code. And, given that most code did not have exception specifications, the only way to enforce them at compile time would have been to require them on all functions.

I didn't follow the development of noexcept, so I can only guess at the motives. By and large, there were three complaints about exception specifications that I am familiar with: (1) by requiring stack unwinding when a no-throw specification was violated, they often caused worse performance (or, at least, didn't allow an optimization opportunity); (2) generally, the important question is whether a function might throw, not which exceptions it might throw; and (3) the rules around when exception specifications affect a function's signature -- e.g., does a pointer to a function have to match the specification exactly? -- were convoluted. I think it was reasonable for the Committee to focus on those issues.

<comment><USER14> A possible solution would have been optional static enforcement of exception specifications plus fallback on the existing dynamic enforcement.

Existing unmarked functions would be expeced to possibly throw everything, while functions with throw specifications would be statically checked.

You can call the later from the former, but to do the reverse you need an explicit try/catch. Some form of throw(auto) would enable automatic deduction of exception specifications for e.g. template code.

Dyanamic exception specifications will be removed fron the language in c++17, so the synax is open to be reused for such a feature in the future.

<comment><USER17> The problem is C code. You know it won't throw, but there will never be any exception specification on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> noexcept is a messier than const because it's not straightforward to assess if code you rely on should be throwing or not since that's an implementation detail versus a contract around data ownership. This makes maintenance hard as implementations change.

It'd be nice to see compilers infer the exception behavior themselves and do these optimizations when appropriate.</comment>


Show HN: Routes – a new kind of travel app - <AUTHOR> http://routes.tips

<comment><USER2> First time I've seen this TLD, and I kind of like it for this purpose.</comment>


Lawdingo, The Startup That Lets You Talk To Lawyers Instantly, Joins YC - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/15/lawdingo-y-combinator/

<comment><USER2> This looks neat.

Say I was starting a small dev consultancy, and what I wanted to figure out was, "what lawyer should I use to review the master agreements I get from each new client?"

Could I use Lawdingo to cheaply audition a bunch of different lawyers for contract reviews? In that situation, my long-term goal would be to find 1-2 lawyers I could consistently use every time I had new paper to review. I might want to compare the markups I get from different lawyers on the same contract.

I'm not asking for me (now that we're part of a public company we apparently have faucets that shoot lawyers out of them) but this is a question I've gotten from lots of friends trying to figure out how to do contract review correctly, instead of just hoping they aren't getting screwed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great use case to think about. It is definitely suited for interviewing multiple lawyers in a short amount of time. Our primary focus is on the initial legal consultation, which lends itself directly identifying the one or more lawyers you want to work with long-term.

<comment><USER2> I think there's probably market traction not only in capturing people who are looking for a lawyer, but in getting people who should be consulting lawyers more often.

Maybe there's a way to standardize the offering to get some of that usage; instead of "chat with a lawyer", "upload a contract" or something.

I think this is a very real problem you're working on, and it has the nice property of being a problem that is common not only to startups but to small tech businesses of all sorts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interestingly, we see far more usage among people with family, criminal, personal injury, landlord-tenant, and other normal-people cases than startups/businesses. I suppose it should not be a surprise that many orders of magnitude more people get divorced than decide to start a startup.

I do like the upload documents idea, though, and we'll explore that and get there soon enough.

<comment><USER3> I'd imagine a majority of the questions being asked have to reference most legal documents. A couple of examples I think in my own recent memory:

      1. Term sheet / Letter of Intent Review
      2. Am I supposed to pay X% in taxes this year? (need to see a tax form)
      3. Is my landlord screwing me for making me pay X amount after I've moved out? (need to provide the lease)
      4. What happens in the UK SEIS scheme if the company fails? (need to review SEIS scheme details)

A majority of the law (albeit very minute) that I've encountered, the first thing I usually have to do is fill out a questionnaire. I wonder if you could also get lawyers to provide sample questionnaires to at least get the background information.

As my most recent accountant visit said to me "I don't want to do the donkey work if you can do it yourself. You shouldn't have to pay for that." This should be no different for lawyers. The value is much more transparent then. I suppose that's your overall goal, no?

Site looks nice...good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems like a great concept.

Everyone needs a lawyer, at some point. And with the dearth of new Law grads out there, there is supply. Get international!

</comment><comment><USER5> awesome! Just proofs that against all odds, traction is still the most important metric to show success for an early stage startup

good luck Nikhil

</comment><comment><USER6> this is surprisingly cool.. I need lawyers with international specialization though.. as soon as you guys hit this, i'm on board

</comment><comment><USER7> Neat how the founder is using his status as a single-founder instead of part of a team to get buzz in the media.

</comment><comment><USER8> SEC needs more lawyers -- three weeks waiting time to speak to a lawyer is far too long.

</comment><comment><USER9> So...basically this is just an Avvo clone using Rails/Bootcamp, minus a lot of client development features, and...more expensive?

Competition for legal services is a good thing, but all this really has going for it right now is the name.

<comment><USER10> It looks like using Avvo.com is more like StackOverflow - it is a Q & A site that claims not to create a lawyer-client relationship between the lawyer and someone who asks a question on the site.

LawDingo seems to let you actually become a client of a lawyer and consult with them in private, which gives you much more legal protection, and seems to be a completely different thing.

<comment><USER9> Maybe you should try using Avvo before you make that comparison?

Both Avvo and LawDingo provide initial consult meetings. The difference is that Avvo _also_ provides general Q&A, lawyer ratings, and a referral service (separate from the client service, targeted at lawyers seeking clients).</comment></comment></comment>


Dutch Supercomputer Uses Gaming Technology to Study Fast Radio Bursts - <AUTHOR> https://www.astron.nl/most-powerful-dutch-supercomputer-boosts-new-radio-telescope <comment><USER2> Surely this is in breach of Nvidia's updated EULA for GeForce drivers?</comment>