Lyme Disease Is on the Rise Again - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/07/607782359/lyme-disease-is-on-the-rise-again-heres-how-to-prevent-it <comment><USER2> I have been suffering with this for the last year. I have to say, its really a heinous condition.

First, I didn't think much of ticks - I thought they were a nuisance, but nothing serious. So, after I got particularly attacked one warm summer evening, I didn't really care much for it. 3 ticks in one day - okay, not ideal, but I wasn't going to freak (I've been stung by jellyfish, bitten by snakes, hundreds of spider bites, the odd encounter with a wasp or two .. Australian problems...)

But, a few days after I brushed it all off, I noticed the tell-tale signs of the red bullseye targets .. and I did nothing. I simply was ignorant that it could get so bad.

Three weeks later, I was feeling awful - just totally shit. I happened to mention that I was in an area known for ticks, and my friend said "well, have you been bitten recently?" .. I recalled the event, and they promptly sent me straight to hospital for a blood test.

Yup, I came back positive for Borellia. 6 weeks of antibiotics, and real hellish symptoms - lethargy like no other I've ever experienced, headaches, lack of attention and sometimes real cognitive problems. Aches in every bone in my body.

Take this one serious, folks. Get yourself tested within days of a tick bite. Its really not something you want to go through, believe me ...

<comment><USER3> >Get yourself tested within days of a tick bite

Lyme Disease is very serious, but this is bad advice.

[https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick- bi...](https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bite-to- prevent-lyme-disease-beyond-the-basics)

>There are many different types of ticks in the United States, some of which are capable of transmitting infections. The risk of developing these infections depends upon the geographic location, season of the year, type of tick, and, for Lyme disease, how long the tick was attached to the skin.

> _While many people are concerned after being bitten by a tick, the risk of > acquiring a tick-borne infection is quite low, even if the tick has been > attached, fed, and is actually carrying an infectious agent._ Ticks transmit > infection only after they have attached and then taken a blood meal from > their new host. A tick that has not attached (and therefore has not yet > become engorged from its blood meal) has not passed any infection. Since the > deer tick that transmits Lyme disease typically feeds for >36 hours before > transmission of the spirochete, the risk of acquiring Lyme disease from an > observed tick bite, for example, is only 1.2 to 1.4 percent, even in an area > where the disease is common.

>The organism that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, lies dormant in the inner aspect of the tick's midgut. The organism becomes active only after exposure to the warm blood meal entering the tick's gut. Once active, the organism enters the tick's salivary glands. As the tick feeds, it must get rid of excess water through the salivary glands. Thus, the tick will literally salivate organisms into the wound, thereby passing the infection to the host.

>If a person is bitten by a deer tick (the type of tick that carries Lyme disease), a healthcare provider will likely advise one of two approaches:

>●Observe and treat if signs or symptoms of infection develop

>●Treat with a preventive antibiotic immediately

> _There is no benefit of blood testing for Lyme disease at the time of the > tick bite; even people who become infected will not have a positive blood > test until approximately two to six weeks after the infection develops_ > (post-tick bite).

>The history of the tick bite will largely determine which of these options is chosen. Before seeking medical attention, the affected person or household member should carefully remove the tick and make note of its appearance (picture 1). Only the Ixodes species of tick, also known as the deer tick, causes Lyme disease.

.....

>Need for treatment — The clinician will review the description of the tick, along with any physical symptoms, to decide upon a course of action. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recommends preventive treatment with antibiotics only in people who meet ALL of the following criteria:

>●Attached tick identified as an adult or nymphal Ixodes scapularis (deer) tick

>●Tick is estimated to have been attached for ≥36 hours (based upon how engorged the tick appears or the amount of time since outdoor exposure)

>●The antibiotic can be given within 72 hours of tick removal

>●The local rate of tick infection with B. burgdorferi is ≥20 percent (known to occur in parts of New England, parts of the mid-Atlantic states, and parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin)

>●The person can take doxycycline (eg, the person is not pregnant or breastfeeding or a child <8 years of age)

>If the person meets ALL of the above criteria, the recommended dose of doxycycline is a single dose of 200 mg for adults and 4 mg/kg, up to a maximum dose of 200 mg, in children ≥ 8 years.

>If the person cannot take doxycycline, the IDSA does not recommend preventive treatment with an alternate antibiotic for several reasons: there are no data to support a short course of another antibiotic, a longer course of antibiotics may have side effects, antibiotic treatment is highly effective if Lyme disease were to develop, and the risk of developing a serious complication of Lyme disease after a recognized bite is extremely low.

......

>Signs of Lyme disease — Whether or not a clinician is consulted after a tick bite, the person who was bitten (or the parents, if a child was bitten) should observe the area of the bite for expanding redness, which would suggest erythema migrans (EM), the characteristic rash of Lyme disease (picture 3). Approximately 80 percent of people with Lyme disease develop EM; 10 to 20 percent of people have multiple lesions. (See "Patient education: Lyme disease symptoms and diagnosis (Beyond the Basics)".)

>The EM rash is usually a salmon color although, rarely, it can be an intense red, sometimes resembling a skin infection. The color may be almost uniform. The lesion typically expands over a few days or weeks and can reach over 20 cm (8 inches) in diameter. As the rash expands, it can become clear (skin- colored) in the center. The center of the rash can then appear a lighter color than its edges or the rash can develop into a series of concentric rings giving it a "bull's eye" appearance. The rash usually causes no symptoms, although burning or itching has been reported.

>In people with early localized Lyme disease, EM occurs within one month of the tick bite, typically within a week of the tick bite, although only one- third of people recall the tick bite that gave them Lyme disease. Components of tick saliva can also cause a rash; however, this rash should not be confused with EM. The rash caused by tick saliva typically occurs while the tick is still feeding or just after the tick detaches, and usually does not expand to a size larger than a dime.

>If EM or other signs or symptoms suggestive of Lyme disease develop (table 1), the person should see a healthcare provider for proper diagnosis and treatment. (See "Patient education: Lyme disease treatment (Beyond the Basics)".)

<comment><USER4> Thought I'd reply with another great resource I've used with patients: Tickborne Diseases of the United States from the CDC ([https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/resources/TickborneDiseases.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/resources/TickborneDiseases.pdf)). Great PDF to keep on hand (and in fact, UpToDate references it).

Coincidentally, I am in northern Virginia, went for a run and found a small tick on me tonight (for the first time ever).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Got bitten in 2010 while camping in Czechia, we failed to remove the tick properly and the head stayed in my skin so we had to butcher me a bit more and it left a tiny wound. Two days later I got the famous painful rash that I had no clue about, red circle, swollen and painful. I went to the doctor who immediately told me "you might have Lyme disease", I had never heard of this before but I understood that it required 3 weeks amoxicillin. I did several blood tests and got positive once to the borreliosis then negative after the treatment. So I thought everything was over but a month later I was feeling extremely tired, body and brain wise, I started to freak out that the disease was still there but blood tests were negative. This was during my exams period and as a student I was under high stress and the spot where I got bitten was still a bit swollen. The doctor told me that it was normal but the only way to be sure that the disease is completely gone at this stage (around 2 months after being bitten) is to do a lumbar puncture which I did (kudos to pregnant women who go through this ! I'll never do it again). The test showed negative, there was no way that I could still have the disease so it calmed me down and I accepted that it was just due to stress and hypochondria. Today I'm totally fine, this was my first bite and I hope the last one. This little bug is a pure nightmare.

<comment><USER6> I got 3 ticks in the past but luckily no lime disease... it's crazy how you don't feel them get in your skin.

<comment><USER7> (It is written "Lyme" like the town in Connecticut where the disease was first described back in 1975, not "lime" like the fruit)

<comment><USER6> thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just FYI - when I lived in Northern Virginia I discovered that in my area the main transmission method of Lyme disease was actually mice. So make sure if you find them in your house that you do something about it.

Also be careful when you remove via tweezers. If you squeeze their body you're likely to cause them to regurgitate into you which almost guarantees an infection.

I use a tick removal tool (actually used it yesterday while building a fence on the wooded side of my yard) that uses a tear drop shape to try and pinch the tick at the neck minimize regurgitation.

<comment><USER9> A long time ago, I tried to remove a tick with tweezers. I failed horribly and left the head in my upper skin layer, having removed only the body. So I had to use a a rather sharp pen knife to remove the rest.

Two year later, while camping, I had to remove a handfull of ticks and a tick removal tool (shaped like a crowbar) was very usefull.

<comment><USER9> Of course I would recommend everyone to use proper tools to deal with ticks, if that's not clear from my comment. There's less risk to leave pieces behind.

All over, I must have remove a dozen of ticks, but luckily I've never caught anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've stopped hiking and camping largely because of this. Its just not worth it any more.

This page has an uncommon photo of just how small the nymph deer ticks are. [https://sectionhiker.com/backpacking-lyme-disease- prevention...](https://sectionhiker.com/backpacking-lyme-disease-prevention/)

<comment><USER11> Something is wrong here. How did humanity survive living most of their lives outdoors for so long in the presence of these ticks? Did lyme disease really not exist until 1975?

I see there is some kind of "blame everything on lyme disease" movement going on as well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease_controversy)

<comment><USER12> Tick populations have expanded greatly in recent years.

Things like climate change and wildlife management practices are thought to be a factor.

(warmer winters->less ticks die, more deer->more deer ticks)

<comment><USER13> Need more Wolves!

<comment><USER14> And bird of prey, fox, coyote, bear, wildcats, mountain lions, human hunters, etc.

The entire ecosystem has been overmanaged to reduce predators, and the consequences are dire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In my neck of the woods you're more likely to be bitten by the lone star tick, which seems not to be able to communicate Lyme disease, but sometimes its bite can leave you with an allergy to red meat:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha- gal_allergy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy)

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

Parasites suck.

<comment><USER16> Please note that the Lone Star Tick can transmit a number of _other_ diseases that are quite scary (various Ehrlichia, Tularemia), as well as STARI (Southern Tick Associated Rash Infection) which is very Lyme-like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I got lyme disease after my first and only (as far as I know) tick bite. A round of antibiotics seems to have killed it, though I am still noticeably more tired than before the infection (anacdata, could just be because I'm getting older and under a lot of stress).

I reported where and when the infection took place on a local website which tracks these things. I informed the city council (considering this happened in a very busy public park) and I was pretty much told that nothing would be done. More green spaces would help. Keeping certain animals (like chickens) might also help. Killing the fuckers outright is another possibility, but I have to admit to being relucant about spraying toxic crap in public parks.

<comment><USER18> Encouraging a local opossum population, if they live in your area, would help. They eat a lot of ticks. Allegedly they eat 90% of the ticks that they encounter, which can be up to 5000 per opossum in a season.

<comment><USER11> >"up to 5000 per opossum in a season"

It looks like a single tick may produce 500 - 15,000 ticks per "ovipostion" (egg-laying session).

LABORATORY STUDIES ON THE OVIPOSITION, EGG-SIZES AND SHAPES AND EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT OF DERMACENTOR VA RIA BILlS, RHIPICEPHALUS SANGUINEUS AND AMBLYOMMA MACULATUM [http://www1.montpellier.inra.fr/cbgp/acarologia/export_pdf.p...](http://www1.montpellier.inra.fr/cbgp/acarologia/export_pdf.php?id=2424&typefile=pdf)

<comment><USER18> We're going to need a lot of opossums then!

I'd be curious to know how long the average life span of each tick is. I wonder exactly how many opossums I would need per square foot to ensure that my yard is 99.99% tick free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you're a hiker, permethrin. Spray down your socks, pants, shirts. Let it dry. You're good to go for a dozen outings. Non toxic to humans, and orderless.

<comment><USER20> Not legal in Canada.

Then again there's few ticks in Canada's north, so Canadian hikers should just explore the northern part of their provinces.

<comment><USER21> Not legal to sell, but legal to possess. I go across the border and stock up at REI in Bellingham. No problems bringing it back across. Apparently this is quite common for lower mainland residents. When I brought 4 big bottles of the stuff up to the register, the first thing they asked was if I was Canadian.

<comment><USER20> Ah yeah that's a good distinction that I should have made.

I think I read somewhere that it's used by the Canadian Forces as well, but not made available to civilians.

<comment><USER21> I wonder why you can't sell it here. They even recommend it on the government's travel site:

[https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/health-safety/insect- bite](https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/health-safety/insect-bite)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Once a tick has been removed, be sure to place it in a ziplock baggie and store it in the freezer. This way if anything crops up you'd be able to bring the tick in with ya to the doc

<comment><USER23> If you said this in the south, you would get a good long laugh.

<comment><USER24> I see you in multiple places on this thread with comments like these. So here's something to consider, Lyme Disease is actually not at all that prevalent in the South. [https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html](https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html)

Where it is prevalent, this is standard good advice, advice that we even taught in the BSA 18 years ago in the NE. Lyme is a really nasty thing to get, and not everyone even realizes they were bit, or is symptomatic at first. My case was when I was 15, worked at a camp, got bit, came out before I could notice, no rash. At some point later that summer came down with flu like symptoms, which went away in a standard flu timeframe.

Two months later I had extreme fatigue, I'm talking couldn't stay awake longer than 6 hours. Luckily a blood test confirmed it, but not before it had spread to my spinal fluid, requiring two hospitalizations, over 30 days of IV antibiotics and additional treatment.

So perhaps what works for you down South doesn't work where this is an issue, and hopefully it won't ever be something you or your neighbors need to worry about the way we do.

<comment><USER23> Valid point. But mine was simply that the idea of careful removal and keeping of ticks would be laughable in the south.

Find any outdoorsy kid in the south during the summer, and there is a good chance their legs look like this most of the summer: [https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8241/29056330235_19aeb3585e_b....](https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8241/29056330235_19aeb3585e_b.jpg)

Imaging carefully removing each one and storing it and classifying it for future lab testing.

The advice is only applicable in the NE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ticks were bad last year in NH, but not 5 ticks on a stick bad: [https://imgur.com/a/bGdAvLD](https://imgur.com/a/bGdAvLD)

Photo taken yesterday. I bought some old farmland and it has been a completely insane year so far for ticks. I wish I could do a prescribed burn of the field but it's not well set up for that.

<comment><USER26> The good news there, is that none of those appear to be deer ticks (lyme carriers). If my amateur eye is correct, those are dog ticks.

<comment><USER27> Any tick species can carry infections (Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia, etc), not just the deer tick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's a good idea to check your groin and armpits after walking through high grass or other vegetation in a tick area.

</comment><comment><USER14> This article and many others focuses on Lyme in the northeastern US, but Lyme has spread to the interior and the west coast. It's in up to 25% of ticks in many western states and around the west coast.

I find ticks constantly on dogs after taking walks/hikes in California/Oregon/Washington, even if they have tick/flea treatment. I've had one embedded in me that was so small and flush it looked just like a new tiny mole had appeared, it wasn't until it squirmed around after being brushed over a few times that I realized it was a tick. They can be quite a challenge to remove properly even with tweezers.

The tick population has surged dramatically in the western states and east coast, largely from an overpopulation of deer, mice, and other rodents, and an increasing lack of predators to those common tick carriers. Ultimately we to allow predators to return to the natural landscape and in abundance, with birds of prey, foxes, coyote, etc to take out the mice and smaller carriers, and we many more large predators, bear, wolf, mountain lion, human hunters included, to reduce the dramatic deer overpopulation.

And yes, thinning of known tick carriers like mice and deer is demonstrably proven to work.

[http://www.ct.gov/caes/lib/caes/documents/publications/fact_...](http://www.ct.gov/caes/lib/caes/documents/publications/fact_sheets/entomology/deer_&_ticks_fact_sheet.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER29> I grew up in Connecticut, not far from the town of Old Lyme where the disease gets its name from! Most people who spend any amount of time outside there know the symptoms well and doctors give away doxycycline prescriptions like their going out of style. I've gone through it three separate times. If you catch it quick, the antibiotics crush it and you're on your merry way. Ignore it and you'll suffer for life.

</comment><comment><USER30> People around here (Niagara Falls area, NY) get it all the time too. Last year was horrible for ticks. I have 3 German Shepherds and some days i was pulling 10 or more ticks off them of multiple species. Reading this post makes me feel more confident for this year because i just got myself more than 30 chickens, but already this year my oldest brought home a tick. Hopefully they aren't as bad this summer.

</comment><comment><USER31> I live in tick central, and for anyone else in that situation who doesn't already have a tick mitigation strategy, here's what I do (and I'd love to hear other things that work that aren't on the list):

1\. Clear all debris (wood chips, leaves, etc) from places people frequent, and keep the grass cut short

2\. Permethrin-laced cotton balls inside PVC tubes scattered liberally around the area. Small animals pick these up and make nests out of them, which kills the ticks while they're on the rodent hosts.

3\. Permethrin on footwear, and safe insect repellent (DEET or picaridin, also geranium oil seems to help) on skin and lower-half clothing

4\. Chickens in the yard seem to eat more than they host

5\. Daily checks for everybody in the house

</comment><comment><USER32> I live in Connecticut, where Lyme disease was discovered. I go hiking a lot and it's a big concern for many including me. I don't use sprays or anything I just wear light colored clothing and when possible (spring and fall) long pants. Wearing lighter colored clothing allows you to notice ticks before they get to your skin. And post hike, full body tick checks are mandatory. it's a good thing most don't bite until you've stopped moving and stay still for a while. I've pulled dozens of ticks off of my body, luckily only a few that dug in

<comment><USER32> Forgot to mention, biggest tip I have is to avoid tall grass and don't touch any branches or bushes but if you do then check you hand and whole arm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> As an American that moved to Europe, I was already aware of the Lyme disease risks of ticks here. What I didn't realize - and am in the 1 year process of getting vaccinated against - is that ticks here carry a virus that induces encephalitis. Tick borne encephalitis is not in the Western Hemisphere as far as I am aware, so it wasn't until this spring that I found out about it. The vaccine is not available in the USA and requires a year to complete, which makes me wonder how hikers or visitors spending only a few months in Europe fare.

<comment><USER34> Grandma got both. Encephalitis is definitely nastier (and can have permanent effects on brain if not caught in time). She also got bitten by the only poisonous snake we have around here. It still hasn't stopped her from hiking in the woods all the time

<comment><USER35> But at least you can get vacinated against encephalitis. Where is no vacine against the Lyme disease.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Here are some links to the CDC's statistics and maps on Lyme disease for those interested:

[https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html](https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html)

[https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html](https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html)

[https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/tables.html](https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/tables.html)

As an aside, it's tricky interpreting certain stats regarding epidemiology. The incidence is the number of new cases in the population in a given time frame, and prevalence is the total number of people known to have the disease in the population. Sometime a disease can appear to be "on the rise" because there is increased surveillance and screening for the disease, or because diagnostic methods have improved, which naturally lead to an increased incidence and prevalence.

Disclaimer: I'm not arguing that Lyme Disease isn't real, isn't serious, or anything along those lines. But from a medical perspective, we deal with _fear_ of Lyme way more often than the actual disease. Some parents will bring their child into the clinic every time they think they may have seen a tick within arm's reach of them. And when someone presents with an attached tick, it's more often than not an adult wood tick (which can transmit RMSF and tularemia but are not B. Burgdorfi vectors).

When you are bitten by a tick, or any insect, some inflammatory response is expected, i.e. your skin will probably turn red. It doesn't automatically mean it's erythema migrans (bull's eye rash). But to muddy the waters even further, as little as 50-80% of confirmed LD cases had the EM sign, and many don't recall a tick bite whatsoever.

But if you are in an endemic area, clinical suspicion for LD is high, we should be able to prove you have the disease with lab tests, right? Well, unfortunately Borrelia are notoriously difficult to culture, so that's out. The CDC recommends a two-step testing process.

Step 1 is the Enzyme Immunoassay (EIA). If your EIA is negative, LD is ruled out. If it is positive or "indeterminate" (2nd most common outcome after negative in my experience), you move on to the Western blot which looks for antigenic proteins associated with the disease. It is considered positive if 2 specific bands are visualized or if at least 5 of a list of 10 other bands are seen. The problem is that these bands can take up to 6 weeks after exposure to become detectable. If you have no idea when/if you were actually exposed, this test is a shot in the dark. To top it all off, it can also come back "mildly" to "moderately" positive for LD.

So if your EIA is negative, or if your WB is 2/2 or 5+/10 positive, we can give you a definitive answer. Otherwise, it comes down to clinical judgment and weighing the risks and benefits of treatment. If you were bitten by a tick, got a rash, had no drug allergies, the safer play is to assume LD, give antibiotics, and forgo the serologic testing that may or may not give an answer.

TLDR - Lyme Disease is complicated.

<comment><USER27> The CDC is actually harmful with the misinformation and test suggestions they provide. I have Lyme, Bartonella, Mycoplasma, at least from 1 tick bite. Western medicine does a horrible job at analyzing the symptoms, testing, educating and treating their patients. The labs are pretty unreliable as are the antibody requirements for + test. 1) It's very common to get more than 1 infection from a single tick bite (CDC says it's not). This greatly complicates recovery. The study that the CDC relies on suffers from a small sample size and heavy selection bias (see uptodate.com). 2) Ticks can transmit multiple bacteria in less than 30 minutes depending on circulation and host. 3) CDC recommended tests have a false negative rate approaching 60%. ELISA does not even have repeatable results from the same blood sample. Western Blot ignores 2 Borellia specific antibodies (31,34) that were part of a problematic vaccine in the mid 1990s. 4) Vaccines are improbable given how the bacteria can adjust its outer surface protein (triggering antibodies) and its multiple forms (spirochete, biofilm, round body). 5) The CDC treatment guidelines are bullshit and usually result in a relapse 4+ months later as low energy, headache, sore tendons, brain fog, arthritis, heart, etc symptoms. Thus most people are unsuccessfully treated with short term doxycycline, steroids (make it worse), anti-depressants, MS treatments, etc... all expensive pharmaceutical treatments that fix some symptoms while hurting the long term health of the patient without every discovering the underlying cause. 6) I've gone through part of the CDC treatment before educating myself and realizing it was mostly bullshit. I know a number of people that have had similar difficulties. 7) A healthy immune system combined with prolonged pulsed herbal medicines(TCM/western) and/or multiple pulsed antibiotics (hard on GI and its immune function) seem to be the best treatment option. 8) There are number of bacteria in our natural environment that our immune system eventually cannot fight off. Many of them result in things like MS, Alzheimers, arthritis, heart damage, etc. 9) Medical science needs better testing of immune signaling (cytokines, chemokines, etc) before and after treatments. Most labs cannot test for many of these and insurance won't cover it. 10) Labs like igenex, fry, galaxy, dnaconnexions, etc have much better procedures for testing and will look at all specific/shared antibodies than common labs. For example, 41 is an early Lyme antibody shared with Chlamydia. The CDC requires 3+ Lyme specific antibodies to make a positive (IgG and IgM). 11) Reading "Healing Lyme" by Buhner gives a scientific overview backed by a ton of research that the CDC ignores. 12) ilads.org is comprised of doctors who actually treat Lyme and deal with patients ...

<comment><USER37> You should format your post. I think many people auto-downvote such a wall of text.

Other than that, I think it's information worth considering. Lyme has become a huge political disease, which is really unfortunate for the chronically ill patients who are left in the middle of this battle.

<comment><USER27> I reposted and this time the format took. I agree on the politics. I paid for multiple tests out of pocket. In one case to prove to my functional medicine doctor that I had Bartonella as well (the classic striped rashes were apparently not enough evidence for my primary or infectious disease doctor and the fact that I had a known tick bite).

One vial of blood for a PCR test to a local lab that the insurance covered (negative).

One vial of blood to Igenex for a FISH test (positive).

I had multiple rashes (spotted and striped) so I was over 90% sure at that point. My primary care doctor apologized and admitted that the CDC data seemed faulty. The infectious disease doctor never got back to me. Herbal (TCM/Western) is helping, but it's not quick. I believe pulsing treatments working with the human immune system offers the best approach these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> There was an interesting segment about Lyme Disease on KQED's Forum the other day: [https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101865065/lyme-disease-on- the...](https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101865065/lyme-disease-on-the-rise-in- northern-california)

<comment><USER39> Is there a TL/DL for that segment? Going backpacking this weekend and this whole forum has me worried...

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> the sad thing about lyme disease is that we dont have a vaccine due to anti vaxxers: [https://www.vox.com/science-and- health/2018/5/7/17314716/lym...](https://www.vox.com/science-and- health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness)

<comment><USER41> Since the patent is expired, what stops is from being brought back as a generic?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Fingers crossed there will be a vaccine back in production within a couple years.

<comment><USER43> Given that there are 16+ tickborne illnesses, the impact would be limited. If you get bitten by a tick then you should probably just go on antibiotics anyway, since there is no comprehensive test for tickborne illnesses.

<comment><USER44> True, but according to the article, "Lyme disease accounts for about 80 percent of the tick-borne illnesses in the U.S."

Plenty of people who get Lyme don't get the rash, and don't necessarily even know they were bitten by a tick. Deer ticks are tiny and you have to check yourself thoroughly to see them. An effective vaccine would be very helpful.

<comment><USER43> > Lyme disease accounts for about 80 percent of the tick-borne illnesses in > the U.S.

I mean how would we actually know that though if we don't even know what all the tickborne illnesses are, and if there is no test for many of them?

<comment><USER44> They probably mean the known tickborne illnesses. When illnesses are unknown it's often because they're rare, so it's probably a good estimate.

In any case, Lyme disease is very common and on that basis alone, a vaccine would prevent a lot of suffering, regardless of what other suffering remains in place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I wonder how widespread Lyme Disease has to get before the economic incentives to develop a new vaccine reach a tipping point.

There used to be a vaccine but it was discontinued because of insufficient demand.

[https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/lyme- disease-v...](https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/lyme-disease- vaccines)

 _" In April 2002, GSK announced that even with the incidence of Lyme disease continuing to rise, sales for LYMErix declined from about 1.5 million doses in 1999 to a projected 10,000 doses in 2002."_

How do we square this with the number of cases rising so much over the last few years?

<comment><USER46> LYMErix suffered from actual or imagined side-effects that led to lawsuits, which were a factor in GSK discontinuing it. From [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/)

"Spawned by the press coverage of vaccine risks and the ongoing litigation, vaccine sales fell off dramatically in 2001. "

there's at least one new vaccine in development [http://www.valneva.com/en/rd/vla15](http://www.valneva.com/en/rd/vla15)

<comment><USER47> Aside from the rare negative effects, the major issues with it were the efficacy of around 80% and that it interfered with Lyme tests. (All of the people that took the vaccine test positive for Lyme Disease.) This uncertainty made it challenging to know the cause of future illness.

<comment><USER48> And only 80% effective means you still need to take all precautions like DEET and such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Anyone that have Lyme, please look into PEMF solutions such as Ampcoil or Ryfe. It seems to be highly effective in treating Lyme disease.

<comment><USER50> These are scams by charlatans.

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

The best treatment for Lyme disease is a course of antibiotics.

<comment><USER27> The best treatment for Lyme is a balanced immune system. Some people can be treated by a single course of Doxycycline, most relapse after 6 months and CDC incorrectly indicates that the cause is unknown. It's still Lyme. 2 of the 3 Lyme forms are resistant to antibiotics. Proper treatment will take months, or longer if coinfected, and require multiple, pulsing of antibiotics or herbals (yes, they are quite effective on me and others).

<comment><USER51> Couldn't find any published scientific results on the efficacy of "herbal" treatment for lime disease or "pulsed" antibiotic treatments from websites/doctors that weren't trying to sell the treatment.

Do you have any actual scientific evidence to back up your claims or are you part of what the New Yorker has termed the lyme quackery?

<comment><USER37> Herbal treatments can be quite helpful. Plants have developed compounds to fight various organisms over millions of years.

It's quite logical to assume, even without requiring a peer-reviewed double blind placebo controlled 100 million study, that nature has made it so, otherwise we would have single groups of organisms ruling the planet unhindered.

The fact that life on earth displays tremendous diversity and balance, from the macro level down to the micro level, means almost every organism has an equal and opposite adversary somewhere.

Plants and trees have a tremendous number of compounds developed over millions of years to fight diseases with. There is a reason, for example, that the Materia Medica for Chinese medicine is over 1300 pages of microscopic text. It's over 2000 years of accumulated experience on plant substances, while our modern pharmaceutical medicine is barely a few hundred years old.

There is also a reason why many pharmaceutical companies spend resources investigating and cataloging native plant substances. It's not that they want to sell herbal medicine, it's because they want to develop synthetic analogs for patenting purposes.

Which is also the reason you will never find as many scientific articles on herbal medicine, as you will find on pharmaceutical medicine. One is a billion dollar patent-protected industry, while the other is not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I have this and was un-diagnosed for years, ended up doing all the research and ordering the lab tests myself as western medicine doctors were proving useless. For anyone struggling I would highly recommend this protocol from Dr. Buhner. [http://www.tiredoflyme.com/the-buhner-protocol-for-lyme- dise...](http://www.tiredoflyme.com/the-buhner-protocol-for-lyme-disease.html)</comment>


How to Break Up with Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2010/03/20/how-to-break-up-with-firefox Confession time: Somewhere down the back of my T-shirt drawer there's a black tee with a red dinosaur and the word Mozilla in blocky soviet-industrial type. It's from a time when Firefox was young and easy and free, and we were in love. Ah, Firefox. Whatever happened to us? <comment><USER2> So, does Chrome have the equivalent of "Adblock Plus", "BetterPrivacy", "NoScript", and "TrackMeNot"?

Because the equivalent of above listed Firefox extensions are the bare minimum I require to even _think_ about switching what web browser I use.

To get me to actually convert, you would have to add: shorter turnaround times on major security vulnerabilities, automatic spell-checker defaulting to on for all text fields, and the equivalent to Firefox's "Tab Mix Plus" and "Mozilla Archive Format" plug-ins.</comment>


Foxconn Tore Up a Small Town to Build a Big Factory–Then Retreated - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/foxconn-tore-up-a-small-town-to-build-a-big-factorythen-retreated-11556557652 <comment><USER2> This "small town" is between Chicago and Milwaukee, and because of this new factory, the highway is getting expanded from 3 lanes to 4. Yes, I drive past this every day.

Not only has this created a headache, but yes, it just looks like a ploy by Foxconn to "show the execs" they are pushing for growth. iPhone sales have been slowing, we all know that, building a giant factory is nothing more than a bonus to a few top-level executives in return for demolishing a quaint Wisconsin town.

</comment><comment><USER3> How are we supposed to read these articles? They're pay-walled even from Google and outline.com doesn't work anymore.

<comment><USER4> Ours is not to be able to read the articles, but to be outraged by the clickbait headline.</comment></comment>


US charging 412 in health fraud schemes worth $1.3B - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/a68ef749694140569d6ca6648d70bad5 <comment><USER2> Again this is part of that pendulum swing. In an effort to combat low reimbursement rates the government agreed to faster bill payment which in turn lowered timeframes for quality/fraud control and the result is huge payments on faudulent bills before the fraud is identified.

While the government did not pay out over a billion dollars, they likely paid out $250 to $500 million before suspending payments. Little of the money will be recouped and few will see any substantial jail time.</comment>


Pixel Visual Core: Google's first custom-designed co-processor - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/pixel-visual-core-image-processing-and-machine-learning-pixel-2/ <comment><USER2> In addition to still photos, would love to see exposure fusion (or HDR+ as Google calls it) in mobile video too. RED Epic and Scarlet cameras do this with 2 exposures per frame and call it HDRx, I've found it adds about 4 stops of dynamic range in grading. RED doesn't do any fancy anti-ghosting stuff though like HDR+. Magic Lantern firmware for Canon dSLR's also does something similar with dual ISO frames.

This together with 10bit video profile for h265 (think phone hardware is capable now but haven't seen any phones with 10bit video yet) would make mobile video a whole lot better, right now it frankly sucks for anything with high contrast or dynamic range.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty much Tensorflow on metal. Considering that tensorflow works pretty well on most mobile phone GPU, im betting this feature can be turned on for most phones if Google wants.

I would love to see the apples to apples comparison of the Pixel tensorflow computation running on a vanilla snapdragon GPU vs this custom core.

Also will be interesting to know why halide and not opencv.

<comment><USER4> Halide and OpenCV are not comparable. Halide is mainly about decoupling the description of a low-level image processing operation from implementation details regarding tiling, storage of intermediate results, etc. OpenCV is a library implementing high level algorithms like multi-view 3D reconstruction that Halide does not even attempt to address.

<comment><USER3> My mistake, I phrased my question incorrectly. Why not opencv with a halide backend. The tensorflow whitepaper compares the TF ir to the halide ir. In fact, the work in tensorflow core is around XLA [https://www.tensorflow.org/performance/xla/](https://www.tensorflow.org/performance/xla/) (which brings compatibility across various architecture)

It seems that this is more an attempt at locking the tensors to target custom metal, so that it can't be copied and made to work on other phones.

For examples, the Google Camera NX version is a port of the HDR+ feature on compatible phones.. Even the cheap Xiaomi. They actually give results comparable to Nexus.

However, by locking the model to a very custom image processor (and custom IR) , this can't be ported. This looks to me as a version of walled garden more than a performance win.

<comment><USER5> Halide is much more flexible. OpenCV is a fixed high level toolbox, combining things requires lots of intermediate buffers. Halide allows compiling arbitrary kernels in a fused way with extremely good performance. Sure you could implement OpenCV functions using Halide, but better to expose the lower level more flexible API. Source: I've rewritten parts of an OpenCV app in Halide for performance.

Also your argument that it's not about perf makes no sense to me. Sure other phones have HDR, I bet its way slower and more energy intensive than the Pixel 2. Except maybe the iPhone, which may also have custom silicon. If they had custom HDR tech in software they wanted to keep they could just keep the source closed, or patent it.

<comment><USER3> That bet is the problem. Tensorflow on mobile already targets GPU and is going to be even more so with XLA. This debate is going to be hearsay unless we have an apples to apples comparison of the base tensorflow code running on the halide ir targeted to the tpu vs a vanilla ARM GPU... Even using opencv.

I find it telling that they compared cpu vs tpu... Not GPU vs tpu.

<comment><USER6> I'm really confused why you keep bringing up opencv. What does opencv have to do with the (presumably) TF ML model running on the IPU that you want to benchmark against the TF ML model running on a GPU?

<comment><USER3> Because halide is positioned as a high performance improvement over opencv. While I believe it is just an architectural decision to enable a non-portable ML model.

<comment><USER5> But Halide does have higher performance, is portable to many platforms as well as GPUs, CPUs (w/ parallel SIMD), and isn't used for ML models...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe Google should start designing it's own CPUs/SoCs as well, since Qualcomm doesn't really seem capable of keeping up with what Apple is doing. Snapdragon 835 came out 6 months after the A10, and scored about 2/3 as well at single core, and less than 10% on Geekbench 4. A11 scored twice what the 835 did on single core, and over 50% more on multi core, and the 835 is going to be the best chip available in the U.S. for Android until sometime next year. Plus, you've got Samsung getting exclusive launch deals for the newest Snapdragon chips now, so other manufacturers are just now launching their flagship devices with hardware that is increasingly far behind what Apple is putting out. This gap could end up being as bad as Intel and AMD pre-Ryzen if something isn't done about it. Imagine what the high end laptop market would have looked like if only Macs had Intel chips!

<comment><USER8> The problem is that basically Qualcomm is strangling the entire cellphone space. So what if you built a completely new, much faster, much better-in- every-way SoC... if you still have to pay Qualcomm for the _entire chipset_ because they refuse to sell you just the modem without you paying the full bill.

Multiple designers _could_ run circles around Qualcomm, but the marginal cost of doing so combined with the number of CPUs you'd have to mint to do so makes it a losing proposition. Apple's in the unique position of being able to leverage Intel to bend Qualcomm over a barrel, and Qualcomm fires back with a gazillion lawsuits and New York Times articles that cry "woe is me, Apple is eating my lunch!"

On a different topic, benchmark navalgazing is probably not going to help anyone. Every company that's been designing CPUs from the mid 80s on has been writing benchmark defeating code, and I'm 100% certain PA SEMI/Apple is no different; they certainly have the silicon space to waste writing Application- specific-accelerators for acing benchmarking tasks, especially on a platform with as much opacity as Apple holds over the iPhone.

<comment><USER9> > The problem is that basically Qualcomm is strangling the entire cellphone > space. So what if you built a completely new, much faster, much better-in- > every-way SoC... if you still have to pay Qualcomm for the entire chipset > because they refuse to sell you just the modem without you paying the full > bill.

If Qualcomm is that big of a drag on Android (or not-Apple, but it amounts to the same thing) smartphones, maybe the solution is for Google to buy them outright and rearrange their practices.

Sure, it'd be expensive, but not anything Google couldn't afford.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> GuB-42 So what is that IPU exactly? Lots of buzzwords but few actual details about the architecture.

Is it like a integer GPU? The massive amount of ALUs suggests something like that.

But later, I see "Notably, because Pixel Visual Core is programmable, we're already preparing the next set of applications.". So, is it FPGA-like?

<comment><USER10> It's an Image Processing Unit. Architecturally I'd expect it to look like a GPU, maybe with something like the new matrix-multiply unit from their TPU. [https://www.slideshare.net/AntoniosKatsarakis/tensor- process...](https://www.slideshare.net/AntoniosKatsarakis/tensor-processing- unit-tpu)

Edit: wrong name

<comment><USER11> So I'm seeing this and another comment downvoted. Is that because you're wrong? If so, can one of the people downvoting (or someone else) expand and actually answer the original question?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cool, but am I the only one who thinks the photos on the right (toward the bottom) are a little overexposed / bland / washed-out?

<comment><USER13> Yeah, agreed. I screen captured the unprocessed image from the webpage (which has been jpeg'd and therefore lost lots of the shadow detail). I loaded it into a paint package and did a simple (and computationally cheap) histogram adjustment. IMO, the results were at least as good as theirs. And these are the results they cherry picked. Not impressive.

I guess most people won't load the image into a paint package to fix it, so their aim is just to automatically do a job nearly as good as a trivial change a human would make. Still, I was hoping for more.

<comment><USER14> I don't think the Pixel Visual Core is supposed to do anything new or revolutionary -- the primary purpose is to do these old things FASTER for the user.

<comment><USER13> But a simple histogram stretch can be done with very little processing power by modern standards. 50 ms on one core of the application processor would be enough.

I think they just chose bad examples. The results from this Google Research blog post are much much more impressive:

[https://research.googleblog.com/2017/04/experimental- nightti...](https://research.googleblog.com/2017/04/experimental-nighttime- photography-with.html)

I wish my smartphone could do _that_ automatically.

<comment><USER2> You end up with a lot more noise with simple histogram adjustment from a single image, plus the dynamic compression to a final 8bit image won't look as good for many use cases.

Exposure fusion from multiple images has much higher usable dynamic range and lower noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wish my Nikon pro camera had a similar chip inside. Now we have two worlds - awesome pro cameras with incapable post-processing chips (I mean beyond RAW and initial processing) and horrible mobile cameras with outstanding post- processing chips.

<comment><USER16> Also the double lens, one for wide angle, one for tele, snapping at the same time and combining the images into one.

It will be a looooong time until we see that on a pro camera with interchangeable lenses, if ever.

<comment><USER17> We already have zoom lenses that can do wide angle and take portrait shots. Having multiple full frame sensors with multiple lenses doesn't make much sense to me TBH. What is the problem you're trying to solve here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The left/right comparison for HDR are pointless : they should show the same image with same contrast/exposure with the two techniques at 100% pixel. The difference between without HDR and with HDR should be less noise (otherwise if it's just about having more exposure in the darkest parts of the image, then a little bit of image processing can do the trick)

<comment><USER19> Hopefully the idea is that it looks at the scene, decides which exposures are needed to capture the DR (for example 1/100s ISO800 for the foreground and 1/200s at ISO100 for the background) and then quickly captures exactly those two exposures in rapid succession. Then the software would try to compensate movement between the frames and stack these exposures into one.

So long as it involves multiple pictures and the inputs (exposure params)are computed are taken done when the photo is captured, then it does things you can't do with image processing in any single image.

<comment><USER18> Yes you can, there are multiple inputs BUT the effect is about extending dynamic range only (not create an artistic effect between the inputs).

You can always extend numerically the DR of any set of values but you will stumble upon some noise eventually.. This HDR+ module is supposed to have less noise in the shadows OR have better sun effects / beautiful highlights (candles for example) / good looking clouds. A good test would be shooting in strong direct sunlight and look at the shadows.

<comment><USER19> Right, the key "artistic" thing is identifying foreground/background, faces, interesting elements etc., and simply try to balance the exposure to create a pleasing end result. I have no idea what this thing does, or even if it uses multiple exposures (or even multiple cameras), but I was simply thinking that facial recognition/focus and automatic toning has been around for ages, it has to do something that requires _fast_ decision (at trigger time) about exposure params.

I couldn't see whether that was done though, it could be done with most of the same effect by simply exposing e.g. +2EV and -2EV and simply deciding afterwards how to blend those images into a HDR given the image content (faces, ...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > HDR+ addresses this problem by taking a burst of shots with short exposure > times, aligning them algorithmically, and replacing each pixel with the > average color at that position across all the shots.

This is almost exactly how you'd make super-resolution pictures (adding a nearest-point scaling up step at some point! Yet their super-resolution app (Photoscan) has some sort of artificial upper resolution limit. If they do plan to expose this capability to 3rd parties, I hope someone makes a proper scan/super-resolution app! Also tried Office Lens, also left disappointed :(

<comment><USER21> Super resolution would want to utilize the OIS to artificially shift the lens around instead of cancelling movements. I dont think they are exposing anything like that.

<comment><USER22> Turns out one doesn't have to. The users hand movements are at least one pixel as long as the phone is handheld. Just use natural movement to do superresolution.

Everything you need is available in the camera2 RAW API.

Using the users hand movements help cancel out various types of per-physical- pixel noise too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It seems odd to me that Samsung isn't doing things like this. After all they have both the chip design talent in house, they design their own Eynos chips, and even have the fabs in house as well. They're not as well regarded for software, but they do at least have some in house dev capability. A Samsung Galaxy with that sort of differentiation would, like this phone, make even a die hard iPhone user like me take serious notice.

Or is Samsung actually right not to go down that path and the economics of Android handsets just don't support the significant extra spend and commensurate price bumps that sort of investment would require? The Pixels look like great devices, but without dramatically upping their distribution and marketing game is this really a vanity project for Google? I hope not, I'm crossing my fingers that with the talent they acquired from HTC, Google is really intent on making a splash in the market with the Pixel and not just in the tech press.

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure if they have the software dev capability. Sure, they make nice UIs/apps on top of Android, but what about core computer science and domain specific skills? The new OS they tried to make was apparently full of kernel level bugs.

Google has ML experts, compiler experts, etc. who probably contributed a lot to this. I guess it is a perk of keeping domain experts in the company who are there to advise when time comes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> HDR+ is one of my favorite features from my 6p.

I am routinely blown away by how well it performs at all lighting. Everyone i've shown pictures from low light scenarios is always impressed.

HDR+ is a big reason I bought the Pixel 2, I know its going to keep getting better.

</comment><comment><USER26> Consider how inexpensive and high quality modern image sensors are. With this SoC, you can use so many amazing image processing algorithms. ML based object masking, deconvolution, focus stacking, exposure stacking, sensor fusion like FLIR, frame stitching multiple cameras, color compensating in camera flash. For serious heavy lifting you can send these bundles of images to the cloud for processing. All done without any more user input than tapping the take photo button.

It's going to seem like magic to the user.

<comment><USER26> A tag-a-long comment, this SoC + imaging system is going to make it much easier to write the software because you know all of the particulars of the optical system, sensor, position data, etc etc. It's not like implementing this stuff on the application layer which is nightmare mode difficult. Cameras are so fast, their controls are so fast, this is like some super human time dilation photography and photogrammetry.

I've held out for so long, it's finally time to replace my HTC One m7.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Even with all the fancy ML stuff, the HDR "glow" is still clearly visible on most of these photos.

On the plus side, the co-processor seems programmable, which means quality can improve without the need to upgrade the hardware.

</comment><comment><USER28> It seems odd to me that they've made this special part of the chip but it won't be enabled until a future software update that will come out 1+ months after release.

The basic idea of using special hardware makes sense. Apple has done the same thing, and as you get more and more data off the sensor this seems like the only way to do analysis/adjustment in real time without wasting a ton of power.

</comment><comment><USER29> It looks like they are releasing these bits and pieces before the Finale. Custom ARM core, SOC in entirety.

<comment><USER30> I'm not so sure about that. I don't doubt they have the skill to do it, but I doubt they can make the numbers work. Apple can make custom CPU cores because they sell a shitload of phones. Google does not.

<comment><USER31> Maybe they would license it to manufacturers - use our core design AND our operating system gratis, as long as you send users to our services?

Googles ad revenue is so important that they should do absolutely anything and everything to protect it, spending billions on R&D to keep android at the forefront is essential, and at the moment they are only really competitive on the software side (A11 smokes latest snapdragon chips, as does the A10....), offering a custom chip would give android the vertical integration that Apple leverage to be so dominant.

<comment><USER32> It also gives leverage over Qualcomm etc. wrt availability of security updates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is the HDR+ stuff running on the PVC already, or is it still running on the application processor until they enable it?

They say it uses Tensorflow, but is it a limited subset of Tensorflow designed only for image processing, like running a pretrained model on a TPU?

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow. It feels like the new era of custom-designed SoCs. I should've studied HDL like Verilog while I was in EE major in the school.

</comment><comment><USER35> Can't see any pics on Firefox Focus browser on mobile. Are they using some weird Desktop only CSS?

<comment><USER36> Works fine on my own Focus browser (Android). Weird.

<comment><USER37> Focus on Android currently uses WebView (aka chromium/chrome)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Looks like Movidius Myriad... I'm surprised Google would make their own chip for this.

</comment><comment><USER39> > The camera on the new Pixel 2 is packed full of great hardware, software and > machine learning (ML)

Is that hardware only accessible by the camera? If so, isn't that wasteful?

<comment><USER40> I think the following bit at the very bottom of the article suggests that it isn't:

" _HDR+ will be the first application to run on Pixel Visual Core. Notably, because Pixel Visual Core is programmable, we're already preparing the next set of applications. The great thing is that as we port more machine learning and imaging applications to use Pixel Visual Core, Pixel 2 will continuously improve. So keep an eye out!_ "

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Anyone feels it's tech for the sake of tech ? I don't even appreciate the HDR processed shades. There's a lot more detail that's true, but 1) it's fake IMO 2) pics don't have to be perfect, it's just a moment of life, the details are precise enough.</comment>


FBI director defends impersonation of AP reporter - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/07/us/fbi-associated-press-deception/

<comment><USER3> I had the distinct privilege of studying law under Wayne LaFave, author of the treatise on criminal procedure. When I read the headline, it brought me back to my first year in law school and the discussions professor LaFave kindled around the topic of deception.

Here are some related common tactics upheld by courts:

1\. Planting a "criminal" in a cell with a defendant to elicit a confession. 2\. Separating co-defendants into two interrogations and telling each the other has "ratted" them out. 3\. Letting one co-defendant see the other receive a "reward" indicating that they have already "flipped." See the Wire scene with the cheeseburger. [http://discoveringthewire.com/characters-of-the- wire-william...](http://discoveringthewire.com/characters-of-the-wire-william- bunk-moreland/)

In comparison, this seems inline. I can understand why the AP would strongly object. In reality, though, what else do you want them to do. They are a news reporting agency who's name is the subject of a news story. The result is predictable.

<comment><USER4> >1\. Planting a "criminal" in a cell with a defendant to elicit a confession.

If I'm locked in a cell with a big tough guy covered in tattoos you bet that I will make up some crazy story just as a defense mechanism. If I am being accused of murdering someone, even if I didn't do it, I would probably tell that story just to feel safer.

>2\. Separating co-defendants into two interrogations and telling each the other has "ratted" them out.

>3\. Letting one co-defendant see the other receive a "reward" indicating that they have already "flipped."

These two tactics can lead to a false confession too, just out of spite or fear.

So you have to consider if it's better to convict an innocent person or to _let go_ a criminal. And you would not really be letting him go, you'd just need to gather more evidence.

<comment><USER5> _big tough guy covered in tattoos_

This tells us more about your stereotypes of criminals than anything else. If you made a story up out of whole cloth to impress someone it would be unlikely to fit with any other evidence in the case. Back in reality, if you read cases where such tactics are employed, they usually involve pairing someone up with a cellmate who is in for some relatively minor crime and gain's the suspect's confidence by talking freely about their own situation. Admissions to cellmates usually come after days or weeks, once the suspect has become comfortable, at which point the suspect may brag about their criminal activities - in much the same way as everyone else likes to share 'war stories' about their line of work from time to time.

A threatening or scary cellmate that glared aggressively at a suspect would be a gift to defense lawyer, since it would make it a lot easier to argue that the confession had been coerced and should therefore be suppressed. Criminology texts emphasize this point; the object is to elicit a confession that will stand up in court. In the vast majority of them the informant presents a friendly demeanor towards the suspect, and furthermore is instructed not to prompt or ask questions but simply to pay close attention to the suspect's conversation and report anything interesting to investigators - again, to avoid complaints that a confession was coerced or that a defendant was put in a position where they felt obliged to provide information without benefit of counsel. Indeed, law enforcement often uses undercover officers posing as prisoners, and courts don't consider this a violation of Miranda rights as long as statements made by a suspect are voluntary.

<comment><USER4> That makes much more sense than the big tough guy that I mentioned. But there are still many reasons why an innocent person thrown in jail could make up an story. I guess that it would be OK to use that confession if it leads the investigator to new evidence, but using it in court as an evidence in itself seems very wrong to me.

My knowledge about criminology or criminal justice is very limited, and it's probably polluted by all the cop movies and TV shows. So any input from somebody more knowledgeable on the subject is more than welcome.

<comment><USER5> Your instinct about using it in court as evidence is basically good - <USER2> 'hearsay rule' forbids testimony of the form 'so-and-so told me that the defendant was guilty,' with a few very narrow exceptions like the last words of a dying person that accuse someone of a crime. Because of teh 6th amendment, informants and undercover officers have to testify in court, where the defense can question them and challenge the veracity of their statements.

Of course this is not perfect. There have been cases where law enforcement or prosecutors told the informant what to say in an overzealous effort to gain a conviction, and sometimes innocent people have languished in jail for years on the basis of such false testimony. That shouldn't be allowed to happen, but when it does it doesn't necessarily mean the entire judicial process was corrupted. For example, a trial may have been properly conducted but if the defense lawyer was lazy or incompetent and failed to challenge the prosecution evidence the judge and jury may not have had any way of knowing about the flaws int he prosecution's case.

One important thing to bear in mind about American courts is that trial courts do not have an investigatory function to discover all the information about a case, but rather a decisive function to select between competing arguments from plaintiffs/prosecutors and civil/criminal defendants. So even if the defense lawyer is an obvious imcompetent the court inn't supposed to pre- emptively assist the defendant - the defendant has to ask for a new lawyer or bring up the issue at appeal.

In many other countries they use a different sort of system called civil law, where the judge is basically the lead investigator in the case. That can prevent some kinds of miscarriages of justice that occur in our system but as you might expect it opens to the door all sorts of other kinds.

<comment><USER4> Thank you so much for such a thorough and informative answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "No actual story was published, and no one except the suspect interacted > with the undercover 'A.P.' employee or saw the fake draft story," he wrote. > "Only the suspect was fooled, and it led to his arrest and the end of a > frightening period for a high school."

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable sting. Not sure what the fuss is about.

<comment><USER7> The AP is mad because this harms their reputation. Now no one will be sure if an AP story (edit: or person) is really an FBI plant.

<comment><USER8> The FBI didn't publish a story, they just posed as an AP reporter, and only to the suspect. This seems like a perfectly fine tactic to me, it's basically just going undercover.

<comment><USER9> I see your point about going undercover. But I think the fact that they said they were with the AP modifies things slightly. If they had pretended to be a reporter from some made-up news agency, then sure, I could see it as "just going undercover". But they used the reputation of the AP to carry that out. It isn't quite impersonation, but it is close. And it potentially harms the credibility of the AP. So, in that sense, it is more than "just going undercover".

<comment><USER10> Of course, if the news agency didn't really exist how convincing would it be?

<comment><USER11> Convincing enough, e.g.:

> Hi! I'm Bob with KBBL Eyewitness News. Do you mind if I ask you a few > questions?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They caught a crook while simultaneously undermining the credibility of a respected news organization that's historically critical of them.

Sounds like someone's gunning for a promotion.

<comment><USER13> Imagine the AP would impersonate as the FBI to get raw material for some of their reports...

<comment><USER12> "The A.P.'s use of such techniques is subject to close oversight, both internally and by the people that read our work."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If leakers learn they can't be certain they can trust reporters (or entities claiming to be such), that's a chilling effect on leakers.

Thus, fewer leakers coming forward - or lots more friction as they try to establish with certainty who they're dealing with.

Thus, less info being leaked to the media (except when the government "leaks" it on purpose).

Thus ... less oversight by the media, and less shared understanding of things going on.

<comment><USER15> Are most of the people worried about catching the attention of the US government really going around just taking people's word on things?

Fed: "Yep, I'm a reporter."

Leaker: "Great, let's talk."

It just doesn't really scan.

I'm not saying I'm comfortable with what the FBI is doing (I guess I'm not sure about that), I'm wondering if chilling effects are an important aspect of it.

<comment><USER16> Whether it scans is just a question of how much effort goes into any given investigation, surely?

I mean, if one fed says "I'm a reporter", and a second says the same but also has AP business cards, and a third also has an authentic-looking AP badge with his photo and the name of a real AP journalist, I don't guess there's any bright line between those things. Once the feds decide to impersonate a journalist they could be arbitrarily convincing about it, couldn't they?

<comment><USER15> If I wanted to leak something, I would choose the reporter.

I would probably go to a library and evaluate the writings of several reporters, and choose from there.

I would then figure out how to identify the chosen reporter using materials that they did not provide to me.

I would not rely on my ability to authenticate an AP badge.

I don't think any of that is particularly sophisticated, so I would expect many leakers to at least take that first step (and hopefully they would usually see the problem with using information provided by the reporter to evaluate the identity of the reporter).

<comment><USER17> Your extrapolating from your own course of thought and actions and assuming that everyone in the world makes similar enough decisions as you do that it's not worth considering alternate scenarios.

Not everyone has the luxury of deciding if some proof is good enough in a a consequence free thought experiment where they can also shape the constraints. IRL constraints and persuasion tactics shift the ability to verify, and someone with legal considerations can't afford to be wrong even once. It shifts the decision making process in such a way that the fact "cops have posed as reporters" plus an abundance of caution means nobody talks to reporters. Exactly the circumstances the AP is afraid of.

<comment><USER15> We are talking about people choosing to commit a federal crime out of the belief that it serves the greater good. If they aren't capable of being cautious, I first don't want them handling sensitive government information, and second, I don't want them making the decision to share it with the public.

<comment><USER17> Sure, but don't you see that your personal opinions don't apply directly to someone else leaking information, or more generally, chilling effects on things that aren't federal crimes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't actually have much of a problem with this. Lying to a suspect as part of an investigation isn't infringing anyone's civil liberties, unless they lie about specific things, such as telling a suspect lies about their rights.

<comment><USER19> It depends on how certain you are that someone is a suspect. If you just get to go around doing anything to a person because the FBI put him on a list, that's sort of a slippery slope, in my opinion.

<comment><USER18> But I didn't say they could do anything to a person- I said they could lie to them. It doesn't matter how sure you are that someone is a suspect for something like this, because nobody's rights are being infringed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> To the many commenting that they don't see anything wrong with feds lying during an investigation, the issue here isn't that they lied, but that they used journalism as a cover. There's a long history of contention over such practices - see for example this article on journalism and the CIA:

[https://www.cpj.org/attacks96/sreports/cia.html](https://www.cpj.org/attacks96/sreports/cia.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Not the first time for something like this [http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024888170_fbinewspap...](http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024888170_fbinewspaper1xml.html)

<comment><USER21> I believe that both the submitted article and your link are referring to the same incident. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if there are other similar incidents out there.)

Edit: Some clarification here: [http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024894799_fbifakesto...](http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024894799_fbifakestoryxml.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> No parent would tell their kid "Deception is ok". "Thou shalt not lie" concepts are in most religions[1].

And yet it's ok for those whom are supposed to be examples of the morally upright to do so?

Hypocrites.

[1] - [http://www.unification.net/ws/theme062.htm](http://www.unification.net/ws/theme062.htm)

<comment><USER23> Would you say that police should not be allowed to lie to criminals?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The FBI and government in general seem to think lying is appropriate and moral in every situation.

</comment><comment><USER25> > As a result of the suspect clicking on a link relating to the fake story, > the agency was able to track him down using court-authorized tools

I don't care about the impersonation but hacking into your computer using zero-days seems evil.

<comment><USER26> More or less evil than terrorizing groups with bomb threats?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> That is not acceptable, not morally right and just plain wrong.

Lies and deception everywhere - what if the guy turned out not guilty? Do they still think it's fine?

<comment><USER27> I don't see anything wrong with deceiving suspects during the course of an investigation. Undercover work and stings are a time-honored part of law enforcement. They're a great way to catch corrupt politicians, for example.

If the guy turned out to not be guilty, then... he would have clicked on a misleading link title and read a fake news article. Oh noes! That's Taboola's entire business model. I'm much happier with small deceptions used to catch criminals than when deception is used for profit on an industrial scale.

<comment><USER22> Lesser of two evils is still an evil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >"The FBI may have intended this false story as a trap for only one person. However, the individual could easily have reposted this story to social networks, distributing to thousands of people, under our name, what was essentially a piece of government disinformation."

They're really grasping at straws to explain why this is bad. For me, the insidiousness of the tactic is apparent--one would think the AP would be more adept at crafting a response. No entity can rightfully leverage the brand/trust/profile of another.

</comment><comment><USER29> They're branching out from simply manufacturing their own criminals to catch now? I guess I'm sort of impressed. It's like a child, learning to tie their shoes, except this child has a gun and can send you to jail.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosam_Maher_Husein_Smadi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosam_Maher_Husein_Smadi)

<comment><USER30> The guy planted and tried to set off a bomb. I don't have any sympathy for him.

<comment><USER31> The point isn't whether he's guilty or not, the point is whether the actions of law enforcement are useful. If they create the crime they then prevent, did they really prevent a crime?

The answer is "just barely". Sure, real terrorists could have recruited this guy and given him a bomb, but then the real threat is still those terrorist who already have a bomb and not this guy.

<comment><USER32> The traditional crime triangle is motive, method, and opportunity.

If you find someone who has nothing more than motive, and you supply him with both method and the illusion of opportunity, you have done little more than to prove that he had motive.

That is, you are prosecuting him on the basis of his opinions and beliefs. Thought crime.

Undercover policing only works when the crime to be prevented would have definitely occurred in the absence of the undercover cop. What they can do effectively is take an potential opportunity and convert it into the illusion of opportunity.

So rather than supplying the guy with bomb parts, wait until he has actual bomb parts, and replace them with nonfunctional replicas. Then you wait for him to press the button. That way, there is no doubt as to the origin of the criminal intent. You stopped a real crime instead of abetting a fake one.

You can't just target someone with motive and trick him into acting on it. That's like putting a "live grenade dispenser" next to the number ticket roll at the DMV. Everyone walking in that door has daydreamed about enacting some form of violence against the state clerks, especially when the wait is long and none of the people behind the desk seem to be actually working. But no one actually tosses grenades at the DMV. They just wish someone would. Or for those who would, they have the foresight to not bring their grenades with them when renewing their license, to avoid the temptation. But if you stand there and give out free grenades to people waiting in line, a few of them will have their pins pulled. If they spit out a puff of confetti instead of flaming death, you haven't really prevented any crime. You just proved that some people hate the DMV. You could have accomplished the same thing by circulating a petition to lawfully dismantle the bureaucracy.

So I disagree that the answer is "just barely". I think it is "absolutely not".

<comment><USER33> I understand what you're saying and there is merit to your point of view. But, I want the people who pulled the pins on the fake grenades in jail for life. They attempted mass murder. I don't want them on the street when the only thing preventing them from murdering people is a temporary lack of convenience.

<comment><USER32> So how would you deal with the people passing out fake grenades while telling everyone they are real? Would it be any different if they passed out real grenades and said they were fake?

Would you support preemptively testing everyone in similar ways, and imprisoning all those who failed? If you described the hypothetical on a paper, and asked people to rate their likelihood of pulling the pin on the imaginary grenade in the imaginary DMV, on a scale from 0 (never) to 10 (always), what numbers would they have to choose to remain free?

I, for one, am completely uncomfortable imprisoning people based solely on their psychological profile rather than as punishment for actual harm inflicted in the real world. Some undercover investigations do seem eerily similar to selecting someone based on a profile and then continually testing him until he fails to meet the "stay out of jail" threshold. It just doesn't seem like ethical policing to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Someone seems to be downvoting anyone that they don't agree with.

 _edit_ I am being downvoted now, possibly because people don't know what I am referring to. When there were only a dozen comments or so, you could very clearly see that everyone with a certain opinion was getting downvoted.

<comment><USER35> I noticed this as well, glad you pointed it out.

*as soon as I posted the the refreshed page had all the downvotes back to normal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Cops are allowed by the Supreme Court to lie. Is AP just now catching on to this?</comment>


What is your take on checking return values? - <AUTHOR> https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/09/02/check/ <comment><USER2> > _I 've learned from going to far too many of these meetings that you can't > just hammer them into the ground right there in front of everyone else. Once > it's clear that they Do Not Get It, all you can do is take a note to follow > up later._

There's an opportunity to learn as a team precisely when everyone is there, provided it is done a certain way that maximizes for fixing and learning:

"Okay. How can we fix this? What can we learn from this? Is there an underlying issue of which this is just an instance? How can we institutionalize this so future members who haven't worked on this don't fall into this trap?"

At this point, you tap into their brains to fix the thing, and generate ideas to actually learn.

This approach lead us to focus on the actual things to do: fixing the thing now, finding the flawed logic that lead us to make the mistake, and prevent it from happening either by finding its "parent problem class", adding tests, and adding mitigation and monitoring.

> _This is the kind of culture stuff it would be nice to know before you > accept a job somewhere._

Yes, but while you're there, one useful thing to do is to elevate that team to acceptable standards. Change the culture.</comment>


How molecules became machines [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2016/popular-chemistryprize2016.pdf <comment><USER2> Chemistry is cool again. I like the diagram of those molecular machines. Here is the announcement lecture by authorities. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfB4NHDI83Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfB4NHDI83Q)</comment>


Ask HN: What is your faviorte interview question? - <AUTHOR> What is the best interview question you have asked/have been asked? It can be either technical or professional. If possible please provide what you are looking for in a response from a candidate. <comment><USER2> "Is there anything I didn't ask that you wish I had?"

I recognize that I'm not perfect at interviewing and want to give people the opportunity to brag about themselves and express something I might have missed.

<comment><USER3> I like this one. I'll have to add it to my list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So, this is from the other side of the table. Every place I interview, with every person who interviews me (phone and in-person), I always ask:

"If there was one problem here that you could snap your fingers and magically 'fix', what would it be?"

Then I usually follow-up asking what they consider the "fix" to be.

If there's a systemic problem at the company, usually the answers among the different employees will be quite similar. If I notice that, along with possibly similar solutions proposed, as I interview up the food chain I'll ask specifically about it. If I get a dismissive response, then I know to turn down any offer.

</comment><comment><USER4> "What's something that you f*'d up on where you thought you might be fired for it?"

Most any engineer or developer above a junior level position should have at least one of these stories. It also gives you the chance to ask what they learned, how they fixed it, what resources they used, what they did to prevent it in the future, etc, etc, etc. It's also a really humbling moment to have to explain one of your failures and will show you a lot of the person's personality when they're explaining it.

The two big negatives I have seen with this question is either someone becoming combative as you ask more questions, or they go full 'used car salesman.' If either of those happen, you can safely run away screaming from the interview.

This is a gut/understanding question that is best given/asked by another technical user and has been a solid divining rod for interviews that I've done.

<comment><USER5> I've never been worried about being fired for something. Not everyone makes huge fireable mistakes.

<comment><USER4> Well aren't you lucky! And in my experience with this question, there's a big difference between "felt fireable" and "is fireable", which also gives insight.

I have my own go-to example that I'll use if they give back your type of answer (which has happened). I messed up packaging a demo version of our software that almost sank a 300k sale (~5% of revenue on the P&L for that year).

Was I going to get fired? no Did 23 year old me think I might get fired? yes

Essentially it boils down to what's a large mistake you've made while employed (or otherwise) and how did you resolve it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This:

"There's a feature you and several other co-workers are building. The deadline is 3 days from now.

You and 'Co-worker A' are tasked in building a module of that feature. You've already written several classes and tried abstracting some repetitive parts that would allow you to hit the target deadline for the team.

However 'Co-worker A' has also worked on those same classes and wrote more methods that are too tightly coupled and doesn't read well underneath. He claims this is a better design than yours just to finish the feature and doesn't budge on changing it during code reviews.

How do handle this situation?"

I like this question since there's a wide range of answers of how people deal with conflict under pressure.

<comment><USER7> A deadline 3 days from now and we're still discussing how we're going to approach it? Does it need to be in production? Does it need to be tested and deployed? I think I'd first inform our stakeholders that we've got a delay and are not going to make the deadline unless we drop this feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My favorite 2 interview questions are

1\. "What is the hardest thing you've ever done?"

The answer can be personal or professional. What the candidate accomplished isn't as important as how -- and why. What were the hurdles? What were the roadblocks? Did the candidate seek help? Does the candidate credit the people who helped?

The answer also can provide insight into how the candidate defines "hard," and how their perspective align with the challenges your business faces.

2\. "When have you experienced stellar customer service, and how did that change how you deal with customers?"

This question is a great way to see how candidates define "stellar customer service" \-- not just as they experience it, but also in the service they expect themselves to provide.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not a single question, but I find the best thing to do is just have a discussion on the software architecture, business problems, organization chart, etc.

When interviewing someone senior, they'll ask back a lot of good questions. The good candidate tries to identify what props up the structure, whether it's code or certain people. Especially in a startup, where sometimes even the code owners forget that they have that big batch of unpaid technical debt.

The passive candidate is usually the ones we try to reject, because when something bad happens, they won't flag it, and when you don't ask them to do things, they just idle instead of improving random things.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Tell me about a time when technology really pissed you off"

I usually word this is a more "work-safe" way, but I find that this question has the benefit of both relaxing a candidate, and giving them a great opportunity to talk about their experiences without a filter. I usually follow-up with questions about the tech if it's not something I'm familiar with, and some questions around what they did to get around the issue, or what they'd do if they could change the particular bit of software.

<comment><USER4> Piggybacking that:

"What's your least favorite feature of <language X> and why?" Where <language X> is obviously part of the tech stack that you're hiring for. You can tool the depth you're looking for in a response based on the level you're hiring for as well on this.

Don't even get me started on the GIL in python...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> When should tests be written for code?

The answer will quickly reveal their methodology and how they approach a project. Generally people don't use tests when prototyping. Some people use tests when things break, others write tests before they code something.

Each type of response is appropriate for a specific role or business and that question is good at determining that.

<comment><USER12> > Each type of response is appropriate for a specific role or business

I feel like answering that testing needs to be appropriate for the use case is the only "correct" answer to this question. If a candidate was overly dogmatic about one form of testing that would raise red flags for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the YC question: please tell me about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage? In my team I place high value on resourcefulness, and seeing whether people can come up with solutions rather than deferring to their superiors with every difficult situation.

<comment><USER14> Can you give me some examples?

Would it count if I had walked around the halls of the Pentagon, looking for good stuff that people had left out in the hallway (and therefore presumably excess and no longer wanted on their part), and then moved it to my office?

Or the time that the Team Chief of the Logistics Readiness Center in the National Military Command Center had locked himself out of his own office and didn't remember the combination, and was supposed to be briefing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in five minutes? All I did was brute-force the combination, but I was able to do it quickly and he wasn't too late to his briefing.

Examples of the kind of thing you would be looking for would be very useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Remember that interviews are also castings for new teammates so present yourself as a person they would like to spend time with. So asking people that you will be probably working closely with about their hobbies and interests is a good way to find connection with them.

</comment><comment><USER16> "How do you think your contribution to the business can be calculated? Please make me a step by step calculation so that hiring you is actually a good decision for our business"

PS. we are small SAAS, hence any one's contribution can clearly be seen. ([https://www.testinvite.com](https://www.testinvite.com))

</comment><comment><USER17> As an interviewee:

"What's one thing you wish you knew before you started here?"

Makes the interviewer think and its hard to BS, so you'll usually get an memorable answer.

</comment><comment><USER18> Starting from high-school, describe the professional path and motivation that got you here. Feel free to go earlier, if it helps.

<comment><USER19> What does a good answer look like? It could be very easy to veer into a "culture fit" bias against the working class with a question like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What's your biggest mistake and how did you recover from it?

It was for an Engineering Project Manager role. Yep, got the role.

</comment><comment><USER21> After interviewing with my department head I went in to a second interview with the VP of HR before they offered me the job.

He asked what my biggest failure was and that was very jarring initially.

</comment><comment> java-man when can you start?

<comment><USER11> Appreciate the honesty and humor

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Call me weird but I like IQ questions. They're fun to do albeit not a fair judge of candidacy.

<comment><USER23> And also illegal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What motivates them and the intricacies of how their favorite technology or company works.

</comment><comment><USER25> What do you want for lunch?

Interviews are effectively worthless for engineers. Figuring out where to eat isn't.

<comment><USER26> ??? so grab some peeps from the street and make them senior engineers?

<comment><USER27> What? The implication of interviews are worthless for finding the best senior engineers is not to hire random people off the street. It's to hire people based on their previous work, reputation and recommendations.

<comment><USER28> Aaaah no, no no no. Hiring based on reputation and recommendations is also terrible, and not just because it's tautological; it also doesn't work. The industry is full of people with sterling reputations gradually failing upwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "What's your developer story?". Like, I ask them how they ended up being a developer. Not something that helps me judge them, but the stories sometimes are pretty interesting and sometimes shows if someone really loves their job, or are a developer just for the sake of working.</comment>


Ask HN: Does 'specializing' in JavaScript automatically signify mediocrity? - <AUTHOR> Besides big-name personalities/contributors within the JS community of course.<p>I occasionally get the impression that advertising having more JavaScript experience than something like Python automatically creates a negative impression. Is it just me or does that perception exist? <comment><USER2> Among people who don't specialize in Javascript, maybe.

A business owner who's going to pay you is going to pay you because you deliver something they need but can't find cheaper elsewhere. Almost every business needs some form of web frontend - even mobile-first businesses often need good webapps for marketing & administration purposes. The disdain and loathing from some of the rest of the developer community actually works in your favor, most of the time: it keeps competition out or makes them ineffective at learning the skills needed to be effective.

The one thing to watch out for is that frontend technologies typically have a very short lifetime: in 4-5 years, much of what makes you valuable may be obsolete, and work in it tends to dry up. Just ask DOS/assembly devs in 1995, Swing or MFC developers in 2006, or basic PHP/Rails/Wordpress webdevelopers now. Be prepared to keep learning, and focus on general principles like good UI design, responsiveness, latency, managing state, MVC/MVP architectures, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> It persists because JavaScript had always been a toy language for the front end devs to make web sites "pretty" rather than useful. Generally all of that pretty broke the site, and it was always blamed on the back end.

Node may be turning the perception of JS, but it is a slow process. Node is still very young. It's community is still highly focused on building the tooling, while the community around a more mature language like Python has long since found its voice. Right now, Node is seen as a chaotic mess for web devs that are forced to do back end work because management thinks a code monkey is a code monkey and doesn't want to pay for the vastly more expensive systems devs. (To be fair, a little start up likely doesn't have enough of a customer base to require that level of performance tuning.)

Python devs are usually seen as academics, more experienced, and very mathematically inclined. But there was a time when Python was the kiddie language because it abstracts away so many details. Now it is the majority language for machine learning, which is a very hot trend.

Once the toolsets stabilize, Node developed a robust multi-threaded model on the server, and it actually solves an engineering problem better than any other language, you may start seeing more engineers picking JS as a tool. Till then, it will just be the hip startup toy used to interest young CS grads that the companies will have to rip out later to continue scaling.

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess that depends on a person's background. I'm almost certain a kernel hacker would feel that way. People with more experience in dynamic languages probably not so much.

I am one of those folks that specialize in JS and admittedly, the freedom of the syntax can lead to some pretty poor code. I suppose that's why most "serious" projects have resorted to bolting on type checking systems.

In all depends on where you stand.</comment>


Real-Time Gross Settlement with Ripple - <AUTHOR> https://achainofblocks.com/2018/08/13/what-is-ripple-use-xrp-instant-liquidity-crypto-2018/ <comment><USER2> Good article, succinct and accurate info. Only thing though with the end where banking will adopt Ripple software but not use the native asset imo is very unlikely. It's also constantly used as FUD. Banking will certainly leverage the native asset to get real time gross settlement. Which as far as I'm aware is only available when you use XRP. So for a financial institution to pass on that is just not going to happen.</comment>