Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-03/fed-cuts-rates-half-point-in-emergency-move-amid-spreading-virus <comment><USER2> From what I gather after spending more time than I'm willing to admit listening to every finance talking head out there, the consensus on the street seems to be that this will result in a temporary market recovery followed by the continued deterioration of stock prices given that fiscal or monetary* policy can't really affect the real economy in the near term* i.e. if the supply chain is indeed impacted due to COVID-19, no amount of fiscal or monetary* stimulus can make up for the time / productivity losses in the near term*

On the margin, I'm still slightly bearish on the whole situation due to the combination of the virus' absurdly high infection rate[0] and its long incubation period (I'll let each one of you be the judge of how long that is...)

[0] [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=infection+rate+sars+vs+coronavirus...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=infection+rate+sars+vs+coronavirus&ia=images&iax=images)

<comment><USER3> " ... I'm still slightly bearish on the whole situation due to the combination of the virus' absurdly high infection rate[0] and its ridiculous ~25-30 day incubation period ..."

You're right to highlight those aspects of the virus and I find them noteworthy as well.

However, the statistics I am most interested in is _mortality rate_ and rate of asymptomatic infections.

I note with interest that among the 700+ infected on the cruise ship, there were 6 deaths as of yesterday - and this is among a relatively geriatric population. So, _perhaps we see_ a mortality rate of <1% among a greater risk population.

<comment><USER4> > among the 700+ infected on the cruise ship, there were 6 deaths

Your death count is incorrect. Several deaths occurred after cruise members returned to their home country, and are currently counted as deaths in their home country instead of the cruise ship.

Take for example: 78-year-old man in Perth - got infected on the cruise ship - but counted as a death in Australia.

<comment><USER5> So I guess that means the 36 serious/critical I pointed out are not necessarily serious/critical at the moment either. Is there an actual place that counts that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those saying the Fed is running out of ammunition, study what the Bank of Japan has done.

It owns close to 80% of the Japanese ETF market currently, with no end to the expansion of balance sheet in sight.

After buying long treasuries, it's not unreasonable to imagine the Fed buying stocks, either individual issues or ETFs. The President would be for it, and it would be hard to drum up any opposition to it in congress.

Not only that, but rates on long treasuries have stayed negative for long periods of time in other countries. It's an open question how negative long treasuries can go, but the evidence suggests we're not even close to the limit.

Recessions are politically unacceptable in today's world. Buy stocks. Buy treasuries. Do so with wild abandon, because the Fed has your back. Just watch out for the moment when the whole thing jumps into reverse and no amount of market manipulation will stop the bleeding.

<comment><USER7> > For those saying the Fed is running out of ammunition, study what the Bank > of Japan has done.

Oh you mean the economy that has been stagnate for 20 years?

<comment><USER8> GDP per capita doesn't look stagnant: [https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp- per-capita](https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp-per-capita)

<comment><USER9> Looks like the population of Japan is falling faster than the GDP of Japan. So "per capita" is kinda misleading here.

<comment><USER8> I think GDP is pretty much meaningless and GDP per capita is a much more useful statistic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We're basically running out of tools to combat an actual financial crisis. [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liquiditytrap.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liquiditytrap.asp)

<comment><USER11> Only because the toolset is artificially restricted for ideological reasons.

Fiscal responses (having the government spend actual money, either on things like infrastructure it by just handing it out to the population, which will then largely spend that money as they see fit) rather than monetary policy responses (reduce rates and hope that people will borrow more) are known to work well in most cases.

The Corona virus situation is slightly different than the financial mess of 2008 because it involves actual potential supply constraints. This means that a higher rate of inflation may have to be accepted temporarily. But inflation has arguably been far too low for far too long anyway...

<comment><USER12> Keynes famously said you could hire people to dig ditches and it would stimulate the economy.

However, if we were to take aggressive action on Climate Change, there's a lot of potential jobs there. A massive potential stimulus. Also, you know, public funding of basic research which could explore, I don't know, pandemic response, new therapeutics, etc.

Like you said, ideological barriers are what's keeping us stuck. But before we went all in on finance we had a pretty epic run last century of productivity fueled by public investment (think 1940-1970).

<comment><USER13> Keynes's ideas also fail all over the globe. Saving and investing is what grows an economy.

<comment><USER11> Saving doesn't grow the economy, pretty much by definition as was already pointed out.

(Real) investment, in the sense of building up new productive capacity, is an important part of growing the economy. However, investment at least by the private sector cannot thrive in a vacuum. It needs a context of either existing or plausible demand. If the demand is missing, you'd be a fool to spend money on increasing productive capacity, i.e. you'd be a fool to invest.

Note the important emphasis on what kind of investment we're talking about. Unfortunately, the act of buying existing productive capacity (e.g. by buying stocks) is also called investing, and you have to be careful not to confuse the different meanings of the word.

<comment><USER13> Indeed, real investment requires market interest, something the government is pretty bad at discerning

Saving goes hand in hand with investment since by putting money in the bank it can be borrowed by entrepreneurs and they can hopefully do something productive with it. Merely spending it doesn't have that effect.

<comment><USER11> I feel like you are not replying to the core of the argument:

Spending is crucial because that's what signals where investment is needed / desirable. Furthermore, spending is what gives companies profits that can then be reinvested for sustained development. If there is no spending, then investment is simply pointless.

If investment happens in a vacuum, without regard for where the demand (which is nearly a synonym for spending) is, the investment will likely go to inefficient or useless projects.

Furthermore, the stated causality from saving to investment doesn't exist in our modern financial system. Banks create money out of nothing whenever they find a suitable borrower. Of course, a borrower is more likely to be suitable if they can demonstrate demand for their product - again, the importance of spending.

Sidenote: There is an equality of savings and investment in the national accounts (if you ignore the external sector), but that's just an after-the- fact accounting identity without any causal content. There's good reason to believe that, if anything, the causality goes from investment to savings. Either way, it's not an interesting causality. The real economic decisions, certainly the ones that lead to good allocation of capital, follow where the demand is.

Sidenote #2: Your stab at the government misses the point as well. Nobody is asking for the government to start investing in productive capacity for things that the private sector usually provides.

However, government could ensure that people have more disposable income. This leads to more spending, which encourages (and finances, via reinvested profits!) investment in order to satisfy the added demand. At the same time, it improves the quality of the demand signal, which helps achieve a better overall allocation of capital.

There are other useful things that governments could do, but this is an important and useful thing. The economy generally works well when people can just vote with their wallets. But one precondition is that there is money in those wallets.

<comment><USER13> The government would be creating a market distortion by not allowing companies to spend their money how they see fit and instead redistributing to another sector (the general public).

There would be no growth because the money the people would be spending is the same the government took from the companies in the first place. It's like taking the fat out of a man and feeding it back to him.

<comment><USER11> I'd point out that nobody (except for you) said anything about preventing companies from spending their money as they see fit. I don't understand where you even get that from.

The discussion was about fiscal stimulus.

<comment><USER13> How does the government acquire the money for that stimulus? By taking it from the companies through taxation. Government spending is always less efficient than by private entities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interest rates have been on a secular decline over the course of the last century. Different economists have described this via various terms- "savings glut" is the one I like the most (even though I don't like Krugman). Right now there is so much saved cash out there looking to be lent out that any project looking for financing can find it for cheap.

The Fed does not keep interest rates low in a vacuum. There is an auction system that determines real rates. If the Fed is not able to sell all their bonds at the target rate, they have to adjust.

In the long run, I think we will see:

1\. (at risk of calling this bull market a "new normal") P/E ratios for stock will continue to climb in a secular fashion. Low returns from the alternative investment of bonds will dictate high P/E ratios.

2\. Debt financing will remain cheap. Low interest rates signal cash that is desperate to find a place to park it.

3\. Government debt will remain popular and affordable. This is a win for Keynesians.

4\. Secular low interest rates are an indicator of a stable and mature economy, which is good. The bad part is that they signal a world where obvious available capital investment projects are missing- we seem to have picked the low hanging fruit.

5\. Next recession the U.S. will hit the zero lower bound, and we will see lots of QE and/or nominal negative interest rates through some institutional mechanism.

6\. Increasing government deficits look better when interest rates are low.

7\. Speculative: Deficit spending can increase indefinitely if real interest rates are below 0 (aka nominal rates are below inflation). To put it in other terms: Any deficit spending is free money up until the point that it causes inflation to rise about the nominal interest rate.

<comment><USER15> What does "secular" mean to you?

<comment><USER14> In Economics, secular essentially refers to long-term trends regardless of boom-and-bust business cycles. The focus is on the long term. In the context of economics it has nothing to do with religiousness.

A secular trend is a variable that evidences a consistent pattern within a given period of time. It is a statistical tendency that can be easily identified and it is not subject to seasonal or cyclical effects. ([https://www.myaccountingcourse.com/accounting- dictionary/sec...](https://www.myaccountingcourse.com/accounting- dictionary/secular-trend))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Pardon my cynicism, but it seems like many of the actions the administration is pushing are simply things they were pushing already and are using this health crisis as cudgel to help get what they want.

What we need are lower interest rates! What we need is to limit immigration from Mexico (even though the US has a higher infection rate and there isn't any talk of limiting flights from, say, England). What we need to do is silence domain experts and have communications controlled by politicians at the White House.

Maybe this rate cut is actually the right thing to do, what do I know? But I have little reason to believe it was made for the right reasons.

<comment><USER17> The administration doesn't direct interest rate policy, the FED does, within the context of the FED's mandate a rate drop isn't unexpected during an event like this.

<comment><USER18> > The administration doesn't direct interest rate policy, the FED does,

Given that the administration choose exactly who leads the FED, they're not exactly independent either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We are burning all of our fuel to ensure we are running at record levels and when a real problem rears its head, we are going to be dry.

<comment><USER20> The fallout will either fall on a second term or during someone else's first term. Either way the administration doesn't care.

<comment><USER21> November is still more than six months away. Given how quickly COVID-19 spreads I think our economy will likely be feeling the pain long before the election.

<comment><USER19> You are not wrong, and I do think that on the individual level, company employees will feel it. Unemployment may go up. This administration though uses the stock market as their barometer so if they are able claim that the S&P and DJIA are up they can claim victory. There are a lot of things they can do to keep stocks artificially inflated such as more rate cuts, corp. tax cuts, removing regulations, reducing the capital banks are required to keep on hand, etc. All of these can work towards keeping stocks high for a limited time but do essentially nothing for the normal person. At that point then its just a race between when the election occurs and when the market no longer responds to the artificial scaffolding.

I have no doubt this administration will hesitate for even a second if they are able to implement a feature that results in short term (through November) gains at the cost of long term ruin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bringing a fire truck to a bank robbery

<comment><USER23> Eh... maybe more like bringing a SWAT team to a brush fire.

<comment><USER24> what part of the prior analogy made you think this one was better, and so much better to actually post?

cynical, but genuinely curious

I like the imagery of fire hydrants spraying water on an issue that is ongoing and unresolved while the vaults become hollow and worth nothing.

<comment> ratfaced-guy Less syllables, rolls of the tongue better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> China started with single digit cases, which then spread countrywide with tens of thousands of cases and many deaths. They quarantined cities, built 1000 bed hospitals in 10 days. And now after about 2 months they are seeing a slowdown.

Why would this exact scenario regarding growth in the number of cases not play out in the US? The only difference is smaller population, but cities are dense here too.

However, unlike China, I don't think US and other countries will be able to quarantine entire cities.

They only hope IMHO is that the virus becomes less virulent with as summer approaches.

<comment><USER26> I think the thing that no one is looking at here is that nursing homes and elderly care centers are going to be hot beds for the the virus. From my understanding China and most of these Asian countries is that don't have nursing homes so the house can be isolated. Here in the US we concentrate the elderly in these nursing homes and hope for the best. Most CNAs don't have enough vacation or sick time to miss work so they will continue to come to work if they're feeling a little bad or have a slight fever and they will spread it despite everyone's vigilance.

<comment><USER27> Perhaps CNAs should start wearing masks not only to prevent getting sick but to prevent spreading the virus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is not solving the problem which is 1) the US is drastically behind in testing the population 2) it will not fix disrupted international supply chains 3) it will not fix liquidity crises at health insurers, hospitals, and life insurers and 4) it will not fix demand if people do not want to go shopping at any price because of non-financial concerns.

I presume the Fed knows this, and what worse is this seems to be due to political pressure.

Finally, when this does not work, it will reduce peoples' faith in the Fed.

<comment><USER29> People have faith in the Fed? You are right though, this is political to slow a market correction to where it actually _should be_. We just keep spinning more plates. What we really need if fiscal policy plans, not monetary. We have so many zombie companies that are on life support and we need to let them die but it won't happen with 0% rates.

<comment><USER30> The US federal reserve are the best in the world at what they do IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I like how you guys are pouring free money into the financial system while still asking $3000 if an uninsured person needs to be tested.

<comment><USER32> This isn't free money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm looking to refinance. If my lender says the rate hasn't changed from 3.25% since last week, that's bullshit Right?

How long should I wait for the rates to move?

<comment><USER34> It looks like the rates actually went slightly up from a few days ago (though these depends on many variables, but I'm comparing to my local rate that I've been checking for weeks). Might change tomorrow based on today's news.

<comment><USER35> How do you check your local rate?

<comment><USER34> I use a website from a local private lender. It requires info about the kind of mortgage you want, the value of the property, your credit score, the zip code, etc. If you don't know where to look, you can start with Zillow's tool: [https://www.zillow.com/mortgage-rates/](https://www.zillow.com/mortgage- rates/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Keeping the party going by drinking rubbing alcohol.

What would be hilarious/terrible is if this attempt to juice the markets doesn't prevent a sea of red at EOD.

</comment><comment><USER37> Most of the risks to the economy posed by COVID19 are supply side. How is a rate cute going to help? It seems like the main consequence of this in the near term is an increase in inflation.

</comment><comment><USER38> 50 bps cut, initial rally, faded super fast and now down for the day. Would be interested to see if Fed cuts further.

The first order effects weren't so large to stem the selloff (first order meaning the PV effect of lowering discount rate).

As for second order effects (rate cuts to spur economic activity), I'm not even bullish about the mechanism to transmit rate cuts to the real economy normally, but I think in a quarantine situation, those mechanisms are even more diminished as there's less economic activity. Thinking out loud, demand will probably just hit a wall--there's no elasticity here when people are worried about their lives.

The only mechanism that sounds plausible to flow through to the real economy is fiscal. Government buys Pampers, burns them, buys them again. Or keep lowering rates to raise asset prices by a purely mechanical lowering of discount factor.

</comment><comment><USER39> It's well-understand how low interest rates boost the economy in the medium- and long-term. Companies deploy cheap capital to build new factories, and consumers buy more appliances, cars, and houses.

What short term behavior changes do emergency rate cuts cause to boost the economy? Are there capital projects that can get started in weeks, that were previously shelved because the rates were 0.5% too high, but are now viable? What sort of projects would these be?

<comment><USER40> > Companies deploy cheap capital to build new factories

Have we actually seen investment though? Or have we seen mostly stock buybacks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Does this mean the meeting on march 18th (where there was almost a 100% chance of a rate cut going through) is not happening anymore? [0]

I can't tell if they've just not yet updated that page.

[0] [https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/countdown- to...](https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to-fomc.html)

<comment><USER42> The market is pricing in an additional rate cut at that meeting

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I don't want to sound overly negative but at least hedging with puts (and not gambling but sane expiry dates) against index funds isn't a bad idea. Cutting rates by a half point is panic football and won't fix the supply chain hiccups which will affect production and therefore consumption.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is a supply shock. Cutting interest rates won't make widgets appear if the widget factory is idle...

<comment><USER44> I'm not sure why I was downvoted.

[https://www.marketplace.org/2020/02/18/coronavirus- warnings-...](https://www.marketplace.org/2020/02/18/coronavirus-warnings- from-apple-nintendo-and-nissan-kindle-supply-shock-fears/)

<comment><USER24> everyone is equally as confused as its the same user experience for everyone that comments but protip, talking about downvotes just opens a spiral of more downvotes until you criticize the site rules and get shadowbanned. taking one for the team!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The Dow finished up 1,294 points yesterday, making it its best one-day point gain on record.

<comment><USER46> It's best to follow the SP500 rather than the Dow. The former is much more representative of the whole market. And it's best to follow market movement in percentage rather than points. Points inflate over time as the nominal value of the market indexes climb.

<comment><USER47> I can't wait for the SP500 to replace the Dow in news reporting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I had some call options on Robinhood that I wanted to sell after the spike caused by this rate hike. Now I'm watching my gains slowly go away since Robinhood is down again. Two days in a row.

<comment><USER24> and what lesson have you learned?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I am wondering: what if this happened when the interest rates were zero?

</comment><comment><USER50> This abrupt move by the Fed betrays lack of knowledge of stock market psychology. Looking at how stocks are doing today you would not think that anything of interest has happened (no pun intended).

The stock market psychology works on "buy on rumor, sell on news" principle. This is the reason there was a significant rally yesterday, and stocks are in negative territory today.

What the Fed should have done is give signals that they are about to cut interest rates, then give stronger signals, then even stronger signals, then cut interest rate by 0.25% then repeat for the next 0.25%. Markets would have rallied multiple times for each good news signal.

<comment><USER51> > "buy on rumor, sell on news"

Let me stop you right there - stock market is a multi-agent system with autonomous algorithms making micro decisions, cap managers doing strategic decisions, and everything in the middle. Add a bit of chaos theory. "Buy on rumor, sell on news" is an extremely simplified and naive rational for explaining how a stock market works.

Most theories of how a stock market works have a built-in fallacy. If someone figured out how the stock market fluctuates, it would be ironed out by massive hedges.

<comment><USER50> There may not be one, precise and predictable way the stock market works, but buying on rumor, and selling on news is a very common, herd mentality that is easily observable, as seen yesterday (rumor) and today (news).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> This will further increase housing prices, no? How much more unobtainable for the average American could they possibly get?

I suppose negative interest rates will let us know shortly!

<comment><USER53> Don't worry, literally every single one of the presidential candidates in the democratic primary wants to "build wealth" by making housing ever more expensive. It's practically state policy to make it impossible for a first- time buyer.

<comment><USER54> The entire point of housing policy at the local level, where it matters, is to make housing more expensive because people's wealth is in their homes and they're relying on housing prices to rise steadily. Renters have less political power.

<comment><USER53> Local policy is broken but I'm not convinced that it dominates. The Feds have the mortgage interest deduction and Fanny, which both stimulate the demand side very greatly.

<comment><USER54> Aren't significantly fewer (tens of millions?) people taking the mortgage interest deduction due to tax reform that doubled the standard deduction? Doesn't seem to have driven a collapse in housing costs.

We need more density in low-density areas of cities. Allow people to have multi-family homes if they choose it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> So should I wait a week and then refinance my houses?

<comment><USER56> The effects to the mortgage market aren't immediate, but should follow on soon. I'd keep an eye on current rates and observe the fall before signing any paperwork.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This seems like a bad move.

It isn't going to help, because it doesn't address the actual cause at all -- but it will help heighten the panic

</comment><comment><USER58> >The Fed also said in the statement that the "fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong."

So why cut the rate? Doesn't make any sense.

<comment><USER10> Political optics. Current POTUS's claim to success rests, in part, on a high performing financial sector. If the market tanks or stagnates, he no longer has that as a talking point.

<comment><USER59> I agree with the political optics part, and that the POTUS current claim to success is finances, but I 100% disagree that if the market stagnates or tanks completely that he no longer has that talking point.

If the market tanks, all the talking heads will just blame the upcoming election, and claim that markets and market makers are scared of a Democrat being elected. It doesn't change the talking points for the President at all, I imagine. He still claims the moral victory, if only he hadn't been undercut by those thieves on the other side.

That sort of thing is standard now. Claim success until you can't, then deny any involvement and blame someone else. That's politics, baby.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> This is a big mistake. There is nothing the Fed can do revive the economy from the Corona virus, because this is not a demand problem, it is a supply problem. The economy WILL slow down because the major parts of the economic chain have been considerably affected by this virus. You cannot use more money when there is less to buy and sell. This will happen simply because whatever solution to the virus disruption will take time to be implemented.

<comment><USER61> I am always surprised when software engineers have such strong opinions on monetary policy. Black and white statements like "There is nothing the Fed can do revive the economy from the Corona virus" aren't the best for macroeconomics discussions that rely on imperfect information and multiple related variables. Your wording makes it sound like you know more about macro than the best minds in monetary policy.

<comment><USER62> Software engineers are uniquely qualified to analyze supply chains and supply chain problems. In this case, technical analysis looks a whole lot different than the chicken bone divination stuff you see with thinkorswim or other trading platforms...

<comment><USER63> _Software engineers are uniquely qualified to analyze supply chains and supply chain problems._

You're going to have to qualify that. I've been doing this shit for thirty years, including writing logistics and other supply chain software. Do not prioritize my opinion just because I write software; prioritize the opinions of, oh I don't know, maybe COOs? The buyer for electronic parts at my employer? Anyone, _anyone_ but software engineers so arrogant that they think they have an opinion worthy of listening simply because... hell, I can't even guess why a software engineer would think that.

<comment><USER64> Agreed. The worst thing about software engineers is how smug and arrogant we can be. I think it's just an astounding ignorance of other fields and how they're no less complicated or filled with smart people than ours is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> [https://archive.md/MusGO](https://archive.md/MusGO)

</comment><comment><USER66> Imagine facing a global pandemic, and your first concern is how to profit from it.

</comment><comment><USER67> What if the reaction to the coronavirus is worse than the virus itself?

<comment><USER68> I agree to an extent. From a utilitarian standpoint, the economic damage caused by the virus is not outweighed by a mortality rate of 0.2%. That being said, coronavirus has the potential to become worse (more infections -> more mutation -> potential to mutate more aggressively or more resistant to our research) so minimizing infections is probably a good idea. Not to mention, people tend to get angry when you start assigning objective tangible value to human life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I'm retired and mostly not in the market. I won't invest in the market while it is overpriced. With such low interest rates, what is a safe investment?

<comment><USER70> There is no interest without risk.

I suggest Iranian, Argentinian bonds if you really want to get that blood flowing.

<comment><USER71> I wonder if syrian bonds are available?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I wonder if economic indicators will temporary blip up because of stockpiling. I recently bought $1000 of food and supplies and books and toys for my kids if they get stuck indoors which would have normally taken me six months to buy.

</comment><comment><USER73> 3-2-1, bull market returns. (I hope)

<comment><USER74> Why? Are you retired? Because if you aren't, if you're working and putting money into a retirement plan, you are _much_ better off with a bear market, especially one like this that is practically guaranteed not to run for years. When you're a buyer you want prices to be low.

<comment><USER75> This assumes a return to trend, right? If stocks are temporarily depressed you can get them at a discount.

If stock prices are permanently lower as a result, though, it's certainly not good for you. And, believe it or not, this is probably the more accepted idea -- that price movements are memoryless, that we shouldn't subscribe to the gamblers fallacy (that down today means up tomorrow), and that being happy for a price drop is a form of timing the market, which is frowned upon.

I don't fully buy it, but it's worth thinking about.

<comment><USER74> > If stock prices are permanently lower

The only way that can happen is if the economy is permanently less productive. There are things that can make that happen (climate change, for example) but the corona virus is not among them. Fear of the virus is causing vastly more damage than the virus itself. The virus itself is mainly killing old, unproductive people. I don't want to minimize the severity of the problem or the emotional pain of people who have lost loved ones, but in terms of _long- term_ economic impact the corona virus is really not a problem.

<comment><USER75> I mostly agree. Some nits, though:

> _permanently less productive_

A short-term reduction in profits reduces the discounted sum of future returns. Not as much as if interest rates were lower, though.

Also, the example of the virus could indicate that these infections are on average more common and more severe than we figured, and that could reduce expected long-term growth.

Finally, a "pause" on activity could _delay_ productivity increases. Probably a small effect, but this could represent investment not happening in the short term.

I sent some lumpy buy orders yesterday, but I'm not sure I was right to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Wish the coronavirus czar had the same urgency...

</comment><comment><USER77> So every safety in our country and economy is now disabled, air and water regulations food regulations,taxes cut to flatline levels for industry, all in the name of profit. Now the monetary system is being tampered with further.

All reserves are gone. Imagine trying to climb out of this ditch if something _really_ bad happened (like say a million people die).

</comment><comment><USER78> This is the start of the next Global Financial Crisis folks. It's not hard to see the pieces in motion now:

1 - The Q1 supply shock is going to be a temporary thing. They'll recover alright after causing some companies to miss their Q1 earnings. If this was the only effect, we would recover just fine here later this year, but...

2 - Coronavirus is just getting started in the US and Europe. If it spreads widely, and unabated, then the those countries will be forced to enact school closures, business closures, etc, which will cause a massive demand shock.

3 - Demand shock will tank airlines, cruises, restaurants, malls, etc. Basically anything that requires groups of people to make money.

4 - Eventually, demand shock will hit corporate balance sheets in a big way. Many corporations (especially in the energy industry) are overloaded with debt [1]. If this goes on long enough, then those companies will go bankrupt.

5 - If enough companies default on their debt simultaneously, then derivatives on corporate debt (defaults) will cause a systemic crisis again [2].

There's no guarantee that this will happen, but if it does it's going to make 2008 look like a joke by comparison.

If it does, we need to do the right thing this time: wind down the banks and let them fail.

For the downvoters:

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/opinion/the-next- financia...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/opinion/the-next-financial- crisis-lurks-underground.html)

[2] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-a-blast-from-a-financial- cri...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-a-blast-from-a-financial-crisis-past- synthetic-cdos-are-back-1503912601)

<comment><USER30> Please don't spread FUD. Please do provide references for your claims.

<comment><USER78> This isn't FUD:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-a-blast-from-a-financial- cri...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-a-blast-from-a-financial-crisis-past- synthetic-cdos-are-back-1503912601)</comment></comment></comment>


America's Broadband Dilemma - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/25573/

<comment><USER2> What I find most troubling about this 'dilemma' is that the reach of broadband nationwide is unknown. There is no comprehensive tracking of broadband service, including which neighborhoods, towns and cities have it and which don't. No federal agency or private group keeps track. To date we have relied on outreach efforts like the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the 2007 Census of Agriculture to measure rural broadband penetration. If we hope to fix America's Broadband Dilemma we need to know where to best target our efforts.</comment>


Internet Firms Are Far Behind Cable Companies in Political Donations - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/upshot/internet-firms-are-far-behind-cable-companies-in-political-donations.html?ref=technology&abt=0002&abg=0

<comment><USER2> So, essentially, the Net Neutrality issue is quasi-demonstrably being resolved in favor of cable companies because they participate in government corruption to a greater degree than software companies, without regard to the opinions of the public, subject experts (EFF, academics) and the president. How is this a thing in a modern developed nation?

This is pretty much some France Ancien Regime kinda stuff, where rich people could basically buy public offices from the crown and with them the right to operate them; only this is worse, because the money probably ends up in private pockets rather than any sort of national treasury or royal fund...</comment>


Who the F Is the EFF? John Legere Wants to Know - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/07/who-the-f-is-the-eff-john-legere-wants-to-know/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> I decided to have a little fun with this: [https://twitter.com/mattl/status/685224731667087360](https://twitter.com/mattl/status/685224731667087360)</comment>


The Art of Profitability - <AUTHOR> http://codingvc.com/the-art-of-profitability

<comment><USER2> Don't knock it 'til you actually read it. The succinct snippets given on CodingVC's blog don't do it justice.

It's one of the most interesting business books I've ever read - one of the only that's worth reading multiple times.

You can see my more detailed notes from it, here:

[http://sivers.org/book/ArtOfProfitability](http://sivers.org/book/ArtOfProfitability)

Or if you're the video type, I did a conference presentation about it, here:

[http://vimeo.com/15088740](http://vimeo.com/15088740)

<comment><USER3> Hi Derek, That presentation is awesome! Are the slides available somewhere? (the video doesn't capture them) Thanks

<comment><USER2> Hi rrtwo -

Please email me for the slides. I'm happy to share them.

\- Derek

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Profitability is like weight loss. Extremely straightforward, in principle. Charge money and keep more of it than you spend. What could be so hard about that?

<comment><USER5> > What could be so hard about that?

Fantastic analogy. It also covers the difficulties: it's fun indulging in ivory tower engineering exercises, or decadent offices, or letting delusions of grandeur grow your staff too quickly, if you don't have the self-restraint needed to make sensible decisions every. single. day.

<comment><USER4> And it's _especially_ fun to tell other people how they're doing it wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is why I hate business writing. Endless platitudes without any substance. Sure, each of those are models, but they are neither novel ideas nor are they prescriptive enough to leave a path toward building something that takes advantage of one of them. Nor, for that matter, is it possible to prescribe a path to successful entrepreneurship beyond the basic principles because as soon as one path to success is known, it stops being a reliable path.

Less hand-wavey:

a) Read some Peter Drucker. b) Read a bunch of case studies in your industry. c) Start a bunch of businesses with someone else's money.

<comment><AUTHOR> (I'm the author of the post.)

I went from software engineering to VC about two years ago, and I used to have the same opinion as you: a lot of business books/articles/blog posts are just platitudes, and anyone with common sense should already know this stuff or be able to figure it out easily.

Moving to the VC side was eye-opening. From what I've seen, people are very good at taking something they've learned in a blog post and seeing how it would apply to _other_ people's businesses. They're not very good at realizing how those same lessons apply to their own businesses. For example, I've met many founders who talk about building MVPs but don't notice that their own pre-launch products are heading way past "minimum viable". I'm not immune to this, either. Like many engineers, I have a bunch of side project ideas that I hope to one day turn into successful companies. Literally days after becoming a VC, I realized that most of the pitfalls I saw in other people's business ideas were very present in my own ideas. It was humbling.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I agree with you that AoP's advice is not particularly deep (although it's much better than most books), and that the challenge _is_ in applying it. What I loved about this book is that makes it makes profit model advice so easy to apply to your own business. You can literally go through each of the 23 profit models in the book and ask, "What would my product look like if I applied this model to it?" If you spend 2 minutes on each model, I bet that you'd have some excellent ideas in just 45 minutes. I haven't found many other business books that are as practical.

<comment><USER7> Great advice! However when I tried it, it took me 46 minutes instead of 45 (I tried it twice just to make sure)

<comment><USER8> You didn't have any excellent ideas until the last minute of the last model?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The book shows up as "usually ships within 2-3 weeks" on amazon, even though it's a prime item. I guess this is what happens when amazon gets flooded with orders on an item without a large stock? I wonder if it's the publisher that didn't give amazon a large stock, or if it was driven by its own algorithms.

<comment><USER10> No it's due to a power struggle between the book's publisher and Amazon. Amazon is intentionally delaying shipping the book.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/25/amazon- hac...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/25/amazon-hachette- publishing-future-ebooks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds good to me. Just ordered a copy, along with Gabriel Weinberg's _Traction_ book, and _Profit Patterns_ [1].

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/Profit-Patterns-Anticipate- Strategic-R...](http://www.amazon.com/Profit-Patterns-Anticipate-Strategic- Reshaping/dp/0812931181)</comment>


How to Protect Your Infrastructure Against the Basic Attacker - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mailgun.com/security-guide-basic-infrastructure-security/ <comment><USER2> One thing you should probably do: establish a VPN. Give staff cert-based credentials to it. Block all inbound traffic to the VPN except a) port 22/etc to your bastion host and b) 80/443 to your front-end web boxes.

This greatly reduces your surface area, and helps prevent easy mistakes later (like leaving a staging server unpatched) from blowing up your whole deployment.

Also, admin applications: an easy way for smart teams to lose. These are a great candidate for "only accessible if you're VPNing in", which you can enforce at firewall and again in the application if you want.

Password managers; TFA everywhere but especially on corporate email accounts; ask yourself "If I were a hobbyist building a Bitcoin exchange where would I host it?" then don't host there.

Here's a useful but hard-to-implement recommendation: keep an up-to-date list of every box in use and terminate anything you find not on that list. Many compromises start with "The summer intern's project from last year was web accessible and..."

<comment><USER3> > ask yourself "If I were a hobbyist building a Bitcoin exchange where would I > host it?" then don't host there.

What's the rationale for this? This would seem to rule out inexpensive VPS hosts like DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode, that are good not only for hobbyists, but for small companies on a shoestring budget. Are you saying something like AWS is better simply because it's less attractive to hobbyists?

<comment><USER4> Don't ever use Linode. If you have friends using Linode, tell them to stop.

<comment><USER5> Just went to cancel a VPS I have over there... There's so hosed with the DDOS, I can't even bring up the homepage!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really think it's time for guides to be written that don't contain the advice to disable all IPv6 support. IPv6 is coming. It's 2015 and categorically disabling (or actually just breaking) IPv6 definitely isn't good advice any more.

Yes. The article did qualify that advice with "unless you're using it...", but people should be doing v6, so advice should include v6 too.

<comment><USER7> This. At least, if you're not ready to accept incoming v6 connections (which really isn't hard to do), use connection tracking to let outbound v6 through and add the necessary icmpv6 accept rules.

ufw comes pre-installed on ubuntu and is dead simple to use, there's really no reason not to use it.

      # ufw allow 22/tcp
      # ufw enable

should be all you need to have connection tracking on both v6 and v4, have a tried and trusted icmpv6 accept list, and keep your v6 and v4 firewalls in sync.

<comment><USER8> I like to use a limit rule (ufw limit 22/tcp) for SSH, to discourage brute force attacks. If nothing else, it will help reduce the noise in the log files.

This isn't a replacement for basic precautions such as disabling root login and not allowing password authentication, of course.

<comment><USER9> I prefer to not limit SSH but use fail2ban instead to remove the noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a decent "basic" guide. I look forward to the "intermediate" and "advanced" versions. Hopefully, Mailgun will come through and actually deliver those in the near future.

<comment><USER11> Author of the guide here, don't worry, we will!

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the reassurance. I've read too many of these "part 1" articles promising follow-ups that never transpired.

<comment><USER12> As somebody who has written some "part 1" articles that promised follow-ups, sometimes the negative comments on the first article discouraged me from writing part 2. Useful, constructive feedback can help fix the article and feed into part 2, but kneejerk negativity about something you've done for free is hard to hear. Even more useful would be someone offering to help write part 2.

<comment><USER10> > _... sometimes the negative comments on the first article discouraged me > from writing part 2._

I certainly understand that and I hope I didn't come off sounding ungrateful. A few years ago, I spent a lot of time writing articles and recording videos for my blog and, fortunately, I never had to deal with such negative feedback. I can certainly see how it would discourage you from continuing.

It's simply a bit disappointing sometimes to Google for something, find an article that sounds like exactly what I was looking for, discover it's a "part 1" that didn't quite cover what I needed, then go looking for "part 2" and realize it was never written.

<comment><USER13> It is also often the cast that best intentions lead one to write part 1 but life gets in the way for part 2. I try to tune out feedback that isn't constructive (like a lot of feedback is these days). I wonder if it is (or could become) a thing to ask the original author if they'd mind someone else taking up a new draft?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Simplified, generic, basic guide follows. You can probably find a guide for hardening all these individual things on your system, so trying to enumerate them all would be a losing game.

Primary question to ask yourself: What connections are allowed from the internet into each host, protocol and port on your network?

Primary task: Firewall off all traffic coming into your servers from the internet to be only web and VPN access.

Secondary question to ask yourself: What stuff can run on my servers, and by whom, and what access do those users have?

Secondary task: Limit the users who can run programs, limit what parts of the system those users can view or modify, limit the programs that can run, limit the files and directories that can be accessed.

Tertiary question to ask yourself: Is my software full of bugs or security flaws?

Tertiary task: Use software designed to be secure by default, configure it to be secure, and update it for security patches constantly. Note that this does not mean "upgrade it constantly".

Additional considerations: Don't use shared accounts, don't use root, use keys/certificates whenever possible, use a separate machine for the VPN, put some sort of network intrusion detection/firewall/defense-in-depth/blah blah network appliance in front of the public facing servers, use a web application firewall, monitor your logs for unusual behavior, and get someone who's very familiar with security to double-check your setup (read: break into your servers and tell you the holes they found)

</comment><comment><USER15> "This guide will eventually have three versions, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced, with each version focused on defending your infrastructure against a different class of attacker." Love this approach! It must be a different game defending against really talented and dedicated people vs. a bot. I'm looking forward to parts 2 & 3\. Those little "DO" and "DON'T" bullet points were a good idea too.

<comment><USER11> Thanks, the DO's and DON'TS were heavily inspired by a talk given by Colin Percival called "Everything you need to know about cryptography in 1 hour". You can check it out here: [https://www.bsdcan.org/2010/schedule/attachments/135_crypto1...](https://www.bsdcan.org/2010/schedule/attachments/135_crypto1hr.pdf)

It's really good!

<comment><USER16> Thanks for contributing to my massive backlog of "talks I really want to watch but don't have time to" :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very nice article, even for advanced users (not attackers ;)).

I have one question though. What are your thoughts on DROP vs REJECT firewall rules, as some people claim that DROP offers no additional benefits over REJECT while causing inconvenience to legit users. ref: [http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~peterb/network/drop-vs- re...](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~peterb/network/drop-vs-reject)

<comment><USER18> I suspect reject uses some bandwidth and CPU time.

<comment><USER17> Shouldn't it be the opposite? If clients receive a REJECT message, they will simply stop trying to connect, but if they don't receive any response at all, i.e., DROP, they will keep on trying to connect before any timeout threshold kicks in, thus putting more load on the server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thanks for the guide, very useful. Spotted a very minor typo in the Backups section: "Backups server two primary purposes" (should it be serve?)

<comment><USER11> Fixed that, thanks for pointing it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised the article doesn't recommend using ufw or firewalld to set up the firewall. I like ufw, which is available on Ubuntu and Debian at least. Also, what about fail2ban, for automatically banning IPs that repeatedly attempt unauthorized access?

<comment><USER20> If you are using public-key cryptography (instead of password) for SSH there isn't any need to ban failed attempts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I recommend "Securing Debian":

[https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian- howto/](https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Every once in a while, you find a jewel in the sea of crappy security guides. This is a jewel: go for it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just say no to VPNs.</comment>


Gene drives can efficiently and reversibly bias inheritance in wild yeast - <AUTHOR> http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/03/19/013896 <comment><USER2> Old news. This: [http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/E6736](http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/E6736) Is much more impressive... :)</comment>


Results for init system coupling - <AUTHOR> https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2014/11/msg00171.html

<comment><USER2> The full text of the option that won, since the results mail doesn't include it:

"The Debian project asks its members to be considerate when proposing General Resolutions, as the GR process may be disruptive regardless of the outcome of the vote.

Regarding the subject of this ballot, the Project affirms that the procedures for decision making and conflict resolution are working adequately and thus a General Resolution is not required."

The graphical results (rendered from the graphviz at the end of the voting results mail) show the full preferences of the project:

[https://twitter.com/josh_triplett/status/534870813863051264](https://twitter.com/josh_triplett/status/534870813863051264)

A labeled edge from A to B in that graph means that voters preferred A to B by that margin.

Those results answer several questions, in addition to the clear statement in the GR text above. In particular, it's clear that 1) people consider any result preferable to further discussion (just barely in the case of mandatory support for other init systems), 2) people still consider it desirable to support other init systems, just not mandatory, and 3) people would rather see a definitive statement in favor of systemd dependencies than a definitive statement against them.

</comment><comment><USER3> That table would be more intelligible if it were triangular, contained the (row, col) difference, and were reordered so that no difference were negative. As it is, the eye is forced to jump back and forth to figure anything out.

<comment><USER2> The Debian vote engine (devotee) lives at [https://vote.debian.org/~secretary/devotee.git/](https://vote.debian.org/~secretary/devotee.git/) ; you could always propose a patch.

However, I think the output as written makes sense to provide the full data; the summaries below that show the deltas for each option, and the graphviz graph seems like the easiest way to see the full preferences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not long prior to this, Colin Watson and Russ Allbery resigned from the Debian Technical Committee.

</comment><comment><USER5> This wasn't meant to happen.

[https://lists.debian.org/debian- vote/2014/11/msg00040.html](https://lists.debian.org/debian- vote/2014/11/msg00040.html)

<comment><USER2> No, that mail was in response to an unintentional results mail sent out at the beginning of the voting period with 0 votes, at [https://lists.debian.org/debian- vote/2014/11/msg00038.html](https://lists.debian.org/debian- vote/2014/11/msg00038.html) .

These are the actual results of the vote; as noted at [https://www.debian.org/vote/2014/vote_003](https://www.debian.org/vote/2014/vote_003) , the vote ended at Tuesday, November 18th, 23:59:59 UTC, 2014 (about 80 minutes ago).</comment></comment>


Apple's weakest link is at its core - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/sep/26/the-networker-john-naughton-itunes-apple <comment><USER2> A long article about laptops, queues at the app store, iPhones just to say that iTunes is a bloated software crammed with different features? As If it was big news.</comment>


'AOL squatter' takes wraps off new startup, Claco - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_21603255/aol-squatter-takes-wraps-off-new-startup-claco <comment><USER2> Heh... the new name makes me think of the word "cloaca".

<comment><USER3> I was curious: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca>

> In zoological anatomy, a cloaca ( /kloʊˈeɪkə/) is the posterior opening that > serves as the only such opening for the intestinal, reproductive, and > urinary tracts of certain animal species.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the better stories published when he was originally caught living at AOL - [http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57440513-296/meet-the- tire...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57440513-296/meet-the-tireless- entrepreneur-who-squatted-at-aol/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Ever since that first story showed up on HN, I have loved reading about this guy. When a guy with ambition has a work ethic like this, it is great to see them do well.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2011013>

</comment><comment><USER7> This kid is a thief, AOL should take him to court for equity in his company.

<comment><USER8> The kid's doing what he believes in. Stop the hate, man. Moreover if you read the original article[1], he was allowed to be working out of AOL.

[1]: [http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57440513-296/meet-the- tire...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57440513-296/meet-the-tireless- entrepreneur-who-squatted-at-aol/)

<comment><USER9> I like to think that if he does well he'll put some of what he earns back into programs like this one, and maybe a little thank you to AOL.</comment></comment></comment>


Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/harvard-nature-crispr-cas1-cas2-horse-gif/ <comment><USER2> previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755429)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, not to be prude, but this was literally posted yesterday. The actual article, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms that insert GIF meme pranks into the human population germ line, eventually triggering the apocalypse.

It seems our ability to mess stuff up is growing faster than our ability to defend against bugs. I shudder to think what happens when sloppy engineering practices or "WannaCry" meet biology. Hey, we've encrypted your germ line, and sterilized you, send Bitcoin to XXXXX to restore your fertility.

<comment><USER5> >I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms

You're going to be waiting awhile.

The hard part about biology is that it often doesn't work. To get things working even semi-reliably you need tens of thousands of dollars of sensitive equipment and reagents. Equipment and reagents that would catch the attention of interested authorities if you bought it as an independent.

Computer viruses are the result of a tractable ecosystem and a low cost to participation. Biology is largely untractable, with a tremendous cost of entry.

Yes, CRISPR helps us insert DNA, but it doesn't change all the sensitive steps up to the point of transformation. Even then, CRISPR is limited to the cells being treated.

A custom biological virus is what you are imagining, with the ability to both insert DNA/RNA and with a capsule that protect it during transmission. Unfortunately we are likely centuries away from being able to code a completely custom life form, and even then, the cost and training needed to create such life forms will be cost prohibitive, leaving only corporations and governments the ability to do so.

<comment><USER4> I don't think you need a completely custom from scratch lifeform. It seems to me you just have to find a flexible existing pathogen that can tolerate a CRISPR edit sequence tagging a long. Perhaps a virus is too small, maybe some common gut bacteria or fungus can be weaponized.

Admittedly, we're a "long way" from that, but for me, I define "long way" as 20 years. Centuries? Seems way past the singularity horizon for me. I think it's really hard to say at this point something is too hard to be solved in 100 years unless it's something that defies the laws of physics, or takes ungodly amounts of mass or energy.

<comment><USER5> > It seems to me you just have to find a flexible existing pathogen

We can do that now. It's fairly easy for anyone to edit viruses or bacteria using non-crispr methods to make something more virulent.

The problem is there is an evolutionary trade-off. To be more virulent means dedicating resources to it, to the detriment of other kinds of fitness. The result is your virulent pathogen cannot spread, defeating the point of a weapon.

We are many decades away from achieving systemic understanding necessary to improve an organisms fitness using molecular tools, and also account for compensatory changes to fitness.

You can however use selective breeding to do this, but that's millenia old technology.

> I define "long way" as 20 years.

We don't even understand most of the existing proteins in databases yet, and it is going to take decades to meticulously characterize these sequences.

Worse, nobody has come close to a useful denovo protein sequence yet, let alone a genomes worth of proteins and their interactions. I feel safe in saying we are at least 50 years off from these goals, probably more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's the image that was encoded:

[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muybridge_horse_gall...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muybridge_horse_gallop_animated_2.gif)

<comment><USER7> It's iconic photography!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can we stop with the slippery slope arguments? No, CRISPR will not be used be teenage hackers in the future to infect humans and keep them hostage. CRISPR can't be "spread" or "transmitted" and is a local technique to introduce DNA snippets into the main genome of the organism. And to anyone who thinks that CRISPR could be potentially used to infect humans, this technology is nothing new: viruses have already had DNA editing machinery for millennia, search up retroviruses.

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

<comment><USER9> Note that when the popular press worries about the destructive potential of "CRISPR", they don't mean CRISPR specifically. They're using the word as a stand-in for the general trend of the exponentially decreasing cost of genome sequencing and editing techniques which probably, eventually, will reach the level where they can be done by teenage hackers. And that _is_ something that requires concern and attention, even if I don't think it merits panic.

I think you are much too sanguine about this, which I've noticed is a tendency among programmers in general. We're used to a world where bugs always have fixes, and can be patched and the fix spread worldwide instantly, for free. None of these things are true in epidemiology, and it causes us to make really bad metaphors that don't apply in this world. For starters, "responsible disclosure is good" and "security-by-obscurity is bad" are obvious truisms in software but not even remotely true in epidemiology.

> viruses have already had DNA editing machinery for millennia, search up > retroviruses.

But viruses are subject to evolutionary pressure that puts a ceiling on how bad they can be. Most of the worst human viruses have a "pick two" of 1) airborne 2) highly infectious 3) fatal, because a virus with all 3 burns itself out and can't survive. Engineered organisms do not have this ceiling.

<comment><USER8> To be fair, we do have examples of some superbugs, such as the Spanish Flu in the 1910s, where an influenza virus managed to wipe out a significant portion of the world. It would be considered by most to be airborne, infectious, and fatal. Maybe my optimism results from the fact that a supervirus has never been engineered (which I agree is fallacious), but I don't think CRISPR, a research technique, even begins to encroach on the topic of genetically engineered superbugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They should encode some music on it and then watch the RIAA go apeshit trying to track down and kill all the copyright-infringing bacteria.

<comment><USER11> If someone finds some protected data as controversial as AACS encryption key[2] and creates a "fork" of HIV which contains that information, I'm optimistic that we will get a cure for it in a few years.

On a more serious note, I'm not sure, with this kind of power, if we are quickly approaching a Great Filter[4] or not.

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

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controvers...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy)

<comment><USER10> > I'm not sure, with this kind of power, if we are quickly approaching a Great > Filter or not

We're approaching several.

We -- or rather, some members of our species -- are clever enough to build amazingly powerful technologies (nuclear weapons, biotechnology, maybe strong AI), but as a species we seem to often use them unwisely, either because political leaders are power-obsessed (in the case of nuclear weapons), or because some technologies might become able to be harnessed by individuals/groups without much resources (DIY biotechnology).

It's like toddlers playing with matches on a petrol-soaked carpet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> so storing data on multiple (billions of bacteria). I assume that you would have populations of duplicates and would piece together your entire original dataset (e.g. a tar) using start and end encoding tags? How do you re-sequence multiple populations of bacteria that you just grab from a sample sitting in a -80c freezer? You'd also have to prevent them from modifying their own genome and messing up your data.

<comment><USER13> You could store it redundantly, in a genetic RAID

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I read the article, but I'm still quite confused. How exactly did they "insert" a computer image into living bacteria?? Do they mean they have stored binary code in the bacteria?? Or did they just physically create a fine image somewhere in the bacteria???

<comment><USER12> they store the data in the dna, they encode pixels using ATGC, and re- sequence. But they only have one population of bacteria that contain all of the same data.

<comment><USER15> I don't know much about how DNA works, but by inserting ATGC sequences, does that not mess up the bacteria's replication process or something? How would the cell 'read' this encoded gif in the DNA? Would it try to build a protein because of it, or would it ignore the sequence? Do cells usually have a checksum-type of functionality to detect if their DNA is valid/unmutated? The article itself didn't make any mention, but could there possibly be negative impacts to the cell hosting this data by having its DNA altered?

<comment><USER16> Right I'm no biologist, but my understanding is that there's vast amount of dna that doesn't really do anything (doesn't encode any proteins). I don't remember why... maybe it used to do stuff a long time ago.

<comment><USER17> You are thinking of introns. Their function is still not very well-known. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intron#Biological_functions_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intron#Biological_functions_and_evolution)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So, eventually we can look forward to getting rickrolled by a bout of food poisoning. And maybe get sued for piracy afterwards, for unauthorized duplication and distribution. Unless consideration of fair use is updated to include involuntarily crapping out copies.

</comment><comment><USER19> How likely is it than storing arbitrary data in a bacteria's DNA would allow it to create something dangerous for humans?

<comment><USER20> Approximately like the chance that DNA sequence of a virus, when executed as shell code, will infect your machine.

<comment><USER21> Buy your subscription to Norton Anti-virus 2030 today!

<comment><USER22> If not for yourself, do it for the children.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Inspecting for exfil just got a lot harder.

<comment><USER24> Seriously, now border & customs agents will have to require unlocking your DNA as well as your phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What are the odds this is being used for exfiltrating sensitive data? (Reminds me of a Culture novel, I think _Excession_ , where one character tries to sneak information out of a ship by encoding it into the DNA of bacteria on, essentially, packages.)

<comment><USER24> Zero right now, but the future where borders agents require you to unlock your DNA as well as your phone makes for a great sci-fi dystopia.

<comment><USER26> DNA of which organs should the border agents examine in that future?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What does this have to do with the GIF image format? Wouldn't using something other than LZW compression give them a much faster converging restoration rate?

</comment><comment><USER28> Anyone have any info on the amount of data that was encoded?

It looks like it was a low resolution image with 5 frames, so I expect it to be about 1 Kb, max?

<comment><USER5> Nature paper say 2.5 kilobytes of data, and I guessimate a few Kilobases of sequence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> If I hadn't seen this tweeted around earlier, I would've guessed this title/story generated by the HNSimulator markov bot.

</comment><comment><USER30> When did techcrunch get bought out by Buzzfeed? 'did your head just explode' is such a link-bait-douchy title

</comment><comment><USER31> The next big _leap_ : putting Pepe memes in a frog

</comment><comment><USER32> Okay great, but how did the scientists pronounce it?

</comment><comment><USER33> Look at my horse. My horse is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER34> Pay-walled science don't you just love it? Why do they bother - it isn't science until you publish IMHO. This is just showing their rich friends.

<comment><USER35> I suspect that falsely denouncing paywalled research as "not science" isn't going to work in bringing about the outcome that you want. Probably a strategy without so many scotsmen would work better.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone have any experience with CPA advertising? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone here advertise, and does anyone have any experience with CPA (click per action) networks?  If so, which networks, what was your cost, and how did it work out?<p>Thanks for sharing any experiences, Kevin <comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify, I'm asking if you have experience USING a CPA network to advertise your product, not as an affiliate.</comment>


New York's Incredible Subway - <AUTHOR> http://www.newgeography.com/content/005255-new-yorks-incredible-subway <comment><USER2> The big difference between the NYC subway and all other US systems is that it's four-track. Not only is it four-track; there are lots of switches, crossovers, and interlocked signaling to support taking a section of track out of service without affecting traffic much. That's why the system can run 24/7\. Almost all maintenance is done without stopping all traffic.

Surprisingly, China's new subways are not generally being built as four-track systems. Nor does Japan have much four-track subway trackage. London Underground is cramped in every dimension - the system is two-track, the tunnel diameter is small, and the platforms are short. London cannot fit any more rolling stock onto their tracks on some lines.

<comment><USER3> Signalling is one of the main issues in London, as a lot of it is old and needs replacing for higher density. More tracks are being added, and the wider metro rail systems are being integrated and extended though.

<comment><USER4> Much of the old signaling on the deep lines is gone.

Trains on the Northern, Victoria, Central and Jubilee lines run automatically, except a driver pressing a button to close the doors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I attended a presentation by Travis Kalanick recently, where he told he got the idea for Uber when he could not get a Cab while visiting Paris.

I thought that was quite funny: Paris has this awesome ridesharing service, that is even mostly driverless, called the Subway. Everyone there uses it; only a US tourist would use a taxi there. Still that poor idea led to a great company.

On a more serious note, this made me think: private companies and startups doing self driving cars and other transport innovations gain nothing when public transport gets more popular. They compete with it. I now wonder if that has something to do with the decrease in rides in US cities outside NY.

<comment><USER6> In theory, they could coexist. There was some talk that Uber was going to create a "hybrid" transportation solution, where it would handle the beginning and end of your transit, dropping you off at a train for the majority of the trip and automatically picking you up at the other end for the last leg.

<comment><USER7> Only Uber could re-brand the bus system as an 'innovation'.

<comment><USER8> A bus coming directly to my house, with no intermediate stops on its optimal route? Yes, please. I'm only sure it's not going to be $2.75 flat rate.

<comment><USER9> It will happen within 10 years somewhere, and it will probably not be a flat rate, but most rides will be less than $2.75. The per-mile cost for self driving electric vehicles is very low.

<comment><USER10> That's an extremely aggressive presumption to make without a source/explanation.

<comment><USER11> Not really. It already happened in some countries where with high development but still low salaries, like big cities in China. How/if cities will be able to deal with all the increase in traffic from self-driving cars without significant congestion charges is of course still unclear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is a list of gifs showing the expansion in various cities.

Shanghai ([http://www.thatsmags.com/uploads/galleries/images/shanghai-m...](http://www.thatsmags.com/uploads/galleries/images/shanghai- metro-gif.gif))

Toronto ([http://www.thatsmags.com/uploads/galleries/images/toronto- me...](http://www.thatsmags.com/uploads/galleries/images/toronto-metro- gif.gif))

Beijing ([http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/subwaygif2-01.gif](http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/subwaygif2-01.gif))

Moscow ([https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/%D0%9C%D...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/%D0%9C%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B5_%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE.gif))

New York ([https://secondavesagas.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/subwayhis...](https://secondavesagas.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/subwayhistory.gif))

<comment><USER13> Boston: [http://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2012/04/an- animated-...](http://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2012/04/an-animated- history-of-the-mbta/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You can travel on the subway and busses as much as you want for about $110 per month.

Remarkably, the subway had even more ridership in the late 1920's and late 1940's, exceeding 2 billion rides per year.

<comment><USER15> Manhattan's population was also much larger back then.

<comment><USER16> When you had fifteen people jammed into a three bedroom it was no wonder it was higher.

<comment><USER15> There's a lot more square footage now, so they could have the density if more folks lived with roommates. But the number of people who want to live alone is much higher now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's no mention of the fact that the "Incredible" New York City subway is buckling under the strain of this increased ridership. The sources are many but just to provide one:

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-subway-system-cant- kee...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-subway-system-cant-keep-pace- with-growing-number-of-riders-1458762858)

Despite a growing ridership, it's still fiscally strapped and under capitalized, so it's buckling financially as well. While the latter contributes to the former it is by no means the sole cause.

<comment><USER18> Undercapitalized? MTA has access to lots and lots of capital. They collect fares on the largest transportation network in the United States, have nearly unlimited bonding ability, and collection of sales taxes from one of the larger metro areas on the planet.

Underinvestment in capital projects has more to do with the ridiculous politics around the MTA. They have expensive labor contracts, duplicative administration and lots of inefficiency.

<comment><USER17> Yes agreed, and there's even a tax on your cell phone bill as a resident that goes to the MTA. They are undercapitalized for all the projects they have already begun work on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > each of which is 20 percent or more denser than any municipality large > municipality in the United States or Canada

And a chart that seems to be indicating that ridership has increased by 1,000 * 100 million riders from 2005 to 2015.

Who edited this?

</comment><comment><USER20> I haven't had an opportunity to ride the NYC subway, but I was a regular user of the Shenzhen/Hong Kong subway for a few months during a long term project in the region and I would have to say its incredible/insane. If you ever get a chance, experiencing the Hong Kong system at rush hour is crazy but you will be amazed by it efficiency. Don't know if I can say the same about SF or Toronto.

<comment><USER21> Toronto's transit definitely needs improvement. But how does SF even figure into the equation? I thought all the west-coast cities were car-centric.

<comment><USER22> San Francisco isn't, not really anyway. Actually, to be honest, it's kinda just crappy to get around no matter how you want to do it... but as far as cars are concerned, since the earthquake felled the Embarcadero Freeway the freeways are only on one side of the city, and even the fastest routes through town have a bunch of stoplights, and traffic is bad and slow.

But it does have transit! Mostly, it has Caltrain and BART, which are essentially commuter rail systems that drop people downtown where they actually want to work. They have some issues but they fundamentally _work_. San Francisco also has MUNI, the Municipal Railway, which runs the streetcars (and also runs the buses) and, for the US, it's pretty good transit. But that's mostly just low expectations: there's one downtown tunnel (which shares half its route with BART) and then the rest is mostly interlined with the aforementioned traffic, and it is slow, and notoriously unreliable (even besies traffic, SFMTA has well-known issues with its relationship to its labor union which contribute substantially to no-show drivers, and in the absence of driverless buses that's a bit of a monkey wrench in normal operation.) And very few of the buses have dedicated bus lanes (although the Geary corridor _might_ be getting some in the future as part of a bus rapid transit system some day soon).

There is an ongoing project to connect Caltrain to Market Street and Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf with a new streetcar line. We'll see how well it works out... there's already been drama and delays about moving the alignment from 3rd St to 4th St...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This made me curious about London's passenger or trip numbers, and I found this: [https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/what-we-do/london- und...](https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/what-we-do/london- underground/facts-and-figures)

1.34 billion passengers (I presume 'trips') per year.

</comment><comment><USER24> The author forgets Tokyo and Seoul in his intro. Tokyo because like NY, Paris and London it's both old and huge. Seoul because like Shanghai and Beijing it has emerged more recently as a genuine contender for the title of biggest and best system.

</comment><comment><USER25> Also interesting that the PATH, which serves parts of Manhattan (and I feel not a lot of people know about), ranks 7th on the list.

<comment><USER16> It's more a New Jersey thing than a New York thing even though technically it goes to Manhattan.

That's some pretty impressive volume considering it's not all that expansive: [http://www.panynj.gov/path/maps.html](http://www.panynj.gov/path/maps.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Strangely, and hypocritically, the same author of this post also wrote this:

"War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life"

WUT?</comment>