CorkboardMe now an "app" -- all in HTML 5 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.corkboard.me/2012/01/31/corkboardme-meet-the-ipad/

<comment><AUTHOR> How many people would love a blog post about how we did this, code and all?

<comment><USER2> I know I would be very interested. The company I currently work for is attempting to do something similar, so it would be good to see how you guys did it and what the pitfalls are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not bad, but looks like all you can "pin up" is just stickies. Would like it if I could pin-up images, custom flyers, memoes, etc.. as well. But again still an interesting concept. Wonder how well this works on a tablet device, as well as mobile device.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can do images -- although we're making this process easier soon. To do it: Copy and paste the URL of the image into a new note. Details below.

[http://blog.corkboard.me/2011/02/28/adding-images-to-your- co...](http://blog.corkboard.me/2011/02/28/adding-images-to-your-cork-board/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've slacked off using it lately, but I used it a lot last year. My middle- school daughter even organized a group project for school with it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps I missed it in the gray text, but when does the free trial expire?

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't. You get more features when you go pro.

New pricing page coming soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be nice to may use the same cockboardme from my mac in my iPad.

<comment><AUTHOR> You totally can - input the same URL into your mobile browser and you're golden.

Pro tip: If you save the web app to your home screen, it acts like a real app -- fullscreen and all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Corkboard is amazing!! I use it daily to organize my life!</comment>


Feynman's Public Lectures on Quantum Electrodynamics - <AUTHOR> http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8 <comment><USER2> Just saw the first video, but i found his analogy with mayan priests calculating Venus trajectory correctly, having no clue of the "why" quite disturbing.

There is a HUGE difference between knowing "why" and not knowing it. Mayans priests couldn't guess the real "why", because they had no notion of gravity or a correct description of the solar system, but now we do and we know.

The fact that quantum effects aren't grasped right now (at least by me :), means a very different thing whether we believe there will be such an explanation one day, with a more complete description of nature, or if such an explanation is inexistant.

Which makes me wonder : i've read that there was a proof that the "hidden variable hypothesis" is wrong. Does anyone know of someone explaining that proof in a comprehensible way ? Has this proof been contested by some parts of the scientist working on the field ?

<comment><USER3> I think Feynman's point is that to be a good scientist, you must keep in mind the difference between the map and the territory.

You preform observations. You think of explanations ("why"s) and try to fit them in a model. You make testable predictions using your model. You test them. If the experiments support your model, then it's a good and useful model. People will use it to achieve cool and terrible things. But it's still just a model. And you have to be ready at a moment's notice, as soon as the empirical data demands it, to drop your model like a hot potato and start looking for a better one.

To do otherwise - to believe that you already know the "why" \- is to abandon the scientific method. "Knowing" is the opposite of "learning", and the antonym of scientific progress.

<comment><USER2> With your description i would say what feynman suggests is abandoning the model altogether. Whenever i hear physicist say "we don't understand it and it doesn't matter", or speak of "spooky action at a distance", you can't say that they've built a "model" of anything that can be proved or disproved by any "better" model.

They are, in fact, computing numbers, just like mayan priests, and not even try to put a "god" or a "magic number theory" behind it (as mentioned in Feynman's speech).

PS : this kind of debate reminds me a bit of the debate between chomsky and norvig, with norvig saying that numbers and results are all that matters, and chomsky arguing this isn't even science.

<comment><USER4> It sounds like you're confused by quantum mechanics and entanglement.

We never really know "why" in that sense, that's a question best left to philosophers, and that's what doesn't matter for us --perpetually asking "why" is not productive. In general, asking questions that cannot be falsified/validated experimentally isn't useful in science, hence they don't really matter to us.

A physical (or scientific) theory is such that you get more than you put into it. Newton's F=ma and inverse square law didn't just explain the motion of Venus, it explained and extremely wide range of phenomena and gave rise to thermodynamics, heat engines and fluid dynamics among many many other things. That it predicts new testable phenomena. Maxwell equations uncovered the link between magnetism, electricity and light (things that apparently have nothing to do with each other --but they do, and speed of light is related to permittivity and permeability), and eventually gave rise to special relativity. Quantum mechanics predicted --among many many other things-- anti- particles, superfluidity, superconductors. Mayan priests didn't have this. Physical theories do. "Spooky action at distance" is also an example of this, and it is something falsifiable, and its existence is experimentally confirmed. Nobody is saying we don't understand it or it doesn't matter. It is a just part of reality, and (non-relativistic) quantum mechanics.

That model you're referring to is called quantum mechanics, and it has been refined by quantum field theory.

You can't prove a scientific theory either way. There are physical laws that work within a certain domain. They just agree with observations. Until we observe something strange that requires a more refined theory, which however reproduces the old theory within the old domain (because it actually worked). For example, when the speed of light is much greater than any speed, you recover Newton's laws from special relativity and general relativity. When the action is large in comparison to the Planck constant, quantum mechanics turns into classical mechanics. When the mass density is small, general relativity becomes Newtonian gravity. And so on.

General relativity and quantum field theory will eventually be replaced by something that will (hopefully) explain what's going on inside a black hole, what is dark matter/energy, and so on.

<comment><USER2> Ok, so i've got another question : why didn't general relativity raise the same kind of debate about its "interpretation" ?

It does have its share of counter intuitive predictions ( twin paradox), new concept that are difficult to grasp ( relation between acceleration and time clock), yet i've never heard a physisict starting its general relativity course saying things like "you won't understand it, and neither do i" ( which is what feynman did in this video, and he isn't the first professor i saw doing this).

<comment><USER5> GR's conceptual model is fairly clear. It's completely unintuitive and hard to understand. But - so far at least - it's not open to multiple competing interpretations.

QM doesn't have an agreed conceptual model _at all._

Stuff happens, and you can predict it statistically with a lot of accuracy. But the math doesn't reduce to a physical explanation that makes sense and everyone agrees on.

No one knows if a wave function is a physical thing, or if there's some other physical process which defines the wave function, or exactly how a statistical process with spatial and temporal indeterminacy gets turned into a physical observation.

These are all complete unknowns. And you can't say you understand something when you have equations that work, but no idea how or why they work.

This matters because when a scientific revolution happens the conceptual model everyone uses is transformed. The math tags along behind as a proof of consistency and accuracy, but it's not the primary driver of change.

If you don't have a conceptual model, you're stuck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> are they available elsewhere? the video players don't load on my browser

<comment><USER7> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvl6TBGEoO0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvl6TBGEoO0)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjdbbnWsdis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjdbbnWsdis)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF25Lwt73fg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF25Lwt73fg)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtK6FdTg9HU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtK6FdTg9HU)

A long time ago, I've downloaded and upscaled those videos. Enjoy.

<comment><USER8> Thank you, those look very nice.</comment></comment></comment>


Anatomy of a Stack Smashing Attack and How GCC Prevents It - <AUTHOR> http://www.drdobbs.com/security/anatomy-of-a-stack-smashing-attack-and-h/240001832

<comment><USER2> Single page link for those who would rather read the article whole, instead of chopped up into three pages:

[http://www.drdobbs.com/article/print?articleId=240001832&...](http://www.drdobbs.com/article/print?articleId=240001832&siteSectionName=security)</comment>


Please join our BH SEO group in Los Angeles - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetup.com/People-against-Google-Penguin-and-Internet-Monopolization/

<comment><USER2> This meetup looks like it is just a promotional tool for this guys "black hat SEO" software.</comment>


Show HN: Makes Famous people speak whatever you wish by linking their words - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ParhamP/Speech-Hacker#speech-hacker-new-release <comment><USER2> Very cool tech but do keep in mind that California in particular has strong laws around the use of celebrity likenesses (including voices)[0][1]. There's even court cases on use of presidential likenesses in fictional contexts (as in, you can't without permission). IANAL so I don't know what sort of things make you subject to California law, but it's unfortunately worth keeping in mind.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Celebrities_Right...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Celebrities_Rights_Act)

[1] The Kevin Smith movie "Chasing Amy" has a major sub-plot around monetization of likeness rights by Jay and Silent bob ("Man, this likeness rights shit is more profitable than selling smoke!")</comment>


A generic dependency solving tool in Ruby - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/CocoaPods/Molinillo

<comment><USER2> Hey, an iOS dev here. How would I use this in my projects? I haven't yet identified the pain point this is solving. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> This is what CocoaPods + Bundler uses to figure out the dependency trees (Podfile.lock/Gemfile.lock) for your project.

Given that it's written in ruby it's probably not useful to you except within the tooling itself.</comment></comment>


Google's patent for identifying notifying and rewarding trendsetters - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/patents/US20170238156 <comment><AUTHOR> This is Google's quest to identify people who are early users who of content which ends up going viral.

Coverage by cb insight : [https://www.cbinsights.com/research/google- microsoft-influen...](https://www.cbinsights.com/research/google-microsoft- influencer-viral-tech/)

They also refer to Microsoft patent to detect, classify, and scoring experts on specific topics based on their online activity.</comment>


About that Hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 trial - <AUTHOR> https://betterscience.org/archives/11-About-that-Hydroxychloroquine-for-COVID-19-trial.html <comment><USER2> Criticism on study design during an emergency is fine, but still, we are not talking about some marginal level of efficacy here:

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.16.20037135v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.16.20037135v1.full.pdf+html)

> The proportion of patients that had negative PCR results in nasopharyngeal > samples significantly differed between treated patients and controls at days > 3-4-5 and 6 post-inclusion (Table 2). At day6 post-inclusion, 70% of > hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were virologicaly cured comparing with > 12.5% in the control group (p= 0.001).

The effect size is huge, even considering the potential biases.

<comment><USER3> One of the issues with the study is that they didn't use the clinical outcome as an endpoint, they just measured the virus concentration in the throat (and even that not properly for all cases as far as this HN post says).

Huge effect size doesn't matter at all when the effect is not the correct one. There is a significant risk that this surrogate endpoint is not telling the true story as the virus migrates to the lung, measuring in the throat could be very misleading.

<comment><USER2> Is there a reason to believe the viral load in the throat and the lungs would not follow the same trend? And you also forget to mention this (CQ and HCQ concentrate in certain organs):

> It has been reported that oral absorption of CQ and HCQ in humans is very > efficient. In animals, both drugs share similar tissue distribution > patterns, with high concentrations in the liver, spleen, kidney, and lung > reaching levels of 200–700 times higher than those in the plasma10. It was > reported that safe dosage (6–6.5 mg/kg per day) of HCQ sulfate could > generate serum levels of 1.4–1.5 μM in humans11. Therefore, with a safe > dosage, HCQ concentration in the above tissues is likely to be achieved to > inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection.

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-020-0156-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-020-0156-0)

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's one aspect discussed in the podcast with Christian Drosten that is linked in the blog post. This is the relevant part:

> We have a lot of experience. We have made the most precise description of an > untreated patient cohort among the Munich patients. And at the Munich group, > we saw how the virus concentration in both the throat and lungs behaved over > time. And we can say that at the beginning of the disease the virus is in > the throat and it goes away on its own through the - let's say - the first > ten days of the disease. After that, many patients in the throat have little > or only irregular evidence of the virus.

But that has nothing to do with how the virus behaves in the lungs. The virus is then really replicative in the lungs, especially in severe cases. And we can also say what the patient has in his throat, it has nothing to do with how the clinical development of the disease continues, whether the patient quickly gets well or only goes through a difficult phase. So what is being measured in this entire clinical study has nothing to do with the outcome of the disease, with the symptoms, but is only an initial indicator of how the disease starts. For all patients, the virus concentration drops in the first week, but if you now imagine that the group being treated will be included a little later and the untreated group being included earlier in this study, it is in nature the thing that with this group that was later included - they are already further in eliminating the virus from the throat - that the virus then goes down in the throat, faster. This disappears faster because they have simply been in the course of the disease for a long time. Whether this is due to the fact that they are treated, cannot be said at all from this entire study. Perhaps it would have been so if the groups had been put together as here, but if they hadn't given them chloroquine, but some headache pill, the study would have been the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why are we so excited about the French trial? What about the Chinese treatment guidelines [0]?

The Chinese recommend chloroquine phosphate. They've had more experience than anyone else in this area and have had time to conduct actual trials. The disease has a ~2-4 week course so it should take about that long to gather compelling evidence; and they've been dealing with it since January.

The French are clever people, but we really should be looking to Asia for this information. People should be finding and quoting Chinese studies.

[0] [http://kjfy.meetingchina.org/msite/news/show/cn/3337.html](http://kjfy.meetingchina.org/msite/news/show/cn/3337.html) 10(b)(4)

<comment><USER5> The featured article claims that references to the supposed Chinese studies don't turn up anything. And that seems to be true. Here is the Chinese cited material from the French article: [https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/14/1/14_2020.01047/...](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/14/1/14_2020.01047/_article)

It claims many clinical trials have been done in China that show chloroquine works. However... there's nothing to actually read with any data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another anti-malaria drug, methylene blue had been proven to work against coronavirus in blood plasma in 2005 [1].

It is used in photodynamic therapy to selectively kill some viruses (see below) / bacteria (e.g. mycoplasma) [2].

When entering the bloodstream, it binds selectively to the nucleus of the viruses it is effective against. It's the same mechanism why it's effective as a dye to stain microbes under microscope. Methylene blue best absorbs light at 660nm wavelength, which at the same time penetrates into human tissues deeply. When light is absorbed, methylene blue disintegrates to harmless molecules while releasing reactive oxygene species, killing the virus.

It is a very safe drug, so the same logic that bsaul mentioned could be applied, and therefore would be a responsible move. It is also beneficial to mitochondria and effective against fungus.

[1] [https://europepmc.org/article/cba/518857](https://europepmc.org/article/cba/518857) [2] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15721...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1572100005000979)

<comment><USER7> it also literally turns your bodily emissions blue, needs to be administered intravenously, and has some ugly side effects:

 _Common side effects include headache, vomiting, confusion, shortness of breath, and high blood pressure.[1] Other side effects include serotonin syndrome, red blood cell breakdown, and allergic reactions.[1] Use often turns the urine, sweat, and stool blue to green in color.[3]_

<comment><USER6> These side effects occur in extremely high doses, much much higher than the effective dosage.

It doesn't need to be administered intravenously (only for methemoglobenia) - although more effective that way.

serotonin syndrome, rbc breakdown and allergic reactions occur when you drink a glass of what few drops are enough.

As said, it is extremely safe drug in low dosages (4-16 drops of 0.1% solution).

Edit: Also see the Kevin Rose Show episode [https://podcast.kevinrose.com/dr- peter-attia-longevity-compo...](https://podcast.kevinrose.com/dr-peter-attia- longevity-compounds-fasting-supplements-and-more) starting @ 1:16:20

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The numerous* stories that I have read recently about medical professionals writing themselves prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine so that they can have it available for themselves and their families suggests to me that the French trial is not the only reason to be hopeful about hydroxychloroquine's efficacy against COVID-19.

Sure, medical professionals are not necessarily any kind of super-rational savants, but I think it's unlikely that all of the medical professionals who are trying to hoard hydroxychloroquine are being irrational hysterics. They might be engaging in ethically questionable acts by hoarding hydroxychloroquine, but that doesn't mean that they don't know what they're doing from a self-preservation standpoint.

That said, it's not that I think they are necessarily trying to hoard hydroxychloroquine because they are convinced that it works - it's probably more that they want it on hand in case it turns out that it works. However, some of them may also have directly seen it help people, or may have heard or read about it helping.

Given that hydroxychloroquine has already been used for, as I understand it, weeks in treating people ill with COVID-19, I am actually surprised that there is not more anecdotal evidence about its efficacy. But I probably have just not been reading in the right places.

*Edit: I probably shouldn't have said "numerous stories", since "numerous" implies more than the number that I actually have seen.

<comment><USER9> The vast majority of medical professionals are not researchers, and are not trained in evaluating clinical trial data. They are notoriously poor at assessing such information.

You can be a remarkable clinician without ever interacting with the primary literature. These are simply different things.

<comment><USER10> > The vast majority of medical professionals are not researchers, and are not > trained in evaluating clinical trial data. They are notoriously poor at > assessing such information.

Citation, please. This is a very strong statement.

<comment><USER11> As someone who works in drug development, this is very accurate.

Understanding, designing and executing clinical trials is an entire specialty within medicine. Your average doctor will be familiar with the concepts, but not necessarily adept at evaluating a clinical trial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I see many problems with all the caution around that study:

1/ chloroquine is a very well known cheap drug. There is no new risk associated to using it that doctors arent already aware of.

2/ we do have a lot of statistics now on the outcome of patient _not_ treated with that drug. There's no need for establishing a benchmark. Just proper categorization of existing patient should be enough to compare.

3/ people are oversaturating ICU _right now_. And as such, it _is_ an emergency situation. We should take the reverse reasoning we usually take : if there's no suscipicion this drug could cause new problems, we should have people massively use it whenever possible and look at the result after 6 days (since that's the time the original study says it takes for the first results to show).

<comment><USER13> This is irresponsible. This drug has _severe_ side effects, it makes absolutely no sense to prescribe it for a completely different disease without first confirming in clinical trials that it has positive effects.

> _if there 's no suscipicion this drug could cause new problems, we should > have people massively use it_

That's not how evidence-based medicine works. The drug is _known_ to cause new problems because of the side effects. Clinical trials are needed to determine whether these are outweighed in patients by positive health effects.

You do not prescribe medicine on the basis of hunches.

<comment><USER2> > This is irresponsible. This drug has severe side effects

What are you talking about? The severe side effects are known and are usually associated with chronic usage of that drug. Chloroquine is taken for prophylaxis against malaria (daily) in many places in the southern hemisphere. Usual regimen is at least for 8 continuous weeks!

EDIT: Toxicity here: as you can see it's very well tolerated. [https://eyewiki.aao.org/Hydroxychloroquine_toxicity](https://eyewiki.aao.org/Hydroxychloroquine_toxicity)

<comment><USER13> The suggestion on the table is to give this drug to extremely ill patients who suffer from a new viral disease on the basis of anecdotal evidence and without clinical trials. The suggestion was to massively prescribe it.

What health authorities want to do is to _allow_ physicians to use the drug if the patient agrees, but only in a controlled setting in which data is collected and there is a control group. So at least afterwards we could draw conclusions about whether it killed more people or helped saving people. Does that not make sense to you?

<comment><USER14> As noted in the original post you replied to we don't really need a control group because we already have a lot of experience with people who didn't get any drugs. Quoting that post: "all that is needed is a proper categorization".

The goal here is to get enough evidence the treatment works or doesn't work. Conducting double blind studies is not the most efficient and fastest way to do that when you already have a lot of preexisting knowledge about both the patients not receiving any drugs and the safety profile of the drug in question.

This is again a situation where statisticians should be asked for help as medical professionals very often operate on very simplistic model (double blind or gtfo) which we just don't have time for this time around.

<comment><USER15> We have far more experience with AIDS, or heart attacks, or hair loss, or really any disease.

And yet trials for new medication against these diseases always include a control group.

<comment><USER14> Yeah because it's not urgent and it's a clean understood protocol. It's absolutely not optimal if your goal is to get to enough confidence fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have 0 clues about clinical trials and the procedures. My questions is: Why are so few studies done on this?

I think so far we have 2 studies. (from China and France).

However, we've had hundreds of hospitals around the world with thousands of patients. And the drug is cheaply available.

What is preventing us to have studies around this in tens of different hospitals? Wouldn't WHO be able to budget this, or actually send people to conduct these studies all across the globe and report back day to day, so within 2 weeks we get a pretty significant set of data?

<comment><USER17> This drug has actually been mentioned in several past clinical studies on the closely-related SARS. The particular study below has been circulating in several areas online, and has citations to several more:

[https://cmr.asm.org/content/20/4/660.long](https://cmr.asm.org/content/20/4/660.long)

Despite the role of the pH-sensitive endosomal protease cathepsin L in the entry pathway (151, 300), viral culture does not require pretreatment with trypsin. However, this pH-sensitive cathepsin L may be a target for agents such as chloroquine, which elevates endosomal pH (174, 341).

<comment><USER18> I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering this..... what does this mean in layman's terms?

<comment><USER19> The chemical pathway that allows the virus to enter the cell changes based on the pH of the cell. Chloroquine changes the pH of that pathway and therefore may slow/stop the entry of the virus into the cell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have a question about this article published in The Lancet:

[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS2213-2...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS2213-2600\(20\)30076-X/fulltext)

Looking at the drug cocktail that the patient received, this seems to be pretty heavy artillery:

\- methylprednisolone

\- moxifloxacin

\- lopinavir plus ritonavir

\- interferon

\- meropenem

Holy shit, is this a recommended medication for severe Covid-19 cases?

<comment><USER21> It seems this man was treated with lopinavir–ritonavir ... Unfortunately according to this recently published study, it seems inefficient against Covid19.

[https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001282?query=fe...](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001282?query=featured_home)

It also seems some EU countries are now stopping the use of lopinavir due to this study.

<comment><USER20> I found this "Some centers and even national guidelines, such as those in Italy, have recommended treatment with lopinavir-ritonavir for patients with COVID-19 infection."

Not sure what to make of this. Can this to some extent explain the huge differences in death rate between Italy and Germany?

Source: [https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85499](https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85499)

<comment><USER21> As far as the netherlands are concerned, Lopinavir is now removed from their interim guidelines. The first line treatement is now hydroxichloroquine/chloroquine with maybe remdesivir for severe cases.

Source (in Dutch): [https://swab.nl/nl/covid-19](https://swab.nl/nl/covid-19)

But yes in Italy the current guidelines (which are still dated 13 February still mention lopinavir).

Source (in Italian): [http://www.simit.org/medias/1569-covid19-vademecum-13-03-202...](http://www.simit.org/medias/1569-covid19-vademecum-13-03-202.pdf)

It has also been removed from guidelines from Belgium: source (English) : [https://epidemio.wiv- isp.be/ID/Documents/Covid19/COVID-19_In...](https://epidemio.wiv- isp.be/ID/Documents/Covid19/COVID-19_InterimGuidelines_Treatment_ENG.pdf)

I think the odd case is France wich I think is still not having Chloroquine/Hydroxichloroquine in their guidelines as of today.

I was not able to find the german guidelines.

<comment><USER18> Hopefully they're documenting their results with chloroquine to help have a better understanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like facts. Article says only French study exists but at least a couple of other studies exist from China. I wish when someone makes a very important argument to check all internet sources.

</comment><comment><USER23> [https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/sales-of-fish-tank-additive- sk...](https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/sales-of-fish-tank-additive-skyrocket- after-studies-say-it-could-treat-coronavirus/)

This is the kind of idiocy that pie-in-the-sky theatrical crap like this causes. People are going to end up seriously harming if not killing themselves by taking this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER24> It seems like the answer is "more science".

Given how the virus is moving now, couldn't we have a pretty nice study completed in a few weeks?

</comment><comment><USER25> Related: Novartis commits to donate up to 130 million doses of hydroxychloroquine

[https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis- commit...](https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis-commits- donate-130-million-doses-hydroxychloroquine-support-global-covid-19-pandemic- response)

</comment><comment><USER26> Regarding randomization, the HCQ + Azithromycin study showed good results despite the control group being 14 years younger. Sex was about equal so no male/female imbalance. It's clear that older patients have worse outcomes, but this study measures viral load which also can change depending on the stage of the disease.

<comment><USER27> There were 6 patients in that group. No mention of how they were selected. Some patients dropped out of the treatment group because they died or went to the ICU. These could affect the numbers significantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you are curious, this is the actual Chinese trial registration (edit: not results) about hydroxichloroquine (among the many citations in the pdf)

[http://www.chictr.org.cn/showprojen.aspx?proj=48880](http://www.chictr.org.cn/showprojen.aspx?proj=48880)

<comment><USER28> Is this an ongoing trial? When are the results due? 3x100 subjects (is that correctly read?) seems quite powerful.

<comment><USER21> Yes it seems they have 100 on one dosage, 100 one a different dosage and 100 in a placebo group.

According to the register, the study execution time should be "2020-01-31 To 2020-02-29"

But nobody seems to have any insight on the final results. But I would recommend this article with comments of the study leader (Dr Zhang Zhan). The article also explains how they initially discovered the efficiency of the drug by just noticing there were no lupus patients (who were under chronic treatment of hydroxichloroquine) infected with covid19.

[https://www.jqknews.com/news/388543-The_novel_coronavirus_pn...](https://www.jqknews.com/news/388543-The_novel_coronavirus_pneumonia_has_short_term_curative_effect_on_the_treatment_of_new_crown_pneumonia.html)

<comment><USER18> > But nobody seems to have any insight on the final results.

I assume that means it's either too small of a sample size or it doesn't make enough of an affect?

<comment><USER29> A study designed like this shouldn't have data analysis before it is all collected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Favipiravir trial result is out and the result looks good: [https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.17.20037432v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.17.20037432v1)

<comment><USER31> The world needs something that is accessible.

"As of 23 March 2020, it seems that Japan and China have issued an export ban on the substance. Japan and China are the only countries in which favirapir is produced and approved as a medical compound." [1]

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

<comment><USER32> And I guess setting up factories to produce millions of doses of new meds can take a while. At the same time, each new manufacturer has to negotiate terms with the patent holder. Using an existing cheap generic drug means that production facilities are already up and running and that any company could start if they have the means to produce it.

Apparently a 1-month dose costs £5 in the UK, so there doesn't seem to be a large hurdle to produce it.

<comment><USER33> Do governments have a good reason not to suspend patents for the time of emergency? Emergency rules break a lot of other businesses, and pharma is probably one of the few industries not in danger?

<comment><USER34> When thinking about this I always assume it is the same reason countries tended not to reach for national security provisions¹ despite how attractive they are, it just isn't clear how to put the genie back in the bottle when you've broken it with the biggest-and-most-crushy hammer you can find.

If you dig around in the other exceptions in the document I've linked you'll see there are multiple places where patent protection and protection of human life are discussed.

I know where I sit on the patent validity continuum already, but I also know other people are furiously bouncing on the other end of that seesaw.

1\. [https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47_02_e.htm#a...](https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47_02_e.htm#articleXXI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Chloroquine was banned years ago in my country due to its toxic effects (was making kids deaf amongst other things).

Are its downsides worth the upsides when used as a COVID-19 treatment?

<comment><USER36> The course of treatment is short, while some applications of chloroquine are long-term. The risk is likely considerably reduced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> [https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/489097-man-dies- after-...](https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/489097-man-dies-after-taking- malaria-medication-in-effort-to-prevent-coronavirus)

well that took what, two days?

</comment><comment><USER2> > I don't see how doing poorly performed studys that tell us nothing is of any > help.

Erm, even poorly designed studies tell you if there's any efficacy to expect or not. And it leads to better studies afterwards.

Science is iterative.

<comment><USER38> I am not a doctor, just a physicist, so I know about experimental data, but of course not about this study in detail. But as several sources dealing with this study confirm, it doesn't really tell us anything. So really at best it can be seen as reason to conduct a proper study, but the data itself does not yield any conclusion.

<comment><USER2> There's a lot in medicine that goes into publication that has results not even borderline as meaningful as this. I would be careful to label this as "it doesn't really tell us anything". Especially since another study in China reached a similar conclusion.

<comment><USER39> a) The quality, or lack of quality, of other studies does not affect the quality of the discussed study. b) The availability of another study with similar results, does not affect the quality of this study.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Also on HN: [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/who-launches- global-...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/who-launches-global- megatrial-four-most-promising-coronavirus-treatments)

Testing will be randomized apparently.

<comment><USER41> Maybe change the link in the header?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A lot of people are eager to say chloroquine is the answer and say, "forget the small details, look at that p-value!". But this article raises a bunch of important points. The important ones IMO are:

1) 6 / 26 of the individuals in the experimental group got removed from the stats because their condition got worse and the treatment ceased. One of them died.

2) The metric used to test the efficacy is viral load. You can get a negative on this and still have the disease. This is going to be a function of how long you've had the disease, which isn't controlled in the study.

If you have a gripe with the author because they're not a medical scientist, read the peer review comments here: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/B4044A446F35DF81789F6F20F8E...](https://pubpeer.com/publications/B4044A446F35DF81789F6F20F8E0EE#2)

They are easy to understand as a layman I feel.

Other noteworthy takeaways:

1) The combination of HCQ and AZ was hyped as superior because all 6 patients did better. But looking at the data there is no significant difference in viral load outcomes between both drugs and just HCQ.

2) Many of the author's claims of statistical significance disappear if you use more conservative estimates for when people were supposed to be PCR positive except for Day 6 (now 0.01 instead of 0.001).

3) The paper turnaround was incredibly fast, with less than 24 hours for peer review. One of the authors of the paper is an editor of the journal in which it was published. Could be indicative of poor study controls.

I hope this turns out to be useful. I would not be surprised if it did not. Regardless, the best case takeaway of THIS information does not inform us about how the drug performs in the most critical area (severe ICU patients).

If you're a non-bio programmer please try to recognize that saying the current paper is good enough to justify mass distribution of chloroquine tablets to everyone is about on par with the cliche clueless product manager making bold decisions about how to move forward with your codebase despite having no clue how it works themselves.

</comment><comment><USER42> Here we go, another naysayer.

Unfortunately, all those waiting patiently for "confirmed results of double blind trials" will make up a significant percentage of those visiting the pearly gates by the time those trials are ever completed.

Look, the risk is fairly low for chloroquine, mild side effects in a very well done Danish study were only ~15%, serious side effects were ~1.5%.

Reported Side Effects to Chloroquine, Chloroquine plus ... academic.oup.com › jtm › article-pdf › jtm7-0079

Now, what's the risk of serious side effects/death from coronavirus for those over 70 years old ? Like >10%.

And a recent report out of Hong Kong is stating that lung scarring from coronavirus is being found in all ages (radiological imaging), like 20 to 30% loss of lung function, shortness of breath reported by recovered patients just from fast walking - - - is that going to be permanent in all ages ? Are you willing to take that risk ?

A glaring fact is that chloroquine / hydroxychloroquine have been on the WHO's list of essential medicines for decades . . . . why so, if they were too toxic to recommend ?

Just like the rush on buying ammo, would you prefer to have "the likely treatment" before the problems comes to you - - or, would you prefer to fail to find it after all the shops and stores are completely sold out and the unemployed "zombies" are all over your property and smashing down your door while your family is cowering under the table screaming and crying for help ? I already got my supply of it, best of luck for all the naysayers.

[https://www.foxnews.com/health/florida-man-with- coronavirus-...](https://www.foxnews.com/health/florida-man-with-coronavirus- claims-malaria-drug-saved-life)

[https://video.foxnews.com/v/6143849011001](https://video.foxnews.com/v/6143849011001)

BTW, what is your Gov't offering you right now in the way of proven drugs ? Nothing. All the while the rich in NY are reported in the news media as cashing in on favors to secure reservations for hospital beds in case they need them - - and buying ventilators . . . under the counter.

</comment><comment><USER43> Nothing quite like a site titled "Better Science" with the disclaimer:

"While I understand the basics of a clinical trial, I'd like to point out that I am no medical scientists. Most of the issues here were spotted by other people and I have linked to the sources."

You cannot make this s@#t up!

Put on your critical thinking caps folks -- there's a lot of bad info out there.

<comment><USER44> As soon as I read that line, I closed the window. Not worth it.

<comment><USER45> Why? I'd rather get information from a humble expert from a different field than from a braggart who thinks they're an expert.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> why is every study i've ever seen posted somewhere deeply flawed -in some way that is obvious to even non-experts?

</comment><comment><USER47> I've read that 2g of this drug can kill you.

<comment><USER48> So can 10g of caffeine. As a result, caffeine isn't distributed in ten gram doses.</comment></comment>


Advice on developing at a startup weekend - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@AndyStannard/smoke-startups-and-mirrors-a60053eed9dc#.xlbum4ydw <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, anything I missed in this article? it is aimed at people trying to validate an idea rather that writing enterprise code</comment>


New UK prime minister: Boris Johnson winner of Tory leadership contest - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-49073992 <comment><USER2> First Trump and now this. I am certain this is proof there is a god...who is looking at this and laughing at us.

Why did it have to be this universe in which a Trump-Johnson world had to happen?</comment>


Apple Signs Thousands of Independent Labels in Royalty Deal - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/business/media/apple-signs-thousands-of-independent-labels-in-royalty-deal.html?_r=0

<comment><USER2> how much will the actual artists get?</comment>


Google Announces Plan to Put Wi-Fi in 400 Train Stations Across India - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/27/google-announces-plan-to-put-wi-fi-in-400-train-stations-across-india/ <comment><USER2> I know people usually equate WiFi with "The Internet", but the distinction is important; in particular, if Facebook's misleadingly-named Internet.org wanted to "put WiFi in train stations", they could say the same thing, but it'd just be like one big LAN. In this case, however, it really does appear to be the full Internet:

"We'd like to help get these next billion Indians online—so they can access _the entire web_ , and all of its information and opportunity"

On the other hand, it makes sense for Google since most people use it for the search engine; "free Google access" is not very useful if you're not able to actually visit any sites in the search results.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it looks more like Google's free WiFi in Starbucks coffees.

By the way, Facebook renamed Internet.org "Free Basics" : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10277425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10277425)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Irony of the day: While Google is planning to put Wi-Fi in 400 stations in India, there is still no Wi-Fi on trains running through Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't be at all surprised if you told me the trains in India are faster, more frequent, and more reliable as well. Even the Kazakhs would be ashamed of Caltrain. The only reason we put up with Caltrain is our collective hangover from the suburban car age.

<comment><USER6> > trains in India are faster, more frequent, and more reliable as well

A laughable claim. Trains in India are slow, late (but probably not more than in other countries), crowded, comparatively dirty, uncomfortable and they are often lacking basic safety measures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's fascinating to see when infrastructure in developing countries surpasses that of some developed countries.

In Argentina, for example, every single gas station has free wifi. It works exceptionally well, and is always free.

<comment><USER8> Interesting. In Peru, every hotel had free wifi, and it was always terrible, even in relatively pricey hotels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I dont see how wifi in 400 stations is going to help anyone. If the stations are in well populated areas, then mobile internet should not be a problem in any case. In rural and lesser developed areas, wifi means nothing to consumers. The younger generation does have wifi smartphones, thanks to Chinese companies putting out dead cheap ones. However, of what use is the wifi in railway stations, I fail to understand.

If the use is for train information or related stuff, the govt. has to maintain that info on screens and notice boards.

If it's for talking to others, well, that too is of limited use. Most people wait for maybe a couple of hours before they board onto a train.

If this is to help people waiting in lounges, then I'd rather they (govt.) monetize it. Especially for those waiting in AC class lounges. In anycase, no one here really plans for long layovers in railway stations.

I just dont get of what use is wifi in railway stations.

Better thing for the govt. would have been to invite and pay google for creating a distributed fibre optic network across India, connecting rural villages, using their expertise in handling large amounts of data.

<comment><USER10> I agree with your light gray comment. Coming from San Francisco, I've been working in India for the past month and have made a few unexpected observations:

1\. Despite scarcity of 3G and land line data, consumers hardly budget their usage; when the network is available, it's every-man-for-himself trying to watch youtube & consume other media

2\. Train loading & unloading is incredibly fast. This can make the station a hectic place to be, even for locals.

3\. The same Uber vs Local Taxi (In this case, Auto Rickshaws aka Tuk-Tuks) battle exists here, with Uber charging less than they pay drivers to price out the competition

4\. Young people, boys and girls, want to be either engineers or doctors.

Train Station Wi-Fi will be great for already-online mobile users to briefly consume content and call an Uber home, but that's not what's going to 'get the next billion Indians online to access more opportunities.' People love free Wi-Fi, but this RailWire contract is a bigger win for Google than anyone else. Let's see some secondary schools come online!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is smart. By offering free WiFi in 400 train stations, they're undoubtly getting the Right of Way allowances to run fiber along the majority of the rail system

This will allow them to spread a Google-owned backbone across the country that they can use as the start of rolling out Google fiber in different cities.

This isn't about free Wifi. It's about free Right of Way for their infrastructure.

<comment><USER12> Where are you picking this up from? The official Google announcement [1] only talks about Google using RailTel's fiber network?

1 - [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/bringing-the- internet...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/bringing-the-internet-to- more-indians.html)

<comment><USER11> _sigh_ That's what I get for making assumptions and not reading in depth enough. You're absolutely right, they're going to be leasing existing fiber.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The practical implications of this will be interesting - I'm expecting to see "Google WiFi" honeypots at stations that don't have this.

Also a possibility to see folks camped up at these stations hustling on Upwork etc - particularly in areas where mobile internet is not so reliable.

Also expecting to have EVEN MORE people walk into me as they stare at their phones...

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if this will be unconditional Internet. Over the last few months the government switched off Internet in two states.

\--edit-- Its back again before someone points it out

</comment><comment><USER15> Google, please come to Myanmar.

</comment><comment><USER16> They want to snoop on India citizens. PM Modi is selling the country to these corporations.

<comment><USER17> Google's action is _infinitely_ better than Facebook's "Facebook for everybody!" push (another current India-related news item)...

<comment><USER16> But the aims are the same. I'd change "infinitely" with "only slightly" here.</comment></comment></comment>


Artificial intelligence is a totalitarian's dream – how to take power back - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/artificial-intelligence-is-a-totalitarians-dream-heres-how-to-take-power-back-143722 <comment><USER2> She's called the Oracle, and I really did not give enough credit to The Matrix films, and yes, I mean the 2nd and 3rd. The proof of a successful human- directing AI is that the humans don't know they're being directed, and the illusion of choice is maintained. The Oracle sees our definable, ergodic behavior, yet accounts for the fact that the human AI, I am that I am, will search out to break this end like a slime mold growing towards a nutrient tab in a petri dish, and it will do so in a manner that will create novelty. The outcome would absolutely look like classical Marxist communism: a human corpus, successful, efficient, lacking most basic scarcity, capable of great cooperation, devoid of capital-leveraging looters & moochers and their inevitable Abel-Cain loop creation, distinctly lacking an authoritarian leader, traceable. This AI sounds like a better AI than the current human hierarchy AI that fails in seeming perpetuity at creating long-term stability. Any attempt at co-opting this AI would make it less efficient than a competing government's AI, thus all would be incentivized to follow or eventually fade, not through destruction, but through entropy; I think the bible called it becoming dust or a pillar of salt or some-such, when civilizations did that.</comment>


Trustless Bitcoin Anonymity Here at Last - <AUTHOR> https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/trustless-bitcoin-anonymity-here-at-last-1377737692/ <comment><USER2> ...And then everyone gets charged with criminal conspiracy for aiding terrorists.

<comment><AUTHOR> Monero and zCash are better alternatives. True crypto-anarchy can happen there. Crypto-chaos is a bit different, and we typically don't want that. But a bit of chaos amongst order is sometimes healthy</comment></comment>


Ask PG: How/why did "RFS 3 - Build something on Twitter" happen? - <AUTHOR>

From http://ycombinator.com/rfs3.html (the Y Combinator requests for startups):
"We want to fund those companies. And the people at Twitter also want to encourage people to build stuff on top of it. So together we came up with a plan: anyone YC funds to do a startup based on Twitter will get priority access to the Twitter stream, and to people at Twitter."
Yet HN seems to be filled with stories of people who built something on Twitter only to have their API access pulled. Granted, most of them are going against the TOS and basically building a Twitter client, but I frequently hear the advice to "not build a startup on top of Twitter."
Note: I'm particularly curious because the startup my co-founder and I are building, while not 100% Twitter-based, would be absolutely revolutionized were it given full Twitter stream/API access <comment><USER2> We thought Twitter had the potential to be an important platform. This was before the company changed its attitude to third parties building things on top of it.

<comment><USER3> perfect, honest answer. we all did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That RFS was put up in a time when access to twitter's data was for the most part unregulated and when developers felt encouraged to develop on twitter's platform. No one was really sure what the long term implications were of building on their platform, but there were companies that got acquired and raised capital (eg summize, tweetdeck), so money was flowing. It was basically a bet for twitter becoming The Next Social Platform, sort of like what Facebook became.

<comment><AUTHOR> Granted, but they revise the RFSs pretty frequently; I doubt they'd leave that up out of sheer negligence. So the questions remain: Does PG still feel that building a startup on top of Twitter to be a good strategy? What insights does PG have as to Twitter's dedication to helping startups?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Honestly, Twitter has even banned games I've written that let users easily tweet their scores. Bans claimed they were clients. So don't think they are being particularly fair or accepting around their TOS. It's more like they sick robot banning algorithms on anything that moves.

Amusingly, I've seen several big apps drop the Twitter API in favor of just asking the user for their username and password and pretending to be browsers. This is pretty much the only way around issues like where popular apps run out of login tokens that are now limited by the API. Terrible for users of course because they have to give out their password, but better than no Twitter integration at all.

So Twitter's API is basically so bad now that client apps are better off pretending they are web browsers.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't have insight into this, but since your startup seems to lean heavily on twitter, I'd like you to check out this link/video - it perfectly encapsulates my views on the matter.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/23/fred-wilson-be-your-own- bit...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/23/fred-wilson-be-your-own-bitch/)

Specifically, 20 minutes into the video.

<comment><USER3> this is a must watch video for founders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I loved working with Twitter's API in its prime, but then they shifted their attitude and started getting really hard to work with.

But before they clamped down and it became impossible to get decent sized datasets, we did some good papers with the Web Ecology Project.</comment>


Sugar Batteries Could Store 20% More Energy Than Li-Ions - <AUTHOR> http://www.tus.ac.jp/tlo/english/technology/detail_03.html <comment><USER2> "Sugar"?

<comment><USER3> Seems as though they create the "disordered carbon" in one of the figures by heating sucrose. I'm not sure that using sugar is an integral part of creating the disordered carbon, though.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I missed that part.

Yeah, calling this a "sugar battery" seems like calling a lead-acid battery a "rock battery". Raw material != finished product.</comment></comment></comment>


Election Officials Are Vulnerable to Email Attacks, Report Shows - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/election-officials-are-vulnerable-to-email-attacks-report-shows-11595746800 <comment><AUTHOR> For those who have trouble with the link:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200727165913/https://www.wsj.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200727165913/https://www.wsj.com/articles/election- officials-are-vulnerable-to-email-attacks-report- shows-11595746800?mod=djemalertNEWS)</comment>


Video games as art - <AUTHOR> http://codepengu.in/2018/12/15/videogames.html <comment><USER2> To me, the art of carving chess pieces is quite separate from the art of inventing a game such as chess.

With most "big" games, I get the feeling a story is being pushed on me that I would completely reject in its own right -- if it wasn't for the skinner box like game elements, that are like the sugar that makes the motor oil go down. And when the story is good, it would be just as good or better as a short story or novel.

I'd say industrial design is an art, it certainly it can be pursued as one. But the art is the process of designing, the resulting screwdriver or toaster is a tool. Architecture is art, the result is a place, a home, but not a piece of art. Admittedly, I can't even fully define my own subjective notion of art, but that's roughly what I think. I mean, I think painting is an art, and the result is also art, but I don't think that about buildings or cars. Making music can be an art and the result can be art, but it also can be a crime and the result an atrocity. Anyway..

Likewise, game design is an art, but the result is a game. It's a game at best, at worst it's like a ride through something as convincing as a creationist theme park. Yeah, there's free ice cream maybe, and some of the displays are very well made, and sometimes I can pick which attraction to go to next, where I'm welcomed with beaming smiles -- but I know why that is, because someone is trying to sneak something in with all that.</comment>


What Netflix Could Have Said This Week - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleoutsider.com/2011/09/20/netflixpr/ <comment><USER2> Unified queue.

Regardless of media, business structure, delivery mechanism, company name, etc. methinks what all customers want is a single place to choose & queue content, filtered by whatever options they desire, delivered on whatever medium is available and they pay for via a spectrum of contracts (from unlimited-per-month to single order).

Just make sure it's all on one queue. If multi-queue, then only because one customer may be grouping for multiple individuals (ex.: husband wants ultraviolent scifi, wife wants sappy romances, kids want Elmo galore). Whatever you do, don't force the customer to spend time/effort along such artificial differences as media (ex.: I want the DVD of "Scarface", but it's not on streaming anymore and I don't want to pay extra for the BD version - let me pick those options based on my single content choice, don't make me search 2-3 different sites for the same title which, I notice, have unreliable availability).

Amazon faces the same issue: vast business differences between warehouses of books & other physical stuff shipped by mail, vs. server farms for Kindle, streaming video, cloud storage/processing, etc. - same problem as Netflix, yet they're doing well under one website. I can search for Moby's latest album, and when ready to order can with ease choose between CD, MP3, DVD, and instant video: same content pool, same checkout, easy delivery, user doesn't care how it all happened.

<comment><USER3> My best guess as to why they are splitting the queues is due to the availability issues on the streaming side affecting customer 'morale', so to speak. i.e. when a streaming-only customer searches for a title, and then finds that it is only available on DVD, their perception of the service is diminished.

I think the end goal of this move is to kill off or sell the DVD portion of the service entirely, so by splitting the services, investors won't freak out when that eventually happens. This also is another reason for splitting the queues.

<comment><USER2> That is the main reason why I want a unified queue: inconsistent availability. I put "Scarface" on my queue, but being a low priority it's pretty far down; I was content that someday it would reach the top of the DVD queue and show up, or that on a whim I could hit "Play Now" and stream it. One day I noticed it was tagged for removal from streaming a few days hence, and didn't have time to watch it in the meantime. Streaming option disappeared. [shrug] Well, it's still available by DVD, I'll get to it. Then I get the "we're going to split the service" notice, note that I only watch 2-3 discs a month (lots of streaming instead) so the separate fee wasn't worth it and I canceled. Even if I want to pay a one-time rental to watch it, not available as an option and alternatives (sign up, get disc, cancel) are too much hassle now.

Huh, maybe I'll check Amazon, where I can buy "Scarface" new, buy it used, no- strings streaming rental, or maybe even Prime "free" streaming...and all from a single search...[clickety clickety]...ah, it's $3 to stream it once, and there's 53 purchasing/renting options from $0.01+shipping used VHS to $3 streaming rental to $700 including humidor. Pity it's not in the "free Prime streaming" option, but at least I know the options with one search.

<comment><USER4> That post was impossible to read.

Netflix, thanks for doing this to your customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 It's not just the tone of the email or the new name that bugs people - it's the complete separation of their sites, pretending that the DVD-by-mail site can't communicate with the streaming-only site, etc.

People are annoyed that their ratings/suggestions won't carry over to the new site, and that the streaming-site won't let them add a movie to their DVD-by- mail queue when they search for a title and find it's not available on streaming (or vice versa, the DVD-by-mail site won't tell them when they could be watching a title via streaming).

You have to fix that to fix the customer response.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. In the end this is all about Netflix and not about its customers. If any of this had anything positive to offer customers it could have been spun better, but it doesn't.

I think netflix is actually in deep trouble. It's lost Starz, and could be losing other valuable rights, it's changing its business model in a way tha damages its own stickiness, and it raised its prices in a recession for reasons that make no sense to customers.

<comment><USER6> Not to mention that a lot of there growth was due to the fact that they had a fiercely loyal cust base that proselytized endlessly for them.

I remember getting an email from them years ago that said in essence, "We've upgraded our systems and are now more efficient. because of this your plan will be reduced by xyz." Better service and cheaper, i thought they had me for life...until recently.

<comment><USER7> > Not to mention that a lot of there growth was due to the fact that they had > a fiercely loyal cust base that proselytized endlessly for them.

Yeah, that was me a week ago. Now, I just dread explaining to my other half that we will need to manage two movie queues.

<comment><USER8> We have four queues, DVD + streaming (for a family of four). We may ditch DVDs altogether, and switch to 2 separate streaming-only accounts. Maybe this is what Netflix is hoping will happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reed Hastings makes me wonder what kind of company Netflix is.

Does Netflix listen to its customers? I've hated the website redesign since it launched and from what I've read, I'm certainly not alone. I find the redesign to be much less user friendly than the old one, which I loved. I don't login as much as before to browse, review and add to my queue. I avoid the website and stick to watching stuff on my Roku. In my opinion, the redesign took the Netflix website from one that was fun to use, to one that devalued the company to being just another company that provides movies. The charm is gone.

And now this odd, Qwikstupid thing. That site isn't even up yet. Is it because they planned it that way, or are they looking for customer feedback first before making any concrete changes?

And that takes me back to my original point: does Netflix care about customer feedback?

(edited for my terrible typos)

<comment><USER10> Netflix does listen to user feedback. Back in 08, the profiles feature almost got the ax before vocal user feedback convinced them to keep it. I'm sure they're listening, regardless of what the final outcome is.

June 19, 2008 - Removing Profiles - [http://blog.netflix.com/2008/06/profiles- feature-going-away....](http://blog.netflix.com/2008/06/profiles-feature- going-away.html)

June 30, 2008 - Nevermind - [http://blog.netflix.com/2008/06/profiles-feature- not-going-a...](http://blog.netflix.com/2008/06/profiles-feature-not-going- away.html)

(Work has any URL with "netflix.com" blocked, so I'm guessing these are right blog posts.)

<comment><USER11> I don't consider pissing off a large portion of your customer base causing a backlash so strong that you backtrack to be "listening to customer feedback". It's more like "poking the hornets nest & getting stung". Netflix has a history of shooting first & asking questions later.

As far as giving feedback or suggestions voluntarily as a customer, good luck. You can't do it on the website & any suggestion you give to a customer service rep stays with the customer service rep & goes no further. It's a sad state of affairs when the best 1-on-1 communication with customers Netflix has had as a company is their CEO doing damage control in Facebook comment threads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's downright embarrassing how badly Netflix has botched this transition. Not only was Netflix sitting on 25 million happy subscribers, but subscribers who were notoriously brand-loyal, and whose word-of-mouth promotion effectively acted as an unpaid sales and marketing force. Now they seem to be doing everything they can to alienate their most dedicated users, essentially saying "We don't want your business anymore".

As a Netflix user for 5+ years, I for one can't wait until a viable competitor with equivalent selection emerges.

<comment><USER13> It wasn't botched. Everything is by design. Qwikster or whatever they are calling, is a direct competitor to Netflix, in the same way that Blockbuster was a direct competitor to Netflix. It's the last generation tech. They want to kill it.

They want to kill it fast because streaming customers are more profitable. They want you to switch from physical media to streaming NOW.

Yes, yes, I know you can't get that esoteric or new release by streaming. There's a ton of stuff that never made it to DVD that is still on VHS or Beta. I don't see you crying over that.

Netflix knows this. They are accelerating the switch and they're doing that by killing their DVD division in the most horrid way possible. That game rental thing is a bone meant to mislead you and is absolutely pointless. That part of the rental industry is being killed off by Steam. They know that too.

<comment><USER14> I'm curious, do you have numbers backing the higher profitability of their streaming business over DVD-by-mail?

I do agree that, if they wanted to get rid of their original line of business without looking like that's what they were doing, this would be the best way.

<comment><USER13> > I'm curious, do you have numbers backing the higher profitability of their > streaming business over DVD-by-mail?

Simple reasoning will get you to that conclusion. There are no physical plants to maintain. No physical inventory to maintain. No postage costs.

You do have the costs of bandwidth, computing power, and licensing fees. I would imagine those are less than the above.

On top of that, they wouldn't be throwing everything into streaming unless they were making more money there. Even the most retarded of businesses will focus on a more profitable line than a less profitable one.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, you mention it, but I think you're vastly underestimating licensing costs. Hollywood / content producers have them over a barrel, especially now that they're spinning off the DVD business.

On top of that, those servers don't run themselves and those infrastructure costs you so quickly dismiss are significant.

<comment><USER16> This. When you own a DVD, you can rent it out as many times as you want and you don't owe the studio another dime. When you have a digital movie on a server, every act of streaming it to a customer constitutes "copying", subject to a license fee. And the studios want to milk that revenue source for all it's worth and then some.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think they renamed the DVD service so that it allows them the flexibility to sell it off at a later stage, I dont see anyone mentioning this but it is quite common for businesses to sell parts of the business to gain cash to pump into their future expansions. In this case it makes sense to put 100% into streaming.

<comment><USER18> I agree. They had to know they'd confuse and alienate people by changing the name of the service _and_ creating an whole new website for people to figure out. But it does allow them to extract the highest value should they sell it off later (and they will).

With plans to sell there was only two things that would have been even more bone-headed than what they did:

:a => "Sell it as Netflix DVD (or something like that) and have two companies named Netflix running around."

:b => "Sell it and force the acquiring company to change the name, in which case they would have to accept a huge discount on the value of the business."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm guessing someone in PR wrote a letter just like it. Then the CEO decided that it didn't really have the emotion and humility that the one posted had.

Sure, PR can spin anything to seem pretty, but sometimes its really just better to admit failings (pricing changes) and show that you're not perfect.

<comment><USER14> If Hastings admitted to a mistake, it's for failing to explain what they were doing more clearly. His words: " It wouldn't have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do."

Am I the only one hearing a hint of condescension here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The whole point of the original email was to recognize that their pricing changes made them seem out of touch. What's so bad about a CEO apologizing to his customer base? Also, I'll always take product name critiques with a grain of salt. I remember when people were complaining about how awkward MacBook Pro sounded. Don't even get me started on "iPod". If the service is good, then people will use the name and avoid the confusion that's been happening with the soon-to-be previous Netflix configuration.

<comment><USER21> Hell, remember ipad? Sanitary napkin jokes, pundits predicting doom, and a stoic Jobs? But it's almost become the "xerox" of tablets. Unfortunately, the name is the least stupid aspect of Netflix's new plan.

<comment><USER22> I'd argue that the difference between iPad, iPad, MacBook Pro and Qwickster is that it's very very easy to mis-spell Qwickster.

It could be Qwickster, Quickster, Qwikster, Quikster, Qwickstr (if you wanna go the Flickr route) and probably some variations I haven't thought of. At the very least, Netflix should have made an effort to secure the domain-names for these alternate spellings to ensure their customers can find them when they finally go live.

<comment><USER23> The other difference is that Qwikster is a deeply stupid name.

The other other difference is that iPad, iPod, iPhone, etc. actually describe their eponymous products, and Qwikster doesn't recognizably describe anything.

<comment><USER24> _The other other difference is that iPad, iPod, iPhone, etc. actually describe their eponymous products ..._

iPhone? Sure. iPad? Maybe. iPod? Definitely not.

It only seems that way because the iPod dominated the product category so strongly as to become synonymous with "portable digital music player."

<comment><USER23> Huh? The iPad is pad-shaped and "pad" is a commonly-understood noun in the tech world to refer to these devices.

Same thing for iPod. It's pod-shaped (or was when it was introduced) and it's a pretty simple mental leap to classify this "pod" as a thing that you put your music "into".

By stark contrast, "Qwikster" has absolutely no mental, cultural or conceptual link to the product or service it describes. It's worthless as a name in addition to being confusing, already taken by various other services, impossible to spell, and dorky.

Not really debatable.

<comment><USER24> What does a "pod" have to do with playing music? Less than what being "quick" has to do with a DVD delivery service, in my opinion.

Not saying I like "Qwikster," but it's just not the case that the word "iPod" sounded like a music player before Apple made it famous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think that would solve the crisis of people hating the name, but it's not going to stop all the people who are angry about having to maintain 2 queues.

</comment><comment><USER26> The problem with using "Netflix Classic" is it wouldn't allow them to sell it in 12 months as a distinct brand so they can get the dropping subscriber numbers off their books.

</comment><comment><USER27> The name change and web site split is obviously the prelude to a spin-off. They split their stock between the streaming business and the mail business, shareholders get shares in both (and the right to hold or sell the portion they prefer) and the two businesses go their separate ways. It's a really smart way to deal with a company that has a developing business and a mature but declining business, and it will probably unlock significant value in the stock market value, because it lets people cherry pick which business they want to invest in.

</comment><comment><USER28> Would have been better if they attributed the change to getting squeezed by Hollywood. At least people could sympathize rather than make Netflix into a villain. I suspect the change came in large part due to payment terms on all accounts as opposed to accounts consuming media.

<comment><USER29> That might help with their relations with customers, but probably wouldn't endear them to the media companies they have to negotiate with. Those negotiations are no doubt already pretty tense, and Netflix shouting loudly about what jerks they are won't make them less so.

<comment><USER30> I don't even think you need to call them jerks. Just say something like, "Our new licensing deals have us moving to a model where we are charged, not for how often you stream video, but for everyone who could potentially stream video. This means that if you're not watching our instant streaming at all today, but only using the DVD service, we still have to count you as a head. So we decided that the best way to handle this was to separate our DVD from streaming service. This way we, and you, pay for the services you use, and not what you don't.

Now you may then ask, 'why the fee hike?' Simply put, the math doesn't add up otherwise. To keep $9.99 pricing we'd have to do something like $4.99 for DVD rental and $4.99 for video streaming. Compare our DVD pricing to Blockbuster -- even at $7.99/month we're still cheaper. $4.99 for video streaming would only barely cover our licensing costs. We found a reasonable price point that allows us to offer great DVD and streaming services going forward."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This letter is genius. If Netflix had sent it out I think it would have averted the entire crisis.

<comment><USER32> I don't think any of the serious complains about the letter had to do with the new name or the tone in which it was delivered. I don't think anyone would cancel their service over the name Qwikster or because the CEO is a jerk.

The real complaints dealt with the separation of the services and thus the separations of the ratings system and of queue management. This letter does not address either of those issues, and thus would fix nothing.

<comment><USER33> The fake letter doesn't separate them:

> Members can log into both sites using the same login. This will allow > streaming-only members to add DVD by mail, and DVD-only members to upgrade > to streaming, at any time. The websites, however, will remain separate, so > that we can start giving these different worlds the unique attention they > deserve.

<comment><USER32> > The websites, however, will remain separate, so that we can start giving > these different worlds the unique attention they deserve.

Sounds like they are being separated to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [http://raganwald.posterous.com/netflix-and-the-costs-of- cour...](http://raganwald.posterous.com/netflix-and-the-costs-of-courage)

</comment><comment><USER35> I still think the separation of the DVD and streaming businesses was to "firewall" the cash flow of the DVD business, so that content providers couldn't use that against the streaming business in negotiations. This would severely limit the amount of money that a content provider could charge Netflix streaming.

But it's fairly obvious that this plan was too qwikly put in place, without proper due diligence. They didn't even bother to get the rights for @Qwikster on Twitter BEFORE announcing this, which was a huge PR blunder. 2 weeks ago, they could have bought the name for $1000 from this pot-smoking kid, but now I think it's worth at least 6 digits to them, just to end the embarrassment.

</comment><comment><USER36> I like the idea of keeping it under one brand but Netflix "Classic" reminds of me of "Classic" Coke. It's like AT&T calling home phone service "Classic" phone :)

It could be Netflix:Online and Netflix:Offline or Netflix:Instant and Netflix:Delivered etc.

</comment><comment><USER37> "Common sense is not so common"! This is incomparable to the actual post, it highlights the positive points and addresses some (though not all) FUDs.

Similar to HP, Netflix made the huge mistake of announcing big changes in one big lump, creating a chaotic reaction. They probably should have waited a little to announce the split.

Keeping the Netflix name for both companies would have been a great idea (see the two Motorola companies), as commented here it was done this way most probably because they will sell the DVD business and use that money to invest in streaming.

<comment><USER38> The gave their future competitor a pretty crappy name!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I prefer the original. I got the email as a customer and felt like it did a decent job for what it was trying to do.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think "Netflix Classic" would be a poor name for the old service. It would be shortened to "Netflix" in conversation and cause a whole host of problems and confuse customers which "version" they were on.

<comment><USER41> It's also a poor idea to use a subdomain for the main entry point to a separate service (by their design), i.e. users of 'classic' will still type 'netflix.com'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> In order for them to survive, they have to split their customers. It sucks, big time. They don't want to do it, but those who own the content are holding a gun to their head. So they have to chop their customers into two so that 7.99 is palatable to both their customers and their bottom line. And they are playing nice so that gun doesn't get bigger and blow a larger hole in their wallet.

</comment><comment><USER43> Regarding this suggested letter, the author is spot on with how this should have been handled. There's really little reason for taking the DVD portion of the company and rebranding it under a totally different (and poorly selected) name.

I don't understand why Reed and the rest of the team at Netflix are throwing away such an incredible business. Like any business that offers both old and new options, they should have merely announced a plan (much like what was suggested in this letter) to slowly phase out DVDs and educate their customers on the benefits of streaming (as well as developed a plan for making more DVD- only content available via the streaming service). This just feels like that scene in the Beach where the guy gets his leg bit off by a shark and is taken out into the woods to die slowly. Despite this mistake, I still love Netflix (it's my primary source of television save for torrents). I hope they can recover from this and really turn around the brand. If not, I'll be really sad if I have to subscribe to cable again.

</comment><comment><USER44> Even if they're separate companies, Qwikster and Netflix should license (for pay) the queue information between themselves.

That way customers will remain happy, and the Qwikster brand could be sold to someone that wanted a business that has a sustainable deal with the content providers...

</comment><comment><USER45> Change the implementation, not the API.

Netflix broke their API with their customers, so they're gonna be confused and upset. No explanation, no matter how good, will fix that.

It's like when you write a long comment in some code to explain why your code is goofy. Just fix the code!

In this case netflix needed to make their site more usable and make the pricing distinctions between streaming and dvd more clear.

New company, new prices, new billing options. Wayyy to much info for your avg customer. Netflix is way too confident if they think, customers won't cancel their plans with all these questions being raised. Once a customer starts to think about all these options, they might just think I don't really use Netflix much anyway!

</comment><comment><USER46> A DVD-by-mail queue makes sense to me. What does "queue" mean in a streaming service, especially one where availability is frequently changing? In fact, DVD-by-mail and streaming services require and invite dramatically different management by the user.

I don't want a unified queue, because I don't want a queue for my streaming service. I can think of many ways in which I would want integration between my activity in each service, of which a unified queue is one of the least innovative and least helpful.

I have to believe that, even if Netflix/Qwikster can't provide useful integration, someone can. Despite my initial negative reaction to the split, these opportunities actually make me a little excited.

<comment><USER47> I think for a lot of people, myself included, a queue is simply a list of movies I'd like to see, in roughly the order I'd like to see them. Choosing a delivery method for the movie is a secondary thought, that right now is dead simple to do -- given availability information for the movie for each queue type, simply click the button for the available queue that best suits your needs. You also have the ability to see and play movies that become available to stream while sitting in your DVD queue, and can move a movie from your instant queue to DVD if you'd like. The two services blend well enough together to form a layer of abstraction, letting you use Netflix as a unified movie-finding-and-watching platform instead of just as a "DVD delivery service" or "Movie streaming service".

I believe that DVD will eventually die and streaming will be the primary way to watch movies, but the streaming selection just isn't there right now, and splitting the company like this forces customers to deal so heavily and directly with delivery methods that it dissolves that abstraction layer that made Netflix so valuable in the first place. They now have to sell potential future (and unhappy existing) subscribers on 2 new separate products: a "DVD delivery service" and a "movie streaming service", neither of which really measure up the the way the combined system did, and for the same price!

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> The core issue here is the pricing change wasn't just about making more money, the main reason was Netflix had to pay a lot of money for users with Streaming included but had never used it.

As they had to say in the licensing "x amount of users have streaming" when only a percentage had ever used it".

The idea was they could now say "These users are specifically paying for streaming". They'd already split up the two plans into two different business departments.

In my opinion they should have offered a streaming plan, DVD plan but let DVD users pay a small premium to access streaming instead of doubling their core users bills, if they wanted to sort this licensing issue.

</comment><comment><USER49> The problem is everything wrong with the Netflix changes makes sense... if you're Netflix and hellbent on selling off your DVD business. Of course they didn't consider the users in all of this - the whole point is to shed Quikster as quickly as possible, probably by selling it to Redbox or Amazon or something.

That's why we can't have a shared queue or keep the same name or keep the pricing unified on the bill. All of this is simple to do if Quikster is a subsidiary but I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix already has a buyer for Quikster lined up. These changes have the stink of "buyer requests".

</comment><comment><USER50> Netflix has handled this so badly for customers and investors, and so obviously badly at that, that I can either believe they are incompetent, or that there are hidden factors (lawyers) at play.

The conspiracy theorist in me leads me to suspect it's somehow related to cost of licensing content for streaming, and negotiation positioning with Hollywood. That by burning the DVD bridge, Netflix can somehow lower costs dramatically or make their position in negotiations better. (But don't ask me how.)

Otherwise I have to believe Reed Hastings picked the wrong week to start sniffing glue.

</comment><comment><USER49> An interesting point about the name Quikster - they took the ONE weakness of the DVD by mail service (you have to wait a few days) and made it the centerpoint of their name. Completely tone-deaf branding. Not to mention archaic domain naming (-ster? Friendster was a long time ago and doesn't have a nice shine anymore). I don't work in marketing, but I couldn't imagine much worse unless they tried on purpose. Maybe "Shitster."

<comment><USER51> It's easy to remember but that's about it. It literally could describe anything: oil change service, magazine publisher, board game company.

It's kind of refreshing to see such a textbook, illuminated lesson in bad management in the tech world, when usually all we get to see are the all- stars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> By keeping one brand it becomes more difficult to sell-off the silver disk business without impacting the download business negatively.

Better to make a clean break now.

The only way the Netflix Classic plan makes any sense is as a staging post to splitting the company in two. This would have been good PR as well as a sensible internal business step. It lets everyone get used to the idea gradually.

</comment><comment><USER53> Keeping the logo and the word Netflix in the new company name makes it less attractive should they wish to sell it off. Just sayin'.

<comment><USER54> Rebranding the DVD company is relatively easier than the streaming one due to the many devices in people's homes which are "netflix enabled"

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> This says it all: <http://theoatmeal.com/comics/netflix>

</comment><comment><USER56> This letter isn't in line with Netflix's strategy. They want the Netflix brand to be completely unassociated with by-mail DVDs. Sure Qwikster is a stupid name, but in a years time we will think of it as it's own entity/brand. Netflix classic would not accomplish this.

</comment><comment><USER57> I'm fine with the changes Netflix made, although I would prefer to login to only one site.

</comment><comment><USER58> Just me or does that sound awfully close to Apple's marketing language? "We think the benefits are going to be huge."?

</comment><comment><USER59> People would have bitched no matter what they said. The level of entitlement in modern society is pretty shocking.

</comment><comment><USER60> Impressive discussions. I like the Spotify model compared to Netflix. Care to comment?

<comment><USER61> The Spotify streaming model is the same as the Netflix streaming model. They just have far fewer licenses. What do you see as distinguishing characteristics of Spotify over Netflix beyond available content?

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Terrific - couldn't have phrased it better. Only missing item is maintaining ratings/carrying them over.

I wonder if Reed hastings was drunk or high when he made these announcements and wrote that blog post. Hard to believe someone who built a business so shrewdly could screw up like this..

</comment><comment><USER63> Quikster sounds too much like Amway's failed Quickstar. Classy.</comment>


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