Why Facebook is never safe - <AUTHOR> http://newmatilda.com/2012/01/23/why-facebook-never-safe

<comment><USER2> Oh those poor, poor sheep. It's funny how eagerly people are willing to give up their privacy and freedom for some marginal benefit. And Facebook's dangers will always vastly outweigh its meager benefits. A relative of mine was just denied residency at a prestigious hospital when the admissions committee found out through Facebook that she has children, and there are numerous other examples. And the root of the problem is more than Facebook's monopoly or terrifying business model; these will be somewhat mitigated when its services, which have proven so far to be essential, will be commoditized (just like e-mail) by the wonderful Diaspora* and others like it. The root of the problem is people's willingness to expose themselves. And maybe I'm wrong, and it's not a problem at all but a cultural shift, or maybe even a necessary outlet for a human desire that's always been there.

What I am certain of is that Facebook's IPO comes at a time of peak-Facebook. The ridiculous valuations Facebook and other web companies, and the outlandish profit multipliers analysts bestow on them never cease to amaze me. When companies grow so quickly it's hard to know when something really mirrors a true market shift or is just a fad. And even if it's not a fad, competitors can disrupt the market just as easily. After all, if investors expect upcommers to succeed so quickly, it must surely mean that they expect "established" companies to fail just as quickly; you can't have it both ways. Who could have predicted five years ago that Facebook will pose such a threat to Google (search)? Search seemed like it will forever be the preferred method of finding things online. And so will Facebook be displaced (or squeezed) by something new that comes along, or its product commoditized and Facebook turned into AOL circa 1994. The whole web economy is built on black swans (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory>).

But whenever Facebook's inevitable market decline arrives (and it will happen quite soon), the question remains whether people's extroversion or naivete will continue to be fodder for web corporations. I would like to hope that with time and with the proper lessons learned, this behavior, too, will decline.

Good article, BTW.

<comment><USER3> "A relative of mine was just denied residency at a prestigious hospital when the admissions committee found out through Facebook that she has children..."

Would you care to elaborate on that?

<comment><USER2> Well, I don't want to give too much information because that's a very well known hospital in a major US city, but after the interview, a contact of hers on "the inside" told her that he'd heard the interview had not gone that well because the panel didn't like that she was too concerned with the work hours. She, of course, never mentioned or asked anything about the hours (she's too smart for that), but then remembered that one of the interviewers told her that he'd looked her up online. She appears in her Facebook profile picture with her two small children. And it's a well known fact among young doctors that that particular hospital, an many other like it, does not care to hire residents with young children, esp. female residents.

<comment><USER4> I thought employers weren't allowed to ask about age, religion and family situations. I realize that finding it on Facebook is not the same as asking, but it strikes me as pretty shady if not a little overreaching. I could be wrong, though.

<comment><USER5> That's the beauty of Facebook, you get to find the answers to all kinds of illegal questions. Collateral information, if you will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> People in this thread are asking for ways that Facebook is used by third parties.

How about future credit checks based on your network of debt-ridden college friends? [http://www.pcworld.com/article/246511/how_facebook_can_hurt_...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/246511/how_facebook_can_hurt_your_credit_rating.html)

How about health insurance claims? [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2009/11/19/queb...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2009/11/19/quebec- facebook-sick-leave-benefits.html)

How about investigations? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_social_network_websites_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_social_network_websites_in_investigations)

Skeptics will say "just don't do anything wrong and you'll be fine." But what about civil disobedience, like the Occupy movement? What about when the definition of "wrong" changes? What about when the information is used not to implicate you in something, but just learn more about your activities?

I think eventually this will become a big enough issue with some event (maybe a popular crime case in which the defendant is perceived to be innocent but FB data is used to implicate him/her) that the general public is appalled and will try to delete their data. But by then it'll be too late.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just out of interest, as I've never come across many examples, can anyone give me some rock solid examples of what scary stuff facebook / a 3rd party could do with my data?

I'm in the UK. I post an update roughly once ever 3 months, usually a photo from my phone. I have around 100 friends. I'm tagged in a handful of photos, some geotagged. None of any particular interest. My about me section has some basic information on my home city. I do however have chat history with a few people.

My privacy settings are all on the maximum, so no one public can see anything without being my friend, nor am I in search results. I block facebook outside of facebook.com.

I always feel like if a corrupt entity (lets say the government) wanted to 'take my freedom' then my email, skype, public paperwork (property ownership records etc) and bank statements etc would be of much greater benefit? Most of the 'facebook data is bad' stories at the moment seem to revolve around people with poor privacy settings and job interviews etc.

If your of the mindset that if the current government collapses and you end up with an extremist regiem in place, then a list of people you met over the last few years might be useful. But I'm not really in that camp, and my email address book or skype logs would be more accurate anyway.

I'm not saying facebook data isn't a bad thing; I'm just wondering what concrete things could happen?

<comment><USER2> Well, besides your data being sold to advertisers (which may give you a creepy feeling but not much more), the friend list for most (all? I'm not that familiar with Facebook) Facebook users is public, and a lot could be learned from that alone.

By canvassing you friends list, and your friends' lists and the way different lists intersect, it's often very easy to know who are your, say, school friends, and who are your work friends. It is also quite easy to find out who your close friends are, and whom you only know in passing or have fallen out of touch with.

Using that information, I could introduce myself (online or offline) as a friend of one of your not-so-close friends. Then, it would be quite easy to gain your confidence. I could use you trust to get something directly out of you, or I could gain your trust just enough to friend you on Facebook (under a false identity) and pass your information (which is no longer so private) to a third party that has hired me to follow you.

<comment><USER7> I have read about people doing such things as 'proof of concept' type attacks indeed. However it requires that you have your privacy settings to public.

No information on my profile is public. You must set your friends to public, mine are set to 'me only', so even my friends can not see them (always wondered why anyone would set it to anything else!). Were you to friend me I would not accept as I don't know you. So this attack would not work.

It highlights the point about 'public' facebook data though, which many users are very lax with, but provided you take the steps to contain your data is not a concern. This is more about social engineering than facebook doing any scary with your data on a 3rd party / government level. The same 'job interview' situation can arrise from a blog, a forum or any service with public URLs.

<comment><USER8> One of Facebook's redesigns a while back made everyone's friend lists public with no option to hide it. Have they since reverted that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder, if there are any known cases, where people did not get a particular job (or experienced any other disadvantage), because they had NO facebook account.

Personally I don't own a facebook account and any request to facebook from my computer is blocked, since they introduced their like button. In my world it's very much like facebook doesn't exist at all. The only disadvantage I experience is, that I'm locked out of some websites, which require a facebook account for log-on (stupid, if you ask me).

<comment><USER5> "Personally I don't own a facebook account"

Neither does anyone else.

<comment><USER9> Well, maybe Mark Zuckerberg does. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article is appealing. I think it can become better by using several arguments in case privacy does not resonate with a reader (e.g. financially exploiting personal information, building stronger social relations, how other countries use facebook alternatively), and listing viable middle-ground solutions (using aliases on facebook).

Example Solutions

1.Dont use your real name

In Mexico, many people do not use their real names on Facebook partially because names (Jorge, Paula, Arturo, Pancho, Gomez, Ramirez, Rodriguez) are so common and using an alias makes it easier to find people.

2.Dont use your real information

I dont use my real info on facebook. My real friends should know my birthday and where I live.

3.Use privacy settings so strangers can not view your personal life.

I say this because, I quit facebook, then realized how popular it is as a form of communication these days for some demographic groups. I like letters and postcards, but I realize that's my preference

<comment><USER11> If you follow all 3 of those things, it would make it almost impossible for someone you just met to find you on FB. Unless you explain in person what your FB strategy is. Basically if you did all those things, at that point you might as well not use it at all. (I no longer have an account)

<comment><USER12> I follow a similar strategy; but for me, 98% of Facebook usage is keeping in touch with people I've known for years, but are geographically distant. They know my nickname, they know how to find me, and FB does in fact help us keep abreast of each others' lives pretty well. (Photos, life events, amusing anecdotes...)

On the very rare occasion I add someone new to Facebook (1/month max) it is not difficult to say "I'm on Facebook as Nickname. My work e-mail address is not connected, use specialized-address." It requires about a minute's out-of- band explanation, but so what? I have no interest in being friended by random strangers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have something to add to the FUD statement "What's the greatest database of Jews on the planet? Facebook."

...

"Why could the holocaust never, ever happen again? Facebook."

Try systematically killing 10 million+ people when their relatives can't poke them on facebook anymore.

People would catch on pretty quickly I think.

<comment><USER2> Uhhh, I don't think the holocaust happened because people weren't noticing.

<comment><USER14> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that at the time, most of the outside world wasn't noticing? (or at least pretending not to notice?)

<comment><USER15> i think you wrong. it wasnt about "noticing" and besides if you notice what you are going to do? you can notice Wall street movement but did you and EVERYONE else joined? during WW2 most countries were busy fighting or preparing to fight with aggressors. on the other note, if you dont live in US but in one of country where abortion is illegal and assumed a human killing, you can notice 50,000 abortion done in China every day. Thats 15 million abortions a year, more than holocaust claimed. Do you see everyone "noticing" and doing something about it?

<comment><USER14> You have valid points with your abortion point in that it's very often about perception of right and wrong. But it looks like the U.S. at least didn't "know" until a year after they entered the war[1], but even when they did, it appears that they had reservations about acting on it[2] (ie, do you bomb Auschwitz and kill the current prisoners to prevent future prisoners from being gassed there?)

[1] [http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/faq/details.php?lang=e...](http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/faq/details.php?lang=en&topic=01#06)

[2] <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005182>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yeah, well I always tell people I know how FB use their data etc., and they reply "but how does FB actually affect me??!?! I'm not a public person, I'm nobody! So what if I share all my family pictures?! FU! don't tell me about privacy, you paranoid!"

People need more awareness.

<comment><USER17> That's a good question. How _will_ sharing their data influence the average person?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Relevant comedic relief: [http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program- dramatic...](http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically- cut-agencys-cos,19753/)

</comment><comment><USER19> What about the opposite: I need to use Facebook for my job, but I would prefer to not even have an account. I hate Facebook, but am forced to use it, or switch jobs :(

<comment><USER20> Surely you can then use it _only_ for your job, and post only work information, no personal information?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I found it interesting Appelbaum was so concerned about the government intrusion and collecting of personal data, yet spends several paragraphs about all the regulating the government should do to keep people safe.

Unfortunately, you can't have it both ways. Either government is a part of it and you take your chances with the possibly they over-regulate and use the data for harmful purposes. Or, you just let free market economics handle it and keep the government out of it entirely.

<comment><USER2> No, you can, and often do have it both ways. I know Americans often treat their government as some kind of foreign entity, but in Europe and other places as well, people see the government as truly representing them. What you said sounds to me like, you can give parents control over their children and hope they don't abuse them, or you can let children retain control, but you can't have it both ways. Well, no. You can trust and demand the government to have the best interest of its citizens in mind, just like you can demand and trust that of parents. I realize that in some parts of the American political spectrum this sort of thing is hard to grasp, and I don't want to get into what is a peculiarly American political argument, but you should know that in most democratic countries people often view their own government very differently from Americans. They demand certain things of their government and can trust it to behave a certain way, and if it doesn't - they punish it.

In short: there is such a thing as good government (which, sadly, the American democratic party doesn't stress enough).

<comment><USER22> (As a European) I think it's an exaggeration to say it's a common view that the government truly represents them. However, there also isn't a shared faith that corporations will do the right thing automatically, or there is more cynicism about the 'free market'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I just don't use it. The result? More time to do stuff that matters.

<comment><USER24> Me too, but I noticed the other day that you can only save your progress at Khan Academy if you sign it with either Google or Facebook. That stung. I don't want to sign up for a social network, just to save my progress on a math course.

<comment><USER25> I agree. I have always steered away from sites that require "facebook connect." I'm worried one day many more sites that I use daily require Facebook, which I don't use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> FTA: (the govenrment) shouldn't endorse Adobe.

Um.. is this guy aware that the spec for PDF has been open for a long time? Using PDF isn't endorsing Adobe any more than using MP4 is endorsing the motion picture experts group.

</comment><comment><USER27> facebook is for sheep

</comment><comment><USER28> If you really want to mess with those who choose to violate privacy and other laws whether its corporate idiot or your government..you will figure out that you can fake profiles and data attached to them..

You know how easy it is to fake meta data in a camera image?

The possibilities to make the FBI or CIA or some corporate private investigator look very stupid are endless..

Shall we play a game or two with them and expose their own stupidity? Why not?

It would be the perfect hack and best part non-one gets hurt but we do a great public service..

<comment><USER29> "The possibilities to make the FBI or CIA or some corporate private investigator look very stupid are endless.."

You can try to mess with the FBI, CIA or any other three letter agency if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it.</comment></comment>


Introducing SelectorGadget: point and click minimal CSS selectors - <AUTHOR> http://www.selectorgadget.com <comment><AUTHOR> Please tell me when you find sites that it doesn't work on, there are so many edge cases.

<comment><USER2> This is awesome. It would've have been super useful building our mobile interface to Philadelphia's regional rail schedules where we scraped SEPTA's site for data. <http://www.septa.org/service/sched/r2s_wk.html> is an example of the markup we had to deal with.

I think I'll have to go back and crosscheck your selectors with what I came up with to see if we can't improve anything. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Oh sweet merciful Bob that has got to be some of the nastiest markup I've ever seen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excellent work; I also liked your screencast, you did a good job in quickly showing what SelectorGadget did!

<comment><USER5> Agreed -- and then gave suggestions below. Perfect! I immediately started coming up with ways I could use it on a couple projects I'm working on.

I hope all purveyors of webapps will use this as a shining example of a demo well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this made my day. I've been using FireQuark (a custom firebug that provides CSS selectors - [http://www.quarkruby.com/2007/9/5/firequark-quick- html-scree...](http://www.quarkruby.com/2007/9/5/firequark-quick-html-screen- scraping)) and while it was very helpful, SelectorGadget will remove sooo much more of the pain of scraping. Major kudos.

As an aside, I'll mention the nokogiri gem (almost identical to hpricot, but under much more active development), that's what I've been using and it's excellent. <http://github.com/tenderlove/nokogiri/tree/master>

<comment><AUTHOR> Just so you know, there was, and may still be, an off-by-one error in Hpricot's implementation of nth-child that may confuse you when using the selectors generated by SelectorGadget.

<comment><USER7> It's a one char fix:

[http://github.com/fizx/hpricot/commit/1208019ade1af02816de62...](http://github.com/fizx/hpricot/commit/1208019ade1af02816de6217d3c34bd82054b9b7)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the kind of stuff that blows my mind. Between all of the people who will ever use it, you've probably saved a lifetime's worth of fiddling with CSS selectors. Kudos to you, sir!

</comment><comment><USER9> Very nice tool. Reminds me of the Dapper interface. I could see this being used to build some sort of notifier service. For example, "notify me when any of these change."

Great work

<comment><USER10> You are probably talking about - <http://www.dapper.net/dapp-factory.jsp> , which is basically a much more powerful 'selectorgadget'.

Edit: After using selectorgadget for a couple of minutes I found a case where selectorgadget works much better than dapper.net. selectorgadget is great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very clever. It's like a souped-up version of the Outline Current Element tool in Firefox's Web Developer Toolbar. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER12> Impressive flexibility. I haven't encountered any problems yet on FF or Safari.

Another use I see for it is in teaching JS / jQuery / etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> Amazing timing on this release- I just learned the basics of CSS the other day, and this is going to be a really helpful tool to keep the learning process going. Well done and thanks!

</comment><comment><USER14> OK, I know this is off topic, but... I read this article an hour or so ago, and I have had the Inspector Gadget theme song stuck in my head since then.

Someone make it stop :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Extremely useful. I love it. I've been using the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar to guess at my selectors, but this is infinitely faster.

</comment><comment><USER16> awesome. seems to work in chrome just fine. I can't see how this is useful for scraping though, is there scraping software that can take css selectors as criteria?

I've previously just used mechanize/hpricot and copied the xpath from firebug to get the areas i want to scrape.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hpricot can take CSS selectors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very cool. Thank you.

Thanks also for exposing me to screentoaster.com, I've been hoping for a service like this.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I just pushed out XPath generation support to the dev version.

</comment><comment><USER18> Andrew, this is badass! Great work.

</comment><comment><USER19> Brilliant!</comment>


Ask HN: What are some of the best written programming books? - <AUTHOR> I recently read Russ Olsen's Eloquent Ruby and I loved it.
It is incredibly readable; the code and the stories mixing amazingly with real world examples and what not.
What are some of yours? <comment><USER2> Some love for - The C Programming Language - Kerninghan & Ritchie -

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Programming-Language-Brian- Kernigh...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Programming-Language-Brian- Kernighan/dp/0131103628)

<comment><USER3> I have this book at home, have read it and although it covers a lot in a short volume, I didn't get out of it as much as I did out of C Programming: A Modern Approach by KN King. Once I bought King's book, C made a lot more sense, the book was fun to read and follow. K&R's book was, to me, less "how & why" but more "how". Pointers, in particular, is what I enjoyed more in King's book. That chapter alone made buying the book worth its money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any book written by Charles Petzold is an enjoyable read, though particularly the non-MS specific titles Code and The Annotated Turing.

Java Concurrency in Practice (2006) is older but relevant and clearly describes concurrency on the JVM. A must read for any Java, Scala, Clojure, etc. software engineer; well-written, enjoyable, concise.

Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby by Sandi Metz is a fun read packed with good principles for working in Ruby that are applicable in general to object oriented programming.

Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns by Kent Beck is worth a read because the general principles are applicable to any OOP language.

Clean Code by Robert Martin is excellent but a time commitment. (If you had to pick between SICP and Clean Code because time is at a premium I'd err on the side of Clean Code for practicality. Writing maintainable code is paramount.)

The Joy of Clojure (Fogus/Houser) is excellent and mentally digestable even if you have no Lisp or Clojure background.

<comment> why-el I second this recommendation. "Code" is a very enjoyable read indeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Little Schemer By Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen - [https://mitpress.mit.edu/index.php?q=books/little- schemer](https://mitpress.mit.edu/index.php?q=books/little-schemer)

Why's poignant guide to Ruby - [http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant- guide/book/](http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/)

</comment><comment><USER6> SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs) - [https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-4.html...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-4.html#%_toc_start) (free version)

<comment><USER7> When talking about the very best books of our area, this is first one that always pop in my mind.

Uncle bob have put beautifully here (5th paragraph): [http://thecleancoder.blogspot.com.br/2010/08/why- clojure.htm...](http://thecleancoder.blogspot.com.br/2010/08/why-clojure.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Knuth: he's an excellent writer with a sense of humor.

Anything coauthored by Kernighan is a good bet, though the material is not quite so ageless. Similar remarks for P.J. Plauger.

Norvig doesn't just write exquisite code, but good prose too.

I always liked Abelson & Sussman's style, even though it's more textbookish. Abelson also co-wrote Turtle Geometry, which is almost unknown these days and still eye-opening. (It's more of a math book than a programming one, but its point is to be both.)

Daniel Hillis: The Pattern on the Stone, The Connection Machine.

Richard O'Keefe, The Craft of Prolog.

Jon Bentley.

I remember pg's On Lisp as good.

</comment><comment><USER9> Programming Pearls: Jon Bentley

The Pragmatic Programmer: Hunt and Thomas

The C Programming Language: Kernighan and Ritchie

<comment><USER10> Seconding Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley. Although a bit dated, I reread this book for its insight in to problem solving. It is a great primer for programming problem interviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Check out the Stealing The Network series if you're into security -

it's a bunch of short stories about network security usually written from the POV of a hacker who's trying to gain access to a system. The stories are very tech-heavy to the point that parts of the stories are non-fiction, with huge excerpts from console sessions and the like.

</comment><comment><USER12> Might be an unpopular language but "Learning Perl" was pretty helpful for me when I was coming up.

<comment><USER13> _Learning Perl_ is an excellent book. It's one of the reasons I still consider Perl a pretty good teaching and learning language, despite it's bad reputation among some programmers. All of the big O'Reilly books for Perl are truly excellent, in fact, and a big part of why O'Reilly developed such a reputation for excellence (which, I think, has faded somewhat in the past decade or so...at least for me...I don't tend to automatically choose the O'Reilly title, anymore, whereas that used to be what I always picked up first).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> My favorite is Javascript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. It's clear, concise, the railroad diagrams are super helpful, and from what I've seen of Crockford's lectures on YouTube, it also really captures his voice.

</comment><comment><USER15> My favorite one is Paradigms or Artificial Intelligence Programming: [http://norvig.com/paip.html](http://norvig.com/paip.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> Programming in Lua by Roberto Ierusalimschy is one of the best introductions to any programming language. Hw writes the new version along with each language release now, on the grounds that if you cannot explain it right then the language feature probably needs fixing.

<comment><USER17> That was one of the rules for the Qt documentation too, back when I worked on it. It's a great rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really enjoyed Land of Lisp [http://landoflisp.com](http://landoflisp.com)

</comment><comment><USER19> Operating Systems: Design and Implementation - Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Always a good one when you want to brush up on arcane knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER20> I like The Little Book of Semaphores: [http://greenteapress.com/semaphores/](http://greenteapress.com/semaphores/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation by David S. Touretzky is solid for learning the fundamentals of thinking in and writing lisp.

[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/)

Bump for the K&R as well, great book, helped me get my feet wet with C quickly and effectively.

</comment><comment><USER22> Michael Kerrisk's _The Linux Programming Interface_ is truly great.

</comment><comment><USER23> My favourites are more about the general craft of software development than specifics e.g.

The Pragmatic Programmer: Hunt and Thomas

The Mythical Man Month: Frederick Brooks

<comment><USER11> You may also enjoy Glass' Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, it's similar to Mythical Man Month (and cites it and overlaps in parts) but the focus is a bit wider, with many small essays on a particular problem in programming or management of programmers

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Functional Programing in Scala ([http://www.manning.com/bjarnason/](http://www.manning.com/bjarnason/))

More recent than most books mentioned here, but I found it remarkably well- written. Irrespective of what happens to Scala, this book has a good chance to be useful 10 years from now.

</comment><comment><USER25> Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by Randal E. Bryant, David R. O'Hallaron

[http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers- Perspecti...](http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspective- Edition/dp/013409266X)

</comment><comment><USER26> "Effective Java" by Joshua Bloch is very good.

</comment><comment><USER27> I really enjoy the Big Nerd Ranch books, although I am a bit biased because they sign my paychecks.

<comment><USER28> I love the one for iOS development. It's perfect even for people new to programming. Will you ever re-write the Andriod version to be just as beginner friendly? I would love to hand it off to my girlfriend so she can learn how to do apps. Right now it is harder to grok than the iOS one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> A curated PLT (Programming language theory) list : [http://steshaw.org/plt/](http://steshaw.org/plt/)

A Github hosted list of free programming books (merging SO and other sources): [https://github.com/vhf/free-programming- books/blob/master/fr...](https://github.com/vhf/free-programming- books/blob/master/free-programming-books.md)

</comment><comment><USER30> It's not even published yet, but based on the 7 of 11 chapters available I can say the book gonna be really fundamental.

Designing Data-Intensive Applications

The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems

By Martin Kleppmann

[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032175.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032175.do)

[http://dataintensive.net/](http://dataintensive.net/)

The author has great sense of humor.

</comment><comment><USER31> A remarkable classic [http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable- Obje...](http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object- Oriented/dp/0201633612)

And Kent Beck's [http://www.amazon.com/Smalltalk-Best-Practice-Patterns- Kent/...](http://www.amazon.com/Smalltalk-Best-Practice-Patterns- Kent/dp/013476904X)

</comment><comment><USER32> This gem is too often left out:

How to Design Programs - An Introduction to Programming and Computing

[http://www.htdp.org/](http://www.htdp.org/)

</comment><comment><USER33> In addition to those already mentioned:

\- Stevens: Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment

and more recently,

\- Kerrisk: The Linux Programming Interface.

Also, almost anything by Kernighan (with several different co-authors).

</comment><comment><USER34> For both entertainment value and incisive exploration of dark corners in the language, "Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets" is a fantastic book.

</comment><comment><USER35> Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo ([http://www.amazon.com/Accelerated-C-Practical-Programming- Ex...](http://www.amazon.com/Accelerated-C-Practical-Programming- Example/dp/020170353X)). One of the best introductory programming books, and one of the best introductory books in general, that I've ever read.

</comment><comment><USER36> Clean Code -- Robert C. Martin

</comment><comment><USER37> Taming text [http://www.amazon.com/Taming-Text-Find-Organize- Manipulate/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Taming-Text-Find-Organize- Manipulate/dp/193398838X) Natural Language Processing with Python [http://www.nltk.org/book/](http://www.nltk.org/book/)

</comment><comment><USER38> C# in Depth by Jon Skeet is amazing and is great to brush up your C# skills! A word of warning though: it's excellent for developers with experience in .NET, but does not serve as an introduction to the language/framework. The knowledge is not easily applicable to other languages either. That aside - it is still the best programming book I've read thus far.

</comment><comment><USER39> Eloquent Ruby is one of my favorite books, too. That book really motivated me to learn how programming languages work. Here are a few other books I found to be enjoyable and well-written:

Programming Erlang by Joe Armstrong

Programming Elixir by Dave Thomas

Seven (more) Languages In Seven Weeks by Bruce Tate

Think Bayes, Think OS, How To Think Like A Functional Programmer (Think OCaml) and The Little Book of Semaphores by Allen B. Downey

</comment><comment><USER40> Higher-Order Perl [http://hop.perl.plover.com/](http://hop.perl.plover.com/)

</comment><comment><USER41> The Elements of Computing Systems: [http://www.nand2tetris.org](http://www.nand2tetris.org). A great, fun, do it yourself projects with subtle hints to move forward. Helps you lay a good foundation for programming.

Helped me a lot when I ventured into 3D graphics and game programming.

</comment><comment><USER42> Code by Charles Petzold

Not so much programming, but very good if you're interested in how your computer actually works.

</comment><comment><USER43> Geek Sublime by Vikram Chandra. The connections between the worlds of art and technology.

[http://www.amazon.com/Geek-Sublime-The-Beauty- Code/dp/155597...](http://www.amazon.com/Geek-Sublime-The-Beauty- Code/dp/1555976859)

</comment><comment><USER44> "Large Scale C++ Software Design" by John Lakos

This book made me understand that writing software is not just about creating opaque binaries with _stuff_ inside. It's also about what does this binary depends on, which symbols does it exports, how is it built, etc.

</comment><comment><USER45> While on this subject, would anybody recommend a book in french? It would be for my nephew who is quite smart, high-school age, and knows java an python. I would like to expose him to something different: lisp, or functional programming.

<comment><USER46> [http://pagesperso- systeme.lip6.fr/Christian.Queinnec/WWW/LiS...](http://pagesperso- systeme.lip6.fr/Christian.Queinnec/WWW/LiSP.html)

Might be jumping in at the deep end if he's never seen lisp before, but it was originally published in french...

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Thinking in Java, Java Generics and Collection, Head First Design Patterns

</comment><comment><USER48> Any suggestions on theory books (not exclusively on a language) that isn't too dense? Not looking for a textbook, but something that is a lighter read that can help me with the logical parts of programming.

</comment><comment><USER49> Fortran/ClearWin+ simple and to the point

[http://www.silverfrost.com/manuals/clearwin.pdf](http://www.silverfrost.com/manuals/clearwin.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER50> Eloquent JavaScript by Written by Marijn Haverbeke

</comment><comment><USER51> Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software [http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable- Obje...](http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object- Oriented/dp/0201633612/)

Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby by Sandi Metz. [http://www.poodr.com/](http://www.poodr.com/)

<comment><USER7> Maybe it's a matter of taste, but I found the GoF book really boring (and a little _self hyped_ TBH).

<comment><USER52> If you want a good alternative to the GoF book try Head First Design Patterns. I findit much more approachable and much more enjoyable to read. [http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman- ebo...](http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman- ebook/dp/B00AA36RZY)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Yo progg'n books — I'm really happy for you, I'll let you finish, but The Poignant Guide is one of the best books on programming of all time. One of the best of all time!

[http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant- guide/book/chapter-1.htm...](http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant- guide/book/chapter-1.html)

</comment><comment><USER54> The Design Patterns book

</comment><comment><USER55> Parallel and Concurrent Programming in Haskell By Simon Marlow

</comment><comment><USER56> the d programming language by andrei alexandrescu (ISBN-13: 978-0321635365)

</comment><comment><USER57> C in Easy Steps</comment>


Game theory explanation of why journalists don't call out lying politicians - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/when-covering-elections-journalists-face-a-debilitating-dilemma-54533 <comment><USER3> There is also the issue of access. A political reporter's career is essentially over if sources won't talk to them. Habitually 'calling out' politicians is a very easy way to become a persona non grata inside the beltway or in Westminster. The risk of losing access is the sword of Damocles hanging over every political journalist.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd posit that a large part of the issue with media reporting is that the media has a disincentive to be honest. The way they stay afloat as business entities is through commercial means - either subscribers or advertising or both. That means eyeballs, which means that the business case for sensationalist reporting will always trump that for honest, factual reporting.

The only way to reliably get around this is to have a separate, non-partisan funding mechanism for news. For all it's flaws, it's why the BBC tends to do well. Just being independent isn't enough (see The Independent as an example for that).

Side note, this is partly why the BBC gets a lot of flack for both sides - when they say things that support one position, the other side invariably accuses them of bias. Even they don't get it right all the time though, and never will (being run by humans who, you know, get things wrong).

The best thing America could do for it's political system is outlaw media outlets from reporting news and being for-profit. Instead, set up a slush fund of a few billion to pay for all news, and then ban themselves from interfering except to punish those who are partisan one way or the other.

Reporting should be about educating people as to the state of the world, and local, relevant information. Not entertainment.

Fun fact: in the UK, this trend really started with the publishing of the memoirs of Christine Keeler in the News of the World, which also kicked off the rise of Rupert Murdoch's empire. The scandal that ensued became known as the Profumo affair and by location centred around Cliveden House, which has 400 acres of woodland which include the cottage where I live.

<comment><AUTHOR> Or, to put it in terms of the article, there are costs to being honest - <USER2> in terms of numbers of viewers and readers, and in reputation.

But readers are a lot less interested in serious news than entertainment.</comment></comment>


We Are Toast: Latest Malware report - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.gartner.com/neil_macdonald/2009/03/16/we-are-toast/

<comment><USER2> Interesting conclusion that we should think about: bad guys are moving "up the stack", targeting businesses themselves rather than users.

However, the path that the Gartner article takes to get there is garbage. The graph at the top should tip you off to "lies, damned lies, and statistics": when there are no labels for the axes, what do they expect you to think?

Showing an increasing number of vulnerabilities _in web apps_ really just shows that the number of web apps is increasing. This "revelation" doesn't necessarily show that any particular user is more vulnerable; if they're using the same set (or same number) of services, then we have no data showing an increased risk _per service_. And for any particular service, we don't even have any _suggestion_ of increased exposure.

Personally, I'm relieved to see reports like "SQL injection attacks increased by 30x within the last six months". This kind of vulnerability is so trivially avoided that I'm glad to hear that the bad guys are wasting their time on it.

<comment><USER3> Provable security could still be a major selling point for a web framework. (If it were implemented in a way that didn't compromise other functionality.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Two issues are interesting here:

1\. The overall trend in malware variants as putting the signature based scanning mechanisms of old in risk because of the total volume.

2\. Spam is getting simpler (as predicted by PG long ago).

</comment><comment><USER3> Thank you, PHP!</comment>


How to post on HN correctly? - tech-andy Hi!
Can anyone advice on how to post on HN correctly? I was not spamming, just made 2 submissions. But my post is not visible in New. How to post on Show HN? How to check if my account is banned or blacklisted.
Thank you! <comment><AUTHOR> Check [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=tech- andy](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=tech-andy)

Your first submission was fine and you made a mistake with the URL in the second one. You're not banned or anything.</comment>


Pinterest Growth Hacks: How did it grow so fast? - <AUTHOR> http://www.adambreckler.com/pinterest-growth-hacks-how-did-it-grow-so-fast

<comment><USER2> There's a lot regarding Pinterest's growth on Quora. For starters, see

"Which viral concepts is Pinterest getting right that may be enabling their staggering growth?" [http://www.quora.com/Pinterest/Which-viral-concepts-is- Pinte...](http://www.quora.com/Pinterest/Which-viral-concepts-is-Pinterest- getting-right-that-may-be-enabling-their-staggering-growth)

and "Why did it take so long for Pinterest to go viral?" [http://www.quora.com/Pinterest/Why-did-it-take-so-long- for-P...](http://www.quora.com/Pinterest/Why-did-it-take-so-long-for- Pinterest-to-go-viral)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm, the #2 Facebook Auto-Follow hack is interesting.

I wonder if any users had a friend follow them, then mention it to them in person and have the other person be like "Oh...I never followed you."

<comment><USER4> Yes, this definitely happened. Several of us were looking at Pinterest's signup flow and how their site enabled viral features. I was the first to sign up and then my co-founder signed up later in the day, _specifically_ choosing not to follow anyone during the on boarding process. I received an e-mail from Pinterest that he was following me, then he received an e-mail that I was following him. Neither was the case.

<comment><USER5> Isn't this unethical?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm skeptical that the bookmarklet was a major driver in Pinterest's growth. My wife was an early and avid Pinterest user and fairly tech savvy (though not a hacker). She had no clue about the bookmarklet–or what one is–until I showed her recently.

Thats anecdotal but I suspect accurate(unless you have data to prove otherwise).

<comment><USER7> My wife was also an early adopter and an avid user. She uses the bookmarklet constantly. Be careful of trying to extrapolate from a single data point.</comment></comment>


Remind HN: Update your wordpress sites - <AUTHOR> Wordpress released version 4.2.2 a week ago with some important security updates. As someone who owns multiple WP installs, it is critical for me to get these updated asap. I am sure there are quite a few members on HN that fall in this category too. <comment><USER2> And if you manage multiple WordPress websites, try something like InfiniteWP. It takes care of updating core, plugins, and themes. We use it to manage about 23 WordPress websites and being able to update all of your websites with a couple of clicks is an incredible timesaver. We still do manually review everything though (like changelogs, making sure the site still loads and isn't a WSOD, etc.)

We like InfiniteWP because it's free and we can host it ourselves (we've had no need for their paid addons), but there's also other solutions like MainWP, ManageWP, WP Remote, iControlWP, CMS Commander, etc. I think most (if not all) of those are hosted and paid / free trial.

<comment><USER3> Or let your Linux distribution handle the multi-site Wordpress hosting for you... Thank you Debian !

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who owns multiple WP installs, I have added "define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', true );" to all my wp-config.php files so that all my installs automatically self update with ALL future updates, minor & major

<comment><USER5> It is great in theory. In practice, the last auto-update caused a WSOD on my site without any helpful debug log (both on WP and server log) until I manually disabled a (popular) plugin by editing its php file.

I wonder how a less tech-savy person would have resolved that. Even being tech-savy, I had to ask someone for help.

Updates of core and plugins are always very scary to me.

<comment><USER6> It's a system that's based on trust, but the auto-update that is active in WordPress has saved millions of sites of getting hacked in the last few weeks: [https://ma.ttias.be/in-defence-of-wordpress/](https://ma.ttias.be/in-defence- of-wordpress/)

As soon as something major breaks by those auto-updates, the trust is over and a lot of users will disable it. That would be a shame indeed, because besides a couple of WSOD's some users may experience, it's an extremely powerful feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not a big fan of wordpress but it is undoubtedly a great tool to have in your toolbox, specially when your customers need user-friendly blogging tools or a quick CMS. I've installed for some of my clients Django blogs (with Django-CMS), rails-based blogs, and even a couple of Ghost installs. Nothing has beaten wordpress so far, clients love its versatility...

What I do to fly _under the radar_ of many of the bots and automated scripts targeting wordpress sites is using a modern wp framework: roots bedrock[0]. This gives you a convenient time windows to update wp when you have the time (although with bedrock it is really easy with a couple of commands)

[0] [https://roots.io/bedrock/](https://roots.io/bedrock/)

</comment><comment><USER8> For the first time I got an email from my Wordpress installation yesterday, asking me to update. Have not seen that before. A nice detail I appreciate, so I don't have to keep up with what i the latest release of Wordpress at all times.

<comment><USER9> Interesting, AFAIK it's not something in the core. Which security plugin are you using?

<comment><USER8> I am not running any security plugins. I just had a look on the email headers, and it was sent from my server, so this must have come from Wordpress somehow. It is also the first one I have gotten.

The email seed:

 _Subject: [{my website} Wordpress MU] WordPress 4.2.2 is available. Please update!

Please update your site at [http://{my](http://{my) websites url}.com to WordPress 4.2.2.

Updating is easy and only takes a few moments: [http://{my](http://{my) websites url}.com/wp-admin/network/update-core.php

If you experience any issues or need support, the volunteers in the WordPress.org support forums may be able to help. [https://wordpress.org/support/](https://wordpress.org/support/)

Keeping your site updated is important for security. It also makes the internet a safer place for you and your readers.

The WordPress Team_

I have the following plugins installed: All In One SEO Pack, FeedWordPress, Github Ribbon, Hello Dolly, Revision Control, Unfiltered MU, WordPress Importer and WP-Polls.

Maybe it originated from one of them?

<comment><USER10> I got this email too. I'm pretty sure I didn't seek out and install any plugins. I don't remember getting any of those you've listed. I nuked the install completely so I can't say for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does Wordpress release security update for those who stick to older versions?

<comment><USER12> Wordpress only has one track, which is the only one that gets updates. Once a new major release is available all support for the previous release ends. If you want the most secure version you need to be on the latest (4.2.2).

<comment><USER13> Um, no? They do security updates for the last couple of versions of Wordpress. They even extend that to the last couple versions of their stock theme when they require an update.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I usually skip N.N.0 but update everything when N.N.2+ comes out.

<comment><USER15> 4.2 and 4.2.1 contained a lot of vulnerability fixes from 4.1.n - when it comes to an operating system, err, blogging platform, it's not a bad idea to keep on top of your updates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> if i am not update. Get any problem on my website??

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://wordpress.org/news/2015/05/wordpress-4-2-2/](https://wordpress.org/news/2015/05/wordpress-4-2-2/)

This is a critical security release. The cross-site scripting vulnerability lets a commenter compromise your website.

<comment><USER17> The exploit is described and demonstrated in a video on the site of the discoverer: [http://klikki.fi/adv/wordpress2.html](http://klikki.fi/adv/wordpress2.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> or just remove wordpress and use something secure, not bloated and easier to develop with.

<comment><USER19> A lot of people who run Wordpress have clients who need a nice, easy user interface to be able to update their site. Do you have any suggestions for software that fulfills that need and is "secure, not bloated and easier to develop with".

<comment> jon-wood > A lot of people who run Wordpress have clients who need a nice, easy user > interface to be able to update their site.

This is clearly opinion, and should be taken as such, but I absolutely loathe Wordpress' admin interface. I'm sure at some point it was a nice, easy user interface but those days have passed. Anytime I have the misfortune of being thrown into a Wordpress backend I have no idea how to get anything done.

<comment><USER20> The WordPress admin interface hasn't changed all that much over the years. Unless the change to a darker admin theme tripped you up, I'm not sure where anyone that has any experience using anything on the internet would have much problem getting anything done with it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How social media platforms contributed to the local news apocalypse - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@noahstarr/how-social-media-platforms-contributed-to-the-local-news-apocalypse-c2d61778497b <comment><AUTHOR> The three main points in the article are:

1) Digital Content Explosion 2) Cannibalization of Content 3) Profit Entrapment

What do y'all think?</comment>


LastPass Multi-Device Access Is Now Free - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lastpass.com/2016/11/get-lastpass-everywhere-multi-device-access-is-now-free.html/ <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I'm a former LastPass employee who left more than a year ago.

The other posters in this thread are extremely negative about LastPass' business model with this move

They have a huge number of enterprise customers. The CEO has said this himself on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8116479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8116479). This comment was >2 years ago.

Suggesting LastPass is selling data about it's customers is ridiculous. People like the product they have built and are willing to pay for it. Holding customers data hostage on a device was something people didn't like.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone shed some light onto how they are going to be making money now? I know there is some kind of useful info they can derive from letting users voluntarily have their password db's scanned for strength/pw duplication/etc, is there some money to be made selling something derived from that to third parties?

<comment><USER4> Ads, since premium is noted to be ad-free.

<comment><USER2> LastPass free only shows ads FOR LastPass. They are served first party.

<comment><USER4> I admit I haven't tried it yet, I've only posted the above speculation based on the features list. So how are ads being displayed in the desktop/mobile apps ?

<comment><USER2> It's just an image for whatever lastpass product the RNG rolls, with a link that says "Tired of these ads? Upgrade now"

<comment><USER4> Just registered to try it out a bit, the auto-fill is quite nice. Saw the ad you've described and it's not intrusive in any way.

I've been using Keepass+Dropbox for couple years now, will give LP a go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, have we gone from paying for the product to being the product, as the saying goes</comment>


737-MAX8 ET302 crash report, the first analysis - chupa-chups @gus_massa: Thanks, i deleted the original post due to a typo and can't add it anymore, so here is the link to the story:<p>https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/05/bjorns-corner-et302-crash-report-the-first-analysis/ <comment><AUTHOR> Elsewhere, it's reported American Airlines has cancelled MAX flights through mid-August (or perhaps more correctly has adjusted their schedule to account for this model missing in the fleet); other airlines are making similar adjustments. I suspect this is based on getting final reports for the two crashes, and something from the NTSB. At this point no matter what Boeing and the FAA say about the new software, I think it'd be a questionable business decision for airlines to put these airplanes back into service without final reports on the crashes.

</comment><comment> chupa-chups [https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/05/bjorns-corner- et302-crash-...](https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/05/bjorns-corner-et302-crash- report-the-first-analysis/)

</comment><comment><USER2> You forgot the URL. Try submitting again.</comment>


SemiCode OS: A Linux Distribution for Programmers and Web Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.semicodeos.com/# <comment><USER2> quite ironic isn't it, that it takes 21 seconds to download the 10.6mb website

On a 100M/b Connection</comment>


Using Go's interfaces at Clever – more than just easy collaboration - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.clever.com/2015/04/17/using-gos-interfaces-at-clever---more-than-just-easy-collaboration/

<comment><USER2> Go is an interesting language. I get it. But there is nothing unique to Go about their use of interfaces in Sphinx. This presentation is about the usefulness of _interfaces_. Something that can be done in almost every modern programming language.

<comment><USER3> I think why there's interest is because the way they're implemented in Go is a nice intersection between duck typing and type safety. In most type safe languages (eg. java), you explicitly have to say that you want your goose to pretend to be a duck. In most type unsafe languages (eg. python), you don't have a way (or, at least without type annotations) to say what features you need to pretend to be a duck.

You're not wrong. That's what Go is about: Well tried techniques, implemented with well practiced knowledge.</comment></comment>


R.I.P. Good Times: The Startup Bubble May Be Coming to an End in 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/26/josh-kopelman-i-think-2012-will-look-more-like-2008-than-2011/

<comment><USER2> Well, good riddance.

Is it just me, or is money being thrown at a lot of crap these days? As long as it has a cutesy name and is based in the Valley, it gets bukkaked with millions of dollars by eager investors.

All this cash floating around also seems to lead to startups sucking up all the best talent. Do coding geniuses really need to be working on photo-sharing apps, as opposed to, say, rocket programming?

I did an interview with Danish madman and super-entrepreneur Morten Lund once. One of the things he told me is that a recession is the best time to start a business: the table is cleared and the posers don't want to work hard to make it. More room for the truly dedicated.

<comment><USER3> """All this cash floating around also seems to lead to startups sucking up all the best talent. Do coding geniuses really need to be working on photo-sharing apps, as opposed to, say, rocket programming?"""

Good point. But for all the "how to hire the best" articles moving around related to startups, I don't see many "coding geniuses" there, and have yet to see a significant contribution to OSS or CompSci coming from a "social" startup.

Mostly fresh-out-of-college, no-real-world-experience, lets-use-what's-shiny types...

Someone like Brad Fitzpatrick runs circles around these guys.

<comment><USER4> The problem, in part, is that VCs want naive, unfettered young people. The VC model has sort of evolved into a kind of talent betting pool.

If you're sophisticated enough to have a proven track record, you're probably also more sophisticated about retaining equity and control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Folks have been predicting this throughout 2010 as well as 2011. The arguments are generally devoid of data, i.e., "based on what we see".

First, let me say, there will eventually be a decrease in funding levels primarily because the VC asset class is raising less money and since they can only invest what's in their bank accounts, it has to come down. When will that happen? Not sure.

Here's some thoughts based on data we collect.

\- 2011 is shaping up to be banner year for VCs ($30B+ invested) \- Seed investments whether by VCs, VCs & angels or just angels are growing like mad

If you think of investing as a funnel, i.e., more seed stage companies get funded than Series A than Series B, etc, it def looks like the funnel has gotten a bit fat up top, i.e. a lot more seed deals than Series A, B, etc money down the pipeline.

So if anything, the Seed thing has been overdone. At the same time, many of those Seed companies can become real businesses on just the Seed round, i.e., SaaS companies (just look at UserVoice's second small round raise as a case study). Or these companies get acquired for $20-$50 million. Which is not a great return for a mega-VC who only care about billion dollar opportunities, but can be quite good for a micro-VC. I'd imagine Dave McClure and others like 500Startups would be happy hitting those all day long.

That said, there is an overabundance of seed backed companies and many of these will be orphaned and die. That's not a bad thing. It's the market working.

At the same time, there are a lot more investors at the Seed stage and a lot more can pile in so the trend might continue for a while as everyone hopes to fund the next Facebook, Pinterest, Quora, etc (pick your soup du jour). This is only natural as there are a lot more folks who can invest at the $1 million level than the $10 or $100 million level.

As to whether later rounds will decrease in # and a bubble exists, that can really only happen when the buyers (investors) decide not to pay crazy valuations. I'm not sure what the 'forcing mechanism' will be that will drive this. There is not a long list of public internet companies that will set the "real price" for these companies and cause a correction. So without the forcing mechanism, it comes down to investors agreeing that valuations in private markets are too high. Not sure there is anything out there that would cause an across-the-board shift like that. Of course, some investors might get more conservative but there looks to be no dearth of cowboys investing right now.

Finally, this could all change if the stock market and general economy go into a tailspin. If I could predict that with any precision (or if anyone could), we're in the wrong business.

Some links for those interested in some data -

Startup Cash Crunch? Hardly - [http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture- capital/startup-cash-...](http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture- capital/startup-cash-crunch)

VC on track for $30B in 2011 - [http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture- capital/quarterly-ven...](http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture- capital/quarterly-venture-capital-report-q3-2011)

<comment><USER3> """Folks have been predicting this throughout 2010 as well as 2011. The arguments are generally devoid of data, i.e., "based on what we see"."""

Actually, "what we see" is the very definition of EMPIRICAL DATA.

What you probably wanted to say was "devoid of any theory" etc. But no theory has yet untangled the economic prediction thing --too many parameters.

A little manual pruning of the empirical data by someone with experience in the trenches is better than some vague theory or a bunch of stats.

<comment><USER5> I don't disagree with you (fully), but unfortunately, hand-wavy predictions about a bubble appear to be the norm. If someone is predicting a bubble, share the empirical data points that led you to that conclusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm probably just an egotist, but I really think that any drying up of the venture capital is really just going to hurt venture capitalists.

An engineer -- here's the egotism coming -- is a money machine. She may be more effective working together with other force multipliers (marketeers, venture capitalists, a good CEO), but fundamentally a good engineer creates value all by herself. If the VC isn't along for the ride, less value may be created less quickly, but the engineer is still going to get hers and the VC not.

I can think of one example of an engineer who just didn't seek funding and created a whole bunch of value (notch); does anyone know of a good example of a startup which was forced to bootstrap without significant funding (on account of a burst VC bubble) and survived to stick it to 'em?

<comment><USER7> Most engineers are male, why do you use 'she'? Also it distracts from your other points.

<comment> mkr-hn Because someone would argue the opposite (that engineering needs to be more welcoming to females) if saalweachter used he instead.

<comment><USER8> Technically in most Latin languages the generic gender is masculine. So it is, in fact, awkward when she is used for the same purpose. Sure it can be used to make a statement "between the lines", but that is what makes it so distracting.

Gender inequality in engineering isn't going to be solved by replacing 'he' with 'she'.

<comment> mkr-hn Opinion, not fact. It's not awkward to me. And we would be better off if we didn't worry about which word to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So we went from "DOOOM!" in 2008 to funding grilled cheese and daily deals in 2011 and now back to "DOOOM!" in 2012, bouncing between the throttle and the brakes faster than most startups can even prove out their thesis? This seems like an opportunity for a contrarian VC betting against the others, dodging the irrational exuberance but getting better terms when founders need the money badly.

<comment><USER10> It's part of the built to flip mentality of the VC world. Look @ Groupon for godsake. The sustainability of its business model is dubious, but they still rushed the IPO, so they could flip it to ma & pa. But ma & pa aren't buying, so Investment Bank clients that got in during the roadshow are unloading en mass, and has sunk the share price below the IPO price, despite the low float.

web VCs fund companies they believe they can flip. It's also why they are biased towards late stage funding, since they have a higher chance of flipping over their positions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _The number of seed-stage fundings is outpacing series A fundings._

Can someone explain to me how this could possibly ever _not_ be the case? Even if 99% of seed-funded companies go on to raise a series A, that's still "seed- stage fundings outpacing series A fundings".

Maybe I'm not understanding what Schonfeld wrote here?

<comment><USER12> I think he means that more money is spent on seed-stage deals than on Series A deals.

With seed deals being much smaller than Series A deals that definitely has implications (e.g. there probably will not be enough money around to get a Series A for all those Seed funded startups that get to that next stage)

<comment><USER13> Maybe it's just getting cheaper to build and maybe monetizing is getting easier too, so it's possible that companies are profitable much earlier and don't need a series a?

<comment><USER14> This is a good hypothesis but I see two problems with it. !) I've almost never seen a case where a company could raise a decent Series A and has chosen not to. Theres a lot of validation and peer pressure towards doing so. 2) Just because you are profitable does not mean you have the money needed to fuel growth. Lots of profitable companies raise Series A. Its actually the preferred way for founders to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> STATEMENT

      RIP Good Times! DOOOOM! GLOOOM! The Skies Are Falling!

TRANSLATION

      I Need an Excuse to Knock Down Your Valuations and Terms!

<comment><USER16> Or maybe that new "X" sharing app that does nothing new doesn't need $ 2million in seed funding

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reading the comments below, it completely sounds like the Housing Bubble discussions between 2004 and 2008. You had the doomsayers saying for years that "house prices are too expensive, there's going to be a crash" and the momentum chasers saying "no, this time it's different, there's not enough land, house prices are here to stay."

In the comments, you have the same sentiment of "It's too frothy, there has to be a pullback", or "There won't be a pullback, this time it's different than 2008."

After surviving the dotcom crash and the 2008 financial crash, it definitely seems like we are headed towards a global recession in 2012. No matter what path we take, whether Europe can save itself or not, the best case scenario is going to be a sharp pullback in European economic output. Worst case is that the euro falls apart and the entire global financial system is rocked. My guess is that Germany won't allow this to happen because they will suffer disproportionately, so they will allow the issuing of Eurobonds.

So that being said, economic growth will slowdown worldwide. I think the US is the best place to be, given its sluggish-but-not-catastrophic growth.

BUT it's not the US's GDP that matters, it's the investments of American rich people that matters in terms of funding VCs. If rich people take a hit because a majority of their investments get whacked, then they will stop investing in venture funding. There's a pretty strong correlation between VC funding and the stock market. Already the markets are down pretty hard since they topped in June. If you remember the dotcom boom, it was during a massive bull market in the stock market. As well, after the crash of 2008, the nadir of the markets being March 2009, there's been almost a doubling of the stock market since then, so by 2011 lots of rich people got very, very rich and are willing to spread out their investments.

However, since June, the US markets are down 15%. The German market is down almost 30%, Chinese markets down 23%, Indian markets down 22%, Brazil down 25%. There are a lot of rich people around the world that don't feel as rich as they used to. If this trend continues and spills over to 2012, these rich people will definitely pullback on discretionary investments, the top of them being venture funding. So if you want a gauge on how VCs will behaving, I'm personally going to be looking at the stock market to see how it's going to behave.

</comment><comment><USER18> "The number of seed-stage fundings is outpacing series A fundings."

That is always the case, just as it is always the case that series A fundings outpace IPOs.

</comment><comment><USER19> I hope so because that means that it's the best time to do a startup!

</comment><comment><USER20> This is not a bubble, I think a lot of people are yelling fire because they want to cool the market, but this is no where near a bubble. When the stupidest ideas are being funded after a meeting with 2 guys and a sketch pad, with no product and no company, then we are in a bubble. Wait until the Euro collapses and all that capital flight happens, then we may see a real bubble like the one we saw in the .com boom or worse the kind of money that hit the housing boom.

I think the wise people in the Vally see the capital influx coming and are trying to cool the sector to ducks some of that capital. We have already killed the goose that laid the golden egg once before, I think we are just trying to ensure that we are not to attractive to the stupid money.

There are fewer and fewer places for it to run to and tech is one of the last bastions, but it cannot sustain the kind of fiat capital that has been created, we are too weak in our recovery from the last exuberance. That being said, this is not a bubble, it can and has gotten a lot crazier than this. This is what healthy was before the bubble.

<comment><USER21> "ideas are being funded after a meeting with 2 guys and a sketch pad, with no product and no company, then we are in a bubble"

Unfortunately from a few interviews I went on in SV a few months ago, more than a couple of times this scenario was bragged about by the founders when asking how they started. It was a huge turn off to me but I guess it impresses other candidates. (Ironically though one of those companies was a small social games company that just got acquired.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What I have learned from share market is that when people predicts the future, that prediction is always accounted for in the present. Therefore things don't go up or down when that time arrives.

Unless of course when the prediction itself changes. And that's when things start to move again -- not in the future, but at present.

</comment><comment> mkr-hn I submitted an article from 2004 that gives some context to the start of the latest boom: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3282354>

</comment><comment><USER23> So, where will the next bubble be?

<comment> mkr-hn Probably automation in the physical world. Watch for the gold rush when the first commercial self-driving cars roll off the assembly line.

<comment><USER2> I am intrigued and wish to know more of your ideas.

What are some ideas for automation of the physical word? I am always looking to feed my creativity algorithms with new domains.

<comment> mkr-hn Everything will feel like it's missing an AI when you see cars driving themselves everywhere you look. I can see the general shape of it (lots of automation), but it's hard to say what it'll look like.

I try to keep speculation to a minimum because most specific predictions of the future end up being wrong even if the rough idea is right.

The best I can come up with is automated bicycle messengers, but that's as likely as any idea I could come up with.

<comment><USER2> Tell me more about the general shape then :)

<comment> mkr-hn I made a blog post out of it: [http://journal.mkronline.com/2011/11/27/the- coming-automatio...](http://journal.mkronline.com/2011/11/27/the-coming- automation-goldrush/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This bubble prediction babble is a good example of the saying "a broken clock is right twice a day"

Bubble pundits have to accept the fact that they will not be able to predict the bursting of a bubble. Assuming there is one.

Even the title says "I think"

</comment><comment><USER3> You mean the world doesn't need tons of teams of young geeks working with RoR, Closure, Mongo, Mustache and other wonderful technologies to solve non existing "social" problems? I'm shocked!

(Addendum: I'm starting to think that having a startup is the "I'm gonna be a film star/hip hop singer/rock guitarist" equivalent for the geek youth).

<comment><USER25> You are being provocative, ok. But there is plenty of space for start up innovation in many sectors, just not any more social apps, agreed on that.

<comment><USER2> What are those other sectors?

Not an insult btw. I genuinely want to know.

<comment><USER3> Well, how about medicine, biology, finance and banking, industrial production, logistics, printing, transportation, etc, just off of the top of my head?

There are tons of stuff to do a startup on besides some social gimmick.

<comment><USER2> Cool. The reason I ask is because I am always trying to come up with ideas (see <http://ideashower.posterous.com>) but I feel I keep circling around a few domains when I brainstorm ideas. I could do well to expand my vision.

If you have any ideas in those areas please do share :)

<comment><USER25> As dextorious pointed out, there can be many ideas. You should focus on something where you have some domain knowledge. Said that, pricing may be a cool idea, I wrote a thesis on price differentials across countries, if you want to share that, let me know.

For me, I am starting with something really small, yet really difficult for me being a beginner: pivot tables on the top of a database. There are some reason I am doing it, but mainly it is because excel is really slow with what I call 'small data' and it also has strange row limits. Also, I want to provide an easy way to build pivot tables on the server side, so people don't have to send excel files around.

Project is here: <https://github.com/kfk/proj00>. It is really just a scratch.

<comment><USER26> _pivot tables on the top of a database_

That's interesting. As far as I can tell, pivot tables were a hack that MS added to Excel in response to Lotus Improv, which was an early 90s attempt at a higher-level spreadsheet that Steve Jobs raved about for years. Perhaps you can restore them to their original glory.

 _because excel is really slow with what I call 'small data' and it also has strange row limits_

Can you elaborate? What do you call 'small data'? And what are the strange row limits?

I'm interested in these things because I work in an Excel-related space, which I would be happy to discuss offline (email in profile).

<comment><USER25> 1 = Yes, that's exactly what I think we need here. A perfect example is the "data frame" concept in R (that you can implement as a list of tables in other languages). Excel doesn't have decent high level abstractions of your data, that forces the user to do a lot of boiler plate work that can be extremely time consuming and dangerous (as the more more manual work, the more mistakes).

2 = Excel 2003 limits (still used in my company): [http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel- specifica...](http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel- specifications-and-limits-HP005199291.aspx). Especially when you make deep analysis (first 10 customers of segment B, low margin products, lost due to low margin products, pricing, etc.), you hit the limit and you are forced to do bad things (like using 12 columns instead than 2 to represent 12 months).

3 = As 'small data' I just mean all those data people use in companies. Usually those are the result of extracting data using a business warehouse system (ie cognos) or financial data submitted by entities (ie 30/40 files from different parts of the world of PnLs to consolidate...) or KPIs, or... you get the idea...

p.s. I will be sending you an email later today. It would be really great to discuss those concepts.

<comment><USER26> Please do. I look forward to it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


'PJ paralysis': Why advocates are pushing to get patients out of pyjamas - <AUTHOR> https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/pj-paralysis-why-advocates-are-pushing-to-get-patients-out-of-pyjamas-1.4378824 <comment><USER2> "Supporters said it's led to a 41 per cent reduction in bed sores, a 30 per cent reduction in falls and patients being discharged from hospital an average 1.8 days sooner."

Those are some wild numbers if that can be backed up with data. Always found hospital gowns dehumanizing and never put them on when given instructions to during yearly physical exams, never had an issue with it it or any doctors asking me to put it on, stringently following procedures and protocols when there's blatant evidence in your face that it's harmful seems a common trend in healthcare, at least in the US, probably for liability reasons.

<comment><USER3> > Always found hospital gowns dehumanizing and never put them on when given > instructions to during yearly physical exams

They seem especially weird for a physical exam where the doctor is going to look at you anyway. My doctor leaves the room while I undress and put that thing on, then returns and looks at my body! I asked her about that once and she said many people don't like to sit around naked even if thenpoint of showing up is to be looked at. Must be some weird cultural thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I honestly feel like hospitals (and other similar facilities) need to be designed to encourage this. Get dressed, and then what? You're wandering the floor and it's only long boring corridors and other patients resting.

My dad frequents a newer hospital that has wider sunlit corridors and a nice greenery-filled common area, as well as a lounge-y area on every floor, and it's a big difference from other hospitals and even short term nursing facilities he's been in.

I also wonder if the culture of any particular type of care encourages this more than others. Postpartum, many on my floor that gave birth were wearing their own clothing soon afterwards. There's a whole market for personal gowns for labor and postpartum. And given how terrible breastfeeding is in those maternity gowns, that's also not a surprise...

<comment><USER5> > I honestly feel like hospitals (and other similar facilities) need to be > designed to encourage this.

I agree. But hospitals are also ridiculously expensive on a per-sq-foot basis. Outside of very high-end hospitals that can try to make some of that money back from cash patients and very well insured patients, most hospitals simply don't carry the funds for that, even if they wanted to.

Discussions about healthcare are always rich in "hospitals need" or "hospitals should," and people never stop and ask "why don't they?"

The answer is usually "because we don't pay for it." Most of our healthcare dollars don't end up in the hands of hospitals or doctors, though a good chunk go through the hospitals. Most dollars ultimately end up with insurers, device manufacturers, or pharmaceutical companies. What money does go to the hospitals, doesn't go towards _the things people say they want_.

Unsurprisingly, as with every entrepreneurial discussion on HN, there's a difference between what customers say they want and what they're willing to pay for.

<comment><USER6> > Most of our healthcare dollars don't end up in the hands of hospitals [..]. > Most dollars ultimately end up with insurers, device manufacturers, or > pharmaceutical companies.

Do you have some evidence for that? I am pretty dubious that insurers are walking around with more than typical margin.

Also, it seems nebulous when talking about device manufacturers. That money _went_ to the hospital in a very real way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A decade ago, my wife had a very severe colon event. Three very difficult to recover from surgeries.

On each one, she rested a day, maybe two. Gotta do that, or risk tearing and such. No worries. She could feel that. Tested it constantly.

But, once the very dangerous time had passed, she always did the same thing. Get proper clothes on. Top and some shorts or simple skirt. The minimum.

Then she, in her words, "got the fuck up and moving before she gets stuck, trapped in there."

I watched her get half the wing up, some of those people resigned to dying in their beds. The nursing staff were amazed. They told me some of those people had given up too.

I would help, and just stayed out of the way otherwise. Within a few days, she knew everyone, who had kids, whatever. And it was all simple. "Tomorrow, we walk to the ice machine, deal?"

I am convinced there is real value in simple human contact and communication. I have seen what can happen when people connect, share their stories, their pain, and most importantly, their dreams, who they matter to, who needs them.

All of that brings us strength, motivation, the simple realization that it really is not over, that others are there, that we are relevant, matter, is powerful.

We heal, we cope with pain, and we laugh, love, feel, are alive and it matters.

Yeah, get them out. Get them up. Get them people who they can talk to, with.

Treats, that pet they love (I did that a couple times and had to sneak, do it outside or in a common area), whatever helps them see themselves out of there, living life, basically, not done yet, matters a whole lot more than I thought it did.

I know now what I will do, and it is that. Get the fuck up. Just get started.

<comment><USER8> > Get the fuck up. Just get started.

Amen. And it applies to all ages (though I often get downvoted for expressing such sentiments).

<comment><USER9> > though I often get downvoted for expressing such sentiments

There is a huge difference between environmental depression, where such advice is definitely positive and will help, and psychological depression where that sort of advice given without consideration to the whole situation can be unhelpful at best and damaging at worst.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for putting this into tangible concepts.

There's a slice of a population that I work with that shows tendencies of the way that "typical people" would react to a given situation. If a challenging situation comes up, there's a good balance between anxiety and resiliency. They tend to be in acute care specifically because their needs exceeded the ability to cope and manage their situation at home.

At the same time, mental health conditions can diminish individuals' ability for resilience with chronic conditions. Thus, this necessitates admission to acute care for something that could be managed at home. In acute care, the life style pattern known to these patients presents as ongoing "malingering" in beds.

The "activation" that's discussed in the article seems to reflect that individuals who do have diminished resiliency tend to do better when their days are structured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I recently had major surgery and the hospital I stayed in in the UK absolutely encouraged both getting out of bed and sitting in a chair as well as dressing in your normal clothes as soon as possible. Even though I was in ITU the day after surgery and couldn't even sit myself up, they still got me up with support, moved the bed out from behind me and sat me in a chair for a few hours. A week later when I was on a normal ward they encouraged you to get dressed and had posters up around the ward suggesting it.

</comment><comment><USER12> My girlfriend is a nurse, and always pyjama wearing patients are her #1 thing she complains about.

"It's not a hotel, and it's not vacation!"

Followed by her other hate: patients who lose all abilities as soon as they enter the hospital. Usually wifes and girlfriends cutting food for male patients who have absolutely nothing wrong with their hands or minds.

<comment><USER13> So... it's really hard to get the physical leverage to actually cut your food while laying down in bed — especially with your arms tied down by IVs, monitoring devices, etc. It's a really awkward position.

Which brings me to my pet peeve as a patient: the fact that hospitals require even healthy patients to be monitored for vitals every 4 hours (yes, even overnight — I told the nurses to fuck right off after the first night) and hooked up to all sorts of machinery that was obviously designed to save the nurses' time; but ended up taking probably just as much time to fix when equipment broke or didn't work as expected.

IMO hospitals have an over-automation problem. We need to go back to focusing on patient care rather than relying on complex systems to manage it.

<comment><USER5> > hooked up to all sorts of machinery that was obviously designed to save the > nurses' time;

No. We use that equipment because when shit goes sideways, I want to be able to glance at a monitor and know all your vitals, not have someone take up a critical bedside spot trying to measure things, or to start attaching measurement equipment. I want that spot devoted to someone that can be involved in intubation, giving medication, performing CPR, or attaching a defibrillator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> On my more recent visit to the hospital I was no longer allowed to bring personal items to the surgery clinic. The nurses said it was the germs, which makes sense, but on my previous visits it was never a problem.

I always switched to my regular clothes as soon as I could. The PJs are just weird. For some reason I have always been the only one wearing my own clothes, everyone else rocks the PJs. Maybe I missed the memo on not being allowed to wear my own clothes, but no one complains either.

<comment><USER15> My (completely uninformed) impression was that the germs _in_ the hospital are probably worse than than the ones as home. Because you probably don't have loads of sick people walking through your house every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In everyday life (fortunately I never had to be longer in hospital) I can't stand wearing a pyjama after getting out of bed. Not even on weekends or when I have the morning off. Need to get dressed as soon as I get back from the bathroom. Keeping it on for longer than necessary feels like a dissolute lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER17> Anecdotally, things rings very true with me. I always try my best to 'get out of the hospital as soon as possible'.

And even from working at home ... the concept of 'dressing for the task' makes sense as well. We could wear literally nothing, but dressing for the office helps to put one in the right headspace.

<comment><USER18> Yes, when I used to wear a suit for work I never felt I had finished until I changed into something casual.

<comment><USER19> And I always feel my creative juices flowing when I'm in my bathrobes. Maybe it has to do with impending shower thoughts.

<comment><USER17> Yes! Definitely a time for that as well! And it further validates the point - live the identity of the situation: businessy clothes for businessy work, relaxed clothes for creative work ... and regular clothes for being/acting recovered!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I witnessed this many years ago when my grandad was in an eye clinic over three days for continued monitoring and tests for further therapy. He was in a room with a couple of guys, in their beds, in their PJs. If you didn't know it, you would think they were just plain sick. Luckily, they were not, non of their issues was threatening, but because of the attire and the whole "lay in bed, wait for your next test" thing, it was really gray. They surely can't read or watch the TV, but c'mon, just let them wear something they enjoy or walk around...

</comment><comment><USER5> So, I went ahead and straight to the website of the actual campaign ([https://www.endpjparalysis.com/](https://www.endpjparalysis.com/)) because numbers like "41% reduction in bed sores, 30% reduction in falls" are pretty hard to take at face value from what reads like a press release.

"Latest Data" tracks how many people/wards they've gotten to opt into their 70-day challenge, not supporting data.

Their "Stories" page is just that - stories. If you're interested in a poem by a nurse, dive in. The top of the page, however, has a link to a Medscape interview with the CNO ([https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/898975#vp_2](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/898975#vp_2)). Does the CNO have any supporting data? No.

> Medscape UK: It appears a very simple thing but it seems to be having a > health effect.

> Prof White: Absolutely right. I've got lots of stats to share with you. The > one that struck me when I came to look at this, it says that research has > shown that 60% of immobile patients have no clinical reason that requires > bed rest, and that for people over 80, spending 10 days in bed ages their > muscles by 10 years, and that older adults living at home will take 900 > steps a day compared to only 250 steps in hospital.

> Healthy patients in a bed begin to weaken immediately. After one day of > admission and after just 24 hours of bed rest you can lose between 2% and 5% > of your muscle power. This is something that happens almost immediately. > It's not surprising then when you have patients that often end up in care > homes instead of going home. And if you stay in bed any length of time you > are more prone to things like thrombosis, delirium, infectious diseases like > pneumonias, depression, loss of confidence, constipation, and incontinence. > It's undignified as well, all of that, so it's really compelling when you > start looking at what the statistics and the evidence tell you.

That is, they don't have any support that this intervention gets people moving more, just that _moving more is good for patients_.

The "Resources" page "Everything you need to know" packet. It's nothing but information on how to enro - no! There's a references section! But wait, it's nothing but a list of articles on the dangers of deconditioning. Nothing to support that putting people in street clothes has the benefits being touted in the parent article.

There's literally nothing on the entire site to support their claims. At all.

If I sound like I'm starting from the base position of "I want my patients in a gown," and it'll take actual data of patient benefit to change my position on that, it's because I am. I'll never forget running codes, rapid responses, and time in the trauma bay during my training. Getting fast access to the body of a patient in distress is critical; taking trauma shears to a patient and stripping them down takes a fair amount of time. If all my rapids and codes were in full dress and had to be cut out every time we ran a code, I guarantee we'd be measuring the impact of this policy in deaths. It doesn't surprise me that this campaign is for self-selected wards; I'm pretty much taking for granted that any ward with any level of actual acute patients isn't doing this.

Never mind that for your everyday physical exam - not your outpatient exam, for someone healthy and mobile enough to get to the office, but an inpatient exam - quite a few patients are unable to, you know, mobilize well. That's one thing for a physical therapist or a nurse, as the campaigners in the article are, who largely don't need anyone to move well enough to give them unfettered access to the body. But me? I actually need to get in there. For many patients, having to be mobile enough to disrobe from full dress every morning would be a problem. And a lot of docs don't have the time to wait for that - many get an hour to an hour and a half or so to finish our rounds in the morning. If you add a 5 minute delay on each patient just to get them disrobed, you've nearly doubled the time it takes to complete rounds. Frankly, if you want to change the healthcare system economics to pay hospitals to allow us an extra 5 minutes with each patient, I'd be grateful, but I'd also rather not spend it on them struggling with their clothing. I'd rather be speaking to them and/or examining them.

<comment><USER21> If you wait for an RCT for everything we'd never get anywhere.

#EndPJParalysis and #FitToSit are using QI methods to gather data which could then be used to justify running RCTs.

Nurses are not fucking idiots, and would assess the patient using all the skills and experience that nurses have and wouldn't just put everyone in their regular clothing.

<comment><USER5> If you were speaking to someone that didn't used to work in QI, that would almost sound convincing. Except that QI is, from a study-design perspective, equivalent to "shittily-built pragmatic observational trial," aka, the thing we know from _every other field of clinical medicine that is ultimately followed by an RCT_ to be wildly unreliable.

That said, hey haven't even provided _that_ shoddy data. They're providing anecdotes.

Some nurses are great, some nurses are "fucking idiots," and neither is relevant to the discussion of "if a patient is in a hospital, I want to be able to handle an emergency." I don't ask a nurse if they think a gown is needed, any more than I wouldn't ask a nurse if we should keep a BVM by the bed, any more than I wouldn't ask a nurse if we should have an oxygen supply by the bed, any more than I wouldn't ask a nurse if a crash cart should be kept reasonably close. Because it's not a _question_ \- as long as the patient is under my care in an acute care environment, I will have reasonable access to emergency supplies should they need it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I attribute this to [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect)</comment>


Audio Induction Loop Receiver (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://goughlui.com/2014/10/04/project-audio-induction-loop-receiver-part-1/ <comment><USER2> This is interesting. I wonder if there is anyone having experience hearing with telecoil. As a hearing aid user myself, I would say many telecoil installations at public spaces are actually not working at all. It makes the signs just like a useless decoration. That's a point that makes the post a surprise to me cuz most of the installation at the metro stations do work.</comment>