FBI struggles to seize 600,000 Bitcoins from alleged Silk Road founder - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/07/fbi-bitcoin-silk-road-ross-ulbricht <comment><USER2> "At current exchange rates, that represents slightly more than 5% of all bitcoins in circulation"

Why would exchange rate affect what percentage of bitcoins 600k are! This is terribly confused thought from the journalist:

600k bitcoins, that's "almost $80m".

$80m! But at current exchange rates that's "just over 5%!".

When sitting there are the actual numbers of bitcoins in his wallet and bitcoins in circulation...

<comment><USER3> > An FBI spokesperson said to Hill that the "$80m worth"

The FBI gave the number denominated in USD, so the journalist had to estimate the true number of BTC. The 600k is almost certainly calculated from that $80m number.

<comment><USER4> I believe the $80mil estimate is from the criminal complaint, which derived that estimate from the data they collected from the seized server. The complaint specified that from Feb 6, 2011 to July 23, 2013, Ulbricht collected 614,305 Bitcoins in commission, which is $84,159,785 at today's exchange rate on Mt. Gox.

So I'm pretty certain that the $80mil estimate is derived from the actual number of Bitcoins in commission that was logged on SR's server.

<comment><USER5> Calculating (volume x last price) can be misleading when the number of coins traded is large enough to move the market.

Using the freenode/#bitcoin 'gribble' irc bot for some calculations, there are only 45,000 bitcoins or $5Million for sale over $100USD.

donpdonp> bids 100 gribble> There are currently 45669.225 bitcoins demanded at or over 100.0 USD, worth 5307618.93329 USD in total.

Selling the remaining 550,000-odd coins would wipe out the market and net only $6million more.

donpdonp> market sell 600000 gribble> A market order to sell 600000 bitcoins right now would net 11853320.3682 USD and would take the last price down to 0.0100 USD, resulting in an average price of 19.7555 USD/BTC.

<comment><USER6> So if the FBI decided to sell them all...

<comment><USER7> Then it would be time to buy (after the sell went through).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If Ross Ulbricht is really the guy who ran this site, why in the world was he doing his work from San Francisco? His alleged job was the pinnacle of "work anywhere". He took so many precautions to keep his identity secret that he must've known that his activities would at some point gather focused attention from the authorities.

Living in San Francisco allowed the feds to pick them up on their lunch hour. Even just hopping the border to Mexico would've required them to get international cooperation and extradite him.

He'd likely be a free man if he were in Croatia or Kazakhstan.

<comment><USER9> _He 'd likely be a free man if he were in Croatia or Kazakhstan._

In small countries with no culture of westerners living there long term he'd stand out like a sore thumb. In dictatorial countries they'd think he was a CIA operative and be tailed. Oh, and upon capture he'd be beaten until he told them every little secret, bitcoin passwords included.

So good old USA was better and SF is probably the best way for a guy "acting weird" and staying online all the time to hide. He should have retired a year ago. It's a like playing in a casino, you're bound to lose long term

<comment><USER10> Croatia is pretty nice actually. But the "no extradition" days are over now that it joined the EU.

<comment><USER11> Ecuador could have worked..

<comment><USER12> I think Ecuador still has extradition treaties with the US, the cases with Snowden and Assange are asylum cases which are regarded a little differently.

It does however look like you have a pretty big list to work with: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_law_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_law_in_the_United_States#International_extradition)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Right after the DPR bust there was a lot of discussion about how it was a death knell for bitcoin, but this is exactly why it's such a revolutionary type of technology: if DPR had any currency in a paper wallet, he could simply print it out, put it in a safe deposit box, and pick it up once he is out of prison.

For a currency to be so secure that a state cannot seize it from a citizen is unprecedented.

It will be fascinating to see how this plays out.

<comment><USER14> If he uses a brain wallet, it would be even more secure. The ONLY possible way to seize the bitcoins would require him to comply. Another interesting bit is the fact that this might make him a billionaire by the time he's released from prison- just from the appreciation of bitcoin's value.

I have another curiosity about the FBI's intent to seize his bitcoins- is it fair to seize all of them? If half of these bitcoins were earned while bitcoins were only worth 1/10 of current value, should only 10% of that half be seized? This might be arguable in court.

<comment><USER15> If he had done the deal in a foreign currency, in gold, or for modern art, they'd still seize all of that, regardless of its current value. Bitcoins are no different, even if you're considering them a proxy for real dollars.

<comment><USER16> _Bitcoins are no different, even if you 're considering them a proxy for real dollars._

As mentioned in the article, even after acquiring the wallet file, the FBI is still unable to perform transactions with that BTC. There's no bank they can order to transfer it into their account, no briefcase full of cash they can deposit, etc. As I understand it, the only way they're able to deprive Ulbricht of them is by not letting him keep a copy of the file. With the "brain wallet" strategy (not sure how viable that really is), they wouldn't even have been able to get this far.

<comment><USER17> I would think it's a pretty safe assumption he already had multiple copies of the wallet/private keys stored before he got arrested.

Just from a redundancy standpoint you don't want one copy of your wallet in one location as it could get corrupted or destroyed in a disaster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Even if the FBI is not able to transfer the money, merely having possession > of the wallet file itself is enough to prevent the coins being spent.

Yes ... if no backups exist.

<comment><USER19> And as soon as someone spends any amount of bitcoins from one of these backups the copy held by FBI becomes invalid.

<comment><USER20> The thought exercises are fascinating. Say he has a completely trustworthy friend somewhere that the FBI is unaware of. Could he have that person spend a little, back up that copy again, and effectively keep that FBI from ever getting that money?

Also, surely a backup exists. What is an effective way to backup the wallet so that it can survive decades of prison time? Particularly if a trustworthy friend does not exist?

<comment><USER21> > Also, surely a backup exists. What is an effective way to backup the wallet > so that it can survive decades of prison time?

A piece of paper: [http://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/](http://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/)

You should only print it from a secure system though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The asset seizure issue with regards to bitcoin is interesting, but not unprecedented. A lot of the same issues that come up here come up in the more traditional context of seizing assets stashed in Bermuda, etc. You have Bermudan banks that won't allow access to assets without consent from the owner, and the question is whether giving that the owner can be forced to sign the consent form or whatever.

<comment><USER23> AFAIK, if money stored in USD in the Bermuda bank account, when you wire these, it goes through US bank anyway and can be stopped there. And leaving country with $80 mil in cash would be hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Even if the FBI is not able to transfer the money, merely having possession of the wallet file itself is enough to prevent the coins being spent."

Isn't this totally false? He could have easily made backups of the wallet and even given copies of it to others. I'd expect there's a whole bunch of ways that these bitcoins could still get spent?

<comment><USER25> The beauty is that NOT spending the 600K BTC is economically equivalent to giving a 600K gift to all other bitcoin owners. If the news ever came out that these coins are lost for all times, the exchange price for BTCs would most likely increase 600K/11M or about 5.5% in an instant.

(Of course, there's no way this could happen since we don't know what private keys are stored in Ross' head. Also this is based on the efficient market hypothesis and real world results have other complecting factors.)

<comment><USER26> This line of reasoning works when you have a fixed number of shares that represent ownership in something real, but I don't see how it works with bitcoins that have no intrinsic value. Bitcoins only hold value by inertia. People think they have value because they're accepted by other people because other people think they have value. I see no rational mechanism by which this feedback loop should jump 5% when 5% of bitcoins are lost.

<comment><USER25> The mechanism: Prices of any commodity are determined by supply and demand. If supply goes down, prices go up.

<comment><USER26> Again, flawed reasoning. If all bitcoins were destroyed except for one, how much do you think it would be worth? There is no intrinsic demand for bitcoins, only inertia behind perceived value. And it looks to me that the inertia is mostly behind the price per bitcoin rather than total value of all bitcoins.

<comment><USER25> The current bitcoin economy is worth about 1.5 billion, so that one coin would be worth about 1.5 billion, if that were to happen. Where is my flawed reasoning?

<comment><USER27> Fiat currencies (which bitcoin is in one sense) are largely rooted in psychology. Recall this story: [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how- fake...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money- saved-brazil)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is interesting as a more generic case: before criminals had to stash their money in a hide in case they got caught and into prison. Now they can convert the money into bitcoins and simply arrange that they can't unlock the wallet. Things that help:

\- you can make indefinite copies of your locked wallet so TLA basically can't confiscate it

\- you can protect your wallet with a secret (passphrase and/or a key) so that they can't unlock it

\- you can distribute the secret among several people using one of the secret sharing protocols

\- or hide it steganographically in an ordinary file while the TLA in question still can't prove it's there

<comment><USER29> A noteworthy side-effects is that it dramatically increases the incentive to reform the 5th amendment (or reinterpret it, which is the usual cowardly way to achieve the same result).

From a strictly technical PoV, the concept of having several copies of the wallet, all equivalent, where whichever is spent first cancels the others, is very interesting and novel. It has a funny quantum physics vibe, too.

<comment><USER30> The government can't even pass a budget. Good luck passing an amendment.

<comment><USER31> You don't need Congress to re-interpret the 5th. The Supreme Court does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So, one additional way to secure your bitcoins would be to have a "deadman's switch" machine with a copy of your wallet. If you don't enter a passphrase into the machine by a certain date, then it will transfer your wallet's contents to another "bugout" wallet. This invalidates the seized copy of your wallet. Companies that offer this service should also offer a feature that causes "anonymous donations" to appear in your legal defense fund.

<comment><USER33> > Companies that offer this service

You can't possibly trust any company with this kind of service. This is something you need to [learn how to] build yourself.

The concept of "deadman's switch" has an implicit component of "trust no one", IMHO.

<comment><USER32> _> You can't possibly trust any company with this kind of service._

That's a good point. However, the Swiss made a lot of money offering comparable services for many years. (Numbered bank accounts.) Also, there's a big difference between simply building such a service and having such a service that is well tested and reliably and securely hosted. It's also a relatively simple matter to test such a service with a small amount of money.

Such services seem highly valuable, but may require practical homomorphic encryption/computation schemes to be themselves practical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've had a question that I"m curious to hear the community's reaction on: Doesn't the FBI wanting to seize the bitcoins do more to legitimize the currency than anything thus far? Isn't it tantamount to saying "Yes, this is like dollars, francs, or another legitimate currency that we need to seize."

I'm wondering if that conversation has come up among management at FBI and what the outcome has been.

<comment><USER35> If he had a $1m car and the FBI wanted to seize it, would it legitimize cars as a currency?

<comment><USER36> It definitely wouldn't if it was $80 m in cocaine; the FBI would confiscate it and have to hand it over to the DEA to have it destroyed.

Whether or not the FBI wants to seize it and spend it in some way, or just to seize it so it can't be spent by DPR or anyone anymore is up for debate. I'm not actually sure what the laws are regarding money or possessions seized from criminals over there.

<comment><USER37> Cocaine is a different story as it is illegal in and of itself. As far as I know there is no momentum to outlaw Bitcoin itself. Other seized forms of property are routinely auctioned off at public auctions which is presumably a possibly avenue for Bitcoins as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> _Even if the FBI is not able to transfer the money, merely having possession of the wallet file itself is enough to prevent the coins being spent._

Ugh, no. Having the file means you can transfer out the bitcoins. _Anyone_ having the file can transfer out the bitcoins, so the FBI securing that wallet doesn't lock down those bitcoins.

The FBI cannot properly "seize" the bitcoins unless they use the wallet to transfer the coins to a fresh address they make and control. And I'm not sure that traditional seizure laws allow that, because AFAIK we've never had this scenario before.

</comment><comment><USER39> It's surely only a matter of time in this situation before the FBI start using rubber-hose cryptanalysis [1]

[1] Obligatory XKCD [http://xkcd.com/538/](http://xkcd.com/538/)

<comment><USER40> That's actually illegal.

<comment><USER41> Killing citizens without court order is also illegal. And waterboarding in gitmo. And starting wars based on lies. And lying to congress by NSA. So many things are illegal, but those who are in charge of enforcing justice are doing them anyway.

<comment><USER42> I hope that killing citizens _WITH_ a court order is also illegal. A death- sentence requires a conviction, then a sentencing.

<comment><USER36> Not if you just brand them the label 'Enemy combatants' \- laws no longer apply then, apparently. I'm still waiting for someone to accuse and convict the US of war crimes and the violations of the rights of prisoners of war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I can't imagine they would let a password get in the way of this. Even with an encrypted wallet, the balances of the content addresses are available for viewing for convenience sake.

The reference client (I's not mentioned which wallet software) uses hundreds of thousands of rounds of key stretching, enough that on a GPU you're only getting a few attempts at the key. Might irritate them enough to crack out a good sized farm.

<comment><USER44> Passwords are protected under his 5th amendment rights. The government would have to come up with a much stronger reason to force the password from him other than "we want it"

The interesting part is if he does have a backup, and if he does access the funds in there for his legal defense. Would his attorney consider that money to be tainted, and thus refuse to accept it?

<comment><USER45> Passwords are controversial under the 5th, but from the cases I followed, they are typically interpreted as a key to a safe, not as admission of guilt. As in, if your password is"YesITotallyDidIt", that is not an admission and is there fore not protected. The only things the 5th protects seem to be things you can say that can be directly used to convict you. Not giving the authorities with a warrant in hand your password seem to land you in jail indefinitely for contempt of court, which is likely as bad as what you will get if convicted.

Edit: I am not a lawyer.

<comment><USER46> My understanding (also not a lawyer) is that passwords are protected under the 5th amendment when the very act of giving them is testimonial. Two cases where this appears true:

1) Your password is "ITotallyKilledThoseTwentyPeople", e.g. the password contains testimonial evidence. This can probably be circumvented by allowing the defendant to enter their password privately.

2) Your lawyer successfully argues that the very admission of knowing the password to a thing is testimonial. In other words, let's say the feds find an encrypted hard drive labelled "child pornography" under the couch at your apartment. If your argument is that a friend left it there, and the feds can't prove otherwise, then the very act of decrypting that drive would be an admission that it's yours, and hence a violation of the fifth.

It'll be interesting to see where law settles in this area. One thing that seems certain: if the gov't can prove you know a password, they can force you to use it (assuming use is possible without disclosure).

<comment><USER45> I think your second example makes sense, but I have seen a lot of discussion of the first and the conclusion is mostly that your passwords is not protected then. Basically, you could either enter the password, or you could even give it to the court and the password itself would not be able to be used as evidence.

<comment><USER46> Right, that's what I meant when I said "This can probably be circumvented by allowing the defendant to enter their password privately."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Big question is whether turning over the passphrase would be "testimonial". I could see it being argued that it's a forgone conclusion he owns these bitcoins -- enough evidence to tie him to silk road, and evidence in the block chain showing those coins came from silk road.

(This is relevant due to the fifth amendment to the constitution. In many cases, turning over a password or combination is considered self incrimination and thus cannot be compelled by the state.)

</comment><comment><USER48> Good encryption is still uncrackable, unless you induce the owner to give up his passphrase.

<comment><USER49> How much leverage does giving up $80 million in BTC give one in a plea deal?

<comment><USER50> None at all. You'll be held in prison until you release the money, or else they will just ignore the money and convict you anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I don't understand why possession of the wallet file means the FBI have seized his bitcoins (even if they can't access them yet)?

Surely you can make copies of your wallet and keep them in various secure locations?

<comment><USER29> You understood; the journalist didn't.

It's scary to see how clueless mainstream journalists are, as soon as they touch a subject we're mildly knowledgeable about. Imagine the amount of BS they spread when talking about complex stuff such as macro-economics...

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Why would anyone trust bitcoin values? If the US government wanted to crash the bitcoin market couldn't they just generate a few million bitcoins themselves and then dump them?

I don't think the NSA is going to care about spending a few 10's of millions of dollars on custom bitcoin hashing hardware. Unless people don't think the NSA can outdo some fly-by-night ASIC developers.

If the US government is truly concerned about bitcoin, it won't survive long.

<comment><USER17> There are only 3600 BTC per day being generated. They can't just generate a few million bitcoins. At best they could do a 51% attack and double spend bitcoin, which would cause problems but it's been done in other digital currencies and the currencies have still survived.

If they did amass a large volume of bitcoins and dumped them on the market the market would drop but like every other drop it would probably be temporary as people love buying cheap BTC when the market crashes (look at the crash after DPR was arrested, bounced back in hours).

<comment><USER53> > There are only 3600 BTC per day being generated. They can't just generate a > few million bitcoins.

They actually can. Generation speed is not adjusted real time, but only every few days. If you generate a mass very fast you can go over it. (And in fact historically it's always been over the expected number.)

<comment><USER54> No, they can't. Generation speed is adjusted every 2016 blocks, up to 4x change. Let's say the NSA outcompetes the entire network by a factor of 400000%. This gets them about 8 weeks of bitcoins in a few days, before things are slowed back down to normal rates. Not nearly enough bitcoins to cause problems with.

That much power will let them mess around with what transactions get accepted, but that's an entirely separate issue. 51% attack is child's play at this point. What do you do against an adversary that publishes 500 different block chains designed to be easily confused with the 'correct' chain?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> If the FBI cannot manage to successfully steal these Bitcoins, then it might be _quite_ the advertisement for the overall security of Bitcoins, no?

</comment><comment><USER56> What's overwhelmingly clear from this article is that either the feds, or at least the people they are sending to talk to the media, have really no idea how bitcoin works.

Saying "The Bureau is in a position equivalent to having seized a safe belonging to a suspect with no idea of the combination – and no hope of forcing it open any other way." is completely incorrect.

<comment><USER25> I'm not sure who said it first but the old dictum still holds: "It's easier to turn lead into gold than to steal a properly configured bitcoin wallet."

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> What's is rather shocking is the kinds of mistakes he made.

Not some subtle but plain simple. Like using personal email to register on forums and promote SR and recruit people.

Using stackoverflow with personal email, again... Yes they are not some solid evidences, but made the FBIs life, to get the guy, much easier. You might say that it's easy for me to point out those mistakes but they are so basic and it's not that he was running some Nigerian type of scam, he must have been way more careful.

Or keep messages about the 'murder-for-hire'. Yeah it's rather obvious that no one got hired but good luck explaining this negotiation tactics to the judge. Plus he mentions $80k for other 'murder-for-hire'. I'm really curious how the thing with this 'murder' will end up. I mean he could have just simply deleted them just in case. It's not FB that it would stay forever...

<comment><USER25> Ross was a San Fran "startup" guy. Hey created an MVP product with the usual "fake it till you make it" attitude that is part of this culture. PG himself will happily tell you not to worry about lawyers and other distractions until your MVP is out the door.

This may work for a typical startup, but Ross was foolish enough to apply this advice to a criminal enterprise.

<comment><USER58> Amusing anecdote: I was at a pg talk last week, and afterwards someone in the audience came up and asked if SR being gone meant there was a market niche for a new startup.

pg's answer was that it was in no way worth the risk, there are lots of other things you can try without the large risk of ending up in jail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> The more interesting question regarding this seizure is whether the FBI can compell the creators of BitCoin to assist in decrypting what they have just seized. For example, there are a number of statutes that require those operating communications networks maintain the ability for the governemnt to access them regardless of the encryption or other security features being used. I don't know the corresponding baking law as well but it would not surprise me if the same laws that require banks to comply with seizing fund, blocking wire transfers, and tracking where money goes in the course of a criminal investigation could kick in here.

Certainly something like this would have a big effect on the BitCoin market. I'm interested to see what happens in the future.

</comment><comment><USER60> Well if they are unable to seize them, then bitcoin will become more valuable to the black market. If they are, then some of its patina as a 'safe' stash will be lost. Of course even if they don't get them, they will be able to see if they are ever used right?

<comment><USER61> Yea. That's what I'm thinking too. If you receive bitcoins from those address you're effectively doing the same as if you were collecting cash from watched boxes in a bank vault, and the cash was radio-actively tagged. (And therefore easily tracked.) Anyone handling a large quantity of those coins is suspect

But if someone got their hands on them and performed a huge laundry so that everyone has tainted coin history, then you might be ok.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> It's funny that both DPR and Walter White made the same amount of money ($80M [1]).

[1] [https://medium.com/p/fed0d03ab4c0](https://medium.com/p/fed0d03ab4c0)

</comment><comment><USER63> Partially related: Is it technically possible to "blacklist" the bitcoins that the FBI seized given a great enough consensus, to make their value effectively worthless?

</comment><comment><USER64> Biggest thieves of the block, what else can be said.

</comment><comment><USER65> The author doesn't really seem to understand what a Bitcoin Wallet is. First, I HIGHLY doubt that 600,000 Bitcoins would be in one Wallet. More likely, the bit coins would be spread between several thousand wallets. Second, even if the FBI was in possession of "the wallet" couldn't Ulbricht just access his backups else where?

<comment><USER66> As far as I can tell the seized address has 27k BTC about $4m USD at the moment (see [https://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5G...](https://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX) )

<comment><USER67> those are apparently user funds that were in escrow or otherwise stored with silk road at the time of the seizure. his personal commissions are the funds being discussed here

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Only I think that all this 'leaving a name here' / 'leaving a stupid trail there' seems just way too stupid for someone maintaining such a business for so long? I think there is a decent chance that all of this was staged and Mr. Ulbricht is just another puppet. All of it just sounds so hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER69> > A few high-security ways of storing bitcoins, such as a "brainwallet", a way > of converting a bitcoin address into an easy-to-remember phrase, could still > bypass their authority, but there is no indication at present that Ulbricht > has used them.

A simple encrypted wallet would have the same level of security...

</comment><comment><USER70> How can the FBI "seize" his wallet as if it were a safe? Isn't the point of Bitcoin that it is digital, hence he would be able to access it if he could get to a computer? Or is there a way to physically control the wallet so that it can't be accessed elsewhere?

<comment><USER30> They seized a copy of his wallet that they don't have the key for.

If he has a copy and they can't get the keys, this seizure is meaningless. If he doesn't have a copy, or they can get the keys, the story changes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Can't they just use an old version of bitcoin and use the timing attack to find the passphrase?

EDIT: I mean exploting this bug: [https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/2838](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/2838)

<comment><USER72> I'm not a bit coin user, but that appears to be an attack on a "remote management" password for the client (it's about "RPC" or "remote procedure call" authentication), not for the wallet.

Wallets use a cryptographic key derivation function, this is against a plain text and configurable password. This would only be an issue if the wallet was loaded into the old version of the software at the time they attacked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> This article makes it sound like all of DPR's bitcoins are in one wallet. If 5% of all bitcoins were being funneled into one bitcoin wallet couldn't people have discovered that wallet by analyzing all BTC transactions?

</comment><comment><USER74> Here are the bitcoins they were able to seize: [http://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GN...](http://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX)

</comment><comment><USER75> Will having 5% of Bitcoin out of circulation cause any economic problems with the currency?

<comment><USER76> No, it'll make all other bitcoins more valuable, so long as the market believes said bitcoins are permanently out of circulation (not likely though, as the Feds will auction / sell them off as they do with other seized assets).

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> a walk on the lighter side: the bitcoin is inside the computer [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQGX3J6DAGw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQGX3J6DAGw)

</comment><comment><USER78> Does it matter? What would the FBI do with them?

<comment><USER79> What do they do with seized foreign currencies? Presumably find some way to convert them to dollars

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Sounds like a job for the NSA.

</comment><comment><USER9> after shuffling Ross from horrible prison to horrible prison and making his prison life miserable on purpose...

So Ross, how about you tell us the password and instead of 14 life sentences you get only 20 years?

<comment><USER81> Yes, poor Ross, the guy only had twice as many people killed as Hans Reiser did...

<comment><USER32> Mr. Reiser was a bit more hands-on in his approach. Does it make sense for someone who has been fooled into thinking he's had people killed to be as guilty as someone who actually kills the people? It seems so, but I'm not sure what US law says about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> They'll just drug him with truth serums.</comment>


Inflammation and vitamin D: the infection connection (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00011-014-0755-z <comment><USER2> It's hard to keep up with advances in scientific knowledge -- this paper seems to hypothesize that Vitamin D deficiency is a symptom of inflammation in the body rather than the cause of any issue and recommends not supplementing with Vitamin D! Go figure -- this after all the recent popularity of testing for Vitamin D deficiency and prescribing Vitamin D supplementation.</comment>


ChatBots and the future of Apps in India - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/haptik-inc/chatbots-the-future-of-apps-in-india-fddcc1aa2a97#.jmx2klr7d <comment><USER2> Some really interesting points there, particularly how we have grown into being notifications slaves! Whatever comes next, needs to be driven towards reducing mental space, and time required to get things done. Thanks for sharing, Akhil!

</comment><comment><USER3> Good points man! You really covered the topic well. And chat and conversation is a nice building block to not only get stuff accessible in places that are low bandwidth and low-tech but also prepare for future developments in voice interaction as what you learn and cover in text you can easily move to voice once voice is good enough. I also like the approach of Viv here to build complex queries dynamically over different hooks. These kinds of technologies will be key to enabling more complex use cases with bots.

</comment><comment><USER4> I love how you have compared apps stores to menu cards, awesome read!</comment>


Full Disclosure and why Vendors Hate it - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdziarski.com/papers/fulldisclosure.html <comment><USER2> This sure spends a lot of words dancing around the fact that Apple simply wants to control what applications run on the iPhone and how end-users experience those applications, and that they want to do that because they think it will make them more money.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for saving me from reading the link!</comment></comment>


Europe's Record Youth Unemployment - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/europes-record-youth-unemployment-the-scariest-graph-in-the-world-just-got-scarier/276423/ <comment><USER3> Youths with nothing to lose are how bloody revolutions start, rarely turning out well for any involved.

I find one thing about the unemployment rate in Europe truly scary:

There are a /lot/ of youths there with nothing to lose.

<comment><USER3> And another thing: austerity is all that stands between Europe and total collapse. They can't keep writing checks they cannot cash.

<comment><USER4> Actually, they can keep writing cheques and cashing them, they have their own currency, it allows you to do that. The current problem is that the "core" of the EU thinks it is in their best interest to keep inflation down and let the other nations suffer. The best evidence we have so far indicates that this is a very bad idea.

<comment><USER5> _The best evidence we have so far indicates that this is a very bad idea._

Do we have evidence that indicates the alternative is any better? There's nothing that says both options can't be terrible.

<comment><USER6> The U.S. has not followed a program of austerity, and our economy and hiring is recovering faster than Europe's.

<comment><USER5> Apples and oranges. The U.S. didn't crash as hard, and doesn't have some of the EU's unique challenges.

<comment><USER7> Likewise the converse statement is true and, I believe, important to mention explicitly: the USA has a uniquely advantageous position in this world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is scary, yes. But there's more to any unemployment story than just the stats.

What are the prospects of an unemployed young person getting a job at any point in the future, even when the economy recovers? Is there a strong bias towards new grads, that would lead to a "lost generation" that permanently suffers in the job market? How does society look on the unemployed? Do they look at them with sympathy or scorn?

Lastly, how do the young unemployed _feel_? Are they angry? Are they carefree? Or are they filled with despair and hopelessness?

<comment><USER9> How are they making a living and otherwise providing for themselves? (Serious question.)

Is homelessness also skyrocketing, or do the unemployed receive benefits of some kind?

<comment><USER10> It's different from country to country, but in general lot's of them live with their parents and most of them receive some welfare.

In Southern Europe it's not unnormal to live with your parents way into your twenties or even early thirties. And it's not considered embarrassing either. In the cafés of Barcelona, Rome, Athens, you will meet the well dressed 31 year old guy with a smart phone in his pocket a laptop on his knees and a girlfriend by his side. He drives a nice little car, goes on vacations once or twice a year, has a master in something soft, which he got for free, and he is covered by free health care. He lives with his parents or - if he is lucky - in one of their spare apartments (lots of Southern European families have more than one home). He may have a low paid job or he may be unemployed living with a bit of government welfare and occational help from daddy.

<comment><USER11> Welfare, free health care, free education... Free to him but it has to be paid for by someone. As more people rely on those benefits, the cost goes up for those who contribute to the system. The frightening question is what happens when the well runs dry?

<comment><USER12> Considering how, in the US at least, wealth and asset holdings has extremely concentrated itself in the top fraction of the population in the last 30 years, probably not soon.

I mean, most of these states aren't raising taxes, but are playing with monetary gears to keep money injection from spurring inflation (albeit they have had huge taxes for decades).

<comment><USER11> Just because the well runs deep, doesn't mean it's right to steal water from it, unearned.

<comment><USER13> In the end capital ownership and property rights are just concepts we've collectively agreed are legitimate. Once living conditions become dystopian and wealth inequality skyrockets even more than it already has, I suspect society will legitimize "stealing" from the well.

Notably, the well doesn't care whether or not you steal water from it. The water was never 'owned' by it in the first place.

<comment><USER11> I agree that ownership and property rights are an invention - though one of a free society. And you are correct that society can just as easily decide that these rights are no longer valid, though that is not a society I would ever consider free. To a certain extent that is happening already. The day the individual is forced to give up his last right and his last dollar to the ugly greed of the 'collective good' will be a sad day indeed.

<comment><USER14> Imagine a future where self-driving cars (=home delivery taking over retail), 3D printers, fully automated factories, and the death of copyright/intellectual property has put 75% of the population out of work. It's hard to imagine anything BUT some kind of socialist/communist system required.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be great if the US government provided an expedited Visa program for college-educated foreign nationals who have received a job offer from a company in the US. There is H1B, but that applies to specialty occupations. (I'm not an immigration expert - perhaps this already exists and I don't know about it?)

How many people from those countries immigrate to the US or wish to? If they're willing to work, and a company here has offered them a job, I say bring them over!

      Give me your tired, your poor,
      Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
      The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
      Send these, the homeless,
      Tempest-tossed to me
      I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

(I do get the impression that Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. can hire the candidates they want, but is that true for smaller companies as well?)

The article mentioned that about 30% are college educated. It would be interesting to look at a breakdown of degrees. For example, many Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics graduates are highly sought after in industry. Additionally, are the degrees reputable from an international perspective and in fields suitable by commerce and industry?

<comment><USER15> As someone who'd like to drive down the value of my labor down to poverty levels, this is a fantastic idea.

<comment><USER16> Oh, this is just hysteria. The kind of software engineers that Amazon, Google, Facebook, et al are importing are _all_ above the six-figure threshold, many of them _well_ above it.

This community really makes me facepalm sometimes. It is the only group that can, while getting free massages, catered meals, free shuttles to/from work, get paid _well_ into the six figures, and enjoys an incredibly high standard of living even by its own country's standards, still make noises as if they're the exploited proletariat that can't make ends meet.

Whatever the effect of skilled immigration - some argue it raises all boats, others argue it suppresses wages, "down to poverty levels" is dishonest hysterics when applied to our industry.

<comment><USER17> Who says all those immigrants are going to be high-end google-worthy engineers?

The chances are in favor that they would drive down the pay of the first quartile of programmers based on quality, not the savants making 100k+/y.

<comment><USER12> This would suck. I got a crappy CS degree from a nobody college, got average (3.5) gpa, got out in 3 years and didn't get any internships my first two years (though I tried) so I've just been doing my own stuff for a year.

I'd hate for the job market to be even _harder_ for fresh CS grads _not_ out of an Ivy League or state school. Most of my graduating class just gave up and went for cheaper masters programs, I figured I'd learn more on my own (and I was right, I learned half a dozen new languages, and a lot of the practical parts of development like regexes, sql, unix commands and sysadmining, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The graphs and the unemployment stats seem to be about people 25 and under, but then when talking about how educated the workforce is, the author talks about 20- and early-30-somethings. The 26 to early 30's part of that stat means it's not directly comparable.

</comment><comment><USER19> Another quite scary graph: [http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/im...](http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2013/06/Europe%20unemployment%20country.jpg)

I hope it's getting clear to everyone that this is not a "union" anymore..

<comment><USER10> And then this is not a union either: [http://www.ncsl.org/issues- research/labor/state-unemployment...](http://www.ncsl.org/issues- research/labor/state-unemployment-update.aspx) The difference between unemployment in North Dakota and Puerto Rico is 4 fold, not that different from Austria vs. Greece.

Also, the figures for Greece are the February figures. The largest industry in Greece, tourism, takes off right about now, and last year on the beach in Greece there were plenty of young Greeks working the beaches, bars and hotels. But of course, many of these jobs are unofficial so they may continue to count as unemployed.

<comment><USER19> I don't know as much about how the USA works as a union but, no, it sure doesn't look like a union either. :) But they are not threatening to kick California out of the US if it doesn't pay its debts, right?

As for tourism, yes, it's going to be slightly reduced in July, but do you think it's nice to wait for 3-4 months to work?

Also, they are going to vote for an austerity measure to give seasonal workers an unemployment aid not every year but every two years. At the same time a former minister of defence, who is jailed for corruption scandals, is receiving two pensions every month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting, how Germany decoupled itself from the rest of Europe in this graph.

<comment><USER21> It is. I think the reasons for it are pretty simple:

They didn't experience a huge housing bubble (like Spain) They don't have a big productivity problem (like Greece) Their government's finances weren't totally unsustainable (like Spain or Greece) They don't depend a great deal on tourism (like Greece). No one seems to want to go on vacation to a rioting and unstable country.

Hopefully things will improve for those countries... but it's pretty easy to be a pessimist given the situation.

<comment><USER8> The issue with Spain lies is the (private) banks, not government finances. Unlike Greece, where the government needs to get bailed out, in Spain it is the banks that are in trouble.

<comment><USER22> The banks were in trouble in Ireland, and Ireland stood behind them (which destroyed them). The banks in Iceland were in trouble and Iceland walked away from them. Much less pain in Iceland compared to what Ireland is going through.

When in doubt and able, default.

<comment><USER14> Iceland had their own currency though, and from the looks of a graph I googled up they inflated the ISK 100% since before the crisis. Ireland and Spain don't have that option.

<comment><USER22> They do have the option; walk away from the Euro.

<comment><USER14> Technically? Yes, that's probably their best option. Politically? Very, very difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What's a good website to directly target skilled workers in Spain / Greece / Italy / etc? I'm always on the look for good design, code, marketing, writing, really just about anything (even with a little language barrier).

oDesk and similar don't seem to attract what I would consider to be 70% of a country's workforce. Any sense of if they have training / skills?

Where are these people looking for work (online)?

<comment><USER24> As far as I know (I'm Portuguese), everything in Europe is very local so people are looking for work on their countries local job sites. There's also another problem that probably affect more the Portuguese people than the others: if you had a job you were paid a really low salary (the average is probaly around 800 EUR/month net), you were not able to save enough money to go abroad so, for most people, that is not an option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nobody's hiring in Southern EU countries, because firing is too difficult/expensive there. All the protectionist laws that were meant to keep the employee secure naturally backfired and resulted in a steadily shrinking job market.

Employing someone in EU is like accepting them into a kindergarten, you assume full responsibility for them as if they weren't adults.

Matt Henderson gives an eye-opening first-hand report from Spain here:

[http://www.dafacto.com/2011/02/12/the-unfortunate- consequenc...](http://www.dafacto.com/2011/02/12/the-unfortunate-consequence- of-protective-social-laws-in-spain/)

Allow the employers to fire easily, they will have no problem hiring again.

</comment><comment><USER26> Just anecdotal stuff,

Friends in Greece who work for the government have not been paid for 6 - <USER2> months. But they stay in the job for whenever the pay day does come.

Friends in Spain work for cash in hand because their potential employers save money on the various social insurance costs they have to put up, but cannot afford because times are tight.

Local mid size companies are using the down turn as a great excuse to let people go, while pushing their own salary up. (Noted from friends who work in payroll who have access to that kinda info)

<comment><USER24> I don't think the cash in hand thing is happening in Portugal which is kind of surprising giving the small salary you get per month and the amount of taxes you pay now. Maybe they have some catch up to do.

<comment><USER27> There's a lot of it in Ireland, but then, there was a lot of it in Ireland even when times were good. We have this sense, as a nation, that if you can beat the system and get money for nothing, then you should. Probably a holdover from colonial times, which is sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The conventional (conservative/economic liberal/libertarian) wisdom is that employers are reluctant to hire new youths because these states mandate so many employer provided protections for any new hires. Employers become risk averse, unwilling to give anyone untested a first shot at the labor market.

Evidence is somewhat mixed based on this chart. The UK has traditionally had lower severance ("redundancy") pay requirements, and is lower on the chart, but close to the EU average. Germany is fairly low on the chart as well, so... maybe youth unemployment is driven more by GDP / worker productivity / promotion of internships / demographics, any number of confounding factors.

The risk of even discussing this idea, even agnostically, is it can beg attacks on the social safety net, so everyone drowns in the quicksand of passionate partisan shouting.

Maybe there's a way to sidestep the traditional arguments and get something out of the discussion. Say we assume the European safety net is non- negotiable, but say we also believe that employee protections may make employers reluctant to hire. Is there a way to implement the same social protections that would blunt the unintended consequences?

<comment><USER29> That's pretty much entirely false, at least as I can see it. Employers can and do hire young, inexperienced people on contracts that say "we can fire you when we want and we don't owe you". Those aren't proper long-term labour contracts, true, but it's precisely what you want for someone who's getting a job for the very first time in their life.

Edit: for the record, I'm from Bulgaria and our unemployment rate for under 25 years-olds is 28%, according to latest Eurostat data. Back in 2008 we were at nearly German levels (11% vs 10%). Interestingly, Germany is the only country whose rate has gone down rather than up in the last few years. Their graph is almost perfectly asymmetrical with the ones for countries of Eastern Europe.

<comment><USER30> That's because Germany implemented the necessary social reforms before the crash (around 2005), rather than after. It also still has a superior education programme with apprenticeships for standard jobs, as well as cheap university access with extra funding for poorer people.

Edit: You can even see this in the graph. German youth unemployment peaked in 2005, well before the financial crisis but after a decade of slow growth, also cf. [0].

[0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_man_of_Europe#Modern_use>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> News of this kind makes me confused, scared and angry. Confused because of questions like 'Is Government directly responsible for jobs?', 'What is the skill set of the youth?' etc. Scared because the youth have families to feed, they have ambitions and this leads to a rise in suicides among the youth. Angry because the government, due to their poor economic choices, have ruined the dreams of the youth. The government is responsible for providing opportunities and freedom, if not employment. But they fail, for various reasons, including corruption, dirty politics, poor economic choices etc.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is there a correlation between high-unemployment countries and the availability/quality of off-shore tech labor?

Sure the local market may be in shambles, and the level of effort/risk to bring on new permanent employees may be out of whack. Assuming the talent and drive exists, shouldn't this drive the freelancing segment?

<comment><USER12> As someone trying to get into freelancing out of college, it _really_ blows without a portfolio, and can take years to make one, and most of my freelancer friends left 9-5 (more like 6-10) jobs in the industry to do freelance, and used their years of experience and connections from the job as a jumping off point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Usually job growth comes from startups, especially in tough times. If Europe had a stronger startup culture, it could've helped, especially for young people.

</comment><comment><USER34> it's bad, but not as bad as these stats make it seem.

a lot of those youths do have jobs, but simply are paid cash in hand. when asked, they are unemployed for tax and insurance reasons. as long as illegal immigrant workers are working on the fields of spain, uneomployment simply cannot be that bad.

nobody is starving. roads, bars, stadiums are full. money is circulating in the system. it just is black, untaxed.

<comment><USER35> You've hit the nail on the head there. Go to any cafe or bar in London and the chances are you will be served by a Pole. Think about that for a second: the labour situation in the UK is such that we have to import workers from 600 miles away to make coffee. Now these people aren't being paid under the table, they are legal employees or legitimate companies. So where are the Brits who could be doing these jobs? For whatever reason, unavailable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Take one look at that graphic and tell me that there is such a thing as "Europe", other than as a continent on a map.

<comment><USER37> I could say the same thing about the US by looking at Detroit and New York, for example.</comment></comment>


Did Sam Altman Make YC Better or Worse? - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/09/did-sam-altman-make-yc-better-or-worse/ <comment><USER2> Somebody who got a free ride because of just having connections. Why do we hype these useless folks.</comment>


Europe backs call for universal smartphone charger - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24726077

<comment><USER2> This would never happen in the US.

I wonder if this law will be a problem in 10 years.</comment>


Too many apps - <AUTHOR>

These days, there are so many new applications getting released I have hard time keeping track what's what. Somebody should keep an index of this stuff. The long tail of apps sounds like an interesting way to spend rainy days... <comment><USER2> There are a number of companies trying to solve this problem:

Chomp Appsfire Appolicious AppAware Appboy Frenzapp AppESP (AppStoreHQ) Chorus StumbleUpon GameFinder (Slide to Play) AppShopper Smokin Apps Apptizr Appsaurus Heyzap - (just launched their new android check-in based app)

In my personal opinion, none of them have truly solved the problem of app discovery but I would be curious to get your perspective on any of them.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://iapps.in> offers a solution to this problem.</comment>


Show HN: A fair, simple and free alternative to freelancing platforms - <AUTHOR> https://freelancerprotocol.com <comment><AUTHOR> I'd like to start by saying I find it completely normal freelancing platforms charge you as they do for the service of finding clients for freelancers.

Freelancer Protocol is for people who haven't met on a platform and need a framework to engage in a standard deal. Deal finalisation (deliverable against money) is conditioned to the client accepting a demo (link or video) of the working code. The framework has basic features, like paperwork generation (invoice & contract) and communication (chat and file share).

I just integrate with Stripe for payment & invoice. After checking out a couple of APIs, decided to go with [https://esignatures.io/](https://esignatures.io/) for online contracts/signatures. They charge per contract and have the features I need (Templates mgmt + Zapier integration).

Please let me know if you know a better way for me to integrate chat (right now I use the firebase db and messages load with a little lag, it's not a meant for this use case). Feel free to reach out to firstname.lastname@example.com or in the comments.

<comment><USER2> I think the explanation you have above ("...for people who haven't met on a platform and need a framework to engage in a standard deal") does not come across in your website copy. My impression from your website was that it was just an alternative to Upwork, etc.

Perhaps consider making it more clear what it is you do - something like "Contract and escrow service for freelancers" or something along that line, rather than the current "A fair, simple and free alternative...".

Also, the flow diagram under "How it works" is helpful, but please don't repeat the animation. I was still busy reading the part under what happens when the client rejects when the diagram was cleared and the animation started again. Even better would be if you don't animate it at all as I think it goes too fast for non-native English readers such as myself.

Best of luck with the platform!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a ton for the much appreciated feedback... will make changes accordingly!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> For anyone else that's having trouble reading the flow diagram because of the animation:

        +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>+
        |         Milestone starts           |
        |                                    |
        | when both parties accept its terms |
        +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>+
                          |
                          | Money is transferred
                          | into escrow account
                          V
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----+
      |           Freelancer uploads            |
      |                                         |
      | a demo (link or video) and deliverable. |
      |      Client only receives the demo      |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----+
              |                             |
             / \                           / \
            /   \                         /   \
           /     \                       /     \
          /       \                     /       \
         < Accepts >                   < Rejects >
          \       /                     \       /
           \     /                       \     /
            \   /                         \   /
             \ /                           \ /
              |                             |
              V                             |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---+   |
      |     Transaction gets made       |   |
      |                                 |   |
      | Freelancer receives the money,  |   |
      | Client receives the deliverable |   |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---+   |
                                            V
       +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----+
       |               Lose-lose                 |
       |                                         |
       | Freelancer only receives a third of the |
       |    sum, rest is paid back to client.    |
       | Client doesn't receive the deliverable. |
       +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----+

<comment><AUTHOR> many thanks!!! just lost the animation for readability

<comment><AUTHOR> here's the picture: [https://www.freelancerprotocol.com/howitworks.png](https://www.freelancerprotocol.com/howitworks.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If the customers rejects the deliverable the freelancer gets 1/3 and the client gets 2/3 back...I'm not in the freelance world, but doesn't that incentive the freelancer not working at their best? If their deliverable is accepted, they got 100% of the money at less work, and if it's rejected, they get paid anyway.

I wonder if one can optimize that balance to abuse this structure.

<comment><USER5> What if the freelancer does excellent work and the work is still rejected by the client for whatever reason? The client may have changed their mind about the whole body of work or completely changed spec. Why should the freelancer not get the full amount?

<comment><AUTHOR> for each milestone, there's a thorough description of what's the end of the deliverable, the 'specs'. It can be changed during the project's lifetime by any party if the other agrees to the change.

A client that rejects the demo has to justify in what regards it doesn't respect these terms, if not, it's a breach (of freelancer protocol rules and of the contract).

Maybe I should make this more explicit on the landing page?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Could you elaborate more on business model? Commonlyfree projects which are hosted costs money. So eventually you need to charge money or sell data. I'm totally ok with flat fee, not so much with my data used for something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. I'm thinking of maybe charging for (optional) paid features: like arbitrage services (a 'judge' if things go wrong) or engaging in more complex contracts (like income share agreements, or company shares against deliverable)</comment></comment>


Raising Capital Online - The new thundering herd - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21556973

<comment><USER2> Was Kickstarter the first crowdfunding website or did they do something different to go viral? It seems like there is a new startup based on a tweak of the Kickstarter announced every day.</comment>


Fall 2020 Civic Digital Fellowship - <AUTHOR> https://www.codingitforward.com/fellowship <comment><USER2> > The Fall Fellowship will take place virtually over the course of 10 weeks, > from October to December.

> Just like our in-person Fellowship, students will be expected to work for 40 > hours/week and will receive a competitive stipend ($6,000+)

So... the "competitive" stipend they're offering is $15 / hour?</comment>


Plant-based patties would be the equivalent of taking 12M cars off the road - sahin-boydas https://www.fastcompany.com/90241836/meatless-burgers-vs-beef-how-beyond-meats-environmental-impact-stacks-up <comment><AUTHOR> So less than 5% of the registered vehicles in the US. Maybe plant based AI training could do more for the environment?

I've seen some posts on HN about plant based burgers being good for environment, bad for health. Not sure how true it is, but I'm going with evolution and staying on the meats.</comment>


Barack Obama at Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/user/PresidentObama

<comment><USER2> It took reddit down!

<comment><AUTHOR> We knew Reddit wouldn't be able to handle the government take down :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> this page removes a lot of the noise... love it.</comment>


Night Mode in Firefox for iOS (works on HN) - <AUTHOR> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/night-mode-firefox-ios <comment><AUTHOR> N.B. this is an actual Firefox with User Scripts, different from the Firefox Focus app.

Lots of cool features such as a long press menu to open links in a private tab, bookmark, ... an alternate mail application setting for mailto: links.

I changed my Safari HN bookmark to the following url, to help me transition:

      firefox://open-url?url=https://news.ycombinator.com

If Mozilla now added javascript blocking, this would be a killer app.

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe- browser/i...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe- browser/id989804926)</comment>


Ask HN: getting married tonight - tips for success? - <AUTHOR>

Tonight I am getting married. I am also 3 months in to a new venture that is obviously taking up a lot of time.<p>I am curious what pointers HNers might have for maintaining a healthy marriage while also growing a successful startup. <comment><USER2> I've been married and divorced and I'm still in my late twenties. Not sure I can help you with any maxims on maintaining a healthy marriage but on the startup front I would suggest you strongly consider a pre-nup - or if the wedding is this evening, a post-nup.

I sincerely hope you never end up in a divorce situation but during mine (under California law) I had to give up 50% of my equity and options rights in the startups I've been involved in that occurred during the marriage because they were 'community property' (ie owned by the couple).

I'm not a lawyer, but if you have your own startup and your wife isn't a shareholder and you divorce she is entitled to 50% of anything you vested during that time. It works both ways if she is also involved in startups (ie you would get 50% of hers) and to that end you could agree to trade/cancel things out. I was able to buy my ex-wife out because I didn't want her to remain involved in the company but it was very costly. There's a longer and more gory story in here but this isn't really the place to get into it plus confidentially issues come into play.

When you get married, you don't really want to think about divorce. In the same way when you form the company documents for your startup, you don't really think about an IPO or an exit - yet in both cases at that end point some of the decisions you made at the start will come into play and so it's important to get things in order now.

EDIT: Another tid-bit of info - if you exercise options or sell the company your spouse has to sign-off agreement on the documents. Again, if you end up estranged from your wife that can cause all kinds of delays and issues.

<comment><USER3> I couldn't disagree more strongly with this sentiment. Marriage is built on trust, and with a pre-nup agreement, you're starting out with the premise _BEFORE YOU'VE EVEN MARRIED_... that 'this is how we divorce'. BAD IDEA.

If you don't trust someone enough, don't get married. Period. End of story.

<comment><USER4> One thing that stuck out with me was Donald Trump's books. He wrote two or three of them in the 1980's/1990's, and in each dedicated an entire chapter to prenups, why to have one, and why he had one. He went through two divorces and only ended up paying a few million dollars (pre-agreed upon), rather than half which would have been close to a billion. Agreeing how to end a relationship is much easier to do while you're still friends rather than enemies. Hopefully it never happens, but situations and incentives change, and having a prenup is an excellent hedge against the unpredictability of the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My mom is a psychologist, so I'll tell you what she told me before I got married:

A Native American couple was to get married, and the medicine man came to them and said, "There are three of you here: the groom, the bride and death. The relationship you have right now will die. But from its ashes can spring a new relationship. That new relationship will be different, less exciting in some ways, maybe, but deeper and stronger. And that new relationship will die, but from its ashes a new one can spring again. This will go on and on for your lifetime together."

Expect that your relationship will change and be prepared to change with it. Expect to forgive the past and expect to discover the future.

About balancing work and a new venture, my only advice is to _always_ make clear to her/him that s/he is the first priority. You may have to spend more time with the venture, but it is always number two. And be prepared to continually show, over and over, what you feel is obvious: how much you love them and how important they are to you. Never assume they know.

P.S. Congratulations and my warmest wishes for your future together!

<comment><USER6> Wow, I really like that quote from the medicine man. I think lots of people expect the first stage of the relationship to last for ever, and when things become less exciting, ignore the deeper love and attachment that generally comes along with it. Relationships evolve, just like people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My wife and I have been married 14 years, and it's the best decision I've ever made.

We knew from the start that we did not ever want to go through a divorce, and that we wanted our marriage to be for keeps. So, we worked backwards from that and thought about what it would take to make that happen.

So, I suggested that we go to marriage counseling right after we got married. And, within 6 months of getting married, we did marriage counseling for 1.5 years. It really helped a lot.

We've also taken communication classes together and we've made a point to go back in to counseling to talk through problems with a third party present before things get too bad.

It takes a lot of time and effort, but marriage is one of those investments where the returns always out weight the investment in it.

BTW, my wife is also my co founder.

</comment><comment><USER8> Marriage is always a mistake, but it is important that you make it with the right person :-). I've been married for 3.5 years to the best girl in the world.

Best mistake I ever made.

As far as advice goes, make her feel included in your adventures and when she tells you about her day at least try to listen.

The main thing that changes when you get married is that you can no longer crash at other people's houses. Even at 4am she'll expect you to go home.

</comment><comment><USER9> I got married on New Year's Eve 16 years ago. It was a great night to get married, so congratulations. New Year's Eve will always be your anniversary first and a holiday second, which is a good thing if you ask me.

Advice? Don't!!! (Just a little vestibule humor.)

Real advice...

Don't ever treat your partner worse than you would treat a stranger. Another way of saying don't take them for granted.

Ensure your partner becomes or remains your best friend.

You will both change over the years. Do it together or you will inevitably do it separately.

Be a little unpredictable about doing nice things for your partner. Shockingly effective.

None of this is relevant for tonight. Enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER10> Get off the computer and pay attention to your new wife!

<comment><USER9> He's not allowed. She's probably getting dressed.

<comment><AUTHOR> You were absolutely right

(and right now we are hanging out on our computers together)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Probably the two most important things as I close my first year of marriage (2 January is my anniversary):

\- Do as much as possible together. Try to play games on the same team. Eat meals together. Talk together. Get ready in the mornings together. Watch movies together. Do as much as you possibly can - together. If you think about the way we use the word 'marry' in other concepts (i.e. the perfect marriage of X and Y), it talks about a blending of two things that becomes a new, third thing. So, marriage isn't just two people living in the same place. It's two people becoming something new together. One of the best examples I've seen of this idea is the second chapter of the book _A Severe Mercy_. The togetherness the author writes about is ridiculously complete.

\- The wedding, as much work as it takes to put together, is just the starting line. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you've won your wife and can move onto another project. It's an incredibly easy mistake to make, and a terribly dangerous one. Marriage, especially because of my first point, is hard work. It's breath-taking and awe-inspiring, but it's also hard work. I Love it!

Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER12> In terms of relationship, my advice will be the same whether you're starting up or working in BigBoring Inc. It boils down to 3 things:

1\. Time: Make time for each other. Schedule it as if it's a big important meeting with an investor if need be. Even better is to have a routine that naturally makes time for you two to be together. Whatever it takes.

2\. Talking: Always talk about everything that might be going wrong or right. This is especially true in the early days as you figure what this marriage thing is all about. No relationship I know of broke down because the couple communicated too much.

3\. Adapt: What you have now is not what you're going to have in a year's time and certainly not you'll have in 2 years. Your startup might succeed or it might fail. You will have unforseen family obligations come up at the most inopportune time. One of you might lose their job or get ill long term. In short: life will throw you curve balls and you two must deal with them and adapt.

This usually where people insert some cliche analogy, but I'll spare you :) Congrats and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER13> If you anger her enough she can take more than half of everything.

Down vote if you want. I have yet to see a marriage of two people I know not end in divorce or where one or both are trapped in a loveless marriage.

<comment><USER14> You need to meet more people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Also, it might be worth reading what Roissy has to say on the subject:

<http://roissy.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/dont-get-married/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Communicate. A LOT.

And listen to her, at least twice as much as you speak. You know... the whole two ears - one mouth cliché? :)

Is she your best friend? If she isn't, get to a place in your relationship where she is.

Include her in your plans, your thoughts, your dreams.

Also, being a tech geek, you likely have the "problem solving" mentality. Understand that some days, she will be emotional, and perhaps even irrational... this is not the time to "fix" her. Just listen.

Women are responders. Typically, if you take good care of her, there's nothing she wouldn't do for you.

It is simple, but not at all easy. Be prepared for HARD WORK. :)

</comment><comment><USER16> Honest, open communication. If your wife knows everything that's going on in your head & your life, & you know everything that's going on in her head & her life, you'll be equipped to deal with pretty much every problem you can face.

</comment><comment><USER17> Not married yet but have lived with my girlfriend for the last year while building a startup and having contracting to pay the bills.

Biggest thing I've learned is to set aside enough time to do things just the two of you with the computer off and the cell phone silenced.

Make sure your love knows they are first priority in your life. When you are stressed communicate why you are stressed, don't just try to extinguish it. Ask for help when you need it, you aren't alone anymore :).

And get a clear financials plan. Stressing about money plus the day to day stress of building a startup can really damage relationships.

</comment><comment><USER18> You will have to compromise. If you're lucky, and have found the right person, they'll be willing to compromise, too. And if it's right, neither partner will mind.

If either of you maintain "It has to be my way" or "It has to be this way" thoughts, things might get rocky...

</comment><comment><USER19> 1\. Watch out when she starts to call your computer your second wife or mistress. You need more time for her. 2\. Don't buy her geek toys/gadgets as gifts. 3\. Make her the priority, not the new venture.

As for tonight, just relax, enjoy and make her feel wanted and loved.

<comment><USER20> > Don't buy her geek toys/gadgets as gifts

...unless she's a geek, presumably?

I mean, there certainly exist men who would love to have a geek toy/gadget as a gift, so why shouldn't at least some women want that as well?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Congratulations. Quick tip - set time off the grid to enjoy each other's (and future kids') company. It's just amazing how being connected can take away from true moments of love.

</comment><comment><USER22> Don't piss her off and most importantly she's always right :)

</comment><comment><USER23> I've found that carving out a little bit of time each day makes a huge difference.

Your spouse knows what you're doing and supports you, so make a little time daily to recognize that commitment to you, with a commitment to them.

From previous threads things I've seen and put into action that really work:

\- Have a sit-down dinner together every night.

\- Spend at least half-of-one weekend day out of the house together.

\- Spend at least 15 mins of uninterrupted time talking and focused on each other in the morning, and before bed.

More good threads on this topic:

[http://steveblank.com/2009/06/18/epitaph-for-an- entrepreneur...](http://steveblank.com/2009/06/18/epitaph-for-an- entrepreneur/)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1620335>

<http://searchyc.com/submissions/marriage>

Lastly, SUCCEED!

The dividends of success provide financial stability which is a cornerstone for a happy marriage.

</comment><comment><USER24> single most important tip from a geek who's been happily married for 5 years now:

The wife is always right !!

<comment><USER15> That kind of thinking perfectly represents why I'll probably never get married.

No, she isn't always right. Nobody is _always_ right. Women just think they can yank men's strings with the threat of A. witholding sex, and/or B. divorce (marriage / divorce laws heavily favor women, at least in the US.)

Before I'd even consider getting married, I'd have to know that my wife to be understands that we're equals in the relationship... I'm not kowtowing to her, and I wouldn't expect her to kowtow to me. But no way would I ever voluntarily enter into such a lopsided relationship as the typical American marriage, where the wife has her husband "by the balls."

If nothing else, it's a good argument for keeping one's pickup skills sharp, just so the wife knows that "withholding sex" isn't much of a threat. And a good argument for a well-written pre-nup.

<comment><USER25> Good lord, that's not what that expression means.

It means don't argue about unimportant things. If your spouse wants something that you don't have a strong opinion about then roll with it. Don't sweat the small stuff.

If you're keeping your pickup skills sharp, you haven't really gotten married, you just did some mock ceremony and happen to be living together.

<comment><USER15> _It means don't argue about unimportant things. If your spouse wants something that you don't have a strong opinion about then roll with it. Don't sweat the small stuff._

Maybe to you... I know more than a few of my guy friends who literally let their wives control them "by the balls" so to speak, and don't have that healthy balance.

But anyway, yeah, what you just said, I'm down with that, when you put it that way.

 _If you're keeping your pickup skills sharp, you haven't really gotten married, you just did some mock ceremony and happen to be living together._

I have to admit, my views on the nature of sex, romance, dating, marriage are NOT inline with the majority of society; so it comes as no surprise that you would say that. I really think the whole idea of life-long monogamous relationships is basically a farce... I'm basically polyamorous, but can see the merits of interludes of monogamy....serial monogamy if you will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Happy wife -> happy life.

</comment><comment><USER27> #1. say "I do"

<comment><USER28> Patience is really a virture. And you don't need to win every battle to win the war. Wait until it is something that really matters to you before raising your voice.

I don't know if I have been sucessful or not yet. I have only been married 28 years. My wife's parents made it over 50 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was married over 20 years and the divorce was amicable. We treated the relationship as a private matter and nobody's business. My oldest son has said that when he was a kid, he couldn't comprehend stereotypical jokes about interfering in-laws and the like because he never once saw that in his own family. My ex was career military, so we didn't live near either of our families. That simplified that aspect of it. But I imagine we would have drawn pretty clear boundaries in that regard anyway, even if circumstances had been different. What goes on in the marriage has to be between the two of you and the rest of the world can go screw itself. If you can get that piece right, the marriage can withstand quite a lot, for many years.

Congratulations! I hope this is happily ever after.

PS: If at all possible, call when you are going to be late. That will go a long way towards letting your spouse know that you do really care about them even when the business is making demands on your time. It took my ex too many years to get the hang of that one.

</comment><comment><USER30> compromise.</comment>


How do you spot a nonconformist? Check their Internet browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/02/08/npr-books-originals-non-comformists <comment><USER2> I must commend Grant for his thoughtful analysis of the complex association between browser choice, conformity, and career success. He begins with an elegant proof establishing that a one-to-one mapping exists between those who elect to install web-browsing software, instead of using the default, and the nonconformist personality trait. Next he observes that the study's astute selection of subjects, call center employees, gives us confidence that the results can be generalized to many, and indeed all, professions. Lastly, Grant creates a coherent picture of the study and its implications by clearly identifying nonconformity as the causal factor in the subjects' improved performance as call center workers.

Admirably, Grant breaks from the mainstream by avoiding the temptation to abuse p-values to support the association. In fact, he succeeds in establishing a direct causal relationship between browser choice, nonconformity, and career success without relying upon any statistical analysis whatsoever. In an age when we are all too weary of the misuses and abuses of statistics, it is refreshing to read an interpretation which so convincingly supports its thesis with a single figure. There can be little doubt going forward that nonconformity is a key ingredient for career success, and that this trait is strongly indicated by browser preference.

<comment><USER3> Funny. I do want to point out that this article is just terribly written. It seems to be based more on this: [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/people-w...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/people- who-use-firefox-or-chrome-are-better-employees/387781/)

That article tends to go a little more in depth. I do think it's interesting that they can make the correlation between retention rates at a call center (with average 45% annual turnover) and browser choice. Those going with chrome/firefox stayed 15% longer in their positions.

How that gets turned into some cliched 'nonconformist' categorization, I don't know. It would seem pretty conformist to stay in your position longer rather than quit, but what do I know.

"As correlations like "Chrome users are better employees" bob up from a sea of data, it's important that they don't start to generate the same rigid biases that Big Data is partially dampening—rejecting an applicant with the "wrong" browser would be silly."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If running a non-default browser is a sign of career success, then running a non-default operating system must be a sign of even greater success.

Of course running a non-default version of an operating system should probably increase success rates even more, then there's the windows manager and text editor you use, to include in the calculation.

My back of a beer mat calculations indicate I should be sending reuseable rockets into space at about this time in my career.

 _Checks bank balance_

Shit.

<comment><USER5> I know what you mean. Sometimes, though, nonconformity can be done for practical reasons. It's not always about being different for the sake of challenging the status quo.

My landlady ran into a problem with her Windows 8 machine. To fix it required sending it to a PC repair shop and spending the 80 bucks for them to look at it and get it back in working order. She ended up being without her machine for a few days.

Then there's me. When Windows Update bricked my Windows 8 machine, I checked my options (and my bank balance). Couldn't afford the PC tech. So I grabbed a Linux Mint DVD I had handy, salvaged the files I wanted to keep, and replaced the operating system. I was without my machine for less than 24 hours.

Sometimes, the "nonconformist" choice IS the path of least resistance.

<comment><USER6> Mm, but nonconformity also generally means answering more questions and researching more deeply into various subject matter. All of this causes cognitive load. And if you're spending all day every day tweaking your operating system, browser, IDE, or what-have-you, then you're choosing not to spend time on other problems. I'm not saying that's bad; just that it should be something to be aware of. It's why Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg had supremely boring wardrobes; one less thing to think about, one less thing to take time away from solving other problems.

<comment><USER5> Environment context switches can have cognitive load too. Going from Win 8 to Cygwin is like that. So is Win 8 to a Linux VM.

That's probably one of the biggest reliefs of the Linux switch as the host OS. To work with a vagrant box or ssh into a cloud server actually requires LESS wrestling and tweaking with the host OS. The transition from one context to another is a lot smoother. So that's one less distraction when it comes to the actual projects I'm tackling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The clear non-comformist thing to do would be to write your own web browser. As with everything else in life, people uses consumption to establish identity - through choice of food, music, movies..and yes, even web browsers. But this is all facade, like the person who looks like a rock star, walks like a rock star, listen to music of rock stars, but himself has never touched an instrument.

Instead, it's much more effective to judge people from their output. What kind of works do they produce? Do the have unique ways of solving problems? Do their works inspire you to think in new patterns? Maybe then you can spot the non-conformist.

</comment><comment><USER8> The idea that someone working in a call center is able to download their own browser is laughable. Where are these call centers where the high-turnover- staff are able to install whatever software they want? I wouldn't be at all surprised if some call center operatives were forced to use IE6 and I wouldn't be surprised if some call centers effectively forbid their staff from using the internet for anything beyond checking customer information on their intranet.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Google's Chrome browser shortcut, Google Inc.'s new Web browser" \- is this caption really from an article written in 2016?

</comment><comment><USER10> Eh, this is just crap. I know many people who use IE just because they do not care about the browser. They use it occasionally to look something up and then move on and do the work they need to do. Also, staying in longer doesn't mean anything either. I leave at 4 pm and I still do more work than >80% of my coworkers.

It may be that there is a correlation between productivity and browser choice, but I doubt that the causation is as simple as posited in TFA.

Edit: it seems that the article says staying in a particular job longer and not staying in office longer during the day.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure he's saying they stayed later in the evening. I understood it as they longer at their job in the sense they changed their job after more months. But it is not that clear.

<comment><USER10> I think you're right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well I guess I should add "Firefox user since 2004" to my resume then :)

<comment><USER13> Yes, and don't forget to mention using Brave since early 2016, for good measure.</comment></comment>


Shoppers don't like to be watched online - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/retailers-beware-shoppers-dont-like-to-be-watched-online-11596213167 <comment><AUTHOR> >On My Own: The Aversion to Being Observed during the Preference-Construction Stage

[https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article- abstract/doi/10.1093/jc...](https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article- abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucaa016/5815562?redirectedFrom=fulltext)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/ibYXg](https://archive.vn/ibYXg)</comment>


Link Between Alzheimer's and Herpes - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/herpes-viruses-alzheimers/564887/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> These headlines are horrible. The actual story is about "Amyloid Beta, the substance currently thought to cause Alzheimer's, may actually protect against Alzheimer's and herpes".

> _" Robert Moir, a neurologist at the MassGeneral Institute for > Neurodegenerative Disease, says that many researchers have cast it as a > villainous molecule with no beneficial function. "It's just bad, bad, bad," > he says. "But it has become increasingly obvious that this isn't true." Moir > thinks that amyloid beta has a more heroic role, as a foot soldier of our > immune system. It protects neurons from infectious microbes—and from herpes > viruses, in particular."_

<comment><USER3> Further down in the article:

> _" In the past three decades, more than 100 papers have described > correlations between the presence of HSV–1 and the risk of Alzheimer's... > Most recently, Ben Readhead and his colleagues at the Icahn School of > Medicine at Mount Sinai showed that two herpes viruses, HHV–6A and HHV–7, > were more common in the brains of Alzheimer's patients than in those of > healthy people."_

And the article continues to point out the links, though hedges as to whether it is a causal link or not in either direction.

<comment><USER2> The presence of a correlation isnt the interesting part of the story (as noted by others, what isnt correlated with Alzheimer's?), so should not be highlighted in the headline. The interesting part is the proposal that amyloid beta is protective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are so many links to Alzheimer's lately that I'm not sure there's a reasonable prevention strategy.

<comment><USER5> 67% of all humans carry HSV-1. I don't think there is much prevention you could do

[http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes- simpl...](http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes-simplex- virus)

<comment><USER6> What we can do is realize that HSV-1 is not the problem.

The fact that some individuals' immune system let it through hint that there is a more important causal issue somewhere.

Herpes may be a simple symptom, not a disease.

And maybe it's a symptom of a condition that is similar to the one that let Alzheimer's set in.

Who knows, maybe Alzheimer's is a symptom too of a more deep, complex and subtitle disorder.

<comment><USER7> This made me realize that future humans will view our understanding of Alzheimer's the way we view people's understanding of AIDS in the 60s. "You mean they were getting Alzheimer's left and right, and they hadn't noticed it was caused/transmitted by X?!"

Assuming there's some preventable cause or vector, anyway.

<comment><USER8> Nitpick: AIDS wasn't really noticed at all in the US until the beginning of the 1980s, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS)

<comment><USER9> Prior to the late 1970s / early 1980s, the stigma associated with homosexuality was much stronger. Being gay, and having multiple sex partners, was something that most gay men would probably not admit to. In many areas it would be admitting to a crime. So in the case histories of early AIDS sufferers, that commonality may not have been clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Apparently the brains of Alzheimers patients are full of plaque similar to arterosclorosis - [https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/alzheimers- disease/](https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/alzheimers-disease/)

Probably for most of us its more important to undertand that genes are not a death sentence, they are triggered by environmental factors.

Obesity is also genetic, some persons body cant cope with the standard western diet.

But if they adapt their diet they will most likely never get obese, and get heart disease and diabetes as a result.

Your thoughts?

<comment><USER11> Obesity is almost never genetic. There are a tiny handful of genetic conditions for which obesity can emerge as a side effect, but in the vast majority of cases obesity is simply the result of consuming too many calories. [1]

I don't think a source should be necessary for this, though I did bother to include one. Obesity hardly existed in e.g. the fifties, and that was certainly not for a shortage of food. And the individuals of healthy weight did reproduce, in great numbers. The sudden emergence of a massive genetic disorder makes no sense.

On the other hand people started becoming fat once quick, cheap, food that sacrifices healthfulness for flavor and price became ubiquitous. And in contemporary times we've subsidized the pants off corn resulting in things like high fructose corn syrup being in practically everything. And of course it would be remiss to not consider the great changes in the engineering of foodstuffs and the corresponding change in the status quo of herbicides with us also consuming trace amounts in massive quantities, as a generational experiment.

[1] - [https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/resources/diseases/obesity/inde...](https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/resources/diseases/obesity/index.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems possible that Alzheimer's is not a single disease, but a cluster (or a class) of diseases that have very similar symptoms and effects on neurology. Many causes, one manifestation, like cancer.

<comment><USER2> This is where biomedical theories go before they die. "Its so complex there cant even be a cure by definition, thats why we failed. It has nothing to do with incorrect usage of statistics, lack of coming up with and testing quantitative theories, and questionable research practices being standard in our field."

<comment><USER13> I agree with you, too bad you've been down-voted...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> All theses studies present many correlations between herpes and Alzheimers. Perhaps Judea Pearl methods and books could be used to develep medical studies. What kind of experiments is expected to have the better result for the minimum cost? I should like to know if this kind of approach is being used nowadays. Recall that Judea Perl idea is not only to analyze current data but to design experiments to estimate conditional probability with experiment designed to test ideas.

</comment><comment><USER15> It wasn't clear to me, is amyloid beta role __only__ to protect the brain from herpes?

Or is there a particular reason the study used that particular herpes virus? Is that reason scientific or for press release purposes?

If it is amyloid beta's only job, is that typical?

Without amyloid beta what danger, if any, does this herpes virus pose to an unprotected brain?

Finally, wouldn't this be easy to test / verify in humans? Wouldn't a simple blood test show herpes or herpes antibodies? And then Alzheimer's?

</comment><comment><USER16> If antiviral drugs were cheap enough and free (or nearly free) of side effects, should we simply start using them daily as we grow older, in parts of the world where we live long enough?

</comment><comment><USER17> Isn't herpes treatment aciclovir? Cheap and with little side-effects.

<comment><USER18> It likely doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier.

It also wouldn't touch latent virus, only a minority that were actively replicating.

<comment><USER19> "Acyclovir crosses the blood-brain barrier, a desirable quality for the treatment of herpes encephalitis, neonatal herpes simplex virus infections, and, possibly, multiple sclerosis" [0]

"The bioavailability of orally administered acyclovir is limited to 15 to 30% (23), and the level of passage across the blood-brain barrier has been assumed to be low, probably due to the relatively low lipophilicity of acyclovir (8). It was previously found (14) that upon oral administration the acyclovir concentration in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is only 13 to 52% of that found in plasma. When sustained and high concentrations of acyclovir in plasma are desirable, improved bioavailability can be achieved with valacyclovir, the hydrochloride salt of the l-valyl ester of acyclovir." [1]

[0] [http://aac.asm.org/content/54/3/1146.full](http://aac.asm.org/content/54/3/1146.full)

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC166099/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC166099/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is it not obvious that this article is meant to make us imagine beloved elders as participants in high risk sex?

<comment><USER21> Please don't do this here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So curing one disease can also cure another...

<comment><USER23> No. You didn't read the article.

"We can't make any causal inferences" from these studies, cautions Maria Carrillo, the chief scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association. "Their findings don't prove the viruses lead to Alzheimer's progression, but there is a relationship, and we need to understand what herpes viruses are doing in the brain."

<comment><USER24> Also, even if there was a deeper cause contributing to both ("causing it" is much more rare than a common contributing factor) you could cure one bot not the other if you don't address (or don't even know) that common factor but use some other path to address one problem even without knowing the full picture. When (as is common) there are many contributing factors solving one problem may be done by addressing only one or some of them, and that may not be the one that also contributes to some other (visible) problem. So "curing one also cures the other" would only work in an incredibly specific scenario, while there are many others possible that allow some sort of common factor somewhere, among many others.</comment></comment></comment>


Commission calls drug war a failure, recommends legal regulation of marijuana - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/high-level-commission-calls-drug-war-a-failure-recommends-legal-regulation-of-marijuana/2011/06/01/AGncWiGH_story.html?wprss=rss_politics <comment><USER2> Call me when there's a commission of _current_ leaders.

Besides, the US is leveraging this situation very well in selling its darling industry to both sides of the war: small arms.</comment>


How to Decline Job Applicants? - <AUTHOR> http://www.onrota.com/blog/how-to-decline-job-applicants/

<comment><USER2> Sometimes it's not rejection that's the issue but the employers laziness to explain why the applicant failed. It is fair to let all applicants know so they can stop making the same mistakes or just know in general what to improve on.

</comment><comment><USER3> My experience with this is that most companies today just stop communicating with you, and don't even have the courtesy to tell you that you were rejected.</comment>