Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income - <AUTHOR> https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6809a1.htm <comment><USER2> The headline here is incredibly misleading. The CDC is not making the factual claim that "low-income parents send sick kids to school due to lack paid sick leave".

The actual truth: a paper from the CDC finding an apparently quite weak link between poverty and rate of school absence due to sickness stuck that in as _one of many_ somewhat plausible explanations, in a very speculative discussion section.

To emphasize: the headline of this story is _not_ one of the factual scientific claims of the paper.

<comment><USER3> Upboat for rationalisation.

Also, from the European perspective (and specifically speaking of the technology sector, as that's what I have first-hand experience with), taking sick leave to take care of a child at home isn't a thing, whatsoever. You would just send an email to your team saying that you're sorry but you're working from home because your kid is sick and that would be the end of it.

No compulsion to take vacation.

No compulsion to take sick leave.

No punitive punishments for being human and for your family members being human.

It really _is_ a different world, over here. However, given the American exceptionalism showing up in the thread, I'm going to wager that this probably going to see some vitriolic response.

<comment><USER4> On the converse... I'm an American whom lives in Indiana. Let me share my experiences.

I worked at Starbucks for 5 years. When I got sick, I showed up to work. I know I worked while having the flu, and making drinks for people. If we didn't show up, our hours for next week would be messed up badly and intentionally. We would go from 35 hours to 15 hours, or we'd be scheduled "clopens" \- close at midnight, and open at 4:45a the next morning. If you wanted your job, you showed up and vomited on the floor.

I also worked at wal-mart. I was a 3rd shift stocker. I was fired for getting injured on the job by a faulty pallet jack falling on my foot, and "costing the company money" (exact quote). I even have my discharge paper stating that. Needed x-rays and a tetanus shot. And with someone at the time who had little money, lawsuits are out of the question, especially for a corp like Walmart.

I'll take some of that 'commie socialistic European perspective', if you don't mind :)

<comment><USER5> Well would you prefer to have a crappy job or no job at all? Don't labor under the assumption that government mandates don't affect the decisions of businesses.

<comment><USER6> So it's ok with you if companies treat people like crap, because the alternative is fewer jobs? By that logic, it's ok for companies to kill off a few of their workers through horrible safety practices, than not offering any jobs at all, because ++ jobs is more important than anything. We've spent the last couple of centuries trying to correct that line of thinking, why hang on to it?

The alternative to crappy business practices isn't people starving in the streets because of lack of jobs. The alternative is that the people with excess resources distribute some of those resources to others that would otherwise starve.

There are many nations out there with working systems that don't accept that sort of abuse of it's workers - why do people insist on choosing ideologies that are so obviously not in the interests of the majority of the people?

<comment><USER7> >why do people insist on choosing ideologies that are so obviously not in the interests of the majority of the people?

Because policies that depend on taking from the economically productive to prop up the unproductive eventually become unsustainable.

Does it upset you that people work jobs instead of voting to receive a million USD annual stipend? Would you vote for a policy giving that to every person?

Back to the Walmart story. There is more we aren't being told. There are thousands of lawyers drooling to take a case against a company the size of Walmart firing people for simply getting hurt due to the company's incompetence. OP more than likely was at fault for the accident, which would be grounds for termination in most European countries as well.

<comment><USER6> > Because policies that depend on taking from the economically productive to > prop up the unproductive eventually become unsustainable.

1) There are many very stable nations that have had long-term policies of treating their disadvantaged much better than you seem to be proposing, so this point is demonstratively false. Why do you believe it's true?

2) There are many people in every country that aren't economically productive - the elderly, the very young, the chronically ill, etc. Most countries manage to afford to take care of these people in some manner without collapse. It's possible because technology has driven our average productivity extremely high in historical terms, and there are more than enough resources available to take care of them. Doing so doesn't cause those societies to collapse. I'd suggest it makes them more stable when fewer people are desperately poor.

I'm not saying you're arguing that those example groups of people don't deserve assistance. But you do seem to be saying that _some_ economically unproductive people shouldn't be helped to survive. What is special about the second group of people? Why does helping them somehow lead to an unsustainable society when supporting other groups doesn't?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Children are expensive. And it's not about money. It's about time and energy and effort and incessant tending and bonding.

I honestly think people need counseling and planning before they start to think about starting a family. They need back up plans and contingency strategies.

It used to be that we lived in small communal groups and non nuclear families. Usually matriarchal wherein the post menopausal grandmother plays a crucial role in the post reproductive years to give the attention children need.

Clearly this system worked. We will be hitting 10 billion by 2050 due to exponential population growth. But the world has changed. Coping with the new resource strapped crowded new world is not by handing over the responsibility of child rearing to the state or the tax payers.

There is NO village that will raise YOUR child. It's time for responsible procreation and talk about such things without fear or shame of being chastised. We can now store our genetic material. People should be given a lot of advice and caution before they want bring children into our future. Responsible parenting must be incentivized and not just procreation in the form of tax breaks and taking over of child rearing by the state. This issue really stresses me and I only see it getting worse.

I don't know why there isn't enough funding or initiatives to address this.

<comment><USER9> Children are difficult, but not as hard as you make it out to be. Out of my circle of friends, more than half the kids were unplanned (including our first child). It was no big deal—grandparents swooped in to keep things on the rails (something that is true for people of all income levels). For lower income people, a bit of help with childcare during work is all that's necessary.

The "responsible parenting" approach you suggest would basically lead to lower income people never being in a position to have kids. And that would be a tragedy. Having children is one of the greatest joys in life. There is a really remarkable Gallup poll: [https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire- children-norm.asp...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children- norm.aspx)

Americans 45 and older were polled, and asked what they'd do if they had to do it over again. Just 7% of those with kids said they would've had zero kids. By contrast, 55% of those without kids would've had at least one. Indeed, while just 7% of people with kids would've had none if they did it over again, among those who never had kids, fully 18% wish they would have had _3 or more._

What other incredibly expensive, labor-intensive life choice has that kind of customer satisfaction rating?

<comment><USER10> You are very fortunate that your parents could help you raise your first kid. That is not something universally available and my first year as a parent was very rough.

<comment><USER9> It was fortunate, but I don't think it was particularly fortunate. The average American lives 18 miles from their mother: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-f...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up- family.html).

The reason I bring up grandparents is because OP's post struck me as pretty ignorant of the circumstances of the people (disproportionately lower income), who are actually having kids in this country:

> The data reveal a country of close-knit families, with members of multiple > generations leaning on one another for financial and practical support.

Raising kids is not that hard and nearly everyone does it. We don't need counselors telling people not to have kids until they can meet whatever criteria upper middle class people think are a necessary prerequisite for raising children. They need cheaper daycares to make life a little easier.

<comment><USER10> I'm not saying having kids is unnatural or anything, but I'd have been damned grateful to have a single night off every eight weeks after my child was born. Having capable grandparents around is a terrific benefit. You're right that even just a little help would have made a world of difference, but my wife and I didn't have that.

<comment><USER8> I was raised by my grandmother with a brood of cousins and all her children lived under the same roof. I did not know that nuclear families were the norm and that not every family was as large as ours until I was well into my teens. I think that being raised the way I was had a very positive impact on me. It wasn't just having so many adults around but also having cousins who were sibling like and of various ages as peers to learn from and also to teach... Plus there was the 'grandmother effect'.

I had always considered myself as a rather staid somewhat conservative person with orthodox views of my own volition. Until I realized that 'feminists' considered my views as fringe. That's the 'grandmother effect'..a matriarchal upbringing is entirely different from a feminist upbringing. The former is about freedom/owning power and the latter is about competition/struggle(in my understanding)

Every family needs a support system. And every human person does NOT have to be a parent. Parenting is a big scary and A Very Important Job.

I am reminded of Robert Wright's Moral Animal where he beckons altruism and the chapter on kinship. That's the 'grandmother effect'.

It's a topic worthy of a proper thesis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is well known to anyone who has worked in a public school system. My friend used to work as a sub. One day, she found a sick student and sent him home. Later, she was admonished by a teacher there: this kid lives in a garage, where they don't have a heater. At least, this kid can feel better in a warm class room. This happened in Milpitas, CA, last year.

<comment><USER12> Damn

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am European, and the comments in here talking about how this would never be a problem in Europe are a bit elitist. It may be true that you may work from home if you a software developer, but if you do shift work, for example, it may be very difficult (or impossible) to find a replacement for you if you realize that your 6-year has a cold 60 minutes before your shift starts. It may be very possible that your co-workers or your boss wouldn't even understand why you have to be at home if your kid has a common cold. My mother was working shifts in a supermarket when I was a kid, and I found it completely normal to be alone in bed for 6-8 hours during my mothers shift when I had a slight cold.

You can't compare upper-level office jobs in Europe with lower-level shift work in the US.

<comment><USER14> Because here in Western Europe, our healthcare doesn't depend on your job/income.

Plus, I've found that on average Americans are more health anxious (for example, if I search in Google Spain in Spanish "I just accidently hit my head with a wall" the treatment results I'll get will be "if you feel fine afterwards, and you didn't black out or anything like that, it's okay" while if I do the same search on google.com/ncr in English the second result tells me to go to the hospital now and demand a CT scan of my brain to check for an internal hemorrhage) than Europeans are.

<comment><USER13> > Because here in Western Europe, our healthcare doesn't depend on your > job/income.

It doesn't? At least where I am from, the _cost_ of healthcare very much depends in your income, as the insurance rates are calculated like taxes (with an upper limit, of course). And this only covers basic medical care. Anything that is viewed as "luxury" or "cosmetic" is either only covered partly, or not at all, for example artificial dentition, and you need additional insurance for that, which not everyone can afford.

I am almost amazed when Americans think that healthcare in Europe is basically free. Nearly 1/10 of my monthly income is spent on medical insurances. The only difference is that it is quite hard to "opt-out" of the insurance.

<comment><USER14> Well, when I said free, I of course meant paid through taxes that are adjusted to your income level. Here in Spain your public healthcare quality won't change depending on if you make €1000 or €4000. You won't be put on top of a medical waiting list because you contribute more taxes wise to the system.

Dentistry is another thing altogether.

Also opting out of "public health insurance" is impossible here in Spain, because it's a right. You can however choose to get private insurance/get treated by a private healthcare company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Although the likelihood of missing any school days during the past year decreased with reduced income, among children missing school, those from low- income households missed more days of school than did children from higher income households. Although the reason for absenteeism cannot be ascertained from this analysis, these data underscore the importance of preventive measures, such as hand hygiene promotion and education, and the opportunity for both homes and schools to serve as an important point for implementation of public health preventive measures, including hand hygiene practice and education."

<comment><USER16> That's another issue itself buried inside of this report. Here's the meat of what the report is bringing awareness to.

>Among children who had gastrointestinal illness, 84.6% (family income <$35,000), 86.1% ($35,000–$49,999), 90.3% ($50,000–$74,999), 89.6% ($75,000–$99,999), and 87.4% (≥$100,000) missed school in the past year. Similarly, 83.7% of children living below the poverty level with gastrointestinal illness missed school, compared with 88.3% of those living at or above the poverty level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It seems that a lot of people fail to realize some key aspects that lead to the pressure and outcomes you see on this paper:

* As customers, (1) when the washroom of a diner is dirty, the first reaction is not "Hey, maybe the cleaner was sick", it is an instant negative view. (2) when your favorite coffee shop is closed, most people don't think "I hope everything is alright, I'll come back tomorrow."

* As employees, (1) When someone doesn't show up for a meeting, most people will go for the lowest denominator "Person A is disrespecting my time", etc.

* As employer, (1) When someone doesn't show up to complete a project/deadline/task, the company can go bankrupt, be less profitable or lead to disruptions.

* As fellow humans, we mostly assume that the experience we have had or seen (e.g. having a child and nurturing them or working in tech vs laborer) follow the same mold as everyone else until we read and understand more about that.

Therefore, society creates an environment where unexpected absenteeism is frowned upon. Whether that is the correct modus operandi is for each and everyone of us to dig in and ask ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've seen other comments mention this, but it's really hard to make the case for paying a wage laborer to not show up. Even if he's sick. Can't do janitorial work from home. And such labor is highly fungible: very high turnover, easy replacement, little training, lots of firing/hiring. If you don't show up, you get replaced, mostly because your company now has to hire someone else to do the job and has no reason to keep paying you.

Let's not forget that every time we pass stronger "labor laws" (e.g. higher minimum wage), we do see job loss, decreased hours, second jobs. A paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that the costs to low-income workers outweighed the benefits by about three to one. Telling McDonalds it must pay people to stay home will almost certainly just accelerate the pace of automation.

<comment><USER19> > I've seen other comments mention this, but it's really hard to make the case > for paying a wage laborer to not show up. Even if he's sick.

The concept you're looking for is "insurance". It solves the problem here (for the employer, for the employee, for the other employees, for society as a whole).

<comment><USER18> Insurance in this case is silly. The premise of insurance is to protect against financial catastrophe, which is why it is carried for things like a possible half-million dollar medical bill, house burning down, etc.

Another core tenet of insurance is that the event against which it protects is not certain (or even likely, typically) to occur. Though this has been somewhat perverted with medical these days ("I want coverage for my $200/mo prescription"), it's still the basic idea. American workers take about 5 sick days per year ([https://www.statista.com/statistics/682924/sick-leave- days-a...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/682924/sick-leave-days-among- adults-us-by-age/\);) that's not an uncertainty. And because sick days are limited, insurance doesn't make sense: businesses offer as many sick days as they are able and willing to fund; any more they just don't cover.

In summary, there's no "catastrophic situation" here, it's just a serious expense many can't or wont cover.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What sort of failed state does not mobilize to support and ease the pain of fellow humans living through such hardship.

By the way, "poor life choices" is not a valid argument.

Edit: ok, in view of the objections regarding the technical definiton of "failed state" let me reword it to "failed society". It is closer to my own objection anyway

<comment><USER21> Thanks but I do not need any support from any state. I can manage my and my children's life just fine without them.

<comment><USER22> How were your children born? Fed? Clothed? Educated? Transported? Protected from crime?

<comment><USER21> Private healthcare, paid by my salary, private schools, cars, 2nd amendment.

<comment><USER4> And see? This is the kind of idiotic one-liners we have to deal with in this country about taxes and citizenship.

>>How were your children born?

> Private healthcare

So those that can't get jobs with it don't deserve it. And even those who make little can't really afford it either. Sure the ACA copper plan leaves the policy holder with 30%, but in actuality its insurance they can't actually use.

>>Fed? Clothed?

> paid by my salary

Again, if someone else can't get a job, they and their children shouldn't eat or afford clothing. That sounds like a 3rd world shithole...

>>Educated?

> private schools

Oh. You're one of _those_ types. I'd imagine you've never had a day of adversity in your life. Never been homeless, never hungered. And I'd bet that familial money has ensconced your vision that people just must be lazy.

>>Transported?

> cars

Again, you're one of "Them". Adversity is being annoyed, or having "first world problems". Ever been without a car? Ever been stuck in a city with nobody really to call on for help?

>>Protected from crime?

> 2nd amendment

Oh yes, because the best crime prevention is Somalia-style arm everything and shoot first. Seriously, how much of an idiot do you have to be to think this is anywhere a good policy?

To my counterparts in Europe: this is what we have to deal with in this country. We pay taxes, and some of us want to pay none and go this anarchic "every man for themselves" style governance, complete with private police forces, private firefighters, and little to no government structure. What little "healthcare" we have with ObamaCare / PPACA is hated and derided with the utmost bile. And even the state (Indiana) I live in passed a law 'Banning cities or counties from banning plastic bags, straws or other one-time plastic things' \- it even includes banning taxing those products. (0)

(0) [https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/23/bill...](https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/23/bill- banning-local-plastic-bag-restrictions-signed-law/82183114/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Fiji just introduced 5 days/yr of "Family Care Leave" on the 1st of Jan, 2019. The Act doesn't require there to be sickness involved, so while you can take leave to care for your sick family member, theoretically you can also do so to support them at a school rugby match: [https://i.imgur.com/Ct0wv5D.png](https://i.imgur.com/Ct0wv5D.png)

Fiji is just barely above "third world" status. What's your excuse, USA?

<comment><USER2> > What's your excuse, USA?

Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ?

What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA?

It turns out there are many different dimensions of development, and just like many countries, the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues.

<comment><USER23> > Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ?

Well there's a very long list of reasons starting from geographic isolation to brain drain (incl. to the USA) all the way up to military coups, but I doubt that was a serious question so there's no point me answering your question in any great detail.

> What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of > development, but it's an aberration for the USA?

See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon.

> the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely > complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues.

And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is.

<comment><USER2> > See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA > is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a > century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the > moon.

Democracy and space programs are two dimensions of development, but certainly not the whole story. India is a democracy, and Russia has an advanced space program. Both countries have loads of problems. So I'm not sure what your point is with democracy and the space program.

As for "powerful", I also don't see how that's relevant. China is extremely powerful, and Switzerland is not powerful at all. However I would bet my life that a greater fraction of Swiss than Chinese people have access to sick leave.

Yes, the US is prosperous in _some_ ways, and not in others.

> And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt > at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is.

Actually that was the point of my entire post. Everything else in the post was an illustration of that point.

Let me make another point. The US isn't a person; it doesn't have willpower, feelings, or emotions. So it doesn't make sense to reason as though "the US" made some sort of irrational bad decision to be a shitty country where people can't take the day off of work. It doesn't make decisions at all in the way a human being does. It's an emergent _system_ with no mind of its own and must be understood as such.

<comment><USER24> "Let me make another point. The US isn't a person; it doesn't have willpower, feelings, or emotions"

You made a similar point in your reply to me, but you've made it better here, so I'll reply here.

The US is a human construct, just like any other nation. And part of 'The US' is its people, its citizens. You can't divorce the country from the people that make it.

It does have willpower, it does have feelings, it does have emotions. As an example take a look at _the countries_ reaction to 9/11\. There was a reaction, which seems to disprove your theory, I would go further and say it was quite a _human_ reaction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So high income parents with no sick leave don't send their kids?

<comment><USER26> High income parents without sick leave may be able to hire a babysitter. And are far more likely have a job that can be done from home (most "knowledge work") than requiring physical presence (food service, retail, labor). And are more likely to simply have more leverage with their employers / more rainy day resources to be able to insist on taking a day off anyway and swallow whatever the consequences are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> People who work hourly are in the same boat and come to work sick.

</comment><comment><USER28> the disconnect in this thread is a mild shock

</comment><comment> black-tea Of course they do. When I was a kid I stayed off and my mum looked after me. I really don't understand how people can think they can have a normal career _and_ have children. Let's just stop. We're not better off with all this extra working.</comment>


Supercon Badge Hacking Quick-Start - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2017/10/20/supercon-badge-hacking-quick-start/ <comment><USER2> I know it is slightly off topic but I am really curious...

How can the conference do this? Conferences are notoriously costly between the venue and the vendors, How is it that a $256 a ticket conference can afford to have a badge like this?

I know I couldn't make this badge for less than $40 a piece. I can't even find a screen like that for less than $30 unless you buy in the thousands.

Is there some trick to being able to do this stuff cheaply that I am not aware of?

Edit: The description of the build on [https://hackaday.io/project/27427-camera-badge-for- supercon-...](https://hackaday.io/project/27427-camera-badge-for- supercon-2017/log/68571-hardware-description) is pretty awesome. It links to the LCD screens.... which indeed look like they are $40.

<comment><USER3> The parts are not nearly as expensive as you think. It's likely made from some obsolete stock. See also:

[https://hackaday.com/2017/10/11/building-the-hackaday- superc...](https://hackaday.com/2017/10/11/building-the-hackaday- superconference-badge/)</comment></comment>


Internet access is quietly changing Seattle's tent cities - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/internet-access-is-quietly-changing-seattles-tent-cities/?michde <comment><AUTHOR> The article doesn't say as much as I wish it did about actual impact on the day to day lives of homeless people.

For me, internet access while homeless was a means to keep myself occupied so I wouldn't go crazy, a means to have social contact and meaningful discussion even though I wasn't very presentable, a means to do research to problem solve, access to online banking and other financial stuff, access to reward programs that helped keep me fed and so much more. Having a virtual life made a huge difference in my quality of life while homeless and eventually helped me get back into housing, in part by leading to earned income, in part by allowing me to find a place I could afford.

This was vastly different from the homeless people I saw sitting at the park all day doing nothing while their social skills, self esteem and self image deteriorated and their only means to make money seemed to be recycling and pan handling.

With internet access, a cell phone and mailing address, being homeless is much less of a hardship than if you have none of those. You aren't simply cut off from society, news, information and the power to make plans and build a future.

I don't know how to express how incredibly empowering the internet can be for a homeless person. I always thought of it as if it were a kind of magic. It helped me feel like a whole person. It kept hope alive by keeping options open in a way that simply wasn't previously possible.

Today, a homeless person can go online and look for information and communities for van dwellers, digital nomads, remote work and other things of that ilk that open up the opportunity to see yourself as simply living an alternative lifestyle rather than being straight up a social outcast. That makes taking adequate care of yourself so much more feasible and makes a path back to a more conventional life vastly more navigable, even if you don't qualify for any programs, many of which are aimed at specific populations, like addicts or single parents.

<comment><USER2> This actually poses an interesting idea I haven't seen previously discussed: Providing internet access and cell phones to the homeless as a way to help get them integrated back into society. Do you think this would be a cost effective program, relative to others?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ideally, I think it needs a bit more support, like a class or information packet or link to one or more websites to help clue them about some things.

It takes time to develop an online income or do research to find a cheaper place to live etc. Long term solutions don't happen overnight. While working on them, people who are destitute still need other services to stay fed, clothed, etc.

But I think it is a lightweight means to support long term goals that many programs currently actively undermine. If you have to stand in line for two hours to get a free meal and do this three times a day to stay adequately fed, it's incredibly hard to job hunt, research what other services exist, etc.

A phone with internet service can potentially allow you to work on things like that while standing in line at a soup kitchen.

Even without the additional support that I would like to see, just having a phone number makes it easier to do things like job hunt. This is critical to getting your life back. Standing in line at soup kitchens keeps body and soul together. It doesn't help you find your way back to a middle class life. It can actively be a barrier to finding your way back.

So, yes, I think it has a lot of potential. A lot of current programs intended to help homeless people get back on their feet aren't terribly effective from what I gather and are much more resource intensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There was a post on HN some time ago by a homeless woman. One thing she said would a lot is wireless access. She said a great deal of time and energy would be spent moving from the camp to internet availability.

Source [http://whathelpsthehomeless.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-virtual-l...](http://whathelpsthehomeless.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-virtual- life.html?m=1)

</comment><comment><USER4> I would love to see some sort of city-wide wifi, that would allow people to buy small amounts of data with bitcoin. You would connect to the access point, send bitcoin/altcoin to the address generated, and get access to the internet until you had transferred the amount of data you had purchased.

Non-homeless people would use such a service as well, but it would be especially valuable to homeless, who could be given bitcoin/altcoin or perhaps obtain it from crypto ATMs.

Not having a physical address is a huge impediment to functioning in our society. Without a physical address, you can't have a credit card or a bank account. Without a credit card, you can't have a cell phone for internet access, or a gym membership to take a shower.

But shower facilities or gyms that allowed you to buy one month at a time with crypto, coupled with internet access that could be purchased with crypto, would allow people to function pretty normally in this society without a physical address. Neither of these would need to be specifically for homeless, nor would they need to be tax payer funded.

<comment><USER5> What purpose does cryptocurrency serve in this scenario that ordinary payment methods could not?

<comment><USER6> Guaranteed payment, low transaction cost and available to all. A homeless person often can't get a credit/debit card, so cryptocurrency would be great for digital payment.

<comment><USER7> Except Bitcoin is anything but low transaction fee

<comment><USER6> I agree, Bitcoin fees are too high for this use case. There are other assets with faster/cheaper transactions.

I just wanted honestly answer the comment about why cryptocurrency is better in this case (even if it's not all cryptocurrency).

I could also say why it's worse: price instability (that $100 you had to your name is now $70), no way to force a refund, not widely used, and you have to manage keys. I'm sure there are more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The comments on the article are a fucking cancer. THere are so many people out there who have nothing better to do with their time than to actively call for making life worse for people worse off than themselves.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's hardly quiet if it's in the Seattle times and on the front page of HN.

</comment><comment><USER10> im internet connected homeless rightnow, youtube.com/angriestcat

</comment><comment><USER11> How large is a single camp that they'd need 11 APs? Couldn't you just have a few on poles? Why do 50 hotspots cost 300k? Are they rugged units bundled with GPS units and solar panels?

<comment><USER12> Seattle is #3 in homelessness in the USA and has more homeless per capita than one of the other two (LA I think?). The tent cities get large and only get broken up when deaths of women and children start occurring.

See The Jungle:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_(Seattle)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_\(Seattle\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> >The library has set aside 50 hotspots just for Seattle's homeless camps, funded in part by $305,000 from Google

This must be a mistake, somehow. That comes out to $6,100 per hot spot, which was still apparently not enough, alone, to fund them.

<comment><USER14> for how long? yeah, that'd probably cover setup... but remember that the wifi hotspots need internet access themselves, and usually you can't just hook them up to your comcast home connection.

On top of that, you've got ongoing maintenance, abuse, etc... dealing with that bullshit costs money, and even more if you allow anonymous connections.

<comment><USER13> This here is probably one of the problems with helping the poor. When people are spending other people's money to help other people, they don't spend it very well.

As for the cost... For the record, I've lived over a year around the poverty line... In Australia--An even more expensive country. I also did a loop around the country, saw and went everywhere I wanted to go, spent most of my time at the beach or mountains, and surfing... and oh yea, had internet the entire time. Even amortizing that cost over ten years, this is still double what I spent on wifi.

<comment><USER4> You got down-voted because you dared to say that tax money gets wasted by bureaucrats. HN people worship government wealth redistribution programs and will never admit that they are often corrupt and wasteful.

<comment><USER15> He got downvoted because he has no understanding of how expensive it is to build a network of public wi-fi hotspots, and compared it to sticking his router beside his window and sharing his home broadband connection.

Literally everything about public wifi, from the wiring and build costs, to the hardware and antennas, to the bandwidth itself is significantly more expensive. $6,100 per point sounds completely reasonable.

<comment><USER13> This is just wrong, and missing the point.

The article states they are providing up to 834 people with internet access with 50+11 hot spots.

I shared a 20$ data plan with two+ travelmates while on gap year in Australia, and it worked extremely well. $7/person cost. Give or take for US data rates and inflation since then.

Even with generous assumptions, these wifi hot spots are at least 50x, and coule be 100x, that cost.

So worst case scenario, just buy them all smart phones and data plans for a small fraction of the cost of this current setup.

<comment><USER16> Not sure if it applies here, but cell towers also have limits. Especially if the area is somewhat remote (think music festivals, etc).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Company That Makes Viagra Has More Cash on Hand Than the U.S. Government - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/10/debt_ceiling_viagra_maker_pfizer_has_more_cash_on_hand_than_federal_government.html

<comment><USER2> Easy - they sell a product that consumers want.

The same can not be said of the US Government.</comment>


Show HN: 404Engine's remotely hosted error pages, and scratching my own itch. - <AUTHOR>

A few months ago a friend made a joke about a service that remotely hosted error pages. I stopped whatever I was yammering about, and told him I thought it was legitimately a great idea.
As someone whose built a bunch of different web apps over the past few years, nothing is a bigger pain in the ass than creating error pages. Its the only part of your app that has literally nothing to do with your product - only your product failing! Whats even worse is people care about them now. Everything from blippy's double rainbow (remember that?), to the fail whale, to tumble beasts.
Error pages have become important, they've become a part of your product's branding. This is especially annoying when you're building an app you want to launch fast, because its just one more thing you have to care about and spend time on, when all you want to be doing is shipping new features.
So, thats why I felt quick and easy custom remote error pages was a good idea. And I built it (no worries, I also asked my friend to build it with me).
404engine has a nice little feature where you're emailed if an error page is seen over X times in one day. AKA, ALERT: go solve the problem!
Eventually I'll ad more features, but for now I really wanted to get something out the door.
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
Pricing is as follows:
*  $1.99/site you have (only charged once the site is activated)
*  200 requests per site per month, each additional request is $0.01
The thought behind the pricing is this - if you have people seeing more than 200 error pages per month, something is really wrong #1, but #2, you're getting a $0.01 motivator to fix that error every time afterwards.
</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
You can create a page here: http://www.404engine.com
You can see a demo of a live page here: http://guzzed.com/test/404.html
Anyway, I'd love feedback on the concept / pricing / ui / implementation etc! </comment><comment><USER2> I think you should explain more about the service. Going straight to a demo is good, but for a service like this the server-side implementations steps are very important.

There are a few ways of supporting remote errors pages, which are you using?

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the auto e-mail alert feature. Cool!</comment>