Netem: linux network emulator - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/networking/netem <comment><USER2> Shameless plug: I made a wireless network emulator [0] for my dissertation. It's a userspace implementation with a lot of extra user/kernel context switches for every packet, so too slow for emulating latencies and only deals with packet loss. But it takes wireless congestions into consideration, and can emulate CSMA/CA. For one node this wouldn't make a difference, but for multiple nodes where interference is a problem, it's a bit more realistic than just setting arbitrary packet loss.

[0] [https://github.com/squirrel-land/squirrel](https://github.com/squirrel- land/squirrel)

EDIT: typos

</comment><comment><USER3> From my experience working with netem and tc, it seemed like a great tool for testing purposes but I could not find any good documentations on it. As a result, I never really fully understood the relationship between qdisc, netem, the filter chains, and so on. At the time I read [1] (and chapters after it) but I wasn't able to comprehend it as I think I just lack the in depth networking knowledge needed.

Does anyone know of any good resources to learn this stuff more systematically?

Now that said (and without being too self-promotional), I did manage to make an OpenWRT package[2] that allows WiFi clients to select different speeds/latencies/packet loss settings to emulate different connections (3G, bad/lossy connections, etc). This was particularly good for testing web apps on devices that don't have the ability to emulate networks and it provides a simpler way to do it than the official way by Apple/Google, imo.

[1]: [http://lartc.org/howto/lartc.qdisc.terminology.html](http://lartc.org/howto/lartc.qdisc.terminology.html)

[2]: [https://github.com/shuhaowu/trafficcop](https://github.com/shuhaowu/trafficcop)

<comment><USER4> > ... but I could not find any good documentations on it.

Completely agree. I wanted to set up some simple traffic shaping on gcp and aws nodes my students will be using for some networking projects. I've used both netem and tc in the past, years ago, but I found the documentation still seems just as abysmal. The netem documentation in particular is impenetrable. It seems to sit at just the anti-sweet spot between being "low level", explaining in detail how the implementation actually accomplishes things, and "high level", explaining abstractions and concepts of how one might use the tool. The user is left with a mishmash of both, with no way to see how all the various extremely picky implementation details fit together into any kind of coherent usable system. In the end, I am left with the feeling that the code is probably a collection of hacks and spaghetti with no clear vision or goal of how anything works, and the documentation is just a reflection of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Saboteur is a good tool for some quick and dirty network testing.

It's a wrapper around Netem's tc interface, which makes things a bit easier to understand.

[https://github.com/tomakehurst/saboteur](https://github.com/tomakehurst/saboteur)

</comment><comment><USER6> Super cool. Looks a lot like dummynet in FreeBSD!

</comment><comment><USER7> If you need to build your own network emulator for unusual purposes, have a look at the TUN/TAP system.

I was able to build a network device connected to a Verilog simulation (running in Verilator), allowing a simulated device to communicate with a real host. This avoided the lengthy build times and user contention of running it on the real target FPGA, which was in an expensive device we only had one of.

</comment><comment><USER8> Used it in my master dissertation. Great tool.

</comment><comment><USER9> This question might be off-topic, but shouldn't this be called a network "simulator"?

<comment><USER10> I guess it depends on your viewpoint:

[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/111787/what- is-t...](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/111787/what-is-the- difference-between-simulate-and-emulate)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1584617/simulator-or- emul...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1584617/simulator-or-emulator- what-is-the-difference#1584701)

[https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-a- simul...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-a-simulator- and-an-emulator-2?share=1)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's definitely an emulator:

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

vs

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've used this to emulate bad dslam uplinks. either on the bras or mitm. It works well.</comment>


Show HN: A visual workbench for manipulating graphs using JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blackhole89/graphicdepictions <comment><AUTHOR> This is a tool that fell out of needing a quick way to test a variety of hypotheses regarding a problem that had a natural interpretation in terms of graphs for an academic project. I started it by plugging together bits and pieces of old gamedev projects because I was fed up with having to pore through textual representations and repeatedly write very similar code to make it at least slightly more palatable, but before long, it had grown into something sufficiently big and useful that I figured I might as well clean it up for an actual release.

A good representation of its current functionality is this short video of executing the sandpile model ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abelian_sandpile_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abelian_sandpile_model)) on a graph: [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blackhole89/graphicdepicti...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blackhole89/graphicdepictions/master/screenshots/sandpile.gif)</comment>


Instacart (YC S12) launches website to complement its grocery delivery app - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/14/mobile-first-desktop-second-instacart-launches-website-to-complement-its-grocery-delivery-app/

<comment><USER2> Finally! I've had half-finished Instacart orders sitting on my phone, just because I was too lazy to pick all the items from the mobile interface and kept losing track of what I still needed (don't judge me!).

I just tried the site and ordered my weekly groceries within a few minutes. It works great and has a refreshingly small amount of cruft. Just a searchable, categorized list of items, a shopping cart and a checkout button. Good work!

<comment><USER3> First thing I noticed when I logged in is that it carried over my shopping cart from my phone. Fantastic integration, makes a lot of sense!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unrelated:

Can I instacart w/o facebook? <strike>Can I instacart w/o an iPhone? (seems to have a web interface)</strike>

I'm in Palo Alto, so I fit the first requirement on space. I also have a desire to have this service and pay them my dollars occasionally.

Edit: Just realized that I missed the point of this post.

<comment><USER5> I guess you can: <https://www.instacart.com/store>

<comment><USER4> That page presents me with my zip, which gets me through the first barrier, the second is "sign up with facebook"

<comment><AUTHOR> We are going to be adding e-mail sign on shortly.

<comment><USER4> Great! Looking forward to it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The iPhone app is actually why I never use this. It's too cumbersome to put together an order. It took my girlfriend and I just as long to find everything I wanted (no efficient way to browse) and put together the order as it would have taken us to just go to Safeway ourselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> exactly why we launched the web version :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Did Instacart stop with the iPhone notification SPAM?

</comment><comment><USER8> There's no way to browse the products available without logging in. Maybe I'm missing something?

</comment><comment><USER9> I haven't tried the service since I'm not in the coverage area but it would be nice if you could take a pic of a grocery reciept and let it automatically import an order

<comment><USER3> That's a difficult problem to solve. Nevermind the OCR issues surrounding different store's receipts, the line item descriptions are so varied and atrocious, it would be a very large undertaking to match them against Instacart's existing product database.

Good idea, just hard to execute, and I'm not sure it would have a sufficient payoff to be worth it.

<comment><USER10> Not if they did a partnership with a store to match line item data back to products.</comment></comment></comment>


The Deadliest Animal in the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Most-Lethal-Animal-Mosquito-Week?WT.mc_id=MosquitoWeek2014_SharkWeek_tw&WT.tsrc=Twitter <comment><USER2> Besides the lethality of the disease, we must consider how debilitating it is. Read what it's like to have Malaria.

[http://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/What-Malaria-Feels-Like- Mos...](http://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/What-Malaria-Feels-Like-Mosquito- Week)

Imagine feeling like that and trying to go to school, work, or take care of your family. It would be impossible. It's undoubtedly contributed to the lack of development in most of Africa.

<comment><USER3> I suspect this as a lot to do with why tropical countries are less prosperous despite all the benefits of living in the tropics. Still, I find it somewhat disingenuous to downplay the ~1,200,000 vehicle related deaths as somehow not caused by people.

<comment><USER4> You should read 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond.

It's a very interesting book about how the civilised world came to be the way it is, for example, why Europe discovered America, and not vice versa.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel)

<comment><USER5> I too read the book, amazing incite so much so that it seem almost obvious. For those who are too lazy to read, it also comes in documentary form!

<comment><USER6> It's also, from what I understand, generally considered "bunk" by people who know the field.

<comment><USER7> My mother has a degree in Archaeology and considers Jared Diamond fairly suspect (Guns, Germs and Steel in particular). Apparently he cites some articles/books that have various problems (methodology, factual errors, etc.) These problems were well known at the time that he was writing.

I would encourage anyone who reads it to also read reviews/critiques by qualified people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, in indonesia (bill gates recently came here) mosquitos really thrive in all regions. One of the most common and dangerous disease caused by them are (known locally as) "Demam Berdarah" with the literal translation is "Bloody Fever", i don't know if it is the same with the "dengue fever" stated in the article (i have a bad English). This disease is very dangerous especially in rainy season, when there are very many water puddle everywhere and the mosquitos breed. Sometimes hospitals have a very tough time here when the patients start flowing in a very large volumes. So i am grateful to bill gates for giving a grant for solving this problem

<comment><USER9> > One of the most common and dangerous disease caused by them are (known > locally as) "Demam Berdarah" with the literal translation is "Bloody Fever", > i don't know if it is the same with the "dengue fever" stated in the article > (i have a bad English)

Using wikipedia, the Indonesian "Demam Berdarah" article is linked to the English "Denge Fever" article, so probably.

<comment><USER10> also, in Brazil we call Dengue and the main prevention tactic is indeed to eliminate the "water puddle everywhere" so the mosquitoes can't breed. So, very probably the same.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, every rainy season there are some kind of campaigns here to bury or burn garbages, regularly clean or change water containers, etc. To minimize the breeding grounds for the mosquitos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Last month I spent 2 weeks in Rwanda with my wife & daughters, visiting two friends who have been there for about a year. One of them has also spent a lot of time in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa.

Rwanda is land-locked and largely high-altitude, so malaria is not nearly so prevalent there, but it's still around.

It's already preventable -- we came with a sufficient supply of antimalarial pills, but they're so expensive it's obviously not a solution. We got yellow fever vaccinations before coming -- that was a no-brainer -- and we actively avoided mosquito bites, esp. for the little ones. My friend who has traveled widely in Africa doesn't take anti-malarials -- too pricey -- has gotten malaria, once, and it put him in the hospital for a couple of days.

He says many of the people he knows have had it, multiple times -- it's just a fact of life, and it sucks, but (probably) you'll live, and then have some protection against getting it again.

Gates talks about it as being debilitating -- apparently it's not always so bad, if you've had it before (and people talk about having "a touch of the malaria"!), but generally he's on the mark about the costs.

<comment><USER9> > It's already preventable -- we came with a sufficient supply of antimalarial > pills

There's just one problem with that one — aside from costs for third-world regions: [http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/25/can-we- be...](http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/25/can-we-beat-drug- resistant-malaria-at-its-birthplace/)

> Gates talks about it as being debilitating -- apparently it's not always so > bad

At the social level it is debilitating, without good treatments there's a high risk of acute respiratory distress and renal failure, and more importantly in children cerebral malaria causes direct brain damage and regular malaria causes anemia, leading to increased risks of cognitive deficits and behavioural disorders.

<comment><USER11> > > It's already preventable -- we came with a sufficient supply of > antimalarial pills, but they're so expensive it's obviously not a solution.

> There's just one problem with that one — aside from costs for third-world > regions: [http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/25/can-we- > be...](http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/25/can-we-beat-drug- > resistant-malaria-at-its-birthplace/)

Good point -- the expense is serious, but also widely using low levels of drugs that are effective _treatments_ as antimalarials means giving the parasite lots more great opportunities to evolve resistance (which is already happening, and is a serious upcoming problem).

> At the social level it is debilitating...

Yup, I agreed with Gates' conclusions; I was trying to share some direct experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, 50,000 snake deaths per year!

Living in Europe, I've never seen snakes except in a zoo.

How do you avoid them in a country with snakes? Can they pop up anywhere out of nowhere?

<comment><USER13> It's mostly that the snakes avoid you. Snakes don't see humans as food and so mostly get out of the way when humans approach.

In Australia, where I live, it's said that even in the suburbs there will be a snake living somewhere close by. But most people will rarely ever see a snake and most snake bites are from people being foolish, like trying to kill a cornered snake.

Only four to six Australians suffer a fatal snake bite each year, and this is with our famous collection of highly venomous snakes [1]. I understand that fatal snake bites are _much_ more common in India though, and I guess that's from population pressure and many more Indians living a rural life.

[1] [http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science- enviro...](http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science- environment/2012/07/australias-10-most-dangerous-snakes)

<comment><USER14> The way I had it explained to me by a first aide instructor, although gram for gram of venom, Australian snakes are some of the worst, the delivery system is not as efficient.

Venomous Australian snakes generally have a groove down the outside of the tooth which the venom runs down. So when bitten a lot of venom will get soaked into the clothing, and it generally goes into the lymph node system more than into the bloodstream.

Whereas Indian snakes have a hollow tooth like a hypodermic needle which delivers the venom efficiently into the bloodstream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not to be That Guy, but millions and millions of these deaths were preventable. The UN vote to effectively ban DDT has got to be one of the worst public health disasters in history. It is sickening.

[http://www.fightingmalaria.org/article.aspx?id=1862](http://www.fightingmalaria.org/article.aspx?id=1862)

[http://perc.org/articles/legacy-ddt-ban](http://perc.org/articles/legacy-ddt- ban)

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ddt-use-to- combat-...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ddt-use-to-combat- malaria/)

[http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/15583-dd...](http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/15583-ddt- breeds-death)

<comment><USER16> Why trade a public health disaster for an environment disaster that will likely lead to a different public health disaster? Current restrictions seem reasonable.

"The Stockholm Convention, which took effect in 2004, outlawed several persistent organic pollutants, and restricted DDT use to vector control. The Convention has been ratified by more than 170 countries and is endorsed by most environmental groups. Recognizing that total elimination in many malaria- prone countries is currently unfeasible because there are few affordable or effective alternatives, public health use is exempt from the ban pending acceptable alternatives."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddt#Restrictions_on_usage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddt#Restrictions_on_usage)

<comment><USER15> > Why trade a public health disaster for an environment disaster that will > likely lead to a different public health disaster?

This is a false dichotomy. And regarding your other point:

"Every life saved this year in a poor country diminishes the quality of life for subsequent generations." -Paul Ehrlich, 1968

"By using DDT, we reduce mortality rates in underdeveloped countries without the consideration of how to support the increase in populations." -Michael McCloskey, 1971

"So my chief quarrel with DDT, in hindsight, is that it has greatly added to the population problem." -Alexander King, 1990

"An end to the continued domestic usage of the pesticide was decreed on June 14, 1972, when William D. Ruckelshaus, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, issued an order finally cancelling nearly all remaining Federal registrations of DDT products."

[http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/ddt-ban-takes- effect](http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/ddt-ban-takes-effect)

"WHO actively promoted indoor residual spraying for malaria control until the early 1980s when increased health and environmental concerns surrounding DDT caused the organization to stop promoting its use and to focus instead on other means of prevention."

[http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr50/en/](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr50/en/)

"Thanks largely to the use of DDT in Namibia, malaria related hospital admissions and deaths fell by 92% (29,059 to 2,264) and 96% (1,370 to 46) between 2001 and 2009. Similar trends have been seen in Botswana, South Africa, and Swaziland. For these benefits to be outweighed by risks requires reproducible evidence that DDT is dangerous, but none exists. WHO's latest assessment found no evidence for concern "about levels of exposure for any of the end-points that were assessed" in carcinogenicity, reproductive toxicity, or developmental toxicity.

Yet despite this endorsement and admirable malaria control results, UNEP is trying to eliminate DDT again. As major UNEP donors, including the European Union, have endorsed WHO's position, UNEP's motivations are unclear."

[http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e6801?ijkey=H4KijaZlhGvkD...](http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e6801?ijkey=H4KijaZlhGvkDLK&keytype=ref)

<comment><USER16> So, you are arguing that DDT is being banned simply as a means of population control?

"WHO actively promoted indoor residual spraying for malaria control until the early 1980s when increased health and environmental concerns surrounding DDT caused the organization to stop promoting its use and to focus instead on other means of prevention."

By your quote there, it sounds like the World Health Organization stopped promoting the use of DDT 30 in homes years ago due to health and environmental concerns. Is that part of the conspiracy too?

<comment><USER15> It seems to be more of a regrettable alliance between chemical companies, conservationists who refuse to compromise when it comes to the environment, their elected representatives, and yes, a few Club-of-Rome type genocidal misanthropes who actually think that the planet is not big enough for everyone and so other people should have to die.

A conspiracy only in the sense that Julian Assange uses the word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How about a person with a car?

`Approximately 1.24 million deaths occurred on the world's roads in 2010` WHO

<comment><USER18> Also: deer.

<comment><USER19> And moose, for our hockey-playing friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Same link and same title? I'm confused [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7665106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7665106)

<comment><USER21> Here the submission is not with the canonical URL, which spoofed the duplicate submission detector. It's too bad the previous submission had only one comment, a crap comment, so it's a good thing the article was submitted again.

<comment><USER20> Agreed. Must have missed the difference in URL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For comparison, wikipedia's list of causes of death ranked by frequency:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate#Causes_ranked_by_frequency)

</comment><comment><USER23> Not sure where he got 10 wolf deaths per year. The average number of wolf deaths per century is less than that. Not the most relevant comment I suppose, but it makes me curious about his data collection process.

<comment><USER24> Globally?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> One of the key innovations in the development of the Panama Canal was the fighting of malaria/yellow fever. Without understanding this, the canal wouldn't have been built, and Panama would probably look a lot more like Nicaragua than like Hong Kong.

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general- article/panama-fever/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I think it'd be interesting to see these weighted by animal populations

</comment><comment><USER27> Cows ought to be on that list as well. They kill 10-20 people per year in the US alone. [http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/dangerous- cow...](http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/dangerous-cows/)

</comment><comment><USER28> It's funny[0] that "Number of deaths" = "Number of people killed by animals". Perhaps if humans allowed that the deaths other animals is also of consequence we'd have a healthier relationship with nature. It's ranting about your home being destroyed by a hurricane, especially since you just rebuilt it after last years hurricane. Deaths by malaria and the destruction caused by hurricanes always terrible, but we need to look into mitigating such harm both by working with and against nature (which we are a part of, so I take issue a little bit even making that distinction, but, for the sake of discussion).

[0] funny = sad

</comment><comment><USER29> Not seeing domestic cats on this list, though I suppose they only have murderous intentions and are too fluffy to actually execute on them.

<comment><USER30> Cats carry _Toxoplasma gondii_ , which is estimated to cause 750 deaths each year in the US alone. Around the world it's probably many times that number -- making _Felis domesticus_ responsible (albeit indirectly) for more deaths than lions, elephants, hippopotamuses, and crocodiles combined.

<comment><USER31> That's it, I'm getting rid of my pet cat in favor of a hippopotamus. Safety first.

<comment><USER32> I'd be willing to bet that pet hippopotamuses are more likely to kill their owners than pet cats.

[http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/11/pet-hippo- kil...](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/11/pet-hippo-kills-its- owner/)

<comment><USER33> Hippos are very aggressive and territorial. Also, they are surprisingly fast, especially in water. Many wild animals, even predators, won't move towards you unless you come real close. Hippos move towards you even if you just pass by the waterline of the sea that they are in.

Also, Hippos don't kill by biting you. They drown you by dragging you underwater - it's not that they misjudge their force.

Another problem is that they come out at night and like warm underground - streets for example. When I was in Africa last time, there was a horrible street accident with 17 dead as a pickup hit a hippo standing on the road at night. Grey, behind a corner -> bang.

What makes Hippos so dangerous to humans is they we are misjudging them as tame, slow creatures that mind their own thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What about the Photonic Fence that Bill Gates funded ([http://intellectualventureslab.com/?page_id=6738](http://intellectualventureslab.com/?page_id=6738))?

I think it was criticized because it required electrical power to run and that would have been a no go in sub-Saharan Africa but I imagine it would work great everywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER35> Can someone with better search-fu help me understand how freshwater snails kill humans?

Google is only giving me this same blog post.

<comment><USER36> The snails harbor a parasitic worm which they pass on to the water supply. The worms then use humans as a host and lay a large amount of eggs in the host. The worms and the eggs themselves cause an enormous strain on the hosts liver, kidneys, digestive, and urinary system. They essentially migrate through the body to get to the liver where they can lay thousands of eggs a day. Most eggs then enter the intestines in order to pass out of the host and back into the water supply to mature in snails and start the cycle over.

The real danger is you don't need to drink the water, just come in contact with it. So stepping in a puddle could cause infection. I was just in Colombia and there was a campaign trying to raise awareness on this so I learned a bunch about it. Scary stuff!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> In a list that's supposed to point out "unexpected" killers, snakes are, interestingly, far and away the deadliest of the animals you'd actually think of when someone says "dangerous animals".

</comment><comment><USER38> What about a horse? I seem to remember reading somewhere that they caused more human injuries and deaths than many other "dangerous" animals.... or maybe I'm remembering wrong.

<comment><USER14> and vending machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Mosquitos are like heart attacks: they kill thousands/millions but they are boring so nobody care.

Sharks are like terrorists: they kill just some dozens but are super scary.

</comment><comment><USER40> I would like to see the exact same graph but having instead as value the humans killed per unit of the animal. I doubt if the mosquito would be on top.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm surprised by the wolves. I though it was quasi a myth that they killed humans.

</comment><comment><USER42> So much for dogs, Man's best friend.

</comment><comment><USER43> Pretty misleading I'd say.. Malaria kills people, not mosquitos, mosquitos have nothing to do with Malaria. Would be like saying rats are deadly because they carried the plague.

Also I interact with humans every day and I'm still alive.

I understand where it's coming from, but it's more of a historical post-factum analysis rather than a indication of which animals you should stay away from.

<comment><USER44> That is the same as saying its not the snake that kills you its the poison. Mosquitos do have something to do with Malaria as they carry it, willingly or not. I live in Houston where there are plenty of mosquitos and plenty of mosquito related illnesses/Deaths each year.(West Nile, Bird Flu) Mosquitos are a serious nuisance, and to top it off I am pretty allergic to the bites, mine swell up and itch pretty severely. I would love to see more research put into controlling these things. Regardless of the fact that they are unwitting carriers of Malaria and other disease, they deserve more attention for eradication. Hopefully in a way that doesn't involve blanketing an area with pesticide...

<comment><USER43> Well, the difference is Malaria is a kind of living being in itself, it uses mosquitos to spread. On the other hand, poison is produced by the snake, and the snake uses it to survive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> "What am I, chopped liver?" \- every bacterium and virus, everywhere

<comment><USER46> Neither of those are animals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Maxing out my pedantry score, the actual answer is "humans" followed by "snakes". Mosquitos themselves are not dangerous, and malaria parasites are not animals.

<comment><USER48> Okay, I'll bite and try to outmax your pedantry:

If a mosquito bite can infect and kill, why isn't a mosquito dangerous?

Alternately, if I take your logic that "mosquitoes themselves are not dangerous", why can I not extend that to humans and say human beings themselves are not dangerous?

<comment><USER9> > If a mosquito bite can infect and kill, why isn't a mosquito dangerous?

Because it's not the mosquito itself doing that (as opposed to, say, a rattlesnake), it's a parasite hitching a ride on an "innocent" (of that anyway) mosquito. Much like e.g. bats and henipaviruses, bats are a resevoir species but nobody in their right mind would say that Mark Preston was killed by a fruitbat.

<comment><USER49> Is there a difference though? A snake is a vehicle for delivering poison, which is a chemical compound disrupting your biological machinery. A mosquito is a vehicle for delivering pieces of biological machinery that disrupt your own biological machinery.

The snake kills in the same way the mosquito does. The snake's poison kills in the same way malaria parasites do. Both statements are true, they're just operating on different abstraction levels.

<comment><USER9> > Is there a difference though?

Yes.

> A snake is a vehicle for delivering poison, which is a chemical compound > disrupting your biological machinery.

The poison is the snake's own weapon and defence, not a hitch-hiker, and poison delivery is part of a snake's normal bite process (if the snake is poisonous).

> A mosquito is a vehicle for delivering pieces of biological machinery that > disrupt your own biological machinery.

No, the mosquito itself delivers some saliva and draws blood, that somebody else takes advantage of this can hardly be ascribed to the mosquito's fault. Again, compare to other reservoirs, or to a dog giving you rabies. The dog didn't kill you, rabies did, the dog was the unwitting carrier of the infection rabies is not a weaponised dog secretion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> "[...] malaria [...] threatens half of the world's population and causes billions of dollars in lost _productivity_ annually."

billions of dollars in lost productivity?!?!?

NOTE: Not in healthcare. Because there's no health-care Central Africa where malaria does the biggest damage. It causes _billions of dollars in lost productivity_. Now we need to cure it.

</comment><comment><USER51> > What makes mosquitoes so dangerous? Despite their innocuous-sounding > name—Spanish for "little fly"—they carry devastating diseases.

Spanish for "little fly" could be "mosquita", a diminutive of "mosca" (fly). Mosquito is the spanish term for mosquito. While mosquito and mosca share the same latin origin "musca" i dont think any spanish speaker will understand mosquito as little fly.

Just a nitpick in case you were going to amaze someone with magazine learned spanish terms.

<comment><USER52> It would have been quicker to tap "Mosquito etymology" into Google than it would have been to write up your incredibly petty comment:

 _1580s, from Spanish mosquito "little gnat," diminutive of mosca "fly,"_

[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mosquito](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mosquito)

I genuinely dislike writing such harsh comments, and in this case have let the frustration of seeing this comment as the top-rated one on an otherwise discussion-worthy topic boil over.

<comment><USER51> What about consulting the actual, present day, normative instead of the middle age origin?

[http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=mosquito](http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=mosquito) [http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=mosca](http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=mosca)

Sorry about frustrating you, and i mean it.

<comment><USER52> _What about consulting the actual, present day, normative instead of the middle age origin?_

Because one's the reason it got its name, and the other's day-to-day speech?

 _Sorry about frustrating you, and i mean it._

No worries, and I'm sorry if I caused anything on my part.

I read your comment as picking holes in an article purely for the sake of picking holes, which is something I find frustrating _waaaaay_ out of proportion.

<comment><USER51> The etymology of the word, while interesting, is not relevant to my assertion. I only said that "Mosquito" is NOT the spanish word for "small fly". Not normative, and not day-to-day speech.

I did not want to pick holes, and it also bothers me sometimes, but the first sentence of the writing had a glaring error that caught my attention. I do think you tried to pick holes on my hole picking.

I linked you to the normative, actual definition of mosquito, because that's what you need to use to prove me wrong. Not the 1600 definition.

<comment><USER52> _The etymology of the word, while interesting, is not relevant to my assertion._

This is where you're going wrong.

<comment><USER51> How is that? The roots of a word and its current meaning may differ greatly. You can take mosquito as an example, wich originated at "small fly" but now it means "the blood sucker insect".

Consider for example the word "Musket", you wouldn't be here debating that a musket is a fly, right?. Well, both share the same latin origin in musca, like mosquito. That's my point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I have a week off, and a new Mac - <AUTHOR> Been working through and learning Swift, and am wanting to build something.
Any good ideas, or small projects?
Have been looking at setting up a Perfect (perfect.org) server, and setting up a web app.
Thanks for the ideas, Cam <comment><USER2> I just spent the week playing with Swift for the first time in a while.

I hadn't seen Perfect yet, but that looks neat!

A couple ideas I wanted to try:

* Twilio messaging app.

* Minimalist browser (no JS or CSS) maybe rendering HTML in various UIViews.</comment>


BugVM is free and an open source alternative to closed commercial RoboVM - <AUTHOR> http://bugvm.com/ <comment><USER2> Other's have said this before, so I'm not the first one to this party, but there is an annoying lack of front-facing information presented when you visit the home page. If somebody passed me a link directly to BugVM's website[1], or even to to their GitHub repo[2], I wouldn't have a clue what it was about.

[1]: [http://bugvm.com/](http://bugvm.com/) [2]: [https://github.com/bugvm/bugvm](https://github.com/bugvm/bugvm)

<comment><USER3> Absolutely agree. I've visited website and github, and still have no idea what is it</comment></comment>


A Man Who Made War on a Weapon - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/05/08/the-man-who-made-war-on-a-weapon/7b47ff0e-59df-4201-845c-d19b1597b395/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting. My understanding is that the Bradley served well in Iraq, taking out many Iraqi tanks. Did this article's criticism hold up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. The firestorm surrounding the Bradley led to a forced redesign. Sadly, most of this knowledge is inaccessible online, but here's the Wiki

> When testing the Bradley, however, disagreements occurred between Burton and > the Aberdeen Proving Ground's Ballistic Research Laboratory, which preferred > smaller, more controlled, "building block" tests. They claimed such limited > (and according to Col. Burton, completely unrealistic) testing would > "improve the databases used to model vehicle survivability", as opposed to > full tests with random shots that would provide a far more accurate picture > of its performance under real battlefield conditions, but produce less > useful statistical data.[11] In addition, Burton insisted on a series of > "overmatch" tests in which weapons would be fired at the Bradley that were > known to be able to easily penetrate its armor, including Russian ordnance. > Burton saw attempts to avoid such tests as dishonest, while the BRL saw them > as wasteful, as they already knew the vehicle would fail. The disagreements > became so contentious that Congressional inquiry resulted. As a result of > the tests, additional improvements to vehicle survivability were added.

Burton forced their hand. They retaliated by making him retire in disgrace, but his bureaucratic heroism saved thousands of lives.</comment></comment>


Simulating the World (In Emoji) - <AUTHOR> http://ncase.me/simulating/ <comment><USER2> > Note: It looks like your browser doesn't support emoji,

Excuse my ignorance, but aren't emoji just characters in Unicode or SVG? Why would my latest chrome browser not support whatever it is?</comment>


Gabe Newell about cliques and financial drive in their flat struct - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/spciZ46.jpg

<comment><USER2> Is this fellow Dr. Tani Newell's brother? She's a friend of mine, and told me that her brother made it big in video games.</comment>


Chrome 42 Disables NPAPI and Related Plug-Ins: Java, Unity, Silverlight - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/04/chrome-42-npapi?utm_campaign=infoq_content&utm_source=infoq&utm_medium=feed&utm_term=global

<comment><USER2> is google still trying to have standards go its way or hell with everything?

I don't almost see plugins anymore, but I don't like browser deciding for me what can I consume on the internet.

especially the unity player thing sucks. I know many indie that have a game demo delivered this way (i.e. [http://dinopoloclub.com/minimetro/](http://dinopoloclub.com/minimetro/) ) adn it's a quick, cheap way for them to get an audience (who'd install exes from random guys off the internet anymore?)</comment>


The Everywhereist's 25 Best Blogs of 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2075431_2075447,00.html <comment><USER2> If you don't want to click "Next" for each damn blog, here's the full list sans BS: [http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29...](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2075431,00.html)</comment>


A Simple Algorithm That Ants Use to Build Bridges - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-simple-algorithm-that-ants-use-to-build-bridges-20180226/ <comment><USER2> WOW, this is simple indeed, amazing how individual interactions shape collective behavior and form complex solutions.It would be even more fascinating to find out what the evolutionary path was that lead to this algorithm being picked from the presumably several similar algorithms. I am assuming similar interactions and simple instructions lead to fire ants in south america forming rafts during flooding as discussed here [1] , also it helps that ants can lift almost 5000 times its own weight [2]. Ive always been fascinated by ants and their social structure, first introduced to their amazing skills in Richard Dawking's 'The Selfish Gene' -[3]

1.[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1380471/Survi...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1380471/Survival- strategy-tropical-ants-form-living-raft-avoid-drowning.html) 2\. [https://entomologytoday.org/2014/02/11/ants-can-lift-up- to-5...](https://entomologytoday.org/2014/02/11/ants-can-lift-up- to-5000-times-their-own-body-weight-new-study-suggests/) 3\. [https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Popular- Science/dp/01928...](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Popular- Science/dp/0192860925)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for both those links. Both were super interesting to read about. Very cool to learn how an ant can come up with these solutions.

I wonder if different species of Ants have different solutions? Like a large species might be able to do something smaller ants cannot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And this is why we need to study emergent protocols. Emergence is the bedrock of nature and mechanics. Many seemingly useless nodes can do spectacular things with some very, very simple assumptions. The output space is huge. See, for example, Conway's Game of Life. Small parts and simple rules can lead to incredibly rich output.

This kind of thing is responsible for much, much more than ant behavior.

<comment><USER5> Human consciousness for one, I'd wager.

<comment><USER6> Your account is marked dead. Your comments are not very high effort, but its rude to shadowban you like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What does it mean for nature to implement an algorithm? That sort of language seems to smuggle in philosophical assumptions about the universe being mathematical, which would probably be a form of Platonism.

It's fine if we want to take math as literally being the stuff of existence, but not so great if math is just a map. Because nature doesn't use any maps, being that it is the territory.

<comment><USER8> > What does it mean for nature to implement an algorithm?

It means that nature, in this case the ants, perform the steps of the algorithm.

> assumptions about the universe being mathematical,

Parts of the universe can be modeled with mathematics. If you extend mathematics to include algorithms and not just equations or systems of equations, then even more of the universe can.

I don't follow what your confusion is, exactly. Could you try explaining it differently please?

<comment><USER7> > I don't follow what your confusion is, exactly. Could you try explaining it > differently please?

When we say that A is B, or A implements C, which B is known for implementing, and we don't caveat it as an analogy or model, then we're making an existence claim about A's nature. We're saying that A is fundamentally B stuff.

> It means that nature, in this case the ants, perform the steps of the > algorithm.

Does that mean an ant nest IS A computer? Does nature literally compute? Or is that just a helpful way of looking at things?

My point that the language of the article is smuggling in an ontological claim about nature. Maybe it's only meant as a useful mental model and not an actual existence claim. But maybe not. And some people will take it literally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nature is lit, seriously. I find this to be fascinating and just plain fun to read.

<comment><USER10> If you find this interesting, I'd recommend reading the SciFi novel Children of Time. Really, the less you know about the book the better. It's full of surprises.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> But how do the ants "dismantle" the bridge?

How do the last ants cross the gap? When and why do they start to break the bridge apart?

Or are the last ants simply left alone to find another way to catch up with the colony?

</comment><comment><USER12> When I learn of discoveries like this from the most humble creatures, it sometimes makes me sad because I start thinking of all the things we will never learn from the countless species we have made extinct.

<comment><USER13> But then I smile when I think of all the things we'll learn from the super AIs we'll have beneath the continental plates of the McKendree cylinders lining our circumsolar belt nations and Dyson swarms and shell worlds with trillions of times the surface area of Earth and that can last for trillions of years beyond heat death.

<comment><USER14> 'we will learn from super AI' you mean the AI will learn on their own for their own purposes, while humans dwindle to extinction

<comment><USER15> And our species will have birthed another. That's pretty damn cool in itself.

<comment><USER16> We want our children to surpass our own success. I don't see why a hypothetical race of artificial brain-gods would be any different, as long as they propagate our values and don't crush us.

<comment><USER17> That theme is explored in Hans Moravec's books: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Moravec](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Moravec) "In his 1988 book Mind Children (ISBN 0674576187), Moravec outlines Moore's law and predictions about the future of artificial life. Moravec outlines a timeline and a scenario in this regard,[6][7] in that the robots will evolve into a new series of artificial species, starting around 2030-2040.[8]"

Obviously, it's a complex topic with a lot of opinions. I spent time in Hans' lab in the mid-1980s. What concerned me is that, in our human ignorance and greed and hubris, we might instead get robotic cockroaches that wipe out humanity and then fade away. Or if we did get strong AIs they might wipe out humanity without noticing, and only a long time later reflect on their origins perhaps with regret.

I left robotics and AI in the late 1980s. That was after creating one of the first simulations of self-replicating robots (on a Symbolics) -- which accidentally turned cannibalistic until I added a sense of smell to avoid eating offspring. Someone from DARPA has also literally patted me on the back as a symposium on AI and Simulation where I presented on that simulation and told me "Keep up the good work". Although I was not sure if that was from my saying how easy it was to make creatures that were destructive (even if they were just striving towards an ideal) or my also saying how we should learn more about designing them to be cooperative.

I've since spent much of my time and energy based on the premise that our direction out of any singularity may have a lot to do with out direction going into one -- so we should make the Earth a place that works better for more people right now. Thus a garden simulator to help people learn to grow their own food (also needed in space habitats), and ways for people to share their stories (which help shape the values of the next generation), and aspiring towards better knowledge management tools in other ways, and creating ways for people to design an abundant tomorrow (like evolutionary arts of plant breeding and music breeding), and exploring alternative economic philosophy like on five interwoven economies (subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft). And also boiling it all down to my sig, which I hope AIs read and take to heart someday: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."

<comment><USER18> Thanks for wanting to make the world a better place and not help progress mutually assured destruction via weaponized AI r&d

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Slightly off-topic, but I just finished reading the section Ant Fugue [1] in _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ , and I think it's the most amazing chapter of any book I've ever read. In it, an anteater describes his relationship with an ant colony.

[1] [http://themindi.blogspot.com.au/2007/02/chapter-11-prelude-a...](http://themindi.blogspot.com.au/2007/02/chapter-11-prelude- ant-fugue.html)

<comment><USER20> Am I missing something? That appears to be _The Mind 's I_, not _Gödel, Escher, Bach_.

<comment><USER19> I haven't read _The Mind 's I_, but I can definitely say this passage (or something very much like it) is in _Gödel, Escher, Bach_. I searched on the internet for a copy of the passage and this was the best result I could find. Apologies for any confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Amazing creatures! Here is an incredible channel for someone who loves ants. Disclaimer: once you click, kiss-goodbye few hours of productivity.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONd1SNf3_QqjzjCVsURNuA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONd1SNf3_QqjzjCVsURNuA)

I always endup scratching myself when I watch these :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Thanks for the article. It's genius. Simple to understand, raises questions but inspire as well. Thanks !

</comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of Proverbs:

"Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest."

Ants have amazing distributed algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER24> Actual paper link: [http://www.thekaolab.com/inc/papers/graham2017.pdf](http://www.thekaolab.com/inc/papers/graham2017.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER25> Great! Now go figure out the algorithm that they use to collectively pull on leaves when building their nest ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> Something similar and equally, if not more, interesting behavior is displayed by the self synchronizing fireflies.

[http://ncase.me/fireflies/](http://ncase.me/fireflies/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I think this would make a pretty neat side project.

Has someone done this before? A google search gives a bunch of ant simulations, but I don't see any that include bridge building logic.

<comment><USER28> Garnier's lab has some software online. See down the page for links:

[http://www.theswarmlab.com](http://www.theswarmlab.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Mitch Resnick at MIT would love this!

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/turtles-termites-and- traffic-...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/turtles-termites-and-traffic-jams)

</comment><comment><USER30> Interesting topic but the title is misleading - the article concludes saying scientists still haven't figured out the algorithm. It would be nice if the title actually reflected the content of the article

<comment><USER28> It does. The article says: "Garnier's study helps to explain not only how unorganized ants build bridges, but also how they pull off the even more complex task of determining which bridges are worth building at all."

The final quote is from another researcher in a reaction quote about army ants. It's not clear what the context this other researcher has in mind. Of course 'they aren't as simple as we might think' is a pretty safe guess.

Here's the meat:

"To see how this unfolds, take the perspective of an ant on the march. When it comes to a gap in its path, it slows down. The rest of the colony, still barreling along at 12 centimeters per second, comes trampling over its back. At this point, two simple rules kick in.

The first tells the ant that when it feels other ants walking on its back, it should freeze. "As long as someone walks over you, you stay put," Garnier said." [the 2nd rule is less explicitly stated, so you need to read the article to get a sense of it]

<comment><USER30> "'We're trying to figure out if we can predict how much shortcutting ants will do given a geometry of their environment,' Garnier said." Garnier clearly states that they haven't figured out the algorithm. Then the separate researcher says "We describe army ants as simple, but we don't even understand what they're doing"

<comment><USER28> Then we disagree about what 'the algorithm' means. They have a bridge-building method, but can't reproduce the ants' decision on where to place them. Place the emphasis where you like to decide if they succeeded or failed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just imagine realizing this for the very first time.</comment>


Are mobile web apps slow? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmedia/2013/08/are-mobile-web-apps-slow/ <comment><USER2> Hacker news webapp for mobile - [http://hn.premii.com](http://hn.premii.com)

I wrote this client. It is as fast as most other native HN mobile apps, but mine works on iOS, Android browser, and windows phone 8. It also works on regular browsers.

I have wrapped this in hybrid app using phonegap, but only submitted to Google play. One day I will submit it to Apple too. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn)

But it is not a simple task to make fast performing HTML5 app that works on all mobile browsers.

<comment><USER3> By far the best web app I have ever used. Period. How did you manage to make it so fast? Also most web apps I pin to my home screen (not many) open in safari. how did you manage to get this to open it is own 'app'. It's not a part of safari, it has it owns icon in the app switcher.

+1000 KUDOS

I WILL be using this app a lot.

edit: More kudos for being a Wolverine like myself. Go Blue!

<comment><USER2> Thanks,

I am not using any framework, and using vanilla JS as much as possible.

If you add these meta tags, it will open as app.

        <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="black" />
        <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes"/>
        <meta name="apple-touch-fullscreen" content="YES"/>

And this for icon <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="email@example.com"/>

<comment><USER4> After adding the site to the home screen there doesn't seem to be any way to get back to your site after following a link to the full version of an article. Known issue?

Other than that issue, I'm very impressed with the site. The design and performance are excellent.

<comment><USER2> Yes that is a know issue and I don't know the best way to solve that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Q: "Are mobile web apps slow?"

A: "A web app's CPU budget is spent in three different buckets"

Q: "That... doesn't answer my question."

A: "Javascript is the puppet master of the browser engine."

Q: "That doesn't either."

A: "I'm the director of engineering for the Web Platform team at Adobe. I sort of have to write blog posts like this."

Q: "Ah, ok. No hard feelings then. You're in a tough spot."

A: "Yes. Yes, I am."

<comment><USER6> > Are mobile web apps slow?

A meaningless question. Slow relative to what? Slow for whom? What sort of app are we talking about?

<comment><USER7> Relative to native. Slow for users. A typical non-super-dynamic app. Use common sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> IMO it's not so much a question of performance, but of shaky browser support (especially on mobile) for things like real-time audio, video, vector graphics, and socket communication. Thankfully Adobe Flash / AIR really shine in these areas. It's sad that Adobe doesn't seem to realize it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes. [http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are- slow...](http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow/)

<comment><USER10> In fairness, the word should be "slower". Performance is always relative and/or subjective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I (strongly dis)like how the article's titular question actually goes almost completely unanswered throughout the article. The article seems like a round defense of Javascript's productivity and interoperability benefits, but the original article (Why mobile apps are slow) had almost nothing to do with those issues. If you are going to respond to someone else's essay, please at least address the prompt!

</comment><comment><USER12> This doesn't directly address web apps, but is a much more substantial rebuttal of some of the original article's claims: [http://www.excelsior- usa.com/blog/java/5plus-garbage-collect...](http://www.excelsior- usa.com/blog/java/5plus-garbage-collectors/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Drew's post was very well explained, and relied heavily on concrete examples. This rebuttal was very much the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER14> This article written to advocate current direction of Adobe, but fails on everywhere by evading single question on title.

</comment><comment><USER15> I also felt like he evaded the question he posed to himself.

</comment><comment><USER16> Yes, for the most part (relative to native apps).</comment>


Ask HN: What's a software program you WISH existed? - <AUTHOR>

For me it's a decent offline non web based/non browser specific bookmark organizer.
For example, I have thousands of bookmarks, but I'm not interested in backing them on a random website that might go down. Google bookmarks is good but it doesn't let you important all your bookmarks, you have to add them one by one.
I wish there was a program that let you import HTML/JSON files into it from FF, IE, Chrome, Safari, etc then had some good organization features almost exactly like firefox. It should also have the ability to delete duplicate links, organize links, put tags, create folders, etc.
It should also have the ability to sync with iphones so one could back up their iphone bookmarks onto the thing. <comment><USER2> As a nonfiction writer, I have always wanted to use computers to help make the writing process easier, and so far, the only tool for doing that has been computer-based outlining programs, which only go so far. There are many kinds of number-related processors--spreadsheets, accounting programs, income-tax programs, etc--but so far only two kinds of word-related programs--word processors and outliners. What would be the next step past these two programs? What would an "idea processor" look like?

</comment><comment><USER3> television.sh

<comment><USER4> Are there TVs that can run apps? Would be great to run "Shhh" app to mute commercials.</comment></comment>


U.S. Hopes "Internet in a Suitcase" Will Offset Internet Censorship - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/us_hopes_internet_in_a_suitcase_will_offset_intern.php#.TfcUonLSnvY;hackernews <comment><USER2> Let's hope the secret police don't have laptop computers and wardriving software, otherwise they'd be breaking in the door within minutes.</comment>


Reptyr: Changing a Process's Controlling Terminal - <AUTHOR> https://blog.nelhage.com/2011/02/changing-ctty/ <comment><USER2> Old skool fun!</comment>


Snowden decries Russian surveillance bill as dangerous, urges Putin not to sign - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/25/edward-snowden-decries-russian-surveillance-bill-d/ <comment><USER2> There is a man, standing for his ideals, even if it would cost him the last save harbor he had.

Now lets belittle that, so we can stop feeling small. And maybe, if all sides, put equally amounts of scrap on the scale, so it evens out, we might be able to lean back- and call the equilibrium "good".

<comment><USER3> No one is belittling his advocacy for his ideals even in Russia. I explicitly said the opposite. Him standing for his ideals, even and especially towards his hosts, does not however mean that we have to pretend that his host government shares those ideals.

<comment><USER4> Who is asking you to pretend? Clearly not Snowden - he's the one pointing out they don't!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's so weird to have so much negativity in HN comments towards Snowden. This guy should be our nerd hero. He was and he is risking his life, freedom and assets for solely calling out the US agencies on illegal activities.

<comment><USER6> This isn't too much negativity (2 or 3 top-level comments that aren't even purely negative, but just questioning his heroism) and they were downvoted into the ground.

Rest assured, HN is clearly pro-Snowden and doesn't question it.

I'm not impressed by Snowden because I've seen worse than NSA surveillance (communist Romania, my grandfather was beaten to death in jail for having an anti-government journal) and I don't think the US can fall down such a slippery slope that we need to worry about it at the cost of security and massive irony. The formula that makes oppressive countries oppressive through surveillance just doesn't exist here. Not even close. Even by modern standards, we're not even in the same league as Russia and China in terms of oppression via surveillance. We should probably stop it at some point but it's not at the top of my priority list right now, and I'm not worried we're going to fall off some metaphorical cliff anytime soon.

Anyway, to see Snowden in such a positive light requires thinking that stopping NSA surveillance is a top priority that should be done at any cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> He was front and center in russian media when he spoke about US — but without even checking, I can guarantee you that this will not appear on a single TV channel and will be downplayed in any media that decides to run the story.

<comment><USER8> [https://www.rt.com/news/348404-snowden-russia-terror- law/](https://www.rt.com/news/348404-snowden-russia-terror-law/)

<comment><USER9> RT is for external consumption; let's see what the mainstream media outlets have to say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm shocked! Shocked! To see oppressive surveillance expansion in Russia!

Good on Snowden for calling Putin out, but I don't think it'll mean anything. It is reassuring to see a reminder that his warm welcome in Moscow was just a diplomatic на хуй/fuck-you to the US. Reading some comments about Snowden made me think I had unwittingly Rip Van Winkled my way into some weird future where Russia was a bastion of individual liberty and respect for human rights.

</comment><comment><USER10> As if signing or not signing something in Russia mattered...

<comment><USER9> It does, quite a lot.

To not understand this is not understand the philosophy and ideology of the system by which Putin (and the heads of other modern hyper-autocratic states) operate.

<comment><USER10> Well, my country is affected by Putin/Russia actions an every day basis and I know that no matter what agreement they sign - they doesn't give a shit. It is something western elite can't understand.

<comment><USER9> Of course Russia routinely violates peace agreements with its neighbors. That doesn't mean these agreements don't have a significance in another, more psychological sense. In particular, that significance is:

"See? We got you to think you can feel safe in exchange for swallowing your pride and making major concessions to us. Then we attacked you again anyway. Now you're _really_ our bitch."

 _It is something western elite can 't understand._

Dividing the world between east and west, or thinking "westerners think in such-and-such way, they'll never understand our situation" \-- is exactly the mind trap that Putin and the secessionists in eastern Ukraine would love to have everyone fall in.

<comment><USER10> > "westerners think in such-and-such way, they'll never understand our > situation" \-- is exactly the mind trap that Putin and the secessionists in > eastern Ukraine would love to have everyone fall in.

Well, the future aside, I'm talking about it post-factum. So yes, so far the ineffectiveness of the west plays hand in hand with Putin.

<comment><USER9> _So yes, so far the ineffectiveness of the west plays hand in hand with Putin._

On that we definitely agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oh, Mr. Snowden.

Now you learn the nature of the bear.

Snowden, by revealing the surveillance on domestic inhabitants of the US did a service to his country, exposing overreach. However, turning over unrelated state secrets, to me was unnecessary and deplorable.

On the other hand, now he's learning Realpolitik and he's now a forgotten thorn. Moscow might be shopping him around, get him out of their craw. Who knows. But certainly meddling with internal politics of the regime will not procure favors, but from the decimated (not only as a metaphor) opposition.

Maybe he's itching to get out, or he's gone mad. This can't be a viable political move on his part.

<comment><USER12> >However, turning over unrelated state secrets, to me was unnecessary and deplorable.

Source?

<comment><USER3> He did exfiltrate more than the specific programs he had issue with and trusted Greenwald et al to differentiate between public interest or not, which I've heard as a pragmatism issue (filtering in situ exceeding risk tolerance). I have yet to see any evidence that he has turned any data over to Russia beyond what has been published for all. I'm sure Russia would _prefer_ he did, but that doesn't mean he did (or for that matter, that he didn't).

Just pissing off the USG is sufficiently explanatory for his being allowed to stay in Moscow, so I generally weakly hold the belief that he has not made extraordinary disclosures to Russia regarding things not published for public consumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "an unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights" in Russia? Shocking.

But seriously, will anyone relevant hear him? This type of thing is common in Russia and has been for a while. Snowden ran to hide in the mother of all government surveillance after blowing the whistle on government surveillance.

I'm not belittling Snowden; I'm belittling the amount of attention and respect he gets relative to the action and help he provides. He just sort of says things… that are unimpressive… from hiding… in Russia.

<comment><USER13> He was bound for Cuba via a safe route. What would you have done in his situation in Hong Kong, if preventing irony is your number 1 priority.

<comment><USER14> Cuba is also not very free in this regard.

<comment><USER15> bbcbasic was incomplete. He was bound for Ecuador, which had offered asylum. His planned to go through Moscow then Havana, but Cuba was not his final destination.

He was unable to carry out his plan because the US canceled his passport when he was in Moscow.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to find clients to start working remotely while you have a job? - <AUTHOR> I absolutely loved working remotely during the lock-down. I had way more freedom, had more sleep, sometimes had 12 hrs working days when I was in the zone and then having a Friday (or even Thursday too sometimes) off because I was so efficient during the week. And I was so efficient that I also finished some of my projects, and was learning lots of different things. I was just better.
Therefore, I want to switch to working remotely eventually (my job requires to be in the office).
I have free time in the evenings and weekends, and lots of energy, so I am prepared to work hard. I love what I do, and I am pretty okay at doing what I do. I work with Django, Laravel, and ReactJs. I can basically create the whole site.
Where do I start? I am fine with working for little money at the beginning just to grow the clientele.
Thanks a lot. <comment><USER2> If you want to freelance, the option of starting a company to do consulting is not to be dismissed. There's a difference between an individual and a company, even if it's only you. You could have very large organizations, including government entities, as clients which may not be thay easy to do if you are an individual. Repeat business is also interesting. The amounts you could charge are also so far apart. Whatever you imagine, multiply it by ten and go from there. It depends the field, too.

When you speak, it's the company, not the person who likes confinement because they feel so productive and have so much energy. It's the legal entity.

There are projects that practically one individual can do in less than a year for which you can charge a huge company say $300,000 to do. Depending your current salary, this can be a step down, though.

One caveat: not forgetting it's a company helps.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like you have three options. 1\. Talk to your manager to make working remote permanent. 2\. Find a job that is remote. 3\. Start freelancing, which is in my opinion the hardest of the three options since you will end up taking on a lot more than just writing code and have to hustle to get gigs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I want to do the 3rd. Where can I start getting gigs?

<comment><USER4> Depending on your skill level, Toptal is a good platform for freelancing

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot, will check it out.

I am pretty okayish. 5 years commercial experience, 10 yrs experience in general. I am willing to work hard to build clientele, as I said in the post.

<comment><USER4> This is more of a premium platform, years of experience matter less that what you can produce.

You will have to do less client building, as they have the ops side for both dev/co managed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best way to develop leads is in person during work hours at their place of business. To put it another way, what advantage would a potential client gain from hiring a stranger who only works nights and weekends? What additional advantage does the client gain from paying so little that it is easy for the stranger to find a better use of their time?

Sometimes first clients just fall into a person's lap and it is easy to bootstrap up a consulting business. Usually that doesn't happen. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> Add a comment to the monthly 'freelancer' thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring) It will be posted first work day of the month (June/1st) 9am California time.

</comment><comment><USER7> It seems like you have enjoyed your current job while working from home, but you just said: > my job requires to be in the office which doesn't seem true (you been able to work remotely during the lockdown)

Maybe the easiest way would be to talk to your manager and negotiate working remotely in your current job?</comment>


The Algebra of Algebraic data types - <AUTHOR> https://codewords.recurse.com/issues/three/algebra-and-calculus-of-algebraic-data-types/ <comment><USER2> A few remarks on this stuff.

1\. Very closely related is the pure-mathematical technique of _generating functions_ , where you take a sequence (let's say the Fibonacci sequence 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,...) and use its elements as coefficients in a power series (0+1x+1x^2+2x^3+3x^4+5x^5+8x^6+13x^7+...) and then notice that (e.g.) shifting the sequence by 1 is the same as multiplying by x, so if F is the series for (f(n)) then x.F is the series for (f(n-1)) and x^2.F is the series for (f(n-2)) apart from some corrections for very small n, which gets you F=(x+x^2)F+x or F = x/(1-x-x^2), and now you can factorize that quadratic and write F in the form p/(1-ax)+q/(1-bx) which immediately gets you an explicit formula for the Fibonacci numbers (the one with all the sqrt(5)s in it).

So let's translate this into algebraic data types. We get

      F(x) = x + x F(x) + x^2 F(x)
      data FibTree a = Leaf a | Pair a (FibTree a) | Triple a a (FibTree a)

and the number of FibTrees with n "a"s in is exactly the nth Fibonacci number.

(There is a theoretically important data structure called a _Fibonacci heap_ , but I don't believe there is any connection between these and these "Fibonacci trees" other than that in both cases there is something you can count with Fibonacci numbers.)

2\. Suppose you consider a rather boring binary-tree type like this:

      data Tree = Leaf | Pair Tree Tree

whose corresponding identity is T = 1+T^2, or T^2-T+1=0. If you're a mathematician you will quickly see that the solutions (in the complex numbers!) of this are sixth roots of unity; that is, they have T^6=1. This clearly can't hold in terms of types (it would mean an equivalence between 6-tuples of trees and objects of the "unit type", there being only one such object), but it turns out that T^7=T is "true"; you can find an explicit construction for it on page 3 of [http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9405205](http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9405205) if you like.

3\. It doesn't appear that the author of the OP ever got round to writing about negative and fractional types, but other people have. For instance, this paper [http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~sabry/papers/rational.pdf](http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~sabry/papers/rational.pdf) which I have only glanced at (it appears to do this in a more restrictive context where there aren't general ADTs with recursive definitions; negative types seem to involve running computations backwards somehow, and reciprocals are "constraints").

Apologies if I've got my Haskell syntax wrong anywhere.

<comment> alex-g Just as a breadcrumb for readers who are curious about the generating function stuff: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_species) (see also [https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~byorgey/pub/species- pearl.pdf](https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~byorgey/pub/species-pearl.pdf) for a nice FP-flavoured tutorial)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're like me, and you didn't immediately understand why the number of inhabitants for "a -> b" is "a^b", and needed help for the answer[1], then here's my solution to the author's question ("Why are there eight inhabitants of Tri -> Bool, but nine of Bool -> Tri? It helps to write out each possible function.").

The nine inhabitants of Bool -> Tri: [https://gist.github.com/acbart/5d3fdfd8d363af26a59c](https://gist.github.com/acbart/5d3fdfd8d363af26a59c)

The eight inhabitants of Tri -> Bool: [https://gist.github.com/acbart/c695355880a706a4ff59](https://gist.github.com/acbart/c695355880a706a4ff59)

Pedagogical note: If you're going to poise a question in an online presentation of material, try to have a solution (automatically checked or at least statically available). A huge part of learning is having the learner participate (which you did!) and then assessed.

[1] I got help from here, @tikhonj suggested this in another comment: [http://chris-taylor.github.io/blog/2013/02/10/the-algebra- of...](http://chris-taylor.github.io/blog/2013/02/10/the-algebra-of-algebraic- data-types/)

<comment><USER4> Hi acbart, thanks for the suggestion. This is now fixed. [https://codewords.recurse.com/issues/three/algebra-and- calcu...](https://codewords.recurse.com/issues/three/algebra-and-calculus-of- algebraic-data-types#fn:answer)

<comment><USER3> Very cool! Thank you for writing this article, I found it very helpful and extremely interesting. I also found it a very nice read in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A nice algebraic law that holds in data types is

        a -> (b, c) = (a -> b, a -> c)
        (b * c)^a = b^a * c^a

This is useful as common argument factoring and can optimize repeated function calls.

Another is the famous

         (c^b)^a = c^(b * a)
         a -> b -> c = (a, b) -> c

Which is curry/uncurry or the "product/exponential adjunction" in category theory.

Finally, consider

        a^b * a^c = a^(b + c)
        (b -> a, c -> a) = Either b c -> a

Which essentially says that given a tuple of functions we can choose which one we want to evaluate. Choose b and c to be unit and notice that `() -> a` is essentially `a` (after all, a^1 = a) and you'll have

        a * a = a^2
        (a, a) = Bool -> a

Which is the seed of a useful way of memorizing pure functions (look up memo- combinators for many more details).

</comment><comment><USER6> It's worth noting that if you take the expansion for List:

        L a = 𝟏 + a × (L a)
            = 𝟏 + a + a² + a³ + ⋯

and substitute 𝟏 for a:

        L 𝟏 = 𝟏 + 𝟏 + 𝟏² + 𝟏³ + ⋯
            = 𝟏 + 𝟏 + 𝟏  + 𝟏  + ⋯
            = 𝟏 + (L 𝟏)

you get ℕ:

        ℕ = 𝟏 + ℕ

The zero-power rule (x⁰ = 1) from classic algebra also holds; there is exactly one function from 𝟎 to any type (or in set-theoretic terms, from the empty set to any set).

There was an interesting paper on "closed semirings"[0] posted here a few days ago. Clearly, the product and coproduct on types form a semiring, and interestingly, List is the closure!

[0] [http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sd601/papers/semirings.pdf](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sd601/papers/semirings.pdf)

<comment><USER7> Actually I just realized that the law does not hold, the type `Void -> Maybe Void` has two inhabitants, not one:

f1 x = Nothing

f2 x = Just x

<comment><USER8> `Just x` cannot be constructed since there is no `x` which is has type `Void`.

<comment><USER5> Well, there's the one in context that does! Except this function can never be called in an empty context so you ultimately are stuck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Worth noting that this isn't why they are called algebraic data types, which was a mistake I made for a while.

The "algebraic" in algebraic data types refers to this notion of "algebra": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_algebra#Use_in_Compute...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_algebra#Use_in_Computer_Science)

</comment><comment><USER10> As someone new to this I have to say the first paragraph doesn't do a good job at introducing the concepts. I was completely lost in how to read this. Isn't + == "or" and x == "and" like in boolean algebra? What does 'either' even mean here, if not 'or'? So then why is the Bool type 1 + 1 == 2? Shouldn't it be 1 + 0 == 1 if you want to map the possible states? Same question for "maybe" that seems to work like in Rust or Swift - shouldn't it be a + 0? If not, what does "a or unit" mean? So many questions...

<comment><USER11> Take a look at this other blog post[1] with the same title, which I think does a better job of explaining the core ideas.

[1]: [http://chris-taylor.github.io/blog/2013/02/10/the-algebra- of...](http://chris-taylor.github.io/blog/2013/02/10/the-algebra-of-algebraic- data-types/)

<comment><USER10> Thank you, that clears lots of things up.

Edit: Wow, even currying is explained nicely. This blog entry is pure gold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> (Formal) differentiation also makes sense for grammars, and in particular gives rise to an interesting way to match regular expressions.

<comment><USER13> The paper introducing this concept is [1] but was long forgotten. Recently the use of derivations to implement regular expressions has become popular again, see e.g. [2].

[1] J. A. Brzozowski's, "Derivatives of Regular Expressions", [https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=321249](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=321249)

[2] [https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~so294/documents/jfp09.pdf](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~so294/documents/jfp09.pdf)

<comment><USER6> >Recently the use of derivations to implement regular expressions has become popular again

And they're not limited to regular languages; with the right computational tricks (lazy evaluation, coinduction, whatever you want to call it), it can be used with context-free languages in general: [http://matt.might.net/papers/might2011derivatives.pdf](http://matt.might.net/papers/might2011derivatives.pdf)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Getting Started Again After 2 Decades - <AUTHOR> I'm posting this, because... well I don't know how to get going again.  I've been doing tech for a long time; I've done operating systems, back end things, cloud things, security things... basically all the things.  I've also only ever worked on closed source - and had contracts that prohibit things on the side - all legal in the jurisdictions I've worked in.
I've also never had a resume - ever.  For 25 years jobs, consulting, and whatever has just worked out. It also means that I literally don't know what to do now.
I've moved to another country. There's no tech here, and no network to speak of. Remote boards seem to mostly be not remote, or "yeah it says remote, but we want you here".  My other favourite is "oh, you're not American, sorry".
So how do you get started?  How do you write a resume that matters in tech? How do you get people to even notice you anymore, or to grab their attention?
I'm now at wits end, especially with the collapse of worldwide markets. <comment><USER2> I can help you build a resume. I got the last dev without a resume hired last week(now he has a resume). Contact info in my profile.</comment>


WinAPI.SetDIBits()."How to align DWORD the scan lines on a byte-stream image?" - <AUTHOR> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd162973(v=vs.85).aspx <comment><AUTHOR> How can one transform the array "lpvBits" passed to the API function SetDIBits() in order for every line to be DWORD aligned? If the image width, in points (pixels) of the input stream lpvBits is a multiple of 4, this is done automatically, but when not, it needs transformation. Adding the reminder of the division of the image width to 4 to every stream of bytes for every line seems not to resolve the problem.</comment>


Ask HN Sole Proprietors and Freelancers: How do you manage your money? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a freelance programmer, and I've got an incredibly cumbersome bookkeeping method:
1) Money comes into my business PayPal account or 2Checkout account
2) I log in at the end of the day and move money from PayPal to Chase Business Checking (2Checkout does this automatically once a week)
3) I log in at the end of every two weeks and move my "salary" (just enough to live on) from Chase Business to my Chase Personal account.
Of course, this is a pain in the rear to keep track of, and my calendar is littered with notifications to move money around. Obviously, this is suboptimal. Checking my finances themselves is a little better, since I've got Mint and InDinero at my disposal, but I can't use either to transfer money around.
So, HN, how can I streamline this? <comment><USER2> Step 3 might be the only thing to automate - does your bank offer scheduled transfers?

I'm not sure there's much more streamlining you can do - it's likely not really all that much work.

Personally I tend to just deposit all incoming money in to a few accounts, then periodically (every month or so) move some money to personal for living expenses. I'm not paying myself a 'salary' as such - it's all 'pass through' on to my personal tax forms anyway (was sole proprietor, now have an llc for some work).

The accounting stuff - keeping track of what money comes in and out - clients, contractors, etc - I'm using outright.com for the bulk of that. I guess I just don't see it as that much of a pain - certainly not enough to streamline.

Perhaps migrating to a payroll service would be useful to you? You might then have to worry about having enough in the 'business' account to cover the payroll, such as it might be.

</comment><comment><USER3> Contact Paypal customer service and tell them you want them to "auto-sweep". They can do this but they don't make it obvious.</comment>


Assassin's Creed Pre-Order Offer Leaves Girl Gamers Out  - <AUTHOR> http://rachaelcarmensimpson.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/amazon-leaves-girl-gamers-out-in-the-cold/

<comment><USER2> > _"This is just proving that higher up someone thinks women don't play games, > and definitely don't pre-order them." said Eleanor._

If it's true that someone chose to not include female cloaks then that person needs a slap.

But isn't it possible that no-one actually made the conscious decision to exclude female gamers, and that they just didn't realise that the cloak came in male and female versions?

<comment><USER3> Or that they initially thought it was unisex but when they actually tried it on the female model the IK came out looking wrong in some obscure case. Or it had unexpected tearing issues. Or they had a fixed release date and couldn't get the female version finished in time, or .....

Still a stupid decision. They probably should have just scrubbed both. I'd wait until we get word back from the publisher before trying to work out what actually happened and if it was, in any way, dishonerable.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Huffington post version of the post includes an update about Amazon and Ubisoft's response: [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/rachael- simpson/assassins-cr...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/rachael- simpson/assassins-creed-pre-order-leaves-girls-out_b_1103908.html)

Basically, they sent download codes directly to those who complained but no word on whether anything was actually changed.</comment>


New Hire to First Commit in Minutes - <AUTHOR> https://www.lob.com/blog/new-hire-to-first-commit-in-10-minutes#1

<comment><USER2> I like it but on boarding is about more than how quickly you can get a person to where they can commit. I'd like to hear more about how and more importantly how long it takes for you get a person to a place where they are committing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Enforced 100% test coverage? Hope they never want to use Java, or they will be writing some awesome getter and setter tests...</comment>


Ask HN: Do wellness incentives help employers save money on taxes and insurance? - <AUTHOR> Trying to understand how wellness incentives work -- What's in it for employers, from a monetary benefit standpoint? Do they save up on taxes or insurance costs? (If yes, how does it work?) <comment><USER3> If you look a little deeper, the foundation of the concept of "Wellness Programs" is to raise all rates paid by employees across the board, then provide discounts for behaviors that are approved (basically sharing PMI data with a 3rd party). In the US this is because - to my understanding - <USER2> prevent insurance companies and companies from 'discriminating' in their pricing. As in, they can't penalize most people for simply being unhealthy (vs. legal to penalize for tobacco use) so the way to soften the bottom line effect is to raise everything and give discounts.

In my experience there is simply surface-level masking by calling it a "Wellness Program" instead of a data collection healthcare discount program, because a lot of lifestyle changes needed to promote genuine health aren't really incorporated. As in, healthier diet of fresh foods, better rest at night, free access to exercise facilities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the insight. I think you bring a very good perspective to this.

Although I am not very sure, what you really mean by saying "a lot of lifestyle changes needed to promote genuine health aren't really incorporated"...do you mean the employers don't promote them? Or the incentives you are relating to don't fall under the "wellness program" benefits in general to receive a credit/discount (from the standpoint of insurance companies)?

<comment><USER4> I think he means that they promote the aspects of wellness that are easily observable, because these are the things that an insurer pays attention to when setting a price.

For instance, an insurer won't take any interest in your diet, because that's hard to measure, but they will take a keen interest in your BMI and cardiovascular fitness.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a privacy invasion scam. At a previous employer they wanted to track our steps and our GPS location and also wanted us to record every glass of water we drink.

It's a disgusting ruse. I don't care if they were going to give me $300/yr, my privacy is worth more than that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Orthogonal issue but here is what I think -- While I agree that privacy is of great concern, I do think the way to approach this would be with more frequent health checkups. Our body is the best marker at the end of the day to measure our healthiness. Everything else doesn't matter, which is also the reason the allure of wearables is wearing out. (It's great, but what do you do now that you have all this data that you have gathered?)

<comment><USER5> They also gave "points" in this reward system for recording visits to doctor, dentist, proving you had an annual physical, etc.

I'm sorry but while it's great to encourage that behavior it's not my employer's not my insurance company's business to know these details about my healthcare.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. In your case, it looks the ratio of info/value is really high. Honestly, this is the first time I have heard such an exploitation of personal health related data from an employer. Was this a large org? (Would understand if a small startup did this..perhaps lack of know-how. Still very alarming though.)

<comment><USER5> Yes, a large org; an electrical and gas utility company.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh man, that sucks to hear. I'm not sure if it's even legal for the employer to collect personal medical info (if you have a family covered under the insurance, potentially exposing theirs as well)...insurance companies might want that kinda info to determine the premiums. Do you know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not necessarily an expert in this, but myself and my team just finished building a wellness product for a company that provides wellness portals for other companies. Yes, they save on insurance costs. A lot of big companies run their own insurance plans and are able to negotiate better rates and credits if they can simply show that:

1\. They provide a way for their employees to build healthy habits

2\. As a result, if their employees complete certain milestones, (such as filling out Personal Health Assessments or attending screening events) they can get discounts.

I imagine this would become more sophisticated in the future, maybe providing better rates if a company can show that their employees are consistently improving their health year over year.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much. Is there any documentation online that you know of which has more information?

<comment><USER6> I don't unfortunately. The discount/credit requirements can vary a lot from what I've seen though. Some companies require you to do certain things like track certain vitals, while others just want a PHA filled out. Those goals are usually passed on to employees in the form of gift cards/cash in order to incentivize them to actually do these things. The product we built was effectively a CMS that allows it to be customized for each client.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. From your info, I was able to surface that there could be tax implications (if the incentives are offered as non-fringe/taxable benefits), from an employee standpoint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Insurance companies usually offer benefits. Many plans offer reimbursements for gym memberships, discounts for companies that drug test, etc.. Moreover, the average cost of an group is a function of the health of its members--the healthier the company can get it's employees, the lower premiums are for everyone, because its less risky to insure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Do you have any specific advice in terms of how this "better incentives-better rates" thing works?

<comment><USER7> Typically when you shop around for insurance, your agent will make you aware of whatever benefits/incentives are available to you through the specific plans. In terms of keeping overall cost of your plan down, just do whatever you can to make sure they don't get sick/go to do the doctor and use insurance. A high deductible would be beneficial, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (Hope this helps someone like me.) Here is a link I was able to find that throws some light on Tax Benefits/Implications: [https://www.shrm.org/legalissues/federalresources/pages/fede...](https://www.shrm.org/legalissues/federalresources/pages/federal- tax-implications-wellness.aspx)

Still looking for info on Insurance Benefits. (That seems to be a murky area....any info would be very helpful.)

<comment><USER8> I have been meaning to look into this area for a while so pleasant surprise to see this on HN. I don't have particular insight on this particular topic but I am working on startup to improve wellness and reducing friction to access of care. Feel free to shoot me an email (firstname.lastname@example.com) if you are interested in this area as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I put this in the same category as that snooping device insurance companies want people to install in their cars (tracks speed, breaking, etc). It's optional till it's not.

To put it another way, it's only optional till its prohibitively expensive to maintain your privacy.

I think both of these should be banned at the Federal level before they become too pervasive. The slope is too slippery.

</comment><comment><USER10> I will attempt to answer your question directly, rather than going off on a tangent or creating some nuanced, "deeper insights," response - since by my reading of the responses so far, I see people writing very emotionally toward what they perceive are the ills embedded in the system. Everyone already knows that healthcare is screwed up in the US, right?

Take the case of an employer with 50,000+ employees. Why 50,000+? Because as of mid-2015 this is the only set of employers where the economics have shown that wellness programs create an ROI. Below that, accountants have not been able to demonstrate a clear economic investment across the board, it is much more on a case-by-case basis. So if you are below 50,000 employees, the answer to your question would be, "In general, there is nothing in it economically for employers, other than they feel good, their HR department is being hornswoggled by salespeople, or they have done some clear, good accounting with a record of wellness programs going back years which have demonstrated some positive correlation between better health and some indicator for the bottom line of their business."

If you are talking about the 50,000+ employee category, then in general there are economic benefits which can be proven in the world of accounting.

Health insurance companies (or more appropriately termed, Health Management Organizations, HMOs) quote out a given employer's rates based upon the risk pool made up of all of the employees. There is little to no leak of information between the HMO and an employer, because the information used is classified as Personal Health Information (PHI), which has very strict standards for how it is stored, the loss or misappropriation of which is a felony that can result in prison time. The employer does not see this PHI - that information is shared between healthcare providers (hospitals and clinics) and the HMOs. So when an employer goes to an HMO to get a quote, the HMO takes all of the PHI they have on the individuals within that employer's organization, and creates a quote based upon how they see that risk pool.

If an employer with a large number of employees, let's say Nationwide Red Dot Retail Store, Inc. (NRDS Inc), partakes in a given wellness program, they will receive a discount on that underwriting based upon the types of wellness programs they provide for their employees. These discount offerings are determined by data scientists and project managers who work at the HMO, and are geared toward maximizing profit for the HMO. For example, those data scientists may find that by offering people $20 to all employees to participate in a health survey, the number of smokers within that pool of employees goes down by 0.5%, which means that the cost to cover them goes down by 1%, which means they would offer some discount less than 1% to NRDS Inc. However, the accountants and data scientists at NRDS Inc., are no dummies, so they may take a look and see that their employee turnover rate is X%, so that particular offering doesn't make sense of them economically, because by next quarter they will have a whole new set of smokers they will have to pay money to, as a part of the wellness program, only to have them leave 3-4 months later.

Wellness programs are meant to use psychology to trick, not force, people into changing their health habits. People do not react well to being forced into things. Americans particularly, do not react well to being forced into things. You may read some other responses to this question giving you an impression that people are being penalized for their decisions and choices.

Here's a straw-man argument for you: let's say there was a country called, "Amazing Programmerlandia Island," and you could hire the most incredible, genius, friendly programmers who know tons of languages to help you with your startup there for $10/hour. There's just one problem. About 50% of them love to do Crocodil, and it is illegal to check whether they are addicts before you hire them, and illegal to fire them just because they do Crocodil, and you have to pay for rehabs. Would you take any opportunity you could to, "hack," the system and try to lower the number of potential Crocodil addicts in your employee pool with some back-door system? Of course you would, this is Amazing Programmerlandia we're talking about here, tons of money to be made for just a tiny investment!

This spurious example basically demonstrates the mindset of HR departments when they buy into wellness programs. The economics change based upon the size of the company, and the numbers a company may have - it is not an, "across the board thing."

To find out more about the ROI of Wellness Programs, I recommend you Google individual companies names, and reports on the ROI from that particular company, from that company's point of view, not from the HMO's point of view, or from an independent paper (from a place like RAND) or from the Government. I could see the Federal Government funding studies which support wellness programs regardless of their true ROI, and asking the HMOs what they think is like askign the fox to guard the chicken coop.

There is no real tax benefits that I am aware of for engaging in wellness programs, the potential returns are only based upon lowered underwriting costs - although if I am wrong on that, please correct me.</comment>