The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night - kitrose
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/y3m33x/heres-the-shadow-inc-app-that-failed-in-iowa-last-night
======
nooron
I started a company that was asked to write a proposal to make what became the
app that failed last night. I declined because it was outside of our core
skillset. You can read my prior comments or look at my profile to validate
this. If you want my perspective as someone who started a Democratic software
company, you should keep reading.

This app emerged from a mandate to make the caucus more accessible and
transparent. It was well-intentioned but underfunded and lacked comprehensive
organizational buy-in. Introducing tech can help but you have to spend tons of
money to make it reliable and usable, then you have to spend more to train
everyone in using it. This is a problem organizations of all sizes and shapes
face when making massive IT changes.

Shadow is a firm that makes custom software for Democrats and progressives. It
has an unnecessarily sinister name. There are not a lot of companies that make
software for Democrats because it’s an awful job. You make very little money.
Everyone hates you when things go wrong, which they will, because the product
testing cycle and margins are nonexistent. Then everyone will assume things
went wrong because you are some combination– you choose– of secretly evil,
secretly working for Bernie, secretly working for The Establishment/Hillary
(per someone's unpersuasive Imgur post below), or secretly working for
Buttigieg.

Others have noted that Shadow also made software for the Buttigieg campaign.
If you take my claims above as true, this should be unsurprising to you: a
hard market where everyone hates you and no one has money to pay you is not
attractive to enterprising software engineers, so there are few firms
available to choose.

~~~
war1025
I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I
heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this
morning on the radio.

That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which
seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-
hours, or 15 man-weeks.

That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this. Especially
since I assume it wasn't just a single person doing the coding.

People don't realize that software is expensive and a custom built application
is probably not the correct choice for a single-use product. I'm sure whoever
was in charge felt that $60k was a quite generous offer to build this. In
reality it's basically nothing.

I used to have acquaintances approach me and say, "Hey I've got this great app
idea you could help me with."

The response I found shut them down real quick was, "Great. Do you have $100k
lying around to get the first beta out the door?"

~~~
wenbin
The two founders of Instagram spent $65k (out of $500k they raised) to launch
the very first version of Instagram in 2010 [1].

[1] [https://lnns.co/8zhgtOF0YCo](https://lnns.co/8zhgtOF0YCo)

~~~
9935c101ab17a66
So what? What's your point?

~~~
phonon
That they should have used Django for the backend :-)

------
3uclid
Checked their LinkedIn and the employees who work there. The founder is non-
technical and there are two developers: one who is a "back-end intern" and the
other is a front-end developer (both are fresh from bootcamps).

...Yikes.

~~~
thedance
The career path of prep cook -> software certification mill -> wrecking
american democracy is the best thing I've ever seen.

~~~
eagsalazar2
For most software development work a bootcamper is just as likely to be a
solid team member as someone with a CS degree after a few years of good
industry experience. They key issue isn't that they are bootcampers but that
they are _fresh_ bootcampers with no more senior people around to guide the
project or mentor them. (similarly a fresh CS grad is fairly worthless in
serious production work and will not improve much if they don't get the
opportunity to work on serious projects with great sr devs and leadership
invested in mentoring them)

~~~
mardifoufs
A fresh bootcamp graduate can be a good developer, but I would argue that
someone fresh off of bootcamp is way less prepared than a CS grad to directly
start working in a small team with mostly non technical people. A CS grad is
usually way more knowledgeable when it comes to software architecture,
handling data, optimization etc. Bootcamps usually focus on specific stacks
and tools, which can be great. But that means almost no skill/knowledge
outside of that specific stack

~~~
unlinked_dll
My experience has been the same with fresh grads from everywhere. There's a
non negligible amount of work to get them up to speed with business
communication and task definition.

Basically schools give you assignments or projects that are well defined and
have clearly defined goals/results and cover solved problems. While that's
true in the generic sense of business problems it's not how we work, we have
to be able to take initiative to define and adjust those goals as reality
shifts and goals are more loosely defined. You really have to put it the work
to get new folks up to speed with defining their tasks to reach the goals.

Not for nothing but it's tough when you don't have a senior or two on hand to
bring people up to speed and mentor them for a month or two before you can
really get a new grad productive. And it's difficult with time constraints to
do that well, I have to define my own tasks and can't spend as much time
defining things for a junior as well as I'd like or train them as much as I
should.

College grads may be more blank a slate but I haven't noticed a big difference
in terms of actual onboarding. For what it's worth I think boot camps are the
next trade schools and we're going to see a division in labor between software
techs and engineers just like we have for electrical engineers and
electricians or MechEs and mechanics. Tale as old as time, all the work is
valuable, just more nuanced.

------
skrowl
I'm picturing the Dos Equis meme saying "I don't always test, but when I do, I
test in production. Stay on call, my friends."

At least now I don't feel bad about when I test in production. (just kidding,
I didn't feel bad before).

~~~
jpindar
The app was sent out through the free version of a beta testing platform.

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21122737/iowa-
democractic-...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21122737/iowa-democractic-
caucus-voting-app-android-testfairy-screenshots-app-store)

~~~
gruez
Why? Ponying up $100 for a developer certificate is too much?

~~~
asdff
It is when you workhorse dev is an intern I guess...

------
LargeWu
If there's any good that comes out of this, it's that people will hopefully
see the value of physical paper ballots or records.

~~~
coredog64
There always was a paper trail. The purpose of the app is/was to send a set of
numbers from the precinct to central.

~~~
redisman
I'm kind of amazed at how it failed. 1,681 precincts in Iowa - that data could
fit on a floppy disk.

~~~
Aperocky
IKR? And for all options they may end up with, they chose an APP. WHY? Does
laptop not exist anymore? Does phones lack the ability to open webpages
anymore?

Hasn't logging in been one of the things we perfected over 30 years?

~~~
johannes1234321
Yes, if you want to have a small tool for volunteers without logistics of
shipping machines, laptops don't exist anymore. Developing desktop software
for such purpose is way more complex, especially when considering updates etc.
Which Windows version are you targeting? And Mac? What libraries you need?

For app development, even if for two platforms (Android and iOS) it is a lot
simpler these days, than desktop.

~~~
Aperocky
The alternative is web, not desktop.

~~~
johannes1234321
The GP asked "Don't laptops exist anymore" to that I answered. And no - a
webapp isn't an alternative for those crappy laptops, filled with viruses,
outdated browsers, and/or weird privacy plugins the (grand-)son installed are
not an alternative. (We could argue about requirements of integrity here ...
an app can offer a little bit more than a webapp on an arbitrary windows PC
... But integrity can be guaranteed by having the second channel (other people
watching and then comparing published results) as there is no secrecy involved
(for one we talk about summaries, for second caucuses are public anyways))

------
geoff-dot
What did this app do exactly? It was just a reporting app, I'm assuming that
the source data collected, albeit perhaps in different formats, lived
somewhere else and that there wasn't a lot of data or a lot of variations.
From my understanding it seems there was an Auth0 redirect issue, but why
wasn't this just a night of taking the source data and doing scripting then
shipping out the reports via a secure DropBox type service? We've all be there
where an ETL job fails, since it isn't critical (e.g., financial transaction),
it wasn't tested every which way and we just had to some scripting.

Even if it is, say, 500TB of data, in 300 different formats usually those
formats aren't drastically "different." Maybe I'm not understanding what the
application was supposed to do to not understand why this wasn't solved every
quickly. Or maybe given the timeline it was solved quickly once the right
people got involved and figured out what needed to be done.

------
altitudinous
$50000 for a mission critical, scalable app? They got exactly what they paid
for.

I would have written an app that doesn't work for only $25000

~~~
wizzard
Alternatively, they could have paid IBM a billion dollars and still gotten an
app that didn't work. At least they saved some money?

~~~
altitudinous
Well, at least if they paid a billion dollars they could have had an
expectation that the app would work, and they could sue IBM if it didn't.
Indeed at that $$$$$ they would have been ripped off though!!

At $50k they certainly weren't going to get what they wanted delivered, and
they have no-one to blame but themselves.

------
padseeker
Shadow has got to be the worst name for a company associated with politics,
unless you want to rub it in everyone's face

~~~
js2
I’m truly astounded that anyone thought this was a good name and took the time
to write this marketing copy:

 _Why Shadow?

When a light is shining, Shadows are a constant companion. We see ourselves as
building a long-term, side-by-side “Shadow” of tech infrastructure to the
Democratic Party and the progressive community at large._

[https://shadowinc.io/about](https://shadowinc.io/about)

~~~
conanbatt
That makes it even worse.

~~~
hcknwscommenter
Really? They're basically saying: 'shadow' is your 'buddy' who is always there
for you. So, we want to be that.

In retrospect, it sounds bad but really, it's just a nothingburger.

~~~
cma
Given the party tried to make them hide their name, can we really only say it
is retrospect?

------
JackRabbitSlim
I'm all about Hanlon's razor but naming the ticking time-bomb of a voting
software startup "Shadow Inc." seems a bit too on the nose to be pure
stupidity.

Everything about this reeks of a publicity stunt to "ruin" electronic voting
in the public eye.

------
jessaustin
More info:

[https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/04/pro-israel-buttigieg-
seth...](https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/04/pro-israel-buttigieg-seth-klarman-
iowas-voting-app/)

~~~
eldarian
That's not a reputable source in any way, please do not promote conspiracy
sites.

~~~
jessaustin
...says the greenbean account. Blumenthal is an excellent reporter, and all of
his reporting is extensively sourced. The article linked above is liberally
peppered with links to sources, several per paragraph. If there's anything
there you doubt, you can just click through.

------
pmoriarty
How long will it take our society to realize that democracy is threatened when
machines are involved in voting or vote counting?

Going back to voting exclusively by ink on paper and hand counting is
imperative.

~~~
jariel
Paper ballots with scanned results in the booth. No scan means redo your vote.
That way you have a track record + instant results.

Folks can take home the stub to ensure non-repudiation etc..

They can look up the serial number on the stub they take home to see for sure
it was recorded.

FYI we should also have basic ID requirements for voting. The arguments
against it are kind of ridiculous, and federal or state ID should be free.

There should be no 'voter registration' required either: the state knows your
address and that's that.

For lighter elections like city alderman, you can use your ID + passcode to
SMS or email your vote.

Maybe make a law requiring that any tech used for legal voting has to get the
thumbs up from the NSA or some super amazing agency that is also secular in
nature. None of this 'quickie app for voting' rubbish.

At this point, I hate politics so much, I think every nation needs a
'caretaker' Pres/PM from the bureaucracy - someone who can clean out the
cobwebs, get rid of a bunch of old laws, clean up the tax code, take on the
public unions (I mean reform not destroy, I mean teachers probably need higher
salaries) and basically do a big, operational house cleaning that has nothing
to do with politics.

~~~
nl
_At this point, I hate politics so much, I think every nation needs a
'caretaker' Pres/PM from the bureaucracy - someone who can clean out the
cobwebs, get rid of a bunch of old laws, clean up the tax code, take on the
public unions (I mean reform not destroy, I mean teachers probably need higher
salaries) and basically do a big, operational house cleaning that has nothing
to do with politics._

You realize that every single thing you said there is political, right?

~~~
BubRoss
Why would an operational house cleaning be political?

~~~
nl
I'm going to assume good faith here, and answer it seriously.

> "clean out the cobwebs"

This isn't specific enough to respond to.

> "get rid of a bunch of old laws"

Which ones, and why? Sure there are probably some like where people can tie up
horses or something that aren't especially relevant, but having them there
causes no harm because they aren't used.

> "clean up the tax code"

There is no way to do this without creating winners and losers. Choosing who
wins and who loses is a political act.

> "take on the public unions"

Taking on unions is one of the most political acts you can do. Whether or not
it is "right", unions are a powerbase of some political groups.

> "operational house cleaning that has nothing to do with politics"

What - specifically - do you mean? The two examples you give here are highly
political.

~~~
BubRoss
I only asked why operational house cleaning would be political

------
WheelsAtLarge
This app failed because no one did enough testing and enough training. What I
saw was a relatively simple app to input some data. The problem seems to have
been that they never tested it at scale and they assumed that all the users
would be able to download it and use it.

My experience is that customers hate to pay for testing once they see the
product running. They assume that it's done. I had a customer tell me that if
I did the programming right it should always work and testing should be
minimal. I had to explain to him that that's not the case with software and
testing is one of the most important parts of the software development cycle.
He felt it was a waste and that I was looking to add extra costs for no
reason.

I bet there was not enough money. People seem to feel that a few grand will
cover the costs. They figure 10k is an outrageous amount. What they don't seem
to understand is that it will barely cover the costs of planning the app.

Both the developers and the people that approved the app for use need to take
responsibility. Too bad since it could have saved a lot of money and time in
the long run.

BTW, this could have been a Google Form with a spreadsheet as a back end. But
user training would have still been an issue. You can't get around that.

------
tmpz22
This should really be getting more attention, here is an alternative
breakdown:
[https://imgur.com/gallery/ycOC0HX](https://imgur.com/gallery/ycOC0HX). The
jest of it is one of the most important institutions in the United States (the
Democratic National Committee) uses a highly nepotistic and incompetent system
for managing IT which leads to colossal failures in marketing, canvassing, and
security. Not to mention massive PII violations as millions of emails, phone
numbers and SSNs, are passed around in plain-text via CSV files.

The reason this happens is because hundreds of millions of dollars are lit on
fire during election season and all the sharks, including former Google
employees, come out to swim. Even well intentioned projects get slammed by the
crunch of the election season (seriously try shipping a well scaled app in < 2
months with terrible product direction) and ultimately fail - failing the
needs of the entire citizenship of the country.

After the success of Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns even more money was
funneled into IT as a sort of perceived silver bullet. But in 2016 it wasn't,
and yet no analysis was done to correct the problems for the 2020 cycle -
because the decision makers (all these "CTOs") are clueless fucks who are just
there for the money and could care less about the integrity of our democratic
system.

\- in 2016 I worked for one of the companies in this niche and saw the
bidding/sales/engineering processes first hand. FWIW I am a life long
democratic voter and this makes me sick to my stomach.

~~~
tptacek
The DNC doesn't run the Iowa Caucuses.

~~~
sbierwagen
Tell that to Tom Perez
[https://twitter.com/jeffzeleny/status/1225472426894647296](https://twitter.com/jeffzeleny/status/1225472426894647296)

~~~
sbierwagen
Now it seems the DNC also needs to be told it as well:
[https://news.yahoo.com/shadow-inc-idp-contract-dnc-
documents...](https://news.yahoo.com/shadow-inc-idp-contract-dnc-
documents-224407455.html)

------
code4tee
I don’t agree with the use of an app here for many reasons. That said, such an
app would basically need secure authentication and a form to upload some pre-
templated numbers.

It seems pretty hard to screw that up so badly but clearly it’s quite easy to
make a complete dumpster fire from those requirements.

~~~
stevenwoo
From this article,

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21122737/iowa-
democractic-...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21122737/iowa-democractic-
caucus-voting-app-android-testfairy-screenshots-app-store)

they used the a free tier of TestFairy that limited the number of test users
to 200 and on iOS used TestFlight and did not use either the app store for the
final version or make an enterprise version, and possibly could not distribute
the app to the approximate 1700 users. They still would have needed to get the
app through the app store approval process for general release to fix the app
at least on the iOS side as far as I understand it. To fix it quickly would
have just required them to go back to calling in results by voice as in past
years. Don't know why they did not just do that.

~~~
SyneRyder
_> To fix it quickly would have just required them to go back to calling in
results by voice as in past years. Don't know why they did not just do that._

They did that - but apparently the phone number for calling in the results was
the same as for "help my app doesn't work", so the phone line was flooded.
Unfortunately I don't have the source link to hand, so feel free to treat that
as hearsay.

However, CNN had a live cross to someone trying to call in their results, and
after an hour on hold, when they finally got through, the other side hung up
on them while they were broadcasting live on air:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/04/iowa-
caucus...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-cnn-
sebastian/)

 _" It took an hour and a half for Shawn Sebastian to get hung up on in 10
seconds. And it unfolded on national television Monday, making the moment, in
the words of some, “one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen on cable
TV.”"_

------
meristem
A small drop in the sea of technical problems: did anyone design the app to
work for ages 20-90? People well in their 80's work caucuses.

Ok, did anyone actually _design_ the app?

------
fuqmachine
According to multiple reports, the vote counts entered into app and sent were
not what was received by HQ. How do we know that the company wasn't paid to
change the numbers on the backend? How would the numbers change by themselves?
I'll be called a tinfoil-hatter for assuming malice.

------
EGreg
This is why we need to start using Byzantine Fault Tolerant distributed
systems to vote via our mobile phones. No need for a voting holiday or
standing in line. Bigger turnout, too. If it's secure enough for banking apps,
why not for opt-in voting via app.

Maybe it's too hard to move to electronic voting nationwide. But every
organization has governance and could use an electronic voting system based on
BFT consensus of mutually distrusting parties. Vote using an app, it gets
stored "on-chain", then you can check it on another app.

------
trianglem
I think the great problem of our age is that UAT is nothing like production.

~~~
ulkesh
This makes a pretty big assumption that UAT was even done. Or rather, UAT ==
production in Iowa.

------
smoyer
Are we irrigating our crops with Brawndo yet?

------
abetlen
This Motherboard article has more details on the app including screenshots
[https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/y3m33x/heres-the-
shadow-i...](https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/y3m33x/heres-the-shadow-inc-
app-that-failed-in-iowa-last-night)

My favorite screenshot is the last one, it looks like a generic mobile Firefox
error for a misspecified URL.

~~~
oblib
Wow! That provides some great info on this. Still leaves me wondering if the
end result wasn't by design though. It's kind of hard to buy into the "Opps"
explanation.

~~~
abetlen
It certainly could've been done by design but I think more likely this was a
doomed project from the start. They rushed this app out with too little time
for testing.

I don't want to speculate too much on that screenshot but it looks like they
have an error in their Auth0 integration. When you use a service like Auth0
you give it a redirect url to send authenticated users to. It looks like they
passed in an invalid url for that redirect. Maybe they only tested this 2fa
step locally and something was different when they deployed to users' phones,
I can't say for sure, but it doesn't look good.

------
tmpz22
This should really be getting more attention, here is an alternative
breakdown:
[https://imgur.com/gallery/ycOC0HX](https://imgur.com/gallery/ycOC0HX).

The jest of it is one of the most important institutions in the United States
(the Democratic National Committee) uses a highly nepotistic and incompetent
system for managing IT which leads to colossal failures in marketing,
canvassing, and security. Not to mention massive PII violates as millions of
emails, phone numbers and SSNs, are passed around in plain-text via CSV files.

The reason this happens is because hundreds of millions of dollars are lit on
fire during election season and all the sharks, including former Google
employees, come out to swim. Even well intentioned projects get slammed by the
crunch of the election season (seriously trying shipping a well scaled app in
< 2 months with terrible product direction) and ultimately fail - failing the
needs of the entire citizenship of the country.

After the success of Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns even more money was
funneled into IT as a sort of perceived silver bullet. But in 2016 it wasn't,
and yet no analysis was done to correct the problems for the 2020 cycle -
because the decision makers (all these "CTOs") are clueless fucks who are just
there for the money and could care less about the integrity of our democratic
system.

\- in 2016 I worked for one of the companies in this niche and saw the
bidding/sales/engineering processes first hand. FWIW I am a life long
democratic voter and this makes me sick to my stomach.

~~~
dang
Please don't post duplicate comments to HN. In addition to lowering the
signal/noise ratio of the site, it creates a big pain when we go to merge
threads (as happened here).

If you want to refer to something you said elsewhere, please use a link.

~~~
tmpz22
My bad, I got emotional over the content discussed and just copy-pasted the
content because it seemed like the original thread would be eclipsed. I'll
make sure not to do it in the future and in general have a great appreciation
for the work you do moderating HN - I imagine it is quite stressful at times.

~~~
dang
Much appreciated! And no worries—similar things happen to everyone and we're
all learning.

------
everdrive
"[topic] was supposed to [perform action on] X, instead, it may have
[performed in inverse action]."

------
allovernow
The owners and staffers at Shadow INC have a severe conflict of interest. The
company is loaded with former Clinton staffers and the CEO sent a tweet in
support of Buttigeig, who recently paid tens of thousands to the company.

Other suspicious dealings are a premature victory announcement by Buttigeig's
campaign and a leak of a picture of paper tallies which included a PIN
allegedly used to login to the tally app. Looking for the tweet now...

>[https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/02/04/shado...](https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/02/04/shadow-
hillary-staffers-n2560675)

Edit: I'm not necessarily trying to suggest anything, but I'd like to point
out that this post went from +10 to +2 in a matter of minutes.

~~~
sl1ck731
Should a company's employees/CEO have to be apolitical? I'd be surprised if
there is such a company where none of its employees are involved in politics
in any way. Especially if its a company whose sole purpose is developing
software for a political party.

~~~
allovernow
No, but until recently it was professional to keep your politics private and,
more importantly, when there are inconsistencies disproportionately favoring
an otherwise less popular candidate, public support from employees and
especially the CEO, in conjunction with a money trail, these personal
indicators of bias become relevant for justification of suspicion.

~~~
jmull
How is this even helping Buttigieg?

There doesn’t seem to be any indication this was anything but a regular
screwup. Throwing around suggestions of a vague conspiracy looks unwarranted.

You’re suggesting that to avoid suspicion companies providing services to
political campaigns must be apolitical and to have never previously provided
services to a candidate in the race or any previous opponent of a candidate in
the race. How could that even be possible?

~~~
jessaustin
_How is this even helping Buttigieg?_

The count has been frozen at "62%" for six hours now. That just happens to be
the first/only level at which "Mayor Pete" had a delegate lead over Bernie,
even though Bernie still leads the popular vote. Several days from now, when
the count ticks up to 100%, Bernie will lead both measures by large margins.
Still, in the meantime, the corporate media can pretend like the Mayor is
ahead. They know he's going to bomb in SC worse than Biden bombed in Iowa, but
they're hoping that somehow they can get him to "Super Tuesday" when the other
Mayor can take over for him due to his 9-figure ad spend.

Of course, the idea that the perfect candidate to beat a vain old NY rich guy
is another vain old NY rich guy _who also banned soft drinks the last time he
held elected office_ is risible, but they don't care about that. The point is
to ratfuck any candidate who might plausibly do fewer stupid wars.

~~~
jmull
But your scenario doesn’t actually help Buttigieg. Also the app people can’t
control the timing of the manual reporting, so there would somehow be a
completely new element of the conspiracy. And you’re switching from a
conspiracy orchestrated by Buttigieg to one orchestrated by the corporate
media, Bloomberg, and/or the industrial military complex.

~~~
jessaustin
Buttigieg is 38 years old. His previous jobs were with McKinsey and "military
intelligence" and his previous election total was 8,000 votes. He isn't trying
to _win_ the presidency. Iowa itself is a tiny state with a tiny number of
convention delegates. The whole point of Iowa is that the winner gets some
momentum. In this case, the winner won't get any momentum. That's the point.

Some people like to bore us with the "once is a coincidence" maxim. Some of
them might like to pretend that this caucus is "once" and we'll have to wait a
week or two to get upset about the ratfucking. Normal voters can remember four
years ago, however, and this isn't even just the fourth time the national
"Democratic" apparatus has ratfucked Bernie.

------
generalpass
Should Google or Apple take the app off the app store? Seems like a scam...

~~~
bluGill
An app like this should not be on any app store ever. You want only pre-chosen
people to have access to the app. It does no good for anyone else to have
access to this and it can hurt.

4 years ago I had the Republican app on my phone. I was the backup reporter
just in case the main reporter had problems. Since the main reporter used the
app correctly I didn't use it, but I had access to it.

~~~
csours
Access to install the app MUST not constitute Access to the system behind the
app.

~~~
bluGill
I agree, and there was more security. However access to the app implies the
ability to DoS the remote with too many login attempts... Restricting access
to the app was just one layer in the security scheme making it a little harder
for someone who wanted to mess with the system.

------
killjoywashere
Is it just me, or is the money just draining away from the economy right now?
It's like we were all splashing around in the ocean and suddenly everyone is
noticing that their toes are touching the bottom, and there's a few people
standing on the steps, floaties on, looking around at us in horror.

------
mindgam3
Let me get this straight. A company deeply embedded in the Democratic
establishment (0) that has worked directly with Buttigieg — the candidate with
close ties to Facebook aka the company undermining democracy since 2016 —
managed to totally screw up, potentially undermining the campaign of Sanders,
the anti-establishment candidate.

Yeah, democracy is fucked.

0\. [https://theintercept.com/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-app-
shadow-a...](https://theintercept.com/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-app-shadow-
acronym/)

~~~
hodgesrm
If you are arguing a conspiracy of some kind it is probably best to rule out
incompetence before moving on to active malfeasance. This is after all the
same political party that managed rollout of the non-functioning Obamacare
website.

~~~
ballark
Please provide a reason why incompetence is any likelier than malfeasance.

~~~
asdff
Because for malfeasance you need to be smart and clever and for incompetence
you need to be dumb or just tired that day and write a typo.

~~~
boring_twenties
For malfeasance to remain undiscovered you need to be smart and clever.

For the kind of malfeasance that concatenates an SQL query with user input and
then shows the whole thing to the user in an error message, you don't need
that.

------
nyounker
This is ridiculous. Paper. Use a Paper as the true vote. Cross check after
that. I have read so many comments on here up-selling the ability of
technology but no one in this thread has the answer. It's apparent.

Do the paper vote - as it was always done. Let our technology analyze it
afterwords. Why are we all trying to put our technology in front of this
simple device. of paper.

You all know this rule = "make a single application do one thing well."

Again, this is ridiculous from a Credibility sense. Paper + networks, Paper +
mobile, forget the paper, Mobile only, Mobile + scale. Where are we at? No
where and much less. Just take a paper vote and tally it. Is that so hard?

------
oblib
I think the author's take on this is a bit heavy with hyperbole, but there's
no doubt Iowa was a mess last night.

My son was there working as volunteer, and so was his ex-girlfriend, who's
still a close family friend. I was chatting with them both throughout the
evening and into the wee hours this morning.

They worked different locations in the Des Moines metro area and the results
they reported to me were pretty close to the same in both.

I'll say this about it, it's hard to imagine that less than 4500 calls to a
server over the course of an hour or two would "crash" it, or even ten times
that number. And that I think an SQL db is a poor choice for an app like that.

CouchDB, or most any open source "nosql" db, would've been a better choice
and, really, so would a dead simple flat file db to store the data for each
precinct in and those are both very easy to build for something as simple as
this.

And they didn't even need an "app" per se. All they needed was a password
protected web page with a dead simple form.

What happened makes it a bit difficult to avoid pondering if the delays
weren't deliberate. Whatever the case may be, the DNC is who ended up taking
it on the chin.

~~~
mdavidn
Any database should work just fine for this application. 1678 precincts. 11
candidates. 2 rounds. That's 37 thousand records to fully represent
everything.

~~~
oblib
With CouchDB you could have all that data in 1678 human readable files.

Or 1678 password protected databases with one or more human readable files in
them and let CouchDB handle user auth, which CouchDB makes really easy.

You could do the same thing with a simple flat file database using directories
and files and system level user access, and it'd be very fast too.

This is pretty much the kind of thing CouchDB is designed for though and has
tools built-in to make it easy.

~~~
ars
I have a feeling you haven't used SQL databases very often.

This is exactly the kind of thing that SQL database is shine at and noSQL
databases do poorly.

~~~
oblib
> I have a feeling you haven't used SQL databases very often.

No, I've not. I just never liked the way it worked so I have to honest and
open about my prejudice.

> This is exactly the kind of thing that [...] noSQL databases do poorly.

That's really not true. I've built web apps that do pretty much exactly what
that voting apps does and I use CouchDB to do it because it was built
specifically for this kind of thing, and it makes it very easy.

That's not the same as saying SQL won't work. Or even that it's a bad choice
by design if it's what you're familiar with and good at using it.

How much time have you spent with CouchDB?

I do know that those coming from a long history of using SQL dbs often have a
hard time using CouchDB. I had a hard time with SQL, so maybe it's a right
brain/left brain kind of thing. Or maybe it's just not really wanting to learn
a different way to do what you already know how to do with a different tool.

I chose to use a hand rolled flat file database early on (around 2000) as a
backend for my web apps. When CouchDB hit v1.4 I switched to it because it
worked very much the same as my db and offered a lot of advantages. It's
gotten a lot better over the years since too.

So yeah, my view comes from a different perspective.

~~~
nl
(Not the person you are replying to, but..)

I've used CouchDB on and off for some years[1], although I've used SQL
databases for longer. I've also used NoSQL databases ranging from MongoDB to
Cassandra, Hadoop, BDB (and variants), DynomoDB, etc.

CouchDB (or any other NoSQL database) just isn't the best choice here. The
application is literally tables of relational data with multiple simultaneous
users which is pretty much the perfect use case for a SQL Database Server.

[1] Since 2010! Wow that's a lot longer ago than it seems. [https://mail-
archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/couchdb-user/20101...](https://mail-
archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/couchdb-user/201011.mbox/browser)

~~~
oblib
"The application is literally tables of relational data with multiple
simultaneous users"

How is this data "relational"?

Each precinct has 3 numbers to submit for each candidate, that's not a big
task for one person, and none of those precinct's candidates numbers are
related to anything else in the db except the grand total of all precincts
numbers and that's a one way relationship. The grand totals never change any
of the data they're derived from.

If you want to give each candidate's precinct representative access to the
precinct's db in CouchDB than you just limit their access to one file for
their specific candidate in a db for their specific precinct, so by design
it's purposely not related to any other candidate or precinct.

That's why CouchDB is a good choice for this kind of app.

~~~
nl
> How is this data "relational"? Each precinct has 3 numbers to submit for
> each candidate

The numbers relate to each candidate. It's that simple!

~~~
oblib
That is just silly. Reminds me of the old saying; "When all you have is a
hammer everything looks like a nail."

------
marcell
My coworker has an alternate theory that frankly makes a lot more sense than
“the app broke.”

The Iowa caucus is not a paper ballot. People stand in groups in a large
multipurpose room and raise their hands for who they vote for. Depending on
the viability threshold, people move to new groups and are recounted.

The exact rules are complicated and the process is run by unpaid humans.
Moreover, in 2020 everyone has smartphones to post embarrassing mistakes on
social media. And this year is a very crowded primary for the democrats,
raising the chance for error.

Under this theory, the app is a convenient scapegoat to hide the fact that the
process is inaccurate and bad. For politicians this seems pretty convenient.
Who would you rather blame, and decades old tradition or an app contractor?

~~~
neonate
I don't think that's a better theory. The process may be 'bad' but it has been
that way, and worked, for a long time. As far as we know, the new ingredient
was the app.

~~~
jandrese
There were some confounding factors, like an apparent day-of decision to
require the caucuses to report the results of every vote cast, not just the
last one. This led to considerably higher data requirements in precincts where
multiple votes were necessary to reach consensus. The new requirements were
apparently not reported to the staff until around noon on the day of the
election.

As anybody can tell you, nothing sinks projects faster than changing
requirements late in the development cycle.

The app also sucked for another reason. Lots of Iowa is rural and cell
coverage can be spotty. The app was designed with the all too common
assumption in this day and age that the Internet works everywhere.

~~~
coredog64
The extra information has been known since 2016. Bernie (or his campaign)
asked for it as a means of providing additional transparency into the process.


The James Golick Grant for Women in Computology - juliehache
https://jamesgolick.bitmakerlabs.com/

======
lotp
this is great, donated


Ask HN: Why doesn't HN open submitted links in a new tab? - anilm823

A bit trivial, I know, but I've always found it slightly annoying to have to press the back button to return to HN or explicitly right click and open the link in a new tab myself.  Why doesn't HN automatically open external links in a new tab?
======
dangrossman
Hold control when you click to open a link in a new tab. You can also middle-
click if you have a mouse. Hold shift and click to open in a new window. Where
a link opens is in your control, as it should be.

~~~
anilm823
I'm aware of the ways to force open a new tab, I was just curious as to why
this wasn't the default. IMO, it provides for a friendlier user experience.

~~~
dangrossman
If a website forces a new tab when you don't want to open a new tab (as I
don't), that's not friendly at all. There's no easy way to override that
behavior, while it's easy to get the behavior you want.

------
wmf
Because that's how it was done in Web 1.0. Also, I always thought sites
created new tabs for "stickiness" which is not an issue on a non-pageview-
whoring site.

------
jwillgoesfast
I agree, In general I prefer a new tab, its what has become "conventional" for
better or worse, but its also nice to be able to navigate a few pages deep on
the linked site, then just close the tab to get back to HN quickly.

~~~
anilm823
My thoughts exactly. Call it sheer laziness, but the fact that the linked site
is not opened in a new tab prevents me from navigating too deep into the
linked site.

------
zoowar
Configure it in your browser and move on with your life.


Apple Park's tree whisperer - steven
https://backchannel.com/apple-parks-tree-whisperer-6badcef983e9
======
sapote
There have been so many articles about the trees planted in the new Apple
campus, and how this was somehow groundbreaking, but it's actually been pretty
disappointing. I've seen some lists of trees, especially fruit trees, that
they've planted, and it's pretty uninspired -- they didn't Think Different.
Lots of pomes (Apples, Pears, etc.) and stone fruit (Plums, Cherries, etc.) --
conventional varieties too. And they talk about drought tolerance, but I
haven't seen a single mention of them planting White Sapote, a fruit perfectly
adapted to the local climate, delicious, and very productive (not to mention,
rare). Or various Guava relatives (Lemon / Strawberry Guava, Guabiju,
Pineapple Guava, etc.). And that's just scratching the surface...

I wish they would have talked to the local chapter of California Rare Fruit
Growers to plan an orchard with a true diversity of interesting fruit. They
had an opportunity to include a huge diversity of fruits and cultivars with
the space they have, but it seems like they're not going to.

~~~
matt4077
I believe they were looking only at plants native to California, and from a
quick search it appears at White Sapote's and Guava's closest native
populations are in eastern Mexico. I don't necessarily agree with being this
strict in the requirements, but I think it's within the realm of being
legitimate–although I'm not sure how "native" Apple, Pears etc. are to
California.

I've also read that to some degree they were recreating a specific landscape
that Steve Jobs grew fond of when growing up. That doesn't really help anybody
alive today, but if I were involved in the decisions, I wouldn't interfere
with his wishes unless unavoidable.

~~~
sapote
None of the fruit trees they are planting are native to California.

If they wanted to plant native edibles they'd be stuck with a pretty limited
selection of berries and nuts.

Edited to add: White Sapote and Avocado are about as close to native fruit
trees as you can get in California. Apples, on the other hand, are native to
Kazakhstan.

------
Gravityloss
I've visited a park here that has living trees that were planted by a wealthy
retired officer, to be sail ship masts. Now would be about harvesting time,
some 100 years later. It's a nice place though.

I applaud their efforts. Seems it's just impossible to let the environment be.
First everything absolutely just must be destroyed, and then, years later,
somebody must spend a lot of effort and time to actually try to make it "nice"
again, and they won't see the results in their lifetime anyway.

~~~
matt4077
"A healthy society is one where old men plant trees they'll never eat from".

~~~
gadders
A similar (probably apocryphal) anecdote about an Oxford University college:
[http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-beams-new-college-
oxf...](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-beams-new-college-oxford)

------
atourgates
I can't believe that this is the first time anyone's ever brought up plating a
macintosh apple tree. I mean, if you have the opportunity to make a pun in
tree form, how could you not?

~~~
nicky0
McIntosh, isn't it?


Tim Cook Appears Alongside Trump in Re-Election Campaign Ad Shot - mrzool
https://daringfireball.net/2019/11/cook_trump_campaign_ad
======
ablomen
"A low moment in Apple’s proud history"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.#Criticism_and_contr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.#Criticism_and_controversies)

I think Apple has done a lot worse in its "proud history" and is still doing
it.

~~~
me_me_me
It's as if corporations were guided by only one principle make money, a lot of
money.

------
nabla9
There has not been any change in how big tech companies deal with hard
decisions. It's just people who ate PR, brand management and empty corporate
speak about values getting getting deserved reality check.

Without a doubt Tim Cook is very strongly socially liberal and anti Trump as
long as it's does not hurt business opportunities or the future of Apple.

~~~
coldtea
> _Without a doubt Tim Cook is very strongly socially liberal and anti Trump
> as long as it 's does not hurt business opportunities or the future of
> Apple._

So in every way except those that don't suit him!

------
microtherion
Disappointing. Even beyond the question of malfeasance, there should be at
least three _policy_ areas I can think of off the top of my head that Cook
should be opposed to:

* Constant disruption of international manufacturing and trade relations with a chaotic assembly of policies (as Paul Krugman has pointed out, each individual policy you can, in principle, adjust to. But policies changing on a weekly level are impossible to plan for: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/opinion/trump-economy.htm...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/opinion/trump-economy.html))

* Anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric making it harder to hire from abroad (one can debate whether this benefits US workers—I would argue not—but it's certainly not in Apple's self interest).

* Anti-LGBT policies and rhetoric. It's admirable that Cook consistently avoid making things about himself, but I think you ought to draw the line at collaborating with politicians who question one's very right to exist.

~~~
docdeek
> It's admirable that Cook consistently avoid making things about himself, but
> I think you ought to draw the line at collaborating with politicians who
> question one's very right to exist.

Does Trump really question the right of gay men like Cook to exist?

------
H8crilA
Holy shit, right after Trump said that "Apple may be exempt from tariffs".

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/trump-a...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/trump-
apple-tim-cook-exempt-from-china-tariffs-factory-tour-2019-11)

~~~
coldtea
Correlation does not imply causation /s

------
Grue3
The main alternative seems to be Warren who openly proposes policies to
dismantle Apple, among other companies. So it makes sense that he'd go all in
to prevent her from being elected, it's his fiduciary duty after all.

~~~
333c
> Warren who openly proposes policies to dismantle Apple

I don't think this is true. Can you provide a source or quote from her?

~~~
Grue3
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/9/18257965/elizabeth-
warren-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/9/18257965/elizabeth-warren-break-
up-apple-monopoly-antitrust)

"Apple, you’ve got to break it apart from their App Store. It’s got to be one
or the other. Either they run the platform or they play in the store. They
don’t get to do both at the same time. So it’s the same notion. "

~~~
dariusj18
I wouldn't say that goes so far as to "dismantle" Apple, but it is definitely
a proposition to affect perceived anti-competitive practices. I am not sure
where I come down on such question, can you describe the benefits and
drawbacks of Apple controlling the App Store?

------
Schoolmeister
From the guidelines on what to submit to HN: "If you had to reduce it to a
sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual
curiosity."

This does not fit that criterion.

~~~
happytoexplain
Don't you think it's insulting to tell a crowd of people that they are not
intellectually stimulated by something? I don't find it intellectually
stimulating either, but I wouldn't declare something so personal and
subjective as factual ("it's not" vs "I don't think it is" or "it isn't for
me"). It's antagonistic for no reason.

~~~
jbob2000
This is a blog post about a twitter post about a picture. The whole article
can be reduced to "tim cook good, trump bad, why in picture together?". HN
cannot become reddit, we have to hold our bar higher than blogspam about
politics.

------
kresten
A smart Silicon Valley leader plays The President well.

That is all.

~~~
coldtea
If the President is re-elected partially thanks to that, then it's the
President who played the "smart Silicon Valley leader".

Or rather, it's two smart people making alliances of opportunity to get what
they want...

------
yabadabadoes
It sounds like fact checked news, but is it?

I would hate to give anyone mentioned in this article an example of the time
they were falsely accused of something by an actual fake news source.

[https://daringfireball.net/2019/10/correction_regarding_an_e...](https://daringfireball.net/2019/10/correction_regarding_an_erroneous_allegation)

~~~
mcphage
> It sounds like fact checked news, but is it?

Um... which bit do you think is wrong?

~~~
yabadabadoes
So this is the new fact checking, after the outrage machine is in full swing?

I think everyone has seen how this works with alt-right social news blogging,
and we've already seen this blogger feed the flames with false accusations
retracted later.

I don't agree with the likes of Zuckerberg (though I think even he is
backtracking) that fake news can be algorithmically detected precisely due to
this example blog. There is no proof of work in fact checking, so outraged
"left"/"right" bloggers is worse than no information.

If there's something to feed to the media do so, if there's something to feed
to special prosecutors or the SEC even better.

~~~
mcphage
> So this is the new fact checking, after the outrage machine is in full
> swing?

No, like I legit don't have any idea what you're talking about, or if you're
even responding to the right article.

The claim:

Tim Cook Appears Alongside Trump in Re-Election Campaign Ad Shot in Mac Pro
Plant in Austin

The fact check:

The first line of the linked article is to the video tweeted out by Trump:
[https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/11973161062364815...](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1197316106236481539)

Beyond that, I have no idea where you're going with this.

------
buboard
This topic will go down very well.

------
Reason077
Perhaps there's some "quid pro quo" going on here? Tim appears in Trump's
campaign ad, Trump rolls back trade tariffs that could affect Apple?

~~~
mc32
The kind of quid pro quo that happened when I gave apple money and I got a
phone in return?

------
AlexTWithBeard
But why do we think the real Cook is "left-wing" and the hypocritical one is
"right-wing", not the other way round?

------
zozbot234
inb4 Tim Cook changes his name to Tim Apple

------
thathndude
But we all know Tim Cook didn’t like a second of it. He’s balancing his
personal feelings with his duties of loyalty and care (he owes to Apple Inc).

Tim Cook is doing the best he can in a garbage situation. He’s not rolling
over for Trump, but he’s also not antagonizing Trump (which I know a lot of
people want to see).

Cook’s being savvy. Cook is crushing it. Gruber got this take wrong. Gruber is
letting political feelings infect _his_ job as a journalist.

~~~
mcphage
> Cook’s being savvy. Cook is crushing it.

This isn't being savvy. This is realizing you were on the receiving end of
another "I'd like you to do a favor for us though".

------
kgraves
So what?

Flagged. This isn't very intellectually stimulating and a poor take to say the
least.

I wish HN just sticks to tech instead of politics all the time.

~~~
atypicality
"Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam
or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them
instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
kgraves
ok sorry dad.

------
nextstep
People constantly act so surprised when liberals in the business community are
tolerant of fascists, but this is naive and just shows how unfamiliar someone
like Gruber is with historical events.

The New Yorker just published a great piece about exactly this:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/11/liberalism-
acc...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/11/liberalism-according-to-
the-economist)

~~~
DavidSJ
Criticism does not imply surprise.

For if it did, we’d have to assume that you are surprised by behavior you
yourself describe as constant. And I don’t believe you are.


Hello darkness my old friend - mariorz
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/08/12/year-of-what-now
======
dmpayton
I completely sympathize with Mark. I was an Apple hater for years, and was
ecstatic when I discovered Linux (Ubuntu 7.04) and could move away from
Windows as well.

Then a good friend of mine convinced me to get an iPhone. I was hesitant at
first, but after trying one I decided to go for it.

Then I got a job where my choices were a MacBook Pro or a Dell with Vista.
Three guesses which one I took (the first two don't count).

I must admit OS X is really nice, and full Unix compatibility is a huge plus.
Still... _sigh_

[Edit: missing period]

~~~
elai
Full unix compatibility without easy, comprehensive & working BINARY package
management (like debian, or archlinux) is still a big pain in the ass. Setting
up something like the mysqldb library, mod_python, apache, and django can be a
1 hour production vs. the 5 minute production that it is on linux.

~~~
dmpayton
Agreed, package managers are a godsend. That's why there's
<http://www.macports.org/> and <http://www.finkproject.org/>

------
tptacek
I can't modify the firmware image in my Bosch engine ECU, even though doing so
could significantly improve the performance of my car. Mark is right. Nobody
gives a shit.

------
mariorz
iPhone owners who do care about Freedom 0 will just jailbreak the thing
though.

~~~
tptacek
... and Apple will do whatever they can to brick those phones, and in the arms
race that follows, it's a coin flip as to whether Apple will win (like DirecTV
did) or lose (like Microsoft did with the first Xbox).

~~~
mariorz
I don't think Apple is as pressed to fight this war as DirecTV was.

Also you can jailbreak the thing without additional hardware which wasn't
possible in the DirecTV scenario. I doubt that we'll see jailbroken iphones
going away anytime soon, the process is becoming effortless even for non-
hacker types and the benefits are obvious (even if you've never heard of
Freedom 0).

~~~
tptacek
I don't know if Apple feels pressed. It's hard to say if, long term, you'll
need hardware to jailbreak an iPod. I'm just pointing out that there is a bit
of hubris in the jailbreaker mentality --- it is not, from a CS perspective,
an unsolveable problem to make jailbreaking more effort than it's worth.
Apple's got a lot of smart people.

------
burp
....

------
tidra14
Haha

Awwwwww


The Prostate Cancer Test That Saved My Life - satysin
https://medium.com/@RedHourBen/the-prostate-cancer-test-that-saved-my-life-613feb3f7c00#.w388qoi1s
======
bryanlarsen
I am not a doctor, but a Gleason score of 7 is not considered a high-
grade/aggressive tumour according to cancer.org.

It's certainly possible that the intervention saved your life, but I'm highly
skeptical. I think it just caused you unnecessary stress and trauma.

"Every old man dies with prostate cancer. Nobody dies from it." is the saying
I've heard. Obviously it's hyperbole, but the core is valid.

~~~
surfmike
IANAD but from what I understand the PSA test has a high false positive rate.

~~~
CWuestefeld
After the third year of steadily increasing PSA scores, my doctor was
concerned even though it was below the official "get worried" mark because of
my relatively young age and the trajectory.

I went to a urologist, got a request for the MRI which the insurance company
denied, and so had to follow up with the very unpleasant biopsy mentioned in
the OP (including missed work, pain, peeing blood). All for the result to come
back completely negative.

That was last year, and as luck would have it, this year's PSA score dropped
significantly.

I don't know whether I'd say that I'm not glad to have a definitive negative
answer, particularly since my father had prostate cancer. However, this false
alarm did cost an appreciable amount of money, time, and suffering.

~~~
zwieback
You're the classic argument against heavy PSA screening at a young age.
Statistically it's probably a net negative what we're doing right now. My PC
was actually caught with a digital (as in "finger") test, then followed up by
a PSA.

------
hadley
> Prostate cancer screening did not significantly decrease prostate cancer-
> specific mortality in a combined meta-analysis of five RCTs. Only one study
> (ERSPC) reported a 21% significant reduction of prostate cancer-specific
> mortality in a pre-specified subgroup of men aged 55 to 69 years. Pooled
> data currently demonstrates no significant reduction in prostate cancer-
> specific and overall mortality. Harms associated with PSA-based screening
> and subsequent diagnostic evaluations are frequent, and moderate in
> severity. Overdiagnosis and overtreatment are common and are associated with
> treatment-related harms. Men should be informed of this and the demonstrated
> adverse effects when they are deciding whether or not to undertake screening
> for prostate cancer. Any reduction in prostate cancer-specific mortality may
> take up to 10 years to accrue; therefore, men who have a life expectancy
> less than 10 to 15 years should be informed that screening for prostate
> cancer is unlikely to be beneficial. No studies examined the independent
> role of screening by DRE.

— [http://www.cochrane.org/CD004720/PROSTATE_screening-for-
pros...](http://www.cochrane.org/CD004720/PROSTATE_screening-for-prostate-
cancer)

------
bill_from_tampa
This is a hot-button topic, which generates much heat. Most men (>80%) will
have prostate cancer by the time they reach age 80 (ie, would be detected if
their entire prostate was examined histologically (which is, you may surmise,
not generally done). About 13% of men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer
during their lifetime. About 2.9% of men will die because of prostate cancer.

Does anybody see the problem? Most men who will have prostate cancer develop
will not die because of prostate cancer, but from something else -- and many
of these men (most, actually) will have no idea they have or had prostate
cancer ---> unless somebody goes looking for it.

A randomized controlled trial of prostate cancer detection using PSA was done
in the US (sponsored by the NIH). It did not find any difference in the
survival curves in men who were randomly assigned to PSA screening compared to
those who were not so assigned. The trial has been criticised.

Obviously any man who had prostate cancer found through PSA testing and was
treated and does not die from prostate cancer will be very happy, and
convinced that the screening saved their life. But the actual RCT data is more
complex, and PSA screening may simply be generating more "business" for
urologists and radiation therapists, without providing real medical benefit.

Note that there are similar questions about another hot-button cancer
screening topic, mammograms. But that is another chapter!

------
nathan_f77
Wow, I read this a few hours ago, and I didn't even notice that it was written
by Ben Stiller.

Here's a video where he talks about it:
[https://www.howardstern.com/show/2016/10/4/ben-stiller-
goes-...](https://www.howardstern.com/show/2016/10/4/ben-stiller-goes-public-
how-he-fought-prostate-cancer-and-
won/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=sternshow)

------
zwieback
I had a similar journey although my prostate cancer was detected at age 42 by
my family doctor during a routine finger-in-the-butt test at my annual
physical. He thought it was “diffusely enlarged”, then PSA test (high), then
biopsy (ouch!) revealed a 4+3 Gleason.

Like the author I had a radical prostatectomy but not robotically assisted.

Like everyone in our situation I was scared of the two I’s — incontinence and
impotence. Luckily no sign of either one, 8 years out the plumbing is working
fine. The annual follow PSA screening is a bit scary, so far it’s always come
back 0 but if there’s any PSA it’s going to be bad news.

All in all I’d recommend PC as a starter cancer — pretty treatable if detected
early on and if you have a skilled surgeon you can come out of it fully
functional. Age is a big factor, if you’re in your seventies it’s probably
best to just watch it, for us young outliers it’s good to get it out.

~~~
fokinsean
> All in all I’d recommend PC as a starter cancer

That is basically how it feels when I recommend Angular to people wanting to
try a JS framework.

Happy to hear you are doing okay.

------
gthtjtkt
What can we take away from this if we don't fit into the demographics of
typical PSA test subjects (40-70 years old or family history of prostate
cancer)?

Does it make sense to request one out of the blue, or is this one of those
things that will make your doctor give you funny looks and assume you're a
hypochondriac?

~~~
deepwave
I went, for example, because I felt a second or two hesitancy when needing to
urinate. See my below comments, which, sadly, have been modded down for
whatever reason...

------
deepwave
Get the PSA test if your over 45. Just get it. I just went through it as well
as a biopsy because the PSA looked fishy. I did the PSA as well as the Free
PSA test. I then had a 12-needle core biopsy, which, while unpleasant, let me
know I was OK. I need to, as do all men my age (almost 50), get tested yearly.
It's not a joke. It's tough to get men into the doctor for anything unless
they feel they're dying. Guys, get tested, especially if you have a wife and
children. You owe it to them, if not yourself.

A PSA test takes 5 minutes. It's a simple blood draw and you learn the results
in two days. Like ovarian cancer for women, prostate cancer is the "whispering
death". It's often too late if it's metastasized after it's detected, then
your chances are even less. Get the test, doubly so if you are a family man.

~~~
deepwave
I have no idea why my comment is being modded down. Guys who disdain hearing
good advice and the truth are beyond me...

~~~
unclenoriega
I didn't downvote you, and I can't speak for others, but for me, people giving
general, emphatic advice based solely on limited personal experience is really
annoying and often counterproductive. Perhaps you have further evidence to
back up your claims, but you didn't cite it.

------
lawless123
Does the PSA ever provide false negatives?

~~~
ogsharkman
False negatives are always possible, however in a quick search I couldn't find
any papers on the rates.


Moritz Simon Geist’s robots make technical techno - Tomte
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/you-call-that-edm-moritz-simon-geists-robots-make-the-most-technical-techno/
======
lsh
EDM is not techno, tyvm.

hurrumph. getting old.

edit: the sound is good, definitely a Kraftwerk vibe.

For a heavier sound involving robots, try Author & Punisher:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrOTHl6Tldc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrOTHl6Tldc)

~~~
dopamean
I'm really glad someone said it. It has nothing to do with age either. They're
two different things.

------
taxidump
Would this be better described as music made from midi-controlled (mechanical)
instruments?

Very neat, however the title lead me to believe the robots had the creative
control of the notes and construction of the song. Still very entertaining
none the less.

~~~
markbnj
Yes it seemed to me to be more about a human making music using unusual
instruments.

------
AndrewKemendo
The article makes it seem way more automated than it is. In that sense this is
one of a handful of folks doing this and a really exciting time for avant
garde music in my opinion. It's increasingly popular in the industrial music
genre.

There's a long history of this arguably starting with Kraftwerk and spanning
genres including some of the amazing things bjork has made.

On my constant playlist is author and punisher who is an engineer by day and
makes his instruments from scratch:

[https://youtu.be/Sdx0vvHxrzQ](https://youtu.be/Sdx0vvHxrzQ)

------
cronix
No, I don't really call that EDM. I'd call that Industrial. Nice job!

------
renholder
Related Nigel Stanford video.
[https://youtu.be/bAdqazixuRY](https://youtu.be/bAdqazixuRY)

~~~
asciimo
That was a little over-the-top. But repurposing industrial robots to make
music is genius. And expensive.

~~~
mirceal
over the top? nah. it's beautiful

------
wazoox
Well Pat Metheny has been doing similar things, building "sonic machines" for
years. He also brings them on stage at least since the "Orchestrion" album.

~~~
mrspeaker
Not quite the same, but Squarepusher x Z-Machines came to my mind:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkUq4sO4LQM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkUq4sO4LQM)

~~~
pacomerh
This is a good reference. I love that you guys mentioned Metheny and Tom
Jenkinson, these are two of my biggest influences and favorite musicians. Have
you seen what Lars Dietrich does with 'Lucy'?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzW6IbggtY8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzW6IbggtY8)

------
Mizza
My favorite example of this ever:
[https://vimeo.com/93923609](https://vimeo.com/93923609)

------
bitwize
See also:

The Floppotron: Music played on old floppy drives, hard drives, and scanners.
[https://youtu.be/oGfkPCZYfFw](https://youtu.be/oGfkPCZYfFw)

Animusic: CG animations of fantastic machines playing music. The animation is
parameterized to the MIDI input. Attempts to build real-world working models
of these machines or machines like them have been made, with varying levels of
success: [https://youtu.be/hyCIpKAIFyo](https://youtu.be/hyCIpKAIFyo)

Compressorhead: An all-robot heavy metal band. Famous for Stickboy, the band's
four-armed, headbanging drummer, or at least Stickboy is what I remember most
about the band. [https://youtu.be/j4UZh2FjEQw](https://youtu.be/j4UZh2FjEQw)

------
squarefoot
All hail the Compressorhead!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkEjIiN0xyY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkEjIiN0xyY)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSQYjlSuz8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSQYjlSuz8Y)

------
somuchtyler
how is this different from the techno jeep?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFybwg4wadI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFybwg4wadI)

~~~
yboris
Car alarm techno:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WFsIskJ05I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WFsIskJ05I)

------
stevehiehn
Well that was awesome!

------
billpg
There was me thinking the name was a typo for Simone Giertz.


Tribe meets white man for the first time [video] - Toyentrepreneur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aV_850nzv4
======
digitaltribal9
I've seen this before and recall allegations of being staged/faked. Anything
conclusive to say about this? (Real/fake?)

------
intellix
8 year olds dude - Wikipedia say they practise in paedophilic behaviour
commonly