skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Mathematicians know the "hat check" problem: If N people get hats back at random, what are the odds that no one gets their own hat back? It's the nearest fraction with N! denominator to 1/e, a beautiful counting problem. Very close to 1/e (off by about 1/6!) even for _FIVE_ people.

I too wonder if 1,000 is off the mark.
Cool project, but what got me to comment was the really stellar FAQ on the landing page.

I think it's really hard to strike capture the tone of software in written descriptions of those pieces of software. Coding projects that are programmed in an experimental and light-hearted way can end up being spoken about in somber tones that lose that sense of fun and playfulness.
It doesn't affect large employers or schools because those things aren't "public events".

The idea here is to reduce, not eliminate, large numbers of people coming together, especially cases where it's going to be a one-off grouping of people who may not normally be in the same place at one time. Depending on the event, it could also involve people traveling from somewhere else, which is also useful to reduce. (Corporate campuses and schools don't fall into that bucket.)

It's a trade off. Saying "no more large employers and no more schools" just isn't feasible from an economic or public education standpoint. Individual organizations can decide for themselves whether or not they want to shut down.

It's a continuum. On one end there's "everyone is hereby confined to their homes and may not leave", and on the other it's "we're making no changes; everyone just do what they usually do". The first one is way too restrictive, and the second one ignores the reality of the situation. The sweet spot is somewhere in between. Picking and choosing what types of gatherings of large numbers of people to allow can help slow spread. Could they restrict more? Sure, but a lot of people (myself included) might consider that unreasonable.
"The Jungle" in San Jose had 175 at its peak, and that was the largest encampment in the country.

SF does monthly tent counts, it's been less than 500 for a while.
The Extraordinary Decisions Facing Italian Doctors
People have a really hard time grasping exponential growth.

There's the famous "would you take a million dollars, or a penny doubled every day for a month" question. People reliably make the wrong choice.
Giuliani did it. If anyone reminds Trump of this he might just get ideas in his head.
Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules
> I think the interpretation that OP really seemed to suggest that we should bring it all home is a valid one.

"Bring" is the wrong word here, because building up industrial capacity in US for critical sectors (including but not limited to pharmaceuticals and electronic components / semiconductors) doesnt mean destroying the capacity that exists abroad.

But yes, I do believe there should be sufficient manufacturing capacity in CONUS so that if on 1 January 2020 all the borders of the US had been closed to all goods/people indefinitely; life could continue as usual in the US: no medication shortages, no ventilator shortages, no mask/respirator shortages, and no iPhone shortages.

Right now we have China openly stating (https://twitter.com/YanzhongHuang/status/1235300037875335170) stuff like this:

> China's Xinhua News just posted a piece titled "Be bold: the world owes China a thank you", which says if China imposes restrictions on pharmaceutical exports, US will be "plunged into the mighty sea of coronavirus".

How does this make you feel?

In the end there's no substitute for having manufacturing capacity in your own country -- whether it means resiliency in the face of these sorts of events, or whether it means that second-hand/surplus/inactive tooling/consumables/equipment/experience can find its way to smaller-volume sectors and enable what'd otherwise be unprofitable. You can go to a machine shop in the US today and there's a nontrivial probability of seeing equipment that was made in the 1940s because it still works! This is the enduring power of a robust industrial base.
Weaving network infrastructure with COVID-19 propagation... Bravo
The internationally accepted naming convention for influenza viruses, accepted by the WHO and followed by the (US) CDC, literally includes geographic origin in the naming of influenza viruses:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/viruses/types.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2395936/pdf/bul...

The WHO's recommended name for the virus that involved in its previous announced pandemic is "A(H1N1)pdm09", which literally stands for "pandemic disease Mexico 2009":
https://www.who.int/influenza/gisrs_laboratory/terminology_a...

The name of this virus with respect to the naming convention mentioned above is literally "A/California/7/2009(H1N1)pdm", which you'll note has two specific places in it, one abbreviated and one not.
In Norway/Oslo every event over 100 have to apply a form and is banned up on approval, and over 500 will not be approved. 1m distance in restaurants. The tram don’t open the front door to avoid the driver from getting sick. In the hospital all operations are cancelled the next weeks.
The problem with travel bans is that there can be all sorts of unintended side effects that exacerbate the problem. It encourages people to make heavier use of illicit and non-mainstream travel channels that can't be monitored or controlled effectively. It may reduce overall travel, but much of the travel that does occur takes place in conditions that are dramatically more likely to cause problems. Also travel bans can lead to severe humanitarian issue on top of the existing health crisis.
I thought many insurance policies specifically excluded force majeure from coverage.
I find it revolting how naive people are that think ngo's, charities, and international organizations are somehow morally superior, uncorruptible utupian ententies.
The Case of the missing hit song
I can't imagine what would've happened if that meeting had 1000 participants.

I don't think gathering limitations can stop the spread however I believe at the very least they can slow it down.
Thankfully, health departments at state and local levels generally know what they're doing.
"freedom of speech people will be more likely to take protective measures sooner as they realize that the government is responding poorly."

This honestly is just a wishful thinking. Autocracy are more efficient than democracy in terms of that. It's just how it's designed. Democracy means debate, and it means time wasted, a lot more than in autocracy. The only problem with autocracy is that if they made a poor decision, all those people will die with it. And democracy is built in the way that a fair share of people will never do what the government says, this would be useful if the government made a bad decision, but not if they made a good one.
COVID-19 Temperature Correlation
Supply Chains have been global ever since the bronze age. So the principal isn't new. Supply Chain resilience is a crucial topic so. One that is, to a certain degree, under rated. Because it is more than buffers you have for general inefficiency.
Isn't it the aspirational goal for several churches/religious orders to do just this?
Luckily no one has ever died of a false dichotomy.
A loan that the government makes when (1) it is not their business to make these types of loans and (2) the private market is not willing to make this type of loan is a bailout. So yes they did bail out Tesla. You can argue that the bailouts of the big three were far bigger and much more egregious and you would be absolutely right. But you cannot argue that tesla would have benefited if there were no bailouts, because they received a bailout and they would not exist now if they hadn't received one.
Is this a problem? Do you find yourself waving at your webcam much?
This is ridiculous. What is wrong with leaders in the bay area? They have all the data they need to make the call to shut everything down like in Italy and by doing so saving countless lives, and they come up with bullshit like this instead.

this is nonsense.
Multiple datomic transactors can't talk to the same database, even if they share the same storage.
Kudlow has been criminally wrong on pretty much everything for a long time. I don’t understand why this guy is still getting publicity.
It matters to the only metric that we evaluate politicians on - their ability to get elected.
I'm sure they mean long term...
they have to shut down EVERYTHING now. tomorrow will be too late.
Surreal comment.
I'm not lawyer, but if I recall correctly, that power derives from this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_%28United_States_...

Less clear to me if that applies to forcible quarantine, but seems like it would definitely apply to public events.

On the point of large health risk, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that every Warriors game is a perfect vector for community spread. I'm sure the health care professionals in the Bay Area would applaud this move.
A much smaller and less urbanized population.
The FAQs are amazing haha
Classes may not be equipped for streaming at all. Additionally, chromebook and internet may not be helpful for children living in dangerous housing where their chromebooks may be stolen or pawned for food (after which internet means nothing) or in cases where internet may take days or weeks to be installed.

Additionally, this does not address that schools are often a major source of food for children. Or safety for children.
You can normally hear Carmelo Anthony calling for rebounds over the crowd, music, commentators, and probably your own internal monologue, so people have had some practice.
Done with https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/train/image I bet. Love this thing. You can make your own 'Don't Touch Ya Face' in a few minutes!
These guys present a scenario: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW3lhfVpLL4
Well if they would have written Windows in a dynamic language 26 years ago, nobody would be using it, and the cost would be zero.. :P
There is not the best hygene in these areas... I imagine it would spread quickly in homeless areas.
> They wanted a $40 sweater that was made as efficiently as possible, and $360 of change.

Bare essential goods have never cost that multiple of minimum wage.

Capital wanted margins, that which they don't pass on to the consumer. How much does Apple make on earbuds, again?
A very good source that will help you understand why this measure is complete nonsense.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...

The Bay Area is managed by leaders with no vision and no leadership, and this is just one more instance of that.
Most important thing: Have a cut off time and stick to it. It's tempting to 'keep working for just another minute'. Don't do that.
Patent trolls are a malignant tumor that should be excised. They look for juicy targets and then run their usual playbook, disgustingly.

The fact that a codec like AV1 which was designed to not step on any of these BS generic patents, still gets hammered just goes to show how backwards our patent office and associated judicial system is...

If a large conglomerate of FANG and Mozilla can spend all this effort on a patent-free codec and still get trolled, what hope is there for us small businesses?
D.C. just made an announcement

https://dchealth.dc.gov/release/dc-health-advisory
Heh, that's not exactly "easy" when you have a hundred passwords. Also not including permissions to access team passwords and such.
I think you're missing the bigger picture. I personally don't care if Google is punished or not. But I don't want Google's punishment to come in a form that will break the entire software industry.
They know they've been following CDC orders not to test for it?
It's a Public Health Order supported by California state law.

> UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF CALIFORNIA HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE
SECTIONS 101040, 101085, AND 120175, THE HEALTH OFFICER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO

Also it's hard to understate how devastating this virus can be if it spreads quickly. e.g. for people > 80 years old the mortality rate is 15%

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-age-older-...
Profitability means nothing at this stage (and is sometimes even undesirable). As long as it is following the same growth path as more established companies in its segment, it can be considered a success.
> From what I can tell there is little evidence that there is a large health risk to most of the population.

These measures will absolutely prevent a significant number of people from dying. Does it matter if that population is not 'most' people?
Nothing will stop the spread. The goal of government and health organizations is only to slow it down so that the number of critical cases at any one time doesn't exceed the capacity of our hospitals.
yes, you shouldn't meet anyone. Stores should be all closed except for pharmacies and grocery stores. Restaurants should be closed. Bars should be closed. Offices should be closed. For about 4 weeks. This is the only way we'll avoid hundreds of casualties.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...
If you think the median american had more disposable income in 1940 than today, you are hilariously uninformed.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 (only goes back to ~1960, and the I think this is mean, not median, but also a huge enough trend that it is impossible to deny).
You also have to take into account that China probably took the right actions, but their big failure was in timing them poorly. If they'd implemented travel restrictions before Chinese New Year, we probably wouldn't be talking about a pandemic right now.
I'm really sad that my comment was removed, not even the usual [flagged] edit can be seeing anymore.
Do you remember the early 90s and late 80s when clothes were much more expensive than in the late 90s on? That was really tough for a lot of us who didn’t come from rich families. I could probably deal with it now, but you aren’t considering a lot of people who would be absolutely ruined by a return to the old way.
I'm looking forward to discovering the answer. What if I hold a church service with 500 attendees. Do the police come and forcibly remove people from a private gathering? That's a clear violation of several Constitutional rights, of course.

Is this more of a "wink wink, nudge nudge" situation where corporations need government to "shut it all down" because the corporations don't want to lose face by appearing paranoid?
I think it's very interesting, but I suspect too few people have anything to contribute.

I know I don't have anything smart to say about this specific subject, and I usually try to follow the old german saying "Selig sind die, sie nicht zu sagen haben und trotzdem schweigen" (hope I got it right - I don't actually speak german), which means "Blessed be those, who have nothing to say and nevertheless remain silent..."
I really wish everyone was doing the random-sampling-of-general-population thing. Even if they could only do it on a fairly small scale, I suspect it'd give a much better picture of where we're really at than the "confirmed cases" floor.
'Banning' things you don't personally like is not a great tactic to convince people. Other technologies should keep making things easier for the C folks to migrate to...
"that's two-months-from-now-me's problem!"
Your YT promo video needs to get to the point much much faster. 45 seconds tops. Save the cuteness for later or another video.
In 1949, a nylon sweater cost about $7.95 (https://mclib.info/reference/local-history-genealogy/histori...), which in 2020 dollars would be about $86.41. So not $400 and about in line with what an average sweater today would cost.

However, the median American did not have more disposable income back then compared to now. In 2020, the median American has about $16763 in disposable income, whereas in 1959 (the furthest back data I could get in https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/disposable-person...) had about $351, which inflation adjusted would be $3,120.14 in 2020 dollars (5X less).

So while globalization didn't necessarily drop the cost of sweaters, I think we can say that the median American is better off today than in the past with regards to disposable income.

If you look at the prices of ordinary things over time, I'd guess that the prices stayed relatively same. But consider the fact that while median purchasing power has 5X-ed since the 1950s, prices staying the same is a testament to the power of free trade.
Worth noting that even we today still haven't banned all travel from China and doing so FULLY is not really a great option unless we did a ton of other things first. We're still having goods imported from China and there are folks actually BRINGING those goods here. Our healthcare system currently depends on imported items, for just one example. China is mostly where we get our antibiotics.

I don't disagree with your broader point.
I'd try to keep daily routine close to going to the office. (Especially not working shorter or longer.) Also phone calls are helpful, for most people it's much easier to do phone calls in this setting than in an open office. I think Slack is nice though for keeping a fun atmosphere...
> the number of confirmed cases in the US and other Western countries is simply a function of the number of people tested

Well, it is at least partly a function of that, no? If you aren't tested then your case may not be reported.
>The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.

(Mark Twain, I think, but there are enough fake quotes even on major sites so I'm never sure.)

Every day I find new reasons to appreciate the quote.
If city officials didn't want 999-person events, they should have set the number lower.

At the end of the day you have to set the threshold somewhere. One could argue that a 500-person event is still risky, but a balance has to be struck between attempting to slow the spread of the disease, and not unreasonably restricting people's activities.

In this case, what's reasonable is certainly up for debate. No measure will be perfect, unless we want to start advocating for no gatherings whatsoever (public or private) and effectively putting people under house arrest. While that would stop transmission of the disease, I think it's fairly uncontroversial to say that would be an overreaction. But certainly it's up for debate as to, say, whether a 100-person ban would be appropriate, vs. 1,000, 10,000, etc. They chose 1,000. It won't be a perfect number, but it will help.
Show HN: Superimposer – combine presentation videos with slides
i actually really enjoy the syntax and trait system and dislike the memory management stuff -- i'd rather have the rust syntax in more of a scripting language.

It's a joy to write rust code for the most part.
This won't age well.
The upcoming Bahrain Grand Prix will do the same

https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/a31279654/2020-f1-b...

Although the Australian Grand Prix this weekend is going on as normal
China seems to have done well to contain the virus in Hubei. The other major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, while affected by the containment measures were relatively lightly affected by the virus itself. If we can manage that I’d call it a success.
Like it!

Maybe train people not to touch their face and in higher risk situations (think public transit with lots of touching or bigger group events) add a mask as another layer of protection and a reminder.
I find that my hand goes between my webcam and my face reasonably often.

It's still a brilliant idea and I love it, regardless of its limitations.
That even in the face of a particular health problem, people have a hard time giving up their desire to socialize or live?

I think it's pretty normal. Surreal would be adapting more easily and unconsciously to the new constraints.

Thankfully, continuing to dream doesn't cost us anything, and it doesn't hurt anyone.
> but by individuals making rational choices about how they want to allocate their time, their energy and their resources.

Is this a good thing that our oh-so-rational society can’t even cope with such predictable problems?
Another good option in this space: https://github.com/thumbsup/thumbsup
Ironically the post itself is in a CSS-less poor format. Definitely not pleasing to look at, let alone read.
Show HN : CSLY, a C# embeddable lexer and parser generator
That article literally says to start practicing social distancing ASAP. How does this directive challenge that notion?

The article assures us this will be bad, but it doesn't say "fuck it all, go make out with everyone". It says to take precautions, like the one SF has done.
Stupider than the other COVID 19 threads here, that are calling for a 10% death rate?
Only in the case epidemics or natural disasters. And even then I would argue that's nit the case. E.g. there was a major accident in a Chinese chemical park last year, it closed down for the majority of the year. This park manufactured the raw materials for stuff like car lights, the glasses of them. It also was the only source. Did anybody outside the industry suffer any results? No, because supply chains actually adopt pretty well to stuff like that. What would happen so, if everything is in one place is higher costs off-crisis, you wouldn't survive economically to see a crisis that way.

Recovery is key, so. And that is where we will see which companies did their jobs supply chain wise and which didn't.
Yes, let's give Trump monopoly power over the healthcare system. I've been nothing but inspired by the government response so far.
Cool ideas here! I can just encourage you to test what is possible :-)
The commenter is in India. Half of the HN community is outside the US, or was the last time I ran the numbers.
> All of the three main branches of Christianity in the East (Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church and Church of the East) had always identified themselves as Catholic in accordance with Apostolic traditions and the Nicene Creed. Anglicans, Lutherans, and some Methodists also believe that their churches are "Catholic" in the sense that they too are in continuity with the original universal church founded by the Apostles. However, each church defines the scope of the "Catholic Church" differently. For instance, the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox churches, and Church of the East, each maintain that their own denomination is identical with the original universal church, from which all other denominations broke away.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_(term)

Greek Orthodox are "Catholic" but they are not "Roman Catholic".
Forgot about http://paulgraham.com/ds.html. Great post and relevant as ever today.
What the government’s new cybersecurity report could mean for business
Wow! Fascinating! So wrong so many times - I did not know this history.

You can see how having this guy on TV re-assuring people starts to reduce confidence people have in "authoritative" news sources - and they end up on the internet reading conspiracy theories.
The root cause of this Outbreak in North America is we have a president call it a HOAX, a flu. The incompetency of the government resulted this disaster in here. Even now when we have thousands in isolation. They are still trying to down play it. They have no idea how many people are infected, they have no idea how many possible contact s are out there spreading the virus. No matter how much they blame others, the root cause is right here in North America!