skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Allow me to suggest we wait to blame until after things are on the upswing. I completely understand the impulse -- hell, I'm doing it myself -- but for most of the folks reading, the worst of this is ahead. I'm trying to focus on a bit of prep I haven't done, trying to anticipate for different scenarios and being kind to those around me.

And my snarky side says there will be plenty more targets to blame in the coming weeks - think of it as an investment.
I loathe the material design floating action button (little plus button) in the lower right of apps.

My eyes are just never drawn there it seems so unnatural to look for it.
Wish I could be doing something. I’ve just fled to Long Island and am staying in the house reading the news.
The main issue with ethanol production is the supply constraint, and for that reason it remains a niche product as it's far cheaper to extract oil from the ground. There are perhaps other promising bio-fuel production methods with higher yields, with respect to land use.

Hybrid vehicles are still an economical option, preferably paired with high-efficiency ICEs, and could tide us over until better energy storage options become available.
At the Friday press conference, they said that the LabCorp / LabQuest tests were testing about 2% positive. I don't have much of an insight to this, but isn't that weirdly low if it's truly everywhere? Especially if you factor in the limited testing and that testing will only be given to the more urgent high risk cases. 98% are just something else like the cold or the flu, or a false negative.
Last official update from cdc was 1629 [0]. NYT seems to be aggregating data from state reports, and even that is out of date. NYT reports 607 in WA, but the state itself reports 642 [1] (cdc reported 457 in WA on Friday).

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html

[1] https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus
How We Choose the Right Database for Apps: Experience with MySQL, TiDB and Redis
Worse, politicians (particularly Health ministers) have disporportionately high infection rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_overlay

That still happens with certain hardware setups today, a similar concept to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_key
Awesome List of COVID19 Response Resources
Again, do you have a citation for the notion that it's a spectrum? The original post that coined the term doesn't talk about it that way, and neither do the other resources I found in a quick search. As I see it, it's binary: when you need to change something on a server, you either tinker with the existing server or you replace the server with a fresh-built one that conforms to the new desire.
To be fair, the # of infected never died off completely (the simulation didn't run long enough)
> "you know that promises to the largest loss of life on US soil ever"

From what I'm aware, if hospitals are able to handle the patients, it shouldn't be up to that level.

And the "slow it down" plan is primarily about not overwhelming hospitals.
I don't share your optimism. We already seeing not acting recast as strategy.

At least German politicians had the sense to step aside and hand the mess they made to the scientific experts to clean up.
How do we know when to initiate or let up on the lockdown if we don’t have any testing?
China’s fatality rate is also way down. Partly of course from less stress on the medical system, but they’ve also just learned a lot about how to treat it, particularly what drugs to use. I believe Chloroquine + Liponavir/Ritanovir + Interferon or Ribavirin is state of the art.
Isn't that how all the Native Americans died? The immigrants and imperialists weren't sick and their resistance to cause a herd immunity to the natives because the diseases were still ON THEM and it spread to the natives! This does not protect the vulnerable ones????
Ask HN: What is your opinion of Swift Playgrounds?
I am curious to know what the community thinks of Playgrounds. Is it worth the time or should I have the kid spend time on some other alternatives?

Is Swift a good first step into coding after the standard code.org or scratch introductions? Or is HTML + Javascript a better approach.

I am looking to have some carrot at the end of the stick for kids. With HTNL + JS one can set up a web page that is responsive and so there is an immediate visual feedback for kids. With Swift being abla to push the app to the phone is a great option but I don't see how the transition from Playgrounds to Xcode is planned or if there is even a path to it.

I am looking for any and all suggestions.
If anyone runs into what seems to be a paywall written in German, click “Acceptiert” (spelling?) and you will get the English article. At least, this was my experience.
Amazon buying Lord and Taylor building for $1.15B
Human beings do not intuitively understand exponential growth. It's just too fast for our primitive brains. In some sense, we are standing in the middle of the road, frozen like deer in the headlights.

Science is supposed to mitigate the shortcomings of our natural intuitions and cognitive biases. The problem is that most people are not scientists. When a non-scientist is asked to trust a scientist, he or she is subject to all of the usual suspects: arguments from authority, confirmation bias, Bulverism, appeal to emotion, etc. What this means in practice is that scientists are generally not trusted over the word of one's friends and family.
It's like the US.

If you restrict testing, very few can be found to test positive..... So you can say things like:

"Only 12 have been found positive." or "Our community/city has nobody tested positive."

Long story short, it's a sham.
This is interesting. Will take a look.
Economically it doesn't make much difference. You can either isolate people now or later. The period of isolation will be roughly the same because you have to wait for the virus to exhaust its pool of hosts (in a household). Definitely politically it makes a big difference.
TIL, thank you sir. Gonna try this out tomorrow.
So, you click on this and you get an all German landing page, which I had trouble with at first. You need to click the orange button that says "akzeptieren" (I probably mispelled that, though) to continue to the article with ads and no subscription.

The actual article is in English.
Please read the sources you linked to. The problem is the disease model and how the disease presents itself, how and where the samples are taken, etc. The PCR test is not what is the problem. Its the gold standard. We use it daily at our company and rely on it for our vaccine development. Don't believe me, ask any scientist.

Also, a minor point but I don't get the idea of replying to someone with someone else's opinion. That way I can't really respond to you can I? I'm supposed to find the original person and reply to them? .. Sorry.. just a pet peeve.
It's also somewhat troublesome that for the 'flatten the curve' tactic the best case scenario is still infecting everyone...
This. No self-preserving politician wold have reacted early to this. And you don't get to that level without being self-preserving.
Bats’ unique immune systems make them center of major viral outbreaks
To add to your risk management analysis, I believe we're looking at more of a capped downside if you consider the timing. It's better to come down with it now, before hospitals are overflowing with the sick. We're just at a point where hydroxychloroquine is gaining traction as a treatment, so we have a viable response. We won't have a definitive cure or vaccine for several months, before which the number of people who are contaminated will skyrocket.
The science that this was not the flu was clear 6-8 weeks ago. Even if you thought china was under-reporting, it was clear what would happen. Then korea happened.

There was no excuse because there was never a chance for another outcome. The WHO was screaming into the void.
It gets hospital-level serious for 20% of cases? I thought the lethality rate wasn’t even that high for the most at-risk demographics (something like 14%).
My dad had a IBM 5160 XT and later a IBM Model 80 when he was working from home in the 80s. I can still remember we were allowed to play Need for Speed or Flight Simulator on it for a half hour per week.

That were the days. Much later in the 90s this changed to be allowed to be on CompuServe in the evening for a half hour. I can still remember going to GO MAXIS :)
But they have parents who are. Maybe in UK this works, different cultures have different degrees of socialization between adult children and their parents.
> Economic depression and deprivation also causes death, and staggering amounts of human misery.

Let's quantify things here, for a first world country with a social net.

On the one hand, we have people getting evicted from their homes and having to visit soup kitchens.

On the other hand, we have dead people (more likely, dead poor people).

Evil seems pretty fair.
Ask HN: What can one do early to prevent a bad Covid-19 infection?
What should people do to prepare for potentially being infected to lead to a speedy recovery and avoid burdening the health care system? Cardio? Diet? Or we don’t know?
I've never heard anyone taking 100x, testosterone replacement is 100mg/week and guys in gym take anywhere from 150-600mg/week.
I can't confirm this as true. It was a Russian posting it on a board but he said they had over 11000 cases and 600 dead about 2 weeks ago with the majority in Far East Russia.

If it was true then I would imagine the problem has grown but I believe the Russians like the Chinese are able to institute stricter policies than the West could when it comes to lock downs and no go zones.
That 100k number is for the whole world. It was a poorly worded tweet
This is not unsubstantiated. It is proven in vitro, and this came out the other day: http://news.southcn.com/nfplus/gdjktt/content/2020-03/09/con...

I haven’t found the source paper if there is one yet — I can’t read Chinese except with google translate
Does it seem like they should have more?
Seattle hospitals are also postponing non-life-threatening surgeries, as much to avoid consuming PPE as for beds and staff: https://www.swedish.org/patient-visitor-info/coronavirus-adv..., https://www.uwmedicine.org/coronavirus

The County is converting at least one motel and at least one parking lot to recovery/isolation/medical support: https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/health/news/2020/March/14-c... (scroll to "Temporary housing, isolation and quarantine facilities")
People are like this with everything, I think.

For example, a lot of people will be like this or that operating system is trash and you shouldn’t use it. And I am ashamed to admit that years ago I used to be this way too.

While I understand where people are coming from when they act that way, it is still frustrating and I wish it wasn’t like that.
You could also do it modulo some number, I think?

Then knowing any individual number (weight + pad) mod n gives zero knowledge (I think. If all but one party reveal their pads, they can trivially determine the other's weight so it fails. Believe it to be secure if only 1 party is malicious, though. Cases for other numbers of bad actors are more complicated...)
The fact that there wasn't a credible free press to report responsibly on an emerging illness or a free vote to hold officials accountable are not at all unrelated to the authoritarian system that allowed them to build a hospital fast or close a city or whatever they did well on.

I'll admit, though, that I wouldn't trade my right to vote for a cure for the common cold, coronavirus, or anything else.
> It gets hospital-level serious for 20% of cases? I thought the lethality rate wasn’t even that high for the most at-risk demographics (something like 14%).

Well, substantially all of the cases that end up dying go to the hospital first, and many more besides that and up recovering. It shouldn't be surprising that the hospitalization rate is higher than the fatality rate.
I’m not sure a lack of curiosity is so much a generational thing. Some people just don’t really care, they learn what they need to get done what they want and don’t poke it any further.

That’s not really even a bad thing exactly. I’m reminded of the difference in how my dad and I treat cars: I just want to get where I’m going, but he is so into all the little details of driving and the mechanics of it all. He changes his own oil, tweaks his car’s computer system for performance, etc. He is always trying to get me to care about it all, but I frankly don’t care if my oil is a bit old or if I could change it myself or whatever. I’d rather never have to drive at all if I was rich enough to have a private driver do it for me. Anyway whenever I get frustrated that my family or friends don’t seem to take something computer-related seriously or actually try to figure out how to do it right, I stop and think about how frustrated my dad gets about my attitude towards cars.
Clearly self preservation stops at simple math.

We need to confront the fact that democracy in the West by now elects people who sell the most comfortable lies instead of people who help adaptation to reality.
Even after Italy and other countries had known the risks, they really did not take drastic measures to contain it until it was too late. There is a pattern here - governments don’t move fast when there is this level of uncertainty. China deserves blame for lack of free speech, but rest of their efforts were pretty effective. Don’t expect either of these to happen in a democracy.
Ask HN: How hard is a Manhattan Project-like effort to up ventilator production?
How hard would it be to open up new production lines to crank out more ventilators? Expanded mass production could save lives. Even simpler designs like this one: https://www.fastcompany.com/1661942/mit-students-invent-100-ventilator-for-disaster-zones

The vaccine won't be ready until next year. At best. Even if it takes months it could be worth it.
Trampolines were great fun for sleep overs definitely. Easy to go on late night adventures without the parents knowing.

The next day you can wake up and have sleeping bag trampoline wars. Then later you can put the sprinkler under it, jumping on a trampoline with a sprinkler under it where the water bounces as you jump is something everyone should do, great time for all.

Trampolines are great exercise as well.
Pasted here - https://pastebin.com/5Ben9q4w
Taiwan is probably the best model for how to handle a pandemic.
The Chinese government took strong action well after the virus became a huge problem there. I suspect we will see a similar anti pattern repeated around the globe. I’m sure that Donald Trump will follow the CCP in talking up how he reacted decisively to the problem (a month late in both cases). This type of response hardly deserves praise. Taiwan was swift and proactive in its response, and acted intelligently before drastic measures were needed.
Holy hell! That site still exists? I remember going on there all the time in the early 2000's cause my parents couldn't afford a newer console and our PS2 basically died.
> The math was very clear by early/mid February

The leaders of the country, the people in power, and the populace are not math literate.
Ownership on its own doesn't incur any performance overhead. If what you mean is the overhead incurred by using Rc and Arc, it's just something you have to be aware of.
Ask HN: What is your WFH setup?
hello,
I'm wondering how people have setup their workspace at home.
For example, I have a lenovo x220 with Arch Linux connecting to Win10 to the corporate network using openconnect & Remmina. For meetings/messaging: Slack & Zoom
Supposedly this can actually be done by current manufacturers, who are already ramping as fast as they can. The bottleneck is trained users, which is apparently much harder to ramp up as quickly. I will try to find the source, it was an industry publication with quotes from the CEO of the biggest manufacturer.
[0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2020/03/14/ventilator-m...
oh my god, this tangent has a steep slope!

fresh in my mind are "mini players". i spend minutes trying to make them go away on youtube, twitter, and others. then, i give up and reload the page. so painful!!!

most websites don't care about readability. my zoom level is above 100% on all my browsers and all my devices due to bad eyesight. this breaks tons of websites. medium, for example, is unreadable! headers, accept cookies footers, ads, sidebar, and you are left with a tiny area for what you came for. and quickly leave too.

my phone has black and white turned on by default. i am tired of being triggered by bright notifications & colors. most websites have poorly chosen, undistinguishable colors.

it is 2020 and we have made it hard to edit text in a textbox on a smartphone. move one character left, right, delete one character. this is just so hard on a smartphone! we got rid of buttons for touch, but my nokia 3310 did it just fine!

etc...
To choose survival instead of death merely makes me human.
And yes, humans are monsters. It's also why I concluded with hope for diplomacy to prevail instead.
You are also right about the lies. All actors lie, a lot.
Not sure why Health ministers are getting shade for testing positive?

I'd rather my top health officials actually have contact with those under them, than sit in a glass bubble.
I've been hearing over the past week a lot of optimism about how things will return to normal in two weeks (ie. schools are "closed until April <so and so>")

Where did these people get the idea that this will be under control in such a short amount of time?

Edit: Just to clarify I am not saying this to sow seeds of negativity, just wondering myself how can anyone announce reopening without any basis in reality.
Despite governments mostly making slow policy decisions, it's amazing how fast news spreads about this. Tons of planes bound for Spain were turned around mid-flight today after a message sent out to air traffic controllers. Absolutely nuts.

https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/14/coronavirus-spain-bound-...
> The point is that when you are talking loss numbers in the trillions

The main part of my argument above is that you pulled that number out of your ass, you didn't address any of my points against why that number is baseless, yet you continue using the number.

Your number is a worst-case "cost" of doing absolutely nothing and just letting people die, and then you say that your suggested strategy of dumping cash on the population is much cheaper. While true in itself, the error is that you're equating the UK strategy with the worst-case doing-nothing strategy, and that therefore your strategy is better.

The case for the UK strategy is that by letting the virus spread uncontrolled through the not at risk population, health care systems won't ever be overwhelmed, death rates will be much, much lower than current measured ones, and you'll emerge on the other side with a herd immune population, without doing too much damage to your economy, and the at-risk population won't ever get infected in the first place. And by doing that, the total death toll will be lower, than having the virus slowly go through the entire population, at-risk or not.
Political leadership being self serving while convincing people that they are not has been true throughout history, and will continue to do so in the future. There is no way to stop this without modifying human nature itself. I cannot blame the voting populace, yet at the same time, I cannot blame the politicians either. They are part of a larger system of incentives.
Here's an example I did using a custom LM with DeepSpeech - the description links back to the forum with the steps for producing it.

https://youtu.be/LWUBK6PAaxM

This was on a slightly earlier version, and they've made improvements in speed and quality of recognition since then.
There was an op ed recently from a former member of the Johnson government that stated "It is time the economists took over from the doctors, before the real pandemic [economic recession] spreads."

So that, told me all I need to know about the cruelty and stupidity of the UK government at this time.
How are going to isolate the vulnerable population? They also neglect that the vulnerable population clusters. Old people socialize with other old people. A bunch of immune school kids don’t provide much herd immunity to a nursing home.
And the question was about hospital admissions not ICU admissions anyway.
Uh huh... is the UK isolating and protecting people in risk groups? Because the last time you could safely get infected, and be guaranteed medical attention, was two weeks ago. The NHS is already at capacity right now. There's certainly no danger of accidentally containing it too much.
And tell the tender it's an advance on future pints, and you're keeping track!
>This is the interesting case where anecdote really does become data

I still disagree with this, although I somewhat agree with your sentiment. The anecdotes I have seen range from extremely mild to nightmarish. A large fraction of those made me false, deliberately or by accident. I find the statistics still tell the most concrete story.
Funnily enough recessions are associated with lower overall mortality rates.

Something to remember the next time people harp on about GDP being the most important metric for a country's advancement.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-02-recession-greater-dec...
> On the one hand, we have people getting evicted from their homes and having to visit soup kitchens.

Which translates directly into many years of reduced life expectancy, no?
I was making the typical hour trek from San Francisco to Mountain View for four years, every day. Decided to move away and started working remotely 100%.

Not having the eight hours back in my week was life changing. Habits, health, relationships have all improved.

It feels like there are always going to be roles, teams and companies that must work together face to face, if we can culturally shift away from going into an office, it could really improve quality of life for lots of people.

For many others it may hurt them as work is a big social outlet. That’ll have to be taken into consideration.

I think we’ll see a big shift culturally over the next year as much more of the public potentially gets used to what it’s like working from home, companies may find it really helps(or hurts) their bottom line.

This could end up hurting as productivity will be terrible if everyone’s distracted with news on covid and employers associate that loss due to being remote.

Ultimately, post-crisis, expectations around how people work will significantly change.
My girlfriend is a physician at NYP in NY. It feels like there's almost nothing I can do to help and the worst case projections sound like a true hell I never thought we'd experience.

It's even scarier to hear how unprepared the whole system appears to be. The hospitals are extremely concerned about mask supply and they all just received an email on Friday recalling any boxes of masks from anywhere in the hospital to central storage. Apparently patients and others have been walking out with boxes of masks and it's impossible to order more.

I know a 60 year old who hasn't practiced medicine in a number of years who expects to jump into service in a week or two when patients are overflowing makeshift shelters.
Need for Speed in the 80s?
And it's never been easier to go deep once you know what you need to go deep for.
Why Do We Wear Exhaustion as a Badge of Honour?