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leepowerson Contempt Culture

I guess I never understood the elitism and strong feelings around programming languages. It's such a strange thing to stake one's _identity_ to.

It's like getting upset that Dostoyevsky wrote _Crime and Punishment_ in Russian. The language is irrelevant - he got his point across regardless. Would the novel be any less important and valuable if it was written in German, or Portuguese, Latin, or Mandarin? Of course not.

leepowerson Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

Yes, it's a euphemism for price controls. Which may or may not be a no-go depending on your political bent.

Another issue here is termination shock - if a provider comes up under the current system, getting into massive student debt in anticipation of a highly remunerative medical career, how will price controls effect him?

leepowerson Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

> It thus makes no sense to reject single-payer on the grounds that it would require higher tax revenues. That’s true, of course, but it’s an irrelevant objection.

> The most important source of cost savings under single-payer is that large government entities are able to negotiate much more favorable terms with service providers.

I agree these objections are not relevant for the overall system. But certain individuals and groups within the current system will get screwed.

The wealthy and upper middle-class will oppose any tax increases, as it will decrease their take-home income. Plus the resentment of having to pay for someone else (the moochers).

Providers will oppose any haircut that comes with single-payer rates and price controls. No more millionaire doctors, specialists, or dentists.

And of course the overhead of health insurance middle-men and the huge administrative bureaucracy costs.

This is the crux of the problem. We could have a reasonably good system for everyone. But it requires a lot of people with heavily vested interests into a less ideal situation.

leepowerson pREST – A fully RESTful API from any existing PostgreSQL database writting in Go

Additional security is absolutely necessary. The docs have table and field level permissions but that's not enough. A user should only be able to edit their own row in the database, and their password should always be one-way encrypted, etc. Also don't want a user to be able to add themselves to a user group, say add themselves to the "Administrator" user group by inserting a table row.

This framework may simply be too "thin" - there needs to be a place to code business logic and access control, neither of which map neatly to how RDMS treat users and security permissions. In which case might as well use a framework like Django or Rails or Bottle or Laravel or any other of the dozens of mature systems available.

leepowerson Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

Email is also universal. Using Twist or some other app means you have to onboard and train a customer onto a new platform to even start talking with them. There are some cases where you can replace email with Twist (formalized team communications), but there are way more uses for email.

The downside here is an email thread with 5+ people replying daily will quickly become unmanageable. If a single participant forgets to "Reply All" then the conversation can bifurcate again and again.

If I was managing a team of 5+ people I might use Twist. I would more likely onboard everyone onto existing project management software. Where the team can have threaded conversations, but also relate those convos to tasks, milestones, files, and other project info.

leepowerson If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

Feynman is an outlier, a very rare talent that could handle very complex maths and also communicate these concepts in an approachable, charming, and laid-back style. This is an in-born talent and also a skill that can be taught. But communicating complex systems is a separate proficiency from understanding those systems.

The main issue when explaining concepts (especially maths concepts) is switching from one formal context to another, deciding what details to omit, and determining what rules in both contexts should be treated as analogous.

Think of a translator. He/she/it needs proficiency in two languages to do a proper translation. Lacking a second language precludes translation. But it doesn't affect mastery of your native tongue.

leepowerson Facebook is an attack on the open web

Aside from the bureaucratic inertia that all large groups ultimately accumulate have you ever thought that this is by design? Facebook investing resources into really polishing and optimizing the web experience of comments doesn't really get people to use Facebook more. What they really want is for you to post your content, comment on it, and share it all from within the Facebook, and ideally from a highly-optimized Facebook app they completely control.

Facebook Comments aren't designed to be a great experience. They're designed to funnel users into Facebook's ecosystem and to get them to use Facebook more. It's a marketing tool for Facebook.

leepowerson Ask HN: Deadbeat Client – Owes us 25k – What are my options?

A few thoughts from my own experiences:

A) They have been good with payment in the past, so there's still a chance they will settle up once their cash situation is sorted out. The key thing here is to keep your needs on their mind. Meaning: calling them 1-2 times a week, checking up on the status of payment, sending emails checking in on the status of payment. Escalate as needed, letting them know you are willing to pursue any avenue to get paid.

B) Do you have any leverage? There's a reason why any developer or development company worth it's salt demands an up-front deposit and deliverables on final payment - to ensure that they get paid.

C) If they're running low on money they are going to look for something that's going to give. They will have to make hard decisions, and if you appear to be the path of least resistance, they will take you. Refer back to point A. If you can stay on the forefront of their minds and make it clear you're not going away they will be more likely to prioritize paying you instead of paying vendor X.

D) Lawyer up? Probably. If they continue to be non-responsive to payment inquiries consult with a lawyer and see if he'll write up a demand letter. Again, they're not prioritizing paying you and a simple demand letter may be enough to get their attention and put you at the top of the stack. A lawyer can also help you escalate as needed including who to sue, when to sue, and where to file a lawsuit. At $25k this should be well beyond any small claims court.

E) If they're broke or going out of business you're going to have to be a hard ass to see any of this money. And you have to determine if the trade-offs are worth it. Assume it will cost you at least $5k in time, lawyer fees, debt collector fees to get to payment. Do you want to risk the time and money? You might spend the $5k and still end up with nothing. So think of any amount you'd be willing to settle for, including any lawyer fees.

leepowerson WordPress Core up to 4.7.4 – Potential Unauthorized Password Reset

1) Note, you can patch this in a theme or plugin of your own by explicitly setting a sender email address:

    add_filter("wp_mail_from", function($generated_from) { return "mysender@mydomain.com"; });

2) The thing I'm not understanding - wouldn't setting a "Host:" header change the directory being served in most virtual host configurations? For instance:

    POST /wp/wordpress/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword HTTP/1.1
    Host: injected-attackers-mxserver.com

In most configurations the web server would look for a virtual host configuration matching "injected-attackers-mxserver.com" - and when not found would just return a 404 or error page, or possibly the default Apache/nginx directory? So to be vulnerable the WordPress install would need to be accessible via either A) a default config or B) an IP address.

3) It's odd there isn't a patch for this. WordPress already creates and stores a canonical "siteurl" on install, and this setting is not changed by any "$_SERVER" variable.

leepowerson The relationship between social media use and well-being

Social media is a game, just like MMORPG's are games, and slot gambling is a game, or call of duty is a game. For some reason a large chunk of society has been convinced that social media is the "real" game and more normative than all other games.

Overplaying any game is bad for the mental health of the player. Relatedly, a game becomes unhealthy whenever the game becomes the center of the player's life. This applies equally to WoW, Civilization, Facebook, or Twitter, or any other game.

So, social media is a game that can be fun to play, but it shouldn't be a component of the player's identity.

leepowerson Ask HN: Why Haven't GUI Front End Editors Caught On?

Or `display: table` and `display: table-cell` so you can use a `<div>` instead of the dreaded `<table>` tag.

leepowerson Ask HN: What's stopping you from using Firefox as your primary browser?

Integration with the rest of Google's services. More specifically: when logged into my Google account Chrome will automatically sync my browser history and bookmarks between devices. Adding a device is as simple as logging into a Google Account. No extra plugins to download and install, it just works. And the browser experience is uniformly good across devices.

In Chrome developer tools I daily use the workspace tools to edit CSS and other files, and see the updates in real-time in-browser.

I honestly don't know if any of these features are available in Firefox. If they are I would try it out and consider switching.

leepowerson The Empty Nostalgia of ‘The Sound of Music’

TSOM is the WWII generation looking back on the struggles and evils that defined their world, and finding hope and beauty in it. The von Trapp family does not defeat evil, they escape it - an archetype that maps neatly onto the cold war era where evil persisted (the USSR) even after it had been defeated (the Allied victory). It was also escapism from the turmoil of the mid-60's, including the unfolding, slow-motion disaster of Vietnam. It's no mystery that millions of Americans flocked to a romanticized version of the last great and good conflict that occurred during their lifetimes.

The escapism of TSOM is still apropos, especially during times of conflict. If you believe the world is a hard, cruel, unjust place, why would you only watch movies or read books that feature hardbitten themes and tragedies? Wouldn't you want to take a break and forget and clear your mind for a while? It was the WWII generation's proximity to struggle that made them susceptible to escapism.

> Most likely I will not watch The Sound of Music again for a long time, four or maybe even eight years, and that’s okay.

Ahh, I see, this is about president Trump. It's remarkable how much people will let an election define them and dictate how they will live and entertain themselves. Scratch that, it's not remarkable, it's absolutely crazy.

leepowerson Why we should all have a basic income

UBI is not adding money to the system. No new dollars would be printed. So there would be little to no effect on inflation. It's moving around existing money via taxation and redistribution.

Under this scheme there wouldn't be any incentive for a business to raise their prices. Imagine that UBI is implemented and imagine it's effects on a business in a mid-sized city, say a restaurant. The business now has an additional 50,000 potential customers, people who can afford to eat out more often due to UBI.

How should the restaurant owner react? He can raise his prices. But that exposes him to competitors who keep their prices the same. He can lower his prices. In which case he will earn less money per plate, but he now has a pool of 50,000 new customers to draw on, so he can make more money on volume. A good restaurateur would lower his prices proactively and try capture a large chunk of this new, larger market of customers.

The point is it's easy to see how UBI could cause prices to go down, and not just up. It's simplistic and misleading to assert that all businesses will start price gouging in response to a UBI. Populations are more complicated that this, and markets are dynamic.

leepowerson Why we should all have a basic income

UBI is talked about, but is probably a long way off. But it's important to get the conversation started. We already have massive wealth redistribution in the U.S., in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., which make up 70% of the federal budget. UBI isn't about spending more but spending differently.

leepowerson The analysis of 28,000 results suggests that hardly anybody gets indexes right

Just as an aside most DBRMS come with query profiling tools to help you optimize and troubleshoot queries in relation to the schema. EXPLAIN in MySQL has saved me many times, or at least enabled me to ask intelligent questions: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/explain.html

leepowerson This is how American health care kills people

Also during an emergency situation you may be taken to an out-of-network hospital or be treated by an out-of-network doctor at a hospital, of which insurance may only cover 0%-50% of the bill. So you have no choice in provider, no choice in price, yet have 100% responsibility for paying.

leepowerson This is how American health care kills people

Demand for health care is inelastic which makes it mostly immune to market forces. With health care consumers really don't have a choice. Either they pay whatever price is set by providers or they die or become disabled by their condition. Whether the procedure costs $5 or $5000 is irrelevant. When it comes down to saving your life you will take on any expense.

More nefariously (and a point that many people often miss) recovering from a major illness is a full-time job. People who are very, very sick don't have the mental concentration or energy to even do a desk job. And if the job involves manual labor they're even more screwed. Strenuous physical activity during an illness can exacerbate the symptoms and kill the patient. Even having to stand for eight hours can greatly harm outcomes. So sick people have the worst of both worlds: accruing enormous expenses for incredibly pricey life-saving procedures and drugs, all while having their earnings drop to zero.

leepowerson Affordable Care

You're absolutely right. I often conflate "single payer" with "universal coverage", which you rightly note are not the same thing.

By "capitalist democracy" I simply wanted to point out that a country can have a healthy and thriving free market economy and universal coverage at the same time. (e.g., Germany, Japan, UK, and many more). It's a counterfactual to small-government conservative hyperbole, which holds that universal coverage necessarily destroys and disables a nation's economy.

leepowerson Affordable Care

> It is really interesting how the American mindset is to never look abroad to see what works and what doesn't.

Oh we definitely look abroad. In fact that's one of the major arguments for a single-payer system in the U.S. - such a system exists successfully in every other capitalist democracy. So why can't we make it work here?

And this looking abroad is not a tonic against bad thinking. Conservatives routinely look at health systems in other countries and decry them: long waiting lists for elective procedures, high marginal income tax rates, etc., etc. Any flaw in another system is magnified and considered a non-starter.

Obamacare was based on an older Republican plan which had been implemented by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. But in the run-up to Obamacare conservatives hyperventilated about "death panels" and how the ACA was going to destroy the economy. None of which came to pass.

leepowerson [dead]

It's a conclusion I can definitely see a spook coming to. Neutralize the leverage of blackmail material by making it public. The political fallout for Trump is secondary to ensuring he can't be manipulated by a foreign government.

I've often wondered if Hillary can released all of her emails (no redactions) at the outset if she'd be president today. It would have removed the leverage of political adversaries. Or at least it would have been 1-2 weeks of bad headlines, instead of the constant drip of negative press. Radical transparency can change the equation.

leepowerson Ask HN: 8 figure parents

What are you passionate about? Do that.

The advantage the money gives you is an ability to fail. You can follow your passion, fall flat on your face, and yet still have stability in your life. So shoot for the moon.

If you follow this route you will meet fellow travelers who are passionate about the same thing. Help them out. Encourage them. Find a way to extend that stability into their lives.

leepowerson Show HN: ColorMe

I love the design and layout of this app. Very nice!

A killer feature would be add options to calculate complementary, monochromatic, analogous, etc. color harmonies, similar to a color calculator:

https://www.sessions.edu/color-calculator/

leepowerson Ask HN: How to actually get clients when starting to freelance?

That's a good start. Do the devs talk about their projects? Or do you? Getting eyes-on your existing projects and asking devs for feedback can be a good way to engage. The goal here is to reciprocate - get a look at their projects and clients, and point out pathways to conversion optimization. Being proactive can help a lot.

Conversion optimization is valuable and most businesses are happy to pay for a bump in new customers. What's your pitch? What's your web site? A whitepaper, or a web page showing what you can do will go a long way to demonstrating value to possible customers.

It's going to take a while to build a strong customer base and network that can keep you busy and in money. And it may be a month or more before you land your first client. That's OK. Any business requires you to stick with it, if it's ever going to have a chance to succeed.

But don't undersell yourself or take on a subpar client just to close a sale. It's far better to spend your time building your network and looking for serious clients than wasting time with a difficult client. A serious client will pay you upfront, usually a deposit of 50%, though sometimes less with a more detailed payment schedule. Any asshole can ask you to work on contingency. A deposit ensures that even if a client ends up being an asshole at least they're an asshole with money.

leepowerson Ask HN: How to actually get clients when starting to freelance?

Developers know other developers. But developers also know business people, startup aspirants, and other existing and potential customers. Developers can also have "overflow" where they have more work than they can handle and need to offload it. My own freelance career is supported by building direct relationships with clients and building relationships with other developers/designers/producers who I can work with on an ad-hoc basis.

In this particular case, OP's primary skill is "conversion optimization", which can complement another developer's skillset. That's a specialization that a developer can pass along to a client.

leepowerson Rise of the High-Profit Micro Farm (2016)

High-margin crops, minimal overhead, and intensive cultivation (i.e., greenhouses) to get the most out the available space. Pretty much be the only way to go on a small acreage:

> Though his book The Urban Farmer still similarly emphasizes minimal machinery and biointensive growing, Stone sticks to the highest profit crops—baby greens, microgreens, and tomatoes, for example.

The other part of this is having a strong local customer base willing to pay a premium for fresh ingredients.

A fresh tomato, ripened on the vine, and picked and eaten the same day is much tastier than a store-bought one shipped a thousand miles. Taste-wise it's almost a completely different foodstuff.

But location is key for this type of business. If there's 200 restaurants within 20 miles of the microfarm the customer base is good. If there's only two it's going to be much more difficult.

leepowerson Why Wordpress?

One of the great things about WordPress is the plugin ecosystem. This is also a something of an achilles heel, especially when it comes to security. WordPress seems to attract a lot of lowest-common-denominator coders who create plugins. So while the WordPress core is now pretty solid when it comes to security, the various plugins are almost never coded to the same standard.

I have to wonder if WordPress added a small cost and verification system at front, similar to the app store, if third-party code would be of higher quality.

leepowerson Why I close pull requests

Wait, you don't spec out project changes? You just start writing code and attempt to figure it out as you go along? That seems like a recipe for disaster, or at least a lot of wasted effort. How do you even quantify that you've done something useful if you haven't set a goal that everyone can agree on?

leepowerson The Singularity Is Further Than It Appears (2015)

Even more than that Kurzweil boldly predicts that nanobots will cure virtually all disease within ~15-25 years (by 2030s at least, but no later than the 2040s).

I certainly hope this prediction is true. But I think it has more to do with that fact that Kurzweil will be creeping towards the end of his life (gauged by average U.S. life expectancy) in the next 15 years.

leepowerson The Singularity Is Further Than It Appears (2015)

We can conceptualize problems as discrete units to be solved and enumerated. But reality is dynamic and relational, and all problems are ultimately interrelated somehow. It's that true discrete problem units are smaller and simpler than the whole. But this increases the overall work needed.

An example is sequencing the genome. This problem was solved much more quickly than anticipated due to advances in computer processing power. But it also revealed a huge new problem space of epigenetics. Complexity is emergent, not static and hierarchical. Progress is a tree, not a ladder.