programmertote

If people think it's just one doctor/one clinic profiting off from this pandemic, they'd be wrong.

I know a couple of people who worked at these COVID testing sites in NYC (area near Columbia University), Brooklyn and in New Jersey for $15/hour. If one wants to work there, s/he doesn't even need to have work permit (because these sites hire foreign medical graduates for cheap labor). One just need to be able to draw blood, if necessary and that's the main requirement to work there.

All of these clinics are owned by doctors. I'm 100% sure these clinic owners get reimbursed more than $15 per test from the US government. It is a financial windfall for those entrepreneurial doctors and clinic owners who are willing to ignore proper screening in hiring COVID testers at the sites.

Agree. My cynical mind like to think that there are a lot more people there who just want to make a quick buck and maybe get rich quick. Those people, who most likely bought GME early on, are hyping up the "hold strong on GME" motto and they will silently leave the fools to hold the burden. Whether it's sticking it to the Wall Street or not (actually, it's only affecting maybe a handful of hedge funds on Wall Streets; the big guys on Wall Streets are probably making a lot of money from this "movement"), A LOT of average Joe's will lose money here as well.

Your experience is similar to mine. I got glasses at the age of 13, but didn't like wearing the glasses, so never did. Both my late father and my sister (since she was about 12 years old) have to wear thick glasses. My sister started out about the same eye power as I did, but she wears her glasses everyday. My sister's glasses got thicker year over year, and finally she got LASIK a couple of years ago. My sister doesn't work with computers whereas I spend ~10-12 hours a day with computers/TV screens (when I use computer, I don't wear glasses and my eye doctor told me that's okay). For me, my eye power stayed about the same and never got stronger glass prescription over the last 25 years or so.

Having said that, I started wearing glasses about a year ago when watching the TV between 10pm-12am (thanks to my wife who likes watching movies and I joined in). Turns out, my eyesight (near-sight) got a bit worse in a year and now I have a slightly thicker glasses. Again, this is all anecdotal and maybe age comes into play here with my eye sight (but the common knowledge--not sure how true that is--is that the nearsightedness gets better as people age, so what I'm experiencing is the opposite).

Yes! I noticed that latino grocery stores have some common varieties that are available in my home country, which is in south asia. Those 'little banana' that you are referring to is one of them, but they taste slightly different from what's available in my country (close, but not exactly the same). :)

Also, for those who have never tried this before: try to make refreshing juice out of Tamarind (available in latino grocery shops) and maybe a spoon of sugar. Super delicious in the summer.

I'm so glad to see this post and be reminded of the variety of banana kinds that are available in my home country. In the US, I think it's only the Cavendish and maybe Plantain that are commonly seen in the markets. When people say 'buy banana' in the states, we know it's to buy cavendish. But in my home country, when I asked my mother to buy banana when she goes shopping, I had to tell her what specific kind.

I truly miss the variety of food and vegetables available in my home country. In the US, I will have to be rich to afford such variety of food and even then, I might not be able to access them immediately/fresh. I guess that's the price we pay for efficiency in the developed world (of food production which is more or less monoculture and corporatized).

I've been working at a multi-national corporation for the last 5 years (and a little more) and your description fits perfectly with what I observed. Also, sometimes the execs leave a couple of years after they start/initiate a new project (before it finishes) presumably using that as their achievement point (although the project they started isn't even finished and eventually fizzles out once they move to the new company) in their CV to their new employer. After seeing that for 2-3 times, I realized that some of these upper management people only start these overly-ambitious (impossible) initiatives just to gear up for their eventual move.

You're right. I commented here a few times about how I grew up with my parents who are avid listeners to RFA, VOA, DVB, and BBC (channel specific to my country). Since we have military dictatorship back then, we trusted RFA, VOA more than our government's TV channels. I left for college in the US and learned who are feeding the news for VOA, RFA, DVB and where they are getting funding from, then I realized they are not that reliable news sources (and can be regarded as propaganda machines for people with vested interests).

If one listens to VOA/RFA in my country, one would think that the US is a shining utopia and did nothing wrong in Iraq/Afghan invasions (9/11 just happened a few years before I left the country).

The truth is that there is no objective news outlet in the world (even 'facts' fed to the unsuspecting reporters/journalists are dubitable).

Not so easy in the US. My sister is in the first trimester of her pregnancy. She had to go to ER last week because she couldn't eat (keeps vomiting and lose sleep because of vomiting). She was in a bad state (very weak and was almost passing out) when they (her in-laws) brought her there. They had to wait for 2 hours to be attended by the nurse/doctor eventually. It's not because the hospital was crowded with COVID patients (Rochester, NY isn't overwhelmed with COVID at the moment). It's mostly because there are few doctors assigned for each shift at the hospital (the supply of doctors in the US is scarce--partly because of the artificial restrictions put in place by American Medical Association [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/thanks-to-doctors-there-a...)

When I broke my nose, I went to ER and registered at around 12am. A doctor finally treated me at around 8:15am. That's at the Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY ~6 years ago.

> The result of this failure is that job-hopping is the most valid career strategy for aspiring seniors.

The same is true at my work which is not FAANG, but one of the big four in its industry. I guess it's just the nature of corporations.

I agree with your comment. My wife took USMLE exams (all three steps) and she would complain to me that most of the stuff she memorize there, she'd forget them in a year or so (and eventually resort to Google and/or https://www.uptodate.com/home to refresh/review). :)

100% this. I wrote a separate comment in this thread cautioning people that this doctor, despite this charitable act, is probably not as charitable as we might think from reading a news article.

If we dig deep into his clinics' billing practices, we might see lots and lots of bogus charges billed to the insurance companies (some of which might have to be paid by the patients with high deductible/co-pay in their insurance plan).

Glad to see someone pointing out the context.

Certainly this doctor and his family did a great thing by forgoing the debt owed by his patients. BUT, my wife worked and volunteered at a few private clinics around NY metro areas and I would wager that this doctor's clinic already makes a lot of money (2-3x that 650K) every year if not more.

As an example, one of the primary care physician's clinic that my wife (who is now in medical residency) used to work in NY Chinatown (a lot of patients there are on Medicaid/Medicare, etc.) still raked in at least $600K/year. The doctor sees ~40-50 patients a day. The doctor would write one or two bogus diagnoses to inflate the billing codes to make up for the 'loss in revenue' due to treating patients on Medicaid or simply making each patient encounter worth it.

Another example from a different clinic, where my wife used to volunteer, put on phone consultation fee in the bill when the patient called in to check about his appointment and asked a side question about one of his medication. It literally took that psychiatrist less than a minute to answer that call, but the patient is going to be footing ~$50-$100 from his/her co-pay.

In summary, some of these private clinics (not to mention the hospitals and we have read about their b.s. billing practices many times) are billing patients bogus stuff on almost every patient encounter. Some of them justify this by saying it's not the patient who pays the bill (but in fact, some patients with high deductibles/co-pay have to) or that they need to make up for their expected earning of running a private clinic (which is better than what a general physician would earn--$250K/year on average--at a hospital).

We can translate that to pretty much anything that we hear/read/watch second-hand from any source (including the news media). I grew up in a South Asian country and came to the US in early 2000 for college. Before then, I listened to BBC, RFA and VOA religiously and thought what they report there about my country is the truth (we were ruled by the military regime back then and most of the population assume everything the government said is a lie. An example in which people were already desensitized to disregard the government--the military government broadcast a public health service announcements after 8pm news everyday and those includes things like not using too much oil in the food for fear of heart disease. The general public would assume the government cannot import sufficient amount of edible oil from abroad--because of economic sanctions--so they are discouraging everyone to use less oil in cooking!).

But when I came to the US and started to learn who is feeding these news to the VOA, RFA, etc. and how these people and organizations (including the UN orgs) got funding, I realize not everything that I read is true. This became very apparent when I read news about my country (reported by NYT and other reputable media outlets) that are too simplistic and one-sided. Then I stopped reading news altogether since 2016 and quit FB.

That was the best decision ever and nowadays I only use Reddit to follow very specific subreddits (just sports, aww and funny). People are very opinionated about things that they have not experienced, and with online anonymity, people can sprout baseless stuff and easily buy into believing things that are simply not true.

Everything I said here applies to HN as well. There are a lot of very poorly-informed-but-opinionated users here just like everywhere on the internet.

Thank you for the info. I live in the US and plan to buy and hold (for diversification) with the money I can stomach to lose. I'll try out Coinbase because it's the one that is the most familiar to me. Happy holidays!

As a novice to bitcoin investing, could you share the best (most secure/trusted) way to buy bitcoin? Thank you!

I can confirm. I work in the advertising industry (only to pay my bills until I can retire or get back into software industry one day), and Unilever and P&G are one of the biggest advertisers/clients.

I am with you. I grew up in a below-middle-class family raised by my widowed mom. My dad passed away when I was 12. I have two younger siblings.

As I look back on the last ~40 years of my life, it's mostly about struggles sprinkled with brief periods of joy lasting no more than a couple of days at most. Most of the time, I'm studying to get good grades so that I can get scholarships, without which I'd not be able to go to college; helping my widowed mom with her chores (including taking care of younger siblings) because she is occupied with making money to survive; and even now that I'm an adult with a stable income, I spend most of my time working for someone (selling my 8+ hours a day to my employer) while worrying about if I'll have enough money saved by mid-50s when I hope to be able to enjoy life a little more (e.g., going on vacations) with some spare money to spend.

All I'm trying to say is that life is a struggle for most people (the poorer family you were born into, the truer that statement becomes). We never have moments of peace because we have things to worry about constantly. I'd never bring another human being into this mess unless I can have a discussion with my future progeny before s/he is conceived (which is, of course, impossible). In other words, unless some ghost/spirit is begging me to let him/her incarnate because s/he see value in this rat race, I'd not make this decision one-sidedly.

As a tangential note, I am a strong proponent of euthanasia and hope that one day, it'll be commonly accepted by the society.

Thank you very much!

If you don't mind sharing, where do you learn/read-up about the system design questions? I am not a software architect although I designed and built small modules/libraries of my own, but I don't think it's sufficient to learn about system design questions found in interviews (not just FAANG's).

I interviewed ~30 people total between 2018 and 2019, and I have to agree with you. There is no shortage of applicants. Just the shortage of qualified people.

Side note - I do NOT use whiteboard technique in my interviews. I ask the candidates questions about the stuff they mention in their resumes and go deep in the technical discussion based on their responses (or I told them to walk me through one of their recent projects be it a work project or their side project). Using that 'simple' technique, you can easily filter out so many pretenders (as I'd like to call them, who have splendid resumes but little to back things up when grilled the details about their resumes).

Thanks for sharing this! I went to med school for two years in my home country, married to a doctor who is in her residency training in the US and couldn't agree more.

If you look at my HN comment history, you'll see that I've tried to mention that part of the problem of exorbitant healthcare expenses in the US is the artificial scarcity of doctors. It starts with this inflated/unnecessary requirement to have a bachelor's degree before going to med school. Other nations in the world (e.g., India) do fine with training their doctors for five years (even that, I think is too much; the first year of med school training in my country is pretty much an extended high school curriculum not essential to medicine).

An internal medicine (generalist) doctor in the US can earn $250K right after finishing the residency. Elsewhere in the world (e.g., in the UK), the doctors earn about $90-150K.

I also have to agree with you that contrary to the popular belief in the US, doctors can be fairly un-intellectual. The main requirement to do well in their career is to rely on rote memorization (go check out on YouTube how Anki is so important/popular among med school people).

I wish I could donate something to keep this site up and running. Really admire people who spent their time creating a useful resource like this and sharing it for FREE with the public for common good. I hope I will have free time one day (when I retire) to do something like that for the subject that I'm interested in.

Can you explain a bit more on what you are alluding to? This new law is not related to employee count (i.e. the size of the firm). It takes into account the median salary at the firm AND how much the CEO makes. I'm trying to understand what you are trying to argue here.

Since you mentioned about Georgia runoff elections, I'd like to share the link to the Democrats' donation page: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/gasenatebattleground.

100% this. As a English-as-a-second-language speaker, there are times when I wish I could speak up and express my thoughts/emotions in a way that is palatable to the audience (native English speakers), but decided to stay quiet because I am not sure if it'll come out right or because my brain cannot process fast enough to speak fluently/eloquently. I consider myself fairly decent in English vocabulary and reading (not bragging but scored 720 out of 800 in both SAT and GRE verbal), but I still cannot do as well as native speakers in expressing my concerns/opinions during business meetings. Sometimes, I wish the tables are turned so that I can speak my native language and am able to make persuasive arguments in discussions.

Language barrier is real and I am guessing some English speakers may never understand/empathize with the non-native speakers.

Can you share the title of the video that explains the about yields (if you remember)? I'm not an electrical or hardware engineer, but I'm very curious about it. Thanks in advance!

I was tempted to buy a Chromecast Ultra because my Roku does not support Peacock app.

BUT I stopped short of buying it because I have Google home mini which never seems to be able to register my preferred temperature unit (Celcius) regardless of how many times I have tried on its not-so-intuitive home app (plus can no longer connect to its Bluetooth for playing YouTube videos for example). That and reading a bunch of news/comments like this thread helps me make a fairly quick decision to not purchase Chromecast.

I sincerely hope Google CEO or someone who really cares about their org's reputation see people complaining about their product strategy. They should learn how to keep what's working and most importantly, to not venture into anything unless they can commit to it for at least 10 years. Of course, they have their cash cow, which is the advertising/search unit, so maybe they'll never care.

All the last 5 months or so of using Windows 10, I thought this issue was only on my computer because I installed TechSmith's Capture app. Now I know it's not. Viewing/Opening photos is a very common task people do on PC. How could this have passed the QA tests is beyond believable to me.

> EM: Will you establish any kind of foundation or charity or something like that?

> TL: No, I won't. They're mostly rip-offs.

Having interned/worked in three INGOs (Save the Children, World Concern and UNICEF) for a total of ~2 years, and having a family member who have worked in a well-known French NGO (ACF International)for 3+ years, I have to agree with this assessment.

That's why when I donate money to charities, I'm very selective and make sure the charities I donate are NOT affiliated with religion (ahem, Save the Children and World Concern) or any political agenda (UNICEF). The truth in INGOs is that they need constant stream of funding and sometimes, they make up/exaggerate stuff to help drive the donations.

Worse is, when you actually work with people in NGOs, you'll find there is a stark difference in pay and benefits between foreigner (usually white or English speaking) and the local/native employees although the latter are the ones who know much more about the actual problems. Regional directors in UNICEF come and go every two years or less and they always can't wait to get out of the shithole third world country that they are supposed to be helping about. They and their fellow (foreign) workers are also paid very well with car, housing and children education benefits (all of which I'm not opposed to, but I'm sure as hell that they cannot find an equally well-paying job with their degrees and credentials in their home countries). Plus you never find these regional directors and management people at work (meaning, they show up to work like maybe once a week if we are lucky; no, they are not in the field working, which is left to the native employees of said INGO).

Public (especially the state and municipal) employees in the US earn quite a lot of money. In an NJ town right across Manhattan, I know a town council man could make $150K/year. He has been on the council for like only a few years (like 2-3 years top), but before then he was running all kinds of political stuff in the city (once an assistant of the then mayor, for example). I can't help but imagine corruption when I saw how much he earns and how much property tax we have to pay in this town.

P.S. I got to learn his income because I am on the board of a co-op where he tried to buy an apartment (his secondary dwelling) at and we run his background check and income/finance capability.