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3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

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Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#231

Post by _curious_ »

jkaljundi wrote: post #196
Demiurge wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer I immediately though of the power of queues. Twenty people trying to submit same form does not work for everyone, but a queue processing one person at a time might allow the twenty people to submit within a short time. It is flattening the curve! If I was contracted to fix this ASAP, I would set up an nginx front-end proxy config that doesn't allow more than X sessions and suggest a time in the future…

In related news on Queue-it: https://tech.eu/brief/queue-it-funding/

Solid company

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#232

Post by crispyambulance »

scottLobster wrote: post #81
sundaeofshock wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? There were a number of submissions yesterday to HN discussing the relative merits of sacrificing millions for the sake of the market. Perhaps you missed those?

Not sure if this was your intent, but "sacrificing millions for the sake of the Market" sounds like you're trying to shift away from the point that right now about 3.28 million more folks (probably more) are wondering how to pay their rent/mortgages and feed their children. If this lockdown continues indefinitely the death numbers from the economic fallout will likely eclipse those of the pandemic. But nah, the "mark…

[flagged]

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#233

Post by generalpass »

throwaway_USD wrote: post #155

Everyone should expect the stock market to thrive off this data today...

> Everyone should expect the stock market to thrive off this data today...

There are too many huge announcements for anyone to claim they know why the (millions?) of individuals whose actions are reflected in market prices from noise.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#234

Post by _curious_ »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #207
enraged_camel wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can tell the numbers are extremely inaccurate via just a simple, cursory glance at the report. Pennsylvania reported 378k claims. California reported... 186k claims. Yesterday, California's governor said they've received more than 1 million claims since March 13th (so, over a 12 day period from the 13th to the 25th). This DOL report covers March 14th through the 21st. Are we to believe that the remaining…

As of 3/21. Lockdown in California began in the evening of 3/19. Still not enough time for the numbers to react.

"Are we to believe that the remaining 800k+ people all filed on March 13th, or March 22nd through the 25th?"

I could believe it over the 22-25 stretch.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#235

Post by throwawayjava »

danharaj wrote: post #228
bbxxcc wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think loathing the unemployed (especially if it isn't caused by health conditions and isn't temporary, like in this case) is commonplace in any society. There are many studies which show unemployed people are more likely to commit crimes. e.g. [1] Unemployed people, by definition, are net consumers. [2] Unless society as a whole actually produces wealth, there is nothing to tax, and the government doesn't have any…

Landlords are bigger parasites than any NEET.

I've encountered exactly two people in my life who were perfectly healthy, both mentally and physically, but just sat around all day doing nothing for years on end.

Both were landlords.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#236

Post by sbuttgereit »

alharith wrote: post #82
duxup wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Business are being told to do takeout only which is a huge difference. Yeah I've been doing a fair amount of takeout and places where you had dozens of people ... operating with two or three people now.

My brother is a restaurant owner and reports that despite volume being down, profit is up due to less overhead. Others in the restaurant industry are reporting the same. When we come out on the other side of this, I think a lot of businesses are going to rethink a lot of things they held on to as infallible truths. Sorry as many mentioned, yes the key ingredient is takeout: This is a fast casual italian / pizza resta…

Did his business already have a robust take-out business? If so, I wouldn't be surprised by this comment. I would expect revenues, for awhile, to be the same or even increase... though as individual customers circumstances turn less certain I would expect that to decline over time. Certainly there's less labor overhead, and slightly less expense for utilities, cleaning supplies, etc. But larger pieces, like rents, would remain the same absent some sort of accommodation for the crisis.

A business that didn't have a robust take-out business prior to the crisis I would expect to fare worse. You'd have to do things like get the word out that you are a take out business for one... and some couldn't likely make that transition. Would you order fine dining take out? Sure the food might be good, but half the reason to go to a good restaurant, rather than a cheaper one, is the service.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#237

Post by threatofrain »

pjc50 wrote: post #181
scottLobster wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this was your intent, but "sacrificing millions for the sake of the Market" sounds like you're trying to shift away from the point that right now about 3.28 million more folks (probably more) are wondering how to pay their rent/mortgages and feed their children. If this lockdown continues indefinitely the death numbers from the economic fallout will likely eclipse those of the pandemic. But nah, the "mark…

This is where it's very important to distinguish between financial conditions and material conditions. Feeding children and supplying respirators and masks are material conditions, dependent on the production and distribution systems. Paying rent and mortgage, on the other hand, isn't material . If you don't pay it nothing material changes - it's not an iron law of the world in the way that hunger is, evictions are a…

I imagine some communities will simply sink lower and never recover trajectory, and some sociologist will write a sad book sometime in the future about them. How does Black 2030 look like in America? Optimistic?

We should believe that some economic curses last multiple lifetimes.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#238

Post by projektfu »

driverdan wrote: post #214
Demiurge wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer I immediately though of the power of queues. Twenty people trying to submit same form does not work for everyone, but a queue processing one person at a time might allow the twenty people to submit within a short time. It is flattening the curve! If I was contracted to fix this ASAP, I would set up an nginx front-end proxy config that doesn't allow more than X sessions and suggest a time in the future…

Having worked on this type of application in the past they should find a new company to work with if they can't handle this traffic. We were handling hundreds of requests per second with ease 10 years ago. That was with MySQL and the app running on the same server. It doesn't take many resources to show the user a form, validate it, and save to a DB.

Usually it's not so much the form that causes things to fall down but some validation step that they are trying to do synchronously, that might have to access an IBM mainframe, and things time out. When you're getting a few an hour, it's not a big deal.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#239

Post by judge2020 »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #200
Demiurge wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer I immediately though of the power of queues. Twenty people trying to submit same form does not work for everyone, but a queue processing one person at a time might allow the twenty people to submit within a short time. It is flattening the curve! If I was contracted to fix this ASAP, I would set up an nginx front-end proxy config that doesn't allow more than X sessions and suggest a time in the future…

Put the web form (plain static assets JS/CSS/HTML) on a globally accessible CDN. Then use SQS intake for each unemployment application form. Then firehouse it out, wherever it needs to go, at a rate which you can realistically deal with it. Queuing access to the form itself and telling someone to wake up at 4:52 AM so they can then merely access the static assets is a less-than-desirable user experience.

Even typeform/Google Forms would be better suited for the task.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#240

Post by Demiurge »

driverdan wrote: post #214
Demiurge wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer I immediately though of the power of queues. Twenty people trying to submit same form does not work for everyone, but a queue processing one person at a time might allow the twenty people to submit within a short time. It is flattening the curve! If I was contracted to fix this ASAP, I would set up an nginx front-end proxy config that doesn't allow more than X sessions and suggest a time in the future…

Having worked on this type of application in the past they should find a new company to work with if they can't handle this traffic. We were handling hundreds of requests per second with ease 10 years ago. That was with MySQL and the app running on the same server. It doesn't take many resources to show the user a form, validate it, and save to a DB.

Completely agree with the sentiment. I think most often it is inadequate default configuration that bottle-necks somewhere, that never got tested with more than a handful of users at a time. Going to a hundred highlights some bugs. going to 1000 others. On the other hand, I have worked on a project for USDA and they had 10 year old servers running 15 year old software and did not allow any system administration, while the system admins were some unknown government employees completely inaccessible.

I have had to build python distribution completely in home/user-space in some cases, working on conservatively managed servers.

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