it's a beautiful website, if ain't broke don't fix it, right?

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who immediately thought of this.

And yes, some of us are either old enough that we remember DEBUG.COM, or we got started way too young.

    The DEBUG utility was originally named DEBUG.COM in early versions
    of MS-DOS, but it was renamed to DEBUG.EXE starting with MS-DOS 3.2

Shoutout to the 12 of us who remember debug> g=c800:5

Oh wow. I remember doing this as well... with little to no success.

The debug.com binary only showed one measly ASM instruction at a time as I recall. Shudder.

WinDbg?

Sure I remember, but since I purchased Spinrite doing lowlevel was needed just once while changing ST-506 controller to a different type or for a new disk, former was quite much rarer needed.

Then even after std lowlevel it was worth using Spinrite to check if interleave value was proper. And if it wasn't it was worth letting it first before anything else. Same when changing a faster CPU as it could speed up IO so much that no interleave would not needed any more and get faster IO.

Spinrite was such a great tool and time saver fixing or making preventive periodic maintenance to customers disks, even though it chugged hours even 30M disks. And just because not to take absolutely any risk it was necessary to make full backup first, which that took quote long also. LapLink was a great tool for that, before LAN became more common.

Just type u and strike Enter

Original Singapore results from Debug in 2019 - "greater than 90% reduction in release areas":

https://blog.debug.com/2019/11/singapore-collaboration-achie...

More generally, it's known as the sterile insect technique and you'll find plenty of campaigns with some googling.

it is unlikely that other mosquitos (that don’t carry disease) will fail to fill the niche

In the FAQ they discuss how in most of its range this particular species is invasive, feeds almost exclusively on humans, and is not believed to be a major food source for predators.

It's impossible to prove this (or really anything in human health/global ecology) is safe. We cannot reliably predict what the true short and long term outcomes will be, but by and large, this seems like one of the less unsafe ecological modification projects based on the underlying technology.

The species is not native. Surely we can agree that eradicating non-native species is a good thing?

WinDbg is a cool, but debug.com predates it by quite a bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debug_(command)

I am not an expert, but the last time I looked at this kind of thing what I took away from it was that you're not really doing anything to negatively impact the total mosquito population, you're just creating a new nesting site that won't produce adults. My understanding was that while it might feel good, it is not actually doing much to impact the population.

Seems like you’re referring to the same initiative - https://blog.debug.com/2026/05/debug-expands-in-singapore-bu...

OK, you bring up a very good point. If the eggs fail to hatch because they are never fertilized, then the mosquitoes are not acting as a vector because they do not transmit the disease. I didn't even consider that possibility.

However, it turns out the eggs are fertilized. Note that the FAQ says the males are effectively sterile and links here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytoplasmic_incompatibility

That wikipedia article says that there are embryos, but the embryos die.

However, the real question to ask, I guess, is whether the embryo is infected. As I read that article, it sounds like it isn't. Instead, the male parent is infected and this creates sperm which can fertilize the egg but in a way that creates an embryo that can't survive. In other words, the male parent has an infectious disease which causes the embryo to have a fatal genetic disease.

So this also brings up another question: what exactly is a vector? In this scenario, the embryo has a disease it would not otherwise have gotten, if it weren't for this germ. However, the embryo doesn't have the germ itself. Is being a vector defined by whether some disease is caused, or is it defined by whether the germ is spread? I don't know.

Good work! The animations are super cool, how did you make them?

Gene drives are such amazing and such frightening technology. No one puts them in the same conversation as nukes or engineered pandemics, but they share the same pattern of "technology improvements giving smaller and smaller actors globally reaching powers", and have even more potential for consequences not intended by those actors. It's pretty scary to imagine a world where one lab or one rich farmer has the power to (after a few dozen generations) globally make arbitrary edits the DNA of entire species. Even smart and goodhearted people can screw up that world.

So from this armchair, I'm glad to see that at least for aedes aegypti (which seems like the clearest case for deploying a gene drive), there's an alternative like debug.

Yes but you’re assuming that whatever they put into our environment will target that perfectly. I’m concerned there’ll be other effects and that such releases aren’t reversible.

> Surely we can agree that eradicating non-native species is a good thing?

So...which areas is humanity native to?

Thus making it "a similar tool for the modern era" as you were asking for, IMO.

My favorite thing about WinDbg is that many people pronounce it "Windbag".

Okay, but is it not what you wished for, "a similar tool for the modern era"?

edit: I see I simul-posted with u/modeless, but I can't remove it now that there's a (duplicate) reply. Maybe mods can remove or at least collapse mine (their ID is one lower so they were first)

Why does the website have Google branding at the bottom? Is it a Google project or associated with Google somehow?

I'm hoping that at some point someone just disregards all the "safety" debate, does it, and succeeds. There is something deeply upsetting about being in the position humanity is on earth and still being expected to tolerate being eaten alive.

I wonder why we don't just try it on some remote island that has had mosquitoes introduced to it, but is otherwise considered isolated from the rest of the ecosystem (at least as far as mosquitoes are concerned).

This organization is going out of the way to avoid spraying insecticides. It seems far more effective than increasing predators because ecosystems tend to adapt to predation.

They are releasing sterile males of one specific species, infected with a naturally occurring bacteria that naturally infects them in the wild as well. It's hard to imagine a more targeted or less objectionable method than this. If you won't accept this method then you're essentially arguing we should never attempt to reduce the invasive mosquito population by any means, which I will have to respectfully but strongly disagree with.

If you mean that seriously: homo sapiens came into existence in Africa, existed solely there for a long time (generating lots of genetic diversity) and then spread throughout the world in multiple waves. It's complicated by the fact that there was no single location and population that became homo sapiens- it was more like a network of locations and populations that evolved concurrently (there was genetic exchange between them as they evolved from their predecessor species).

Depending on how you define it, I could see "parts of Africa" as being "native" but that doesn't really help this discussion.

WinDbg is just a debugger: it does not assemble or disassemble. It can't patch running programs in memory. Moreover, I don't consider Windows to be part of the modern era, as I haven't used a Windows machine for 20 years.

So, no, WinDbg has nothing to do with debug.com.

WinDbg is just a debugger: it does not assemble or disassemble. It can't patch running programs in memory. Moreover, I don't consider Windows to be part of the modern era, as I haven't used a Windows machine for 20 years.

So, no, WinDbg has nothing to do with debug.com.

I can imagine many ways this can backfire. The simplest is - the targeting you’re assuming may not be actually what happens. It may be that some number of bugs released are different and have an unintended side effect. What gives this private organization the right to run this experiment on all of us? Will they assume liability?

> that doesn't really help this discussion

It's the clearest possible example of the fact that simply "eradicating non-native species" is anything _but_ simple, and will have unforeseen implications and consequences. I doubt that modeless intended to advocate for the culling of the majority of humanity, but that was technically what they did. Similarly, SilverElfin correctly points out the high probability of unforeseen consequences of "just" changing the species make-up of a large component of the food web.

I'm not sure what you think a (native) debugger that can't disassemble would look like; I assure you it disassembles the instructions you debug.

Its assembler is sadly stuck in the pre-x86_64 era (and refuses to do arm at all), however it disassembles all of those fine.

Signed: someone who does pronounce it wind bag

Actually, I didn't even get to this part of your message, windbg absolutely can patch currently running programs. It does all the things you think it can't do.

Since 2011 in northern Australia: https://www.worldmosquitoprogram.org/en/news-stories/stories...

It would eliminate a natural control mechanism on humans that's for sure.

Principal Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.

Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?

Principal Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.

Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?

Principal Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.

Lisa: Then we're stuck with gorillas!

Principal Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

The main concern was that animal who feed on mosquitoes (birds) might be affected but most mosquitoes don't bite and the animals who eat them also eat a lot of other insects. I would worry much more about pesticides that may be the reason for the great insect population collapse.

It is because female mosquitos only mate once in their lifetime.

I had the same question when reading website - really poorly explained. Not sure why they also advertise that those genetically modified males are non biting and harmless - all males mosquitos are like that.

> I don't consider Windows to be part of the modern era, as I haven't used a Windows machine for 20 years.

I don't consider France to be part of the modern world, since I haven't visited Europe lately.

Fun! So how was OP supposed to know your very personal and weird definition of what is part of the modern era?

Ae. aegypti is not native to California. We won't miss it.

This is addressed in their FAQ as well: "The general consensus among scientists is that the ecological impact of removing Aedes aegypti mosquitoes from urban environment would be small. They are not a significant food source for other animals and are invasive to many areas. The main ecological impact would be to restore the ecosystem to how it was before the mosquitoes invaded. Debug team is committed to working with communities and regulators to ensure the safety and acceptability of our field trials and releases."

This was tested in Singapore 10 years ago and successfully reduced the spread of Dengue fever by 77% and has not negatively impacted the ecosystem.

This isn't a project to eliminate all mosquitos. There are over 3600 species of mosquito - this project is only targeting one: Aedes aegypti, which spreads many diseases, and is in fact an invasive species. Anywhere you see an Aedes aegypti outside of North Africa, it was humans who brought it there in the first place. This project is just trying to undo that.

The FAQ on the website says their first study was completed in 2018 and results published in 2020.

Linus was my boss at Google for nearly 10 years. His main contribution was one of the key people behind Chrome. He's as good as they come.

If OP wanted to know whether WinDbg and debug.com can be considered feature-similar, they could have read my first comment [1], where I specifically said that debug.com is a "debugger, *assembler*, and *disassembler*". Of those three features, WinDbg provides one.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48362927

Developing new vaccines is expensive, and if the target population is mostly in poor countries, there's nobody to foot the bill. That's why these diseases are called "neglected".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases#Ec...

How are they getting in?

heh, i almost upvoted your comment, but then you contradicted the main reasoning at the end.

(intervention in a complex system, and without proper testing at that... even if the covid vaccines were safe, that was by luck)

There's a great novel about that idea called Jurassic Park. Long story short, it turned out just fine.

Every time a wild female mates with a sterile male, that's one less time they've mated with a viable male. It greatly reduces the number of successful females and therefore the size of the following generation.

And also since they don't bite, they won't compete for the same resources / food.

A more apt analogy: I don't consider North Sentinel Island to be part of the modern world, since there is no relevant innovation going on there, it has no influence on the rest of the world, and there is nothing to be learned there.

Verily (under which this project exists) is part of Alphabet.

You miss debug.com, wish there was an equivalent for the modern era, find out that windbg does almost all these things today, and say there's nothing of value there.

I say this as something who does all the things you described debug.com as doing, in this modern era.

> Aedes aegypti, which spreads many diseases, and is in fact an invasive species. Anywhere you see an Aedes aegypti outside of North Africa, it was humans who brought it there in the first place.

My twisted brain spun out a version of this paragraph from some kind of parallel universe Hacker News (presumably where humans aren't the dominant species on the planet) that said:

> Homo sapiens, which spreads many diseases, and is in fact an invasive species. Anywhere you see a Homo sapiens outside of North Africa, it was humans who brought it there in the first place.

I think it's fun that my brain decided to come up spin the accepted African origin of humans and their proliferation around the world into this fun paragraph. No value judgement about humanity is implied.

> They are not a significant food source for other animals

In Indonesia for one they are. Every night, countless geckos come out, both indoors and outdoors, and start hunting for mosquitoes. Even lullabies sing about it [1].

The above song is so popular that it got an AI parody [2].

I'm curious what food chain reaction this will start if successful.

[1]: https://youtu.be/dOhHiwWwXFw

[2]: https://youtu.be/c6Ad8WAigdQ

This project is not part of Verily any more- it moved back to Google.

That's kind of out of character for Google. Their motto is to organize world's information, not cure diseases.

The geckos can eat other insects, they are not obligated to eat aedes aegypti. You would need to identify a creature that can't eat anything else, and then justify why humans have to die in order to support that creature's extremely selective diet.

What's the worst that can happen?

  The extermination of sparrows – also known as the Eliminate Sparrows campaign – resulted in severe ecological imbalance, and was one of the causes of the Great Chinese Famine which lasted from 1959 to 1961, with an estimated death toll due to starvation ranging in the tens of millions (15 to 55 million).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign

Though that's unlikely to follow on from simply reducing mosquitoes in urban areas ... it absolutely warrants a close eye being kept on roll out and knock on effects.

Google has a number of passion projects typically run by people who established credibility/value to Google a long time ago. Not surprisingly, some of those are medical/biological in nature, because that's an area that tech people like to contribute in after they've reached tenure.

I was a computational biologist and specifically went to work at Google to get access to their world-information-organizing technology to apply it to medical/biological problems. I was convinced at the time (mid-to-late 2000s) that AI was going to transform medicine, especially drug discovery, and that huge amounts of (organized) data was going to be key to achieving this goal. While there, we worked on protein folding and design and drug discovery, as part of a team that eventually was called Google Accelerated Sciences. It was mostly made up of people who had some level of scientific background, then had made $$$ for Google, and made good friends with the leadership and could use some of the research budget.

Of course, the protein folding and design work ended up being replaced by DeepMind's work on protein structure prediction, which led to protein design and drug discovery, mainly in DM spinoffs.

Many people at Google who work on CS stuff would absolutely love to see Google's resources applied to curing diseases. I know that Jeff Dean has been angel investor in this space.

The choice is not between making one species of mosquito extinct or doing nothing.

The choice is between making one species of mosquito extinct or using traditional mosquito control methods such as removing standing water. The traditional methods affect many different insects not just mosquitoes. Attacking specifically the species that are vectors for disease is the more ecologically sound method.

If we could remove the insects that carry disease then the outcome could be more insects overall, because people will be more willing to have ponds, etc.