Segway ends production of its original scooter - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90517971/exclusive-segway-the-most-hyped-invention-since-the-macintosh-to-end-production?partner=feedburner&utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feedburner+fastcompany&utm_content=feedburner <comment><USER2> I think the Segway just missed the mark. The real game-changing device is the e-bike and we can see its immense popularity. Segway may have only sold 140,000 of their devices over its lifetime, but e-bikes are selling by the tens of millions.

One problem with a Segway is that there isn't great space for it. It's far too fast for sidewalks at 10MPH and it's too slow for bike lanes where cyclists often want to go 15MPH. We don't have space to accommodate them and cities are often unwilling to make even minor changes to their infrastructure, never mind the large changes that would be needed to accommodate Segways throughout cities - and take away space from other modes of transit like cars.

E-bikes piggyback on roads and bike infrastructure that cyclists have been using for a long time. It's often less than ideal infrastructure, but it works. Likewise, bike parking accommodates e-bikes in a way that it might not accommodate a Segway as well.

E-bikes are also a lot cheaper. $1,000 can get you a solid e-bike (RadPower just launched its RadMission 1 today at $999). While many e-bikes are $2,000-$3,000, that's still around a third of the price of a Segway. Walmart has some e-bikes for around $700 which are nothing amazing, but have more speed and range than a Segway.

E-bikes typically have a lot more range than a Segway. While a Segway X2 SE has a range of 12 miles, e-bikes typically start at 25 miles of range for low- end bikes on very high assist levels. My e-bike ($1,500 purchase price) is rated for 50 miles and I can usually get 80+ on eco mode which still offers decent assist.

I think there's definitely utility in mid-speed (10-30 MPH, faster than walking, not quite car speed), battery-powered, lightweight transit devices. I just think that Segway missed the mark with something that was way too expensive, put riders in a riding position they didn't really like, had a control system that didn't seem to connect with people as much as it needed to, and didn't fit in with existing infrastructure enough. We're seeing a huge surge in demand for these type of devices, just not Segways. Heck, Ninebot (who purchased Segway) is selling loads of electric powered razor-style scooters.

I loved the iBOT. When I heard that the creator of the iBOT was making a mobility device, I expected something amazing. The iBOT was a wheelchair that could go up and down stairs and keep someone at a 5-7 foot height. It seemed amazing. Then the Segway was introduced and I thought "how on earth could someone think cities would be reconfigured for this?" It seemed to ignore what we knew about what people liked to ride while being incredibly expensive and generally less useful.

I can use my e-bike for so many things. I can get around my city with little worry about range and I'm usually faster than car traffic. I don't have to worry about range because I have so much extra. If I had a Segway, I'd be moving about at under 10MPH (with traffic signals and such) and I'd be constantly worried about range. 12 miles is a short distance for a round trip. If I travel 6 miles on my e-bike, I have at least 40 miles of range left. If I travel 6 miles on a Segway, I'm down to half my battery - or less if there were hills. I might not have power to get back.

The Segway was just never useful enough and it cost so much. E-bikes, electric kick-scooters, electric long-boards, etc. are all showing that there's a big market for mid-speed mobility tech. There just wasn't a market for Segways.

<comment><USER3> My electric cargo bike gets across town (with multiple passengers) as fast as driving, always gets the best parking, and can do the Home Depot run. You inspired me to post some photos: [https://twitter.com/jchris/status/1275588731353722882?s=21](https://twitter.com/jchris/status/1275588731353722882?s=21)

The bike is a Packster 80. The new ones since I bought mine have more power. [https://www.splendidcycles.com/products/riese-and- muller/rie...](https://www.splendidcycles.com/products/riese-and-muller/riese- muller-cargo-bikes)

<comment><USER4> This is an $8,000 bicycle.

<comment><USER5> That's the part I don't get; carrier bikes (bakfietsen) have been around since forever, used by tradesmen and the people alike. Motorized variants as well, I mean it can be botched together with an old lawnmower engine if need be.

It wasn't a problem that needed solving, but it was a solution that rich people rediscovered. I guess two-stroke engines were beneath them?

<comment><USER6> >>> I guess two-stroke engines were beneath them?

Too much maintenance with mixing up oil and gas.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, at least it should be four-stroke with dedicated oil lubrication.

Why doens't an E-bike doesn't need annual inspection while something like

[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A9loSoleX](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A9loSoleX)

does require annual inspection? Still looking for a real lightweight bike with an ICE. Speed wouldn't matter, 20MPH / 30km/h would sound reasonable.

<comment><USER8> > Why doens't an E-bike doesn't need annual inspection while something like > ... does require annual inspection?

Emission testing as a moped, which is inapplicable to e-bikes.

(Probably also some bureaucracy, but that's separate.)

> lightweight bike with an ICE

That's an oxymoron. You can, however, get lightweight and entirely stealthy e-bike.

That gives you much more for much less, saves you the terrible noise of a small ICE with improper exhaust dampening, saves you a lot of maintenance, and probably also saves you and those around you some lung cancer while we're at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sometime around 2012, my parents got me a segway tour in a city I was planning to visit one time. Kind of the dorkiest thing ever. My girlfriend and I grudgingly did it, and it ended up being awesome. Even though you look super dorky, those things are really fun, and they're a great way to get a tour of a lot of city in a short amount of time without a lot of exhaustion. Since you're in a group, you're with a bunch of other dorks and you all look like dorks together, but you're all having fun anyway so you don't care. I was really surprised how quickly they stop and how well they can turn.

<comment><USER10> I had the same experience. They are so much fun.

The tour I did in DC had 3 accidents in 75 minutes with ambulances called for two of them. It was wild.

<comment><USER11> > The tour I did in DC had 3 accidents in 75 minutes with ambulances called > for two of them. It was wild.

Sorry I have to ask but this reads weird to me, but do you mean accidents in DC or accidents with 3 people from your tour?

<comment><USER10> Yes, three people on the tour crashed, two of them required an ambulance.

<comment><USER11> Wow that is unfortunate, thanks for the clarification, I'm not familiar with the area or Segways, though I do go to DC every few years for the museums.

<comment><USER10> The first accident was coming down 15th by the treasury where there are large bollards on the sidewalk- an older gentleman in his sixties was zipping around and he went full speed down the sidewalk and clipped the wheel on the very edge of one and it spun around throwing him off- very much like going over the handlebars on a bike. I assume he broke something between his wrist and collar bone (or both).

The next one was going off a sidewalk if memory serves but was minor.

The third one was over on the north side of the Capitol- we were idling around while the guide was talking and this older lady in her fifties or sixties was kinda floating through the crowd but didn't seem out of control- she went around this big tree and either lost control or wasn't paying attention as it was getting dark and went full speed around the side of a tree and ran right in to a lamp post. It knocked her out.

I was getting nervous riding back feeling like we were all going to experience some mishap.

<comment><USER12> Kinda feels like age of the people may have been a factor here. Segways do require good reaction times and constant awareness of your surroundings because they don't stop (even when stationary they have power to the wheels keeping them balanced, and if you move they move) and it the tour guide thought anyone was too young, old, or otherwise not capable to control the vehicle, they shouldn't have let them go out in public.

Not saying that was the only factor, it could easily have been the tour guide not giving adequate safety instructions or simply people ignoring those instructions... or a mixture of all three!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I still feel like Segway needs a case study regarding how they were able to garner _so_ much hype before it was announced. I remember the breathless "change the world" articles quite well (from nearly 20 years ago, yikes!). This sentence from the Wikipedia article is, well, humorous: "John Doerr speculated that it would be more important than the Internet".

Was really baffling to me at the time how they had such amazing PR.

<comment><USER14> It was also a time before social media, mass consumer internet, and all the high-tech things we take for granted today. It was a futuristic device that looked and sounded fantastic with no real competition. People were amazed by the balancing tech alone (and there was a similar wheelchair prototype).

<comment><USER15> It had the hype before it was even revealed, when it was known simply as "It."

<comment> zamboni-killer I remember spending far too much time on a forum built around what "it" was, called theitquestion.com. Nobody knew what it was going to be so there was a lot of speculation. Personally I was _extremely_ disappointed by "it".

<comment><USER16> I went looking for _it_ [0]

talk about hype!

>This mysterious invention, reportedly created by National Medal of Technology Award winner, Dean Kamen, is on everyone's lips and has captured everyone's imaginations.

[0] : [https://web.archive.org/web/20010220161915/http://theitquest...](https://web.archive.org/web/20010220161915/http://theitquestion.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not sure this article is all that accurate.

"Segway" is a brand that has passed through several hands after Dean Kaman sold it a while back.

This sounds to me like the New Hampshire plant is no longer going to manufacture Segway units, rather than the technology being discontinued altogether.

Ninebot of China acquired Segway and uses the IP to defend their self- balancing inventions.

[https://time.com/3822962/segway-ninebot- china/](https://time.com/3822962/segway-ninebot-china/)

It looks like ninebot still produces the Segway in China, and I don't imagine will stop soon.

[https://www.segway.com/professionals](https://www.segway.com/professionals)

<comment><USER18> The article mentions all of that content (though without those links). Perhaps they changed it? It's a fastcompany domain now.

<comment><USER17> Oh, I see that it does, sorry, skimmed the article.

I still think the main news here is just that the legacy Segway PT unit is being discontinued, along with the US manufacturing facilities in New Hampshire, where it doesn't make sense for a Chinese company to be manufacturing.

Seems to me like Mark Wilson of Fast company is trying to make a bigger story out of that, when I'm not sure there is one.

 _Fast Company has learned that the Segway brand will retire the last Segway as we know it, the Segway PT. Manufacturing at the Bedford, New Hampshire, plant will stop July 15_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I saw a genuinely brilliant use of a Segway (or similar):

I saw a person with one leg using a Segway. Presumably to make this less tiring, somebody had mounted a post to the place where the feet normally go, and then mounted a bicycle saddle that slides back and forth. I didn't get a close look, and I might have some of the details wrong, but I think this covers the gist of it.

For a person with a mobility impairment that limits the speed or distance they can walk, I can see it being absolutely transformative.

For the rest of us, Raymond Chen overheard a colleague who worded it better than I could hope to:

"I was floored by the engineering achievement of creating a device that combined the speed benefits of walking with the exercise benefits of driving, and for just the cost of a used Honda!"

[https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110520-01/?p=10...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110520-01/?p=10603)

<comment><USER20> Likewise I hope they (or someone) keeps making segway style wheelchairs.

They make it possible to navigate stairsn and include a lift to let wheelchair-bound people to access high cupboards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos meet Ginger:

[https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/steve-jobs-and-jeff-bezos- meet...](https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/steve-jobs-and-jeff-bezos-meet-ginger)

Sorry, that version of the story is paywalled. Other versions discuss Steve Jobs' views on the early Segway:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2010/09/27/steve...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2010/09/27/steve- jobs-explains-why-were-not-all-riding-a-segway/)

[https://www.wired.com/2015/01/well-didnt-work-segway- technol...](https://www.wired.com/2015/01/well-didnt-work-segway- technological-marvel-bad-doesnt-make-sense/)

</comment><comment><USER22> We had a small fleet (12 of them) at the manufacturing plant I worked at back in 2007.

They were great because staff could save tons of time running back to the production area or warehouse. Maintenance had the models with tool bags on the sides.

They were very expensive to repair, and had lots of quirks that needed firmware updates and such.

We got acquired and the new parent company wouldn't take the liability, so I had to pallet them up and sell the whole lot on eBay.

<comment><USER23> The same can be achieved using 3-wheel kick bikes of the type often used in hospitals or bicycles. They're cheaper, they give the staff a bit - but not too much - of a workout, they rarely break down and you never have to update any firmware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > "We tried analyzing, how come sales cannot go up quickly? One reason, I hate > to say, is the quality of it, how durable it is," Cai says. "I talk to > customers riding [an old] unit. It doesn't look good because it's been on > the road 12 years. It has 100,000 miles on it. But the machine itself runs > very well. And so when you try to sell new units [to those customers] . . . > unfortunately, it does hurt us." Over the past three years, sales were flat > on Segway PTs, dropping from 5% of Segway/Ninebot's revenue to a mere 1.5%, > Cai says.

Wow, I resent this so much. Does no one aspire to build reliable products anymore?

It feels like modern capitalism revolves around turning every customer into a recurring stream of income. Selling something once to a lot of people doesn't allow for infinite growth.

</comment><comment><USER25> I remember back when Dean Kamen managed an epic PR campaign: there were weeks of coverage speculating about what "It" was and how it would transform cities and daily life. At least for those of us on the early web, it was an Apple- scale PR event.

Then it actually launched and everyone had a disappointed "that's it?" I actually would not have predicted that it would take until 2020 to fold.

<comment><USER26> Haha, sounds like the Magic Leap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Before the Segway was Dean Kamen's iBot wheelchair.

It would rise up on two wheels and balance so the rider was eye level with standing people. And it would go up and down stairs. Truly amazing IMO.

[https://msu.edu/~luckie/segway/iBOT/iBOT.html](https://msu.edu/~luckie/segway/iBOT/iBOT.html)

Totally unrelated I am now 35 and feel completely unfulfilled in life when I look at everything Kamen does. I would love to work at a full time research institute experimenting and innovating.

<comment><USER27> I give back by mentoring a FIRST Robotics high school team near me (another Dean Kamen project).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The 'revolutionary' impact of the Segway might still come to pass.

It'll just be on conventionally-oriented two-wheeled electric mobility devices: scooters and ebikes.

I hope it happens!

<comment><USER29> > The 'revolutionary' impact of the Segway might still come to pass.

The self balancing aspect was what segway bought to the table. There was nothing revolutionary about the battery and motor. They originally even used NIMH batteries.

It was lightweight high performance lithium batteries that pushed the electric alternative transport market.

<comment><USER30> Purely technologically that is true, but Segway did a lot to popularize and drive forward the concept of micromobility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Meanwhile OneWheel [0] is selling more $1800 scooters than it can handle right now. All made in California.

[0] [https://onewheel.com/](https://onewheel.com/)

</comment><comment><USER32> The article tries to blame all sort of things for not selling well, but the real reason is super simple: They were too expensive.

Back when they came out I too was affected by the hype and wanted to get one - until I saw the price and said "never mind".

Drop the price to 1/10 of the amount, to $500, and it would _still_ be expensive, but at least there's something to talk about there. At $5000 it was an easy decision not to get it.

<comment><USER33> > but the real reason is super simple: They were too expensive

Disagree. I wouldn't buy one if they were one-tenth the price (and I think that sentiment would be shared by many people). The real reason is that it was and is a stupid product, even if some of the technology involved was innovative.

<comment><USER34> Stupid now that you've only seen wealthy dorks on them or stupid like people don't want rechargeable urban mobility devices? Because in Denver, before COVID, there were maybe four escooter outfits and people flying all over on them. Seems like they almost didn't have enough.

I think they had a brilliant idea, they were too early to the market, over marketed and then simply priced themselves out of contention. I'll never understand why they didn't have a cost reduced model

<comment><USER33> Stupid because the forward facing standing stance is wrong for mobility. Standing sideways is better for a fixed stance on a moving platform (e.g. surfboards, skateboards, snowboards, sailboards, etc). If you're forward facing then you should have active independent movement between the two legs (as with walking, running, skiing, ice-skating, etc).

<comment><USER35> I disagree. I own a solowheel and after the initial learning curve it became safer and even more intuitive than walking. IMO, the sidestance may be okay if one switches sides as to exercise the body and the brain both ways. In reality people stick to whatever their dominant leg is upfront. Feels weird and prone to skeletomuscular imbalances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I can never resist bringing up that the company's owner died on one of these things back in 2010:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- leeds-11416654](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-11416654)

<comment><USER37> I think it was the CEO not the founder

<comment><USER38> He was the founder of the company that acquired Segway in 2009. So...not founder of Segway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I like buying new tech, and I used to be into fun quirky ways to get around. The Segway was just too expensive without enough benefit. I guess I've never lived close enough to work to consider walking, but that seems to be the main appeal.

Now I've got a friend trying to convince me to buy a OneWheel. I just can't justify $1500 for a weird skateboard when I could literally order an electric car on Alibaba for that much money.

I figure between legs, bikes, cars, trains and planes, we've pretty much got transportation solved. Segway tried to solve what bikes solved a hundred years earlier. But bikes are less expensive, are also really fun, and are great exercise.

<comment><USER40> OneWheel looks like a fun way to kill yourself. Looking at their commercials even simple routes are extreme.

I've rode inline skates to work, ride kick scooter and bicycle. But it was Heelys stop from 5 km/s to 0 face down on asphalt that was the worst. Quick change of direction - from forward to into the ground. Too quick for brain but hands took part of the momentum. Palms heart, it would be unfortunate to be programmer with broken palms, I was lucky. Stay safe.

<comment><USER41> I see people riding them frequently in SF. They seem to ride pretty normally and most people use bike lanes (sounds silly but they go fast enough). I have heard that the biggest problem is the automatic braking/throttling to limit top speed kicking in on downhills, triggering face plants. As long as you are good at maintaining balance on a board and stick to flattish bike lanes they seem pretty safe

<comment><USER40> Mmm, I meant don't take it like electric scooter. I have not tried but failure mode compound with speed would kill. Official version advertises as casual [1], should be extreme [2]. At least wear palms protection - it is a weak point.

And for example kick scooter is not that safe. Inline skates on the same speed gives much more control. Bicycle is yet safer.

I like the idea - should be fun to ride, I do not like product placement.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNqOU4jx62I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNqOU4jx62I)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys3ivCUxIvY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys3ivCUxIvY)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This story fascinated me because what I took away from it was millionaires not understanding what the market would buy.

And other millionaires hyped it up, like Steve Jobs/Woz.

When I first heard of the Segway of course it was cool, I'm a massive geek. But I'm not going to spend what was 80000 SEK at the time for a toy I can't even park anywhere.

And the whole purchase of Segway by China where they actually understood what the market wanted and launched e-scooters is the icing on this whole story.

Stay grounded.

</comment><comment><USER43> Of all projects by Segway, the coolest one is the one they never mass produced: the Centaur.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l486tKKIifY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l486tKKIifY)

</comment><comment><USER44> Too expensive and they got completely upstaged by cheap hoverboards using essentially the same technology.

<comment><USER45> The hoverboards _don't_ use the same technology, which is what allows them to be so cheap. My understanding is that they effectively replace the electronic feedback control system of the segway with the user's biological one.

<comment><USER46> No, they do indeed use the same technology. They have an accelerator fed into a micro-controller that provides the exact wheel torque necessary to prevent the user. Which is exactly how a Segway works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I think the Segway is a dangerous accident waiting to happen. You try to step off holding the handle, it either jumps around like a startled horse, or tries to run away. You can't just put it down - it'll do violent things and endanger those around you.

Bump a curb or a trash can, it goes wild trying to recover, circling violently or spinning a wheel.

Just google 'Segway fails' and enjoy hours of shocking screwups. Here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GII7QZy2GHM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GII7QZy2GHM)

It's exhausting to ride, difficult to master, hazardous on sidewalks or city streets. As an insurer, I'd ban it.

So no, it never 'took off'. For good reason.

</comment><comment><USER48> Here's a 2001 article on Segway's introduction (I wanted to find the Wired one but couldn't): [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/dec/03/internetn...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/dec/03/internetnews1)

Also [http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,288...](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1936165_1936240_1936361,00.html)

</comment><comment><USER49> I remember when the segway first was announced (or leaked?) on slashdot. Based on the ensuing posts and comments (slashdot was the sort-of hacker news of the day, in 2001) it was going to revolutionize the world. Instead, the hype and public opinion travelled faster than the product, and it sort of never took off. I took it as my quintessential lesson in how to manage the announcement and deployment of novel technologies like robotics. Self driving cars seem similar in a lot of ways.

</comment><comment><USER50> Micro mobility is ripe for disruption. The only problem is that the current offerings are toys for rich people. Want an e bike? That will be >$700 on top of these absolute bottom shelf bike components. electric skateboard? North of $500, or an order of magnitude more expensive than a skateboard you push yourself. In a world where the vast majority of people balk at the idea of spending more than $200 on a regular bike, devices charging much more than that are not going to fly, and the lack of widespread adoption despite micromobility services having normalized their use in traffic demonstrates this; a $3 ride on a rinky dink scooter is a different prospect than spending $500 on your own poorly constructed scooter that you now have to watch like a hawk for theft, keep charged, and maintain. Especially if they are to be used, abused, stolen, and regularly replaced in cities, the costs are just too high for a lot of people to be comfortable making the switch.

Myself included, actually. I wanted to get an ebike so I wouldn't sweat on my rides to work, but after seeing the prices for even alibaba tier junk bikes, I just dropped the $400 I was hoping to spend for an ebike on a road bike with full ultegra components, and got in better shape.

<comment><USER46> I think the solution is to make e-bikes into full vehicles you can use for the majority of your transportation needs. I'm building an e-bike right now with a range of hopefully around 150-200km, using recycled batteries. Sadly, it would still be too expensive to build one with new batteries, but it's getting there.

That drastically changes the value proposition as you can use it to commute to work, to go on road trips, to get groceries, and so on.

<comment><USER50> I agree, but battery tech has a long way to go in weight and capacity to become the every vehicle, unless hot swapping stations become as widespread as bird scooters. When I was looking for a commuter, I was initially leaning e bike, but was disappointed at most ranges being <30 miles. I ended up just buying a road bike and getting in better shape so I don't sweat when I bike in to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Lots of great discussion here about the Segway's severe problems with product- market fit. It's all true, and it's all quite poignant.

But in the spirit of completeness, let's take a moment to think about the messed-up people dynamics, too. After all, it's still worth wondering why a visionary CEO and some very smart engineers could go so far off course.

There's a fascinating fly-on-the-wall account of Segway's origins in "Code Name Ginger," a 2003 book by Steve Kemper. (Review is here: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB105581785554884900](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB105581785554884900)) Two key insights:

Founder Dean Kamen sounds like an A+ visionary but a quite terrifying PM, with many sudden, late changes that took a toll on the project.

Also, having both Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs as investors -- who would weigh in (at the same meeting!) with ideas about how to fix everything -- sounds a lot like putting your wet fingers in a wall socket. Or swallowing an 90-day supply of meds all at once. Too much genius, in too many directions, is a peril in its own right

</comment><comment><USER52> Dated laws likely didn't help them.

Electric scooters have the same issues even though they are a more convenient form factor, they are illegal in a lot of places to ride on a public road / footpath / cycle lane. When I have walked to work in the morning I've seen many overzealous police officers pulling people over on electric scooters and the stacking fines even if they are being responsible and in cycle lanes.

</comment><comment><USER53> Worth noting, Segway still has a broad selection of products including scooters, electric dirt bikes, an AI-enhanced personal transport assistant, and go karts. [https://www.segway.com](https://www.segway.com)

</comment><comment><USER54> The Segway idea lives, it turned into the e-scooter and create an urban mobility revolution.

</comment><comment><USER55> The Segway Polo world championship is the Woz Challenge Cup.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway_polo#Woz_Cup](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway_polo#Woz_Cup)

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think it's correct to assume from this that the Segway as we know it is dead.

All this article says is that the New Hampshire plant is shutting down, and that the Segway PT is being discontinued.

However, the majority of Segways are manufactured in China by Ninebot.

Will the i2 SE, x2 SE, and police branded models be discontinued as well? It seems unlikely.

I personally was introduced to self-balancing vehicles through the Solowheel, invented by Shane Chen of Camas WA. (Also the inventor of the hoverboard), and never thought the Segway was a particularly attractive proposition.

<comment><USER17> It looks like a bunch of outlets are picking this up and repeating it under headlines like "Segway is dead". Bit of a PR nightmare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> So sad that Segway was ahead of its time. Imagine the consumer benefit of a durable good that you didn't need to be upsold every product cycle.

Variable regulation early on shorted critical mass of an ubiquitous Wall-E mobility future [https://www.transit.dot.gov/regulations-and- guidance/civil-r...](https://www.transit.dot.gov/regulations-and- guidance/civil-rights-ada/use-segways-transportation-vehicles)

</comment><comment><USER57> I remember way back on Slashdot when there was a teaser that there was this huge announcement coming that would revolutionize transportation and cause cities to totally be rebuilt around this new mode of transportation. The reality has fallen a bit short of the initial expectations ;-)

</comment><comment><USER58> After Juicero, Magic Leap, Ooya, Theranos I can't possibly believe it's the "most hyped since the Macintosh." I do clearly remember when it was first coming out, and people did in fact get in on the hype of it; but it doesn't seem even on par.

<comment><USER59> I've never even heard of Magic Leap or Ooya, and all I heard about Juicero or Theranos was from the perspective of the rise and fall of them as speculative investments. Nothing aimed at consumers.

And I do vaguely remember the prelaunch hype for the Segway. There might be some rival other than the original Macintosh, but none of the four you name seem remotely similar to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Boosted Boards (YC S12) has also laid off almost everyone and said to be near bankruptcy.

<comment><USER61> [https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/24/21233215/boosted-usa- rema...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/24/21233215/boosted-usa-remaining- inventory-site-launch)

They liquidated all their inventory months ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Wow, I had no idea they still made them. I remember on the 8th floor at the Pac Med building of Amazon in early 2000 Jeff giggling his ass off on one of those every day for a week. I'd never seen one since.

</comment><comment><USER63> That's a shame, personally I always wanted one but our local government (Sydney, Aus) banned them outside of a few special parks so you can't actually use them normally. Farewell you beautiful strange things...

</comment><comment><USER64> Cities designed around it: 0

</comment><comment><USER65> Sort of a brilliant engineering solution to a non-existent problem. Or a very niche problem to say the least.

Mall or airport security certainly fits the niche, but difficult to scale beyond these examples.

</comment><comment><USER66> Dang. RIP Segway. The butt of so many jokes..

</comment><comment><USER67> End of an era.

I laugh at the next generation looking back on us like we mock the early days of cars...

They'll probably make a 1 wheel version.

<comment><USER68> > They'll probably make a 1 wheel version.

They did a few years ago: [https://www.segway.com/ninebot- one-s1/](https://www.segway.com/ninebot-one-s1/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> They never did fix the batteries self destructing if not charged every other month problem, did they?

</comment><comment><USER70> The mini pro or ninebot S blows them away. We rent with handles bars in dc dcscooter.com

</comment><comment><USER71> Boys, do you remember the hype around the original Segway launch? hehe, how time flies

</comment><comment><USER72> Will that self-balancing chair still get to see the light of the day?

<comment><USER73> I've seen somebody driving a wheelchair version in a supermarket (also later outside, it was fast) [https://www.segfree.co.za/](https://www.segfree.co.za/) It seems the use Segway parts so not sure if that product can continue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> "IT" was never cheap enough to change anything.

</comment><comment><USER75> Url changed from [https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/23/21300365/segway-self- bala...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/23/21300365/segway-self-balancing- scooter-end-production-layoffs), which points to this.

<comment><USER76> would it be possible to change the title to Segway ends production of its original two-wheeled, self-balancing personal transporter?

the segway brand is now well known and successfuly as the Segway-Ninebot company that produces for example all of the electric scooters for Lyft.

<comment><USER59> Segway segued into other things?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Somewhere Adam Savage is shedding a tear.</comment>


A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-41718082 <comment><USER2> This reminded me of a video I saw once, many years ago. It was told by the last speaker of a language - from a tribe in El Salvador, iirc (Central America, for sure). Most of his tribe had been wiped out during civil war. He and his parents were the last living speakers of their language. When his parents died, he was the last. The video was a long, tearful poem, telling the story of his people and their destruction. Of course, no one could understand a word of it but him, but the emotion was unmistakable.

<comment><USER3> It's interesting that the same technologies we use to preserve language (audio/film/text) are also largely the reason for their destruction. If you just have two people talking with each other in the woods there aren't any economies of scale, no 'best' version of Wikipedia, no Hollywood movies to watch, etc.

While not related to language, except for one episode, NPR's archive of lost & found sound is also worth checking out: [http://www.npr.org/sections/lost- found-sound/archive?date=9-...](http://www.npr.org/sections/lost-found- sound/archive?date=9-30-2008)

<comment><USER4> I don't know, languages have been dying out for a lot longer than those technologies have been around. Languages die when the cultures who speak them either get assimilated or eradicated; I am not sure what technology has to do with that?

<comment><USER5> Before the printing press, there was dramatic variation in regional dialects of European nations. After the printing press, standardization and state centralization have been grinding these regional dialects into the ground. Even traditional regional languages like Irish or Scots Gaelic are going extinct.

<comment><USER2> I live in a city with tens of thousands of east African immigrants (mostly Somali). It's fascinating to me, to hear the difference between how the adult Somalis speak, and how their children speak. The teenagers, having grown up here, speak in perfect, accent-free English. Will their children even speak Somali at all?

(As an aside, I totally love my little window into Somali teenage girl culture, just from riding the train and sharing a neighborhood with them. Their fashions are incredible, and they're _so_ energetic and happy. Somali teenage boys, on the other hand, are just as glum and faux-cool as teenage boys everywhere.)

<comment><USER6> > perfect, accent-free English.

This is a myth. You mean they speak your local accent of English.

> (As an aside, I totally love my little window into Somali teenage girl > culture, just from riding the train and sharing a neighborhood with them. > Their fashions are incredible, and they're so energetic and happy. Somali > teenage boys, on the other hand, are just as glum and faux-cool as teenage > boys everywhere.)

Please don't be racist. Appreciate people without making convoluted assumptions about how their race and gender causes their behavior

<comment><USER7> > This is a myth. You mean they speak your local accent of English.

It's the most natural way that comes to mind to say that they sound like the other local native speakers.

> Please don't be racist.

I don't see racism here. I see broad commentary about a local subculture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> On a slightly related topic, India has a vast and rich set of languages and millions of people that speak/read/write these languages. With daily newspapers, tabloids, literature etc, I presume there is a (potential) huge corpus of rich data for each language too. And, I just read yesterday that India just surpassed US to become the second biggest mobile phone market. Then why is there not more of NLP work/products on Indian languages? There's a market for it, a huge market, isn't it?

<comment><USER9> > On a slightly related topic, India has a vast and rich set of languages and > millions of people that speak/read/write these languages.

My landlady needs to know this. She still thinks we all speak "Indian".

<comment><USER10> Correct me if I'm wrong, but most Indians do understand "urdu", no?

<comment><USER11> Yes because most Indians can speak Hindi(Urdu is similar to Hindi). Hindi is the second or third language for many non native Hindi speakers.

<comment><USER12> Around 100+ million of 1.2 billion don't speak Hindi.

<comment><USER13> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers_in_India)

No, by the 2001 census it's about 50% of Indians who do not speak Hindi.

I don't see a reason for this fraction to have changed significantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is the reason I am teaching my mother tongue to my kids first, where every parents in my area wants their children to speak English first and that too in American accent. I understand that it's a global language but some cultural things are really difficult to pass on to your kids without your mother tongue

</comment><comment><USER15> One more related link to the same story, Two episode podcast about languages in India. It talks about first survey conducted during British Raj and then Ganesh Devy ji's people's linguastic survey of India: [https://soundcloud.com/theintersection/31-mission- impossible...](https://soundcloud.com/theintersection/31-mission-impossible- surveying-indian-languages-and-dialects)

</comment><comment><USER16> > He discovered that some 16 languages spoken in the Himalayan state of > Himachal Pradesh have 200 words for snow alone

A know urban legend often applied to Inuits.

> Dr Devy, an untrained linguist

But we'll still call him doctor.

I'll guess he's a doctor in English? and they are there to entertain as he's done. (Obviously doctors in English can do other important things as well)

I don't know.... the BBC when they do these stories... intelligent people know they are not true buuuut then what does one think when they report on Syria.

Are stories like these symptoms and show we also should also take stories on Syria very very carefully or are they cancerous and encourage bad reporting and bad thinking? Are stories on Syria the same, just entertainment anyway and their accuracy for the masses is on equal importance?

I guess for me a source of truth is important and I would have though many on HN would want to seek the truth, but perhaps not so much.

[edit] There is also a interesting story here, I assume it's not a lie and the doctor believes what he's doing is true.... but I can't be sure from all the other inaccuracies.... but at face value he's done something really interesting that is BBC worthy. It just needs better framing.

</comment><comment><USER17> The article doesn't mention colonization as one of thr factors of dying languages because BBC.

<comment><USER18> The article touches on it, but it's a former threat.

Hindu nationalism, on the other hand, is a current threat, desi_ninja.

<comment><USER19> > Hindu nationalism, on the other hand, is a current threat, desi_ninja.

Wholly agreed, I would add a nuance that Hindu nationalism as pushed by the current govt is. Their view is that the only Hindu religious way to be a practicing Hindu is the way it is practiced in a particular region in India, even the most devout practicing Hindu from the east (from a generation and further ago) wouldn't have heard/practiced about dandia, dhanteras, karva- chauth. There are regions where devout Hindus would have beef and not feel that they are flouting norms of Hinduism. The only right way to speak/write is in a specific regional language of India. A lot of governmental machinery -- executive and legal -- is being expended to achieve this monoculture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Happy to see BBC highlight something positive about India for a change instead of rape stories

<comment><USER21> They'll probably add a couple of rapes tomorrow to make up for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had a chance to visit one of academy he helped establish, adivasi academy(their domain name has expired), tejgarh, vadodra. I really liked how he played the role of catalyst in helping local people recognize their own culture and preserve it. [Edit]: My bad for linking to the infested URL, didn't realize it.

<comment><USER22> That link looks very virus infested, beware.

probably ransomware: [https://www.2-spyware.com/remove-the-arialtext-font-was- not-...](https://www.2-spyware.com/remove-the-arialtext-font-was-not-found- ads.html)

It's some js file that loads exe files. How would they get executed than? Another prompt to manually do so?

edit: thanks for removing the link :)

<comment><USER23> It's probably a hijacked account too, that account has legitimate comments but was dormant until today.

<comment><USER22> I doubt that, it's quality content apart from the link :)

probably just a never updated, but originally legit wordpress site.

<comment><USER15> I find this ironical that the technology(in this particular case their site) which is considered as a savior for these languages and dialects, by archiving them, indexing them, can get itself rendered as something to stay away from instead of making this resource accessible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The BBC has to get an anti-Modi (Prime Minister of India) jab in: _" He worries about the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP's efforts to impose Hindi all over India, which he calls a "direct attack on our linguistic plurality". "_

Various governments in Delhi, throughout history, have toyed with the idea of making Hindi the national language. It hasn't happened yet, and won't happen. But, of course, the BBC would like you to believe that Modi thought of it first.

<comment><USER25> I am from Kerala (South India). Hindi imposition never bothered me until the last 2 years. I don't know if it's media's effect, but it is a really valid concern for me. Considering that Kerala exists more or less thanks to money from Gulf countries and little help from the center, I won't mind a separation either.

<comment><USER24> It is the media. No one bothers to remember the anti-Hindi riots during the Congress rule. Things were much, much worse then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> One of the main reason behind the 'developing' state of India even after 70 years of independence is its differences which Indians still have in their mind. The language barrier is the only barrier which is proving to be resistance let alone culture prevention and all that. Languages are just a form of communication between people and people should accept it. People should learn languages like English(Which have vast amount of resources available).As the growing trends suggest India will be the most populated country after 2020 and it will have around 70% of the citizens who will be youngsters. Believe it or not but sooner or later English will dominate(though i believe it's still dominating to bridge the gap between south and north india). In india you can't surf internet properly if you don't have any clue about English and india do have maximum number of smartphone users around the world and that will ofcourse help remove some sort of language barrier between people.

Also Modi do promote Hindi(though his mother tongue is gujarati) but I believe he does so because he finds himself more proficent orator in the language.

China is one more country which is preserving its culture by speaking chinese and i don't think anyone should stop someone to do so.Though it would be better if there is one unique language with which people should feel unity among themselves.

<comment><USER27> Given that English is already fragmenting (just read a newspaper from Guyana) and with the example of _the_ Arab language (watch an Egyptian try talking with a Moroccan - bring popcorn): I am not sure your advice is a good one. English, like every other language, limits what you can say to what can be expressed in it.

From personal experience, I'd rather recommend to dabble in as many languages as possible: Each new language so far introduced new concepts (of seeing the world, if you will) and forced me to break through the invisible barriers erected by the language I was raised with.

And, finally, if we need a "world language", can we please agree on French? I think it is so much more pleasant to the ear than English... and it saves those who already speak it from having to read "rsvp, please" ever again ;)

<comment><USER28> >just read a newspaper from Guyana

I just glanced as 5 online papers, and one scanned tabloid-style paper.

I still have no idea what you are talking about. What am I supposed to be detecting in the writing here?

edit: I guess I found one or two slight different ways of expressing things, like starting a sentence with "Said he:", but, really it's fairly minor.</comment></comment></comment>


Canonical pretends Mir never existed, bloggers jump on cue - <AUTHOR> http://wayoflinux.com/blog/canonical-ditches-wayland <comment><USER2> I guess the real story is that Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will use X.org by default, rather than Wayland [1]. Canonical "pretending Mir never existed" is just click bait. Personally, I found Unity not half-bad, and am not looking forward to gnome-shell from what little I know, eg. for its wasteful menu-per-window attachment rather than Mac OS style global menus alone.

[1]: [https://insights.ubuntu.com/2018/01/26/bionic- beaver-18-04-l...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2018/01/26/bionic- beaver-18-04-lts-to-use-xorg-by-default/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Click-bait, precisely to illustrate a point. The real story comes after. Did you _actually_ read it? It has nothing to do with which DE Ubuntu chooses to favour ATM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What's the point of this invective-laced polemic piece?

<comment><AUTHOR> (That said, I get it. Hype is everything, whatever does not stink of the "latest tech trend" must be bad. Sad day to be a reader, indeed.)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Nihongo.io Japanese English Dictionary - <AUTHOR> http://nihongo.io

<comment><AUTHOR> My friend and I live in Japan and built a simple Japanese dictionary. It's not much but we recently hit 800 unique visitors in a month :) Feedback welcome, and the code is open source: [https://github.com/gojp/nihongo](https://github.com/gojp/nihongo)

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice product and very clean design. You allow for query by romaji, but could there be a way for you to output romaji as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. This has been requested before, but I didn't want to show romaji since it's generally considered a bad habit to learn Japanese with romaji (the "correct" way being to learn hiragana and katakana as soon as possible). But since people want it, we'll likely add it as an option.</comment></comment>


Learn PHP in Minutes - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/iyZiD.gif

<comment> workhere-io What, is this Reddit now?

</comment><comment><USER2> Wow u so kool can i be you friend?

i am a h4ker 2 u kno</comment>


EQGRP Auction - <AUTHOR> https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:owtq6OBSmgEJ:https://theshadowbrokers.tumblr.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us <comment><USER2> Torrent still works for those who want to have a look.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:40a5f1514514fb67943f137f7fde0a7b5e991f76&tr=[http://diftracker.i2p/announce.php](http://diftracker.i2p/announce.php)</comment>


Hackernews should add a "follow" concept - <AUTHOR>

If I like someone submissions, It would be great if I would be able to follow his submissions. <comment><USER2> You mean like this? <http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=itamarb>

(In case you are interested, the comments feed is at <http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=itamarb>)

</comment><comment><USER3> You mean like this: <http://hackerfollow.com/>

Or this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1941631></comment>


Unicorn Startup Simulator - <AUTHOR> https://www.toggl.com/startup-simulator/ <comment><USER2> I think this is the first game I've seen posted to HN that wasn't a "Show HN" post. That being said, I haven't been a member of HN for that long. I'd be very interested to see what else has been posted here.</comment>


Fully colorized video of Paris in 1896 - <AUTHOR> http://digg.com/video/paris-footage-1896-colorized <comment><USER2> Length: 5:58

I watched the whole thing.

 _Not only has this archival footage been rendered in full color, but it 's also been speed-restored and matched with its original sound._

It's really hard to believe the sound is original. I'm not saying it's untrue. I'm just saying it is literally _incredible._

It captures a different pace of life. It's surprisingly calm, polite and quiet for a bustling major metro area.

<comment><USER3> I was surprised by that too. The original/linked YouTube video's description says that the sound was added, not restored:

"A collection of high quality remastered prints from the dawn of film taken in Belle Époque-era Paris, France from 1896-1900. Slowed down footage to a natural rate, added in ambiance sound, and colorized. These films were taken by the Lumière company."

<comment><USER2> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Several things caught my eye[1], but the moving sidewalk/footpath was a surprise to me: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway)

[1] horse drawn fire brigade, difficulty of crossing the busy road, sitting high-up on a carriage (safety nightmare)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Surreal! HN'ers will esp love the moving sidewalk at the World's Fair at 4:49 into the video.

</comment><comment><USER5> Back when BMI charts mapped to 99% of the population.</comment>


Why people of color probably shouldn't get the new Amazon Halo - <AUTHOR> https://cybernews.com/editorial/people-of-color-probably-should-not-buy-amazon-halo/ <comment><USER2> So the article never states any problems specific to the Amazon Halo and people of color.

The argument presented is that both Law enforcement and AI discriminate against POC. Amazon collaborates with law enforcement and Halo uses "AI", therefore Amazon Halo is bad for POC.

<comment><AUTHOR> As the author - yes, that's kind of the point (sorry if that didn't come across). Halo is a symptom of this disease, unchecked Amazon/etc/capitalist data collection technology that promises much but delivers much worse. Halo is the latest example of this, and unfortunately won't be the last. Simply put: POC or people in general shouldn't get this, not unless we have independent guarantees of security and protections for all, including marginalized communities.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for chiming in! I definitely learned more about how amazon processes voice data, which is enough to make me avoid such devices.

I did think that the article tried to cover too much ground. In particular, the aspect of AI failing to detect POC seemed to be an unnecessary addition, as I'm not sure how it relates to the Halo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback, really appreciate it. I see what you mean (now that I've stepped away from it).

I will definitely take this on board.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> >Tone is a voice analysis tool that uses machine learning "to analyze energy and positivity in a customer's voice so they can better understand how they may sound to others, helping improve their communication and relationships."

well nobody should get the damn thing, it sounds like they're trying to turn people into smiling customer service zombies, did the people at Amazon read Brave New World and thought Soma was something they should actually build?

 _" All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects"_

</comment><comment><USER4> > AI's failure at recognizing marginalized groups

There's a remarkable technology with 100% accuracy: the Brooklyn yuppie.

</comment><comment><USER5> People of what color?

<comment><USER6> Obviously those darn fluorescent yellow people.

Their bright colors will mess up the sensors</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best legal structure for "different" type of startup - <AUTHOR>

So I have a bit of a legal question (but I know the standard disclaimer - I do not expect people answering to offer official legal counsel or advice, etc. and I should speak with my attorney/CPA - which I am next week but I've been getting a lot of conflicting messages from them).
So, long story short, I'm starting another company.  We work primarily with the federal government and other large enterprise agencies on contract.  I've been told by many SBA (Small Business Administration) counselors that I should forget completely about forming a corporation, and go directly to LLC due to their simplicity to operate.  However, I've been spooked because the company I last partnered with had issues raising funding using an LLC structure and other entities/people seemed to see an LLC as less credible of a business structure.
That being said, I'm going to be working with a vendor (the government) where reputation and credibility is everything.  I'm leaning heavily towards a Delaware S Corp, which can then be converted to a C corp later on so I can offer tax-deductible benefits to employees (compared to an LLC where employee benefits are taxable to them).  The word "corporation" just sounds a lot more reputable to me and I assume clients in a risk-averse setting would see it the same.
Any thoughts on that? <comment><USER2> LLC vs. Corporation has nothing to do with credibility. That this is even consideration is an indication of poor advice you have received so far. Nobody that deals with the entity should care whether it is a corporation or an LLC or Limited Partnership. There are giant multi-billion dollar LLCs, typically divisions of some parent corporation. LLC simplicity makes it easy for LLCs to be divisions of a parent corporation.

Why Delaware? Your own state's corporation laws are good enough unless you're already gigantic or going public, or already are in Delaware, or someone is specifically demanding it from you, which I strongly doubt. Plenty of gigantic, or public companies do not incorporate in Delaware. Why do you need to have a foreign-state incorporation rather than your own state? Make it simple and less expensive, and use local-state incorporation and local lawyers that are familiar with their own state's run-of the mill corporate laws. Delaware is not that special.

A Limited Liability Company form of entity can be simple to operate, but they are not flexible in having the ability to have multiple classes of investments by others.

If you're the only person, or one of several individual partners, and capital from other people is not a concern, then, sure, an LLC may work for you. Later on, if you have a partner-founder depart, and want to issue a different category of capital representation for him/her upon departure ("units" in LLC speak), you can't, so LLCs are not so good at transitions either. Creating a vesting process may also be cumbersome or not possible. Further, if you grow and need capital, you'll end up becoming a C corporation, to be able to have multiple classes of ownership shares.

C Corporations vs. S Corporations: these are elections that are made via a filing with the US Internal Revenue Service. The S Corp has limitations on what it may do and and still maintain its status as an S corp for tax purposes, instead of the default C corporation status.

If you are seeking investments or venture funding: VCs and investors prefer C corporations: the investor will not be taxed on net income as they would with an S Corp. The C corp. can issue convertible preferred stock, which is typical structure for a venture capital investment. S corporations can only issue one class of stock, so that also is typically a deal stopper for investors.

Venture Capital funders don't like LLCs or S Corporations for the above reasons, and will decline to participate, unless the entity converts to a C corporation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, here's the problem I found: LLCs are not treated consistently by all of the states, and I will be doing business in more than one state (actually having a physical presence in multiple states). Therefore, that is the reason for a DE incorporation and my thoughts on using an S Corp (which I can at some point check the box and change back to a C Corp). The "credibility" issue I spoke of also applies not just to investors, but bankers have also been more hesitant to loan to an LLC. I saw this with a previous LLC entity I was a partner in.

Also, benefits paid to employees through an LLC are fully taxable income to them, whereas with a Corp (either S or C) they are tax deductible (for employees owning less than 2% of the company).

Furthermore, the stock ownership ("units") situation with LLCs is awkward at best, like you said, so forget about incentive stock options and the like. I understand the simplicity and have used the LLC structure before for other reasons, but never for a multi-state entity.

Great input, thank you.

<comment><USER2> Some questions to pursue with your advisers:

What are the tax issues upon dissolution/merger/conversion of entities from one to the other, for the owners and the entity itself?

Is there an impediment to rapidly converting a Subchapter-S corp into to C-corp - are there be any delays, fiscal year issues or alignments, or other IRS filing or election issues and impediments, again for the entity and for owners?

For foreign LLCs in terms of the "corporate veil" and limited liability, etc., set up in state Z, how does the foreign LLC get treated in other states of interest, states A, B, C, and D compared to the foreign corporation set up in state Z, operating in states A, B, C and D? Do those several states follow the IRS-election for taxation of local-state activity?

What advantages / disadvantages for the LLC to elect to file with the IRS the "filing as corporation" status, instead of the default sole proprietorship/partnership status, or --yes you can elect this too-- "Subchapter-S"?</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A few weeks ago, I started prototyping the Circles concept. - <AUTHOR> http://www.circular.io

<comment><USER3> You should have some text on the linked site that says how long the video is. A lot of people are going to look briefly, see no apparent description of what you are doing other than the video, and move on. Telling them the video is only 33 second makes it more likely they'll look.

On the other hand, there is nothing in the imagery in the video that actually helps understand what you are doing. All the useful information in the video is in the audio. It might be worth spending the two or three minutes it would take to make a transcript and put that on the site, too.

<comment><USER4> >It might be worth spending the two or three minutes it would take to make a transcript and put that on the site, too.

Did it myself, because I despise being forced to watch/listen to A/V without being given a choice to read the transcript.

My (slightly inaccurate, you'll be able to tell where) transcript of the homepage video follows:

Facebook and Twitter are crowded places, your mom/sister/etc are all there. It feels like you're on a big stage talking to an audience.

In real life there are social circles where we're comfortable. Circular uses (a?) new algorithm to build your social circles from your existing data. The conversation is bounded within the circle. Only people inside can participate, so you can be who you really are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Honestly I'm skeptical. The idea of auto generating groups from pre-existing data isn't particularly new and I'm confident that with enough work it can be done reasonably well.

But once you've done that, then every time I post a status update (or tweet, or whatever you end up calling it I'll be forced to consider which circles(s) I want to share with. This significantly raises the cognitive burden of an update.

Unless you've got a really clever solution to this problem. In which case you've got something very interesting indeed and you should definitely keep going.

<comment><USER6> If you set up a bayesian filter to classify the status update as you type, that would be pretty rad. Then you'd just have to make sure it's classified correctly before you hit submit.

Or just have different sections/tabs for each of the detected cliques (detecting cliques is a (edit: somewhat) solved problem: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clique_(graph_theory)> ). It'd be the onus of the user to name the cliques, with a suggested default of what others in the clique have named it.

<comment><USER7> The thing I'm worried about with "public" cliques is that you need to worry about excluding people. What if someone you don't want wants to join your clique?

<comment><USER6> I'm thinking they wouldn't be public to the world - only to those in your friends list within those cliques.

That way if someone you don't want joins your clique, it shouldn't matter - <USER2> you're not friends with them.

Cliques should, ideally, correspond to smallish social circles. Such that you can easily monitor and make sure the right people are ending up in the 'right buckets.'

For example, excluding family and co-workers, I have two primary groups of friends. Those in my neighborhood, whom I know based on locality, and those scattered around the city, whom I know (and know each other) through mutual interests. One has nine individuals (with more - about 5-10 who are acquaintances, but not truly friends), and the other has eight individuals (with more - again, about 5-10 who are acquaintances).

Maybe I'm a-social or something. But. There is no overlap between these groups. I've introduced a few in one to a few in the other, but there's no reason for them to gel. They probably aren't friends on Facebook. Using cluster analysis, you could easily partition my groups of friends & acquaintances out.

Can you give an example of what kind of situation might confuse this system? What if it took further demographics into account as vertices with directed edges (whereas friendship, in the graph, is an undirected edge), such as age group, gender, location, employer?

I would assume that status updates only travel one hop on the graph, so that even if someone becomes a part of one of these clusters, if you don't have an explicit connection to them your status updates cannot be seen by them.

You could further weight the edges by how often you communicate with each other via the service.

What would probably happen - and pure conjecture here - is that you would be exposing your status updates to either the boundary of a cluster (you are on the outside of the cluster, with a few connections in), or to most of the cluster (you are in the center of the cluster, with many connections in it). Situation one is more likely with friends (unless they are very isolated friends indeed), while situation two is more likely with family and co workers. Likely, you (and perhaps your spouse) would be the only people in your family network that have direct connections to people in, say, a drinking-buddies network. Unless members of your family are also drinking buddies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You asked if you should continue working on this. Based on your site, and video, it's hard to say. I really have no actual idea how the site itself is going to function, or what it's actually going to do.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes, you should. It's much needed. How you do it will determine your success. I've got my own ideas around this, and played around with it minimally last weekend. The first person that gets this right and can execute will win big.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think everyone's relying on clever implementations that require people to "just try it out" and give it a fair shake to be convinced that it's better technology. No one will give it a fair shake, why should they when Facebook works fine for most people? There's also no attempt at breaching the chicken- and-egg problem of joining a new social network while one's friends are all still on the old one. I'm not saying I have a solution, but I think most people are looking at the wrong problems.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure I follow. Isn't that a problem with any market where there's already a dominant player? You're saying that rather than coming up with a better solution, people should be thinking about better ways to get people to sign up?

      Why would I use this Facebook thing when MySpace works fine?
      Why would I use Reddit when Digg works fine?
      Why would I use OkCupid when Match.com works fine?
      Why would I use an iPhone when my Blackberry works fine?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> You could really make waves if you made a way to better organize your friends visually.

Option A: People's icons as little boxes that I can drag around. Make a venn diagram for groups. When you friend people, you select their group(s) by dragging their icon to the right circle/shape. A video/slideshare by google on here a while ago showed how friend groups and cliques were more varied than just one big group. Play off that concept and let people create their own boxes.

Option B: Create a pseudo-tree of connections. Play to people's egos and show them at the center of the tree. Make the neighboring vertices be groups and let friends branch off the group. The pseudo part comes in when people are repeated within groups: either repeat them as vertices on the tree or have more than one edge coming off. I prefer the later, as it would make for a cooler tree.

But really, whatever you make will be better than facebook. Also, probably should never let other people see a person's groups. It could cause severe problems socially.

</comment><comment><USER13> I, along with the rest of my team, created the same concept back in 1998 and by the year 2000, we were averaging between 14 million and 20 million pageviews per day which, even in this day and age, is still a decent amount of pageviews!

But that's the internet -- everything old is new again. The old. Then new. Then...

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I remember even Livejournal had friends filters. The reason Facebook won't do this is probably a specific business decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've had privacy circles in Appleseed since about 2006. You might want to check it out:

<http://opensource.appleseedproject.org>

Although the circles aren't auto-generated, the user creates them.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Should I keep going?

<comment><USER15> This really depends on why you are doing this.

The concept itself is trivial and not exactly new. It has been around for ages in a form of private areas on BBS'es (remember those?). It is implementing the concept in a way that compares to Facebook - that's where the challenge is.

Also, realistically speaking, the chances of making people switch away from Facebook are really low, even if Facebook shows an astounding lack of foresight and does _not_ roll out a circles-like paradigm really soon. People are lazy and Facebook ties are sticky. Those who are not on Facebook are not there for privacy reasons, so they aren't likely to flock to your service either.

So it all depends what you want to get out of the project. In any case, if you can and decide to continue, it would be a great learning experience on all fronts - from technical to design to marketing - I can guarantee it :)

<comment><USER16> Facebook did try to implement something like this with their updated Groups functionality, but it still hasn't caught on. There's definitely a wide open gap for somebody to make a usable circles-like social network, but it would probably need to use the Facebook social graph as a starting point to gain any traction, and would probably want to aim for an exit strategy that ends with either Google or Facebook buying them out.

I tried working on a similar idea a couple years ago, but dropped it because I couldn't find enough of a draw to make even myself switch over from Facebook to my network, let alone other people. I wish the OP best of luck in executing this idea better than anybody else has managed to yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Without a data importer, there seems to be an initial conditions problem, not just from a user acquisition standpoint, but from an algorithmic standpoint. How can it use network analysis to infer cliques when starting with such a small/sparse/nonexistent network?

Maybe you could add this to Diaspora. It may be burgeoning, but it's open source and does have users. Also, how does this differ from Diaspora's aspects?

That said, yes! There is definitely a need for it.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've also started working on a similar concept. My approach to this problem is to use context based LISTSERVs. The goal is to help make social sharing relevant by targeting both interests and "social roles".

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a shit concept and it's not gonna go anywhere.</comment>


Turing Test Prize Has Two Winners - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2012/10/08/turing-test-prize-has-two-winners/ <comment><USER2> A misleading headline. There are no realistic candidates to "win" a true Turing test. Even Watson, who won Jeopardy, would not be accepted as human in a fair, open-ended interview meant to uncover errors in an effort to pass as human:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/science/17jeopardy- watson....](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/science/17jeopardy- watson.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)</comment>


Heroku Issues with API and application builds - <AUTHOR> https://status.heroku.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Seems to be related to an AWS EC2 outage: [https://statusgator.com/services/amazon-web- services](https://statusgator.com/services/amazon-web-services)

It's currently affecting a lot of services across the web.</comment>


Rm -rf / in Windows Subsystem for Linux reveals sharp set of teeth - <AUTHOR> https://www.slightfuture.com/technote/rmrf-in-wsl <comment><USER3> > I actually expected Windows' Syscall translation layer for Linux to block > any such clearly destructive actions.

Well, I bet, if it blocked these actions, there would have been another blog complaining how the Linux subsystem is just a toy, goes against the Unix tradition of "can shoot yourself in the foot if you really want" etc etc.

<comment><USER4> This is absolutely right.

And I'd definitely much rather be able to do dangerous things if I want to, than be told that I need to be protected from them. I do appreciate that rm -rf requires "\--no-preserve-root" for that extra level of certainty, but the author of the OP should not be surprised at what happened.

<comment><USER5> That's fine until 4chan starts distributing images telling people to run this cool command to speed up their computer or something stupid. Ala delete system 32. They will have to lock this down like they did with system 32. Users do need to be protected from their own stupidity.

<comment><USER6> Running a random shell command from the Internet without understanding it can do any number of terrible things; removing all your files and making your system unbootable is _not_ the worst that could happen.

\--no-preserve-root seems like a sufficient safeguard here.

<comment><USER5> I'm just making predictions. That this will become a malicious advice meme. That lots of people will lose all their files over it. And that microsoft will probably disable it.

This exact thing happened with system32. And deleting a system file somehow seems _much_ more obviously dangerous than entering a command you don't understand. "rm" looks pretty harmless, and someone could come up with a backronym that even makes it seem sensible.

In fact I wonder if this is the reason pasting into console is disabled, or at least hard to figure out, on Windows.

<comment><USER7> Why do you think this is the reason system32 was protected? I think it was simply protected for the same reason the program files folder was, which is security. Not to prevent user mistakes.

<comment><USER5> No, deleting system files was only disabled on the user interface. You could still do it with a bat script or the windows api.

They also got rid of deltree, which is the Windows equivalent of rm -rf, and was abused in a similar way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> TIL running a destructive command does destructive things.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think this is actually a good thing, Linux being a first class citizen in this environment and all. Linux is a different beast from Windows, and this being a developer tool, will not babysit the user as much.

</comment><comment><USER10> So you run a destructive command and you are surprised it destroyed your system? The sub system is not an isolated vm so it does what it's supposed to do. I don't see a problem here you could achieve the same thing in regular windows command prompt or powershell.

</comment><comment><USER11>
        cmd /crd /s /q \

This is faster in Windows

<comment><USER12> Just to be clear, this calls the command "rd" (remove directory) with argument /s (recursively remove all subdirectories) and path \ (root of your drive).

Initially it looked to me like a switch called "crd" as argument to the "cmd" command. This would have fooled me into thinking it is harmless. I wouldn't have fallen for "format c:" but I might have fallen for this.

The space between "/c" and "rd" is apparently not necessary. I tested it and it really works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Shooting own foot considered harmful."

</comment><comment><USER14> Hm, does this mean it ignores win32 file locking? By that I mean files are locked against deletion while a handle to them is held open, unlike on posix systems where you can rm an open file and it just unlinks it from the filesystem without deleting the data (until the refcount goes to zero).

The level of damage described sounds like it does.

</comment><comment><USER15> Do you really need the Linux subsystem to do mass deletions on Windows?

Googling around tells me that good old "deltree" no longer exists, but I would have assumed PowerShell would have some equivalent. If you do such a thing as administrator, won't you expect serious damage?

<comment><USER16> I thought perhaps the Linux layer lets you delete/unlink files that are in use, unlike Windows. But I also thought this was pretty baked into the kernel/VM paging system.

If the Linux layer allows deleting and replacing in-use files, that's pretty cool and a welcome feature.

If this is just a substitute for deltree I'm not sure I get the point.

<comment><USER17> Windows (at least NTFS) does allow you to delete files in use as long as it has been opened with a sharing mode of FILE_SHARE_DELETE. Unfortunately most regular programs don't do this.

An exception to this is memory mapped files as they are not allowed to be deleted that way. Executables are executed in Windows by memory-mapping them; so runnning programs are hard to delete.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but as long as the file is openen by another process...

\- You can't delete the parent directory

\- You can't create a new file with the same name

... which makes that flag quite useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I see the writer has used '\--no-preserve-root' when deleting /mnt/c - <USER2> anybody know if that's necessary?

It would be an interesting (and probably good enough) safety net if they treated /mnt/c the same as / in this case.

<comment><USER20> The --no-preserve-root is the safety net of sorts. If you deliberately type it, you obviously know what you are asking for.

<comment><USER21> But does the Linux subsystem actually understand that /mnt/c is the root of the drive, or can you omit the option?

<comment><USER9> `rm` is probably hardcoded to not touch `/` without the flag and that's it, so most likely it's not necessary.

<comment><USER22> I just checked the `rm` source code for the GNU coreutils, and it actually checks for `/` by checking for identical device and inode numbers to `/`. I admittedly don't want to test if the feature works, but in theory if you remount `/` at a different location `rm` will still require the `--no- preserve-root` flag to delete it.

That said, the above only saves you if `/` and `/mnt/c` are the same device mounted at two different places - I haven't used the system to know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You can also drop a fork bomb in bash and blue screen win10.

:(){ :|:& };:

<comment><USER24> It's called _Windows blues_.

<comment><USER25> This has been fixed in recent Windows insider builds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you assume a non-Administrator/non-UAC elevated user _can 't_ delete anything in c:\windows this does raise the question of why the Linux subsystem has so many privileges

<comment><USER27> I'm curious about this myself. I would have to be an elevated command prompt to do this natively in Windows. I would assume that, by default, the Linux subsystem runs non-Elevated. If this is not the case then the Linux subsystem is a bit of security risk in Windows.

<comment><USER28> You would have to be in an elevated command prompt and manually take ownership from "trusted installer" in order to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Maybe you could also try executing

      sudo chmod -R a-x /

and post the findings.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hmmm the only thing that prevents you from deleting system files are file permission which in windows 7 restrict it to "trusted installer".

This begs the question how many other things you can exploit with it to bypass file/system permissions.

<comment><USER29> _Hmmm the only thing that prevents you from deleting system files are file permission which in windows 7 restrict it to "trusted installer"._

I'd consider it a bug/limitation if running as root in the Linux subsystem, because root should be able to do that too.

<comment><USER28> "Trusted Installer" also protects other folders like "program files", all of a sudden dll injection / unescaped path vulnerabilities might become much more common if this is indeed an issue.

Nothing actually stopping you from deleting "explorer.exe" from gui/cmd but you have to do some steps in order to take ownership of those files even with admin rights, this includes interacting with the UAC functionality in windows.

Seems that the new linux subsystem bypasses that and unless the guy in the article has already disabled every security measure in windows this is a big deal.

And no I won't consider it a bug, I don't care what root should or should not be able to do the fact that a user can delete critical system files while the OS is running is bad design there is simply no scenario in which you would want or need to do it, not in Windows and not even in Linux.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "I actually expected Windows' Syscall translation layer for Linux to block any such clearly destructive actions."

How would you suggest this could be done?

<comment><USER31> In an interview with BSDNow[0], Bryan Cantrill had mentioned how at Sun, they'd discussed with the person in charge of POSIX compliance, and got a clearance to specifically check for this case and prevent it. This code is present in Illumos [1].

(Edit: added links correctly)

[0] [http://www.bsdnow.tv/episodes/2015_11_23-the_cantrill_strike...](http://www.bsdnow.tv/episodes/2015_11_23-the_cantrill_strikes_back)

[1] [https://github.com/illumos/illumos- gate/blob/5a4ef21a18dfdc6...](https://github.com/illumos/illumos- gate/blob/5a4ef21a18dfdc65328821a265582d03e85a97c9/usr/src/cmd/rm/rm.c#L142)

<comment><USER32> That's in the 'rm' command; not in the syscall itself.

You have the same thing in other OSes, hence --no-preserve-root

<comment><USER31> Indeed. Thanks for clarifying this.

I now realise that while one may have an rm that takes care of this, one could always get another rm that does not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I actually expected rm -rf / to do just that.

</comment><comment><USER34> i guess the original title "running Rm -rf/ runs Rm -rf/" wasn't catchy enough.

</comment><comment><USER35> Looks like it did what it's supposed to do!

I'm very excited about the Subsystem for Linux. It will make Windows a great all-purpose development system. As it is, I have an easier time running must GNU/Linuxy stuff on cygwin than I do on Mac....

<comment><USER36> Genuinely curious: what software do you use that you have problems with on OS X?

<comment><USER37> libsdr (might have been librtlsdr) and opencv here. Complete and total nightmare to get either of those going.

Total cake on a windows system.

Anything that requires python libraries outside of the bog standard seems to be a 50/50 tossup on OS X.

<comment><USER35> Exactly right: OpenCV is the worst. And lots of trouble with Python 2 and 3 things that "just work" on Windows. I guess people don't do a lot of "real development" on Macs -- around the world, Windows is still the standard.

The only thing I use regularly that works better on Mac is "Vagrant" 1.8. I have to stay on 1.7.4 on Windows. If you look at their issue tracker, it's clear nobody's caring too much about Windows over there. Of course, with the Subsystem For Linux, I can just run the Linux one on Windows!

<comment><USER33> I think this depends on what you consider "real development". I always thought people don't do any "real development" on non-unix systems. As far as anything Internet or modern goes, Windows is far, far from the standard. I guess that's the point of this compatiblity layer, after all.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: My version of facebook search - <AUTHOR>

I hacked this up yesterday, and made it public just as I saw the other facebook search hit HN. Anyway it's at http://searchthebook.us It's just a wrapper around the Facebook Graph API without the undertones of privacy concerns that facebooksearch has. <comment><AUTHOR> clickable: <http://searchthebook.us></comment>


Qualcomm's $170,000 Android App Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://alljoynappchallenge.com/?utm_source=ChallengePost+Users&utm_campaign=94a21160ce-AllJoyn_Promo_A_B9_17_2012&utm_medium=email

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but I can't submit because I'm based in Canada.</comment>


Dead Program's Society - <AUTHOR> https://gbracha.blogspot.com/2017/05/dead-programs-society.html <comment><USER2> This is an open invitation to break programs. It's so cool. I always, compulsively, accept those kind of invitations. I, like most people here, keep breaking eclipse and then rebuilding it to see what happens. Unfortunately the industry often tends to go right the opposite way. That's why they keep sending us off to very expensive trainings and buying licenses on tools we cannot break by ourselves.</comment>


Please review my startup: Eating out in Veliky Novgorod. - <AUTHOR> http://en.cafe.nov.ru/ Hello, I'm a web programmer from Veliky Novgorod, Russia. I decided to create a catalog of cafes in my city, make it popular among tourists and local residents, and then charge monthly fee from the cafes. We also try to make money by producing brochure for tourists and distribute it via administration of the city and hotels. Top two features yet to be implemented are reviews and interactive menus. <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I'm a web programmer from Veliky Novgorod, Russia. I decided to create a catalog of cafes in my city, make it popular among tourists and local residents, and then charge monthly fee from the cafes. We also try to make money by producing brochure for tourists and distribute it via administration of the city and hotels. Top two features yet to be implemented are reviews and interactive menus.

<comment><USER2> Сайт слишком похож на брошюру и глаза разбегаются по фоткам. Стиль минимализм (как у Apple) более практичен.

Translation: the site looks like brochureware and eyes wander about without finding a place to focus. Changing to a more minimalist design (like Apple's) would be more appropriate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Значит, удалось достичь желаемого эффекта :)

This proves, that the desired effect was achieved.</comment></comment></comment>


Eventful Friday for SpaceX Amid Static Fire and Test Failure - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/08/spacex-static-fire-asiasat-6-test-failure/

<comment><USER2> This was an interesting failure, I agree that if you don't break eggs now and then you aren't pushing hard enough. But I was particularly interested in the 3 engine test. Is SpaceX looking to abort/return to base on an engine out? I can see how it would be pretty amazing to land a satellite if you knew that you weren't going to have enough oomph to get it into orbit but I had not seen any mention of that. And the tests on the F9R in flight so far only needed 1 engine to return to the ground. So all in all an interesting test in a number of ways.</comment>


Why the tech-savvy Obama administration launched a busted healthcare website - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/8/4814098/why-did-the-tech-savvy-obama-administration-launch-a-busted-healthcare-website

<comment> mkr-hn This is why "throw technology at the problem" isn't always the solution. Poorly-implemented technology was at the core, but it happened because of a flawed and entirely political process. It's a problem as old as civilization, and no one seems too eager to look for a solution.

Free ideas:

A system to crunch laws, rulings, and policies and put them into an easily- searched public database, with some sort of paid option for lawyers, politicians, and other professionals who need more funcionality.

A github for laws (The bulk of laws are the different versions bundled into one -- the "3000 page bill" that is the ACA is really only a couple inches of paper once you pare it down to the final release)

Nail those two and you enable solutions for just about everything else. It won't initially be much help to politicians who are stuck with garbage software that came from a goofball bidding process, but it makes it possible for the people they represent to really understand what's going on, so they have the tools to make change happen.</comment>


NASA Uploads Hundreds of Rare Aircraft Films to YouTube - <AUTHOR> http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/nasa-uploads-hundreds-of-rare-aircraft-films-to-youtube-1797119276?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow <comment><USER2> They're uploading the films which have been all be freely available at [https://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/index.html](https://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/index.html) for many, many years.

That said, it's a great collection, I remember spending hours downloading single Jpegs because of how high resolution their original scans are. (This was back on dial-up, which gives you an indication how long this site has been around!).

</comment><comment><USER3> Direct link to channel: [https://www.youtube.com/user/DrydenTV/playlists](https://www.youtube.com/user/DrydenTV/playlists)

</comment><comment><USER4> The video of the M2-F2 oscillations is pretty crazy, especially the cockpit view: [https://youtu.be/TdvYuFqE3JI?list=PL7b4vf55aQl3wOj-Y6TUxj2Lp...](https://youtu.be/TdvYuFqE3JI?list=PL7b4vf55aQl3wOj-Y6TUxj2LpPwTHRxYS) Test pilots are a breed of their own

And talking of crazy, the X-15 never disappoints [https://youtu.be/CIR-B966Dis?list=PL7b4vf55aQl2NTGkbAKWxW4NZ...](https://youtu.be/CIR-B966Dis?list=PL7b4vf55aQl2NTGkbAKWxW4NZunGhr0tI)</comment>


Ask HN: Caching in Ruby? - <AUTHOR>

I know that there are a lot of experts in Ruby on Rails around here, so I was hoping someone could answer a quick question. As an interpreted language, Ruby clearly must be relatively slow. As a result, I would expect that for production systems, there should be some sort of bytecode caching. However, after searching Google, I could not find a conclusive article describing this process for Ruby. Coming from PHP background, I am used to installing APC on production systems. Is there something similar to be installed for systems running Ruby on Rails? Thanks for your answers! <comment><USER2> The most-deployed interpreter, MRI 1.8, doesn't compile to bytecode, so it's not possible for there to be a general system which does this.

HOWEVER, I would suggest that your fundamental assumptions are wrong here. Without a cache, PHP has to re-interpret the source files for every single request. That's not how Rails works: the code is parsed _once_ at server startup (or the first time it's used, depending on which part of the code you're looking at) and reused in the same process for subsequent requests, so there isn't a per-request parsing cost.

As ever, benchmark and profile before making optimisation assumptions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Regularfry's points are absolutely correct.

However, in the event that you do need caching, it can be achieved through a variety of means, including ORM level object caching, controller caching and/or view/fragment caching.

Lastly, have you read this guide on Rails caching? Much of this is readily available in the standard distribution of rails: <http://guides.rubyonrails.org/caching_with_rails.html>

(final thought — this is a question might have been better suited for StackOverflow, just given the manner in which SO and HN are geared.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you everyone for your answers!

@clyfe and @regularfry: Thank you! The fact that my assumptions where wrong, and that a Rails applications is not re-interpreted every time an http request is made, is exactly what I wanted to know!

@knowtheory: I tried reading the caching guide but it's too darn long for just skimming it. The answers I got here were exactly what I was looking for - brief and to the point, however trying to ask on SO first may be a good idea next time.

</comment><comment><USER4> As the ruby application loads in memory at startup and then is executed from there (in production) there is no need of bytecode caching, in contrast with PHP where the code is read, parsed and interpreted on each request, and in this (second) case, caching the bytecode to save parsing execution makes sense.

That is the case of _bytecode_ caching. In regards to other forms of caching (etag, memoization etc) frameworks implement different strategies.

</comment><comment><USER5> jruby bytecode is heavily cached (on top of the caching done by the JVM)

[http://blog.headius.com/2010/05/kicking-jruby-performance- up...](http://blog.headius.com/2010/05/kicking-jruby-performance-up- notch.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> There are a variety of Ruby vms out there now. Each with their own performance characteristics. Instead of looking for bytecode or ast caching solutions, I would just look for articles on 'scaling rails' and 'ruby performance' and similar.</comment>


An FAQ for Hacker News? - <AUTHOR>

If there was an FAQ section that had threads to frequently asked questions, it would go a long way to acclimating newbies.  It would also serve as a tremendous resource for everybody.
An FAQ section could also help ease some of the frustration some veterans of Hacker News have when they see questions that have been answered many times already.
I think some of the comments are really good, but after a while the thread "disappears" & and the next newbie asks the same the question.  Consequently, some veterans get frustrated.
If threads are put in a FAQ section, then people would get the benefit of what users have said in the past and any new things users decided they wanted to add to the various threads.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> <http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive>

which makes your question amusingly ironic :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=184766>

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that the Ask YC Archive does a good job at this. Too bad it isn't constantly on the main page.

<http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive>

</comment><comment><USER4> I think "veterans" should be a little more understanding; realizing we were all one time a "newbie". I would even suggest we realize that a "newbie" isn't necessarily a newbie at everything; most of the time they can bring a valuable skill set to the community.

</comment><comment><USER5> How does the recession affect my startup?

<comment><USER2> 'Ask not if the recession will affect your startup. Ask if your startup can affect the recession.'

(This is quote is being published by the author under Creative Commons Attribution license)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yeah, please add that "what music do you program to" question to the FAQ if you're so kind.

<comment><USER7> Done. Here's the link for all interested: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132026>

Note (to all reading this) that it is a wiki so feel free to add anything I missed (or delete anything that sucks). I doubt there are many false positives, but there may be a bunch of false negatives.

I plan to batch update it weekly (probably on Mondays) for the previous week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How about where do I report spam?

This user seems to be spamming the submission inbox:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=duthel>

</comment><comment><USER9> Thats a great idea. There;s a wealth of information (links, posts etc) in HN and it would be nice to easily access a submission that was posted in the past.

</comment><comment><USER10> Would you say An FAQ or A FAQ? Not to be mean, just not sure---cause pronounced it sounds like 'an' but spelled looks like 'a'

<comment><USER11> "an" is used before words starting with a vowel sound. Not words starting with a vowel character. This is a common mistake.

Since FAQ is an acronym, the "F" here does not sound like your average "F". Phonetically it could be represented as "EFF".

While "an FAQ" looks strange, it is grammatically accurate.

<comment><USER12> Well that depends on how you pronounce FAQ. As soon as words like that get colloquial, they are pronounced as one word instead of as a list of letters (fak vs ef-ay-que).

<comment><USER13> The New York Times style guide is a handy way to tell: If the Times puts periods between the letters ("A.C.C." for the basketball conference) then it's to be pronounced as individual letters. If the Times puts no periods between the letters ("NATO" for the treaty organization) then it's to be pronounced as a word. That decision is then used to figure out whether there's an "an" in front of it.

The beeb (BBC) works in a similar way. Things that are spelled out are put in all caps ("ACC") and things that are pronounced are put with only a leading capital ("Nato").

Of course, that's just the journalism wonk in me speaking.

<comment><USER14> Don't you mean the B.B.C.? Or are we calling it the beebuk now? ;-)

<comment><USER13> Look at the example of the BBC's style guide. If you're using the BBC guide, then things that are all-cap are said using letters. If we wanted to call it the "beebuk" then it'd be "Bbc" (like "Nato").

We just need all high school teachers to find time between teaching basic literacy to teach kids one style guide for these sorts of things.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>