Startup claims to have created first test tube meatball - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3428438/First-test-tube-MEATBALL-revealed-Startup-claims-lab-grown-meat-shelves-three-years-says-raising-animals-eat-soon-unthinkable.html <comment><USER3> I am excited to see start-ups tackle new forms of food production. However, I am worried that it is going to be similar to how the diamond industry has been able to defend themselves from manufactured/synthetic diamonds.

You can see the arguments being very similar here with animal cruelty, purity of the food and pathogens, etc. Synthetic diamonds don't have the flaws of regular diamonds, much less expensive, don't have the same toll on humans and our planet. Yet, the diamond industry has positioned them as not real and most people will gladly pay more for the "real deal".

I am optimistic that there is an inevitability to this market, but the first generation of start-ups are going to bear the additional cost of being the educators. It may be decades until the "educator tax" has been paid. From a product perspective this makes for a very unattractive market. The opposite dynamics of network effects. Where the early entrant has significantly higher barriers to entry than later entrants.

<comment><USER4> >However, I am worried that it is going to be similar to how the diamond industry has been able to defend themselves from manufactured/synthetic diamonds.

I think the difference is that diamonds are inherently a luxury good.

I don't think that Michelin-starred restaurants or families who buy organic grass-fed beef are going to switch to synthetic meat anytime soon.

But, unlike diamonds, the vast majority of the meat market is cheap, price sensitive, and commodified. I think a two dollar synthetic meat burger is a much easier sell than a twenty thousand dollar synthetic diamond.

A huge amount of change is possible even if synthetic meat gets zero traction at the premium end of the market.

<comment><USER3> Maybe.

However, You can see the same debate being played out around genetically modified foods. Fear is being created about the products. As opposed to diamonds that are worn on the outside, these are things being put in your body. I think it is fair to expect that the PR campaign from entrenched food companies will be significant here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> xkcd-sucks ...using tons of FBS (fetal bovine serum) in the process.

FBS is essentially a magic mix of animal growth factors, and no good serum replacement exists for cell culture.

<comment><USER5> That is _the_ issue. Not only is it essentially a magic mix made of meat, but it's also extraordinarily (and irreducibly) expensive compared to every other component/process. Whoever fixes the 'FBS Problem' will do well - but until then, these unfortunately seem to be fancy, expensive experiments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The bottom line, so to speak:

> As of right now, it costs about $18,000 to produce one pound of Memphis > Meats' ground beef, compared to the $4 a pound in most US grocery stores, > according to the US Department of Agriculture.

These figures are obviously a little fuzzy when not broken down to account for subsidies, equipment/research costs amortized over different populations/periods, etc., but that's a pretty big gap to cross.

<comment><USER7> If you make anything in a testing laboratory, it's going to be extreme. It's a whole other process (even profession) to make industrial quantities of something for production. I think the market demand will be considerable for a tasty protein source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Meatballs is relatively easy; the challenges are in producing something with a meat-like bite at a competitive price.

For the first, I think [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/Plant- based-meat-...](http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/Plant-based-meat- that-matches-steak-for-texture-The-technology-is-unique-in-the-world) (research group at [https://www.wageningenur.nl/en/newsarticle/Steak-from- vegeta...](https://www.wageningenur.nl/en/newsarticle/Steak-from-vegetable- proteins.htm)) is a lot more advanced.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looking at all the controversy surrounding GMO foods, many of which have had decades of scientific study, it does not portend well to getting the general population to accept this. In addition, if you do get this accepted, any food- borne illnesses related to this (even if not the fault of the producer) or allergies will result in tons of bad publicity.

As some posters have already mentioned, this is not a field where you want to be the first.

</comment><comment><USER10> Ironically, while at least some of the motivation for this is to prevent animal suffering, once we figure out how to grow meat directly, we will have little use for many livestock species and this could actually cause them to greatly decrease in numbers if not disappear entirely. I'm interested to see what we do with pigs, etc if we aren't going to eat them.

<comment><USER11> The comic you just thought of: [http://www.smbc- comics.com/?id=3105](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3105)

The actual vegan response: [http://ethicalvegan.net/read/will-animals-go- extinct-if-the-...](http://ethicalvegan.net/read/will-animals-go-extinct-if- the-world-becomes-vegan)

It comes down to "Stop thinking about extinctions when the factory ranching system is a bunch of concentration camps."; that is, they never deny that their policies would lead to extinctions, they just insist that ending the cruelty is a more important way to frame the debate.

Subsidiary question: Is it really extinction if the gene line is preserved, but never allowed to ramify into an actual organism?

<comment><USER12> Farming takes up a huge amount of land. If all that land is allowed to go wild thousands of species not just domesticated ones will have a chance to come back if they are already not extinct. So decrease of domesticated animals does not automatically mean it will be bad for the animal kingdom or earth as whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I showed this article to a coworker who pointed out an interesting idea - <USER2> this technology could be used to produce meat in Space, or on Mars. Interesting thought.

</comment><comment><USER14> It will be in your MacDonalds burger as soon as they manage to make it produce 1 kilo of meet for a dollar.

<comment><USER15> Is that bad?

<comment><USER14> I don't think so...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Should be first tested rather than tasted. If it is safe for health or just another MacDo-KFC like....

</comment><comment><USER17> $18,000 is a hefty chunk of change for something I'm gonna throw in my crockpot for 8 hours.</comment>


Walgreens Developer APIs - <AUTHOR> https://developer.walgreens.com/

<comment><USER2> If anyone wants to learn more about the various APIs that Walgreens offers, I run the program and can help out. Just drop a note to firstname.lastname@example.com or tweet us at @WalgreensAPI. We have photo printing, the aforementioned Rx refill and a tie-in with our rewards program and fitness apps/wearables.

</comment><comment><USER3> yes yes yes

I think every single consumer facing company should have an API for developers. So many ideas of mine usually end in "one day when that data is available". 20 years from now I imagine it will be the norm.

</comment><comment><USER2> Anyone can learn about our developer app integrations at [https://developer.walgreens.com/blog_categories/Integration%...](https://developer.walgreens.com/blog_categories/Integration%20Showcase).

</comment><comment><USER4> Prescription API? IANAL, but this seems like it could have some serious legal issues. Regardless, it is great to see how retailers are taking the web seriously now and are building API's.

<comment><USER2> We have a very simple API. We are not sending back any Rx info. You send us the Walgreens Rx and we present back a select store and time checkout. No customer name. No medication info.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> so the only api function they have that looks remotely interesting to me is the prescriptions one. I don't work in the health-tech space, so are there no pre-existing APIs for submitting prescriptions? how do EMR systems do it now?

Maybe there could be an opportunity here for prescription submission + courier/delivery guy API integration to get on demand pickups of meds?

<comment><USER6> The prescription API is for existing (Walgreen's) prescriptions or transferring a Rx, it doesn't allow you to submit a new Rx, just order refills, etc.

I believe AllScripts' E-Prescribe pretty much has the market cornered for non- hospital pharmacies. I would think most hospital EMRs would have an integrated eprescribe for their internal pharmacy orders.

<comment><USER7> I was part of an AllScripts deployment in a previous job. It is truly awful, as are their deployment teams that you work with. They actually recommended we put the web, database, app, and other tiers on a single subnet/VLAN. "We can't help you do it any other way, we've not done that."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can anyone share their hands-on experience using the Walgreens QuickPrints photo API?

<comment><USER2> We have over 100 integrated apps with our photo printing API and offer a revenue share of up to 20% on the order once it's sold. Over 8200 locations in the US and many different photo products ([https://developer.walgreens.com/page/quickprints-product- inf...](https://developer.walgreens.com/page/quickprints-product-info)).

<comment><USER2> Here are some of the many apps we are integrated with [https://developer.walgreens.com/blog_categories/QuickPrints](https://developer.walgreens.com/blog_categories/QuickPrints).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I got turned away at a Walgreens pharmacy Friday afternoon because their "system was down." The pharmacist said it was affecting "all stores.". Interesting coincidence if it's not related to this roll out.

<comment><USER10> Unlikely, because Walgreens has had a Developer Portal and external APIs for several years now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm in the middle of aggregating lists of APIs for review at [https://techendo.com/](https://techendo.com/)

Hopefully things like this will be useful.

<comment><USER12> Broken link there. FIXED - [https://www.techendo.com/](https://www.techendo.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As both a developer and someone who takes medicine, I'd just like to say: NO

I shred my Prescription labels, and now they're basically going to be opened up to the world for some stupid developer to expose because he/she didn't think it through?

Apple's location data was secure until 3rd party apps leaked it. No thanks. The convenience is not worth the loss in security/privacy

<comment><USER14> Read the docs.

All they give out is the store location/pickup time for an RX# request, no identification info, no medication info.

<comment><USER13> If it's implemented correctly. How many top tech companies implement their API's perfectly the first, second, or even hundredth time around? Walgreens isn't a tech company.

As the patient, the person who's information is being stored, I should have the ONLY say so over what happens to that information EVER, and if they don't get that, I have no problem taking my business elsewhere, which it looks like I'll have to do.

<comment><USER2> To clarify, our Rx Refill API is "inbound" in nature only. If the patient initiates a refill, one can be completed. This is not an API around "outbound" information from Walgreens systems. Hope that helps to clarify.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Visualize your Outlook meetings using Ruby and NVD3 - <AUTHOR> https://ejstembler.com/2014/07/visualize-outlook-meetings-using-ruby-nvd3/ <comment><AUTHOR> I originally wrote the code back in 2014 (Ruby 1.9.3-p545), but just now got around to blogging about it and putting the code in a repo. Better late than never I guess.</comment>


Lessons in statistics: How not to analyze time series - <AUTHOR> http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=14718 <comment><USER2> As a mathematician, that article was a little embarrassing to wade through.

While there are valid criticisms of the way statistics are sometimes misused in science, pretty much every one of them comes from lack of understanding about how statistical models work - scientists reaching for a familiar test and following a formula they were taught. I can't blame them too much - understanding the true purpose and nature of statistical models is HARD (my recommended step one: become a Bayesian). What we need is for more people to recognise when they don't have that understanding and work with somebody who does.

What Briggs seems to have done, though, is decided that because _HE_ doesn't understand statistical inference and modelling, that statistics are bunk. Taking a simplistic definition of "trend" like "the second-half average is higher than the first" and turning that into a boolean yes/no answer is the statistical equivalent of being an anti-vaccer.

The most frustrating thing, though, is that all the alternative definitions of "trend" he defines can actually be expressed as statistical models! The issue is that when you express these definitions/tests for "trend" as models, you see that the statements each model makes about the underlying system are very problematic.

TL;DR - Briggs doesn't understand statistical modelling, and has therefore concluded that his home-rolled tests are just as good.

<comment><USER3> (responding both to you and 'duckingtest')

No, the 'answer' is not that the person you disagree with "believes in magic" or "doesn't understand" the field they work in as respected experts. Appell goes on to try to explain why climate modelling is concerned with 'projection' rather than 'prediction', and has a very clear view of the difference between science and magic.

Briggs has been a professor of statistics at Cornell, written several book on statistics, and published dozens of peer reviewed papers. Claiming that he is the "statistical equivalent of an anti-vaccer" might be a useful rhetorical strategy but unless you can point to some prominent mainstream career vaccine researchers that you'd also lump into this category, it has no basis in truth.

Playing to a home crowd is easy, but has left us where we are with two locked down groups each trying to persuade the undecided middle that their opponent is the devil incarnate. This doesn't lead anywhere desirable, just to further entrenchment of positions. The "way out" is trying to formulate criticism that can be understood by the party being criticized and influences them and their followers to reevaluate their beliefs and approaches.

I think it has to be something stylistic that we as readers associate with a world-view (a dog whistle) rather than the actual content of the statements. Take the paragraph in "Lesson 1":

      If you say the mixed marriage of splicing the disjoint
      series does not matter, you are making a judgment. Is it
      true? How can you prove it? It doesn't seem true on its
      face. Significance tests are circular arguments here. After
      the marriage, you are left with unquantifiable uncertainty.

I'd assert that this paragraph can only appear on the 'denier' side of things. Is this because it embraces uncertainty, and implies we should not act until we have properly quantified it? One of the most interesting exchanges in the comments is between 'Sheri' and 'Brandon Gates', on whether it's better to accept a known-flawed model or to throw it out and have no model at all.

My request to 'signalsmith', concentrating on Briggs because his positions are more self-contained: Re-reread Briggs article, ignoring the set-up paragraphs that explain what he's criticizing and why. That is, blind yourself as best as you can to the side that he is taking. Stop at the point where your pulse starts to rise and report back. Then let's see how 'duckingtest' responds to the same passage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a very interesting piece to read. The amazing thing to me is how smart people can look at the same evidence and come to very different conclusions. To get the feel of this piece, you really need to read it along with the comments.

The author of the piece is a very talented statistician, with a PhD in Mathematical Statistics (I hesitate to think of what other kind of statistics someone might study?), a Masters in Atmospheric physics, and a BA in Meteorology. Without question, he is very extremely well qualified on paper to make write the post he did: [http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?page_id=1085](http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?page_id=1085)

The main critical commentator is David Appell. He's a freelance writer who's been concentrating and reporting on global warming issues for many years. He's got a PhD, Masters, and BA in Physics, has interviewed most of the main scientists in the field multiple times, and understands the issues as well as or better than anyone else writing about it in the mainstream press: [http://davidappell.com/](http://davidappell.com/)

And it appears that the two completely disagree about practically every line in the article!

Without doubting the credentials or understanding of either, I can't shake the feeling that one is following the data wherever it leads, and the other could rationalize any result under the sun and not be knocked off a single one of his talking points. And I'm sure that others can read the piece and the comments and have exactly the opposite reaction.

What is it about their prose that can produce generate in me this amount of certainty and trust? Somehow, one is able to signal to me that they share my worldview, and thus I'm willing the trust them on the details I'm unfamiliar with. The other loses my trust within the first paragraph. At some level I know that neither of these responses can be fully trusted, and yet I can't shake the feeling that one can be trusted and the other cannot. How can this be?

<comment><USER4> >At some level I know that neither of these responses can be fully trusted, and yet I can't shake the feeling that one can be trusted and the other cannot. How can this be?

David Appell said it himself that what he believes isn't based in fact and can't be disproven in any way, in other words, a religious belief. Seems you just prefer science to religion.

"In climate science you can't "predict" anything — climate models aren't capable of predicting, because no one can read the future."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, the extensive comment section is eye-opening to me, in how little consensus there exists about the validity of models, line-fitting, and prediction.

<comment><USER6> I am amazed at the level of erudition in the comments section as well. Shows what a highly literate intellectual audience that part of the world must be. Had this article been printed in the Times, you'd have the usual republicans vs Krugman name calling and none of this scientific minutiae.</comment></comment>


TechStars to launch Seattle program (Fall 2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/16/techstars-shoots-north-to-seattle/

<comment><USER2> FWIW, Andy Sack, the Executive Director is a great guy with tons of operational experience. I fully expect this program to be fantastic.

Full disclosure: Andy is a GP at Founder's Co-op (<http://www.founderscoop.com>), which invested in my startup.

</comment><comment><USER3> If anyone has any questions about the program or the mentor network in Seattle please email me at andrew {at} techstars.org.</comment>


3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet shows Greeks did not first develop trigonometry - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/24/3700-year-old-babylonian-tablet-rewrites-history-maths-could/ <comment><USER2> >The tablet, known as Plimpton 332, was discovered ...

Actually "Plimpton 322" (NOT 332).

Seemingly not particularly "new" news:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plimpton_322](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plimpton_322)

The tablet contains couples corresponding to Pythagoraen triplets, this is known since the late '50's, the new study doesn't seem to add that much.

Anyway, it is here:

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0315086017...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0315086017300691)

The news are only about the possibility that it could have been used to solve a range of trigonometric problems, such as (example from the article):

>Problem 1.

>Suppose that a ramp leading to the top of a ziggurat wall is 56 cubits long, and the vertical height of the ziggurat is 45 cubits. What is the distance x from the outside base of the ramp to the point directly below the top?

But it is to be actually _somehow_ proved that it was ever used that way, it is an interesting hypothesis, but not much more than that.

And it has already some critic/skeptics, see: [http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/ancient-babylonian- ta...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/ancient-babylonian-tablet-may- contain-first-evidence-trigonometry)

>Mathematical historian Christine Proust of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, an expert on the tablet, calls the team's hypothesis "a very seductive idea." But she points out that no known Babylonian texts suggest that the tablet was used to solve or understand right triangles. The hypothesis is "mathematically robust, but for the time being, it is highly speculative," she says. A thorough search of other Babylonian mathematical tablets may yet prove their hypothesis, Ossendrijver says. "But that is really an open question at the moment."

</comment><comment><USER3> Duplicate [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15094190](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15094190)</comment>


Leon Theremin: The man and the music machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17340257 <comment><USER2> Some researchers over in Germany are using the theremin technology for gesture recognition in cars: <http://www.dfki.de/~endres/geremin/></comment>


Think startups are risky business? How about this... - <AUTHOR> http://youtube.com/watch?v=txdv_oNq81I <comment><USER2> I have to question the safety of the design of the tower for a few points in the climb. It seems that at a few transition points there are very few places to grab comfortably and move into the correct position.

How often do people have to climb these towers?

What do they do once they are up there?? I hope that wasn't just to replace the bulb in the beacon.</comment>


My First Year as a Solo Developer - <AUTHOR> https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-1/ <comment><USER2> Admittedly I haven't followed your blog, so you may mention this somewhere on there. You seem to fall into the common developer trap of building a bunch of stuff without gauging demand and then trying to monetize it afterwards.

Like, are there people out there clamoring for a one-stop location where they can check if food is keto? Is your site less friction than just Googling "Is dark chocolate keto?" then reading the little blurb answer Google generates? Can the bulk of your value proposition be copied easily by anyone with access to WordPress?

IMO you are going after areas that are too saturated/competitive. Those sorts of fields are great for marketers that know how to navigate, differentiate, and promote them, but they are not so good for developers that mostly specialize in building complicated things.

In your situation it's probably fine to keep doing what you're doing since you have stacks of BigCo savings/investments, so you can more-or-less take your time and eventually build traction with something. I'm not worried about you specifically, just other people taking your approach that don't have such long runway.

Not trying to be harsh, just trying to help.

<comment><USER3> An honest question. How do you gauge demand? Do you go to different forums and ask. Local mixers etc?

<comment><USER2> Basically yeah. You're on the right track. It will depend on your product. Here are three example methods I have personally used:

e.g. If you're starting a consultancy/dev shop, do you have people already trying to get you to do work for them or complaining to you about difficulties finding good freelancers? If so, there is clear demand for your specific services.

e.g. One of my most successful side projects was a web browser for the Roku that I developed after reading a bunch of people complaining there was no web browser in the Roku forums. The browser went on to get over 500k active installs (there are ~10mm active Roku devices).

e.g. Another popular way to do it that works great for local businesses (or SEO-based businesses like OP's Keto business) is to use the Google keyword research tool and see what sort of traffic your keywords get and how much people are paying for clicks on those keywords. If it costs a lot to buy search ads, the niche is likely too competitive.

<comment><USER4> Were you able to monetize the Roku browser?

<comment><USER2> Not really (just like $40 in donations from a donation button on the site). Releasing it for free captured basically the whole market, but I had no real way to capitalize on those users. That was my big learning lesson with that project.

In retrospect, I should have probably used it solely to get user data like Google does with Chrome and then done something useful with that data, but this was before I realized that (somewhat shady) business model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _There was one enormous hidden expense that my profit and loss chart didn't show: me.

My living expenses were rapidly eating away at my personal savings. Between my $3.3k/month Manhattan apartment, private health insurance, food, and utilities, it cost $6-7k per month just to sustain myself._

I wouldn't really consider this hidden expense. It's just expense. I think this is one of the most dangerous lies startups tell themselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

>I wouldn't really consider this hidden expense. It's just expense.

Maybe I should have worded it differently. I meant "hidden" in the sense that the chart I showed didn't reflect it because that only showed my business expenses.

I definitely did take into account my living expenses when I decided to quit my job.

<comment><USER6> >Maybe I should have worded it differently. I meant "hidden" in the sense that the chart I showed didn't reflect it because that only showed my business expenses.

Salaries are a business expense. If you hired a second programmer would you not expect to pay them? So why wouldn't you expect to pay yourself?

<comment><AUTHOR> They are, but all my other expenses are objective and quantifiable. I could make up a salary for myself, but it would kind of be pulled out of thin air.

I've thought a lot about what the dollar value is of my time and I haven't come up with any way of reaching a number that I find practical. It can't be my earnings, because that's negative. It's not 0 because I do value my time. It's not my opportunity cost from not doing consulting work because that would just tell me that I should outsource everything. I could just make up a number like $50/hr, but I don't know that it would help me make decisions that I couldn't other make.

<comment><USER7> Are you incorporated? I think you're required to pay yourself if you are, even if minimum wage. That would put it back on your balance sheet, and make the IRS happy.

(If its a sole proprietorship, I'm not sure shat the rules are)

<comment><USER8> That's completely untrue. In fact, it's the opposite -- the IRS objects if you pay yourself _more_ than a reasonable salary.

<comment><USER9> Why would they? If you pay yourself through income, they will get the most taxes through income tax.

<comment><USER8> If you're the sole owner of a corporation and also an employee, you can move money from the corporation to your own pocket by either paying yourself a salary or paying a dividend out of corporate profits.

At least prior to the recent corporate tax rate cut, the tax you'd pay on the salary would typically be less than the sum of corporate income tax and tax on the dividend, so people would pay themselves unreasonably large salaries to save on taxes, and the IRS would object to this.

Here's an article that goes into more detail:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2016/05/13/reasona...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2016/05/13/reasonable- compensation-for-c-corporation-shareholder-employees-how-much-is-too-much/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Your job at Google used to impress people. Now, when people ask about your > work, you awkwardly tell them, "Um, it's a website where you type a food, > and it tells you whether it's keto…" Shouldn't you do something that sounds > more impressive?

This is a very real doubt that I think about constantly.

<comment><USER11> It comes down to whether your ambition is to do something you like/interests you or something that you're doing solely to impress people that ask about what you do for a living.

<comment><USER12> I think your sentence works better without "solely".

The reality is that we make choices to simultaneously maximize a variety of internal and external incentives. Personal interests are one, so is money, and social prestige is one too.

Left-brained tech nerd folks tend to look down on the last one because it isn't "rational" or something, but prestige is an important part of life. One, for most people, it makes them feel good. Ultimately, that's a major goal of life. Two, prestige can directly translate to social capital, which can materially affect you. If you make a stronger impression on someone because you "work at Google" and that leads to them remembering you better and thinking of you later when an opportunity comes up, that actually matters.

There's nothing wrong with having the social side of your identity be part of the goals of your life. The risk is when you over-focus on it to the expense of everything else, because then you lose agency. We don't control which things are considered prestigious, so if we aim too much for prestige then we're basically letting the crowd make our decisions for us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The title of your post is "My First Year as a Solo Developer" but then you mention "I work with an excellent developer who handles all the coding and web design so that I can just write.". Did I misread that and it only applies to the blog or to all development?

I'm not super familiar with 4HWW, but the best advice I've seen on striking it out on your own is to do everything yourself until it becomes painfully obvious you need help, then start outsourcing the stuff that can be automated. Not to outsource everything from day one and be a project manager. (but perhaps I misread).

That said, the best education for business is to try it and see what doesn't work! Best of luck! I think the comment here about gauging demand is important. Have you talked to lots of people on Keto diets? Are their biggest pain points not knowing what is keto or not (it might be #30 on a list of 31 things)? Do they have trouble searching for resources on this? etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> >The title of your post is "My First Year as a Solo Developer" but then you mention "I work with an excellent developer who handles all the coding and web design so that I can just write.". Did I misread that and it only applies to the blog or to all development?

I hire freelance developers for some tasks, but I still consider myself a solo developer because I have no partners in my company and everyone who does freelance work for me does it either on a short-term basis or for only a few hours per month.

>I'm not super familiar with 4HWW, but the best advice I've seen on striking it out on your own is to do everything yourself until it becomes painfully obvious you need help, then start outsourcing the stuff that can be automated. Not to outsource everything from day one and be a project manager. (but perhaps I misread).

Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at now. My memory of 4HWW was the he was very eager to outsource anything he didn't have to do personally, but it's been awhile since I've read it. I've found it more useful to do the task myself for a while until I feel like it's sucking up a lot of my time and I can write easy instructions for someone else to follow.

>I think the comment here about gauging demand is important. Have you talked to lots of people on Keto diets? Are their biggest pain points not knowing what is keto or not (it might be #30 on a list of 31 things)? Do they have trouble searching for resources on this?

I got the idea from when I was promoting KetoHub in facebook groups, people would frequently ask whether X food is keto. And it is hard to just Google it because you'll get contradictory information, and a lot of it is just arguments on forum posts.

I don't think it's the biggest pain point, but I think there are already lots of people competing to solve the top N pain points, so I don't want to try to enter that battle. What appeals to me about Is It Keto is that nobody else has a dedicated site for what it's doing, so I hope to be the standard thing people reference when they want to know if a food fits into the keto diet.

<comment><USER14> You're not a developer: you're a product manager who outsources software development tasks to hired muscle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Really liked this post. As someone who is considering this path, this was the most down-to-earth, realistic(but without coming off as pessimistic) article I have read anywhere. Also really like the goals for 2019:

\- 500$ per month in revenue

\- 12 blog posts

Somehow these feel like very easy achievements, but insurmountable at the same time.

I wish you much success Michael!

PS: I hope to write my first blog post somewhat soon-ish too :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm sorry, but how is your website worth $4000? It's a static Jekyll website. This website is 3 to 10 man hours of work. Are you seriously paying people $500/hr to `gem install jekyll` and pick a theme for you?

Honest question, because I'm either missing something here, or you're throwing money out the window and in which case: message me about developing something for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, I wish it were only 3 to 10 hours of work to create the site.

The site is open source if you want to see what it's doing:

[https://github.com/mtlynch/mtlynch.io](https://github.com/mtlynch/mtlynch.io)

And here is all the work that Andrew, the blog's developer, did:

[https://github.com/mtlynch/mtlynch.io/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author...](https://github.com/mtlynch/mtlynch.io/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Ashredtechular)

The repo does a lot more than a vanilla Jekyll install would provide. There are automated build checks to make sure the pages render with proper HTML, no dead links, that the correct headers are in place for social sharing.

Vanilla Jekyll doesn't handle image resizing very well, so Andrew did a lot of work to add in the right plugin to handle it and to go back through all of my old posts to update the images.

It was also important to me to have Github gist-style file includes, but I didn't want to split my content between my blog and external gists, so Andrew added support for file embeddings within my pages.

There's also just routine work in keeping packages up to date. Every few months, there will be a neat feature I want in either my theme or Jekyll itself, so we have to upgrade, but often that generates work to check that the upgrade didn't break anything.

You might still look at that and say it's not that much work, but there's complexity in keeping all of it working together. It's worth it to me to have the look and functionality I want on my blog without having to interrupt my writing to do it myself.

I'm sure I could find someone who will work for cheaper, but Andrew is great because he's rigorous and an excellent communicator. I've worked with other Jekyll developers and they've all burned so much of my time not understanding what I want, explaining things poorly, or expecting me to catch the errors in their work. When I make feature requests to Andrew, he gets what I'm asking right away, lays out the options with the benefits and drawbacks of each, and does the work correctly the first time.

<comment><USER17> Wow! Two (opinionated) thoughts here:

1) Why bother with all this technical excellence if you do not know even if your site will still exist an year from now? Poor analogy: you are building a Ferrari to deliver food.

2) You could adapt this tech to create another version of [https://carrd.co](https://carrd.co), targeting another niche. That seems a more promising product that would benefit more from your tendency for technical excellence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Sidenote: My friends with children tell me that kids won't complicate this > at all.

Mmm...I'm not entirely convinced. I suppose it depends on whether or not you already have kids before you go this route. e.g. if you've got a couple of kids going to school in NY you have to time it properly. And you'd have to think about whether or not the place you're moving to would suit them. Oh and there's the small matter of getting "buy-in" from your wife/partner/girlfriend :)

<comment><USER19> I think he's being sarcastic. The one thing that all parents (myself included) tell non parents is that children change everything.

<comment><USER20> Yeah I was pretty sure it was meant in a humorous way. Kids will change everything, which scares my wife and me quite a bit. (We don't have children yet). :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "My living expenses here are ~$2k per month, which is close enough to the rate of return on my personal investments that I'm kind of at equilibrium."

 _Closes window._

<comment><USER22> Envelope math is telling me that's about 30k/year before taxes. That would be a 6% annual return on half a million dollars.

Not exactly a recipe for the masses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why make the goals for 2019 so small? This makes things asymmetric the wrong way.

The risk associated with doing this is too high considering a 6k per revenue goal annually. When the cost is your savings and, more importantly, your time.

You don't need to change the world or anything but why not make the goal 100k?

This will help you focus on things that can make 100k.

<comment><AUTHOR> The poster who replied below sums up my feelings about it.

The appeal for me is that with a small project, I get a tight feedback loop. If my goal is to make $100k in a year, I have to take some pretty huge swings, so maybe I have a higher chance of making a large sum, but I also have a greater chance of making $0.

Is It Keto is fun to work on now because I have some levers and knobs, so I can see how adjusting them affects my income. I made $1.20 in December and it's looking like around $25 for January. That's lower than what I hoped but I'm getting that feedback quickly, so I'm learning a lot about what's working and what's not. If it were something where I'd have to sell $500/mo packages to each client, I feel like I'd have many months of $0 where I can't tell if I'm close to making money or if I'm totally off track .

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just out of curiosity, what did you do for your healthcare and everything after leaving Google?

Great article by the way, I really resonated with the line: "Your job at Google used to impress people. Now, when people ask about your work, you awkwardly tell them, "Um, it's a website where you type a food, and it tells you whether it's keto…" Shouldn't you do something that sounds more impressive?"

I've had this thought (about my own projects) all too often

<comment><USER25> He did mention in the middle of the article, he's buying private insurance:

"My living expenses were rapidly eating away at my personal savings. Between my $3.3k/month Manhattan apartment, private health insurance, food, and utilities, it cost $6-7k per month just to sustain myself."

If my experience (in California) is anything close, it costs somewhere around $500/mo for a single person his age. (If you have a spouse it gets up to around $1000/mo, and with kid(s) it goes up to about $1500/mo) This was 2013-2016 numbers, and was also with Covered California, not sure if that makes it any cheaper.

<comment><USER26> five HUNDRED dollars?? Per month?! I'm definitely amazed.

<comment><USER27> Did you expect it to be higher or lower? A lot of salaried people have never read their paystub carefully and seen that their employer pays 80-90% of their health insurance premiums for them.

Further, a lot of people don't realize that employers get a discount on providing health insurance because they have a pool of people over which to distribute a bunch of uncertainty. When you buy individual insurance, the "pool" is you (and maybe any of your dependents), and the insurance companies charge you "full" price.

<comment><USER28> My understanding is the "pool" is not you, but the general population who also bought the plan, which is probably a less healthier group of people than say your normal technology startup or enterprise company. Also, the state is probably doing worse on negotiating with the insurance companies for rates than compared to big fortune 500 companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Earlier this year I found this guy called Andrey online. He had left his job in Ukraine and moved to Bali with the goal of generating $1k/mrr. Check him out[0]. Fairly inspiring. Maybe you can cut costs further and see different parts of the world if you are keen.

[0][https://www.andreyazimov.com](https://www.andreyazimov.com)

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm a bit confused about the graph? Your monthly loss seems to have been reduced to almost nothing, but then in the projects section most projects appear to be operating at a loss, and after that it still leaves 2k living expenses unaccounted for.

Am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> The graph only reflects my business income and expenses and doesn't include my living costs, which I'm paying by drawing down from savings.

I thought about how to show a unified view of my finances, but I couldn't think of any way to do it sensibly because it would included a huge one-time expense of buying a house, then a bunch of other one-time expenses from moving, renovating, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Congratulations. I think the best gain from this aside from the learning experience itself is the fact that you cut down your expenses and learned that life is still good without spending a ton of money. I did this in my late 20s and did go back to work un-solo but, i kept the expenses low and managed to save a lot more. I am still happier with less now and I only spend when it is necessary. Good luck to you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

Yeah, I've never considered myself a huge spender. I'm still happy with my decision to pay for an expensive apartment close to my office when I was an employee because my income was high and not having to commute saved me so much time and stress every day.

But early last year, one of my readers sent me links to Mr. Money Mustache and his ideas about low-spending / FIRE definitely influenced my thinking.

<comment><USER27> > I'm still happy with my decision to pay for an expensive apartment close to > my office when I was an employee because my income was high and not having > to commute saved me so much time and stress every day.

I worked for big tech companies for 10.5 years and, because I started having kids early in my career, I had a single family home and a long commute. I did the sad math and figured that I probably spent over 6000 hours over that decade just commuting.

It is said that to become an expert at something you should spend about 10k hours working on it. If I didn't make a change I was going to reach 10k hours of commuting, so last year I got a remote job and it's been pretty transformative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Can you give any tips on how you find people to outsource to? Where do you look? Do you interview them? Do you give them a trial period of some sort? Do you do fixed costs or hourly rates? How do you agree on prices per task? What do you do if you're not happy with the quality or they're late?

Thanks for the article by the way. It takes a lot of bravery to be this transparent about your earnings and expenses.

<comment><USER33> Not the author but I have been on a similar journey after leaving my job at Google 4 months ago. I have successfully used Reddit /forhire and Upwork to find decent people to work with and help code up parts of my new project ([https://stockquanta.com](https://stockquanta.com)).

The most important thing I look for is their past work - its complexity and usability both. Without that, it's a massive bet. Don't trust their words. And also you talk to them about your project and see if they ask the right questions + get the nuances.

Assuming this works out, then you ideally do fixed price, not hourly. Latter can become scammy. For the fixed price, you will divide it into milestones so that the first set of costs isn't too much but also gives some kind of re- assurance to the dev that you're serious and can give money. If the execution is bad, you can bail out sooner. I have seen developers lie about their past work too. One Fintech developer claimed he was the main developer for wealthfront.com and betterment.com lol and had them as part of this portfolio. I soon found out it was an amazingly bold lie which I guess many folks do fall for.

In my experience, they are ALWAYS late. I don't have a good way so far to control for that effectively.

Even after this, you will get bad apples. Some money will be wasted initially. The trick is to keep the good ones with you as time goes on (become friends with them if possible), and move away from the rest.

<comment><USER32> Thanks for the tips!

> Assuming this works out, then you ideally do fixed price, not hourly. Latter > can become scammy

Can you elaborate? I'm assuming you mean if they work slower they earn more money? I prefer fixed price as well when working with clients; it has big advantages for both sides.

> For the fixed price, you will divide it into milestones so that the first > set of costs isn't too much but also gives some kind of re-assurance to the > dev that you're serious and can give money.

What do you do for payment if they don't reach the milestone or you're not happy with the quality?

> One Fintech developer claimed he was the main developer for wealthfront.com > and betterment.com lol and had them as part of this portfolio. I soon found > out it was an amazingly bold lie which I guess many folks do fall for.

How did you find this out?

> In my experience, they are ALWAYS late. I don't have a good way so far to > control for that effectively.

I find the same with clients. You have to be very cautious agreeing to any deadline where you're dependent on other people and factors you cannot control, especially if you've never worked with someone before.

<comment><USER33> \- The costs become uncapped and always end up more, with no accountability. After a certain while, sunk cost factor kicks in and it's too late to back out when you realize this developer is slow or not so great. Good confident developers will be able to estimate costs for projects upfront.

\- You either lose the payment or ask for refund. I have done both. That's the risk. You can perhaps lower the risk by giving a much smaller initial milestone or negotiating first payment after some work.

\- With crazy claims, the suspicion is already high. I talked to him for a few mins and it was clear there was no sophistication present and the guy was trying to attract clients with little to no experience.

Are you already working on a project or planning to?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I also quit my job at Google New York 4 months ago to pursue my own entrepreneurial path [0]. This post is a bit scary for me. I admire author's transparency, but if I am being honest, I don't want to be at the same place after 1 year.

I'll probably write down my own summary of all the learnings from my mistakes so far (there are SO many), but the biggest one was the same that the author seems to be making: trying to do too many things at once. I also think freelancing away everything for a strong developer is a mistake because of the roundtrips involved.

Making a business out of anything requires an insane amount of effort beyond engineering and I have finally managed to now try to do just one thing for the foreseeable future, and spend at least 30-40% of my time on outreach, validation and business aspects.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading.

Don't fear ending up like me. It's fun! Just buy a house next door to me in Western Mass, and we'll go on some hikes together.

Kidding, but really I suspect we just have different goals. I'd like to build a business that makes enough to support me and a family comfortably on <= 40 hours of work per week. From StockQuanta, it seems like your goal is to build something that can grow very large, and limiting your work hours isn't as critical to you.

<comment><USER33> I didn't mean your situation but was mostly referring to the profit/loss chart :-) I am sure you're having a grand adventure, and I hope to have the same. And I didn't realize you are constraining your work hours, which is a nice goal. I am trying to front-load the pain haha.

Are you formerly from Google NY too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, Google NY. The building in the cover art on the article is 111 8th Ave (with some creative liberties).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Happy to answer any questions about this post.

<comment><USER34> Very interesting. I took the same path a while ago. My biggest mistake was not validating business properly. Coding before checking if it was commercially viable. I think you can do this business/validation part better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

Yeah, I think my biggest mistake on Zestful was that I spent too long on the product before validating that anyone would buy it.

I think for some products, it's unavoidable to build a little first but I've definitely learned how important it is to get to validation ASAP.

<comment><USER15> How would you go about validating a product at such an early stage though? For example, what could have told you that no one had an interest in an API like Zestful?

EDIT: There is actually an extremely similar service that _does_ have a business use case: [https://dialogflow.com/](https://dialogflow.com/) (from your past employer)

Does exactly the same thing, take a short input of words and identify overall intent as well as entities (in your case ingredient, amount, format, etc...)

On top of that, it has a great UI, export functions, integrates with other services, has an API, etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> >How would you go about validating a product at such an early stage though? For example, what could have told you that no one had an interest in an API like Zestful?

I wrote a blog post last year[0] about what I think I should have done differently to validate it sooner but the tl;dr was that I think I could have pitched it to potential customers before I built anything. I imagine a lot of them could have told me off the bat that they wouldn't be interested. But even if I didn't do that, I spent way too long making a demo site even though the API marketplace I was using had its own (I just didn't like theirs).

>There is actually an extremely similar service that does have a business use case: [https://dialogflow.com/](https://dialogflow.com/) (from your past employer)

I've never tried DialogFlow for recipe ingredients, but I'd be very surprised if it could match Zestful in accuracy. I'm using NLP too, but recipe ingredients are so niche and specialized.

But their business is general-purpose NLP. I couldn't achieve that and I definitely wouldn't be able to compete with Google on that battlefield.

[0]: [https://mtlynch.io/shipping-too-late/](https://mtlynch.io/shipping-too- late/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The real secret with low effort outsourcing is to give them a week and if you aren't impressed moved on, or hire 3 at the same time and do the same thing. There are people that are very suited for low input remote work and tons that aren't.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm sympathetic to his goal because I have similar aspirations to have more freedom.

What I might miss in his situation is working as part of a team with others: business people, SW devs, design

<comment><USER18> > What I might miss in his situation is working as part of a team with others: > business people, SW devs, design

Technically he does have a team of freelancers...

<comment><USER36> True, but hiring freelancers isn't usually the same as being part of the same team working towards shared goals.

Ideally I'd find people I enjoy working with and who have complementary skills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> How did you survive if you didn't make any money last year?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

I had a healthy stockpile of savings from working 10 years at various software jobs that paid well. I was at Google for the last 4 years, did consulting before that, and worked at Microsoft before that.

<comment><USER38> I'd like to do this (or at least take a sabbatical) like this in a decade - unfortunately saving as much as you seems difficult to impossible at my current trajectory.

Did you ever write up how you managed your prior savings?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't written about it, but my strategy was very simple I just put all of my money into the Vanguard 500. For about 18 months before I quit, I started moving my money into less volatile savings like treasury bond funds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> What specific tactics did you use for Project Managing yourself? How did that differ from PMing in a work environment?

<comment><AUTHOR> I did a few different things. For a few of my projects, I wrote a spec defining what "complete" would look like. [0, 1, 2]

For the last few months, I've been following a plan that's more loose. I write monthly retrospectives on Indie Hackers [3, 4] and define what I want to accomplish next month, but I don't write a formal plan.

Google was very light on PMs, especially the teams I was on. Microsoft used them more extensively, but even then, their main value was in coordinating with other teams and synthesizing information about end-users. As a solo developer, I don't need those things as much.

0: [https://mtlynch.io/files/outsourcing- mvp/ketohub-v1-design-d...](https://mtlynch.io/files/outsourcing- mvp/ketohub-v1-design-doc.pdf)

1: [https://mtlynch.io/shipping-too-late/#the-mvp-that- wasnt](https://mtlynch.io/shipping-too-late/#the-mvp-that-wasnt)

2: [https://blog.spaceduck.io/sia-load-test-preview/#full- test-p...](https://blog.spaceduck.io/sia-load-test-preview/#full-test-plan)

3: [https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/isitketo-month-4-my- first...](https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/isitketo-month-4-my-first-dollar- of-revenue-03e572f661)

4: [https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/isitketo-returning-to- a-s...](https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/isitketo-returning-to-a-site-that- grew-without-me-0a0fe3ef52)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> > The things you're best at are code reviews, unit tests, and refining > processes for a team of developers. Aren't you wasting your best skills > working by yourself?

This is very important question. Unfortunately, Michael Lynch does not have an answer to that question yet.

</comment><comment><USER41> I had to work full time and go to school at night to get my education. I used to begrudge people who had it "easy", but anymore I feel like the grit and self-confidence I got from struggling and succeeding has paid dividends down the road.

I still think I would be better off coming from a rich family. Grit is nice but you can't call grit and have them cover your rent.

Another thing I got good at was managing a budget and learning to make do with less. I don't know his upbringing or where he comes from, but there is $$ coming from somewhere. I guess you could save up a lot of money working at Google? But he previously established he spends $6k/mo on personal expenses. Doesn't seem like a "retire early" person. This is exactly why I don't compare myself to the Zuckerbergs and Musks of the world: How am I supposed to compete with this?

I feel for this person. I'm sorry he had to learn some of these lessons the hard way, but this just screams "wantrepreneur"

> Outsourcing

I may be missing something but this just seems loony-tunes to me. What is the business he is trying to create? How is outsourcing all of your tasks "lean" at all?

> Strategy / Products

Other people have pointed out: Find a product people are demanding and build it. Launch it as soon as possible. Iterate on it and delight your users. Don't make it an easy idea that someone can just copy.

A keto diet search engine doesn't even pass the smell test to me. My fitness app ( edit: The fitness app I use, not own ) Lifesum can do that. I'm sure all of the others can as well. Why would you create a product in a crowded market with huge established competitors?

> Travis CI: -$1,419

To me, that is a lot of money.

You can run a Jenkins server for $10/mo on Digital Ocean and get 90% of the same features. It's not hard if you just need something pragmatic.

Heck, you can even automatically spin the instance down during off-hours and pay even less than that.

> Coveralls

You can just generate HTML documents for this, you don't need to pay them to do it.

> Ther personal expenses

I cannot imagine spending 6k/mo on personal expenses. WOW! I thought Portland, Oregon was expensive!

> Buying a house

Also, why BUY a house? Now you have an asset you have to get rid of at some point. You now have loan payments to pay that will never go away unless you manage to sell the house.

Buying a house is often NOT an investment, especially in a tiny little town. The most expensive house is the one you can't sell.

I mean, I guess maybe the house was VERY CHEAP.

</comment><comment><USER42> Enjoyed the article, thanks for sharing and your transparency

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> What affiliate link program are you a part of? That's a notable amount just from your blog.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most of the money is from Amazon. Then I think I got like $60 from Newegg (via CJ) because 1-2 of my posts mention computer components where the prices are better on Newegg.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> So was this all product work or consulting + product work?

</comment><comment><USER44> yay another "i quit google" post

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you enjoyed it! I plan to write one every year.

<comment><USER44> Best wishes to you. I think it's awesome to strike out and do your own thing. I don't think I am gutsy enough to do it.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A tiny dev server that rebuilds your single-page app on refresh - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/akrymski/reserver

<comment><USER2> Sheeeeyet this is so cool. My team uses gulp and we all HATE it. Going to play around and see if we can replace gulp with this!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, would be interesting to learn about your stack. Let me know how you get on, it's very easy to add custom build tools to reserver, literally a few lines of code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool! Just a note, gulp-browserify is kinda a bad example as its deprecated/blacklisted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yeah I've used browserify directly within gulp before, and frankly I just find it too much of a hassle to write configs for either build tools. I use npm to script production builds and use reserver for debugging, which is working really well for me.</comment></comment>


Driverless shuttle in Las Vegas gets in fender bender within an hour - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/08/driverless-shuttle-in-las-vegas-gets-in-fender-bender-within-an-hour/ <comment><USER3> "Truck reverses into stationary object" is not really news.

I think there are too many possible risks of programming the vehicle to do anything except stop dead in an emergency situation - you rapidly get into very complex programming with all kinds of failure modes - e.g. what if the problem was a faulty sensor? The vehicle might try to avoid a non-existent threat by crashing into something else. Stopping is the safe thing to do. If you want to react, you rapidly have to make lots of moral decisions like (The Trolley Problem).

Briefly sounding a horn in an unexpected emergency stop situation is probably a good idea, particularly if it's a white noise type thing, rather than a siren, so that other road users can localise it's source quickly.

<comment><USER4> A horn needs to be a horn, add a white noise generator too, but the recognised noise and the one people are "programmed" to react to is a car horn.

Aside: emergency vehicles in the UK have stopped using the broad-band noise sirens AFAICT, I don't know why but the reason may be pertinent to any attempts to use it here? Actually, they often ride without the siren at all, which is completely ridiculous to me; they put it on at the junction meaning there's no time to get out of the way, if they used it continually you can hear them coming.

<comment><USER5> They're trained to look ahead, anticipate and adapt to the road conditions, judging when they need the siren and when they don't. This is important in built-up areas, because there's no gain in waking up people at 2am when you didn't actually need a siren to proceed safely.

When they're putting it on at a junction and you're already in it, they're not expecting you to magically disappear out of their way. They're expecting you to look at where they're going and stay out of their path. This might involve proceeding as you were going to in order to clear it for them. What they really want is to stop anybody else from entering it until they've got through.

<comment><USER6> The argument for self-driving cars is that they will be better than a human driver. A human driver would backup, sound the horn, or both. If a self- driving car doesn't attempt these things, something is deficient.

<comment><USER7> Alternatively - these are just growing pains until the human driving the truck is replaced by an algorithm.

<comment><USER8> So basically, self driving cars will be worse than human-driven cars until ALL cars are self driving cars? This is the first fully autonomous version of "No True Scotsman" that I've seen!

<comment><USER9> This is the reason I believe that self driving thing is doomed. Significant amount of humans will refuse to stop driving. Fair amount of them will make life of self driving things unbearable. Sizable part - on porpoise. Just to check how good a computer is.

Seriously speaking from perspective of a truck driver.

The reasons truck driver backed into thing are: He couldn't see it. It wasn't there when he started.

Horn and flash of lights would stop a human driver. When I back up a truck I use all my senses, since I can't see much. Easiest fix for the robot thingy - add horn and lights. (And wait until all residents start complaining)

<comment><USER10> I read a sentiment that I found myself nodding to: people will stop driving when it's convenient for them.

Some people love driving, and some people love riding horses, but you don't see many horses on city streets today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It has no horn?!

"What Makes for a Street Legal Vehicle?"

 _Horn – It may not seem the most important piece of safety equipment, and many big cities even limit how it can be used, but to be street legal every vehicle must have a horn that is audible for at least 200 feet. The horn can generally be any note or sound (even ones that play musical tunes are usually permitted), so long as the minimum volume requirements are met._

Ref: [https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=31563](https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=31563)

<comment><USER4> So, are they going to take the driver to court?

Sarcasm aside, who is deemed to be in control, who do you sue for the damage if this vehicle crashes in to you - isn't it the manufacturer that causes the crash (not in this case necessarily, I'm talking generally).

<comment><USER12> > who do you sue for the damage if this vehicle crashes in to you

Generally, the owner of the at-fault vehicle is responsible.

<comment><USER4> I own my vehicle, if you drive it and cause an accident aren't you primarily at fault.

Assuming normal circumstances (so not considering things like me letting a child drive, or letting you drive drunk, etc.). The person/persons in control of the vehicle are surely at fault - being the owner doesn't give you power to alter the programming and so you are powerless to avoid a crash.

The company directors, who instruct the system's programmers, are the one's able to avoid the crash by making the vehicle operate effectively.

There may be circumstance where a crash could not be avoided but there are going to be plenty when alternative actions - for which there is a strong rationale - would avoid a crash too.

<comment><USER13> I agree, it should be considered a part with a manufacturing defect, not the owner's fault.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ugh. This really worries me - not because I'm afraid of driverless cars but because this is the kind of "news" headline that will get anti-driverless car jerks all up in a righteous tizzy.

Title should be NO_TITLE because "doofus driving truck backs into something" isn't news.

<comment><USER15> Except the driver-less shuttle didn't take any evasive action, the way a human would have. Did it even honk the horn?

Clearly this company's tech isn't up to par.

<comment><USER16> > Except the driver-less shuttle didn't take any evasive action, the way a > human would have.

Stopping _was_ an evasive action, and since the result was a graze, it may have been moderately successful. While the people on the bus seem (from the article) to think there was time for more action, the perception of time under the adrenaline rush of an imminent collision may be misleading.

<comment><USER17> > the perception of time under the adrenaline rush of an imminent collision > may be misleading.

This may be one of the more ridiculous excuses I've seen for self driving vehicle "screwups".

Is the argument actually computers can't take action instantly compared to a human? If so, then self driving cars may as well not exist.

It's well within a computer's capability to take evasive action for an accident like this _far_ before a human driver - assuming sufficient sensor input. This is exactly the reason I want to see self driving tech rapidly accelerate - a car that has it's situational awareness 100% at all times, and thus can react instantly in a safe manner to any situation.

I understand the software is not up to that point yet - and your response is exactly what I fear the most. I see endless DoS attacks against self driving cars once they get even a remotely substantial percentage of the market.

If all programming reverts to "failsafe stop when things may be remotely potentially unsafe" we are going to see traffic problems of a proportion we have never experienced.

<comment><USER18> >> the perception of time under the adrenaline rush of an imminent collision may be misleading.

>This may be one of the more ridiculous excuses I've seen for self driving vehicle "screwups".

>Is the argument actually computers can't take action instantly compared to a human? If so, then self driving cars may as well not exist.

No, I don't think that's what the parent comment meant. It means that the people who said that it didn't take proper action (that were there) may have been mistaken in thinking there was more time to act than there was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This feels like a _really_ tricky question, actually -- what to do when an moving object is headed towards a stopped self-driving car?

It's easy to say the car should be smart enough to move -- but what if, as it moves in one direction, the object (like a truck trying to avoid the car) suddenly swerves in that direction too? Then does the car become responsible for the collision?

And of course, it feels like there could be a real-world version of the trolley problem [1] -- what if there are 5 occupants in the vehicle who will be killed by an oncoming truck, but in the only direction where it can move out of the way, it will have to run over a single pedestrian?

Glad I'm not the one having to make these kinds of programming decisions.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem)

<comment><USER20> There was someone on twitter who very effectively demolished all this "trolley problem" speculation by pointing out two things:

\- the knowledge of the world held by cars is partial and probabilistic. As it is with real humans, only with very different obscure failure modes (see for example the "adversarial images").

\- if you get into this situation, something has already failed. Either in your safety practice or someone else's. That reduces the predictability of the situation and also the predictability of what your actions will do in that case.

Put those two together and you realise that any kind of "deliberate" (in the sense that one can impart "intent" to a computer system?) running over of a pedestrian is indefensible, and that real situations don't admit of neat counter-factuals like this.

<comment><USER21> Yeah honestly I'd rather cars _not_ have anything to do with trolley problems built in. Build in "Don't hit objects" with a fallback of "hit the brakes, horn, and do the robot equivalent of pray" if there's no swerve options available.

My main concern with putting in code to handle trolley problems is what happens if (when) this code is tripped as a false positive? Some person walking along minding their own business when an autocar swerves into them because something on its radar looked like a crowd of people teleported in front of it

<comment><USER22> Sorry, that's just repackaging the problem and pretending it's fixed.

The trolley problem _is_ "there's something everywhere inside my stopping distance, we will inevitably hit _something_ "; yours is only a possible solution for it: "Don't hit objects [evaluated as negative]" with a fallback of "hit the brakes, horn, and do the robot equivalent of pray [ok, gonna hit whatever is in front instead what's front left or front right]".

TL;DR: Saying "let's have this one hardcoded solution to the trolley problem" does not make the problem disappear.

<comment><USER23> > The trolley problem is "there's something everywhere inside my stopping > distance, we will inevitably hit something"

You assume humans make correct decisions when faced with that situation. Most of the time humans make incorrect decisions when faced with far less problematic issues.

"Swerve" is normally more reflex than thought. The number of times that drivers "swerve" to avoid something like an animal and then crash headfirst into oncoming traffic, thereby injuring humans, is non-trivial.

<comment><USER22> Do I? Nowhere did I bring that up. The TP is a model to _compare_ the possible executions and their outcomes - and yes, human reflexes are not optimized for driving, thus the response is often "crash into other traffic/wayside obstruction", or even "oversteer, flip the car and become briefly airborne". I do agree that "just hit whatever is straight ahead" _could_ be the optimal strategy in many cases, not sure if it makes sense to hardcode it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Saved a click: it stopped. A human controlled truck did not and grazed the SDV.

<comment><USER25> Could be a bit more involved than that.

The Machine acted in a way that was not expected by the human driver.

This gets to a fundamental issue we will have in the transition to the utopian driverless future. Learning to identify and react to this new class of driver.

<comment><USER26> Really moving the goal post here. Apparently _drive safely_ is an "unexpected" behavior.

<comment><USER27> Was it driving safely, then?

<comment><USER24> The shuttle was literally not moving and was struck by the human controlled truck.

<comment><USER28> Isn't it illegal to do stuff like "blocking an intersection" for instance?

What will a self-driving car do if for instance someone is driving in the opposite direction, towards it? Will it just continue driving, freeze, or get out of the way? Humans would likely get out of the way, even if that means "breaking the law" by going off-road or whatever. A self-driving car probably wouldn't do that, thus it would be the kind of "unexpected driving" that could really throw humans off, and may even cause _more_ accidents than humans, in certain specific situations.

<comment><USER27> Also, there are even deeper levels here. Going off-road in such a situation may not _actually_ be against the law. It may look like it on the books, but when such a case is interpreted by judges and peers, they will certainly in some cases decide that swerving or going off-road was perfectly legal, for such a situation.

<comment><USER29> Judges might forgive a human who drove onto a sidewalk to avoid an accident, but they're not likely to be as forgiving of a manufacturer that programmed their cars to do the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd say the shuttle's insurer should be partly responsible here. The Engadget article seems to show the shuttle stopping in the truck's blindspot.[0]

A reasonable truck driver would assume the driver of the other car would back up a little bit. But in this case, the car stopped where the truck couldn't see whether it was backing up or not, and wasn't programmed to understand the truck's movements at this angle.

So, software was responsible for: 1\. Stopping too close. 2\. Stopping in the blindspot of a truck. 3\. Having no horn. 4\. Not backing up or understanding fairly common motion by a truck.

[0] [https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/09/las-vegas-self- driving-s...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/09/las-vegas-self-driving- shuttle-bus-crash/)

<comment><USER31> The truck driver was cited for 'illegal backing' so they were not exactly operating in a reasonable manner themselves.

<comment><USER30> True. Nevada appears to be a contributory negligence state, so the truck driver might be out of luck if that makes him mostly responsible. I guess we don't know if the Shuttle was, or could be, ticketed for something.

In most 'no-fault' states, though, I think the shuttle would shoulder some of the responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > Now, it must be said that technically the robo-car was not at fault. It was > struck by a semi that was backing up, and really just grazed — none of the > passengers was hurt.

I get that it wasn't the Driverless car's fault, but this brings up an important use case that the driverless cars currently don't seem to be able to handle.

In an ALL-Human situation, what would've occurred is that the parked car (if it had a passenger inside) would honk at the car that is trying to back into it, or open the door and yell at the person trying to back up, and the accident would be avoided.

Driverless car doesn't (or didn't) honk even if it does detect something backing up into it. Hence the accident.

</comment><comment><USER33> I fully expect every death caused by a self-driving cars to make national headlines in the next few years. Hysteria, whether justified or not, will set in and legislation will pass banning autonomous vehicles in the US.

Self-driving cars may have a faster reaction time, but they will never reach the level of human awareness of their surroundings while driving.

Let's see a self-driving car navigate through a construction zone, watch for instructions from a police officer who is directing traffic, or stop when kids are playing baseball in a yard and the ball rolls across the street. Answering, "well they'll have that capability someday" isn't a very compelling answer. Truly self-driving cars are dependent on technology that simply hasn't been invented yet.

How nice it will be sitting behind a fleet of self-driving cars dragging their asses down the highway at exactly the speed limit, or slamming on the brakes when a leaf flies in front of the sensors.

In addition to that, you think masses of people will be silent while losing their jobs because these robot overlords are taking the wheel?

Source: I work for a self-driving car startup.

<comment><USER34> > Self-driving cars may have a faster reaction time, but they will never reach > the level of human awareness of their surroundings while driving.

Self driving cars can simultaneously see in 360 degrees with multiple types of sensors. They already see better than humans. Now they just need to understand better, which doesn't seem far off.

Maybe you just work for a bad self-driving car startup?

<comment><USER22> Doesn't _seem_ far off. That is a fitting description - anything looks easy from the sidelines; specifically computers-understanding-context always seem to be just around the corner, for half a century now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Surely something as basic as typical traffic patterns in a town have been simulated? Because a vehicle coming onto you seems to be as basic and mundane an everyday traffic event as you will get.

It's in self driving proponents own best interest to have stringent standards, because if the public loses faith its going to be an uphill battle.

Simply demonizing human drivers and hand waving away errors is too self serving to work.

</comment><comment><USER36> > A City of Las Vegas representative issued a statement that the shuttle "did > what it was supposed to do, in that its sensors registered the truck and the > shuttle stopped to avoid the accident." It also claims, lamely, that "Had > the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident > would have been avoided."

Note a subtle shift, with government now shilling for the driverless vehicles. That's the first time I've seen it; I suspect it won't be the last.

</comment><comment><USER37> These crashes seem to be caused by the "weird" way self-driving machines behave as compared to humans.

Perhaps we need some sort of placard that is legally mandated and easily visible (like the "student driver" placard) to let people around these vehicles be aware of them and expect different behaviors than "ordinary" divers.

<comment> Harvey-Specter What's weird about the actions of the self-driving vehicle in this case?

It detected that a truck was backing into it's path, and stopped in an attempt to prevent a collision. The truck driver didn't properly check his mirrors and continue backing up which resulted in the truck 'grazing' the front bumper of the car.

What exactly is a human supposed to do differently in that situation? Attempt to continue driving straight and potentially end up being t-boned by the truck instead?

Also, this vehicle looks super weird already. If the truck driver didn't see it, a 'placard' isn't going to make it more noticeable.

<comment><USER38> >What exactly is a human supposed to do differently in that situation? Attempt to continue driving straight and potentially end up being t-boned by the truck instead?

Honk

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> So the shuttle stayed still while a truck backed into it.

Apparently, simply having the ability to stop does not make a self driving car better than a human. It should evade, or at least honk.

<comment><USER40> On the flip side, attempting to evade situations can cause greater catastrophe. I'd rather they wire up the horn and call it done.

<comment><USER41> I'd rather that the software sense it's surroundings and make an assessment of risk for various possible actions. In this case, backing up a bit since there was no one behind it would have been the safest option.

<comment><USER42> And what if the truck keeps backing into it? Does the car just keep avoiding it forever? When is the truck driver expected to take responsibility for doing something technically illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> > It also claims, lamely, that

What kind of writing is that?

<comment><USER44> Modern journalism one, where you do not trust the reader to read the information and make their own conclusion, but instead must shove your viewpoint down their throats, for their own good of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Not only does it not seem to have a horn, but it can't back up... I think those might be features the engineers should explore.

<comment><USER42> To what end should a self driving vehicle back up or avoid a collision? You could essentially hijack a self driving car by boxing it in if it avoided all obstacles and impacts. Stopping seems to be the normal and best reaction to these sorts of illegal actions. At some point the driver in the wrong will need to take responsibility for doing something illegal.

<comment><USER46> Have you ever seen a car try to go through a yellow light, it turns red just a hair too soon, and the car decides to hit the breaks. Often times the car ends up well into the intersection and they have to back up, forcing the cars behind them to do so as well. I'm not defending the action of that driver who ends up in the intersection - they are obviously in the wrong. However, having a car stopped in the middle of the intersection is a dangerous situation, the other human drivers recognize that and reluctantly back up.

Driverless software must recognize situations like this and adapt in order to win the future. We will not go from manually operated cars to 100% driverless cars overnight. They will have to prove their worth and/or superiority alongside human drivers for a long time.

<comment><USER42> I have been on both ends of this situation, hitting a car behind me while trying evade a car backing into me and I have been backed into while stationary at a light and not having time to respond. In the end it's best not to try to back into traffic regardless. You just can't depend on traffic behind you to back up, especially if it is human driven, why would we expect an automated car to?

It's not the responsibility of vehicles behind that car in the intersection to fix things, human or otherwise.

You could also argue that a self driving car wouldn't be going as fast behind a car chasing a yellow light and could allow more room to handle this situation before it gets to that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> A semi truck backed into it.

If anything this just highlights to me how much commercial vehicles need self driving tech (I guess I, lamely, agree with the mayor).

My office used to be in an industrial district. The trucks there scare me. They absolutely do not follow the rules of the road, and it's dangerous for everybody around them.

Stuff like this: just backing up and expecting everybody to move out of their way, or taking a turn too tight and expecting everybody at the light to back up, were almost daily occurrences.

Yeah, self drivers need to account for this, but the bigger problem IMHO is getting those trucks and their drivers either off of the road or in compliance with driving laws.

</comment><comment><USER44> Better title: "Human driver hits self-driving shuttle within an hour of it appearing on the streets".

</comment><comment><USER48> I have another question, how does the vehicle detect that it was in a collision? Does it have impact sensors?

</comment><comment><USER49> Hard to judge this without seeing it. A human driver might of been able to anticipate what the truck was eventually going to do sooner so as to find a better place to stop. A human driver understands the difference between a truck backing blind and other vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER50> it will be impossible to park another car close to a self driving vehicle - <USER2> will always move away.

<comment><USER51> can't wait to bully a self driving car for a parking spot :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> What I want to know is if the shuttle automatically called AAA for assistance.</comment>


StubHub API - <AUTHOR> Does anybody know if the StubHub Developer API is still being maintained or even running? The last update appears to be back in 2014 and the sandbox link is no longer up. <comment><USER2> I suggest you get in touch with them, and ask:

[http://www.stubhub.com/contact-us/](http://www.stubhub.com/contact-us/)</comment>


Kinect Dev Goes Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/18/the-geek-decision-kinect-developer-johnny-chung-lee-leaves-mi/ <comment><AUTHOR> Given the hype around departures, I almost didn't submit this. But one is pretty newsworthy given the Kinection.</comment>


The Earth as a Peppercorn (1989) - <AUTHOR> http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html

<comment><USER2> tl;dr: Showing the scale of the solar system using household objects. An 8" sphere or ball as the sun, a peppercorn as the Earth (another as Venus), other objects for the other planets, all set out a given number of paces from the sun, e.g., 10 for Mercury.</comment>


The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-apotex-billionaire-murder/ <comment><USER2> This whole case has been crazy. I live about 4km from the home. It went from murder/suicide to murder/murder to maybe the kids did it? to no wait they've hired all these extra detectives to... Anyone's guess really.

At this point, short of a confession from someone I doubt we'll ever know.

<comment><USER3> As someone who works in the pharmaceutical industry, Apotex is a HUGE player and Barry was very well known for being an aggressive and shrewd businessman.

His death came as a shock to a lot of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if he had spent more money on security, drivers, personal assistants, etc., whether that would have protected them more from unsavory people in their lives and these extra staff might have given the police more leads in the case. And why wouldn't they have invested in better security and monitoring of their home? Crazy.

<comment><USER5> The lack of a serious security system is the craziest part of all of this imho.

Not only were they extremely rich, but they splashed money all over the place in various charitable events and business dealings.

It seems almost irresponsible to at the very least place a security camera system that monitors the grounds of the home and offices where they spent the most of their time.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I was about to say that, but decided not to, since it sounds like victim blaming. But it is true, though: you can get a bloody Wyzecam ($25) which has motion alerts, etc.; put a dozen of them all around the house and you still come in under $500. Why would you _not_ do this?

Maybe because it's Canada, and people have a reasonable expectation of not being robbery victims? I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This one struck a little close to home as less than three weeks earlier I had met them at a fundraising event. At the time I really didn't know who they were but the names came back when the news broke a few weeks later. They just seemed like a nice couple in the admittedly very short few minutes I spoke with them.

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting fact about this case:

At first, the police made statements that there was no signs of forced entry and they were not seeking suspects. This led numerous media outlets to report it was a murder-suicide. After the family conducted a parallel private investigation which discovered contrary evidence, the police finally ruled it a double homicide.

[https://www.cp24.com/news/sherman-family-s-lawyer- offers-10m...](https://www.cp24.com/news/sherman-family-s-lawyer- offers-10m-reward-slams-tps-handling-of-murder-case-1.4150539)

<comment><USER9> That's all in the original article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am kind of surprised billionaires and CEOs don't order each others' killings more often.

I was doing homework one night and the building next door's top 2 floors were blown up because some banker had a hit placed on his head. So perhaps I have pretty low expectations on what powerful people without morals can do.

<comment><USER11> It is indeed surprising because the profit motive is there and it is not limited to just rival billionaires.

Any random guy with enough capital can short the company stock and then place a hit on the CEO.

I would expect stuff like that to happen super often but I don't think I have even heard of one real case like this.

<comment><USER12> Can you explain that trade precisely? Like with example orders/prices? I'd also be curious about how one gets reliable hitmen & deniability and the like.

<comment><USER13> Explain what trade? If the CEO dies the stock will go down due to the uncertainty of the future for the company.

<comment><USER12> Right. Give me literally the orders you put in, with a timeline for the hit. Then explain the price points, liquid capital & risk stats you need to make a particular profit.

This is _basic_ stuff for actual short sell trades so I presume it is easy to produce in the "hit a CEO" fund space.

<comment><USER14> I'm no trader, so I couldn't confidently craft a good strategy to exploit an opportunity even if there was a good one. How about you explain why you don't expect this to be workable instead?

<comment><USER12> Sure. The first rule is that _no_ trade is a good one without specific entrance & exit points. Saying "I can predict a share will go up/down" independent of that specificity & risk profile is a classic example of someone who isn't realistic in their trading behavior.

The second rule is that shorting is _much_ _much_ harder to get right than going long. Small procedural errors or day long mistimes of the market turn trades unprofitable.

Third, the market for this trade is _exceptionally_ non-desperate people. If you have the money to make this trade happen you have virtually risk free access to trades that keep you fat & happy.

Finally, the riskiest part of this trade is the most hand wavy "hit a ceo" is not a thing I can get a counter party to hedge. It's quite literally impossible for the vast majority market participants. Even before we talk about the very real likelihood of going to jail let's talk about the risk of not being successful. See above about short timing.

All told the answer to "why don't rich guys hit other rich guys to short their assets" can easily boil down to "cause that's stupid"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They are doing/attempting it all the time (in 2nd/3rd world countries where the law can bought) this is why there are security firms equipped better than most of the special forces out there. In 1st world countries the law can be fought instead and still it happens (just a recent "New trial for Sydney property developer Ron Medich over murder of former business partner"). But I am certain most of the time it is (like with the regular folks) just hatred and personal revenge for theft/insult rather than "just business".

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting timing with this articles release.

The family lawyer just accused the Toronto Police of not doing a thorough job just a few days ago.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why was he unusual? (I didn't read the article.)

<comment><USER5> I read the entire article and I still don't know why they called him an "unusual billionaire".

<comment><USER17> Probably because he didn't seem to live a very lavish lifestyle, had some dealings with some shady people and was labeled as erratic by some while being a popular and loved figure in Toronto.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Off topic but this cover is just so poorly designed.

[https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i7R8Z2i.mox...](https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i7R8Z2i.mox0/v0/800x-1.jpg)

<comment><USER19> Less so now, but in the early half of the decade Businessweek was known for its unorthodox, and often lighthearted style of graphic design. This still survives on in the Businessweek 404 ( _When will Businessweek get its sh!t together?!_ ), but the corresponding 404 for Bloomberg itself has been replaced by something more sober.

<comment><USER20> I think I tend to trust outlets more if they don't pay so much attention into keeping up with the design style of the day.

Overfocus on this shallow surface quality has a correlation with a lack of underlying quality in the actual content. It's not that you can't have both or that I don't appreciate surface quality. But if something is ugly or simple or doesn't follow trends and has great content, it tends to remove a certain sort of person as consumer and perhaps lowers the temptation to cater to shallow desires because not many are around to get hooked.

That is, many things are better because certain parts of them are objectively worse and turn away certain people.</comment></comment></comment>


Waveboard: Google Wave Client for Mac and iPhone is Coming - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2009/10/19/waveboard/

<comment><USER2> Not a real client on the Mac. Just a Fluid-like (Fluid-based?) wrapper app. Don't know about the iPhone.

The real test of Wave's openness is going to be whether a client can realistically be built by a third party.

Right now some people on the semi-public Wave server are discussing defining the client/server protocol, claiming that Google is open to such a third-party definition. I'm very skeptical that Google is actually open to such an approach. It sounds more like rampant, uninformed speculation.

(What's running right now at Google is just the same Java-based, protobuf- based communications code on both the server and client, with a GWT version on the client.)</comment>


Angle Brackets, Rifle Scopes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ponyfoo.com/2014/02/14/angle-brackets-rifle-scopes

<comment><USER2> that time countdown on the side is distracting</comment>


BlackHalo: two-party btc-based contracts - <AUTHOR> http://blackhalo.info

<comment><USER2> Nice looking trailer, but where's the technical info? Where's _anything_ about what they are releasing?</comment>


Ask HN: Do you personally owe debt to Stripe if business goes wrong? - <AUTHOR> If you start taking preorders by charging customers, later your project failed and all the customers filed chargebacks, do you personally end up owning debit to Stripe, personally if you were using LLC? Or you can just shutdown LLC and no one will care. <comment><USER2> There's a couple of different issues:

1) What does your contract with Strip and/or your customers say? If you personally guarantee something then you are going to be on the hook.

2) Piercing the corporate veil. Although normally a limited liability entity does just that, there is a doctrine that allows the corporate identity to be disregarded. Google that phrase should help get you started on what's involved.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) You can sign up on their website, they do not require you to sign any contract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How about you actually read your local laws or maybe consult a lawyer to explain those to you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, but it will not open up this topic for a discussion. Stripe has been recommended here to newbies a lot of time, there is lots of risk in going around and accepting credit card payments from people you barely know. Some might end up foolishly thinking that they can just charge any amount using that API, withdraw that money and walk away.</comment></comment>