Ask HN: Keeping track of sales pipeline for sole dev/founder? - <AUTHOR> I've been running a small, seasonal ski-industry SaaS business for a couple of years.  It's grown from a side project into something that's taking up most of my time these days.
I'm all good on the technical side of things, and I love talking to my customers.  But I'm terrible at sales and follow ups, and I'm at the point where I need to get some revenue rolling so this beastie will really support itself.
For those of you out there on the small end of things, what works for you?  How do you keep all those conversations going, remember to follow up with people and don't drop the ball getting new people signed up?  How do you balance that with getting the technical end of things done? <comment><USER2> To a certain point it is just grinding the hours out and trying not to drop the ball on too many people at once.

To help bring balance to the situation though I have reverted back to setting a standard weekly schedule. Basically, set a schedule saying Tuesday and Friday you are doing Sales, demo's and client followup. And then the rest of the week you work on product. Or reverse it if the needs are reversed. But you get the idea. Of course, when you do that it doesn't mean you ignore calls/emails. Instead you immediately respond and schedule time on the next day/time available and in that followup make sure you aren't missing an immediate issue or hot prospect. Use your calendar of choice and just schedule yourself in detail.

Like I said, I am doing this (again) and it is helping me refocus a lot, but in fairness I sometimes struggle still putting off a demo until another day so I catch myself sometimes doing a "quick" demo or talking to prospects when I should be finishing something. Every time I do a non-critical (e.g. service is not down) activity out of turn, I wind up kicking myself later because rarely is the case where it has led to a sale or where it was something that could not wait 1-2 days while I finished what I was in the middle of.

As for sales, I think if you haven't already you really need to identify how people find you and how you get them to signup. If this process is primarily human, that is a key if not primary place to focus a lot of your efforts. Signup and on-boarding need to be automatic as does the ability for a person that hits the marketing site to understand the products value proposition. Small quick video(s) and image walk-thru's help from what I have seen. It doesn't mean you stop being human and talking to everyone on the planet that will listen, just that you need the research and on-boarding process as smooth as possible so that you don't get overloaded doing work a computer should.

</comment><comment><USER3> We have a web application out in beta (free) that integrates with Gmail, called Funnel [http://funnelnow.com/](http://funnelnow.com/) aimed exactly at people like yourself (and us, since we developed it for our own needs primarily).

We've finished the integration of the complete new UI (take a look at some screenshots on our portfolio [http://sprawsm.com/project/funnel/](http://sprawsm.com/project/funnel/)) that we will be releasing in a few days.

We've been using it for over two years now for our design company, worked wonderfully.

</comment><comment><USER4> How do you keep all those conversations going, remember to follow up with people and don't drop the ball getting new people signed up?

Simple daily focus and discipline, easier said than done. As a practical matter, write everything down on paper, schedule reminders on your calendar. Work in power-time blocks. Suggest looking at David Allen's brilliant GTD system> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RVerrdJmXw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RVerrdJmXw)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is exactly the problem I'm solving - [https://touchingbase.io](https://touchingbase.io)

Unfortunately, you don't have contact in your profile. Feel free to get in touch. I'd be interested in learning more about what you need to see if we can help.

<comment><USER6> Too much text on the website! I, personally, find it difficult to follow/go through a site with more text than images/demos.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I agree it's probably time to redo the website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pipedrive helps. I sync it with calendar and contacts and integrate it with gmail. You get a great funnel to push leads through by default. I have a few zapper hooks set up for special things like new lead tracking direct from the website but you don't need that

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7805842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7805842)

Here's a small collection of resources you might find useful - I had the same question about a year ago.

The end result one year later? Google docs + Yesware.

</comment><comment><USER9> I actually wrote some internal software to help track my sales leads for b2b customers. If you are interested, I can show you my workflow and maybe this might give you some ideas on tracking. Feel free to drop me a pm.</comment>


Coca-Cola Saves The World - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/armchair-ceo/fa10617d2a95

<comment><USER2> Readers might be interested in Simon Berry and his work using Coca Cola to distribute oral rehydration salts. Diarrhea is a major killer in some parts of the worl and simple cheap ORS save many lives, if we can distribute them.

[http://m.irinnews.org/Report/94996/GLOBAL-Follow-the-fizz- sa...](http://m.irinnews.org/Report/94996/GLOBAL-Follow-the-fizz-save-a- life#.UzhTtCG9LTo)

Simon Berry had this idea over 30 years ago.

[http://www.colalife.org/](http://www.colalife.org/)

Coca cola faces heavy criticism in some countries for giving away toxic waste byproducts to local farmers as fertilizer - thus getting rid of waste on the cheap and causing even more environmental destruction.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3096893.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3096893.stm)

$76m per year is an insultingly small amount for a company that does so much environmental harm and who make so much money. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad they do it and i wish more companies did the same. But how many hours does it take Coca Cola to make $76m in profit?

</comment><comment><USER3> What is missing is the partnership that they have with Dean Kamen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen) to place his water purification technology [http://www.dekaresearch.com/water.shtml](http://www.dekaresearch.com/water.shtml) in places that have no access to drinkable water. Dean points out that no organization has the worldwide logistical footprint of Coca-Cola.</comment>


Ask HN: Recommendations for a VPN provider? - <AUTHOR>

I'm interested in setting up my connection here in the west coast of the US through a VPN. There seem to be a plethora of options--does anyone have any recommendations?<p>Price isn't really a concern for me. I'm concerned more with speed and reliability, as well as the usual privacy features (no logs kept, etc). <comment><USER2> I use Private Internet Access, it works incredibly well.

[https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/)

Their site really needs a redesign, though.

<comment><USER3> I use PIA and it works great. Their website design is not representative of their service at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm using torguard and must say I'm pretty happy with them. You can use your login/password for up to 5 computers, which is handy, the setup is fairly easy. I needed some advanced setup options but since they support OpenVPN everything worked great! Their support center is responsive + the guy a Greek Server which serves me well when I'm abroad.

On the security side they state that no logs are kept, security is paramount and so on. I've found this VPN provider through a torrentfreak post which was listing the top10 most secure VPN providers for 'torrent' downloading. I don't use it for downloading illegal material, but I guess most people do, hence I believe they (TorGuard) wouldn't really wanna know what their users are doing online. :-)

cheers!

</comment><comment><USER5> Some of these services log what you are doing, but some even offer to not log anything that you do! So you are 100% hidden from the world via their servers. There are Top of VPNs, to find a decent one check out [http://vpnwebsites.com/top-10-vpn- providers/](http://vpnwebsites.com/top-10-vpn-providers/).

</comment><comment><USER6> VyprVPN from Golden Frog is an excellent choice, and their support is 24/7/365 if you have connection issues.

<comment><USER7> I'm on their trial now. Quick and their app makes it painless to get up and running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would highly recommend PureVPN, it's awesome, it's easy to set up and i use PureVPN to watch Netflix, Hulu, Bbc iplayer and any other blocked websites outside of US. [http://www.purevpn.com/](http://www.purevpn.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> We suggest you be your own VPN: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1221503813/protect- your...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1221503813/protect-your- computer-from-wi-fi-hacks-with-vpex)

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been using boxpn for a couple years now. Speeds are good, service reliable, etc...

</comment><comment><USER11> Froot VPN [https://www.frootvpn.com/](https://www.frootvpn.com/)

Once on Promo Bay.</comment>


Orange San Diego: Intel brings the x86 vs. ARM smartphone war to Europe - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/130201-orange-san-diego-intel-brings-the-x86-vs-arm-smartphone-war-to-europe

<comment><USER2> The problem with Intel is the lack of ability to customize the SoC. Intel has run NVidia out of the chipset market and has incentives to do the same in the mobile market.

<comment><USER3> You can't customize the SoCs from nVidia/Samsung/TI/Qualcomm either.

<comment><USER2> but NVidia, Samsung, TI, Qualcomm, and Apple can build custom ARM SoC.

<comment><USER4> And thousands of other companies too, right down to little-old 90 person Ember where I work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> there's not really a war at all, is there?

ARM are completely dominant in this market.

<comment><USER6> Intel is getting pretty close. in a benchmark of a medfield phone, battery capacity for web browsing was just 20% lower than the best android phone benchmarked[1].

And medfield still uses 32nm process,not the latest finfet 22nm process intel is so proud of.

And the orange san-diego is also priced reasonably at $300.

So this looks like a fair fight.

[1][http://hexus.net/mobile/news/android/38501-intel-based- smart...](http://hexus.net/mobile/news/android/38501-intel-based-smartphone- lava-xolo-news-update/)

<comment><USER7> The real question is "How little are Intel willing to sell the CPU in this phone for?".

A fairly up to date Cortex-A8 ARM CPU can be had for under $5 [1] and as impressive as Intel's manufacturing base is, their profits are based on selling CPUs at 50-100x higher prices than this.

Whatever happens, I think the coming battle between generic ARM chips and x86 is going to slash Intel's profitability.

[1] - [http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/dsp/arm.page?DCMP=TIHeaderTracking...](http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/dsp/arm.page?DCMP=TIHeaderTracking&HQS=Other+OT+hdr_p_arm)</comment></comment></comment>


Breaking your bad habit is 'in the cards' - Addiction & Subtraction - <AUTHOR> http://addictionandsubtraction.com

<comment><USER3> Nice read, well written but it won't work.

Just like many self-help articles or books - the article mistakes consequences for causes and tries to guide the person to eliminate destructive consequences, without even looking or touching the causes.

Addictions is a mind reaction to avoid pain. In many cases it's an inner emotional pain alike feelings of guilt, worthlessness, desperation or depression. Addictive substance or destructive habit is nothing more than a painkiller - the only way mind know how to avoid feeling or reducing pain.

The real cure is not "replacing your destructive behavior with something better.".

If the real cause of addiction - the inner pain is not taken care of - <USER2> addiction returns in different shape, form, habit or substance.

THe real solution is steering mind to look at the pain directly, observe it, feel it, see it for what it really is and let it be dissolved with the light of your consciousness.

Addiction starts with pain and ends with pain, or more precise it ends when pain is observed directly, without mind interference.

<comment><USER4> It sounds like you're suggesting the real solution for addiction is meditation and mindfulness?

<comment><USER3> Here's how it works: negative thought causes discomforting or outright painful feeling within the body.

Once negative feeling and emotion roots itself in the body it keeps invoking similar painful thoughts. Such thoughts in turn keep causing alike feelings and the vicious cycle continues feeding on itself and growing itself, like a weed.

To uproot the weeds you either need to eliminate negative feelings or eliminate negative thoughts.

Meditation, mindfulness or conscious breathing attacks this from the "thoughts" side. "Positive thinking" philosophy also tries to resolve this vicious cycle by replacing negative thoughts with positive one. This works well for very moderate cases of negativity, like temporary irritation or non- life threatening negative events.

The problem comes when people with stronger, deeper, longer living pains (such as strong anxiety, or depression) tries to resolve it this way. Stopping thoughts no longer works because thoughts in that case are just a consequences of deep emotional pain within the body.

The only solution in these case is to locate and resolve the pain directly within the body.

In other words - you cannot think or meditate your way out of depression. You have to approach it from the body feelings/body emotion side directly, bypassing any thinking.

<comment><USER4> Interesting idea - is it grounded in a particular spiritual tradition? Are there any texts I could read (or places I could study) to learn how to do this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good habits indeed have life changing benefits. I made an app a while back to help myself to visualize my daily progress in forming habits. So far so good. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mhillsyste...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mhillsystem.dailybadge)

<comment><USER6> I've tried several versions of this type of app and they never worked they way I want them to. Yours looks nice. Installed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Made me remember this: [http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds- productivity-se...](http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity- secret)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is another habit-breaking project I saw from a fellow HN reader. If you missed it, check it out: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5131995>

</comment><comment><USER8> Game that makes you become addict of a game. Life is one big addiction spanned across multiple treads of what we enjoy.

When we encounter a statement that says something you enjoy is bad and is addiction, and should be get rid of, we either fall into denial, ignore statement or find something else to be addicted. Or have some other way to overcome this imaginary wall set by society.

Someone just gets addicted on fighting addictions :D</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News Top Links email subscription - <AUTHOR> http://www.hntoplinks.com/subscribe

<comment><AUTHOR> Hacker News Top Links aggregates links with highest point from front page and /best. Lately I added email subscription feature. You could register for daily, weekly, monthly and annually top links. Daily - 30 link per email once a day. Weekly - 50 link per email once a week. Monthly - 100 link per email once a month. Annually - 200 link per email once a year.

</comment><comment><USER2> I have subscribed and got my email. It is an easy way not to miss important posts.

To see top comments of the posts in the email would be a good feature</comment>


ScriptCraft - A Minecraft mod that lets you build using Javascript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/walterhiggins/ScriptCraft

<comment><USER2> /js box(5,6,3,7)

creates a wooden block 6 wide by 3 tall by 7 long.

/js box0(5,6,3,7)

creates an empty box 6 x 3 x 7

/js load()

opens a file chooser dialog so you can load your own scripts.</comment>


Something's cooking in Apple's India business - <AUTHOR> http://www.foundingfuel.com/article/somethings-cooking-in-apples-india-business/ <comment><USER2> Please do not read the linked article. It is, at best, a scattered collection of recent events concerning Apple's moves in India.

There is no illuminating insight or commentary.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree as well! At best, it is an opinion piece, and the arguments mentioned makes lot of sense. Eg, Apple's strategy of pushing refurbished phones makes lot of sense to apple given the numbers mentioned. But it comes across as insensitive to vocal commentators in india.

"And if all this isn't enough, Cook has another situation on hand. Apple wants to sell refurbished phones because it has a carefully thought through strategy. But the Indian government won't let it do that."

It seems the article has lots of insights, but wether they are correct is another matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> these are the kind of articles/blogs/commentary i hate...a hook line with zero substance

</comment><comment><USER4> That article reads like scrambled eggs without seasoning.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wondered if it was political - i.e. the Indian government won't support Apple unless it invests heavily in software development in India.

<comment><USER6> Microsoft and Amazon don't get any favor in India even though they have big development shops in India.

<comment><USER7> I doubt it. There is lot of politics and bureaucracy in India. Microsoft has got lot of government projects which I think would not be possible without lot of lobbying and investments.

Amazon has just started there so it will take sometime before we get to know the details.</comment></comment></comment>


The Engineer vs. the Border Patrol - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/terry-bressi-wants-to-take-customs-and-border-protections-internal-immigration-checkpoints-to-the-supreme-court.html <comment><USER3> A friend was in a similar situation for a while: crossing a CBP checkpoint multiple times every day for work in south Texas.

At some point he decided to try to stand up for what he considered his rights in a similar way: not being combative, just not cooperating. He was thrown in jail for 3 days, then the charges were dropped.

He talked with lawyers and the ACLU. The ACLU were quite frank that they have limited resources, and so they have to prioritize cases that have the ideal defendant and political optics. If he fought it personally, the cost would start at five figures.

The folks doing this _know_ there's a high barrier to holding them accountable and leverage it wantonly.

The worst thing about these "contempt of cop" style arrests is, despite the charges being dropped, once you're in the system's pipeline, if you mess up about any of the restrictions, paperwork, court appearances, etc, you become a criminal. It's easy to imagine a lot of folks might fall into that trap for innocent and mundane reasons.

<comment><USER4> If police can stop you randomly for 'drunk driving checks' \- and they can stop you randomly if there is an 'active crime scene' (i.e. they are looking for dangerous baddies on the run) then I don't see why spot-checks for other crimes/problems is somehow considered out of bounds.

The problem with the argument is that it leans political: I think people are interested in just allowing people across the border willy nilly, without having to be stopped by such checks.

Otherwise, the ACLU might be similarly up in arms over DD checks? Wouldn't that be the case?

I try to be pragmatic about it:

\+ If there's a high occurrence of Drunk Driving, then cops can do spot checks, esp. on long weekends.

\+ If there are 'escaped dangerous cons' on the run, well, spot checks in a specific zone makes sense.

\+ If there is a specific problem with large numbers of people who are in the country illegally travelling through - then random checks are a reasonable and proportional response to that.

Constitutional? Legal? I have no clue. But unless it gets really out of hand I don't see how it's totalitarian.

FYI I was never stopped randomly in the 5 years I lived in the US, and I was stopped quite a few times in France by the local Gendarmes. Sometimes obviously for DD checks, but other times I had no idea why but I had to show my passport and visa.

<comment><USER5> The ACLU _is_ similarly up in arms over DD checks:

> The ACLU welcomes today's Supreme Court's decision in Missouri v. McNeely. > Writing for the majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor upheld the 4th Amendment's > privacy protections by rejecting the proposition that states may routinely > compel drivers to submit to a blood test in drunk-driving cases without > consent and without a warrant.

> We know from experience that drunk-driving laws can be strictly enforced > without abandoning constitutional rights. Today's decision appropriately > recognizes what half the states have already demonstrated – that maintaining > highway safety does not require sacrificing personal privacy.

[https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/victory- suprem...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/victory-supreme- court-finds-drunk-driving-laws-can-be-strictly-enforced)

From 1984:

> [...] the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit to stop a new > sobriety-checkpoint program in California. The ACLU says the program is a > "substantial invasion of . . . fundamental constitutional rights."

> In its California brief, pending at the state Court of Appeals in San > Francisco, the ACLU argues that if sobriety checkpoints are upheld "it will > not be long before the police establish roadblocks and checkpoints for > investigations of other sorts of serious crimes."

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/12/16/a...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/12/16/aclu- sues-on-use-of-roadblocks/48753b6c-0852-4b63-85ef-db0d38d37135/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the data points.

As a Canadian, I know we have legal DD stops and I'm thankful for them, as society went from a period of 'DD was normal' to 'not ok'. It took a while, it was a real social problem.

I guess we (Canadians?) just view public safety a little differently, it's usually a matter of 'what makes sense' not so much a thing about constitutionality. That said, our cops are way, way more low key than US cops.

I have no problem with being randomly pulled over for a reasonable reason by reasonable cops.

I guess it gets more complicated when a) cops abuse power b) the randomness is not random c) when there's an underlying political tension d) you can be charged with 'anything' almost ...

<comment><USER6> The US cares so much about constitutionality (and hard and fast rules generally), and eschews leaving things to peoples' "reasonable" discretion, because a large subset of the population is completely nuts. One of our au pair's au pair friend got pulled over by state police and had a gun pulled on her. Coming from Germany she of course freaked out. (Luckily she was a white European young lady instead of a person of color.) Americans not only see nothing wrong with that, but keep voting for the sheriffs who allow their departments to run that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As an immigrant (with legal status), I couldn't imagine showing the slightest bit of resistance to any sort of CBP officers. I cannot put myself at risk trying to combat unfair policies due to the imbalance of power. Thank you to those US citizens who are doing what they can.

<comment><USER8> This is why I have zero interest in travelling to or through the US as a tourist. The risk to reward ratio is too great for me - there's much better places to go visit where there's a smaller chance of being fucked over by a border patrol agent.

<comment><USER9> Just hand over your papers. As a tourist people will be nice enough, but you should expect searches and to obey authority like if you were visiting China or Russia.

This kind of thing happens to residents who are trying to push for change in their country and accepting personal risks.

<comment><USER10> I've been to the US plenty times on business, and once as a tourist - <USER2> time the border guards were deeply unpleasant and behaved like egomanical bullies. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but a lot of people seem to have a similar tale.

I should also add, I've been to dozens of countries and never experienced anything like this.

<comment><USER11> Same experience here. Standing in a queue for 3 or 4 hours and occasionally getting shouted at by aggressive guards with their hand on their gun holster because you had the temerity to use your phone to let your colleagues/family/hotel etc to let them know why you're 3 hours delayed despite the plane landing on time. Then you finally reach the booth and are given Interrogation Lite (tm) about why you are there, if you have a return ticket paid for, where you are staying and generally eyed suspiciously before being finger-printed and having mugshots taken like you've just been arrested.

But you know, welcome to the land of the free!

FWIW, Global Entry for non-US citizens has made it so much better. You just whizz right through in about 30 seconds without having to deal with anyone apart from just give them a receipt from the machine.

<comment><USER12> I didn't know Global Entry was available for non-US citizens... oh, my country is not on the list:

[https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler- programs/global-...](https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler- programs/global-entry/eligibility)

<comment><USER8> Wow that's a relatively small list. I was surprised to see Australia not on it, especially considering we have our special E3 visa, and other countries like UK and Singapore are on it.

The UK has a similar program, Registered Traveller [1], which has a more exhaustive country list. Having an Australian passport, I often get curious looks when I use the smart gates, but I'm always able to go through (though I am always nervous it won't work and ill look like a silly foreigner for going I the wrong queue).

[1]: [https://www.gov.uk/registered- traveller/eligibility](https://www.gov.uk/registered-traveller/eligibility)

<comment><USER13> No Canada?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It strikes me that anybody who says America is a "free" country is absolutely delusional.

-America has the highest percentage of it's people locked up in jail

-People spend time in jail even though they are not convicted because they cannot post bail, which disproportionately punishes the the poor

-The laws are so complex, and so many, almost everyone breaks the law multiple times a month. Enforcement is highly subjective and at the whim of prosecutors and law enforcement officials

\- This story

<comment><USER15> All those things are true and yet the freedom you mock isn't a delusion. It's just not evenly distributed. And that's the key idea of the USA. Instead of concentrating on using government force to ensure equal outcomes for everyone instead it's about equal opportunities in a free for all. Free to fail and free to succeed. There's a lot of extremes here and the USA is a much larger, more heterogeneous place than many imagine from watching the exported news and media.

re: this story, for example: nothing like this exists in states that are not on the southern border. From state to state there are huge differences in culture, demographics, and governance.

<comment><USER16> _about equal opportunities in a free for all. Free to fail and free to succeed._

But that's self-evidently not the case. Formal and informal discrimination massively limit participation, and quite often commercial success is rooted in an ability to dump externalities rather than create value.

<comment><USER17> Perfect can be the enemy of good, in the sense that in a city of people there must be compromises so that everyone can coexist in a small space.

Sure, the US isn't fair. In practice it is grossly unfair. But talk to anyone with, eg, a congenital disability and it is apparent that this isn't because the US is doing something wrong, it is because life is unfair.

The US is very free. Some people have to work orders of magnitude harder to excercise their freedom, but in freedom of speech and action the US compares well with, eg, the UK, China, Russia, Middle Eastern countries, etc, etc. There are a few very small nations (eg, Luxembourg, Sweden, New Zealand, etc), where the numbers are smaller and the results are arguably better. But recall that human communities are governed by absolute numbers (see Dunbar's number) and reflect that the US does pretty well for its size.

Basically, don't conflate freedom and fairness. The US has a lot of freedom, but freedom is a pretty basic idea, and exercising it is crazy hard for some people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I had an experience with a border patrol checkpoint in Arizona in 2009. I was driving from Yuma, AZ towards Vegas (probably on US-95) in a rented brown Prius with Washington state plates as I was flagged down by the border patrol.

At the checkpoint the officers looked at me with disinterest (probably a combination of the dull routine and because I looked like a white US citizen). First they asked me if I was a US citizen and I said no, and suddenly they were looked far more interested. They asked to see my passport and informed me they'd need to search my vehicle and I was to open the trunk. I complied, opening the trunk and passing my passport to one officer while the other went to the rear of the vehicle to start a search. A few seconds later the officer with my passport notices something and urgently signals the other officer. At this point I was worried that my paperwork must not be in order and that I was in trouble. Once the other officer rejoins the first they briefly confer and then they hand me back my passport and apologize profusely for the inconvenience saying that they didn't realize that I was a diplomat before sending me on my way.

The kicker is that I wasn't a diplomat, merely a bureaucrat on an official trip to the US and any "diplomatic immunity" I had was the thinnest kind of intergovernmental courtesy.

At first this story was funny to me as the time I accidentally wielded diplomatic immunity. However, more recently I find it less amusing as instead I consider it a tale about how the changing assumptions of the officers significantly affected the nature of the interaction and how different the interaction could have been if their assumptions had been less favorable.

<comment><USER19> I don't understand how you think the officers in question did anything wrong.

I'm not American, so I have no stake in defending the US border patrol, but this is what I'd expect border patrol anywhere in the world to do. Their entire job function is to prevent illegal entry, toll violations etc.

By your own account you were in possession of a valid passport clearly indicating that you're working in an official capacity for a foreign state. Why would border patrol anywhere in the world continue to detain you at that point?

Is there some illegal immigration problem in any country on Earth stemming from people in possession of official government passports indicating that they work for their respective states that I'm unaware of? How is this not as clear of a signal as anything short of the agent personally recognizing you as a foreign ambassador that you should be sent on your way?

<comment><USER20> _Their entire job function is to prevent illegal entry, toll violations etc._

To me, one of the key elements of the story is this: getting from Yuma, AZ to Las Vegas, NV does not involve crossing an international border. So this level of harassment a few hours drive from an actual border seems a bit uncalled for.

<comment><USER21> It's a lot easier to have checkpoints at the chokepoints outside of the metro region, because all the illegals and smugglers have to pass through them at some point. There's too much surface area to defend in Yuma proper.

<comment><USER22> It's "a lot easier" to set up video surveillance in everyone's home, but we don't let the state do that either.

<comment><USER21> I'd say there's a trade off to be made. If we didn't have any illegal immigration or smuggling, obviously it would be unreasonable. On the other hand, if we had a million professional gang members entering each year via various tunnels into Yuma, it would be reasonable to put checkpoints on the outside of the city to help curb the problem. Or evacuate the city and nuke it from orbit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It seems to me that Martinez-Fuerte was wrongly decided. The court treated it as a dilemma between stopping all traffic passing a particular point with no suspicion at all, and requiring a warrant from a judge based on probable cause. There was already legal precedent for a middle ground at that time: the Terry stop, requiring only reasonable suspicion based on evidence as determined by the officer and subject to _later_ review by a judge.

More generally, I don't think government agents should ever be able to detain and question people in public places without reasonable individualized suspicion based on evidence. To whatever extent the law fails to prohibit such actions, it should be changed.

<comment><USER24> The Martinez-Fuerte ruling specifically applies to a section of US territory along the border.

The ruling accepts that illegal border crossings DO occur and that therefor Border Patrol need jurisdiction to stop and question people within a reasonable distance from the border in areas where illegal border crossings occur.

A less penetrable border would be the cleanest solution here.

<comment><USER25> Since the "border" extends 100 miles inland, covers the majority of large cities and 2/3 of the US population, I don't think this is a clean solution. It only seems that way when you aren't personally affected.

<comment><USER26> Border stops have to have a connection to an actual border crossing regardless of where they occur. CBP can't conduct suspicionless searches of 2/3rds of the US population.

<comment><USER23> They can't search with no suspicion, but they can operate checkpoints at which they stop and question everyone in every passing vehicle under US v. Martinez- Fuerte. That ruling is a little vague, requiring that the placement of the checkpoints be "reasonable".

It further allowed CPB officers to "refer motorists selectively to the secondary inspection area at the San Clemente checkpoint on the basis of criteria that would not sustain a roving patrol stop" (Terry stop). This is not a suspicionless search, but it's a much lower level of suspicion than is required for a search under other circumstances.

Federal regulations allow CPB to operate within 100 miles of the border. That doesn't necessarily mean it's legal to operate a checkpoint _anywhere_ in that zone, but the restrictions on where they can be placed are pretty vague.

<comment><USER26> Check out Martinez-Fuerte at 560, which ACLU (at least in California) says is controlling, and which states that secondary inspection areas can be used only for routine and limited inquiries into residence status, and that the areas are used exclusively for traffic alleviation, not to facilitate actual searches, which the case (at 558) says are disallowed.

I'm certainly never going to claim that CBP doesn't push its authority, or even abuse it outright. I assume they somewhat routinely do that. Patrick Leahy got pulled over 125 miles from a border a few years ago (that had to have been fun to watch).

I'm just saying that there's a mythology about the "100 mile wide Constitution-free zone" which is not useful or productive and deserves to be punctured whenever it's brought up. A lot of what people believe CBP can do by dint of being within 50 miles of a border would, if it occurred, in fact be unlawful, and should be challenged on those terms. Not in a Wesley Snipesian idiosyncratic "originalist" sense of the word unlawful, but straight-up normal-lawyer bring-a-case unlawful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If someone needs a simple and clear example of "corrupted by power", just read the excerpt below.

In a Jan. 28, 2008, letter to university president Robert Shelton, local Border Patrol union president Ed Tuffly stated, "We will be aggressively pursuing action against Mr. Bressi and/or the University on behalf of our agents for the internet postings which Bressi has undertaken using video obtained while he was acting as a University employee. If it is determined that the [Arizona] law does not apply to Federal law enforcement officers, we will lobby for an amendment to the State law to ensure that we are protected."

<comment><USER28> The pre-election date on that letter was interesting. The Slate article is kind of silent on what happened during the Obama presidency on this. Did they continue Operation Stonegarden as-is throughout those two terms?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Good for him! But even if he "wins", I'm guessing all of the past criminality will remain unpunished - as opposed to throwing the kidnappers in jail, and civilly compensating all of their victims, and similarly prosecuting the leaders for conspiracy. When asked to oversee agents of USG itself, courts seem to take the attitude that eg telling a murderer to not do it again is good enough.

And lacking the threat of punishment, the thugs will just move on to the next profitable harassment scheme that hasn't yet been cracked down on. Given that we've all been victims of this same pattern for decades, all I can really wonder is are those newfangled assassination markets ready yet? Kickstarter for justice seems to be the only way we'll be able to get it.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think they meant 'extemporaneous' instead of 'contemporaneous' although I'm not 100% sure.

I've been stopped at one of these checkpoints in California and had my vehicle searched. I'm just glad that I didn't have any cannabis in my car because they promptly informed me that even though it was legal in the state, the checkpoints are federal - so you could be in hot water.

<comment><USER31> Why did you consent to the search?

<comment><USER3> Doesn't matter. In Kansas outside Salina, highway patrol pulled me over because my new car had a temporary tag, which they claimed was in the wrong location. It wasn't: KS and OR differ in where they want you to put it. I declined consent for a search, at which point they put hands on guns and ordered me out of the car. They spent about an hour tossing everything they could remove into the ditch.

There are some real top to bottom jerks around with badges, and with those folks, knowing your rights is effectively meaningless.

<comment><USER26> Did you follow up on this with the department?

<comment><USER16> People who have had their rights infringed shouldn't be asked to invest more of their time and/or money in procedural wrangling with diminishing probabilities of restitution for their original injury. there are strong correlations between biased enforcement and biased litigation outcomes, and that doctrine of qualified immunity virtually guarantees litigation will be highly asymmetrical from the outset.

<comment><USER26> I asked him "if", not "to".

<comment><USER16> OK, but questions like that are freighted with 'should' whether or not you said so.

<comment><USER26> I don't know what the particular rhetorical dance I need to enact in order to ask that question positively rather than normatively is so I'm just going to disregard that problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I visited Tucson, Arizona several years ago with my parents and the area south of town resembles a war zone. There were blackhawk helicopters searching for illegal immigrants, hundreds of CBP vehicles all over the place, dozens of buses waiting to transport the illegal immigrants to detention facilities, and of course the military-style checkpoints where officers with assault rifles can essentially do anything they want to you (many of these checkpoints are in the middle of nowhere). I'm a natural-born citizen and I was afraid. I can't imagine living down there and going through those type of checkpoints every day.

<comment><USER33> "War zone" really gives people the wrong idea. South Tucson has some very nice neighborhoods, including one of the best schools in the state. There is a fair bit of air traffic due to a nearby air force base[1] but this is not something most of the residents are generally concerned with.

The checkpoints are legitimately annoying, though. Most people simply identify themselves and pass through peacefully--the Supreme Court has already decided that you must identify yourself. If you want your right to remain silent, you have to actually _say_ that, oddly enough. Granted, it's clear that he wanted to be arrested for civil disobedience, just mentioning that for anyone who prefers to go on their way.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Monthan_Air_Forc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Monthan_Air_Force_Base)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Here's my thought: the only thing that will save us from this insanity is driverless cars.

When the Constitution was written, there weren't cars. You walked or rode a horse. There were no licenses or insurance, there were no DUIs. There was no legal requirement to prove that you were legally entitled to operate a motor vehicle on a public road.

These stops seem to largely depend on our relationship with driving cars. The necessary evil of DUI checkpoints is obviously a crutch they're leaning on heavily.

At a minimum, self-driving cars will force them to work a bit harder to scheme up clever legal interpretations allowing them to continue operating.

<comment><USER35> > necessary evil of DUI checkpoints

WA doesn't have them (against the constitution), and it gets along just fine. In fact with the NHTSA's own data Washington's ratio of traffic fatalities attributed to alcohol is closely inline with states that do have checkpoints. [1]

The evidence simply doesn't show that DUI checkpoints are necessary or effective.

[https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8124...](https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/812450)

<comment><USER36> Similar wrt undercover police cars, we have some restrictions that make 'em much less common: [https://reason.com/blog/2014/10/20/washington-man-busts- cop-...](https://reason.com/blog/2014/10/20/washington-man-busts-cop-in- unmarked-car)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> As a non-white naturalized US citizen whose ethnicity is heavily targeted by CBP activities, they make me nervous and I'm not surprised to hear that they repeatedly overstep their boundaries (irony!).

I see the current enforcement of our immigration laws fueling a parental crisis similar to what we currently see in black communities, the bill will be due in a decade or two.

</comment><comment><USER38> A hilarious video on how to quickly get through border security: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFxijuRjX1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFxijuRjX1U)

<comment><USER39> I'm downvoting you not because I disagree with people exercising their rights, but because you're spreading information that, if followed in the places where it matters, will be the quickest way to get your teeth kicked in and land you jail.

<comment><USER31> Better to have your teeth kicked in and land in jail than to passively support corruption and abuses of power.

<comment><USER39> You are free to do that, of course and I applaud you for fighting for your rights. However, the video gives the wrong impression that this is a method via which one can go through a checkpoint with _less_ hassle, whereas in reality if this method works, you're dealing with cops that won't bother you needlessly anyway; but if it doesn't, you're dealing with cops that will make your day a living hell for standing up for your rights. From a game-theory perspective it's absolutely the worst choice. No matter of standing up for your rights seems to have any systemic effect anyway.

My perspective might be different because I grew up in the Eastern Bloc, where the winning strategy was always complying while hiding contraband and bribing officials. No amount of anyone fighting for any rights ever had any effect, what happened in the end is that the economy collapsed and things had to change at the top forcibly. If you want to fight because of some personal sense of honour, of course you should do that. But from an everyday practical game-theory perspective, the winning strategy for both the game and the meta- game is to comply with whatever the cop wants to see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Sadly it looks to me like the best case of "winning" is that they'll just keep doing the same thing and call them "DUI checkpoints" instead. It's not about catching people breaking the law, it's about harassing just enough people that the general population fears them and complies with any demand and writing citations and making money while doing it.

<comment><USER41> Yep. [https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/08/10/dea-travel- rec...](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/08/10/dea-travel-record- airport-seizures/88474282/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> In a more abstract view, is it the incentive of money thats drawing in these bad actors? Is it the power of authority that drawn in bad actors? Can you generalize that all CBP checkpoints are bad? What are some of the good stuff they have done? Should there be a way to crowd fund legal case?

I find reading articles like these makes me question too many things but I don't know how really to process it. Outside of hitting the up vote button, there isn't much I can do to contribute to improving this or most situations.

<comment><USER43> They get Federal grants to pay for the police cooperation / joint activity. The politics will be local and the locals get a pass since they usually cooperate or become well known. Even a license plate reader will say the car is local. These areas tend to be conservative as well so they view the law enforcement presence as useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > The CBP checkpoints are good at one thing: catching American motorists with > dime bags of pot

Like Willie Nelson. [https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-best-little- checkp...](https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-best-little-checkpoint- in-texas/)

</comment><comment><USER45> A good move from the democrats will be to ageee to the border wall against the removal of these unconstitutional checkpoints.

<comment><USER16> Insofar as you consider them to be unconstitutional, why are you bargaining (at great fiscal, diplomatic, and social expense) for relief from something you con't consider to be legitimate in the first place?

<comment><USER46> It's possible to believe that having an immigration policy and laws is a legitimate and constitutional need for the country, and still think that the way they're being enforced is neither legitimate nor constitutional.

Instead of having a secure border line, where we enforce immigration law, and legitimately ask everyone to identify themselves, we have this giant zone extending well into the country where people are presumed to be crossing the border. If we simply physically controlled the line itself, this zone would not be necessary, and the conflict between enforcing immigration law and the fourth amendment would go away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> [https://craphound.com/scroogled.html](https://craphound.com/scroogled.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone have a mirror of the article without the consent-wall?

</comment><comment><USER48> It's these types of issues I believe a massive coalition could be built around.

Without attempting to ignite a flame war here, I'll just say it would not surprise me at all if this fellow was a Trump supporter nor would it surprise me if he were not.

What I have noticed over my 34 voting years is an extremely well coordinated effort by every major media source to distract the electorate from these types of issues.

For example, a quick search on Bing/news finds hits on the referenced Slate article and an article on Reason which illustrates my point. But the only other references I get hits for are local news sources.

</comment><comment><USER49> If there was adequate enforcement of immigration at the border, there would be no need for these internal checkpoints.

</comment><comment><USER50> 1\. Click on link. 2\. Get huge GDPR banner. 3\. Close tab.

GDPR, the new productivity booster.

<comment><USER51> It's not even a compliant banner at that, given the opt in is a requirement for viewing the site...

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I don't want to derail anything, but does anyone sense the irony of that little addendum at the end of the article. The one that refers to Trump being such a clear danger to rule of law that Slate felt the need to increase reporting on rights violations, and it being at the end of an article that mainly deals with BS that went through Obama administration without audit or inquiry.

<comment><USER31> You're being downvoted because people don't like it when you remind them that the Emperor has no clothes.

<comment><USER16> I'm downvoting because the addendum is clearly separate from the article content rather than derivative of it, and because it's arguably objectively correct: many abuses in immigration and other areas of law enforcement did indeed take place under the previous administration, but trends in enforcement and litigation have reversed. I'd also point out that the strict immigration enforcement under Obama was meant as a concession to immigration restrictionists who demanded a 'secure border' before they would consider any reform or revision of immigration, and was thus conducted in spite of rather than in pursuance of the Democratic party's policies in an effort at bipartisanship, which has turned out to be singularly lacking in reciprocation. Despite the relative heavy-handedness of enforcement under the Obama administration and a subsequent (but not necessarily consequent, due to economic factors) transition to negative net migration, immigration restrictionists simply doubled down on their demands and started asking for a physical wall.</comment></comment></comment>


How did Jeff Bezos scale Amazon without destroying its entrepreneurial culture? - <AUTHOR> http://versionone.vc/jeff-bezos-scale-amazon-without-destroying-entrepreneurial-culture/ <comment><AUTHOR> You got to be an Amazonian to understand the culture there and it's impact.

Jeff B is pretty smart to have recognized the mortal significance of focusing on culture, especially as a company grows.

Employees are oft-reminded of the importance of it's cultural values and is a reason why Amazon continues to disruptively innovate.

This is a very short article though that does not do justice to the entirety of the company. Maybe I'll write a post someday.</comment>


RNA Moves a Memory from One Snail to Another (research paper link in comments) - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/54565/title/RNA-Moves-a-Memory-From-One-Snail-to-Another/ <comment><AUTHOR> Research paper: [http://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2018/05/14/ENEURO.0038-1...](http://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2018/05/14/ENEURO.0038-18.2018)

BBC article that was also quite good though more high-level: [http://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-44111476](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44111476)</comment>


Sqlite 3.30.0 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sqlite.org/changes.html <comment><USER2> Glad to see SQLite on then front page -- it's one of the silent workhorses of the modern programming/database world. It _is_ the most widely deployed database[0]. If you haven't given it a look/aren't interested in it since it seems to be a "toy" database (often the "test" or "local" db for frameworks like rails or django), you owe it to yourself to see what it can really do. Easy to use full text search[1][2], CTEs[3], JSON support via extension[4] (also the extension system is worth looking at[5]) and much much more. There are certainly things that SQLite does _not_ do, and that's well documented too[6].

If all this doesn't convince you to _use_ SQLite, it's also one of the most well documented large C codebases that is fantastic to learn from.

I'd go as far as to say that many modern startups could get pretty far with SQLite + aggressive caching before even bringing in a big database like Postgres (though with recent deployment/ops advancements it's easier than ever to run postgres).

[0]: [https://sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html](https://sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html)

[1]: [https://www.sqlite.org/fts5.html](https://www.sqlite.org/fts5.html)

[2]: [https://sqlite.org/fts3.html](https://sqlite.org/fts3.html)

[3]: [https://sqlite.org/lang_with.html](https://sqlite.org/lang_with.html)

[4]: [https://www.sqlite.org/json1.html](https://www.sqlite.org/json1.html)

[5]: [https://www.sqlite.org/loadext.html](https://www.sqlite.org/loadext.html)

[6]: [https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html](https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html)

<comment><USER3> But why?(for a server)

Postgres can run in a 256MB VPS(if one can find one these days) and has more features that you might need later.

Installing is as easy as 'apt-get install postgresql', create user, create database, done.

<comment><USER4> I have a small blog (using Ghost) that uses sqlite as the main database and it's incredibly easy to maintain. It's just a single file. For example if you want to back up, you just copy the file or add it to git. If you want to do a diff you just do sqldiff on two files. It is as easy as working with json or csv files, except with atomic writes and better querying.

From their site: [https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html](https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html)

>SQLite does not compete with client/server databases. SQLite competes with fopen().

<comment><USER5> > For example if you want to back up, you just copy the file or add it to git. > If you want to do a diff you just do sqldiff on two files.

With Postgres, you run pg_dump on the database (which is a shell one-liner, only with slightly more arguments than cp) and that's even better for putting into git because it's a text file that git can diff natively and store efficiently with delta compression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> SQLite is the most stable small DB there is, maybe even the most stable one at all.

Our CTO made a cluster wide distributed configuration filesystem[0], started about 9 years ago. For that a local backing store was required, and a a small DB seemed to fit the bill as it should allow to worry less about data safety, when it's really written out, and it could be a general interface which could be swapped out rather easily if required one day.

He checked out lots of the then available options, sorry I only remember BerkleyDB and SQLite but there were more. Anyway, only SQLite never crashed, had corrupt data when doing weird things with it and was still very fast, just great.

Almost 10 years later we still use it, never a single issue with SQLite as the cause - really impressive IMO.

[0]: [https://git.proxmox.com/?p=pve- cluster.git;a=tree;f=data/src...](https://git.proxmox.com/?p=pve- cluster.git;a=tree;f=data/src;h=67601f78bf53763092ead57e55ceb1a2428891a2;hb=refs/heads/master)

</comment><comment><USER7> Aside from its merits as a database, SQLite is also a great example of good documentation[0], thorough testing[1], and focused development. It's something that all library maintainers should study and try to learn from.

[0] [https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html](https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html)

[1] [https://www.sqlite.org/testing.html](https://www.sqlite.org/testing.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> So, I've heard SQLite described as "Postgres for people not paying attention", because it ignores data type errors.

A lot of people in the HN community like types. Me included. I really don't want my database to ignore type errors. I basically want Postgres but embedded like a library. I cannot think of any reason why that couldn't work. Perhaps just no one has built it yet.

<comment><USER9> I think it's a design choice. Ignoring types lets you focus on other features, in case of SQLite, things like crash resistance and reliability.

In other words, typechecking is also a cost for language designer.

Even SQL itself has not particularly strong type system. Perhaps you're looking for something else entirely.

<comment><USER10> Interestingly, it's amazing to me that many SQLite libraries in the Go ecosystem don't support these mixed/flexible data types in tables.

If you read back a set of values and one of the fields in a row doesn't match the data type given by the column, the libraries will error out.

One library that works correctly is github.com/gwenn/gosqlite, which checks the data type of each field of the result set (per row), so handles things gracefully.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ISO-morphism I remember reading once upon a time about the sqlite file format being a good candidate for data transfer between systems/machines, as it's standardized, stable, and infinitely queryable. Has anyone here had any experience actually using it as such? What are your takeaways?

<comment><USER11> We have been using SQLite as a distributed object container for the last few years as part of an industry spec. <[http://www1.semi.org/en/ritdb- interplanetary-database-manufa...](http://www1.semi.org/en/ritdb- interplanetary-database-manufacturing>). Has been working quite well on windows, OS X and Linux. Also java, r, c, js, python clients. We are using MQTT as the transport.

<comment><USER12> Your link gives 404.

<comment><USER13> Remove the >

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm really hoping we one day will get ALTER TABLE x DROP COLUMN y.

<comment><USER15> Me too, my only issues I have running SQLite3 in production is database migrations where I need to drop or change a column

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I use FILTER once in a while on a postgres database I work with, so I am happy to see it added to SQLite

</comment><comment><USER17> We have started a project with SQLite as the data store, but ended up replacing it with Firebird embedded due to two main reasons:

\- Lost decimal places on a simple database round-trip.

\- Issues with accessing the DB from multiple threads.

<comment><USER18> Yeah... many readers but only one writer at a given time. We got around that by doing a SQLite db per user.

<comment><USER19> Once conceived of a plan to store a lot of data per user and thought of the same idea. How do you store the dbs? Keeping it on say s3 means there's a multisecond (or longer) load time when a user logs in and you need to load the DB to the hard drive right? (I'm thinking a GB or more data per user).I considered an ec2 instance with a multi terabyte ebs attached, that can then effectively store a thousand users: data. Are there any other possibilities?

<comment><USER18> Our DBs are tiny for most users. We run s3 (minio rook ceph on k8s) locally so the network latency is a cluster latency.

I figure you could just throw hardware at it like you mentioned. Move them to nvme backed S3 if needed.

And our use case is only ever load, do a read or write, and then save. So they DBs aren't open for very long.

And with S3 compression you could save on download time but pay a decompress cost.

This approach has its downsides don't get me wrong but it scales nicely but forget running aggregates across the databases at least not for a real-time result.

<comment><USER20> Put sqlite in redis.

<comment><USER18> Got a link or more details?

<comment><USER18> Could be this? [https://grisha.org/blog/2013/05/29/sqlite-db-stored-in-a- red...](https://grisha.org/blog/2013/05/29/sqlite-db-stored-in-a-redis-hash/)

<comment><USER20> I've never done it, but you can store binary blobs in redis, and a sqlite db is a binary blob.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I used to do a fair amount of ad hoc analysis with large (more than Excel can handle is large enough) csv files.

Sqlite3 was my saviour. It was the work of minutes to have the data in a db and be chopping out the bits I needed.

<comment><USER22> > I used to do a fair amount of ad hoc analysis with large (more than Excel > can handle is large enough) csv files. Sqlite3 was my saviour.

This was probably the right decision 5 years ago, but I'm not sure Sqllite is the proper solution for "ad hoc" analysis now. Excel now has plugins to handle very large datasources. And of course, the company leading this charge here is Tableau, with many others doing something similar.

Sqllite can still do all the manipulation that these others can, but the others can also be used by non developers and come with pretty graphs and pictures. For large CSV analysis on an ad hoc basis, SQLlite doesn't stack up well to the competition.

<comment><USER23> As someone who has to use Excel a lot, I'm very interested in what your typical workflow looks like.

<comment><USER22> > As someone who has to use Excel a lot, I'm very interested in what your > typical workflow looks like.

It's pretty standard Excel stuff: summing columns, averaging, functions combining multiple columns, pivot tables. The significant difference is that I routinely deal with 20k+ rows, and occasionally 100k+ rows. For simple stuff, standard Excel starts breaking down with 10k+ rows, and it even struggles with 1k rows with more complicated manipulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Every time I have to set up a Java runtime on Windows and click through Oracle's boast of it running on 3 (US) billion devices (which pops up on the installer) I think of how SQLite probably is at least a thousand billion in front :)

Great to see FILTER on aggregates, solves a small pain I have with my home automation stats :)

</comment><comment><USER25> SQLite kicks ass. Oh, the horrible things I've attempted to make it do...

</comment><comment><USER26> Something else I appreciate about SQLite: it proves that under the ultimate free software distribution scheme -- public domain -- corporate users contribute improvements back to the project.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wish SQLite would move to github with issue tracking. Digging trough their issues to find if my particular issue is reported is not as pleasant as with github issues.

Specifically I'm now wondering if a case-insensitive replace() string function is already a feature request or perhaps even implemented in a recent version.

</comment><comment><USER28> How does SQLite compare to say BerkeleyDB or LevelDB, which I think compete in this same arena no?

I've used SQLite and like it a lot but I've recently started using these two for some pet projects and found them easier to work with and in theory they should scale easier if I understand their strengths

<comment><USER29> It depends on your use case. LevelDB is way too sloppy about memory allocation, threads and I/O, which may not be acceptable for an embeddable database. I got to the point once where every daemon on every node using LevelDB had to be restarted daily from cron.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I would definitely use it more if it played nicer having it's DB on a nfs share.

Although I don't know the underlying cause so it may be infeasible.

</comment><comment><USER31> I would be using Sqlite a lot more if it had a decimal type for monetary calculations.

<comment><USER32> Coming in sqlite4...

<comment><USER33> Nope.

> SQLite4 was an experimental rewrite of SQLite that was active from 2012 > through 2014. All development work on SQLite4 has ended. Lessons learned > from SQLite4 have been folded into the main SQLite3 product. SQLite4 was > never released. There are no plans to revive it. You should be using > SQLite3.

Source: [https://sqlite.org/src4/doc/trunk/www/](https://sqlite.org/src4/doc/trunk/www/)</comment></comment></comment>


IPhone 3G teardown - <AUTHOR> http://live.ifixit.com/Guide/First-Look/iPhone3G

<comment><USER2> If you were one of the first people in the world to own an iPhone3g, would you take it to bits?

<comment><USER3> I might, if I were using the resulting pictures to publicize my iPhone repair website. These guys at least have the skills to put the phone back together again and have a high probability of it working.

Destroying a rare consumer good turns out to be a great way to attract attention. I'm still waiting to hear if the iPhone 3G is more or less blendable than the previous version.</comment></comment>


There we go... "Japan scientist synthesizes meat from human feces" - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110615/tc_digitaltrends/japanesescientistscreatesmeatoutoffeces

<comment><USER2> If you look at the youtube videos poster <http://www.youtube.com/user/ill318> you notice that it also links to videos about how british royalty eats people. Im pretty sure this is an epic troll. <http://www.honda- tech.com/showthread.php?t=2802202> for similar hillarity

</comment><comment><USER3> don't proteins wear out? or at least that's the reasoning behind some theories about protein folding and mad cow disease? i'd like the freshest first-use of newly synthesized proteins if at all possible.

</comment><comment><USER4> Look at the label on the fridge in the video. "Shit Burger"

</comment><comment><USER5> Makes soylent green sound appetising.</comment>


Imitation With Innovation Reduces Risk in Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.caycon.com/blog/2011/05/imitation-with-innovation-reduces-risk-in-startups/ <comment><AUTHOR> Imitating your industry leaders is a great way to position yourself among the smaller competition you face in your market.

Tech companies can follow Apple or Google's example even though they may not have to same resources they do, but everyone can set aside an hour a day to spend working on their own projects.

Every business can make their experience more enjoyable for their customers by adding TV's or games of some kind while people wait.

The point is, if you see someone doing something that is working for them, why wouldn't you do it too?</comment>


Obama decries 'wild west' media landscape - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-decries-wild-west-media-landscape-214642552.html <comment><USER2> He's talking about real censorship, i.e. government control of information.

<comment><USER3> Correct.

<comment><USER3> [https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jfk+secrecy+is+repugnan...](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jfk+secrecy+is+repugnant&qpvt=jfk+secrecy+is+repugnant&view=detail&mid=5ABF53882CB77792C08A5ABF53882CB77792C08A&FORM=VRDGAR)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's pretty nice material on the role of media in election 2016 from Hoover Institution at Stanford: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSZDiBjkaCM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSZDiBjkaCM)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty ridiculous. So he wasn't all that worried about 'thruthiness' all through the birther conspiracies or all the other shenanigans throughout his presidency, but all of a sudden him and his pals become implicated in all these wikileaks so now it's time to declare war on conspiracy theory.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any alternatives to FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon)? - <AUTHOR> For a small business that prefers someone else to handle the logistics of stock, shipping, payments and returns, are there any alternatives to FBA in the US or Europe? As far as I can tell, the answer is a resounding no. Am I wrong?
I'm aware of some of the problems with FBA. However, it also offers opportunities to small business' that have no equivalent.
If you know of alternatives to FBA, please post them here. If you have used FBA, please let us know about your experience and your thoughts. Thank you :-) <comment><USER2> Our startup aihello handles everything except payments and we integrate with 3pl as well FBA.

The reason there is no competition to FBA is because it's extremely hard to setup the whole infrastructure especially warehouse planning. It took us two years to get where we are now and we still have miles to go before we can support EU.

Also note that most large organizations have their own proprietary fba-like logistics. I used to lead the ibm logistics project back when they were into PC's and used that experience to create my current startup

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.shipbob.com/](https://www.shipbob.com/)

looked into this very briefly. operate similarly.

<comment><USER2> Shipbob is a 3pl. They don't handle all logistics , planning or fulfillment from platforms</comment></comment>


Want to work in tech but can't code? - <AUTHOR> https://career.gojek.com/blog/want-to-work-in-tech-but-cant-code-82b6e7d43bba/ <comment> non-entity You can even work as a developer!</comment>


Why is the font so large on my site? - <AUTHOR> https://brendaningram.com/article/why-is-the-font-so-large-on-this-site/ <comment><USER2> While I do see the typographical reasons for making font sizes bigger, I also do think it is detrimental to the user's experience. Most users are simply not accustomed to large fonts, and will most likely get confused and subsequently leave your website.

An alternative solution is to have article pages have a font size adjustment button, which allows people to adjust the glyph size to their liking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your considered thoughts.</comment></comment>


California Orders Coding Bootcamps to Stop Enrollment and Issue Refunds - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3025896/california-orders-coding-bootcamps-to-stop-enrollment-and-issue-refunds

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7159730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7159730)</comment>


Create an Amazon S3 Image Processing Pipeline - <AUTHOR> http://blog.algorithmia.com/2016/06/amazon-s3-image-processing-pipeline-python/ <comment><USER2> Interesting that the main algorithm mentioned -- SmartThumbnail -- is supposed to center the picture around detected faces but their example output is clearly not centered.

<comment><USER3> this was a mistake in the description of the algorithm. The algorithm is intended to not cut off faces/main objects while preserving the ratios of the image. We have contacted the author to update the description. Thanks.</comment></comment>


Beige Book by the Federal Reserve - <AUTHOR> https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/beigebook201909.htm <comment><USER2> It would be nice if they provided some exploratory data for these reports, such as a notebook that people could use to see the actual data that they're looking at.

I've always felt like these government agencies are continuously moving the goal posts around so that everything appears like they're doing a good job so everyone can keep collecting their paycheque and government benefits. I don't want to read a massive wall of text, I'd rather see charts that show what's really going on.

<comment><USER3> >I've always felt like these government agencies

For clarity, the Fed is NOT a government agency[0].

[0] [https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/education/teachers/r...](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/education/teachers/resources/fed- today/fed-today_lesson-3.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Can you really say this when it is granted monopoly power on the state currency?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > On balance, reports from Federal Reserve Districts suggested that the > economy expanded at a modest pace through the end of August. Although > concerns regarding tariffs and trade policy uncertainty continued, the > majority of businesses remained optimistic about the near-term outlook. > Reports on consumer spending were mixed, although auto sales for most > Districts grew at a modest pace. Tourism activity since the previous report > remained solid in most reporting Districts. On balance, transportation > activity softened, which some reporting Districts attributed to slowing > global demand and heightened trade tensions. Home sales remained constrained > in the majority of Districts due primarily to low inventory levels, and new > home construction activity remained flat. Commercial real estate > construction and sales activity were steady, while the pace of leasing > increased slightly over the prior period. Overall manufacturing activity was > down slightly from the previous report. Among reporting Districts, > agricultural conditions remained weak as a result of unfavorable weather > conditions, low commodity prices, and trade-related uncertainties. Lending > volumes grew modestly across several Districts. Reports on activity in the > nonfinancial services sector were positive, with reporting Districts noting > similar or improved activity from the last report.

"Trade" is mentioned three times in this one paragraph. I wonder to what extend this factor is being over-blamed for macro slowness.

Interesting to compare this report with the one from June 2007, at the cusp of the implosion:

> Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Banks indicated that economic > activity continued to expand from mid-April through May. Seven banks > described growth in their Districts as modest or moderate: Cleveland, > Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, New York, and San Francisco. > Dallas reported growth as moderately strong, and Minneapolis said the > District's economy edged up. Philadelphia reported that growth was somewhat > faster than in recent months, and Richmond said growth picked up a bit. > Boston characterized reports from its contacts as generally positive.

[https://www.federalreserve.gov/fomc/beigebook/2007/20070613/...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/fomc/beigebook/2007/20070613/default.htm)

</comment><comment><USER6> Weird that San Francisco has the entire West Coast. It seems like a new Pacific Northwest bank should be created to better spread the load (Minneapolis is currently the smallest one, maybe that one could move to Seattle?):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank#Assets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank#Assets)

<comment><USER7> It isn't. I would read up on how the Fed was created. The choice of cities was political (that is why Missouri has two, iirc) and related to the situation in 1913 when the Fed was created (in particular, the cyclical demand for money from agriculture).

Now, it makes almost no sense to move them. After 1935, the Banks have had fairly limited power.

<comment><USER8> What changed in 1935?

<comment><USER7> Reorganization of the Fed. Most importantly: Board of Governors created in Washington. Combined with the exigencies of WW2, this basically finished Reserve Bank power. And this structure did worsen the Great Depression (Reserve Banks acted independently and wouldn't participate in market operations).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why do I keep coming back to the Nexus S?   - <AUTHOR> http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/30/coming-nexus-s/

<comment><USER2> The 'advice to manufacturers' list, seems to me the equivalent of 'be more like Apple':

* Don't launch a buzzword feature until it's more than just a buzzword.

* Don't launch a product with obvious problems, even if you plan on fixing them down the road with a patch.

* Keep it simple. Favor quality over functionality.

* Don't be fooled into believing that you can't differentiate in meaningful ways through industrial design alone. (Ha!)

* Trumpet your commitment to Google's 18-month upgrade policy at every opportunity.

<comment><USER3> > _If you're launching a high-end smartphone, you're going to get a rush of > power users flocking to it right away — and if the browser freezes every few > minutes or the battery is inexplicably charging at a glacial pace, that's a > problem. Those power users are going to talk to each other, and they're > going to talk to their less technically-inclined friends._

I disagree a little bit about point 2 in regards to it being Apple-like. The first version of the iPhone (3G) is very slow and clunky. I was just on my sister's last weekend (and I own a iP4) and couldn't believe how long it took some screens to change (in seconds, not milliseconds). How about the issues with the antenna on the 4? or how bad the service was (has been?) in NYC/SF? This is actually what I find remarkable about Apple's iPhone success. How did they get people (including myself) to deal with all of this?

<comment><USER4>
      > The first version of the iPhone (3G) is very slow and clunky.

_Is_ compared to current models. Back in 2007 it was more than OK.

      > How about the issues with the antenna on the 4

That was media noises, not real issues. The issue with proximity sensor was more serious than antenna-gate.

      > how bad the service was (has been?) in NYC/SF

That's AT&T, not iPhone.

      > This is actually what I find remarkable about Apple's iPhone success.

It was an amazing product. Look at it in context, don't compare with current situation.

<comment><USER5> I can confirm the iPhone 3G jumped the gun by a long way. I got one of the early versions that had next to no reception. In the USA some people went into stores and got replacements. Outside the USA I got fobbed off on the support line and got to pay for an expensive data plan I couldn't use for two years. That's over 1000 euros for what amounted to an ipod touch: and I don't use iTunes.

As you can imagine I researched this quite a lot and I'm quite aware of Apple's other iPhone problems, and the problems they've had with various laptop models. They are well behind a number of phone and PC manufacturers in terms of hardware quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I stopped reading after "I've been unable to find a proper replacement for a phone that launched nearly half a year ago".

Dude, if you've been through 5 phones in less than half a year, you have problems not the phone. Chill out. You like this phone? Keep it.

<comment><USER7> If you had read just a little bit after that:

        And while I'm well aware that half a year isn't very long at all for a normal smartphone-owning human being, I think we can all agree that I'm not normal. And frankly, I probably wouldn't have the job that I do if I felt comfortable about owning the same phone for six months.

He reviews phones/tech for a living, of course he'll expect to go through a bunch of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Owned both the Nexus One (totally hated) and the Nexus S (not a bad phone). I agree with the overall sentiment of the post - while the Nexus S doesn't shine with respect to features, it has good enough hardware and an excellent vanilla android experience.

That said, I feel Android users are always behind the curve. Case in point - I've owned my Nexus S 3G for just over four months and now there is a 4G version (promising more cat videos!). Oh, and it lacks so many features of other Android phones (the cool controllers of the Sony Ericson phone, the 3D of the LG phone,...). If I was an iPhone user, life would be simpler ... to be on the cutting edge, I just need to get the new iPhone as soon as it comes out. I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes fewer choices are good because they simplify things for consumers (a good book on the topic is "Paradox of Choice").

<comment><USER9> Buying an iPhone is also a choice. Choice is unavoidable.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I hear you have two colors to choose from these days :-p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> User experience matters, first and foremost. Manufacturers and carriers are ignoring this at their peril.

Shipping a technologically superior uberdevice with all sorts of bells and whistles, without proper fit and finish is a failure mode.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have a Nexus S, and I agree with the author.

It seems that it is the only phone (along with the Nexus One) that you actually own. Unlocking the boot loader is explicitly allowed, which allows for arbitrary customizations.

Now, I don't need HD video recording, an SD slot, or 4G.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm still using my original Palm Pre because I find the other mobile OSes lacking. Sadly, I'll probably make the move to Android soon since the Palm hardware is falling apart.

</comment><comment><USER13> None of those phones are for him.

He's a power user who can tell the tiniest difference in user experience between Android phones. Those phones aren't for him. They never were. They're for suits, soccer moms and kids with too much money to spend.

That's why there are so many different Android phones out there. One for each of us.

I know he wants the dual core because it's cool. I want it for the same reason.

He shouldn't be ashamed of the Nexus S, he should be proud. Here is a phone that so meets his needs he's come back to it twice.

</comment><comment><USER14> Looks like wifi calling is coming:

[http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/articles/t-mobile-android- wifi-...](http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/articles/t-mobile-android-wifi-calling)

<comment><USER15> I don't get what his complaint is; the Nexus S comes with Gingerbread, which has SIP calling built-in to the OS. I use it on my Nexus One without even having a voice plan. What's the point of wifi calling when you have that?

<comment><USER16> I'd be interested to see a write-up on everything you had to do to set that up. Does that allow you to both send and receive calls to standard POTS lines, and can you still use the Google Voice service with your SIP connection to handle things like text messaging, voicemail, etc?

<comment><USER15> I just signed up for an account with sipgate.com and added it to my Google Voice account. It's pretty trivial and is orthogonal to text messaging and voicemail. You just have to be on Gingerbread.

<comment><USER16> Thanks, I'll check that out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm a powere user and about to buy an android phone. Any advice? Is 4g useful? What are some must haves?

The choices are overwhelming!

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow 3 android phones and still not happy. Time to try something else?

<comment><USER10> The problem isn't with Android per se as the Nexus S is clearly giving him a good user experience. It's just no longer a cutting edge device and the newer devices he's tried aren't delivering a usable whole product.

<comment><USER18> Maybe.. I would have been tempted to try an iOS device or even a WP7 after the second Android before going back to out-dated technology though.

<comment><USER16> Maybe some of us just really like the way the Android OS works, and can't stand the limitations of iOS and WP7...

<comment><USER19> You're not supposed to say things like that around here...

<comment><USER18> Fair enough. Down voted for a legitimate suggestion. HN really going downhill fast.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Oyster is shutting down - <AUTHOR> http://blog.oysterbooks.com/ <comment><USER2> Taken without any external context, this release is nonsensical, probably because they don't bother to say _why_ they're shutting down or _what_ the new opportunity is.

"Looking forward, we feel this is best seized by taking on new opportunities to fully realize our vision for ebooks." By... shutting down?

I would have appreciated a bit of plain-speaking here.

<comment><USER3> Google have snapped up a bunch of their staff

[http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/21/oyster-shutting- down/](http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/21/oyster-shutting-down/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I never understood Oyster business model.

My 81 year old father figured out years ago how to connect is Kindle to his local public library.

He literally checks out nearly any book, all FOR FREE and reads it on his kindle.

Maybe this is a US centric thing and Oyster was targeting international users. But local libraries have been offering this service of digitally checking out books (even current books) for free for nearly 10 years.

Don't get me wrong. I never like reading about businesses shutting down because that implies people will be losing their job. I just never understood this business to begin with, maybe someone could shed some light on what I'm missing

<comment><USER5> > My 81 year old father figured out years ago how to connect is Kindle to his > local public library.

I am a full time professional software developer and I do a lot of technology things on the side and have a technology side business. It took me forever to connect a kindle to my library, and when I did, most of the books I wanted weren't available.

<comment><USER6> An example of "beginner's luck," which is often the tendency of experts to overthink things when just trying the most basic thing often works. :)

<comment><USER7> Also libraries and their features can be very regional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can someone explain the math here? 2012 they received 3M in seed funding. 2014 they received 14M USD. The picture on that boat shows 26 (?) people. So let's assume 26 people were always in the company just for kicks.

Between 2012 October and 2015 September they ran out of 17M USD. That's a burn rate of 5.67M USD per year.

For 26 employees, if we stupidly assumed no other costs, that nearly 218k USD salary per year.

Obviously that's not right. Let's assume they paid an average of 100k USD per year to each employee. That's 2.6M USD burnt for salaries. Which means that infrastructure, ad spend, and administrative costs and taxes (?) came to just over 3M USD per year.

And that's assuming they received ZERO money while they were running. Which is of course a load of tosh.

I'm unaware of the US market's costs in running a business but those numbers seem abnormal. Am I missing something here or does this seem plausible?

<comment><USER9> Wages are at most 70% of the cost of an employee to a business, and possibly as low as 50% of the fully burdened cost. For an employee to gross $100k on their paystub (before their own taxes), a competitive employer in NYC is likely paying a full burden (with payroll taxes, insurance, other benefits, admin overhead, office space, and supplies) not too far from $218k.

<comment><USER8> Wow. That's amazing. I genuinely had no idea that the costs of running could be that high. Thanks for sharing that info. It boggles my mind as to how much money startups probably need just to stay break even.

<comment><USER10> I think the parent's estimate is a little high, but here's what I know. w2 employers are responsible for

\- 6.2% SS + 1.45% medicare fica taxes

\- health insurance, of which the employer's share can easily run $1k/mo for a couple in their 30s

\- 1.5% payroll tax if in sf, or 0.34% payroll tax for mta in nyc;

so if someone makes $100k in sf, the employer pays

       (1.0 + 0.0765 fica + 0.015 city payroll tax) * 100k
       + 12*1k health insurance
       + 12 * $1200 monthly rent
       + 12 * $100 snacks/office supplies
       + maybe $500/year for unemployment insurance and various other fees

totaling (1.0765 + 0.015) * 1e5 + 12*(1e3 + 1.2e3 + 100) + 500 = $137k. That doesn't include any activities, hardware, or meals. If you buy lunch, a former employer budgeted $14 per person day, so assuming 250 work days = $3500/year

<comment><USER9> Another 0.9% ($939 max) for CA SDI, $250 workers comp, and the employer probably has some sort of life & disability of their own as well, call it another $500. Payroll & benefits admin for $500. $12k health insurance contribution seems low, but I suppose population skews to 20s and single.

I do think 70% is about the _best_ you can really do ($142k), but I agree 50% would be lavish. Throw in a regular dinner program, or some regular offsite meals & entertainment doesn't hurt. Since 274(e) expenses are fully deductible, IRS is basically paying for 35-40% of that annual picnic, holiday dinner, Caribbean retreat, etc. so it's smart for companies to shell out some real money for these outings.

<comment><USER10> Thanks! I think there's also about $500/pp of various fees in CA; stuff charged on the first $7k of income.

tangent: security via obesity is a cool idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's worth noting that Oyster raised a total of $17M as of last year: [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/oysterbooks- com](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/oysterbooks-com)

Runway has its limits.

<comment><USER12> Wow. What'd they burn it on?

<comment><USER13> AWS

<comment><USER14> I highly doubt that. Unless something was disastrously wrong in their design, the opex for cloud services should have been _dwarfed_ by little things like payroll and office expenses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Oyster was something that Google Play or Amazon Kindle Unlimited will almost certainly never be. The beautiful design and focus on details was just the surface. It felt like a company run by people that are passionate about reading and surfacing great books in engaging ways. There were no competing interests--it was about the books and while they weren't perfect, that passion was evident in everything they did. I, for one, will really miss them.

<comment><USER16> Kindle Unlimited has a killer feature Oyster never had -- Kindles. Reading books on phones is awful. Reading them on Kindles is the closest screens can come to reading on books.

<comment><USER17> "Kindle Unlimited has a killer feature Oyster never had -- Kindles."

That, and an enormous selection.

"Reading books on phones is awful."

It depends on the phone. Many people are perfectly happy reading for hours on a phone screen, particularly if they can choose the foreground/background colours (e.g. white on black for someone with an AMOLED screen).

"Reading them on Kindles is the closest screens can come to reading on books."

Well, in terms of display, it's the closest screens _have_ _come, but it's unlikely to be the closest screens _can_ come.

But, the thing which makes reading on a Kindle Paperwhite a pain for me, is that I can't flip through the book. Page turns are slower than on a paper book. I can't use my fingers to mark two different parts of the book, and move rapidly back and forth. Oh, and why can't I view images inline with the text?

<comment><USER15> I pay for Kindle Unlimited and can say first-hand that it has a terrible selection of mostly self-published and second rate books. Kindle itself of course has the best selection, but that's on a pay-per-book model.

The brilliant thing about Oyster was that they have so much first rate material in their "unlimited" model. There are plenty of arguments to be made about how many books you can read a month etc., but those arguments miss the point. Oyster opened a whole new browsing mindset where you could see a book cover, open it immediately and essentially flip through the book reading bits here and there and re-visit it later if it piqued your interest enough. It's unlike the library where, even in digital libraries, there are queues and "holds" and checkout limits. It's unlike Kindle where you have to commit by actually buying every book which becomes prohibitively expensive if you're just browsing, or Kindle Unlimited where the selection is, as I previously mentioned, dismal. It's hard to imagine until you've used it, but having been an Oyster subscriber for a couple years, I can say it's a shift in the way I think about books.

<comment><USER17> The way you feel about Oyster is the way I feel about Safari Books Online. It's just so awesome for books about software and IT. I wish there were an equivalent for other areas in which I have deep interest.

BTW I also really like Blinkist (a book summary site). They don't have as wide a selection as GetAbstract, but the Blinkist folks are thoughtful about the books they add, their summaries don't feel jarring, and the iPad app is smooth as butter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oyster was interesting but not a really interesting option: while the app was gorgeous, it didn't allow you to import books. I'm sure most people would rather consolidate their ebook purchases, and Amazon or Apple are better options for that.

I still miss Readmill, though… a LOT!! :(

<comment><USER19> Same here. Wish I had Readmill again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > With that, we will be taking steps to sunset the existing Oyster service > over the next several months.

If you have a company with a product and the product is being discontinued is it really so hard to just say that in English? The word "sunset" isn't even a verb.

</comment><comment><USER21> I have never heard of this product until it became discontinued - which sucks.

To me the statement reads like an adult explaining the horrors of war to a 5 year old who glorified war without knowing the reality. Was it really necessary to wrap a simple notice of closure/costumer apology up in such an overly tame and submissive manner?

Why not something concise:

"We sincerely apologize to our loyal customers, and potential future customers that within x amount of time product y will be discontinued for various reasons, which we are currently not at liberty of discussing in a public forum. Thank you very much for your patronage and support. Foremost we are ensuring that our existing customers receive the most professional and respectful treatment.

Sincerely - company z team."

Less bullshit, more realshit.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is it fair to Oyster's investors? According to Engadget and Recode [1], _" a portion" of Oyster's staff (including its CEO and co-founders) are jumping ship for Google's Play Books division. In short, this is an indirect acquisition -- Google is snapping up the core of the company without buying all of its assets._

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/21/oyster-shutting- down/](http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/21/oyster-shutting-down/)

<comment><USER12> >Is it fair to Oyster's investors?

The alternative is ... what?

\-- Actually it looks like Google will pay back investors some or all of their investment.

<comment><USER23> From the linked recode article: "But sources said it will end up paying investors, who put a reported $17 million into the company, for the right to hire some of its staff."

That sure sounds similar to the anti-poaching agreements that Google, Apple, etc already got in trouble for.

What makes this different? Why shouldn't it just be a free market for these employees (and founders), and Google is free to offer that money directly to them, instead of needing to pay off the investors?

<comment><USER24> Maybe avoid issues with non-competes or claims of "stolen" IP later.

Or maybe, if the founders negotiated a deal for the team to stay together an investor might argue that that they are acting against the best interest of the company and might try to hold them liable for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This post has been on the front page for 9 hours and yet no mention of their most direct competitor, Scribd? Not a good sign for Scribd, that's for sure.

Both Scribd and Oyster had a much wider selection of books from major publishers than Kindle Unlimited. They both had 3 of the big 5 publishers on board.

Myself, I love Scribd, and I suggest you give it a try too. I haven't tried Oyster because it wasn't available in my country.

</comment><comment><USER26> So I'm not clear on this, was the employment agreement done before or after Oysterbooks officially announced that it was shutting down? BC that makes a difference...I find it odd that Google declined to comment to comment. Anyhow, great idea and really sad that it didn't work out.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's too bad that Pud couldn't keep Fucked Company going. Back in the previous boom/bust it kept us informed as dotcoms blew up left and right.

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

</comment><comment><USER28> 1-year-old post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/2dpmma/is_there_a_p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/2dpmma/is_there_a_popcorn_time_for_ebooks/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Kindle unlimited. Also, I don't think there's as big of a market as they thought for people who wanted to pay one fee for all you can read.

<comment><USER19> I tried Oyster and ended up canceling after discovering that the books I wanted weren't available. The case is the same with Kindle unlimited.

The problem is that publishers make sure that the high demand books just aren't available via an "all you can read" plan so these end up with the scraps.

<comment><USER30> The alternative is a brick-and-mortar library system, where high demand books have six-month-long waitlists. But at least those high demand books are available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> A shutdown notice with a photo of the team holding an "Oyster" flag on a boat. Does anyone else find this amusing?

</comment><comment><USER32> The Title "Oyster - Indirect Acquistion by Google" is apt compared to "Oyster is shutting down" !!

</comment><comment><USER33> I love this app. Sad to see it go.

</comment><comment><USER34> Another one for Our Incredible Journey:

[http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

<comment><USER35> It would be nice if somebody built a Product Hunt list for these since their UI is much nicer than tumblr - "A curated list of exits!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> so... you're pivoting?

<comment><USER11> They were acquihired by Google.

[http://recode.net/2015/09/21/oyster-books-shuts-down-team- he...](http://recode.net/2015/09/21/oyster-books-shuts-down-team-heads-to- google/)

<comment><USER37> man, that makes me even sadder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Credit freeze incomin', fellas.

SHIELD WALL!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTYz439cA5w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTYz439cA5w)</comment>