Rap Genius Co-Founder Moghadam Fired - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/05/26/rap-genius-co-founder-moghadam-fired/ <comment> k-mcgrady The only stories I've ever seen about Rap Genius have been ones which would make me never want to use their service.

<comment><USER2> I actually enjoyed these series of articles:

[http://rapgenius.com/James-somers-herokus-ugly-secret- annota...](http://rapgenius.com/James-somers-herokus-ugly-secret-annotated)

<comment><USER3> I did too. Learned a hell of a lot from them that's for sure, lol. Their Engineering team does a lot of, in my opinion, cool things and I really appreciate them taking the time to write about it.

<comment><USER4> The takedown on Heroku's dyno scaling was impressive. But also funny how they got themselves in that situation to begin with. If there's one thing about this world, RAP music will pay for $20k worth of Dyno's a month! Sad sad world.

edit - I like rap music.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People are too sensitive. We're basically at the point where nearly any mistake can destroy the rest of your life. e.g. "zero tolerance" in schools, stories like this, and the recently ousted CEO of Mozilla.

Case in point, the amount of downvoting happening in this thread: Someone says something you don't agree with so they must be the devil incarnate.

The reaction to his comments and the comments here are laughable.

<comment><USER6> The rest of your life? Some rich dude in a very public position got fired for doing stupid things in public. Boo-hoo. How very, very tragic.

He will manage, no doubt. He will not die poor. Maybe not a billionaire, but no one's entitled to _that_. What's with all the unending sympathy for rich people in public positions with lots of power making stupid mistakes and having to face the consequences for those?

The supermarket cashier being fired for picking up change from the floor, now that's tragic. This? Doesn't matter. Do you really believe his life is in any way ruined? Maybe because he won't be able to become a billionaire in the future because of choices he made?

I have exactly zero sympathy for rich people in public positions of power being scrutinised. That's the price you pay.

Really, I want someone to explain to me why it's somehow not ok to critically examine things who are working in public do in public. I really don't understand the argument for that.

Should some lowly employee be fired for what they do in their own time public? No, of course not, it's none of the employers fucking business. Should leadership in public positions (representing the company to the outside) be fired for what they do in public? Yes, of course, how could you ever think otherwise?

<comment><USER7> > He will manage, no doubt. He will not die poor. Maybe not a billionaire, but > no one's entitled to that. What's with all the unending sympathy for rich > people in public positions with lots of power making stupid mistakes and > having to face the consequences for those?

Because he was judged in the court of public opinion. You may point and say "What this man did was obviously wrong! He deserves everything he gets!" And then someday, maybe you make one small, innocuous mistake. One off-the-cuff comment taken out of context. And the internet lynch mob will come for you.

(Please understand that I'm not saying what he did was said out of context or could be misinterpreted. It was pretty obviously a dumb thing to do. People have been "executed" in the court of public opinion for infinitesimally smaller gaffes, and it is this we must work to stop.)

<comment><USER6> Freedom of speech is important. I do not want to drag everyone in front of a judge just because of what they said. Moghadam should no doubt be legally allowed to say what he said.

However, whether or not someone is fired is not a decision a court has to make. And when someone who is in the public pisses parts of the public off the company is perfectly justified in firing that person. Isn't that just common sense? They also can not fire the person, of course, and deal with the consequences of their actions. I'm really not sure why companies should ignore the public. I mean, they can, if they want to, but there is no good reason to ignore them just because.

Also, hey, if you are in such a public position of power your error margin will always be extremely low. No one said it's an easy job. That's just how it is. If you don't like it that way do something less public and scrutinised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's interesting to see how this founder firing was handled so much better than the guy who nearly beat his gf to death recently. In that case, the founder, VC's and board paid the girlfriend off and then tried to cover up the whole story before the press ripped into them and finally forced his firing.

[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/us-canada- news/Indian...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/us-canada-news/Indian- American-CEO-charged-with-beating-girlfriend-is-fired-by-company- board/articleshow/34302694.cms)

<comment><USER9> Nearly beat his gf to death? Bad dude? Yes. But he didn't nearly beat her to death, why are you making things up?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember when RapGenius had the Google penalty a lot of folks were ranting about one of the founders and his bad behavior. Is this the same guy?

<comment><USER11> Yeah. He has blamed some of his behavior on a brain tumor:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2507360/Rap- Genius-M...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2507360/Rap-Genius- Mahbod-Moghadam-brain-tumor-mean.html)

<comment><USER12> Can someone tell me why this isn't a bigger part of the story? Brain tumor and brain surgery can both severely alter behavior. He could be a totally different person if it wasn't for his _fucking brain cancer._

I have nothing but pity and compassion for him after learning that, if it is in fact true.

<comment><USER10> I do have a lot of sympathy for him as well, I did not know this. Agree with the commenter below, he shouldn't be the face of the company. If he does have intrinsic value to the company perhaps he should just do what he does best (code, design, etc) but definitely not anything PR related.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Mahbod is the most brilliant community creator we've seen since Caterina > Fake's heyday at Flickr.

-Marc Andreessen

[http://news.rapgenius.com/Marc-andreessen-why-andreessen- hor...](http://news.rapgenius.com/Marc-andreessen-why-andreessen-horowitz-is- investing-in-rap-genius-annotated)

Was Marc wrong, or is Moghadam just creating the wrong kind of community?

</comment><comment><USER14> This comment is crass and tasteless. I guess some people never really get out of the middle school locker room.

But firing somebody over this? That's totally an overreaction. People may be outraged now, but in a month nobody will even remember this happened.

<comment><USER15> I have no inside knowledge of any of the people involved but from the looks of it I'm guessing they've been wanting to get rid of him for while and decided that this was the excuse they needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is more-or-less a duplicate of this thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801028)

<comment><USER17> Ok, we'll weight this one off the front page, but not bury it as a dupe completely.

The other discussion seems a little more substantive. (Edit: now having scrolled through both, I don't know about that.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I hate that we're still talking about this, but this is vastly different than the Eich incident. In Eich's case, what he did happened 6 years ago, and with no intention of making it public. In this case, he's openly telling juvenille jokes in an environment with a hightened intolerance to this kind of rhetoric and behavior.

After enough of these cases happen, it just gets to the point where if you don't realize the need to censor yourself, then _you_ are not a very smart person. I, for one, am encrypting all of my communication from here out, and only telling tasteless jokes with close, trusted friends. It's sad, but you have to ask yourself if it's more important to run a major company, or have the freedom to tell tasteless jokes. One of the reasons why running a startup sounds less attractive to me by the week.

<comment><USER19> > _" I hate that we're still talking about this..."_

Well me too, but I hate it because people are still shits to each other, and we need to keep talking about it so that we're not sending the message that it's ok to be shits to each other.

Yeah, you probably should only tell tasteless jokes with close, trusted friends. I don't mean "as a CEO", I mean, in general, because your tasteless jokes are probably making people feel shitty, and you might as well restrict that as much as possible.

> _" if you don't realize the need to censor yourself, then you are not a very > smart person"_

Or you're not that interested in being a _good_ person.

<comment><USER18> I see no problem in exchanging harmless humor between two friends in the context of a long history of friendship and understanding that no party has any ill will towards each other or the outside world.

I don't believe it's any of your business what I talk about with my friends in the privacy of my home. In fact, I find your attitude ignorant, dangerous and a little scary.

I'm not saying the Rapgenius guy's joke was any funny or appropriate it at all. It honestly didn't seem that funny to me. But I don't think "making bad jokes in private" and "being a good person" correlate very well. There are other things I prioritize, like doing actual good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Terrible comment, but for an industry built on fringe ideas and people it seems the guillotine of public or consensus opinion seems to act quicker and quick with extreme finality. I don't endorse what he said, and agree that he has down some clown'ish things in the past, but the 98% perfect of the non- offensive stuff he does gave Rap Genius a brand in a hyper competitive space and helped establish a brand.

I don't know much about the internal situation at RG and can only imagine he was on thin ice if he was cut so fast, but this trend of public hanging really doesnt give much confidence in unpopular ideas being discussed in public forums.

<comment><USER21> I agree, but I think it's just part of the beast. Investors don't want garbage like this (clear lapses in judgment that have little to do with the business itself) affecting their prospects of a return, and quiet discipline allows the Gawker/Tumblr/Reddit/Twitter/blog complex to spiral out of control in a positive feedback loop of outrage and speculation.

And while you say Moghadam has been 98% perfect, that doesn't really change the fact that the other 2% of his behavior would have had him instantly fired multiple times over in any other setting. I think his removal will allow Rap Genius to clean up its image a bit.

<comment><USER20> He has had a pattern of this stuff and I can;t really think of another way they could have done it, but all of these stories are starting to read like TMZ.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm not a Rap Genius user, so I may misunderstand their mission, but that text does not belong on a sincere literary analysis site, at the very least, so soon after the incident.

</comment><comment><USER23> Bummer, I generally liked Mahbod's eccentric tomfoolery. He also was _extremely_ passionate about RG (and poetry genius & news genius).

<comment><USER24> Second this. "Passion" is most certainly the right word, and I'd be lying if I said his relentless dedication to the brand didn't inspire me in other ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> original statement in case anyone's interested: [http://news.rapgenius.com/Lemon-a-statement-about-mahbods- an...](http://news.rapgenius.com/Lemon-a-statement-about-mahbods-annotations- on-elliot-rodgers-manifesto-annotated)

</comment><comment><USER26> Well, it was only a matter of time with this guy.

</comment><comment><USER27> Startup founders are like samurai: quicks to fall upon their swords (or be pushed on them).

</comment><comment><USER28> Relevant: [http://valleywag.gawker.com/rap-genius-frontman-blames- brain...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/rap-genius-frontman-blames-brain-tumor- for-asshole-beha-1450872105) (2013)

I'm especially liking the title's wording.

</comment><comment><USER29> This seems like quite the overreaction. Why wouldn't an apology suffice?

<comment> k-mcgrady The co-founder of a company uses his own company's service to display his misogyny and mock a recent tragedy. He should be lucky the let him 'resign' and didn't very publicly fire him.

<comment><USER30> I assume this is cofounder privilege. If one of my employees got my business this kind of bad press, I'd lead him/her out by the ear immediately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What would you expect from something rap related? When over half of all rap songs contain inappropriate comments and defamation of women? Why is anyone surprised here? do you think that people who write and analyze these rap lyrics should be admired?

</comment><comment><USER32> Rap is the most misogynistic genre in the history of music, it is not surprising at all that a rap enthusiast would share the views of the artists whose music he listens to.

<comment><USER33> No, not really. Saying rap is misogynistic is an overgeneralization. It really depends on the subgenre which rap has many of. In the case of misogyny, it's primarily contained within the small _gangsta rap_ subgenre, which has almost completely died out.

<comment><USER34> Ha. One of the faces of rap music (Dr. Dre) started in a gangsta rap group (NWA) and featured misogynistic lyrics in both his group and solo career. And, according to sources, is about to become an executive at the largest technology company in the world.

If you honestly think misogyny–or, at a minimum, objectification of women–isn't easy to find in modern rap genres, I'd say you're seriously misinformed or delusional.

Eminem has the #3 album on iTunes _right now_. Here's one lyrical excerpt[0]:

 _Snatch the bitch out her car through the window, she screamin' / I body slam her onto the cement, until the concrete gave and created a sinkhole / Bury this stink ho in it, then paid to have the street re-paved._

[0] [http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/eminem-hip-hop-we- shouldn...](http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/eminem-hip-hop-we-shouldnt- accept-misogyny-in-2013)

<comment><USER35> Speaking of Dr. Dre and misogyny... [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dee_Barnes#Dr._Dre_incident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dee_Barnes#Dr._Dre_incident)

 _[Dr. Dre] picked her up by her hair and "began slamming her head and the right side of her body repeatedly against a brick wall near the stairway" as his bodyguard held off the crowd with a gun. After Dre tried to throw her down the stairs and failed, he began kicking her in the ribs and hands. She escaped and ran into the women's rest room. Dre followed her and "grabbed her from behind by the hair again and proceeded to punch her in the back of the head."_

 _N.W.A. 's MC Ren later said "bitch deserved it", and Eazy-E "yeah, bitch had it coming." As Dr. Dre explained the incident, "People talk all this shit, but you know, somebody fuck with me, I'm gonna fuck with them. I just did it, you know. Ain't nothing you can do now by talking about it. Besides, it ain't no big thing-- I just threw her through a door."_

<comment><USER36> It seems likely that he would have done the same to a male in the same situation, so I fail to see how that relates to misogyny rather than a general culture of violence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> That comment isn't even offensive. People get offended way too easily.

</comment><comment><USER38> Calling that offensive is a real stretch, IMO.

I am fascinated that it warranted a firin'

<comment><USER39> Can you explain why you think that it's a stretch to call that offensive?

I guess I would describe it as insensitive and unconstructive (to the service and the document in general)

<comment><USER38> It is definitely insensitive, and it is clearly not constructive.

I dont think that insensitive is the same thing as offensive?

I must admit, I am completely failing to understand the apparent outrage.

I keep feeling like I am missing something, would anyone be willing to explain it while they downvote me?

<comment><USER39> His being fired isn't necessarily in response to outrage. The current CEO explained it pretty well: that behavior wouldn't be tolerated by a community member (moderator would remove it), and if a moderator made the comment, they would be removed as a moderator. At the co-founder level, breaking community standards (and probably other issues in the past) carry higher consequences.

The community standards of Rep Genius aren't necessarily the standards of any other community, though clearly there were members of the public who found the comments to be insensitive and out of line, their desire to call this out and the large response could be called outrage, but it's probably more appropriate to call it widespread disappointment.

One could just go to the dictionary definition of outrage though: arouse fierce anger, shock or indignation. or violate or infringe flagrantly (a principle, law, etc.). In this case, the community standards of Rap Genius or even just the standards of the general public.

I would say it meets both definitions, 1) it aroused anger and shock, in particular because it was done by someone with such visibility and done in such an insensitive way so close to the time of the actual event (this is something that is often important to consider, rage is proportional to closeness of the event, is that OK? I don't get to decide that.) 2) He infringed, and flagrantly, again, because of his visible position, and the infringement, again, is one of a community standard, which isn't necessarily defined in black and white.

edit: I didn't downvote you in this thread, at the root or otherwise, and I hope that other HNers do the same, civilized discussion is the only way that these kinds of issues can be (if possible) understood. There is no universal standard for human behavior, so there will always be disparate opinions and views.

My favorite twist on the Golden Rule: Do not do unto others as you would have done unto yourself; You may have different tastes. Do unto others as they would have done unto themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I can only say that this is a fitting response. From the farce of Men's Rights, PUA & brah culture to general misogyny, I'm getting a little tired of many of the youth of my gender. Has anyone seen any studies on why we're seeing this surge of ignorance?

<comment><USER41> Yeah, just look in the Greek and Roman classics sections of your local university library.

<comment><USER40> I'm sorry, I don't understand your meaning.

<comment><USER42> Young people being assholes isn't exclusive to this generation, it's just nowadays we are so connected you can see & hear them a lot more.

We aren't special, it's been happening for millennia.

<comment><USER40> It's not an unreasonable point, but I feel like this is different. Either way, we'll have to see how this turns out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The High-Stakes Race to Build the World's First Flying Taxi - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/technology/flying-taxis-lilium.html <comment><USER4> We should just bury the idea of replacing ground cars with their flying counterparts. Not that it is a bad idea to develop electric VTOL vehicle, on the contrary, but ultimately they are going to replace the existing flying fleet: helicopters and planes. Moving people around cities is much more safe and efficient using trains, buses, taxis and bicycles. Moving people a bit less wouldn't hurt too, with more vertical development, more remote-working, next-door delivery and mixed-use zoning.

<comment><USER5> I think you're neglecting to think about moving people around in rural and or remote areas. Where I grew up (eastern NC) the ability to travel as-the-crow- flies would massively cut down on time to get places, many roads take 30-45 miles of driving to go what might be 15 miles in the air.

In that kind of area, there's not the population density to support any kind of mass transit (or even really taxis) and the distances are too far for biking to be practical. Readily available electric VTOL would revolutionize rural America. Not much to worry about in terms of air congestion, either.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, Alaska has this problem and worse. The region relies heavily on seaplanes and short-take-off-and-landing aircraft for logistics. These eVTOL aircraft would be great in Alaska and especially in places without lakes. Places without a lot of flat area for landing, places like Papua New Guinea, have no good options at all right now, so these VTOL aircraft will be transformative.

<comment><USER7> It's not that difficult to learn how to fly a helicopter, you only need 20h with instructor before the first solo flight. While that's just the beginning it shows getting the basic controls down is not the problem. Thus, these VTOL aircraft are only going to be game changers if they are vastly cheaper, which seems unlikely.

The real issue is unit sales being so low. The R22 is a popular and 'cheap' helicopter ranking #8 in total sales, but it's sold less than 5,000 units worldwide over 40 years.

PS: Fixed wing aircraft are popular because they have a huge range of inherent advantages. VTOL sounds great, but the downsides are enormous.

<comment><USER6> VTOL share most of those advantages of winged aircraft. The reason eVTOL may well be cheaper is that they have a lot fewer moving parts than a helicopter (and much lower vibration, plus using cheaper, lower-maintenance electric motors instead of turbine engines) and much less (and cheaper) fuel. But it'll take good designs. The Lilium one seems non-optimal compared to the Heaviside.

And don't rule out eSTOL. I think we'll see more of that.

Helicopters have an operating cost per hour an order of magnitude higher than a comparable payload conventional aircraft. The purchase price per payload capacity is also nearly an order of magnitude different. It's not the operator cost that determines the difference in price between helicopters and CTOL.

<comment><USER7> Helicopters are VTOL, I don't know what you think it means but it's just 'Vertical Take-Off and Landing". [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTOL](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTOL) "This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including fixed-wing aircraft as well as _helicopters_ and other aircraft with powered rotors, such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and tiltrotors."

Similarly, an electric helicopter would qualify as eVTOL. People generally aim for something more efficient in flight, but that's a separate question.

<comment><USER6> You're right. I meant VTOL with wingborne cruise, like the V-22.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The thing that sinks most of these flying car or flying taxi initiatives is the noise problem. Because airplane engines are so darn loud, all flying cars are forced to operate away from built up areas whether or not they're capable of vertical takeoffs and landings. Which makes them inherently redundant, as you're already having to drive out of the city to get to your flying car - <USER2> which point you could just drive slightly further to an airport and get on a conventional plane that boats vastly higher cruising speeds and fuel efficiencies.

If not for the fact that airplanes are noisier than a fox stuck in a trashcan rolling down hill, we'd already have flying taxis of a variety of different forms that take off and land on top of sky scrapers. The youtuber mustard did a recent video exploring one such concept:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJOm1V77Xg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJOm1V77Xg)

Using ducted fans and an electric motor both reduce noise, so time will tell if we've finally achieved a "city acceptable noise level" out of one of these designs at long last.

<comment><USER9> FWIW, most (if not all) of the big tech companies working on flying cars or UAV are aware of the noise problem and have in-house teams working with research labs & consultant on the problem. Now whether or not they _succeed_ is another issue because it's a hard problem.

There is at least one prominent tech firm that appears to think they can mitigate these issues in a year or so, which is... unrealistic.

<comment><USER10> Anybody familiar with how the military creates stealth choppers that aren't as noisy? I'm assuming it has to do with blade design, but would these changes be applicable at smaller scale and would it be enough of a sound reduction?

<comment><USER11> The most promising theory is that the "stealth hawk" used actuated micro flaps on its blades' trailing edges to reduce noise and vibrations. I would put money on this being true. Flapped blades have been studied in academia for over a decade, it's definitely an engineering problem now and has clear benefits.

[http://www.helijapan.org/pdf/general/general05/Friedmann/Jap...](http://www.helijapan.org/pdf/general/general05/Friedmann/Japan-05VF- notanimated_PART-1.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The one thing I keep thinking about is turbulence...

Generally, small airplanes are moved around a lot more by wind gusts - <USER3> means some people get really motion sick in smaller airplanes. That could be quite a shock for people who are used to bigger airplanes.

Does anyone know how these really small multi-rotor air taxis are with turbulence?

</comment><comment><USER6> I think there's a point to them, but honestly CTOL electric "thin haul" is more important. There are all these regional/rural airports that are under- utilized. It will be hard for electric aircraft to break into the jumbo jet market for the next couple decades. But conventional take-off, extremely high aspect ratio wing electric vehicles could efficiently and cheaply transport a dozen or more passengers at hundreds of miles per hour at distances of between 50 and 500 miles (a range usually serviced by turboprop planes, which are less efficient and no faster than electric planes) without requiring new chemistries or extreme architectural approaches.

I hope someone takes up the challenge. We've got Eviation's Alice, but most of the other players are focused on these eVTOL aircraft or hybridized jets (the hybrid part is a big challenge in itself and offers only modest efficiency advantages).

</comment><comment><USER13> You can already get a ride from Manhattan to Kennedy airport in 10 minutes for about $100, via helicopter.

<comment><USER14> Last time I checked it was closer to $250. Where are you seeing $100? I'm genuinely asking because I would definitely pay that.

<comment><USER13> It may have been an exaggeration on my friend's part. I've never actually taken the helicopter but he has. Maybe the rate changes based on how in demand it is?

Here is an article about someone who spent $120 back in July: [https://www.businessinsider.com/blade-continuous- helicopter-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/blade-continuous-helicopter- flight-review-nyc-jfk-airport-photos-2019-7)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://archive.is/Zwaw4](http://archive.is/Zwaw4)

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been thinking about this recently. Would it be fair to say that the engine is the single most expensive part of a combustion-powered aircraft, and that batteries are the single most expensive part of a battery powered aircraft?

If so, I expect this sort of aircraft to become quite viable quite soon; if not, then I would be surprised.

<comment><USER17> Certification is the single most expensive part of an aircraft.

The more "off-nominal" an aircraft is, the harder, and thus more expensive, it is to certify. Commercial aircraft (which a "flying taxi" would be) are also much more expensive to certify than general aviation aircraft.

Drone-style "air taxi" aircraft are very different from a systems, reliability, and redundancy point of view than fixed wing (can glide) or rotary wing (can autorotate) aircraft. The FAA is comfortable with those types of aircraft. Convincing the FAA that single and multiple failures (e.g. battery failure) won't cause a drone-style aircraft to fall out of the sky is going to be very expensive.

As an example, it took many years and multiple attempts to get the FAA to certify composite aircraft. Ref:

* Lear Fan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan)

* Beech Starship [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Starship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Starship)

* Cirus VK30 / ST50 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_VK-30#Variants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_VK-30#Variants)

* Piaggio P.180 Avanti [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti)

I don't believe there were any commercially successful aircraft that were primarily composite before the Boeing 787.

<comment><USER18> For certification purposes the FAA categorizes drone-style aircraft as "powered lift".

[https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/rotor...](https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/rotorcraft/)

<comment><USER17> Thanks, that's very helpful.

Looking at Wikipedia's entry [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_lift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_lift) I don't see any commercially successful aircraft. There are some military aircraft[1], experimental aircraft, and a some unsuccessful commercial aircraft. None is "drone style" yet.

Being the first to type certify a new style of aircraft is very difficult and expensive, which was my point with the list of composite aircraft. Composite aircraft (in my mind) seems much less of a change than powered lift. Maybe ballistic recovery systems[2] will make powered lift certifiable with a reasonable level of effort. The nice thing about BRS is that it is already flight proven and accepted as an emergency recovery system.

[1] The military is willing to take more risks - helps that the jets have ejection seats. The Osprey had 12 hull-loss accidents with a total of 42 fatalities (no ejection seats and it cannot autorotate). Ref: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey#Accide...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey#Accidents)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I thought of an alternative idea for travel in somewhere like NYC. If you want to cross at certain points of the river, you may need to wait for public transport or use a bridge...

What if we used a combination of drone technology and powerlines...instead of a drone needing to have its own batteries on board, what if there was a power line suspended across the river that it ran along, similar to a street-car. The drone, let's say it holds 2 or 4 people per trip, would basically be a mini flying-on-a-line taxi. It would travel only along the power-line, thus no navigation or control systems needed, no pilot needed.Presumably it could have a much lighter frame due to no battery needed, and you could power it off the rapidly decarbonizing grid.

The downsides I see now are the safety risks if a part flies off, the noise may be intolerable, and you'd need to construct the lines and hold them up somehow. And obviously, you'd need to engineer the product and face the realities of the physics, which I don't know much about.

<comment><USER20> You've just described a cable car... Medellin has an extensive metro system and one line is a cable car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder what the big secret idea is. Something visually obvious from the fact that they covered it up. An aerospike electric engine maybe? I guess you wouldn't have the same issues you have with cooling such an exit that you have with chemical propellant.

<comment><USER22> What are you referring to by "covered it up"? All I can see is pretty standard looking aerodynamic cowlings.

<comment><USER21> Take a look at the image titled "An engine, covered by a cloth, in Lilium's acoustic test chamber"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Apparently not the world's first [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways)

</comment><comment><USER24> Hype=everyone talks about it. Are there a lot of people believing in flying taxis?

<comment><USER22> I'm a government researcher working on this exact thing and even I don't really believe it. That said, there is a tremendous amount of interest from commercial entities, which is what drives my work. I'm probably not allowed to name any specific companies, but there are certainly a large number of companies that believe enough to be investing significant amounts of money into the idea.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's curious that the article calls these airplanes "jets".

</comment><comment><USER25> Not a single word about greenhouse gas emissions.

<comment><USER26> The aircraft featured in the article is powered by electricicty, so it doesn't emit any greenhouse gas.

<comment><USER22> The power still has to come from somewhere. If these vehicles are sufficiently inefficient, they could well be worse than cars in terms of emissions.

<comment><USER27> Hence the huge need for nuclear power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > Can Flying Taxis Live Up to the Hype?

Because they are not technically sound, and they are not commercially sound.

There are existing air taxi services, and they tend to go bust during every economic downturn.

<comment><USER29> Sounds like it will probably be a breakout success then. Most things that are wildly successful have "it's not going to work" opposition. Then it's rationalized after the fact when it does.

<comment><USER30> The fallacy here is "affirming the consequent": you are taking a principle (which I'll accept for the sake of argument) of _if_ something is to succeed, _then_ it will have had "it won't work" opposition, observing the presence of the fact described in the "then" clause, and concluding that the "if" clause must be true.

But even if the principle is valid, you can only conclude the then clause (conclusion) from the if clause (premise), not the reverse.

While most breakout successes may be mocked as impossible, most things mocked as impossible do not turn out to be breakout successes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines)

<comment><USER32> Thought exactly that!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we all did. That's why it didn't need to be said.</comment></comment></comment>


When you have to wake up earlier than usual - <AUTHOR> http://blog.42floors.com/waking-up-early/

<comment><USER2> I had suffered from insomnia most of my life until recently. I tried various things some mentioned here and also prescriptions. But what has helped me is pot. It may not be for everyone but for me it has helped immensely. But do your research some types are better for sleeping than others. And please, this is a sincere post.

<comment><USER3> It may be anecdotal, but I too have had success with pot. My sleep schedule has been more regular, compared with the alternatives. At any rate they are less harmful for you compared to say benzos or z-drugs like Ambien.

<comment><USER4> Pot won't work long-term. The problem is that your body will build resistance, and you'll have to use more and more of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My usual trick is to drink a couple big glasses of water right before you you to sleep. You'll be ready to hop out of bed and empty your bladder bright and early.

My understanding is that particular trick dates back to the Native Americans at a minimum.

<comment><USER6> I'm guessing you're young.

<comment><USER7> Yeah once you get up towards forty you're going to be hopping out of bed at least once a night for a quick slash. Especially if you're on certain medications.

<comment><USER8> I'm in my mid-40's and this trick has worked for me for over a decade, including just a couple of weeks ago. (@mjklin - I'm not an MD and I'm not being flippant, if you're already having problems in this area you might want to see a urologist about it. Nocturia is a problem for relatively few people our age - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturia#Prevalence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturia#Prevalence))

I can't use the water trick day in and day out, because I get habituated to it and end up sleeping through my bathroom visit.

I also have to be careful about how much I drink; too much and the bathroom visit happens in the middle of the night and back to sleep I go. But 10-12 oz consumed rapidly within 10 minutes before my head hits the pillow seems to be the sweet spot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This sounds similar to a technique that I heard about some time ago for overcoming jet lag:

Decide what time you want to wake up, locally, in the new time zone. 16 hours before that time, stop eating and sleeping. If possible, try to arrange to fall asleep by 8-6 hours before that time, for a normal night's rest.

When you wake up the next day, you will be famished. Eat a large, filling breakfast. Supposedly the hunger/full cycle has an impact on the body's circadian rhythms, and fasting followed by eating is an especially good way to reset the clock to think "morning" is when you woke up and ate. I read some evolutionary-biology hypothesis that starvation was a larger threat to ancient mankind than sleep deprivation, such that when an individual becomes extremely hungry, the body clock pauses to favor alertness, and then can be switched back on with a large meal.

However it works, it's worked well for me when I needed to travel long distances (compared to previous trips where I did not).

I totally believe that a similar technique could work on a daily basis to help 'anchor' your sleep to the desired time.

[https://hbr.org/2009/05/a-fast-solution-to-jet- lag/](https://hbr.org/2009/05/a-fast-solution-to-jet-lag/)

<comment><USER10> If you use a 16 hour fast on a daily basis, you'll end up with some interesting intermittent fasting pattern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have to say, I was hopeful up until he mentioned the hunger bit. The delayed sleep phase disorder sounds exactly like me, and I already eat a strict low carb diet, but that fact means that I'm never really hungry. In fact, I believe many people who eat low carb experience the same reprieve from the constant cycle of hungry-satiated-hungry as their blood sugar and energy levels remain constant.

Maybe it's just because I'm not a breakfast eater. Oh well!

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I both have a shifted sleep phase as well as a shifted eating disorder, where I consume most of my calories after 6pm and don't really get hungry at all until 3pm or later most days, even if I go to bed famished.

Also, melatonin gives me depressive episodes. My brain chemicals just aren't a fan of this guy's methods :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious if there are more up-to-date recommendations for his light regulation technique, linked at the beginning of the article:

[http://humbledmba.com/become-a-morning-person-how-to-end- ins...](http://humbledmba.com/become-a-morning-person-how-to-end-insomnia-f)

For example, the "NatureBright Per3 Deluxe Wake Up Light" recommended in the 2012 update is no longer available on Amazon.

<comment><USER14> I actually just did some research on this a few days ago, and the most promising thing I found was this: [http://re-timer.com/](http://re-timer.com/)

I've been using a NatureBright SunTouch Plus for a couple years, and it's good, but not particularly convenient to sit in front of for half an hour a day. The glasses are expensive, but would be great if they work. (And most of the reviews I was able to find were positive.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Complete opposite of my experience. As a weight-class athlete I alternate between high-carb in the off-season and limiting carbs to peri-workout hours in the afternoon during periods of dieting down. I only wake up hungry during the high-carb periods, even though I go to sleep with much higher blood sugar.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's pobably highly individual, but I found that heavy red meats are bad for my sleep, but fish is good. I also found wine to be bad, but light beer is just fine.

I guess the lesson here is to play with various food compositions and schedules, and see which one works for you.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've noticed similar behaviors in my own sleep patterns. But for me, another problem arises - there's a huge chance I might wake up at 3 am, hungry and unable to go back to sleep.

</comment><comment><USER18> Are there any academic studies about how low carb diets and going to bed slightly hungry impact morning energy levels? This is consistent with my experience but my sample size is too small

</comment><comment><USER19> I had huge problems falling asleep for several years (10 years or so). Then I stopped reading in bed, avoided coffee after five and started to consistently go to bed before midnight. Now I regularly fall asleep within 20 minutes or sooner.

I'm just saying that for some people, you may want to _first_ try out the general tips from sleep experts. Do that seriously for a good while (I think it took me several months). Then you can try more advanced stuff.

</comment><comment><USER20> As I commented on the article, this will not work for me. I frequently go to sleep hungry (fasting) and I will not be hungry for several hours after I wake. My metabolism is obviously different. I usually have no trouble fasting for 24-36 hours and I rarely feel uncomfortably hungry.

</comment><comment><USER21> These days everything is attributed to the low carb diet. This time it's waking up early.

<comment><USER22> True, its not a cure-all, and also not for everyone. Still, there is pretty significant effects both physically and neurologically for most people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I can relate to this article so much!! I'm in my late twenties and I sleep in like a teenager. The mornings are so painful for me. I also eat a lot of pasta.... so will try this new trick!

</comment><comment><USER24> So he wakes up earlier, but is his sleep as good as it was before? Sleep is meant to be a recovery process and without the building material from food, it might not be very efficient.

</comment><comment><USER25> What is the evidence for this other than this personal anecdote?

He mentioned DSPS. I have it too, and there's research on it. Check out [http://www.circadiansleepdisorders.org/](http://www.circadiansleepdisorders.org/). Light therapy seems to work best. Especially wearing glasses that filter out blue light at night.</comment>


California Blocks Police Body Cam Use of Face Recognition - <AUTHOR> https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/california-just-blocked-police-body-cam-use-face <comment><USER2> Is this really good news? Are we safer for it or less safe? I'm not sure we even know the answer to that because the tech is so young. I hate to see immature tech banned before it gets refined into something useful, because version one of something always sucks.

I know that people here have a knee-jerk privacy big-brother is watching reaction, and I have that too. But beyond that I want to think if it was something that could have been beneficial to society or not.

<comment><USER3> Fortunately California law is not universal law, so the populations that want to further explore the possibilities of the tech can continue to do so, and perhaps cause California to reverse the decision in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For the record if anyone didn't know, they ran the software against the state politicians. It misidentified 26 (I think) state politicians as existing criminals. Which I see irony in there.

<comment><USER5> > It misidentified 26 (I think) state politicians as existing criminals.

What do you mean "mis"? It correctly identified politicians as criminals. In that, this AI showed itself to be lightyears ahead of the electorate in terms of understanding how politics works.

<comment><USER6> I understand you're just joking, but either way you look at it, the AI failed.

Either the politicians are criminals, and this tool was only able to correctly categorize 26 of them.

Or the politicians are not criminals, and this tool erroneously categorized 26 of them as such.

And that's based only on what we know. The experiment may have given rise in state leaders to more fundamental objections.

Consider, what if the 26 misidentified politicians, were largely black or hispanic males?

We just need to know more about what's been happening in all the testing to say whether these systems are useful or not. That's all I'm saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This law and media surrounding it is the CA state pandering to misinformed and reactive public pressure. First off, police body cameras are dumb recording devices. They cannot run FR software without being completely different devices, probably requiring a completely different set of hardware and software producers than now. Police body cameras are little more than GoPro like compact cameras with holsters for wearing while recording. They are not designed with any feedback capability, no networking, and no load and run some software capability at all. If they could run FR software, which they can't, their expense would prevent their adoption. And if they could, they would need to have wireless FR synchronization between officers and command to make any tactical sense. They probably should have AR to actually be of use in the field. Sounds too expensive to be affordable by police. At that level, keeping the technology an officer wears down starts to make sense; the body cam sends video to command and command is where FR is run on more economical and faster servers for all the officer video feeds. Any meaningful FR or related information is digested with command and verbally related to the active officers in the field. My point being, this practical use of FR is unaddressed by this new law. The law is nothing.

<comment><USER8> For what it's worth, the assertion that policy body cameras are simply dumb recording devices is not true.

At least one body camera on the market now is fully _capable_ of running FR software and has full networking built in - essentially a smartphone.

<comment><USER7> If you're referring to the DirectView cameras, they are closer to being practical, but not really. They cannot run 3rd party software, and don't even have an SDK for external development. The body camera industry produces recording devices, not mobile video enhanced computing devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great news, but I want to get rid of those face recognition border-pass less gates by airports.

It scares me that the DHA has a picture of my face without my knowledge

<comment><USER10> I don't understand why this is a comcern, to be honest. Government agencies already have your photo if you enter the US (among other countries) legally, and they presumably have CCTV in airports that can be used to identify people after the fact. They also know when and where you entered the US regardless of whether you use the kiosk. What is so special about the kiosk taking another picture of you to compare?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Designed in California.

<comment><USER12> Nonetheless, please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

<comment><USER11> I support this decision by California. I support a lot of what comes out of California. Its okay if you don't agree with me. Can you point me to your definition of 'substantive comment'?

<comment><USER12> It should contain information that isn't obvious and not read like a snarky toss-off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The ACLU has some weird goals - arguing that businesses should be forced to deal in cash, forcing cities to allow slums on their streets, and now preventing automated detection of wanted criminals.

I know they do some good things, but they're definitely not hitting home runs when it comes to making the world a better place.

<comment><USER14> It seems that it's only weird how you frame it, no?

> be forced to deal in cash

can be reframed as "require cash as a payment option"

> forcing cities to allow slums on their streets

"prevent the forceful removal/evictions of tent cities"

> preventing automated detection of wanted criminals

"prevent mass-collection of anyone's face, not just criminals"

<comment><USER13> > "prevent mass-collection of anyone's face, not just criminals"

You're really going to freak out when you realize the government already has everyone's faces. Do you think they just throw away the photo after they create your ID?

<comment><USER15> It would be nice if they did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sounds dumb, but typical for CA. I think it's dangerous to have pervasive, Chinese-style always on face recognition surveillance. But I see no problem whatsoever with face recognition on body cams, because the officer is actually there, and if they could recognize faces well, they would. The cam is just providing an assist - even trained humans are pretty terrible at matching against a large number of faces.

Even if the system doesn't work super well now, systems like these improve as they are fed more data and told when they guessed wrong. That's why it's called "machine learning".

<comment><USER17> It's not a useful assist if it's misinformation.

There's a tendency to trust what comes out of a machine as infallible. I certainly don't want anyone armed carrying a badge getting notified in real- time of false-positives for potentially violent, armed, most-wanted criminals.

It just becomes a green light for use of excessive force. "The officer feared for his safety, the automated identification system reported the driver with the busted tail light as being the violent drug lord known as El Chapo. Our condolences go out to the substitute teacher's friends and family."

<comment><USER16> >> It's not a useful assist if it's misinformation.

You're making a typical mistake by thinking these systems will not improve over time as they get more training data. They will, and given enough time, data, and elbow grease they will eventually reach superhuman levels of accuracy. But for them to get there they need to be exposed to the world under realistic circumstances.

<comment><USER18> So what we need is a restriction of the officer being able to see the (potentially faulty) results, not a restriction of having facial recognition enabled?

<comment><USER16> Serious answer: from the perspective of a deep learning researcher (me), the right answer would be to surface some metric of probability, and have the officer confirm, upon completing secondary validation, whether the prediction was right or wrong.

With a few thousand officers doing this over the course of a year (collecting potentially a million training samples or more), the accuracy figures will go up tremendously, and the probability estimates will become far more accurate.

That's assuming that the body cam manufacturer has a capable deep learning research team, though, which might not be the case.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Slowly coming out of stealth mode - <AUTHOR> http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/08/slowly-coming-out-of-stealth-mode.html

<comment><USER2> It seems like a solution looking for a problem to me. I have an issue.

Anyone out there looking for something like this?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like an interesting idea, although I'm generally against centralization for stuff like this. The copy on the main jshub page doesn't explain the concept nearly as well as the blog post; just reading the main page would leave me with very little idea of what you're proposing.

</comment><comment><USER4> jshub.org is down for me and I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what this does.

So it collects metadata about pages and I can write a plugin that uses it to do something? huh?</comment>


Kickstarter for a JavaScript top level domain (.js TLD)  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ozten/TLD.js <comment><USER2> Why do we even think about this? Custom TLDs are a farce, a way to shake companies and nonprofits out of money without any added value, neither technologically, nor in terms of marketing/communication. Everybody knows that, right? Didn't we all conclude that when the ICANN announced it? Aren't "we", the hacker crowd, supposed to be above this?

<comment><USER3> I agree. Further, regarding this bit from the "Why?" section of the README:

> Okay, this is kind of a vanity TLD, but we freaking build the web every > day... Shouldn't we have a TLD that JS hackers control?

Why are "JS hackers" being targeted specifically? Why not also Ruby, Python, PHP, .NET, and Perl hackers? Why not also HTML and CSS hackers? Why not also designers (.psd perhaps)? Why not dozens of new TLDs so that everyone could have a domain with the file extension of their choosing?

I'll tell you why: because arbitrarily polluting the top-level namespace is something we learn not to do.

<comment><USER4> javascript is more of the lingua franca of the web

<comment><USER5> That's why I find it so helpful that I can translate javascript to English using Google translate!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I tried doing this before the rules were public, the reasons why I stopped

1\. Two-letter TLDs are reserved for countries.

2\. The $200k isn't the actual cost, it is only what you need to pay for an initial review, you won't get the money back if something is found to be wrong with your application or if they dislike your TLD.

<comment> alexis-d 1\. Except the .eu I guess (otherwise I agree).

<comment><USER7> Also .aq and a few islands that are part of bigger countries.

Those little exceptions don't invalidate the rule, and the request won't get accepted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is extremely stupid. would it be mongodb.js? or mongodb.c++ mongodb.oss mongodb.foss mongodb.nosql or mongodb.webtwozeroishstuff ? We don't need more fragmentation.

I guess the next thing they want after .biz is .cool .startup .awesome and .hip . This is not how TLDs (should) work!

<comment> jack-r-abbit I guess it would be mongo.db. But it really should be none of those. How would anyone create/enforce rules that would accurately limit the usage to what they are proposing? What is the validation for whether a project is or is not a JavaScript or NodeJS project?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While it would be cool to have a .js TLD, that 200k would be better spent developing a system that doesn't revolve around a centralized entity to manage DNS.

<comment><USER10> Good point. Or that 200k would be better spent in an X Prize style contest for a better JavaScript web framework.

<comment><USER11> That was my first thought, too - $200k could fund the writing of a lot of really good JavaScript, which would benefit the JS community (and the web at large) a lot more than a vanity TLD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't know why people are so eager to shoot this down. I think it's perfectly feasible. So what if two-letter TLDs are reserved for countries? JavaScript has already made the jump from the browser to the server (and, soon, to the kernel): the world map is the logical next step. Yes, I am talking about a real-world JavaScript nation, whose banner shall unite web 2.0 ninjas, wizards and pirates (not the rockstars, though, those use Ruby) from all over the world. And the children of this new utopia shall be taught JavaScript as their native language, fulfilling mankind's age-old ideal of JavaScript Everywhere.

<comment><USER13> Where on earth do you see JS jumping to the kernel? If C++ wasn't cut for it what makes you think JS is?

<comment><USER14> Yea I was thinking the same. The JavaScript nation thing was a bit far fetched but JavaScript in the kernel is simply absurd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There are two blockers:

<https://github.com/ozten/TLD.js/issues/23>

<https://github.com/ozten/TLD.js/issues/8>

This isn't viable for submission as a Kickstarter w/o resolving those issues.

As @jensnockert and @LaRakei have pointed out here.

Creative solution? Please comment on the issues :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I know about both issues but what I would like to mention is more the initiative of a Kickstarter campaign for this kind of developer's common concerns.

I really love the idea to ask everyone to solve everyone's problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think this would only be worthwhile if you could do this:

      <script src="http://jquery.js"></script>

<comment><USER15> Very cool. You could also do:

        <script src="http://jquery.js/latest"></script>

And keep / as an informative website.

<comment><USER17> I can't tell if your you're joking or not. Linking to the latest version is a very nice way to break your app automatically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One more reason it's not a good idea: For example if .html was a top level domain, it would be harder to know if you're looking at a domain or a file. You could still deduce it from the surrounding strings, but why do you want to complicate what's working perfectly as it is?

How about .exe, .app, .txt, .htm... maybe ultimately petition to allow punctuation and forward slash in domain names.

<comment><USER19> The concept of files in URLs is an illusion. A bare '/' may serve JS content and a /test.css may serve a JPG image. The path is just a string with no special meaning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone else hear that? The sound of Tim Berners-Lee crying to himself, "What have they done to you? You were once so clean and pure."

<comment><USER21> Nay, it is not Berners-Lee that is crying, it's Paul Mockapetris. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mockapetris>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Aren't two letter domains reserved for countries?

<comment><USER22> So the fix for this then is to start our own country. I hear there's some unclaimed land in Africa which would do nicely - [http://www.neatorama.com/2010/02/05/earths-last-frontier- the...](http://www.neatorama.com/2010/02/05/earths-last-frontier-the-last- unclaimed-land-on-earth/)

<comment><USER23> Maybe micronations count as countries?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Every day I send Chrome on a mystery tour looking for a domain called _something_.js - which it never finds.

</comment><comment><USER25> As many others have pointed out, two character gTLDs are not allowed, as they are reserved for countries and super-national entities like .eu.

Also, Kickstarter is a terrible model for something like this. Kickstarter is for funding a single creative project. People are giving money to someone they trust to be able to execute a project, for that specific project. A gTLD needs to be run, constantly, for the forseeable future; and thus needs to be a real business, with real investment, not a one-shot project like Kickstarter is designed to fund.

</comment><comment><USER26> Getting a TLD up and running would cost a LOT more than $200k - you have to create a SRS registrar, billing, email systems, security, Who Is, etc.

You may be able to subcontract these to SrsPlus (like I do) or OpenSRS, but you would still have to go through $50k bond and testing.

I have been thinking of this for quite some time and have some great ideas of how a dot JS should work. Please contact me Ric @ my account dot org

</comment><comment><USER27> Not totally sure how the fundraising process for a TLD works. Can you buy whatever TLD you want? Can I get david.shaw? That would be awesome.

The problem is that even if you get 'jsfounder' status with your donation, there's no guarantee you'll actually _get_ anything other than your name on a petition.

It's a cool idea, and I support lots and lots of TLDs (as they allow creative domain names other than .com et al), but this seems like it might be a sneaky way to raise some capital without having to do anything.

edit: furthermore, do these passionate individuals plan to _not_ organize the petition if they aren't funded?

<comment><USER28> It costs ~200k to buy a TLD, so if they are not funded they will obviously not be applying for the TLD.

<comment><USER29> The fee is only to apply -- the application would still need approval before this becomes a TLD. The fee is not refunded in the case of denial.

<comment><USER30> Crimony. For 200,000 dollars you can get the finest silks and fanciest hats and the blackest boots for a moment with the king.

Or you can buy 200,000 dollars worth of attention from already-upset people and start your own peer based DNS resolution service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You know what would be cooler? Someone registering .onion, and make .onion URLs bring up a message telling people to use a Tor client.

</comment><comment> jarek-foksa What happened with .app TLD initiative? I remember they were collecting funds and even offered domain pre-registration, but now their website is down: <http://dotappapp.com/>

<comment><USER31> Duckduckgo showed me their twitter account and the website linked there is <http://www.appextension.com/> ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> 200K for what is essentially a custom domain name? Absolutely not worth it.

</comment><comment><USER33> While we're adding new TLD's, how about a _.yc_ domain? Or maybe it should be _.hn_?

<comment><USER34> Actually .hn already exists as the TLD for honduras: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.hn>

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> So, what exactly is wrong with nodejs.com? xyzjs.com?

</comment><comment><USER36> How about .startup and .hacker? .innovation for biggies. .tldr would add something. .lolnotreally

<comment><USER37> Those are all way too long

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I develop extensively in JavaScript, and this is fucking retarded.

</comment><comment><USER31> A .js domain would more confusing, than helpful in my eyes. Also, the resistence against domain seizure is more important than 'coolness' today. The tld's .ch and .is are good picks for this purpose.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have a better idea - if they do not let use get a 2-letter TLD, then how about we get .json ? If you want, my twitter handle is @json and I own json dot com , so we could do this for FREE by using subdomain.json.com to start</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone moved into management and enjoyed it? - <AUTHOR> (assuming you already enjoy programming)
I enjoy programming, but doing so in a professional environment is a shit show. Daily standups, open plan offices, code reviews, stack ranking... it's an entirely different experience.
Has anyone found that they have enjoyed programming, but moved into management and enjoyed it more? <comment><USER2> It's usually the opposite. The pressure is actually stronger when you're a manager. As an individual contributor you're not involved in a bunch of meetings, where management discusses issues, priorities, hot topics etc. It's harder to give a status update as a manager on a task rather than the person handling the task. And you're not talking to your teammates about your mini task in your project at a standup, you have to report to people who have more impact on the future of the company than you do. So any wrong info and the concequences are huge.

A typical breakdown would be:

\- %30 about coaching your team members, hiring, 1-1, career path

\- %50 status update to upper management, talking about issues and stressful stuff

\- %20 hands-on

Being an Individual Contributor is actually more enjoyable in a long run when you look at the salary gap... not worth it.

Last but not least, interviewing for a manager position is really painful when you're coming from the outside. People often have a lot of frustration due to their previous managers who screwed things up. But they had to stay quite for a while. So when it comes to judging their future direct report, there's no filter. It won't cost me my job if I tell people you're not the right candidate/manager for our team during an interview briefing. So finding a manager job is super tough. You'll have to stick with the same employer for a while or you'll have to go back down as an IC, land a job, then work your way back up to a manager role. How painful is that?

</comment><comment><USER3> I love management, and I've been approaching it like I've approached programming for a decade and a half. I mostly read business books these days, subscribe to business/leadership podcasts & newsletters, and so on. I even used my training budget to take a one-day leadership course at the Disney Institute, which was really helpful because they were honest about the challenges running such a big organization, working with thousands of employees and a bunch of unions.

I feel like I'm facing a new set of challenges, very different ones than I did as a programmer. I'm dealing more with keeping clients happy, and I'm great at keeping honest communication going between programmers and non-technical stakeholders because I'm used to living in both worlds. And since I spent so long as a programmer, I love he opportunities I get to challenge my team and help them grow their careers - opportunities I often didn't get when my career was starting out.

Not writing code all day at work has made programming fun for me again, too. I used to dread writing code in the morning and I was seriously considering changing careers. Now, I open up VS Code after my kid goes to bed and I actually enjoy it, even if what I'm working on never gets seen by anybody but me.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have moved from being a Principal Engineer, to Product Management and now am leading Engineering. Must say that I have enjoyed the journey so far, and the learning has been exponential. I was hands-on when I was a PM, and am still. As a PM, quick PoCs helped me get across my idea quicker and when you lead Engineering, complete understanding of the details is the most important so that course corrections and strategy can be defined well.

Being hands-on keeps me sane.

Did a 1-year part-time Management course in one of the top BSchools, at the end of my tenure as a PM - wasn't of great benefit, as I think that the idea of a MBA is becoming largely irrelevant. I think a good selection of courses in MooC helps; in fact, for me, I was so much fascinated by courses in Coursera that led me to do the part-time Exec Mgmt course. But I must say that the experience of the Professors and getting back to school after almost a decade was enjoyable. Just listening to the lectures of the Profs was much needed.

During the whole journey, I cultivated the habit of reading and writing(a lot!) and I can personally see my thought process mature. But I know it's just tip of the iceberg.

I think the most important trait is not to stop learning whatever you do. I know it sounds cliched, but it is what it is.

Am always on the lookout for smart people with whom I can work with and learn.

</comment><comment><USER5> I moved after I left Microsoft, and I never looked back. The key for me was doing it at the right time for me, but also within the right place. I would never have taken a management position at Microsoft! When I started I was in my late 30's, had recently had children and was just a different person to that which I'd been as an engineer. It was a natural progression. Many companies had offered me management positions previously, but I'd always turned them down as wrong place or wrong time. When I finally did move it was into a smallish Nordic company (about 150 staff), where I still had a good hands on potential. Then over the next 5 -6 years I slowly took increasingly senior roles and decreased the amount of technical work. In my current role I've not done a single technical thing and I'm extremely happy. I absolutely love managing technical staff and engineers, and they tell me I'm quite good at it. I put this down to many years of seeing how it shouldn't be done (particularly at Microsoft!) and my simple principle tends to be "done act like a dick". This along with positive reinforcement and a strengths based approach to my teams takes me a long way.

I still tinker at home but now my main outlet technically is teaching children to program through @codeclub.

If I was to say one thing, it's to chose the organisation you do such a move with very carefully. Just because a company is a great employer in one role does not make it a good one in another.

</comment><comment><USER6> I did do that years ago and enjoyed it. But I missed programming so went back to that. Now I am moving slowly back to management again with lessons learned. That said, I have always had a management title and as I do not believe in daily standups, open plan offices or stack ranking, so I never had those experiences as a programmer. Nor did the people we employed.</comment>


Passive Investing: Perfect for This Age of Passive, Wimpy Men (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://trade.collective2.com/passive-investing/ <comment><AUTHOR> My wife had a good response:

Back in the old days, real men invested. They were in charge of their own fates. They stacked their chips high on the table, and when the crowd of onlookers oohed and ahhed about the size of their bets, those men put down more chips, and then didn't even bother to look where the roulette ball landed, because they were too busy ordering another drink.

Then "real men" go home drunk and broke. Smart men use models, and computers and diversify or at least avoid extinction with the kelly criterion. And they only play when they have an edge. Ask Thorpe. That's my kind of man. Oh and the "real men do yadayada" has always been what smart men say to dumb men to get them to take the short stick and the long odds, to make them to do their work, hand over their money, and fight their battles.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a called the "macho man" close in professional sales.

Normal scenario is that a man or woman has to ask their significant other about a major purchase (car, computer, etc) and the sales person effectively calls them out for not being an individual capable of making their own decisions. Sometimes it's done with a "take away," Other times its direct.

I bring it up because I have never seen it out in the wild on web content. Crazy!

Passive investing is a completely different topic. I'm just super interested if this "in person" close is working in copywriting?</comment>