Olympic Committee warns man about sharing photos on website - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestar.com/olympics/article/707868--olympics-warns-man-to-remove-photos-from-website

<comment><USER2> The Government of British Columbia has introduced a Bill, that if passed, will temporarily suspended civil rights during the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. [http://www.slaw.ca/2009/10/11/proposed-olympic-sign- legislat...](http://www.slaw.ca/2009/10/11/proposed-olympic-sign-legislation- in-b-c/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an abuse of the legal system. If you don't want pictures taken on your private property, don't allow cameras in.

I doubt their argument would hold up under any legal scrutiny.

<comment><USER4> I am with you. This is going over and over, the FIA, the FIFA, the NBA, the NFL, and now the IOC. Sometimes I am just so tired to hear about the abuse/misinterpretation of Copy Right laws that I do not want to talk about it. However I always ended saying how silly these companies are in trying to "protect" their "rights".</comment></comment>


Downside of freelancing online - <AUTHOR>

What are the negatives of freelancing, consulting online? Working for clients in different time-zones, managing multiple invoices, not having in-person communication with clients, etc.? <comment><USER2> Sure, payments can be late, communication is a bit harder but sometimes even easier because for everything you have a paper trail. But I don't see this as big issues with freelance programming.

My biggest issue is lack of personal communication, not with clients but with other programmers. Seeing how others do stuff, communicating with them, or just casually talking can be a great way to discover new things and/or get new ideas. This is what I see as a biggest negative side of freelancing.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are 3 key elements to any consulting:

1) Tell the client what you're going to do 2) Do it 3) Tell them you've done it

Even on-site consultants can make the mistake of failing to communicate at the various steps (Sales, Delivery, Service) along the way. While it's harder to do remotely (no water cooler talk) you also have the advantage of knowing this from the start and therefore scheduling / managing from the get-go.

You may need some tax advice, and IANAA but pricing and invoicing can be fairly straightforward. When I've done it, I've usually quoted in the client's currency but invoiced in mine at the appropriate exchange rate. This can cause some ups and downs for your margin, but I'll take 95% of something over 100% of nothing. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> Every client thinks they're your only client. Firedrills become commonplace. Nobody pays on time because they never see you in person, therefore they don't humanize you as worthy of punctual compensation. ETC.

</comment><comment><USER5> Proper payment across currencies can become thorny and lead to unintended delays in payment. I noticed this more with bigger companies who insist on payment by cheque and need the figure out the logistics of creating it and mailing it properly for another country or continent.

If they're not set up to predominantly have their communication done through online, it will be difficult to stay privy of decisions made offline that could affect your delivery of the project. This isn't so bad with smaller or low-risk projects, but can derail others big time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, someone is always trying to get you to do it; faster, AND cheaper, AND better, all at the same time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Do you use online workplaces like GetSerio, Freelancer, oDesk, etc., Or do you work independently?</comment>


Twitter sentiment of Airlines - <AUTHOR> http://blog.doloreslabs.com/2009/09/airlines-who-to-fly-with/

<comment><USER2> Methodology?

My experience with flying are overwhelmingly positive (and I fly > 50k miles per year), but Twitter does not give me enough space to say why I had a good experience.

(My airline-related tweets are not descriptive enough to make conclusions without knowing me; I say "arrived in HKG CX lounge" when flying KA, or "op up to J" without mentioning the airline, etc. Both of these are obviously positive experiences, but there is not enough data to really know what airline I was speaking positively about.)

Generally, about half the flights I take are better than what I consider average and about 99% of them are better than what most people consider average. (It's been a long time since I've not been upgraded to F for free, for example.)

Thinking back to my own very positive experiences, the situation either did not fit into 140 characters (and I explained on FT instead), or it happened in the air so I did not think to tweet it when I landed.

So I just have a feeling that the data is biased negative, and bigger airlines are hit more negatively than smaller ones.</comment>


Genius hid Morse code in song lyrics to prove Google was copying - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2019/06/17/genius-hid-morse-code-in-song-lyrics-to-prove-google-was-cheating/ <comment><USER2> Discussed (at length!) yesterday. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20194952](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20194952)

<comment><USER3> FWIW a lot of people read HN Mon-Fri while at work, so it's not surprising that this was missed by many yesterday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The NYPost article is a bit light on details. The WSJ article mentioned explains more:

> Starting around 2016, Genius said, the company made a subtle change to some > of the songs on its website, alternating the lyrics' apostrophes between > straight and curly single-quote marks in exactly the same sequence for every > song.

> When the two types of apostrophes were converted to the dots and dashes used > in Morse code, they spelled out the words "Red Handed."

</comment><comment><USER5> It's disconcerting to see Google hiding behind the "just a partner/contractor" for literally every horrible thing they do now.

You did it. You own all the worlds info. Congrats. Stop pretending like you don't.

<comment><USER6> The issue _might_ actually be that they didn't know. It's on the accuser to prove their part (which, it seems, they now have?).

It's not all that easy to verify supply chains. So, say two parties have exactly the same lyrics for a song, must one of them be copy of snother?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lawsuit and settlement coming up

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow. Nice sting.

</comment><comment><USER9> > What the company did to catch Google was to watermark lyrics with the help > of apostrophes. By alternating between straight and curly single-quote marks > in exactly the same sequence for every song. When turned into dots and > dashes, the apostrophes spell the words Red Handed, which is a smart trick.

Smart!

<comment><USER10> It's a really cool approach, no doubt. Map makers solve the problem using "Trap streets," which are small, fake streets that don't really exist, which would demonstrate that you blindly copied their map if your map also contains it. But for song lyrics, it's not really an option to add fake lines to the song. Using different apostrophe styles is really smart.</comment></comment>


Northface teams with Japanese startup to create spider silk moon parka - <AUTHOR> http://frequentgadget.com/2015/11/11/northface-teams-with-japanese-startup-to-create-spider-silk-moon-parka-jacket/ <comment><USER2> Discussion from a couple of weeks ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10463972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10463972)

<comment><USER3> I wonder in what stage they are in.

I once had a side project going to make spider silk chemically. I am still in awe on how the spider developed this amazing tool: the cascade of chemical reactions involved, the _spider bio-reactor_ that spins the chemicals into the spider silk thread. And of course, so little hope to go anywhere near that with classical chemical means.

I agree with _toufka_ on that one: _" It's hard to see unless you look closely, but this is the beginning of biological nanotechnology."_

I wonder at what stage they are, and how the parameters of their material compare to naturally woven spilder silk.

<comment><USER4> I used to work in the amyloid field, which is tangentially related - last I recall the companies were getting to 10~25% the tensile strength of spider silk. Which suggested they were doing something fundamentally wrong.

The most obvious thing, to me, was that they were using a chemical called HFIP "hexafluoroisopropanol" to initially dissolve the silk proteins. This solvent forces proteins into a form called alpha helix which in this case abolishes the protein soluble - but the transition to beta sheet (which it needs to be for its strength) is a poor one. The amyloid field was using this a lot, and the results were horrible. The result was extremely irreproducible results, which the field papered over by doing experiments with an n of 1. My graduate thesis was basically doing experiments without HFIP and getting results that actually make sense (with higher Ns).

I reached out to Refactored Materials, which at the time was trying to do the spider silk thing, to suggest they play with the procedures that I had developed for amyloid work, but a trip to visit SF and give a lecture fell through.

Recently, I was in a conversation about a SF biotech that I think rose from the ashes of RM trying to do the spider silk thing, and apparently they aren't using HFIP (or TFE, trifluoroethanol, a similar solvent with similar effects) anymore, but I didn't get too many more details because these companies tend to keep their techniques close to their chest.

Sadly, I still see papers publishing amyloid work with HFIP and TFE going through my google scholar feed (I am now almost 7 years post-PhD).

</comment></comment></comment><comment> saiya-jin Anybody has a clue what for the synthetic spider material would be used? I presume on the outer surface because of its durability, but you still need membrane ala Goretex below it to maintain waterproof & relatively breathable qualities, if its for outdoor activities and not just walking around the town. Haven't seen any details in articles, and can't play video at work :(

<comment><USER5> Goretex or even waterproof fabric is not necessary in many alpine situations where this jacket could be used. A lot of down filled insulating garments do not have any waterproof fabric as it is and instead people prefer to just throw a shell over them if there is any precip.

<comment> saiya-jin Ah, for down application of course, didn't catch that part. There you want just as windproof/everything resistant as possible, and when it's too hot, you open/put it down.

Would be interesting to see comparison of actual benefits compared to current high tech fabrics used, all high-fill lightweight down stuff has some nanotech fabric to keep it light & durable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When much of the dialogue around spider-silk is its strength properties, it seems like a non sequitur when North Faces goes and makes a parka out of the material. There was no talk of its warmth properties.

</comment><comment><USER7> Slightly anticlimactic to hear about this exciting new material becoming available, only to find the first application of it is a jacket for rich folks to ponce about a ski slope in. Really?

Their other stated target markets seem more interesting: automotive & medical devices ([https://www.spiber.jp/en/endeavor](https://www.spiber.jp/en/endeavor)). Anyone know what this would be used for in the automotive industry? Carbon fibre substitute?

<comment><USER8> I think the very page you linked explains why they're targeting clothing. Performance clothing is a high margin, high turn around market with low regulation and relatively loose quality standards. Spiber can use this as a test bed for scaling their processes before they can go engage more technically and regulatory challenging fields with confidence.

This is literally one of the few fields where spider silk has a use, but isn't actually super critical. Unlike say on an medical implant. You want to learn about the quirks of QCing spider silk (whoa.. we really do live in the future) on a parka, not in someone's body.

<comment><USER7> That makes sense... starting somewhere where you don't need ergulatory approval or medical trials.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Qmonos means "spider web" or "spider nest (lit.)" In Japanese.

<comment><USER9> Only if you are capable of deciphering that gibberish into the actual word, _kumo no su_ (クモの巣).

<comment><USER10> I was really wondering, because Japanese doesn't even have a Q

<comment><USER11> It does have a 九 however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Spiber's website has more details: [https://www.spiber.jp/en/endeavor?section=3](https://www.spiber.jp/en/endeavor?section=3) \- click on 'Protein Materials' at top, the page seems to start loading there but then jumps to the 'Launching' section.

</comment><comment><USER13> Funny they create a Parka out of this.

If it were really so much stronger and lighter, why not win a Volvo Ocean Race with sails made out of this. I'd personally be in the market for a surfing kite if this is better than the usual spinaker nylon.

But I guess there is more money to be made in expensive clothing than in making real progress.

<comment><USER14> Making real progress towards efficient boat sails?

I don't live near any body of water that's large enough to sail in, but I do live near several mountains with peaks >14k feet. New winter jackets seem more applicable to me.

<comment><USER13> Then maybe they could make a bullet-proof vest for you? A crash-absorbing racecar? A paraglider? Those would all really benefit from stronger material, contrary to a gimmicky parka coat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't help wonder at the cognitive dissonance of people paying good money to actually be wrapped up in a spiders cocoon. Something about it gives me the serious heebie-jeebies .. ;)

<comment><USER12> One thought led to another and I imagined these new protein based synthetic fibres being used as building materials, and then some virus being a vector for a mutation to the bacteria used to manufacture (grow) the fibres, and future Earth being cocooned in spider silk.

Maybe we'll work out how to get the spiders to spin us a space elevator in exchange for a continuous supply of insects.

<comment><USER15> Space-spiders arrive and make contact with Earth, and at the ensuing world party, mistakenly accept the elite rich, coddled in these outfits, as an offering of sacrifice .. the one of probably a few cultural blunders that eventually unite our two species' in co-habitual free-trade of commodities and .. resources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not a single mention so far of space elevators which I always thought was the traditional use for spider silk rope.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious. Does it rot?</comment>


New York Times developers squabble over decision to doxx Scott Alexander - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-slate-star-codex-doxxing-is-the-latest-squabble-inside-new-york-times <comment><USER2> Do posts mentioning HN make anyone else feel like they're in on the joke, in a way? I get the same feeling when a movie title is mentioned in the movie. It just feels nice.

> The Slate Star Codex incident set off a tense conversation in the Times' > "newsroom-feedback" Slack channel, an internal message board in which staff > have felt increasingly emboldened to criticize and raise questions about the > paper and, inevitably, the work of their own colleagues.

> Following Alexander's blog post, several non-editorial newsroom staffers > from the paper's tech and product teams asked why he was being "doxxed," and > pointed out that the blogger's cause was gaining traction on the computer- > science site _Hacker News_. Another non-editorial staffer said they flagged > the not-yet-published story for the paper's customer care department "in > case this snowballs into a spike in cancellations." [italics mine]

<comment><USER3> yes, and i also think the description as a "computer-science site" is hilarious for some reason. maybe just that HN is so much more than that.

<comment><USER4> Just be glad they don't call HN a 'deep dark message board where notorious hackers and the Silicon Valley elite come to discuss politics and religion on a global scale' or 'some weeb hacker site'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Several Times staffers pushed back, noting that the paper was not "doxxing" > Alexander, as that term is widely used to describe situations where the goal > of revealing a person's identity is specifically to encourage harassment.

If ever there was proof that writing and reading comprehension are two different skills.

<comment><USER6> Considering that we're talking about professional writers, it seems really unlikely that this argument was made with genuine sincerity rather than simply out of need for a passable defense to give their peers. "That's not even what doxxing means! You're being melodramatic!" sounds a lot better than "Who cares? It's a small blog and we're the NYT".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know why any organization would want a Slack channel containing thousands of people, let alone one that is specifically intended for people to air grievances. Surely nothing good can come of that.

<comment><USER8> Every organisation has a Slack channel (or similar) where grievances are aired. It's a question of whether management want to have it where they can see it or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200626022626/https://www.theda...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200626022626/https://www.thedailybeast.com/the- slate-star-codex-doxxing-is-the-latest-squabble-inside-new-york-times)

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, if you talk about naming X and whether it is reasonable, the name of X will be known to more and more people. So one side of the argument seems to loose in any case. I do think it would be better to leave him pseudonymous, if that is his wish. I can comprehend why telling a name is preferable for writers to enable readers to check the story themselves, which gives the press some credence. But I think the current climate would lead X to write differently and perhaps less controversial. Pseudonymity or anonymity can be very advantageous.

</comment><comment><USER10> Paywalled, outline.com doesn't help

<comment><AUTHOR> Odd. It wasn't paywalled for me.

Does this work? [http://archive.is/Oj2qI](http://archive.is/Oj2qI)

<comment><USER2> That site works fine as long as you don't use Cloudflare for DNS. It's technical and opinionated at the same time[1]; I don't have a side or stake in it, but I found I couldn't make archives on it or otherwise access this domain while I was using Cloudflare DNS, so this is still happening as of a month or so when I last tried it using the Cloudflare DNS iOS app[2]. Try it for yourself. Set your DNS to 184.108.40.206 and try to visit your link.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with the archive.is stance either. I do think their argument has merits; I just think this is a case of competing incentives for archive.is and Cloudflare. Archive.is likely has reason to not want their server or scraper IPs burned, or otherwise blocked by Cloudflare or associated sites or users, anymore than archive.is would want to be blocked by any domain; it's counter to the purpose of the site, regardless of what site operators may want. By that same token, Cloudflare has a financial and business interest in doing what customers request of them, within their SLA and product matrix. I don't find either party's position surprising, but I don't know where it goes from here, if anywhere.

DNS is an unwieldy holdover from a past era, but it's what makes URLs _work_ for many use cases. Tested, functional software is a good thing, but so are alternatives. This isn't meant to be about DNS generally, just about archiving services, I guess, and how hard it is to find the good ones we have, as well as create new ones.

Maybe things like Web3Torrent[3] can bridge this gap?

[1] on HN (2019) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317)

[2] [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/1-1-1-1-faster- internet/id1423...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/1-1-1-1-faster- internet/id1423538627)

[3] [https://blog.statechannels.org/introducing- web3torrent/](https://blog.statechannels.org/introducing-web3torrent/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > While some employees debated the Slate Star Codex decision on Tuesday, one > staffer also raised issues about opinion staff editor Bari Weiss, saying > that when she posted on Twitter about her dismay over the anger about > Cotton's column, she "straight up lied about a nonexistent battle within the > new york times because she knew it would be a juicier tweet."

Wow so this staffer manufactured false outrage using social media to incite a staff mutiny and get a colleague fired? This matches what friends have seen with purposeful leaks in tech companies that seek to invite pressure from a captive twitter outrage machine. It seems these tactics are in common widespread use. Or maybe common at least in left-leaning cities/organizations - I am not personally aware of brazen actions to harness Internet outrage like this elsewhere.

<comment><USER12> I think you've misread; the referenced tweet is about _dismay over_ the anger that got the colleague fired.</comment></comment>


Dr. Bunsen The Top 3 Coding Headphones - <AUTHOR> http://www.drbunsen.org/home/2011/6/9/the-top-3-coding-headphones.html <comment><USER2> awesome. i LOVE my Audio Technica's.</comment>


Learn Ruby on Rails online from the University of Texas & Gowalla - <AUTHOR> http://schneems.com/tagged/Rails-3-beginner-to-builder-2011#post-6390770380

<comment><USER2> Thanks for making this available. I've been working on learning rails off and on over the past couple of weeks and will look through these.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fantastic! If you have questions you can usually find me at AustinOnRails <http://austinonrails.org> (a great group if you've never been)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As always comments and suggestions appreciated :) I hope to do another class but split out the topics into 15 minute segments, so you could just find a video on Ruby Arrays, or Has and Belongs to Many Associations without having to scan through an hour long video. Thoughts?</comment>


The Day They Almost Decided To Put Windows NT On The Mac Instead Of OS X - <AUTHOR> http://www.macspeedzone.com/archive/art/con/be.shtml

<comment><USER2> This is a good story (it contains some details that I don't think were publicly revealed back in 1996) but the title is misleading since NT plays a very minor part.

Edit: I'm not sure which embarrasses me more; the fact that this old story got 30 points or that my trivial comment got 16 points.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, this might at least be better titled "The Day They Almost Decided To Put BeOS On The Mac Instead Of OS X"

But that's a genuinely fascinating alternate-history concept -- Windows NT was never likely, but from the story, it seems as if Be almost made it, foiled only by its founder's hubris. What if Jean-Louis Gassée had settled for one of Apple's numerous offers? It seems he had it in the bag for months, holding out for more until he got too greedy and Apple turned to Jobs.

If Gassée hadn't been blinded by the dollar signs, what would have become of BeOS in Apple's hands? Would an alternate-universe, Be-based OSX have still saved the company? Would Jobs have gone down with his NeXT ship, and simply laid low for the 2000s? We'd have no iPod, no iPhone; Apple in 2010 would be either a Sun or an SGI.

Or maybe it couldn't have happened any other way. Maybe Jobs knew Gassée would push his luck too far and timed NeXT's overtures to Apple. Maybe he had done all the research, knew all the angles, and had planned this from the start. Maybe, just maybe, there was no force of nature that could stop Jobs' return to Apple.

<comment><USER4> >We'd have no iPod, no iPhone; Apple in 2010 would be either a Sun or an SGI.

And why in your hypothetical alternate universe where Apple went with Be instead of NeXT is this a given? You don't know that there'd be no iPod or iPhone, and you don't know that Apple would end up like SGI or Sun. Why do you assume that Jobs and NeXT are so important?

Surely history turns on small hinges, but that doesn't necessarily mean the decision to go with Be would have doomed Apple to failure. Things would probably be much different today with the actual products, but there's no reason to believe that Apple wouldn't have released an MP3 player or a phone, or that it wouldn't be stylish.

<comment><USER5> Jobs, and the team he hired, including Jon Ive, were the driving force behind the iMac, iPod, and iPhone designs.

If Apple felt no need to hire Jobs because they had Be, why would it be reasonable to presume they would still create the same game-changing products that were primarily created by the team Jobs hired, who were not employed at Apple prior to his arrival?

Even Tim Cook, Apple's widely respected COO, was hired by Steve in 1998.

<comment><USER4> Right, right, but what's to say that the BeOS people wouldn't have done something comparable if they had been given the same resources?

I don't argue at all that what would have been the equivalents of the iPhone and iPod would be very different without Jobs and his people, but I don't think that there's any necessity to presume that these projects would have been failures if they had been executed by the BeOS people instead of the NeXT people.

<comment><USER6> _what's to say that the BeOS people wouldn't have done something comparable_

Statistics. Lots of people have the resources, but very few do anything comparable to Jobs at Apple (Maybe Flip?). There's certainly no reason to think Apple would have gotten into Mp3 players and mobile phones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _"Amelio now admits that Apple overpaid for NeXT"_

Really? The result seems to have been worth the price to Apple shareholders.

<comment><USER8> Personally, I'm wondering how 200m for Be is extravagant and unthinkable and absolutely absurd, but 427m for NextStep is absolutely fine.

<comment><USER2> That point was made repeatedly by BeOS fanboys in the wake of the deal, but as the article says, "the BeOS still needed three years of additional expensive development before it could ship (it didn't have any printer drivers, didn't support file sharing, wasn't available in languages other than English, and didn't run existing Mac applications)." In retrospect, Apple gave NeXTSTEP a pretty thorough multi-year overhaul as well, so maybe BeOS would have been fine.

<comment><USER8> > In retrospect, Apple gave NeXTSTEP a pretty thorough multi-year overhaul as > well, so maybe BeOS would have been fine.

I was going to say... And 200 million dollars pays for a lot of development. (How much do localization and printer drivers cost?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To be honest, if Windows NT had lived up to its promise it would have been the greatest OS of all time.

<comment><USER10> Isn't that anthropomorphizing NT a bit? I mean, it's an OS, not a being. And the "promise" turned out to be mostly hype, at least in the 1995-1996 time frame. "A better Unix than Unix", "The Best Designed Operatings System", stuff like that is almost totally illogical, just an emotional appeal really.

If you read Helen Custer's "Inside Windows NT" you might have been excused for thinking you were reading about Mach 2.5, but I'm not sure what relation the OS described by "Inside Windows NT" (1st ed) had to the real Windows NT 3.1. So I'm still confused about what "promise" NT had.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> great movie idea!

</comment><comment><USER12> if ("Windows" == "controversial") views > more</comment>


Ask HN: Do you use SEO software? - <AUTHOR>

More specifically, tools that give the PageRank, inbound links, keyword analysis, etc. for a domain. <comment><USER2> No.</comment>


Grasp News Quickly My Algorithm Summarizes News for NyTimes,HuffPost,TC,TNW - <AUTHOR> http://newsbrewer.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I have created a news summarization algorithm which generates insightful summary. I've put that on top of a news aggregation site, so you can read summary for all articles from renown sources at one place. I call it the newsbrewer [http://newsbrewer.com](http://newsbrewer.com), Its a MVP. Feedbacks and suggestions are welcomed. Thanks</comment>


Investors Find Ways to Indirectly Profit from Valuable Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/technology/investors-find-ways-to-indirectly-profit-from-valuable-start-ups.html?hpw&rref=technology&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

<comment><USER2> "Pier 88 put money into HomeAway, a publicly traded Internet company that competes with Airbnb, but has a market capitalization of just $2.95 billion."

Just? It's still trading at ~7x sales and ~70x earnings with revenue growth less than 30% year over year. How much more should this company be worth?

<comment><USER3> Indeed. To me, this article seemed like a PR piece designed to increase HomeAway's stock price.

<comment><USER4> I guess it isn't an illegal pump and dump scheme if you get your buddy at the New York Times to pimp your latest stock pick rather than sending out a whole bunch of spam emails?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What an awful article. If two stocks were publicly traded, both competing in the same market and one had a market cap 10x the other, it doesn't mean the cheaper one is underpriced.

That's akin to saying penny stocks are the sensible place to put your money, they are cheaper.

Airbnb may have 10x users, revenue, potential - it may have 100x, or it may have a 10th, this isn't discussed at all.

This isn't indirectly profiting from valuable startups, it's backing the weaker company (all things being equal, and assuming those investing in private companies realise they can also invest in public ones), saying the publicly traded companies are underpriced, or that the whole market is high growth and no one horse will win.

In other words, standard investment behaviour, not news.

<comment><USER6> Yeah but a great way publicity wise for the people featured that invested in the "underpriced" company to lift the stock price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "With such a disparity between public and private multiples, it's a reasonable fundamental approach to believe that in this environment, the public company valuation will come up or the company will be acquired."

How is it that the other scenario (that the private valuation is illogical, unsustainable, and patently absurd) isn't the more obvious answer?

<comment><USER8> >How is it that the other scenario (that the private valuation is illogical, unsustainable, and patently absurd) isn't the more obvious answer?

this was never the question. the question was how to make money off this absurdity.

Like Greece. Country was and is a mess, and should have stayed separate. But some people might be able to get out ahead by clamoring for bailouts under the guise of 'we didn't know' later, so they invest.

Like student loans. Government was backing them while someone else gets the interest, so obviously someone else grants them.

Like FM&FM. Government was granting preferred lending status to subsidize housing, so bad loans were issued.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was fully expecting synthetic-collateralized-yc-batch-convertible-debt- obligation. But no, it's just some unproven investment thesis presented as fact.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yelp at $1.9B is also relatively cheap compare to private market valuations. It dominates the sector and have 142 million monthly active users.

<comment><USER11> The big problem with Yelp is how you make money off the reviews? Advertisement doesn't work well because people will just go to the best reviewed shops. Checkin discount, Groupon style, is too small a market, and a failed biz model anyway. So right now Yelp makes money by strong arm (yes, strong arm) restaurants into paying to remove bad reviews and/or rerank the reviews favorably.

Essentially, Yelp provides a lot of utility to the users, but can't make money off them. It provides leads for the shops, but it doesn't control the demand side. Its review data is scraped by Google, so the value of its data is diluted. I think Yelp is a failed business model by itself. The only reason I am not shorting it right now is I think someone will acquire the company soon. In the hands of a big company, it could act as a huge loss leader for other value added services.

<comment><USER12> can you elaborate on "Advertisement doesn't work well because people will just go to the best reviewed shops". Why can't yelp just runs non-restaurant related ads, ie for samsung or something. As long as they have traffic, those ads will have views.

<comment><USER13> They actually just removed their so-called "brand advertising" (which is what you're describing), because it was a small percentage of their revenue stream. They claimed it wasn't worth pursuing because they make for a bad experience on mobile, which is where their traffic growth is (their web traffic is stagnating). It was definitely their highest-margin form of advertising, and part of why the company's stock is being punished.

It isn't clear to me that Yelp, as it exists today, can ever be profitable -- they need to hire expensive sales people to cold-call businesses to sell ads that run at CPM rates that are already incredibly high. Yet they can barely break even. It's not going to be pretty as their ad rates are forced to become market competitive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So considering the consensus of opinion among the comments that "just because the private company is 10x higher value than its public-traded counterpart, where those public counterparts are still trading at 20+x earnings", Pier88 decides to buy into the public firm and has returned ~9% in 6 months, but...

with a similar size of capital and knowing that the market will correct the private firms valuation over time, a shrewder investor would wait for the Ubers and AirBnBs to go public and short their shares or buy bear options, thereby giving returns far in excess of what ~9% will give.

I bet that for every Tiger Global, T. Rowe Price and other "don't miss out on this unicorn" fund, there is a Carl Icahn laughing until it hurts, because he is loading up on bear positions for the over-valued private company and will cash in like many did when FB flopped on IPO.

</comment><comment><USER15> Investing in HomeAway based on Airbnb's value assumes BOTH are fairly valued. HomeAway's p/e is over 400 right now on a $3 billion market cap. AirBnB is valued at $51 billion.

</comment><comment><USER16> The real profit is in moving your startups to your portfolio company's cloud hosting platform.

e.g. Snapchat on google app engine. Ironically google is the only one profiting off snapchat userbase...

</comment><comment><USER17> Why is there no Arbnb or Uber derivative?

<comment><USER18> I've had similar thoughts for private companies, but don't know enough about the possible underlying financial product structure. Can anyone shed some light onto the possibility of something like this?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup, Peer-to-Peer Postal www.p2ppostal.com - <AUTHOR>

www.p2ppostal.com
Peer-to-Peer Postal was one of the companies participating in the StartX MentorLabs program this past spring. (MentorLabs is a new part of StartX, for teams that are not quite ready for StartX but hopefully will become so with a little bit of help)
It is now open for alpha testing, and I was hoping that I could get feedback from this crowd.
The one question I get most: How do we know the drivers won't just run off with people's stuff?
It's a tricky hurdle to pass early on, because as a new company we can't shell out for a huge insurance policy. I'm hoping to stay uninvolved in the transactions, much like Craigslist, and it will be up to the users to check out the counterparty's Facebook profile, read their reviews, or just choose someone with whom they have friends in common.
I would appreciate feedback regarding the UI, and ideas about building a culture of trust, getting off the ground, and reaching our target market.
Thanks!
Elaine <comment><USER2> As far as I know there is a stealth startup doing this already. One of my friends is involved in it.So if you want some advice I could ask him to talk to you depending on what you want to find out. Security is a big issue here of course.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I would really like that! email@example.com</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite merge tool? - <AUTHOR>

Seems to be quite a few options out there, and I was wondering what the crowd favorite was. There didn't seem to be a thread on this, so it might be nice to collect everyone's opinion in one place. <comment><USER2> For windows development, I like WinMerge: <http://winmerge.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://meldmerge.org/>

</comment><comment><USER4> diffmerge

</comment><comment><USER5> p4merge

</comment><comment><USER6> ediff</comment>


Create a Decision Matrix - <AUTHOR> https://mmorosky.github.io/decisionmatrix/ <comment><USER2> I use emacs for that kind of things, but under the hood it's solving linear equation [https://turbocafe.keybase.pub/blog/#org3482ee6](https://turbocafe.keybase.pub/blog/#org3482ee6)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've found the decision matrix method to be great for helping me make tough decisions (e.g., which design concept best meets all of my goals?)

Since it can be a bit complicated to make a decision matrix from scratch, I put together a small tool for streamlining the steps of creating one. I also tried to add in some bonus aspects, like being able to visualize the level of uncertainty in each choice, or to change the overall visualization style.

If you like geeking out about this kind of stuff, please give it a try. I welcome any feedback. (Just don't look at the awful spaghetti code) :)

The writeup: [https://medium.com/@mmorosky/decide-better-with-the- decision...](https://medium.com/@mmorosky/decide-better-with-the-decision- matrix-f39c0d078154)

The tool itself: [https://mmorosky.github.io/decisionmatrix/](https://mmorosky.github.io/decisionmatrix/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks like an interesting tool. Please prefix the title with "Show HN:"

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like I couldn't edit the title of this submission, so I re-posted using the title you suggested. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Hubticle : Make a blog with your GitHub repository - <AUTHOR> http://hubticle.github.com/

<comment><USER2> For blogs on GitHub I use Jekyll. Seems to have quite a bit of support with some great plugins.

</comment><comment><USER3> One important part missing: none of the posted entries are page-savable from a browser. Maybe your corner of the culture doesn't save pages to disk for ready reference, maybe this is a 'get off my lawn' issue, but.. Maybe a 'printable' link?

\--crb3

<comment><USER4> You pointed in the right direction but kind of missed the big one: does not work without javascript at all.

<comment><USER5> For a really simple blog (or blogs in general) this is a PITA.

Just use Jekyll and be done with it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: An open source implementation of Hacker News? - <AUTHOR>

I love HN and would like to run a version internally in my company. Is there a good open source verion of HN that is good? I don't want an elaborate "CMS" <comment><USER2> <http://arclanguage.org/install>

Within that .tar file you will find news.arc (which is what HN is), and a how- to-run-news file as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> The HN source is part of the Arc language download, as an example application, so I hear.

</comment><comment><USER4> You might try lamernews[1], created by Redis author antirez.

> Lamer news is an implementation of a Reddit / Hacker News style news web > site written using Ruby, Sinatra, Redis and jQuery.

> The goal is to have a system that is very simple to understand and modify > and that is able to handle a very high load using a small virtual server, > ensuring at the same time a very low latency user experience.

[1]<http://lamernews.com/> and <https://github.com/antirez/lamernews></comment>


A game to Spread Awareness of Waste Management to users of all age groups - <AUTHOR> http://www.civicsense.in/ <comment><AUTHOR> Download the game at

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.civicsense...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.civicsense.civicsense.game)

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/civic- sense/id1198464119?ls=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/civic- sense/id1198464119?ls=1&mt=8)</comment>


Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/3062788/world-changing-ideas/guerrilla-bike-lanes-show-cities-how-easy-it-is-to-make-streets-safer <comment><USER3> I've spent most of my life with cycling as my primary mode of transportation, living in Minneapolis, Santa Fe, London and SF/Oakland. I ride fast and generally try to go with the flow to avoid inconveniencing drivers while also being considerate to pedestrians. I think this traffic cone thing is pretty cool, but I have a larger observation to make:

Here's the thing about SF: everyone is way too fucking agro. Drivers freak out when they can't drive 50mph down a city street. The cyclists are banging u-locks on hoods because someone cut them off. Everyone is road raging like crazy.

I lived in London for 3 years, with all the narrow streets and everything overcrowded to the bursting point. Central London is 10x as crowded as SF in every way, and yet somehow the pedestrians, cyclists and drivers all manage to co-exist. It's not a panacea for sure, it obviously can't compare to Amsterdam, but the whole Keep Calm and Carry On mentality definitely applies to transportation. You know what happens? Buses pass other buses by going into the oncoming traffic lane and oncoming traffic moves over to accommodate them. Pedestrians spill into the streets sometimes, and cars don't kill them. Vans and lorries sometimes drive up onto the pavement (ie. sidewalk) in order to get around an obstruction. Pedestrians pull off to the side of the walk way if they need to pay attention to their phone. Everyone implicitly acknowledges: hey, it's crowded, we have to cooperate to get where we're going.

SF could use a lot more of that attitude. I thought the west coast was supposed to be chill.

<comment><USER4> The thing we need in the United States are traffic tickets. A lot of people get tickets on freeways (where there is a dedicated highway patrol that exists only to write speeding tickets), but nobody gets ticketed on surface streets, no matter how badly they drive. I see garbage trucks barrelling through red lights at 45mph. I see taxis driving the wrong way down one-way streets. I see black cars driving 60mph down narrow residential streets. This has to be stopped, or people will keep dying in traffic.

The city-wide speed limit in NYC is 25mph, unless marked down to 20mph in special areas. This law needs to be enforced aggressively. Drivers don't need a big fine; I bet people will adjust their behavior from just a stern talking- to and a $20 ticket or something.

As it stands right now, people are needlessly dying for no reason. Driving in the city, all your time is sucked up by sitting at traffic lights. It doesn't matter how fast you get to the next traffic light, because if you're speeding, it's going to be red.

(There was an interesting pilot program to give $50 tickets to people exceeding the speed limit by 30mph in school zones. Tons of opposition. This makes me think what we really need to do is just start closing roads to private vehicles. People think they're entitled to run over children at 50mph, just because they fucking feel like it. Where did we go so wrong!?)

Looking out my window on a small residential street in Brooklyn, I'm always amazed at the traffic snarl. It's basically a dead-end street. And yet someone is always double-parked, preventing fire trucks from going through. One time a fire truck got boxed in by someone double-parked, and an MTA service vehicle that double-parked behind it. Eventually the MTA vehicle got towed away, and the fire truck slowly backed out. Hope it wasn't an important building that was burning down.

<comment><USER5> If you're blocking an emergency vehicle in the UK by bad parking they have the right to smash your vehicle to get past - and it's your fault.

<comment><USER6> I'd like a citation for that, I don't think that's true. I imagine they can legally tow your vehicle away, but I reckon damaging the bodywork of your ambulance or fire appliance to move another vehicle out of the way is not standard operating procedure.

There is however an act called the _The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2006 [0]_ which makes it an offence to obstruct emergency vehicles.

[0]: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-emergency- wor...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-emergency-workers- obstruction-act-2006)

<comment><USER7> Fire And Rescue Services Act 2004 says they can "move or break into a vehicle without the consent of its owner". I don't know if that's sufficient.

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/21/section/44](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/21/section/44)

<comment><USER6> Sure, but GP's comment suggests ramming the vehicle out of the way on the way to a shout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here (bicyclists need to be licensed! bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers! we shouldn't have bicyclists on many roads because cars go too fast!).

Instead, I'll say that just as people walking need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadways - these are called sidewalks - <USER2> too people on bicycles need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadways - these are called protected bike lanes, or cycle tracks, or various other names.

For some recent commentary on this topic from Boston, see the following. The first is from a columnist, and the second from the President of the Boston City Council:

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/08/12/bikes/yOFRBYH...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/08/12/bikes/yOFRBYH8zy5jBiVEFYUUVN/story.html)

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/07/11/the-road- fear...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/07/11/the-road-fear-free- biking-boston/UBnj30slkPwBIzggL70uwJ/story.html)

<comment><USER9> > I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal > of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here ... bicyclists > should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers

In the UK, all vehicles on the road are required to abide by the highway code. Yep, that means bicycles have to follow the same rules as drivers.

In the 1990s, schools in the UK ran cycling courses to ensure that children as young as 9 were already learning the highway code, and would be able to cycle on the roads safely. The London police to this day continue to run cycling courses to provide the same level of training.

I can't speak to the rest, nor in other countries, but in the UK, it is absolutely not foolish, but actually required by law, for cyclists to follow the same rules as drivers.

<comment><USER10> This is what happens when bikes follow rules designed for cars:

[http://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/07/30/this-is- wh...](http://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/07/30/this-is-what- happened-when-bicyclists-obeyed-traffic-laws-along-the-wiggle-yesterday)

It's patently stupid to have the same rules for bikes as it is for cars since they are completely different vehicles.

Now perhaps this is a case of semantics: The Highway Code has rules for all users of highways, but obviously within those rules some apply to cars, some to pedestrians, and some to cyclists. Still point remains that the specific rules are different depending on what vehicle you're in, and we'd be wise to think critically about this.

A good example of this is the Idaho Stop: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop)

<comment><USER11> This is the crux of the issue. Many of the laws we're supposed to follow aren't fit for purpose.

I do stop at red lights - and I can tell you it pisses people off no end. People want to gun it off the lights, and instead they're stuck behind me. I have been involved in an 'accident' where the driver behind me tried to overtake off the lights, through the junction, and into the traffic island on the other side.

At the same time, it's obvious cyclists don't get carte blanche either. Anyone who's seen a bicycle plow through a pedestrian crossing like a god-given right, can see that much.

We need rules that make sense, and then enforce them. Meet us in the middle. Trying to enforce rules that don't make sense doesn't work (and not just for us - many of these cause us to frustrate or hinder other road users too)

<comment><USER12> Yep.

I observe red lights in London. I observe red lights in Oxford. Locations where, however imperfectly, the highway authorities consider cyclists in the design process.

I used to work in Burton-on-Trent (ex-industrial town in the English Midlands). My daily commute involved one particular intersection so badly designed that the only way to avoid a dangerous and potentially fatal car/bike interaction, if you were at the front of the queue, was to set off 5 seconds before the lights went green. (It has since been redesigned, thankfully.)

If you build infrastructure and formulate laws to benefit motorists and to potentially kill cyclists, don't be surprised if cyclists break those laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't think non-cyclists realize how much risk you take on when you ride in the city.

In my town we really only have bike lanes on the two main roads that go up and down the bulk of the city, and they ride dangerously close to lines of parked cars. I was riding downhill once when someone opened their door in front of me without looking -- luckily I managed to get past, but had they opened it a few moments earlier I would've slammed into it and possibly fallen into traffic.

Another time I was riding down a street without a bike lane. There was a row of parked cars on the side so I was rode roughly a door's length away from them, enough to keep me safe but taking on enough of the lane that other drivers wouldn't be able to pass without driving in the opposite lane. I hear a car suddenly rev up behind me and blare their horn as they sped past, sideswiping me and almost knocking me off my bike. I managed to confront the driver at the next intersection, "Hey were you trying to kill me?" "Yeah, I was" (he had two kids in the car too)

Cones are a smart way of tricking people into respecting these boundaries, but I wonder how long it'll be until drivers start violating them when they realize they're not official or the city starts removing them. In the meantime I might get my own cones though...

<comment><USER14> As a driver it's the main reason I refuse to ride a bike, I don't want to die.

Even here in perth that is generally trying to help bike riders I just don't see how it's safe to ride around at 20-30km when the speed limit is 70km and there isn't enough room to overtake without going into the other lane.

I just don't see how you can be safe when people are trying to overtake you in giant utes going twice your speed trying to get home/to work.

<comment><USER15> In NSW it is illegal to pass within 1m of a cyclist. I ride to work, and every single day people ignore that rule.

I have never seen anyone fined for it. Our police/government just doesn't care, and attitudes like yours don't help. Cycling on the road is legal and until it isn't, just saying, "I don't see how it's safe" is irrelevant.

I also drive, but I'm capable of not losing my mind and putting other people's lives in danger to save a few seconds on my trip.

If another road user is going too slow for you, you need to suck it up and find a safe, legal place to overtake.

<comment><USER16> Now I cycle to work and recently let my drivers license lapse. But the 1m rule sounds draconian to me. It means drivers have to keep about two metres from the kerb. That's not always possible on Sydney roads.

Sure, if the cars are moving fast then I would like a wide space. But in heavier / slower traffic (which was the common case when I lived in London), then I only need a "lane" wide enough for me to ride through. And heck, usually I'm the one doing the overtaking.

<comment><USER15> That's the law, draconian or not. I personally don't want to come within 1m of a 1500kg vehicle, probably driven by someone playing with their phone, going faster than I am.

It is possible on Sydney roads if drivers wait until there's an overtaking lane, which is actually the only legal solution.

Anyway, it's never enforced so what difference does it make? Drivers will continue to only care about themselves and cyclists will continue to be maimed and die.

Countries with governments that aren't crap have separate tracks for cyclists, which is really the only safe solution.

We have painted pictures of bikes in car lanes right in the door zones for parked cars. And that's in the good places. It's an absolute joke.

<comment><USER16> > Countries with governments that aren't crap have separate tracks for > cyclists,

It's not about crap governments. It's about practical responses to the world as it is.

Now I live in Munich and enjoy riding on dedicated bike lanes. But these are built on seriously wide roads. In Sydney that space is used for other things.

Such land-use decisions were locked in during the early 20th century. Now it's perfectly reasonable to think the Nazis made better land-use decisions than Labor and the UAP. But it's no use crying over spilled milk.

<comment><USER7> > Now I live in Munich and enjoy riding on dedicated bike lanes

You do realise the lanes in Munich almost certainly weren't built by the Nazis? And the layout of roads, especially major ones, will have been altered since then, and can be altered in the future?

I'm not familiar with Munich, but the Netherlands got their bicycle lanes after lots of public campaigning in the 1970s [1].

In many European cities, the streets have been significantly remodelled within the 20th century. Just last month, a large road I use in Copenhagen was altered to increase the size of the bicycle lanes [3], reducing the width of the car lanes. Late last year, a road near the hospital was altered to block off parking close to a junction, which made visibility much better for everyone.

London is currently building a major east-west route [4].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_the_Netherlands#Ove...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_the_Netherlands#Overview)

[2] [http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-geography-travel-germany- mu...](http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-geography-travel-germany-munich- theatinerstrasse-view-1950s-50s-street-16007713.html)

[3] [http://www.kk.dk/nyheder/bredere-cykelstier-i- gothersgade](http://www.kk.dk/nyheder/bredere-cykelstier-i-gothersgade)

[4] [https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and- proje...](https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and- projects/cycle-superhighway-east-west)

<comment><USER16> I'm saying there is little relation between quality of current governments and what bicycle lanes you have.

It seems to me that continental european cities often have very wide roads once you get out of the old towns. Given the location, these must have been built around the mid-20th century. By all kinds of governments.

<comment><USER7> There is a strong relation between current (or recent) governments and bicycle lanes. For decades, people in London said the streets were too narrow for cycling. Once the mayor declared maintaining car speeds was no longer a priority above everything else, the traffic engineers found space.

I've never visited Sydney, but it seems to have plenty of wide roads — I picked some central roads at random.

Oxford Street has a bus lane on either side, plus two car lanes in each direction. On StreetView, the bus lane is filled with parked cars, and appears to be also a cycle lane. Reducing the width of the car lanes, removing parking from one side, or removing one lane of traffic would provide ample space.

Palmer Street has two lines of parked cars, and enough space for three lanes of cars in between. Plenty of room for a dedicated cycle lane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I googled for some statistics:

 __USA __

    1% of all trips is by cycle [1]
        743 cyclist fatalities per year (2013) [2]
        population 320 million.

__Denmark __

    17% of all trips is by cycle [3]
        33 cyclist fatalities per year (2013) [3]
        population 5.6 million.

Cyclist fatalities per 1 million people:

        USA:      2.3
        Denmark:  5.9

...per cycling frequency:

        USA:      232
        Denmark:   35

I guess I was expecting worse. American cyclists die only 7x more than Danish cyclists.

[1] [http://www.bikewalkalliance.org/storage/documents/reports/20...](http://www.bikewalkalliance.org/storage/documents/reports/2014BenchmarkingReport.pdf)

[2] [https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...](https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812151)

[3] [http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/facts-about-cycling-in- denmark...](http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/facts-about-cycling-in- denmark/statistics/)

<comment><USER18> _" American cyclists die only 7x more than Danish cyclists."_

reason that this is so 'low' is a difference in the population that cycles.

I don't know for Denmark, but in the Netherlands, about 60% of cyclists dying in traffic are over 65 years old (106 out of 185 in 2014).

<comment><USER19> > I don't know for Denmark, but in the Netherlands, about 60% of cyclists > dying in traffic are over 65 years old (106 out of 185 in 2014).

I am curious why is that. Reflexes, heart attacks, hip injuries ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a well-traveled cyclist, I yearn for the truely separated roadways my peers ride in other places. In Holland, for instance, their cycletrack treatment is closer to a special sidewalk for bicycles than a repainted stretch of highway. Each mode of transportation (walking, riding, driving, mass transit, etc.) has its own path. This separation of concerns (segmented by both mass and speed) makes getting around safer and easier for everybody.

The thing that San Francisco has and Amsterdam doesn't is private garages in most freestanding buildings. For instance, the northern-most section of the Wiggle has the city's most protected bike lane - there are cement planters separating the bike lane from fast-moving car traffic. Unfortunately, to support private garages, there are gaps in these planters enabling homeowners to enter/exit their driveways. Delivery vehicles and private cars frequently idle in the spaces between these planters, trapping cyclists in the bike lane and forcing them to merge into car traffic that isn't expecting them.

The city does nothing to stop this, and the drivers are incredibly hostile. I've tried getting off my bike and asking people (as kindly as possible) to move, explaining how parking in the bike path puts me life at risk. The nicest response I've gotten was being told to go fuck myself: even the old man in a bus driver's jacket idling in his car was shockingly violent in his reply. Delivery drivers don't give you the light of day. There's a tow company on this stretch of the Wiggle that frequently has trucks blocking the path. I noticed someone had parked to deliberately keep the path clear one day and earnestly thanked him for doing so. Even he threatened me.

San Francisco politicians respond with platitudes everytime once of us dies, but they do fuck-all to actually protect us. Our local transportation board reimagined one neighborhood street as a promenade, prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists and creating a destination for people from all over the city to come patronize local businesses. A handful of shop owners who came of age when the car was the dominant form of transportation raised concerns about parking. Rather than pointing out the plentiful parking on literally every nearby street, offering to construct a garage, or pointing out that users of all forms of transportation would flock to a human-scale shopping district in numbers that more-than made up for the lost parking, the city caved with the mayor scuttling the whole project.

<comment><USER21> > I've tried getting off my bike and asking people (as kindly as possible) to > move, explaining how parking in the bike path puts me life at risk. The > nicest response I've gotten was being told to go fuck myself

Wow, this makes me so angry. Is it possible to call the cops on them?

<comment><USER20> I think I've done it once or twice - usually not until after I get home though. Letting unhinged people know I'm threatening their anonymity is something I try to avoid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As a former bicyclist, and a current motorcyclist and "cager", let me give one piece of advice that has kept me alive to this day. Your safety and protection is entirely up to you. No government, painted lines or traffic cones are going to save you on the road. When you're on the road, the only thing that matters is "the right of weight".

If you're hit by a car, and you're not in a protective cage of steel, it's not going to matter if the other person was in the right or the wrong. You're still dead.

If anything, these traffic cones are a dangerous placebo; making cyclists feel safer than they actually are in their interactions with cars. Want to actually be safe from cars when on the road? Ride in a cage of steel. Want to survive on two wheels? Ride as if every person in a car is intentionally trying to kill you.

Yeah, it's probably overly pessamistic; no, it's not fair. But I'm alive and uninjured.

<comment><USER23> > Yeah, it's probably overly pessamistic; no, it's not fair. But I'm alive and > uninjured.

Don't you think that's a little bit of survivorship bias? I'm sure there are plenty of cyclist who have been killed who 100% agreed and rode in that way, but they obviously can't speak on the matter.

Of course it is dangerous and potentially lethal when you get hit by a car, but how can you suggest that it's not beneficial to have measures in place that at least attempt to protect cyclist. It makes cyclist 'feel' safer, because it is in fact safer. Look at countries like the Netherlands that have excellent cycling lanes and safety measures. It makes drivers more aware that there are cyclist around them, and urges them to be more cognizant of their surroundings.

<comment><USER22> Would additional space for bikes hurt bikers? I think it depends. If there is enough room to add better bike lanes without affecting car traffic negatively, the it will probably help. But if cars are forced into smaller spaces, I think more cars "in a hurry" will disregard the lines in favor of a clear road. Sure, they will be in the wrong, but it won't help the dead cyclists any.

And places like SF, with their already bad car traffic and limited land? They would definitely fall in the latter case in my book.

<comment><USER24> > but it won't help the dead cyclists any

Perhaps if more bicyclists wore GoPros as a normal part of their travels (or more CCTV were pointed at bike paths), the legal system will reduce the number of violations and thus deaths.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Bike lanes in SF: [https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+SF&safe=off&client...](https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+SF&safe=off&client=firefox- b- ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYwp75stTOAhWFiiwKHcPGA1IQ_AUICSgC&biw=2048&bih=1043)

Bike lanes in Stockholm: [https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+stockholm&safe=off...](https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+stockholm&safe=off&client=firefox- b- ab&biw=2048&bih=1043&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu5YLostTOAhVJGCwKHQq5BNMQ_AUIBygC)

Bike lanes in Amsterdam: [https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+amsterdam&safe=off...](https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+amsterdam&safe=off&client=firefox- b- ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDjI6Xs9TOAhUGkiwKHdR_A4cQ_AUICCgB&biw=2048&bih=1043)

I guess SF / USA have something to learn from Europeans and that is to build some shit between the bike lane and the car lane. Let it be cones, rails or whatever just not a painted line.

<comment><USER15> Don't worry, you're not alone.

Australia's bike infrastructure also sucks.

<comment><USER25> Well, I do live in Sweden in a city where everyone bikes. So I am happy :)

I just like to promote our model of society since it's so much better on so many levels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is an overview of how the Dutch do it as presented by a city planning guy from Seattle. Lengthy, but I was glued to the screen.

[https://youtu.be/l0GA901oGe4](https://youtu.be/l0GA901oGe4)

</comment><comment><USER27> If you live in SF and want to help, the team doing this is on Twitter at @sfmtra and looking for volunteers and donations. Safe biking is good for the health of humans,their communities, and the environment

</comment><comment><USER28> Orange cones are a novelty. Put them everywhere and behaviour will eventually return to where it was. The same thing happened with high-mounted brakelights on cars - they significantly reduced rear-end collisions for a few years, but eventually the trend returned to where it was beforehand.

<comment><USER29> > Put them everywhere and behaviour will eventually return to where it was.

don't understand this comment - you mean to say vehicle drivers will eventually resume driving on lanes that are separated by traffic cones?

i suppose they can... but i assume most drivers will try to avoid knocking/running these things over

<comment><USER20> Drivers in San Francisco don't hesitate to run over plastic posts that separate some bike lanes from car traffic. Other lanes have cement planters separating them - drivers still manage to park in the bike lane.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Cyclists need to follow the rules in order to command respect, frankly.

I wish this wasn't true but I see _dozens_ of cyclists every week (no exaggeration at all) doing things that are _blatantly illegal_ and _definitely dangerous_. FLYING through stop signs. Deciding to just "go" at a red light when there seems to be no traffic. Turning wherever they want without signaling. Assuming they have the right of way in pretty much any situation. Multiple riders in parallel formations that make them move into the road anyway. The list goes on, and on, and on. I am not kidding.

And that kind of behavior just makes me not want to help. I'm sorry, you have to make sure you are at least doing everything possible to help _yourself_ before you expect drivers to make any more concessions.

</comment><comment><USER31> I love this! I feel so uncomfortable cycling on main roads, knowing that if the person behind the wheel of the x-ton vehicle beside me does one small mistake, I end up paralyzed or dead. The bicycle is a really great means of transport that deserves more love (and space on the streets).

</comment><comment><USER32> Here is an outside view, fwiw, the official recommendations for bike lanes in Germany. In German, but lots of pictures!

[http://www.kompetenzzentrum- radverkehr.de/fileadmin/redakteu...](http://www.kompetenzzentrum- radverkehr.de/fileadmin/redakteure/pdf/LGB-ERA_2011.pdf)

Question: Is there an association like AAA is for cars that represents bikers in the US? That could take on the discussions with the government.

<comment><USER33> After reading some of that, it contains some recommendations that lead to annoying and sometimes dangerous situations for cyclists that I recognize from my everyday cycling experiences in Germany.

Just one example:

They seem to encourage usage of pedestrian paths with "bikes allowed" signs on medium traffic streets with ~50km/h speed limit, think main road of a small- ish town. These have become waaay too popular, especially in small towns and some areas of bigger cities too.

They make the cyclist choose between these two options:

* share the pavement with pedestrians, but with barely any separation from the pedestrians; so you're either really really slow or you endanger pedestrians

* use the road and share it with drivers who think it belongs solely to them and endanger cyclists

So either way, it's a bad experience and potentially dangerous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> As a life-long New Yorker (Manhattan and more recently Brooklyn) I just don't understand why anyone would ever ride a bike in NYC, period. I even stopped rollerblading in NYC when some asshole driving backwards (presumably to get a parking spot) nearly killed me and did knock me silly.

I have a motorcycle license I got one summer when I had free time. I learned that cars and pedestrians are your enemy, and that you will probably regret being a motorcyclist eventually. So I quickly stopped.

The simple answer is to not bike in NYC, or get rid of cars in NYC. Although I have moved to Brooklyn, I think the "get rid of cars" is in Manhattan is a great idea.

But, if we must bike, by all means, let's get segregated bike lanes. I have seen them in Union Square, around Prospect Park, and other places. BUT!

That said, bikes are worse than cars IMO in yielding right of way to pedestrians. I was nearly killed by a high speed biker IN A CROSSWALK ACROSS A SEGREGATED BIKE LANE outside the Intrepid museum nearly a month ago, and the moron had the gall to yell at me as he barely missed me to watch where _I_ was going. Literally two seconds later nearly the same thing happens with another biker. Insane.

Furthermore, bikes don't remotely follow the rules of the road. Stop lights? Ignored. One way streets - or even one way bike lanes - ignored. No riding on sidewalks? Well, mostly followed. Pfew.

As a pedestrian, I fear bikes more than cars. They are silent, they are fearless (if they weren't they would not ride like this), and they don't care about pedestrians.

Personally, I'd rather get rid of bikes entirely, or at least put a cop at every corner writing expensive NYC moving violations to each bicyclist when they inevitably break the law. A million citations a day would be fine by me, and would help pay for more shared infrastructure like subways, bus lanes, and, yes, even segregated bicycle lanes.

<comment><USER35> Heh, just today I was biking down a hill in a segregated lane. Green lights ahead of me, all the way to the waterfront.

Some guy in the crosswalk, going against the signal (I have green lights for several blocks), left to right across the street. I'm half a block away but I'm going downhill and going pretty fast. I yell, "Watch out!"

He keeps moving, so I start to veer to the left to go around him to the left. THEN he stops, so I yell again, "Keep moving already!" I veer harder left to get around him.

I still have green lights, he's going against the signal.

He steps backwards!!! Now I'm going to hit him for sure, so I brake hard, skidding down the hill, veering now well out of the segregated lane, into a car lane, barely avoiding a full-on collision. My leg hits his bag, and of course I cuss up a blue streak.

I don't get it. I come to a complete stop at stop signs wherever there's any traffic, and I always slow down because cars blow through them constantly.

I never cross against lights, and when I cross with lights, I do so with caution because cars blow through those, too.

I do see more and more bikes on the roads, though, which makes me happy about cars learning to share the roads a bit. We cyclists pay taxes, too, of course.

<comment><USER34> Yep. Pedestrians, especially New Yorkers, are j-walkers. I spent the last 12 days in various places in Japan and boy, there are none of those except in places without crosswalks. It was weird!!

But yes, best thing to do is be predictable if you're doing something (even if it is wrong).

People sometimes think New Yorkers are crazy drivers. To the inexperienced it probably looks that way. However after driving here most of my life it's just that we learn how all the other New Yorker drivers will react to what's ahead of them so we can react, in a sort of organized chaos. Sometimes, anyway. And we know to give out of state plates and certain vehicles extra "unpredictability" points. It doesn't always help (like when a moron Georgia plate minivan driver decided to merge directly into me at the Brooklyn Bridge entrance from southbound FDR despite being on the wrong side of a solid/dashed lane marker, back was only one lane to the bridge. And then not pull over!!!), though.

Even though I am a car owner and driver I would still be an advocate of limiting cars in the city.

<comment><USER36> It's the same in Vietnam. Coming from the west, the driving there looks verifiably insane. After a few weeks you learn their rules (or how to compensate for lack thereof) and it doesn't feel as unsafe anymore.

<comment><USER7> However, Vietnam's roads _are_ unsafe.

I saw five road accidents within a three-week holiday, including one fatality.

The statistics are a quick search away, but I suspect accidents are underreported in Vietnam. I saw a motorcyclist hit by a luxury car on a mountain road, just outside a café. Most bystanders seemed more concerned about possible damage to the car, than to the dazed rider. The car driver didn't even get out of the car.

A bus ahead of mine slammed the brakes on, and I saw people were running into the street. It took a while for us to pass the commotion, but when we got there I saw a body covered with a sheet of cardboard and a flattened bicycle. The bus driver stopped the bus a few minutes later, and wandered around it waving incense, which he left in a special holder on the number plate. Neither he nor his ticket collector wore their seatbelts when we resumed driving.

A man in Hanoi was wandering into the road in a daze, with blood coming from his head. A motorbike was on the road on its side, and a helmet nearby. I think he simply fell off, but I'd guess the helmet wasn't being worn properly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Some similar grass roots efforts in PDX after a teen pedestrian was struck and killed by a speeding (~55 in a 35) reckless driver earlier in the week:

[https://twitter.com/bikeportland/status/767223666014720000](https://twitter.com/bikeportland/status/767223666014720000)

</comment><comment><USER38> I would support a true separation of all vehicle modes. As an avid walker, I've had far more run-ins with speeding bicycles nearly hitting me (and a few which did hit me) than I have with cars. If it were easy to create a solid separation that would keep cars and bikes separate, and prevent bikes from using sidewalks, count me in, you have my vote and my tax dollars to make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER39> Why not put parking spots (where possible) outside the bike lane, so the cars protect cycle path. Its done in some places in Denmark.

<comment> et-al It's a good idea in theory, but having ridden this setup in Golden Gate Park[0], I'm constantly worried about getting doored and ride as far away from the cars as possible. I'd argue one's chances of getting doored are higher than an auto rear-ending a biker, so it would take up a lot more space to implement correctly.

Also, for passenger in a car, can you imagine (carefully) opening a door, hoping not to door a biker, only to try to cross a stream of bikes to reach the sidewalk? It's a bad scenario for all parties.

[0] [https://www.google.com/search?q=golden+gate+park+bike+lane&b...](https://www.google.com/search?q=golden+gate+park+bike+lane&biw=1333&bih=858&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> > "Orange cones are really a great prototyping tool," says the activist. "They > put something on the ground that's visible. Cars really slow down around > orange cones—it's really a remarkable feat of psychology."

Keep this up and pretty soon it'll be like when CNN prefixes a headline with " _BREAKING NEWS: ..._ ".

</comment><comment><USER41> I PhD student in Switzerland. Here, we just have a yellow marking for the bike lane, and car drivers are surprisingly considerate towards bikers. I don't know what the penalties are for hitting bikers, but biking here is a bliss. Even in big cities like Zurich and Geneva!

Really, god bless this beautiful country :)

</comment><comment><USER42> I wonder if these guerillas could paint a fake curb that looks real enough that cars wouldn't want to cross it?

<comment><USER43> This is an idea I have proposed before. A 2D painted kerb that looks 3D when viewed from the perspective of a driver. One response was that it would take a while to adjust road marking standards, etc. I figured it'd be worth a cheap trial with cameras watching car behaviour though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Mostly unrelated, but does anyone have (or has seen?) an opinion on self driving cars and how that may impact cyclists on the road? Do you think the shift to autonomous vehicles will make the road safer for people on bikes?

<comment><USER45> [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/08/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/08/26/how- fixed-gear-bikes-can-confuse-googles-self-driving-cars/)

I can't imagine how autonomous vehicles could make cycling less safe. The only thing I'm coming up with is that the side profile of a bike at night could get "filtered" as noise and ignored. That same scenario must happen just as often with human drivers though.

My biggest concern while cycling in Sydney was going through roundabouts at night. Cars in front or behind me with bright blinking lights? Just fine. Cars potentially coming at me from the side where nothing but my own reflective vest to identify me? Terrifying.

<comment><USER46> At least in Germany reflectors on the spokes are mandatory. And most tyres have a reflective strip built in, so the night-time side profile of a cyclist should usually clearly mark the shape, even if the cyclist isn't reflective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Wow SF has some shitty looking roads considering how much money is in the area.

</comment><comment><USER48> In London the cycle super highways are painted bright blue. Seems to work.

</comment><comment><USER49> Several problems, which could be solved my municipalities, and illustrated by this twitter feed: [https://twitter.com/lyoncorrompu](https://twitter.com/lyoncorrompu)

\- Cars stop on the bike lane: It may sound reasonable to stop on the rightmost lane, but in fact they obstruct both the bike lane and the car lane. It would be more reasonable for cars to stop on the car lane.

\- Red lights: It's less dangerous for cyclists to ride the red light than the green light. It's incredible, but there are less accidents, even if the cyclist does it every day and isn't fully aware of his surroundings. But car drivers go crazy when they see a cyclist burning the red light (which isn't surprising because it's a penal infraction in France, like drunk-driving).

\- Bikes riding in the sidewalk or the wrong lane, sometimes in the opposite direction, by night, when there are other solutions. Most infractions could easily be sorted out by the police, but they're more busy acting like they're fighting terrorism (by stationing under the Town Hall palace with weapons drawn out) than checking for traffic infringements.

\- Pedestrians walking on the cycle lane, which is prone to injury, often due to cars who park on the sidewalk.

\- Bikes without lights: That's not much of a risk for the cyclist, because they know very well they may die from their own mistake and get a Darwin Award of stupid deaths. No, I'd rather focus on the risk for the _car drivers_ , who will be considered guilty of killing a cyclist, even though he was in the dark without light, sometimes in the opposite direction than he's supposed to be. Bikers without lights are a jail threat for all car drivers around.

\- Also note the counter-intuitive feat that not requiring the helmet saves more lives across a country than the compulsory helmet law.

All in all, if justice were served, cars should be given the short end of everything because they kill massively in four ways (accidents, immediate pollution, carbon emissions, driver's health) and occupy more space.

</comment><comment><USER50> I propose the following modification to HN moderation:

Comments that fall along entirely predictable, nonproductive back-and-forth lines: in this case, expressions of hostility between cyclists and non- cyclists, should be deleted. There should perhaps be a link to previous iterations of the discussion, or to neutral resources on how urban planning can integrate cyclists.

This comment has been made with the deliberate decision to not read anything else written in this thread. The topic and the fact there are 100+ posts tells me everything I need to know about what's in it.

</comment><comment><USER51> I don't mind giving up the road to cyclists in cities. I just hope that one day they are finally treated like cars. Bikes on city roads should have to be registered with plates. Bikes in many places in Japan are registered and it makes it a lot easier to figure out when someone is riding a bike they aren't supposed to have. The plates would hopefully go along with police actually enforcing the traffic laws on cyclists so they can't simply blow through traffic lights, stop signs, peddle through pedestrians on the sidewalk, drink and peddle, etc. If cyclists want the same respect as cars on the road, they should be expected to follow the laws just as seriously as someone with a car.

<comment><USER52> Yes because a 20 pound bike does exactly the same damage as a 6000 pound car. Both to driver and victim. Excellent thought process.

Also slapping plates on bikes will totally fix the issue of theft. Cars never ever get stolen, because they have plates.

I disagree with your underlying assumptions and your suggestions. What you are suggesting would penalize the sorts of people who rely upon their bicycles to get to work each day.

<comment><USER53> I think the bigger problem is that people on bicycles don't always obey the laws which are in place to protect both them and motor vehicle drivers. The parent mentioned cyclists who run through traffic lights and similar infrastructure with wanton disregard for the situation (I have witnessed this many times myself). This creates a situation that is dangerous to everyone involved and is quite illegal. However, there is no recourse as there is no easy way to identify them as you would a motor vehicle as there are no plates or identifying items on the bicycle.

Ultimately I agree that adding plates is a bit extreme, but I think it's also disingenuous to say there is no problem and ignore them.

Edit: I would also like to note that I'm not commenting on motor vehicles disobeying laws in similar situations, they routinely do, however that does not take away from the fact that there is an issue here as well.

<comment><USER37> Stop sign/light honoring daily bike commuter here who often scolds cyclists that do not obey the law, but I think you'll find that the statistics do not bear out the danger you present. How many fatalities (or even serious injuries) result from cyclists blowing through stop signs? If you remove the offending cyclist from that stats, I'd guess you're looking at about zero. I do remember a case in PDX a few years ago where a reckless cyclist struck and killed a man, but it is exceedingly rare.

<comment><USER54> I seem to remember a trial which was piloted in London (UK) a few years back which permitted a cyclist to go through a red light if turning left. Can anyone shed any light on how this worked out?

<comment><USER55> Presumably fine? It's perfectly acceptable for any sort of vehicle to turn right after stopping at a red light in Alberta, Canada and I've never heard of it causing a problem.

I know that seems weird for people where right on red is illegal, but it's really no different than what happens at a stop sign.

<comment><USER54> Turns out it was only a proposal which was never tried after all:

[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/oct/27/cyclists- run-...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/oct/27/cyclists-run-red- lights-paris-london-san-francisco)

 _Johnson and Transport for London requested permission for a trial back in 2009, but it never took place. TfL has concentrated instead on remodelling junctions to allow "early release" (where cyclists get a green light before cars) and "hold the left-turning traffic" (keeping cyclists and cars apart on left turns)._</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Workers Walked Out over Warehouse Working Conditions - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa7qny/60-amazon-workers-walked-out-over-warehouse-working-conditions <comment><USER2> "Striking workers at the Egan plant also demanded an increase in their hourly wage, which currently sits at $16.25 an hour. They argue they should get paid more on the night shift."

$16.25 isn't enough for low-skilled warehouse work? I stopped reading here. Most warehouse workers would dream of this kind of wage.</comment>


Tactics to Solve the Chicken-Or-Egg Problem and Grow Your Marketplace - <AUTHOR> https://www.nfx.com/post/19-marketplace-tactics-for-overcoming-the-chicken-or-egg-problem <comment><USER2> Several of these strike me as "concentrate things so your initial offering meets some minimal threshold of value to participants." I think the clearest example of what I mean by that is this:

 _Tactic 17: Set a time constraint. You can actually program excitement into the marketplace with the help of time constraints.

Examples: At launch, Tophatter only let people bid between 8-9pm PT. During this hour the marketplace felt crowded._

I wouldn't frame it as being about _feeling crowded._ To my mind, limiting the time frame helps ensure that there is a sufficient activity level to be worthwhile for participants.

</comment><comment><USER3> Straightforward, interesting, practical, not overpromising or overbearing ... does this person not know how the modern web operates?</comment>


Super last minute advice for startups applying for Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://garry.posterous.com/super-last-minute-advice-for-s

<comment><USER2> That's a thoughtful post.

But why do I literally need to get out onto a life raft in the ocean with my co-founders? Are there customers out there?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a metaphor for the fact that all you have is your cofounders, so choose wisely.

<comment><USER3> I assume he's playing off of the usage of 'literally' regarding a metaphor.

<comment><USER4> This is a very interesting article about how "literally" is used to mean "figuratively." <http://www.slate.com/id/2129105/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's always something awesome about reading a guy's blog that's hosted on the engine he himself built.

Excellent post, as always.

<comment><USER6> _There's always something awesome about reading a guy's blog that's hosted on the engine he himself built._

There is? He didn't write nginx, or the C libraries it uses, or the linux kernel it's running on, or the Xen virtualization layer slicehost is using, or the C compiler which was used to compile all of the above -- but each of those is far more sophisticated than the blog engine. What's so awesome about a very thin layer at the top of a very deep stack?

<comment><USER5> One memorable Thursday I got to eat dinner with a writer and a teacher of mine. He cooked an excellent meal. Part of me was thrilled that he cooked for me and my peers.

He didn't plant the seeds that grew into the vegetables he used. He didn't grind out the flour he used to cook. He didn't raise the cattle, or clean the meat. He just took some finished products and he made a meal.

Every step of any process requires an awesome effort. I'm just as impressed with the people who wrote those many, many laters. But in the end, design is that layer you're talking about, and Posterous is very well-designed, and when I use a web site that's all that I care about. That's the product of the Posterous team, and it's a pretty awesome one.

Why bother doing anything if all you're ever doing is building a thin layer? Could it be that any product is a result of lots of people working on something, and that each contribution is integral? Nah, couldn't be. We're all insignificant and nothing is awesome.

What happened to the ability of hackers to look at something cool and say "Gee golly wow"? I still do that all the time, and every time I do I get these little snide remarks. Why? What harm is there in thinking that _lots of things_ are awesome? Lots of things _are_ awesome! Life is so awesomely super- duper cool! Let's not ruin it by sneering.

<comment><USER6> Allow me to clarify somewhat. This isn't the first time I've seen someone make a comment like yours; but I have never seen anyone say "wow, it's really cool that a FreeBSD developer is running FreeBSD on his server" (substitute "nginx", "Apache", "linux", "Xen", etc. for "FreeBSD" as required). It's more the opposite -- it seems that those of us who work on the lower layers only ever get attention if we _don't_ eat our own dogfood.

To turn my question around: Ok, so the blog engine _and_ all the underlying layers are all awesome; but why don't all the underlying layers get as much attention?

<comment><USER7> I think it's cool that Linus Torvald's is using Linux to teach his daughters computing (with handy parental controls he wrote himself).

I think it's cool that Guido van Rossum uses Python in most of his daily programming.

I think it's cool that thet Lighttpd website runs on Lighttpd.

I think it's cool that I use my own project for my daily websearching needs (okay, bad example, since I'm in Search UI and most of my job consists of putting a pretty web interface on the stuff the backend engineers do. I think it's cool that I use lacker's stuff that I slapped a frontend onto for my daily websearching needs. ;-))

<comment><USER8> Where you use "cool" I'd use "expectable"...

<comment><USER7> That was cperciva's point, I guess. I still think it's cool though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great post Gary! My favorite is #5 "A little help from friends." It took me a long time to realize the value of letting everyone know what you're doing and what you need. I use to try to keep everything secret until launch. Now I realize that if you tell people what you're doing and what you, they're much more likely to HELP you.

<comment><USER10> Even if they can't help you, they get excited about you and tell other people who can help you. I'm amazed at the amount of support, help, advice and ideas I've been getting from people even in entirely unrelated fields. Of course, dealing with it all and not following every last piece of fishwives' wisdom is another story... ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> While good design is important, I'd think twice about having a designer/cofounder. Look at this site for instance; design easily done by a developer, yet the service itself fills a niche and built a community.

As a side note, I've seen early design hires hold back the company in later stages as they tend to wield too much power over the product (often playing a pseudo product management role).

It's easy enough to outsource a logo and some paint. Think about your use cases and make sure the service caters to them but good product is often "designed" at the functional level.

<comment><AUTHOR> A good designer is a good designer. If someone holds back the company later, that's not good design.

Design is way way more than logo and paint. Interaction design is just plain being able to make stuff that works well for people -- that's the kind of design I'm talking about. Should have made that more clear.

<comment><USER11> It looks like you are the "designer" on your team. It also looks like you have an amazing background in software development, program management and entrepreneurship. That's the kind of designer you want as a cofounder ;)

As you say, design is a lot more than some paint and a logo. Interaction design, information architecture... are all VERY important at the early stages. I do think the early devs should have this as a skillset though (much as you do) opposed to cofounding with a straight up interaction designer (no matter how good they are).

Given the amount of equity a cofounder gets it I would tend to look for people who could be 100% utilized (working all the time to get the company up and running). It can be hard to keep a full time designer busy unless you have a team of devs pumping stuff out for them to craft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thanks to garry for posting this, always nice to hear a bit of advice distilled down.

Even nicer when you're able to check off most of the points :D

</comment><comment><USER13> This useful article comes from Garry Tan, cofounder @ Posterous.

</comment><comment><USER14> Paul, can we have a feature that when we save an application there's also a 'feedback' button, which sends the application to select YC alumni and others who have time to give feedback?

<comment><USER15> Nobody is going to hold your hand when you are starting up.

It would be unwise to have a feature that gives you that false impression.

<comment><USER14> What are you talking about? The whole YC program is explicitly about getting your hand held. Anyone can get a credit card or family/friend loan for 5,000 for a three month project. YC is not about the money; it's about the advice. YC is about nurturing seeds to see what comes up, rather than testing them for the Winter. There's a reason seeds sprout in Spring -- to give them as good as possible running start before Winter comes. They'll get tested soon enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is posting your application here for feedback in the form of an ASK YC post frowned upon?

Surprised I haven't seen anyone do that.

<comment><USER5> In my opinion that's a little bit tacky. I don't know if I'd like people seeing exactly how I answered every application question a week before applications were due, and I don't think that an application post would be HN- worthy. (Especially not if a bunch of different people all posted theirs at once.)

I'd advise emailing a few people that you think could give you feedback. I sent Garry a rough draft of my application, and his feedback helped a lot. Either write to a few HN people (and don't get upset if some people you write to are really busy right now), or join the IRC channel and ask people there.

<comment><USER17> Didnt know there was an IRC channel! Does anyone have the channel and the server?

<comment><USER18> freenode #startups</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Measuring Time in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mjmikulski/horology <comment><AUTHOR> Would you use it in your python project? What next features do you suggest?</comment>