Tired of London? Maybe you're living in the wrong place - <AUTHOR> http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-london-youre-wrong.html <comment><USER2> OK let me sell my shitty zone 6 flat and buy one in Mayfair instead. The problem with London is that it's no longer a city for the middle class or even upper middle class. Instead properties in London have become commodities like gold, oil and diamond for world's millionaires. You lot work in IT, sell up, get a remote work and work from sandy beaches of wherever suits. Still a better solution than saving up to buy a flat, coz you fucking can't anymore.

<comment><USER3> Same situation in NYC.

<comment><USER4> And San Fran.

<comment><USER5> Not that it isn't true...

...but you're obviously not from San Francisco, because you called it 'San Fran'.

<comment><USER4> I'm not, but I live here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yes, I was tired of London. Tired of Pedestrians telling at cyclists, cyclists yelling at pedestrians, hell bent taxi drivers, and the ambient sound of sirens.

So I left. I went to Thailand where 1 months rent alone buys you 2-4 months of decent living. I traveled home to New Zealand where you can upgrade from a single bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom house with a backyard.

London pays well, has loads of events and is great for networking. Being able to travel around Europe is also great.

But at the end of the day, if youre unhappy having the pub as your main social activity, and if you find yourself drinking every night to compensate for your lack of enthusiasm for life, then just move. There's a better life elsewhere.

<comment><USER7> > So I left. I went to Thailand where 1 months rent alone buys you 2-4 months > of decent living.

Should have gone to Laos, where you can live in a beautiful house for $10 a day. It is also quieter, has great internet, no roads and cars.

And London may pay well, but not as well as Australia for the last few years.

<comment><USER8> Where in particular in Laos would you recommend? I'm currently in Bangkok for the month, but heading to Laos after Myanmar.

<comment><USER9> Also in Bangkok, having just come back from Myanmar. There are quite a lot of us, we should do a Hackernews Bangkok meetup...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, as someone pointed out: London is not anymore an approachable city for middle class/upper middle class. I think that to live well in London you need to earn at least 6k GBP/month per family (3k each basically). Of which, 2k/2.5k will go for rent alone. If you earn less than 3k, you are going to live counting pennies and won't likely save anything.

The main problem with London are 1) houses: it's really hard to find a nice apartment close to where you work 2) public transports: which are incredibly overcrowded (yet kind of efficient). If you have to commute to work - which is most likely - then life is going to be hard.

<comment><USER11> >yet kind of efficient

I dispute the efficiency of London public transport. On paper it looks great but it has some major reliability problems. I don't know if "signal failure" is some sort of catch all error code but it seems to happen an awful lot.

My wife and I have spent years traveling and spent significant blocks of time in a lot of big cities (most admittedly not as large as London). Tokyo, Bangkok, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur etc and have had a combined 0 delays on public transport within any of those cities. Not saying they never occur, maybe we have just been lucky, but we have had 3+ years of regular use and 0 delays.

We recently spent a month in London and had at least half a dozen delays on the tube. Actually, more than that. On our way to the airport the tube was delayed 3 separate times on that single journey due to congestion.

<comment><USER12> "Signal Failure" is also a major cause of delays in the Paris mtro and RER. You're comparing these problem with city like Tokyo and Taipei, and this makes me think that the main problem probably comes from the age of the infrastructure.

The métro in Paris dates back to 1900, and in London it goes back to 1863. Even with the major enhancements, I think that would explain why both are over used and congested. Running a line at full capacity, like the Northern Line that I have to take to commute, where trains are running 1 or 2 minutes from each other, will result in delays.

<comment><USER11> >this makes me think that the main problem probably comes from the age of the infrastructure.

I suspect this is the cause. I don't know what level of technology is running behind the scenes but it certainly didn't feel anywhere near as modern as many of the systems you encounter around Asia, which are generally no more than a few decades old. Often they have also been aggressively updated since their construction, both out of utility and almost as a point of national pride.

One thing jumped out at me as being particularly anachronistic in 2014, which is when I was in London. Human beings standing on the platform making routine announcements over the loud speakers at stations and train drivers making announcements on the trains.

The vast majority of places have all of their standard announcements prerecorded as well as a bank of prerecorded special case announcements. Not just in Asia. In Australia (Perth), where I am from, and Barcelona, where I am now, this is also the case.

This has the advantage that the announcement has zero background noise in the sound coming over the speakers, a relatively accent free voice can be used and the announcements are the same every time. I am a native English speaker but still found understanding the announcements over the noise of a train pulling into the station with that same sound also coming through the speakers was often impossible. Throw in the person having a reasonably strong accent and them feeling the need to adlib the announcement format and things get even more difficult.

I was genuinely shocked the first time I saw a human being standing on the platform attempting to shout into a microphone loud enough to be heard over a train. And given that the customer facing technology is sub-par it does make me suspicious of the degree to which the rest of the system has been updated over the years.

It would be lovely to think that the London underground has retained its old worldy charm whilst running state of the art 21st century technology under the skin but I suspect its not the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Shoreditch/Hackney (London startup land) postbox psychology results: most open to experience, high on extraversion and life satisfaction, low agreeableness, least emotionally stable and conscientious.

</comment><comment><USER9> The "wrong place" in London is the one that requires the longest and most arduous commute from your workplace.

<comment><USER14> "Anywhere near London" would be the wrong place for me personally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is interesting only in that it points out that previous studies lacked any common sense.

</comment><comment><USER16> Seems I should move out from northbeach to the mission

<comment><USER17> I live in the Mission and love it :)</comment></comment>


Jack Ma's Original Sales Pitch in 1999 - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up9-C4_8dVo&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> Ironic, that in the video, he urges his colleagues to emulate the American startup work ethic. Nowadays, it's the other way around.</comment>


Why Block Size Increase Is Not a Solution to High Fees for Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://blockchaind.net/block-size-increase-not-solution-fees/ <comment><USER2> Good writeup, have you looked into iotacoin?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have not looked into their tech but i have heard that they have similar issues to bitcoin when bitcoin was 0 fee i.e spam attacks and other stuff.

<comment><USER2> interesting. That may very well be a huge obstacle. Because they are all about no-fee adjoinders to the tangle. Hmmm. Other paradigms have the fee built in as this article mentioned. That might be a way for them to mitigate this, with some sort of implied starting transaction velocity / stickiness that could decrease. Like a way to outdate spammy attackings and disregard their info. Damn though, all that takes tabulation and overhead, which is where you want to pack it all down with cryption. Man. That is a toughie.

<comment><AUTHOR> Outdating spam attacks and disregarding their info kills the immutability part of the system. There is currently no solution to this issue as if fee reduces spam becomes more prominent and bloats the blockchain. Their needs to be a balance.

<comment><USER2> As as the fee goes down, spam of the tangle goes up. Wow man, this is hard problem. Thanks for your words & study. Hope they can get it figured out. Do you think Lightning will have it down pat?

<comment><AUTHOR> Lightning is a great solution but it is still years away from production use. Ethereum is doing something similar but their tech is also scheduled to be ready in 2019. Nothing is available right now.

<comment><USER2> Wonderful. Thank you for the information. I look forward to investing into Ethereum if they get it all together. Do you feel like geopolitics will affect the network's latency?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes 100%</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fermi Estimates - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem

<comment><USER2> I would humbly add Victor Weisskopf to the list, in particular his article "Of Atoms, Mountains, and Stars: A Study in Qualitative Physics."</comment>


Show HN: Would you buy a washing machine online? How about now? WebGL v2 - <AUTHOR> http://esd.bbystatic.com/3d/4995705/?version=2

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an update to work previously posted on HN. I'm interested in getting feedback on the 3d experience and the UX of the new layout. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I notice you're using X3DOM. If you're looking for more realistic rendering capabilities, it's definitely worth checking out the open source PlayCanvas engine. Codebase: [https://github.com/playcanvas/engine](https://github.com/playcanvas/engine) Toolset: [https://playcanvas.com/](https://playcanvas.com/) The engine has physically based rendering integrated into it. Here's an example: [http://playcanv.as/p/SA7hVBLt](http://playcanv.as/p/SA7hVBLt) Ping the info 'at' playcanvas 'dot' com address to find out more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We'll take a look.</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter adding random metadata fields - Dave Winer will be happy - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/14/twitter-user-streams-annotations/

<comment><AUTHOR> Dave Winer has been asking for this for months, it's basically the same as being able to extend metadata fields in RSS. This should allow for the creation of lots of imaginative Twitter apps.

<comment><USER2> On the other hand, it will make Winer happy.</comment></comment>


Five-Cent Diabetes Pill From 1958 May Be New Cancer Drug - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-25/five-cent-diabetes-pill-from-1958-may-be-new-cancer-drug.html

<comment><USER2> Cool. I'm on metformin (the drug from the article) and Actos for my American Diabetes[1]. Maybe metformin's anti-cancer properties will counter Actos' known pro-cancer properties! :-)

[1] By American Diabetes I mean diabetes due to being overweight. A few years ago, I changed my eating habits, got down to merely chubby, and all traces of diabetes went away. Eventually, changes in work threw my schedule into disarray, I stopped making time to go home and cook and reverted to too much fast food, much of the weight came back, and so did the diabetes.

<comment><USER3> Subway salads & In&Out protein style or McDonalds burgers & milkshakes style fast food?

<comment><USER2> A mix, although shakes are rare. It's the tempting add-ons (e.g., cookies at Subway) and the late night "I didn't stock any good snacks at home to avoid temptation, and so I end up going to the convenience store" runs that are the killers.

<comment><USER3> Stock better snacks, double your orders of healthier food?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ok, now to protect my health I should be taking this drug (Metformin?), taking aspirin, drinking a glass of wine, eating blueberries... what have I missed? Maybe a pill that combines all that? There's an actionable startup idea!

<comment><USER5> You're only going to take metformin if you have risk factors and/or metabolic syndrome/diabetes. Metformin has side effects. It's not as simple as aspirin.

(I'm not on it, but my wife was after our first kid was born and there was a concern about gestational diabetes).

<comment><USER6> I might be wrong, but my understanding is that metformin is _remarkably_ safe. I know you shouldn't take it if you have kidney or liver disease, and you mentioned the risk for women who are or might become pregnant, but except in those cases, I think gastrointestinal upset is about the only side-effect.

<comment><USER7> The gastrointestinal upset is _very_ prevalent, especially when people start taking it. It is also a good idea to avoid alcohol completely while on metformin. Metformin isn't a miracle cure - it helps reduce sugar absorption and generation by a (little) bit. Good old fashioned diet and exercise are far better, with metformin just taking the edge off. The best way of affecting long term public health is to address diet and exercise rather than giving everyone 5c pills.

<comment><USER7> Also not mentioned is that metformin can severely reduce B12 uptake. Lack of B12 can result in nervous system issues, and is very similar to neuropathy.

You have a store of several years of B12 so it can take quite a while before depletion sets in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are they saying that controlling blood sugar reduces cancer, or that metformin controls blood sugar -and- reduces cancer through some other mechanism?

There is enormous evidence of health problems caused by high blood sugar. If this applies to cancer too, the actionable plan is to start measuring one's own blood sugar (either daily or with an implant which can do it continuously), and learn to control it. I'm ready to try this myself.

Nothing beats direct measurement / "what gets measures gets fixed".

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been taking this on and off before meals as an anti-aging drug. Glad it's getting some mainstream coverage. It's quite possible just about everyone should be taking it, certainly everyone on a typical American high-carb diet.

<comment><USER10> _It's quite possible just about everyone should be taking it_

Statements like this instantly set off my alarm bells. A drug that _everybody_ should be routinely taking? Call me skeptical.

<comment><USER11> We all take powerful drugs every day: it's just that we mostly get them from food. (Example: Vitamin C and scurvy.)

<comment><USER10> By that argument, glucose is also a drug.

There's a key difference between drugs and foods. For example, Vitamin C is required for synthesis, metabolism, and enzyme operation [1]. Caffeine simply enhances alertness. Your body will cease to function correctly without Vitamin C; not so without Caffeine (unless you are fostering a dependance)

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C#Physiological_functio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C#Physiological_function_in_mammals)

<comment><USER9> Sure, glucose is a drug. There's a lot of overlap between foods, supplements, and drugs, and for the most part the distinction is created by bureaucrats at the FDA.

My favorite example of something that is simultaneously a food, drug, and supplement is the Seville orange. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_orange>

The bitter orange is delicious with stronger orange flavor than a normal orange, particularly in the peel. Most commercially used "natural orange flavor" is derived from bitter orange peels. The bitter orange contains a powerful set of ephedra-like substances, which are quite powerfully mind altering. A single bitter orange is actually uncomfortably stimulating for most people, in the sense that people have enough of a sense for this kind of thing that they stop eating before they consume an entire orange.

But even though sour orange extract is regulated as a supplement, it works as a powerful drug, and an unusually dangerous one at that. It still grows on trees and is very delicious and perhaps available blended in a $15 cocktail near you. Most bartenders don't realize they are adding a stimulant to a drink when they add Seville orange.

<comment><USER10> Well, that settles it, clearly if every food is also a drug, that means any drug is safe to take in large quantities on a regular basis.

<comment><USER11> All he's saying is that the line's blurry. If you drink 50 gallons of water in a day, you will overdose -- everything is harmful in some quantity, food or otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How does this drug work? Does it reduce your blood sugar somehow? Would it be useful for weight loss?

</comment><comment><USER13> Hmm. So the way I read this:

We have an old drug that helps diabetes to treat cancer.. The drug costs $.05/pill, for diabetes.

It will be called "Nocan", and feature a $24/pill cost, due to a new patent being granted. *

*Just like Eli Lilly with PMS-PMDD and name change of Prozac to Sarafem. All you need do is bribe FDA for new "disease" name, and you have another 17 yr patent.

<comment><USER5> Huh? How do you patent metformin? It's an extremely widely prescribed drug.

<comment><USER14> You don't. You patent "Nocan", a drug with an _extremely similar_ (most would say "identical") chemical structure. Metformin is a diabetes medication, while Nocan will be a cancer drug, so they're totally different. The diseases aren't even handled by the same medical specialists. ;)

<comment><USER5> If metformin works for cancer the way aspirin does for heart disease, with an overall long-term prophylactic effect, people will just take metformin. It is very easy to get metformin.

<comment><USER15> I was going to say that your doctor won't be allowed to prescribe metformin, but I checked and the FDA is fine with your doc independently prescribing drugs for off-label use. The manufacturer of metformin isn't allowed to market it as an anti-cancer drug, but what doctor won't be aware of this?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


300 men, women and children disappeared from a small town in Tennessee - <AUTHOR> http://www.limetownstories.com/

<comment><USER2> The title of this HN post is misleading, since this podcast is a work of fiction:

[http://www.limetownstories.com/about/](http://www.limetownstories.com/about/)</comment>


The Benefits of Thinking Small (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.eladgil.com/2010/10/benefits-of-thinking-small.html <comment><USER2> I wonder why so much of the business writing suffers from survivorship bias type writing - what wrong lessons are we all drawing every day because of that. The esp dangerous ones are probably the ones that _sound right_ but are wrong.

I am a big fan of startups, those who build and innovate. I even like the strategic advice that VCs/ex-founders give about building a business.

However, any writing of the style: "Facebook, Google, Zynga, Twitter did [x] when they were small -> So you must do [x]" doesn't resonate strongly with me. It has this underlying promise of 'if you did [x] you will become Facebook' \- which ignores a vast multitude of other factors that went into making an FB. It is worth thinking much harder about how much of [x] is actually right on a strictly case-by-case basis -- depending on what one is trying to build, the problem one is trying to solve and for who.

Sometimes one has to take a different approach and build several features/product bundles in order to sell.

One approach probably is to find some overriding _truths_ that are close to being immutable: such as,

1) make something people want (I haven't seen a counterexample to this yet)

2) nothing happens until somebody sells something (This puts focus sharply on building what will sell)

3) articulating 'why now' to the best available clarity is important in my view (even if to explain why a bigger scope may be needed now than in the past - e.g. if one has to build an HR system today, they would probably need to build a payroll integration as a feature; this wasn't true before 2013-14)

The problem of course with these that they sound super generic that they cease to be of value after a point.

<comment><USER3> I always say that there's a difference between "because of" and "in spite of".

I remember a hamburger restaurant that opened up. It had very good hamburgers and was very popular. The staff were always singing. It was a singing hamburger restaurant. About a year after it opened, I noticed a lot of other singing hamburger restaurants opening up. They all failed miserably -- mostly because their hamburgers weren't very good. After about 2 or 3 years the popular hamburger restaurant folded. They still had really good hamburgers, but the singing was really annoying and eventually nobody wanted to go there any more.

Interestingly, around the same time I heard of other singing hamburger restaurants in other cities. I always wondered if it was some horrible cargo cult fad, or if it was just a coincidence.

<comment><USER2> Such a great comment. I will use this hamburger example from now on to make the point I was trying to make! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I for one often miss the focused, relatively small companies that are good enough to later become something bigger.

Facebook was _really fun_ back when it was all about your profile, your friends list, and posting on other people's walls (this was before News Feed). Communication on it was more personal and not at all about self-broadcasting or gaining an audience.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am a fan of the book 'start small, stay small' ( [https://amzn.to/2JcmFnp](https://amzn.to/2JcmFnp) ) , but at this point it's a bit dated. Has anyone written anything similar that's a bit more relevant in 2018?

For most of us, success is likely to be via something smaller rather than shooting for the moon with some VC-fueled rocket.

<comment><USER6> maybe the books from the founders of Basecamp, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson? Not sure if they're more recent, and also reeks a bit of survivorship bias, but what book doesn't.

<comment><USER5> What was so good about start small, stay small is that it's so concrete - that's also why it's a bit dated. The 37 signals guys tend more towards handwaviness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can't believe they left Apple (well, ok, Woz) out of that 'started small' list. Not to mention Hewlett and Packard. Or Emile Berliner.

Related: Dave Packard's 11 simple rules. (for human relations) (1958) [https://web.archive.org/web/20080517004825/http://www.hp.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080517004825/http://www.hp.com/retiree/history/founders/packard/11rules.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> I totally disagree that Google's success is due to 'thinking small' their success is because they understand that to boil a frog you have to increase the temperature _slowly_ : first build a useful service without ads (which were really painful with slow modems) then when you have 'killed' all your competitors start adding a few ads then increase the number of ads..

<comment><USER9> [http://archive- srel.uga.edu/outreach/ecoviews/ecoview021118....](http://archive- srel.uga.edu/outreach/ecoviews/ecoview021118.htm)

<comment><USER10> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APxGubAkOz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APxGubAkOz0) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRWL8-dn_Uk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRWL8-dn_Uk)

<comment><USER9> randop, are you saying we're....both...right...??!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Otherwise known as feature creep. Start with making one thing better than anyone else has done. You're not going to be another Facebook, they've already have a ten year head start.

<comment><USER12> This certainly isn't "otherwise known as feature creep", and you don't necessarily need to do one thing better than anyone else has done. All you need to do is find an opportunity, and grow from there.

The point he is making is not that you will be the next facebook, but that if you start with a small, possibly non scalable idea that works, who knows what it could turn into. And maybe its better to do this than to try to penetrate the market with big picture bullshit.

<comment><USER11> So basically not building a ton of features, and sticking to something small? All cleared up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does this article try to convey that keep your expectations to minimal when you start with something. Feel content when your product/ service met your expectations and then gradually build your expectations? Because anything that hurts most is our own expectations to begin with. Else, everyone else starts with vision statement of making next Facebook or Google!

</comment><comment><USER14> The author forgets many counterexamples like Amazon.

<comment><USER15> Amazon is not a clear counter example to this. Originally Amazon was simply an online bookstore.

<comment><USER16> Jeff Bezos certainly wasn't thinking small. We wouldn't know if he chose to start with books or if was he only thinking of selling books, but he chose books because there was a great demand for it worldwide, they were cheap and there was a great deal of inventory available.

Definitely not small.

<comment><USER17> He chose books because they exploit the structural advantage of the internet maximally: infinite shelf space for the entirety of published selection, something that would be impossible in a physical store.

I think this advice to 'think small' could be refined to include 'find a small edge, then relentlessly exploit it'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> TLDR: scratch your own itch

<comment><USER19> Or at least scratch _someone 's_ itch. Preferably an unscratched one. In the simplest, most convenient possible way.

<comment><USER20> Stop scratching my itch

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The big ones are mostly state sponsored companies. Facebook and Google became huge because they got a lot of money from state agencies. Mostly indirect via front-companies.

With that they could dominate the market with good servers and pay for good programmers. With that they deliver a very good service "for free", while others could hardly get any money.

They also get some money for clicks and advertising, and also have started dominating the advertising market. But the big money is the hidden support from agencies of the government(s).

<comment><USER22> I think the money of Facebook mostly comes from ads. I understand that their knowledge about citizen could be valuable for governments and therefore could be part of how they make money. Now, can you prove what you are saying, or is it just a credible but proof-less conspiracy theory?</comment></comment>


Announcing: LaunchSpark LA - <AUTHOR> http://www.launchspark.net/2011/04/announcing-launchspark-la.html

<comment><USER2> Hey HN -

I'm Mike - founder of LaunchSpark. Had a couple of great calls with HNers that suggested I add some information about myself here and on the site. I added a more in-depth bio to the About LaunchSpark page [<http://www.launchspark.net/p/about.html>].

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

-Mike</comment>


Ask HN: How can I transition after getting "burnt-out"? - <AUTHOR> I've been a programmer at the same company for just over 5 years. I have lately been experiencing what I believe to be burnout.[1] After a particularly anxiety-inducing unable-to-focus episode, I spoke with my supervisor about the issue, and he suggested that we make a change with regard to my day-to-day work duties. Since I am a senior at the company, one obvious path is to take on some managerial duties while reducing my programming duties. The main issue with this change is that my department doesn't necessarily need a manager at this time (my department has three people including myself, though we're trying to hire another person), so moving me to that position would most likely incur more of a drain of company resources (e.g. money). It's worth noting that I do not want to leave my company.
Questions for someone who has dealt with or is dealing with burnout: * Has transitioning to a different set of duties worked for alleviating your symptoms? * What would be a good set of duties to transition to from programming? * If you also suffer from depression, do you have any method(s) for not letting your depression interfere with work?
Questions for someone with experience running / managing at a company: * Is there a way to transition without putting a significant drain on company resources? I.e. are there any techniques for making a manager position profitable when the position isn't otherwise necessary?
I realize that answers to most of these questions would require more details about the structure of the company I work for. I'm really just looking for general tips and/or success/failure stories from people who may have been in similar situations.
[1] As a side note, I do also suffer from major depressive disorder and I take an SSRI for that. The symptoms of burnout used to wax and wane alongside the symptoms of my depression, but the burnout symptoms have lately been growing more cumbersome despite me not feeling overall more depressed than usual. <comment><USER2> Hey! I've dealt with burnout myself (although in a different role) and run a career coaching/advising startup that has helped hundreds with similar issues ([https://getboost.io](https://getboost.io))

First, your specific questions:

\- Burnout is a complex state, especially when mixed with depression. Depression is a scale, but if you felt burned out enough or depressed enough to write this post, I highly recommend you get a therapist. Since you take an SSRI I'm assuming you might already have one, but want to make sure. I personally know 10+ people with therapists and the majority of them say it's literally the best decision they've ever made. \- A lot of "curing" burnout will involve changing both your external pressures and internal perceptions. In our experience helping others, we haven't seen a specific set of duties that correlate with less symptoms -- heck, for many programmers in early-stage startups, they get anxiety when they _aren 't_ coding. Your situation is unique, so be open to experimenting with it. \- "not letting your depression interfere with work" isn't a healthy perspective IMO. Instead, think about depression as a chemical imbalance that is there and WILL interfere -- and that's ok. Instead of not letting it interfere, your goal is to reduce it's surface area, so to speak. Ironically, things that tend to help this are things like engaging in fun activities, hanging with co-workers casually, etc. You can also reduce the surface area by setting up more achievable goals for yourself, so that when you hit them, you're more happy. \- As any good manager should know, investing in your employees mental health pays dividends. This isn't a situation where it's your mental health VS the company -- I'd be open with your manager about this, talk about your passion for the company, and see what they'd propose to help you get over this especially difficult time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sometimes just taking a long vacation can help...

How much do you work every week? Working overly long hours is also a potential source of problems, and doing different duties won't help if you're really overworked</comment>


The artificial skylight - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedump.com/content/artificial-skylight-you-wont-believe-isnt-real

<comment><AUTHOR> So far we are like amphibians, bound to live at least partly on the Earth surface under natural skylight, or risk health consequences. If this light proves to be natural enough for human eye in the long term, then this may be an important step towards totally independent human artificial habitats.</comment>


The Zero-Bug Policy in Software Development - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/quality-functions/the-zero-bug-policy-b0bd987be684#.pcpmebx1o <comment><USER3> Summary:

Have a "zero bug policy" in 1 simple step:

Re-classifies bugs you don't want to fix as "improvements".

Tada!

... Seriously? That's ridiculous click-bait crap. You didn't implement a zero- bug policy, you just redefined what you call a bug. This is no different than everyone else's policies, except that now you're screwing with terminology.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps I am wrong here, but I got a much different message out of the post.

 __It 's not about actually having ZERO bugs as it is about enforcing a strict and logical classification system. __

I think this quote resonated with me the most:

> ...but much more so, the bugs were a result of incorrect specification or > missing specifications.

The argument being made is that if you hand a developer a specification, the developer implements the specification _as specified_, then you discover the specification was incorrect or that in practice you want a change would you classify that as a _BUG_? No. But a lot of shops _do_, so they end up with _too_ many tasks classified as a "Bug" which makes it impossible to prioritize since being a "Bug" is a binary descriptor.

By enforcing a classification system means you have the ability to then enforce a prioritization system...and really the prioritization system is key for maintaining consistent output and forward progress.

At least that what I felt the argument of the post was...and I see some reasonability to it. Especially since, as the author mentioned, this is not a new idea.

<comment><USER5> I'm in the business of building complex software systems, and I think another way to improve software development is to fire all the agile coaches, use the money saved to hire more developers, and use those developers to give the team more help to fix defects and add features. I really cringe when a project management type comes in and points out the obvious. This kind of stuff only works if you are building simple software like a CMS system or a basic CRUD app. Building complex software is an exploration in and of itself. In the old telecom days, months would be spent writing precise feature specifications and design documents. That's how much time it takes. Does ANYONE have that time today? Aside from safety critical systems where you have no choice but to put in the time, I think the answer is no. The software development process has shrunk significantly, and as an industry we have decided to meld design, architecture, feature specification, coding and testing. Bugs are a necessary end product of this stupidity.

<comment><AUTHOR> FYI, I'm not a project management type. I've build numerous continuous delivery pipelines for enterprise clients and helped them deliver multiple features per week. I have current skills in writing Java, C# and Node.js. I've written my own testing frameworks (Check out Chimp.js), I coach developers on how to write better code, as well as business people on how to create better specs.

I typically try to stay away from CRUD applications where possible as I find them too simple. I prefer to work on meaty domain-driven applications using CQRS and Event sourcing, but that's just my tech preferences.

I too worked in telecoms and was part of the development team that did the AOL LLU from BT in the UK. The old-world you speak about has a ton of wisdom in it, that much I agree with you on, however it was also riddled with stupidity of its own.

The amount of time you put into the specs is not where the trick is in my view, it's about splitting the specs down into manageable chunks (something the old world never understood) and then making sure those chunks get the necessary time (something often missed these days).

If you think the solution for your company is not to have any advisors, and that you have all you need, then by all means hire more developers. They are the smartest people around ;)

<comment><USER5> I didn't mean a personal attack on you btw. Your track record suggests you know your stuff and would likely be an asset on a large/complex project. My comment is informed by my bad experiences at two previous employers - <USER2> parachuted agile coaches to "help" when the problems were obviously a runaway feature list and not enough developers. Surely, you must know of charlatans in connection with agile. I think we all need to educate management that agile is not a silver bullet or a panacea. It is a process with good and bad. Great if welded by adults but very easy to abuse by non-grownups. To many of my developer friends, agile is a synonym for daily status updates, which is absolutely not what it is supposed to be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the clarification and totally agree. I have seen project managers turn their gantt-chart sideways, have 1 hour standup meetings and call themselves Scrum Masters! So I know exactly what you mean.

Nowadays I never say the A word in a companies for the exact reasons you mention. Now I say "let's start producing higher quality, faster" and go from there.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Tries Again on a Smartphone - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/facebook-tries-tries-again-on-a-smartphone/

<comment><USER2> " _It could easily scoop up an infirm company like Research in Motion, which is valued at less than $6 billion, and drop a beautifully designed Facebook operating system on top of RIM's phones._ "

I find this to be an affront to engineers and designers. It trivializes the amount of time and effort it takes to make a well engineered product.

Can someone elucidate why it might be important for Facebook to have it's own hardware? Why wouldn't apps on an Android or iOS or Windows Phone be good enough (of course with seamless integration like Twitter on iOS)?

P.S. With Facebook's current alliance with MS, doesn't Windows Phone make for a good platform to build upon. Note, I believe that Windows Phone will eventually take off.

<comment><USER3> It's about control. On my smartphone, its easy to start using google plus instead of Facebook. If I had bought a Facebook phone, they could lock it in to Facebook services so that i use Facebook as my primary social network for at least the life of my phone.

Also, it's a revenue stream. Facebook has a huge userbase but very few of their users actually pay them money. If they started selling hardware they could collect money from those users.

<comment><USER4> Also it's about the control that Facebook, like Apple, might be able to deliver better UX if they could design for and thoroughly test on very specific combinations of hardware, instead of trying to function across so many different chips and screen sizes.

<comment><USER5> But Facebook, unlike Apple, has no practical choice about operating across those many different chips and screen sizes. Social networks are driven by exceptionally strong network effects. If Facebook doesn't reasonably operate across those chips and screen sizes, they run a serious risk of losing out to a competitor that does, especially since there's a significant one waiting in the wings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Soon Facebook will acquire enough mass to cross Chandrasekhar limit and collapse into a black hole of the internet. No information will ever leave the system, its existence will be observed only by interaction with advertisement radiation in the internet. People will claim that they left FB space but that is physically impossible. Over time interstellar drift may cause FB blackhole to collide with Google or Apple galaxy. And then whole internet cluster will collapse.

<comment><USER7> I prefer to think that it will just briefly cross the Chandrasekhar limit, spew hordes of information out of the system in a supernova brighter than the galaxy of the entire Internet, and then subside to a neutron core no one cares about.

Like MySpace. Although MySpace never really had the mass, and is I suppose currently a white dwarf.

<comment><USER8> > _spew hordes of information out of the system in a supernova_

A massive security breach that puts everyone's personal information in the hands of lulzsec? That would be one hell of a scary spectacle...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know a fair number of people who bought smartphones for the specific purpose of using facebook on the move. Even for those who didn't it's often a big use case.

I wonder if facebook could release it's own phone (linked to a FB account) and then restrict access of other smartphones to it's platforms and APIs (so that they become a crippled shell) while adding features that were exclusive to the FB phone.

Could dominate the entire smartphone game in one move.

<comment><USER10> On the other hand, I think it would be suicidal. While I agree that the phones of some (may be many) might be utilized solely for the purpose of checking Facebook regularly and on the move; there are still other reasons why people prefer one phone over other.

They have already opened up enough APIs to allow for decent third party clients - if they make a policy to withdraw it, developers and users who have already bought a smartphone will not only panic but probably revolt as well.

Alienating existing userbase, when alternative platforms like Quora are just starting to get very popular would be suicidal. In fact my university is already seeing a mass migration from Facebook to Quora and reddit (and HN).

<comment><USER9> Things like Quora and reddit aren't really FB substitutes (at least for most people) although I suppose they could be at risk from Google+.

They would have to stop this from becoming just another "me too" phone , the only way I can think of doing that would be to somehow leverage their existing userbase and make sure that using FB from their phone is a much better experience. The only way I can think of them doing that is by restricted what other phones can actually do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was surprised to read that Facebook has its own operating system. Does anybody know anything about this?

Count me in as someone who would never use a Facebook phone. Might as well use a CIA phone. I'm all for watching the competition though.

<comment><USER12> I doubt they will roll an entire mobile operating system in the time frame mentioned. A kindle-esque customized Android phone seems more likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> They could try to revive webOS - certainly a lot of work already gone in to that.

<comment><USER14> FacePalm?

<comment><USER13> Touché!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Doesn't make much sense to us techies, but maybe they'll pull some sort of business hack like amazon. Amazon ended up with the most popular Android-based tablet since they subsidized the hardware cost with their media sales and did things standard Android manufacturers wouldn't like left out cameras (which raise the cost/size/weight/power use).

Reminds me of all the talk previously about Google making a free phone service. Google and Facebook both make all their money from ads. So they might be able to do something like that, which doesn't make sense to hardware companies.

</comment><comment><USER16> It should be titled "Facebook tries to obtain a platform that it controls so that it isn't reliant on others".

</comment><comment><USER17> _...take the same approach as Amazon, offering low-cost hardware, like the Kindle, and subsidizing some of the costs through advertising._

Except that, by its own admission, Facebook hasn't figured out how to make advertising money on mobile devices.

</comment><comment><USER18> How do you become head tech news guy at the New York Times when you think Facebook is an operating system and that the company could "easily scoop up" RIM?

</comment><comment><USER19> Cause I'm sure the Apple engineers they snatched have no NDA whatsoever and will be able to bring the tech to Facebook in no time.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm surprised the article doesn't mention INQ - there've been rumours around a possible linkup there for a while.

</comment><comment><USER21> If Facebook buys RIM, we're screwed.

<comment><USER22> I think more aptly, if Facebook buys RIM _they're_ screwed.

It's just crazy talk. Facebook has a headcount of 3,500, and people seriously think they can feasible buy out RIM, with 17,500 people, and then just magically integrate them and _poof_ produce a great phone? It's madness.

If you take the article at face value, Facebook have already tried developing their own hardware and had it implode due to a lack of experience. So for the author to seriously suggest the solution should be to acquire HTC or RIM when Facebook have _equally little_ experience doing large mergers and acquisitions makes no sense to me.

<comment><USER23> TBH, if Facebook was serious about producing their own phone, buying RIM and letting it operate as a subsidiary would be a wise move.

RIM/QNX make great hardware and (now) software. No one would disagree that they need help on the user experience side of things. They've made great strides in this area too, but that's where Facebook can help. RIM can stick to what it's good at.

That said, I really hope that doesn't happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> FB OS. AKA Root-kit.</comment>


How Groupon Bought The Domain Groupon.com - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/domain-business-tip/ <comment><USER2> Um. They should speak to lawyers right now, the UK has something called "Groundless Threats" protection for trademarks. The guy in question could quite possibly sue Groupon for a substantial amount and get the domain name back.

Groupon knew the guy had the name and the intention to use it for a coupon service, and they then went ahead and registered the guys (unregistered) trademark with full knowledge that the guy was planning on using it (+ with the intention of forcing him to give up the domain). They then used the trademark to make him give up the domain. How could Groupon's lawyers not have warned them that this was a bad idea ?

<comment><USER3> They didn't 'force' or 'threaten' him to do anything. Groupon got the trademark first -- by active use even before trademark registration. The other guy got the domain name first. Then the two parties struck a mutually beneficial deal based on their distinct rights.

The domain-owner's 'intent' doesn't count for much; everyone with a domain name has a plausible 'intent' to use it for a related web project.

And the suggestion they 'speak to lawyers right now' is goofy -- they certainly consulted much better legal counsel than is available in this discussion thread before spending $250K for an international domain purchase.

<comment><USER2> I doubt they would have given a public interview on the topic if they had a UK trademark attorney to warn them they may be in grey territory. Even if there's a low probability of facing a lawsuit, as we've seen in the case of facebook, where there's money there's lawyers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Two thoughts come to mind:

1) I wonder if they would have got the domain via the first contact if they had offered $250k, or even $125k there and then (ie no trademark route). When people email me about domains "asking if I'm interested in selling" it's usually because they are looking to pay $500 range. If it's worth $250k to you, use a lawyer and then the other person knows you're serious. I would have thought almost all unused domains are for sale at $250k.

2) No one seems to be thinking about the risk here, which is that they invested a lot of time, effort and money into the Groupon brand (inc trademarking it) but they didn't own the domain.

That seems like quite a risk because, despite common assumption, you are not entitled to a domain just because you own the trademark (the other party could have other circumstances). Mr A R Mani legitimately owned and held armani.com until they had to privately buy him out and this dude could say he was building a community for roof-top gardeners (Gro Upon.com). Put up a dummy site for that and their case is tough.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not really a very cool way to get the domain.

</comment><comment><USER6> tl;dr

Company doesn't offer enough for a domain that's their own company name .com.

Domain name is probably worth less then $25k.

Company launchs and grows really big.

Company trademarks the domain and manage to buy it for $250k.

They manage to call it a success.

</comment><comment><USER7> Question: what if you have a launched business + the trademark to the name and someone still owns and won't sell the .com URL? We own the .co and all other extentions but the .com is preferred, would you go about thr same way groupon did it in this case?

<comment><USER8> You can't _force_ them to relinquish it. They should know that because you have the trademark, they can't launch anything with that name. They're probably just hoping that the longer they wait, the more invested you'll get in the name and the more you'll be willing to pay.

<comment><USER6> Are you sure they can't just call themselves "name.com"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I believe dropbox did exactly the same thing. The lesson here is that you should get a trademark in addition to the domain. Essentially, this makes squatting pretty useless without the trademark.

<comment><USER10> Well, $250,000 for a non-executed idea isn't a bad payout.

<comment><USER9> Absolutely. However, it's an edge case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, is .25MM cheap for a domain name.. ever? I can't think of a scenario in which it would be. Could anyone enlighten me as to the economics of this?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think he meant that it's cheap in comparison to what they built.

They built a business with huge revenues. When I asked him if he could at least say that Groupon generates over $100 million, I think he laughed and said that $100 million is small.

<comment><USER12> Hmm. I did some math here-> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338758> a while ago. I figured 175M revenue. If 100M is small, I must have been way off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> groupon.com Created on: 29-May-02

As domainers would say - _ding-ding-ding we have a winner!_</comment>


Touch Book: Tablet Netbook with ARM CPU, 10+ Hour Battery, Detachable Screen - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/03/02/touch-book-tablet-netbook-with-arm-cpu-10-hour-battery-detachable-screen/

<comment><USER2> There's a really nice Gizmodo hands on too:

[http://i.gizmodo.com/5162584/always-innovating-touch-book- is...](http://i.gizmodo.com/5162584/always-innovating-touch-book-is-a- part+netbook-part+tablet-open-source-frankenstein?skyline=true&s=x)

Curious, is this the fabled TC tablet? or is this just another company who decides to make this?

I really like this concept of a dockable keyboard. I wonder if they/3rd parties will offer a way to dock separately. I'd like some kind of charging base to dock it on, so I could have it set up at eye height and use a bluetooth/etc keyboard.

I already have an acer aspire one - the touchscreen is not something I care too much for personally, but I am still curious and who knows, maybe I'll grow to enjoy it.

<comment><USER3> I think TC would be making a lot more fuss if they had a hand in making it.

3rd party docking probably comes down to product lifetime. Netbooks seem to disappear from the market within months of release, so the aftermarket isn't going to specialise under those conditions. It's promising that the hardware for this is open, which at least means there's a chance we'll see something interesting. I'll certainly keep an eye on this - Netbooks haven't done it for me yet, but something more portable may well be for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And it is open source. Based on the Beagle board and OpenEmbedded, this looks interesting. I won't order until it ships, but for $300 I am interested.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is exactly what I've wanted for quite some time! Previous attempts at getting it have included a Gateway Handbook 486 (which got 10 hours on 4 AAs, but had an atrocious LCD), and the OLPC XO-1. When the OMAP3 started shipping I wondered how long it would be before someone made a netbook with one -- it takes balls most people don't have to ship a non-x86 computer. This one hits it out of the park!

There are some unanswered questions:

      * What's the ratio of battery capacity screen:keyboard?
      * What voltage/amperage is used for the charger? (how big is it?)
      * How fast can it read from the MicroSD and USB2?

My only gripes with it that I can see are:

      * The mediocre keyboard layout (the lower-right corner, as always)
      * Using MicroSD instead of plain
      * Not having a Mini-PCI-E Flash slot in the internal space (could share with one of the USB ports)
      * Only 256mb of RAM (really gimps web-browsing)
      * It's a bit thick with the keyboard (though it's worth it for the battery)

<comment><USER6> Wouldn't PCI-e require a x86 processor or, at least, x86 emulation for initialization routines?

I have a couple PPC Macs and many PCI boards (mostly video) are Mac or PC- specific.

<comment><USER5> I'm not asking for true PCI-E -- ASUS used the Mini-PCI-E connector for flash drives starting with the the 3rd? generation EEEs, and it became widespread. It's only true name is "FLASH_CONN", after the label on the PCBs.

Normally a Mini-PCI-E connector supplies USB2 (including the 5v), 1 PCI-E lane, 1.5v & 3.3v power, and control lines. FLASH_CONN keeps the USB2, but uses the PCI-E pins for SATA. A ton of the netbooks have two slots: a true Mini-PCI-E for a WiFi or 3G card, and a FLASH_CONN for the SSD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you line up devices starting with a big desktop PC on one side and simple mobile phone on the other end, there's a gap today between netbook and smart phone. I wonder if something like this is the thing that will fill the void. Imagine adding a WAN dongle and a Bluetooth headset to this. With Skype, it's half phone/half PC.

Writing this post got me thinking about something. It would be cool to be able to carry this in my backpack in the "on" state and get notifications about important events via smaller, wristwatch-like devices. Imagine your watch vibrating when you get a call and showing you caller ID info or text messages popping up on it.

There are certainly downsides compared to the iPhone or what I hope the first really nice Android device will be. However, I find these too small for "real" work so I have to carry a laptop around anyway. A hybrid could be both to some portion of the population.

<comment><USER8> Here is a bluetooth bracelet with headset profile so it can show caller ID and accept/reject a phonecall with the button:

[http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/26/lcd-bluetooth- vibrating-b...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/26/lcd-bluetooth-vibrating- bracelet-is-a-watch-short-of-awesome/)

I've been wondering if it could be paired to a Linux box with BlueZ Utils and get any old script to pretend to be an incoming call and vibrate the bracelet and show a message,,,

<comment><USER7> Cool. This was sorta what I was thinking of. Too bad it doesn't have two or three small buttons. That could be useful for a lot of stuff. And, it doesn't look nearly as tacky as the version I had imagined. The review misses the point that "time" could be the default state when there's no pending action or alert.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> <http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/faqs.htm>

The FAQ made me grin with regards to OS:

 _...This enables to install many OSes on the device, including Google Android, Ubuntu, Angstrom, and Windows CE, though we would not recommend the latter. You are free to do whatever you want._

</comment><comment><USER10> I was looking at <http://www.tabletpc2.com/Review-HPTC1100.htm> which was made a few years ago by HP. I've been searching for something like this in the last few weeks, but no one made exactly what I'm looking for yet.

The Touch Book come really close but I want more cpu power out of it.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have a tablet pc I draw and design on and have though so many times that if I could just remove the monitor I could avoid so many heat problems. I got really excited when I saw this... Unfortunately this device just appears to be a touch screen based on the stats.

<comment><USER6> Keep in mind you don't "remove the monitor" as the computer is inside it. But you can remove the keyboard/trackpad...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> OK, this kinda does it for me..

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=325896></comment>


Freemium is alive and kicking - <AUTHOR> http://www.davidgcohen.com/2012/08/22/freemium-is-alive-and-kicking/

<comment><USER2> One thing that is hardly ever mentioned when evaluating freemium is that you need deep pockets to survive until enough people start paying for the premium offering. So it almost never makes sense for bootstrapped businesses. The best bet is to figure out the market first with a paid version, and then use free as a growth engine, just like Mailchimp did.

Before blindly adopting freemium as the default pricing for your app, think long and hard about this:

Freemium has a longer sales cycle than _enterprise_.

</comment><comment><USER3> The difficulty with getting freemium right is in having a free product that's sufficiently useful to have people take the time to use it and a paid version that is worth paying for.

Convincing someone to switch from paying $0 and $1 is hard, much harder than $1 to $10. If there's not enough value in the paid version, why switch? Finding that killer feature that will cause people to pay without chasing off the free users is hard.

<comment><USER2> Lots of people are led astray by this belief that there's a killer feature that causes people to pay. Usually, there isn't one.

For example, I run a data visualisation SaaS app. For a long time, I tried all sorts of combinations of free and premium, but no one was upgrading. When I spoke to my users, the most serious ones kept saying they would be happy pay for the free version itself because it solves a big problem for them.

I ignored them because how could I have any pricing model other than freemium, right? But, I kept getting the same feedback consistently.

And then it hit me - the most successful freemium companies give away the most valuable core part of their product for free.

Once they've got people hooked, they can sell premium services so that their users can get even more of the core value.

For example, the value of Dropbox is not lots of disk space. It's the hassle- free file sync, backups and easy file sharing with friends and family. 2GB is more than enough for most. But you can pay a bit to buy more space to get even more of those core benefits.

You pay for something mundane to get more of the priceless.

But, like I said in the other comment, the catch is that you have to have deep pockets to survive long enough to get to critical mass. Some people may get lucky and bootstrap a freemium business quickly, but the odds are low.

And that's why I settled on doing away with freemium and just straight selling a product with obvious value to a good number of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My site, Scribophile, was freemium from day 1 and was profitable from day 15. Freemium is still an excellent way to hook people on a service, because there's no risk to them. If they find your service truly useful, they'll pay without question.

I am, however, thinking of dropping the freemium model. Not because it wasn't successful, but because now that Scribophile has an established reputation, requiring an up-front payment would help keep out trolls or members who aren't interested in participating. The idea is to improve the quality of the community, not take a dive into my swimming pool full of gold coins. But I'm still pondering if that's the right decision.

<comment><USER5> I've been running W3Counter for around 8 years. A fraction of 1% of its users pay anything, while a significant number of people log in to the site multiple days a week for years. They obviously find it useful, but they have no reason to pay.

> If they find your service truly useful, they'll pay without question.

If they find your free service truly useful and it meets all their needs, why would they give you money?

<comment><USER6> This is exactly right. By offering a truly free option (not a free trial) you're planting a seed in the user's mind that they can, in some way or fashion, get your product for free. In some form, your product is free.

This will shape them psychologically to be ok with the lesser free version in most cases.

Freemium does work, but not just because it gives users an opportunity to try something out with no risk. So do free trials. Very very few companies actually do freemium right, and would stand to benefit from a free trial instead (which doesn't have the same psychological implications that a truly free plan has)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> (from a thread yesterday about when Freemium fails)

One of the problems with the freemium model is that many people sometimes seem to pick a revenue target arbitrarily and then backfill their projections with the necessary conversion rate. Obviously, few firms or entrepreneurs want to expose their pricing models publicly in forums like HN, but startups need to be able to answer the question of what marginal utility they provide to their potential customers. The 'less than a cup of coffee!' model of app pricing, for example, assumes that since coffee is such a small thing users will be just as willing to throw down $3 for an app. But the coffee has physical, psychological and social value for the consumer that pays off on a predictable time horizon - and pays off not just the $3, but the time spent standing in line or buying and brewing your own coffee. Consumer preferences in for this commodity are sufficiently complex to support a large and extremely competitive market. If it was 'just coffee' then it would cost the same everywhere and vendors would be limited to normal rather than economic profits. A better approach for vendors might be to assume your target consumer does not have endless disposable income. What value does your product or service provide that would make a coffee consumer go without their favorite beverage for a day? Or if not coffee, a competitor's offering or some other part of the consumer's status quo? How does your offering compare to the composite bundle?

</comment><comment><USER8> It is also important to understand and investigate whether free users are helping your business or not. Not all business have network affect like Dropbox and can benefit from free users.

Sometimes, free users are actually hurting (they will write bad reviews, send hate email and write hate posts saying that "I don't want to pay", etc.)

For example, 37signals Basecamp does not have free tier any more. It would be great to hear from them why they decided to remove it and data behind their decision.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think freemium is a great model if you can find the right mix of bringing in new users as well as upgrading existing users.

Some are going to stick with free forever as long as it fills their needs. However, some are going to use it so much that, if the price point is right, the upgrade is a no-brainer.

</comment><comment><USER10> My cloud BI is absolutely free (<https://my.infocaptor.com>) but I make it from the enterprise downloads.

I have now an idea how to keep the service free for ever and charge only for certain things.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is this a YC vs Techstar philosophical difference?

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't say so. -> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421764>

If anything I think both YC and TS just reflect the wider market with some extra noise and ideally better outcomes.</comment></comment>


Wireless charging of moving electric vehicles overcomes major hurdle - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/14/big-advance-wireless-charging-moving-electric-cars/ <comment><USER2> The more I read about electric autonomous vehicles, the more I feel like we are about to re-create the train technology.

<comment><USER3> How so? Trains are not all autonomous. Autonomous trains are greatly simplified due to traveling on rails. All trains are inconvenient due to being bound to the railway. They don't solve the last mile (or five) problem: getting to and from the station.

Rail-based navigation is considerably simpler than autonomous driving. The problem is reduced to "how far am I along the track" and "if there is something in my way, it's trespassing on the railway, so make a best effort to detect the obstacle and stop, and beyond that, who cares".

<comment><USER2> Although most trains are not autonomous, there are currently many more people being transported by autonomous trains than by autonomous cars, and it has been so for several years ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems)).

I see what your point is regarding the convenience of using a car. What could be more convenient than leaving your house, getting in your car, then being dropped at your destination? But this doesn't take into account the cost of the entire infrastructure needed to make it work flawlessly. On the other hand, the train goes faster, and benefits from economies of scale. A tightly knit network of trains would beat a transport system made of autonomous cars.

<comment><USER4> IMO, the future is likely not individuals in their autonomous cars. It's a ubiquitous autonomous ad-hoc ride sharing network, which will features some of the good parts of trains and buses, and some of the good parts of Taxis or individual cars. Popular routes will likely be populated by lots of large vans and buses of various sizes, all autonomous, and there might be interchange points where you get dropped off for a minute or two before an autonomous car comes to pick you up for the last few miles. Other people might already be in that car and going the same direction, or be waiting for you. Once there's a critical mass of ridership, you can get some really efficient usage of the system, and route capacity as needed.

I did some napkin math on this a while back[1]. It's interesting.

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13177836](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13177836)

<comment><USER5> > IMO, the future is likely not individuals in their autonomous cars.

I think people will still want their own personal cars, because...

> some of the good parts of trains and buses, and some of the good parts of > Taxis

...they won't want to get the car with the drunk vomit urine and heavily graffitied and torn up interior.

I can see how you could - via the hailing app or whatnot - send the car off as "undesired because XYZ" \- and maybe it would go somewhere to get refurbed, but after a while, with so many refurbs, the companies will either give up, or they will make concessions (allowing for so much damage until it is deemed "needing repair" and cleaning it up as best as they can otherwise).

People might also want personal cars as a quicker convenience, and also as a status symbol. There's also those who might want to ride around in a personalized custom car, much like people do today.

<comment><USER6> The cleanup problem really isn't, in my opinion. Riders get tracked in a way that's hard to avoid (since your account is tied to your CC), so when cars get sent off, the company can tag the previous passenger and identify outliers, who can then be forced to pay a surplus fee per ride, covering the extra costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This has been proposed before. GE had an old patent for a split-transformer system with half the transformer in the road. In the 1980s, CalTrans had an electric bus in Berkeley which recharged at each stop using half a transformer buried in the road. It's easier to do today, because power control semiconductors are much better.

It needs a lot of infrastructure in roads. That's really expensive and a huge maintenance headache.

The wireless power people need to get to a standard charging pad that Just Works, and get it widely deployed.

<comment><USER8> > It needs a lot of infrastructure in roads. That's really expensive and a > huge maintenance headache.

Is it any more expensive or more of a headache than all the externalities, costs, and dangers of the alternative? At this point in time, societies all massively subsidize the fossil fuel industry at great cost to everyone but it's so spread out its hidden from view. I'm curious, if there is ever a realignment of costs from society at large to the oil companies, would the wireless charging roads look far more viable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder why I don't see more about electric hub motors. I remember seeing Protean Electric get 937 hybrid miles to a charge in 2006 on a converted Mini Cooper ([http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/21/pml-s-mini-qed- boasts-640...](http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/21/pml-s-mini-qed- boasts-640-in-wheel-electric-horsepower/)), and they later showed that you can use this on a pickup truck ([http://inhabitat.com/protean-demonstrates-that- its-electric-...](http://inhabitat.com/protean-demonstrates-that-its-electric- motors-can-drive-an-f150-from-the-wheels/protean-in-wheel-electric-motor)), and they were supposed to bring this technology to mass market in 2014 ([https://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/17/proteans-in-wheel- elect...](https://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/17/proteans-in-wheel-electric- motors-coming-to-market-in-2014/)), but I haven't really heard anything from them.

<comment><USER10> It moves a lot of mass out the the end of the suspension system that comes with a lot of problems for handling. Also with the motor on the hub all of the shocks directly hit the electric motors where they don't in a normal car setup with motors and drive shafts and the bearings in the motor have to directly bear the weight of the vehicle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The car and the road are actually parts of a giant dynamo, I guess. Like the car having a coil and under the road a giant magnet, thus generating current in the coil.

Nice idea.

<comment><USER12> Not practical though. Every time someone has done the math for a fully scaled up system (assuming magic technology that doesn't exist) it always has the same answer: Unless the power transfer system is nearly 100% efficient, using it on a typical highway results in the the highway turning into a molten puddle in less than a day.

If you want to run the numbers yourself a Tesla uses 300 watt-hours per mile on the highway. California route 60 sees 337000 cars per day and is 70 miles long. And an amazing power transfer system might be 75% efficient.

<comment><USER13> I think it might still be useful even if it's not enough to "increase" the charge of the car. Prolonging the driving distance by 50%+ on some highways would still be really beneficial.

Taking the thought to the extreme, it could also be used as a kind of traffic shaping/control system. Have some roads "energised" at specific times to provide an incentive to go a longer way to alleviate chokes or traffic jams.

That gives many people an incentive to take a longer path (whereas current systems/methods for this are kind of driver-hostile as the drivers going the longer route don't get any direct benefit)

<comment><USER14> The issue isn't the efficiency from the car's perspective—it's what happens to the other 25% of the energy that doesn't go into the car. Hence the molten puddle road comment.

<comment><USER15> All the more reason to only run it at certain times of the day. Enable it at night, when electricity is cheaper, heat generation is less of an issue, and there's less congestion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This technology coupled with solar panel covered highways could mean that your vehicule would just need enough to get to or leave the highway.

<comment><USER17> Covering roadways with glass solar panels is a terrible idea. Asphalt is durable and _flexible_. It's OK with getting bits of gravel, glass, or steel ground into it. Solar panels deal badly with such abuse.

Putting solar panels flat on the ground loses 30% of their potential power.

Even ignoring all of that, covering solar panels with cars is a terrible idea.

<comment><USER18> But you would put just any old solar panels on a road: See what is happening at [http://www.solarroadways.com/](http://www.solarroadways.com/) \- it addresses at least some of the issues you mention.

<comment><USER19> The cost is just to high compared to commercial solar farms[1].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obS6TUVSZds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obS6TUVSZds)

<comment><USER20> That's what they said about solar energy in general 10 years ago.

<comment><USER21> This isn't a technology problem though. It's a stupid problem. Compare this to building a blender that plays MP3s. Why would you not just cheaply mount the solar panels next to the road? You can still do all the gimmicks with the LEDs and stuff without having to spend time and money making a high traction, durable road surface that doubles as a solar panel. There's nothing to be gained.

<comment><USER22> You could also just mount the panels above the road and block the sun out of people's eyes while they drive. Less sun hitting people also means less people need to run the AC on the road.

If you don't mount flat you can then do tracking too.

Like you say. Mounting flat is probably the worst way to go from a utility and return standpoint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand why the industry is completely focusing on electrical vehicles. It is not inherently clean energy, unless we change how we produce it. What about the fuel cells driven cars? In my opinion it is still a valid option. You refuel hydrogen and produce water at the end.

Writing this, I recognized that it is probably short-/middle-term money, because electrical cars are quicker to develop (incl. infrastructure).

<comment><USER24> How do you think the hydrogen is produced? Currently it's either a product of petroleum or produced by using electricity to split water. So your argument of electricity not inherently being clean energy applies to hydrogen as well.

Assuming you use electricity to split water to power your fuel cell, you've basically just made an even more complicated way to use electricity to power your car. So at that point, just simplify it and just use a battery and a motor.

<comment><USER25> Small nit to pick, its produced more from steam reformation of methane:

"There are four main sources for the commercial production of hydrogen: natural gas, oil, coal, and electrolysis; which account for 48%, 30% 18% and 4% of the world's hydrogen production respectively."

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> we could fit mini furnaces on top of cars, and put gimballed laser towers on the motorway.

<comment><USER27> why not just have cars with rear blast shields and we'll have gimballed grenade launchers on the road side.

<comment><USER28> That requires too much infrastructure. Just have the cars carry their own grenades. If you can make them tiny nuclear bombs (Californium-251 might enable this) then you could achieve amazing range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So, should these lanes be painted like the recharge areas in F-Zero?

</comment><comment><USER30> looks like cool stuff. too bad I didn't read the article and don't have anything intelligent to say</comment>


Purple Doesn't Exist - <AUTHOR> https://toughcompetent.com/blog/purple-doesnt-exist/ <comment><USER2> People who have a bit of a clue about how human colour vision works know that the "purple doesn't exist" factoid is bullshit. No, that's not facetious; that's the proper technical term: "Purple doesn't exist" isn't _wrong_ — it's _not even wrong_. It's a writing prompt for pseudo-scientific blog spam; it's bullshit.

Ideally, you'll have had a high-school education featuring a biology teacher explaining the stuff with the rods and the cones and an art teacher explaining colour theory, so you can just put two and two together. But if you haven't had that privilege, there's good news: Instead of enduring a harried rant by some random HN commenter, you can just lean back and watch a short lecture from an excellent science educator: _Why you can 't take a good picture of a rainbow_ by Steve Mould.

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


Steve Wozniak: "For a corporation, there's no such thing as personal ethics." - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/tax/10089632/Apple-founder-Steve-Wozniak-public-anger-at-tax-arrangements-is-warranted.html

<comment><USER2> Never thought about it like that, but I agree.

As a person (mini-corporation?) I have expenses; rent, food, etc. It would be great if I only had to pay taxes on my "profit", because my tax burden would then be much lower. Conversely, it would be great if corporations had to pay tax on revenue (more tax money for things we desperately need, like education and healthcare).</comment>


When Power Goes to Your Head, It May Shut Out Your Heart (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2013/08/10/210686255/a-sense-of-power-can-do-a-number-on-your-brain?ft=1&f=1007 <comment><USER2> This was the highlight for me:

 _It turns out, feeling powerless boosted the mirror system — people empathized highly. But, Obhi says, "when people were feeling powerful, the signal wasn't very high at all."_

From an evolutionary point of view, one can argue that individuals with less power need to seek collective advantages more than those with higher degrees of power. Empathy enables collective benefits.

<comment><USER3> The question is if empathy is just unnecessary or is it actively harmful for people with power. Does that part of the brain shut down as a simple energy saving measure because it's not necessary or is it actively suppressed because keeping it active would be harmful for individual and his genetic relatives or even the people he has power over?

<comment><USER2> Possibly the latter. I haven't heard of the brain resorting to such energy saving measures.

I have another (unsubstantiated) theory too: there is a group advantage in those with power having reduced empathy. Individuals in leadership positions will need to direct the group in such ways that are beneficial to the group overall, but may be harmful to specific individuals. Leaders with high degrees of empathy might find this difficult. This is probably why the Myers-Briggs type "ENTJ" (often associated with leaders) is jokingly summarized as "I'm very sorry, but you have to die." [1]

[1] [https://www.librarything.com/topic/20927](https://www.librarything.com/topic/20927)

<comment><USER3> Brain has incredible energy saving measures. When you look through your eyes you process just few percent of the image. The rest is pretty much ignored because it usually isn't necessary for anything.

When you are trying to think through something it's really hard and tiresome not to default to stereotypes and what you already figured out earlier about similar thing.

Basically brain is as lazy as it can get away with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > So when people felt power, they really did have more trouble getting inside > another person's head.

Interesting research, I'll be curious to know if it gets confirmed.

Anyway, I can offer a REAL, striking example of how people can change once power "goes to their head".

This is a real story, I was there when it happened, I saw & heard all, I was sitting about one meter away...

This took place in the early 2000s, I was working, as a contractor, in a BIG company. In the room we were several contractors, working for several teams (with different bosses). One of my coworkers was a political refugee in France, he was a political activist at home (an african country under a dictature) and had to flee, so he went to France. I knew he was into politics because during pauses he would talk on his phone and take appointments & the like (I was sitting in front of him, so I heard part of it).

One morning, as I arrived (he was usually the first in the room), he told me that something bad had happened... His teenage daughter was supposed to come and visit him in France (his family was still living in Africa), but at the airport she had been arrested by the police and had _disappeared_ with no news...

I don't think I need to insist on the seriousness of the situation & the fears that he must have had. Police in dictatorships are not know for being nice... You can easily imagine what could have happened to her.

Of course, this had been done in order to put pressure on him.

Then his boss entered the room, to talk about their project.

(Now, I swear that everything is 100% true and not exaggerated.) My coworked started, again, to explain the abduction of his daughter to his boss. His -loud- boss's reaction, with half a chuckle: "Ha! you're a man who brings trouble!". Then he left the room.

I was speechless. To be perfectly clear, this was NOT a "defensive laugh", the type of laugh that you do when things are bad and you don't know how to react, no he REALLY did not care.

My coworker, dismayed, turned to me and said "You know, that guy and me, we used to be like fingers of the same hand. Since he became a manager, he's gone crazy".

I could tell a lot of other horror stories about that manager. A few years later he even cost me my job (I refused a contract that would have put me in his team, this got me fired).

For those of you who may be wondering what happened to the daughter: her family "bought" her back. Corruption goes both ways...

A sad example of how power can kill someone heart...

<comment><USER5> I went from being an individual contributor to a manager, and I would interpret that situation differently. When you are the boss, you are getting bombarded constantly. From above, below, peers, you name it. Your cognitive load goes up so much that you actively avoid bringing even more onto your plate. I definitely found myself trying on-the-fly to keep interactions superficial, especially in a group setting, just to avoid taking on yet another burden onto my already full plate.

Perhaps that would mean I suck as a manager. Though honestly I've seen the same effect on pretty much everyone I've seen go up the manager career path. I don't take any of it personally.

There are two sizes of problems -- mine, and yours, and mine will always be much more important to me.

<comment><USER6> > There are two sizes of problems -- mine, and yours

So if you drop a penny and I break my arm, you'd care more about the dropped penny, and when I say "ouch" you say "not now, can't you see I just dropped a penny"?

<comment><USER7> Mel Brooks: "If I cut my finger, that's tragedy... Comedy is if you walk into an open sewer and die."

<comment><USER8> Bitterness is always less bitter in someone else's mouth, pain seems to be less painful too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Empathy is a learned skill, much like language, we are hard wired to be able to do it but it has to be worked on and a lot of that work has to be done in childhood.

A lot of people are not loved in childhood, this may be due to a poor or a rich background. Being sent to boarding school far away from home or having a single mum on crack can result in a child not learning about love. The result is narcissism and those cursed with narcissism can do a convincing job when it suits them of emulating empathy. They might care about those around them when it means they have something to gain, but this is exploitative caring, not what passes for normal emotion for most people who grew up with parents that loved them.

Narcissists do love power and money. Therefore there is a tendency for them to want to rule the world, be boss of the company or to acquire more wealth than might make sense.

We all have a certain amount of narcissism in us, normally this is in check and not a crippling disease, as per the seriously unloved-as-a-child brigade. This study appeals to this innate narcissism, and, we can all be manipulated into being 'good Germans' or 'Christian saints'.

There are many situations - e.g. being President - where mere mortals have no interest in the job. To wear the crown and have the power naturally horrifies. This does not mean we just want to be lead, but there is an aspect of this.

As a society we are generally good about making sure chronic alcoholics don't rule the roost but we expect everyone to take part in a drink in social situations. We can spot when someone likes the bottle a bit too much and deal with it. Narcissism is a bit more tricky as the beyond-the-pale selfish narcissist has the skills to feign empathy until they get the power they crave. Then it is too late and we wonder how such a cruel, selfish person got that way. Or maybe we are still under their spell and imagine they 'think like us' and care.

For the benefit of humanity we need to have simple tests to identify those with overly narcissistic tendencies and not let them into positions of power such as being president. A 'breathalyser test' for the mind.

<comment><USER10> I mean, the thing about narcissism is that those with overly narcissistic tendencies are not exactly hard to _spot_. There are only so many ways for a person to be consistently self-aggrandizing, entitled, envious of others' success, craving for universal _admiration_ even more so than power, etc. And yes, "not letting those people be president, maybe?" is a good idea. It's also really hard - the primary process especially, even more so than the general election, rewards people who are committed to rallying the party base and inspiring universal admiration from others, by any means necessary. We've seen so many examples of that.

<comment><USER11> Plenty of narcissists fly below the radar. NPD is a spectrum, and individuals fall on it in different degrees. What you imagine as a typical narcissist in your comment is closer to an outlier than the average.

You can even find them in nonprofit, charity organizations where they use their jobs to boost their social status. They use goodwill and greater than average charisma to leverage friendships and create stalwart allies. Then they stir up tension and controversy behind the scenes, and their friends come to their defense, thus solidifying them as allies on the narcissist's side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Could this explain why women may be considered more empathic or compassionate considering gender imbalances across societies?

<comment><USER13> Might make sense. I've noticed a trend where people who come from less privileged backgrounds are more empathetic/compassionate, possibly from experience or out of necessity, whereas their more wealthy/powerful counterparts have the luxury of treating people however they please.

<comment><USER14> I worked at a job where I loaded up people's cars and trucks and around 25% of people tipped. I always found it funny how the more expensive the car, the less likely they were to tip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> How would we act if you're unarmed and I had a gun pointed at you?

We are all marketers, trying to achieve our goals - no matter how trivial. Hence, we negotiate, flatter, smile even when we don't want to, try to know what makes the other person tick. Problem is this method's slow, expensive and inefficient (like American democracy).

BUT, when a person can compel action, things change. The brain takes the easy, direct but less creative approach. Authorities become uncaring because they don't need to. Problem is this method is efficient and cheap like Chinese dictatorship.

I guess this topic becomes easier to reason out if it becomes a dictatorship vs democracy, free market vs monopolies, and inbreeding vs diversity of ideas debate.

</comment><comment><USER15> It may or may not be relevant, but the moment you become a manager, mirroring becomes more painful: because there are some tradeoffs between people under you that aren't going to be "win/win" all 'round, and you're the one who gets to disappoint someone. I can see that for some bosses, the easiest thing is just not to run the simulations at all; not to acknowledge too clearly that you're (inevitably) causing disappointment. Not the right choice, but an easy choice.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think the general idea that, in a democracy, the people keep the government in check derives from this sort of thing. People with power can start behaving differently/oddly. At a personal level, I usually try to keep these people in check. But, that's something of a post-hoc justification, as they really just rub me the wrong way and I call them out, question them, or do something disobedient somewhat reflexively, and only sometimes catch myself in time to control my reaction.

</comment><comment><USER17> 2013 though

<comment><USER10> Good catch. Notably, this is pre-replication crisis, and the evidence is kinda underwhelming anyway for the claims that are being made. The theory that increasing the salience of personal power makes experimental subjects less empathetic could've been tested more directly than that. And as for a practical application to things like fairness and pro-sociality, what we know about e.g. the well-established literature on "Dictator" vs. "Ultimatum" games strongly suggests that people in a position of power are only marginally less pro-social/"fair" to others, if that.

<comment><USER18> > The theory that increasing the salience of personal power makes experimental > subjects less empathetic could've been tested more directly than that.

How? (not challenging, just genuinely curious)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Porn withdrawal? - <AUTHOR>

Is there such thing as porn withdrawals? I've been a porn addict for 7 years and recently I stopped cold turkey been about 2 weeks now and going through depression, anxiety, panic attacks and tiredness. I never experienced this while I was masturbating. Please help with advice thanks. <comment><USER2> Find a support group: [http://addictionrecovery.lds.org/?lang=eng](http://addictionrecovery.lds.org/?lang=eng)

I've counseled many people through this and have found that getting support is a huge step in making progress in overcoming your addition.

<comment><AUTHOR> You've helped people with porn addiction? Can you explain more please.. thanks</comment></comment>


MacOS Scroll Direction:  "Natural" or "Regular"? - <AUTHOR> My girlfriend and I are in a fight right now about which scroll direction is proper.
I don't like the natural scroll direction, because the laptop is not an iPhone or iPad.  I view the track pad as a mouse, and the "Natural Scroll" feels backward to me.  She says that the "Natural" scroll matches up with all the other devices we use.  Which for me is just an iPhone, and a laptop.
HN:  Which way to you scroll??  Help me resolve this debate. <comment><USER2> I'm a "regular" guy too for the same reasons as you. My scroll wheel on traditional mice dictates how I scroll trackpads.

Potentially related datapoint: I hate inverted controls in FPSes too. (Though I use them in dedicated flight sims!)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oddly enough I invert my controls for FPSes, and also flying games. :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Fortunately I use trackpads w/ my two desktop Macs, so of course they are set to match the default MacBook trackpad action.</comment>


Apple LZFSE open source reference implementation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lzfse/lzfse <comment><USER2> A more direct comparison would be with zstd. zstd started zhuff which was the lz4 authors work of putting lz4 & FSE together. [https://github.com/Cyan4973/zstd](https://github.com/Cyan4973/zstd)</comment>


Luxury resort offers $19 room _ minus bed and TP - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ihKHwE3kjj-2gdb5VrIIl3-yd7gwD99U70P81 <comment><USER2> Alternatively, you could find a camp site.</comment>


How to make polished Jupyter presentations with optional code visibility - <AUTHOR> http://chris-said.io/2016/02/13/how-to-make-polished-jupyter-presentations-with-optional-code-visibility/ <comment><USER2> Excellent! That would be great to see that integrated in the vanilla Jupyter Notebook.</comment>


Who's adding DRM to HTML5? Netflix, Microsoft, and Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/23/microsoft_google_netflix_html5_drm_infection/

<comment><AUTHOR> Its interesting to see Google on both sides here, wanting DRM for the youtube side of the house.</comment>