Ask HN: Should I get investment? - <AUTHOR>

I tend to be anti-VC because it seems so many fail. At this point though, I realize that I need additional capital. It's simply too much for me to do it all.
I've been working on this idea for a few years now. The product is quite good. It does amazing things for people. I do have paying customers. Everyone who knows about the product thinks it's absolutely amazing.
Here's the problem. the only way I'd be able to get investment is to knock on doors. There is a little projector in my brain showing me a movie of myself walking down Sandhill Road going into offices, asking if I can talk to someone. That's where the movie ends.  I don't know if the receptionist would say, "Sorry, there's no one available right now.  Can I take your..."
The other option would be, "Sure, let me see if Mr. X is available.  Mr. X, I have someone here who'd like just a few minutes of your time. Okay, he'll be right out."
So I show Mr. X what I have and, "That's pretty good. What do you want to do with our money?"
Sometimes I think I just gotta do it. I am stopped by fear of wasting my time. I'm stopped by fear of rejection. I'm stopped by thoughts of my own grandiosity and knowledge that my personal bias -- of course -- makes me think this product is great.
I need some commercialization. I need some refinement, but I've got 3 years of R&D under my belt. It's one of the best products in its space. Customers who can understand it love it.
Sometimes I feel like I owe it to the world to help this thing get out there. With about $250,000 I could really take it to new heights. Refine the UI. Market it. Package it.  How do I find that money?  How do I connect with the people who would understand what I'm doing here?
Can I go knock on doors? I will if it wouldn't be a waste of time...
EDIT: Might as well let you know what it is.  Here's a link to a new version of the site we'll launch soon:  http://design.qrimp.com <comment><USER2> I am curious who the customers for this are? How come you need 250k if the price tag is pretty big at 500/month or 5k/month? Why do you need 250k?

If 250k for to last you 1 year (12 months) =~ 21k /month or 4 medium business accounts or 40 small biz accounts.

If there was some product adoption like you hint at, I can't see why you would be asking for such a small amount of money.

I feel like you're hiding something... "Everyone who knows about the product thinks it's absolutely amazing." and "I do have paying customers"... so where is the money? Is your pricing/business model flawed and you've had some people try it really cheap but not willing to pay those advertised prices?

Another issue I see is "Customers who can understand it love it." Why don't others understand it? Looking at your site it wasn't exactly clear what it does. Does your mother understand it? How about your grandmother? If you can explain it to them, your target customers shouldn't be a problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great questions. Customers are individuals and small businesses who want a web application or to web enable their business. Most of the revenue is from building custom apps on top of it, then charging a monthly rate for hosting, essentially. I don't want to get too specific about the details. I feel uncomfortable enough as it is just talking about it publicly. That's part of the problem I suppose.

The pricing/business model very well could be flawed. I'm constantly refining pricing. Some customers think $8/mo is too expensive, others tell me I'm not charging enough, so I experiment with pricing. I'm not really sure what the best price is. If I lower the price, I _do_ get more signups, but I read all the time about charge _more_ and people will think it is worth more, so you'll get more customers, so I wonder if I should just make it $5/mo and get lots of customers, or $5,000 and sell harder. The issue at that price point is that customers want to be sure the platform will never die and the bus factor is low. The largest sale was to a Fortune 1000 for an enterprise license.

I have got plans asking for as much as $2M.

But you're right. It's not clear what it does. My family does understand it, to some extent. I do need a lot of help on the marketing side. Explaining it. Helping customers understand how to use it. That's what I mean when I say customers who can understand it. The market is split between developers and business users. I'm a developer and have tended to focus on that route, but developers want 100% control like they get with PHP or RoR. Business users need more assistance and quite frankly, building information systems is _hard_ , so it takes a lot of time to help them figure out how to create a system -- with _any_ tool. I spend a lot of time helping customers define a model for their systems. There is a large learning curve and I continue to shrink it. That's what I spend a lot of time on.

<comment><USER3> The other option is to have 5$:40$:300$ pricing based on a small list of new features.

PS: Once someone is happy with your product it's far easer to upsell them on new features even if the cost difference is crazy. Many people don't go I like new feature Y, is it worth the extra price. They go "I like Y and product X, is the product still worth it at the new price?" which is why people will pay far more for extras when buying a new car than they will for the same extras after they have the new car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should seriously think about finding some advisors before you raise money. The time and expense is well worth the effort.

Set up a board of advisors for your company, and try to get 1-3 successful entrepreneurs in your field (or related fields) to serve on it. Give them a bit of equity. Talk to them individually, but also try to get them all in one room at least once.

You can reach potential advisors through networking events, through service providers like lawyers, and by just emailing them (repeatedly if necessary). You might want to start by hiring a lawyer or accountant who is connected in the community, and asking for help with intros.

Among other things, your board of advisors will help you understand the type of investor that makes sense for you. If you're trying to raise $250K to ramp a business up to a few million/yr, then odds are no one on Sand Hill Rd will be interested. But that doesn't mean it's a bad business -- you just have to look elsewhere for investment.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you are looking for just $250k you should rather start with angels. Too small amount for most VCs.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you've got a product with paying customers, and a business plan that shows how an additional $250K in capital will bring you X% growth over Y years, you're definitely in a position to pitch to VC/Angels.

So, make some telephone calls, and set up some appointments with VC/Angels in your local area. Try to avoid the instinct to deliver the pitch over the phone; just paint the picture in broad strokes, and try to get the meeting.

Seriously: what's the problem?

<comment><USER7> _Seriously: what's the problem?_

Like he said, fear of rejection. It's the same thing that stops guys from asking girls out. The reality is that the worst thing that can possibly happen is that you get a big fat "no" but your brain makes it out to be much worse. Like Hamlet says: "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sorry, you might have "paying customers" and they might think it's amazing but I'm going to have to disagree with you on your perception of good. I don't quite understand what your product is, does or what problem it's solving or who it's even for and there's no immediate wow-I-get-it-ness to it. Custom Software App builder? Why do I need it? Is it even that? Are you building apps for people? Judging by the language on your site the level of sophistication needed to use your product, the person should be able build it themselves.

I highly doubt that anyone would give you money and why $250,000? how will that accomplish anything? It just seems like a finger in a wind number. Refine your idea then refine it some more. You're getting high on your own idea.

Your website is really off-center when browsed in chrome, try looking at it at 1024 screen.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you tell us what the product is, there's a much higher likelihood of getting help. In fact, there are people here who might invest. FWIW, I can certainly introduce you to angels/VCs who will take a meeting, but I'd have to know more about your business first. So bottom line: share!

</comment><comment><USER10> 'Knocking on doors' won't work - that's just not how money is raised. Even if it got you meetings, the amount you need is lower than a Sand Hill Road VC invests. You need angel investors or 'seed stage' funds. Happily, there's lots of those. You also need a warm introduction from someone who knows them. This you can get through a little networking.

'Venture Hacks' is probably the best online 'how to raise money' resource.

</comment><comment><USER11> To start any business you have to take risk. You've gotten this far with your idea, the worst that can happen is they say no. But, now you've got experience pitching to VCs.

Understand that the fear of rejection is just that: fear. It's part of the risk. Sometimes, rejection can be a damn good motivator.

</comment><comment><USER12> Now I'm curious what it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> I added a link to the above, but here it is for you: <http://design.qrimp.com>

It is a cloud platform that enables application development using only a browser. No IDE's to download, databases to configure, servers to manage. Upload your data and Qrimp builds a relational model to support it and let's you customize reports, forms, build pages. Use AJAX to customize the interface of your app. etc.

Imagine MS Access for the web.

It seems more and more customers are looking to move their databases to the web and this platform helps make that happen easier than coding them from scratch with .net, ruby, even django and frameworks like that to some extent, because it's all on the web.

Of course there are lots of competitors: Salesforce, Caspio, Quickbase, even excel really -- the status quo. But the market is growing and will continue to grow.

<comment><USER13> Looking quickly at your product - here is my advice.

Raising funding will be hard for this type of product. MS Access for the web is an extremely hard business model to raise any funding for. You have a platform you can build stuff in - what is your market for sales?

So they may be worried for good reason. Your product has a lot of uses, but no clearly defined market.

What I would do is take your product and figure out what the top 10 tiny niches are for it and do some testing/analysis. A good example here is the guys who do the restaurant ipad/mobile sites. Why are they just attacking the restaurant space and not any website? Surely the technology is the same. The reason is they chose the best battle they could. Consider doing the same approach - you have a general platform that could be very useful for many individual uses.

Then when you have a very clear concise business, market, customer growth strategy, basically a good story in one little niche - you could have more success with funding.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty much what I'm doing now. Building apps on top of it and selling those as customizable CRM's, intranets, etc. I have lots of ideas: catering businesses who want to put menus online, online stores, warehouses with lots of inventory, things like that.

I think at this point, it may be easier to sell a product for a specific niche than to sell the platform itself, which is why I wonder about funding at all.

People don't want to build a custom system. They either want a system that is up and running or to pay someone to build a system for them.

And then there is the market who has very specific needs for which there are no niche apps for them. They are left stranded, because the cost to build from scratch is too high. The goal of the platform is to reduce development costs and help more people who need information management systems get them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chemical weapons dumped in the Baltic sea (2007) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.mir.gdynia.pl/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/BST-NATO.pdf <comment><USER2> Got nothing on this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash#Bomb_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash#Bomb_recovery)

<comment><USER3> Similarly relevant:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)#US_VX_stock...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_\(nerve_agent\)#US_VX_stockpile_elimination)

Roughly 124 tons of VX gas sitting under 7,200 feet of water, at the bottom of the ocean, somewhere of the coast of Atlantic City, NJ, and other un-named sites off the coasts of New York and Florida.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> doesn't seem like a recent document...

those chemical don't seem to come in large quantities so they're very diluted, but even then, they somehow solidify and reach the shore...

<comment><USER5> It references articles and studies from 2006.

<comment><USER6> This is a paper from 2007.

[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-5528-7_1...](http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-5528-7_15)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This website is vulnerable to HeartBleed ssl bug

<comment><USER6> How come if it doesn't use a secure connection?</comment></comment>


Leaving PHP is too expensive - <AUTHOR> http://suckyninja.azurewebsites.net/leaving-php-is-too-expensive/ <comment><USER2> Already discussed in great detail a couple of days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11104265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11104265)

</comment><comment><USER3> TLDR: PHP is the language supported by [https://forge.laravel.com/](https://forge.laravel.com/), and forge is so awesome, I couldn't afford to use any other language for side projects.

Kind of silly, but also kinda a good point. If a framework is awesome but deployment for side projects is either $50 a month or a huge pain, it may be not worth it for the small fish..

</comment><comment><USER4> In the first paragraph, this post looked like it was going to go down the path of discussing local optima—once you're skilled with PHP and its toolchain, you have a strong incentive to keep using it.

In the past certain events such as the rise of Ruby on Rails made a compelling reason to move, but now PHP has very productive frameworks of its own. Even though a strong case could be made that working in rails is still a bit more productive, PHP is close enough that it's a win in the short term.

From the other side, PHP isn't as performant as Java, Node or Go for certain things, but that gap has also narrowed (especially with PHP7). In this case, the biggest returns from switching would appear only after your app has hit a certain scale and at that point switching is harder.

This would have been a compelling argument.

What the author argued instead was that Heroku, Azure and other hosts were too expensive and $10/month hosting at Laravel Forge locks him into PHP. I don't get that at all, especially coming from a Swede.

How much is it worth to learn something like Rails that would give you an edge in building an MVP for a side project? How about learning Node and getting an idea of what so much of the development world is using? If you're living in a wealthy norther European country, is the hosting cost really something that you want to direct what education you'll invest into your career?

</comment><comment><USER5> The answer is cheap shared hosting that supports old-school standards: CGI (or FastCGI), and your choice of Perl/Python/Ruby/NodeJS/Go/Rust/etc. For a hobbyist project with minimal traffic, you can afford to deal with the application's startup latency. (Java / Scala are probably out, though. Don't know about Erlang, haven't used it).

Dreamhost is affordable enough and will do such things.

<comment><USER6> I've setup Java/Scala projects on 5 USD hosts. Why are they out? With SSD's you could even run a bunch of them thanks to swapfiles.

<comment><USER3> Java / Scala can get dicy on $5 host.

Problem 1) SBT cannot run with 512 ram, so you cannot compile locally. If using phat jars, that means you need to upload a 100mb jar every time you want to deploy, vs just a git pull and a build. May or may not matter to you.

Problem 2) Once you start doing some actual work, the JVM itself is taking up a few 100 MB of ram, and the OS takes up a fair bit.. this leaves something like 128MB ram for your app best case.. for a lot of apps this is not enough. I had to go up to at least 1 GB VMs to get my medium complexity Scala app to work in prod, and I have been tuning JVMs for many years.

<comment><USER6>
        fallocate -l 4G /swapfile
        chmod 600 /swapfile
        mkswap /swapfile
        swapon /swapfile
        swapon -s

Works pretty well. You can't actually run too much on it however if you use a tomcat you actually get a decent Request per Second something like 100r/s.

And you don't need 1GB VMs. 512 MB Scala Apps are working fine. It just depends on the technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are hosting companies such as Webfaction that have great reasonable rails or Django hosting.

<comment><USER4> Web faction is great. I hosted multiple Wordpress blogs, node apps and whatever toy I was building on for years for under $10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I couldn't help think "Staying with PHP is too expensive" while reading this.

<comment><USER9> This whole language bashing thing is really silly and tiresome. You know what the best language is? The one you use to actually launch a project. I don't care if you write in PHP, Ruby, Java, Python, C#, Javascript; it really doesn't matter. There are incredibly successful services written in each and every language that prove it's possible.

"Staying PHP is too expensive" Yeah? How big did Facebook get before starting to migrate off of it? Do you think you're going to be Facebook big? Probably not.

I don't mean to sound snarky, and I know language bashing has been around as long as computers have. It would be nice though if this community, out of all of them, could at least acknowledge the fact that every language has it's pros and cons, we will all have our favourites, and just because we like X doesn't mean Y is horrible.

I grew up writing PHP. I still do. I've written some applications that are handling millions of hits per day on a $20 Linode. You know what? For the longest time, despite having some some neat things in the past, I felt ashamed that all I knew was PHP. Because of comments like this. People bashing it constantly. It made me feel like a bit of a script kiddie, that I wasn't a "real" programmer unless I knew language _____. I had a huge, 2 year lull in my side projects where I tried to learn Ruby, Java, Python, before getting frustrated and dropping the project. I finally got over that and went back to PHP and suddenly I'm finishing, launching, and making a bit of money off my side projects again.

For anyone that happens to read this; don't worry what language you write in. Just make cool, functional shit, that's really all that counts.

<comment><USER8> I wasn't bashing PHP per say but I was saying that if you are sticking with it you are going to get worse and worse jobs going forward because the market is looking for Python right now. Depends what you want to be building, or if you work for yourself and choose the technology.

I'm building a network scanner at the moment and I have to say that even Python let alone PHP isn't really cutting it. As I've been learning Elixir (for a project in my spare time) and getting to grips with the OTP you really do start to realise that functional programming and the Actor Model amongst all the syntactic sugar is a big win.

Sure if you are bashing out a PHP websites great. But if you are building something with lots of processes or parallelisation requirements PHP (or Python for that matter) is not your friend. In conclusion use the right tool for the job.

As everyone knows we should all stop using PHP and start using lisp, given the choice :-) [http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html)

<comment><USER9> Of course you don't want to use a hammer to dig a hole. Picking the right tool for the job is necessary regardless of what line of work you're in.

With that being said, you can accomplish some pretty interesting things if you think outside the box a little bit. I wrote a small application to perform an ETL between various data sources (MySQL, an old version of MSSQL, various third party API's, CSVs). I populate a queue and spawn up as many PHP processes as I want/need (php -f /thread.php {$id}) and each one runs on their own, grabbing an item from the queue, processing it, then grabbing another one. Currently I run about 64 of these "threads" at a time with no issues, which allows me to sync a few million records relatively quickly. Best tool for the job? No. Does it work? Hell yeah. Had I tried to learn a new language to get this done I probably never would have finished it or it would be way harder for me to maintain/debug in a language I'm not familiar with or use often enough to efficiently troubleshoot when something comes up weeks/months/years down the road.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Worth it to reach out to HR about hiring malpractice? - <AUTHOR> HN, Always learn a ton from this board so I'm hoping I can get some insight from this. A very large tech company reached out to me about an open contract role on their marketing team in my hometown, and began a series of interviews (four total) culminating with a submitted project that I completed for them to get a better idea of my skillset.
Two weeks after submitting the application, I received no response. I reached out to the hiring manager (who would also be "the boss" were I to get hired) and they commented that they had to tie up loose ends with HR.
Another week goes by. I reach out again, and received a response a few days later, that hiring for this role has been paused indefinitely.
On Monday, I noticed a new role posted. It's now a full-time role, though responsibilities are largely the same. I reach out to the same Hiring Manager, and they confirmed it is on their team.
So I applied and let them know that I'm keen to re-start our conversation, especially given I've had four conversations with them and others on their team. Now, I've received an automated rejection to my application.
Frankly, I'm surprised such a large org can mismanage their hiring process to this point, and am thinking about reaching out to their HR team to get a better understanding of what exactly happened. I worked very hard on my submitted project, and an opportunity on this team and at this company would be massive, but I'm really shocked and upset about how this transpired.
Is it worth it to reach out to HR to, at the very least, get feedback on my work and interviews? I put a lot of time and effort researching this org, and working on the project they asked of me, and to get nothing from it really makes me feel like shit.
Thanks HN! <comment><USER2> That sucks. I've certainly been there. Unfortunately, you've got to keep one thing in mind: HR exists to protect the company. In this case, that means it exists to protect the company from you! The chances that you'd get anything but extremely carefully crafted legal boiler-plate from them is basically zilch.

The hiring process is broken in some very sad ways right now. I wish it was better.

</comment><comment><USER3> HR is there to protect the company. Period.</comment>


We Went Back to Visit Gödel, Escher, and Bach - <AUTHOR> https://mindmatters.ai/2019/07/we-went-back-to-visit-godel-escher-and-bach/ <comment><USER2> "When not working full time as a Cloud Architect for the little software company Microsoft, Walter devotes his time to writing about intelligent design for Evolution News and Views"

A Discovery Institute blog

</comment><comment><USER3> I kind of think that the author missed the point of GEB. I never read it as being about AI bug more a work exploring self reference.</comment>


Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html <comment><USER2> We are not going to get anywhere until those that benefit from any action pay. Those that will benefit from any action are mostly not even born yet.

Imagine if the people of the future living in a trashed world could travel back in time and pay us to do something now. How much would they be willing to pay? Probably far more than it would cost to fix. All they would need to do is invent a time machine and they could come back to now, pay us to fix the problems, and they get to live in an intact world.

Given we haven't had too many visitors from the future flashing the Benjamins around, time machines are likely impossible. We do however have a magic way of allowing the future to pay for actions now as long as we act on their behalf. This magic is called long-term zero-coupon bonds [0]. The idea is we issue a whole lot of zero coupon bonds due in 50 years (or more), use the money to decarbonise the economy and pay off the owners of all the carbon, and the leave it to the future to pay the debt with an intact world.

I gave a talk on this idea a bit over 10 years ago which I have up on my blog if anyone is interested [1].

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero- coupon_bond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-coupon_bond)

1\. [https://www.tillett.info/2015/12/13/preventing-global- climat...](https://www.tillett.info/2015/12/13/preventing-global-climate- collapse/)

<comment><USER3> Either time machines are impossible, or there are no people left in the future to invent one.

<comment><USER4> I prefer a third possibility -- that time machines are possible, but can only travel back in a non-recursive manner for a limited sliding window. And we haven't arrived at the boundary of that window yet.

<comment><USER5> Or that it sends you to another dimension, or that the people who do time travel know that if they do anything, they'll change everything so that they won't exist ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you are concerned about climate change, stop eating animals. Governments are slow to act, but switching to a plant based diet is something you can do right now.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding- meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth)

<comment><USER7> As an individual, you can't do that much. But if McDonald's for example were to put veggie patties in their burgers by default and beef only on request, that would actually change something.

In addition: if you have ever tried the veggie burger, it's surprisingly good (the beef is a bit tasteless anyways) and I bet most people wouldn't notice the difference, especially if McDonald's pimp their veggie patty a bit more.

<comment><USER8> McDonalds would be out of business and a laughingstock.

<comment><USER7> I'd argue this is a matter of marketing.

Also, you don't have to go all-in at once. Introduce a special veggie burger, maybe even in a few stores or selected countries only. Gradually, switch more and more burgers to the veggie version.

 _Defaults matter_ , as they say.

<comment><USER9> I wonder if they would be better off pricing it at parity, at a premium to beef, or lower? I initially thought "heavily subsidize it, maybe put a huge one on the $1 menu...), but making it a premium option along with their "specialty" burgers might be better. At some point in the future they drop it to parity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone else feel like we'll fail to make reasonable progress on climate change? I'm naturally inclined towards pessimism, but I feel that the political solutions aren't going to work out and that the market isn't moving fast enough for humanity to get ahead of it.

Edit: to clarify, I think that political solutions won't work not because there aren't good ideas or that we couldn't collectively do a lot, but because there's too much money and power held by special interest groups that pollute.

<comment><USER11> China and India have to be on board for reasonable progress to occur.

<comment><USER12> As far as climate goes, what matters is the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, not where they came from. Greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for varying amount of time, depending on the particular gas.

Whatever we finally decide we need to hold warming too, there is some maximum level of greenhouse gases that we can allow without warming going above our limit.

If we take that level, and figure out each country's fair share of that, what we'll find is that the West is responsible for way more of the greenhouse gases present than is their fair share (with the US the farthest over its share), and India is way under their fair share.

It would not be unreasonable for India to feel that it is unfair that the West used cheap fossil fuels to boost itself to first world status and in the processes went way over their fair quota for greenhouse gases and now wants India to stay way below its fair quota and give up cheap development to balance that.

To make it fair, the West would need to subsidize India so that it can afford to become a developed country without having to use the cheap fossil fuels. Another way to think of it would be the West paying India for having used up India's quota for allowed greenhouse gases--essentially a kind of retroactive cap and trade system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've started buying carbon offsets when our family flies (through carbonfund) and it's a lot cheaper than what I'd imagined. I think requiring airlines to offer carbon offsets directly in the ticket checkout flow would be impactful. I'd go a step further and have people opted-in by default so they have to un- check a box if they really don't want to spend the extra ten bucks.

Also, as others have said: eating less meat is an effective way to lower your carbon footprint.

<comment><USER14> I don't know how effective these carbon offsets are.

Many of them may just be re-planting some forests that would have been planted anyways or may be even playing some more obvious scam.

<comment><USER15> You can buy credits here [https://www.goldstandard.org/get-involved/make-an- impact](https://www.goldstandard.org/get-involved/make-an-impact) for projects that have been audited and certified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Link to report:

[http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/](http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/)

Looks like this is the paper that presents the model for the calculations:

[https://www.geosci-model- dev.net/11/2273/2018/gmd-11-2273-20...](https://www.geosci-model- dev.net/11/2273/2018/gmd-11-2273-2018.pdf)

<comment><USER17> Source code available too [https://github.com/OMS- NetZero/FAIR](https://github.com/OMS-NetZero/FAIR)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The article seems to paint a rather non-crisis economically, perhaps unintentionally:

> The United States, it said, could lose roughly 1.2 percent of gross domestic > product for every 1.8 degrees of warming.

I guess that's in Fahrenheit, but again.. not really scary numbers. We're talking about two years of ordinary productivity growth being lost over a decade+. Bad, but nowhere close to resulting in the future being worse than the present, much less society ending.

For how much we all worry about global warning, why are the estimated GDP numbers not coming in much worse?

<comment><USER19> "why are the estimated GDP numbers not coming in much worse?"

A guess: Because the hardest hit areas do not contribute as much to GDP. Most of world GDP is created outside of the tropics.

The gruesome prediction from this report is that the poor areas next to tropics will come refugess camps unlike anything seen before (think Blade Runner or Judge Dread with the skycrapers replaced by an ocean of tents and shacks). And the rich world will invest in border controls and barbed wire.

<comment><USER20> Why would you expect this instead of people simply gradually moving inland and continuing to do more or less exactly what they were already doing? The developing world and developed are identical in that population densities are extremely disproportionate. We tend to have very high densities near water and much lower densities inland. This creates a dual effect of magnifying the numeric impact of climate change, but also giving us immense 'safe' buffers. If we view climate change as a sort of terraforming then the primary effect would be to push coastal regions further inland - not to permanently remove them.

And even in in the low probability worst case scenarios water levels will begin to plateau off simply because there's a fixed amount of possible water on Earth. This [1] National Geographic article from a while back showed exactly what the world would look like if all the ice melted, resulting the maximal possible increase in sea levels - about 216 feet. The peculiar thing is the world would be reshaped, but it'd mostly be the exact same place. And keep in mind that this would happen over many many decades as the sea levels inched forward, thus giving people time to calmly and orderly adjust. It's not like one day you go to bed and when you wake up New York is New Atlantis.

[1] - [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-s...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising- seas-ice-melt-new-shoreline-maps/)

<comment><USER19> "Why would you expect this instead of people simply gradually moving inland"

Please read the article. The gradient of liveability is not away from the shores. It's away from the equator.

<comment><USER20> No, it's not. The real risk is in coastal areas, as the article emphasizes. The headline is based on the quote _" [The] United States along with Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam are home to 50 million people who will be exposed to the effects of increased coastal flooding by 2040, if 2.7 degrees of warming occur."_

I'm unsure if I'm reading too much into your comment as it was not particularly informative, but you seem to be implying that the problem with climate change is the warming itself, which will be most pronounced around the areas most exposed to the sun's energy -- the equatorial regions. But this isn't the issue. Humans, plants, and animals of all sorts could be fine with temperatures much higher than they are now if that's all that changed. The real risk of climate change is the ancillary effects like the rising of tides. This effect will be most pronounced in coastal areas with dense population hubs - which are the exact areas they mention. And this is already happening.

For instance the most recent storms we've had including in Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana and so on were likely at least somewhat exasperated by climate change. And indeed there are people that are going to decide enough is enough and decide to move inland. These are now part of the people counted in these numbers. Something people often forget is that climate change is not something that _will_ happen, but something that _is_ happening.

<comment><USER19> Sure, coasts will have issues, but like you said yourself, there is quite a lot of land mass to to absorb the population likely within the same polity.

I've understood the predicted changes to weather patterns are such that the area between the tropics will be most impacted. This includes more droughts etc. So it's not directly related to sun's radiation, just about how the heat will be distributed in the global weather and what effects it will have. I don't know _why_ tropics are more affected than other areas.

[https://theconversation.com/why-blowing-the-1-5c-global- warm...](https://theconversation.com/why-blowing-the-1-5c-global-warming-goal- will-leave-poor-tropical-nations-sweating-most-of-all-96988)

I only _slightly_ exaggerated my comments about telt camp conurbations. People are already drowning by the thousands trying to reach Europe via Mediterranean crossing because the landmass of Africa offers so little hope for the future even risking drowning is better than staying. Imagine how much worse it will get when the climate gets more inhospitable (the problems are not caused by climate but by corruption but worse climate is not going to help the issue).

<comment><USER20> Ah! I think what that article is trying to say is that when you have a greater variance in temperatures, any change is going to be something that is more regularly tolerated. E.g. - imagine you add 5 degrees of temperature to an area that varies between 20 and 100 degrees throughout the year, spending only 10% of the year at temperatures above 95 degrees. That means during 90% of the year there would be no change in temperature that has not already been seasonally experienced for centuries. By contrast if you do the same to a country that spends 100% of the year at 98 degrees, then adding 5 degrees would have a consistent 0-variance impact all year long above anything ever experienced. Since there's the least variance in the seasons at the equator (due to Earth's axial tilt) they then suggest that climate change will thus affect the equatorial regions the most.

But I think this is a gross simplification that again gets into the thinking that the temperature is, in and of itself, the problem. It's not. The global climatic system is in an equilibrium. At any given point in the sea for instance the difference between ice and water is the slightest change in temperature. Bump up the temperature a few degrees and that equilibrium radically shifts. This, in turn, can have cascading effects. It doesn't matter that in one location it's now only e.g. 65 when they have heat that goes up to 100 degrees during their summer. It's not about the heat - it's about the ancillary global effects of that change in heat levels, that will affect everywhere. This is one of the many reasons that I think the change in terminology from "global warming" to "climate change" was extremely appropriate. Global warming is not a problem, but the climatic effects it causes may be.

Our micro-level predictions for climate change have so far been pretty awful, but our macro-level predictions have been decent. So I think it's more reasonable to look at the 'big picture' effects, like rising seas. When you get into micro predictions you get silly things. This [1] is an article from AP:

 _" A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2028. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco-refugees" threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday. Coastal regions will be inundated; one-sixth of Bangladesh could be flooded, displacing a fourth of its 90 million people. A fifth of Egypt's arable land in the Nile Delta would be flooded, cutting off its food supply, according to a joint UNEP and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study."_

I changed the date there. That article is from 1989. The real catastrophe deadline given was 2000, 18 years ago.

[1] - [https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0](https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think we need to start wrestling with the idea that the anticipated climate crisis is impossible to stop and that it's worthwhile to begin preparing to live in a world with a warmer climate.

The reality is that most people don't care about climate change and the world's leadership is increasingly hostile to the idea of dealing with it. Even if our leaders were willing, the absolute dominance of private industry in this regard precludes any possibility of progress on the issue of reducing emissions.

On the _other_ hand, we might be able to develop technologies that mitigate the impact of a warmer climate or begin developing and researching strategies to take advantage of agricultural possibilities that might be opened up by a warmer climate. The worst thing we can do right now for the populations that will be impacted by this is to assume there is a possibility that we can curb this disaster rather than taking these 40 to 60 years to brace for impact.

<comment><USER22> Can't disagree with this. Short of a one world government with dictatorship esque powers (which would be a very bad idea for other reasons), the chances of people magically changing their lifestyle/society completely changing overnight to fix climate change are pretty slim to none.

It's science and technology that'll solve these issues, make it possible to live even in 'extreme' conditions and at some eventual point in the future, either reverse or avoid the issue altogether.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> My wife and I are turning 30 and our parents are starting to pressure us to have kids. However, we had both decided against having kids because the thought of someone we love worrying about global climate change crisis is too much for us to handle emotionally. We tried explaining our concerns to our parents but they don't seem to give a shit.

Other than sending our parents reports like these, any suggestions on how we can convince our parents that having kids and subjecting them to a lifetime of dealing with global warming might not be such a great idea?

<comment><USER24> Don't bother. It's your lives, her body and ultimately nothing to do with them. Head over to /r/childfree on reddit to perhaps get some better advice but fundamentally it really has nothing to do with your parents, or anyone else, if you have children and your reasons behind that choice.

<comment><USER23> Went there, couldn't find any valuable insights / discussions. Feels more like a cult than a group of healthy independent thinkers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We need to put a solar shade at L1.[0] That will give us time to switch to a renewable electric economy, before hitting the catastrophic methane release from permafrost thaw.[1]

At 7C, mathematical modeling [2] shows that we may lose two thirds of our oxygen generation (plankton) which could lead to complete human extinction within ~3600 years.[3]

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

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

[2] [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11538-015-0126-...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11538-015-0126-0)

[3] [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12576-016-0501-0](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12576-016-0501-0)

<comment><USER26> But the sunshade is megascale engineering that you'd have to get everyone in on - and quickly, so that's a real project risk, even assuming it's worthwhile.

And the clathrate gun was overhyped.

<comment><USER25> Out of all geoengineering solutions that I am aware of, the sunshade is the most likely to work, and with the least drawbacks as it is the only truly global solution. It is also pretty simple physics as compared to other solutions which involve complex system modeling and unknown side effects.

All of the solutions require everyone on board, and quickly. The biggest issue is cost. At Falcon heavy prices, getting the requisite 20 million tons to L1 approaches 100 trillion dollars, according to my back of the napkin calculations. BFR may get that down an order of magnitude. The only way to pay for something like that is the really hard part, a global financial transaction tax, or some similar scheme.

Could you point me to anything showing that the methane release threat is overblown? I would love that reassurance. But even the Trump administration acknowledges 4C by 2100, there is no reason to think that it would stop there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Climate engineering seems like a better bet than massive political/economic change across the entire world in advance of clear harm.

It is relatively easy (but still difficult in an absolute sense) to get support in sufficiently rich countries to handle clearly demonstrated, immediate threats — clean air, clean water, removal of litter, etc. These also tend to have relatively low costs, and the costs they do impose tend to be on large industries which also have pricing power to pass it along.

There have definitely been successful global environmental actions. The CFC/Ozone thing was probably the most clear; it was a pretty substantial and demonstrable harm, and the costs of switching were relatively low. (It was painful for fire suppression, since halon is still superior to alternatives, and did require a lot of special stuff around auto air conditioners, but it was basically industries which could pass along costs.)

Acid rain/sulfur dioxide/etc was a lot harder because it crossed jurisdictional boundaries, but within the US it was at least pretty easy to use the federal level. Hasn't worked as well with China...

CO2 has the problems of an indirect link between the pollution and harms (merely raising CO2 in the air is fine; the issue is science showing a few levels downstream this is a problem, and it isn't as clear as most other forms of pollution.). It is also much more fundamentally tied to economic activity, and alternatives have much higher costs (including higher forms of other pollution due to decreased efficiency...), and is pretty widely distributed across consumers and smaller businesses. As well, a lot of the problem is the 3-4B people living at a lower standard of living who if they industrialize the same way will make 50% reductions in the other 3-4B pretty meaningless.

I'd rather bet on climate engineering.

</comment><comment><USER27> California recently completed its 4th Climate Assessment task

[http://www.climateassessment.ca.gov/](http://www.climateassessment.ca.gov/)

</comment><comment><USER28> People are too slow with change. Our worldly scenario is unique because we can basically predict our end now. Like weather forecast becomes more precise the closer it gets to the forecasted day, we know more precisely how and when we will end every day. And like weather, practically there is little we can (will) do to change it.

</comment><comment><USER29> Oh but this gets better!

This is a great dissertation on how the GeoPolitics will play this little game out: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_4Z1oiXhY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_4Z1oiXhY)

\- by Gwynne Dyer

</comment><comment><USER30> That's… well.. bleak. At BEST 1.5 C uptick by 2040? Am I reading that right? That is really not good. Like, as in, really bad, and that is the most optimistic report they can generate? It's hard to not feel, well, despair here. First, good on the scientists for keeping up with the reporting and modeling. That's not an easy job. Second, we all know it matters for fuck all. Donny can hardly twit a full sentence, let alone understand anything in that report. If democracy is running out the clock, then autocracy is gumming the pacifier.

But, I dunno man. It just feels like we're closing up the house. Maybe it's because I just moved out of a bad apartment, but I get that feeling here too. Like, the walls were shoddy, the electrical system was haywire, the neighbors were loud and overcrowding the place, the constant noise was too much, and the fights, oh the fights just outside my bedroom window. It was just nutz. But it feels like moving out of that place, like closing down the house of a recently deceased loved one. There is all the history in a place, all these things and pictures that people made and cherished. But there is no-one left to love them anymore. You're cleaning out your now dead grandma's stuff, going through photos that you've no idea about, if she really thought well of the people or the place in it, those clothes of your long dead grandfather" These were his dress blues from when he just got out" Maybe he's buried in another set, but only grandma would know and she is gone. And you know it's important that someone know if Joe is resting in his blues or not, but no-one will know ever again.

That feeling of a deep clouded sea; you know it goes down down down, but you've no idea how deep or what leviathans of a life are flitting about in there, and the light is going out and the air is cooling and the fog is rolling in and you have to go back to the docks and you know you'll never be back out there to that spot of ocean.

It's that final echoing feeling of that dark, dingy apartment. You had so much emotion there, so much life, not all of it bad. You know the floorboards that creak just so, the time that the garbage company comes in the mornings, how your cat really loves that one warm sport near the equinoxes. But now the musty smell of the shower mixed with the bleach and it's…. over. The carpets are cleaned and all the fibers lay one way and the other, making dark and light colors from the reflected glow of the blinded window. Somehow the background noise of the crying babies next door is gone, the street murmurs are like ghosts and drum along. You can hear your shoes slap along for the first time ever. All is as you found it, and there is no life you recognize there now. It's colder on your cheeks.

That's the feeling that I get with these climate reports. Like I am just supposed to be a person that is destined to clean up the house, move out the stuff, as best I can, quietly, mournfully. Like, I am, just here to witness it all, like the bottom of the 9th when the home team is down by 7 and everyone has already gone home in late September, the pennant race long lost, the hopes of summer gone. The lights are still bright as the dark moves in, illuminating a field that everyone is just out on, doing the motions. Like, just sitting there in the stands, hoping, but knowing the game is over. That my job is just to record the score, for the books, that maybe 10 people will ever look at. Trying to secret away scrolls from the Ostrogoths, for a brighter time. I'm hoping that being a witness means something for the future. That acting like Samuel Pepys will make me the next one, because I know it's so fantastically unlikely that I will be, but I've nothing else to do really. Like walking around empty streets after the bars close and the rain lets up, neon reflecting off the asphalt.

I know the game's not over, but I can't help but sigh with each out. I can't help but linger in the last darkness of the cleaned house, that single light left to turn off. I can help but just wipe my face as the boat hums back into the docks, not knowing if the salt is from the water or a tear.

</comment><comment><USER31> FTA : >>>Ms. Warrick said her organization intends to campaign for governments to invest in carbon capture technology. Such technology, which is currently too expensive for commercial use, could allow coal to continue to be widely used.

I hope we'll talk about the pulmonary diseases her family will get in some years

second point : this post lasted less than 24 hours on HN's home page. It's a telling sign.

</comment><comment><USER32> The skeptical part of me seems bound to point out that we've been told that it would happen by 2020, or even earlier.

<comment><USER33> What were we told? That the artic ice would be in retreat and that the permafrost would begin to melt? Sounds as if the predictions were pretty accurate.</comment></comment>


RaspberryPi Featured on UK Postage Stamp - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-immortalized-on-stamp,39196.html <comment><USER2> The Arduino being even more popular, the Italians could do the same. (Posting from an Odroid N2.)

</comment><comment><USER3> They even put the little under voltage lightning bolt icon that's always popping up, cool!

</comment><comment><USER4> >immortalized

>limited edition</comment>


You have options – Why we left the U.S. and moved back to Europe - <AUTHOR> http://sam-the-man.com/you-have-options/ <comment><USER2> I love to travel, meet other people, experience different cultures, and widen my horizons. For those reasons alone, I'd definitely advocate at least doing a lot of traveling to lots of different countries, and (if possible) trying to live in those countries you like best.

That said, I've found that living in other countries does have its down sides. The one that's bothered me most is being treated like a second-class citizen. In the countries I've been to, I've often felt like an outsider, or a cash machine, or a target. If you don't speak the language, you're usually treated even worse.

Those experiences have really given me a much stronger sense of empathy for how immigrants and other foreigners are treated in my own country, but has also made living in my own country feel a lot safer and more desirable.

I haven't given up on travel, and still like to do so to expand my horizons and experience places that are really different, but I really think twice about just jumping up and permanently moving somewhere else. Most expats can't take it long-term, and wind up moving back after a while. It's a rare breed who can move to a radically different country and remain -- unless, of course, they feel they have no other choice.

<comment><USER3> Some countries are worse in this respect than others. I've lived in lots of different places, I've never really felt much of an outsider because (1) I try hard to learn as much of the local language that I can, (2) I try to connect to the locals rather than to my fellow country men and (3) I try really hard to be nice to people and help where I can. Having some skills will make this much quicker. Even so, there are definitely many levels of inclusion and you'll likely never be seen as a local but that's pretty much expected since after all you're not.

In order of feeling accepted:

\- Canada

\- United States

\- Poland

\- Romania

Those are the countries where I've spent more than just a few months cumulatively, though I never actually had a permanent residence in the United States (I did have an American "Inc" and spent lots of time there). Even to this day I have more friends abroad than in the country I was born in (and where I live).

And moving back here was a mixed bag, for one the Canadian paperwork took forever (we really felt that Canadian government was taking advantage of us and stringing us along), for another there was serious concern about the quality of the education in the place where we lived.

As long as you think of yourself as an 'expat' rather than as an 'immigrant' you're on the wrong track.

<comment><USER4> >And moving back here was a mixed bag

"here" meaning the Netherlands; is that not so?

<comment><USER3> Yep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People tend to be irrational about things and this is a good illustration. As broken and expensive as US healthcare is, you're making 3x the money here, and out of pocket maximums do kick in eventually. And the US is not the top country by far, even among developed ones, in number of mass murder victims per 100000 population. You're vastly more likely to drown in your backyard pool than be a victim of a mass shooting in the US. Majority of firearm deaths are suicides. Majority of homicides are concentrated in crime / gang activity hubs like Detroit, Chicago, and a few others. Firearm homicide has been trending downward for decades, even if you take the crime hubs into account. IOW if you don't live in one of the well known "bad" places, your chance of dying from a firearm wound is very low indeed.

<comment><USER6> Out of pocket maximums kick in eventually, unless you accidentally go to an out-of network provider, unless you lose your job and therefore your insurance, unless your insurance decides that a drug you need isn't covered, etc., etc., etc.

<comment><USER5> You don't lose your insurance anymore if you lose your job. You are required by law to have insurance whether you have a job or not.

<comment><USER7> Your formulation makes it sound like the government will make sure you have insurance.

This is not the case. _You_ have to make sure you have insurance or the government will fine you. But if you were unable to get insurance for whatever reason, you still don't have insurance.

And Obamacare premiums are not small and the insurance is not very good.

<comment><USER8> What's your criteria for "good"?

The worst conforming ACA plans are essentially the catastrophic insurance that people think they are clamoring for; they are expensive because health care costs in the US are spiraling out of control. It could be that people actually want plans with a bunch of complicated limitations and limits, but I doubt it.

<comment><USER9> > The worst conforming ACA plans are essentially the catastrophic insurance > that people think they are clamoring for

Just an anecdote, but I have not found this to be the case at all, and I'd figure I'd offer an example of one such "clamorer who thinks he wants catastrophic plans" to balance the discussion.

Prior to ACA I was on a "catastrophic" plan (despite being able to afford something much more comprehensive). I think the "catastrophic" term is kind of dumb, and I'd instead call it "actually-insurance, not a prepaid health subscription".

The premium was around $95/month and I spent maybe another ~$1k/year on medications and office visits. I was totally satisfied with this health coverage and never felt I had to limit my access to health care because of my plan.

As soon as ACA rolled around I tried to find the most similar plan I could (mine was discontinued despite promises to the contrary).

1) I couldn't get as high a deductible, so I was forced to pay for risk- reduction I didn't want. In an absolutely life-threatening 1%-of-insurees catastrophe, my family can absorb say $25k/year out of pocket so I see no reason to insure against that financial risk.

2) The first year my premium was $180, then $220, then $260. I did not save any money on medications or office visits (if anything it got more expensive, but that may also just be a general trend in US health costs).

So post-ACA my insurance premium cost has nearly tripled, and the product I considered satisfactory before is simply not available on the market.

In summary: people can rationally prefer pre-ACA catastrophic plans, and post- ACA such options are not available.

<comment><USER8> I think that's a fair counterpoint. It would be interesting to see some statistics about how many people are informed about the trade offs between deductibles and premiums and such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We moved from France back to the US (Miami, specifically) in the last year. Going back to France has come up a lot in our household. Salaries are definitely higher here but once I deduct the major expenses (healthcare, childcare, healthy foods) it comes out to be only 10% bump salary wise.

In our travels the one thing we have found is that medical tourism is becoming a better known option to Americans. I've met doctors and surgeons who keep a small office in Miami for consultation but the operations are done in Colombia, Brazil or Mexico.

<comment><USER11> Is real estate cheaper here or there? It seems, at least in the southwest, more common to be able to afford more land/property.

<comment><USER10> Land is definitely cheaper in the US. Building codes vary quite a bit. But I don't expect these houses to last 50+ years without significant upkeep. It seems like the quality of the buildings were higher in Western Europe. But that could be survivor bias. Crappy buildings get knocked down sooner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's funny that Florida has such a pristine reputation internationally. I'm from the Southern US, and my view of Florida is that it's where 80% of the crazies in the US live.

Anytime I see a batsh*t crazy headline? Florida. Check the articles you see from now on and you'll notice a pattern.

So to all the internationals: if you like the US but not its extremes, definitely don't move to Florida.

<comment><USER13> Florida has embraced open records laws, while other US jurisdictions have not - certainly not to the same extent.

A significant portion of your observation can likely be attributed to reporting bias: it's easy/cheap for a journalist to browse the website of their local Florida police department. In another jurisdiction, that same story might involve: hiring an investigative journalist, spending 3 months, and fighting to have a FOIA request honoured.

<comment><USER12> My family vacations there every year and my grandparents lived there for 30 years. I can assure you the crazy is real and not imagined.

<comment><USER14> You're not wrong about the crazy. The point is that it's not just Florida.

<comment><USER11> Let us not forget, it was Nevadans who "occupied" an animal refuge: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_Nati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_National_Wildlife_Refuge)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I moved from London to Lisbon and then to Brazil. I get the same kinda "wtf" reaction from Brazilians. The bottom line is, with all that's wrong in Brazil and given my circumstances and my remote well paid job, I'm a lot happier living here than anywhere else in the world. I truly love this place.

I don't think one needs to try to make a place work for them. Sure you can try and adapt. But ultimately most people reading this have the option to live elsewhere. Don't be afraid to take the chance.

<comment><USER16> Well paid US job? Could you please provide ball park estimate and what exactly do you do. Also how do you deal with currency exchange and are yoy a native brazzilian speaker? I've been contemplating moving to south america as well.

<comment><USER15> Yes well paid US based programming job. I transferwise.com funds, you have to read rules about your country of origin and double taxation laws. Brazil is a bureaucratic hell. I speak very basic Portuguese but taking lessons. I would definitly suggest living in a target country for a month before deciding to move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Three of my friends moved in the other direction (all of them Americans by birth), one with his family in tow.

Having options is good, and it is fairly easy for American entrepreneurs to move to Europe (Germany works if you have enough backing and a good plan) or back again if they decide that's what is best for them.

Healthcare is definitely a factor and so is the climate but when you're young and working hard neither of those will likely move the needle much (but healthcare is a bit of a lottery in the longer term).

The paranoia angle wouldn't factor in for most people, though I can see how if you are prone to that that it will affect you.

If you're an entrepreneur and you wish to address the largest single market on the planet (one language, one currency) with your start-up the USA is probably the place to be if you can get in in an easy way. If not then the EU is likely your best bet but it will be substantially harder to address the EU market than the American one. You might even get a neat balance if you lived in Europe but treated your start-up like an American entity from day one.

<comment><USER17> One of my college classmates moved about 15 years ago from working for NASA to Europe to work for ESA, I think the decision process is different for African Americans, one has to think about how one or one's child is more likely to be killed by a policeman than a terrorist in the United States (when the President cites terrorism as some existential threat to be addressed by national immigration policies versus no action on police), no matter what your status is, it was not that different for James Baldwin or Richard Wright than it is today.

<comment><USER3> That's a good point, ethnicity likely is a huge factor in making decisions such as these. That said, racism is alive and well in Europe.

<comment><USER18> It's certainly less likely to be a cause of death for your child or person, given officers in general are less armed. And in the UK's case, they ban some of the worst offenders from entering.

<comment><USER3> That's true, in Western Europe police forces are much more disciplined than in the United States. Even so, being a person of color in France is going to be a significant disadvantage in the eyes of the police, less so in most other countries but still definitely not a level playing field. I wish it were different.

What we do have is corruption, and lots of it in some places, again, less so in others. The various countries in the Union are at least as different from each other as the American states.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I moved away from Las Vegas for many of the same reasons as OP:

The Heat: While LV heat is much dryer than Florida's, I hope to never live where it gets so hot ever again. I would push myself to fight the heat and be outside in spite of it, but there's only so much fight.

The Pollution: Only a few, select zip codes have decent air quality in LV. Where I worked, on the strip, mixed disgusting air quality with the highest heat in the valley.

Everywhere you go the sun will beat down on you, the air will offer no comfort, and there will be no shade.

The Violence: I lived in a fine apartment in a fine area (with mansions and golf courses nearby). The cops nonetheless shot and killed the occupant in the apartment immediately above me one night - while I was in my apartment downstairs. He deserved it, too, but that doesn't change my perception of the violence in LV. A woman was hit and killed by a car just outside of the complex one weekend. I worked on the strip the night of the Oct 1 shooting massacre, too. But that's just the tip of the violence problem in LV. People treat one another with so much contempt and hostility in everyday life there. They will actually come up to you, tell you they do not like you, and that they will do everything they can to destroy you. And they will do it often. You will probably have never met this person before their threat, and have done nothing to earn their hate.

Healthcare: I had mixed experiences with doctors there. I had doctors tell me they did not believe I had the symptoms I described - because I'm a guy. But I also finally got a chronic condition under control with a doctor there, too. Of course, that doctor will still, to this day, suggest we stop treatment at the slightest misstatement from me. Financially though, I once had a doctor send my bill to collections before ever actually billing me. Within days of treatment his collections agency contacted me - as though I were a problem patient. Then, years back, a gastroenterologist was found sharing medical supplies between patients. I forget the numbers, but he gave many people HIV/hepatitis/etc that way.

Options: It took a long time after the great recession for LV to recover. I'm sure it will not fare well during the next recession.

</comment><comment><USER19> I know we're not anywhere near this being a pressing concern, but Pax Americana is coming to an end and I think there's something to be said for America's physical location on the globe and relationship with it's two neighbors. There have been lots of conflagrations in Europe in the time since the American civil war 150 years ago, but there have been essentially none in America. Meanwhile, the raw ingredients of the terrors of the 20th century still exist in Europe.

<comment><USER20> Pax Romana lasted 200 years. It's been 70 so far for Pax Americana. You seem certain that it's on the brink. Why is that?

<comment><USER19> Well, peace may continue, but it'll be hard to attribute it to America. China's ascendance is looming on the horizon. Unless something goes drastically wrong for them, their military and economic might will dwarf America's. And I think there's tons of instability on the horizon. Weird shit is happening in Europe, Russia is back as a geopolitical force, Japan is on path to militarize again, etc. These are strange times; the world order that the Soviet collapse ushered in seems to quickly be coming to an end.

<comment><USER20> The Pax Americana has never been free of contentiousness or outright war. People (especially young people) forget how fragile things were prior to the fall of the USSR. The complete US dominance of the '90s and '00s is not the norm. And just as the Soviet house of cards collapsed, there's no guarantee that China's ascendancy is indefinite. Russia's posturing right now is a veil for its domestic strife and decrepit military, they are not much of a force.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've thought this for a long time, but the insanity of the US healthcare system makes is such that it erases the wage differences between here and countries with national healthcare systems for a huge percentage of the population long term.

You're essentially gambling that you won't be struck by a finance destroying health crisis for a long enough time that you'll come out ahead overall. But when you think about the fact that 35-40% of people develop cancer in their lifetimes, or the "financial death by a thousand procedures" described in the post, that seems unlikely, at least for a good portion of people.

<comment><USER19> I dunno, whenever I see European or Canadian software engineering salaries mentioned, I do some quick math and it seems like I come out way ahead, even if I were to pay my family's out of pocket maximum every year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I move from Australia to Iceland. Icelanders always go "what the hell man? why would you do that?" when they find out.

It's complicated. Broadly speaking, it's an even split between:

1\. Icelands software industry being considerably more vibrant than Australias, which is really sad for Aus.

2\. Australias government increasingly intervening directly in it's citizens lives whether they like it or not. The Icelandic government is pretty hands off, þetta reddast etc.

3\. Icelanders have _no_ idea what the word "heat" really means. They've never under-clocked their computers to keep them stable during summer. I'll take Icelandic winter over Australia summer any day of the week.

It's been hard, but I wouldn't take back my decision, no way. Any one of those reasons is good enough for me.

We're living in the first age in human history where you can really just pick up all your shit and straight up move to the opposite side of the planet, no dramas. I paid ~$8,000AUD to some dudes, they rocked up at my place with a truck full of boxes and paper and wrapped up literally the entire house and drove off. Three months later some other dudes showed up at my new place in Reykjavik and unboxed everything for me. 8k isn't nothing, but it's not unreachable either, and I also paid for the full service move. Easiest move I ever did, but you could probably do it for half the price if you packed yourself.

Out of the whole planet, what're the odds that you were born in the place that suits you best? It's definitely worth shopping around.

<comment><USER23> Would love to find out how you got a job programming in Iceland. What were the requirements for language, Visa, how did you find the role etc?

<comment><USER22> Australians don't need visas to visit or stay temporarily in Iceland, but to work you need a residence permit and work permit.

Residence permits won't get processed while you're in the country as a tourist, so you apply from outside the country and wait. There are no language requirements as long as someone is willing to hire you. To get a residence permit you need to meet the quality of "support"[1], which broadly means either approximately $22,000 in savings per year of your permit OR payslips demonstrating a monthly income that meets $22,000/yr OR an employment contract from an Icelandic company.

If you go the employment route, you need a work permit. For software, this is usually done on the basis of "expert knowledge"[2]. The company usually needs to demonstrate that they're unable to hire a schengen zone citizen to do your job (otherwise you're not expert enough I guess?), and then issue you with a contract that you submit to the directorate of immigration. That's relatively informal though, and mostly means the company needs to advertise in Iceland first and show that it interviewed candidates and they weren't suitable. Iceland is heavily unionized and your work permit will need a stamp of approval from a relevant union. The first time you request this the union will want to see your qualifications. I strongly suggest becoming a member of that union to smooth things over when you get it renewed every one or two years. Iceland is charmingly small-town corrupt like that.

All Icelanders under ~60 speak flawless English, and it's pretty common for Icelanders under 30 to interleave English words into Icelandic sentences in cases where there isn't a good Icelandic word. Unless the company you apply to works heavily with Icelandic language products, it's unlikely that speaking only English would be a barrier to employment.

As for getting the job itself, Iceland is /desperate/ for good programmers. The cost of living is high, the wages are low, and the local universities don't have fabulous software degrees[3]. It's hard for Icelandic companies to hire good programmers. If you want to come to Iceland and you have a qualification, it may not be that hard. However, I suggest visiting for a holiday in June and again in February, to see what this country is really like. If you don't love it as a place to live, you won't stay long.

This might be a good place to start looking: [https://www.tvinna.is/](https://www.tvinna.is/)

[1] [http://www.utl.is/index.php/en/basic- requirements1#support](http://www.utl.is/index.php/en/basic- requirements1#support)

[2] [http://www.utl.is/index.php/en/residence-permits-based-on- wo...](http://www.utl.is/index.php/en/residence-permits-based-on- work#residence-permit-requiring-expert-knowledge)

[3] My friends tell me that slightly pre-banking-crisis, all the universities reformed their software degrees to churn out low level CRUD app webdevs to make lots of web apps for the high flying Icelandic banks. When the banks all crashed, Iceland became awash with relatively inflexible developers, and the universities haven't really refocused their coursework much, so the standard of graduates is, I am told, still relatively poor.

<comment><USER23> Thank you for the detailed response :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The US has a lot more to offer than Florida, especially when it comes to the complaints (heat, health care and mass shootings) in the article.

<comment><USER3> Can you explain the healthcare differences? From what I know it is pretty bad all over the USA compared to say France or Germany.

<comment><USER25> Healthcare is one of those areas where your experience varies dramatically based on how rich you (or your employer) are. I had nothing but good experiences when I was on Google's health plan - basically walk in to any of a number of top-notch, very wealthy clinics, don't pay a cent, get great care. Ditto when I was on my mom's government-employee plan. I was hospitalized with an acute kidney infection when I was 15, one that would've killed me had I lived 50 years earlier. Immediately got referred to a top-notch children's hospital, attentive doctors, pumped full of antibiotics and made all better again, and my family didn't pay a cent of what would've been a $200-300K hospital bill. Similarly, my dad's hospitalization at the end of his life cost close to a million bucks, of which we didn't pay anything.

At the other end of the spectrum, if you don't have health insurance, you will be bankrupted by the slightest medical emergency. You'll get care, but the doctors generally won't care about you. Oftentimes you end up going to hospitals that are poorer, with more overworked nursing staff that more frequently make mistakes. Even having private health insurance these days or a HDHP from a smaller organization still is a much lower level of service, with much higher amounts paid out of pocket. When I left Google I bought a private individual plan from Anthem, the same insurer I had at Google; despite it being the same company, my existing doctor wouldn't take the new plan, and I couldn't even see the same doctor I'd just waltzed in to see on Google's plan without paying $400 out of pocket or so.

Much of Obamacare's achievement and Obamacare's pain comes from being an attempt to spread the misery around, so that we don't have a caste system for healthcare in the U.S. It's meant that 20-30M people who were previously unable to see doctors at all now have basic health care, but it's also meant that many people for whom health care used to be completely covered, free, now have to pay something close to the real cost of their care, and they're finding out just how much the experience sucked for the rest of America.

<comment><USER3> Ok, but the number of people employed by companies such as Google is very low compared to the total number of Americans.

So statistically speaking chances are that you'll find yourself on that 'other end of the spectrum'.

<comment><USER25> Statistically speaking yes, health care in the U.S. sucks more than in countries with socialized medicine.

You are not a statistic. Evaluate your expected experience accordingly.

<comment><USER3> From a rich persons point of view such expected experience will vary drastically compared to a poor person's. They can evaluate all they want it will likely not make much difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Every time I fight with my insurance company about what's covered or not, I certainly consider it.

When I had to enter my kid into a lottery system and cross my fingers he'd end up in a good school, I certainly considered it.

Canada's not too far away.

<comment><USER27> Ever live in Canada? It's more US-lite than western Europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The only problem with the US is that you have to report to IRS even if you live and work in some other place...

<comment><USER29> I'm currently in the process of moving out of the U.S. to Japan. I'm considering ditching my U.S. citizenship for this reason.

<comment><USER30> Do you have Japanese citizenship? Ending up stateless doesn't seem worth it.

<comment><USER18> I may be wrong, but I believe if not so the US legally can't allow him to renounce his citizenship.

(Allowing a person to become stateless is illegal if I remember correctly, but my memory's ever-so-slightly fuzzy around this topic.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> With all of the options he had he decided to move to ex-soviet republic... Let's see how long you'll manage to stay there before ludicrous levels of corruption at all levels of society start making expensive healthcare in the US seem insignificant in comparison. I say this as Ukrainian/Armenian who was born and lived in the USSR and seen my father, who's a brilliant engineer, stagnate in the professional culture that pushed him aside because of his ethnicity or because he became a threat to some old bastard who's been warming his seat for 40 years instead of retiring.

<comment><USER32> The Ukraine, Armenia, and USSR != Estonia. Estonia is regularly ranked as one of the least corrupt countries in the world, on par with Japan: [https://www.transparency.org/country/EST](https://www.transparency.org/country/EST) , among the many other superlatives you can find listed in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia) . (If he's going to worry about something, I would suggest that since he worries about such rare events as movie theater shootings, he ought to worry a lot more about Russia invading Estonia...)

<comment><USER33> Is Japan really that incorrupt when they have zaibatsus and Yakuza?

<comment><USER34> The correct question is: how strong is corruption in other countries if Japan is basically considered a no-corruption area even if they have zaibatsus and Yakuza?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is great, but... Sunlight. I couldn't live in Estonia for a long time. I need sunlight. Plenty of sunlight. I live in San Francisco, where the weather is great. I am originally from Italy, where the weather is quite good especially in the center/south.

I would love to live in Estonia, if not for the weather, and the loooong winters.

Hard to solve this puzzle, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER36> What's it like in Tallin? I'm thinking of going to study there after I'm finished with my first degree? I like what they're doing to encourage startups etc. Can you speak Estonian?

<comment><AUTHOR> The weather is vastly different and very cold, but I enjoy and missed the winter, and spring is almost here as well. The people are not as open to talk to strangers, but I've noticed that once they do open up, they are fun, honest people. I believe education is free over here, I haven't looked into it from an immigrant's perspective. I don't speak Estonian, as I currently don't need to... There are a bunch of tech companies who's primary language is English, so the incentive is still low, but if we do decide to stay long-term, I plan on learning it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The grass is always greener on the other side. Being born in Europe and living here is suffocating me.

<comment><USER38> Europe is a big place and covers at least 6 different kinds of lifestyle and 3 kinds of weather. That's a few shades of grass to try before you give up entirely?

<comment><USER39> +1. And do not need a visa if you are European.

<comment><USER40> Unless, you know, you're British and your fellow countrymen decided to go crazy all at the same time.

<comment><USER41> I know you're being humorous, but to spell it out: They aren't crazy, they're simply like that.

And, like the article says, you have options. For anybody still on the fence, I can't recommend leaving the UK enough.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pipenv: One Year Later and a Call for Help - <AUTHOR> https://www.kennethreitz.org/essays/pipenv-one-year-later-a-call-for-help <comment><USER2> I find it very straightforward and obvious to use virtualenvs, which support everything this project purports to do. What is this, then? Some porcelain and convention around virtualenvs? Why do I need this?

<comment><USER3> It is exactly porcelain and convention around virtualenvs, and its benefits are, in brief: simplicity, security, and portability (as in operating systems).

The most useful feature that motivated my switch to it was that it combines the env manager and package manager so users only need to use one tool to specify an environment and a set of packages, and to manipulate those packages. This was extremely useful when getting lots of novice Python programmers to start sharing code/build environments for their projects.

It additionally has a lockfile and hash-based package identification which improves security (if I remember correctly, these things are possible with straight pip/other package managers, but can either be disabled or are disabled by default--but it's been awhile, so I may well be wrong!).

In short, it gives you a slightly more opinionated definition of what a "project" (environment plus packages etc.) is, and in return the tool is much simpler.

For more info: [https://docs.pipenv.org/](https://docs.pipenv.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pipenv solved the most annoying problem Python had before: inconvenient version isolation. Dependencies were installed globally by default, and virtualenv was too cumbersome to use easily. Pipenv solves all of those headaches.

<comment><USER5> "Pipenv solved the most annoying problem Python had before: inconvenient version isolation. Dependencies were installed globally by default, and virtualenv was too cumbersome to use easily. Pipenv solves all of those headaches."

I've recently started using pipenv, and it has made me very happy. Ruby has very polished tools for managing interpreter versions as well as dependency management, and npm is OK, but before pipenv, Python was a slightly different headache every time that I had to set up a project.

Basic usage of pipenv is like Bundler or npm, so it was very easy to get started. It also has some extra features that Bundler doesn't have, and I haven't yet tried: installing Python interpreters on demand, built-in project code style checking, and security vulnerability checks on dependencies:

[https://docs.pipenv.org/advanced/](https://docs.pipenv.org/advanced/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Big fan of Kenneth's work.

One thing that surprised me about pipenv though is the slugified virtualenv name. I work on many virtualenvs a day and keep them all in ~/.virtualenv/, no .env in the project, I use tree, and like code and artifacts to be seperate, and the dev environment to mirror deploy as closely as a I can. spacemacs loads them from there, my deploy mirrors this, and I use systemd units that use the absolute path on the target platform. easy to use, easy to explain.

pipenv does not support this workflow though, something I thought was quite common. Suggestions to allow this to be optional does not seem to be well received [https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/589#issuecomment-33071...](https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/589#issuecomment-330713212)

Maybe this is due to resourcing and will be fixed in time. For now, I just use pipenv for dependency management, and still use virtualenv like before. I would have liked to just use the one tool, but as it stands pipenv unfortunately is not a one stop shop for me - I really hope one day it will be.

</comment><comment><USER7> The pace of work on Pipenv is simply astounding. It breaks here and there, hence this call for help I guess, but I'm endlessly impressed with it.

</comment><comment><USER8> One thing in particular Pipenv/pipfile needs to address is a standardised calculation of the hashed virtualenv paths.

I tried creating a PR for SublimeText's Anaconda plugin, and realised that right now it requires 4(!) separate subprocess calls, each of which starts a Python process to simply get the path of the current project's virtualenv. Until there is a very simple way (a max. 10-20 line function) to calculate this path, including a reference implementation in Python and JS, there is no way widespread editor support can happen.

[https://github.com/pypa/pipfile/issues/88](https://github.com/pypa/pipfile/issues/88) [https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/985](https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/985) [https://github.com/DamnWidget/anaconda/issues/717](https://github.com/DamnWidget/anaconda/issues/717) [https://github.com/DamnWidget/anaconda/pull/720](https://github.com/DamnWidget/anaconda/pull/720)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd love to hear a comparison to features provided by pip-tools. Managing the pyenv is nice, but not at the expense of giving up the ability to auto-update and remove stale dependencies from a requirements.txt file. Is this something pipenv can handle at this point?

Someone created a very relevant issue, and I would suggest taking the time needed to close this before doing any more publicity. [https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/1398](https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/1398)

</comment><comment><USER10> It's a shame (for myself) that they are asking for previous open source experience. I just started using pipenv a few weeks ago and it's fantastic and would be inclined to help out, as long as someone would mentor me. Tough, I guess that would add more work to them.

<comment><USER11> It is an open source project though. You can definitely still help them out. Have a look at their issues page: [https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues](https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues), fork the project and submit some PRs.

There you go: open source experience done!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I will devote some of my time to this. This project deserves some help. Awesome work!

</comment><comment><USER13> I tried Pipenv and loved it. I look forward to using it again. I wish I had the skills to confidently contribute.

As a 3D artist, I have to use Windows a lot and Pipenv doesn't cooperate well with Windows shell.

<comment><USER14> You could contribute by letting the team what windows issues you are having perhaps?

From the pipenv site:

"Pipenv is a tool that aims to bring the best of all packaging worlds (bundler, composer, npm, cargo, yarn, etc.) to the Python world. Windows is a first–class citizen, in our world."

<comment><USER13> The problems I've had were already documented in open Github issues and someone had found a hacky workaround for one of them, but they don't appear to have anyone trying to fix them. I could hardly comprehend the problems, as they were well outside of Python. :( I have faith, though!</comment></comment></comment>


What caused the Google service interruption? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgpmon.net/what-caused-the-google-service-interruption/

<comment><USER2> You can also check RIPE BGPlay here and track the outage - [https://stat.ripe.net/widget/bgplay#w.resource=220.127.116.11/...](https://stat.ripe.net/widget/bgplay#w.resource=126.96.36.199/24)

      Type: A > pathchange Involving: 22.214.171.124/24
      Short description: The route 39202 174 9498 17488 15169 is changed to 39202 174 15169
      Path: 39202, 174, 15169,
      Date and time: 2015-03-12 09:16:23 Collected by: 01-184.108.40.206</comment>


Posterous Spaces is no longer available - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nodesocket.com/bye.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool space man graphic at least.</comment>


Jack Ma: 'Making money is easy, spending it is hard' - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/jack-ma-making-money-easy-spending-hard/ <comment><USER2> Not very surprising. The more wealth inequality, the harder is to for poor to get money. But at the same time harder for the wealthy to invest the money.

<comment><USER3> Demonstrating how massive a failure "trickle down" is as an idea.</comment></comment>