Why Public Transportation Works Better Outside the U.S - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/10/while-america-suffocated-transit-other-countries-embraced-it/572167/ <comment><USER2> Lesson #1 seems deliberate to me.

Post war, many urban centers in the US experienced white flight, it seems rational to assume that since these folks moved away from the cities to get away from minorities they would be against infrastructure that would allow minorities to "follow them" to the burbs. But these workers needed a way to get to the city for work, leisure, etc.

What better way to circle that square by building massive infrastructure which requires a middle class income (which allows you to buy a car) to use?

Even now we see lots of resistance by suburban communities to public transportation. In the Portland, OR metro area there is a upper middle class community called Lake Oswego, the residents have continuously lobbied against any form of public transportation in the town, lots of folks complaining about the "crime train".

The metro transit authority which designs new lines has succumbed to the pressure and the newly proposed line while in the vicinity of Lake Oswego avoids the town completely.

<comment><USER3> It's a shame to see people campaigning against new regional transit lines, but I have to be at least a _little_ sympathetic. BNSF runs through my town, and it _does_ bring transients, plenty of whom do bring drugs, needles, & crime. No matter how you feel about train hoppers, that is a matter of fact in our town.

To the downvotes I face, I'd be curious what you feel is incorrect in what I've said.

<comment><USER4> This is _exactly_ the mentality that makes getting public transit built a problem.

Trains don't cause crime. The crime was already there because of a whole heap of deeply embedded issues in America that, for various reasons, Americans on the whole prefer to completely ignore.

The problem is that trains make these problems _visible_. If you rip out the trains you're just sweeping it back under the carpet which is how America tends to deal with these things.

If the best economic opportunity afforded by the trains for someone is crime that's saying something about your society, not the trains.

<comment><USER5> > The crime was already there ...

Crime as at generational (multi-generational?) lows. People are solving a problem that no longer exists.

An American friend of mine is terrified of going into cities; it's bizarre. I've spent a lot of time in American cities, in all sorts of neighborhoods; I've never had a problem. (Like other American conservatives I've talked to, he also seems to define himself as being in opposition to liberals, in this case by putting down cities and their residents; so perhaps it's partly a political thing. However, it's a bit bizarre that political rhetoric would be confused with reality.)

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's a political thing, people in cities just seem to have different expectations than people that don't. I live in the suburbs and there isn't anywhere nearby that I would worry about going. My co-worker who lives in the city says that it's dangerous to go 2 blocks from his house at night, but thinks that's normal. My wife has a co-worker who's had someone repeatedly try and break into her house, but she doesn't call the cops because she just considers it part of city life. There are some things that people in cities put up with that I think they only accept because it's been part of their entire life.

<comment><USER5> > My co-worker who lives in the city says that it's dangerous to go 2 blocks > from his house at night, but thinks that's normal. My wife has a co-worker > who's had someone repeatedly try and break into her house, but she doesn't > call the cops because she just considers it part of city life.

I know many, many people who live in American cities, and I don't know even one person with those experiences or attitudes (unless you mean, there is a specific spot within 2 blocks that feels potentially dangerous in the middle of the night - a 4 square block area in a dense city is a large area with potentially tens of thousands of people).

However, I do know people in suburbs or rural areas with those attitudes and stories. In my experience, almost all the scary stories about cities come from people who don't actually live there - and the less experience they have, the more scary stories they seem to tell, similar to other bogeymen like racial stereotypes. Some people in rural areas seem to love to tell these stories these days.

People I know in cities usually talk about how great it is - or at least how they could never live in the suburbs.

I guess we can argue about anecdata, but the actual data shows that crime is very low.

EDIT: Many edits, mostly reorganization

<comment><USER7> I wouldn't go that far. When we lived in downtown Baltimore, we definitely told our nanny that there were neighborhoods where the crime was high enough she probably didn't want to go there: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandtown- Winchester,_Baltimore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandtown- Winchester,_Baltimore). And when we lived in Wilmington, DE, if you went a few blocks south from our apartment (across an underpass beneath the highway), you got to a neighborhood where the crime rate was so high that the EMTs once refused to pick up a dead body after a shooting. Also in Wilmington, someone was shot at the Nike on Market street waiting for a new shoe to be released at like 6 am. Someone was mugged outside my wife's office (in the nice part of the central business district) at 5 pm.

In the city, crime is low enough where you will probably not be a victim of crime (especially if you're wealthy). But it's happening _around you_ , you're aware of it, and property crimes are a real risk if you're not careful.

Meanwhile, now we live in the Annapolis suburbs, and I don't even lock my car when I park it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Low overall population density

2\. Newer cities designed when cars were already king

3\. Redesign of cities with the car in mind, due to fierce lobbying by car industry.

4\. Hidden subsidies for cars, like untaxed carbon, untaxed smog leading to respiratory illnesses in cities, and of course free ubiquitous parking in so many areas.

5\. Continuing lack of innovation, policy hold-ups, partisanship leading to gridlock, not to mention a public disinterest in using public transit.

</comment><comment><USER9> > Figuring out how to improve transit isn't like curing cancer or inventing a > quantum computer, either. There are good, viable models of transit systems > that already exist in cities that look a lot like U.S ones. They are > successful both at attracting riders and at being financially viable, from > places that have more in common with American cities than one might expect

If that's the case then you'd think some company would step in to grab that "financially viable" market

Tokyo's transit system is run by multiple companies. There are at least 10 different train companies many of which also run bus services. AFAIK they are hugely profitable. Many of them also open retail spaces and office spaces in and around the stations they run.

<comment><USER10> > Tokyo's transit system is run by multiple companies. There are at least 10 > different train companies many of which also run bus services.

I find this interesting because it's a stark contrast to NYC. NYC is of the only cities in the country where PT is so pervasive that most people can get around on PT alone, but they tried that same exact model back in the day, and it failed miserably leading to the creation of the MTA.

<comment><USER7> The special thing about Tokyo's rail system is not that it's private, but that the railroads are the primary landowners around the rail stations, which was never true in New York.

Rail infrastructure benefits both the passengers who ride it, and the businesses whose workers and customers ride to their premises on the infrastructure. Traditionally, rail systems can only recover from the passengers. That leaves a large positive externality accruing to the businesses, which the rail operator cannot recover.

The Japanese model solves that problem by allowing the rail operator to capture value from both ends of the transaction. It charges fees to passengers, but also charges rent to all the businesses built near rail lines.

<comment><USER11> > The special thing about Tokyo's rail system is not that it's private, but > that the railroads are the primary landowners around the rail stations, > which was never true in New York.

They also don't have the TWU, whose unchecked corruption would be capable of destroying the public transit system of _any_ city in _any_ country, given the opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We should try shutting down most bus systems outside major dense metro areas and start over. For example, I used to live in Orange County, California. There is no rail there, only buses. But whenever I saw the buses on the road, they were empty. And I rarely saw anyone at bus stops. But they have a huge budget, $290 million per year ([https://www.octa.net/News/About/OCTA-Board- Approves-$1-3-Bil...](https://www.octa.net/News/About/OCTA-Board- Approves-$1-3-Billion-Balanced-Budget/)) for bus operations. What a waste of money, empty buses driving around in circles.

Imagine if that money went to this instead:

* Estimate of $15 round trip per day for Lyft Line/Uber Pool for commuting to/from work. That's $300 per month. Create special Lyft/Uber cards and distribute to low income residents. $290 million/$300 = 966k low income residents. Note that the population of OC is 3 million. And this would be free for low income residents. Whatever they spend on commuting now can be spent for other non-commuting transportation.

* These MUST be used with Lyft Line/Uber Pool. Also these rides will be only pickup/drop off at bus stops. These requirements allow for massive routing efficiencies and the bus stop infrastructure is already designed for a lot of pickup/dropoffs.

Eventually Lyft/Uber will notice that certain stops are very popular. They may start asking drivers of minivans to cover these. As demand increases more, they may run shuttles. And some extremely popular bus stops may even have high capacity buses. But this will be a natural growth that reacts to demand. Ironically, the end result is a functioning bus system for some popular stops. But the key is that we get there by growing the system and the demand, instead of just throwing buses out there and hoping someone will use them.

<comment><USER13> You're mixing per-month and per-year.

* $300 (/person /month) -> $3.6k (/person /year) for your estimated Lyft Line.

* $290m (/year) bus salaries / $3.6k (/person /year) lyft subscriptions = 80.5k people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > When transit service isn't good, few will choose to use it. [...] improving > American transit doesn't necessarily demand multi-decade, hundred-billion- > dollar infrastructure projects

Yes, but it's not free either. Americans, for better or worse, just don't want to pay for public services they might not use. You see the private sector entering into agreements with localities to build toll roads knowing there is profitability. You don't see the private sector looking to enter mass transit presumably because of lack of profitability. One can argue for the social good to be borne by all, but surely there is a limit. Like it or not, you need majority support for public works projects, and it's not coming.

Many of those who have flown to the suburbs have done so because of the propensity for their smaller city governments to not spend money on projects like these (or their increased voting influence to prevent it). So, unlike what the article states, you either have to give up on the suburbs or risk being voted out for giving up on the citizens' wants there. So your left with dense-urban-only transit because they are the only ones that want it. And it's ok. The want for quality mass transit outside of dense urban areas should be subject to the will of those that live there despite the objections by the ones that don't. If you want to tackle pollution as a matter of policy, so be it, but you can't make people ride a bus without doing so regressively.

</comment><comment><USER15> Blame it on the auto industry they created the idea "jay-walking" which was introduced in the 1920's by them part of a propaganda campaign to claim the roads for cars and shift the blame in accidents from cars to pedestrians. They forced other countries some in the middle east to abandon public transport to promote cars. [https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797)

</comment><comment><USER16> We also have a strong first-adopter problem: our rail systems were among the first, so we're stuck with some inherent design limitations that weren't an issue in 1890 but sure are now.

For example, if you want high speed rail between major cites in new england, you're out of luck; the rails were laid out with curves and shapes that will not allow you to go fast. You can solve this, but the solution is to straighten out the rails -- and that means eminent domaining several billion dollars worth of Connecticut. I don't see that happening.

<comment><USER17> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_State_Railways](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_State_Railways)

We had rails sooner yet we did not get stuck. Do you think that the size of US is limiting here?

<comment><USER16> That's the other big problem, yes.

See also the Netherlands. In the 70s they decided that bikes were good, and that paving over canals to let big trucks and cars take over was bad, and it was time to stop doing that and move to a better way.

They got away with it because the Netherlands is 19 times smaller than the state of Texas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Certainly doesn't help that car companies actively worked to dismantle the public transit systems and promote personal vehicles.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't help, but it probably doesn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. Why is the D.C. Metro or Atlanta's MARTA so bad? I don't think car companies had anything to do with it. Americans are just bad at transit. The people don't care, and the people running it have bad taste, are bad at management, etc.

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure about DC, but for Atlanta at least it's really a question of density. Atlanta's one of the least dense major metros, so outside of the major corridors that MARTA already runs on, there's not a lot of big wins to be had by adding more stations.

In my opinion, Atlanta's actually pretty well-built in a lot of ways. While MARTA is awful for commuter/everyday use, MARTA is effective for a lot of other things like getting to major events downtown, or getting residents and tourists to/from the airport. I'm not sure you could really make it all that much better without some fairly insane investment.

<comment><USER20> As a Marta daily commuter, it's all about where you choose to live and where your work is. Training from Midtown to Buckhead is easy, it's 5 miles (half the length of manhatten), getting to the airport is easy, exact times of 27 and 37 minutes, getting to Decatur for dinner is easy. Getting to Dunwoody and Sandy springs are easy, except when you get there everything except for State Farm is a long outdoor walk away though 4 lane car traffic and inadequate sidewalks.

I used to even ride from Alpharetta to Buckhead when the buses had priority in the shoulder; it was much preferable to morning Rush hour(s) if you got on the highway after 7am

<comment><USER19> Oh, I definitely agree and Atlanta's generally done well recently at building more things nearer to the stations. That said, unless you live in one of the areas you just mentioned, there's not a lot you can do. There's a ton of Atlanta along 85/75 that's mostly unserved by MARTA, let alone a lot of stuff outside of 285.

Atlanta has a pretty rough last-mile problem just due to its density. Outside of midtown/downtown, a lot of the stations are pretty far apart by NYC/Euro standards. You mention Midtown to Buckhead, which is 3 stops on MARTA, being half the length of Manhattan. That's more than the length of Battery Park to Penn Station, which is 12 stops on the 1/2/3 line. MARTA is fine if you're mostly going from major area to major area, but if you want to go to somewhere like Little 5, you're kinda out of options in a way that the MTA seldom has issues with.

I don't so much see this as something MARTA could really fix, but more just innate to Atlanta's sprawling geography. It's getting better, but MARTA pretty much cannot be what people want it to be.

<comment><USER20> Some people don't think the beltline is a panacea; but that is the hope in the original plan and on the city planners; that by having a tighter perimeter that connects to the 4 spokes, we can focus the next 500k people in a smaller, denser area. Here's hoping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think to discuss it as a technical problem is to put their heads in the sand. It's a political problem - one of the two major American political parties opposes government spending on principle and also opposes public services in particular; they favor policies that increase profit to big business. In this comment I'm not saying that the party is right or wrong, but that these are the consequences of their policies, for good or ill.

I understand that many would like to avoid politics. Citylab wants to focus on technical issues; Bill Gates cares about education, but AFAIK ignores how the same problem is one of the largest obstacles to improving education in the U.S.; people on HN are the same - they don't want to discuss politics.

Don't discuss it then, but then the discussion you do have is as pertinent as talking about technical solutions to your overloaded bandwidth, which are well known, when the real problem is that the CIO intentionally underfunds it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Does public transportation always work better outside the US? Metra in Chicago is a heck of a lot more reliable than the likes of South West Trains and Govia in the UK.

Metra even works in the snow! And in the 15 years I've been using it has not had one strike. Whereas London suffers rail and tube strikes every few weeks.

Add to that commuting from the Chicago Burbs costs about 1/3rd of what commuting from the London suburbs does.

<comment><USER22> Yes, a few American cities have good public transit, probably rivaling Europe. Chicago and NYC are at least two, there may be others. But once you get outside of those kinds of major metropolis areas, it's pretty bleak.

My town (pop. about 80,000) has a bus system. It's a college town, and a few routes that run between campus and student apartment neighborhoods are heavily used. But otherwise most of the buses drive around empty especially mid-day and at night.

It's not anywhere close to self-sufficient.

It contributes to a lot of people who don't use the bus themselves to think the whole system is a waste of money. Especially when you see a large diesel bus driving around with zero, one, or two people on board.

We'd keep 90% of the benefit and cut a huge amount of cost if we just killed off all the routes that the students don't use. But the system is more political than pragmatic so it doesn't happen.

<comment><USER23> Empty buses do create a wasteful perception. However I would argue that most cars you see on the road are single occupant, i.e. mostly empty, and thus hugely wasteful as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think it's also a cultural thing. Americans do _not_ like public transit. They'll tolerate it maybe (though they will complain about how taxes are too high, the transit itself costs too much, and how it's inconvenient).

If you are successful, if you're happy, you own a car and you drive. As a example, if you've lived in LA just imagine how humorous it would be if a successful person you meet at a party or dinner said "yup, I took the bus to get here".

Only the low income and undesirables are forced into using public transit. So station locations, and transportation that feeds into the public network will always be second or third tier.

In Japan they have the ridership and society generally thinks good thoughts about their public transit.

<comment><USER25> This is because LA is basically a giant suburb with a few city-like areas.

USA have very few "proper", dense cities, in the European sense of the world. In these cities, like NYC and Chicago, public transit does quite OK. A lot of successful people don't own a car exactly because they can afford not to.

Of course, most of the US territory, including most cities, and areas as important as major cities (see Silicon Valley) are suburbs, if not outright countryside. At a low density, public transportation makes much, much less sense, so it's not get built.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > But there was a big difference between America's approach to big urban metro > projects and that of Canadian and European cities: Even when the United > States built expensive rail systems, it never took care of the basics.

This is a really important point. In many U.S. cities, even the public transit is more of an adjunct to driving.

Here's the eastern terminus of one of Munich's S-Bahn lines: [https://www.google.com/maps/search/munich++erding+train+stat...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,11.911279,192m/data=!3m1!1e3). Despite being about 25 miles outside the city, the area around it is developed and you can walk to the train station.

In contrast, here's the eastern terminus of D.C.'s orange line: [https://email@example.com...](https://email@example.com,-76.8738014,1305m/data=!3m1!1e3). Even though it's only about 10 miles from downtown, you can't walk to anything from there. You can't even get a cup of coffee except at the little shop in the Amtrak lounge. Like much of the D.C. Metro, it was designed primarily for people to drive there and park.

And somehow, even for people who drive there and park, it's off putting. There's a vast expanse of concrete you have to traverse just to get to the train from the parking lot: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://email@example.com,-76.8718511,142m/data=!3m1!1e3). It's so bad I actually started driving to a slightly further station on the blue line to get to one that doesn't make me want to kill myself every morning: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://email@example.com,-76.8691199,362m/data=!3m1!1e3). It's still got this completely unnecessary vast swath of pavement out front, but at least there's some trees.

Compare those monstrosities to Munich, where the parking is right next to the tracks: [https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=image...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjJkbyzqfzdAhWOTt8KHfNvDcMQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.merkur.de%2Flokales%2Ferding%2Ferding- ort28651%2F3-unternehmerkonferenz-stadt-erding-ringschluss-riesenschub-fuer- erding-9939555.html&psig=AOvVaw0XMsc7gyGC8oE6pESfC25o&ust=1539276316706943).

A lot of the post-1960s "public transit" development is like the D.C. Metro's. These concrete edifices surrounded by vast swaths of concrete sidewalks and surrounded again by highways.

<comment><USER22> Some of it isn't that bad. Here's Lockport, Illinois Metra station.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lockport+Metra+Station/@41...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-88.0609657,368m/data=!3m1!1e3)

Most of the suburban Chicago stations are similar.

(Edit: I'd agree that most of Chicago's rail system is not "post 1960s" though). Chicago is a rail hub and most of the suburbs developed along the rail lines.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, Metra (Chicago) and Metro North (New York) are the exception, as a lot of those systems were built before the 1960s.

<comment><USER26> Arguably the El trains have the same humane attributes as well (though the closest easily-parkable one to me, in Forest Park, has a big parking lot schlep; but I mean, I should just walk to the Green Line on Austin.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is it really bad in the US or really good in Canada? I have a friend who has moved to Canada from Europe some time ago and he was complaining how it's not so efficient and you need a car eventually.

</comment><comment><USER28> Because U.S. cities treat transit as a business or a utility rather than as infrastructure.

<comment><USER29> I think treating it as vital infrastructure is one way to get it to work properly (assuming federal, state, and local gov't can get their act together enough to do a good job of it), I don't know much about the historical precedent but I would imagine a lot of public systems in Europe work that way.

But private companies seem to have done a good job of making Tokyo's system work well (see my comments above about how since they own the land on stations, they have a huge incentive to make it painless to get to them and derive profit from that); I wonder if given the general ineffectiveness of American bureaucracy right now, if a private approach with the right incentives would be more politically feasible.

That all said, I think the article brings up plenty of good points about how transit has been hobbled in the USA, that aren't entirely attributable to the business vs infrastructure mindset.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> >Why Public Transportation Works Better Outside the U.S.

Well, I have a much simpler answer than the article:

1\. In US, the skill of public administration is not high enough to handle a complex system of public mass transit.

2\. Any effort to just bring the transit to level of material parity with Europe is done the Soviet way: "I pretend to work, and you pretend to spend money"

And explanation on point 2: why it takes a public transit authorities from two to three times more money to buy a bus than its market price? A bus costs more in paperwork, services, and interest than the price of its hardware to them!

This is why American cities can't have clean new busses that say Germany have. It will need them a multiple of their budgets to do something a German city can do at 1/3 the cost.</comment>


The death of the startup: is big tech squeezing out the competition? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/20/tech-startups-facebook-amazon-google-apple <comment><USER2> Kind funny because they're chocking off their own air supply. Most of amazon's profits come from AWS, which is from startups and smaller companies.</comment>


Introducing Azure DevOps - <AUTHOR> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-azure-devops/ <comment><USER3> I wonder if Azure DevOps will have a day long outage like VSTS had last week? That had a legitimately productivity cost to a lot of companies, and the more vested in the VSTS toolchain you were the harder hit you were.

I'm legitimately surprised they're launching this so soon after that, particularly considering there's been no real post-mortem, and no update on how they'll stop this happening again.

"It is Azure's fault" isn't an answer, and re-branding this Azure DevOps makes that excuse almost hilarious. I'm well aware that Azure AD was down, and that VSTS has a strong dependency on it, but ultimately we're still talking about a single data center bringing down VSTS for all of North America for an entire work-day.

It has been a week and now they're trying to encourage you to push your whole deployment toolchain (manage, build, test) into their cloud.

<comment><USER4> I certainly hope not. I'm not going to argue that this was anything but a disappointment to our customers - and one that we're eager to prevent from happening again.

But we have never said that this was Azure's fault. It wasn't. We've put the blame where it belongs: on us. We're nearly done writing up the root cause analysis and an analysis of our next steps to prevent this from happening in the future.

<comment><USER5> 3 weeks ago there was a different outage that meant no hosted build agents were working in the west europe region, and it lasted for more than 24 hours.

Now, what I hated the most about this was the communication - there wasn't any. Why not email impacted users to let them know you're aware and working on a fix?

<comment><USER4> You can subscribe to get emails for availability incidents on our service availability blog, [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vsoservice/](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vsoservice/) (it's in the right-hand sidebar).

<comment><USER5> Huh, I hadn't noticed that - I've subscribed now.

I do still think it would be better if you proactively sent out emails only to affected customers though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this just a rebranding?

As a long time user of VSTS, I am failing to see how Azure DevOps is different from VSTS. Boards, CI/CD, testing - that's already part of VSTS, and has been for quite some time. Is Microsoft just rebranding for keyword searching or something? Or are there actual technical changes / new features that are being introduced?

<comment><USER4> PM for Azure DevOps here (formerly VSTS). It is a rebranding, but it's more than merely a rebranding. We're breaking out the individual services so that they're easier to adopt. For example, if you're just interested in pipelines, you can adopt only pipelines.

We've got some neat new features launching today and more coming soon. My favorite new feature is the Azure Pipelines app the the GitHub Marketplace. It makes it one-click to build a continuous integration and pull request validation pipeline right from your GitHub repository, you don't even need an Azure DevOps account to get started.

<comment><USER7> As a mostly very satisfied user, I gotta say, y'all have a great product. The CI/CD part of VSTS (I like the old name better :P) is killer and by far my favorite platform to use now. However, I've had my builds break twice out of nowhere with no recourse other than submitting a forum post and hoping someone gets back to me in a reasonable amount of time. I can't imagine going back to another platform, but its really frustrating when your production release process for a client is completely down and you have no way to fix it. Is there a way to get better support in those scenarios?

<comment><USER5> Another (mostly) happy VSTS user here, also loving the CI/CD functionality.

I too have had builds break recently out of nowhere:

1\. Related to NPM being upgraded on the hosted agent, which was fixed easily enough (after trawling through logs) by forcing the task to use an older version

2\. SQL LocalDB connections stopped working, so integration tests couldn't run - this lasted for around _2 weeks_!

I also ended up on the Microsoft support forums... unfortunately, responses on those forums from Microsoft staff are invariably late and of _infuriatingly_ poor quality.

I ended up on the VSTS Agent image GitHub site instead, and raising an issue there was far more helpful.

VSTS is a great product, I just _really_ wish there was a decent support option for when things go wrong.

I also wish Microsoft would actively communicate with impacted customers to notify them where there are outages.

Oh, and I wish the hosted build agents ran on better hardware - they are slow, even compared to the smaller Azure VMs. For example, we have a build that takes 14 minutes on the (paid) hosted agent, or 3 minutes on a B2ms Azure VM. Some of that is down to NPM and Nuget package caching, but even the actual msbuild and test stages are much slower.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad you're mostly happy, but I'm sorry it's only mostly. I hope that we'll improve this. Honestly, the lowest latency mechanism is to hit @AzureDevOps up on twitter (or me personally) and we'll make sure that your problems get routed to the right person.

For outages, you can subscribe at [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vsoservice](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vsoservice) (in the toolbar on the right hand side). We don't send out email notifications without you opting in, nor will we, but we do have some ideas to improve the way we notify people that we're working on.

And as for build agents, we're working on that, especially around the caching. Appreciate all the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The term "DevOps" is now meaningless. The search for a new short term to describe "operations and development teams working together using high quality software tools to define, automate and distribute configuration and management information, integrating QA, release management and security" has begun.

<comment><USER9> The discipline broadly described as "DevOps engineering" is just a way for employers to get senior staff to do the work that really should be handled by multiple, narrower disciplines (e.g., security engineers, automation engineers, tooling engineers, etc.) for a lower cost.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps you would re-read what I wrote? I didn't suggest that people should add more hats -- I suggested that people should cooperate more, and learn from each other.

It makes no sense to have a security policy and an implementation of that policy and not have it be automatically distributed and applied, for instance. And security implementations should be tested just as much as any other code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Eh, not a big fan of this, but if it's a just a rebrand no big deal I guess. But what happens when if the DevOps concept turns out to be a fad? Visual Studio has such a positive and strong brand association among .Net developers it seems a shame to jettison it but I suppose it's necessary as MS is trying to convince other stacks to use the Azure DevOps(VSTS) CI/CD pipelines.

<comment><USER11> Just drop the "dev" and call it AzureOps. Still way less confusing than the prior branding.

<comment><USER10> AzureOps has a nice ring to it! With regards to VSTS, I probably just have a soft spot for Visual Studio itself.

<comment><USER4> I love Visual Studio, but the product currently known as Azure DevOps (formerly known as VSTS) really has nothing to do with Visual Studio.

The name made a lot more sense back in the day when the premier client was actually the Visual Studio IDE. But today, most people interact with Azure DevOps with their browser and too many people think "Visual Studio Team Services" is a web-based IDE.

The name change is bittersweet. We've been "Visual Studio <something>" since the first release of our on-premises product, well over a decade ago. But I'm confident about this next phase of Azure DevOps.

<comment><USER11> VSTS naming was a complaint I heard all the way back at Build 2016. Everyone at the Build booth was confused, and even the people manning the booth said the name was confusing. So...it took long enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been impressed by the ease of use for VSTS. We've adopted it for our team, and it has really reduced the friction in our CI/CD pipeline. We've been able to automate the entire process. It seemed to be easy to setup because there is a Task for just about anything you want to do. Shout out to the Azure DevOps (VSTS/TFS) team. Keep it up, nice work!

</comment><comment> 2-m3m3n70 I'd like to point out that it appears their Pipelines is the only hosted CI tool on the market that supports every platform. Are there any others?

<comment><USER13> What do you mean by supports every platform?

There are a bunch of CI tools (Jenkins, Travis, etc.) that offer either hosted service that work everywhere, or on-prem which can be installed on every major platform.

<comment> 2-m3m3n70 I mean that the hosted build environment supports every platform (Windows, Mac, Linux).

Travis for instance only supports Mac and Linux. Circle CI supports Mac and Linux. Appveyor supports Windows and Linux.

Other tools like Jenkins or Buildkite can be installed anywhere but you have manage the build servers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Implement continuous delivery (CD) of your software to any cloud, including Azure, AWS, and GCP."

Interesting move!

<comment><USER15> Azure DevOps has been built with an open eco-system that enables other to plug-in their products in our stack, for example AWS has their tools for VSTS (our former name): [https://aws.amazon.com/vsts/](https://aws.amazon.com/vsts/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How many times has this thing been re-branded?

1\. Team Foundation Server (TFS)

2\. Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS)

3\. Azure DevOps

Imagine if GitHub renamed itself every few years?

Or is the idea that this is going to be marketed towards Azure users and GitHub will be promoted to the new VSTS once it gets a few more features for project management and PRs?

[https://twitter.com/styfle/status/1032702016064286720](https://twitter.com/styfle/status/1032702016064286720)

<comment><USER17> you forgot that last year it was called VSO (Visual Studio Online)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been using VSTS (Visual Studio Team Services) for a few years now, and I think it's great.

But this looks like they've just changed the URL and stuck the name "Azure DevOps" onto the VSTS site? Even the pricing and plans seem to be the same - <USER2> really don't get how they're talking like they're launching something new, rather than just having a rebranding exercise after buying GitHub.

<comment><USER18> That's exactly what it is: [https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/team- services/](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/team-services/)

Although there have been slight tweaks and UI/UX updates.

<comment><USER5> There have already been quite a lot of UI/UX updates over the past 6 months of so. TBH, I kind of wish you'd leave it the hell alone for a bit!

In particular, I'm not a fan of the most recent changes to the 'build and release' pages. To edit the build pipeline, the edit link is at the top of the list of builds, rather than at the top of the list of build pipelines... I end up searching for the link every. single. time :(

<comment><USER18> I don't work on it, you should reply to the PM on this page or reach them via twitter/email to discuss further. Seems they are willing to listen: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17953476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17953476)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> PM for Azure DevOps here. The team is really excited about this launch, and many of us are here to answer questions on Azure DevOps, or any of the individual services like Azure Pipelines, the new GitHub Marketplace app, or our free build offer for open source projects.

<comment><USER18> The VM based build agents are slow, especially compared to more modern CI/CD systems that today use a Docker/container based approach for each build step, along with a persistent store between each step.

Is something like this going to arrive soon?

<comment><USER19> [PM on Azure Pipelines here.]

We've just finished building the initial version of container jobs [1]. A job groups up a number of steps -- we haven't yet decided if or how we should implement container-per-step. I'd be interested in your thoughts and use cases. In case I miss you here, my email is firstname.lastname@example.com.

[1] [https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/devops/pipelines/process/co...](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/devops/pipelines/process/container- phases)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Still no Mercurial. _yawn_ Really sucks to see Microsoft giving up on us Hg users, considering it was the only viable DVCS on windows for years until people finally got git working with a bunch of issues.

<comment><USER18> Considering how comparatively rare it is, it's unlikely to ever be supported natively. Microsoft has invested a lot into git and now uses it for the Windows codebase, which is the largest repo by several magnitudes.

<comment><USER20> I've somehow managed to work at 3 companies in a row that use Hg. I don't think it's rare at all, or maybe I'm a statistical anamoly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> @ethomson Any word on this long standing feature request with the rebranding - read the comment on the request, a simple update would be super helpful.

[https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/330519-visual- stud...](https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/330519-visual-studio-team- services/suggestions/2037613-make-it-possible-to-move-a-team-project-between- te)

<comment><USER4> This is not an area of the product that I work on, so I don't know what the status is. Let me look into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can MSDN subscribers apply their credit towards this service?

<comment><USER23> No, they can't use their free Azure credits towards Azure DevOps.

Azure DevOps is free for teams of up to five users. It's also effectively free for open source use by teams of any size. Larger teams working on private projects would need to be on one of the paid tiers and can't use the free Azure credits to pay for that.

<comment><USER4> To clarify a bit: _Azure credits_ cannot be used to pay for Azure DevOps subscriptions. So if you want another parallel pipeline, then you cannot use Azure credits to pay for that.

However, Visual Studio subscribers do get licenses for Azure DevOps. If you're a Visual Studio Professional subscriber, then you get a Basic license for Azure DevOps. You get additional benefits if you're a Visual Studio Enterprise subscriber. You can find the details at [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/visualstudio/subscriptions/...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/visualstudio/subscriptions/vs-azure-devops)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A new velvet cushion filled with the same old sawdust and horsehair.</comment>


You can see which tweets Trump wrote. He uses Android - <AUTHOR> https://saucetweet.com/?u=realdonaldtrump <comment><USER2> Basically all the childish and immature ones.

</comment><comment><USER3> this is a duplicate

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not. I submitted it earlier and quickly deleted it.</comment></comment>


Don't. Waste. Time. - <AUTHOR> http://www.humbledmba.com/dont-waste-time <comment><USER2> When it comes to efficiency/effectiveness, I prefer to focus on "Do" instead of "Don't".

Richard Hamming (from "You and Your Research"):

      1. What are the most important problems in your field?
      2. Are you working on one of them?
      3. Why not?

<http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html>

Paul Graham's (from "Good and Bad Procrastination") generalization of Richard Hamming:

What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't you?

<http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html>

edw519's generalization of Paul Graham:

Work on the most important thing until it's not the most important thing any more.

I have developed this excellent/horrible habit of not being able to focus on very much of anything if there was something more important hanging over my head.

Excellent in keeping me from trivial pursuits. Horrible at meal time, bed time, other people time. I'm still a work in progress.

<comment><USER3> One thing I've always wanted to ask PG is: does he think that helping smart people to get rich flipping companies (usually not by doing the "coolest thing") is cooler than making a great Lisp? One answer to why not, is: "No money".

<comment><USER4> The really cool thing about money is that it makes an excellent points system. It's neat that you can trade green paper for physical things, but more importantly money is a way to keep score to two decimal places.

Often times when people talk about money they are talking about resource gathering. At some point the resource gathering turns off and the money becomes an easy proxy for points.

So I'm not sure that creating another Lisp is less cool, but it can't be easily measured. What if IBM uses your Lisp for everything they do, how does that compare to another guys Lisp that has 6.5 million downloads. Who is cooler?

<comment><USER5> Money is not a good point system, except if you think a big mac is more valuable than a book by Jane Austeen.

<comment><USER4> What does this even mean? I assume that you're talking about in a moral sense because of the value judgement you appear to have made.

Of course, when I say 'good' I don't mean in the moral sense. Imagine you were to design a way for people to keep score and they had to use tangible things. What would make one tangle item better than another? Here's a quick list I came up with...

1\. Easily transferable. Money fulfills this because it can be transferred electronically. The physical good need not even exist. Money when talking about it as a point system is strictly an abstract. Put another way it is a stored value that can later be redeemed for big macs or Jane Austeen books.

2\. It must be difficult to acquire. Money you can't just print (Well you can, but it is mostly worthless). The difficulty makes it more of a way to keep score in the game of life. There needs to be a way to prevent someone from adding to their score arbitrarily.

3\. You must be able to keep score at small enough intervals. Keeping score by buying big macs becomes unproductive when you get into the millions of dollar range. At the same time keeping score in the form of luxury cars becomes impossible in the thousands of dollar range.

That's why I said money is good. Not in the moral sense that those who have more money are better people or some form of Prosperity theology. Just that money has many of the traits needed to provide a way to keep score.

<comment><USER5> > in a moral sense

No, not really. You said money is "an excellent points system". I inferred that if it was the case, the price of current products sold on the market should reflect well their inherent value, which I think it doesn't.

Money is is too ductile and doesn't involve enough the "donor", a bit like "vote by SMS for your favorite star". The voting system itself is still not involving enough the person giving the vote.

My favorite "point system" is "feet-voting": the best city is the place where people move to, the best country is the one that people want to go to live, raise their kids, etc. This evaluation was used during the Warring State period in China, and it induces the kings and feudal lords to enforce justice and proper retributions. If not, their administrate will move away. Trying to force them to stay by forbidding expatriation will push them away even stronger. And this voting-with-your-life thing is such a deep decision from the voters that we can trust them to ponder long-term consequences.

Granted, this evaluation cannot apply to each and every case, but in the web services it has a clear equivalent in how many users stay on a site and use it.

<comment><USER6> > if it was the case, the price of current products sold on the market should > reflect well their inherent value, which I think it doesn't.

Money is good since it provides a reference point, a solid ground for measurement and comparison. Although often you need to take into account some non-obvious stuff when you compare two amounts of money (esp. prices), it still does work.

For 'inherent value' each person would see their own price tag. And I'm sure my tag would reflect smaller amount for Jane Austen's book than yours.

And feet-voting is good if you can judge on a large scale, which is not always applicable. Edit: by the way, most people would feet-vote for a big mac rather than a book (that is, if we were able to conduct a really unbiased experiment with random selection of people).

<comment><USER5> > most people would feet-vote for a big mac rather than a book

Seriously? If you had to be thrown on a desert island and bring only one thing, would you bring a short term belly chemical satisfaction asset like a big mac, or a long term spirit satisfaction asset like a Classic book in your mother tongue?

<comment><USER6> Don't forget that most people on this planet reportedly are a) poor and b) not having English as their mother tongue (probably not even speaking it).

<comment><USER5> It is a mistake to think that poor people don't value cultural assets. And I used Jane Austeen as an example, obviously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The key is to identify how you can best contribute, so you know whether or not you're wasting your time. If you're a small team, everyone's time might be best spent coding to deliver the product. A slightly bigger team might mean your time is best coordinating. The overhead of a "meeting" might be worth making sure everyone's aware of the design instead of creating isolated pieces of great code that doesn't work well with each other.

I might be wasting time writing code when I can best contribute by taking care of 'overhead' so my team isn't blocked - there's an anecdote here somewhere of the PM who would buy coffee for the team so the team can focus on producing code - or i might be wasting time taking care of 'overhead' that doesn't matter yet (planning the optimum office layout) when I can best contribute by writing code.

To know whether or not you're wasting time, you have to know what makes one work "fake" and the other "good", and my list may be vastly different from yours.

</comment><comment><USER8> Opened up HN. Saw this headline at #1. Posted this comment. Now I'm closing HN and going back to work.

<comment><USER9> You talk about (on topic of why you need 500 karma to downvote) understanding the community and not posting contentless posts 5 posts ago and now you post this. The irony levels are off the charts!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is some truth to this but doing things like paperwork quickly can lead to a lot of trouble. Read _Anything You Want_ by CD Baby founder Derek Sivers. He recommends not worrying about having Terms and Conditions on your website, and all kinds of other "formalities". Then he says breezing through some paperwork on a loan from his father accidentally cost him, I think, $2 Million. Letting his employees handle their stock option plan resulted in a profit sharing plan that gave every dollar to the employees. When he rescinded it, they hated him moving forward.

</comment><comment><USER11> Good article. "Outsource all over the place" is so important. Pay some expert for a few hours of work that would take you a week (ie: healthcare).

The one thing that I do think is important though is business cards. We got business cards before we even got 1 line of code written. It just seems like an established way to exchange info at events more so than using "bump", I think.

<comment><USER12> _Pay some expert for a few hours of work that would take you a week (ie: healthcare)._

Note that communicating with such expert sometimes can take more time and be more frustrating than if you did this yourself. It's not all black and white.

<comment><USER13> True, but one of the things an expert is expert at is knowing how to communicate with new clients and ask the right questions.

The expert often knows how to communicate more effectively than a non-expert would anticipate, because she has seen all the common issues before. That's what _expert_ means. When a non-expert encounters a problem for the first time it always feels like a uniquely strange and complicated new thing. But more often than not an expert will listen to you describe your problem for two minutes, reach into a drawer and pull out a standard design that fits 85% of your use case, adjust the settings on the five standard knobs to cover another 10% of your use case, and then focus on the remaining five per cent... or, perhaps, just deliver the solution to you and let _you_ tinker with the remaining five per cent.

It's hard to appreciate this process until you've been through it several times in different contexts. Because one of the things that non-experts are _not_ expert at is: Knowing what the experts can do for you. Telling the difference between a problem that benefits from lavish amounts of personal attention and one that can be solved in ten minutes by someone for whom your problem is a daily routine and who knows just what to ask.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most blogs on time-management pale in comparison to The Ultimate Productivity Blog: <http://productiveblog.tumblr.com/>

</comment><comment><USER15>
      >> Founder equity splits

The time to do founder equity splits is before you make a product that delights customers. If you think that is something you can work out after, you don't understand human nature.

Also, if you have problems working out founder equity splits, you probably have the wrong team.

</comment><comment><USER16> Great tips. I've had the fortune of working with enough diverse freelancers over the years that most things that we don't have time for (design, for example), we can get done quickly and cost-efficiently. I really recommend sending small jobs out to people you can establish long-term relationships with over time, who will work with your budget. It pays off immensely.

</comment><comment><USER17> He mentions that one shouldn't care much about business cards: I disagree. The small details, after you ship your major product, are the most important. They're what truly delight your users after the first 'wow'.

I would suggest a startup to, yes, first focus on the product. Once the product is done though, they should focus on the small, "trivial", details.

<comment><USER18> I think he means the entire article to apply mainly to pre-product startups. He would probably agree that after that is the time to work on business cards and stuff.

<comment><USER19> I think this is incorrect. The business card is the first deliverable of every startup, and whether or not you have a well-designed card is one of the strongest signals that your first prospective customers will use to decide whether or not you can ship what you say you are going to. Trying to save a couple hours and a couple hundred bucks by using one of the templates at Kinkos instead of working with a designer is a huge mistake.

Clearly you are going to be meeting tons of people and telling them about your startup if you are really serious about it, so not having a well-designed business card from day one is just throwing away tens of thousands of dollars worth of leadgen.

<comment><USER20> This might be good advice in some sectors I'm unfamiliar with, but I can categorically say that for 90% of startups, your advice to procure professionally-designed business cards as an early priority is simply bollocks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Another useful thing: Stick to deadlines. Otherwise, there is a tendency to take as much time as time is available. Don't assume that time is infinite. Give yourself short deadlines all day long and you'll get a lot more things done.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thank you for this article. I coincidently read this quote earlier today and I think it relates really well:

"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing" -Thomas Edison

</comment><comment><USER23> What I take from this is that time is more important than money; exchange money for time whenever possible. In many situations you have the option to exchange X dollars for Y hours of freed time - it's important to think about these situations in these terms, because it doesn't always look that way.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just to touch on the essence of this article for interested parties: this concept is also known by the Japanese as "Gemba" and was popularized in industry (among many other lean principles) by Toyota's production system.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think lean methodology goes best with this. What matters in initial stages is working prototype, validation and then MVP. Most of the initial time is supposed to be dedicated to this than spending it with operations.

</comment><comment><USER26> Read his link about Series F stock; in order to implement such a plan it seems that you would have to disregard his advice to just pick simple defaults when incorporating.

</comment><comment><USER27> Great article. The other most important thing which should be avoided in the startups is "Premature Optimization"

<comment><USER28> Couldn't agree with you more. As long as the frontend works and appears fast to the end user, you'll most likely have the time to play around with the backend before you have to worry about optimizing and scaling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Where does "blogging" and "submitting your own writing to HN" fall on the wasting time list?

<comment><USER30> Under marketing and recruiting. Note that the submitter is a two-time cofounder with OP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This article was a waste of my time.

</comment><comment><USER32> Here's a calculator for founder equity split: <http://foundrs.com/calculator/index.php>

(I think its faster than reading the whole QA session linked to in the original post.)

<comment><USER33> Wrong post?

<comment><USER34> Good post; nirvana is referring to the link about equity splits at the beginning of the post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Sounds like common sense but you'd be amazed by how many people don't get it! I'm working with 2 startup organizations (my own business and I'm on the board of a charity) and I've seen a ton of time wasted on meta meetings (meetings about the next meeting), and getting paperwork exactly right when it just needs to be okay, etc.

Through my experience in my business I've been able to point them in the direction this article suggests. Basically, we only spend time on things that clearly get a goal achieved. The rest we just leave until we absolutely need it. There are things that need to be finished correctly right now that don't have an obvious impact on later success but those things are far fewer than one might think.

</comment><comment><USER36> Why can't I learn what 42 floors is without putting in my email? _Really_ annoying.

<comment><USER37> Even if you do they won't tell you anything more than is on the website. Contact jaf12duke if you want details at this time (see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3188969> )</comment></comment>


Scientists successfully create human-bear-pig chimera - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkgene.com/scientists-successfully-create-human-bear-pig-chimera/ <comment><USER2> April fool's jokes seem to be getter more obvious each year...

</comment><comment><USER3> Linden Labs is the company behind Second Life. Dropped the April Fool's on the first line. Shame. Interesting picture, though.

</comment><comment><USER4> Such a freaky picture.

<comment><USER5> <http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/wearefamily/index.php>

Was lucky enough to see this set in person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> No quotes from Al Gore?

<comment><AUTHOR> He refused comment.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you think the "charging as a service" concept has any merit - <AUTHOR> Seems there are lots of newcomers in the "batteries sharing economy" space [random list: 0]. Do you think this concept has a real business potential, or it's another "sharing economy" baseless hype?
[0]

  https://chargerent.net
  https://www.nrggo.com/
  http://www.xiaodian.so/
  https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/29/anker-ankerbox/
  ...
 <comment><USER2> I think they are useful. I went to LA with a friend in Aug, we were low on battery and needed the phone badly for calling uber and navigation.

we were in a museum, and they have charging boxes ... basically a passcode secured lockers with cables inside. We had to wait for 10 minutes for the phone to reach 15%.

it would be nice if it was a battery that I could carry while touring around the museum.

</comment><comment><USER3> I could think of a few use cases for rent over buy, but they're all kind of edge cases:

1) I use my laptop almost exclusively at home or in other locations with a wall outlet available. If I needed to take it out and about for a day or week and was worried about running out of juice, I might consider renting a battery pack instead of buying one to sit in the closet and eventually explode.

2) if I were traveling overseas and didn't want to schlep heavy battery packs for phone, tablet, etc. I'd consider renting them for the duration of my stay.

3) I'm out and about and not only has my phone's battery run down, but so has my external battery pack (or maybe I forgot it at home). If rentals were available at every bodega; as easy to rent as it is to pop in and buy a bottle of water; and as easy to return as a library book, that might be an option.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would put them on college campuses maybe, downtown could make sense. I've seen charging stations in malls.

<comment><AUTHOR> To clarify the abovementioned are leasing chargers or battery packs, not immobile charging spots (which is a similar and somewhat more established concept).

<comment><USER5> Don't people have their own battery packs to carry around these days? Or are these services for when those die?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are disposables but they are pretty discouraged due to environmental impact. I don't see them getting much traction.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your personal goals? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 1) Not to die by suicide. (going well so far.)

2) Reduce the numbers of other people dying by suicide. (Ambitious, but surely the right thing to do. I have no idea if what I'm doing actually makes a difference though.)

3) Make treatment for people with mental ill-health safer and better.

4) Help my child grow into a happy & well adult with skills and knowledge to live life as they wish.

5) Tidy my appartment a bit.

</comment><comment><USER3> What are your personal goals Andrew?</comment>


Awesome Elixir – A community driven list of useful Elixir libraries - <AUTHOR> https://elixir.libhunt.com/ <comment><USER2> Is it just a nice UI around [https://github.com/h4cc/awesome- elixir](https://github.com/h4cc/awesome-elixir) ?

<comment><USER3> It has some additional metadata like popularity and activity as well as tracking their trends. Also, you can compare different libs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it is kind of like [https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/](https://www.ruby- toolbox.com/) but for Eliixr

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ah, submitting this to HN was blazing fast... just a few mins after the release :). Cheers!</comment>


Chai Wallahs of India - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/14/481878368/tea-tuesday-meet-the-chai-wallahs-of-india <comment><USER2> I don't care to know about the gossip or the preferences and peccadilloes of their clients --what interests me about these people (or the "flower vendors" and recyclers in a different way, etc.) of large Asian cities is the perseverance and tenacity of the people to make their own living as meager as it might be.

I was taking a $10 equivalent taxi ride late at night the other day, the driver opened his window at a traffic light and bought some fragrant flowers from a woman selling them in the median at the equivalent of $2. I asked why he would buy those flowers, he said essentially, "I made some money, she needs to make her money and I get a fresh car in return".

There are poor people for sure, but you will not see too many outright begging --they still offer the dignity of exchange of money for something tangible --even if it's tea-eggs on the corner (or in Mexico people peddling junkfood at major bus stops). We seem to have lost some of that dignity, I think. The only think that comes close are the people who try to push you to buy some panhandler advocacy newsletter --I have not seen them in years and that pub was utterly useless.

<comment><USER3> A friend from Taiwan once said "If you have a blanket, you have a shop." In some ways I wish it was the same way here in Canada. In many respects we are overregulated. That said, I wouldn't want to eat a meal cooked from gutter oil.

Is there a healthy balance?

<comment><USER4> Overregulated is an understatement. Good luck starting a food business with less than $100K in cash...

<comment><USER3> /agree. I can't imagine wanting to start a restaurant here. It might be easier to rent a wood chipper to throw your savings into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Generally I make it for 2-3 people. The following is for one cup.

Ingredients:

1 cup Whole Milk 2-3 Cardamom Seeds 1 Cinnamon (Add a small bark, nail length) Raw sugar Breakfast Black Tea (Preferably loose)

Suggested Brands: Mumtaz Tea (Loose Black Tea) - Available at Amazon

1\. Crush cardamom seeds and cinnamon, preferably with coffee/spice grinder, do not use the powder form, lightly break apart the seeds and bark, a few taps should suffice.

2\. Place 1 cup of whole milk and spices into a small pot, simmer milk.

3\. Add 1 tablespoon of tea. Note that this measurement may be different depending on brand. If you added too much, you can balance it out by adding more milk.

4\. Add raw sugar, start with single teaspoon, add more as necessary

5\. Simmer for 10-15 minutes, milk will slow turn khaki, once you start seeing microbubbles, tea is almost ready.

6\. Use a tea strainer or sieve

Minor note: Many South Asians will add a thin slice of ginger while the milk is simmering. Traditionally served with rusk.

<comment><USER6> For folks who want to try this out, other suggestions for things to try in your chai masala include black pepper, clove, and/or star anise

<comment><USER7> I'd say black pepper is essential - it gives a little bite at the back of the mouth that complements the ginger (also essential! :) ) perfectly. You only want two or three peppercorns though. Star anise is a great occasional addition, but I wouldn't want it every time.

<comment><USER8> Wholeheartedly agree. Black pepper is a seemingly strange, but necessary addition. It fills a small gap in the flavor profile between the tea and the spices. My preferred ingredients are cardamom, cinnamon, black peppercorns, cloves, and a very small amount of nutmeg. I like to add 1 part honey for every 2 parts sugar.

It's tough to get the perfect ingredient ratio without making large batches or using a scale.

 _Whole_ milk (or cream) is important for the fat content.

In general my chai does not come out as dark as the chai I had in the Pune region, but does have a remarkably similar taste. As I understand it they sometimes make the base the day before. The color difference could be because of my preparation haste, shorter brew time, different ingredients, or adding too much milk/cream.

The chai in India also has a different mouthfeel. I'm not sure if it's loose spices in the brew or if they add something but it feels almost like pulverized rice in the tea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The chai wallahs exist in Pakistan as well and I can relate to many experiences shared in the article. The chai wallah next to our university was a frequent hangout spot.

On a related note few months ago a chai wallah from Islamabad got really famous because of his good looks: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/19/blue-eyed- tea-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/19/blue-eyed-tea-seller- arshad-khan-becomes-social-media-sensation-in-india-and-pakistan)

<comment><USER10> Similar to the discovery and subsequent popularity of "Salt Bae": [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/salt- bae?full=1](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/salt-bae?full=1)

Maybe the Internet is ready for "Chai Bae"?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some great videos of Chai wallahs in action. These guys make my Startbucks barista look like a preschooler.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTjA6Vchq8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTjA6Vchq8)

<comment><USER11> There's a very similar procedure, with a different recipe, in Singapore:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yes, as an Indian living in the US chai is one of the things I miss dearly. Also the chai latte etc. one gets at Starbucks & co are a misnomer, they are no where same as Chai.

<comment><USER6> So as a someone who's only experienced chai in North American Indian restaurants or with my best friend's family (who immigrated from Punjab), I'd love to hear what makes the real thing unique and different!

Is it richer? Sweeter? Less sweet? More bitter? More spiced?

I have no doubt this is a tough question to answer... my understanding is every wallah may have their own masala and so forth.

But I'd love to hear your answer!

<comment><USER13> It would be different from place to place. In Bangalore you get a milky thick tea while in my coastal town its more watery liquid. Not a liker of masala tea, don't think its too common down south.

<comment><USER6> Interesting! So down south it'd more commonly be just milky, black tea with sugar?

<comment><USER14> No, you can get tea flavored with spices (added while making the tea, not during production of the tea leaf), in the south too. Ginger and cardamom are more common though, IME. See my other reply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What lovely pictures, such a colorful and unique country.

In Kolkata the Chai often comes in little clay plots almost like mini flower pots called 'bhar.' They are meant to be disposable. And I saw many people break them on the ground when they were finished with their tea.

Here's a nice short read about the tradition if anyone is curious:

[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/10/kolkata-...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/10/kolkata- age-tradition-bhar-clay-cups-tea-161004053736038.html)

<comment><USER16> In Hindi these are called "kulhaR", and used to be found in railway stations all across British India before 1947.

<comment><USER15> Interesting, I wonder why the tradition is largely confined to West Bengal now?

<comment><USER14> It's not only in West Bengal. Tea was still sold in kulhars (kulhads) in North India (from say Madhya Pradesh and up north) some years ago when I used to travel more in trains - this was decades after Independence in 1947. Apart from the disposable factor, I guess another reason may be that the clay pot keeps the tea warm for longer - and it can get pretty chilly in North India in winter, though not quite comparable to more northern countries. It even gets quite chilly in say Maharashtra (south of Madhya Pradesh), more in the interior areas away from the coast, in winter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice article, but they're missing one (the most?) quintessential Indian chai experience: the chai wallahs on the trains. Waking up to the chant of "Chai, chai, chai garam" (Tea, tea, hot tea) and having a clay cup of sweet, hot, milky tea on board is about as Indian as it gets.

</comment><comment><USER18> The first time I heard the term _chai wallah_ was in _Slum Dog Millionaire_ — the game show host used it (somewhat disparagingly) to refer to Dev Patel's character.

</comment><comment><USER14> Another interesting take on tea (in India) is the rather strong tea you (used to) get at Irani restaurants in India. They boiled it for a long time, is why it was strong. There is a community of Iranians (not Parsis) who had come to India several (maybe a hundred or more) years ago, and settled here. Some of them started a typical (for them) kind of restaurant(s) - with bent rosewood chairs, marble-topped tables, mirrors on the walls, etc. There are (mostly were, now, sadly) a sort of institution in India. College kids, working people - both blue- and white-collar, oldsters meeting to chat and gossip, all kinds used to hang out at those places, have the famous / standard items (apart from their unique take on tea) like bun + butter / brun + maska, omelettes, samosas, khari (a dry baked wafer), etc. The younger generation of them unfortunately didn't want to continue the businesses, plus the restaurants were often situated in central areas in Indian cities, so had high real estate value, so many of them have been closed and the spaces sold to Barista, Pizza Hut and the like. A loss ...

Used to hang out regularly at such places in school and college days.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irani_caf%C3%A9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irani_caf%C3%A9)

<comment><USER14> They were very correct in their dealings, and wouldn't tolerate any crap from anyone - customer, supplier, etc. - would bawl them out immediately (including with curses sometimes), which was part of the charm of going to such places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ha ha, interesting thread, will check out the article too.

Coincidentally, I was just reading about Masala Chai, recently, got reminiscent, and and that prompted me to start making and drinking it again, after being a coffee and herbal tea guy for a long time :)

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

Incidentally, US guys (some of you anyway), it's not called "chai tea", just "chai". Both words mean the same (in Hindi and English respectively), so "chai tea" is redundant. Had heard some American colleagues using the former term in a company I worked at earlier.

</comment><comment><USER19> Here is one method to make Tea:

1 - Take cardamom or ginger or both, and put it in 2 cups of water. ( No need to grind ginger )

2 - Warm the water till it boils, till 30 minutes.

3 - Add Chai to boiling content & basil leaves.

4 - Wait for 5 more minutes, take out the content, filter out the contents, add honey+ lemon to the filtered content.

5 - Drink..

No milk and no sugar.

Do not grind the ginger, this is important, the tea will become too bitter if you grind it.

<comment><USER20> 30 minutes is a bit too much. Just wait till it boils.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you're in / near San Francisco and looking for great chai, definitely stop by one of the Chai Cart spots; there are a few on Market:

[http://www.thechaicart.com/](http://www.thechaicart.com/)

(I have no affiliation with them, just a fan of their chai and want their business to succeed!)

</comment><comment><USER22> There are few startups as well in India banking over Chai with lots of VC's money pouring in.

</comment><comment><USER23> Some health concern about Chai:- 1\. Lots of sugar. 2\. Use of Aluminium utensils.

<comment><USER24> 2) is not a valid concern. Unless you are planning to melt the cookware down, trepan yourself and inject the melted aluminum into your brain, you should be fine:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11259180](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11259180)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Fun fact: Current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (who incidentally meets President Trump for the first time this week) was a "chai wallah" in his younger days at some train station.

The term "chai wallah" was used as a jibe against Modi by senior Congress politician Mani Shankar Iyer but the people of India chose the chai wallah instead of the "crowned prince" of the Nehru-Gandhi family with a thumping majority.

Despite being a democracy India has been ruled by the Nehru-Gandhi family (via the Congress Party proxy) for more than 60 years since its independence in 1947.

<comment><USER26> Factually incorrect.

This is not the first time that a non-Congress party has been elected to power in India. The NDA government was in power during 1998–2004, a period including the Kargil war. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Janata_Party#NDA_gov...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Janata_Party#NDA_government_.281998.E2.80.932004.29))

Modi was not a chai-wallah. His father owned an unregistered tea-shop at a railway station. ([http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-official- record-...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-official-record-of- Modi-being-tea-seller-RTI-reply/articleshow/46325234.cms))

<comment><USER19> The activist who asked about tea selling asked a fake question.

The activist does it all the time.

Also, Modi never claimed he was registered to sell tea.

Had the Congress government been so proactive in 55 years by mandating registration of tea sellers, India would be much safer, more cleaner, and less corrupt.

Fun fact : That activist is from Congress party.

Another fun fact : Such activists do not disclose the exact wordings of the RTI query, they intentionally post ambiguous queries and use the reply to create sensational headline.

I can challenge any of the Modi haters to share their exact RTI queries before they make sensational headline

<comment><USER27> > RTI query

What's that?

<comment><USER28> Right to Information similar to Freedom of Information in the US

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Information_Act,_2005](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Information_Act,_2005)

<comment><USER27> Ahh thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Building a reliable, fault tolerant and scalable encoding engine with Amazon SWF - <AUTHOR> https://blog.viki.com/media-engine-a-reliable-fault-tolerant-and-scalable-encoding-engine-at-viki-e810eb7d1730 <comment><USER2> nice read</comment>


After Silicon Valley, Stockholm produces highest number of "unicorns" per capita - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/knowledgewharton/2015/11/11/how-stockholm-became-a-unicorn-factory/ <comment><USER3> Title is misleading. Please add "per capita" !!!

Stockholm is so over-hyped. Yes, there is a lot of engineering culture, but there is so little risk capital available at the bottom is it truly laughable.

Furthermore, I don't see many of these unicorns putting a lot back into the ecosystem in terms of investment, social capital, or outreach.

Sweden's needs her of "Paypal mafia [1], Facebook Mafia [2], Trilogy Mafia, and Dellionaires [3] if this startup startup ecosystem is to really thrive.

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

[2] - [https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/facebook- mafia/](https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/facebook-mafia/)

[3] - [http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/dell...](http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/dellionaire_dell_computer_millionaire)

(edit) so more thoughts

<comment><USER4> > little risk capital available at the bottom

Compared to where? The days where you get funding based on an idea is over. I don't think the funding situation is particularly bad "per capita" [0]. There are other problems with Stockholm of course, but that's another story.

[0] [http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2013/11/11/how- entrepreneur...](http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2013/11/11/how- entrepreneurial-is-europe/)

<comment><USER3> Compared to London, NYC, LA, SF, Austin, Berlin to start.

Secondly, I have issues with the whole "per capita" comparison. It is an important and often over-looked detail when looking at these ecosystems.

<comment><USER4> I don't see how that, without any data, isn't just "the grass is greener". No one is surprised that Stockholm isn't London, that doesn't really speak to the different ecosystems nor that you can raise money across borders. There can be issues with "per capita" measurements, but that pretty hard to discuss when you didn't bother to include your reasoning.

<comment><USER3> OK, data from CBINsights (They are awesome) [1]

> raise money across borders

Tell that to any number of seed-stage, bootstrapped companies in Stockholm. A fund-raising "roadshow" from Stockholm to London can be very costly -- especially if it is unsuccessful.

[1] - [https://www.cbinsights.com/reports/CB-Insights-KPMG- Report-Q...](https://www.cbinsights.com/reports/CB-Insights-KPMG- Report-Q3-2015.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Linking a 91 page presentation without specifying your point isn't very helpful.

As I said, you don't get funding for an idea anymore so being bootstrapped is becoming the norm. The presentation even says that "all in all, Q3 was a quarter for big, big deals. Less so for seed-stage and Angel financing, both of which were down for the fifth consecutive quarter on a global basis". Fundraising is never easy, but having more and more eyes on Stockholm helps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stockholm suffers from extreme housing shortage. I live here now but in a student flat I got after 3 years of queue time, and moving in a couple of month. Not worth it and I think this will limit the number of startups in the future.

Someone said something about old-school tech and it is true, I rarely meet anyone who is on the edge on new technology. I find myself always explaining what something is, but regardless of tech there are some talented people here.

There is also some serious tax problems, long over 50% in tax. People think they only pay around 23% in tax since the government splits up the tax in two parts, one for the company (around 32%) and one for the employee but money that would have been yours. Then you have tax on items and for example gas tax. Everything is very subtle and perhaps why they get away with it.

<comment><USER6> >, one for the company (around 32%) and one for the employee but money that would have been yours.

This is similar in the US. There are lots of additional costs beyond the salary for an employee. It's just never really advertised to the employee how much money the company actually puts up to pay the salary in your offer letter.

<comment><USER7> Yes, employer side of payroll taxes and other costs, along with the gigantic health insurance costs (employer side). These should be eliminated, let the compensation flow to employees and then tax it in land values or consumption taxes, ideally. Then people can get an idea of just how much tax they are paying, and maybe Americans will stop thinking they're getting such a great deal.

That said, it's still pretty remarkable how high US salaries are even with all these costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Stockholm resident here. We have a nice combination of being seriously trendy and having a deep engineering culture. Many of our unicorns (Spotify, Klarna, King) embody this in their DNA. Easy to get good UI people here, which is unusual.

<comment><USER9> Certainly lots of hipsters in Stockholm, that is true. :) If they are able to build good UX though, that's something completely different.

// Linköpings-lantis

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> After having spent almost a year here I have to say that it's striking to me how much old-school tech I meet here. Ppl just starting to dip into cloud, Go/Rust hardly heard of and Rails+jQuery still perceived as the "new" thing. That said, good ideas and an entrepreneurial culture can flourish on oldish tech and there's no need to obsess over the latest, I just felt the difference compared to the us west coast was striking when i came here.

<comment><USER11> Could you elaborate more on what you mean by "old school tech"?

To add some counter-anecdata to yours, I find there's plenty of Rails/jQuery/Go/Rust/Cloud people here in Sweden/Stockholm and that there's quite many using cloud services and what not. I find it a bit hard to digest that any of those languages or techniques are perceived as "new" here. Perhaps by some, but then that would apply at any place around the globe to some extent.

<comment><USER8> You'll find that it's a bit different here. There's loads of Erlang here - <USER2> unusual, considering it was invented here. Loads of C, C++ - not unusual, considering Ericsson and its ecosystem.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, I will find what a bit different where? I'm speaking with the frame of reference of Stockholm, Sweden (as mentioned in previous comment)

Yes, of course with regards to Erlang, C and C++ - but Ericsson is far from everything in the Stockholm region and in Sweden. That said, Ericsson is enormous and there are bound to be plenty of former Ericssoners in many other companies. But I find it a lot more diverse than stated in the original comment none the less. Especially if you're looking into start-ups, SME and up - as well as with the meetup.com/HN-crowds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This provides circumstantial evidence to support something I've thought for a long time: that America's lead in entrepreneurship is more cultural than it is a product of economic right-leaning / supply side policies. Sweden is significantly more "socialistic" than anything in the USA.

Perhaps even more significantly _most of the USA is nowhere near as entrepreneurial as places like SF, LA, and NYC, despite many places having lower taxes and less regulation_. There's lots of states that are more business friendly than California that have far less entrepreneurship.

Taken together these two things argue strongly against the "entrepreneurship comes from having small government" right-wing thesis. Don't get me wrong-- _too much_ government meddling can sink business. But this argues strongly against the hard-line rhetoric that we often hear.

Edit: It does not however support the inverse thesis -- that more government is better. I personally think it is _mostly_ cultural and all government has to do is not bork things too badly and keep the lights on and the barbarians out.

<comment><USER13> I've heard it surmised that the biggest advantage the United States has in terms of entrepreneurship is our incredibly lax bankruptcy laws. It's easy to start a company, fail, and maintain the ability to do it again. This is partly cultural (we don't look down on failure very much) but also is structural (failing doesn't ruin you for life). That isn't true of many countries.

<comment><USER14> I don't think anybody thinks "I will start a business because I have favorable bankruptcy laws." I'm not even sure what you mean by favorable. an LLC or an S Corp is a business entity designed to limit the risk exposure of an individual if they form one. And yes there are provisions in the law to allow you to restructure - namely because it allows your creditors a chance to get paid but there's nothing "lax" about that.

Entrepreneurship is definitely culturally engrained in the US. Starting a business although risky is generally lauded. I think Entrepreneurship is a very accessible concept to most Americans - most people in the US know someone that has started their own business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> These startups spend heavily on user acquisition, and find those users never want to leave.

<comment><USER16> Good one

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The population figure seems pretty off. In school it's always been 1.5M, and Wikipedia says that it varies between 900k, 1.6M, and 2.2M, depending on what you define as Stockholm.

</comment><comment><USER18> I continue to find it amusing that an imaginary animal is being used to describe a(n increasing) number of things that actually do exist.

<comment><USER19> I assume the (joking) origin is that it's something everybody would like to find but nobody really does.</comment></comment>