The Search for the Perfect To-do List - <AUTHOR> http://steveworsley.com/on/the-search-for-the-perfect-to-do-list <comment><USER3> I haven't found a decent ToDo list with this killer feature: dependencies.

I want to mark a task as dependant on another being done.

I want to add time estimates to those tasks, and see a gantt chart. I want tasks to show the sum of their dependencies estimates next to their own estimates.

I want priorities to also flow through dependency chains in this manner - if a high priority task is dependant on a low priority task, the low priority task inherits the high priority while that relationship exists. If a deadline of 7pm exists on one task, and it has a dependant task with an estimate of 1hr, that dependency will inherit a deadline of 6pm.

<comment><USER4> This is key for any ADDers - chains of dependencies to ensure that not only raisins are picked off your ToDo List and you get to only see next steps and not all steps. For the past three years I have been working on this in an app sideproject and planned to launch the beta this winter, but I keep getting distracted :) Android alpha testers can get in touch with me.

<comment><USER5> Send me an email. This sounds awesome :)

<comment><USER3> me too :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Most todos are meant to be recorded and discarded. They are just a psychological mechanism to cope with the anxiety of an overly complex world. The todo-list of an average home-maker today would be more complex than that of the princes from a few centuries ago. My todo lists are fluid. I keep them in a big text file, tag them with a date, and keep them there. Once something is recorded, it is off my mind. I'll keep coming back to this file once every while, and realize that most things I recorded are no longer important. There is no one canonical todo list; just an almost immutable archive of lists that I recorded over the years.

The todo-mania is not any different than the bookmarking OCD or the million- open-tabs infestation. There are only so many moments in a lifetime, and just so much you can and should do. The important ones would come back to you, and for the rest, there is always the todo list.

(Of course professional todos are a different matter - they go into a ticketing system and are meant to be done.)

<comment><USER7> > They are just a psychological mechanism to cope with the anxiety of an > overly complex world.

I'm not sure I agree with you there. Sure the world is complex, but then again so are we. Todo lists allow you to see the bigger picture, as the act of writing down your todo/idea makes you invest time in thinking about it coherently and logically as you convert it to English words on paper. Once you have a list going, you can prioritize it by any means (ease to complete, upcoming events it's needed for etc) and then at least you know that if you were to complete the list in order, then you will achieve your goals/meet deadlines etc.

It's that safety of 'knowing' a path through the unknowns in your future that makes writing a list worthwhile.

<comment><USER6> I wasn't making a value judgement on complexity. That can't be helped. And yes, writing clarifies, and todo lists are a great way of mapping an uncertain future and reducing anxiety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The perfect to-do list is the one that inspires you to do the things on the list. This is highly individual.

I'm glad you found that Trello works well for you, but that doesn't mean everyone else's search will end in the same place.

<comment><USER9> I number of years back, we were looking for a new activity tracking system at the company where it worked. (Meetings, papers, etc.) One of the things that became very obvious was that the decision was going to end up being very influenced by things like the nature of the activities, the degree to which it was important to track progress in an ongoing project, and what were the important attributes to record.

We actually ended up repurposing a bug tracking system (trac) because the price was right and it mostly fitted what we were trying to do. But a number of well-regarded project rtacking systems just didn't click with our needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://orgmode.org/](http://orgmode.org/)

</comment><comment><USER11> The blog Post rings a tune with me. I've started organizing all the work related projects into Trello boards,and have iterated quite a bit on my workflow.

Next to a board for scrum, I also have a board reserved for planning work things to do in the long term future, like a backlog, but coverings many different aspects of company mostly related to software dev, but also some hardware and marketing.

Eventually I wanted to be able to measure how long would it take to complete some tasks, and prioritize them across lists.

The way I solved this way with a plugin for sublime text, the editor I use all day long [0]. The plugin reads metadata I add to each task on Trello like (backend 1d design 4h) and uses it to compute a schedule for all my tasks. It is also able to prioritize between posts, which in in my case are fucus areas.

When I need to prepare the next sprint, all I have to to is use the plugin to tell me which tasks have the highest priorities, and occasionally review the Planning board.

The plugin was initially developed for Trello, but I found it really useful also for offline task scheduling between different projects.

You can read more about how I use it on my blog [1].

[0][https://github.com/pedrokost/STProjectPlanner](https://github.com/pedrokost/STProjectPlanner) [1][http://blog.pedro.si/2015/11/project-planning-in- file.html?m...](http://blog.pedro.si/2015/11/project-planning-in- file.html?m=1)

</comment><comment><USER12> I've found WorkFlowy [1] to be helpful. It's just a touch more sophisticated than a text editor (you can collapse different levels, for instance, and there's an app so you can take notes on your phone, too). But it's not so sophisticated that you get lost in the features. It gets out of the way so you can make your lists. I've been using it for years now.

[1]: [https://workflowy.com](https://workflowy.com)

<comment><USER13> I tried this years ago and was just reminded by this post to check it out again. This is an absolutely PERFECT task and notes organizer for me. Super fast, intuitive and without all of the typical todo app bloat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Todoist kept losing my todo items when they were stacked below each other in a two-level hierarchy (it might have been a keyboard shortcut or an error on my side -- we've ran through this with their customer service without any luck, but that's not the point).

With my broken Todoist I've avoided creating multi-level items and eventually cleaned up the list with this one question: is this task something I'm actually going to do?

If the answer is yes, then it goes to the list.

If not, then I discard it right away.

It's surprising how much of an anxiety relief this is. Todo apps tend to offer ways too many options, which makes you use them as backlogs or even notebooks. In my case, all those items were actionable - I've read GTD too -, the items just weren't important enough at most times. Now I get rid of the unimportant items on-the-fly.

<comment><USER15> We're sorry to hear your issue hasn't been solved after contacting our support team. Safety of user data is our priority #1! Could you please let me know if you're still experiencing any problem with Todoist and we'll be happy to help you either here or at [http://support.todoist.com/](http://support.todoist.com/).

<comment><USER14> Todoist support was awesome, but after about a month of investigation the ultimate solution for me was to stop using stacked items -- since I have none of those, the problem doesn't exist either, and I can keep using Todoist (as I've been, for 6+ years).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> To-Do Lists is one of those things that bugs me a lot. There are hundreds of apps out there but none of them seem to do them particularly well.

I think the perfect To-Do list would have

\- the ability create (and allow others to create, subject to black/white- listing) a task by sending an email to my list

\- the ability to delegate tasks to others (whether they're users of the app/service or not)

\- order in a way that takes urgency, importance and deadlines into account

\- an intray, so I can accept/reject tasks sent/delegated to me

\- Mailbox app-style swiping to snooze tasks or mark them as Done

\- shared To-Do lists (e.g. for teams)

\- support for sharing tasks with others so they can comment on them

\- API integration

\- dependencies and workflows

I created some mock-ups a few months back to illustrate my thinking: [http://jackgavigan.com/1tray-concept/](http://jackgavigan.com/1tray-concept/)

<comment><USER17> I've tried a few and really like Wunderlist -- [https://www.wunderlist.com](https://www.wunderlist.com)

<comment><USER18> I'm also using Wunderlist currently, but still experimenting with the how. Should list live long or short? Now I'm trying short-lived: an extra list per week. This adds an implicit deadline on the items in there. Now nesting lists also makes sense for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just end up using text files or written notes. Works both as a to do list and idea scratchpad. The only thing I'd want to change is be more organised about keeping the text files in sync (we can't use Dropbox at work, so I end up using emails).

I've heard good things about org mode in emacs, wonder what added value I'd get from that.

<comment><USER20> Org mode is amazing as a TODO list. As you've noticed, text files are really convenient for a variety of reasons. If you like emacs (I've been using evil mode recently), then it's pretty much the ideal user interface for outlining tasks and keeping track of them. Prioritisation is simply a matter of cut and paste. The visibility features of org mode make it very easy to keep track of a lot of items. It also has support for setting deadlines, time tracking and reporting.

It's worth spending an afternoon playing with it. There are a lot of features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What works for me

 _For work:_ Outlook Tasks list on the right hand pane

Killer features:

\- Single click to flag any email as a task

\- Drag and Drop to reorder

\- Set custom date/time folow up reminders

 _For personal life:_ For things with no deadline - A gmail thread with my wife where we just keep "replying all"; For things with dates / deadlines - <USER2> Shared google calendar with my wife

I guess its a highly personal choice...

<comment><USER22> I think what makes Outlook Tasks list work for you is the fact that it's there in-your-face all the time, already embedded into the mail app you use. This little step of saving you the need to open a different app in a different window makes the real difference for most people.

Actually, this was the main reason I've used Sortd & Yanado (highly recommended) a while.

<comment><USER23> This is why one of my four monitors at work has emacs w/ org-mode up. Its omnipresence makes it easier to work into my daily workflow. But most folks don't end up with 4 monitors. This setup doesn't work as well on my home laptop since I don't have the space to dedicate to this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've given up chasing the software solution and realised that a paper to do list (managed in a Filofax) is the optimal for me. Most of my tasks come my way through face to face discussion so there's no email to convert to a task etc. And if it can't be taken off the list this week then it's probably a project that needs diarying.

I do use Outlook for diary management but that's because I work in a corporate environment and trying to do anything else would be working against the system. But it's one calendar for everything (work and personal).

<comment><USER25> Paper works for me, too. I get intense cathartic satisfaction in drawing my checkboxes (with drop shadows)--my co-workers make fun of me.* There's value in not only having a to-do list, but re-writing it from time-to-time.

I've tried multiple software applications, from plain text, to trello, to custom software. Nothing works as well.

* This actually serves another purpose as well: in a page full of notes, my drop-shadowed action items pop out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm using Trello every day, but I don't like that it is too manual. It's like a physical board. There are no options to automate certain things, especially task order and recurrence. I spend too much time maintaining correct order to avoid important tasks moving out of sight.

My ideal system would do the ordering for me, according to the priority, date, postpone hints, and other task properties.

<comment><USER27> I like Trello primarily because of the fact that it forces some manual intervention on your part: 1) it forces and motivates you to complete tasks 2) the act of moving things, or checking things off provides a healthy boost on progress ( real or not ).

As for the recurrence part, there is a way to do that through Trello. I create cards and entire boards for recurring tasks that I have to do each iteration, when that iteration begins I just use the "Copy list.." and copy it to the new board and Bam a whole new set of tasks to check off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Suprised nobody has mentionned taskwarrior[1] yet! Its very flexible and can even be kept on a server. For example I've got it set up so giving it a link automatically puts in the pages title as a description and puts it in my reading list.

1\. [https://taskwarrior.org/](https://taskwarrior.org/)

</comment><comment><USER29> With the time it takes to maintain that setup, you could probably do another task or two per day

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't really take that long on a day to day basis. It's the review period which can take a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The perfect to-do list will be a semantic marketplace of outcomes.

You describe the outcomes you want in life using a formal semantic language, and broadcast them for the world to see. Then, anyone who has the ability to satisfy the expected outcome (i.e., "I'm at work at 8AM") - bet it yourself, a friend, or a taxi driver - can engage in a contract where the conditions of all parties are described and agreed upon. Then, the contract or commitment to make an ideal become real becomes your task.

Software will simply become an interface to an ideal world, expressed through deltas with the real world. Your job as an agent is to maintain ideals you committed to maintain (i.e., "Don't drive when drunk", "Don't eat peanuts", "Keep your blood sugar below 150", "Don't have your location be within an area that's private property you don't have access to").

Laws of physics, laws of your state, preferences and other contracts populate the ideal you're expected to maintain and approach. Failing to do that hurts your social credit score, which in turns lowers the chance others will bring the world closer to your own ideals.

A to-do list is just a list of things that are wrong with the world. Until we have a system that enables us to precisely communicate and share these deltas, actions will remain meaningless words on a piece of physical/digital paper that only a motivated human can parse.

<comment><USER31> So, the ideal to-do list will be defined in prolog?

<comment><USER30> Assuming that prolog is the best language to represent these goals, yes.

But I believe we can do much better than prolog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Pen and paper still works out way more flexible than any of the todo lists I have tried.

<comment><USER33> Yeah that solution still works just fine for me. Also just using a plain text file works well too.

<comment><USER32> I was using a google doc for my task list / bug tracker at a previous job. Then we got Jira involved. No one bothered to fill it in properly, so it was more hassle than it was worth. Actually it was way more hassle then the google doc and far less flexible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> GTD is a system that each one should 'distill and blend' according his own view of the world. Somehow the blog author 'distills' GTD towards personal development. By the other hand, my 'distillation' is more generalist. If it helps somebody:

[https://github.com/eniomauro/hamster- gtd](https://github.com/eniomauro/hamster-gtd)

<comment><USER35> GettingThingsGnome is what I use.

[http://gtgnome.net/](http://gtgnome.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> IMHO GTD-based approaches are not optimal for knowledge workers cause they don't limit work-in-progress, and this ends up being overwhelming.

<comment><USER37> I'm not sure I understand your comment (I don't know what you mean by "limit work-in-progress") but one of the principles is to be explicit and formal about all the projects you've got going, as opposed to having fuzzy ideas about an unlimited number of potential projects in your head. When you track all of these projects, you adopt a more realistic approach, and you think more carefully about whether or not to start one.

<comment><USER36> I mean GTD got lots of things right (have an inbox, split tasks/tasks with deadlines/events), but it is missing the WIP limit from kanban which is very important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've been using the todo.txt format lately: [https://github.com/ginatrapani/todo.txt-cli/wiki/The- Todo.tx...](https://github.com/ginatrapani/todo.txt-cli/wiki/The-Todo.txt- Format) . No extra tools, just Vim, a text file with a line per task, with the lines kept lexically sorted.

</comment><comment><USER39> When I moved into my role at an ad agency we went through a series of software to keep track of to-do lists. Things, Wunderlist and what seems like a dozen others. The problem for me was always that it is so much easier just to write something down on a piece of paper or in a simple text file—software isn't the best solution to every problem.

EDIT: I have a very simple system for my tasks:

\- One sheet of paper each day with all of my projects and related tasks under those projects.

\- Pending items get a check—these are actions you've completed, but require someone else to take action.

\- Completed items get crossed out.

\- At the end of the day, I create a new list for tomorrow and transfer any pending items of items not finished over.

For further explanation I wrote a bit about my habits last year: [http://solomon.io/todo-list-framework/](http://solomon.io/todo-list- framework/)

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm very interested in the topic as I've struggled to replace the efficacy of my old Franklin Planner.

I've tried Google calendar reminders, and that hasn't worked. Evernote hasn't been great either. I don't want to go back to Notepad.

Maybe the issue is having the discipline to spend 15 minutes a day planning?

<comment><USER41> was discipline an issue with your old Franklin Planner?

<comment><USER40> No. I'd spend 15 mins at the start of the day, and would take it everywhere except the bathroom.

My intuition is that there should be something similar on a smartphone.

<comment><USER23> iOS/OS X only, but OmniFocus has worked well for me in this regard. Synchronizes across devices, and scheduled tasks are visible in my calendar, and calendar events are visible to OmniFocus.

If I could use it on my work computer I'd be set (Windows and Linux environment).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It's interesting all the solutions people come up with to tackle GTD. I don't think i've met two people with the same implementation. But really, whats important is finding something that works for you, and thats different for everyone.

Relatedly, I built something for myself, but am working on launching it. I wasn't satisfied with any GTD options out there, and really just wanted a brain for my brain. Something i could just dump thoughts and todos into and it would automatically manage them for me.

You can actually see some of this in action in the screenshot from a recent update: [http://blog.mindaux.com/blog/2016/02/27/sneak-peak-beta- acce...](http://blog.mindaux.com/blog/2016/02/27/sneak-peak-beta-access/)

</comment><comment><USER43> I recently published my current OmniFocus/GTD workflow, which has been working really well for me. [http://johnny.chadda.se/the-2016-omnifocus-setup-and- workflo...](http://johnny.chadda.se/the-2016-omnifocus-setup-and-workflow/)

<comment><USER44> that's a nice write up and very helpful.

<comment><USER43> Thank you! There are so many way of implementing GTD and countless posts on parts of everyone's setup, so I just figured I just post my entire setup in one single article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm obsessed with task management. I have read Getting Things Done many times. I've used a lot (~50) of different task management systems over the years, and haven't found one that's good enough.

Todo lists and task management software won't ever solve the problem. The problem has to do with the way the system works, how the society is modeled. The application paradigm (where we have disconnected apps that do few things well) is the root cause.

It should be obvious that the solution is to change the UX of software as a whole. Get rid of the silly WIMP paradigm, and move to a more task-oriented one. Make the OS your task management system, and let apps (now semantic agents) help you achieve them.

What we lack is breakthroughs in language. We need a better semantic model to describe and model expected outcomes.

<comment><USER45> > Make the OS your task management system

Can anyone who is more familiar with orgmode describe how it might play this role?

<comment><USER46> > > Make the OS your task management system

> Can anyone who is more familiar with orgmode describe how it might play this > role?

Emacs, full screen ([https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FullScreen](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FullScreen)), auto-starting org-mode, and do everything you can in it ([http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3996068979/the-levels-of- em...](http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3996068979/the-levels-of-emacs- proficiency)). It helps if you already use Emacs, such as writing software in it.

<comment><USER45> Yeah there's my problem. I've heard wonderful things about orgmode, to the point that people think it's worth switching. But I'm a vim user and I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble. Trying to get a variety of opinions.

<comment><USER47> I just switched from vim to emacs for org-mode. I use evil and the key mappings are very, very close. Give it a shot. It's really good. eLisp is kind of fun to play around with, I already grok that better than the vim language.

A couple perks of the switch: org-mode, magit (wrapper for git), elisp is kind of fun and makes customizing emacs really approachable (subjective of course), I used to live in the commandline (bash, tmux, vim) but I've found that I navigate my system faster and better than before (buffers and registers).

There's a steep learning curve, but being willing to read documentation is helpful. It's definitely been worth it for me. And I do think that conceptually thinking of emacs as an OS or interface to your computer rather than a text editor is helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I prefer paper todo lists, but to actually move the needle I write down my 3-5 highest leverage activities and do one at a time. I cross them off as I finish them and at the end of the day I tear out the page and throw it away.

There was no great notebook out there for this, so my biz partner and I designed our own. We are selling them on Amazon because we have day jobs and don't have time to mess with fulfilling orders. You can see them here: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGE1914/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGE1914/)

For me, it's the perfect todo list.

</comment><comment><USER22> Unless the todo list app is fully integrated into your daily routine/one of the apps you use at least 20% of your time, they just end up a a brain-dump tools, which is not a bad practice by the way for making your mind more organized. Having said that, I would repeat and emphasize a recommendation I wrote to another user in this thread-> check apps which DO integrate into one of your existing tools and doesn't require you to open a new window. Actually, I find this extra click on a new tab or an icon in the system tray is a REAL barrier to adopting those endless lists.

</comment><comment><USER49> I've tried many TODO apps, and apart from my Inbox being a (small) TODO list, I just maintain a tmux window called "notes", and it's literally a large file I type into via vim daily.

I never remove notes, I just add a new header for each note I need to take. These notes are eventually moved into actionable items (Trello is good for this), or if the task is quick and small, I maintain a generic "TODO" at the top of the file and delete that line item when the task is complete.

Keeping it simple just means I don't think about it, and actually get shit done.

</comment><comment><USER50> I have tried a few tools for to-do lists, but settled on 3 folders in my inbox: ACTION, READ & WANT.

I created some rules: subject beginning TODO goes to ACTION, subject beginning READ goes to READ, subject beginning WANT goes to WANT folder. This means I can add to any list just by sending a mail to myself.

I created additional rules so all emails from credit card companies, banks, accountant and other important senders goes straight into ACTION folder.

I try and ensure all unread items are dealt with daily. If I set it to read, it becomes non-urgent.

</comment><comment><USER51> I've tried every to-do product out there - none worked for me. The best method I've found is to actually schedule time in my calendar to work on different projects. I find if I don't block out time to actually work on them, they don't get done.

Does anyone know of a to-do list manager that works this way? I ask because while I like this method, it is difficult to see all your to-dos or deal with a to-do that has multiple steps.

<comment><USER52> [https://getplan.co](https://getplan.co)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Nobody has mentioned Any.do? I've used a day planner, 2Do, Clear, paper, plus looked at a half dozen others.

The one tool, Any.Do, has really helped me grind away at life priorities. When I decided to migrate from 2Do to Any.Do, I had around 180 tasks in 2Do. Today I'm at 24 and the only reason it's over 20 is because of tax season, Chinese study, and an investment project.

The list will be back down under 20 soon enough and heading to 10.

</comment><comment><USER54> I'll just place this here: [http://tiddlywiki.com/](http://tiddlywiki.com/)

</comment><comment><USER55> This article isn't really coherent or is it?

<comment><USER56> Looks like OCD to me. _shrug_

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I have yet to meet anyone who kept and followed a todo list over the long term. Can anyone say otherwise?

It just doesn't seem to be human nature to do it consistently beyond short bursts of focus, like dieting and following step-by-step procedures.

<comment><USER58> I've used a todo list, in some form for over 10 years. I'm currently using WorkFlowy and have used it nearly every day for 2 years now. I'm one of those 'minimal GTD' types that just needs to get everything down so in the morning, I can make sure I'm focusing on the right things. Nothing heavy, just a simple way to reflect and focus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I'm surprised no one here has commented that they just use the iOS Reminders app that's native to the iPhone. I've found it to be more effective than any other system out there, and it's also significantly simpler.

<comment><USER60> That's what I use. I have a web app I built for the purpose, and gradually found an equilibrium whereby certain tasks go in Reminders, others go into the app. After awhile I stopped using the app. I need to build support for getting stuff into and out of Reminders programmatically so I can do recurring tasks without cluttering up the interface too much. I want my own interface for managing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I'd like one that will show future repeated tasks in the list. If I have something that repeats every week id like to see in the list with the stuff I have planned for the next few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER62> GitHub Issues + [https://www.zenhub.io/](https://www.zenhub.io/) works great for me & my team.

</comment><comment><USER63> No mention of hiTask.com ? built in 2007, GTD, single unique dashboard with calendar. And team collaboration features.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure how I missed that. I've never heard of if hiTask! A friend pointed out Bullet Journal ([http://bulletjournal.com/](http://bulletjournal.com/)) too. I like the idea of having it all in your notebook but it does mean you have to carry it around everywhere.

<comment><USER18> I use one idea from bulletjournal regularly: Whenever I scribble down a note to do something later, I put a box before it. When it is done (done might simply mean scheduled into my real calender) I checkmark the box.

It is very easy to scan a page for boxes and it works everywhere. For example, on printed slides discussed in a meeting or a post-it from the refrigerator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I am personally addicted to TodoList from abstractspoon. Too bad they don't have a linux version though.

</comment><comment><USER65> Piece of paper.

</comment><comment><USER66> So a while back I came up with my ideal way to keep track of progress and next steps for my personal projects, and this seems like a good place to get feedback on it.

I often neglect to work on them at the end of the day, because I forget I'm working on so many and what I need to do in them, so I need a reminder of various things I've come up with, which ones I'm actively working on, which ones are on the backburner, which ones are essentially abandoned, etc.

Additionally, my motivation for my personal projects ebb and flow over time, and I might have something on the backburner for a good six months and then suddenly something pops into my head about it and I'm raring to go and my motivation skyrockets again and it's back to the top of my list.

Third, I don't know when I'm going to be satisfied with it, and I really don't want to put a deadline on something that's supposed to be an enjoyable pastime. But at the same time I want to see progress. So I would like to track when I put units of work into the project, without having to have created a specific task to put up against it.

Finally, deadlines should not be required, nor should the sorting mechanism be by deadlines of the tasks. I've tried things like Asana and the like, and I keep just pushing back deadlines because I lost excitement for that project and I'm working on something else for awhile.

So basically here's what I need from my todo for my personal projects: A list of projects so I never forget them, preferably with an image to catch my eye (I work on games a lot, so they're very visual, so something like box art would be nice), a way to add a bunch of next steps in the system but only show me a couple at a time (because reminding me of all my projects is more important than telling me _everything_ I need to be doing for one particular project), and a way to record that I made progress without placing it against a specific task (I was thinking maybe have different color cubes, the colors representing different things, and I could reward myself a work cube just for sitting down and spending at least 5 minutes on the project, since the hardest thing to do is to sit down and get started).

Also a status for the project would be nice. Like if it's writing it could be '1st draft, 2nd draft', if it's a game then 'Prototype, Alpha, Beta, Gold, Released'

I was thinking this could be visually demonstrated with a card like system (kind of like baseball cards), with the project image on the left half of the card and the 'stats' on the right side of the card, and then you can click + drag the entire project card around so you can rearrange the projects to show what you are most currently motivated in.

I would also like to include past released projects so I can see those accumulate over time and remind myself what I've already accomplished, also in a similar visual style. And sometimes there's more I'd like to do after the project is released, or think of something more to do later.

I was considering making something like this myself but I have so many projects and not enough time so the chances of me working on it are low, so if this excites anyone, please run with it and keep me in the loop. I have some other ideas on it and how it would look if anyone's interested.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't really help with the rest but if you wanted to track units of work without putting it against a task you could try FocusBooster ([https://www.focusboosterapp.com/](https://www.focusboosterapp.com/)) which allows you log blocks of 25mins using the Pomodoro technique.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Is it a satire?</comment>


Inventors killed by their own inventions - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_their_own_inventions <comment><USER2> I thought the idea of young people giving blood to rejuvenate old billionaires was modern.

> Alexander Bogdanov (22 August 1873 – 7 April 1928)...After undergoing 11 > blood transfusions, he remarked with satisfaction the improvement of his > eyesight, suspension of balding, and other positive symptoms. His fellow > revolutionary Leonid Krasin wrote to his wife that "Bogdanov seems to have > become 7, no, 10 years younger after the operation"... But a later > transfusion cost him his life, when he took the blood of a student suffering > from malaria and tuberculosis

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

<comment><USER3> How bizarre - how rich do you have to be to become a vampire?

<comment><USER4> Weren't vampires originally not-so-subtle symbol for aristocracy to begin with?

<comment><USER5> The vampires we have now are a creation of literature, conscious borrowings, and deliberate de- and reconstructions. Ancient beliefs were varied and inconsistent, as you'd expect from a vague category comprised of "various folklore people used to believe about dead bodies getting up and being pests to the living"; in some ways, ancient vampires are closer to what we'd call zombies, and ancient zombies are closer to what we'd consider robots, in terms of being used for slave labor.

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

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

<comment><USER6> This is one of my favorite Wikipedia page, and I don't get to bring it up very often: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vampire_traits_in_fo...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vampire_traits_in_folklore_and_fiction)

<comment><USER7> I hope it is canon that Count Chocula turns to "chocolate cereal dust" upon death.

<comment><USER8> I found this from the talk page amusing:

>This article is AWFUL. I'm trying to do some research on comparative mythology of vampires, by culture, and am literally seeing Count Chocula in the same list as this broad-stroke "European" generalization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, Thomas Midgley, Jr. died from his own Heath Robinson contraption for lifting him out of bed but not before he put lead into petrol and created CFCs. Should have done those the other way around and saved us all a whole lot of grief.

<comment><USER10> For those that didn't follow the link to Thomas Midgley Jr.'s Wikipedia page, the "Legacy" section is definitely worth a read:

> Midgley's legacy has been scarred by the negative environmental impact of > leaded gasoline and Freon. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that > Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in > Earth's history", and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an > instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny".

Multiple sources seem to agree that the reason he chose to add lead to gasoline rather than ethanol (which was both greener and cheaper) was due to profit: his company could patent leaded gasoline, but not ethanol. That's an interesting lesson that we should learn any day now.

<comment><USER11> If ethanol was better and unpatentable, competitors could have used it instead of paying patent licensing fees.

<comment><USER12> Ethanol has downsides too, like eating up the rubber bits in your fuel system.

<comment><USER13> I thought that was methanol or is it both?

<comment><USER12> Ethanol too. That's why you need to be careful if you have an older car and live in one of those states that does E85.

<comment><USER14> E85 pumps are clearly marked. It's E15 that is the threat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One of the strangest articles I've come across on Wikipedia is about the brazen bull[0], whereby the inventor of said bull pitches the idea to the ruler of the land, only to be thrown in it himself after the ruler is repulsed that such a thing should exist.

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

<comment><USER16> Well, the article states that

> Some modern scholars question if the brazen bull ever really existed, > attributing reports of the invention to early propaganda.

However, it certainly wouldn't be the most barbaric form of execution humans have invented [0].

> Pendulum: A type of machine with an axe head for a weight that slices closer > to the victim's torso over time.

> Scaphism: An Ancient Persian method of execution in which the condemned was > placed in between two boats, force fed a mixture of honey and milk, and left > floating in a stagnant pond. The victim would then suffer from severe > diarrhea, which would attract insects that would burrow, nest, and feed on > the victim.

> Blowing from a gun: Tied to the mouth of a cannon, which is then fired.

> Blood Eagle: Cutting the skin of the victim by the spine, breaking the ribs > so they resembled blood-stained wings, and pulling the lungs out through the > wounds in the victim's back. Used by the Vikings.

> Flaying: The skin is removed from the body.

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

<comment><USER17> To be honest, getting blown apart by a cannon sounds great compared to any of these other ones, including the bull.

<comment><USER18> No kidding. Probably quite gruesome to the spectators but a very quick death for the condemned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Some beautiful synchronicity going on with the headlines here: [https://ohuiginn.net/tmp/hn_inventors.png](https://ohuiginn.net/tmp/hn_inventors.png)

</comment><comment><USER20> You know, I heard a story I could never track down. Apparently the Soviets were working on a rocket that would explode several miles from the ground, which they believed would cause maximum damage.

I had heard that all development stopped because the entire team watched on its initial test. They had carefully built an altimeter into the device that triggered the explosion at the desired height. Like all good plans gone awry they completely forgot that a rocket must first go _up_ before it can go _down_ and at launch it hit it's desired altitude on the way up at which point it exploded and took out the entire rocket development team.

Anyone know if this is a real thing?

<comment><USER12> That sounds like an urban legend, but there might be a kernel of truth hidden in the story.

<comment><USER20> Perhaps a corruption of the Nedelin catastrophe:

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier was the first known fatality in an air crash > when his Rozière balloon crashed on 15 June 1785 while he and Pierre Romain > attempted to cross the English Channel.

Let's be very clear about how bad an idea this was: it was a balloon filled with hydrogen, with a chamber beneath it filled with hot air warmed by an open fire. An open fire. Beneath a container of hydrogen.

Later ones filled with helium were more successful, as they allow the balloonist to control buoyancy without dropping ballast or carrying enough fuel to maintain lift sufficient for the entire craft.

But who sticks a hydrogen balloon over an open fire and expects good things?

<comment><USER22> i think your comment isn't just toward the guy. Lets put that into perspective

>they allow the balloonist to control buoyancy without dropping ballast or carrying enough fuel to maintain lift sufficient for the entire craft.

1\. Rozier invented that 2 chamber balloon.

2\. helium was discovered only more than half a century later.

If anything, i think the guy deserve the respect for what he did directly risking his life in the face of the known and unknown dangers and limited knowledge and technology of the time.

<comment><USER21> The combustibility of hydrogen was no secret; de Rozier was a chemist, and in fact famously demonstrated that feature of hydrogen by inhaling it and blowing it out across an open flame. There are risks to be bravely taken, and then there's foolhardy disregard for the dangers one knows. I think de Rozier fell into the second class of risk-takers.

The first class? Try Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher, Geoffrey de Havilland, the X-15 pilot whose name I can't recall — all these died testing something they couldn't have known would kill them, and the world gained from their sacrifice.

De Rozier had an idea that he _knew_ he couldn't safely implement, but went ahead and did it anyway, and died. What did we learn from it? We knew hydrogen was flammable — de Rozier himself demonstrated it safely, except for his eyebrows. The balloon was only flown the once, and there's no evidence he grasped its potential, having little understanding of piloting a balloon. Useless sacrifice, in my opinion.

<comment><USER22> >Let's be very clear about how bad an idea this was: it was a balloon filled with hydrogen, with a chamber beneath it filled with hot air warmed by an open fire. An open fire. Beneath a container of hydrogen.

sounds familiar - [https://youtu.be/fSTrmJtHLFU?t=43](https://youtu.be/fSTrmJtHLFU?t=43)

> Useless sacrifice, in my opinion.

i wonder where you draw a line between the Challenger and De Rozier, of course if you draw any line here at all.

<comment><USER21> (I'll spare you argument about your facile comparison between a strong aluminum tank covered with 5000 pounds of thermal-protective material and a thin silk balloon.)

The Challenger astronauts didn't have all the knowledge they needed to be aware of the certainty of their own deaths — I'd hold that there was no such certainty. The explosion was due to a confluence of events beyond their control, even beyond their knowledge. De Rozier had all the knowledge he needed to avoid dying, and no new information was gained by his death. There's not just a line between the two, there's a broad gulf, dividing reasonable reliance on systems that one knows could fail, and unreasonable trust in a device one knows to be misconceived from the start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thanks for sharing OP!

Here's my personal favorite Wikipedia list: List of lists of lists

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

<comment><USER24> Now that's meta-meta article

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVE_Mizar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVE_Mizar)

> The AVE Mizar (named after the star Mizar) was a roadable aircraft built > between 1971 and 1973 by Advanced Vehicle Engineers [...] The prototypes of > the Mizar were made by mating the rear portion of a Cessna Skymaster to a > Ford Pinto.

...

<comment><USER26> That one was my favorite. Creating an airplane from a Ford Pinto seems like an SNL skit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have to say I'm not I would call someone that creates something that doesn't work (and will never work) and inventor.

If I just jump from a building and throw a bottle on the way down, saying that the bottle will 'throw me back up because physics', and then I die (obviously), I'm not an inventor, I'm just an idiot.

<comment><USER28> Yes, but the guy you are referring to, did invented a parachute, he was just an "idiot" of not using a dummy first.

<comment><USER29> Furthermore, in relation to the title of this article, I wouldn't say the invention of his parachute killed him. It was just the force of him hitting the ground once his invention failed to work. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Talk about deja vu seeing that first picture of the guy trying to fly. I jumped out a tree when I was a kid with a plastic grocery bag at each foot, knee, wrist, elbow, and my neck. I didn't break anything but I never did it again.

<comment><USER31> Are you an aerospace engineer?

<comment><USER30> Not yet, but it happened at my friend's house whose dad was an aerospace engineer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is also interesting - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths)

<comment><USER33> Kurt Godel starved himself to death after his wife was hospitalized because he would only eat food she cooked! Wow

<comment><USER34> I'm inclined to read between the lines on that one.

<comment><USER35> " _Later in his life, Gödel suffered periods of mental instability and illness. He had an obsessive fear of being poisoned; he would eat only food that his wife, Adele, prepared for him._ "

There's your between the lines. He was mentally ill later in his life, which caused his untimely death. I don't know what _you_ were reading between the lines, but if it was making fun of an old man and his mental illness, please keep it to yourself.

<comment><USER21> There were a lot of ways of reading the implications of their unclear post, but you assumed the worst and attacked. That doesn't contribute to a reasonable discussion.

<comment><USER35> If somebody is being unreasonably ambiguous about an issue I feel personally strong about I feel it's my responsibility to notify the author that you shouldn't teeter between comedy and seriousness. Maybe I would say it in milder manner were it in person, but I think you should at least put the effort to let the reader know, that you are not mocking the individual in question.

<comment><USER21> I disagree with your approach. Thank you for explaining it.

<comment><USER35> I see. Also I have to admit the OP filled my other checkbox which is low- effort content intended to be amusing. Which I expect to read in Reddit but not here. And I do like to take confrontational stance in effort to make the other party to see my point of view in stronger light. I don't see it useful to try to avoid showing strong emotions in text or in person, I think trying to be neutral in all situations just makes everything very plain.

And as a disclaimer I did not downvote you nor do I see any purpose to it. If somebody tries to explain themselves in coherent fashion I think it's admirable even though I might disagree with them.

<comment><USER21> Neither did I downvote you; I was concerned that you might think so, but I didn't want to discuss it, because I know that's frowned upon here. The low- effort try for a laugh bothers me, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> For 'tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petard¹

1: Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoist_with_his_own_petard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoist_with_his_own_petard))

</comment><comment><USER37> Clarence Dally was an assistant to Edison who helped create the X-ray focus tube. He died from carcinoma caused by radiation exposure. Should be in here? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Madison_Dally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Madison_Dally)

</comment><comment><USER38> The thought of a steam-powered bicycle made me do a bit of a double-take at first, but apparently it was actually quite a viable little contraption.

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

<comment><USER39> I now want a steam powered bicycle. Ding Ding? Allow me to inform you of my presence via steam whistle. Gives new meaning to "loud pipes save lives". Jerk behind you? Time for a boiler blow down!

Example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuSLwE4IpnI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuSLwE4IpnI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> What about the Segway guy, Jimi Heselden

<comment><USER41> He bought the company after the product had already been invented. (Now, if Dean Kamen somehow died to a segway...)

<comment><USER40> Still fits with the theme though. Luis Jiménez didn't _invent_ a sculpture or the Mustang, but still makes the list.

<comment><USER41> Jiménez certainly designed the thing that killed him. As far as I can tell, Heselden's involvement was just finanical. The deaths are both ironic, but in different ways. FWIW, it was enough to get him on a different list:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths#2010s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths#2010s)

<comment><USER42> >Peng Fan, a chef in Foshan, China, was bitten by a cobra's severed head, which he had cut off 20 minutes earlier while preparing a soup.

My, what a grisly list that is.

<comment><USER43> "Sam Ballard, 29, died from angiostrongyliasis after eating a garden slug as a dare eight years earlier."

<comment><USER42> I remember reading about this man but did not know he passed. This joke altered his and many people around him forever. Comedy with absolutely devastating consequences.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/11/05/young- rugby...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/11/05/young-rugby-player- ate-slug-mates-dare-now-hes-dead/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> No software devs listed, yet.

<comment><USER45> Bitcoin power consumption causes global warming, humanity went extinct from extreme climate change.

<comment><USER46> This made me smile.

What could possibly go wrong with a money rewarding GHG emissions?

When you think about it, if successful, Bitcoin will indeed achieve its goal of freeing us from central banks: no human being will be available to operate them. Very clever!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> There's also this Segway incident, though he was a company executive and not an "inventor"

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news- europe/t/se...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news- europe/t/segway-company-owner-rides-scooter-cliff-dies/)

<comment><USER48> Came here to post this

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> "What do we say to the God of Death?"

"Okay, start it up."

</comment><comment><USER50> The list is much shorter than I would have expected.

<comment><USER51> You can help by expanding it.

<comment><USER50> I'd like to invent things, but I'd like to avoid dying because of my own inventions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Ironically, this list is a great example of survivorship bias.

We only know about inventors killed by their own inventions where the scene was understood well enough to be reported and the incident notable enough to survive into Wikipedia.

It would be easy enough for someone way ahead of their time to have an unexplained death with a bunch of weird artifacts surrounding them.

</comment><comment><USER53> Jack Parsons, cofounder of NASA JPL.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_\(rocket_engineer\))

</comment><comment><USER54> You know this isn't a list I would mind being on

<comment><USER20> Something tells me you have a higher likelihood than most of attaining your goal...

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Special mention for the owner of Segway who rode himself off a cliff to his death, even if he didn't invent them [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news- europe/t/se...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news- europe/t/segway-company-owner-rides-scooter-cliff-dies/)

</comment><comment><USER56> the skin in the game here is incredible

</comment><comment><USER57> Should add Marie Curie

<comment><USER58> She didn't invent radioactivity or any elements.

<comment><USER59> She did invent a process to isolate radium. But if you want to put it this way, nobody never invented anything, even a plane is just about manipulating things that always existed in the environment.

<comment><USER58> Planes did not exist before humans built them. Radium did.

<comment><USER59> Radium existed but not isolated and not usable for X-Ray for example. Plane was in nature also before humans, just not assembled yet :)

<comment><USER58> I don't think we agree on the definition of "plane" :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> So... kinda like the Darwin Awards, but not really?

</comment><comment><USER61> I can't believe that nobody has posted [https://xkcd.com/2142/](https://xkcd.com/2142/) yet!

</comment><comment><USER62> > _Andrei Zheleznyakov, a Soviet scientist, was developing chemical weapons in > 1987 when a hood malfunction exposed him to traces of the nerve agent > Novichok 5. He spent weeks in a coma, months unable to walk, and years > suffering failing health before dying from its effects in 1992 /3._

Hard to feel sorry for that guy.</comment>


First Bitcoin ATM - <AUTHOR> https://robocoinkiosk.com/ <comment><USER2> I live a block away from this machine and won't be using it because of nonsense biometric data harvesting. Why do I need to scan my ID, picture and fingerprints to trade a small amount of bitcoins? I will continue to use the Russian guy who hangs out at a Robson St cafe and doesn't want my biometric data.

<comment><USER3> Wait, are you saying that there are now street bitcoin traders? This reminds of communist times when the government limited foreign currency trading. There was a specific coffee house where you could go and illicitly trade foreign currency.

<comment><USER4> Indeed there are! Here's a short Wired article I saw about the concept a few months back: [http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/07/buttonwood/](http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/07/buttonwood/)

One of my clients actually said to me, at the closing of a project: "I don't know if you take bit coins, but I'm gonna go see my bitcoin guy in a few. I don't like to buy online. Anyway, if you want to be paid in bit coins, let me know! Otherwise I'll drop the check in the mail tomorrow."

(that's paraphrased a bit, as I cannot remember the exact wording, but the meat of the quote is the same.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is like the second or third "first" ATM, though.

<comment><USER6> Yup. For example, the Internet Archive in SF launched what they call a bitcoin ATM back in March. [1] [2]

[1] [http://blog.archive.org/2013/03/05/bitcoin-to-cash- converter...](http://blog.archive.org/2013/03/05/bitcoin-to-cash-converter- box/)

[2] [http://blog.archive.org/2013/04/03/how-the-internet- archive-...](http://blog.archive.org/2013/04/03/how-the-internet-archive-is- having-great-time-with-bitcoin/)

<comment><USER7> That is pretty awesome, although, I believe "an honor-based converter box" is a far cry from an ATM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just got this error when hitting the site. I guess node isn't the end-all-be- all magic bullet for scalability everyone thinks it is?

        Error: EMFILE, too many open files '/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/views/index.html'
            at Object.fs.openSync (fs.js:427:18)
            at fs.readFileSync (fs.js:284:15)
            at View.exports.renderFile [as engine] (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/ejs/lib/ejs.js:312:9)
            at View.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/view.js:75:8)
            at Function.app.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/application.js:504:10)
            at ServerResponse.res.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/response.js:753:7)
            at exports.index (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/routes/index.js:8:9)
            at callbacks (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:161:37)
            at param (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:135:11)
            at pass (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:142:5)

<comment><USER9> too many open files, Ubuntu has default /proc/sys/fs/file-max of 1024.

It's an SA problem, not dev problem.

<comment><USER10> If SA and dev had a great cooperation from an early point, the developer would have told the SA about the platform requirements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Error: EMFILE, too many open files '/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin- website/views/index.html' at Object.fs.openSync (fs.js:427:18) at fs.readFileSync (fs.js:284:15) at View.exports.renderFile [as engine] (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/ejs/lib/ejs.js:312:9) at View.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin- website/node_modules/express/lib/view.js:75:8) at Function.app.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin- website/node_modules/express/lib/application.js:504:10) at ServerResponse.res.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin- website/node_modules/express/lib/response.js:753:7) at exports.index (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/routes/index.js:8:9) at callbacks (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin- website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:161:37) at param (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin- website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:135:11) at pss (/home/ubtuntu/robocoin/robocoin- website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:142:5)

Idiots.......

<comment><USER12> > too many open files

I thought nodejs magically webscales ? /sarcasm

sidenote : please ditch this horrible unreadable font in the text body.that's fine for a few headers but , Swap it with the serif font you are using in the subtitles.

<comment><USER11> Probably just hitting the fd-per-process ulimit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> While I'm happy to see the world's first anything happen in my hometown of Vancouver, I do question why Vancouver was chosen over San Fran, Portland or New York. Those cities seem more fit for World's First. Even if its a Canadian market they are targeting, Toronto is our financial centre and would make a better choice for this currency.

<comment><USER14> I think it's as simple as their first (operational) customer happens to be based in Vancouver.

<comment><USER15> Yup, the ATM is being operated by a Vancouver Bitcoin store called [http://www.bitcoiniacs.com](http://www.bitcoiniacs.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why is this machine always asking for the users fingerprints? Doesn't that break the anonymity of bitcoin?

<comment><USER17> My understanding is that it's to comply with money-laundering laws. They limit the size of the transaction per-day and per-person.

I haven't bought bitcoins (online or through an ATM), but it seems any purchase of bitcoins from any electronic money transfer would have the same issue of breaking anonymity. I suppose there are ways to anonymize the funds once you have them.

<comment><USER18> This is it really. There's a limit to the amount of cash they can do per person per day, and this is a way to ensure people don't go over the limit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A couple guys at DEF CON this past year brought a coin-operated Bitcoin converter -- US currency goes in, QR codes full of crypto come out.

I'm holding onto my souvenir bitcoin (worth $0.25 at time of transaction) as long as I can.

</comment><comment><USER20> In January or February a group in New Hampshire showed off a Bitcoin ATM for US Dollars, though I don't think it was ready for full scale production. [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57570925-38/need- bitcoins-...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57570925-38/need-bitcoins- this-atm-takes-dollars-and-funds-your-account/)

Looks like they've since updated and now have one that accepts notes from over 200 countries: [https://lamassu.is/](https://lamassu.is/)

</comment><comment><USER21> As the popularity of bitcoin continues to grow, I think bitcoin owners will appreciate the degree of liquidity this offers. The bitcoin ecosystem needs something like this.

</comment><comment><USER22> All I see is > The connection was interrupted. Just like real ATM ^_^</comment>


A platform connecting activists, NGOs, entrepreneurs and Sporters - <AUTHOR> http://lakoob.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> We are giving away fantastic discounts and gifts before we launch our landing page in October.

We invite you to join the Lakoob movement.

At Lakoob our mission is to connect non-profit organizations with people and companies and provide them with the necessary means to make a better world together. Sports is at the center of our universe.</comment>


Hackernews|Ask HN : Review my startup weekend project - <AUTHOR>

We meet people at different event and location, we share business cards. Sometimes we run out of it and then it becomes extremely difficult to connect people when needed. Also afterwards, we have to maintain stack of cards and reconnect it with person with where we meet.  Secondly for most of the people like students, workers who don't have business card, it's becomes very difficult to make connection and share contacts and remain connected. We developed a product to solve these problems, it's called Digixcard. Digixcard create your own business / personal card using your social network's profile. It's a location aware mobile application which allows you to create and share your cards on the fly.
www.zubha-labs.com/pages/labs-1 digixcard.com <comment><USER2> YABCT: Yet another business card thingamajig.

There are several out there already. All of them require traction to become serious contenders. Bump is probably the best known. Yet, the greatest downfall to any is that each party must be a member of that app.

Paper cards still rule the roost (and with digitizers have become a lot easier to manage). Google App has a business card reader on it. Very cool.

Still, the best way I've seen and used so far is twitter. You meet, like, and trade twitter handles becoming followers right away. Then later, follow up for more info. This is not for the more serious connections where paper cards rule.

Just my opinion

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks absolutely paper card still rules but for business people, we intend to generate a card on the fly using your Facebook, Twitter data. It is customizable and you can personalize it as you want. E.g. for business meeting just use business profile while in party go for flashy theme. Interesting part is anyone with Facebook account can use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Language note: "Digixcard is a digital business card that IS connects everyone at your next event" should read "Digixcard is a digital business card that connects everyone at your next event." No 'IS'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for note. Any idea how should i move this conversation under ASK HN category?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I never have business cards and would love a way to make contacts from my smart phone. This will help me build my professional network.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yes will change how we use business cards. Our tag line is share forever. Once you share a digixcard anytime onwards you can goto facebook application launch it and connect with people when needed. Mainly that person don't need to be your facebook friend.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please tell, "How to post this question into ASK HN category"

</comment><comment><USER5> Cool idea, which all platform does it support, right now

<comment><AUTHOR> We developed it over last weekend for android in the startup weekend. It is a prototype now. But We are working hard to make it available soon in android and iphone market.</comment></comment>


Ruby: Fibers vs Continuations - <AUTHOR> http://all-thing.net/fibers <comment><USER2> I wish we had either (ideally both) in the JVM. I frequently come across situations with clojure where using a coroutine or continuation would be the cleanest solution. There are various libraries that use some kind of bytecode instrumentation to achieve it, but this places serious constraints on where and how you can use them. Really, this needs to be a VM feature.

I wonder if it's possible to apply the same hack as this one for .NET:

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164086.aspx>

Basically, use the low-level, OS (C) fiber/coroutine facility and attach the fiber as a thread.

<comment><USER3> It mainly deals with Scheme, but <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1086393> examines implementing continuations on VMs that don't support them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As far as I can tell, fibers can be implemented from continuations as long as you have first class closures. I think the better question is what are the best continuation based abstractions to be included in a language's standard library :)</comment>


Ask HN: Where do tools like DreamWeaver fit into current workflows? - <AUTHOR> I remember everybody and their mother used Dreamweaver years ago, around 2008.
These days I don't see any mention whatsoever or even marketed courses or tutorials.
Do WYSIWYG tools even fit in the current worklows? <comment><USER2> The gulf between web design and web development has widened greatly in the last 8 years.

For casual users putting together a website, templated drag-and-drop site generators like Wix and others have replaced this kind of tool.

For professionals, there are CSS frameworks and other component libraries that can be used to build complex layouts, and these people aren't uncomfortable with an edit source-save-preview cycle -- nor did existing WYSIWYG tools keep up with the technology here.

Most browsers now ship with sophisticated devtools that allow the page's DOM tree and styles to be manipulated in real-time. This made the long tail of display issues debuggable in the browser itself, and is great for when one does want to see how small changes to the source will affect the final layout.

Furthermore, some of 'web design' these days goes to single-page apps these days instead of strictly websites, and require a complex toolchain to build anyway.</comment>


Show HN: Node CI with Wercker and Heroku - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/product-engineering/continuous-integration-with-wercker-e5d23b65cf7b#.9w385g2xo <comment><AUTHOR> Multi env CI sometimes trips me up. Here I have an example node app that you can use to setup CI for your team, with step by step instructions

</comment><comment><USER2> See the word "wercker" is hurting my eyes. It's even hard to type :P

<comment><AUTHOR> werckin hard or hardly werckin amirite :/</comment></comment>


Lyft - <AUTHOR> http://a16z.com/2015/03/12/lyft/ <comment><USER2> It's pretty scary that a representative of a company who just put half a billion dollars into Lyft seems to have no idea why Lyft is popular with "millennials".

The only reason people of my generation don't go everywhere in a private black Suburban is because it's expensive. The only reason they use Lyft Line and not Lyft is because it's cheap. If you could get a private black car for $0.01 less than a Lyft Line you'd have the most popular app on the app store.

It's the same with AirBnb. If you could stay at the downtown Mariott for $110 and an AirBnb was $120, AirBnb would be dead. It just happens that AirBnb offers lower prices than traditional hotels and much more capacity in certain locations. People don't say "I really want to go on vacation and share a home with a stranger, so I'll check out AirBnb". They say "oh shit the Westin is charging $300 a night because there is a conference in town, I'll stay in someone's guest bedroom for $100".

Sure, the social thing is nice sometimes. Most Lyft drivers I get are more interesting than the taxi drivers I used to get (or at least more relatable to me). But all of the startups the "millenials" have fallen in love with either offer exceptional convenience (which is really about valuing your time), better pricing, or both. That's really all it's about. We're part of the free market like everyone else and we like to get things cheaply.

<comment><USER3> I like AirBnb because I don't like most hotels. They are like airports; ugly, generic, a place for just passing through whose pretensions of courtesy and happiness are a thin veneer over crass commercialism.

If I can find an apartment that is nicer than a hotel (they are not all nicer, of course) then I will gladly pay a premium for my own entrance, my own kitchen, my own fridge, etc.

Having spoken to my friends about this, I know I'm not the only one. I'm not a millennial, though, but then I doubt that millennials are the ones propping up AirBnb?

<comment><USER4> Agreed. Ride sharing is a faceless commodity and people will take the cheapest option. AirBnB is slightly different because sometimes the apartment is nicer than the hotel, or offers a full kitchen. Or is an entire house and you're planning a trip with a group of friends or family. The reasons go on and on. But the original comment's point about Lyft is spot on, it's a shame we have to derail that thread because of his misreading of Airbnb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone who thinks Airbnb is a "social experience" hasn't used and doesn't understand Airbnb.

That's fine and all, rich dudes aren't their target market. But I cringe when I hear VCs talk about Airbnb, because it's nearly universally clueless.

I think Airbnb is special in this way. It's a darling startup every VC loves and _no VC ever uses_.

<comment><USER6> > Anyone who thinks Airbnb is a "social experience" hasn't used and doesn't > understand Airbnb.

That's far too strong a claim. Most times I've used Airbnb have been social experiences—pleasant ones in fact, that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

I'd say the same about Lyft, come to think of it.

<comment><USER7> Your experience might be like that, but reading the comments above it seems that you are in the minority.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure how much we can conclude from a sample of HN comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I live in Boston and hugely supported Lyft (using it exclusively over Uber), but as soon as the weather started getting bad (late December), it seemed as if all of the Lyft drivers vanished. I'm back to using Uber exclusively and not even checking Lyft, since I most likely won't be able to get a cab during peak time. Sure, it'll probably pick back up now that the weather is improving, but how they handle bad situations is much more defining than how they handle good ones.

<comment><USER9> One aspect I haven't seen anyone mentioned is that Uber does not prompt you for tips where as Lyft does.

This is a pretty big deal and is why I always choose Uber over Lyft.

<comment><USER8> I actually emailed Lyft for clarification on this! They said that tipping is considered optional, and more of a reward for good service than a supplement for low pricing.

That said, for both Lyft and Uber, the drivers seem to be underpaid as a whole, and several have remarked to me that hitting $20/hr means they're doing well.

<comment><USER10> Netting or grossing $20/h?

<comment><USER8> Not sure; I think they implied gross, but probably meant net.

<comment><USER10> I would say someone netting $20/h driving a car around part-time is well- compensated. Pretty much anyone in the US can drive a car and it's neither dangerous nor particularly uncomfortable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's with the aggressive attitude? The writer admits that he doesn't fully understand the psyche of a "millennial" and then tries to be subtle and smear Uber. I'm a millennial and a software engineer so I make enough money to be able to purchase an eight passenger suburban and drive it around if I wanted to but I don't own a car so instead I choose to ride share. Is getting into an Uber more offensive than buying a suburban? This whole article felt like they were trying to prove why they are better than Uber by trying to make some fake sense of guilt for using Uber. I use Uber exclusively because my experiences with them have been so much better than the experiences I've had with lyft.

Instead of focussing on why Uber is bad they should try to focus on helping make lyft suck less.

<comment><USER12> I think the audience is just bi-furcating. There are many Lyft riders who are horrified at the thought of sitting in the back solo of a non-professional's car. Likewise, there are many Uber riders who are insulted by the thought of chatting with their paid driver.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's somewhat ironic that Lyft announced its largest funding round to date on the same day that a judge rejected the company's request to declare its drivers independent contractors.

If a jury decides that drivers are employees, transforming the U.S. personal transportation market is going to become a much more expensive proposition for Lyft's investors.

[1] [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Juries-to-decide- wheth...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Juries-to-decide-whether-Uber- Lyft-drivers-are-6128899.php)

</comment><comment><USER14> Let me decipher this cotton candy advertising-speak.

"We have to bulk up to fight Uber. Lyft seem nicer at least, since Uber keeps getting caught doing sleazy things. Choose us, before we're completely commoditized."

<comment><USER12> Except that there's a good chance you are wrong. It's conventional wisdom that Uber should easily steamroll Lyft but it's just not happening and this post articulates some of the reason. Some/many people actually do appreciate a human(e) experience.

<comment><USER15> The only reason Uber hasn't steamrolled Lyft is because Lyft has been injected with over $850M in venture funding.

<comment><USER16> That's a curious statement. I could easily say the only reason Uber had a chance to steamroll anyone was because they've been injected with billions in venture funding...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > _as we transform the $2.25 trillion U.S. personal transportation market_

Anyone know how this number is calculated? Tried the Google and couldn't find much.

<comment><USER18> Usually by the scientific method of summing up every remotely related figure that you can find on google, adding some markup for good measure, and then maintaining a straight face while dropping it on the audience that you wish to impress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> When I can't or don't want to drive, Lyft is definitely my go-to transportation option in my city (Cincinnati). The prices are lower. When it's "surge" time, Lyft's up-charges are less painful. The drivers are nicer. I only user Uber when I can't get a Lyft.

</comment><comment><USER20> > John and Logan realized that women feel much more comfortable getting into a > car if there's a woman. Today 30% of the Lyft drivers are women, which has > also had the effect of attracting women passengers who now make up more than > half of all riders.

Makes me think that Lyft may be intentionally matching women drivers with women riders where possible. Smart move, if so.

</comment><comment><USER21> What the author forgets to mention, either intentionally or not, is that the drivers of Lyft are also millennials. Both drivers and passengers participate in a bottomed-out value chain, where the driver and the passenger cannot afford anything more expensive. Paupers driving Paupers, and Kings spinning this off as an "environmental cool meets individual liberty".

</comment><comment><USER22> "impact on world around us" should read "impact on the world around us"

</comment><comment><USER23> _the founders have held a hard-earned secret about all the subtle things necessary for people to come together in a car with strangers and enjoy it. For instance, John and Logan realized that women feel much more comfortable getting into a car if there's a woman._

That's a subtle insight?!?

 _For my generation, it's hard to fully understand the sea change of the millennial psyche._

If you are calling people 'millenials' then you've failed from the get go.

<comment><USER24> They treat "millennials" as if they're some sort of alien species.

To them, I say: you were just as weird to the older generation when you were younger. So please, cut it out.

<comment><USER25> The world you're looking for is "demographic".

On a related sidenote, i use uber for the same anti-social reason i use airbnb. Uber to get a cab without having to talk to some random dude with a yorkshire accent on the phone for 15 minutes before i can manage getting a car to pick me up, and airbnb because i want a real apartment for myself, instead of hotel cucibles or a shared place. Couldn't care less about the made up social aspects of being stuck in traffic. Maybe I'm just not "millennial" enough.

<comment><USER26> have you used Lyft? You don't talk to anyone until your car picks you up, same as Uber. If you want you can sit in the back seat and not talk at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment>