Ask HN: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler? - <AUTHOR> I was a daily drinker, mainly beer, I live in Belgium.<p>But I turned into a `teetotaler` for few weeks already, and I intend to stay this way for a while. I'm curious how you guys are coping with the booze or the lack of it. <comment><USER2> I'm glad this question is being asked on HN, because it sounds like a culture of drinking is pretty prevalent in at least certain parts of the startup/tech scene. I'm hoping that the answers here will reassure people that you don't need to drink to fit in.

I'm in my mid-30s and have never drank. I have a lot of reasons for choosing to not drink, but probably the biggest is that I don't like the idea of it affecting my behavior or decision-making (especially because I've seen how it affects OTHER people's behavior and decision-making).

Nevertheless, I've tried to not let it affect my social life. In college, I went to plenty of parties, and it was a bit weird being one of the only sober people in a house full of drunks, but I never felt ostracized because of it. After college, I was one of the organizers of the Four-State Bar Crawl (four bars, four states, one crazy night) -- and naturally, I was one of the designated drivers.

I now work in an office where beer is stocked in the fridge, and most of my colleagues partake. But again, it doesn't really bother me because there's soda stocked too.

Advice for people who were previously drinkers but are now trying to abstain:

* Don't needlessly place yourself in tempting situations.

* If drinking was previously how you relaxed, or had fun, or networked, or socially lubricated yourself ... seek out alternative ways to fill the void. For instance, if beer gave you confidence in social situations, consider attending a Toastmasters International session, which can help you with your contemporaneous speaking skills and boost your confidence.

* Befriend other non-drinkers. We've had a lot of practice at finding ways to have fun without alcohol.

* Seek out support (and accountability) from other people or from groups like AA if it's a real struggle.

<comment><USER3> Your post could have described me as well.

The only thing I would add is that for me, in university, I did run into some friction about my choice, from time to time. You'll find that when people are young, making a choice to go against the status quo and being secure about it will bring about all kinds of insecurity in others (e.g. those who are drinking, but only out of peer pressure). It helped me identify who were really my friends (the ones that didn't hassle me about my choices).

When you get older (e.g. out of school), it gets much better as being a non- drinker becomes more acceptable and even admirable for some.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Non-drinker here.

> I'm curious how you guys are coping with the booze or the lack of it.

The same way I'm coping with the lack of ketchup in my chocolate cookies: I didn't know I was supposed to cope with it.

<comment><USER5> You haven't lived until you had ketchup with chocolate cookies.

On a more serious note, I too never feel the urge to drink, but I am however addicted to sugary drinks. Makes me wonder whether there's a connection there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 15 years sober. So, I don't drink. Before that, hoo boy :-)

I was at a bar last night with co-workers, and as long as I have a diet coke or something in my hand I'm okay. Weekly AA meetings keep me on the level, too.

A old co-worker of mine who was more public about his sobriety used to crack the keg at beer busts, reciting the Serenity Prayer over it and telling jokes as he pour cups for everyone else. He had fun with it.

</comment><comment><USER7> When 5 o'clock rolls around, it's beer time, or after mowing the lawn, or after being out a long day. While I enjoy trying different craft brews, it's almost more what it symbolizes that I enjoy. Once that beer is poured, the work of the day is over (outside the 2nd job, being family:)).

</comment><comment><USER8> For a long time I didn't much care about it: I had a single drink once a week, maybe went out with buddies on Friday nights and got pretty drunk.

I drank a good bit during my thirties, in the way of so many 9-5 workers. Then got a little too exuberant around the turn towards forty, probably a combination of "Hey, so this is how it feels to feel good!" \+ self-medicating for the lingering effects of really bad childhood trauma.

I'm dry as a bone from here on out. Once I got used to the feeling, and once I got into the swing of studying and exercising and fathering, I've increasingly seen the stuff as being generally more treacherous than is commonly assumed. I don't know many people older than 30 who drink regularly and are actually drinking in anything resembling true moderation. And it shows, increasingly as one grows older.

So I actually feel kinda lucky to have figured it out (the semi-hard way) instead of sinking into a life of physical indolence and endless rationalizations. There are a LOT of people who are somewhere in the middle chunk of the spectrum we call "alcoholism", a lot of people with really good jobs who would be a LOT happier right now if they didn't have to obey the rule about "never before 7". It's just the nature of the thing: it tends to make itself more and more important as time goes by.

</comment><comment><USER9> Depends on the situation.

When I'm travelling, I tend to drink quite a bit. You meet lots of people on the road. Lots of them are on vacation. It's Steve's last night. We've got to celebrate.

When I'm back home, I tend not to drink at all. First of all, it's not Steve's last night on the beach anymore. But also it's _nice_ that it's not Steve's last night for once. I also tend to value concentration when I'm home and working. To have a beer is to lose the ability to focus for the rest of the day, which just makes me angry. (Beach Jason doesn't have this problem, since he's not focusing on anything).

Age changes the equation as well. In school, the assumption was that you'd be obliterated every Friday and Saturday night. And likely at least once or twice during the week as well, since hey, it's Taco Tuesday, or Bomber Night at Alex's, or Twice As Drunk Night at Shermer's. It was just what you did.

Again, leaving school after five years of that it was quite novel to have a Saturday arrive and be able to consciously choose not to drink anything at all. That's never happened before! Cool.

Over the years, the novelty just wears off and the effect of alcohol becomes perceived as more of a negative. These days, living in France, I'll still uncork a bottle or two a week out of a sense of duty. (It is, after all, five dollars for a better bottle than they even _sell_ at Albertsons, so it'd be rude not to.) But then it often takes a few nights to finish that bottle. A thought not easily conceived, I bet, by a version of myself 20 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm a Belgian too, and the beer is always a temptation. Personally, I consider myself a drinker. Not daily, but one drink a few times per week, with heavier consumption on Saturdays.

Coping with booze for me is a matter of 'everything in moderation'. I can thoroughly enjoy a good beer or whisky, but I know that enjoyment is enhanced by spacing that out. I'm also quite frightened of dependence, but not enough to stop drinking altogether.

</comment><comment><USER11> What strikes me is that I can leave beer in the fridge untouched for weeks or even months, but I can't do the same for chocolate in the house. Stephen King describes how sometimes he can't stand seeing people sitting in front of a glass of wine without drinking. "Drink it already" goes through his head - I'm somewhat the same with chocolate. Only solution is to not have chocolate in the house.

<comment><USER12> I'm totally opposite - "Don't eat it - more for me" goes though my head. Seriously addicted to sweets, I can't go a day without a treat, but I can go months without alcohol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Depends. With friends at college I drink, this summer I was at a lake to get away and code, and drank very little. I've smoked pot everyday for periods of time, both productively and not, and have no problem stopping when I need to. Nicotine is a bit harder... you definitely get the physical addition. I'm working on kicking it though.

I've found that the busier I get, the less drugs and alcohol I consume. Or at least my drug intake changes to stimulants like coffee and nicotine. But I don't really feel bad about adjusting my habits as needed, there's nothing to "miss", I'm just choosing to do something else with my time. Also, what I do is in a large part dictated by who I am around, and what we do together socially.

I have teetotaler friends, or friends who drink but never smoke, and I've never had an issue with them not participating. Though these friends are usually down to hangout if we go to a bar or something, since we'll be having a good time anyways regardless of consumption. Do what you feel, man. :)

</comment><comment><USER14> I was a non-drinker during college, but learned to enjoy drinking in social situations after graduating. I got to the point where I was becoming an amateur whiskey drinker, but stopped drinking when my wife got pregnant. That lasted about 7 months and I never really got the taste back.

We drink beer now, mostly Belgian, with dinner. One beer, two or three nights a week. I can't really stomach whiskey anymore if it's not in a mixed drink, whereas I used to drink it neat or on the rocks on a frequent basis. That said, a good mojito or caipirinha would make me pretty happy when I am out with friends.

My biggest motivation for laying off the drink was that our babies needed us and we needed to be there for them. They were helpless and being in a clear state of mind was the obvious way to make sure we could care for them. Now that they are a bit older (18 months), they want to play and I want to play with them so I still don't take to drinking too much.

</comment><comment><USER15> I used to not drink, partially on the basis that my understanding was that it is healthier. Then someone showed me the mountain of evidence for the positive health benefits of moderate drinking: [http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/AlcoholAndHealth.html#.UlasF...](http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/AlcoholAndHealth.html#.UlasFFDbOSo)

Now, I drink moderately, an option that seems left out of most conversations about this topic. That means I never drink more than 3 "standard" drinks a day, rarely fewer than 1. I never drink those 3 any faster than an hour (because I'd never drink 3 glasses of anything else that fast either). At that rate, I'm never drunk. I'm never unable to drive a vehicle. I'm never foggy- headed or otherwise impaired. Likewise, I never have a hangover.

</comment><comment><USER16> Neither. I started drinking beers with my buddies when I was in 9th grade. By my early twenties I started to realize that there wasn't any new ground to be discovered via alcohol and a few years later the choice between reading and drinking after work became more obvious and reading more often won out.

I reached a point where drinking as an activity ceased being an interesting hobby.

When my beloved quit three years ago, pretty much any reason to drink socially disappeared and other than a weekend in the mountains with some 9th grade buddies and a beer at a couple of dinner parties I have abstained.

And that's pretty much the essence of it - I tend toward abstaining from alcohol, not teetotaling. I'm fortunate that I can take that approach. Some people have to forswear alcohol completely in order to avoid its potentially destructive side effects.

</comment><comment><USER17> I never drank until a Vegas trip a couple of months ago. I still don't stock beer in my fridge, but when I go to bars, beergardens, I do get a glass.

Beer is really an acquired taste, but I do like its taste. I tend to drink after a lot of beer, so I don't get drunk, I do feel a little buzz though.

As a teetotaller for my whole life, what do I feel? The main reason I stayed away from alcohol was my fear of addiction. And that fear is still there...I don't want to drown my sorrows with alcohol, ever. I want to be able to feel the complete pain, get over it, and move ahead with life.

So my advice is: you have a choice. You don't need to drink a lot. But one beer and a few shots won't make you drunk. On the contrary, it makes you appear much more sociable. It sounds like a cop-out, sure. But each to his own, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER18> People drink for many reasons, I suppose, but one of the common ones is to lose some inhibitions. But looking at myself, I'm already more uninhibited than is probably good for me. It seems like I'm where many people get after two or three beers. So, since I seem to be permanently there, I don't really see the need to drink. If somebody wants to have a couple of beers to join me, that's fine.

Getting drunk is a bit different matter. Getting drunk means you're not really in control of yourself any more, and bad things often happen thereafter. Worse, you're not enough in control to make sure that bad things don't happen. It's pretty unwise to put yourself in that situation.

</comment><comment><USER19> Was a cheerfully enthusiastic social drinker until I had a bit of a "long dark teatime of the soul" (unrelated to drinking) three months or so ago, at which point I gave up everything but coffee while I needed to focus. Am surprised to report that I haven't missed it. Have had a drink on a couple of special occasions since, and didn't enjoy it very much.

In the future I can see myself drinking on special occasions, but not habitually - I really hadn't realised the extent to which I was doing it out of habit rather than for pleasure.

As for coping, I'm now spending over an hour a day in the gym on workdays, which is a much better deal!

</comment><comment><USER20> Why is MattOhio12's post [dead]? I'm guessing it's because his early submissions didn't go over well.

I think if dead comments are upvoted by people with accounts in good standing and showdead on, they should be un-dead-ed.

</comment><comment><USER21> I used to drink daily.

I went out with some friends that are super-hardcore drinkers and drank too much. Took the train home, but it was rerouted, so I grabbed a Citibike. Hit a pothole. Went over the handlebars. Landed on my head and may have broken a rib. Laid down on the street for a while, and remember thinking that this was probably the end. (I realized a while later that people say they feel really warm when they're dying, but I was really cold. Returned the Citibike and went home.)

Anyway, I don't drink much anymore. I do brew my own beer, though! (And drink that on an occasional basis.)

</comment><comment><USER22> Don't Drink: 1) My dad turned mean when he had a little to drink. 2) My brother was a jerk after two beers. 3) I don't want to be a drink. 4) My friends were idiots after they drank and got in SO MUCH trouble. 5) I know that 10%-20% of all deaths are due primarily due to alcohol (WHO) and the world would be a better place without it. 6) I like soda to much to ruin my chances to drink them delicious calories with that gross stuff.

Don't ever miss drinking and when I am around drinking I am always feeling like I made the right decision.

</comment><comment><USER23> I drink occasionally, at most two drinks (half Vietnamese; I fall asleep if I drink more). On average maybe one drink every two weeks. I've recently gone low carb, so even less moving forward.

The most alcoholic work environment I've known was Andersen Consulting. We had a well stocked open bar made available for every after hours gathering, including training. I started drinking Scotch because I hate Scotch, no-one seems to think less of someone who asks for Scotch, and could nurse a glass for an evening without a problem.

</comment><comment><USER24> Every now and then I'll buy a four-crate (it's hardly a crate) of Kopparberg. Sometimes they'll last me months (one a month) or a couple of days.

I don't drink often, but when I'm out with work or some mates, I'll have a couple. I prefer driving though - I hate being a passenger, especially when I've had a few drinks.

Instead of drinking alcohol, I do tend to drink a lot of energy drinks. That's my problem.

</comment><comment><USER25> I drink, in fact I brew my own beer, wine and cider, but I've never been drunk. My opinion has long been that it's a pity beer has alcohol, and that it's a pity that alcohol contributes so much to a beverage's unique flavors.

Actually, I'm just a big beverage guy. I get just as psyched about a tonic and infused simple syrup combo as I do about a great beer.

</comment><comment><USER26> There's some evidence to suggest that drinking every day, or even drinking well over the recommended limit, could be healthier in the long run than abstinence.

[http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/truth- wo...](http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/truth-wont-admit- drinking-healthy-87891/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I like beer, don't care much about liquor or wine but won't turn it down. I like to open a can of beer at night while I code a bit before going to bed and sometimes I go for a beer after work. I may drink around 0.8 beers per day.

I do abuse coffee, I think I'm in need of a tolerance break

I'm in Spain.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think fear of dependency is overstated. I have sex with my wife almost every day, and when she's away I miss it like hell. Regular sex makes me happier and more emotionally stable. Could I be addicted? Should I be worried?

Just because you like something doesn't mean you're an addict

</comment><comment><USER29> Social drinker. I rarely get more than tipsy, even when I give myself permission to (e.g. parties and pub crawls when I don't have to be up the next morning). If I do get drunk, I'm unlikely to get a hangover. I almost never drink alone.

</comment><comment><USER30> @OP: see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8339988](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8339988) (I saw that thread before this one). Congrats on the move. It feels great, no?

</comment><comment><USER31> Daily drinker as well. Although it varies. Sometimes I'd have a week without taking a sip without realising and other weeks I'd get through a bottle of wine over the course of a night after work.

</comment><comment><USER32> Since turning 30, I've noticed my hangovers have started lasting all day. Who has time for that? I still drink fairly often, but rarely more than a drink or two a night.

</comment><comment><USER33> Two units per day with some days drink free and not savin units up for the weekend.

Units are a UK public health thing. units per serving is given by ABV * serving size in litres.

</comment><comment><USER34> Geez, I must be living under a rock. I thought 'teetotaler' meant tea drinker, and OP was asking whether you drank alcohol or tea.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm a daily red wine drinker. Trying to keep it at, or under half a bottle of vino. Wine, like food, is better when shared :).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Teetotaler

</comment><comment><USER36> Yes, I really enjoy some iced johnny walker black on fridays after a long productive week. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Btw, Johnny Walker was a teetotaler.

"John (Johnnie) Walker (1805 – 1857) was a Scottish grocer, who originated what would become one of the world's most famous whisky brand names,Johnnie Walker, despite the fact he was himself a teetotaler"

Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_(grocer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_\(grocer\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Rarely social drinker, except when it comes to a red wine with a first class dinner.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Drinker

</comment><comment><USER38> Don't drink, love me a good hit of dope (heroin) tho

</comment><comment><USER39> teetotaler.

If you can you should do this as a poll: [http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll](http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, have you ever been a drinker?

Don't have enough karma to create a poll, there are the two options below as comments

<comment><USER40> Poll created: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8339900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8339900)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hehe, you owe me some karma ;) Just kidding, thanks for the poll, I voted for the teetotalers, surprised how many they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm a social drinker.

</comment><comment><USER42> Huh? Burb!!

</comment><comment><USER43> It easy for me to avoid alcohol because every drink I have ever tried tasted like it was full of poison.

<comment><USER4> I don't drink either, but I decided to try the scientific method regarding beer, to see if I don't drink it because I truly don't like it or because I'm influenced by knowing the effect alcohol has on my body beforehand. So I tried the following:

* I got myself some German non-alcoholic beer, to remove alcohol from the equation altogether. This measure is flawed, though, because apparently non-alcoholic beer sucks. In the interest of science, we'll temporarily dismiss this as an excuse from drinkers and move on.

* I went to the Guiness factory in Dublin, and ordered myself a quarter of a pint. This should be a good baseline beer.

Result 1, non-alcoholic beer: it tastes awful. I'd describe it as sparkling tomato juice. Regular drinkers were apparently right.

Result 2, alcoholic beer: it tastes like beer. It turns out I don't like beer.

I don't know what I was hoping to get from this experiment, but there you go. Expect a paper one of these days.

<comment><USER44> Beer can be an acquired taste, Guinness especially.

<comment> vertex-four As a beer-drinker, and lover of stouts and porters... I can't drink Guinness. It's dreadful.

<comment><USER31> I'm Irish and I'm still not a fan. It tastes of boring, Irish guilt and dread. Most of my designer friends are very partial to it, but it's more a case of having the one Guinness and then moving onto other beers.

<comment><USER28> Room-temperature bottled Guinness (the old man's pint) is _far_ nicer than draft</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans - <AUTHOR> http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ <comment><USER2> This is probably one of the greatest pieces of long form journalism I have ever read, and I've read a lot.

You'd be doing yourselves a disservice by not setting aside some time and reading this all the way through.

<comment><USER3> Past midnight, couldn't stop reading.

Can't imagine the sheer horror of their predicament in that terrain, during the summer heat.

The author deducing how the Germans ended up in that canyon was a stroke of investigative genius.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This guy also wrote about his hunt for the crash site of a predecessor of the SR-71. I enjoyed reading it: [http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and- other-strange...](http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other- strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/the-hunt-for-928/)

<comment><USER5> Mentioned at the very end of the story. Hours of endless fun. He also has a sidebarlink, but from personal experience many people may not click: he goes places and tells lot of stories, should you wish to try them. [http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/miscellaneous- adventures/](http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/miscellaneous-adventures/)

Also here's the report from another group that went hiking there successfully in early 2010. I do hope that the 'animal bone' the teenager is holding is indeed from a burro. [http://www.panamintcity.com/backpacking/anvilspringcanyon.ht...](http://www.panamintcity.com/backpacking/anvilspringcanyon.html)

<comment><USER6> Good find! Was there any followup on that bone? That trip was March 18 2010 and it wasn't until the last week of November 2010 that the officials allegedly helicoptered their 4-5 man team in for an overnight to recover the remaining bones.

Further studying the trip log, the bone discovery appears to be early in their hike while they were still in Lost Spring Canyon. This is a considerable ways east of the Germans' area.

<comment><USER6> Following up: I confirmed from the source that NPS looked at his picture and it was an animal bone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Those who argue about the level of danger of that terrain should note one really important aspect: young children overheat really quickly in thelse environments. In these scenarios even if given water reserves, adults will outlive children (initially). There are plenty of tales in Death Valley about this. So with kids the risk is an entire level higher.

<comment><USER8> Do you know why? Is this a surface area vs volume case, except in reverse e.g. the environment is pumping heat into small creatures faster than big creatures?

<comment><USER9> A child will have significantly less water mass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What is amazing is the scope of the search that took place, both when the Germen's car was found and, several years later, when the human bones were located. It is gratifying to know there are people in the S&R teams who will devote their time trying to find (or, very often, recover) people who have gotten into trouble.

<comment><USER11> Also credit goes to the human penchant for curiosity, an observation I'm suggesting because of recently watching the TNG episode, "Clues."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's hard for me to second guess but I think if it had been me, as soon as the car got stuck I would be backtracking the way I came in. If a car made it in, it's clearly going to be pretty easily walkable, and you're heading back towards more main roads where a passing car is more likely.

I can't imagine taking off into the brush with no water or gear. Especially with kids.

<comment><USER13> The author did an excellent job of getting into their heads in the situation and rationalizing their decisions. They underestimated road conditions; "their pamphlet offered an (erroneous) alternative, apparently shorter route back down to the valley in the form of a road down Anvil Canyon;" they made an easy-to-make wrong turn; and they were operating under an assumption that help was a few miles south instead of dozens of miles back.

 _" Given the information available to them, where could they best find it? It is likely they had gone the entire day without seeing another human, so their entry route offered little hope of others. In examining their maps, Ballarat was many miles away, and with unknown services. Furnace Creek, with everything they needed, was far to the north, out of their reach. Even the paved Badwater Road on the valley's east side had only intermittent traffic and was in a zone of lethal heat. But there was another possibility... [only about 8 or 9 miles to the south of them]"_

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here's a map someone made to go along with the story:

[https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?dg=feature&msa=0&ie=UTF...](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?dg=feature&msa=0&ie=UTF&mid=1RQa5pgo6pybGmqfRTX3moi-6f4Q)

<comment><USER15> I got kind of obsessed reading this story and needed to follow it on Google Earth too, my map has a few extra places marked, such as the landing sites, China Lake sites, and final resting place.

[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FdGZI6DDRPe3Y9-dtpLGGtDr2p...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FdGZI6DDRPe3Y9-dtpLGGtDr2pQ&usp=sharing)

<comment><USER6> Thank you, I couldn't locate the tower without this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've heard about this incident first hand from old timers out in DV, having gone for years myself.

The warning at the start of the piece, maybe merited, feels a bit over the top.

The story itself is quite intriguing.

<comment><USER16> Reading through the story, I had heard most of it while in the desert a few years ago. The writer's style generally rubs me the wrong way on multiple fronts.

It's an interesting story and case, but I can't get over the "style" of the presentation.

<comment><USER17> I was not a huge fan of the style either, but it does a fairly good job of keeping the reader interested. That said, the amount of digs he takes at various local and federal agencies is really unnecessary.

<comment><USER18> I dunno, I think he earned the right to criticize them. It was fairly mild, considering the effort he put into it compared to them. And he was complimentary to them overall. He didn't even launch into what would probably be an epic rant if he were to provide all the details, but rather stopped himself.

Apparently he has gotten the "style" feedback enough that he felt it necessary to put a full disclaimer at the head of the article.

<comment><USER19> I think the effort he put in is pretty hard to justify objectively. He can do what he likes with his time, but it doesn't mean the various agencies deserve criticism for doing less.

<comment><USER20> It wasn't doing less. It was not sharing helpful information with someone who'd earned rights to it through assistance, and dismissing very well-founded advice and input.

That said, it's _very_ harsh territory, and local government has very few resources.

<comment><USER21> He comes across as very earnest; that might be misread by some people as obsessive. He also did do some very questionable things like remove the day planner and other items. It could be that law enforcement didn't really want to work with him any more than they had to. It's hard to know, we don't get to see that side.

I really enjoyed his account. I've spent a lot of time doing field work in the Mojave (I am a plant taxonomist), and it's such a neat place to explore -- at least in spring time, before it gets too hot.

<comment><USER20> Uncovering human remains after 8 years in the desert of foreign nationals, hours from the nearest signs of civilisation, at risk of one's own life, and wanting to demonstrate to others that the claim is substantiated: removing an item that provides solid proof strikes me as grounded.

The author clearly deliberated over, and fairly considered the merits, of removing other items.

Consider too: finding something _once_ in the desert does _not_ mean you're likely to find it again. Animals, weather, rains (rare, but often overwhelming), or other humans could further disturb the scene, or you could simply lose track of where the item had been (even with GPS) or be distracted by false hits (the reflective surfaces which turned out to be rocks).

Particularly _after_ discovery of the remains had been reported and multiple parties were aware, with information being leaked out.

I find nothing malicious, and nothing reproachable, in his account. Though note that this is _his_ account, there may be another side.

<comment><USER21> The items have been there for the past eight years. They will last another few days until authorities can come back and work the area. He had a camera to document the find, and survey flags to mark the items. There was no reason to take these things, especially as a enthusiast with no permission from the NPS to do what he was doing and no official involvement in any kind of search. Even if he was in the right, it likely did piss off NPS staff and law enforcement.

As far as "risk of one's life," that seems a little over the top to me. Yes, it's the desert, and yes, it's remote, but people do go hiking and backpacking in Anvil Canyon, there is a cabin with water 4 miles away, and he had a SPOT (at least his partner did) to signal for help in case he got in trouble. The most dangerous thing he did was probably the speeding on the rush back to Furnace Creek. Single vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death in Death Valley.

<comment><USER22> I think this is one of those cases where initiative and begging for forgiveness paid off.

It did seem like he was doing it to satisfy his own curiosity more than anything though. Be interesting to know what the family thought of his write up if anything.

<comment><USER21> Yes, and it really is an excellent write-up. It captures the flavor of the Mojave, even if there are some things he could have done differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if the German government recognised his efforts in some way. That would have been a nice gesture. Even if just a photo or handshake from the Ambassador or the Consul in LA.

</comment><comment><USER24> Extremely well written, a sad story full of important lessons. I will certainly remember it if I ever find myself wandering onto unknown terrain.

<comment><USER25> I dunno, he meanders through the story in a very long-winded way, including bunches of stuff that doesn't actually move the narrative forward. A good editor could have helped him cut maybe a third out of that without losing anything of significance. Then again, it's a blog so no big deal.

<comment><USER24> Naturally it could be better but I was riveted. My patience has suffered far more at the hands of more established authors like Tom Clancy and more recently Neal Stephenson with stuff that I really don't need to know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What fascinated me about this article is how much info they were able to gather. The context of my fascination is the idea that currently the powers that be are asking to track more and more and more in the hopes of pre-crime detection. The ability to collect so much information in such a hostile place seems like if you are motivated, it was already all there in 1996, no more is needed.

</comment><comment><USER27> I came across this blog a while ago when doing a deep dive into EM-Drives. Turns out the author did his master's thesis under one of the original pioneers of that field (well the field is still really new).

Awesome to learn something new about and old source :)

</comment><comment><USER28> "There are some who will say that any backcountry travel in Death Valley using a normal street vehicle in Summer is inherently foolish. This is certainly a debatable topic."

No, it's not.

<comment><USER16> The last wild flower bloom(not this year, 5 or so years back), a buddy and I only had a 2wd Tacoma at our disposal. The back roads we were used to (out to Butte Valley, for instance), which aren't all that bad were a challenge and we opted to play safe.

Any time of year, parts of DV back country are not to be taken lightly. You may not see anyone for days if something goes wrong.

<comment><USER29> Tacomas are tough little trucks though... I've seen them go into and out of places they really have no business being.

<comment><USER16> They are, but tires play a big part in being able to handle terrain as well. And typical tires on a 2wd Tacoma aren't usually that rugged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What is a wordfence? Anyone else blocked from reading this "article?"

<comment><USER31> Here is an archive.org mirror from June :

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160619164015/http://www.otherh...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160619164015/http://www.otherhand.org/home- page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/)

It looks like a (2012) tag should be added to that submission, the 2012 wayback snapshot looks exactly the same as today.</comment></comment>


Achieving Empathy for Institutions - <AUTHOR> http://www.muleradio.net/thebigwebshow/115/ <comment><AUTHOR> Two very smart, very experienced people talking about important things.</comment>


Rate my app: adore.ly - like your Facebook friends anonymously  - <AUTHOR>

It's almost that time again: the time where lovers are mushy and singles are grumpy. A lot of apps are rolling out during this time claiming to help you find "the one" without the fear of rejection.
To celebrate this occasion, we've launched Adore.ly, our brand new Facebook app.
The concept of adorably is simple: A logs on and adores B. B gets notified and signs on. If B adores A, we disclose both their identities. Otherwise, it remains completely anonymous.
Here's how we are different to restrict trolling and to provide a much easier experiencer: -no registration, log-in with Facebook Connect -you only adore your Facebook friends -you just click on the person you like from your Facebook friends list and we send an invitation to their Facebook inbox.
- you are only restricted to 3 adores - you can not repeatedly adore and un-adore someone - we don't like trolls. - mutual adores will be revealed any time between 6-36hrs after both users adored each other. This is to ensure that each adore is genuine. <comment><USER2> This is actually a pretty neat idea. One problem I see is 99% of Facebook apps in this genre are complete spam, meaning you could get grouped in with them and ignored.

<comment><USER3> I agree with this. What we at Adore.ly are trying to do is to convince users this isn't the case by limiting it to their friends, and strictly stating our rules on how we prevent trolling and spam.

But yes, this is definitely an issue. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, I'm glad that this is limited to 3 adores.

awesome, so me and my (currently 20) low friend count remain anonymous because nearly all of those 20 friends have 250+ friends.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, we felt that by restricting the number of adores, we can stop people from just firing it out to everyone. We also stop you from repeatedly unadoring and adoring really fast.

The goal is to make each adore feel special. Still a work in progress. We like iterating fast, so things break sometimes!

<comment><USER4> That is really well thought out.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, we spent a lot of time figuring out ways to prevent users doing trials-and-error to find out who adored them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://adore.ly></comment>


Show HN: I Build a Simple Yelp NoWait Using AWS - <AUTHOR> https://coderecipe.ai/architectures/8497613 <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys I recently found out Yelp's waitlist feature and found it quite useful, so I reverse engineer a super simple version of the system :) , do you think this is useful? Any comments will be super appreciated!</comment>


BlackBerry Phones Get Free Calls Over Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/blackberry-phones-get-free-calls-over-wi-fi/

<comment><USER2> RIM is allowing basically VOIP calls over BBM for free.</comment>


BinPipe Binary visualisation tool - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/walesey/binPipe <comment><USER2> So what does this program do? The README doesn't explain anything.

<comment><USER3> Looks related to this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15164166](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15164166)

<comment><USER4> Thanks, [https://codisec.com/binary-visualization- explained/](https://codisec.com/binary-visualization-explained/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of this: [http://binvis.io/](http://binvis.io/)

[http://corte.si/posts/visualisation/binvis/index.html](http://corte.si/posts/visualisation/binvis/index.html)

(Ancient HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11077222](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11077222))</comment>


EU telecom commissioner says ISPs will not be allowed to charge Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bd1c3c5a-475d-11df-b253-00144feab49a.html

<comment><USER2> I have viewed my monthly allowance of 0 articles...

<comment><USER3> First result on this google news search at the moment: <http://bit.ly/dvVAkb></comment></comment>


Show HN: Open source Deep Learning Background removal service - <AUTHOR> Me and my colleague have been working on a small POC for Background removal. We used semantic segmentation trained on selfies, and documented the process of training and deploying a Keras model with Docker, Heroku and a Gitlab CI in 3 posts:
https://greenscreen-ai.boorgle.com Server side implementation https://greenscreen-ai-client.boorgle.com Client side implementation using KerasJS
Training post https://medium.com/@gidishperber/background-removal-with-dee...
Deploying Keras model to Heroku with Gitlab CI https://medium.com/@burgalon/deploying-your-keras-model-3564...
KerasJS client side post https://medium.com/@burgalon/deploying-your-keras-model-usin...
Server side source code https://gitlab.com/fast-science/background-removal-server
Client side post https://gitlab.com/fast-science/background-removal-vue <comment><USER2> When I tried the client side version on the same image, it wasn't good compared to the server side. Are you using a different model on the client?

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed I had a problem converting the latest model to KerasJS

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really cool! Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER4> very nice concept, too bad the greenscreen-ai-client a bit slow

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. I'm looking forward to finish our implementation using WebDNN. It's super fast</comment></comment>


Ask HN: what happens when founders are in different stations in life? - <AUTHOR>

I've been invited to found a company with an entrepreneur who is quite older and already established (has had startup success).  He (I presume) would be majority owner.  He brings experience as an operator and a wealth of connections; I bring technical skill.  Given this dynamic, can anyone speak from personal experience on what this kind of partnership was like in practice? <comment><USER2> I'm looking forward to hear from people who's had direct experiences, but in general I'd be more than skeptical towards someone significantly older than me, with no technical skills, asking to "partner" in a startup project. Chances are that he is somehow using your technical baggage in order to achieve his personal goals, with no real interest in creating a true partnership and using your status of so-called 'cofounder' as an expedient to get the job done almost for free. It might not be your case, but I'd stay with the eyes wide open anyway.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, if the guy's not providing technical know-how or a desparate, need-to- make-it hustle, he better be bringing money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've had 2 experiences. The first was with an older entrepreneur who was also very technical. He handled most of the business work and his share of technical workload. He was open to letting me (and others) learn and take as much of the business work as we wanted to gain experience. I had known him for many years prior to doing this startup. Even though the startup eventually failed, it was a great experience.

Second one was with an with a entrepreneur who was technical enough to be dangerous. He had clear ideas on what our product could/should do but was completely hands off on how we implemented it. Again he was willing to let me into the business side if I choose to get involved in it. He had a much larger ownership percentage than I did, but he also brought about most of the business contacts and had a huge amount of domain knowledge (recognized expert in the field.) He also personally financed the company when there were cash flow issues. He had a personal line of credit to pay the bills that I did not have to worry about.

So in both my cases, there was a clear establishment of ownership and responsibilities. I think think the ownership and personal trust is the key. In both my cases I didn't have to worry about getting screwed over by either one. That is always a possibility, but it really pays to know who you are going into business with. The saying that it is like a marriage is very accurate. It is important to establish the value that each person brings to the table. At both startups, there was a large amount of work done 'at risk' that was converted into equity. I'd get that formula defined up front so that it is established. This helps ensure that your work has value in everyone eyes.

</comment><comment><USER5> These arrangements require strong people willing to be rigorously honest with each other.

Too often I have seen "Mr. Brains" partner up with "Mr. Wallet." Sooner or later Mr. Brains thinks the business would be nowhere without his ideas. The business would have launched successfully with a nickel of capital. Mr. Wallet sooner or later thinks the business was self-ordained to succeed and even a monkey could have launched it. His capital was the critical ingredient and you could have been replaced by minimum wage high school kids.

In this situation -- far more than any other -- you need extremely good legal documentation. (Define this as a buy-sell agreement, with extremely clear mechanisms for how to deal with the situation where there is a disagreement and one of you has to leave.) Otherwise you, as the person with the thinner wallet, will lose if things come to push. In legal battles the win usually goes to the person who has the financial staying power.

From your brief description of the situation, you are facing an odd hybrid of getting a co-founder as well as getting an investor. Analyze the situation from both perspectives.

In my experience, things seem to work better when business partners face approximately equal risks and expect approximately equal (maybe I should say proportional) rewards. Otherwise, the weaker one is a disguised at-will employee with a contingent, equity-based salary.

</comment><comment><USER6> It all depends on the type of business your establishing. If the business ties into the physical world in some way and the agreement is that you handle the technology while he handles everything else then this arrangement seems like a good match. If instead, the business is entirely virtual then you may be setting yourself up for frustration.

I have run 2 virtual-only businesses with partnerships such as the one you have stated and each time it ended in frustration, unlike my real+virtual businesses which were successful. The problem with being the only person with technical skills in a virtual-only business is as follows:

1\. Your effort and risk is typically front-loaded, meaning that you are required to create the entire product before your partner is able to utilize the majority of their skills operating the business.

2\. If he is financing the business then prepare to feel like an employee. The money guy is usually the decision guy as well.

3\. Prepare to possibly be taken for granted. Many non-technical partners read media headlines regarding overseas outsourcing, teenage tech geniuses, and turnkey software. This avalanche of information gives them the impression that technical work is easily and cheaply contracted or purchased. The truth is that paying for technical talent capable of creating a quality product is still ridiculously expensive. Unfortunately this is something that is usually learned through past experience so hopefully your partner either has that experience or is smart enough to see through the media hype.

4\. The work never ends. Unlike a technical partnership where everyone carries equal workload, you are responsible for it all. Every bug, every update and every post-launch adjustment that takes your partner 5 seconds to request and you 5 hours to implement. It's all on you, and as a startup don't expect to get quality technical help anytime soon.

5\. We are all biased. Nothing is more annoying then spending 18 hours coding only to see your partner make a few phone calls and call it a day. Even if your partner was doing their job perfectly with those calls it is still only natural to have days where you feel the workload is "unfair". This can apply to both business partners when the responsibilities are different.

</comment><comment><USER7> My co-founder is considerably older than me, but is effectively a silent partner giving me free-reign on the project while providing the cash to get it moving. He does have some experience in accounting and big-business though, so he has some useful skills, but will mostly be staying out of the way.

If he had come to me with an idea, I would have been much more sceptical about working with him as he has pretty much zero technical knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm in the same boat & would absolutely love some good arguments to help me claim my fair share.

<comment><USER9> > good arguments to help me claim my fair share.

There is no such thing as a fair share.

You're bringing something to the table. So are other people. The deal doesn't have to take place and it can take place with different people, so the question is "what does it take to make a deal".</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What to do to protect against NPM malicious activities? - <AUTHOR> Hi, yesterday's episode showed us how risky using NPM is. What would be a strong and practical alternative? Is it to save the node_modules and use that instead of downloading the packages while building? Thanks <comment><USER2> First thing that comes to my mind is to have your own mirror that downloads the packages if it does not have them locally, otherwise just serve the local copy.</comment>


Show HN: Truck.app – an rsync client for Mac - <AUTHOR> http://bonhardcomputing.com/truck/#2018-11-21 <comment><USER2> This has been posted a few times in the past month and a half. What's new in the latest version? Also, how does this compare to Transmit?

<comment><AUTHOR> Slow and steady with the addition of features over the last few months ([http://bonhardcomputing.com/category/news/](http://bonhardcomputing.com/category/news/)) and how does it compare to Transmit!? Transmit is an FTP app; Truck uses rsync-over-SSH.

<comment><USER3> FTP? Are you kidding [https://library.panic.com/transmit/transmit5/protocols/](https://library.panic.com/transmit/transmit5/protocols/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't get me wrong; I like Transmit, I've used it a lot. But it doesn't do rsync over SSH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This mentions try for free many times but doesn't mention pricing anywhere. Why don't you have clear pricing information on the site that's easily accessible?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's 12 USD. I will add this more plainly to the website.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. I may be an outlier but I won't download the trial until I know the cost. Appreciate you taking the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Curious why you choose Python? Is core logic implemented in Python? Was it hard to setup process for building and packaging app ? Any plans to release in Mac App Store? Ty.

<comment><AUTHOR> I find Python to be one of the least worst languages. It took some difficult weeks to figure out how to build and package, although, to that end, PyQtDeploy came along at just the right time. It's already in the Mac App Store.

<comment><USER5> > It took some difficult weeks to figure out how to build and package

I had the exact same experience with my PyQt-based file manager [1]. Because of this frustration, I open sourced its build system [2]. I believe it could have saved you those weeks of work. Maybe it can still help you if you want to add automatic updates on Mac, or support other OSs (Windows, Linux).

1: [https://fman.io](https://fman.io)

2: [https://build-system.fman.io](https://build-system.fman.io)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow! I did not realise you had made a build system as a standalone project. This is excellent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any advantage over using rsync in a terminal?

<comment><AUTHOR> Obviously several. It's quicker to learn. It's easier to use. A non technical person can use it. Etc etc.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Selling old Project Assets - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN -- I've got tons of old and new project assets, and I'm sure many others do too. Does anyone know a place to sell these, or some sort of place where HackersNews members could sell old assets to each other such as:
Site designs
Old code or programs
Domains, etc <comment><USER2> You might have some luck selling your domains at <http://sedo.com> or <http://flippa.com>.

For things like site designs and old code I would take a look at the marketplace section of the Digitalpoint forums or maybe even <http://themeforest.net>.

<comment><AUTHOR> I checked out ThemeForest and Digitalpoint, the former means you have to sell 100 copies to actually make something, and the latter won't pay more than $500 for anything.

<comment><USER3> If these are old assets that would otherwise go to waste, selling them for any amount is a win. If there is something useful you can do with them, do that instead.</comment></comment></comment>


Dropbox to open Austin office - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/austin

<comment><USER2> I wonder whereabouts. Evernote moved into our building last year. Maybe we'll get some more cool people over here.</comment>


What are some good ways for map or lbs apps to make money? - <AUTHOR>

I am working on a map app with large user base and trying to connecting people with local services on map. I was wondering if there are any good ways of making money other than straight banner ads. <comment><USER2> If they are local services that still sell online, you can charge mimal amounts for sending traffic to their website and even more if they end up purchasing something. If the business is not online selling, you can still charge them so the they entry is promoted on the map (perhaps visible in bold). You could add a premium tier for business accounts to give them insight as to what sort of traffic lead (potential) customers their way: what were they searching for, any extra info you have about the user, you can also traffic statistics data, and suggest way to improve results and visibility. You can bundle up your services with traditional marketing such as business cards and leaflets and sell the whole things as a package etc etc Many ways to do it, but you definitely need scale as ARPU will be minimal.

</comment><comment><USER3> How about charging money for your product? You could either charge the providers of the services or the customers.

If you're looking for other models, I wrote descriptions of a baker's dozen of them here: [http://taprun.com/revenue](http://taprun.com/revenue)</comment>


FCC Chairman Opposes Government Takeover of 5G Wireless Build-Out - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-deputy-director-andrew-mccabe-to-step-down-1517249397?mod=breakingnews <comment><USER2> Not sure you linked to the right story. FCC chairman opposes nationalizing a 5G network, is it because there would be no competition, or because the gov would be making its own provider, or what?</comment>


Accepting an offer Monday, startup versus traditional... what should I be looking for - <AUTHOR>

I've been unemployed for a few months following a layoff, and now have to decide between working for a small startup as their 4th employee, 2nd developer or taking a normal 8 to 5 job at a large company (over 30,000 employees).  What should I be looking for?
The startup idea makes sense and seems valuable. They are running transactions on the existing software, but aren't profitable yet.
The following is fixing my comments on funding.  They have 1 VC with first round funding, some public funding, and some private investors from within their related industries.
The original deadline for an answer from both was tonight and starting Monday, but I am going to see if I can extend it as the startup offer only arrived at 2ish.
Both offers are a slight pay cut from where I had been, although the startup does not currently offer benefits. I'm getting married in July and we're currently looking to buy a house, while planning on postponing kids for a least a year. <comment><USER2> Sounds to me that you are interesting in joining the startup more than the large company. What on your mind is that you try to rationalize and compare the stability the large company offering against the possibility of success of the startup.

Since you are young (I just assume so, I'm 24) and have few dependencies and debts, if I was in your shoes, I'd decide to work where my passions would want to work. With the startup, you can make a much bigger impacts and have more freedom to create and innovate. Bigger company provide you a more stable life, but do you see yourself working there for 1, 2, 3 years?

My thinking is that you can always get a job with a traditional company. It's a matter of putting together a solid resume, working through the network of friends and recruiters to place yourself in the right place. On the other hand, joining a start up may offer you the chance to do something different. In a way, you can really learn a lot from working your way at the start up, wearing multiple hats -- these should be invaluable experience that you can brag about in your resume for future employees should you apply for a new job. Best of all, you still get paid working for this start up.

Here's my quick list to compare the pros and cons between the large company job and the startup job:

Large Company:

\- you're a number, not a name

\- what is the chance of you being able to do something creative?

\- how difference the salary would be, compared to the startup

\- benefits: insurance and dental are important, if you need insurance, then I'd do some research to see if you can get adequate coverage if you work for the startup company.

\- 401K: nice to have, but don't let it determine your life now when you can follow your passion and do something meaningful

\- you probably can get a job at a company anytime when the economy recovers.

Startup

\- you're their 4th employee. 25% of the workforce.

\- equivalent salary. Based on what you said, this should be enough to get your house.

\- benefits, retirement: is there a chance for stock options? For retirement, how about starting a Roth-IRA for yourself (you should do this anyway regardless)?

\- health and dental insurance: you can do some research so you won't get caught in emergencies without proper coverage, especially when you plan to have kids in the near future. If you're wife can get you on her insurance plan, then it's one less thing to worry about.

\- sounds like your passion is here. You do want to work for the startup. Ultimately, what's your gut telling you?

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Outstanding job of putting my thinking into writing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're joining an early startup you're making a big bet on the quality of the founders and other early employees. How well do you know them? What's their track record prior to this startup?

Joining as an early non founding employee is not great on the risk/reward ratio. You take on almost as much risk as the founders with much less upside. If you think the company has a high probability of being successful it may be worth it, but I'd evaluate them very carefully.

<comment><AUTHOR> All 3 are coming in with business experience in the industry.

I only know them from the interviewing process.

From what I've seen and heard there is a strong potential for rapid profitability. They are currently turning down venture funding, and going from using consultants to expanding the developer base.

<comment><USER4> _strong potential for rapid profitability_

Just as an FYI, every startup from pets.com to paypal has said this.

There is also a strong potential for a slow agonizing death.

Go with whichever one you feel will give you the most career AND personal network/contacts growth.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was part of the slow agonizing death at a smaller company with 15 years history. It's not fun even when it's just your salary riding on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here are the questions I would ask:

Are they actively turning down funding or have they just decided not to seek it?

If the former, who have they turned down?

How much angel capital do they have?

What's their burn rate and runway?

Have any of the principals started companies in the past?

When are they going to add benefits?

Those things will help you assess stability.

</comment><comment><USER6> Go with which one you think you will like the best, if the pay is similar. On HN people naturally assume this means a startup but sometimes the bigcorp is the correct choice. For instance, I would work at Apple before I took a job at another online music startup, but I'd work at another online music startup before I took a job at Oracle.

Upside for non-founder early stage employees is pretty bad unless the company is Google quality or flips in 18 months. I won't ever be an early stage employee again unless it's a weird situation that pays $100K+ per year. Founder, sure... early stage employee... no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am wrapping up 4 months in a similar experience that hasn't worked out.

Before I accepted I put together a spreadsheet which calculated lost salary and opportunity costs versus potential return for a 2, 3 and 5 year period. I had to fudge some numbers but it was a really good exercise and recommend going through for your situation (ie: wife, house, future kids, etc...)

Regarding stock, some questions I asked along the way:

\- How Many Shares / What percentage of company do I own? \- What type of stock is it and what restrictions or exercise rights do I have. \- How will my shares be diluted over time? \- Can I see the term sheet being sent to potential investors?

After the calculations I was comfortable with the risk/return for me and did it.

But now 4 months later, they are out of money and starting Tuesday I'll be looking for something else.

</comment><comment><USER8> Also, you may want to consider what additional benefits the large company has to offer, aside from just the "stability" supposedly inherent.

I say this just to balance out the conversation, because it seems like it's considered a given that it's a straight risk vs. reward between the startup and the large company. I'm not saying this is necessarily so, but if your potential spot in the large company is something that (e.g.) you will enjoy, will allow you the opportunity to learn new things, etc., take that into consideration as well.

Maybe this large company job could be a good place to go into a holding pattern for a while. You could be making income and still be on the lookout for another startup opportunity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good job with the counter perspective. My main concern is the risk of being overloaded.

Based on my last two jobs (1 year and 6 months) the larger companies are also subject to buyouts and layoffs. Based on the position descriptions, the large company would be joining a team that solely does middle ware, while the small company will be hitting a bit of everything.

Looking closer at the offers, with the possible bonus, the salary at the two places should be the same. As long as I avoid burn-out, getting in on the ground floor should present better experience and roughly equal pay.

Ok, it seems clear to me which way I'm leaning. This weekend should be more interesting as I'll be talking about with my fiancee's parents. I'm fairly sure they'll be arguing for the more conservative approach.

Thank you for the feed back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What's your risk tolerance? Do you have living expenses for enough time to find a job if the startup doesn't pan out as quickly as hoped for?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the last addition to the question helps address this. At this point, I'm looking at getting married and buying a house in the next few months. It's salaried, with stock options.

<comment><USER3> What is their runway?

<comment><AUTHOR> My current understanding is that they have several investors, and are currently turning down VC funding. I'll have to ask that explicitly.

I believe due to outside deadlines, they want to have the system fully up and running by July.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> its a question of stability. you say you're getting married and want to buy a house, with kids in the future.

how financially stable are you? if you were to take the startup job, and it were to go south in 6 months or so, could you handle that? could you handle the wedding and house and kid while searching for a new job, if the startup were to go under? etc..

<comment><AUTHOR> At this point, we're financially stable. My current unemployment seems to be running slightly higher then burn rate, and I have a fair amount in savings. The homes we are looking at are within the range of what we can cover provided that one of us still has a job, and the mortgage and one car payment will be the only debt between the two of us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is the startup giving you equity or options?

<comment><AUTHOR> Options ... any recommendations on how to interpret these?

<comment><USER12> For each possible exit, multiply fraction of the company you're likely to have at that exit, the value of the company at that exit, and the likeyhood of that exit points and account for time. Add up those numbers.

For example, let's say that you're being offered 4%. Suppose that you think that there are two likely exits - a complete crash and burn and a $100M exit after four years and two rounds of 50% dilution.

We can ignore the crash and burn because 0*any finite number = 0.

If you think that the $100M exit is 25% likely, the value of the options is $250k over four years.

In reality, there are probably a couple of exits worth considering. Since big exits tend to be relatively rare, you'll find that much of the expected value comes from small/medium exits. (Redo the above with a 1% likelyhood of $1B, a 4% likelyhood of $100M, and a 10% likelyhood of both $10M or 20M exit.)

You should be able to ask them about the various exits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does your future wife's company have a benefits plan you can be part of?</comment>


Where New Slang Comes From - <AUTHOR> https://pudding.cool/2017/02/new-slang/ <comment><USER2> This reminded me of an article a couple of years back showing how deaf people would come up with signs for internet slang. It'd be neat to see it updated.

[http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/internet/168477-inter...](http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/internet/168477-internet- american-sign-language)

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty interesting attempt. The idea of catching where a word pops out of the primordial psychosocial ooze and becomes a signifier is a compelling idea.

Cant help but feel that "Using Google searches for words' definitions" is catching these things when Memaw is looking them up not the kids...

The generation of slang that I have seen in life gets defined in practice. When something is google search mainstream it has ossified to some extent.

I remember the first time I heard 'mansplain' and since i am an old dude (older even than 'elder millenials' which is a term from the article that I liked) - I am sure it was old when I heard it back in 2014 on twitter. At the time I got it in the context of Lucille Ball saying 'splain me' in the way that she did on her show...

In the context I didn't need to do a google search - I just laughed my head off and found other examples on twitter and tumbler, reddit etc

For me at the time this was new and very funny. I would see it grow into other variants 'x-splaining',etc. Occasionally I use it in speech, sometimes in an ironic way when I am tasked with explaining something to a group.

I guess the point is that this is really intersting but i more phenomenology than ontology. I think peak google searches are when this has reified into something - first step into making it into the OED. When it is peak google the word would get . disgusted eyeroll from your typical teenager.

Anecdotally I heard 'triggered' in a google social media (what was that called again) discussion and mistakenly thought it was a joke. I got all kinds of blocks and hate and learned that this was something that had actual currency in certain circles and I should be aware of this in future conversations...

We coin these things all the time - most of them become private jokes, some take off and become viral. Most dry up and blow away. Some make it to a headline or a list of "10 words to knwo when you check your teens chats..." But the actual origin is probably in some subredit , twitter exchange, etc. These things dont pop up with definitions, and what is more interesting are the connotations - the way something like 'deplorable' got whipped around social media or a while and became a badge in opposition to 'sjw'.

That would be really interesting research - show clouds of meaning where these things bounce around and get the secondary meanings and associations for the brief flaring up before they become dank...

</comment><comment><USER4> The author of the article tries to identify "who" coined a particular slang word. Some researchers believe this question is mistaken because, they posit, these words evolve through a process similar to biological natural selection. See for instance, "On the Origin of Tepees: The Evolution of Ideas" by Jonnie Hughes.

Whatever process ultimately describes the evolution of language, I find it interesting to consider it as possibly due to impersonal, natural forces. This avoids the agency detection bias; one of our many cognitive biases (i.e., bugs in our mental machinery).

<comment><USER5> Similar to inventions and discoveries: is it the "great man/woman" theory, or just an idea whose time has come in the historical process?

Some work is simultaneous, like the discovery of pluto. Several ideas in maths/science are named after independent developers. OTOH, sometimes classified ideas still haven't been independently invented when declassified many years later.

So, I guess it's the safe, boring answer: some is, some isn't.

<comment><USER4> Even when we credit individuals, and rightly so, as we do, for example with Einstein, ideas don't spring ex nihilo into existence. Rather, as I like to think of it, they grow and emerge out of a certain intellectual environment. There is a reason Pythagoras didn't discover the Theory of Relativity.

My point was simply that asking "who invented (discovered, created) X" is almost always the wrong question. We have a strong tendency to assign credit (and especially blame)to a person because that is what we are wired to do. One thing science has showed us is that the world isn't that simple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reminds of the current Motel 6 radio spot where Tom Bodett tries to speak millennial lingo.

[https://audioboom.com/posts/5551957-motel-6-millennials](https://audioboom.com/posts/5551957-motel-6-millennials)

</comment><comment><USER7> Language is fascinating. I grew up in the deep south with both southern redneck slang and hardcore ebonics which makes for some interesting slang. I haven't lived in the US for a long time now though so I barely knew any of the slang words in the article.

Anyways, some of the best redneck/ebonics stuff I remember were:

1\. I'm fixin' to take a shower. == I'm going to take a shower.

2\. She's a yappin == She's talking all the time.

3\. I got a hankerin' for some ice cream == I'm craving some ice cream.

4\. I didn't get a lick of that inheritance money == I didn't get any inheritance money

5\. I done talked to hime == I talked to him (done can be placed before just about any past tense verbe)

6\. What it is? == whats up

7\. I axed him == I asked him.

Anyone else got some great slang?

<comment><USER8> The use of "be" to indicate action instead of state. (Often followed with the word "like" which is another case study in meaning. Maybe "like" indicates the speaker is aware the portrayal isn't exactly as represented but close enough for the conversation?)

"I be like, you crazy".

"Bitch be all up in his face".

"He be walking home from school".

I don't think it's an error, but rather possibly a subtle meaning with this use of the word "be". Something like at that time, the subject "is" their action. And tense doesn't matter so much.

<comment><USER9> I remember reading an article about this. I think the "be" form distinguishes between current and habitual/regular action.

He working. ==> He is working right now.

He be working. ==> He works regularly./He has a steady job.

Or maybe it's the other way around; I read the article a long time ago.

<comment><USER7> Yes you are right on with your examples. That is the way be is used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm from the Bay where we hyphy and go dumb

From the soil where them rappers be getting their lingo from

</comment><comment><USER11> The etymology of broccoli to mean weed, at least amongst my family/acquaintances, comes from the practice of trying to persuade children to eat broccoli by referring to florets as "trees"

</comment><comment><USER12> The Splendid Source and The Jokester just wouldn't work as stories anymore...

</comment><comment><USER13> Disappointed to not find "Cuck" in the list

</comment><comment><USER14> Slang is everywhere. Even the university I went to had their own slang.</comment>


Alex Gaynor - Thoughts on HipHop PHP - <AUTHOR> http://alexgaynor.net/2010/feb/02/thoughts-hiphop-php/

<comment><USER2> _Almost every single website on the internet is I/O bound, not CPU bound_

This claim is patently false.

Under load, a surprisingly large percentage of applications are CPU bound. Disclaimer: I make my living doing web application load tests on a consultative basis--I don't have a study to cite offhand, just experience. I _should_ publish a study, but that's a different issue.

<comment><USER3> That's interesting. I'm sure some people here, like me, believe the opposite, since I/O is so much slower than processors now. Can you give a bit more of an explanation as to what kind of applications are CPU bound and why?

<comment><USER4> I/O is slow _if you actually do any_ , but RAM is so cheap that many Web sites shouldn't need much I/O.

<comment><USER5> I think that by I/O in this case people mean network I/O, not disk I/O.

Edit: Sorry, maybe I was jumping to conclusions. Databases and files are of course not always cached in-memory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Because of differences like this ... I believe that the work done on HipHop represents a fundamentally smaller challenge than that taken on by the teams working to improve the implementations of languages like Python, Ruby, or Javascript._

I think this is true. On the other hand, it's not Facebook's job to do research. If they can benefit equally from solving a simpler problem, then that's what they should do.

I agree with the author's points, I just want to make explicit that Facebook didn't make wrong choices. It's just that their work is probably of limited value to everyone else.

<comment><USER7> There are many more people working on PHP apps than there are people working on dynamic language runtimes. Facebook's work is of limited value to everyone else for a limited value of 'everyone else'.

<comment><USER6> I'm taking the author's arguments at face value, that their project is of limited value to others because most PHP apps aren't CPU bound, and that they only handle a subset of the language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My thoughts exactly; this is really not too exciting. (I will disagree that web apps are never CPU-bound. That has always been the bottleneck for me.)

I haven't seen the source code yet, but I think Chicken Scheme did everything HipHop does but many years ago. And, there are some hard problems to solve when implementing Scheme, notably handling continuations. PHP is much simpler in comparison.

I do see good things coming out of this project, though. As people are enticed by the biggest temptress in computing, speed, they'll learn to run and deploy web applications that aren't as simple as "ftp this HTML file to a directory". Once PHP's only advantage over other languages is gone, and developers realize that it wasn't that big of an advantage, they'll switch to better programming languages. Then we can forget PHP ever happened, and the field can move on!

<comment><USER7> You think PHP is more likely to decline in popularity because there's now a way to run it faster? I suspect you are in for a very long surprise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Firstly, there's the question of what problem HipHop solves._

It reduces infrastructure expenses of the top 100 web properties so much that the pain of building it, testing it, rolling it out, administering it, and maintaining it is worth it.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder where this myth that "[websites] on the internet [are] I/O bound, not CPU bound" seemly implying that optimizing CPU usage is a waste of time, comes from.

Since the I/O bound generally comes from latency, rather than total throughput, the number of concurrent connections a single webserver can handle is often proportional to how much memory and CPU resources each connection uses. If you have an asynchronous design for your server, concurrent connections don't cost physical threads - they just cost the bookkeeping overhead in the kernel. The faster you can switch between those connections, and get finished with work on them when I/Os complete, the fewer physical machines you need to serve a website to a given number of users.

Or to put it another way, the saturation point of processing asynchronous I/Os is CPU-bound, even when speeding up individual requests is I/O-bound.

<comment><USER11> Well...

In a dynamic web application, at first, you will nearly always be database bound. Faster algorithms and faster programming-language implementations on web servers will do nothing whatsoever for this (and increasing the concurrent load of requests the web server can handle will in fact only overload the DB even more).

That's when you start doing caching, and that's why caching has such dramatic effects.

Once you've got your caching going nicely and your DB humming along, you will end up bandwidth bound. Not by your own pipe, but by clients; you may have a nice fat line running out of the data center, but your users may be on anything down to mobile phones or even dialup, and you'll only be able to push responses to them at the speed they can handle. This is the spoon-feeding problem, and once again algorithms and language implementations on the server can't do anything at all to help it.

That's when you start putting fast, light, highly-concurrent reverse proxies (nginx appears to be winning the market share battle) in front of your actual web servers, and once again you will see a drastic effect. Or you combine caching and proxy into one component and do Varnish.

Once you've done this, you might finally start to reach a point where you're genuinely I/O or CPU bound on a server that's actually running your application code. Or you might not; there are other roadblocks you might run into first.

At any rate, optimizing CPU usage is, for the vast majority of websites, a waste of time at least until you've been through the phases I've outlined above. And, generally, I think you'll find that's the advice (the "myth") you've been hearing: fiddling with programming languages and algorithms is literally a net loss of performance until you've dealt with quite a few other (and more important, performance-wise) things.

<comment><USER10> > _Once you've got your caching going nicely and your DB humming along, you > will end up bandwidth bound. Not by your own pipe, but by clients [...] This > is the spoon-feeding problem, and once again algorithms and language > implementations on the server can't do anything at all to help it._

Here. Here is where you made the mistake in your assertions.

> _That's when you start putting fast, light, highly-concurrent reverse > proxies (nginx appears to be winning the market share battle) in front of > your actual web servers_

My point is that the number of web servers you need in this spoon-feeding case is inversely proportional to how CPU-optimized your servers are. The spoon- feeding problem, as you put it, is just bookkeeping in the kernel (keeping track of open sockets) and iteratively processing I/Os when they come due, and is _CPU-bound_ , unless you actually have approaching 64K open sockets, in which case a reverse proxy won't do, you'll need DNS tricks etc.

<comment><USER12> You have misunderstood the problem. The fact that clients sit behind lean, low-bandwidth/high-latency lines means that your webserver spends its time waiting for them. The very definition of I/O bound processing. Solving the spoon-feeding issue is much more complex than simple book-keeping in the kernel, because it is independent (from the angle we're looking at it) from the server's design and operation.

<comment><USER10> And I think you've completely missed my point.

My assumptions:

* Server built around async I/O

* Clients with low bandwidth and high latency, but in aggregate insufficient to saturate the server's bandwidth

* Caching etc. on the server side so that server-side I/O bandwidth isn't the limiting factor

* Sufficient concurrent connections that you need more than one webserver

Under these assumptions, each webserver doesn't _wait_ , in the OS blocking sense, for any given connection. It processes I/O completions _as they come due_ , as fast as it can. It is this process that is CPU-bound; if less than 100% CPU is utilized, it means that there are periods where no I/O completions are currently due.

There are memory costs per concurrent connection: whatever is needed to pick up processing as the related I/O completes, and for some structures representing the open socket in the kernel.

But these costs don't magically add up to "waiting". To the degree that the webserver is tied up in "waiting", it is that the kernel is idle between CPU interrupts generated from the networking hardware. In other words, it's doing nothing, and if you have too many machines spending their time doing nothing, you can eliminate some of them.

Now consider the same assumptions, except in the synchronous case: what this does is move the memory and CPU costs around and increase them. The memory cost per concurrent connection increases, to store the stack etc. The CPU costs increase because now context switches are required in between each I/O completion. These costs can be substantial; they can add up to being a limiting factor in themselves - but as part of either the memory or CPU limits of the machine, _not I/O_.

Consider this: why would one need more than one webserver if the servers were "I/O bound", and not on server-side bandwidth, but rather on spoon-feeding clients?

Since it's not server-side bandwidth, it can only be because of either memory or CPU bounds. And where do those bounds come from? They come from the CPU or memory cost associated with concurrent connections, as well as the CPU and memory costs of processing any given request. You can minimize the costs associated with concurrent connections by leveraging an async I/O design of the server. But minimizing the CPU and memory costs of per-request processing is pure gravy in terms of reducing the number of machines you need to keep running to process X concurrent requests.

And it is here that the myth lies. Just because you may need to keep spoon- feeding very slow clients, such that decreasing the CPU cost of any given request would not visibly affect the client's perceived latency, that doesn't mean that optimizing the server for CPU usage is pointless. The less CPU usage you spend, the less hardware you need for the same load; likewise for memory.

Another way to think of it: how can e.g. nginx work as a reverse proxy, if it runs on a single machine and is spoon-feeding lots of slow clients? Async design, and offloading CPU/memory requirements to other machines, that's how.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> he may meant "it is not as CPU-bound as in the case of rendering or en/decoding video".</comment>


Major power failure affecting trains and airports across UK - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-49300025 <comment><USER2> No idea if anybody from the energy industry browses HN, but:

Looking at [https://gridwatch.co.uk/](https://gridwatch.co.uk/) there was:

\- No reduction in demand

\- No reduction in generation/increase in exporting

\- No increase in frequency

How can there be a massive powercut but no changes in any of the above? Where does the power go?

<comment><USER3> Looks like there was a generation outage -> [https://twitter.com/upsideenergy/status/1159870347618865152](https://twitter.com/upsideenergy/status/1159870347618865152)</comment></comment>


DeveloperAuction Expanding to Designers, Offering Free Intern Placement - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/05/developer-auction-begins-offering-free-intern-placement-tests-expanding-to-designers-as-it-pushes-to-change-recruiting/

<comment><USER2> Has anyone here ever used Developer Auctions? I'm curious if the engineers actually get higher salaries or if it's just on par with market value.

<comment><USER3> To be perfectly honest, 87% of candidates who go through the process and take a job, go with a company OTHER than the one that made the highest offer.

In fact, many more interview requests get rejected for "not interested in the company/industry" rather than insufficient compensation.

It's almost always more about the opportunity & the company, rather than the pay.

<comment><USER2> For sure, I don't disagree with that. As a developer though, one reason I would try developer auctions is for a chance at some ludicrously high salary. I'm just wondering if that is the reality or not. Seems like it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The concept is really interesting, is there an equivalent of DeveloperAuction in Europe?</comment>


Ask HN: What is your Node.js & MongoDB development setup & procedures? - <AUTHOR>

Please, share the setup for static resources used by your team (Build Server, Staging server etc.) as well as the setup every new developer needs to do when coming to the team (installs, configurations etc).
It's great if you can share whatever wisdom you consider "hard to get on your own" about the development procedures (unit and integration testing, linting/hint-ing) with these particular technologies.
If you are willing to go into some details about important topics such as deployment and scaling strategies, this will be cool as well.
What front-end frameworks do you use for your web applications using your Node backend (AngularJS, Ember.JS etc)?
Links to other resources are also great.
Thanks for taking the time to share your mastery. I hope this will turn into a great online resource for devs just starting to use NodeJS & MongoDB. <comment><AUTHOR> To kickstart a discussion:

Does anyone use the MEAN stack: mongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS and NodeJS?

[http://blog.mongodb.org/post/49262866911/the-mean-stack- mong...](http://blog.mongodb.org/post/49262866911/the-mean-stack-mongodb- expressjs-angularjs-and)

I am starting a project and currently I am leaning towards NodeJS with Express and MongoDB on the server-side and RequireJS(or WireJS) and Knockout on the client side. I intend to use QUnit for the client app's testing, but have no idea what should I use for Node testing (unit and load/stress). Since it will be just me, I will probably setup Jenkins on my own machine for a build server. I am currently using appfog for staging/testing.

That's pretty much it. (My project includes a mobile part as well, but I guess this is outside of the scope of this discussion, so I wont get into that.)

<comment><USER2> I'd recommend using Mocha for all unit testing (client and server side). [http://visionmedia.github.io/mocha/](http://visionmedia.github.io/mocha/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I've seen Mocha mentioned in this post for Node test-running on Jenkins: [http://www.johnhamelink.com/testing-nodejs-with- jenkins](http://www.johnhamelink.com/testing-nodejs-with-jenkins)

I will definitely give it a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hosting everything on Linode.

nginx as a load balancer (running 4 node processes on different ports as upstart scripts with respawn) and for serving static files.

Express + Jade (but I do most of the things on the client - calling REST API)

redis as a session store: [https://github.com/visionmedia/connect- redis](https://github.com/visionmedia/connect-redis)

DB - MongoDb (I also use Mongoose: [http://mongoosejs.com/](http://mongoosejs.com/))

I also host most of the static resources on S3 and they are served through CloudFront CDN. At first I used this module (for easier deploying the resources to S3): [https://github.com/niftylettuce/express- cdn](https://github.com/niftylettuce/express-cdn) but later I had to rewrite most of the things to handle my specific requirements (using knox).

Tests (client and server side): Mocha + sinon + chai

CSS: Less + less-middleware

JS: UglifyJS + express-uglify

I'm also running a worker process and a scheduler process. For communication between the worker, web and scheduler processes - RabbitMQ.

Deploying everything with git push in master (custom github post push hook). No build server. Have nothing to build.

Client side: jQuery (of course) + AngularJS + custom code for bootstrapping the SPA.

KnockoutJS - Naaw.

Hope this info helps.

P.S. Authentication: [http://passportjs.org/](http://passportjs.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I guess you do continuous integration manually running tests, if there is no build server to pull latest commit on your repo and run tests?

<comment><USER3> It's custom code which pulls the latest commit when github hook hits the endpoint. It's... a few lines of code.

It's only me working on this so I run the tests before each push but I guess running the tests on the staging env will be like a few more lines of code. I s'pose at some point I'd want to keep test results and I'll need a build server. May be.

Forgot to say that I also deploy everything on heroku (for free) as a staging environment (before pushing to production).

heroku + mongolab + redis to go.

ah yes, and new relic for monitoring what's happening on live.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your detailed answers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look into Brunch.io for the app assembler, and go from there. I like that it's not opinionated like Yeoman and I choose the rest of the libraries as fashion comes and goes. For my latest project, I'm running Brunch, Ember, Express, Mongo. It's awesome.

Brunch comes with its own small express push-server to get you going, but it can be replaced by overriding the startServer function and going from there.

For auth, passport.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I will definitely check it out.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What has your experience been with job duration? - <AUTHOR> I've been a software engineer for 4 years. I've worked for 4 different startups within that time. It hasn't always been my choice to leave but I'm finding that I enjoy the change of technology, people, setting, and experiences. I feel like it's made me a better developer. What has your experience been with job duration and what have been the pros and cons of your duration preference? <comment><USER2> About 4-9 months. If I haven't trained the guy who's replacing me for 5 bucks an hour less or haven't been forced to choose between my health or the companies profit within this timeframe I'd be amazed. Literally has been my last decade of employment.lesson to be learnt. Don't work in construction, there's a reason why the industry has the highest suicide rate of males between 18 an 35 in aus.

My duration preference has never been met. Stable employment is a dream for me (ten fold if it's even remotely I.t related).

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to here my friend. Luckily the city where I live is currently in a tech boom so there is no shortage of tech jobs.

<comment><USER2> Yeah I have literally thrown my life in the back of a car and driven to the other side of the country hunting work. I'm definitely not opposed to "going where the work is" have done major moves every 4 years just trying to find something solid.</comment></comment></comment>