Blind since birth, writing code at Amazon since 2013 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/blind-since-birth-writing-code-at-amazon-since-2013 <comment><USER2> Articles like this make me worried about my future as a blind programmer. I enjoy back-end database and web services development, not accessibility work. A lot of the I'm a blind programmer articles I've scene appear to be blind developers who work on accessibility. I hope they work on accessibility do to interest not because everyone assumes if you a blind programmer accessibility must be the type of work you want to do.

<comment><USER3> People naturally assume you would be interested in accessibility work, but I suspect if you simply say that's not what you are interested in, _and_ demonstrate normal levels of ability in other work you'll be fine.

What could happen though, is if your ability is not in line with other programmers. For accessibility work people will hire you anyway (since you have unique experience), but for other work you'll have a hard(er) time.

And since there is an implied assumption that a blind programmer will be less productive, you are probably right about being pushed toward accessibility work.

The solution is of course obvious (and typical for any kind of disability): Show that your productivity is in line with others. People aren't malicious usually, just unaware.

<comment><USER4> > People naturally assume you would be interested in accessibility work

This is the problem. It's like going to a black person and saying "oh man, I assume you must like fried chicken!"

> Show that your productivity is in line with others.

This also doesn't compute -- I can't think of a link between "you must be interested in accessibility work" and "we'd like you to work on that because your productivity is probably low."

I've faced both of these problems as a mostly deaf developer -- people always assume I want to work on hearing-related things.

<comment><USER3> > I can't think of a link between

I explained that. It's not a link between low productivity and interest.

It's a link between low productivity, and willingness to hire only for specialized work. (i.e. if not for the specialization they would not hire at all, since productivity is low.)

The fix is to show there is no low productivity.

I don't think you actually read what I wrote.

<comment><USER4> I'm not trying to directly argue with you, so I may have missed the details of your post. I apologize for that.

Some of the points you make made me want to speak about the general perception and assumption that a disabled person:

1\. Must have an interest/insight into accessibility work

2\. Must have a lower productivity due to the disability

You even address the latter with:

> And since there is an implied assumption that a blind programmer will be > less productive

and that "implied assumption" is what I want to talk about.

To me, that assumption is very close to racial stereotypes -- assumptions about someone based on their appearance. To keep it in the "disability" sphere, it would be like assuming Stephen Hawking (a clear outlier) is a complete vegetable and unproductive due to his disability. While his disability no doubt makes him less productive at specific tasks impacted by it, his overall productivity is made up for in other ways.

Many people want to put the onus on the disabled person to demonstrate that they're "normal" or "normally productive" in order to bust themselves out of a niche (accessibility work, a special team of "disabled people," a special reading level, etc.) rather than simply assuming that they are "normal" and waiting for a demonstration otherwise, as they would would with any other person.

To me, it's too close to saying "well, we'll see if this black guy is normally productive -- if he's not, we'll put him in the 'urban brainstorming division.'"

I'm speaking about this in an attempt to get a broader discussion on the idea as someone who's been pigeonholed exactly these ways in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a guy who writes code for a living, one of my biggest fears is losing eyesight. Looking at this guy, I fear a little less now :) There is definitely a need for the tech to evolve for blind programmers.

<comment><USER6> Get disability insurance.

<comment><USER7> For real, insurance is an afterthought to many but you are looking at a little money spent for peace of mind.

<comment><USER8> While true this deserves a comment that money may be only second and not the first reason for those fears. Losing the ability to do something you love might be the reason for the comment. The article comforts by showing that being blind does not mean coding ends. You can still be a first class citizen. Though to spoil it a bit, being blind from birth vs. at later age might be different. At least you need a huge period to adapt I guess, which is where the insurance comes in again. Full circle!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What an inspiring story, shows that true passion overcomes every barrier.

And yet, sadly, I have to add this to this beautiful story: is it just me or does this feel like Amazon marketing at its finest?

<comment><USER10> Of course it's amazon PR. They are trying to rehabilitate their less than flattering image as both an engineering shop and how they treat their warehouse employees (the latter: terribly, like something out of a Dickensian novel).

<comment><USER11> of course it's Amazon or: it's on their site

<comment><USER7> It's on this site, too ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a few links on blind programming.

[https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/blind_...](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/blind_programming.org)

And a lot more on programming by voice:

[https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/progra...](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/programming_by_voice.org)

The section on Silvius seems to be a more recent project.

<comment><USER13> I found this video, it's pretty insightful. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0&feature=youtu.be)

Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know this guy, he lives, or used to live in the same apartment complex as I did, and I would see him almost every day at the bus stop. He is a real warrior. Whenever the Front seats were busy he will encourage people to stay seated and he would find an empty seat.

It's very nice to see Amazon wrote the article about him!

</comment><comment><USER15> I did a large project with a blind programmer many years ago. He was the sysadmin of a server I had in the Bahamas. When on the phone with him, I could always hear the speech software gabbling out directory listings and stuff. He was really good too - always been very inspiring to me.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hi-speed screen readers seem to unlock the potential of talented visually- impaired programmers. Forzano and others train up to shockingly fast rates. The plasticity of the human brain has so many uses!

<comment><USER17> How does that work anyways? Do the screen readers just speak ultra-fast? Do they say things like "parenthesis" or "right bracket?" Is there some kind of audio coding of whats on the screen?

<comment><USER18> Yes, they speak ultra fast and literally say the punctuation verbatim. See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0&vl=en](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0&vl=en) for an example ("How a Blind Developer uses Visual Studio"). You can hear it saying "right brace", etc.

edit: typo and clarify what I'm linking to.

<comment><USER19> After watching this I can kind of understand how a blind person would write new code. But I find so much of working on a team with a large codebase is about hunting through mass quantities of code without really knowing what you are looking for, which always seemed like a very visual process to me. Sometimes I find myself scrolling through a 2000 line file looking for a particular shape of the code that I would not even be able to articulate but know it when I see it. I'd be really curious to know how a blind person navigates a large, unfamiliar codebase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I always love reading stories like this - even with such a disability, he has been able to accomplish a feat that is relatively difficult to accomplish for most devs. I have heard my own company has blind developers as well, and accessibility is a first rate concern for us.

I do wish more companies invested in being accessibility friendly - not doing so automatically shuts a portion of population away from the product(s) by default.

</comment><comment><USER21> Here is another video about Michael Forzano from SUNY Binghamton, where he attended to study computer science:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWF8SDFju4M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWF8SDFju4M)

</comment><comment><USER22> Sometimes I imagine how I would cope with writing software if I lost my eyesight, and I don't have an answer so far. The fact that this man is able to overcome that kind of obstacle and work in software is extremely inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER23> For anyone interested:

How Blind People Type and Dial Numbers on a Touchscreen: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16897415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16897415)

</comment><comment> chroem- As someone with vision loss, this is a wonderful feel-good story, but I think the reason why Amazon PR picked it up in the first place is because it's a surprising exception that proves the rule. I've interviewed with quite a few tech companies, some in SV, and was turned down for a combination of "culture fit" and the gaps on my resume caused by my vision loss. I think the fact that everyone, even Amazon, is so amazed that they hired a blind programmer is indicative of a real problem here.

</comment><comment><USER24> Question for anyone who knows:

How do they accommodate blind students for university math exams? Calculus in particular seems like it would be crazy hard to do without a pencil.

<comment><USER25> When I was studying math, a lot of times, I got to take tests at home. Prof would email me a copy of the test in LaTeX (they used it anyway), and I'd mail my answers back in LaTeX or PDF. Worked well for us. I'd just slip out the door on test days, walk the three blocks to my apartment, type up my answers, and mail them back.

In one case, one of my profs actually wrote his own textbook. It was for an intro to theorem proving / symbolic logic class. He also used LaTeX. While everyone else got a printout of the course text, I got a copy of the source code that I could read with a screenreader.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great story. The curious part of me would love to see a video of how he codes and how fast / accurate / contextual the screen-reading software is. Yes, I see the irony in wanting to see a video of that. Still, want to see what the experience is like for him, at least to the degree I could understand.

<comment><USER27> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0)

Here's a video of another blind dev. What I find fascinating in both cases is the speed at which they use voice assistance. I can barely make anything out.

<comment><USER26> Wow. This is amazing. Makes me want to make my software way more accessible to users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I literally can't shut off my machine with my eyes closed. And the screen reader is even worse, I can't even shut that off with my eyes open when I accidentally enable it.

</comment><comment><USER29> This reminded me of RubyConf India talk I attended back in 2013 titled "Turning blind eye to rails development by Siddhant Chothe", that was also quite inspiring.

It made me realize, how rarely we think about accessibility when developing software.

Here is the link to the talk, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqL89VcYd6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqL89VcYd6g)

</comment><comment><USER30> Curious about his mental map for code/software. Often times when I 'visualize' mapping between modules in a software, I observe a latency in visualization because in my mind I navigate through squares or blocks, literally. Obviously he does it differently, and faster. He has an unique ability which probably most of us don't.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder what his development environment looks like. How does the audio reader work when reading code? What language does he work in? I'd be fascinated to get some insight into how he mentally models the code. I can get a lot of information just looking at the way a bloc k of code is structured.

<comment><USER31> There is a video that shows how is environment looks like and what his screen- reader sounds like. It reads very fast. To the untrained ear it is unintelligible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> [https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/giang-the- ad...](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/giang-the-adventurer- grab-s-first-blind-coder-makes-the-world-9312236)

</comment><comment><USER33> That screen reader speed is insane !

<comment> cup-of-tea Yeah, the difference in human ability between trained and untrained is always amazing. What's funny is I'm sure this blind man is more efficient than people who use mouse-driven software to work. When you use keyboard-driven software like emacs or vim it gives you the ability to develop similar speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This story is very inspiring. How is he able to do his work without looking at block diagrams, complicated entity relationship diagrams, writing on paper to clarify among other things which I as a sighted person normally do?

<comment><USER35> I thought you were being sarcastic, but apparently not.

Well, programmers have been doing their job for half a century without BS Entity-Relationship-Diagrams, UML and the like.

<comment><USER34> No, I was not sarcastic at all. I admire the programmer. I was just trying to understand something which was far outside my own experiences. I couldn't fathom how he was able to a successful programmer without the tools most of us use during the normal course of the day.

<comment><USER35> Sure, but that's perhaps true for more essential tools: seeing the code, the debugger window, the output, going through logs, etc.

The ability to see diagrams would be quite low in utility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Used to work with a blind programmer at my old job. He was an interesting fellow

</comment><comment><USER37> I think it would be _very_ interesting to spend some time doing my development from audio only.

Any idea on the easiest way to get going? My environment is osx, iTerm, vim, and safari mainly.

<comment><USER38> 1\. To turn on VoiceOver: CMD+F5

2\. To turn on screen curtain: Right Option+C

3\. For VoiceOver help: Ctrl+Option+H

4\. For keyboard help: Ctrl+Option+K

Ctrl+Option is your VoiceOver key combo as well. Good luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> damn that is incredible! i had a hard time understanding the function names they were being spoken so fast, i wonder if his ears have adjusted and tuned to that speed?

</comment><comment><USER40> That was an amazing story!

I just hope that he is being payed fairly. Here is an example of someone who is disabled and not being payed fairly in my opinion.

>Kandu Industries can pay Chris and roughly 150 other workers substantially below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour because of a 1938 provision in the Fair Labor Standards Act that permits employers, who apply to the Department of Labor for a waiver, to pay lower wages to people with disabilities.[1]

>According to the department, about 20 percent of people with disabilities participate in the workforce, and of that group, about 3 percent, or approximately 195,000 workers, are being paid subminimum wages. These workers typically make well below the minimum wage, sometimes as low as "pennies per hour," according to the Department of Justice.[1]

(Many People With Disabilities Are Being Paid Way Below the Minimum Wage, and It's Perfectly Legal)[[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/many- people-wit...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/many-people-with- disabilities-are-being-paid-way-below-the-minimum-wage-and-its-perfectly- legal/\]\[1\])

<comment><USER41> That's totally disgusting. Not only do they start out with a bad hand, this is then used to exploit them with the blessings of the government.

<comment><USER3> Maybe you should educate yourself more before posting full of outrage.

A good place to start would be in the other comments in this thread.

But I'll summarize for you: The companies are only hiring them as a community service. They cost more than a regular person and do less. Force companies to pay full wage, and they won't hire them at all. Even at the lower wage it's not really worth it to them.

Maybe they shouldn't bother, since people like you interpret helping people as exploiting them......

<comment><USER41> As an employer I've hired disabled people more than once, and in fact am about to do this again in the coming 30 days.

They didn't cost a penny more than their able bodied brothers and sisters to employ. And they got paid just the same amount that other people did in that job.

Besides that a friend of mine ran a whole courier company with nothing but disabled people. All of those got paid full wages as well.

I'm sure there are boundary cases where it can turn into community service but this sounds - with the details available - as exploitation to me.

For European employers _if_ there would be compensation this would be done at the back-end between the companies and the government, no way would the 'minimum wage' be reduced simply because someone is disabled. As if an hour of work by a disabled person is somehow worth less than an hour of work by an able-bodied person doing the same job. You'd have to get into extremes of lack of productivity before you could justify the 'pennies per hour' posted here.

Then, finally: there are institutions here called social workshops. In those places there is a cross between real work and therapy, work that is extremely simple and that basically anybody could do. For those places the people that work there tend to get compensation but it is not at the level of an actual wage. The thing is that the state already pays them a full social security or disability allowance which takes the place of a salary. Anything above that (such as through this work) is a special arrangement, they are not expected to earn a living wage by themselves.

I hope that all this shows you that I've educated myself sufficiently.

<comment><USER42> Wow, you haven't educated yourself at all. You haven't even read the article linked in this conversation. If you had read it, you would have come across the enormous similarities between this program and the social workshops that you describe. Here, since you haven't bothered to read it

> Most people making subminimum wages, like Chris Wilson, work in factorylike > settings known as sheltered workshops, which are supervised workplaces for > people with disabilities. Workers package and assemble products, for > example, sometimes folding paper, making jewelry, or sorting mail.

The subminimum wage is only allowed for people who are unable to work at normal levels of productivity because of their disability - in other words, it doesn't apply to people with a disability who can produce an hour of work that's worth the same as an able-bodied person doing the same job. (Also worth noting that 'able-bodied' is an odd word to use in this context, most of the people in this program would have an intellectual disability, not a physical one.) For your further education, here's an article that contains some examples of how this is measured:

> For example, if an average worker loads 100 boxes in an hour, but the worker > being tested loads 15, that worker could be assigned a wage that is 15 > percent of the average worker's, or $2.25 an hour, rather than Seattle's $15 > minimum wage. ... > With a supervisor, the six workers complete the amount > of work that would normally be done by two people.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/puget- sound/seattl...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/puget- sound/seattles-effort-to-end-lower-pay-for-disabled-workers-would-it-help-or- hurt-them/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Awesome story. More power to this guy, he's an inspiration.

</comment><comment><USER44> How do they use Stack Overflow?

</comment><comment><USER45> I have this weird idea of an experiment, actually two experiments:

\- I want to use my computer with my eyes closed (or blindfolded). Because I'm really interested in exploring the limits of my sense of hearing combined with my speech, plus my ability to use keyboard and mouse. It's like learning to ride a bike. I have not used any accessibility features of any of my OSes (linux, and windows) mainly because of my bias that those features are more like "lip service" than making sure that they are a full fledged replacement of visual user interface (well I have many gripes with the state of visual user interfaces, and by extrapolation, non-visual UIs can only be equal or worse, not better). So a big part of my experiment would be to explore, from first principles, what an ideal non-visual UI would look like, and then develop that software. The funny thing is that my interest in this experiment is not fueled primarily by the desire to help others, sorry to say, but by the fun and the thrill of being able to efficiently use a computer with eyes closed, almost like getting a new mini-superpower. (Surprisingly, my interest in this experiment came about as a result of thinking about going from mouse/keyboard based GUI usage, to keyboard-only vim and tiling window managers and touch typing, while your four fingers of each hand are constantly in the home row and move away only to carry out a specific task. It's almost as if restricting yourself makes you more efficient in some sense).

\- As an extension to this, I'm interested in being able to live in my apartment for a few days blindfolded (including leaving-the-apartment in the experiment would make it too open-ended/challenging). I'm allowed to plan as much as I can beforehand, to memorize what is where in my rooms, kitchen, restroom, etc, and also make a list of strict rules about where a certain thing should be placed after it has been used (e.g., a toothbrush, etc), and then I blindfold myself and see how far I can get. I would need to know where each thing is, but there are too many things in my apartment, so maybe I would want to reduce the number of things I have, and this way it connects to the idea of minimalism, another interest of mine. And again part of the reason for this experiment is the fun, but also to learn what changes can be made in typical apartment indoor so a person doesn't have to rely on his/her sense of sight to live fully (e.g., cook, clean, move around, etc). I guess this is the kind of experiment that vsauce gets to conduct. I think it would be interesting if he creates an episode based around this. (Though I'm ignoring the biggest effect of being in this experiment, the psychological effect of not being able to see).

(edit: It also appears to me that there is a connection between trying to carry out operations blindfolded, and trying to code up something by imagining what that code would do in run-time, because a piece of code running on a computer is almost like a blind/blindfolder agent carrying out operations based on values of variables, etc. So does such an experiment make you a better programmer in some way? or give you a new perspective about running code?).</comment>


Stop Autonomous Weapons - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA <comment><USER2> I had dismissed the idea of AI being immediately dangerous as sensationalism until I saw this.

It does reek a little of the click-bait style. However, that might just be because click-bait is effective and the concerned persons are serious enough about this to step outside of a dry, academic style.</comment>


Protect your privacy - <AUTHOR> http://www.gnupg.org/

<comment><USER2> Or Bitmessage, that provides not only encryption but also secrecy and deniability.

<https://bitmessage.org/>

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_dTotavJZ8></comment>


Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China's Extraordinary Rise - barry-cotter http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2014/08/passages-i-highlighted-in-my-copy-of.html?m=1 <comment> barry-cotter > To understand the Chinese economy you must understand that there are really > two Chinese economies. One mustn't confuse them with each other:

>> "There is a parallel economy that is geographic as well as politically strategic. This is commonly referred to as the economy "inside the system," (tizhinei 体制内) and from the Communist Party's viewpoint, it is the real political economy. All of the state's financial, material, and human resources, including the policies that have opened the country to foreign investment have been and continue to be directed at the "system." Improving and strengthening it has been the goal of every reform effort undertaken by the Party since 1978. It must be remembered that the efforts of Zhu Rongji, perhaps China's greatest reformer, were aimed at strengthening the economy "inside the system," not changing it." (p. 8)

> Westerners often describe China's explosive economic growth as a product of > its export sector. This sector, however, is not "in the system":

>> "The private export oriented sector suffered massive losses in jobs, earnings, and the closure of small companies in 2008 and 2009. But China's banks were not exposed in any material way to this sector. It is simple fact that China's financial system and its stock, bond, and loan markets cater only to the state sector, of which the "National Champions" represent the reddest of the Red. These corporations, the heart of China's state owned economy, are "inside the system." The private economy, no matter how vibrant is "outside the system," and in fact serves the will of the system." (p. x)</comment>


Facebook's Beacon More Intrusive Than Previously Thought - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140182-c,onlineprivacy/article.html

<comment><USER2> I don't know exactly how Beacon works, but here is a rough guess to explain what happened to the author of that article: presumably if you connect to a partnering service, some kind of negotiation takes place to let that service know your Facebook id and wish to log your activities. Not sure if it involves a direct communication between Facebook and partnering site, but I suppose it does (if internet security mechanisms work as they should, there should be no other way).

So now if user logs off from Facebook, partnering site doesn't know about that - how would it? Logging off from Facebook has nothing do with partnering site. Hence partnering site keeps sending information to Facebook.

Measures could be taken by Beacon to avoid that, but not straightforward.

I would expect that if the user deletes all cookies etc and reconnects to partnering site, no information will be sent to Facebook.

Nevertheless, I think many other sites could easily employ something like beacon, without telling the users. I always assumed that lot's of web sites already do that (connected via the ad networks).</comment>


Walking Every Street in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfwalkingman.com/ <comment><USER2> > Call it an exercise in eccentricity or futility, and you'd probably be > right.

The art geek in me sees this 'exercise in eccentricity or futility' a rather interesting activity. Yes, he walked every street, but as he said it himself:

> Nothing is forever, though. I can only claim to have walked every street in > this city at this moment in time. New streets are being built as I write.

He has only walked through every street in SF as they _currently_ stand. His prize is ephemeral. Tomorrow, a coffee shop will open and he won't have seen it. Heck, coffee shops probably opened in the timespan it took for him to finish his journey.

And yet, despite not being able to say "I have seen everything in SF" for long, he can still say "I have seen everything in SF at the moment I saw them". While this may seem a little obvious or silly, it shows how every experience we ever have is unique to us.

I apologize for ending with a cliché but my only conclusion is that the we live for the journey, not for the destination. Because when we reach our destination - when we have finally seen every building in SF - we realize what we have seen is gone, and new things took their place.

<comment><USER3> Something about that is incredibly interesting to me. And for some reason it makes me sad:

You cannot fully understand even a city. It takes too much time -- as soon as you understand one piece, the other pieces have changed.

Cities are small, in the grand scheme of things. When it comes to larger things-- states, nations, planets, there's no way you could ever fully understand them. All you can get is a tiny, ephemeral snapshot, stuck in time.

It's humbling to think about, and I don't really know why it makes me sad.

<comment><USER4> This comment reminds me of a book by Italo Calvino. Probably my favorite of his. It's a collection of stories told by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan about cities in his domain. Somewhat fantastical, but strikes deep to the heart to transitory nature of cities and perception itself.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0156453800/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0156453800/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1441661122&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=invisible+cities+by+italo+calvino&dpPl=1&dpID=51NQqPgtVWL&ref=plSrch)

<comment><USER5> A few dazzling lines on wanderlust from _Invisible Cities_ :

 _... Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches. ...

And Marco's answer to that: "Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a semi-related, semi-off-topic way, there was this challenge of going through all the subway stations of the Paris underground, during the same day (and if possible in the fastest way possible):

[http://www.madore.org/~david/misc/defimetro.html](http://www.madore.org/~david/misc/defimetro.html) [FR]

The funny part was that they wrote a program to calculate and optimize the time to do that, using the length of the lines and the little public info they had; and I thought it was pretty cool. [http://www.madore.org/~david/misc/metro.tgz](http://www.madore.org/~david/misc/metro.tgz)

And of course, it was in 2002, so before the OpenData movements...

<comment><USER7> When I visited Venice last year, I briefly considered whether I could cross all of its bridges at night while the city slept. But I quickly learned that many of the bridges are private, and I didn't really have a feasable way to plan a route in the few days I was there. I'm not even sure I can figure out what/where all the bridges are. It will have to remain for a future trip, should I ever go back.

<comment><USER8> OSM should at least have the necessary data. Planning a route that takes you over all accessible bridges is still a bit of work though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ha, a bunch of us in Dublin tried to work out the optimum route for breaking the current "Guinness Book of Records" record for most pubs visited in a pub crawl. Though one of the team got a decent enough method of working out the optimum route, unfortunately some guys smashed the record in New York. We were unable to match the density of pubs in the 24 hours allowed - I think we needed to be hitting one every four minutes or something like that. I really doubt that it can ever be done anywhere other than New York any more :(

<comment><USER10> I think Tokyo may be able to hold its own depending on the definition of 'pub'.

<comment><USER11> I was just thinking about Golden Gai! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Golden_Gai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Golden_Gai)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is someone who bicycled every road in San Francisco. All tracked with GPS. [http://rideallofsf.tumblr.com/](http://rideallofsf.tumblr.com/)

And someone who walked all of Berkeley, CA back in 2007. [https://walkingberkeley.wordpress.com/](https://walkingberkeley.wordpress.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> One of the biggest changes since he finished his walk is the residential conversion of Treasure Island, which is now open to the public, and home to over 1000 people, and even a few restaurants. Hopefully it's not quite as toxic as it was before. The Navy is still working on that part (as they still are down in the Hunters Point Shipyard).

[http://sftreasureisland.org/news-release/us-navy-hosting- oct...](http://sftreasureisland.org/news-release/us-navy-hosting-october-bus- tour-ti-cleanup-sites)

There's still a plan to develop it more intensely, although it's been delayed repeatedly.

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

[http://sftreasureisland.org/development- project](http://sftreasureisland.org/development-project)

</comment><comment><USER14> Here is someone who walked every street in Manhattan: [http://linkage.cpmc.columbia.edu/Manhattan_Walk/Walk.html](http://linkage.cpmc.columbia.edu/Manhattan_Walk/Walk.html)

<comment><USER15> That's much easier.

<comment><USER16> Not immediately obvious to me. Manhattan is somewhat smaller (about 33 mi^2 vs. 46) and less hilly but I'm not sure that qualifies as "much easier." Frankly, I'd probably worry more about safety in some areas of upper Manhattan than within San Francisco city limits but I'm not sure how much of that is perception vs. reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In the same vein, see also Charles Fleming, who has been finding and mapping public staircases all over SF and LA: [http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-75-secret- stai...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-75-secret-staircases/)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is cool. This person did something similar on a bike: [http://rideallofsf.tumblr.com/](http://rideallofsf.tumblr.com/) (go back a page or so, the project finished a while ago and it has since devolved into Strava drawings)

</comment><comment><USER19> Cool :) reminds me of something similar with Manhattan: [http://linkage.cpmc.columbia.edu/Manhattan_Walk/Walk.html](http://linkage.cpmc.columbia.edu/Manhattan_Walk/Walk.html)

</comment><comment> Ben-G If you enjoy the idea you should read "The Cool Gray City of Love" by Gary Kamiya. He walked (almost) the entire city of SF and wrote wonderful chapters for most of SF's neighborhoods that also cover the history of the city.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd love an app to help me track this. Any know anything like this? Basically show a map of all the streets with the ones you've walked highlighted.

Walking around SF is my favorite thing in the city.

<comment><USER12> Strava.com will generate a heat map of all the roads you've walked (or biked) on. There is even a club that seeks to "Ride Every Road" of their local town.

[http://www.strava.com/clubs/ride-every- road-22350](http://www.strava.com/clubs/ride-every-road-22350)

<comment><USER21> > Strava.com will generate a heat map of all the roads you've walked (or > biked) on.

Warning - I think this is a premium-only feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A similar feat in Sydney, Australia, by an old codger who was walking to keep fit.

[http://www.walksydneystreets.net/](http://www.walksydneystreets.net/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Heh, i think after living in the Haight a bunch of years, i walked, ran, skated, rollerbladed and biked < 5% of the streets

This was good, vid on the steepest sidewalks: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FisaHV2hQYc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FisaHV2hQYc)

</comment><comment><USER24> I would have thought Market Street is the longest, although it changes its name from Market to Portola to Junipero Serra and then turns into 280.

<comment><USER25> The name change is because Market and Portola did not connect until about 1920 or so.

[http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C...](http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C133%2C1112%2CE/2exact&FF=dstreets+market+1918+extension&1%2C9%2C) [http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C...](http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C133%2C1112%2CE/2exact&FF=dstreets+market+1920+extension&1%2C4%2C) [http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C...](http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C133%2C1112%2CE/2exact&FF=dstreets+market+1921+extension&1%2C15%2C) [http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C...](http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C133%2C1112%2CE/2exact&FF=dstreets+market+1927+extension&1%2C7%2C)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This reminds me of the novel Bleeding London by Geoff Nicholson from 1997. One of the characters is trying to walk every street of the London A-Z map. ([http://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-London-Geoff- Nicholson/dp/057...](http://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-London-Geoff- Nicholson/dp/0575400560))

</comment><comment><USER27> It would be fun if he'd attached a camera to his head and then made the hundreds of hours of video available!

<comment><USER28> I make that about 43TB of smartphone HD video, based on his stated walking distance and speed.

<comment><USER27> About $3,000 worth of disk drive space. Quite doable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Where are the thousands of hours of GoPro video?

Things like this were cooler before StreetView.

</comment><comment><USER30> I really like this. I could do the same for Barcelona. It will show nice views. I walked a lot, though, but not everything.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is impressive! I wonder though, which street was his favorite? Or which neighborhood, at least.

</comment><comment><USER32> a very cool accomplishment. it would be neat to see someone do this without the overlap of walking the same road twice.

<comment><USER13> It's likely not to be possible!

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

<comment><USER33> I was going to argue that if every street had a sidewalk on both sides, then we could indeed construct an Eulerian path over sidewalks, but probably there are some streets without sidewalks on both sides.

<comment><USER13> I was thinking it was common for alleys to have no sidewalks at all, but I looked at quite a few with Google Street View, and many do have sidewalks after all (even on both sides!).

An example that I found which seems to have a sidewalk on only one side is Orange Alley, but it's complicated: sometimes the single sidewalk disappears entirely, and in tiny patches a sidewalk shows up on the other side. But I think the alleys probably will undermine your clever suggestion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is It Possible to Be Both a Founder and a Daddy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techinasia.com/be-both-a-founder-and-a-daddy/ <comment><USER2> I'm 30, I have 4 kids (the youngest one only being 1 month old) and my startup, Codeable (<https://codeable.io>), is only a couple of months from profitability (my gut feeling according to current growth). I still get the stuff done, get to play with my kids and even have some time for hobbies and friends. I think it's all about balance (and an understanding spouse to remind you of priorities every once in a while).

I have many friends who don't have kids and always say "the time isn't right for kids". Well guess what, if you keep thinking this way, the time will never be right, it's all about going out of your comfort zone, as you are with being a successful entrepreneur. They also think kids somehow limit you in some way, but to me, it's quite the opposite, they give me new perspective, more determination and of course a ton of laughs!

<comment><USER3> Amen. The thing I found is they changed my working hours. It used to be all day, every day. This led to important stuff getting pushed back because I had so many hours, I figured I'd get it done at some point soon.

3 children later, it's 8.5 hours on weekdays only. It changed my working practises so that the moment I sit down at the computer it's the top priority task right now and everybody be damned until I need my first long break.

I also find myself asking the question when someone is looking for free help/products "do I want to spend time helping this stranger or spend time with my children?" It focuses my attention on the money, but makes you kinda selfish towards your family, in that regard.

<comment><USER4> Wow. This thread has altered my thinking.

I am married and an entrepreneur for the last two years. My wife and I have been putting away expanding the family thing for while, basically waiting for our startup to reach either profitability or a level of funding where I could draw a salary.

How did you guys manage the expenses? Were you drawing a salary or had sufficient revenues to support yourself when your wife was off work/due?

<comment><USER2> There's hardly any expense with one baby, all you need is a stroller and a car seat ($1k combined), you'll get plenty of clothes (as gifts) from relatives and breastfeeding comes free :)

So if you and your wife manage now, you'll manage then just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Time for a game of spot the differences!

"Even with the hectic work demands that I face on a daily basis, I'm still able to be very involved in the lives of my wife and two young daughters."

"Each week, my daughters and I have a "daddy-daughter" night where the three of us go to dinner." (whoah, a whole evening per week?)

"For me, this means setting aside time to relax with my family and give them my full, undivided attention."

"I'm online 24/7 and always checking email."

So I guess the answer to the headline is, if I'm to follow the article, either "no" or "for some definitions of 'daddy'"?

<comment><USER6> I was a much better parent before I had kids, the old saying goes. It proves itself out every day on sites like Reddit and Hacker News.

The description you gave above sounds like any working parent _anywhere_. If the answer is "No" to a startup, then it would have to be "No" to being a simple employee as well.

<comment><USER5> Both I and my wife work and while I may not have a high-flying career with million-dollar IPO's and jet-setting across the world with VC's (and write humblebrag blogs on how to start half a dozen startups and 'still' get to _gasp_ have dinner with my children once a week), I can objectively say that I'm (compared to how it's described in the article - I have nothing to go on but that) much more involved with my children than this guy. Look, everybody is entitled to live his life the way he sees fit, but don't go around claiming you've found such a great work/life balance (and that you're such a great parent) and then have it turn out to be like described. On weekends, I go to the zoo with my children, I don't drag them across the world under the pretense of 'they get to experience so much' to leave them with complete stranger babysitters in hotels across the world, and pretend that waiting times in airport terminals with them is quality parenting time.

<comment><USER7> I think it's generally never a good rhetorical strategy to argue how much better a parent you are than someone else.

<comment><USER5> Well it's true that I lose pathos (and ethos), and generally come across as a dick, but in my experience and congruent with this site's target audience, readers here give logos a disproportionate value anyway.

And maybe I did make the wrong choice when I compared him to myself, it's not about me - but the GP implied an argument about my lack of experience and hence reduced value of my statement. I should just stop arguing on the internet all together, really - it's a no-win situation.

<comment><USER8> Not entirely: I enjoyed reading your comments here (and I agree with them).

It's a warm welcome amidst all the American 'work work work work work life balance' culture that's prevalent on HN (for understandable reasons, after all, most of HN is American).

There's no point in telling each other all the time how you can't do a startup (or good/interesting software work in general) unless you put in 70 hour weeks for two years straight, so I like reading the occasional counter argument, such as yours here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a start-up company as well as a 1 yr old (as well as a wife, which also is an important commitment.) What I noticed after my child was born was that I was even more focused at work and more focused on effective triage to ensure that my time is spend on the most valuable aspects of the business. The strange thing is that as I've gotten more important commitments in life I've been more efficient in business, probably because my triage filter is so specific now and I'be been able to effectively delegate.

My start-up has the advantage that we make money (i.e. profitable) thus I can afford to delegate. If I was single and my company had no money I think that a child both in terms of expenses (they aren't cheap) as well as time would be more problematic.

I full life for myself includes kids and start-ups. I don't think it is an either/or choice.

<comment><USER10> One is hard. Two is four times as hard. Be wary of two...

<comment><USER9> It is part of our plan... :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Except of course that most historical businesses outside of the mobile/social circle jerk have been started by people who had families.The take-home point here is you wont get funding unless you new VC owners can be sure of exclusivity on your life.

The problem with valley funding is its basically reliant on the tails of the distribution,without massive IPOs buoyed by hundreds of millions of users(not revenue!) it is not profitable.The truth is there is a lot of opportunity for businesses which dont go webscale. Here is an idea,find a business as a consultant which has an opportunity in a growth industry (They still exist in a recession). Deliver your projects,go to meetups and parties. Take on larger projects from your customer and get some staff. Then look for new customers,building a business which has revenue in the low millions becomes possible and they if you want "webscale" you can bootstrap it yourself.The return on this business would be a joke to a VC but to you would be life changing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow, all I can say is that it is wonderful to read a "can you do a startup and be a parent?" article that is not about MOMS. (Although since the original post didn't mention anything about school responsibilities, doctor's appointments, bedtime, or birthday parties, I'm assuming that all that is done by his wife.)

</comment><comment><USER13> Does being daddy mean your child is raised by baby sitters?

</comment><comment><USER14> The answer is simple: absolutely! This is clear based on the amount of feedback in this thread alone. Circumstances are different depending on who you talk to but it can clearly be done, and without all the "help" and perks this guy mentions.

I've seen it many times myself first-hand and now I'm living it. I'm in the process of launching my new startup (www.promoter.io) right now with a 2.5 year old son and I just came from being an early employee/executive at another fast moving startup (www.appfog.com).

Oh, and at the same time, my son is battling leukemia. So often times I'm doing some work from the doctors office (~3-5 times per week without fail) or from the hospital.

It can be done, it's simply a matter of how you prioritize I guess.

</comment><comment><USER15> So this founder managed to achieve a degree of success at this that most have not. Good for him.

I'd rather hear more from the larger majority of struggling founders with families, because chances are I have more in common with them. What's keeping them from succeeding and how did he avoid the things holding them back?

I suspect a zero-sum game is hiding in the relationship between this guy his non-founder employees, because I very rarely read about founders with young kids helping their employees in _their_ struggle to raise a family under startup conditions.

There are family-friendly startup anecdotes out there, but family-friendly startups surely aren't the norm.

</comment><comment><USER16> There are many more "founder dads" than people assume. When you become "baseball dad" you will find out that about 15% of all parents in the league are entrepreneurs of some kind. And there is additional 30% of them talking about starting something (from cop trying to start security service to some quite complex biotech stuff).

It seems like when your kids are older than 7 then the probability of being entrepreneur increases as kids get older.

Completely unscientific but make sense.

</comment><comment><USER17> I started my career the year my kids were born.

I started my startup their freshman year of college.

The years between? Corporate 9-5 jobs (technically, I'm still doing that, bootstrapping with a day job). It wasn't so much the time as the stability. I knew what my hours would be, and what my income would be. But with the kids basically adults now and able to care for themselves if needed, I feel much more free to take risks and do extensive off-hours work while ignoring them.

<comment><USER17> As a plus on this, my startup idea is derived from my long career in enterprise software. It's a much more solid concept and more solid market than the sort of monetize-pictures-of-cats stuff that seems to infect young developers. I'm working on a real problem that I understand really well, for customers who have money and are willing to spend it. I'm far more likely to succeed now than I would have been 15 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> IMHO - not w/o sacrificing some of the most critical time you'll spend with your children, or without a world-class support system -- but even then, I question whether it is worth it. I tried and gave up. I'm much happier that I did. I'll revisit it at another time.

</comment><comment><USER19> My first though when I saw this question was "Please let the law of headlines be wrong". I'm a co-founder with two babies. Its hard but not impossible, having an understanding and supportive spouse is imperative.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not technically a "founder", however I am the first employee of a startup having joined from the start and I've bled through stressful times nearly as much as the 2 founders did, pulling 14-hours work days, answering to production alerts at 1 am, freaking out when we couldn't generate revenue, working my ass off to get something working, etc...

I am also the dad of a 3-year old. My son is almost the same age as the startup I'm working on.

At times it is tough, luckily I have an understanding wife. And my son is one of the biggest reasons I get up in the morning.

Being a parent is like a roller-coaster (much like working on a startup). You're sad and stressed when your child gets sick. And a child also gives you some of the greatest joys in life you can have - there's nothing like coming home after a hard day, only to find your child smiling at your return, giving you a big hug or a kiss, never missing a day to express how much he/she loves you.

There is a difference between being a parent and working on a startup. Both have highs and lows, however while working on a startup, in stressful times one tends to adopt a fuck-it attitude. Like, if it doesn't work out, that's OK, you learn from experience and then you move on, so there's no tragedy if your startup fails. Not so with a child ... you only have one shot to raise him right, to provide a good education, to make him happy and balanced and that child becomes your biggest reason d'etre, regardless of how passionate you are about other things, like software development or your startup.

So that's why my son is probably the biggest reason for why I get up in the morning.

Burn-outs for example are a non-issue for me. I've been burned-out before and it's hard to explain for why this can no longer happen - but the gist is my son is like a mirror of me, so his well-being functions like a benchmark. When I'm sad, then he's sad too and I can't fake happiness in front of him (children have a sixth sense about that), so whenever that happens, it's time to evaluate whatever I'm doing wrong and cut out on the stress. You see, I simply can't afford to burn-out, as my son depends on me. Same issue I have with catching colds for example - I used to catch colds quite frequently, but ever since my son was born, my immune system seems to have strengthened quite a bit. I'm not joking, it's as if my body knows that I need to be stronger and acts accordingly.

So yes, it's possible. If you feel the need to be a parent and you have a spouse that agrees with you, then postponing it is going to be the singly most stupid thing you'll ever do. That's because (1) children are worth it and (2) when it comes to having children, you only have a limited window of opportunity and before you know it, you'll be too old and even with all medical advances in this field, it's better to have them while you're young.

<comment><USER21> I agree with your post. I also disagree with PG's stance on needing to have a partner, someone to help you get through the tough times of a start-up. I have partners - a wife and four kids. They keep me going during tough times because I could not bear to let them down. They also keep me sane, because as you stated there is nothing quite like a shitty day at the office followed up by a young child that acts like your return from work is Christmas morning. Somehow when they exclaim "Daddy!" when I open the door, it makes most of the work problems instantly forgotten. This has a positive effect on my ability to deal with workplace stress.

I have also found it useful for framing priorities in my head, and even negotiating deals with suppliers. Having kids keeps my priorities straight. When I think about spending time or money, I think about the impact on my kids. I have told suppliers (I have a manufacturing company) "Every dollar I save, is another dollar I can put in my kids college fund". It has become a useful framework for negotiation. Every business trip is compared to time I won't be able to spend with the kids.

My wife got tenure and published her first book while working on a strict 40 hour schedule when we had our first kid. Now that we have four kids (9,6,3, and 2 months) she is working a strict 35 hour week and working on her second book. I find it an inspiration of what get done if you focus and have four little constraints running around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Plenty of work-a-day entrepreneurs manage to be parents and founders at the same time. Why is it harder in the tech industry? Are technologists just less competent at parenting in general?

</comment><comment><USER23> Entrepreneurs are rule breakers, and "no startups when you have kids" seems like yet another rule that can be broken (assuming it even is a rule).

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes. I'm a father and own multiple businesses/startups. All you need is to get organized.

</comment><comment><USER25> There is a TED talk (I don't remember the presenter's name, talk date, or anything else) where the presenter basicaly asks:

"When your children grow up and asks you why you didn't follow your dreams, do you want to answer - It was because of you?"

At the same time, yes, it's very hard.

</comment><comment><USER26> Betteridge's law of headlines just kicked in again.

<comment><USER27> How so? You can do anything you want. This idea that parents can't found companies is just a platitude that childless entrepreneurs (usually very young ones I might add) use to justify their insane work schedules. The belief that this is the only way to do it protects their egos from the thought they may be working their way to an early grave.

The uncomfortable truth is that 100 hours a week won't guarantee you success, and 20 hours a week may be sufficient to build a serious business. Every extra hour your work is multiplying the base value of your idea, expertise, connections and staff, but it is not going to magically cross some threshold of success when you put yourself on a perpetual deathmarch. If anything, I think those 70th, 80th, 90th hours tend to have dramatically diminishing returns, and time away from the office helps refuel creativity and lead to more intelligent decision making and recognition of opportunities.

Of course that's all just my opinion, but one thing I'm sure of: no successful entrepreneur got there without challenges, and they certainly never got there listening to the million reasons the rest of us said it wasn't possible.

<comment><USER26> I think it's a rare businessman in the startup world who can be successful at only 20 hours a week. Sure, there are some out there, but I'd say not many!

If you are that person, whatever you do, don't let on or everyone will crowd into your marketplace! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This guy is funded by _Sequoia_ and gets to _take his daughter_ along with him on business trips, and _hire sitters_ that the hotel finds (who must be expensive).

There are founders and then there are Founders. There are people who've been recognized by VCs as social equals, and who are real executives within VC- istan but still found companies; then there are the long-shot "let's see if this kid makes a miracle happen" founders on audition.

He's in the first set. He's already made it. His investors are OK with him taking his daughter on business trips, which they wouldn't be if he were some unestablished schmuck like most of us. They'd never be okay with paying for the airfare. So for him the answer is "Yes". But if you're trying to break into VC-istan, I'd say "No". It's not only the hours and travel, but also the income volatility and low wages. Of course, there are lots of businesses outside of VC-istan for which different rules apply.

<comment><USER7> This is the second time I've seen you claim on HN that it's impossible to simultaneously be a company founder and a new parent. This will be the second time I'll tell you that's just not true. Plenty of early-stage founders have young kids. My kids are 13 and 11, and I was a founder when (a) both of them were born and (b) again before they both started school while my wife Erin was working.

This thread is full of other people who have done similar things.

The problem I have with your comments about starting companies and parenting is not that it discourages new parents from considering starting a company, but that it once again posits that _tech startup founders_ are an oppressed class. But consider raising a kid while working full time cleaning offices. Or as a construction worker. We sometimes sound like we actually believe that only the wealthy in this country successfully raise kids, but we obviously must know that isn't true at all.

 _[edited to depersonalize the response; sorry]_

<comment><USER28> I said that if you're trying to break into VC-istan when not yet established, you probably can't do that while raising kids. I said nothing about starting a company (possibly as a side project that turns into a lifestyle business) in general.

<comment><USER7> Again, this is the problem with your "VC-istan" term. I think you should stop using it, because it's helping you slink out of debates that you'd be better off losing. I'm sure there's some definition of "VC-istan" for which entry is foreclosed for new parents, but if you're referring to "first externally funded Silicon Valley startup", you're wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A survey I think worthy of consideration-

[http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_22687870/most- startup...](http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_22687870/most-startup- founders-are-40-or-older-survey)

People in this industry -- moreso than any other, it seems -- often have some need to project their own lot as the _ideal_ way to be in the business. If you're 20-ish and childless, well that's just the bestest way you ever could be, am I right? And so on.</comment>


Asking Smart Questions - <AUTHOR> http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html <comment><USER2> A decade ago I used to point people with dumb questions to this guide. Now I believe I was wrong. It is good when you are facing a smart question, but to answer on a dumb one with a link to the smart question guide or to LMGTFY[1] is a no way.

If you do not like the question, you are free to ignore it. Hopefully someone else will answer. If you see that a couple of days no one is volunteered, you might want to nicely point people to a local faq or to a guide. It is not that hard.

But mostly I dislike this guide due to a stance Raymond and Rick took: "we are cool smart and busy hackers, so go google, search for answer in a mailing lists (mostly completely unusable), read the manual (a few dozens of pages with a good chance to not find any answers), and complete a couple of other rituals to deserve a right to ask us". Go jump to a lake with your arrogance. I'll ask someone else.</comment>


Why I'm boycotting TurboTax this year - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11320386/turbotax-boycott-lobbying-tax-filing-season-tax-day-april-15 <comment><USER3> I often wonder if (many) american's hatred of taxes stems from having them shoved in their face.

In the UK you don't have to file a tax return unless you have unusual finances (e.g. are self employed), and sales tax is includes in the advertised sale price of items.

We still have to oay taxes of course, but they are much less annoying!

<comment><USER4> Doing taxes doesn't bother me; seeing how much of my money the government earned the float on does. Unless withholding is perfect, I essentially give the government an interest free loan every year.

We should end automatic withholding and let everyone pay their taxes on April 15.

<comment><USER5> Unless your tax situation is unusual, it's not that hard to change your withholding to minimize the float. And for most people the magnitude of that float is tiny. People get outraged by the point a lot more than is warranted by the data.

You also propose a very poor solution. A large % of Americans are not disciplined enough with their budgeting to save such a large % of their income to write a single check every year. A lot of folks simply wouldn't have the money when it came due. What would you do then?

<comment><USER6> Ironically, most of the people I run into get outraged by the opposite - <USER2> they didn't get much money back on their "return".

<comment><USER5> Yes, and there is a certain class of people that likes to demonstrate their mental superiority by making fun of those people. The people who do this are assholes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Per the article, the reason is that they're lobbying to keep the existing tax code rather than simplify it.

I generally agree, but I think terms like "evil" and "parasite" get thrown around a bit too easily.

We're all for simpler taxes, unless it removes the deductions that we ourselves enjoy. That is probably a much larger hindrance than any lobbying, but any such nuance is ignored in these types of shock value articles.

<comment><USER8> I guess the question is does the sum of fees collected + cost of lobbying exceed the value of complexity ? In some regards the cost of complexity is a tax on the general populace to deal with the poor behavior of individuals sufficiently incentivized to discover and exploit loopholes.

<comment><USER7> That's a great starting point, and one this article makes zero effort to address. Unfortunately nuance doesn't get clicks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is an awesome Adam ruins everything episode on Tax returns. It seems that rent seeking is pretty much the only thing keeping the current system in place.

<comment><USER5> Adam is wrong.

We don't have return free filing because making people fill out complex forms every year makes them hate taxes more and (generally speaking) vote in favor of lower taxes. This ideological position has far more to do with our current system than a relatively small amount of lobbying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "...don't give Intuit money"

Well, give me the $300 I need to find a preparer then. TurboTax is an incredible value. You can do your taxes in your pajamas over a couple nights and it can handle almost every complex area. The fanciest version is about $60. I've used it for ten years.

</comment><comment><USER11> More along those lines:

Why doesn't the IRS just send me a bill for the taxes I owe based on the info they already have? [1]

[1] [https://politics.stackexchange.com/q/30223/20593](https://politics.stackexchange.com/q/30223/20593)

</comment><comment><USER12> What about TaxAct?

<comment><USER13> Anecdata: this year I used TaxAct and then TurboTax, because I wasn't entirely confident in the results from TaxAct.

After fixing a data entry mistake or two, I was able to make them come out same. However, I was much happier with TurboTax's handling of employee stock options, because it walks you through how to correct the incorrect cost basis that brokerages are required to report by law. (This changed a few years ago.)

At that point I could have submitted either one, but ended up paying for TurboTax since I felt like rewarding them for better UI.

(While fixing an error, I did run into a recalculation bug in TurboTax, though; it's not clear how to report it.)

<comment><USER14> I was never able to get TurboTax to fix errors, either; I switched to olt.com and they respond to my emails right away.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where do you find good podcasts? - <AUTHOR>

I'm always on the prowl for new tech podcasts to listen to but I'm not sure where to find them. Some of the best podcasts I listen to have come as recommendations from friends and are shows that don't rank highly in iTunes or come from 5by5.tv. So HNers, where do you go to find good podcasts? <comment><USER2> My website <http://flapcast.com> has a social component that allows voting on podcasts and shows top podcasts among your friends and the world. The social part of the site hasn't really taken off yet but its still a great way to listen to podcasts.

Otherwise, if you do a search there are some threads on Hacker News where people recommend some great podcasts; there are similar posts on Quora.

</comment><comment><USER3> I look at <http://gpodder.net> occasionally. They tend to have some stuff that's a bit more obscure as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What are your interests?</comment>


'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-09-wild-west-mentality-lingers-modern.html <comment><USER2> In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs.

As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, pour concrete, solder pipe, weld, change oil, replace an alternator, lay PVC pipe, etc.

People in the community learn emergency medicine and how to manage a structure or brush fire by volunteering with the local volunteer fire/EMS, because that's the only show in town.

Roads wash out in the rainy season, so 4x4 is an absolute necessity. People learn to gauge sand you can drive through in 2x4, sand you can drive through in 4x4 and sand you just can't drive through by eyeballing it.

I grew up in a very remote part of the California desert and everyone was like that. It's just what you have to do to get by because you keep finding yourself in situations where you need to call on these types of skills, and if you're living out there you have a lot of free time without interruption or distraction to learn the skills. Lots of people moved out from the city, and over the years they picked up a lot of those skills and became extremely self- sufficient.

<comment><USER3> > In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone > shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a > store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest > town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs.

That's pretty far out; I think that's pretty extreme. At least in Idaho/WA IMO (different geography and settlement pattern, prolly). But your point is still valid for the bulk of rural US - you just gotta know how to deal, because the cavalry is a ways out and expensive.

<comment><USER4> We have a homestead in NE WA we are developing, a few weeks ago, for the first time ever, I called 911 because of a potentially dangerous laceration. We have a full first aid kit with plenty of "stop the bleed" stuff but I didn't want to take any chances. So because the bleeding was controlled we waited for the EMTs.

It took 25 minutes for the EMTs to arrive. But that is because the nearest EMT team was not on another call. Otherwise, it could have take 45-60 minutes to get a team from the next nearest town/county.

Later that day on the way home to Seattle we stopped at an urgent care to get stitches for $175.

Though, I am seriously thinking about getting an AED to keep out there.

<comment><USER2> One of the posters above mentioned Wilderness First Aid, which is a great course. Wilderness First Responder goes more above-and-beyond and includes things like relocating a dislocated kneecap or shoulder, splinting, bandaging, administering injections, wound care, clearing a spine, identifying brain swelling from a head injury, etc.

You can do it in a week, living on-site.

Edit: There's also a component on helicopter operations, such as laying out a landing site for when things get really spicy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can anecdotally confirm. Sometimes it quite annoys me that those personality traits are so embedded in myself though, because it seems to constantly be a headbutting of cultures that so many Americans on the coastal big cities just don't get or approve of, and love to condescendingly talk about that kind of personality as lesser or barbarous in some way.

I love the mountains and freedom they offered me, the lessons they taught me, and the beauty and solitude from an exhausting world they provided. After the war when I became an atheist, I would tell others in the community when they asked me to go to church that the mountains are my church.

All that said, I doubt it will last. There is a huge influx of people (not just retirees, but refugees from the coastal cities) who would be considered rich into mountain communities, driving out the locals by prices and changing the demographic hugely. I keep a close eye on land for sale and land parcels that used to be huge are starting to be divided into 5 acre parcels and sold off... I can already see the distant future of this, turning mountain towns into you have to be rich towns like Aspen, and it makes me very sad.

I can't wait till we have independent space travel, which is when I believe the frontier spirit will be reborn again. Humanity will need it then again! Alas, I probably won't live that long.

<comment><USER6> > Sometimes it quite annoys me that those personality traits are so embedded > in myself though, because it seems to constantly be a headbutting of > cultures that so many Americans on the coastal big cities just don't get or > approve of, and love to condescendingly talk about that kind of personality > as lesser or barbarous in some way.

"rugged individualists" always seem to care a lot about how they are viewed by "coastal elites". We'd all be a lot happier if we cared less about how we are viewed by others.

<comment><USER5> It's not just about caring how I am viewed for no reason, it's that I have to deal with the culutural differences daily both professionally and personally, but mostly professionally. I keep my politics etc to myself in the workplace, but the coastal elites seem to want to shove theirs down everyones throats, even in the workplace, which is very jarring. It's one of the same reasons I fled the bible belt and went to DC for a while (only to find I disliked the east coast), but to see the similarities in dogmatism and tribalism between the bible belt and the coastal elites is... informative.

I keep having this semi-irrational fear that the SV startup I work for will found out I'm not "one of them" and fire me for cultural differences.

<comment><USER7> And these fears are not unfounded. For example, the 12 year old Colorado student suspended from school because of a toy gun being seen on Zoom. And that was just a toy...

Firearms are just one such cultural flashpoint, where "don't ask don't tell" is really the only modus operandi for those surviving inside the SV monoculture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The early settlers of North American were in some sense selected by personality. It must have taken a certain sort of risk-taking personality to give up everything and climb aboard a crowded rickety passenger ship for a month-long journey to a vast and mostly uninhabited land. The people who arrived in America and decided to take it one step further by moving away from the crowded cities of the east into the vast and dangerous interior of the continent must have been a special breed.

You can still see some of these early mountain towns today--some are practically unchanged from what they looked like 100 years ago.

<comment><USER9> >The early settlers of North American were in some sense selected by personality. It must have taken a certain sort of risk-taking personality to give up everything and climb aboard a crowded rickety passenger ship for a month-long journey to a vast and mostly uninhabited land.

Many early settlers were criminals. I wonder if that personality selection shines through.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_transportation#Transport...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_transportation#Transportation_to_North_America)

<comment><USER10> Keep in mind also that "criminal" meant something a bit different in colonial times than it does today.

<comment><USER11> It meant something more violent then today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > However, "openness to experience" is much higher, and the most pronounced > personality trait in mountain dwellers.

> "Openness is a strong predictor of residential mobility," said Götz. "A > willingness to move your life in pursuit of goals such as economic affluence > and personal freedom drove many original North American frontier settlers."

> those who left their early mountain home are still consistently less > agreeable, conscientious and extravert, although no such effects were > observed for neuroticism and openness.

I have difficulty reconciling these statements.

\- mountain dwellers have higher openness to experience

\- openness to experience is a predictor for residential mobility

\- but the people who move away from mountain regions _don't_ have higher openness to experience (but stay disagreeable, unconscientious and introverted)?

I would have expected the selection bias to show up in the other direction: I would expect the people who stay put to have lower openness to experience, and the people who move to have higher openness to experience.

<comment><USER13> Absolutely. You'd expect mountain people to be conservative.

They can't afford to take more risks.

Not sure if you'd expect liberal people to seed the place and conservative genetics to evolve.

Or conservative genetics to seed the place and stay strong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Now, well into the 21st century, researchers led by the University of > Cambridge have detected remnants of the pioneer personality in US > populations of once inhospitable mountainous territory, particularly in the > Midwest.

As a person who was born and raised in the Midwest[1], just where are these mountainous regions they speak of in the Midwest? There's the black hills[2] and that's pretty much it. I wonder what definition of the Midwest the University of Cambridge is using, cause it sounds like they are talking about the intermountain west[3], not the midwest.

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

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

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

<comment><USER15> As someone who lives in this "Intermountain West", I've never heard of the "Intermountain West" term before your post. It seems like a term that someone came up with, but it's never caught on.

I've typically heard of us referred to as the Western US (as opposed to the West Coast).

<comment><USER14> I hadn't heard of the term either until moving to Utah, I noticed quite a few orgs/business with the term intermountain in it, like intermountain healthcare. But when I was living in the midwest we just referred to the mountain region as "out west".

<comment><USER16> I'm from Utah, my parents ran a business with the word 'intermountain' in it but I remember thinking it was a strange word. And (aside from intermountain healthcare, which I doubt I would have remembered without your comment) I don't think it's a word I've heard or seen used otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This reads like the scientific version of a stereotype.

Maybe kind of interesting, but extremely prone to misinterpetation, over- generalization, and potentially prejudice.

<comment><USER18> Stereotype Accuracy is One of the Largest and Most Replicable Effects in All of Social Psychology:

[http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy- res...](http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-response)

<comment><USER19> The issue with stereotypes is the same issue with comparing IQs between subsets of the population: averages do not work when its one individual applying it to another individual. Variance is very high with humans, and the idea that your Uncle Joe thinks his black friend has a big dick because of the stereotype is idiotic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Urban WEIRD[0] weasels trying to understand normal humans really is something to see. It's as if they're studying some bizarre carnivorous plant or cannibalistic space aliens from the Planet Koozebane.

 _" Such rugged terrain likely favored those who closely guarded their resources and distrusted strangers, as well as those who engaged in risky explorations to secure food and territory."_

I'm pretty sure New Yorkers or San Francisco residents are more likely to distrust strangers and not share than mountain people.

 _" These traits may have distilled over time into an individualism characterized by toughness and self-reliance that lies at the heart of the American frontier ethos"_

Yeah, or the fact that the guy who lives in the mountains can't call the building superintendent to change his lightbulb might have something to do with them having slightly more self reliance. I didn't grow up in the mountains, but I did grow up poor: it has much the same effect.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias)

</comment><comment><USER21> I grew up in a mountainous area of the US, and can confirm the presence of these personality traits, although it's hard for me to evaluate if they are more or less prevalent than in the coastal city where I now live (hello, mobility!). It's so hard to see into the lives of others, especially of enough of them to get a representative sample.

For those interested in the history of the European settlement of the US, I would suggest the book Albion's Seed:

[https://b-ok.cc/book/1242050/e88335](https://b-ok.cc/book/1242050/e88335)

The relevant part of the book is about the Scots-Irish settlers who came from the Borderlands. Those "Borderers," or Rievers, are historically combative, individualistic, and distrustful of government. They settled large parts of Appalachia, and from there they helped to clear the forests of the midwest and mine the Rockies. Think Daniel Boone. Think Alamo. They like to think they are independent and they like to fight.

The repercussions on US politics are huge.

It's hard to tell from the article through the link what the authors are asserting. While the conditions in the mountains may cultivate certain characteristics, they also attract certain populations. So this could be as simple as: mountain people settle in the mountains.

</comment><comment><USER4> I graduated HS from a mountain town in NE Washington and recently have been developing a property/homestead out there again.

My wife usually remarks how nice the people are out there in the wild west compared to here in Seattle.

Politics is polarized out there too -- with old timers and hippies clashing readily. But, nobody lets it get in the way of being friendly and helpful. One friend remarked that it is because people need each other more so politics is kept in better perspective.

Some counties in NE Washington have formally recognized the "Code of the West".

"The Code of the West was first chronicled by the famous western writer, Zane Grey. The men and women who came to this part of the country during the westward expansion of the United States were bound by an unwritten code of conduct. The values of integrity and self-reliance guided their decisions, actions and interactions. In keeping with that spirit, we offer this information to help citizens of Ferry County who wish to follow in the footsteps of those rugged individualists by living outside city and town limits."

[PDF]: [https://www.ferry- county.com/PDF_Files/Commissioners/Code_of...](https://www.ferry- county.com/PDF_Files/Commissioners/Code_of_the_West_Doc.pdf)

<comment><USER22> My rule of thumb is that if the weather isn't crap a substantial portion of the year than the people are probably crap. Then you take the binary result of that and multiply by the distance to the nearest few luxury European car dealerships to get just how crappy/not crappy the people are. It's actually quite accurate regardless of local population density.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> My whole family is from Appalachian parts of NC, and even though I consider myself a "city person" (born and raised in Charlotte) - the traits from the article do match up pretty well with my personal big 5 traits.

The agreeableness thing is interesting, because that's one of those traits where I've always heard there is a pretty significant difference on average between men and women (with women tending to score higher). Anecdotally, I think this could be the factor to explain a family trend, that I'm told is not uncommon in the region. The women in my family tend to do really well for themselves by going after non-traditionally female career paths and doing well - despite super modest backgrounds. My great-grandma went from working at a mill to building and running a modest mobile home park, great-aunt got a scholarship and became a doctor way back in 60s, my mom got a full scholarship and moved out of the mountains to start her own own business in a male- dominated field. Meanwhile the male side includes - a hobo, taxi-driver, mining/odd jobs, and another close family member who has been on the run from the law for dealing drugs for many years now.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm one of these "mountain people" so I see a lot of what's true in this article, but there's also a flip side: Mountain people look out for each other on the mountain. I've never lived in a place before where there's such a strong sense of helping out one's neighbors as there is here in the mountains of NM. We plow each others' driveways when it snows; we help older neighbors run errands; we respond to 911 calls by volunteering at the local fire department. It's a nice feeling of both community and privacy at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER25> Having grown up in Utah, and living there now, I agree with the assessment of self reliance being emphasized much more here than other places I've lived (England, California).

When thinking about causality though, it seems to me like a mistake to leave out the Mormon influence. It's not just Utah, but Mormons founded many towns in Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, and Nevada as well. Distrust of the federal government was frequently and explicitly taught by church leaders into the early 1900s.

</comment><comment><USER26> Well, to whatever extent this is true, I'd like to know --

1) Whether this is something very special to the US, versus happens in every country, and is a fact of life in remote / non-city areas, and

2) Does this call for a certain approach to how to effectively govern or design public policy if there is a east/west or city/suburban vs. rural social divide?

Attitudes in themselves are not a problem. Inability to have people agree on almost anything to move forward with government and economic life because there is a permanent divide in social/political climate is.

If a married couple cannot agree on finances, friends, raising kids, etc. ever, it's not pleasant for anyone.

<comment><USER27> The actual article: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0930-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0930-x)

Paywalled, so I haven't checked my question

3) Do people from the University of Cambridge underestimate self-segregation due to US population mobility?

(FWIW, local politics in my country does anecdotally skew rural/right urban/left, but we fortunately have many other different divisions whose axes are uncorrelated with that particular one. I firmly believe having more than two major parties helps immensely on this front.)

Incidentally, my ultra-low-dimensional model after 2016 was "how far away does a US voter live from the largest city in their watershed?" It remains to be seen if this simplistic metric predicts anything useful in 2020.

<comment><USER28> Code and Data on OSF: [https://osf.io/y2mdw/](https://osf.io/y2mdw/)

It's a bit funny that this is "open science framework"...when the code sets the wd with absolute paths, and the R packages are not explicitly versioned. I wish more scientists would start using Docker to make their work environments reproducible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I live in a mountain town and it's literally 'Wild West': [http://northwesttraveladvisor.com/northwest- vacation/western...](http://northwesttraveladvisor.com/northwest- vacation/western-towns.html)

<comment><USER30> Winthrop is about as literally Wild West as Leavenworth, WA [0] is literally Bavarian.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leavenworth%2C_Washington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leavenworth%2C_Washington)

(As explanation, both towns decided to become a "theme town", for lack of a better phrase, around the same time in the 60s-70s. Winthrop was inspired by Leavenworth, which in turn was arguably inspired by Solvang, CA.)

<comment><USER29> Obviously it was manufactured, but get outside of town a few miles and you are in real ranch country and it's very much the west. The prius and audi driving west siders don't usually see that side of things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was born in Siberia region of former USSR. There I would do ungodly amount of things myself. To the point that I got really sick of doing those. When I immigrated to Canada one of the things I've come to immensely enjoy is the ability not to do everything myself. Well a bit later I've also discovered that you basically have to check everything unless you want it f..ed up royally.

The apogee was reached when one of the electricians I hired to change my power switch for water heater did the job and no electricity was flowing to said heater. He was doing this and that and finally said that he is giving up. This got me mad and I checked the wiring myself. Are you ready for this ? ... He screwed both of the 2 outgoing wires to a grounding plate that happened to have 2 threaded holed completely ignoring everything else that was there.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm trying to understand why this article is on phys.org.

</comment><comment><USER33> The one thing that stands out is 'lower conscientiousness'. I would have thought being on the frontier, the #1 thing you needed was that. Very strict discipline, responsibility etc. - it could be this is more of a 'farmer trait' and less so a 'mountain' trait.

</comment><comment><USER34> Source article (not free): [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0930-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0930-x)

Article with more information: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mountain-peaks- se...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mountain-peaks-seem-to- shape-personality-traits-in-the-american-west/)

</comment><comment><USER35> I read somewhere in the real wild west people were very collectivist as they had to rely on the whole village to work together to survive. The rugged individualist is a myth. I can't find the link though, anyone have similar stories?

</comment><comment><USER36> > mountainous territory, particularly in the Midwest.

I suppose I'm nitpicking here, but this is an oxymoron. The Midwest doesn't have any mountains.

<comment><USER37> The Appalachian mountains are present in Southeastern Ohio. The hollers don't just magically appear when you cross the river over from Marietta to Parkersburg.

<comment><USER36> OK, fine. But clearly this article is trying, and failing, to refer to the actual Mountain West, not the Appalachian foothills. It reminds me of one of those joke "US maps for New Yorkers" where half the country is New Jersey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I would love to see this type of study on Florida.

<comment><USER22> That would just be a proxy study on people from the wealthy urban parts of the northeast.

<comment><USER39> He didn't mean that Florida, he meant the other one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Hard times make strong men: and they seriously needed to perform an academic study to prove this? Nice work if you can get the grant money...

And I await the counter-study, i.e. on the detachment from the realities of life of the average urban Cambridge University psychology researcher.

<comment><USER41> Some thoughts on whether hard times make strong men: [https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen- mirage-...](https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part- i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> > 'Wild West' mentality

Not to be confused with a set of beliefs (some false) about a mythologized period of history that was almost propagandized by early television media.</comment>


After botched test flight, Boeing will refly its Starliner spacecraft for NASA - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/06/boeing-starliner-test-repeat/ <comment><USER2> > The repeat is expected to come in October or November, meaning Boeing won't > meet its goal of a flight with crews this year

This is much worse than expected and it means their first crew flight will be nearly an year after SpaceX.

</comment><comment><USER3> It takes a long time to review 1 million lines of code and even longer to fix bugs that will be found.</comment>


The Echo Chamber Club – anti algorithm Club to understand new perspectives - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alicelthwaite/in-the-wake-of-brexit-expanding-your-horizons-2608a6464fd8 <comment><USER2> This is actually a really good idea, I just can't subscribe. I've tried, twice :(</comment>