Ask HN: Friend turned Co-founder dilemma - <AUTHOR>

Dear HN
2.5 years ago a good pilot friend of mine came to me with an idea for a business in the aviation industry. We founded a company together 50/50. Now 2.5 years later we have around 5000$ per month in revenue and 7 customers.
He is taking care of sales and customer support. I'm taking care of development.
The problem is that I don't consider him good enough and feel that I could do a better job.
His communication skills are bad, lots of spelling errors, badly formatted e-mails and subpar english skills. This is a problem since most of our customers are international. No technical skills. He has a hard time setting up his mail client. Lack of focus when working. Poor sales skills.
The trouble is that when we started the company, I was very forgiving when he did stupid things, I just helped him. It has become very frustrating that he needs so much help. Not because he isn't working hard, often he works more hours than me. Lately I've started not to care about his bad work, and I tell him just to send e-mails, without me looking trough them.
I've tried multiple things to help the situation.
1. I told him that I was tired of having a business with him and that I wanted to buy him out or he could buy me out. He didn't want me to buy him out and he couldn't find another technical founder. So he didn't want to buy me out either. I gave him a pretty good deal the person buying the other out, should over the next 12 months give 2500$ to the other.
2. We found an investor/co-founder, who should help him with sales. Unfortunately it didn't work out.
3. Obviously tried to be his training wheels, but without success.
4. Given him books about sales/communication, he hasn't read them.
I feel like we could get 1-2 customers extra per month with the right effort. What would you do in my situation?
Quit? Try even harder to persuade him to being bought out or buying me out?
Feel free to ask for any additional questions. <comment><USER2> Maybe it would be worthwhile to ask him if he wants to be a silent partner? Or send him off on an R&D mission that is completely up his interest area?

Also, what is your aviation startup? My best friend has a ton of knowledge about the commercial aviation industry and is always looking for interesting things to do, if you're looking for people to help out. You can find contact info for me via links on my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think I can convince him about being a silent partner, he takes a lot of pride in being an entrepreneur, also I could really use a cofounder who compliments my skill set, not just a silent partner. I like the idea about sending him of on an R&D mission :) however i can't think of any, that would benefit the company.

I'll send you a PM

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would like to add, that when we started he was a big help, he had contacts to our first 3 national customers and also had some domain knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER3> I assume this isn't a full-time endeavor. If not, that 5K a month sure sounds like enough to get another smart person involved.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried to convince him to hire a salesperson, but unsuccessfully. We have to agree because of the 50/50 partnership.</comment></comment>


Microsoft shoots down Google's Dart - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57330431-264/microsoft-shoots-down-googles-dart-language/ <comment><USER2> > JavaScript has the classic benefits of an incumbent technology. Programmers > are familiar with it...

This is only from my own experience but I'm consistently blown away by how _little_ people actually know of JavaScript. Between interviews and looking at samples attached to jQuery Mobile issues all day I get the impression that most people don't know how to use the prototype system at all and generally organize their code as a series of jQuery event bindings.

While this isn't necessarily and endorsement of Dart, I welcome anything that can provide/encourage well-known and sane code reuse patterns.

<comment><USER3> Guilty. Any recommendations for learning?

edit: I have the rhino book. I meant, learning alternatives to organizing my code as a series of jQuery event bindings.

<comment><USER2> Yehuda Katz has a nice article on the prototype system that I generally point people to.

[http://yehudakatz.com/2011/08/12/understanding-prototypes- in...](http://yehudakatz.com/2011/08/12/understanding-prototypes-in- javascript/)

And the JavaScript Patterns book is a good read to get an overview of what can be done with just JavaScript. If your application is even remotely complex you'll probably end up using something like backbone or sproutcore which provide constructs for organizing your code anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The most interesting part of the Microsoft blogpost that is the basis for this story, IMO, is that

> The Office Web Applications, which consist of hundreds of thousands of lines > of JavaScript, are written primarily in a variant of Script# that is then > compiled into JavaScript that can be executed on today's browsers. > [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/11/22/evolving- > ecmas...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/11/22/evolving- > ecmascript.aspx)

Apparently Script# is quite mature now, and is being used to compile very large apps to JavaScript. This is a big vote of confidence from Microsoft regarding JavaScript as a compilation target.

<comment><USER5> > Apparently Script# is quite mature now, and is being used to compile very > large apps to JavaScript. This is a big vote of confidence from Microsoft > regarding JavaScript as a compilation target.

I'd say the same thing about Google's own Closure, which they oddly enough don't mention alongside CoffeeScript et al.

I see Dart as a rethinking of much of Closure so I don't quite get what Microsoft thinks the difference between their Script# and Dart/Closure is.

<comment><USER4> Did you mean Google Web Toolkit? That compiles Java to JS, and is similar to Script# (which compiles C# to JS). Whereas Closure Compiler is an optimizing compiler for JS, it compiles JS to (better) JS. (The Microsoft article did mention Google Web Toolkit, which was nice of them.)

GWT and Script# are both quite mature at this point, it looks like. Very interesting stuff. (However, GWT is probably losing focus inside Google to Dart, so I am not sure of its long-term prospects. It's open source though so anyone can continue it if they want.)

<comment><USER6> Closure compiler doesn't just compile vanilla JS. It supports type annotations in comments and will use those to generate code. It's type system supports classes and interfaces. The Closure library has support for class-style inheritance.

Programming in Closure-style JS feels like you're using an optionally-typed class-based language, just one with really terrible syntax.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, I didn't know that. Perhaps those type annotations could help optimize compiled code (like from Emscripten).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've never understood the point of special browser only languages.

Why don't browsers support a sand-boxed python (or insert favorite language x) with some sort of standard dependency management? It already has JIT compilation, is cross-platform, bytecode, a wealth of libraries, etc. Why are we reinventing this wheel?

<comment><USER8> JavaScript isn't a special "browser-only" language. It's just a normal interpreted, dynamically typed language (much like Python or Ruby) that just happens to run in all browsers. Right now it also happens to be quite a bit faster than Python or Ruby (as far as I know) and is also extremely expressive and flexible.

The fact that Python has "a wealth of libraries" isn't particularly pertinent --web apps mostly need web-specific libraries, which Python doesn't have (because it isn't in the browser). Most people using JavaScript get by with jQuery, maybe some web ui framework and perhaps something like Raphael. And, with the advent of node and server-side JavaScript, JavaScript is getting more and more libraries outside of the browser as well.

Of course, the browsers could support a bunch of different languages, but I think the complexity outweighs the (limited) benefits. Google, obviously, disagrees and thinks that Dart should also be an option, but I really think it isn't worth the effort.

Ultimately, JavaScript is more than good enough as a browser language; while it does have some annoying quirks, upcoming versions (and things like "use strict") are getting rid of most of them. There really is no overwhelming reason to switch away from JavaScript, and even just adding another language is probably not worth it.

<comment><USER7> Javascript was originally built for the browser and later expanded to other areas.

I'm not claiming that python wouldn't need a new standard library to manipulate a browser's dom tree or whatever. That's about all it would need though, so it seems like it would have been far less work to embrace and extend than to completely start over.

You seem to be arguing from the perspective (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that javascript is a good solution and a fine programming language, and I am not claiming otherwise. I just don't understand why so much effort has been spent creating and polishing Javascript instead of making slight improvements to a previously established quality language.

I suspect the answer is that your browser has an advantage if your javascript engine is faster, but there can be no advantage if everyone uses the standard python interpreter.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure why Netscape decided to write their own language for the job. Perhaps integrating a different language into their browser would have been difficult back then. Now, however, JavaScript is a well-established language so there is no need to replace it with anything else.

Also, unless I'm unaware of something, wasn't Perl the most popular scripting language back then? So if they had included an already existing language, Perl would probably have been the best bet.

<comment><USER9> _So if they had included an already existing language, Perl would probably have been the best bet._

Embedding Perl was (and is) painful. Tcl would have been easier.

Sandboxing would have been more difficult. Auditing all of Perl 5's operations for the possibility of escaping that sandbox is a huge task.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It looks like it's really the alternate VM that's being "shot down". After all, the piece goes to the trouble of pointing out that "...transforming compiler libraries like Traceur and CoffeeScript show how syntax additions to JavaScript and even completely alternative syntaxes can be supported in today's browsers, without changes to the runtime."

Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft.

<comment><USER11> But those languages aren't a significant deviation and still require pre- compilation as opposed to runtime cross-compilation to be useful. Dart is a significant deviation and expected to support debugging directly in the language. Similar to developing in GWT, I doubt the JS will really be looked by the developers at once Dart's compiler is optimized more.

Also, the VM wouldn't be required, it would just provide performance improvements.

<comment><USER4> > Also, the VM wouldn't be required, it would just provide performance > improvements.

I'm curious, is this true? Last I heard, Dart-in-JS didn't enforce types, so integer math could overflow into doubles for example, but the Dart VM did use native types (so ints would not overflow). So the semantics of the language differ in JS and in the native VM, which means the VM doesn't just provide speed, it provides different behavior.

Is this no longer the case - are the semantics of Dart-in-JS and in the VM exactly the same?

<comment><USER12> Disclaimer: I work for Google.

JavaScript doesn't have integers. I suspect that the Dart VM will support integers with overflow. So yes, I suspect in that case they are different.

I also strongly suspect this will not be a significant edge case in practice: if you use integer types in your dart code, then you clearly don't want doubles to result from a calculation. So the only unexpected "surprise" you would encounter there is if you _expect_ integer overflow but get doubles. If you are writing code that expects integer overflow to happen a certain way, you're doing it wrong. If you're writing code that doesn't expect integer overflow, and you want integers, then you're going to be fucked either way. Either you end up with doubles and type errors or an overflow and your result is wrong.

Changing things as entrenched as JavaScript while maintaining backwards compatibility is messy and hard. Especially given some of the horrible characteristics of the language. I'm glad someone's at least trying.

<comment><USER4> > JavaScript doesn't have integers. I suspect that the Dart VM will support > integers with overflow. So yes, I suspect in that case they are different. > [..] I also strongly suspect this will not be a significant edge case in > practice [..] If you are writing code that expects integer overflow to > happen a certain way, you're doing it wrong.

It's a valid position to say that relying on integer overflow in one's Dart code is "wrong". But you will need to carefully educate coders about that, since relying on overflow is common in popular languages like C and C++. This won't be easy.

Another big worry is that this could lead to very hard to diagnose bugs. Having the native VM and the compiled code have different semantics in subtle ways is risky - unintended overflows will lead to different bugs in different cases.

Also, integer overflow is not the only case where this problem arises. It also happens with say division of an integer. Will Dart compiled code in JS add proper rounding correction to all divisions of integers? Or will this be another case where the VM differs from compiled code?

Overall, it seems much simpler and safer to just correct overflows in the compiled code.

> Especially given some of the horrible characteristics of the language > [JavaScript]

It's fine if you don't like something of course, but I don't think calling languages "horrible" is going to lead to a productive discussion.

<comment><USER6> > But you will need to carefully educate coders about that, since relying on > overflow is common in popular languages like C and C++.

This is something we're aware of and we know we need to be extra clear and loud about it.

> Also, integer overflow is not the only case where this problem arises.

As far as I know, bigints are the _only_ place where the VM and the generated JS intentionally differ in behavior. We are trying very hard to keep the two in sync.

> It also happens with say division of an integer. Will Dart compiled code in > JS add proper rounding correction to all divisions of integers?

Dart has two division operators (~/ and /) to handle this. The former rounds (truncates? I'm not sure) and the latter does floating point division. So it's always the operation that determines the type of the result, and not the type of the operands.

> Overall, it seems much simpler and safer to just correct overflows in the > compiled code.

Simpler: yes. Safer: yes. Unfortunately, it's also _much_ slower.

Rolling your own numeric type in JS means slower behavior when you have overflowed and slow behavior even when you haven't. If you're generating code for "a + b", you can't compile that to "a + b" in JS because you need to check for overflow and handle the fact that a or b could be bignums.

We really want the compiled JS to behave the same as native code, but if it's significantly slower, people just won't use it at all. It's an unfortunate trade-off.

<comment><USER4> > > Overall, it seems much simpler and safer to just correct overflows in the > compiled code.

> Simpler: yes. Safer: yes. Unfortunately, it's also much slower.

In my experience with something similar - compiling LLVM to JavaScript in Emscripten, which also needs to properly implement integer math in JavaScript - it actually isn't a lot slower. On the Emscripten benchmark suite enabling overflow correction everywhere makes it only 5% slower. We might be running very different benchmarks I guess.

(However, overflow correction does increase code size a lot, which is why we have tools that let you get rid of it where it isn't needed.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Microsoft has long since lost the ability to shape the face of the web. While they do contribute to w3c here and there, at the end of the day the webkit and firefox teams are going to control where it goes. The question isn't whether or not it has Microsoft's support, the question is whether or not javascript is flawed enough to put the effort needed into releasing a new scripting language engine with browsers.

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft.

<comment><USER14> _at the end of the day the webkit and firefox teams are going to control where it goes._

I don't think this is entirely true. IE still has more than enough marketshare to matter. Microsoft embracing some approach, be it a new language, or be it evolving JavaScript, has influences in how likely the efforts of the other teams are to succeed in the marketplace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Saying Dart needs Microsoft adoption is like saying CoffeeScript or GWT needs Microsoft adoption. They all allow JS compilation and the ability to use JS and be called from JS. Google will likely make an IE extension to run Dart natively anyways.

<comment><USER15> If it requires my users on a public site to install an extension, I'm not going to use it. case. closed.

<comment><USER16> What he said was that Dart will compile into JS.

Natively run Dart will (otherwise, what's the point) than the JS it can be compiled into. What I forsee is some kind of conditional that will allow Chrome to run the Dart code, and other browser get served the compiled-into- JS.

Demanding an extension installation is a no-go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was surprised to hear about Dart. A closer look at Google's other new language (Go), shows a statically typed, compiled language that can be safely sand-boxed. For example, look at how Google has included Go in AppEngine. Additionally, there has been work at compiling Go to another project of theirs, Native Client (NaCl). It still seems like this might be a good match.

</comment><comment><USER18> It took long enough for people to agree on Javascript and and HTML standard. It works well for most people, most of the time. Dart smells to me of another .NET for web...a framework that works ok, but not spectacularly enough for me to care.

Also, it seems there are a lot of people who don't like Javascript and try to either replace it or compile down to it. I don't understand why. I love Javascript. I think it's terse and powerful. It's a perfect fit for web applications. Sure, there may be a few annoying flaws, but it works well for its intended purposes. Also, add a few libraries, or a real framework like Mootools, and most of the flaws vanish.

Also, if we're going to go around creating systems for creating web apps that compile to javascript, can we PLEASE use languages that allow macros (ie a lisp variant)? Does another C-like language really add anything? (I'm actually asking, not judging)

</comment><comment><USER19> It's been a looong time since i fooled around with it, but isn't IE the only browser that lets you specify the scripting language in page? I vaguely recall using perl and Windows Scripting Host to do perl in a web page... Perhaps my memory is as fossilized as that tech though.

<comment><USER20> I think their goal was to support any language. Do they still even support VBScript now?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I believe Dart may have lot of uses beyond scripting HTML pages, and does not need for IE compatibility. And I have not found a single word about Dart in the article. Just some small changes in JavaScript, very minor compared to what is planed to JavaScript 5.

</comment><comment><USER22> Interesting. This must be a new position within Microsoft - it deviated significantly from the previous Silverlight idea of using C# within an environment provided by a browser plug-in.

Now that they discontinued the plugin (was it a month ago?), they feel it's OK to criticize Google's approach.

<comment><USER23> If they've decided to abandon plugins and proprietary languages in favor of javascript, why shouldn't they feel that it is ok to criticize Google's approach?

<comment><USER22> Usually, when you defend a flawed approach for years and spend millions of dollars on it, it's surprising to see you attack a competitor for following a very similar but slightly less flawed approach, weeks after you partially and not very publicly acknowledge your mistake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well, duh. They also seem to indicate (in the linked blog post) that they have no interest in the language's syntax evolving (including destructuring assignment or `let` block-scoped bindings)

</comment><comment><USER25> As much as I like google I really don't want to go to yet another language. I rather focus on building content rather than have to maintain my page in dart and in JavaScript because of fragmentation issues.

<comment><USER26> Dart compiles to JavaScript, and the language is pretty standard stuff, if you know any C style language you can pick it up quickly.

<comment><USER27> The compiled Javascript is an abomination.

<comment><USER28> That initial 17 KLOC Hello World was an abomination, but it isn't looking anywhere near as bad these days.

<https://gist.github.com/1385015>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The article is laughable. Microsoft itself is an important reason to develop Dart to begin with. MS has EEE'd html/js/css with IE 5.5 and up, and developed .NET to offer a competitive (proprietary) platform. We can't use C# although it's open, because MS is acting as a patent troll.

<comment><USER30> Do you live in the 90s? If Microsoft attempted to EEE HTML, Javascript, and CSS with IE5+, it's failed miserably, since the usage of both Chrome and Firefox continues to rise while IE stagnates or declines. You only have to follow the development of IE10 to realize the company knows it needs to play nicely with these technologies, whether it wants to or not. Also, .NET was a response to Java, and while Silverlight and WPF were attempts to develop competing technologies to Flash and HTML/Javascript/CSS that also seems to have failed, since HTML and JS are key elements of the Metro UI for Windows 8. In addition, Microsoft's actions against Android, while despicable, are hardly different than what most other tech companies are doing, so it's best to focus on the broken patent system. Finally, C# (and CLI) is a standard owned by the ECMA, so Microsoft can't sue you if you write a compiler and library from scratch.

<comment><USER29> That previous attempts failed does not mean they quit trying. IE9/10 does show some goodwill, but also shows the are still in the EEE game. Take for example the hardware accelerated canvas: Several (non-MS) websites had "optimized for IE" marketing campaigns. Such optimization is nonsense when using standards. Also, MS publicly stated WebGL has security problems because of direct access to the shaders. However, they forget to mention Silverlight has the exact same problem.

> In addition, Microsoft's actions against Android, while despicable, are > hardly different than what most other tech companies are doing,

Eh, no. It's true more patent trolls exist, but not many companies in the industry try to enforce software patents.

About C#: Microsoft has stated several times that open is not the same as patent-free. They did so in context of Linux/Android, but also in the context of .net. Also, anaylis exist where C# tech is tied to patents.

<comment><USER30> > That previous attempts failed does not mean they quit trying. IE9/10 does > show some goodwill, but also shows the are still in the EEE game. Take for > example the hardware accelerated canvas: Several (non-MS) websites had > "optimized for IE" marketing campaigns. Such optimization is nonsense when > using standards. Also, MS publicly stated WebGL has security problems > because of direct access to the shaders. However, they forget to mention > Silverlight has the exact same problem.

Cool story, bro. Most people these days either use the browser that comes with the OS, or install the one they want.

> Eh, no. It's true more patent trolls exist, but not many companies in the > industry try to enforce software patents.

Really? Did you forget that Oracle started a lawsuit against Google for the usage of Java within Android? Or how about Apple's lawsuit against Samsung for the look and feel of the Galaxy Tablet? How about i4i's lawsuit against Microsoft?

> Eh, no. It's true more patent trolls exist, but not many companies in the > industry try to enforce software patents.

[Citation needed]

From Wikipedia: The C# language definition and the CLI are standardized under ISO and Ecma standards that provide reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing protection from patent claims.

You seem to have a hard time differentiating the language, C# from the library, .NET. It's similar to C++ and the STL.

<comment><USER29> > Cool story, bro. Most people these days either use the browser that comes > with the OS, or install the one they want.

This does not refute in an way that MS quit the EEE game. Merely, you seem to troll me ("Cool story, bro.").

> Really? Did you forget that Oracle started a lawsuit against Google for the > usage of Java within Android? Or how about Apple's lawsuit against Samsung > for the look and feel of the Galaxy Tablet? How about i4i's lawsuit against > Microsoft?

Exactly, a few big fish and some smaller pure trolls. I am not aware of industrywide patent enforcement. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of IT companies, who don't pursue software patents let alone enforce if they have.

> [Citation needed]

I am not aware of industrywide patentfights regarding software patents. Telecom companies do battle each other ferociously over patents, which are not necessarily for software (from what I read, not relatively many software patents are involved).

> From Wikipedia: The C# language definition and the CLI are standardized > under ISO and Ecma standards that provide reasonable and non-discriminatory > licensing protection from patent claims.

If MS decides to sue they decide to sue.

<comment><USER30> > This does not refute in an way that MS quit the EEE game. Merely, you seem > to troll me ("Cool story, bro.").

I'm trolling you because the claim that MS is trying to EEE HTML/JS/CSS by implementing hardware support for rendnering in IE is inane. Both Chrome and Firefox have the same capabilities, and I've seen more that one site (I actually use IE9 for specific reasons) that usually point me towards the usual bunch.

>Exactly, a few big fish and some smaller pure trolls. I am not aware of industrywide patent enforcement. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of IT companies, who don't pursue software patents let alone enforce if they have.

So what in your mind makes Apple and Oracle different from Microsoft? If not, just concede the point: hating the players is pointless, the game is broken.

> If MS decides to sue they decide to sue. Your point here is? Sure, if I > implemented C# according to the standard and my own set of libraries, the > company could try to sue me. I am positive they wouldn't get very far. But > continue on with your Stallman like conspiracy theories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Some people working for Google pointed similar thoughts even before the launch of Dart, too.</comment>


What the Next-Gen Verification Flow Will Look Like - <AUTHOR> https://semiengineering.com/what-will-the-next-gen-verification-flow-look-like/ <comment><USER2> Super fascinating!! Verification is SUPER important I think. I actually wrote an FOSS end-to-end TensorFlow CNN accelerator that can be synthesized for FPGAs using completely FOSS tools.

I'm working on adding formal verification to it. I used FOSS tools such as Yosys and NextPNR, made possible by FOSS hackers who reverse engineered different FPGAs.

I hope to release the full codebase at the end of this summer. [https://bracketmaster.github.io/MAERI- RTL/](https://bracketmaster.github.io/MAERI-RTL/)

I also started a company working on a completely FOSS CPU+GPU using similar approaches. [https://systemeslibres.org](https://systemeslibres.org)</comment>


Nine Inch Nails: The First Open-Source Band? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,156602/printable.html <comment><USER2> much respect to NIN! - the band I'm promoting (DRIP) released the first FULL- LENGTH album in Asia (can anyone correct me if I'm wrong) that has a CREATIVE COMMONS license (it's called Identity Theft) 2 weeks after NIN released theirs! Almost the same license by-nc-sa but they used a U.S. one, we used a Philippines license :)</comment>


Show HN: A usable, fast Gitlab CLI written in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/bradwood/git-lab-rust <comment><AUTHOR> I've been using GitLab for a while, and just started learning Rust, so I thought I'd have a go at putting together a user-centric cli tool for Gitlab as a personal project. It's still under heavy development, but is now just about stable and functional enough to use.

Lots of work still to do, not least of which porting to BSD/MacOS, broader API coverage, and probably some improvements on usability of what's there already.

Feedback and PRs appreciated!</comment>


Please Don't Write Code Like It's 2009 - <AUTHOR> https://nofilter.ee/please-dont-write-code-like-its-2009/ <comment><USER2> 1) What were the man-hours / $$$ invested in the current code base?

2) What is the current business model? Is it successful? Is it making a profit?

3) What would it cost in man-hours to completely refactor code?

4) What will it cost to retrain staff on new code?

5) What will it cost to retrain clients?

6) Can you guarantee that the code-refactor will not introduce any regressions/errors that may potentially impact client level SLA (ie pissed of clients)

7) You've been there ... what 48 hrs? You completely understand all the intricacies of a code base rewrite and how will affect all inter-connected processes (both code base and other wise)

8) Your previous blog at digitalbaboon.com bemoans your unemployment status and about to be broke and not able to pay rent ... you now have a job and publicly bash your new co-workers/boss?

"What the fuck is this? Who the hell in his right mind couples view and the actual logic together anymore? Jesus, man" ...

"What the humanly shit man! No wonder this company can only hire full-stacks because no actual front-end developer would survive this blast in the face with what seems to be a double barrel shotgun."

9) In your Oct 6th post , you post " I want more stability now that I'm 25 years old and not getting any younger. Hence, I was looking for a mature place with a solid business model where to spend the majority of my time."

Guess ... what , "solid business model" means making money.

Are they making money? Were you making money before this job? Who's got it more figure out kid?

</comment><comment><USER3> The thing is, though, PHP like that is still the norm, rather than the exception. And it gets worse out there, much worse.

And yes, it would be nice if everyone using PHP used Twig and Composer and ran tests and all that but businesses tend not to want to change things if they work (and the code your employers have now clearly does_, when that change will mean an investment in time and money without clear benefit over the status quo.

You're gonna need to take that chip off your shoulder or you're gonna have a bad time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good job publicly shitting on your employer in your first week, you're gonna go far kid.

</comment><comment><USER5> What exactly makes the code look like it's 2009? And what was wrong with the code that was written in 2009?

</comment><comment><USER6> It's uncanny how much that PHP resembles react, which is considered a modern framework.</comment>


Family Feud politics - <AUTHOR> http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/03/family-feud-politics.html <comment><USER2> Worthless article - all partisan spin with no actual facts (or even arguments) backing it up.</comment>


Life lessons from the native tribe with the healthiest hearts in the world - <AUTHOR> https://lite.cnn.io/en/article/h_cd9ca468ccc21fb52d43cd8bc9cfec15 <comment><USER2> So this is the kind of news that one ought to be careful with now that everyone has had a chance to read the Black Swan.

It has probably more to do with genetic drift. You cannot stumble upon a tribe, take some random property they all share, and then make causal inferences from all the other properties they all share. This holds especially when this property correlates with survival of the tribe; it is actually more informative to investigate a group of people with properties that reduce survival, e.g. bad heart conditions.

<comment><USER3> Could it be the law of small numbers?

If we broke the world population out into groups the size of this population - one of them would have to be the longest lived. Then we could send reporters there to create a narrative around how they lived.

I like the point that they don't consume processed foods. As a Celiac, the comments about parasites are interesting (there are some therapeutic approaches here under evaluation).

> "But up until the day they die, the Tsimane are often very healthy."

Is there a way to measure this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > If you look up the lifespan of the Tsimane, you will find that it is much > shorter than those living in the United States.

To have a fair comparison if their hearts are really healthier this should be taken into consideration. If you exclude those deaths by animals, during birth, etc, how long would be the average lifespan? And those who live longer still have healthier hearts?</comment>


Read this before you get all worked up about the S&P downgrade - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/27321998/S_P_Officials_We_d_Do_a_Deal_Structured_by_Cows <comment><AUTHOR> _S &P Officials: We'd Do a Deal 'Structured by Cows'

this instant message exchange between two unidentified Standard & Poor's officials about a mortgage-backed security deal on 4/5/2007:

Official #1: Btw (by the way) that deal is ridiculous.

Official #2: I know right...model def (definitely) does not capture half the risk.

Official #1: We should not be rating it.

Official #2: We rate every deal. It could be structured by cows and we would rate it._</comment>


Ask HN: Need Advice Losing Focus and Motivation - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,<p>I thought I should post here and seek advice. I'm a 25 year old dev and I really lack motivation. On some days when things are going good, everything is great and I love what I'm doing but otherwise, and this is the norm, I'm disengaged, lacking focus and generally uninterested. What I would want to do on such days is seek novelty with respect to what I want to work on, for example today I wanted to go off on a tangent and try to learn more about type inference in compilers. Clearly something is going wrong here and I can't really identify the problem or a possible solution. I would really love to hear from someone who's gone through this or more experienced devs who can give me a different perspective on this. <comment><USER2> Life is a series of cycles, there are ups and downs. Its normal to feel down and uninterested in your work at times, just as it's normal to be excited at other times.

If you find that you are disengaging more than anything else, then maybe you need to find a new job where you could have more passion, being excited about what you do could certainly help.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've gone through this. The only difference is that I could point to what was distracting me and taking my motivation: gaming.

Playing highly competitive games was an addiction for me (though I denied it for a long time). I wanted to improve my skill, knowledge, and win rate in the games I played, which consumed my attention, and drew me away from work.

As you've said, there isn't an identifiable internal or external stimulus which is causing your distraction, so I'll have to be general and subjective with what I am about to say.

Perhaps take a look at the actions you take when you are distracted. Do you flock to a specific place or action when you lose interest? This can be the internet, eating, running, driving, etc. If you find a pattern in your distraction, analyzing the issue becomes easier.

There's always the possibility that you're doing something you don't like and haven't realized it yet; perhaps a career change or dev change is in order.

Changing my environment helps significantly when I want to maintain focus. Getting out of the house increases my productivity and inspires new ideas.

So reflect on yourself, your work, you happiness, and your interests and make sure everything is in check. If it is, and you're still losing focus then an Attention Deficit Disorder test could be an option (however many people are over diagnosed for this disorder)

I hope some of this helped.

</comment><comment><USER4> I struggled for many years of lack of motivation. One source of insight into motivation is "Drive: The surprising truth..." [http://www.amazon.com/Drive- Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates...](http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising- Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805)

The main takeaway is that you want internal motivation, not external!

I found my internal motivation through finding my "why", read "Start with why" for an explanation [http://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Leaders-Inspire- Everyone/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Leaders-Inspire- Everyone/dp/1591846447)

</comment><comment><USER5> I feel you. It's not quite the same thing of course, but I'm supposed to be starting to write my thesis manuscript now. The good news is I'll be able to do something new and exciting afterwards, but for the 6 months or so it's going to take, it's really an exercise in despondency. I feel as if the interesting, innovative bit has already been done, and now I have to type up the literature review, the proofs, etc. etc. I can hardly get up in the mornings, but anyway, it's for the Greater Good...? Probably mild burn-out.

Anyway, this isn't very motivating, but if you're not tied down to your job and you have a small amount of cash lying around, I would say: go and travel! You should be able to get by, and at your (our!) age this should be easily justifiable afterwards (i.e. "the hole in my CV was time off to travel and figure out my priorities" \-- older users who are in a position to hire people, is this realistic?).

</comment><comment><USER6> The war of art is a good book on resistance. It is a very motivating book. The hardest part about tackling something you want to do is starting. Once you start, it's easy to get locked in get into the rhythm. Have fun, enjoy the moment, get a friend to help you; set small goals and make progress. You just got to man up and fight it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I found this article quite interesting on the topic of motivation: [http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you- need-...](http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is- discipline/)

</comment><comment><USER8> (throwaway)

Porn is disastrously distracting to focus and motivation. [https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/)</comment>


Using D3.js to Brute Force the Pirate Puzzle - <AUTHOR> http://azundo.github.io/blog/using-d3-dot-js-to-brute-force-the-pirate-puzzle/

<comment><USER2> As someone with rudimentary programming experience this is cool. I've had an enthusiasm for D3.js projects but haven't been able to come across an applicable "this is how you get started" example. Well done.

Side note: I downloaded the gist and encountered some odd behavior when I opened the .html file in my browser (Chrome on Mac OSX). The treasure chest is stuck near the top of the circle (regardless of cursor position) and one of the flags is missing its connecting lines. Just thought you should know.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the note on the gist, I was editing that as I went along writing the post and obviously have mistakenly made an edit somewhere. Will fix it up ASAP.

EDIT: Now Fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's an excellent program called 'Geogebra' (google it). It takes about a minute to reconstruct the pirate problem; see file here: [http://ubuntuone.com/37Y5UbvN6wqbYOWYPcict2](http://ubuntuone.com/37Y5UbvN6wqbYOWYPcict2), you can move around the point of the grave and see how the point of the treasure reacts (or doesn't)

</comment><comment><USER4> The bl.ocks link ([http://bl.ocks.org/azundo/5928203](http://bl.ocks.org/azundo/5928203)) given at the top of the article does not actually contain the finished product. This was rather confusing for me since I tried playing around with it before reading the article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops! Thanks for catching that, must have made a mistake on an edit somewhere, I'll fix it up.

EDIT: Now fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't there two potential locations depending on prospective? Moving the grave above the two trees changes which tree is on the right/left.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, see the One More Thing section near the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is really cool. However, I didn't realize the diagrams were interactive in my first reading, leading me to think this page was far more boring than it really was. I'd suggest a quick caption on the interactive ones like, "Move your mouse in the circle to see the flags move around live." Just to help out soft-headed folks like myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion, I'll try to make that more clear in the future. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is cool as hell.</comment>


What Is a Strain Gauge? - <AUTHOR> https://www.variohm.com/news-media/technical-blog-archive/what-is-a-strain-gauge- <comment><USER2> The bonded wire strain gauge was invented in 1937 by Edward Simmons at Caltech and independently by Arthur Rage at MIT a little later. Simmons fought Caltech over the patent rights and won in 1949.

This made Simmons a lot of money.

Much later, he become rather odd. When I was a student at Caltech in the late '70s and early '80s he was frequently around campus sitting in on lectures or using the library. Most of us students and even most of the faculty and staff had no idea who he was but since security wasn't chasing him off or circulating warnings to avoid him no one minded.

By odd I mean his typical attire was purple or pink tights, a tutu, slippers, sometimes a garish multicolored sweater, and a beret or sometimes a turban. People called him "Renaissance Ralph".

Here's a couple photos of him [1] [2].

[1] [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79907149/edward-e- simmon...](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79907149/edward-e-simmons)

[2] [http://archives- dc.library.caltech.edu/islandora/object/ct1%...](http://archives- dc.library.caltech.edu/islandora/object/ct1%3A1849)

</comment><comment><USER3> Amongst other applications, Strain Gauges can be found in the Trackpoints commonly associated with IBM/Lenovo's Thinkpad laptops:

[https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/91/5c/4b/e86a79d...](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/91/5c/4b/e86a79d7f7d198/US6509890.pdf)</comment>


PICO-8 for Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=3085 <comment><USER2> Very interesting project. Background info here ~ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11189329](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11189329) and here [http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php](http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php) The Pico-8 is a subset of the work being done on Voxatron ~ [http://www.lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php](http://www.lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php)

</comment><comment><USER3> I play enough with PICO-8 and VOX on my PC that I should get a dedicated Pi just for this! It's amazing how much fun it is playing other people's games, and starting to work on your own. Great to teach little ones programming.

</comment><comment><USER4> Slightly off-topic, but can someone confirm if it's actually bad/electrically dangerous to run composite video through RCA audio cables? It's visible in the first image.

<comment><USER5> "Proper" RCA audio cables are 75 ohm impedance and can carry composite video just fine. Lower quality cables will most likely carry the video but you may see degraded quality. It is not electrically dangerous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm reminded of LOAD81, from antirez, which is another of these "throwback to the times when computing was easier" style of user interfaces:

[http://github.com/antirez/load81](http://github.com/antirez/load81)

Fun stuff! :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I haven't even cracked open the sprite editor or tracker yet but a dedicated PICO-8 box would be awesome to have in the living room as a sort of coffee table computer.

<comment><USER8> Just got done working on plans for my living room. This would be a cool addition, but I don't know if my lady would dig it haha</comment></comment>


7 Traits That Distinguish Super Successful People From Ordinary Ones - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/lewis-schiff/super-successful-wealth-building-traits.html?cid=readmore

<comment><USER2> I would have liked to see some traits that are common to billionaire's. for every billionaire theres thousands or millions following the same stratagy that didn't get it to work. I think the best advice I've heard is from the lotto which says you can't win if you don't play.</comment>


The Difference Between An Amateur, A Scientist, And A Genius - <AUTHOR> http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/05/the_difference_between_an_amat.html

<comment><USER2> This article is poorly articulated (consider the definitions/categorizations for amateur, professional, scientist, genius, and pre-med.) Even the example does not clearly show his point. Is it "genius" to consider that spectral intensity changes gradually rather than suddenly?

Anyway, I get the point because it's mundane and everyone's thought about it before.

<comment><USER3> The genius was in measuring the temperature outside the visible spectrum, and proposing a theory for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure I agree with this catagorization but the article does make me interested in learning more about Herschel.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://xkcd.com/242/>

<comment><USER6> that made my day, thanks RiderOfGiraffes

<comment><USER7> <http://xkcd.com/585>

</comment></comment></comment><comment> william-newman I don't think amateur-vs.-scientist-vs.-genius is a very good set of names for the distinctions he is trying to make, especially if you're going to reach back to Herschel's time. To pick some influential folk who fit into that period, consider Babbage, Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur, Boltzmann, Cantor, Semmelweis, the Wright Brothers, and Wegener. Consider also their rivals and critics. (Since I included a number of controversial folk, various of their rivals and critics are still remembered.) We can come up with generalizations about what the influential folk did right, but I don't think it works to say that, e.g., they were scientists while their critics and rivals were amateurs.

Or consider all the advice in an essay at the level of Hamming's "You and your research." It doesn't seem to me to be useful to try to boil down the multiple properties discussed there into boolean predicates "is this person a scientist" or "is this person an amateur," or even to try to choose particular points in those multidimensional property spaces as typifying "scientist" or "amateur" or "genius."

I wholeheartedly approve of people writing about some of the principles in this essay, notable the ones often summarized as "genius is 99% perspiration" and "a month in the lab can often save a day in the library." Those are very important principles, and very often people don't appreciate them enough. But trying to define the amateur/scientist/genius terminology on top of those principles doesn't seem very sensible.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very little of what is said about genius is anything like correct. This article is an exception.

</comment><comment><USER9> loop until done

For a genius, done = "aha!"

For a scientist, done = "hypothesis == true" or "hypothesis == false"

For an amateur, done = lunch time

<comment><USER10> "In the 4th century BC, Aristotle asked why the heat of the sun prompts us to sneeze, whereas the heat of the fire does not. A partial answer came two millennia later, when the English natural philosopher Francis Bacon showed that his photic sneeze had nothing to do with heat at all: if he closed his eyes when going into the sun, he didn't sneeze even though the heat was still there. While Bacon's application of the scientific method was beyond reproach, his conclusions are distinctly iffy to a modern nose. "The cause is not the heating of the nostrils," he asserted, "but the drawing down of the moisture of the brain."

\- [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227041.400-why- some-...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227041.400-why-some-people- sneeze-when-the-sun-comes-out.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=brain)</comment></comment>


Finnish police probe Wikipedia's donation requests - <AUTHOR> http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2014/02/07/finnish_police_probe_wikipedia_donation_requests

<comment><USER2> It's a bit strange they sent the letter to email@example.com, which is not a legal entity and doesn't own the website or conduct fundraising for it. It's just a mailing list of Finnish-speaking people who are sysops on the Finnish Wikipedia (not all of them even live in Finland, as there are speakers of Finnish in other countries, also). The organization conducting the fundraising is the Wikimedia Foundation, based in San Francisco, so it would make sense to address the letter to them.</comment>


The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds - <AUTHOR> http://killscreendaily.com/articles/weird-abandoned-spaces-virtual-worlds/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone remember something about a minecraft server which is never reset.. and turned into a desolate stripmined wasteland around the spawn point, where you have to hope to luck into a food cache just to survive..

Edit: it appears the server is called "2b2t" .. searching for it brings up a ton of interesting stuff:

[https://imgur.com/a/bt3zi](https://imgur.com/a/bt3zi)

<comment><USER3> It's a shame they didn't show the inside of the spawn "cube".

Last time I went on there, you spawned atop an uneven cobble floor, those huge cobble walls surrounding you.

Exiting the cube is hazardous. It's dark, twisty, and full of deep pits that open up just around corners as you try to escape.

<comment><USER4> As a 2b2t player, I would say that whilst it initially appears to be rather difficult to exit said 'cube', it is in fact rather easy to escape. One must simply be willing to try a few times and meet new people. Why go near people who are potentially hostile? There is no loss: one simply restarts with the same amount as before (0), but one could make a friend which will provide one with food etc. in order to facilitate easier arrival at 2b2t Immigration. 2b2t Immigration's officers are rather ... variable. Some will kill on sight (KoS), whilst others will give render assistance. However, the main factor which has lead to 2b2t spawn becoming easier is the road system. There are roads every multiple of 400 blocks up until the 1200 orbital, for the most part, thanks to the efforts of several players. The roads lead to portals, which in theory allow you to get to over 100k overworld by walking along nether paths. Within the 1200 radius there are a multitude of farms, and within the latter radius there are far more indeed. After about 1k the landscape appears to be vaguely naturally generated, and after 5k all destruction of spawn like intensity ceases to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the late 90's there was also Active Worlds[1][2]. It was one of the first online communities I frequented.

It seemed to follow exactly the path second life went, except with the diminished number of people that were on the internet at the time: very high initial interested (the "wow - 3d internet factor") and very little engagement after that.

I _really_ thought 3d web would be a thing. :)

[1] [http://activeworlds.com](http://activeworlds.com)

[2] [https://osantana.me/vintage/borolandia/artigo03/index.html](https://osantana.me/vintage/borolandia/artigo03/index.html) (article in portuguese, pics of a brazilian AW server back from 2000)

<comment><USER6> Active Worlds was the coolest thing I ever goofed around in, at least at the time. The COFMeta (metaverse) and Mars worlds were my favorite.

It was basically the 3D equivalent of Geocities. You could wander for hours, looking at the cool little houses and weird displays people had built. You could even do simple scripting with keyframes for animating objects by toggling their visibility. :)

It was so cool, and I even ended up buying a little AWLD stock. The market imploded of course, and the people running it apparently did some scummy things (see Shamus Young's accounting here: [http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=13720](http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=13720) ).

The only thing really missing was modeling; to solve this, you'd run across giant prefab yards, and then write down model names. Mars had a sort of boneyard for this purpose.

They also did kinda-cool tie-ins with other media, like a world for _The 13th Floor_ and the X-Files movie. I miss that sense of "Oh man, this is the future!".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought the article was a bit brief. A better one that was recently posted on HN [1] describes exploring university campuses that were built in Second Life and subsequently abandoned.

Some thoughts:

Looking at the pictures in [1], I was reminded that _people designed and built all this stuff_. Spent months of their lives and used their creativity. I wonder how they feel? Maybe like the designers of the Athens [2] and Sochi [3] Olympic sites.

Also, back in 2003 Cyan Worlds (the developers of Myst) created an online world called Uru Live [4]. They closed it due to lack of demand and (IIRC) scaling problems, but at some point it seems to have been brought back to life by a community effort [5]. So, abandoned worlds don't have to stay that way and the work of their designers doesn't have to be wasted.

The first time I recall encountering the concept of virtual world architecture was in Greg Egan's book Permutation City [6]. Anyone know of anything earlier?

Finally, it would be cool if virtual worlds could be linked by gateways, with some way for player metadata to migrate across the gateways.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10079400](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10079400)

[2] [http://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandon...](http://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandoned- athens-olympic-2004-venues-10-years-on-in-pictures)

[3] [http://weburbanist.com/2014/09/09/post-olympic- abandonment-s...](http://weburbanist.com/2014/09/09/post-olympic-abandonment- sochi-already-on-the-road-to-ruin/)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst_Online:_Uru_Live](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst_Online:_Uru_Live)

[5] [http://mystonline.com/](http://mystonline.com/)

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

<comment><USER8> Sure, William Gibson's _Neuromancer_ was written a decade earlier and popularized the term "cyberspace". His trilogies [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_trilogy) have descriptions of virtual spaces designed for various reasons.

Snow Crash was published in 1992 and popularized the term "avatar". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash) Its virtual spaces were pretty elaborate.

<comment><USER7> I wasn't being very clear, but by "virtual architecture" I meant something like a design practice that extends conventional built architecture to exploit the novel properties of virtual spaces. Like physically or topologically impossible buildings.

Gibson's cyberspace (at least in Neuromancer) is just a 3D grid containing basic shapes. His later works do describe more elaborate worlds, but as far as I remember they are copies of the real world (eg. Chia's virtual copy of Venice in Idoru or the world inside the Aleph in Mona Lisa Overdrive).

The Street in Snow Crash is nearer to what I was thinking of.

Edid: The Virtual Venice belonged to Chia in Idoru [1], not Marly in Count Zero as I originally said.

[1] [http://www.procolharum.com/awsop_novel3.htm](http://www.procolharum.com/awsop_novel3.htm)

<comment><USER8> There is a beach at the end of Neromancer that seems to have a city in the distance, but if you walk toward it, you just end up where you started. It's a bit sparse though, I see your point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In the original story [http://fusion.net/story/181901/we-took-a-tour-of-the- abandon...](http://fusion.net/story/181901/we-took-a-tour-of-the-abandoned- college-campuses-of-second-life/) there are people defending Second Life and its educational usage. I didn't see any students offering their perspective, though. I wonder if students who take these courses actually find them useful.

</comment><comment><USER10> I was a big player of MUDs back in the 90s. I probably spent way too many hours staring at green text (when I should have been studying), but I wouldn't trade those hours for anything. Some of my best computing memories of that era are from playing various MUDs, and even 20+ years later I still keep up with some of the friends I met in the games.

Many of the MUDs I played on are sadly long gone, but a few are still around. I still have characters on a couple of them that I connect to every so often, like maybe once a year or so.

The connected player base is just a fraction of what it once was. Which always struck me as odd, seeing as how there are massively more people using the Internet now than there were in the 90s. Even accounting for cultural changes and technology moving on, it always struck me as there should be enough new people interested in the old ways to keep the population level, but alas that doesn't seem to be the case.

I'll go walking around the old worlds, remembering the epic battles involving dozens of players and hundreds of NPCs. These days, most spaces are almost completely abandoned. If you've ever seen the music video for Sting's song Fields of Gold [0], it captures the mood of walking around the old rooms perfectly. It seems like just yesterday we were all having a grand time RPing, but everyone's gone now.

I stopped playing a lot in the late 90s/early 2000s when I left for college. I would still connect occasionally, but I just didn't have the time to devote to it like I did when I was a teenager. In that time, Warcraft and Second Life sucked most of the people I played with away, and I could just never get into either. They're kind of overload for me, and, frankly, just not very interesting. For some reason, my brain just works best with the simple text that MUDs provided.

Walking around the old worlds is sad, true. Nostalgic. But also some happiness. I'm glad I got to be part of that era, and glad for the friendships I made.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLVq0IAzh1A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLVq0IAzh1A)

<comment><USER11> Can you recommend any for a newcomer to look at?

<comment><USER10> It's really a question of what you're into. MUDs run the gamut from purely social with little combat (a bit like IRC with more functionality) to traditional medieval fantasy hack-and-slash to sci-fi space combat.

Some have specialized clients they recommend; I'm a big fan of just using TinyFugue [0] in a shell window, but that's just me. :)

MUD Connector [1] is a great place to start, as it has a few thousand listed with average sizes, themes, reviews, etc. All searchable, so you can find what appeals to you.

As a _very general_ rule, start with the bigger more active ones. The smaller ones can be very fun and you can make great, close friendships with other players, but they also can tend to get kind of insular and hard for a new player to penetrate.

[0] [http://tinyfugue.sourceforge.net/](http://tinyfugue.sourceforge.net/) (it's also in most package managers and in homebrew for Mac)

[1] [http://www.mudconnect.com/index.html](http://www.mudconnect.com/index.html)

<comment><USER11> Thanks very much :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I signed up for Second Life, and jogged around it for an hour or two. An Oculus Rift version would be intriguing. I found my original experience to be aimless. I wandered off and found a sort of castle or something, and enjoyed rambling around it, but ultimately felt there was nothing to do.

<comment> norea-armozel As an SL user, that's the norm with regard to the platform. It just seems LL hasn't a clue or just doesn't care if users stick around. I'm not sure how they make money when the vast majority of the users are now bots and the remainder aren't as cash rich as they use to be (Anshe Chung comes to mind).

If there's anything that future VR platform developers can learn from SL is this: engage your users, own up to mistakes, and be willing to break things that depended on kludges to fix things. If you do that you'll be light years ahead of the competition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You can see lots more if you're willing to go text-based. Like LambdaMOO: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LambdaMOO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LambdaMOO) (telnet: lambda.moo.mud.org 8888) - not the oldest but one of the oldest that's substantially community-built (it doesn't take much to get permission to make things) and still running.

<comment><USER14> MUDs and the like were my first thought as well. I guess they don't have the immediate visual effect of the later graphical worlds but over the years I occasionally log back on to some of the old MUDs I used to frequent if they're still up and running. Always weird to see a place that used to be filled with at least 20-40 people now only populated by maybe the sysop's character idling for months in the public channel.

<comment><USER15> Interestingly MUDs still have some niche to fill. Granted, a lot of them withered roughly a decade ago when MMORPGs became mainstream, but there are some that are fully alive and kicking. For example, Aardwolf MUD [1] seems to have about 300 players online most of the time, with peaks of 400 players [2].

[1] telnet: aardmud.org 23 [2] [http://www.aardwolf.com/stats.html](http://www.aardwolf.com/stats.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was never into _Second Life_ , but it would be really cool if this sort of thing were to be maintained (perhaps read-only) by an archive.org-alike organisation... Especially with decreasing digital storage costs this should be feasible, and it would be really cool if a generation from now people could poke around in these way dated spaces, a bit like someone today dusting of an Apple II lying in a cupboard... :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9434760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9434760)

<comment><USER18> You can get that any time a game starts dying or there's just no compelling reason to go to places because something so much better has been released since then.

<comment><USER19> The biggest thing with WoW, is they push end game content so heavily, and part of the way they do that is accelerating leveling through old content.

So while you used to have to grind through most of these regions, players now end up leveling much faster and only seeing a few of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Reminds me of this [http://www.avclub.com/article/theres-hidden-beauty- abandoned...](http://www.avclub.com/article/theres-hidden-beauty-abandoned- world-warcraft-citi-203779)

<comment><USER21> I remember another similar article, which wasn't specific to a particular service. I probably found the link on HN, but I can't find anything.

There's this, which I don't think is what I was thinking of:

The abandoned college campuses of Second Life

[http://fusion.net/story/181901/we-took-a-tour-of-the- abandon...](http://fusion.net/story/181901/we-took-a-tour-of-the-abandoned- college-campuses-of-second-life/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10079400](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10079400)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Most of the no-longer-updated stuff in Second Life eventually vanishes completely, because it costs money to own land (rent it). A small parcel isn't super-expensive though, so some people forget about it.

<comment><USER23> And I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the "real estate" owned by schools and corporations is tied to some long-forgotten expense account, so it may keep on getting paid for a very long time if nobody's paying attention. Either that, or Linden Labs may even be giving free service for some schools as a promotional deal.</comment></comment>


Startup Open House Is Today in Toronto and Montreal - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupopenhouse.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> ...so please feel free to come visit us at Nulogy! We're really glad to be a part of the community here in Toronto and happy to tell you all about our SaaS for co-packing businesses.

We're even hiring. [https://nulogy.com/careers](https://nulogy.com/careers)</comment>


Light completely stopped for a record-breaking minute - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23925-light-completely-stopped-for-a-recordbreaking-minute.html?cmpid=RSS%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL%7Conline-news#.UfEVLFM6dEl <comment><USER2> "To break the minute barrier [they] fired a control laser at an opaque crystal, sending its atoms into a quantum superposition of two states. This made it transparent to a narrow range of frequencies. Heinze's team then halted a second beam that entered the crystal by switching off the first laser and hence the transparency."

Thus continuing my inability to understand what the fuck anyone is talking about whenever the word "quantum" is used in a sentence.

I mean, seriously. This has to be the one area of general reader science journalism in which the journalists -- having about as much as idea as I do about what the physicists are talking about -- just copy down whatever the guys in the lab coats are saying and print it.

I work in research computing. When I start talking to someone from our communications department and use a word like "interoperability," they say, "Whoa, slow down. You have to spell that out for our readers." But "quantum superposition?" Oh, what the hell.

I understand that is this very, very complicated stuff, and that they can't explain the whole thing from top to bottom every time they mention quantum mechanics. But pithy little paragraphs like this explain absolutely nothing.

<comment><USER3> My layman's reading of this.

We used a crystal that is normally opaque (not see-through) and fired laser beams at it because, well... it seemed like fun! Apparently the laser beam affected the crystal and made it see-through but only for a narrow range of light frequencies (e.g. think of a filter that only allows one colour of light through). Then we thought Hey, we know how to make this here crystal see- through for a particular wavelength of light (think 'colour' if wavelength doesn't work for you). What if we (1) made it see-through with the laser, (2) shone some of that colour light in and then (3) turned off the laser so that it's no longer see-through. I wonder what happens? <time passes> zOMG! We trapped light!

In other words, I do think it's possible to get the message across without needing to refer to 'quantum' anything. However, this article is from NewScientist and the intended audience is likely to be vaguely familiar with concepts of superposition via stories of Schrödinger's cat [1]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat)

<comment><USER4> So, the light trapped in the crystal is stationary, and not just "bouncing around" inside, where we can observe it?

I guess the question could be phrased - is the light really stopped, or just confined to a REALLY small area (but the light still vibrates, wobbles, spins, or whatever else light does when trapped in a dark place)?

<comment><USER5> For intended purposes like the "Quantum repeater" I believe it does not matter if the photons really stopped or wobbling in some very small space. For the repeater they need to time shift photons. (IMHO, I have no idea what I'm talking about :) )

<comment><USER6> If they are not halted and then let go, but instead bouncing back and forth, there's a chance that when you open the Cristal it may exit by the other side.

Also the imprinted image may be lost or fuzzier.

<comment><USER5> It's never proposed as solving the repeater problem in full.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I work in a photonics lab and for all of the new fancy techniques you see show up in popular science publications for slowing and stopping light... they're all impractical. In the real world when we need to slow down light we still just use delay coils. Wrap tens to hundreds of kilometers of fiber into a coil (using a pump laser amplifier at some point if it gets too long) and just letting the light spin around in circles for the desired amount of time.

<comment><USER8> > when we need to slow down light

Why do you need to do that? I'd never heard of "photonics" before now.

<comment><USER7> Delaying light is sometimes used for a buffer in optical networks and signal processing, it is also used in the internal workings of certain opto- electronic devices such as optical oscillators; sometimes also used for testing and calibration of optical systems, making sure things are coming out as clean and at the same time as they do through the 'test' delay coil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a dream of a mirror that reflects the light of yesteryears.

You would look into it and see the reflections of the people and scene from the exact place and time as you were now - but 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago.

It would be a type of city attraction, where people would come to visit daily, so there would always be new and interesting people (and fashions) to see.

We actually have the technology to implement this right now, with video cameras, monitors and hard drives.

But the simplicity and beauty of a device that _actually_ slows down light to accomplish this - now _that_ would be something.

<comment><USER10> You're thinking of 'slow glass', from Bob Shaw's short story 'Light of Other Days': [http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/10/slow-glass-seen-from-all- ar...](http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/10/slow-glass-seen-from-all-around-bob- shaws-other-days-other-eyes)

<comment><USER9> _Analog, 1966_ \- Well, I guess _he_ didn't get the idea from _me_ , then.

Melancholy synopsis from Wiki:

 _While on vacation, they visit a slow glass merchant and notice the man 's wife and child through the window, playing inside the house. When they enter, however, the house is deserted; only then do they realize that the window is made of slow glass, giving the lonely man his final glimpses of his long-dead wife and child._

It's funny how stories from your youth can permeate into your memories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's nice for once to see evolutionary algorithms being used for something completely impractical.*

*mostly tongue-in-cheek

</comment><comment><USER12> What I want to know is: Does the crystal gain mass with the light stopped inside of it?

<comment><USER13> Yes. Since light is effect by gravity, it must have a mass. The increase should however be quite small on the crystal.

 _correction_ : See below.

<comment><USER14> I thought light was not effected by gravity but by the increased distance it had to travel due to warping effect on time/space caused by gravity?

<comment><USER13> Correct. Photons are responding to the curvature in space-time, not directly to the gravitational field. Doing a second check, light has inertia-mass, but not rest-mass.

<comment><USER15> > Photons are responding to the curvature in space-time, not directly to the > gravitational field

In general relativity, space-time curvature _is_ the gravitational field, so I'm not quite sure what distinction you're trying to draw?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> here is the original paper: [http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v111/i3/e033601](http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v111/i3/e033601)

</comment><comment><USER17> This article was pretty poorly written, leading to a couple of questions:

1) It seems to me that the scientists could have simply stored the energy from the light for a period of time? Which would not actually be "stopping" the light.

2) I understand a super position and quantum physics, but I still have vague idea of what happened in the experiment. If I actually understand the terminology and have done various experiments, research, etc. but still don't fully understand, how would the standard reader (without further explanation) understand the article?

<comment><USER18> > It seems to me that the scientists could have simply stored the energy from > the light for a period of time

Strained analogy: It's more like recording a hologram for a minute and then playing it back. It's a one-minute buffer for light, the same way we have video buffers, but for real life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I strongly dislike headlines like this (which all the crappy science news digests, like New Scientist, frequently indulge in).

If light could actually be "stopped", it wouldn't be light any more. It also can't be "slowed down"; it always travels at exactly the speed of light in whatever medium it's in. OTOH, if the light's energy is absorbed by electrons, it's not "light" any more. All matter does this trick all day every day - it's not news.

This sort of sentence only sows confusion in a lot of minds.

</comment><comment><USER20> _" Tens of seconds of light storage are needed for a device called a quantum repeater, which would stop and then re-emit photons used in secure communications, to preserve their quantum state over long distances."_

That's quite a lot of latency. Assuming many repeaters, does that mean a quantum-encrypted ping from one side of the world to the other might be measured in hours?

<comment><USER21> Not necessarily. It's not so much that a 10-second delay _will_ be introduced at every repeater, but that a practical system/implementation requires that a delay of up to ten seconds _may_ be introduced when required by traffic, etc. A straight-pipe, latency-free, synchronous-only system would require a lot more infrastructure to support (analogous to the earliest direct-connection telephone systems).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wait so is the story basically along the lines of, "Light hits black paint. Absorbed, stops. Comes out later." ?

<comment><USER22> I asked a physicist. The headline and article are both stupid but the science is good. It's like the paint thing except that when light hits paint, the paint affects the light, they interact, the information in the light gets messed up. With the fancy crystal thing they are preserving the information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Radiolab had a segment about stopping light back in February. It's a great listen: [http://www.radiolab.org/2013/feb/05/master- universe/](http://www.radiolab.org/2013/feb/05/master-universe/)

</comment><comment><USER24> This is interesting... every time I've read a "light slowed down" article over the last 10 years it's been Professor Lene Hau. This time it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER25> I look forward to our Middle Earth future.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silmarils](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silmarils)

</comment><comment><USER26> this seems like the coolest thing in the world to see, but yet no pictures? What does stopped light look like?

<comment><USER27> To the naked eye, nothing. If it's stopped, it can't hit your retina!

<comment><USER26> my head just exploded trying to grasp this... objects don't move but i can see them, but i can only see them because of light. therefore, if light doesn't move, if the object does, can i see it on the object?

<comment><USER28> My guess: The object that does not reflect light to you ceases to exist in your vision. Nothing comes from that direction. Your brain would then attempt to compensate -- as it does for the blind spot in both your eyes -- and fill in the void, perhaps with a fuzzy version of continuity of whatever colors and textures surround the object.

<comment><USER29> We don't need to make wild hypotheses about what an object that doesn't reflect light looks like. It's so mundane we have a word for it: "black".

<comment><USER30> It would look black to a light sensor. As he says, your brain does play tricks and fill-in-the-black more than you might think. If you have a blind-spot you don't always perceive the absence of light - you may perceive what your brain is expecting. There are also disorders where it does this too much. I knew a guy who used to do things like overfill his coffee mug all the time, because the mug kept looking empty and then suddenly it was overflowing - his brain just expected the mug to stay empty.

<comment><USER29> A thing that absorbs light is not a "blind spot". It's _black_.

Are you on the good stuff or something? It's _black_. Just because someone muttered "quantum" does not make this magic. It's _black_. What is so complicated about this concept? It literally can not get much more normal than this.

<comment><USER30> I never implied anything to do with quantum physics or "magic". I also never said it wasn't black or an absence of light. Both I and the GP comment are referring to how your brain fills in the gaps and causes you to think you see things that are not there. So no light reaches you eye, yes, and that is referred to as being "black". We're talking about what your brain would then cause you to perceive or "see". Now what is so complicated about _that_?

<comment><USER29> "The object that does not reflect light to you ceases to exist in your vision. Nothing comes from that direction. Your brain would then attempt to compensate -- as it does for the blind spot in both your eyes -- and fill in the void, perhaps with a fuzzy version of continuity of whatever colors and textures surround the object."

This is gibberish. Unless you're high on acid, when you see a black thing, your visual system does not go nuts trying to fill in the missing data... it sees _black_.

You're trying to explain a phenomenon that _doesn 't exist_. Your brain does not see a black object as a "gap"... it sees it as _black_. There's nothing complicated to explain here. There's no "illusion". There's no weird perceptual thing to explain, beyond the usual "what _is_ seeing red, really?" (red for some reason being the usual color chosen for this question), which is clearly not what is being referenced. There's no _gap_ here. No optical illusion. Just black.

I mean, find something in your visual field that is black, and look at it for a bit. Do you _see_ your brain "filling in the void, perhaps with a fuzzy version of continuity of whatever colors and textures surround the object"?

The only hard thing about understanding this is that there's no hard thing.

<comment><USER31> It would be interesting to see some ultrablack material in person [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/ultrablack/](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/ultrablack/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> But why? Why not stop time instead?

<comment><USER33> For how long?

<comment><USER34> Now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The ultimate solution for information storage?</comment>


Node.js Is a Salad Bar: On Boilerplate, Frameworks and Usability - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@modernserf/node-js-is-a-salad-bar-74ec01bd4390#.s6k69x6rp <comment><USER2> I think modernserf made some great points here, but didn't take the argument to its logical conclusion: just use a (non-bespoke) framework.

      We might not be able to provide novice users with One True Framework, but we need to do better than boilerplate, both for their sake and for our own. If we can't find a higher level abstraction to work with our own frameworks, how are we sure that we understand it ourselves?

While competition is good, I think modernserf too quickly accepts that there can't be a One True Framework for the web, or at least a handful. Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android all have One True Framework, and their app ecosystems are doing well. We would be lucky to elevate the caliber of the average web app to that of the average iOS app.

In fact, it's exactly this received wisdom—that the web is open, and therefore each app should handpick its own bespoke stack—is, in my opinion, the very thing setting us back. We spend so much time integrating pieces that were never designed to work together that we both waste time and hit a limit in the capabilities of the browser we can take advantage of.

The browser now supports offline storage, Service Worker, WebGL and more. But taking advantage of those things requires _code_. But not too much, because you need to preserve the instantaneous the web is known for. To balance this constraint, we're going to need even more tools that help us parcel up our application into little pieces that can be delivered on demand, then cached as aggressively as possible on the user's device. All of this requires code, and more importantly, it requires code that can _reason about the entire system_. At some point, we're going to get to a place where bespoke frameworks simply don't let you build the caliber of app that you can with Ember or Angular 2—there's too much to do, and too much of it relies on a shared understanding of the entire system. When that happens, I hope the web community can finally accept that shared solutions are the only way to compete with native apps.</comment>


The family of a teen killed in a 116 mph Tesla crash says it makes unsafe cars - <AUTHOR> https://amp.businessinsider.com/tesla-sued-by-crash-victims-family-2019-1 <comment><USER2> "Monserrat's lawsuit alleged Tesla should have had better fire-prevention measures in place."

BI doesn't state whether either person survived the crash itself (116 MPH into a brick wall) in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER3> Meanwhile Tesla's countersuit alleges that the families of teens killed in a 116mph Tesla crash make unsafe teenagers.</comment>


DB with ~60k names by culture and gender (AI,ML,DL,NLP) want grow with your help - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/s-a/namo <comment><USER2> Can this be used to identify Muslim travelers by name? Asking for a friend.</comment>


A Chinese electric car is coming to the US - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1500303/chinas-qiantu-will-be-first-chinese-electric-carmaker-to-challenge-tesla-in-the-us/ <comment><USER2> As I pointed out in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18632319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18632319), established ICE car companies are going to find that their electric cars are facing a headwind because it is not in their dealers' interests to sell car that require less maintenance. So they aren't a real source of competition for Tesla.

However a pure electric company that has established itself in another country, THAT can potentially give Tesla a run for its money!

This will be interesting to watch.

<comment><USER3> > _established ICE car companies are going to find that their electric cars > are facing a headwind because it is not in their dealers ' interests to sell > car that require less maintenance._

I'm not convinced by this. Nissan's been selling the Leaf for 8 years now. All manufacturers are moving to non-ICE cars because they have to. Customers want them and legislation has been introduced in various countries and cities which will ban ICE cars in future. Aston Martin, for example, has an electric conversion program so you can keep driving your vintage car after the bans are introduced:

[https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic- cars/a25414...](https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic- cars/a25414229/aston-martin-heritage-ev/)

Dealerships are going to have to sell electric cars or stop being in the car dealership business.

What probably will happen though is that the auto mechanic industry as a whole will contract as electric vehicles become more common.

<comment><USER4> I'll tell you my true experience with my LEAF.

I bought my used 2013 leaf at a sticker price of around ~9,500 USD before taxes and fees. A few months in, I began to experience an issue with the braking system. After depressing the brake pedal and slowing to a stop, the pedal would sink slowly, and the car could creep forward again until I applied more pressure. After enough cycles of this I'd have pushed the pedal all the way down, and there would be no way to hold the stop. I immediately set up an appointment with the local licensed Nissan dealer for maintenance, and began putting the car in park at intersections.

I noted that the brake fluid was very low, but not empty, when I brought the car in. I figured all it needed was to be refilled, but there were some other minor squawks I wanted to have them look at.

After service, the rep sat me down and explained that the part that balances brake force between the regenerative and friction braking systems "had failed", and this part was going to cost nearly $2000 to replace. He clearly represented to me that the maintenance mechanics had uncovered a problem with this part, that it was failed, and absolutely necessary to replace. I paid for the appointment and said I'd have to think about the replacement part.

I looked over the paperwork very carefully and there were no error codes in the testing results. I've been driving the car for over a year since with no issues. The problem with the brake pedal resulted from low brake fluid, which they topped off during the maintenance.

I've resolved not to take the car to the dealer for any issue unless I absolutely can't handle it myself, which I'm guessing means "never".

So I definitely give credence to the idea that the electric cars are a threat to maintenance revenue.

<comment><USER5> The Brake fluid reservoir level becomes low when the fluid leaks out somewhere in the system. Brake fluid isn't something that is consumed in normal operation. When fluid can be pushed out as a leak that is lost force that is not applied to stopping. When fluid can get out air can get in and air is compressible so this makes the hydraulic braking system feel spongy.

Adding more fluid and bleeding the air out of the system may temporarily make it seem like there is no problem but if you note the level dropping then you ought to find the leak or you risk losing control of your vehicle and run in to some thing or some one. I can't believe it got so bad you were putting it in park at intersections. That is really dangerous!!

<comment><USER6> Could be. But what also could be is that during a previous maintenance visit a part of the brake system was replaced which led to loss of some fluid and they forgot to top it off.

After all, if there is a leak in the system OP would not be able to drive the car for a year without the issue recurring.

<comment><USER7> In a disc brake system, the brake fluid level will become lower due to normal wear on the pads. Often an indicator that pads are worn is that the low brake fluid warning light will illuminate on the dashboard.

If you top up the fluid at that point, everything will seem normal, but the pads will continue to wear until the friction material is entirely gone.

Sinking pedal while stopped can also be caused by leaking seals in the master cylinder.

So yes, low fluid level is either an indication of pad wear or a leak, it's not a normal condition and if you don't know the cause, you should take it to a shop that can check it out.

<comment><USER8> >If you top up the fluid at that point, everything will seem normal, but the pads will continue to wear until the friction material is entirely gone.

No, nothing will seem normal if your brake pads are worn out. Depending on your care your brake pads are designed in a way that an electrical signal is activated or they make a loud noise before they wear out completely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Qiantu (the name is Chinese for Dragonfly)" Small nit. "Qiantu" is not Chinese for "dragonfly." "Qiantu" (前途) means "future outlook", "prospects", or "journey."

For the record, "qingting" (蜻蜓) is the Chinese word for "dragonfly."

<comment><USER10> This article [http://www.sohu.com/a/246081485_119218](http://www.sohu.com/a/246081485_119218) says it's just because the QT is shared between the company name qiantu and the logo qingting.

<comment><USER11> That explains it. In this case Dragonfly sounds more like a nickname rather than the official name.

As seen in one of photos in the sohu link, the English spelling is Qiantu, not Dragonfly or Qingting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > No Chinese brand has managed to break into the US market and establish > itself as one that Americans will trust.

Probably for good reason. My city did a huge development project for a new rapid transit line that featured electric buses from a Chinese manufacturer. All the infrastructure is complete except the buses were absolute crap and sent back. So we have all this new multimillion dollar development on a main street of the city and no buses.

<comment><USER13> Source [1] is German, so I realize few people will be able to read this without Google Translate, but I want to post this anyway:

The Hamburg public transit organization "Hochbahn" has thoroughly evaluated purchasing electric busses from Chinese manufacturer (BYD - Build Your Dream) which apparently has 400k operating e-busses around the world. Hamburg has several transit lines which serve as frontier for operating novel technologies in actual service while keeping potential negative effects limited.

They have actively decided against them, although these busses are available NOW as opposed to future European alternatives. Main reasons really seem to be complete crap standards and general lack of Chinese regard for the European market.

[1] [https://dialog.hochbahn.de/bus-in-zukunft/warum-wir-nicht- ei...](https://dialog.hochbahn.de/bus-in-zukunft/warum-wir-nicht-einfach-e- busse-aus-china-kaufen/)

EDIT: Hochbahn recently received their first European E-busses.

<comment><USER14> _complete crap standards_

Care to expand? Euro standards being crap, or manufacturer's?

I'd thought that one of the roadblocks for chinese products would be the lack of US/EU certifications.

<comment><USER13> Apologies for late reply. I have listed the issues for you that Hochbahn has summarised in their public statements. Following points are at the very least not satisfactory, some are almost seen as fraudulent claims from BYD:

\- Passenger comfort, spacing in the busses, quality of used materials, information systems

\- No regard or interest for European market and no licenses

\- Batteries are not sufficient for actual service, listed capacities are not representative of normal use due to variables in traffic, weather, road conditions, driver performance, air conditioning

\- BYD faces criticism for many issues with their busses such as reported inability to drive up hills

\- BYD seems to report battery capacity at twice (!) of their practical capacity in every day use

\- BYD busses have reduced life spans, making their e-busses even more uneconomic

These are problems of early/novel e-busses but it effectively leads to the inability to deliver a service at the quality that German customers demand. There is simply no way that anyone will be ok with getting out of a bus into the rain/snow, walking the rest of the track because the battery suddenly ran out earlier than expected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So why should anyone trust the software on these things?

From the same news website:

[https://qz.com/1490376/chinas-electric-cars-are- government-s...](https://qz.com/1490376/chinas-electric-cars-are-government- spies/)

I realize there's little the Chinese government can do if you're not in their country, but to what extent do they have control over the car? The same concerns go for Tesla so please don't "what about Tesla?" me.

I'm all for electric cars, but perhaps foreign markets shouldn't so readily accept 2 ton computers running software straight from China. How much analysis on the software can one feasibly do to ensure nothing fishy is going on?

</comment><comment><USER16> The dealership model is so crappy. You can go to a website and order a car, but you're still directed to a dealer.

Like Japan, you go to a dealer, and they don't even have cars (or a very limited amount as just 'show cars'). You order them custom made.

I think these places make money, enough to pay workers and bills, because they are essentially owned by the local factories. Not by people. But I am probably wrong about that.

Dealerships should only exist for used cars, IMO.

<comment><USER17> >because they are essentially owned by the local factories.

And who own those factories, if not people?

<comment><USER18> In most of the world, corporations don't count as people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If they deliver on a fast and light relatively unsafe EV, free of all this pervasive surveillance/autonomous garbage, at a competitive price point, I'm buying one.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, give me a decent-handling battery electric drivetrain and chassis that I can hack and I'm in!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> When I visited China a couple of months ago we saw many different electric car brands and ICE car brands.

We spoke with our didi driver about his interior (ICE car) that looked very similar to BMW and he said that these are actually BMW parts but this car could never sell in another country (I assumed due to the build quality). It looked like a normal car from the outside, nothing spectacular.

However there are a lot of electric cars both on the streets and showcased in the malls that look really, really good. The stores are kept similar to Tesla and Apple stores, very minimalistic, clean and comforting. I think these will be exactly the brands that will make waves, once they fix certain issues and enter the Western markets. Exciting times!

</comment><comment><USER21> A car that doesn't exist from a company with no other products.

<comment><USER22> Sounds like a Tesla?

<comment><USER23> In what respect?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So many Chinese car makers popped up in recent years. There're already NIO, Byton, Xiaopeng. Never heard of this one before. I wonder how many there are. :)

<comment><USER25> There's well over 50 that operate inside of China.

<comment><USER7> Are there really 50? Or is it 50 different brand names on the same two or three products?

<comment><USER26> There are around 10 major car manufacturers in China, churning out products under a constellation of brands.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Another Chinese EV Company, Xiaopeng Motors, is likely to launch their EV Cars in India this coming year.

</comment><comment><USER28> Another PR campain, then the company can brag about "Even Americans buy our cars, what are you worrying about?"

"Sold overseas" is like an honor badge, Chinese really buy it.

US media really should stop this aggressive fearmongering.

<comment><USER29> There probably also an aspect of annoying Donald Trump in the decision to enter the US market.

<comment><USER28> And I guess not long from now, you'd be able to buy from Aliexpress EVs made out of Chinese back yards.

<comment> dis-sys if you can't wait, you can always go to tmall.com, which is operated by the exact same company, and get yourself this pink "car" delivered for $950 USD

[https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=568970816397](https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=568970816397)

<comment><USER30> hilarious! if I click on that pink button, will it arrive at my doorstep?

I honestly think this will be the future: buying products directly from Chinese sites instead of Amazon. instead of fake product reviews you there have vendor rankings.

<comment><USER28> Oh honey, "fake product reviews" is mutiple times more rampant in China, there's an entire industry.

<comment><USER30> Sure, but this should be reflected in vendor ratings?

At Amazon the vendor is not even clickable in the overview. And even after clicking in the product page it does not show any vendor ratings(!?). This can and should be solved via UI though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> King-Aaron If it goes as well as it looks, I'll be keen.

Any new competitor in the electric car space is a welcome addition in my opinion so long as it doesn't flop into vaporware.</comment>