Losing graciously - <AUTHOR> http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1316 <comment><USER2> Some individuals in the Linux community regularly criticize Canonical for "not playing along well with others" and taking Ubuntu in directions that go against "the community's wishes." I think those individuals are misguided. Canonical _does_ try to collaborate with other projects and distributions. It's just that such collaboration is _not_ the company's priority.

Canonical's priority, as best as I can judge, is to make Ubuntu the world's leading Linux distribution for desktops and other platforms -- cloud, tablet, phone, etc. So they will use whatever F/LOSS code works best to achieve this goal, regardless of whether it's internally or externally developed. They are not letting 'ego' and 'pride' get in the way of achieving their goal.

If using systemd will help them achieve their goal more than using upstart, they will use systemd. Ditto for Unity versus Gnome, and for Mir versus Wayland. For them, it's not about "winning the argument," but about "winning the #1 spot."

<comment><USER3> Unity and Mir have been two good choices.

<comment><USER4> I haven't tried Mir yet.

Unity was a terrible choice. The early versions crashed a lot. Every time I've tried to use it, I get frustrated and end up removing it within a day. There's some magic key combination you have to know in order to do something as fundamental as opening multiple instances of an application.

The "start" menu equivalent in more traditional desktops has a list of installed applications by category. Browsing this to figure out what applications you have is an excellent way to familiarize yourself with your system. The "search" function in Unity requires you to know what you're looking for; there's no way to discover what's installed by browsing.

Unity would be fine as an extra option. It might even be a good default for smartphones. But I jumped ship for Linux Mint when Ubuntu tried to shove Unity down everyone's throats by making it the default.

<comment><USER5> For the first two releases where Unity was the default, I tried to like it but had to give up within a week because it was simply too buggy, given the Compiz plugins I wished to run. (Had I used it stock, doubtless it would have worked better.)

In the third release featuring Unity, also the release where they removed the classic GNOME shell, I tried Unity again and was satisfied. It was better than the GNOME shell I had been using theretofore.

I do not believe Unity to be perfect, but I _do_ enjoy using it more than almost any window manager. (For completely unrelated reasons, I switched to i3 a couple of months ago, but of window managers directed at normal users, Unity is certainly my favourite.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > I will ask members of the Ubuntu community to help to implement this > decision efficiently, bringing systemd into both Debian and Ubuntu safely > and expeditiously.

Well, this was a pleasant surprise.

I honestly thought that Ubuntu would continue to use Upstart regardless of what Debian decided. It'd have been a monumental amount of work to take on, but on the other hand, there's already been a lot of NIH-syndrome in Ubuntu- land for a while (Upstart, Mir, Unity, etc.)

Ubuntu's been slowly moving in the direction of becoming a "silo", spearate from other Linux distributions for a while now (a direction I dislike). If Ubuntu had decided to double-down on Upstart against the tide, that would have been the final nail in the coffin for them (in my books - they'd still find success for at least a while no matter what they did).

 _EDIT_ : Upstart may actually not be a great example of NIH, but Mir certainly is.

<comment><USER7> One difference is that the init system is not especially user facing.

(It can be, but that means it isn't working very well)

<comment><USER8> It is for sysadmins. And those are probably Canonical's biggest source of income.

<comment><USER9> Not really. We're mainly concerned that the interface is consistent.

 _service ssh restart_ works fine but that was fine in sysvinit as well..

<comment><USER10> for some value of fine.

      service my_service restart

required writing 100+ shell scripts, each of which was error prone and difficult.

<comment><USER9> But also 100% not my problem :)

<comment><USER11> If one of those scripts forgets to kill a process's children (because the process itself was supposed to handle that), and a server ends up with a bazillion orphaned processes, then it could well become your problem!

This happened to me once. Never again, damn it.

<comment> jude- What stopped you from spawning the daemon in a cgroup?

<comment><USER11> I didn't know about them at the time, and I wasn't the one who wrote the script that spawned it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _From my perspective the fact that good people were clearly split suggests > that either option would work perfectly well._

It's a nice rationality gem right here. If the costs and benefits of both options you're choosing from balance each other out, instead of carefully searching for optimal solution that will yield little marginal utility benefit you may as well toss a coin and be done with it.

<comment><USER13> Definitely a management perspective.

<comment><USER14> Sometimes that's the best perspective to have. And in this case, I believe it is. If left up to us engineers/hackers/nerds, we would continue to stubbornly work on or with one system or the other, prolonging the debate indefinitely. And hey, if enough people really feel strongly that Upstart is superior, it's FOSS! Fork and build a community! I know it's not _easy_ but if enough people share your passion it can happen, and that's Yet Another Reason(tm) Open Source _rocks_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's a tad annoying for us kinda-sys-admins that run full stacks in AWS (or other cloud services) and have to maintain not only domain knowledge for the code we're writing to run on the stack, but the server architecture and services of the OS we choose. My time is limited, and Upstart scripts have been written and run wonderfully.

Ubuntu smooths out many things, which is why I (and I guess many others) choose it for my main server OS. I'm glad to hear 14.04 LTS will still have Upstart support, but this means I have to put "move to systemd" as a medium- range ticket, which is sadly more time wasted.

Go progress! But comon, progress! Stop making more work for me. :)

<comment><USER16> You host most of your stuff on a public cloud which means you don't do a lot of what most sysadmins do. Do yourself a favor and embrace it. Learning new tech and (more importantly) being able to know from experience which is more fit for a specific task is part of the career field you've chosen.

I've professionally managed thousands of RHEL/CentOS/Fedora/Gentoo/Ubuntu/Debian servers in production (and that is just linux!) and not had any real issues learning the variations. Sure you learn different package managers, /etc/sysconfig vs /etc/default, different init scripts, but it is just semantics. That is why sysadmins get paid, to be experts that know the differences.

It is a good thing to know both, embrace the new tech.

EDIT: Oh and I gave you an upvote, this isn't mean to be a snark.

<comment><USER17> I don't see any difference in volume and complexity between sysadmin work on physical iron and public cloud systems.

Everything you are describing applies to VPS systems.

There are differences, but those have more to do with optimal use of resources, and in that aspect managing cloud systems is actually more complicated. At least the behavior of your own physical systems is consistent and predictable.

Besides touching physical machines, what is it you think a sysadmin for cloud systems doesn't do?

<comment><USER16> The overwhelming majority of layer 1 monitoring and / or troubleshooting. Using a cloud provider, by design, outsources all of the layer 1 monitoring and troubleshooting to the cloud service provider. If you're not familar with the OSI Layer Model[1], layer 1 == the physical layer ie: hardware.

How often do you need to monitor your EC2 instance for failed physical disks or bad sticks of memory... never :)

Additionally, it depends on how much you outsource to your cloud hosting provider. Many people trust ELB to do the right thing. It is a pretty reasonable product, but having used keepalived + the default builtin LVS[2] that is in every distro kernel out there for more than 10 years, why trust Amazon to do it better? Why use Amazon Dynamodb when there is Riak[3] or Amazon Elastic Cache when groupcache[4] is so awesome?

Using cloud services == outsourcing some/all of the traditional sysadmin work. Many people who consider themselves devops people are smart developers with very little real sysadmin experience. Please don't fall into the trap of considering them exactly the same. It is an interesting hybrid role, but is distinctly different.

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

[2] [http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org](http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org)

[3] [http://basho.com/riak/](http://basho.com/riak/)

[4] [https://github.com/golang/groupcache](https://github.com/golang/groupcache)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Kudos to him for this. Could not have been an easy decision but does sound like he _listens_ and wants what is best for Ubuntu in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's interesting he doesn't mention that at least one significant factor against Upstart (from the perspective of Debian) was the Canonical Contributor License Agreement.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUOAUQJ-y00&t=42m15s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUOAUQJ-y00&t=42m15s)

<comment><USER20> That was interesting? You expected him to shine a light on their "icky problem"? Every community has their "icky problem" that they do not like to talk about in mixed company, if at all. The CCLA is Canonical's icky problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wow, i wouldn't have thought that. Since i moved away from Ubuntu to Debian mostly because all this upstart, mir, advertising solo attempts, it's nice to hear that.

Now i'm waiting for the same blog post about supporting Wayland and i may even switch back sometimes.

<comment><USER22> Who is using Wayland right now?

<comment><USER23> Who is using Mir right now?

Not even Ubuntu. They use Mir only as a wrapper around XMir which then displays Unity – they've won nothing with this.

But with Wayland coming to kubuntu this summer and Mir coming to Ubuntu at the same time, we'll see how Wayland and Mir compare in production.

<comment><USER24> Mir has been shipping on Ubuntu Touch since 13.10.

<comment><USER25> Well that begs for another question, I would say...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Losing graciously is always deserving of respect. Thank you Mark.

</comment><comment><USER27> s/upstart/Mir/g

s/systemd/Wayland/g

s/2014/2015/g

<comment><USER26> Why would they drop Mir? Dropping Upstart makes sense because systemd has momentum and they both do basically the same job. With Mir vs. Wayland they already evaluated Wayland and decided it wasn't going to be suitable for their needs, unless Canonical change their target markets this isn't something that'd make sense to change (unless a later version of Wayland supports what they want).

<comment><USER28> It is the common opinion that their needs (re Wayland/Mir) are not technical, but related to defining and shipping the results product resulting of those efforts.

<comment><USER26> That's how it appears, but Canonical wouldn't duplicate work unless they thought it was in their best interests, the question then becomes what needs are they trying to meet? Perhaps the needs are technical, perhaps not.

I understand part of the issue was Canonical changing their support for Wayland, but what exactly does Mir do to make developers lives harder? Most developers don't write for X directly, nor will most developers write for Wayland or Mir directly, so as long as the library support is in place then why should we care? I don't hear Android developers complaining about Android using its own window manager. If Canonical want to pay extra for their own window manager, and are prepared to work on the libraries that make developers lives easier, what are we really losing?

<comment><USER29> "That's how it appears, but Canonical wouldn't duplicate work unless they thought it was in their best interests"

Yes, _their_ best interests. Not to the Linux ecosystem.

<comment><USER30> Maybe if they do what's in their best interest, the best things happens for the Linux/ _nix ecosystem. I 'm not exactly sure what your arguing about; All corporate entities seem to (perhaps quite reasonable considering they're corporations) cater to _their* own interests first.

From what I've gathered, we have, as a community gained a lot from that by looking at Red Hat Inc, Canonical Ltd, SuSE GmbH/Novell/Attachmate Group and others contributions.

<comment><USER29> Give me an example where Red Hat or SuSE have started a brand new project that directly competes with an existing effort with broad support from the open source community?

<comment><USER26> Best example is probably .deb (1995) vs. .rpm (1997).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Now that's a surprise. I've never known Canonical to give up like that.

<comment><USER9> There's still time for Shuttleworth to get pissy yet.

<comment><USER32> In his own title, he called himself gracious, which struck me as what people do when the graciousness comes very hard to them and they have to make a strong conscious effort.

So possibly he _felt_ pissy about, but rose above that.

I think he'd get extra graciousness points if he hadn't called himself gracious, though.

<comment><USER33> My thought as well. It's reminiscent of people listing humility as one of their qualities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> _" (today our focus is on the cloud and on mobile, and we are quite clearly leading GNU/Linux on both fronts) "_

How is targeting two widely-different platforms focus?

And how exactly is Ubuntu leading Linux in the cloud?

<comment><USER35> Pretty much every source I can find shows Ubuntu with a clear lead, if not an actual majority in marketshare on EC2 instances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Canonical are making a bet on the graphical subsystem re Mir/QT/QML/Oneclick to crack touch/mobile. Similar to Apple going all-in on Objective C/Cocoa(Touch).

But for the low level non-graphical parts of Ubuntu it makes a lot of sense to stick to standard Linux/Debian. At the terminal/sysadmin/command line level a standard setup is desirable.

</comment><comment><USER37> The headline made me think he was going to talk about losing the desktop and mobile wars!

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm really sad about this. I love Upstart and think it's an elegant init process implementation. Anyone more informed than myself care to summarize the key points in making the decision?

<comment><USER39> The summary is essentially just that systemd is just a bit more elegant. Basically the (non gamed) votes had those two at the top, but in the end upstart had a few more pain points, and systemd had a few more features.

\- SystemD parallelization is more automatic. \- SystemD has built in logging for all managed processes. \- SystemD has Socket Activation (start process on demand) \- SystemD has more momentum in other major distros (Fedora, Arch) \- etc..

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> So when will we see them drop Mir?

<comment><USER41> When all other distros start using Wayland, so never.

Mir hasnt lost the race, it just entered late. You could critisize them for entering late, but in the end it doesn't matter. As long as people are working on viable X alternatives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I am an Ubuntu member and I was deeply wondering what I was going to do next... Tollef had me realizing systemd is the future for quite a while now :-)

Mark reminds us once again what the mission of Ubuntu is, why it is the best alternative for end-user computing in the FLOSS world and, for me personally, that I have a home already and do not need to go anywhere.

And... onward to build on top of the great foundation we already have.

</comment><comment><USER43> Nice move indeed! Let's just hope that there will always be viable alternatives, just in case the systemd project ends up like pulseaudio.

<comment><USER44> How did pulseaudio ended up? It seems to me that it's quite a healthy project right now.

It may have had some issues at the beginning but I can't find anything to complain about it right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The flipside is that diversity in software is usually mentioned as a Good Thing. Losing Upstart means losing diversity, no?

</comment><comment><USER46> Upstart although being first was never going to win against the marketing forces behind systemd. In the old days, tech was evaluated on technical merit, today the slickest marketing hucksters win. Yet another piece of lennart-ware to bring down the linux experience. Thank you BSDs for providing a sane alternative.

</comment><comment><USER47> Canonical, and more personally, Mark have been targets of my frustration with the Linux desktop, I moved like many others to Mint. This is a very welcome reminder that even if phrased negatively as 'lessor evils', Canonical contributes and attracts people from various backgrounds to something I sincerely want to overtake the current selection of OS options (more philosophically than anything). Canonical may not listen very well, and ultimately that may hurt any chances of desktop success for linux, however this reminds me they're still in a very small circle of 'lessor' evils.

</comment><comment><USER48> The "new stewards of PID 1" == welcome to your imminent doom.

</comment><comment><USER49> Graciously?

<comment><USER50> It seems very gracious to me. But if you're not convinced, compare it to Ian Jackson, who is seriously pushing for GNOME to be removed from Debian if it has dependencies on systemd:

[https://lists.debian.org/debian- ctte/2014/02/msg00485.html](https://lists.debian.org/debian- ctte/2014/02/msg00485.html)

<comment><USER50> Actually, now that I think about it, this announcement has rather serious implications for the current debate in Debian. Several members of the Technical Committee are proceeding under the assumption that the Upstart developers will continue to provide logind without systemd. If Ubuntu is moving to systemd, that work is a dead-end, and Debian is going to have to take over maintenance of that work if they want to use it to support multiple init systems.

<comment><USER51> The decision was already made, unless they can approve _and_ win a GR for overriding it (and I don't think they would win).

<comment><USER50> The decision to make systemd the default in jessie has been made. The TC is still debating whether or not packages will be able to declare systemd as a dependency.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The world is not enough - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-world-is-not-enough/ <comment><USER2> I was curious about the phrase "The World is not Enough". Apparently the Bond film used the title because _" Orbis non sufficit"_ was on the Bond family crest in an earlier film.

I assume derived from what is supposed to be Alexander the Great's epitaph, _" A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough."_ Though I'm unable to find a credible source that's actually his epitaph.

Also on the family crest for King Phillip II of Spain: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Fu...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Full_Ornamented_Coat_of_Arms_of_Philip_II_of_Spain_%281580-1598%29.svg/1148px- Full_Ornamented_Coat_of_Arms_of_Philip_II_of_Spain_%281580-1598%29.svg.png)

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of the classic Tolstoy short story: How much land does a man need?

<comment><USER4> Oh, wow. I remember reading this in high school, but had no clue it was Tolstoy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Take any solid element that doesn't vaporize, and heat it to, say, 700 degrees and you will find it emits exactly the same spectrum of light as any other solid element also at 700 degrees."

Is this really true? I thought that the elements (compounds?) could be identified by the wavelengths of light they emitted when heated. This article on Wikipedia seems to confirm that. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_spectrum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_spectrum) Maybe the statement is true for solid materials.

I didn't read much past that point. Maybe I'm oblivious to the point the author was trying to convey, but I find it hard to get past statements that appear to be obviously false.

<comment><USER6> The emission (or absorption) spectrum is characteristic of _electron state transitions_ within an element -- the specific quantuum state changes that occur as (valance) electrons shift between orbital levels.

That's contrasted with _black-body radiation_ , which is characteristic of _any_ material, and dependent only on the temperature. The relationship isn't perfect -- there's "ideal black-body" and actual -- but it's quite good, and has applications from cooking, pottery, and metallurgy to astronomy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black- body_radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Say we go with that thought experiment saying if it's possible to simulate our observable universe, we're likely to be in such a simulation. When some of our better theorists try to model the realities of trying to simulate our reality, they seem to keep bumping into hard walls. That old 'not enough atoms in the universe' thing.

This brings to mind the possibility that we are being simulated from a much different, maybe more complex universe with its own physics (and probably a whole lot more matter/energy). How much knowledge about such an origin point - or next ladder rung up - can we reasonably expect to derive from our ability to measure what's observable within our own simulation?

</comment><comment><USER8> > And so this seemingly faster-than-light action must be accounted for – you > are forced to conclude that either time or space is not fundamental to the > universe.

While I don't disagree with this, it did seem like it brushed over the single classical bit of information needed to perform "quantum teleportation".

Am I missing something new or different?

</comment><comment><USER9> Beautifully written. Felt a bit prepared for this having recently read, "Reality is Not What it Seems", but these concepts are still so hard to grasp.

I just recommended the Dalai Lama's "Universe in a Single Atom" in another thread and there's something in that book that to me sounds like what Smolin is getting at — if I'm understanding correctly (and I'm probably not) — that ultimately reality must be studied _subjectively_ to be truly understood. His claim is that through deep meditation on the true nature of things, the meditator can essentially conduct thought experiments — and that if we ever hope to truly understand reality, we need a way to scientifically measure those experiences. I have no idea how you'd go about that, since it seems fundamentally opposed to how we use _objectivity_ to validate experiments — but it's a fascinating thing to consider.

<comment><USER8> Just a thought, but is not the only difference between objectivity and subjectivity the object and subject's language?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> But it is such a perfect place to start, my love

<comment><USER11> I have nothing useful to add to this thread, but I thought it nice that I happened to be listening to Garbage and walking thru the streets of Edinburgh, Shirley Manson's home town, when I happened upon this thread and comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Take any solid element that doesn't vaporize, and heat it to, say, 700 degrees and you will find it emits exactly the same spectrum of light as any other solid element also at 700 degrees. The reason this happens is because we live in a quantum world.

i think the author is deeply mistaken here. The idealized "black body radiation" of classical physics would be the same for both elements. It is because of quantum mechanics that the actual spectrum of different elements at the same temperature is different.

</comment><comment><USER13> Nice article but Richard Feynman won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, not 1964.

[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1965/summary/](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1965/summary/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Reading about the idea that relationality is fundamental to existence, it's hard not to think of John 1: "The Word was with God... No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known." Salvation is simple: knowing the creator, the source of existence.

<comment><USER15> Interesting theorem, though experimental data might be hard to come by.

<comment><USER14> That's the whole problem of quantam physics, isn't it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Enter Lee Smolin,

Anyone else recognise his name from years of pop-physics articles about this or that fringe idea .. and nowhere else?

I'm amused by the idea that he might not even be a real person, but rather a shared pen name used by serious physicists when they want to endorse an idea outside the norm without taking a reputation or status hit from it. An anti- Nicholas-Barbouki, if you will.

<comment><USER17> It's quite rude to say that a real person does not exist, just because you have not bothered to educate yourself about his field.

<comment><USER16> It's quite rude to put words in my mouth which I didn't say, then make up some things about what I have or haven't done and use them as an insult against me.

"I'm amused by X" != "X is true"</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What business service would you pay $100/mo for - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> An AI or concierge who reads all my emails, Slack, iMessage, WhatsApp messages, and alerts me when something is very important right now, and otherwise lets me fetch aggregated inquiries when I have time to. The data I get should all have a 2-3 sentence TLDR so I can quickly skip them, and provide some sensible replies I can choose to accept or decline inquiries. Long informative WhatsApp/Slack conversations should be greatly reduced in length to just tell the story without omitting vital details. Since many emails require some kind of action from me, the non-complex ones should be doable via the AI or concierge, e.g. schedule a call or put reminders in the calendar.

Example: A potential customer and I want to go to lunch. They write me an email asking for the exact place and time. The service recognizes that this is quite urgent, and presents me a digest of the message, plus a selection box for time slots (with my schedule overlaid for context), and 3 of my favorite places. I choose a slot and a restaurant, and the service writes the answer in a polite tone, matching my writing and verbosity style. The potential customer then writes back an email saying they are looking forward to the meeting. The service knows from previous incidents that I prefer a canned response in that case and auto-replies "Looking forward", and adds a suffix the calendar entry "\- confirmed".

It would be worth it just for the feeling of not being alone with that amount of messages crashing in on me every day. A personal assistant for everyone.

<comment><USER3> I cannot fathom how many times things have fell through the cracks, despite Gmail's different inboxes, which do a great job at sifting out much of the low-priority/mailing list stuff. Would easily provide $3.33/day in increased productivity and reduced stresse

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Be careful with asking hypothetical questions like this. It would be better to phrase this question as 'which business services do you currently pay $100/mo (or more) for, and why?'

It's too easy for someone to say they would pay for something when they don't have to put in any real commitment...

<comment><USER5> As a potential customer though there are many things I actually _would commit to_ that unfortunately just don't exist. I agree though it's a difficult survey to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would pay $100 a month for a service that would give me good ideas to make money in my spare time.

<comment><USER7> [https://nugget.one/](https://nugget.one/)

<comment><USER8> Interesting.

Has anyone tried the paid service -- 20% per month (or 19.99 to be precise) ?

Any experiences (positive or negative) to report?

I'm looking for something like this in the " Live Mentoring" and "Founder Community" areas...

[ EDIT: Not sure this site is seeing all that much activity. The blog posts don't have any dates on them,

but I figured from comments that the latest post is nearly 1/2 a year old. [https://blog.nugget.one/](https://blog.nugget.one/) ]

<comment><USER9> Nugget has a pretty vibrant community of SaaS-focused founders. As a modern community, most of that activity is via Slack and Discourse threads, not passive blog posts. The Nugget Slack channels are pretty active, and they include real-world mentoring by folks who have been there/done that.

Like any community, only a small handful of Nugget members are super active. Many people come to Nugget looking for self-implementing ideas, and they tend to wash out when they realize that hard work is involved to make ideas into businesses.

Several Nugget members have done the work to hit revenue, and there is a core group of us who are taking advantage of mentoring by Nugget's Justin and Brandon, who really know their stuff.

I belong to FounderCafe, Fizzle and Nugget; they all add value, but Nugget is laser-focused on actively helping people actually BUILD SOMETHING. If that's what you are seeking, you owe to yourself to check out Nugget.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A service to code-review all the code I push to GitHub for my personal projects, by people who have more experience than me and could point out possible improvements and corner cases I missed.

<comment><USER2> Depending on the amount of code you produce, I hope you would be prepared to pay more than $100?

<comment><USER10> I guess it would need multiple price ranges, based for example on max LOC/month and on the level of reviewer you need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Gigabit internet access. Or anything better than this stupid 10 megabit Comcast uplink. Uplink matters, especially when you have a lot of data to upload to S3.

</comment><comment><USER11> I already pay 3-4x that for a pay-as-you-go personal assistant, and hiring that agency was likely one of the best business decisions I ever made, as it freed up a ton of my time that I can use for more important things.

<comment><USER12> I have often thought of getting a part-time or virtual assistant.

But my main concern is that to be effective, they would need full access to my email. GMail doesn't have any way to grant limited access (for example no permanent delete), and even if it did, just read access to email would grant access to all my online accounts via password reset or magic link emails.

How have you organised this? Or how did you find an assistant you can trust with that access? Do you review their work, or assume it is all above board?

<comment><USER11> I've not had to do this. I have a point person at the agency and opened an email address on our company domain for her, so when she contacts people for me, she uses her email, not mine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Setting me up with a guaranteed stream of viable remote contracting software jobs that pay fairly, maybe.

<comment><USER14> Maybe get a job if you're looking for a guaranteed stream of work? Lol just an observation. If it's a big deal to you...maybe just try to find a remote friendly company to work for?

<comment><USER13> There is no "just" doing that, especially as a new graduate with only one internship of experience, in a poor location.

<comment><USER14> Ah sorry, I'd just assumed you were more experienced. Yeah build up that portfolio, and best of luck!

<comment><USER13> Portfolio so far is volunteer work on two large (thousands of players) Unity3D games over the years, various smaller side projects of my own, and one internship. Doesn't seem to be quite enough to get responses around here though. Going to have to move soon before it's too late for the employment gap to be explainable (graduated May)

<comment><USER14> I'd be glad to review your portfolio and resume if you're at all interested. I work mostly in web but might be able to give some pointers, I've done this for lots of people. My email should be in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Better internal documentation hosting.

I want something that can pull in documentation generated from code (from tools like godoc or javadoc), README files checked into code, plus other more wiki style documentation.

With all this documentation in one place, I want it to be smart about helping me deal with dead links and suggest pages that might need update when code updates. For example, say a wiki page references running a command with a certain flag. If I check in a change removing that flag from that command, the wiki should let me know that the page might need to be updated.

Ideally, this wiki would also have a stack-overflow -like Q&A feature to reduce the time spent helping other team members.

</comment><comment><USER16> Flat-rate PBX + call receptionist service. The virtual secretary would just take notes, appointments and callback reminders if I'm not available.

</comment><comment><USER17> (Assuming a few employees at least)

Accounting system, Timesheets, payroll system, backup service, cell phone/internet plans, City Centre meeting rooms that can be booked online, HR services (measure employee satisfaction etc.), fruit delivery to the office, flower delivery to the office, excellent quality VOIP with screen sharing.

There are many more, but above are just a few that I'd consider worth it.

</comment><comment><USER18> I would say cyber security is a need for every product or service that is in inception stage and their makers want to roll that service out. Making a cyber security product and serving them from their launch will make them pay you way more than 100$!! This will also help them significantly to get their product or service early right into the market...

</comment><comment><USER19> Probably something that would lead me into a new profession or 2x my salary rate.

Some things come into mind:

-I pay $20/month for videos to learn 3D modeling and animation

-I payed for a while a subscription to treehouse, where I could learn mobile and web development

-$40 dollars for a book to learn OpenCV3

It would be an easier question to ask what would a business pay $100/month for.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have a few different types of outdoor flowers. I spend enough time on maintaining them and a lawn. I would pay 100 a month to have two 30 minute sessions with a really experienced gardener who would show up and help me with all of the different seasonal issues.

I have heard you could have roses blooming all summer if you care for them right. I have no clue on how to do this.

</comment><comment><USER21> A really good analytics service. Like really good - I get really confused by Google Analytics and don't have time to learn how to use all its capabilities. From my research, I haven't found the competitors to be a ton better. I would love something that basically collects all the data and gives me intelligent analysis. Probably would pay more than 100 though.

<comment><USER22> [https://www.paveai.com](https://www.paveai.com) (YC W16) might be something you're interested in.

Disclosure - I'm one of the founders :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> A really, really good ISP.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just make you service and price it as you want. You'll still find someone who needs it and will pay for it. Then learn from it and adapt further. ;)

<comment><USER25> Are you sure this is true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Cell phone service with unlimited data

<comment><USER27> Seems hugely overpriced (but then I think the same about most US cell phone services - Fi is a total ripoff IMO, almost £8 per GB is ridiculous).

Three (in the UK) offer unlimited for £24/mo.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, I signed up for Fi prior to heading to France for a couple of months. Since the apartment I was renting didn't have internet access I figured I could get by with Fi by minimizing my internet usage (as I did successully in Mexico this past winter on a pay-as-you-go data plan).

Big mistake, $10/GB proved to be untenable. I hunted around a bit and found a service offered by Orange/Sosh: 25 euros per month got me 40GB of data and a pretty snappy 4G+ connection. Naturally I canceled my Fi plan immediately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> 2-5 prequalified sales leads

</comment><comment><USER30> Sorry for hijacking the thread.

What simple service would you pay $10/month for? #JustCurious

<comment><USER31> Unlimited music, unlimited movies and series, unlimited internet, unlimited nice-to-have-but-not-essential services.

And also all services that make me save at least 5 hours a week.</comment></comment>


Startup Valuation – Why Not Listen to the Market? - <AUTHOR> http://vc-list.com/startup-valuation/ <comment><USER2> People do this, or try to do this, but often the data is not easy to come by.

When Bloomberg pitched their VC services, my first question was: do you have valuations?

Their answer: ah, no, but everyone asks that.</comment>


30 minutes a day - <AUTHOR> http://mindfolder.com/blog/30-minutes-day/ <comment><USER2> See Rich Hickey's talk on Hammock Driven Development (<http://blip.tv/clojure/hammock-driven-development-4475586>).

Rich talks about how thinking about something transfers the idea from your conscious mind to your unconscious mind (your big brain) where the real horsepower is. In another talk he mentions that he has been able to spend a year doing this three times in his life: one was for Clojure, one was Datomic, and one other yet-to-be-named project.

John Cleese also talks about this in his lecture on creativity (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg>).

<comment><USER3> That's a really great clip!

This is the best part of having a dog for me, especially one like mine who is perfectly happy strolling along smelling the flowers. It's always an excuse to go out, mostly at night when it's quiet, and mull over ideas.

<comment><USER4> True say, I've found walking the dog to be a great time to think. Not only is it time to yourself, it gets the blood flowing and of course the fresh air is great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just my own experience here. I commute every day, it's a 1 hour train trip in both directions. So I get 2 hours a day just for me. There I work on a side project. It means 8 hours a week. That's not much and a lot at the same time. The intersting thing is that I had to get used to it. Now I just do those two hours no matter what happens. It has become a routine and it's not that exhausting. Also, since 2 hours a day is not much, I have become _very_ picky about my tools. In a one hour trip, I cannot aford to have my Eclipse to be up and running in 3 minutes => I changed editors. I cannot afford to spend 10 minutes trying to understand code I've written months ago, therefore I write my comments as I should, I write things as simple as I can. Since I only have one hour on a trip, it means I must solve my problems in that hour (if not, the time to start the task becomes too long). Therefore I choose my problems before getting in the train and I use a lot of "BUG", "FIXME" notes to put aside non urgent matters. I also don't have any web access in the train => impossible to get distracted (but then I need very good documentation to help me out when I need some information). The biggest hurdle to me is that moving from prototype to production-level takes a huge amount of time => sometimes a I set to work in the week end in order to have say 2-3 hours in a row to solve issues spanning across the whole code.

About choosing tools. I've selected ruby first, but ruby + Qt is not stable enough (I cannot afford to look for a strange bug in a C++ binding). So I moved to Python where things are better in that regard. I started with Eclipse (because it had a good and free Python IDE) but it takes too long to boot => now I'm in emacs. So although I prefer Eclipse or Ruby, I've deliberately chosen other tools to shave a few minutes here and there. (3 minutes is 5% of the time I have so that's important)

my ten eurocents

</comment><comment><USER6> Couldn't upvote this more.

The post addresses the biggest problem when starting side projects. After a idea is born, a prototype is built in one or two intensive days, usually at the weekend. Afterwards it's so hard to carry on, your main jobs (which is a welcome excuse to not work on your side project) takes too much time and suddenly ten days passed and you haven't worked one minute on your side project—it dies. It's difficult to pursue multiple opportunities, I usually focus on one big project and I know it's wrong.

<comment><USER7> I recently made a list of partially-done side projects. It's long. I set a target to not start any new projects. Unfortunately, the fun part is the first part. Taking something that works 90% and dealing with edge cases and polishing it is (for me anyway) far less exciting than hacking together prototypes.

<comment><USER8> I'm not alone?

<https://ajf.me/stuff/ihavewaytoomanyprojects.gif>

Guess how many of those are finished.

Edit: And that isn't even including the ones from this year!

<comment><USER9> Hey, me too! Half-finished game concepts, crappy little tools I never ironed the bugs out of, random ideas that never even got as far as _compiling_...

You've got way more unfinished projects than me, but they sure do pile up quicker than you think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you want to write a novel, most of the advice I've seen is essentially "do it". Almost any project will benefit a great deal from dedication. Procrastination is the real cause of most things that don't happen.

Saying that, I take real offense at the equation given in the article. "Focused energy + xx minutes + once per day = idea manifestation"?

Should it not be (focused energy + xx minutes) * once per day... Or perhaps even focused energy * xx minutes * once per day.

If you set any of those variables to 0, the outcome is 0. It's clearly a multiplication problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice call, equation updated. I'm a designer not a programmer :)

Regarding your point, I completely agree. And is why I shared this little strategy. I suppose its a form of scheduled anti-procrastination.

<comment><USER7> I think years of math classes has made me a little bit too analytical...

Otherwise a great post. The real challenge is actually doing it in practice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I particularly like the comment about discipline. I've read the arguments that we are in a current period of technological stagnation, and if that is actually the case I think one of the big detractors is our lower levels of discipline compared to people in the 20th century.

Over the last 30 years or so, the media has gotten much more effective at making us slaves. We are more compelled to watch mind-numbing programs on TV, and now today play mind-numbing apps, and view mind-numbing content on the internet.

Even 'thoughtful' content like that on HN has the effect of scattering our minds and making it harder to focus on a particular task.

I think times like these 30 minutes, where you buckle down with no distractions can be very beneficial to overall productivity.

<comment><USER8> Discipline is something I lack and need to force upon myself.

I tell myself I do programming in my free time. I tell myself that.

But then I look at my free time, and I realise I spend it all browsing HN/Reddit (occasionally)/BBC News/Forums. I don't do much programming at all. Because I get distracted far, far too easily. Sometimes I'll look back on the past week and realise I've done absolutely nothing of any value.

I've set myself 30 minutes tomorrow to work on something. Perhaps I'll finally learn Lisp and venture into functional programming, after all. Maybe I'll improve my programming skill again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Instinctively, I'd agree with this kind of stuff but after reading through I want to say, "Where's the evidence?" If you're claiming this stuff, tell me how it's worked for you and others in terms of reaching success, and don't cop out and say it's "perfectly logical" - there's nothing logical about being human.

<comment><USER12> I used to play around with these kinds of hacks all the time. They didn't get me all that much ahead though.

It wasn't until I learned to push myself to give my day job a top notch performance and eke out four more hours of coding at night, that things really started to take off.

It is similar to losing weight for me, in that all the mind tricks and fancy diets didn't do a thing until I learned to accept the hunger that comes with actually losing weight.

<comment><USER13> Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER14> Can't speak for the parent but I think I understand where he's coming from. For me, it was reading the section on procrastination (which requires reading the preceding sections on dysfunctional thought patterns) in David Burns' "Feeling Good" that did the job.

Once you see all the possible reasons people procrastinate listed in front of you, and a plan of action for each scenario, it's pretty difficult to procrastinate because every time you find yourself in a potential procrastination scenario your brain goes "oh hang on, I know what I'm doing, it's X from _Feeling Good_ ". At that point you can execute the anti- procrastination plan, or, as in my present case, I don't even bother any more because I've done it enough to know I'll invariably end up getting to work and so I just go right ahead and do it.

The key thing here is you need to (a) be committed to change and (b) you need to study the book and do the exercises. Refreshing my procrastination pattern matching memory from time to time by rereading the section is critical. Many people aren't ready to stop procrastinating because they're not ready to take action. But just like debugging code, you just have to follow the chain of dependencies until you deal with successive root causes. Prochaska's "Changing for Good" put me on the path of awareness in this regard. Once you know what your brain is doing it's pretty difficult _not_ to make progress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It sounds good on the surface but I don't know how feasible it is on practice. Creative work is not something you can turn on and off on command. You tend to think long and hard about a problem throughout the day. You think about it in shower, while driving, and during eating. There are fair amount of ramp up time to get back into a project. The things you have done, the tools you use, the libraries for the project, the API, all those need time to refresh in your mind. Context switch into a project 30 minutes a day would be difficult. If you can do it, that's great!

<comment><USER16> _Creative work is not something you can turn on and off on command_

Actually - it is. Or at least it's often something you can often train to a reasonable facsimile of working that way.

You're right - of course - that those moments when you're not working on the project explicitly and mulling everything over are often the most important ones. But I think you often train yourself to get into the right working context very quickly.

As a scriptwriting friend of mine says "No write. No money." ;-) My musician friends - at least the ones who take it seriously - sit down and do that couple of hours of focused practice each day no matter how they feel.

I find the more often you put yourself in a situation that you need to do _something_ , the easier it is to do something. You find ways to optimise your workflow and approach (e.g. I have a my project WIP in a vagrant VM and I write code TDD - so I spin up the VM, open the editor, see the failing test I left yesterday and _boom_ I know what I'm doing).

If I sit around wait for inspiration - shit never get done.

<comment><USER15> Let me clarify creative work on new or multiple ideas is not easy to turn on and off on command. It tends to take a while to build up the domain knowledge, project specific tools, project specific API to be creative on the project. That's consistent with your emphasis on practicing day in day out.

The example you gave is for the main project you are working on day in day out. Yes, you can easily resume work the next day. What the OP advocating is working on multiple different projects for 30 minutes a day. It's just more difficult to context switch into multiple projects with such a short amount of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You're right. Just put in the hours regularly and so much can be done. I think the problem for most, me at least, is the _regularly_ part.

I recently started _Project Persist_ , involving an hour of side-project work per working day. It has gone reasonably well, with some decent strides made, but as soon as priority work emerges, often for days at a time, the side- projects wait again. Solo-founder issue, maybe.

But it's good to see others trying to buckle down, work systematically on creating something of value to all concerned. It's tough. But rewarding results don't come easy, I guess.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I appreciate your blog design. I'm no designer, but that's no ordinary minimalist design to my untrained eye.

</comment><comment><USER18> Related is a great site I found through HN recently: <http://chains.cc>. It helps you track doing things daily and allows you to see your progress

<comment><USER19> That's an absolutely fantastic idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I upvoted this, because I think it's definitely a good way to stay focused (and I should be doing a better job of it, too). but the issue with his analogy is that brushing your teeth is fairly routine. you go about it at pretty much the same time every day, and you don't have to think about it.

working on your idea, however, is different each and every day. some days, the challenges are greater. some days you may need more than 30 minutes.

point taken though, and I'll be trying harder to stick to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly man - great point on the analogy, your dream project is certainly no routine thing.

Yet you can make it more 'routine'; engraved into your daily schedule. By not approaching the specific challenges, but rather - just the minimum amount of time you have agreed with yourself is appropriate to invest. Anyone can convince themselves to do that much. And the funny thing is - the challenges then seem to work out themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So in the time it takes to brush teeth, take shower, roughly 30 min daily, it is possible to build a dream project, a business?

It takes 15 min to fully focus again on work, which was interrupted by a phone call, colleague question. That's our reality.

I would suggest to spend these 30 min on some physical activity and you'll much happier.

</comment><comment><USER22> good read. reminds me of this article on staying focused: <http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/how-to-focus>

</comment><comment><USER23> I tried the equation. It's 113/watts per 30 minutes of idea manifestation. My notes are at <http://pastebin.com/MG0z5u6M>

Corrections are welcome.

<comment><USER24> I love this as ultimately it shows what nonsense the equation really is.

I detest people doing "science-y, maths-y" things to try and give credibility to an idea. The idea here is fine, the equation utter bilge.

For me it goes back to hearing Jeff Dachis of Razorfish doing a talk in which he mentions boolean postulates which left me in little doubt that he knew precisely as much about mathematics as you'd expect from someone with a bachelor's degree in dance.

BTW - On the last line you mention "watts per half hour". This makes no sense here - a watt is a measure of energy over time, watts per half hour would be a measure of energy over time over time, or more neatly change in power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Helpful post. It highlights how fragile an idea is and how much energy and focus is needed to advance the idea forward. I face this often, and it's helpful to work in a group/team of people. There's something about a team that naturally progresses ideas forward if the leader of the group keeps the idea is discussion.

</comment><comment><USER26> I found that even 10 minutes are enough if you are oscillating between different ideas all the time.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have _exactly_ this pattern. I have a bunch of

        @Daily      30m: [Something or other]

tasks in my todo.txt to make sure that I actually do _something_ on those projects every day.

</comment><comment><USER27> 30 minutes is not efficient at all, it takes time to internalize something complex, and get into "the flow", pg talks about this in his essay about "The Maker's schedule".

</comment><comment><USER28> Flaws in the equation aside.. pretty inspiration stuff

</comment><comment><USER29> This is great, and is true for so many things in life.

</comment><comment><USER30> Brilliant. I am having a tough time focussing on _a few_ of my ideas. Even if I get a good 30 min day, I will be so happy.</comment>


A Paradigm Shift in Cloud Storage - <AUTHOR> http://blog.filepicker.io/post/36823120559/a-paradigm-shift-in-cloud-storage

<comment><USER2> Perhaps as a certified Old Grouch(tm) I'm merely being paranoid in that I use a three step approach to this problem: 1. local project; 2. backup project to thumb drive; and 3. backup project to the cloud. Of course there is a reverse approach to synchronize accordingly. I also would like to see some attention paid to the traditional problem of "Who's on first" that invariably arises when number of participants is greater than 1...

<comment><USER3> No, the name of the player on 1st is named Who?

I'm sure git would work for most people. A more UI / user friendly version of git with cloud storage support for like.. a photography firm workflow? would be interesting.

<comment><USER4> Not quite geared toward photography, but your description reminded me of <http://layervault.com> .</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pay $1 for every day you don't push to GitHub - <AUTHOR> http://codeorelse.com <comment><USER2> Agreed with the comments. I would use this service under the following conditions: \- 100% of the money goes towards a charity (minus minor site maintenance cost). \- There must be complete transparency where the money is going \- People have different time constraints: I wont do it on a git push on a daily basis, but weekly and monthly yes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would love to see a follow-up with the number of ppl who signed up.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting but I don't like the fact that you pocket it, and charity would be somewhat of a disincentive to commit.

Burning Bitcoin or Ether by sending to unspendable addresses would be pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER5> Being honest, it is extremely hard to get people to sign up for something where they get penalized for inaction.

<comment><USER6> Agreed, maybe he could design it such that those who maintain the longest streaks get bigger and bigger "dividends" from a pool of the accumulated dollars of other users. There may need to be some sort of anti-abuse system put in place for that too though.

<comment><USER5> I have seen OPs concept applied to apps for workout regimens and the only app that I've really seen that was successful was one where those that went got money from those who didn't. I think that's kinda what you're describing paraknight and should be something to consider for the OP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Extortion as a service</comment>


Ask HN: What is your workflow for saving bookmarks? - <AUTHOR> Interested in hearing the various services/methods folks use to save url's. Especially with delicious likely shutting down (which I used), I'm interested in hearing about this. The only requirement is that the url's are available everywhere and not (just) stored locally.<p>Thanks. <comment><USER2> I'm almost at the point where I should probably go bookmark-free. Inevitably, bookmarks start becoming a micromanagement nightmare. The ability of google to find the site I'm thinking about it is almost on-par with my ability to find it hidden in my bookmarks.

<comment><USER3> Unsure if you just have an exceptional memory, but I find this to be the opposite for me, to the point where none of the available services do enough for me.

My use-case might be different from yours tho. I do quite a bit of scientific research. Thus I require a vast array of mediums to be able to navigate and store data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Delicious :( and low tech options like browser bookmarks, leaving tabs open or emailing links to myself.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been happy using Google's simple bookmarking service: <http://google.com/bookmarks>

<comment><USER6> Anyone know of a good way to import bookmarks from delicious to Google Bookmarks? Searches only turn up several scripts that have rotted and to install Google Toolbar in FF. I just want a simple script or am hoping Google jumps on this and offers importing via any browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> +1, this is really surprising to me that there is no way to import delicious bookmarks to google bookmarks.

The one 'supported' method doesn't even work and even if it did, it's a bit ridiculous (export delicious bookmarks, import to firefox, export from firefox, install google toolbar and import into google bookmarks). For one, you will lose all your tags.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> With Favbot, you don't need a workflow : <http://www.favbot.com/>

Smart Automatic Bookmarks.

<comment><USER8> In looking through my options for transitioning away from delicious, Favbot is the one that has we genuinely excited.

If it works in the way that it's described and works well, I daresay I'd consider switching even without delicious' impending doom. The analytics are especially interesting for a stats addict like myself.

I just hope the invite wait isn't too long.

<comment><USER7> Thanks. Invite wait won't be long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Depending on the type of bookmark, I use a combination of Read It Later and leander <https://github.com/rudle/leander> .

Shameless self-promotion: leander provides full text search on webpages from the command line. There is also an (experimental) sinatra web frontend/API.

</comment><comment><USER10> I use chrome to sync bookmarks between machines.

I have a bookmarks bar where the bookmarks have no names. They are represented by their favicons. Then, I have 3 bookmark folders on my bookmarks bar. Currently they are "!" "11" and "12"

"!" is for bookmarks I keep long-term. "11" is for bookmarks created in november. "12" is for bookmarks created in december.

I'm pretty loose about bookmarking. If it's something I _might_ want to bookmark, I just bookmark it to the current month's folder. Then, when the month is up (Jan 1), I will clean out the "11" folder, moving stuff I _really_ want to keep to "!". Few things make it to "!". Then, I delete "11". Afterward, I will do a first wave of deletions on "12", keeping stuff I still find interesting. Then I'll create the "1" folder for January and start again.

</comment><comment><USER11> I just use Instapaper bookmarklet and search. Don't have the time or patience for tagging.

<comment><USER8> I came to the same conclusion after using delicious for a few years... right before they came out with the intelligent auto-tagging stuff, which would mark bookmarks with perfectly relevant and useful tags automatically.

When it comes to bookmark retrieval, tags can be awesome. None of delicious' competitors that I've seen offer decent auto-tagging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I use instapaper with Firefox addon , and it is working perfectly for both my desktop and mobile environment. I think people should migrate and distance thenselves from dissarrayed companies. Yahoo is that kind of company and Google can also User can turn that direction. Future are emerging companies like Instapaper or ReadItLater, which are present both mobile and on desktops. I'd recommend tool for import of <http://bit.ly/delicious2instapaper>

</comment><comment><USER13> I wrote this so I would not have to rely on a third party for bookmarking and so I could have regex search:

<https://github.com/mmb/murlsh>

<comment><USER3> that's full-text regex, correct?

<comment><USER13> It's regex search the of the url itself and the page title. It doesn't match against the full document if that's what you mean. That's an interesting idea though.

<comment><USER3> ah, yes. that's what i meant. thnx for the clarification tho. i assumed it was full-text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just use Google Chrome and synchronize bookmarks, is all.

<comment><USER15> Me too except for my Android device. I have to 'Share' those links that I find on my phone by emailing myself. Serious pain point for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 1\. Anything I plan to read later goes into Instapaper using the Instapaper bookmarklet.

2\. Anything that I want to watch or return to later gets thrown into a "Read" or "Watch" bookmark folder I have which I clear out occasionally. For example, I have a few Ruby and Git guides that I refer to. Even if I have it bookmarked here I'll sometimes just Google for the link.

</comment><comment><USER17> I store all of my bookmars in evernote. The chrome and firefox extensions are pretty solid, and make bookmarking very easy.

</comment><comment><USER18> Worried back in the day about the precisely this event, I store my bookmarks in my own "service" - the UI being minimalist since I like it that way.

<http://twagr.com/adduser.lua> \- but, a warning, it's just running on chewing gum and matches, so be gentle :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> I've used delicious and xmarks.

I'm going to write my own bookmark plugin that syncs data to my own server the way I like it. I don't care about sharing or viewing other people's bookmarks. I certainly don't feel like paying to organize my bookmarks.

<comment><USER3> +100. Eventually will do the same as well. I figure this type of thing is part of a programmer's rite of passage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I use <http://www.minklinks.com/> to email links to friends and to myself. I'm eating my own dogfood, beta should hit before christmas, signups are still available.

<comment><USER3> no screenshots???

at the very least get some screenshots

<comment><USER20> Thanks, I'll do that.

<comment><USER3> ya. i recommend you minimize all points of friction as much as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I use Evernote because it's easy to tag/organize/reorganize stuff and search is fast (desktop client). Plus it automatically syncs.

Bookmarking client side for me is > web based because of speed.

</comment><comment><USER22> I use Opera which allows synchronizing bookmarks between computers.

</comment><comment><USER23> <http://pinboard.in>

<comment><USER24> I also am a huge pinboard fan, but not for things that I use daily. I use XMarks for all my main things, and pinboard to store things that I rarely use, or if I am going to need a list- for instance, one of my physics professors wanted a list of web sources to save him some time (60 term papers). I used pinboard to store them all, and just had to give him a link at that point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I use my To-Do List on my iGoogle homepage to store links (normally short term for later blogging/sharing). Every few weeks I'll go through them and clear them out.

</comment><comment><USER26> I know it's probably not a popular option, but I use the bookmark syncing features of MobileMe. Always backed up, always in sync with my phone. Works great.

<comment><USER26> Oh and it works right from Safari. So just adding a normal bookmark is enough for it to sync.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Although I don't do it (maybe I'll start now), setting up a WordPress blog and using the Press This functionality is a pretty nice way to do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> my flow:

\- browse

\- if it catches my eye, don't read it all and just send to instapaper

\- while reading the page in instapaper, if it's worth bookmarking, i move it to a folder called "sendToPinboard"

\- later on i go thru the "sendToPinboard" folder and bookmark and tag the pages individually in pinboard

yes, i know it needs streamlining. it's the best there is for me right now.

NEED: pdf support, other media support, various media archiving

</comment><comment><USER28> I often email urls to myself.

<comment><USER29> I use specific gmail labels, so I can quickly go to those emails when I want to rewiew sites/ideas/things I've saved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Chrome shares your links to all your computers via a feature in the browser.

</comment><comment><USER31> Xmarks (now owned by LastPass) - cross-browser & cross-platform sync.

</comment><comment><USER32> i just hit cmd-d and then return. in the future it will be available for address bar url completion.

the most frequently used sites i drag onto bookmarks bar. or just leave open in a tab.

</comment><comment><USER33> was del.icio.us, with a script that pulled a backup down nightly.

Most likely I'll jump to pinboard.in</comment>


SaaS Metrics for Fundraising – Inside Intercom - <AUTHOR> http://blog.intercom.io/saas-metrics-for-fundraising/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is one data packed article on SaaS. Not only does it get into the hard data but it explains how these benchmarks are being found.

<comment><USER2> interesting post. really loved how they go granular on MRR etc.</comment></comment>


Top Linux Easter Eggs - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/top-10-linux-easter-eggs <comment><USER2> GNU Screen is no longer fashionable these days due to tmux, but [https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/html_node/Nethack...](https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/html_node/Nethack.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> My visudo had a specific line:

        Defaults !insults

Well, that won't do. Now, that's an improvement.</comment>


Who is the greatest knife steel metallurgist of all time? - <AUTHOR> https://knifesteelnerds.com/2020/06/29/who-is-the-greatest-knife-steel-metallurgist-of-all-time/ <comment><USER2> I would not call him a metallurgist but this guy has tested a bunch of steels using an unscientific rope cut test and documented them in a spreadsheet. He was the first one that convinced me to spend over $100 for a cpm-s30v knife and it was way better then anything I had before in edge retention.

His data cant be that bad though because I built a model to predict the number of cuts for a blade using edge angle and metal compounds (no real way to take into account heat treat though). It was relatively accurate for the less exotic steels. I should really share that with the world.

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b_rNfdJnL9oyn- JoL9yU...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b_rNfdJnL9oyn- JoL9yUHhUmDLAP1hJ1dN_0q5G4tug/edit#gid=1607644856)

He also records videos of himself and posts them to his youtube channel along with other knife reviews.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdICfnpxD9uzHLaSr3DN55g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdICfnpxD9uzHLaSr3DN55g)

<comment><USER3> As someone who has made their own knife from scratch(ish) this channel is gold!

<comment><USER4> For anyone who hasn't, would highly recommend. Railroad spikes are cheap and easy to hammer. Not great steel, but great for practicing metalwork.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great article.

A long time ago I started collecting exemplars of edged weapons (swords, knives, axes) for no reason other than I found the aesthetic interesting. But in collecting these things you may find, as I did, that just looking at them gets to be boring so you start reading about them. When was this kind of sword invented? Who used it? For what? What replaced it? What came before it? Etc.

Before too long you may find that you are looking at two parallel universes that are interlocked by expressions of intent. In one universe are people figuring out what makes metal have the properties it does and how can I change them? And the other universe is people looking at what metal can do "now" and applying it to their creative process in weaponry.

It is an amazing tapestry of complexity behind the simple appreciation of "that's a cool sword/knife"

<comment><USER4> Naval construction history has odd connections too, as one might imagine: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp_armour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp_armour)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Several years ago there used to be a site called KnifeTests where a heavyset man dressed like a serial killer put a variety of cheap and very expensive knives through horrific levels of abuse. Using the tip to dig through a 2x4, hammering it through a steel pipe, putting in a vice and standing on it, bending the blade back and forth, slicing a variety of materials including concrete.

The one thing that really stood out was INFI steel. That stuff may as well be magic. It's honestly hard to even get anything made with it these days but if I had to trust my survival to one metal INFI would be it.

<comment><USER7> > INFI is a proprietary steel and heat-treat protocol developed by Busse > Combat Knife Co.

[https://www.bussecombat.com/about-our-steel- infi/](https://www.bussecombat.com/about-our-steel-infi/)

<comment><USER6> Good to see they're back to normal operations. Last time I looked them up a few years ago they didn't actually have any knives for sale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not steel, but I was impressed to learn about the physics of obsidian knives produced during the Mayan civilization:

> When skillfully worked, the edges of prismatic blade made from obsidian can > reach the molecular level, i.e., the material has a cutting edge that is > only one molecule thick.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_use_in_Mesoamerica#ci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_use_in_Mesoamerica#cite_note-5)

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_knife#Modern_use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_knife#Modern_use)

<comment><USER7> Fascinating!

> [Glass knives] were once the blade of choice for the ultra-thin sectioning > required in transmission electron microscopy because they can be > manufactured by hand.

> ..Some labs still use glass knives because they are significantly less > expensive than diamond knives. A common practice is to use a glass knife to > cut the block which contains the sample to near the location of the specimen > to be examined.

> Then the glass knife is replaced by a diamond blade for the actual ultrathin > sectioning. This extends the life of the diamond blade which is used only > when its superior performance is critical.

> Obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass, can also be used to make > sharp glass knives; _obsidian surgical scalpels_ are available commercially.

<comment><USER4> I have family in pathology. Labs do a lot of sample sectioning before microscopy. Thin enough to stain and visualize internal structures (think onion skin).

PS: Never mention anything about this around TSA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a huge knife steel nerd, so it's cool to see this article get some love on HN. Currently, I own knives in S35VN, M390, Cruwear, and 52100, all Spyderco. If you've never carried an EDC knife before I suggest you pick up a Spyderco Manix or PM2/PM3 and try it out. There's a lot of engineering and craftsmanship that goes into making a quality knife which I think HN readers could appreciate. Also, they're just handy to have around.

<comment><USER9> Genuine question, coming from the perspective of a city-dwelling office worker.

I get the value of having a knife like this in the house (to open and break down cardboard boxes, etc). Why do you need to carry one around? Can you tell me about the last time you used it outside the house?

I'm _definitely_ over-indexing on my own experience here. Would love to have my mind opened to how carrying a knife regularly might improve my day. :)

<comment><USER10> I carry a benchmade knife everywhere. Why? Because all hell breaks loose if you have three kids and only one nectarine. Not that you need a fancy-ass knife for such work.

Other field-knife activities include "what does the inside of this seed look like?" and "I got a splinter!"

The only issue is even though the state of California permits them, the university of California forbids carrying knives, and there is one of those right in the middle of my city.

<comment><USER11> Last I knew, in California you can legally walk around with a sword, so long it's in a sheath hanging from your waist and not concealed.

<comment><USER10> I believe that's true. You can openly carry anything. The University system claims to forbid any folding knife with a blade that locks open (i.e. most any pocketknife) and any blade longer than 2.5 inches, carried openly or concealed.

<comment><USER12> That's why I like to carry a Spyderco Dragonfly. A small (<2.5in) knife that is legal pretty much anywhere but feels like a much bigger knife when you use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The greatest knife steel metallurgist of all time would surely be the one that doesn't even bother with steel or metallurgy anymore.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3qsVzHeUt5_cPpcRtoaJQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3qsVzHeUt5_cPpcRtoaJQ)

</comment><comment><USER14> The unknown dude sometime around 2000-1500 BCE who discovered you could get iron from ore?

<comment><USER15> It should be noted that iron was still around before iron-ore mining. But metallurgists back then had to wait for meteorites to fall from the sky and craft those (King Tut's meteorite-iron sword).

But yes, the leap from copper/bronze (which could be discovered by simply dropping rocks into a fire, since copper melts at low enough temperatures) vs iron, which is a process that requires much hotter temperatures + forging techniques, is huge.

Learning to mix metals into alloys would eventually lead to the discovery of steel (mix iron + wood). Not as good as modern steel, but trial-and-error would get a process down over the centuries for sure.

The "Iron Forge" seems to be the hardest step in the whole tech tree. Its a huge leap, no matter how I think about it. Maybe some old pre-history metallurgist was lucky enough to play with meteorite-iron and noticed similarities to ore somewhere else.

<comment><USER16> Bronze was revolutionary in other ways. Sure, copper occurs in native metallic form, but even once you find out that mixing it with certain minerals yields a much better metal, you have other problems. Namely that the mineral that gives the best alloy, cassiterite, or SiO2, only occurs in large quantities thousands of kilometers away from your copper deposits. Trade between regions that had hitherto had little contact became a thing.

Iron, as known to the ancients, was in many ways inferior to bronze. Iron with low carbon content is malleable but soft, whereas iron with too much carbon is hard but brittle. It took a long time for people to painstakingly learn to make iron that was _consistently_ as good as bronze, and even longer to learn how to further refine iron into consistent-quality steel, a process that also required huge amounts of energy compared to bronzemaking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Question for the steel and knife enthusiasts.

With modern metallurgy and machining techniques, could you design a sword that if transported back in time, would be looked at as a magical weapon (perhaps due to its strength, weight, cutting ability, etc?). What would you design?

<comment><USER18> Since the art of swordfighting is lost, you'd possibly engineer an incredible "long knife" that a professional swordsman would regard as unsuitable for combat or of mediocre value.

<comment><USER19> We have enough old swords from when swordfighting was important that we should have some idea of what traits were valued.

<comment><USER18> It's not about making a pretty similar copy in terms of weight and balance. OP is asking about a weapon so superior it was viewed as magical.

Let's think about this in terms of the standard engineering design-V: if you have nobody available for validating the design, how could you produce a product that you know to be so technologically superior that it appears to be "magic"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What about the unsung blacksmith of Japan who basically created a variant of Damascus Steel to make the swords for Samurai starting around 1100 AD?

<comment><USER21> They did great work with the materials they had available, but the materials they had were quite poor. Tamahagane is a very poor steel which requires a great deal of forging to work the slag inclusions out. The extensive folding was done to purify the steel; with a higher quality steel doing that isn't necessary. Contemporary Middle East and European metallurgists had better material to work with and their best steel, crucible spring steel, was better than the best Japanese steel.

<comment><USER22> I think it's sort of funny that people are idolizing medieval Japanese swordsmiths.

"They folded their blades 200 times!!!"

Yes, because they had to, because the source material was pretty crap comparatively. Not because they were some kind of magical elven runesmiths making densetsu katanas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have never interacted with "knife nerds" before, but I sense their presence here. I want to get a good knife to take camping, anyone have a recommendation?

<comment><USER24> Camping knife? Unless you don't have a multitool a leatherman will be far more useful and is a usable knife in its own.

Most EDC(Every Day Carry) knives are sufficient for most of what would come up camping. If you're going to carry anything bigger a hatchet is a lot more handy.

That said if you're looking for something decent Benchmade, Spyderco and Buck all make solid knives. I'm partial to Benchmade mostly because their locking mechanism works with a single hand in a way that doesn't put your fingers in the path of the blade and can be used with gloves.

535, 970 and Griptilian are all fantastic knives that will take a beating and are easy to carry. I have a 535 that I use on the farm and is more than strong enough for anything I throw at it.

A knife that you have on you more often and easy to carry is better than a heavier or larger one. Some blade lengths are also illegal in certain cities so staying under 3" is a good idea. I usually carry a light pocket knife, flashlight and small-ish multitool which covers most of the bases.

<comment><USER25> This. I've had a Benchmade 943 in my pocket every day for more than a decade, but still pack a multitool when camping. Had other knives prior, but kinda lost interest in anything new after getting the 943. Except when wearing a suit... still wouldn't mind finding a blade a bit more suit-able.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I was expecting more exotic names frankly. That's my ignorance speaking perhaps, but to me top metallurgist would be Damascus steel and maybe Japanese swords?

<comment><USER27> [https://blog.knife-depot.com/link-between-samurai-swords- and...](https://blog.knife-depot.com/link-between-samurai-swords-and-japanese- nuclear-plants/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wow, the author went pretty deep on this. I was expecting something like, "Bohler wins because M390 is best hurr dee hurr." That's the typical fare on knife forums at least (but substitute whichever super steel is your current favorite). But this piece really earns the "knife steel nerd" name and has a pretty solid history and covers a lot of technological developments over the years.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm not an EDC knife kind of guy, but I have spent a lot of time and money on kitchen knives. SG-2 (aka R2) is pretty much the best that I have tried in terms of edge retention, ease of sharpening, and convenience (i.e. rust- resistant).

</comment><comment><USER30> Why is this even a topic on HN, with 77 (+ mine) comments?

<comment><USER31> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Japanese carbon-steel (should be called carbon-iron really because they rust) knives are way superior to anything these clowns made!

<comment><USER33> Superior in what way? I can imagine there are environments where the stainless properties of some of the steels in the article offset the properties of any mega sharp rusty iron knife.

Japanese swords are amazing objects, but can chip when hit by another sword and are effectively ruined. European swords were renowned for their comparative toughness, however.

<comment><USER34> Corollary: there's a lot higher parrying frequency in modern FIE-style fencing compared to modern kendo, which partially carries over because of the historically more brittle steel used in Japan.</comment></comment></comment>


Just When You Thought the Age of Naval Idiocy Had Disappeared Forever - <AUTHOR> https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1246364316355514368.html <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the BBC account, not as fun a read:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin- america-52151951](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52151951)</comment>


Show HN: RSS Feeds for your Favorite Hacker News Commenters - <AUTHOR> http://gun-moll.herokuapp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is just a simple utility that translates the hn.algolia API into a format that RSS readers can parse. The code specific to the app is only about 40 lines: [https://github.com/dwwoelfel/gun- moll/blob/master/src/gun_mo...](https://github.com/dwwoelfel/gun- moll/blob/master/src/gun_moll/server.clj#L18-L62)

I was previously using [http://bradjasper.com/blog/follow-a-hacker-news-users- commen...](http://bradjasper.com/blog/follow-a-hacker-news-users-comments- with-rss/), but it died along with the old hnsearch.</comment>


Google Plus: On Trust, Reputation, Pseudonyms, and Value - <AUTHOR> http://www.windley.com/archives/2011/07/on_trust_reputation_and_pseudonyms.shtml

<comment><USER2> Wait wait wait... I add someone to my list because I know them. They use a pseudonym. I suddenly don't trust them any more?

No, most of my friends have pseudonyms that they use online on every freaking website. Even most gmail addresses are pseudonyms. Why would it suddenly be a problem if my friend Joe goes by 'ThunderLizard' instead? Hint: It isn't.

I can't imagine why Google has decided to do such a stupid thing, but it's not about users trusting each other.

If I had to guess, they're trying to prevent celebrity impersonations. It's bound to fail even more spectacularly than it already has.

</comment><comment><USER3> Google can instantly solve this problem by providing users the ability to select different avatars/names for different circles.</comment>


Soylent gets tested, scores a wholesome nutritional label - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/01/soylent-gets-tested-scores-a-surprisingly-wholesome-nutritional-label/ <comment><USER2> My concern about Soylent has never been about the macronutrient ratios, nor the quantities of (comparatively) well-understood micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. The amounts of these substances seem relatively easy to get right, or at least within the range of "healthy" accepted by a consensus of mainstream nutritonal experts.

My concern is about the thousands or millions of micronutrients and phytonutrients that are poorly understood or even yet to be isolated by nutritional science, and the subtle and complex way they interact with our bodies and each other.

To me, the entire premise of Soylent is predicated on the idea that we know, on a compound-by-compound basis, what's good for our bodies nutritionally. The more I learn about the state of nutritional science, the less I believe this to be true.

<comment><USER3> > To me, the entire premise of Soylent is predicated on the idea that we know, > on a compound-by-compound basis, what's good for our bodies nutritionally. > The more I learn about the state of nutritional science, the less I believe > this to be true.

Well Soylent is going to be an interesting test to confirm what we know and do not know about nutrition. As long as there are some willing volunteers to put their health at risk, I'd say why not. It will benefit mankind as a whole to know more.

<comment><USER4> Because these people do not know that they are experimental volunteers. The product is not being marketed as experimental. It is being sold as a mass market product suitable for anyone. It is being sold as a finished, tested, product.

<comment><USER3> Well, If someone tells you that you can replace all your food consumption with a SINGLE food item, I'm assuming you realize it may sound too good to be true, and that risks may be involved. But it depends on the target consumers of Soylent, I guess.

On top of that, it will be interesting to see if people stick to Soylent on the long term or just get bored once the novelty wears off, and return to traditional food consumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amongst all the comments about poorly-understood or unknown micro-nutrients, and whether or not this is healthy in the long run, I see here a sense of bewilderment from some people:

        fidlefodl : i just hate eating 90% of the time

            riffraff : ... why do you hate eating most of the time?

            ekianjo : [hate eating] two words I have difficulty associating ...

            collyw : I really don't understand the enthusiasm for
                     this product. Eating is one of life's pleasures

Personally, I'm with fidlefodl. I cannot understand what pleasure people get from eating. I cook, I eat, I share meals with others, but if I could get away from eating and never have to eat again, I'd take it in a heartbeat. I derive no pleasure from eating, and a great deal of negative pleasure from cooking. If takeaways weren't a combination of unhealthy and unpleasant then I'd never cook again.

I freely admit and acknowledge that some food tastes great, but on the whole, I'd much prefer not to spend the time eating.

<comment><USER6> Seriously, I'd trade 10+ years of my lifespan to never have to eat again and still maintain my weight / muscle mass.

<comment><USER7> The shitty years at the end, or would you immediately deteriorate your current health ten years into your future?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would not say "Surprising" as in the title, it was designed to fulfill nutrition from the beginning.

<comment><USER9> It is surprising to the haters on this site. There just isn't any other word for the treatment and unjustified skepticism soylent has received here.

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't say I am a hater, but I really don't understand the enthusiasm for this product. Eating is one of lifes pleasures. Why reduce it to the most processed forms possible?

(I would make a bet that if it is launched in Spain, it will fail miserably. People here have a real passion for good food.)

<comment><USER3> Same here. It's probably popular because it's new and it's an experiment challenging the concept of "Food", but apart from that there's no way I'd want to eat that stuff either. Actual food at home or outside is, as you say, one of life's pleasures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > a lot of people are seeing reduction in triglycerides or cholesterol

I suspect that the powder may be oat-based. Oats is a very nutritient-rich cereal, and does in fact lower cholesterol. It has high carbohydrate content, but it is also a rich source of minerals and proteins. See [http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and- pasta/...](http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5708/2)

If I were to mix my own "soylent", I'd base it on oat porridge, probably some protein supplements, some vitamin and mineral supplement, and a can of fatty fish. At probably a fraction of the soylent price.

<comment><USER12> If you are interested in creating your own Soylent, there's a dedicated subsection of the website[0] for sharing recipes.

Frankly, I doubt you could recreate, or equivalently replace, Soylent-the- product for as little money as it will cost to buy[1], but it's definitely possible to replicate Soylent-the-idea yourself. It's much easier if you don't intend to replace _every_ meal with a Soylent-like, as you can substitute the harder-to-source ingredients with foods that already contain them.

[0] [http://diy.soylent.me](http://diy.soylent.me)

[1] Partly because of economies of scale, partly because some of the ingredients are complicated to source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article is from months ago. I thought they had to change suppliers for a few things, wouldn't the nutritional info change also?

</comment><comment><USER14> Jan 29, 2014 10:54 pm UTC

 _" will begin shipments on a rolling basis at the beginning of March"_

so, any updates?

<comment><USER15> _" Orders projected to begin shipping 4/21\. Backerkit orders will be locked down 4/11\. First batches of Soylent 1.0 will not be certified gluten free. Some Backerkit add-ons removed."_

This was posted last week, so it seems like they will actually ship next week. [http://blog.soylent.me/post/82129644711/weekly- update-4-8](http://blog.soylent.me/post/82129644711/weekly-update-4-8)

<comment><USER16> From rob earlier today,

>Update coming today -- starter kits scheduled to start shipping by Friday, first Soylent shipments will be next week, though probably wed/thurs rather than Monday.

\- [http://discourse.soylent.me/t/soylent- update-4-8/12022/95](http://discourse.soylent.me/t/soylent- update-4-8/12022/95)

So the first shipments should be rolling out of the dock by Apr. 24th. Still no word on speed of delivery, but I'd expect the first shipments to start arriving the week of Apr. 28th - May 3rd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As a type 1 diabetic, this could be handy for eating out / backpacking / regulating glucose. Wish I could have gotten in on the alpha...

<comment><USER18> It's high glycemic, so probably not the best for diabetics.

<comment><USER16> I don't see a glycemic value on the label, so how do you know it's high? (I'm not a diabetic, I'm just genuinely curious.)

<comment><USER19> Page with ingredients, don't know how to interpret:

[http://blog.soylent.me/search/Ingredients](http://blog.soylent.me/search/Ingredients)

<comment><USER20> Main ingredients are:

      Oat Flour (110g)
      Maltodextrin (165g)
      Brown Rice Protein Isolate (102g)
      Canola Oil (56g)
      Fiber (38g)

I'm worried about how much of that is Maltodextrin, as it's really just a chain of glucose molecules, and so would give an extremely high glycemic load. It's somewhat mitigated by the fiber, as fiber hampers sugar uptake in the digestive system, but it's still a lot. I'd like to see some proper data on the what the GI score of Soylent is derived from actually testing it properly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are a lot of mystery carbs in there. 84g carbs, 8g in fiber and 2g in sugar. The remaining 74g?

</comment><comment><USER22> How long does it lasts ? Does this mean we have perfect food replacement for the apocalypse ?

<comment><USER23> Up to a year, according to [1]. A staff member on their forum said similar, [2] "We're probably going to stick with 1 year shelf life when kept in cool dark place, thought it'll likely be much longer in actuality."

[1] [http://www.rosalabs.com/about/](http://www.rosalabs.com/about/)

[2] [http://discourse.soylent.me/t/official-word-on-shelf-life- of...](http://discourse.soylent.me/t/official-word-on-shelf-life-of- soylent/10203/5)

</comment></comment><comment> torrent-of-ions If there is a demand for this the only thing I can wonder is what is going on with people's mental health?

<comment><USER6> It's an expensive and frustrating struggle to maintain my weight and this sounds like a promising alternative to dropping ~$800 a month (in money or wasted time cooking and cleaning) on merely staying alive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> You know you have an interesting article when the #1 comment has been deleted.

</comment><comment><USER25> Just asking: Is this some kind of weird humor?

Can anybody tell the story of this in short words?

I am fearing, that those predicted times will come up, but that somebody would name his product after a product that in a science fiction story was made out of human bodies, is really a little beyond my comprehension. Some kind of self-irony, perhaps? Or reverse marketing?

<comment><USER26> I believe in the original book ('Make Room! Make Room!'), soylent was not specified as cannibalistic - that was added in the movie.

<comment><USER27> Yes, you're right. Soylent = soya + lentil steaks in the book.</comment></comment></comment>