Ask News.YC: How to re-motivate yourself? - <AUTHOR> I have always wondered what the drivers were behind motivation. I am sure all of us have experienced setbacks and we have had to re-motivate ourselves every now and then.
We have been working on a startup idea for almost an year now. The initial days were fantastic, we were totally convinced we had hit upon a brilliant idea, there was vacuum to be filled. We worked crazy hours, got a lot of stuff done. Needless to say we were highly motivated.
But lately, I am personally having trouble motivating myself. I see myself squandering valuable time that I could have utilized. We suddenly seem to have a few competitors and it suddenly appear as though we don't have a unique value proposition.
And I have been pondering over this for some time now. I do realize that the lack of motivation is a  sign that things have to be done differently, or something needs to change. We either need to course-correct, change gears, think of a different market, a different approach or just look into ourselves honestly and understand ourselves better.
I was hoping to find some answers to my misgivings through this forum. I have benefited from news.yc in the past and I have no doubt that you guys will help us bounce back.
So here are my questions to sum things up:
1. What do you do when things are not going the way you want them to?
2. When do you know its time to change? (eg: market, process, partners.. etc)
3. When do you know its time to call it quits? (to start working on a different problem)
I would really be thankful if some of you could share your experiences so that all of us benefit.
Thanks!!! <comment><USER2> When I loose all motivation I take a week off. Generally within a few days I can't wait to get back to work. But I only dabble. I spend a few hours thinking or researching a small, stimulating area of the project. After 7 days I am fully charged up. I've seen my friends. I've spoken about the project, I've got new ideas and I've had a rest.

If after a week I still can't face it... well I'm probably screwed. The idea may be fine but I've lost it. I generally soldier on for a month, take another week off and repeat. If the cycle lasts a few months and I still can't get past the pain. I think (for me at least) it's time to move on.

I can't really answer the specific questions you pose because, well if I could answer them, I'd be VC boss dude with a suit and a very fast car.

Time away from most problems seems to make them less of a problem in my experience.

good luck

<comment><USER3> I agree 100% -- when I find myself drifting off during the workday, I take a break for however long it takes to get back on the horse. Sometimes that's an hour long bikeride, sometimes it's an entire weekend of "no laptop".

In either case, the mind sorts itself. I know EXACTLY what I have to do during my next run and I'm motivated and charged to execute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I always find it useful to go back to the roots, i.e read again that book that made you like programming, play that album that got you into music, watch the movie that made you fall in love with your significant other, read the parts of your code that were the most gratifying to write, and just remember why you initially thought that your startup was going to succeed.

<comment><USER5> Sounds counter productive....

If I want to move forward and make progress, I should look back and think about the past. Perhaps the conditions of the past are no longer relevant to the conditions of the present. Furthermore, I would think that part of the reason why somebody might not be making progress is because they are not paying attention to the conditions of the present while at the same time not reflecting upon the future.

However, what you are describing does have it's purposes as I have done exactly what you've suggested above at some point in the past. While this is a good way to reconnect yourself with past positive states (this helps when you are in a funk sometimes), I have not found this useful to move me forward and be competitive against others; to the contrary, it keeps me longing more for familiarity (the past) as opposed to uncertainty (the future) and whatever might result (good or bad).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A year? That's quite a while - why not try and release something? Users are a huge motivator for me.

<comment><USER7> Users are also a pain in the __*. But I guess that can also be a great way to motivate your team to do better :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Personally I find that the hardest part is just getting started (and I sometimes find this extremely difficult, spending hours surfing the web or watching TV to put off making the first code edit of the day). Once I'm programming, I tend to block everything else out to the point of forgetting to go to bed.

Mentioned a while ago here was a "martini method", and I realized the above after I started using that a few weeks ago. For review, the modified version of the method I proposed is just to do

       while true
         do
           echo -n `date` " "
           svn diff | wc -l
           # or git diff -- I'm going to switch to git soon
           sleep 600
         done

and exercise as much self-control as possible to avoid some specific set of timewasting or otherwise enjoyable activities (traditionally, drinking a martini) until the diff reaches a certain length. (Occasionally I give myself a break if I just came off a hugely productive run the previous day, or if I'm just wiped out from my day job.)

However, I accidentally set what turned out to be ridiculously low limits (because of the extra metainformation and surrounding lines of code that svn diff prints out). As it turned out, I didn't need to revise the limits upward, because it turned out I was frequently (not always, but that doesn't matter) staying engrossed in the task long after I'd reached the limit. I realized that it was enough to create an incentive to reach that easy goal, just to get me to switch to the task.

The best part is that I never sit down feeling like I've got some insurmountable pile of work I have to do, even though the project I'm working on as a whole is much larger than I'll ever be able to do by myself. When I task-switch, I'm just focused on thinking of what little piece I can do next. I _can_, if I want, make a few small scattered trivial changes, and I'm done for the day, but usually it's enough to get me thinking about the code, so I usually stay at the keyboard.

The fact that the goal is so easy to reach also makes self-control a lot easier. It's really no big deal if I feel like vegging for the whole evening -- I just have to do a smidge of work first. And I usually find after I've taken that first little step that I wasn't as tired as I thought I was.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think a major factor for you guys, which davidw referenced as a motivational engine, is rapid development cycles, if you release _SOMETHING_ quickly you are not discouraged so easily.

4-6 weeks is generally my max. time for spitting something out, otherwise I get bored and slowly stray away and eventually leave the project/app alone. Like if it's 12, 16, 24, or 3 months etc. to get something out, by that time my attention has been moved elsewhere.

My answers to your questions should definitely not to be considered as advice(except for 2 and 3), but:

1\. I make them the way I want, or very close too it. Or I leave.

2\. After I get feedback from people other than the ones involved in the development of the product, or after you release for use and there is no/a negative response from your users.

3\. Once again, after you release and it doesn't work, try to fix it. Ask your users what they want, can you give it to them? No? Call it quits. Yes? Keep on going!

</comment><comment><USER5> APOLOGIES for making this post so annoyingly long, but I really hope you find value in the words below.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

I'm going to first share a personal experience from my early trading days to illustrate where I'm coming from. I used to wake up at 4:30 am everyday in the Chicago suburbs to beat rush hour traffic and make it into downtown Chicago at 6:30 am. In order to wake up so early, I fell into a habit of sleeping at 9:00 pm and like a robot waking up at 4:30 am. This simple routine was indirectly helpful when things seemed darkest.

For the first six months, I lost money and was ridiculed constantly by other traders who were more successful than me (which was about 20 other guys CONSTANTLY using me as a punching/whipping bag). The only thing that kept me going was the fact that some of the very same traders that would be making wise cracks at me for losing money were some of the most successful people I knew at the time. For better or worse, if I needed a trader to model myself after, it was the same people that were telling me how bad a trader I was - and although I was not open to really hear what they were saying, they were right about my skills in every way (but their feedback was always packaged in some sort of insult).

After racking up some rather hefty losses, I was determined to quit at one point during month four, but because I had a habit of waking up at 4:30 am I simply "forgot" that the night before I told myself I would quit and spare myself further humiliation...by then I was warned that I was now on the red list of traders ready to be cut. Also, my personal savings were starting to approach zero (the base "draw" for house traders was enough to pay for food; you usually make your money on a percentage of your profits, and I was deep in the red at the time).

To say the least, there were many excellent reasons to be "reasonable", forget about my dreams, and quit.

After 4 consecutive "failures to quit", I realized that I didn't quit because somewhere deep down I was hanging on to a dream, however remote at that point: that I could somehow be as successful as the other traders that I knew. At the same time I realized that I had hit rock bottom in that I couldn't even succeed in failing! Very tough times indeed...

An interesting point to note here is that although my losses were starting to get very large, the people who were funding me as a trader kept me because I had one redeeming quality: EFFORT, and this helped build tenacity. Other traders who barely traded but had a fraction of my losses were cut much faster because they didn't put forth much effort. They were not willing to take losses and be bold/brave and fight it out; I was willing to take risks, and this saved me from getting cut faster than others.

Slowly I began to reinterpret the constant humiliation I was suffering: perhaps the other traders were right about their "jokes" and there might be something in what they are saying that will help me get out of the red. I also realized that since I had failed at quitting (which was now the ULTIMATE failure), there was no further failure for me and that if I took baby steps they were surely to succeed (this translated into taking smaller trades/profits).

Only after improving upon my abilities as a trader and channeling my energies appropriately did I succeed and earn everybody's respect as a trader (and you have no idea how this made me feel!). I quickly made enough in commissions to be trading my own account, and be successful as an independent trader onward. When I look back at those final months of 1999 (yeah that's right, I was losing huge cash at the end of 1999 when the entire market was going crazy UP!), there was more good than bad even when I was getting my ass handed to me. It's just that I was intentionally creating my own feedback (I'm right everybody else is wrong) instead of seeing the results I was getting (losses/insults) as feedback and information that would help me be successful.

I kind of snicker every time I see somebody ask for feedback on their startup on YC.News only to end up justifying themselves by telling everybody why they did what they did when they get negative feedback, which is the feedback of greatest value. If somebody tells you how crappy your idea is, thank them that they even spent a few brain cycles considering your idea.

The lessons I learned from this that are perhaps relevant to your questions:

\- Determine if you believe in yourself to succeed as an individual (I know this sounds odd, but for a moment just examine your thought patterns and your actions and see what message you are sending to yourself; do you listen to the voice that says you can't or are you paying attention to the feedback from your efforts and the results you are getting?)

\- Search deep down inside and see if the project you are working on is something you believe in or not. If you can't sell yourself, then you shouldn't bother trying any further...

\- ANY attention you get for your efforts is good attention. If you get LOTS of negative feedback, then be grateful - you've jumped the first hurdle of getting people to give a damn about what you are doing! :)

\- There is responsibility and accountability that goes with both success and failure. You need to be ready for both because they can be equally painful in equal ways. The amount of accountability that comes with success can be more unbearable than the accountability that accompanies failure. I personally know of some very talented people who enjoyed phenomenal initial success only to find just as fast that they were in over their heads.

\- The more you resist the possibility of failure then you are less likely to recognize possibilities that will help you succeed. If you are afraid to fail, then most certainly you are afraid to succeed. This sounds counterintuitive but it's based upon the fact that fear makes your mind less supple and less responsive to the changes that will push you out of the game - or conversely it will lessen the impulse to jump on the opportunities you need to succeed.

\- The results you get has everything to do with your users/market and less to do with you as an individual; it's sometimes hard to separate these two. See the other side of the equation and what side you are on before trying to solve it. Don't ever think you are above the feedback of your users...EVER!

\- Don't have expectations (this is just setting yourself up for failure). Because you are starting out you may not know what is best to help you succeed - ESPECIALLY if you're lacking motivation. Keep in mind that whatever results you get from your efforts will lead to more possibilities (in the form of additional information).

\- Have some behavioral "context" within which to exercise discipline and structure. Seek to grow your efforts within this context. My context was my sleep schedule. It was a routine that was so ingrained that my drive had a laser focus. This might not work for some, but it worked for me.

Finally, I will add that in my opinion failing hard and fast is MUCH better than failing slowly. The faster you know for certain something isn't going to work out, the sooner you can cut your losses and move on to your next idea. When you eventually succeed, you will look back at all the times you were quick to cut your losses and get to where you are...

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

Please do NOT contact me asking for advice in trading/investing. This is a VERY personal thing, and it has everything to do with who you are, NOT with how much information you have, or which tools you use, or who you know.

</comment><comment><USER10> I meant to ask this question myself but I just couldn't find the motivation.

Seriously, procrastination is the way your subconscious tells you something is wrong and needs to be fixed, or all of your work is for naught. So either stop, talk to your buddies, and fix it so that you can get re-motivated, or check all the code back in unlocked and go find the next challenge. Your subconscious is trying to tell you something; listen to it and address it, because it's almost always right. The answer is not here, but you already knew that, didn't you?

</comment><comment><USER11> I develop an open source project which I might offer as a paid-for service at some point. But the open source bit is highly beneficial to me, because it provides:

\- User testing, often from the clueful. \- Feedback and ideas from users. \- Hence, an idea of where I should take the project to keep my customers happy and interested. \- Motivation, because I'm doing something for me and not just other people. We're social animals, even if we're also hackers ;)

I find that right now (two months after starting the project) I have plenty of enthusiasm and my objectives are perfectly aligned with my users'. If I'm hunting a bug for someone, it's not a case of "why do I have to do this when I could be doing 'real' programming?" I want the bug fixed, he wants the bug fixed, we both benefit (and I've got some free user testing and bug identification into the bargain).

Now, maybe you can't open source your stuff, either because you don't want to, or it doesn't fit your business model, or it's just not that kind of product. But maybe you could try (if you haven't already) finding some early testers who can give you the benefits I'm getting from my users: feedback, ideas and (critically in your case) an indication of whether or not your product is going anywhere. Maybe you can find a small re-alignment you can make which will allow you to reach a tipping point - it's often the small things which do it. Maybe you could get readers here to help you with this..?

Also, I would say (having worked on many programming projects of varying sizes) there is _always_ a point in any project where you think it's not going anywhere, you're discouraged and wondering if you should go on. You have to push through that. I'm doing some client work at the moment which is really dragging me down, I was unhappy with the database structure and the presentation was ordinary. I showed it to the client and they loved it. It was a real boost. So at least I have them on-side, even though the project overall I'd love to complete and move on.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm perhaps different than a lot of the other folks here doing startups. My goal in my entrepreneurship is not to exit to $millions; it is to create a long-term sustainable lifestyle for myself where I am continually doing work that I find interesting and also have have the time to enjoy other pursuits...

Viewed through that lens, then as soon as dissatisfaction or a lack of motivation become chronic rather than intermittent, it's clear that something needs to change.

It sounds like you have been trying to whip yourself into shape -- trying to create external motivations to push you through tasks you no longer find enjoyable on their own. This isn't sustainable; sooner or later you'll run out.

Personally, I:

* Don't beat myself up about time spent procrastinating as long as it's reasonable. Brain breaks (I play a lot of go online) are just fine; it's taken me a lot of work to break the "slack off -> guilt -> demotivation -> more slacking off" cycle,. Hint: The solution is not to crank up the "guilt" lever.

* I make sure I'm not working too much, even when I'm very excited. Things will still be there tomorrow, and in the sober light of day my 2 am code usually sucks.

* I nurture other interests and hobbies, including non-programming ones. I always have a couple of 'learning' side projects going on, and I make sure to go rock climbing (my excercise drug of choice!) at least once a week.

* It's always time to change! My business plan (drawn out in Inkscape) looks like a railyard, with lots of potential branches being added.

* I always start with high expectations and a huge feature list; I've begun to accept that trimming this back is a natural and inevitable part of actually getting anything done. Maybe it would be a good idea for you to call a 'feature freeze' and get a release out? Like someone else said, a year is a long time to be working in a vacuum.

...

Time for me to get back to work and stop being distracted, now. ;)

</comment><comment><USER13> I just went through a period of being unmotivated; I hit the perfect storm of being sick, having guests, and worst of all having a really chunk of code that was completely undefined as to what approach I should take, and how it could nicely fit in with everything.

1\. Take a break.

2\. and 3. Most of the time I want to stop, it is not time to change. A perfect analogy for me is I was working on a really difficult puzzle (yes, a real puzzle), and with about 100 pieces remaining I would have swore with a 99% certainty factor that a bunch of pieces were missing. I was so close to finishing, but I started to think a handful of pieces were missing so I almost quit. It turns out, one piece was missing and that is what planted the seed of a bunch of pieces missing, and the other pieces were just difficult. So for me personally that last push to finish and stay motivated and not quit is very difficult.

Different people deal with things differently, but that puzzle analogy relates to a lot of things in my life. I almost quit right before I am about to make a breakthrough, and forcing myself to struggle and churn is quite difficult but necessary.

Often having someone else help me get through that part is useful, for example just working on something with someone else will give me a reason to finish. Sometimes they can even help do that finishing part - some of my best working partners are great at polishing and tweaking right at the end, since thats what I lack.

Just wait until I release my next app, I am sure this will be reflected in it.

</comment><comment><USER14> A few of my hard earned lessons:

Time spent working does NOT necessarily = amount of work completed. It's easy to get discouraged when you "sense" you're not spending enough time on something. Two days ago, for example, I came here 827 times (well maybe not that many). But it was a very productive day! By the end of the day, I figured something out and the flood gates opened. That's just how it works for hackers sometimes. If you don't care anymore, that's one thing. But being frustrated about time spent is a signal something else is wrong, not your commitment.

Some experts think we are either preprogrammed with "moving toward" or "moving away" internal metaprograms. OK, whatever. I'm a very positive optimistic person, so I just assumed I was a "moving toward" person. Wrong! I am HIGHLY motivated by that which I do not like, but I never realized it. If I see something I like, I think, "that's cool". But if I see something I don't like, I think, "That sucks. I can do way better than that." So I do. It may be one of the 7 deadly sins, but jealousy is a great motivator for "moving away" people. I'm older than every speaker at Startup Weekend, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and possibly our next president. But I'm just as smart as any of them, and I haven't got mine yet. That just pisses me off! (See, it works, I'm ready to hack right now.) What about you? How are you programmed? What can you do to stoke yourself (or piss yourself off)?

"When do you know its time to call it quits?" Never. I realize most people will disagree with me. Walt Disney and Colonel Saunders went to a thousand banks before getting a loan. How soon would you have given up? When do you quit trying to teach you child how to walk because it's not going as well as you'd like? Jerry Seinfield jokes that it took him 20 years to become an overnight success. I've seen the same thing with many hackers I know. If you know deep down inside that your project is a winner, you must do whatever it takes to get it to "walk". If you're not sure, then maybe you shouldn't have started it in the first place. Only you can answer that one.

Hate to be like Oprah, but if things aren't going as quickly as you would have liked, maybe you oughta read this:

[http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Secret-Getting-Absolutely- Eve...](http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Secret-Getting-Absolutely- Everything/dp/1589804864/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203690724&sr=8-1)

It's amazing what you can make happen if you follow the simple advice of this book.

Collect data from everyone. Then go with your gut. Best advice I ever got.

<comment><USER15> I find this "never give up" stuff ridiculous. You'd never apply it to investing money (eg/ "I bought this stock 1 year ago and I'm just going to BELIEVE it into a higher price), so why would you apply it to investing your skills and emotional commitment to some particular problem in some particular market? Things change -- your market, your problem, your competitors, and yourself -- all change. As circumstances change, so must your strategy.

Now, right until the very moment when you decide to do something else, obviously you want to be working your tail off, and you want your team to have enough confidence to be motivated. But there's a limit to the value of cheerleading; it can only go so far. The only reason cheerleaders have something to smile and dance about is because there's some hard-assed coach in the background who takes reality into account when making decisions.

There's no reward for cowardice, or giving up on a good idea before giving your best effort... but it's equally true that there's no honor in marching stridently toward failure, on a path that you should have rationally abandoned months ago.

Also, realize that there's a difference between giving up on your project, vs. giving up on your self, your team, your professional aspirations, etc... the former need not imply any of the latter.

<comment><USER14> I find responses containing the word "ridiculous" ridiculous. (Does that mean this response is ridiculous?)

Changing strategy does not equal giving up.

Giving up prematurely is the single biggest impediment to failure in any field. How do you know if it's premature? You don't. So you keep going.

FWIW, I hope my competitors think like you do. I'd be the only one left standing.

<comment><USER15> Imagine you form a team of 5 people to build a new product -- for the sake of argument, let's say you've decided to try to build a prototype of a Gubmarine, a submarine made out of an advanced form of bubble-gum that can allow a torpedo to pass right through you, and then instantly re-seal up.

Let's say that after 1 year, given changing competitive dynamics, it is the rational conclusion of the team's leader that continuing to build that product is no longer worth the opportunity cost of those 5 people's time based on an up-to-date risk/reward calculation (perhaps Wrigley's has just produced a prototype of their own Gubmarine that is 1.4 times better than yours and will be ready for market 5 months sooner than you can hope to be, and they already have a major advantage when it comes to distribution, which makes puts you at a considerable disadvantage). Is it then not plausible that ceasing work on your project is a good idea?

This stuff happens in big companies all the time -- they try something new, and it doesn't work, so they cease efforts and try something else. That's a "change in strategy," not "quitting," because the company as a whole continues. But in a startup, it sometimes _is_ called "quitting," because you often only _have_ one product, and your team is _specially designed_ just for that one product (and incidentally, that what made you so efficient)... but it also means that you can't just shuffle those people around to different positions in the company; instead, sometimes, unfortunately, you quit. You die.

Same people, same product, same/similar change in capital allocation -- but for the big-company it's a "change in strategy," while for a startup, it's "quitting."

Isn't this how startups work? What's wrong with condemning projects that aren't earning their keep?

I am fully cognizant of the importance of having strong motivation and not giving up when it's too soon, and how difficult it is to know when it's ready to quit. And as long as I'm leading a project that's been decided to continue, I'll have my eyes facing forward and I'll raise all the hell I can muster to make things work, let me tell you. But the idea that it is _never_ good to quit is, in my mind, still worth of the word "ridiculous," even if using that word makes me sound impolite or foolish.

FWIW, I won't particularly mind if all my contemporaries think like _you_ do -- that way many of them will never _become_ my competitors, as they'll be too busy working on that great idea they had 3 years ago to notice that the world changed in the meantime, and that they'd be better off giving up and starting something different.

(Or maybe I hope they think like I do, but they'll misjudge and quit too early. That's also a possibility. We're dealing in grays here, not B&W).

\-- Update --

Important to note, belatedly, that my talk about "giving up" etc. was in response to the comment I replied to, not the original questioner (who doesn't seem to be in such dire straits as someone who needs to hear what I've written).

<comment><USER14> "someone who needs to hear what I've written"

Humbly spoken.

<comment><USER15> Some people need to hear that it's time to quit, because they're invested in something that's a dead end. Just as you shouldn't throw good money after bad, the same can be said for your time (and your team's time).

The important part isn't who said it (in this case it happened to be me), it's the simple fact that sometimes, it's good advice. This was obviously not an original idea of mine. In fact I doubt if I've said anything original at all here; every time I think I've thought of something original, I seem to find myself reading a book by someone who's already thought a couple steps ahead of me a few weeks later (luckily, that's okay -- ideas need not be original to be useful).

I might have said "someone who needs to face the realities of extricating themselves out of a dead end project" instead of using the shorthand "what I've written" to avoid such confusion. I was not intending to come across as some know-it-all guru, and it is my fault if my words conveyed that impression (and they well may have).

* Also note that the first half of my sentence said that the questioner was _not_ "somebody who needs to hear what I've written."

* I am assuming that you were being sarcastic with this last reply, which I felt was a safe assumption, but I can't really know, because I don't know you, and communicating via text is hell and we are prone to vastly overestimate our own comprehension of the other person's intent. My apologies if I screwed up.

<comment><USER5> h34t,

Please read the second paragraph in this article:

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1604891,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1604891,00.html)

How different would the developed world be if he didn't persist in creating his own "Gubmarine" and listened to his colleagues who told him to quit?

Success is the veil of hard work, difficulty, and a whole lotta pain. It's the result of these things (and many more negative things people usually avoid enduring) that we identify as "success". Rarely do we see the torment that the successful go through in order to get where they are.

<comment><USER15> What an amazing story... this is the first I've read of it. It doesn't much to do with my argument, though. Even though I haven't talked about this much here, I personally believe that persistence is one of the most important ingredients in doing _anything_ important. But it's not a holy grail to be worshiped at all costs. You can't make a general rule called "never give up" if "giving up" means ceasing the cooperation of a team for a particular purpose. That would be a stupid rule; it would lead to all sorts of irrational results. Imagine a VC firm that decided to never give up on any of its startups, ever. That sort of policy would fly in the face of all general knowledge about how the world of startups work.

Offering an anecdotal example is very problematic. What about all the other folks who were working on making blue LEDs whose, inventions had no chance of competing with Nakamura's? Because of the survivorship bias, we don't hear about _them_ , yet they are just as important to understanding the dynamics of reality. After his invention was released, are they supposed to continue on the same path? Of course not. It doesn't mean they give up on life, or on themselves, but it does mean that they give up on a mission that they had committed themselves to for some period of time.

I'd _never_ say that a founder should listen blindly to colleagues, and _certainly_ not to me(!), in deciding whether it's worth continuing. These are complex decisions that need to be made carefully.

In short,

Success requires persistence, but persistence does not imply success. Most stories of success will be stories of persistence, but not all stories of persistence will lead to success.

And many stories of success will include "giving up" on previous projects/companies before finding success in a new one.

<comment><USER5> What is your argument then? I'm afraid that you are not communicating across your argument effectively...I thought the article above was a pretty good refutation of the post to which I replied.

It is an amazing story isn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is really odd, but i always watch one of those VH1 "fabulous life of billionaire" TV specials whenever i feel like i'm losing momentum.

</comment><comment><USER17> 1) This may be helpful on a small scale:

Like many, I love building new features, and don't love fixing bugs. But after a while of not fixing bugs, I get this 'ewww, my code is icky' feeling, and slowly start to hate my project.

That's when I know I need to spend a whole day fixing bugs. By the end of the day, I feel differently. There's something about quality that's viceral, the sheen of quality makes it easy to love my project again.

2) If you are really questioning the value of your project, ask: \- how could I morph this into something else? \- What else could I use my existing network of contacts for? \- What is an adjacent problem?

I recently went through this after feeling very trapped in my problem domain, and it resulted in a great new insight and, I hope, and entirely new set of products in an adjacent domain.

</comment><comment><USER18> Go to someone else's offices who are doing a startup. That will get your ass in gear when you see how hard they are working.

<comment><USER19> Better yet, go to someone's office who isn't; someone who has spent 10-20 years in a cube at megacorp and is still bitching about where he/she is in the company. That will really get your ass in gear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> your questions imply that "things are not going well, so it's time to change or call it quits"

First you need to stop asking such questions. These are just negative thoughts that you have and because you don't want to say them, you put it in a question form. but that still has the bad effect. so stop that right-a-way!

It is normal to feel this way after you finish any major part of your idea. The best thing to do it to stop looking at it and wondering. go on a short trip. do something fun. just don't be near your computer. after few days you start seeing that you haven't really completed what you had originally thought of. Doesn't mean that you need to change things or trash what you have. think back to why you were exited about your idea in the first place. is what you have now what you had pictured? maybe there are things missing that you can add. if there are similar products out there don't worry at all. lots of companies are based on the same basic ideas. what would make yours better or different is the details of the main idea. Think of it as a painting. it is done in layers. when you are painting you never erase things or change what you had in mind. what you do is add more layers and with more details. It is those details that make your idea unique and so will attract others that can see and appreciate those details.

<comment><USER21> "First you need to stop asking such questions. These are just negative thoughts that you have and because you don't want to say them, you put it in a question form. but that still has the bad effect. so stop that right-a-way!"

That is very simple-minded and idealistic. One should look at their product ideas and development objectively to determine if they are building something people will use or not. Simply saying "build it and trust the process" is too faith-based.

What does "things are not going well" mean? It could mean the implementation of an idea doesn't work, the developer can't bring the idea to market, the developed doesn't really want to do it, or the market is telling the developed they don't want to use his/her product. It could mean other things. If any of these conditions are met, then it's time to change or call it quits (hint: quitting a doomed venture is not a failure.)

<comment><USER20> In general I may agree. if the idea was bad to begin with. I would have said cut your loses and get out soon. But in this case it looks like there are some other companies that have entered this market as well. So the problem isn't realy that the idea is bad.

<comment><USER15> Just because a problem is important, doesn't imply that _your_ team is properly positioned to succeed in the market. If _you_ don't have a good chance of succeeding due to changing circumstances, there's no reason to assume that it's worth the time and capital to continue.

These are really tough decisions. You can look at every successful company and, thanks to the hindsight bias, see that success is almost always born through persistence through difficulty. But there are plenty of examples where fighting a losing battle _wasn't_ worth it. Or of people who tried, failed, quit at the right time, tried something else, and then succeeded.

<comment><USER20> being persistant and/or quiting at the at the right time can both be correct. in this particular case I didn't see the right questions being asked. I don't think we should debate which path to take without knowing anything about the situation. Thats why I originaly say to stop thinking negtive, stop for a few days etc..

<comment><USER15> Ah. Well, I agree with that. Taking a break totally away from work, especially, can be a great refresher. Instead of letting frustration imply problems, it might just be signaling the need for some fresh perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 1\. When things go awfully wrong, still go ahead - but analyze what went wrong where. Make note of what contributes to the failure, and how to fix it. Start with why did the startup fail? Or why is the startup losing users? Is there anything you can do to fix it? Is it feasible to fix it, and will it generate profits? When will I reach a break-even point? etc. But if you believe in your DREAM, then GO AHEAD.

2\. You can almost sense about the potential of your startup idea. If you think there are ways which could improve you revenue, or media exposure ( in a good way ), do it. Change your maket processes, partners so that you save every single penny, but make sure you build a lot of good will along the way)

3\. If your startup is bleeding a lot of money, and when you don't SERIOUSly see a future for your startup, QUIT. Of course, when the market doesn't need a product, its value goes down. If you believe you product has the potential, but isn't successful because of other factors (like lack of media exposure, etc), go GET IT.

Hope I was clear... Thanks!!!

</comment><comment><USER7> "We have been working on a startup idea for almost an year now. The initial days were fantastic, we were totally convinced we had hit upon a brilliant idea, there was vacuum to be filled. We worked crazy hours, got a lot of stuff done."

What a lot of startups don't get is that you can only push people to work crazy hours a very limited amount of times.

If the startup is just fragging around and not working towards a real moment where 'it happens' but still pushes people to give it all then the backlash will be huge and people will become demotivated and start asking the questions I see you asking.

It sounds like you guys need better management. Better management to get the show on the road. Better management to give the startup a meaning. Better management to motivate people.

Talk to them. They are probably struggling with the same issues.

(Or maybe you are management, dunno, you didn't really specify your position)

S.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's difficult to keep motivated when working on back-end improvements that nobody will notice.

I'm always re-motivated by improving the UI. It makes a huge difference when you can see the benefits of your work.

<comment><USER8> It's the other way around for me -- the more abstract the problem, the happier I am.

Good thing there are both kinds of people, huh?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can completely understand what you're talking about. We learned the bitter lesson between trendspotting and trendsetting (Sam Altman's comments have credence here too), and are almost back to square one. It hurts quite a lot because we think of the time we wasted, and at times, I personally look back wondering if we just didn't execute correctly instead of there not being a market.

1) When things are going terribly? Dig down and talk with your partners in the trenches. Get motivated (see other posts). Remember your users because they are the ones who give the best advice about your product. At the earliest stage, I think your community of users, fellow hackers, and partners are your best way to respond. Know to admit that you don't know and you need guidance from others. 2) Usually PG's comments about iterating apply here. You will always be changing because your users will tell you to. Whatever is hindering make smart and rapid changes to your product should obviously be changed. Nevertheless, maybe you just haven't made the right product for a growing market or your competition beat you, then... 3) Quit... I honestly don't know when though. For us, it was when we I realized I had become Ahab. Except instead of a great white whale, my partners pointed out it was a small beluga. The market was not there for political gaming (outside of the slow-growth educational sector) and if we wanted to really compete, we would need to be a media company or provide a utility to gov professionals (e.g. vertical gov search or customized gov aggregation). My partners and I talked over it and they really never liked politics as a vertical (but they thought Moby Dick was somewhere out there). One of my partners bristles at the mention of politics and he sort of outright dismisses politics even as a backup for our YC app.

Sometimes the backlash to failure is hard to handle, so it's important that everyone tries to focus on what's best for the company. We're still in it because we dream of electric sheep and we really want to create value in the world (even though we're still the quintessential guys in a house).

We now are back to square one, with no experience with the new bad-ass idea, and we're in the middle of tying things up with our previous contracts and licenses (which keeps us from just diving in), but it'll be okay even if you do quit. The good thing is that since you're bootstrapped you didn't waste a significant amount of money from someone else.

</comment><comment><USER25> In addition to all the advice from the other comments, read this essay: <http://paulgraham.com/die.html>.

</comment><comment><USER21> If 1\. your head and heart are not in it and you can't make them get back in, or 2\. you didn't do a minimal level of marketing research to determine who your competition is, who your target market is, and what your product's value to the market is compared to the competition,

then maybe you should quit or regroup.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have found my best motivation is other people being succesful at what I have been working at for awhile it really chaps my hide so to speek. So I add more features and integrate existing features bettter.</comment>


Long Distance - <AUTHOR> https://gimletmedia.com/episode/long-distance/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hilarious podcast episode, there's a full transcript available at the bottom of the page.</comment>


How a new HTML element will make the Web faster - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/09/how-a-new-html-element-will-make-the-web-faster/ <comment><USER2> This element reminds me of the ill-fated FIG element ([https://www.cmrr.umn.edu/~strupp/elements.html#FIG](https://www.cmrr.umn.edu/~strupp/elements.html#FIG)) which was proposed in HTML 3.x, but never made it in. (I think it was replaced by EMBED which then transmogrified into OBJECT).

FIG was intended to be an alternative to IMG, and unlike IMG it wasn't self- closing. It could have children, and the way it was supposed to work was that the outermost one the browser thought was "good enough" would get rendered. One possible usage at the time was to have a png in your outer FIG, a gif on the next one in (png was new at the time, so not well supported), then an IMG for browsers that didn't understand FIG. Once FIG was well supported then you'd leave out the IMG, and instead just have the "alt" text -- except it could have real markup instead of just the plain text of the alt attribute.

</comment><comment><USER3> For the technical side, instead of the historical one: [http://responsiveimages.org/](http://responsiveimages.org/)

An example from the homepage:

      <picture>
        <source media="(min-width: 40em)" srcset="big.jpg 1x, big-hd.jpg 2x">
        <source srcset="small.jpg 1x, small-hd.jpg 2x">

      </picture>

<comment><USER4> I understand from the article that the img srcset was somehow horrible, but the following (presumably the WHATWG proposal) looks more intuitive to me:

Can someone explain the drawbacks?

<comment><USER5> file names can have spaces and JPEG can end with "640w" in URL. It's really weird to see a tiny DSL invented in a DOM attribute.

<comment><USER6> This all seems horrific. Why can't HTML be properly extended to support attribute arrays or dictionaries as values? Having a value encode a DSL is so messed up. This is yet more to parse...

HTML keeps getting pulled in so many directions. I wish XHTML had won. It was modular, pluggable, extensible, and semantic. The last bit might have eventually made entering the search space easy for new competitors, too.

<comment><USER7> this is why attributes are really a stupid ass way to do things

        <srcset>
          <source><width>1024</width><src>large-image.jpg</source>
          <source><width>512</width><src>small-image.jpg</source>
        </srcset>
        <src>image.jpg</src> <*>fallback</*>
        <alt>My image</alt>

<comment><USER5> <imgset w1024="large.jpg" w640="medium.jpg" />

<comment><USER8> not practical since you'd have to define attributes for every conceivable size in the spec and that's just asking for trouble. e.g. w2048, h1024, w320, w240,h320, wPleaseShootMe :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a bit of a linkbait. There are maybe two lines on how the new "picture" element makes the web faster.

The rest is the story of how the "picture" element came to be, which is a very interesting story but has nothing to do with how it'll make the web faster.

<comment><USER10> And, ironically, ArsTechnica isn't responsive and uses stock images that contribute nothing to the article (blurry hands on a laptop keyboard!)

<comment><USER11> Agreed. Quite annoying. The top rated comment post here was just 5 lines or so and told me more than 4 pages of that click bait article.

<comment><USER12> I used to love Ars, but they've started this kind of nonsense and I no longer bother to read them :/

<comment><USER13> What do you read nowadays?

<comment><USER12> HN.

Even when it publishes stuff from Ars or wherever, I often skip the article and just read the comments here because they're much more insightful and if there's anything good, the commentators here know better.

The demand at news sites that they keep churning out news no matter what is what lowers their quality. Sometimes there just isn't anything worthwhile to read at the moment about a topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Recently, a HN job post brought me to a career page. It served up a 1MB css file, a 650K [mostly red] png image, and a 300K black and white png.

I don't know whether it's incompetence or indifference, but for most sites, slow loads is a developer, not a tool or design, issue.

<comment><USER15> I agree to a point - I think it's maybe thought about a bit more by those who were building sites when a 1mb page meant a 5 minute download. For those that grew up taking high speed Internet for granted it's thought about a lot less.

That said, when the only way to get the design to work is using alpha transparency, and you know you need a massive 24bit PNG you're caught between a rock and a hard place. Especially when you then have to think about creating the same image at double size to serve to retina displays (because the client asks "why is it fuzzy on my ipad/mac/phone?") - page sizes start to get out of control.

<comment><USER16> Your point is valid, but using imagealpha allows you to have alpha channel in 8bit pngs. www.pngmini.com

<comment><USER15> That's fantastic, thank you. I've been using TinyPNG.com - will give this a go :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A simpler solution might be

Then then the browser can choose the most appropriate size based on the screen size. The filenames would simply follow the convention, image-640.jpg, image-800.jpg etc. older browsers would simply use the original src.

<comment><USER18> To my eye, it's a little odd to read an article about multiple groups of experts who spent months or years hashing out a difficult problem, and then to see a comment like this one that proposes its own much simpler solution.

Is your thought here that not one of the dozens of people involved considered this sort of syntax during those months or years or work? (That seems unlikely.) Or do you think their reasons for rejecting it were unsound? (You don't seem to have said why.) I'm just not understanding what you're aiming for here.

<comment><USER17> Their proposed solution offers more flexibility in that you can use media queries to specify the upper/lower bounds and also specify the filenames. This feels over-engineered though, firstly because the above solution provides enough information to switch between images (we're not changing the layout here) and secondly because a filename convention is adequate for referencing them. The third reason that I dislike their solution is that it introduces presentation logic(media queries) into html.

<comment><USER19> Arguably,  was already a form of presentation logic present in HTML. This just makes it more capable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> tl;dr: <picture> tag. It contains an  tag inside for backwards compatibility, and allows you to define multiple <source> tags for different sizes.

<comment><USER5> Which is kinda lame IMHO. Why can't we use progressive JPEG, with offsets? The first rough scan for small size image, a second scan for normal image, a third scan for retina sized image?

One file, one URL, different offset for different dimensions, done.

<comment><USER21> Doesn't that mean I would be downloading all of the image data and only using part of it?

<comment><USER22> No. Part of the http spec is the ability to download only a specific range of bytes in a file.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think <picture> will (hopefully) ultimately win out because it quite nicely makes all the main three forms of embedded media (pictures, video and audio) work pretty much the same way. Plus, if only use of
 and
 was a bit more widespread...

Either way, the article makes it pretty clear that the current method for drafting and implementing standards for the web is not working brilliantly (having both W3C and WHATWG around exemplifies this).

</comment><comment><USER10> There are many browsers out there, not just Chrome and Firefox, esp. on mobile. Android Chrome is fairly out of sync with desktop Chrome. Kindle devices use their own browser and won't let you install another one, etc. Plus, mobile users update their apps or their OS rarely, if ever.

Shouldn't the solution come from the server side? You can serve different image sizes to different devices, whereas if you need the browser to do the work you'll wait forever.

There is even a simpler solution, which is to use just one image of average- to-small size, and size it in the page dynamically. If the image is of good quality in the first place (noise free), most users won't notice.

<comment><USER24> The article mentioned the problem with this approach: Your browser loads the HTML, CSS, JS _simultaneously_ with the images on the start of the page load - so when you find out what size you need at runtime (via JS), and then put in the right img-src, it will be slower than loading a higher-res version right from the start.

Another option would be to "guess" the right size to serve based on the User Agent String (maybe you meant this and I misunderstood?). This could work, although the server may very well guess wrong.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I meant "guessing" the right size based on the user-agent string as the best approach (since it doesn't rely on the browser doing the work, it will work with any browser, including old ones).

But I also maintain that a single image of relatively small size can be used for all form factors if its quality is good enough (resized by the browser based on CSS instructions); you can at least double the size of a "good" image before you begin to see problems.

<comment><USER25> The user-agent is the biggest cluster fuck in the history of the web and has nothing to do with HTML. Once you understand this, you'll learn to ignore it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> [http://caniuse.com/#feat=picture](http://caniuse.com/#feat=picture)

This probably wont be used on any major sites for the time being, considering the devices that the element has been designed for dont support it.

<comment><USER23> There's always a polyfill: [https://github.com/scottjehl/picturefill](https://github.com/scottjehl/picturefill)

Considering many HTML5 features and related JavaScript APIs can easily be made to work in older browsers using polyfills, many relatively larger sites have been doing this for lots of things (HTML5 block elements in IE<9, for example).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> While the <picture> and  are a step towards responsive images, but I personally see them as too complicated for developers that just want to get things done fast. The complexity of the new standards will slow down their adoption even more than the browser support.

For an example, we solve the adaptive images server-side problem with our SaaS image compression service [http://www.slender.io/](http://www.slender.io/) with smart recompression & a few content negotiation tricks. Some of our customers would like to use <picture> and related polyfills for their sites, but their designers struggle defining the target image sizes relative to viewport dimensions, not the size that the image is/would be layouted. As a result, adoption on both smart browser and server-side solutions are slowed down.

The article mentioned element queries, that will hopefully solve this problem, but make the browser implementation much more complex. While the browser could resolve the normal media queries already when preparsing (e.g. it knows the viewport dimensions all the time), I understood it would know the element queries only after layout, partially defeating the whole purpose of preparsers.

It seems web standards are making things as simple as layouting insanely complex. While I am sad about all that artificial complexity, I am happy that no WYSIWYG editor will automate my job any time soon. :)

</comment><comment><USER28> I was neck deep in this very issue for most of today. It is surprising that there is no usable solution to this issue without resorting to what seem like pretty awful methods. If I am wrong about this please do let me know.

Based on what I found today, there are a couple of ways to handle the problem of variable sized images. If anyone knows others please do tell.

1\. Use picture and srcset with a polyfill (Picturefill). With this you end up with verbose markup as well as needing stuff like "" to make it work. It also results in requests to multiple images for browsers that support srcset but not picture, meaning twice as many images are downloaded. Many browsers are in this group with the current or next versions.

2\. Use javascript. This is the method employed by various saas solutions that I looked at, and there are of course libraries that you can use yourself. Waiting for javascript to execute before the images can start being pulled down has obvious problems.

3\. User agent sniffing. This method requires server side logic to implement, and relies on data that in many cases will not result in an appropriately sized image being rendered.

Is there another way? Has anyone got a workable solution to this and could give a recommendation?

</comment><comment><USER29> The work to get the picture element implemented in Firefox is going on in the bugs in the "Depends on" field in this bug, if people are interested:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1017875](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1017875)

</comment><comment><USER30> For people interested in on the fly image processing, there's a nice article here [http://abhishek-tiwari.com/post/responsive-image-as- service-...](http://abhishek-tiwari.com/post/responsive-image-as-service-rias)

<comment><USER31> Some more alternatives: [http://www.imgix.com/](http://www.imgix.com/) [http://www.thumbr.io/](http://www.thumbr.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Why stop at images only? A more general solution using CSS-like media queries would be much preferable; with a general solution it would be possible to serve all sorts of assets (CSS, JS, Images, Video, etc) tailored to the display device and network connection.

<comment><USER19> <picture> is responsive; when you change the viewport's width, the browser can load a differently-sized version of the image. How would JS be made responsive like that? Once one version of a script is loaded, you can't magically replace it with a difference version.

Of course, you could limit the media queries that could be used with JavaScript, but then your general solution isn't really so general anymore. And there's already a way to dynamically load scripts, so we don't really need another way to do that:

And there's also already a way dynamically load CSS (using media queries, even):

<comment><USER32> Good point about JS.

But there are potentially more types of media (audio, video, html via frames, etc).

Even if a general solution isn't applicable to JS, it can have lots of other uses.

<comment><USER19> >html via frames

That has the same problem as JS, especially when you realize that framed pages on the same domain can interact with the parent's DOM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Or we could _finally_ stop futzing around with scaling raster graphics and find a way to make vector formats not terrible.

Serioulsy, fast vector graphics were a solved problem back in the late '90s. How is this _still_ a problem today on the Web?

<comment><USER34> Not that I'm against improving vector graphics, but The majority of images on the web today are not suited for vector formats (photos).

<comment><USER33> I would disagree that the majority of images on the web are photos. Yes, there are many photos on the web, but I'd wager the vast majority of images (or at least the vast majority of image requests) are tiny bits of connective tissue of web layout - little rounded corners, gradient backgrounds, icons, etc.

<comment><USER34> Rounded corners and gradients can both be handled without images these days, but even if you use images for things like that, that bandwidth (certainly) and number (probably) of photos dwarfs them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I found this article on the subject to be more informative and useful:

[http://ericportis.com/posts/2014/srcset- sizes/](http://ericportis.com/posts/2014/srcset-sizes/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Seriously, I thought this was what request headers were for. Have the goddamned browser request the most appropriate size, don't hardcode it into the markup.

<comment><USER37> The problem is if you want different images for different screen sizes, not just different sizes of the same image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This article is pretty naive.

1\. m dot sites are not a thing of the past. Many sites benefit from a pure mobile experience.

2\. The Boston Globe (while impressive) does not show that 'that responsive design worked for more than developer portfolios and blogs'. The globe is largely text / image based, and that does not translate to a site like Amazon / Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER39> I love this idea of the <picture> element which hopefully most browsers will adopt soon but how will this support on the older iPhones that cannot upgrade to iOS7 (iOS8 soon). Especially with Apple not supporting these devices anymore.

</comment><comment><USER40> HTTP Client Hints - New draft imp. of Client Hints for  and <picture> for Ruby. [https://github.com/igrigorik/http-client- hints](https://github.com/igrigorik/http-client-hints)

</comment><comment><USER41> Someone from the HTML standard body is going to make the web better? Riiiiiiight...

</comment><comment><USER42> To resize images, i create a cookie with javascript that gives the browsers current width and height. (mostly for full image front pages -> the function for choosing the image width is based on bootstrap)

When i read the title, i thought media-queries would get the functionality to load external stylesheets, which seems like a better option to me (especially if css could fill the img src, then stylesheets reduce in size, but also images. Only this option uses to much back-and-fort communication. Perhaps a default naming would be appropriate (eg. img-1024.jpg => for browsers with a max-width of 1024 px, same could be used with stylesheets). Even a syntax like  could be used.

PS. If you downvote me, at least do it with the decency of giving arguments...

<comment><USER43> It's also horrible for anyone trying to archive your page.

<comment><USER42> Then the archiving functionality saves all additional stylesheets and images, so it can be appropriately used later on. But not much people "save" a page as html, they bookmark/favorite it, if it's interesting or print it to pdf (or your favorite document type)- eg. on a checkout

Then again, what's your preference?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Polluting the HTML with extraneous information not intended as markup is never a solution.

As someone already said, use headers, css, etc.

</comment><comment><USER45> TL;DR: <picture> element.

arstechnica: you can do better than linkbait titles.

</comment><comment><USER46> I think this should just be a server side issue. Querying for images with size information and the server spit out lower res images on the fly. This way, the web design guys have less to do when creating graphics assets for a site.

</comment><comment><USER47> I don't understand why so much question as this problem should be easily solved with wavelet type images (jpeg2000 for instance).

the low resolution devices could load the first bytes of the image and the high resolution one the full image.

</comment><comment><USER48> This doesn't seem too useful in the first world anymore now that we have 4G connections and higher resolution screens on our phones than our desktops.

<comment><USER49> I don't agree with your 4G comment, as its coverage is poor, performance is patchy and smaller files will still download quicker regardless of your max speed.

But your point about high res screens is definitely true. Hell, we first had 'retina' hacks and bigger images specifically _for_ our phones! Why is a site going to want to serve up smaller files for screens with more pixels?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Ah, it might make the web faster _on mobile_. Not very interesting.

<comment><USER51> Mobile is getting worse, IMO.

Maybe it's because I have an older iOS device running 6.1, but the insane size of some of these sites combined with all the side-loaded javascript and CSS rendering (and re-rendering) is just making sites completely unusable.

How come I can load Metafilter in 3 seconds, but Wired takes over a minute, if it works at all? And Medium? Even worse.

<comment><USER33> OMG this. It's insanely frustrating that 90% of the time we're just _reading text_ and it's so painful on older mobile devices that still should run circles around computers that happily consumed internet content ~10 years ago.

<comment><USER52> The web used to provide text, and allow the user-agent to render it as appropriate for that display/user.

Now the web is a (bad) application platform, where the content designers demand full control of interactivity.

As a user you are not well-served by the modern web. It's not the devices per se it's also the content that is different than ~10 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> If mobile browsers struggle to download images, change the mobile browsers. Let the browser wait for some javascript to manipulate the src's ...

</comment><comment><USER54> I think the current mobile browser is long overdue for disruption. In 10 years, I can see us looking back and chuckling at the fact that we had such tiny spaces for all the information we interact with.

Virtual reality should bring inexpensive, full-peripheral "monitors" that we can interact with naturally, anywhere. No more having to bend over backwards to fit all our info on mobile devices.

<comment><USER55> > _Virtual reality should bring inexpensive, full-peripheral "monitors" that > we can interact with naturally, anywhere._

Yeah, I don't see that happening any time soon, because ergonomics.

<comment><USER54> I can see it evolve into a normal pair of glasses in 10 to 15 years. We need another Steve Jobs-type character to speed things up a bit, but I think we can get there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I knew about this tag 2 months ago, when I was Implementing a responsive website. I came accross the picture element but Unfortunatlly, most of modern browser is not supporting it yet. So I decided to do it via javascript. So I don't see the "news" here, I thought the article was about a compression algoritm or somthing, but nothing special.</comment>


Yahoo Chief Says Microsoft Was the Stubborn One - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/technology/06yang.html <comment><USER2> Why was the meeting at the Seattle airport and not the San Jose airport? Who wanted this more?</comment>


The Freedom and Perils of Living Alone - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/garden/the-freedom-and-perils-of-living-alone.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> That article both spoke to me and seemed foreign; I've lived alone for all but two years of the last 20 (since high school), and I do "spread out" in many of the ways it describes. But, when I do get to temporarily "live with" someone ---when I'm home at my parents' house, when I'm sharing a hotel room at a conference, when I'm visiting friends for a few days---my experience is totally opposite the article. I look forward to having the temporary roommate, I sleep with the door open at my parents', I prefer the living room couch to a tucked-away guest bedroom at my friends' houses, because I _like_ being aware of and part of the bustle of everyone living there.

In contrast, my friends who are married or living together treat those temporary thrown-together situations as maximally distasteful. They want a separate private room, they disdain sharing rooms at conferences unless they have to. When I've asked about it, I'm often given a line about how "when you're older" you want your private time, but many of them aren't that much older than me (and a few are younger), so that's always rung hollow. I wonder if it's just that this is _their_ time to have a "Day of Chad"? ;)

<comment><USER3> I'm in the opposite boat. Grew up with lots of siblings, had roommates all through college, got married young.

Believe me, even a few hours of solitude are things to be _treasured_. I wouldn't give up the life I have now for anything, but in my "grass is greener" moments, that's what I wish for the most. Long stretches of time in which to do my own thing entirely unpreturbed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One peril of living alone is that it becomes very easy to indulge in self- destructive behaviors with no one to check on you.

Eating poorly; sleeping poorly; having too much dust, filth, or random junk around the house; not going outside; not exercising enough; not getting social interacting in the minimal needed amount, obsessing over the wrong aspects of your work.... This sort of things.

Not all of these are problematic for all people, but to the extent some are problematic for a given person, they tend to form a vicious cycle - people do bad things to themselves from lack of awareness or temporarily depleted willpower, and those behaviors in turn cause even less self-awareness and reduce the willpower reserves further.

For that reason I am contemplating some sort of a software-based aid that helps one person to periodically check on the other person's daily routine from a distance to make sure they haven't fallen into this sort of a "depression trap". I tentatively call it "a brother's keeper" project, although realistically it's more likely to be the subject's parents or childhood friends who will bother to check daily on how many minutes he or she spent outside and how many meals did they have per day, and whether there were enough nutrients in it. The point would be not to nag the subject daily, but to catch the moment they are falling off the bus, so to speak, and either intervene, summon other friends, or get professional help.

<comment><USER5> _One peril of living alone is that it becomes very easy to indulge in self- destructive behaviors with no one to check on you. Eating poorly; sleeping poorly; having too much dust, filth, or random junk around the house; not going outside; not exercising enough; not getting social interacting in the minimal needed amount, obsessing over the wrong aspects of your work.... This sort of things._

Although perhaps less likely, these problems can also easily happen, if you are hanging around the wrong influences.

<comment><USER6> The only time I've had a sink full of dirty dishes complete with rotting food and flies is when I was spitefully waiting for my roommate to clean them up because it was "his turn".

<comment><USER7> You could try going away for 2 weeks.

It won't result in them washing the whole pile, but they will be forced to wash _something_ and realise that it doesn't hurt _that_ much.

There will still be a pile of dirty plates (plus the boxes from the pizzas they ordered for the first week, until they ran out of cash) when you get back, but at least you will see a slight improvement in your roommate's habits.

<comment><USER8> how about he does all dishes both his and roomates, then figure out other types of chores they can do to balance it out, like mowing lawns and/or grocery shopping. better to focus on results and time spent instead of being right and miserable.

<comment><USER6> Ultimately, I ended up solving the problem categorically by not having roommates. The other solution is to dump the dirty dishes in his bed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It might only be me, but I'm pretty sure I have the best of both worlds. I live with my wife (no kids), and we're both quirky as hell. When we go out, we act normal, but at home we do whatever we want. I'm very introverted, but comfortable enough with her that it really isn't that different from living alone, as she allows me time when I need it.

It's even better though, because if I lived alone I'm pretty sure I would never eat or go out. Having her with me means someone looks out for me and keeps me fed. Plus whenever I just need a break, she is more than happy to let me lay next to her as she unwinds from her day. I've always been a great listener because when I need a break I don't want to think, and thus don't feel my normal need to solve all her problems, another think she really appreciates.

I guess this turned into a brag session, but I think if you can find someone to live with who you can totally be yourself with, then that is possibly preferable to living alone. Plus it means reduced costs, etc. I can certainly see the appeal of living alone, but it seems strange to me as anything other than a temporary solution while you find someone to live with, whether that's a roommate/life partner/spouse.

<comment><USER6> I lived alone for a very long time after roommates became too much of a stressor, and it was pretty cool. Nowadays I live with my girlfriend, and it's quite similar to how you describe it. We end up developing shared quirks or quirky ways of communicating.

Living with someone has weird effects though. I've forgotten how to get or prepare only enough food for one person at a time.

<comment><USER10> Just freeze the rest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I live alone (for 15 months so far) and love it and will never live with someone else again (well, until my attitude changes) but one thing I also do is work from home... I often go up to 7 days without seeing another human being and when I do it's either a McDonalds server or a pizza delivery guy, this part is turning me insane.

I have absolute control over my environment, if I don't like a noise or the heat or a smell I fix it, this isn't the reality most people have so when my financial/employment situation changes I will have to adjust very rabidly, with that in mind I've made the decision to move into an environment less desirable than the one I have now (working from an office) but I think it's for the best. At least I'll have a 2 bedroom apartment to myself to hide in at weekends if it is terrible.

Living alone is wonderful and I always find it strange how people can live with others, I can understand the desire people have for human interaction but being able to wake up and then go to bed without having seen another person in the waking period is just so great, true freedom. Maybe it just comes down to control.

<comment><USER12> _I often go up to 7 days without seeing another human being_

This is why I don't live alone.

<comment><USER11> If you don't work from home this isn't a concern, but yes working from home and living alone and not having friends is a recipe for crazy.

<comment><USER12> Well, even if you don't work from home, it's a good idea to regularly see people besides your co-workers.

This is, of course, presuming something like a non-customer facing office job. If you work in retail, live by yourself to your heart's content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _"A music manager and record producer who works from his railroad apartment in Brooklyn, Mr. Sherwood, 40, said he'll go to bed at 2 a.m. one night, and then retire later and later by increments, "until I go to bed when the sun comes up." "_

Glad it's not just me who does that :-D...

<comment><USER14> Been there too... I call it a 26/27 hour clock. On the day that would end with a sunrise, I'd take it off, but stay up, taking it easy (but tired) and push through until a "normal" bedtime, sleep like a baby and wake up the next day with a reset schedule.

<comment><USER13> I tried that - just end up sleeping more. Somehow, when I reach the point where I go to sleep at 12pm, it just resets :-).

By the way, this schedule only starts happening when I don't have anything to do during the day - if I have anything scheduled, I'd stay awake (although feel quite tired sometimes)...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I enjoyed this article. I've lived with other people my whole life and it seems most young people I know live as roommates even into their 30's (if they are not cohabitating with an S.O.) I have had "Days of Chad" though and wonder what it would be like to love totally alone. I personally would just feel less social and more bored.

<comment><USER16> I've lived alone for almost 4 years now. I don't crave companionship and am perfectly fine with my own thoughts (introvert).

Boredom only sets in if you have nothing interesting to do. My apartment is sparse; no television, empty walls, no game console (asides from 3DS/iPad), no way to entertain people who come over outside of whatever I can display on the computer.

How the hell is that enjoyable? You find the things you like and focus on that. Personally I like to code, workout, and consume stuff on the net. Coding takes up 60% of my waking hours, 20% at the gym, and 20% for everything else. I just really enjoy doing those things. Rarely do I get bored.

I've also lived with siblings when younger, and multiple roommates in college. There are ups and downs to being alone and being with other's. The nice thing about being alone is you're responsible for yourself and nobody else. With roommates, you have to take on extra overhead unless everyone pitches in 100% (rare). A downside of being alone, you have to do "everything" yourself, and can't offload to someone else.

If you're a very social person, or need other's around to talk to and keep you entertained, living alone probably won't work out so well. If you like lots of alone and quiet time, and can entertain yourself, living alone may be something worth trying out.

And for the record, I don't do any of that weird stuff they mention in the NYT piece. ...except for walking around naked sometimes in the morning. That seriously kicks ass. ;)

<comment><USER13> Hah, that's almost like my apartment(s) - I have just two laptops and my phone, everything's on them (and no one can use them because they're very different... not that I'd let anyone use my laptop :-)). No TV, nothing to entertain, empty shelves, no photos on walls, everything clean like I just moved in. I don't even eat at home. Anything that requires social interaction is done outside my apartment (the beauty of living in the city) - it's just for me.

P.S. I've also grown up with siblings, lived with other people - I don't like that, I really like privacy, I guess :-)...

<comment><USER16> It sounds like we'd make perfect roommates! ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hate to be that person, but I have to ask: what's new that this article is telling me? The main point of the article seems to be that people living alone become eccentric without any "social checks"; that does hold _sometimes_ but not always.

<comment><USER18> Great question actually.

My take on it is that news pieces like this aren't really meant to be "news". One of the primary reasons for reading news articles is to have something to talk about when you talk with people. Pieces that focus on things that are common knowledge pick up traction not because they're breaking stories, but because they let us have dialogues about things that just don't come up in ordinary conversation.

I'm sure theres plenty of "singletons" who _love_ the opportunity to use this news piece as a talking point to reflect on the experience of living alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is only passing reference in the article to the health effects of living alone. (Chad, who has never lived alone, says he would "be a fat, out-of-work alcoholic".)

For instance, a quote from from this article: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062934/Quick- better...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062934/Quick-better-shack- Study-shows-people-65-living-greater-risk-dying.html)

"The data showed those living alone was associated with a 21 per cent greater chance of dying of all causes, when compared to those living with someone".

</comment><comment><USER20> I've lived alone and with roommates. The great thing about good roommates is you have the option of coming out and chatting when you feel like, and going and not being around them when you want to be alone.

That's pretty much the only thing I liked about the roommate thing (aside from the financial situation).

I like being alone a good deal when I'm home. It helps me think, and I can be as weird as I want. I think there's a great thing to be had when living alone, especially if you can find a physical social life that you fit into. Looking forward, I'll be living with a SO, and that will be a new experience. We'll see how it plays out.

</comment><comment><USER21> This article doesn't seem to strongly distinguish between living with someone else in the same house/apartment/etc and living with someone else in actually the same _room_. There's a big difference there!

<comment><USER13> I don't see the difference, though - when I had people living in other rooms of the same apartment, they could've just as well been in my room - I couldn't focus because I'd always imagine someone interrupting me :-)...

<comment><USER21> You couldn't just close your door, or lock it if it came to that? Though in any case simply having space where one can literally be alone is valuable.

<comment><USER13> Even someone knocking on my door when I work is enough to totally distract me...

<comment><USER21> Hm, I'm evidently coming from a rather different context here. I'm thinking of things in terms of, if you close your door, people typically won't knock unless it's important, because if you were open to talking to people at the time, you would have left your door open or simply been in a public space rather than your room.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I went from living at home->college->living with a significant other. One of the major reasons we broke up was that I felt like I needed more space that I couldn't get while living together.

Now that I live alone, I often find myself missing having other people around. I'm on Couchsurfing and host almost everyone who applies, but the timing tends to be haphazard.

The article last week about the woman who funded her startup via Airbnb really intrigued me. I'm considering putting my apt up on Airbnb now, just to have more people around.

</comment><comment><USER23> The quirks they pointed in the article seem relatively extreme.

I live with 2 other roommates and I don't seem them much these days because I work at home during the day. I feel so quiet sometimes being at home all alone. It is interesting that I will never know how an introvert feels staying home alone. The opposite is true an introvert will never know how a social person feels staying at home all alone.

<comment><USER24> Extreme? I sent the article to a friend who has lived alone for many years, as have I, and we laughed about how minor the eccentricities in the article seemed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am an introvert. When I moved in with my girlfriend, it was really difficult, because she couldn't understand I need some time alone, just using the laptop, tablet... But now we have both adapted to each others needs, and it works out pretty well. The biggest change for me is that I am now an early riser. Never was before for longer periods of time.

</comment><comment><USER26> For me, I really enjoy living alone (less/zero distraction, more privacy). Admittedly, my sleep cycle is weird and the kind of meals I have may not be all that healthy. But I do exercise regularly to keep fit. Hopefully, I'd enjoy a better lifestyle when I finally settle down.

</comment><comment><USER12> The article suggests there are people actively promoting living alone. I find myself questioning motive.

Who would stand to benefit most? People with a stake in property.

</comment><comment><USER27> The internet is becoming more satasfying than marriage companionship and soon procreation, at least in the minds of the internet generation. When we create the holodeck on star trek, then human companionship will be in real trouble, I can get all the joys, minus the awful parts... Plus the added benefit of pressing pause, edit, augment, delete and start over.

<comment><USER28> In real trouble... Maybe reduced companionship will be voluntary population control.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Looking for hard-working, ambitious co-founder - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for someone who:
 - is ready to go "all in" in a new startup, preferably an enterprise software startup.
 - want to grow a long-term business.
 - has a strong business/technology sense.
At this point I'm curious about finding someone who's genuinely interested to build a durable business. I have a good idea of what I want to build and I'm ready to take on either the business side or the technical side; so that means I'm looking for either a spirited coder or business-savvy entrepreneur/product designer.
More about me:
 I've been running a relatively successful (500k/yr revenue, 5 full-time employees) startup for the last 3 years.
 I could bootstrap the business with 10-20k if needed.
 I'm located in Canada but I'm willing to relocate if needed.
Contact me at dthefounder at gmail for more details. <comment><USER2> I'm looking for a beautiful blonde attractive wife. She has to be ready to live with me in a deep relationship, starting immediately. I have a good idea of where I want the relationship to go, as I have some experience-- I previously had a successful marriage with 2 kids and a minivan.

Contact me if interested.

(Seriously, I think this reads too much like a stereotypical job ad, and less like a search for a cofounder. Cofounders need to have much better relationships than employees, and I'm hesitant to think that four paragraphs of generic superlatives is the right way to find partners for a business venture.)

<comment><USER3> I see Negative Nancy is already here. Jees, cut the guy a break.

<comment><USER2> I don't mean to be overly negative, but 1) I don't really want to see this kind of stuff here, and 2) I don't think this is really an effective way to find a cofounder.

<comment><USER4> HN is the _perfect_ place to find people like this/us.

I'm not saying I want to see HN become a job board. But, this sure looks like a credible and serious request to me.

<comment><USER5> > HN is the perfect place to find people like this/us.

I think the best way to find people here is to get to know them through the site, over time, not with an ad, although I don't really care if the odd ad appears here - it's not really damaging, as it's easy to ignore, and doesn't attract the wrong kind of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am a charismatic figure, often seen leaping tall buildings in a single bound or moving faster than a speeding bullet. I have been known to build houses for the homeless in the slums of Harlem on my lunch breaks. I walk old ladies across the street, I write motivational speeches, and I double down on twenty and win - all in half an hour. I sleep in a Yoga position on a bed of nails while drinking water. Occasionally, I run the New York Marathon and win. I take women's breaths away with my divine artwork.

I move so quickly I make Jet Li look like a chump and my deft-defying footwork leaves Michael Jordan in awe. I am wanted in 2,359 countries as a political outlaw and am worshipped by a small Pigmy tribe in Africa. Using a pair of chopsticks and soy sauce I once saved a small Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn from the Asian Mafia. I build mainframe telecommunication networks for fun and single handedly defeated twenty 5 yr. olds in a game of Dodge Ball. I've been banned from playing the lottery because I win so much. In a Hyundai Excel I ran the quarter mile in the high 9's. My incredible good looks are such that I make lesbians go straight.

Scientists have preserved my DNA for the cloning of a future biogenetically engineered army to take over the world. I coined the phrase "Bootie Call" and your sister once had a crush on me not so long ago. I write articles for GQ, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times just to amuse myself. I scored a 1600 on the SAT.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seriously?

OK. I'm in. But I need 55% ownership and a 75k/yr Salary + benefits. Also, I prefer to do the business side, so I'll go ahead and file all the papers and then hire you as an employee (dont worry, you can still be silent, minority investor too, but I'm afraid I cant give you any real voting rights). :)

With that out of the way -- there is a lot of discussion about whether hacker news is a great place to find co-founders. To be honest, this place is probably chock full of awesome co-founders, both technical or business. But the method of your request is all wrong.

Great partnerships are sort of like relationships. Its about give and take, its about strengths and weaknesses. I hate to say it, but you arent going to have any idea about that from a post on here, and its a horrible way to start an enterprise. $10 says you get 6 months in, realize you have different visions for the company, and one of you walks, leaving the other with a pile of shit and a lot of bills. Nevermind, you can keep the $10. You're going to need it.

To be frank -- You would be better off using this place to ask for advice on a more specific topic -- perhaps something you are weak at. Then look through the responses, find the ones that strike you as the smart, intuitive responses, and ask those people if they mind having lunch with you. Rinse, repeat 20 times. Then you will start to build a network. Have a beer with those people occasionally. Talk about similar interests (I guess for you, your idea in enterprise software...). A natural choice for someone who COULD be a partner will filter itself out. And you'll be better off, because you will actually be at least ACQUAINTANCES with that person, so you'll have an idea if they are shitting you or the real thing.

[Sidebar -- If you are equally as capable in business and technical side, wtf do you want a partner for? You need employees and investors.]

Sorry to be a downer on your idea -- but your methodology stinks as either someone who is lazy or a liar, and neither of those make good partners.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> You guys are giving me a hard time. I'm just tired of trying to convince my friends to start a business. I wanted to outline my "forces" in this post; just hint about what I'm capable of. As for Craigslist: it's too local, not technical enough to find anyone. I just want to meet someone who share the same interests and values. Obviously some of you don't, and I'd suggest just stop whining about it. BTW, your assumptions are sometime telling a little bit too much about you...

<comment><USER8> But you didn't actually say anything about your values. Here's your post boiled down to actual content:

"I want to start a business related startup. I've worked for a small startup. I've got enough cash to get us through the first few months. I live in Canada."

Other than that there's not much to go on. Would you jump at a pitch like that?

<comment><USER9> It's not a pitch, it's an ice-breaker. A signal of intent. The equivalent of cracking a smart joke to the girl next to you at the bar: You both know what you're after, but neither of you can know whether you want to be with each other until somebody makes the first move and gets the ball rolling (which should NOT be a summary of your entire life's experience). That's all this is; I applaud.</comment></comment></comment>


Sweetgreen.el – Order a salad from Emacs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/CestDiego/sweetgreen.el <comment><USER2> The author of this is giving a talk at the next New York Emacs Meetup^1, of which I'm an organizer. We'd love to have some HN people show up.

We do record talks, so the video will be posted, although not immediately. If anyone wants to be informed when it's up, let me know (contact info in profile) and I'll tell you.

[1]: It's on December 7th. Details at [http://www.meetup.com/New-York-Emacs- Meetup/events/219624700...](http://www.meetup.com/New-York-Emacs- Meetup/events/219624700/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, I suppose a "Do X from Emacs" link, while still a stale joke, is at least a respite from all the "Do X from Slack" links flooding HN at this point.

</comment><comment><USER4> Its things like this that make me absolutely love the emacs community.

</comment><comment><USER5> It reminds me of a vBulletin plugin that let you order a pizza from the admin dashboard. Except you know, a bit healthier.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just to be clear, this is trivial in vim using :!curl. No fancy plugins required.

<comment><USER7> topkek

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ha ha what? This is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER9> I wish I could figure this out, but I'm a bit green on this stuff.</comment>


Popular Web Frameworks Available to Use Directly in Python - <AUTHOR> https://www.codespeedy.com/popular-frameworks-of-python/ <comment><USER2> Please, forget about Python. It is not really a programming language.</comment>