A Look at HS2's Old Oak Common Station - <AUTHOR> https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2019/08/20/taking-a-look-at-hs2s-huge-old-oak-common-station/ <comment><USER3> I don't like the soundbite about it only shaving X minutes off the trip to Birmingham. That's practically the first stop. The thing goes all the way to Leeds. It's a disingenuous soundbite. I realise the authour here is using it as a construct to argue against but I head this soundbite a lot.

<comment><USER4> HSTs are cool, but I think it's a valid criticism - would it really make so much difference to run at 125mph and the journey take a little longer? And would the project be cheaper if it didn't need to be so super-straight in order to be able to achieve the high speeds?

If they were proposing express trains that would really gain the benefit of the line I could see the justification, but they're not are they?

<comment><USER5> Yes - the speed is required for capacity, to minimise journey times to Scotland and ensure competitiveness with air travel and other existing links. Even for closer destinations like Birmingham 35 minutes is a huge improvement on a ~1h20m journey.

<comment><USER6> Firstly, there isn't all that much of anything in Birmingham that makes this worthwhile. At best there might be some new business development in 10-20 years, but it's not at all obvious that Birmingham is somehow going to become London's second business centre because of HS2.

Most of the claims in this piece are simply nonsense. The Euston to Crewe train that's mentioned doesn't go anywhere near Birmingham, so it's not obvious that HS2 would make much of a difference to traffic on it.

And even if it did, it's merely one of a large number of routes heading out of London in all directions that are ridiculously overcrowded. At best, HS2 might reduce a small proportion of that overcrowding, but it's certainly not going to eliminate it.

The idea that HS2 can make Birmingham airport competitive with Heathrow for Londoners is clearly wrong. Birmingham doesn't have the flights, the destinations, or the capacity. London also has Heathrow Express for quick train journeys from Paddington to Heathrow - concourse to concourse. Even with a shorter journey time, HS2 can't match that.

And HS2 doesn't start to make sense until Phase 2 is built, linking Sheffield, Manchester and Leeds. You might see some benefits then - but the realistic total cost is likely to be the far side of £100bn. Which is madness.

It's actually five years of the total NASA budget, which is supposed to pay for development of the next Lunar program, as well as everything else NASA does.

It would be much better to spend a much smaller sum making the UK's broadband the best in Europe, set up a world-leading incubator fund for digital startups outside of London, with next-generation training and education, and try to persuade existing corporates to consider home working options. The return on that would be huge.

This is just a giant train set for rail nostalgists.

<comment><USER7> > there isn't all that much of anything in Birmingham that makes this > worthwhile.

The UK has a weird chicken and egg thing going on. Everything is in London because everything is in London. HS2 is an attempt to break out of that. By developing better rail links across England we allow companies to start moving out of London.

> The idea that HS2 can make Birmingham airport competitive with Heathrow for > Londoners is clearly wrong.

But that's not the aim. The aim is that we shouldn't have everyone in the country using Heathrow for all journeys. Currently we have about 80 million people going through Heathrow which is stupid if a chunk of them are only using it to get into the UK.

London doesn't just have Heathrow and Gatwick. London has _six_ international airports.

Heathrow alone at 80m people currently carries the equivalent of Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Bristol combined. We urgently need to fix this.

<comment><USER4> > The UK has a weird chicken and egg thing going on. Everything is in London > because everything is in London. HS2 is an attempt to break out of that.

One of the criticisms of HS2 is that it will just facilitate centralisation in London, by helping people get there more quickly!

<comment><USER8> It means that a business that needs to occasionally meet people face to face in London can instead be based in Crewe, saving £10k a month in rent and saving in salaries.

<comment><USER9> Now what happens when the business needs to meet someone face to face in say Cambridge, home to a growing number of tech companies? Our current rail network is so London-centric that the fastest way to do that from Crewe is to go all the way south to central London, turn around, and head north again in almost the same direction you came from. One of the big advantages of being based in London is that you can get to nearly any major city in the country quickly and directly by rail, and HS2 just strengthens that advantage.

<comment><USER8> The expertise brown from HS2 needs to build Birmingham east to Cambridge/Norwich, and south west to Bristol/Cardiff, as well as Liverpool- Manchester-Leeds

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've always wondered if the government could defray the cost of HS2 by buying some blocks of cheap farmland in the middle of nowhere, adding a HS2 station so the land was 20 minutes from central London, then selling the land to property developers. Obviously you could only add one or two towns, to avoid creating slow stopping services.

Seems to me that could increase the housing supply and offset the costs of HS2 at the same time - and most governments have had plans for new towns, new garden cities and suchlike.

<comment><USER8> Crossrail was funded by me and other tax payers. It's cost about £20b.

House prices near crossrail have risen an extra £133k each (above similar houses in similar places that don't get crossrail).

That's somewhere in the region of £100b.

Crossrail is a massive transfer of wealth from working people to wealthy land owners. It should have been funded entirely by a windfall levy on the increase land value near the stations.

<comment><USER11> > _" Crossrail was funded by me and other tax payers."_

A significant portion (over 30% of the original £17.8b budget) of Crossrail's funding has actually come from land owners and businesses, in the form of:

\- Business rate supplements

\- Property developer contributions

\- Community infrastructure levy

\- Sale of surplus property along the route

\- Contributions from other non-taxpayer funded entities like Heathrow and the City of London corporation

Much of the rest of the funding is from TfL and loans backed by the DfT, which should eventually be payed back from ticket revenue.

<comment><USER12> 30% is not nearly enough. It's still a free lunch for property/landowners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "And as it's going to last 200+ years, let's do it properly."

And the day after this article was written the UK government announces a review of HS2 - probably for rather short term political reasons:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- politics-49420332](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49420332)

<comment><USER14> Remind me again how that fits in with the Brexit narrative? I thought we were going to be standing tall, thrusting forward, open for business. Or does that mean tall ships plying their trade in Boris Johnsons mind???

<comment><USER15> Making Britain more attractive for business than the EU does not sound that difficult, to be fair.

<comment><USER6> Apparently more difficult than making the UK less attractive for business - which seems to be the current plan.

<comment><USER16> It's a cute remark and I certainly don't disagree that the government (hell, even the _opposition_ ) are handling the situation horribly. But the sad reality is that post-Brexit the UK government _is_ free to be more business friendly. I say "sad reality" because this is not necessarily good for the general public - we could see healthcare opened up to private US companies, we could see workers rights eroded, reduced responsibilities for companies, emissions standards relaxed, food standards relaxed ...

Tories whine about Brussels forcing all of this stuff onto the UK, they'll gleefully strip it away at the first opportunity. It might turn out to be good for business after all, but in the same way the Iraq war was.

<comment><USER17> One must remember that a direct quote from Boris Johnson, the (now) prime minister was "Fuck Business". Leaving the EU is about avoiding scrutiny, not stimulating business.

While it's true that the Tory party of old (charitably until ~2015) may have cared about competitiveness for business, that party is now dead - <USER2> by the extreme right. The only thing that matters to them at this stage is power, and personal enrichment, and they have become masters of disinformation and confusion to ensure it -- a job made much easier by the generally awful state of the press in the UK. It's a shame that the opposition are, as you say, no better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As someone who spent a lot of time in London I hope he is correct about the track capacity released for local trains once the intercity move to the new lines.

Two stopping trains per hour between local stations is not enough and if any were cancelled or delayed it created hell.

I left partly because the commute to work sometimes took 2.5 hours each way and was ultimately draining. And that was living on the outskirts.

<comment><USER9> He's correct that there will be more track capacity. The question is whether it'll be used if a significant chunk of passenger traffic ends up getting moved to HS2. It might be that because the loss of traffic makes it less economically viable to operate trains on the existing routes, some stations actually end up getting served less frequently.

<comment><USER19> I don't see how HS2 can move significant amounts of local traffic off local lines.

It's a high speed intercity line that only has a few stops (compared to a local or commuter service). It can't provide local services, it doesn't have the stations or the track to do so. It also won't be high speed of it stopped every 10miles.

<comment><USER20> As I understand it, it's because there often aren't 'local lines' per se. For instance, if you want to go from Doncaster to Retford (about a ten-fifteen minute journey)[1], you're either on the East Coast Main Line (which runs Edinburgh-London) or the Hull line (which runs Hull-London). The necessity to runs express/intercity services on the same line reduces the ability to schedule local services - a slow moving/frequently stopping local service would block express trains.

It's less about moving local traffic off current lines, and more about freeing them up to provide local services. You could potentially see something like Bawtry station[2], which is between the two, brought back into service if there is demand, whereas it might not currently make sense to do so as the line's primary purpose is intercity travel.

[1] Not necessarily something that might be affected by HS2 - just a set of stations I know as an example.

[2] Closed in 1959, but Wikipedia notes: "land near the station has been protected should the site be required as a new station, with car parking facilities, in the future as the town grows". The line initially went Doncaster-Rossington-Bawtry-Scrooby-Ranskill-Barnby-Retford, but now only Doncaster and Retford remain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Someone at HS2 PR needs to hire this man and then connect him to a subeditor

<comment><USER8> Int he last few months HS2 has swung it's PR to emphasise the capacity -- although they still aren't giving concrete or even example figures of what that means (12tph from Milton Keynes for example)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you have a 'tube level' map of London in your head it is not obvious why HS2 goes through Old Oak Common. Euston is North and Paddington (which Old Oak Common traditionally services) is West of the capital.

Some commentators in this post have questioned why the article is called what it is when it is just about HS2. For me I think that the title is apt and I now have so much more clarified. This is a really good article and I finally understand and like the project. Before I didn't give a damn about it.

<comment><USER23> The majority of stuff leaving Euston leaves on the West Coast Main Line. This nearly touches the Great Western Main Line near Old Oak Common - with just Kensal Green Cemetery separating the two. Having a large junction with GWML, Crossrail and Overground traffic would appear to be very appealing when it comes to giving additional choice to travellers.

As for not planning another exit route out of Euston, I'd imagine that there's a significant planning headache in routing new tunnels around the existing infrastructure in and around Euston, and that having the line shadow the existing WCML is much less painful to both plan and develop.

Paddington has had a significant amount of work done to it recently with the Crossrail work going into it. Though it doesn't appear to suffer the access issues that Euston has it may prove to be a headache if HS2 traffic was supposed to arrive alongside GWML traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> A good summary of the main points in favour of HS2 that almost no-one in English media or politics is making.

This article, which is unfortunately now paywalled, covers a lot of the same ground: [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home- news/hs2-logistic...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home- news/hs2-logistics-financial-benefit-controversy-a8937936.html)

HS2 is one of those projects that's unpopular across the political spectrum and unfortunately seems like it's under threat, but the arguments in this post make a lot of sense and they're just not being made more broadly.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great piece. But if our goal is increased capacity, perhaps HS2 isn't the best way to do it - are there cheaper and slower alternatives? And if this is an either/or decision, there are alternative proposals that are absolutely worth of consideration - some scandalously poor situations up North for example. I just can't help feeling this is yet another example of the public being stitched up by their taxes being funnelled to a financial bonanza for the politicians' chums.

<comment><USER5> Basically, no - upgrades to the existing rail network are exceedingly expensive and disruptive (the whole East Coast Mainline is basically closing this weekend because a single junction needs to be renewed.) HS2 provide lots of fast intercity capacity meaning existing lines can be freed up for a massive enhancement to local services. The high speed also helps reduce demand for domestic air travel which is vital for combating the climate emergency.

This map shows where capacity will be unlocked: [https://twitter.com/HS2ltd/status/1158403767756316672](https://twitter.com/HS2ltd/status/1158403767756316672)

And this comprehensively explains why more capacity is needed and a new high speed railway is the solution: [https://medium.com/@garethdennis/high-speed- two-and-the-need...](https://medium.com/@garethdennis/high-speed-two-and-the- need-for-speed-91d8c68c5d80)

<comment><USER25> As it stands I don't believe this. I'll happily accept that new tracks need to be built, and to support higher speed, but going up to "400 km/h (250 mph)" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2)) seems pure dickwaving.

From your article "Yet the story doesn't seem to be getting through. As engineers, it is not just our duty to create new infrastructure, it is also our duty to communicate its purpose. Helping the British public to get behind High Speed 2 must be a priority for our industry if we are to truly make this megaproject a success."

Translation: shut up and swallow, plebs.

I'd like to know what incremental cost there is for an increment of higher speed - I bet I know the shape of that graph. If you want higher capacity, let me know why longer trains don't work.

New line yes, gouging expense for national vanity, no.

<comment><USER26> _I 'd like to know what incremental cost there is for an increment of higher speed_

So you are arguing against it when you don't know the cost?

<comment><USER25> That's a good question. I don't know the cost but it is reasonable to suppose that every extra 10% in speed adds >10% in cost, and that this cost increment grows nonlinearly. So my objection is I think reasonable - or does it grow linearly in your view?

However to be sure I'm not being unreasonabe I want to know what that curve is - am I being unreasonable to ask for information given that I'm going to be paying for HS2?

<comment><USER27> That doesn't seem to be the case, if you look at the infrastructure cost breakdowns the total construction cost for phase 1 is estimated at £6.6Bn, with the remaining £9.6Bn going to things like project management, mitigation costs, and land acquisition.

If you take a look at the construction costs, of the $6.6Bn only £665 are going towards the rail and control systems. With all other items being largely the same regardless of rail speed, I have a feeling (though I could be quite wrong), that the cost difference between low and high speed is marginal.

Source: [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69741/hs2-cost- and-risk-model-report.pdf)

<comment><USER25> Thanks, I really appreciate you made the effort to find some actual stats, but with respect, that doc is from march 2012. I don't know if the data is still relevant now (though it may be).

We need some solid stats by an independent party which is why I'm happy one is going to be looking into it.

FYI from that document, let me quote cos it's interesting: cost estimates in march 2012:

2.9 Route package cost summaries

2.9.1 The phase one total cost estimate is £16.3 billion within a cost range of £15.4 billion to £17.3 billion. [...]

2.9.2 The phase two total cost estimate is £17.1 billion within a cost range of £15.7 billion to £18.7 billion. [...]

2.9.3 The full Y network cost estimate is £33.4 billion within a cost range of £30.9 billion to £36.0 billion. [...]

<comment><USER28> Construction costs haven't changed all that much since then. A significant proportion of the costs are in project management and contractual arrangements designed to shift risk away from politicians and managers. If you look at costs in France, we are about 5-10 times more expensive for a route of equivalent complexity. French digger drivers don't earn 5x less and materials are not 5x cheaper in France, if they were French would be the language of building sites in Britain. So the costs must be coming from somewhere else; land acquisition, risk management and over complicated contracting and project management processes are my bet, based on my experience of working on large construction projects in the UK and Europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My concern is that it will cost a lot of money but ultimately not deliver a reliable, fast, comfortable service. For some reasons Brits seem incapable of delivering great railway services. The Calendonian Express fiasco is just the latest example - an amazing idea that could have been absolutely fantastic, completely ruined by the awful implementation.

As a taxpayer, I would much rather the work was contracted out to the Japanese that built the Shinkansen services. But for some strange reason that seems politically unpopular.

<comment><USER29> It will be reliable and fast because it's on its own tracks. It'll be comfortable because those tracks are new, and the high ticket price requires decent seats. I'm surprised by your concerns. Try out HS1.

Like with Hinckley and various other grand projects I'd rather we taught ourselves how to do it. Only HS2a has passed into law, b&c, HS3 and Crossrail2 are still to come.

<comment><USER15> 1\. Are constant delays and signal failures on existing tracks because the tracks are old, and so new tracks would not have these problems?

2\. The Caledonian Express also has high ticket prices, yet the service is completely shambolic.

<comment><USER30> > Are constant delays and signal failures on existing tracks because the > tracks are old, and so new tracks would not have these problems?

Yes. This is also why the Tube and the NYC metro have such big problems compared to more recently built systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As a Scot, I am skeptical how HS2 is going to improve the Edinburgh and Glasgow lines to London. Considering they don't go via Birmingham (they go Warrington, Stoke, Milton Keynes)

<comment><USER32> The west coast HS2 route threads between Birmingham and the existing West Coast Main Line, with a branch to Birmingham and a branch to join up with the WCML at (IIRC) around Crewe. It's a little less direct than the existing route, but engineered a lot faster.

The other dirty not-quite-secret about HS2 is that it's not mainly about high speed. The WCML is full to bursting in some sections, and putting freight, long distance passenger, and stopping trains on the same tracks reduces capacity further. So it's mostly about building a new line. And once you're doing that, it makes sense to make it high speed and passenger only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Aw, high speed rail to Birmingham.

"Let's go to Birmingham".[1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmPzB0qTy4M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmPzB0qTy4M)

</comment><comment><USER34> Can't see why this has hit the front page. It's not really a look at Old Oak Common so much as a long spiel about why HS2 is Gonna Be Great (tm).

<comment><USER13> Because people voted for it as it is quite interesting?

<comment><USER35> And likely because it's hit during the morning in the UK and there's just been articles about a review of HS2 potentially putting it at risk due to large cost overruns.

<comment><USER34> I was thinking more along the lines that I was expecting something about the station itself, engineering challenges and so forth -- not a thinly-veiled puff piece for HS2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I really wish the powers-at-be would look at Hyperloop as a serious alternative to HS2. While it seems so futuristic it's well within our technological abilities, just seems to be health and safety / legislature restrictions.

Potentially far cheaper to build and maintain, modern, environmentally better and quicker amongst a host of other benefits and would help make Britain a global leader in transportation.

The Danny in the Valley podcast episode with Dirk Ahlborn was eye opening on the potential benefits and briefly mentions HS2 and Crossrail along with the current SF to LA High Speed rail project.

<comment><USER37> The best transport option might be smartrail (similar to [http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/2011/11/climbing- chain.html](http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/2011/11/climbing-chain.html) but steel wheel/LIM and faster).

Smartrail and PRT are designed as a point to point separated-grade network carrying on av. 1 person or a pallette of goods. With a hanging rail you don't need heavy batteries, parking for the vehicles, you can run a pod straight into the factory to pickup goods, and large/rich places can pay to have track straight to their door.

You can prefab the rail and as land usage is just poles in the ground it can be rolled out over fields etc quickly. Track is one-way to eliminate junctions. Pods are on-demand ie. No waiting.

Accessibility improves, you can use the top of the rail to generate (solar) power, run highspeed internet cables in the rail to improve comms across a country, and save on distribution center logistics as you're going point to point.

The last mile may possibly be an issue, but forklift drones and bicycles can take most of the load I feel.

Drivers for this are that it would go fast (200mph+ as light pods so little wear), can go overnight (sleeper pods), you could buy track to your door, personal transport (like a cinema room if you want). The main real issue with cars is that there's a large lobby behind what is a legacy transport solution...

By way of example, UltraPRT has been running flawlessly at Heathrow airport for 10 years, was built on time, on budget, and performs exactly as predicted/modelled.

For more info checkout [http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/](http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/) in particular Swedetrack ([https://web.archive.org/web/20060202013014/http://www.swedet...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060202013014/http://www.swedetrack.com/))</comment></comment>


Tris Pulled from iPhone App Store - <AUTHOR> http://twofingerplay.blogspot.com/2008/08/over-for-now.html

<comment><USER2> That has to be really frustrating as a developer, to know that you could probably prevail in court if you could afford to defend yourself, but since you can't (and they know you can't), the mere threat of a lawsuit is enough to make you fold.

Any sympathetic attorneys out there who might want to help the guy out with a bit of advice at least?

<comment><AUTHOR> I know the developer, and he's gotten advice from others. It's just too much of a time and money burden for a student to take on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <unrelated thought>

I think the real reason why Apple has kept such tight control over the App Store has nothing to do with the applications or quality, at all. It has to do with iTunes and music locking. If you opened up the device, it's only time before a variety of media players and mp3 syncing mechanisms will appear -- all without DRM, of course and without the restrictions (only sync with one device, etc. etc.) And _that_ is what Apple can't afford to do. It could potentially cannibalize the entire iTunes business unit.

</unrelated thought>

<comment><USER4> People keep thinking that Apple actually wants DRM or most of the restrictions that come with iTunes. I'm 99% sure it has more to do with the restrictions the music labels impose when licensing the music to them (that's for example why you can get Apps over 3G but not music).

<comment><USER3> I agree. But regardless of whether it is Apple or the music labels that are pushing it, it could explain the weird-ass closed format of the app-store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems to be all about the name, not about the actual game play:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris#History>

</comment><comment><USER6> I can't believe the Tetris company actually cares that people clone Tetris. It's _the_ cloned game, there must be 10000 different clones out for every platform in existence

<comment><USER7> Sure but they might want to release a paid for version for the iPhone. It's a different ball game.

No one in their right mind is going to pay for a tetris game for the PC, but I can see a ton of people paying money for an official tetris game on the iPhone.

If you're going to copy an existing game like tetris/scrabble/etc, you're going to attract trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That AppStore besides being a single point of entry for developers, also sure seems to be the single point of failure, single point of getting booted, not to mention now also a handy single point of litigation for those into that game.

Excuse me for not seeing it's brilliance.

<comment><USER9> I don't think that's really the problem here. My favorite tetris clone (quinn) was pulled for a while because the developer ran into legal issues with the Tetris Company.

So if Tris wasn't distributed through the app store, this likely would have happened anyway, just mainly involving the developer and the Tetris Company, not those two and Apple included.

<comment><USER8> Not debating that, but without the AppStore- _only_ solution people still enjoying the game would be able to distribute it to friends and what not without having to deal with the Tetris company.

When the AppStore is the only way to get applications for a non-jailbroken iPhone, you lose that option and having something pulled from the AppStore means it's gone for everyone.

<comment><USER9> Technically, the developer _can_ distribute it to friends. He's in the iPhone developer program, he can use the ad-hoc distribution method to send it to friends. I suspect if he "released" the source, any person in the program could do the same.

But yes, I understand your point. The app store model has some benefits and some downsides. The simplest thing to do is to just not buy an iPhone or develop for one if you dislike the model. I know that I don't like some aspects of it from both a user and developer perspective, but I like it more than what I had to deal with when I had other smartphones/PDAs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The 9-5 Guide to Staying Active - <AUTHOR> http://zenhabits.net/staying-active/ <comment><USER2> "When the clock hits 8, I sit. I plop back in my rolling chair, crack open the laptop on my desk, and spend the next nine hours with my butt glued firmly to seat. [...] When that clock hits 5, I bolt. I'm out the door in the blink of an eye, gunning my way through traffic to finally make it home. "

I take it he spends the night over at someone's.</comment>


Consistent Technical Documents Using Emacs and Org Mode [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g9BcZvQbXU <comment><USER2> Video creator here. This may have had a shot at the front page if it were an essay instead of a video. HN just doesn't like videos as a general rule.

<comment><USER3> You might like jupyter emacs + :session to speed up the execution of numerous org babel code blocks. [https://github.com/dzop/emacs- jupyter](https://github.com/dzop/emacs-jupyter) ([async.] execution via websockets)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the tip! I need to educate myself a bit on Jupyter kernels, and this looks like a great starting point. I love the huge amount of documentation this package has!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hate videos for technical documentation, but I watched this one to the end. It was actually a very good way to demonstrate the thought process of why this method is useful and how to use it. Of course it is a video explained how to avoid using videos for documentation. ;-)

I am an emacs user, but I am pretty sure there is a vim-base orgmode as well. I assume it can do most the same things.

<comment><USER5> _" I am pretty sure there is a vim-base orgmode as well. I assume it can do most the same things."_

vim has some org-inspred plugins, but last I looked they were very limited in functionality compared to org-mode.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, emacs with the evil (vi emulation) package would probably be the better way to go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have been using org mode for years and it is second nature now, and continually learn new things I love about it. This is a great video intro to the topic, kudos!

When collaborating with others though on pure documentation, I will say I am increasingly impressed with the usefulness of asciidoc/doctor. Have you used it at all or have any thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER8> Absolutely worth watching. Great video @spudlyo - thank you for a great content.</comment>


I am not a real programmer - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/andygeorge/i-am-not-a-real-programmer-1ogo <comment><USER2> The desire to move to development from adjacent disciplines—QA, (dev)ops, high-level support—appears to be powerful and widespread. Folks in these adjacent disciplines seem to have development built up in their heads as something uniquely challenging that only people smarter than themselves can do, and that's unfortunate, because it's not true. There are levels to any profession, and I've met tons of non-devs who have risen to such a high level that they clearly have the _capacity_ to be developers. There are positions even in that "shameful" discipline, support, that are clearly more intellectually demanding than lower-level dev positions. Most people who've worked with VMWare support know how demanding their support engineer role is, and it should be no surprise that it's compensated accordingly ($80K+).

I think the real gap between devs and non-devs is one of interest and initiative. Software development (and programming in general) is something that anyone with enough interest and determination can just start doing, completely on their own. The result of this is that non-devs often compare themselves to "junior" developers who actually have 10+ years of experience, and get discouraged. It's not that the junior dev is smarter than you: it's that he's been writing code for a lot longer than you think.</comment>


The Pay-It-Forward Culture - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2011/09/15/the-pay-it-forward-culture/ <comment><USER2> Open source fits "pay it forward" very well. I'm a little surprised that it wasn't mentioned.

<comment><USER3> In fact, the GPL is a legal enforcement of the concept. Unlike the common misconception, you're not obliged to give back your modifications to the original dev - you're obliged to pay it forward by giving your users the same rights you got.

(Whether this should be enforced legally is a different discussion, of course)

<comment><USER4> Given the number of attempted GPL violations I think that the answer is 'yes', it should be enforced legally.

Corporations would run roughshod over he rights of their users otherwise. The GPL is one of the most creative uses of the copyright system ever.

<comment><USER3> I like what the GPL is trying to achieve, but frankly I dislike the 'collateral damage'; blocking proprietary software from using it is fine, but it also blocks the non-copyleft licensed (MIT, BSD, Apache, etc) projects from benefiting from the code.

In the OSS/Free Software world, GPL takes and never "gives back". I'm not comfortable with that position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As someone who has only been in the software development culture for about two years, I can firmly say that it truly has some incredibly helpful people. People are always eager to help others (I.e. Stackoverflow, Lean startup circle, etc) and interestingly enough, humility is more common than one would expect from a group of absolute geniuses.

</comment><comment><USER6> 'The goal of the club was: "Give to help others"'

Why don't we see more companies with goals like this? The "avoid the negative" mottos are the popular thing in Silicon Valley these day (e.g. Google's "Don't be evil" and Facebook's "Don't be lame"). It seems to me that avoiding evil or lameness does very little to help you avoid other bad things.

A corporate motto like "Pay it Forward" or "Excite the Customer" or "Be Entrepreneurs" or "Hack for Good" seems like one that would benefit a company and the ecosystem it operates in much more.

<comment><USER7> I like Noise Bridge's guiding principle: "Be excellent to each other." (which is a quote from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "They were the beginning of the Pay-It-Forward culture, the unspoken Valley culture that believes "I was helped when I started out and now it's my turn to help others."

That's not how I interpret "pay it forward". I understood that to mean "I have done a good deed to you, now you do a good deed for someone else". <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward>

The examples given are about mentoring and cooperation. Different, but heart warming nonetheless.

<comment><USER4> Those are the same things no? If you were helped out then someone did a good deed to you, now you repay the favor by doing a good deed to someone else.

It's just 'out of phase' with respect to the starting point but otherwise perfectly equivalent. Like a co-sine wave looks just like a sine wave...

<comment><USER9> _It's just 'out of phase'_

It's the phase that _makes_ it pay it _forward_ instead of backward. Obviously in every interaction, at most one of the actors can pay it forward.

<comment><USER4> I think it is just a viewpoint shift.

Whether you look at the two people that interact at one instant in time or at one person at two different points in their lives the chain remains the same.

I've had plenty of help in the past and I'm giving plenty of help in the present (as much as I can, which is still way too little). That means that for me the 'pay it forward' mechanism is a very real component of my life.

Those that are on the receiving end are not under any obligation, other than a moral one. And I'm pretty sure that for some of them the message is lost, but every now and then the spark lights a new flame.

Pay it forward is an asynchronous mechanism, whether it actually worked or not you can't even determine in most cases.

<comment><USER10> _Those that are on the receiving end are not under any obligation, other than a moral one_

But that's the point. To pay first, you are operating under faith that this is the right thing to do. To pay back after you have received is more like settling a moral debt. For some people taking that leap of faith- doing good before being guaranteed that there is something in it for them- is really hard. They have what I consider to be a narrow and limited view of their self- interest, and don't believe or understand that making the world better _is_ in their self interest, if not obviously and directly so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm surprised there's no attempt to reconcile the notions of: secrecy, competitive advantages and the corporate prime directive (to profit), with information sharing like in the Semi Conductor Fab example.

I'm definitely not coming down on the other side of "pay-it-forward" and Steve seems to invoke the "rising tide lifts all boats" idea with the Finland dinner story, but surely there's a moral imperative not to spill the company beans.

<comment><USER12> > surely there's a moral imperative not to spill the company beans.

Surely. And yet, you can't build something like Silicon Valley by erring on the side of not spilling the company beans. You can only do it by sharing information, which is also a moral imperative.

Fortunately, I've generally steered clear of that conflict myself, largely by having the good fortune to work for Silicon Valley companies that absorbed that ethic of openness. I've sometimes experienced that conflict, and in those cases I've usually kept mum about things that could have helped our competitors. Some of those things I still haven't talked about to this day, because keeping my word is very important to me. But I respect the decisions of other people who've chosen the opposite; I understand their reasoning, and it makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In Michigan there are two things that I have observed that are done differently in Ann Arbor that have made it the states startup center:

1\. Strong support for entrepreneurs by the University of Michigan

2\. A pay it forward culture

I think any city that has both has a fighting chance.

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't think of a better place that exemplifies this than Hacker Dojo in Mountain View.

</comment><comment><USER15> I had no idea Fairchild was the grandfather of so many companies.</comment>


It's probably time to learn Chinese - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@wheatpond/its-probably-time-to-learn-chinese-63587376c2d2 <comment><USER2> Hate to be a naysayer but I disagree. English is used in international dealings and is spoken in a very large number of countries due to the british empire's wide reach and influence compounded by americas dominance after WW2.

Mandarin is a great language to learn in as much as Japanese,French and German are. Japan has long had a strong economy and exports a large number of goods,same with France and Germany except their colonial past and EU leadership positions makes their languages profitable to learn.

China wants to influence the world and be the dominant super power. however,much like Japan and Korea,they are not interested in expanding their cultural reach. Westerners wanted everyone to dress like them,speak like them and act like them -- the "civilized" way. Sharing your culture eventually leads to immigration and the cultural influence of others impacting yours. Their ambition is purely for the success and prosperity of their own people,not a "manifest destiny" conquest and as such I strongly suspect they have little desire to force others to speak mandarin.

What I'm trying to say is that while Mandarin has good ROI if you learn it,even 50 years from now it will likely still be comparable to learning French,German,Arabic and similar languages,and even then only if you deal with international trade and relations (or read tech/science publications -- seen some great write ups from Korean and Japanese security researchers FYI).

Mandarin should not be thought of a replacement for english but rather a complement. I can see a future where people speak both languages for academia and international relations.

<comment><USER3> 50 years from now, Mandarin will be much more useful than Arabic or French, because it will be the largest market in the world. If you deal with China professionally, knowing Mandarin will be an advantage.

<comment><USER4> Markets are unifying, eg the EU, in reaction to large nations like the US and China. It's extremely unlikely in 50 years that things are as you described. A bi-polar Chinese and US world will accelerate single market pacts. These mega nations are likely spelling the end of the nation state as a useful concept, which after regional market pacts leads to world government. Trump is a last battle cry against globalism, but it can't be stopped. US and Chinese power guarantees it.

<comment><USER3> China will pass the US as the largest market within five years so what I'm saying is certain to happen.

Sure, as a regular boring American 9-5er you won't need it but if you want something more from life you better learn a language and Mandarin is objectively going to be the most useful.

<comment><USER5> Within 5 years India will overtake China as the world's most populated country, and Africa is expected to reach 4 billion by the end of the century. China's moment is now, not 50 years from now.

<comment><USER3> Africa is not a country.

<comment><USER6> Where would you rather live and work: a random African country, or China? Does this answer change in 50 years?

<comment><USER4> Most people are going to think because China is more advanced in ways, or some sort of admiration for Chinese history and ethnic creations, that the obvious answer is China. I would disagree. Outside of a few war-torn failed states, a random African country for me.

Not as many stories about people jumping out of factory windows to end their lives in Africa. There are many hidden gems in Africa as well with perfect climates and cultures that have little to no thievery or need for distrust. These things aren't well-known or stereotypical because Africa is dismissed outright so quickly by so many without further investigation, but it's true anyway.

In 50 years, I think this will remain true and Africa becomes even more desirable yet than China. If you want to work, or want your less fortunate children to work at Foxconn pumping out iPhones with management practices that westerners cannot even imagine at this point in their history, China may be an option if they'd even welcome you. Of course everyone assumes they'll be the boss at the desk browsing HN or scrolling through Facebook during the workday instead, generally enjoying the good life.

Africa. This isn't even a contest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I disagree with this article (and I've spent 8 years learning Mandarin part- time). English is far more valuable in business and scientific contexts, and the cost of becoming proficient in Mandarin is considerable (1000s of hours before it's useful in a non-trivial way). And I expect things to remain that way within the next 100 years.

Mandarin + English is not a very distinctive skillset: you're competing with millions of native Chinese who also speak English, plus millions of Chinese diaspora who learn Mandarin as a second language from a young age either through their parents or in a Chinese school.

Also, "fun point" 1 in the article is wrong. Chinese is hard. The hardest parts (for me) are memorizing characters and understanding colloquial speech (colloquial speech is very informal and different from written Chinese). Remembering tones is also hard for me, and some people also have trouble pronouncing tones and consonants (but I got that part pretty easily).

As an aside, why do I learn Mandarin, then? A few reasons:

\- I think it's intellectually stimulating.

\- I have a personal goal of learning a foreign language and I think Mandarin is one of the best to learn.

\- It allows you to travel and experience Taiwan and China in a way that you otherwise couldn't.

\- I might live abroad in Taiwan or China some day.

\- Maybe I'm completely wrong and it will actually be economically valuable to me in some significant way in the future. It _has_ been valuable in some ways since my company partners with Taiwanese and Chinese companies and I've used the language in to help me navigate business trips and also (very) occasionally for technical communication. But I think I could have been almost equally successful without knowing any Chinese.

<comment><USER8> I have been learning Chinese for 4 years now. I can read and write well but my speaking always sounds awkward. I traveled to Xiamen for 2 months and knowing Chinese made things a lot easier. There was still struggles because often times colloquial speech was difficult for me to understand right away and also locals didn't always understand my speaking because they weren't used to someone speaking and it not sounding correct. My friends explains that to them I am speaking jibberish if my tones aren't perfect. They aren't taking the time to step back and think about what I meant to say. I love learning Chinese. I learn something new every day.

<comment><USER7> Download Pimsleur's Mandarin III and spend time going through that. Pay close attention to how you sound vs how the recorded speaker sounds.

<comment><USER8> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The canary in the coal mine here is that you have to keep practicing language or you lose it.

All of that effort is admirable and intellectually interesting but if you have no one to regularly speak with when you leave China, it's not a good use of time and effort. Unless one never wants to return to their home country, or marries a native.

He's right about French. It's probably my favorite language, I lived and worked in France for some time. You will generally not be encouraged and will definitely not be welcomed as one of them, ever. It's a very pervasive attitude. I vowed to learn no more of their language. Which is not a problem, I'd have to really go out of my way to find someone I wanted to speak with anyway.

Outside of special cases, the only language that I've identified as a no brainer for an American or Brit is Spanish. Both of us have very good reasons, and plenty of people to regularly speak with. They're also very open and welcoming people, at least Latin Americans. Over the next 30 years there will be a rising power from Latin America as well, most likely Mexico. A nation that will soon overtake its mother country's GDP, and is predicted by some, including George Friedman, to be challenging the US for North American leadership by the year 2100. Mexico in particular is China's anti-matter. If anything happens to detail their progress, Mexico benefits tremendously. They've always competed to supply the US market.

Ultimately none of that matters, you still need daily interaction with a language to maintain it. It's key and for many of us, that would be difficult with Mandarin. I'm with him though on the value and interest otherwise, but long-term, thinking decades or even just years out, an inpractical choice for most native English speakers.

<comment><USER9> > You will generally not be encouraged and will definitely not be welcomed as > one of them, ever.

I study French, German and Russian at Uni. I am completely with you. As much as I love the French language, I will not keep up my knowledge of it after graduation. I've rarely had a positive experience of real french use, compared to almost every time with Russians and Germans.

<comment><USER4> That doesn't surprise me, and I really don't blame you. I heard a lot of things, but in particular one coworker (in France), said that Quebecois speak "like they're retarded". If you can't win as a native French-Canadian, then it's not possible. For comparison, in my 36 years I've never heard a single (fellow-)American refer to any other accent, dialect or second language learner of English as sounding retarded. Which, knowing my own country, is pretty surprising to me as a revelation. Contrary to popular belief, I think people here are more open and accepting than many others. I've spent most of my life around some classless, low-life people too.

Not to mention comments about other French speaking people, "la petite Belge", other diminishing comments. I've never seen such a superiority/inferiority complex, and I've seen some seriously challenged compatriots in my own country. I do have many friends in France who are exceptions, very open individuals, and love the countryside. These memories remind me of my time in Moscow, a Portuguese kid was there, and told me that I was working in the "wrong country" (France). The French guy there, who had previously told me "France was BS", and was in Russia mostly to shmooze with Russian women, perked up and asked "do you know where I am from?", suddenly defensive of the homeland. Maybe I'm too critical of the French, I don't know, I want to always be objective for sure, but I noticed the majority of other European nationalities tended to agree or already hold views that I was building up to with my experiences. Unlike the original blogger of this article, I'm not afraid of appearing insensitive or blunt, as long as it's an objective reality with some merit. Always some truth behind stereotypes (where there's smoke, there's fire!), positive and negative for all of us.

Ultimately though, the proof of my feelings are in the results, my speaking French is admiration and a favor for their culture and civilization. Like you. It didn't really open up any doors for me. I was brought to France to work with little knowledge in French. I don't have to do it, it was me being a curious, good person, extending an olive branch. I will speak English in France if I want to now. I'm not sour (I have no reason to be), but given what I know, I won't feed into further glorification. Any time spent on language will be spent on improving my Spanish instead, which has opened up a much larger world for me. Useful vacation, retirement and remote work spots are more accessible around the world, and a shocking number of people in the US speak it. It's nice to be able to listen in!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been living in Asia for 8years and I have learned Chinese. Initially because i thought it would help me to thrive professionally in Asia.

I am happy I learned Chinese, however I wished I had done it for the right reasons. i.e to do something intellectually interesting.

Professionally, your time is way better invested in learning a tech skill, developing a business or expanding your network. Those are the thing that you can leverage.

Chinese language abilities? Not so much. Apart from the exaggerated congratulations of chinese speakers after they hear you speaking 2 words of Chinese, it wont provide you much business wise. Remember that if for any position chinese language is important, they will just hire a local, never a foreigner...

<comment><USER11> I disagree with this statement

If you live in heavily populated Asian communities, there are a lot of business oppurtunities, specifically in Mandarin. For instance, a law firm specialized in one ethnicity. You'll find a lot of well off wealthy Chinese clients coming overseas starting businesses in America. Controversally, if you do any overseas importing, you'll have a larger selection of manufacturers to work with if you speak Mandarin.

I don't speak Mandarin all that well though, granted I speak Cantonese and studied 3 years of Japanese. I do agree that your time is better spent learning a tech skill though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why is Hong Kong (predominantly Cantonese speaking) used as the image for an article about the need to learn Mandarin? Most people in HK do not speak Mandarin natively (although English is spoken almost everywhere here).

<comment><USER13> Nice catch, but the title is also about learning Chinese, not Mandarin in particular. But indeed in the text you see Mandarin...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Everyone knows that Chinese is hard. "Hard" is of course subjective, but I think everyone can objectively say that English is easier than Chinese. In fact, easier than most languages.

For that very reason, Chinese doesn't have the potential or practicality to become a default language.

<comment><USER15> For reading and writing I agree, but just the language itself definitely not. At least not objectively, but how do you define that anyways?

<comment><USER16> Consider that you can improve your conversational English by just reading more on your own. This is much more difficult in languages with logographic writing systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just like bell bottoms, this little nugget from the Seventies is back, I see. Same arguments, too, almost point-for-point. "Most speakers", "large emerging market", yada, yada. Just like the 70s, if you're trying to sell Coke in China, might want to learn some Mandarin. OTOH, if you're selling Coke in Greece...

Of course, things have changed over the years, but if anything they've changed toward a much more homogeneous world and I argue that learning any form of Chinese to be potentially less useful than forty years ago. If you don't do business in China, what need is there to learn Chinese? And if you _do_ business there, well duh, you might want to learn some of the local language like you would anywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER18> It will probably not be very long anymore before we can use tools for instant translation between major languages. See for example: [https://www.skype.com/en/features/skype- translator/](https://www.skype.com/en/features/skype-translator/) It might not be perfect, but learning Chinese perfectly will be very hard as well.

<comment><USER19> It's not hard, past a certain age, it's pretty much impossible to get anywhere near proficiency.

And, since cultural aspects inform the language, it pretty much depends on what you want to say, whether the machine can translate it or not. Hence, machine translation is missing a large part of the reason to learn another language, and I don't even subscribe to the sapir-whorff hypothesis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I just installed Pleco but I wish there was some more app suggestions. I've dabbled in trying to learn Chinese but I've never found a great app for it.

The insight I gained from learning to speak Japanese. -> Chinese characters are hard. So I'd very much prefer a language learning system that focused entirely on spoken Chinese rather than written Chinese.

</comment><comment><USER21> Investments of Chinese capital outside Chine are now greater than the foreign investments coming into China. If you're going to work in the US or Europe in a local branch of a Chinese global company, speaking Chinese should be a big advantage, esp. when moving up the chain of command.

</comment><comment><USER22> Quite bearish on learning Chinese; and bearish, too, on articles such as this one. These articles are a type. You would see similar articles in 1989 regarding Japanese. That was not a worthwhile investment for most people. Trends about a country being 'the hot new thing' rarely pan out. The author of this article should know: he's the "founder of a crypto asset manager."

Meteoric national growth curves don't continue; and the closed nature of these societies tends to mean they get hamstrung by unpredictable things in the future. No one can say why China's growth will slow (and it already is slowing dramatically), but we can say for sure that it will be because of a lack of willingness to change.

Learning Chinese will be a worthwhile activity for leading Western businesspeople when the Communist Party is abolished or faces strong open competition for power.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, just because China is illiberal doesn't mean it will necessarily fail to achieve the economic and cultural dominance that the United States now enjoys.

China's system of government is arguably more engineered and less chaotic than what we have here in the US, and it has the potential to continue to guide the country on a continued upward economic trajectory. Granted, the US system provides more competition for people and ideas in government, and China's risks getting stuck on bad people or ideas.

I think the US and the rest of the West should be looking to China for ideas on how to better govern and promote economic growth. But the ideas we borrow need to be re-implemented in a democratic way instead of the authoritarian way seen in China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm bearish on learning Chinese. Huawei is finally being blacklisted. Alibaba is getting nowhere in US tech as companies are being named and shamed for operating in China. Tencent owns lots of brands, but I suspect they're next for a big wave of backlash.</comment>


Getgrasp.io – help us create the next-generation webinar solution - <AUTHOR> http://getgrasp.io

<comment><USER2> There are a few online meeting / webinar / live learning tools out there. Alternativeto for example lists a few: [http://alternativeto.net/tag/video- conferencing/](http://alternativeto.net/tag/video-conferencing/) But also there's opportunity for easier solutions...

<comment><USER3> I know a few of them but I like the concept of involving the user before even building it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, when looking at all the tools that are out there, I really miss features that are targeted at charging for webinars. Submitted my feedback and hope that this becomes a reality!</comment>


Danish Startup Solves Roaming Worldwide - <AUTHOR> http://www.arcticstartup.com/2014/09/02/anqor-a-next-generation-of-roaming-hotspot-devices <comment><USER3> Notably for mobile users roaming in the EU, this problem has already been solved by the European Parliament:

      Under the wide-ranging telecoms reforms, the cost of making a call
      or downloading internet data in another EU country will be the same
      as at home.

      The change is due to take effect from 15 December next year. It still
      requires approval from EU governments.

      In recent years the EU has legislated to lower the costs, so telecoms
      operators have been forced to cap their fees.

      The package was adopted by 534 votes to 25.

Source: MEPs vote to scrap mobile roaming fees in Europe [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-26866966](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26866966)

[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news- room/content/2014...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news- room/content/20140401STO41552/html/Connecting-the-continent-how-MEPs-could- make-electronic-communication-easier#print)

<comment><USER4> That is still till the end of 2015, so the problem isn't really solved, it will be solved in 15 months and 13 days (normally).

But it will probably be delayed (telecom lobby)

<comment><USER5> Roaming fees have already been capped significantly: it's currently (since July 1st) 19c/mn (calling, 5c receiving), 6c/text and 20c/MB down from respectively 24c/mn, 8c/text and 45c/MB after the 2013 caps (and 70c/MB in 2012).

And operators can and do provide better deals (my own provider's standard charge is 15c/MB and has "roaming packs" for 6c/MB to 8c/MB)

(nb: "c" in this context is a euro-cent)

<comment><USER6> One interesting side effect of this capping is that it is cheaper for me to phone a number on my home network while roaming, than it is when I'm in the country on the same network!

Three Ireland Prepay account mobile calls 35c/min, roaming calls 19c/min.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those living in US I recommend buying TMobile service for travel - <USER2> data roaming abroad (speed-capped) and 20 cent/minute calls. I think text messages are free as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can see carriers getting pissed off and nixing this. However, aside from that potential fail, it looks like a really expensive solution to a nice to have problem. Since 'buy a local sim card' is the effective competition here and the thing is as big as two phones, this is only going to appeal to people who (1) travel frequently (2) have a constant need for connectivity (3) do not have time to buy a local sim card (4) don't mind carrying extra weight. I wish them luck but wouldn't bet on this product succeeding.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love the idea, especially since I live in Switzerland and chances are that the EU laws won't apply to us. BUT the device is way too bulky for my taste. I'd love to see something like a usb/data stick instead of this huge box.

</comment><comment><USER10> Seams like a security nightmare for them. Or does each customer get it's "own" bunch of "simcards".</comment>


Find Related Books - <AUTHOR> http://220.127.116.11/frb.aspx <comment><AUTHOR> This is a free research tool from the American Society for Cybernetics. There's an explanatory video at [http://lissack.com/FindRelatedBooks.com.mp4](http://lissack.com/FindRelatedBooks.com.mp4) .</comment>


Distributed kitchen service Pilotworks is shutting down - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/14/distributed-kitchen-service-pilotworks-is-shutting-down/ <comment><USER2> They did so with an incredible lack of respect for their customers.</comment>