Performance comparison: Rails 1.2.6 vs 2.0.2 - <AUTHOR> http://izumi.plan99.net/blog/index.php/2008/03/18/performance-comparison-rails-126-vs-202/ <comment><USER2> Summary: Rails 2 is 30-50% faster. Rails 1.2 spends lots of time in session store, so turn it off for max speed (when not using Rails 2).

On a side note, what's up with the uhh...header image on the blog?

</comment><comment><USER3> I swear I was searching for a post on this topic just last night.

nickb is a powerful discovery engine.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/3/18/comparing- rails-2-0-...](http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/3/18/comparing- rails-2-0-to-1-2-for-speed)

"Hongli Lai has compared a dummy scaffold application from Rails 1.2 to Rails 2.0 and found the latter to be 30-50% faster. That's great to see.

But what I think is even more interesting is the progress we've been making on performance optimizations for more substantial applications. Rails 2.0 made a lot of progress for applications with lots of assets and for ones with big routes.rb files. The forthcoming Rails 2.1 will move things forward even further."</comment>


Ask HN: What are the biggest missing features on the internet? - <AUTHOR> What does the internet not do out of the box (think EMAIL, DNS, HTTPS) that is perhaps should do?<p>I'll chime in with one feature I think is missing to kick this off:<p>- Distributed Search (Basically, Google in open web standards) <comment><USER2> Email is one actually. Notoriously hard to work with from a systems point of view, and based on a protocol that's been minimally updated since it's conception in the early 90's. It's essentially been 25 years of the same old crappy standards that have been duck-taped to hell to try and fix security vulnerabilities. I always meant to re-write a version of email that works better with servers and API's. Such as JSON message formats, async key handling natively (no need for PGP anymore), sender identification and authoring, etc. But it's a massive undertaking, and I can't do it alone with my work schedule.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a feature that needs improving, but it's not one that is missing :) Totally agree though - it's such a pain to handle it.

Although - I would argue that spam management is probably one such missing feature.

A lot of work is done at a high level, but there is no real effective standard to spam management.

<comment><USER2> Right, which I figured if there was any viable way to get sender- identification working then that would be solved at the initial point. Like HTTPS requiring a Certificate Authority to vouch for you. With out the certificate, the receiving server could effectively reject it. Should stop all those pesky SMTP senders claiming to be X website as well. You know, since for some brilliant reason the "from" field is just taken from input, you can type anything you want in there.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: UK parcel delivery service prime for disruption? - <AUTHOR>

Backstory: I've just lost a 3rd undelivered parcel from Amazon/HDNL in as many months.  No idea where it is.  Amazon will end up refunding my money (for the 3rd time) and HDNL will take a loss (for the 3rd time).  I work from home, nobody ever rang my bell or put a missed delivery card through my slot.  FWIW I have no mysterious address and am easy to find.  I work from home and am always available to collect my deliveries.  HDNL has successfully delivered 3 out of 6 orders since March 2010.  Related - Royal Mail doesn't even bother to ring my bell, so I need to hike up to the sorting office 4 miles away by taxi.  Looking for a way to vent I found this: http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews-all-150787.html </rant>
Punchline:  I am tired of this nonsense.  Does anyone know of any startups who could finally provide a reliable parcel delivery service in the UK?  I'm no supply chain engineer but I am thinking something like ubercab for parcel delivery.
If anyone can recommend an alternate and reliable service, please do! Also feel free to vent your similar experiences :) <comment><USER2> Shutl (<http://shutl.co.uk/>) is one startup trying to shake up this market. I believe their trick is to aggregate the spare capacity of multiple same-day couriers. They claim they can offer delivery in 90 _minutes_ , or delivery during a specific hour instead of "between 8am and 8pm, probably", at a cost comparable to standard single-courier delivery.

Their marketing right now seems to be targeted at retailers rather than consumers, since they have to get retailers to use them as a delivery option before consumers will care.

Really hope these guys can deliver ( _badoom-tssshhh_ ) on their promise.

<comment><USER3> Shutl seems to be in an interesting position to expand into what I thought was an obvious idea but logistical nightmare to actually execute: Why don't delivery companies sign deals with Dominoes/Pizza Hut/other big pizza chains and use their excess delivery capacity to do package delivery? If Shutl is taking care of distributed multiple-company delivery maybe that's something they can expand into.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm convinced that CityLink UK have lying to the public as part of their introductory training. There's so often a phantom "failed delivery attempt" instead of admission that they can't/won't hit their date.

Coincidently my most recent dealing with CityLink was via Amazon Prime. When the inevitable happened, I sent a mail to Amazon to ask they cease using CityLink and cancelled the Prime trial.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure how this will format but here is my tracking log for the most recent delivery with HDNL. Calling them up is painful, and nobody has any idea...

Date Time Location Event Details

4 Nov 2010 05:51:01 PM Newhaven Depot UK Arrival Scan

4 Nov 2010 01:07:05 PM Newhaven Van UK Delivery attempted

4 Nov 2010 08:14:36 AM Newhaven Van UK Out for delivery

3 Nov 2010 06:19:58 PM Newhaven Depot UK Arrival Scan

3 Nov 2010 03:50:46 PM Newhaven Van UK Delivery attempted

3 Nov 2010 09:29:13 AM Newhaven Van UK Out for delivery

1 Nov 2010 04:02:18 PM Newhaven Depot UK Arrival Scan

1 Nov 2010 10:29:54 AM Newhaven Van UK Delivery attempted

1 Nov 2010 08:50:27 AM Newhaven Van UK Out for delivery

1 Nov 2010 05:26:32 AM Newhaven Depot UK Arrival Scan

31 Oct 2010 10:41:31 PM Droitwich UK Arrival Scan

31 Oct 2010 12:00:00 AM Web Customer UK Order has been handed over to the carrier and is in transit

The funny thing is that I live about 1.5 hours from Newhaven!

<comment><USER4> I wish goods could be teleported to the buyer! I've often thought that it's a shame that the awesome virtual convenience of web commerce has to hit the sucky reality of transit and delivery ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> A realtime tracking service would do! I bet half the drivers have their own iphone or android anyway. How many failed deliveries does it take to offset the cost of the mobile/data services for their drivers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People have had similar problems with A1, a courier service Amazon has begun using in New York City.

Last-mile delivery is a notoriously difficult market to enter, for reasons that are obvious when you think about the logistics. I think it's telling that Amazon hasn't chosen to get into it themselves. They've got a ton of cash, relevant expertise, and orders everywhere that they could use for pilot programs. One has to assume they've considered the idea and decided to keep sending money to UPS et al. What would a startup do that they couldn't?

<comment><AUTHOR> _What would a startup do that they couldn't?_

Please correct me if I am wrong, but there are no domestic delivery services that offer:

1\. Realtime tracking.

2\. SMS upon delivery failure or address confusion.

3\. Deliver _to you_ not _to your home_.

#3 is probably hard, but 1 & 2 should be fairly straightforward.

<comment><USER5> When I wrote 'What would a startup do that they couldn't?' I wasn't asking 'What services would a startup provide for end-customers that aren't provided by existing couriers?' I was asking 'How would a startup make a profit in this hard-to-enter market when Amazon, with all its advantages, has apparently decided it can't?'

Do you think Amazon couldn't provide realtime tracking or SMS notification? Those things are frills. They'd be nice. Maybe a few end-customers would pay slightly more for them. But they don't help you with the real problem, which is setting up a hub-and-spoke delivery network that's fine-grained enough to get a package from a central warehouse to any individual house in the country within three days for less than five bucks.

You, the person waiting for your package at home, are not the customer. The customer is Amazon. What the customer wants is delivery that's sufficiently reliable that it doesn't cost them business, and sufficiently cheap that it doesn't interfere with their efforts to undersell traditional retailers. Can you make them a viable offer on those grounds? If not, SMS notifications aren't going to change their mind.

<comment><AUTHOR> _You, the person waiting for your package at home, are not the customer._ This is a good wake-up call that I had not considered. The suggestion by samstokes above for Shutl seems quite interesting, hopefully it is viable.

Also it is strange to me that a pizza is delivered 100% of the time yet a package success rate is much less - they seem to have the last-mile problem solved. Maybe all HDNL and the like need to do is pick up the damn phone when they can't deliver!

<comment><USER6> As others replied, it's much easier for pizza because the delivery area is so small. Usually.

I'm an example of an outlier; I live in a rural area and if I go to Domino's website, there is no delivery to my house. However, I know that if I call the local Domino's that's 10 miles away, they will deliver. Problem is that there is a high rate of phone calls from drivers that say "I'm lost," "Your house isn't where they said it was," "Are you sure you live on xxx st? I drove from one end to the other and the address doesn't exist." I've learned to keep my phone near me if I order pizza because I'm likely to have to give the driver explicit instructions on how to get here.

OTOH, USPS, FedEx and UPS have absolutely no problem finding my house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the US, recently a number of small overnight delivery services have consolidated into "regional" overnight carriers, thus offering delivery areas large enough to entice large shippers without requiring national coverage.

In California, for instance, there is Ontrac (<http://www.ontrac.com/>) which covers the six Western states, offering rates 40% below larger competitors. Amazon.com started using them last year, and has been steadily increasing usage. There are similar regional consolidations centered on New York and on Texas (<http://www.ontrac.com/compprofileregionalcarriers.asp>).

It appears that these were built by uniting a number of smaller local services by adding a "backbone" to them, don't know on what financial terms.

London certainly has a large number of very good delivery services operating within the M25, mostly on-demand (and fairly expensive). Some of these could perhaps be consolidated similarly, and likewise in other regions.

FWIW, my first-hand experience in the UK is that none of the national carriers (not even UPS and FedEx!) is nearly as good as UPS and FedEx in America; the Royal Mail is just about as bad as the wretched US Postal Service. So there is likely a business opportunity here.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't get why no one offers the option of _no delivery_ \- that is, just keep the parcel at the post office nearest to me, and drop the notification in my mailbox. Better yet, notify me per SMS or email so I can pick it up on the day it got there. That should be significantly cheaper. People who work outside of their home are never there to accept the delivery anyway and end up getting it from the post office, but after having paid for the attempted delivery.

</comment><comment><USER9> HDNL as an organisation is terrible. Calling the only officially published HDNL number doesn't really help in getting a package delivered.

HDNL staff working at depots are far enough removed from the management chain that their interests are more closely aligned with the recipient - you want your package, they want to offload it and re-deliveries are a real hassle for them.

Looking up HDNL on <http://www.saynoto0870.com> and calling your nearest depot will get you through to a non-corporate human. You can have the deliverer called while you hold to find out what the situation is, you may sometimes even get to speak directly to the deliverer with your package.

There's a clear gap between HDNL management and HDNL delivery staff that needs fixing.

<comment><USER10> HDNL AFAIK has no actual delivery staff: all the drivers are contractors (franchisees?) who are paid 50p per package delivered. This is an obvious misalignment of incentives...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having lived in London for 2 years (2003-2005) we were very frustrated with parcel delivery. The Royal Mail was pretty good as the doorman at our building held packages for us, but other services such as DHL were hit or miss as they largely used independent contractors etc.

That said, a "reliable parcel delivery service in the UK" would be hard to do unless you first start with portions of the UK and not everything. There are quite a few locales in the north that are quite out there and difficult to get to, some requiring one or more ferries etc.

Not saying it can't be done, just not sure if it can be done without substantial investment.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes, very frustrating. HDNL has only successfully delivered me 1 package out of 3 this year. Have had no trouble with Royal Mail. I no longer use Amazon, until they offer the choice not to use HDNL.

Amazon's statement on the matter: "Currently, we do not have the ability to assign certain carriers to a specific customer or address but will continue working with all of our carriers to drive improvements for our customers."

<comment><USER13> HDNL are brilliant. I ordered something from Amazon last week and wasn't in when it was delivered. A card was duly popped through my letterbox to say the item had been left in a "safe place" - my grey wheelie bin, on bin collection day...

<comment><USER14> They did a similar thing to me the other week. Their idea of a safe place was on my doorstep, in plain view of the street. Needless to say it wasn't there when I looked.

As others have mentioned, the really annoying thing here was that I was working from home at the time and they didn't ring the bell. Surely it's less effort to ring the doorbell than it is to write out a card?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> High Cost + Low Margins = No disruption any time soon.

The ubercab for parcel delivery service could work. But only if the margins get better doing it that way

You'd also need to get over the trust issues involved. I 'trust' that Royal Mail won't open my shit when they deliver it to me (when it actually comes).

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good points. I was thinking about the trust issue and it is tricky. Incentive for fencing the item(s) must be lower than incentive for delivery. Things like this comes to mind: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1848278>

Might have to cap the cost of the items you can deliver to something like £200

Also if you knew what driver last had the package, and it was never delivered, then some sort of punishment happens. Works in theory but there is lots I am probably not thinking of :)

<comment><USER15> A rating system could work in theory. Putting it into practice would be hard though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Starting a parcel delivery company may be hard. Many people get round the problem by having stuff delivered to work. So, target people who can't do that, but use the same method: start a website where people can offer to accept deliveries locally to you. You nearby pub, old people's home, anywhere that is open all day. I'm not sure what the business model would be, though.

</comment><comment> dav-id Royal mail have lost 25% of my post sent to India. So I would not suggest using Royal Mail either.

</comment><comment><USER17> citi link were the best when I used them, we sent out over 1 million GBP of stock per year. zero problems, all other companies were loosing stuff all the time.</comment>


Supermarket 2.0 - Web2.0 Parody (vid) - <AUTHOR> http://www.glumbert.com/media/supermarket

<comment><USER2> Heh, that store was fairly suffocating for a Web2.0 supermarket. I was expecting something more like an Apple store.

</comment><comment><USER3> I stopped watching at 'professional double power'

Is there anything good towards the end of the video?</comment>


Elon Musk: 2003 - <AUTHOR> http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=377

<comment><USER2> Maybe someone could fix Elon's name in the title?</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a OpenSource projects looking for work? - <AUTHOR> Maybe I'm just niave, but I think it would be cool for OS projects to voice small, discrete needs on a monthly basis for developers who are looking to dabble in a different project without committing to maintaining an entire project.<p>EG, I'd love to have someone tell me about an OS project that needs 10 hrs of golang or python work that I could pick up for fun. <comment><USER2> [https://up-for-grabs.net/](https://up-for-grabs.net/) has a list/search- engine for special marked github issues.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ie, similar to HN: Who's Hiring (June 2018)</comment>


Self-destructing mosquitoes and sterilized rodents: the promise of gene drives - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02087-5 <comment><USER2> There are a lot of comments here declaring various versions of "slippery slope!".

Looking at history, one would have to conclude that employing science-based methods to improve the natural environment by reversing problems which we have _unintelligently_ created in the past (mosquitoes, rodents, antibiotic resistant bacteria, etc) through our own carelessness isn't _necessarily_ directly linked by a slippery slope to something like eugenics or ecosystem collapse.

We have the potential to do good as well as evil, even capable of implementing laws and international treaties which (for example) prohibit CRISPRing embryos.

Many ideas are worthy of at least being assessed on their merits and not being discarded purely because they belong to a certain class. If there is a genuine slippery slope (which is somewhat ironically claimed with some measure of certainty in the same breath that says we're incapable of foreseeing consequences), but the idea is good, perhaps we could leverage our legal frameworks and social structures to limit that.

It seems crazy that we should be expected to accept the consequences of any negative effects which we have had on the planet to date through our carelessness because approaching them with a scientific method and anything but the crudest tools (pesticides, etc) is labelled "playing god" and totally off limits.

<comment><USER3> Why do you think CRISPRing embryos is a bad thing?

Eugenics in 20th century was evil because government was trying to decide which people could have children together. The normal eugenics where people decide for themselves, worked well for all species so far. So with CRISPR a law that prohibits using it, dooming people to have ill, or not very smart children is the same kind of evil, as the laws prohibiting interracial marriage in 20th century.

<comment><USER4> Theoreteically the capacity to have smart, healthier, longer living children is amazing and a victory for all mankind.

But it won't be for all mankind, just those in wealthy nations and even then only to those who can afford it similar to In Vitro fertilization. The worry becomes further inequality but at a genetic level over just wealth.

If we can eradicate a genetic disease in a few generations, we probably should. But if only the wealthy and powerful are able to then we head toward even more ethical and moral questions.

<comment><USER3> The world where some people are smarter or healthier is always better than the world where everyone is in equally bad state. Inequality by itself is not a bad thing, it's like climbing over a high wall, one needs to push the the other, then the other will pull the first up.

By the time treatments like this are tested and proven to work, everyone will get them for free, because it will be much cheaper to apply required treatments, and not deal with unproductive member of society later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At this point it's nearly becoming unethical not to use a gene drive.

Warming climate is spreading more and more diseases via insects. West nile, malaria, zika, chagas, lyme are all very much alive and kicking with no quick effective cure or management method in sight.

It's already ruined outdoor camping for example, I would not want my family members to be at risk of an infected tick bite, and the problem is getting worse every year. Lyme disease would mean a lifetime of medication and discomfort. By not using a gene drive and just arguing on the hypothetical dangers of it, we are letting more and more people suffer and inevitably use much harsher chemical methods to manage the problem.

<comment><USER6> You mean warming climate is bringing diseases that were plaguing humans since centuries to the place _you_ live and now it's suddenly a problem because it could affect you, too.

The west where most of medical research is located hasn't been caring about these diseases for a long time, that's where the _neglected_ in "neglected tropical diseases" comes from. It's really sad that solutions are only being figured out once the west is affected as well, but I guess it's better than not figuring out solutions at all.

<comment><USER2> This projection of what OP _meant_ doesn't speak to the reality.

Malaria was an issue in the US [1] and southern Europe [2] prior to the 1940s, and Australia has always had and continues to have issues with the Dengue and Ross River viruses.

If the claim is instead that CRISPR was sitting there waiting to be implemented for decades, if only some rich people could finally see a use for it in the face of global warming, a charitable take on that idea would be to call it far-fetched.

[1] [https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/index.html)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC547919/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC547919/)

<comment><USER6> There are possibly many remedies against NTDs, without needing any gene drives or CRISPR or anything. We don't know because we haven't tried. Sure, to some degree you can blame developing contries for e.g. not deploying rabies prevention well enough (which were deployed in the west decades ago, making rabies in the west irrelevant while it still persists in developing nations), but mostly it's the west's fault for not researching cures.

<comment><USER2> I think it probably has a number of factors, none of which excuse us on a whole for allowing these diseases to earn the adjective "neglected".

But it's not hard for me to imagine that many of the people working on this would like to eliminate malaria today for reasons which are at least partially altruistic. It could be that we've reached a point where the economics, social factors and technology of the present day mean that people have identified that CRISPR provides a more efficient and effective means of relieving the issue than anything we've tried (and people have) before, and in my eyes the fact that this method would use CRISPR instead of spraying and widely- distributed pesticide-coated nets, for example, doesn't make it morally or environmentally _worse_ in any definite way which doesn't need constant reassessment as our technology and understanding improves.

Besides all of that though, and you touched on it in your first comment, it's just not particularly valuable for us to sit and criticize ourselves for not doing better in the past when faced with new technologies which may help us start to make up for our mistakes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Will X even work?

Why is this so often a question for things that are clearly possible? If this or that particular method doesn't work, well, ok, but I'd find it hard to believe that never in history would people be able to spread genes through a population. Computer viruses, cloning, facial recognition, atomic bombs, genetic engineering, cryptocurrencies. These are things there were weakly (or un-) regulated until they came into existence. Now, you might ask yourself if jetpacks might be a socially viable for of mass-transportation, not if they are technically _possible_.

Years are wasted asking if something is possible before preparing for it, and precautions and regulations are created post-hoc by lawmakers for stuff that was sure to come. Does anybody know of a good "turned out to be impossible" situation?

</comment><comment><USER8> Look, I hate mosquitos with a vengeance, I'm quite allergic to them and each bite results in multiple days to weeks of misery.

That said, I remain very skeptical of this approach as other species are dependent on these little nasty ones, and I don't believe we have a good grasp on what the second-order effects will be when we start eradicating species with such a large presence.

<comment><USER9> They're really only talking about eradicating the mosquitoes that bite humans. Which is an extremely small subset. There's a comment further up that has more detail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> And of course the elephant in the room, the sterilization of undesirables as decided by the powers that be. Imagine using all that 23andme data to target certain genotypes with diseases.

<comment><USER11> What room are you in? Because I'm not in any room where that is even close to be a thing.

<comment><USER12> Sounds like the underlying plot to X Files.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _self-destructing mosquito_

The mind boggles at what that might look like, but _if_ the mosquito is just going to disappear, that will negatively impact on a whole host of other species.

[https://www.orkin.com/other/mosquitoes/mosquito- predators](https://www.orkin.com/other/mosquitoes/mosquito-predators)

<comment><USER14> My understanding is that, while many species will happily eat mosquitoes, there's no species where mosquitoes are their _primary_ food source.

That doesn't mean that eliminating mosquitoes would be consequence-free, of course. It could definitely cause problems for the species who lose a part of their diet, and/or the other prey they eat more of to compensate. But they're not a keystone of the ecosystem like, say, bees are.

Also, apparently all of the really dangerous, disease-carrying mosquitoes are invasive.

<comment><USER9> The other question is: those predators that (might) actually depend on mosquito, do they depend on the ones were talking about eradicating (which is only a small subset)?

<comment><USER14> Also true. I'm not sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The only valuable reason for having a few sterilized rodents would be to grab and monopolize the laboratory rat/mice market. Rodents have short lives and there is an unlimited supply of wild specimens in the nature.

<comment><USER16> I know its a joke, but you are never testing stuff on wild specimens. Labrats are standardized inbred strains like BALB/c.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Food shortages, ecosystem mayhem, huge disease toll: the promise of gene drives from an improvising rush-it-for-profit "science" that still e.g. can't eradicate the common cold and misses tons of basics (until recently they thought "junk dna" was useless) but is confident to play the sorcerer's apprentice...

<comment><USER18> Thanos did nothing wrong. our population needs to be cut in half. it's simple... get a vasectomy (or your tubes ties) and don't have kids. in 20 years the problem will correct itself.

<comment><USER19> I don't think this will result in a good effect.

The people who are conscientious will not have kids, while the others will have kids. As a result the next generation will be more likely to be less conscientious due to nature, and nurture.

I think the solution is education, and specifically, education about ethics and conservation. If we make the next generation feel obligated to be stewards of the earth, and smart enough to act on that obligation, then the human race has a chance. But it has to happen with this generation being born now, or we won't have the time to save Earth without leaving it first - one way or another.

<comment><USER17> > _The people who are conscientious will not have kids, while the others will > have kids._

That's easy to solve (technically):

a) enforce a "max 1 child per couple" policy for all couples (for as long as needed).

b) or force-sterilize half of the population but randomly (not by their own choice).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> First they came for the mosquitoes, and I did not speak out because I was not a mosquito.

Then they came for the rodents, and I did not speak out because I was not a rodent.

...

Then they came for the me.

I wouldn't be surprised if our gene editing ego trip blows back. Playing god with things we barely understand the impact of.

<comment><USER21> > _Playing god with things we barely understand the impact of._

Doesn't matter - god doesn't either. That's why _it_ is running this experiment :-)

Seriously, since when did anyone ever understood the impact of anything? What the long-term impact of any new development or invention would be? Apart from running the experiment. Unless it is something very specific I don't see how this ever is a valid argument. Had we stayed in the trees we would have to deal with other issues and felt no better.

<comment><USER17> > _Seriously, since when did anyone ever understood the impact of anything?_

When the impact was low and localized, and the methods to affect change crude. I.e. for the most part of human history.

Now we have surgical methods to edit genes etc, but combined with the knowledge and understanding of a Wild West quack doctor (and their profit motive).

<comment><USER21> It never was, with increasing numbers of humans. Things like agriculture and animal husbandry were spread together with the population across vast distances and changed the landscape, the flora and the fauna.

> _Now we have surgical methods to edit genes etc_

I refer back to the comment you replied to... in any case., I don't see how _understanding_ is the main point. We actually understand quite a bit, far more important are the incentive systems that often force us to do stuff against what we actually know. I'm pretty sure companies in the past and present that used landscape (rivers etc.) as garbage dumps knew that that wasn't good, so understanding does not seem to help nearly as much as some think.

<comment><USER17> The "vast distances" were just some places humans could establish cities. 90% of the planet country was untouched for the better part of history, or had very minor alterations (a village and some crops in an area of 100s of square kilometers). Heck, most of the "most advanced" populations didn't even know about other huge continents (Australia, Asia, Americas).

Today a modified plant or insect can travel all over the globe, take plane rides, and so on...

<comment><USER21> > _The "vast distances" were just some places humans could establish cities._

The "vast distances" were _the whole planet_ and an ever increasing population, even before the explosion in numbers later. See the reports about the impact the Mongols or the plague, both killing large parts of the populations back then, with great impact on the environment. Humans always had a large impact on their environment especially after inventing agriculture.

<comment><USER22> And before on the (now extinct) mega-fauna.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Someone mark this comment so that when I'm gone, in 20 years, you can look back I know that I called it... 5 years after this is implemented you will have these genes passed over to humans. people will start to become sterilized and dropping dead in the streets. watch... seems like whatever we do to another species comes back on us 5 fold.</comment>


W3C Web Payments Roadmap - <AUTHOR> http://www.w3.org/Payments/IG/Roadmap/ <comment><USER2> Is it supposed to help people which have a distinct set of payment instrument than the retailer? Is it one the roadmap?

For me, one of most important problem is the inability for small payment processor to enter the field because now if amazon, eBay, steam, etc... don't include your payment scheme you're better be ready for a though (impossible?) battle. That's one reason the payment industry stagnate so much.

<comment><USER3> Could you give an example of such a payment scheme? I'm only aware of two payment options: (1) credit card, (2) a payment service like PayPal, Amazon, Google, Apple, etc.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure I've used the right terminology, so please forgive me if I misuse some terms.

As an example in Switzerland most online retailers allow you to pay with a Postcard. ( [https://www.postfinance.ch/en/priv/prod/card/pfcard/direct/o...](https://www.postfinance.ch/en/priv/prod/card/pfcard/direct/offer.html) ) I would have hoped that PostFinance, the issuer of the card, would be able to implement some standard that would allow it's client to pay retailers that implement such standard.

Switzerland has only 8 millions inhabitant, It's certainly not enough to convince big tech companies to add it as a payment option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Signing HTTP Messages ([https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-cavage-http- signatures-04](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-cavage-http-signatures-04)) is/was part of Web Payments, although that draft expired in July, and it's not mentioned on this roadmap. I wonder what's happening to it. It will be a useful standard; HTTP signing is currently fragmented into many vendor- specific schemes.

</comment><comment><USER5> I know FIDO will be in charge of this, but please don't make web payment authentication or any other "next-gen" authentication APIs _biometrics-only_. At least make it so people can use 2 or even 3 factors at the same time to authenticate, such as say fingerprint, USB key and Bluetooth-enabled unlock from a close device. Or face + fingerprint + password. Or face + gestures + voice, and so on.

<comment><USER3> The goal of the Web Payements API, from what I understand, is not to create new mechanisms, but to enable websites to leverage existing payment instruments via a standard JS API, with the browser acting as an intermediary.

It's up to the browser and/or OS to manage the user's payment instruments and provide them to websites that use the API.

<comment><USER6> Boom. This right here. This will lower the bar-to-entry for smaller publishers, bloggers, websites to ask for support from their users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good timing as ad blockers come to iOS</comment>


Is a prenup a good idea? - <AUTHOR> https://finangle.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/is-a-prenup-a-good-idea <comment><USER2> IANAL, but it depends on the situation. A prenup is a way to protect your spouse's and your respective assets by having a wall in between them. You design the wall. So, let's say, if you do something risky and creditors can come after you, at least your spouse's assets are protected. Often though, creditors will seek collaterals with your spouse as well, but at least it has to be explicit and on a case-by-case basis.

However, the US being a common law country, it's up to the judge to determine how enforceable they are. Apparently, judges are much less likely to enforce them in former spanish/mexican catholic states in the South-West than they are elsewhere in the country. So a prenup in California might be less useful than in New-York.

Lastly, a prenup does not say anything about how much you love your spouse. If you love him/her, you should plan for his/her safety if you engage in activities risking your own assets. Going down together for the sake of it is not a wise display of marital love.

Again, talk to your lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't surprise me if the person who has less income and fewer assets wouldn't want a prenup. Or people who believe it shows a lack of full commitment, a wrinkle in their Medieval/Disney love story.

Prenups seem like a good idea for the partner with more assets, which is more often than not a male. Women are much more likely to initiate divorce.

"In a survey of 2,262 adults in heterosexual partnerships over the course of five years, Rosenfeld found that women initiate divorces 69 percent of the time.

On the whole, they also reported less satisfaction with their marriages than men."

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/soloish/wp/2015/08/27/wh...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/soloish/wp/2015/08/27/why- women-are-more-likely-to-initiate-divorce/)

<comment><USER4> Well, one could easily say, by the same token, that "it doesn't surprise me that the person with more assets would want a prenup." I'm not sure why one person asserting their interests here is greed but the other person doing the same is prudence.

<comment><USER3> Neither is (necessarily) greed- the motivation is probably benign, at least in many cases. But one is very likely prudence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it interesting that many of the comments seem to paint that marriage is about love/trust. This is a relatively modern interpretation of the institution. It has, since the dawn of time, been an institution meant to ensure stability and continual propagation of the species. It was usually a way to improve ones lot in life or ensure their well being. Also until very recently, last 150 years, it was common to have a marriage contract.

To me love has very little to do with marriage, those who seem to think that it does generally find themselves in divorce court. One should focus on having a shared vision of what they want their life to be and be willing to make room for their partners eccentricities. Emotions come and go and are not a great foundation for a relationship. Trust, compromise, hardwork, and support should be the bedrock.

<comment><USER6> _This is a relatively modern interpretation of the institution_

Well, sure, and in response to massive societal changes. More people than ever aren't even _having_ children. What need do they have for an institution that assists in that endeavor?

So what is the trust, compromise, and hard work supposed to be in support of?

<comment><USER5> I do not recall stating it was only about children currently. My stance was there is an over emphasis that marriage is about love or that it should be large component of it. I don't agree with that.

Trust, comprise, and hard work are to be in support of each other in attaining their shared vision of their life, whatever that is.

<comment><USER6> Well, sure :) I don't think anybody who has ever been in a long-lasting relationship would disagree with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One instance where I see alot of people sign prenup is in the case where one person is a partner in a business, whether it be a lawyer, doctor, hedge fund, etc.

In these situations its usually the firm that wants the prenup.

The reason is very simple, in the event of the marriage ending they don't want to have the business be put into jeopardy by having an outsider own part of it or by having one of the partners have to sell their stake to fund the divorce proceedings.

It doesn't always firewall off the company from trouble when a divorce happens but it does help.

I've never heard of a spouse balking at the idea of a prenup in these situations. Most people are pretty level headed about this.

The only gotcha is that the spouse has to get something of value for signing the prenup, often the corporation itself will put up the money for this end of the deal.

The last two deals friends have signed have had a clause that the spouse gets the equivalent of the highest 3 years of pay in the event of a divorce where no one is at fault and the marriage lasts 5+ years. This is separate from what ever other assets the couple splits.

If you are a business owner this just makes way to much sense to not consider.

<comment><USER8> > One instance where I see alot of people sign prenup is in the case where one > person is a partner in a business, whether it be a lawyer

IIRC, its a violation of the ABA model rules for a non-lawyer hold a partnership in a law firm (or, more precisely, for a lawyer to be a partner in or work in such a firm, which amounts to the same thing.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Daniel wanted to have a prenup, but Susan fought tooth and nail to keep it > out of their marriage.

Is this not a huge red flag about Susan's intentions?

<comment><USER6> The whole _point_ of marriage is to make an unmake-able promise. If you're going to start hedging before you even say the words, then what's the point?

<comment><USER10> This your (naive and/or totally fucked up) idea of marriage, certainly not what marriage _is_ for the vast majority (i dare say) of the population.

<comment><USER11> What _is_ marriage for the vast majority of the population? It's certainly no longer about sex (and less and less about sexual exclusivity). It's not really about children. It's not an economic union. It's certainly not lifelong.

So far as I can tell it's about a big party, and having the rest of society validate one's current relationship. It's not at all clear why we still have a great deal of permanence-presuming civil law covering what's now clearly become a private, temporary matter. What's the point?

<comment><USER10> It's a partnership that works on multiple levels.

Not some disney fairy tale about unmake-able promises.

<comment><USER6> Have you been to a wedding recently? Those vows aren't about practical concerns. They're about eternal love, as long as we both shall live, to have and to hold.

You're free to layer whatever you want over top of that promise. But what you explicitly agree to with literal _vows_ is all about the love, man.

<comment><USER2> You seem to be talking about religious weddings.

Religious weddings are exactly that: words, and intentions. What matters is the judge that declares you married and the contract you sign.

If you started to make religious vows enforceable in courts, which they are not, you'd probably see a lot less people interested into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My wife and I came from two very different income brackets. My father was a successful businessman and while we were dating sold his company. His share was in the low 8 figure range. He died a year or two later due to a congenital heart defect.

We thought about a prenup for a while, my wife was even on board, but every time we started to actually work on getting it set up, it all felt very weird and unsettling. It's also kind of strange, in that I personally didn't have much in the way of assets, but my mother was left with too much to ever spend, and my father had a generation skipping trust setup that was funded by his life insurance, so that my kids were destined to be multi-millionaires before they were even born (something that we are keeping from them until my mother passes). So, we were kind of planning around the possibility that my mother would die early or that we would divorce after 30 years, and that seemed odd.

13 years and two kids later ... _shrug_

</comment><comment><USER13> I get it if there were children from a previous relationship. Sometimes step- relations can (and do) go sour, and that could guarantee that your children get a fair share.

Aside that, wanting one shows to me that you're not wanting to be a partner. Instead, you want special dispensation as a 'separate-class' in the marriage. Just no, no, no.

<comment><USER14> It could also indicate that one's personal values do not include a complete melding of finances to be a partner.

It's acceptable in a business arrangement to be partners with unequal stakes.

In my opinion, it's useful to separate the love/trust/bonding from marriage. Marriage is a civil contract that says very little about the relationship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In today's world? Absolutely.

Divorce is the expected outcome of marriage now, and the man will get nuked in family court. If you have any significant assets you would be foolish not to protect them.

<comment><USER16> Who says divorce is the expected outcome of marriage? What's the point of getting married if that's the person's mindset?

<comment><USER17> > Who says divorce is the expected outcome of marriage?

Statistics. What's more likely, divorce or marriage until death?

<comment><USER8> > > Who says divorce is the expected outcome of marriage?

> Statistics.

[citation needed]

> What's more likely, divorce or marriage until death?

 _Probably_ , the latter. The popular "half of all marriages will end in divorce" was from near the peak in the particular methodology it used, and was based on projecting the then-past trend and making an estimate of lifetime probabilities for new marriages based on that trend extending out into the future, and even _then_ it was a result of second and subsequent marriages having significantly higher divorce rates than earlier marriages, with first marriages, even in the projection, being substantially below 50% probability of ending in divorce.

But its actually really hard to get a good idea of what is more likely when you don't have a way of actually sampling the space of interest (which would take reaching into the future), and various methodologies of estimating divorce risk (and even whether the rate at which marriages end in divorce is really rising or falling) come to different answers.

<comment><USER17> > [citation needed]

No, you don't get to ask for a citation when I'm asking you the question. "What's more likely, divorce or marriage until death?"

You answered...

> Probably, the latter.

I'd say probably the former. Neither of us has provided any data to back up those opinions but I don't think you can rationally look around you and honestly claim you've seen more people married until death than people who got divorced especially in light of people with multiple marriages. Every divorce counts and I'd certainly wager the number of divorces is greater than the number widows/widowers.

<comment><USER8> > No, you don't get to ask for a citation when I'm asking you the question.

I didn't ask for a citation in response to your _question_ , I asked that in response to your _answer_ "Statistics" to the grandparent posts question "Who says divorce is the expected outcome of marriage?"

If your claim is that statistics say that, then where are the statistics?

<comment><USER17> Statistics would be what would answer that question, i.e. it's not a _who_ , it's math; I wasn't claiming to have those statistics. I was trying to discuss what you thought the math was and why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 9 years ago I got married and got a prenup to protect a trust I had been given from my mother's passing. 2 years ago I got divorced. I got to find out that what the prenup protected was already protected as a matter of law, and that further the language in the prenup implied it protected her contributions to her 401k, but only protected the interest on mine. It was a very badly drafted prenup.

In the end, it involved additional time and expense to get an expert on family law in the state we were married in (got divorced in another state) and mediation to come up with an agreement that was fair.

Those who think that prenups are a smart thing to prevent yourself from getting screwed in a divorce, keep in mind the just add to the complexity of a break up and in many cases end up just getting tossed out.

</comment><comment><USER19> A perspective from Scandinavia; this sounds absurd and unequal. It's rare for anyone not to have a prenup here. The law also treats both genders equally in divorce (most recently, fathers' rights to their children were improved).

I don't really understand why anyone would even get married in California with laws like that, it sounds like a bad deal, for both you and the relationship.

</comment><comment><USER20> Prenups are strange in that those who are mature enough to get them, probably don't need them, and those who aren't, do need them.

If I had my way, prenups would be a mandatory requisite for anyone applying for a marriage licence.

Here's why.

On Maturity, Frankness, Honesty & Disclosure:: I'll call the decision to get married, Peak Love. You are about to spend a chunk of money on a party, so I'm thinking you are pretty loved up.

This is the time to be having the hard conversations. I can almost guarantee that if you are not able to agree on what happens in the event of a divorce at this time, there is no way you're going to agree once you decide to divorce.

As other posters have indicated too, both parties are forced to disclose their financial positions. No more "oops, I forgot to mention my $100k in credit card debt" conversations once you're already married.

Divorces can be messy and acrimonous. With a lot of bitterness, anger, and all the other emotions that will make what should be a rational discussion seem like a Mid East peace negotiation summit.

And once you go guns hot, it can get very very expensive very quickly.

Cost is totally worth it:: Even allowing for the fact that your marriage will never fail, the fact that there is a non trivial chance it will, makes the cost of lawyering up for a pre nup totally worth it.

Put slightly differently .... Prenup lawyers are cheaper than divorce lawyers. Especially if the other side decides to get nasty.

</comment><comment><USER21> There are very good reasons why Susan should be against a prenup. Suppose her and Daniel have a child, and they both agree that it makes sense for Susan to quit her job and raise the child at home.

If they have a prenup, a divorce is devastating to Susan. She's made no income and will likely have trouble finding employment since her skills may have atrophied. Does this seem fair?

<comment><USER22> It actually does seem fair, because regardless of the prenup Susan will be entitled to a sizeable alimony and child support, based on Daniel's income.

Since women are more likely to initiate divorce, it would be in her interest to keep the marriage alive to the best of her ability.

The man bears the higher risk here, so the post-divorce split should represent that accordingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The bottom line is that 2 people should educate themselves on the legalities of marriage before they enter into the agreement. Far too often people just jump into legal contracts without understanding what it means to them in the long term. The legal terms of marriage without a contract differ from state to stage and if the wife wants to punish you could always just move into a different state, reside there for the minimum time and then divorce you there to get the rules in her favor. Always try to see it from the good and evil side. The point is that you would not purchase a home or a car without a contract or knowing what the implied contract is before hand. I've personally been burned pretty badly in a past divorce solely because I didn't find out the laws before hand and was tricked into something that I was not educated on.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm curious if this is easier to handle with non-liquid assets?

Imagine he has a $100k fishing boat instead of $100k stuffed in a mattress. Is the spouse more willing to sign a prenup if it's easier to make the mental separation between "mine" and "theirs" when it's a physical asset?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you have illiquid assets, I think it is more important for you to have a prenup. Say if you have a one million dollar house and run a business that is also worth one million, you might want to give your spouse the house and keep the business for yourself in the prenup. After all, you do not want your spouse who knows nothing about your business to have 50% interest in it. And it saves the headache of having to sell the house and split the proceeds in a divorce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Get. A. Prenup. Trust me on this; I should know.

You have _no_ idea what the future will bring. You might have comparable assets and income now, but that could change. People have a tendency to dramatically underestimate how different their lives will be in even just 5-10 years.

Prenups protect both parties. They aren't just a way for one spouse to raise a fortress around their assets. What if the balance of income changes during the marriage? It could. You don't know. Just because things are a certain way now, doesn't mean they will be later.

And you might be madly in love today, but when things go south, it brings out the absolute worst in people. _Negotiate these things now while you still have each other 's best interests in mind;_ don't wait until you hate each other and are trying to get revenge.

<comment><USER4> It seems like a prenup preemptively protecting assets that do not exist would be rather difficult both to write and to enforce.

<comment><USER25> Protecting future assets is the whole point. In community property states, assets acquired prior to the marriage are already separate property.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A friend of mine got married with a pre-nup. He also married a woman with dramatically less assets.

His reasoning was simply that /not/ having a pre-nup introduces a negative incentive to the relationship. Every time they have an argument, his wife could think "If I dump this jerk, I make $X!".

So it's not about planning for disaster, it's about /avoiding/ disaster. That seemed like a reasonable argument to me. His fiancee obviously disagreed, but he wore her down.

<comment><USER27> The argument, to her, would likely sound like, "I don't think you really want me. So sign this pre-nup and prove it." It displays a lack of trust and faith in the partner. Without that faith, what's the point of getting married?

<comment><USER28> If both parties has complete faith, then the existence of the pre-nup is irrelevant. it would be like signing a paper in the event that the sun burns out and the earth explodes.

The argument, to him, would sound like "I don't think you expect this marriage to last. Refuse to sign this pre-nup and prove that you intend to issue divorce in a few years".

<comment><USER27> I agree. _IF_ both parties have faith it's irrelevant.

But when _one_ party is pushing it, it demonstrates a lack of faith. I understand it when your assets are particularly valuable (pre-marriage). I understand that it can be used to ensure an easy (easier) divorce, in the worst case.

But the post I was responding to, the man figured that without the pre-nup she'd always be thinking, "I can leave and take half." That indicates that he has no faith in her, not the other way around. Making that case will ruin her faith in _him_ and will ruin (or has a high likelihood to) the relationship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Timely post as just today I got engaged to my girlfriend. We will definitely go for a prenup, I want to avoid a 15 year long divorce battle like my parents had at all possible costs.

I have created a subreddit for people interested in discussing prenups: [https://www.reddit.com/r/prenup](https://www.reddit.com/r/prenup)

<comment><USER30> Interestingly enough, in my anecdotal evidence, couples who have a prenup don't divorce :)

Maybe the mere fact of having enough trust to do a prenup marks a more mature marriage, more likely to succeed in the longer term?

<comment><USER29> Hope so! My fiancee is definitely super mature, only 24 years old but had to support her family (while studying) after her father died at 17 years old. She's completely onboard with us deciding what is fair in what scenario rather than outsourcing it to some parliament and court system somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Isn't it kind of like "should you get insurance?"

We can be glad that Daniel, after a long bachelorhood, found someone to spend his remaining days with. But we can't evaluate anything at all about the future prospects of the relationship without more information. Over the years I've known people on both sides of the situation, where their spouse turned out to be just someone who wanted to marry a tech millionaire and then divorce them after getting control of a chunk of assets, and people who are still going strong seeing the world and enjoying life.

If your spouse stays at home with the kids while you work, its a great idea to have life insurance to cover their needs if something happened to you. If you're both retired and your kids are grown up and moved away? Well its nice to have something to cover funeral arrangements. Seems like the situation is everything here.

</comment><comment><USER8> > Additionally, I consulted a few family law attorneys, and I got quotes from > a $2,500 flat fee to $500/hr (with a total budget of up to $10,000).

And note that whatever you are quoted is the cost _for each partner_ : either partner not having _independent_ legal counsel is one of the reasons for which a prenup can be voided.

</comment><comment><USER32> An interesting (to me at least) variation on this is a Jewish prenuptial agreement[1] that basically said the husband would provide a get[2] if they were divorced under the law of the land.

Apparently it is reasonably common now, but when one of my best friends go married it was a new thing, at least in our part of the world. It was something their Rabbi insisted on.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_%28divorce_document%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_%28divorce_document%29)

</comment><comment><USER33> If I marry a millionaire, and I earn 50k a year, I'd still want a prenup. What you earnt before has fuck all to do with me. Am I the only one who doesn't take this personally? Would you personally sign one if your spouse earned more?

<comment><USER34> Did you marry a millionaire while earning only 50K a year?

What people say they will do and what they actually do can vary wildly.

<comment><USER33> And I'm sure you have enough evidence to make a judgment of a randomer over the Internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> most prenups are not usually honored in american courts. You have to go to great lengths to make sure prenup is airtight.

<comment><USER36> Or, you could not get married.

<comment><USER37> And commonlaw marriage states completely ruin that plan in some cases.

<comment><USER4> There are like three states that have common-law marriage and it's not that easy to end up in one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I never even considered a prenup, but we were young, of similar wealth (or lack there of). If heaven forbid anything happened and I was remarrying, I would probably be considering a prenup, or at least a carefully thought out will because there are now children involved.

My sister-in-law had a prenup - her husband brought significantly more assets and earning potential to the relationship - however I seem to remember the ratios changed over time such that it evened out the longer they were married, which seemed a reasonable approach to me.

</comment><comment><USER38> If your spouse has the same amount of assets, and in foreseable future will continue earning about the same as you - maybe not.

If the spouse has less or more seems like a no brainer, why would you want to give her money she hasn't earned or take money you haven't earned in case of a divorce? So in 99% of cases - hell yeah.

<comment><USER39> My wife and I came into the relationship with wildly different assets and incomes (both never-married, no prior kids, late 30s).

I wouldn't have considered a pre-nup for the simple reason that I'm wagering we'll be together for the duration and if not, I'm willing to share our familial resources amongst the 4 of us. We're together 10+ years now, two kids in elementary school, wife left a nearly 6-figure science job to stay home and raise the kids. Everyone seems happy with that arrangement.

What I brought into the relationship 10-11 years ago has less bearing on our current financial standing than the support and promotions I've earned since and the investments we've made, most of which are made on paper with "my" money and "my" direction, but are nevertheless "ours" in every sense that matters to me/us.

I've seen relationships that my friends have entered though, where my first thought was, "Boy, I hope they have a pre-nup..."

<comment><USER38> You and your wife fell on the side of the bell curve where its two reasonable people who see their assets as joint. I guess both of you have high risk tolerance as well. Vast majority of people I personally know do not see their assets in the same way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> There are a lot of intangibles values that seem overlooked when it comes to "protecting what's mine". The value of bearing and raising children, if that's how it plays out. Potential career benefits that may come out of doubling your network, etc.

</comment><comment><USER41> As a founder and owner, I tend to get a prenup too. If my shares gain value after a valuation round, I might be forced to sell my part of the company in case I would need to liquidate those shares during a divorce.

<comment><USER8> > As a founder and owner, I tend to get a prenup too.

This phrasing makes it sound like marriage is a repeated event for you, for which you usually get a prenup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> two points:

1\. the bigger question is how many soon-to-be-married people actually understand the contractual obligations they are making when they go get their marriage license - it's frankly inexcusable not to educate yourself on this subject - you read your employment contract right?

2\. a prenuptial agreement can be anything, a lot of people have preconceived notions of what it means, but really it just means when it comes to issue x, we don't want to use the default state statute/regulation/interpretation we want to solve this issue in y way...

</comment><comment><USER43> In lieu of a prenup, perhaps a Ketubah: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketubah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketubah)

</comment><comment><USER44> Marriage is a contract.

Should a contract have terms and conditions?

Yes. Yes it should.

</comment><comment><USER45> A prenup is a bad idea, because it means you're getting married.

</comment><comment><USER46> > In case you are curious, Daniel and Susan ended up not having a prenup. > Daniel wanted to have a prenup, but Susan fought tooth and nail to keep it > out of their marriage. Daniel is now at peace with the fact that he has to > share whatever he makes during the marriage with Susan, knowing that the > money he brought into the marriage will always be only his. Dear readers, do > you think Daniel and Susan should have had a prenup?

Huh, how surprising that the person with significantly less income and assets fought hard to prevent a prenup.

<comment><USER47> "share whatever he makes during the marriage with Susan" \- my understanding is that you need to share not just what you make during marriage but also the assets you had before.

<comment><USER5> That depends on the state. Most it is seen as separate unless you "co-mingle" them with shared assets, say invest in a business or home together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is a prenup a good idea? Let's examine a well-connected, basement-dwelling money hoarder in his quest to get a regular poor to Touch His Dick.

Oh, what do you know, he caved to her demands!

<comment><USER49> Comments like this are a bannable offense on HN.

Your comment history looks good otherwise, so we won't ban you for this one, but please don't post anything like it again. The threads here are for civil, substantive discussion.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with disastrous levels of procrastination? - <AUTHOR> I've been trying to get into programming jobs for the last 4 years.  I've been at 3 companies but I haven't lasted longer than 6 months at any of them.  I just can't seem to get anything done at work.  I don't think I've ever written any code that is used in production.
I've also tried free lancing but I've had the same kind of problems.  I got a freelance job to build a property database for a local realtor.  I managed to get started on the project but quickly got overwhelmed.  After feeling overwhelmed I never touched the code again and felt too nervous to email the client back.  This has happened a couple of times before with freelancing.
I've been for a psychological assesement and was told I had no problems. The doctor I spoke to suggested maybe I just wasn't suited to employment in a company and maybe I should start my own thing.  That's what I decided to do.
I had an idea that I'd like to develop and managed to make a very simple prototype.  I invested all my savings in the company but now feel like I'm under so much pressure from myself that I can't do anything.  The day I set up the company I spent the entire day in bed because I felt like I couldn't face doing anything.
I feel like I've tried everything.  All sorts of to do lists, books on procrastination, exercise, keeping myself accountable to other people and so on.  I just can't seem to get started doing anything, and when I do it feels so painful that I can't continue.  Occasionally, maybe once every 3 months or so, I'll have a day where I get lots done and I'm really focused, but I've never been able to work out how these days are different from any other day.   I always go to bed feeling great at what I've achieved and then wake up to another day of nothing.
I'm going to visit a doctor again next month, but I wondered if hacker news could offer any insight on the situation.  Is there anyone else who had a disastrous level of procrastination who has managed to turn it around? <comment><USER2> Sounds like classic Fear Of Failure to me. The longer you procrastinate, the more is riding on your "perfect" solution or performance, and the more daunting the project becomes. You need to realize that failure is allowed, and that it's forward movement that matters. Alwasy try, then learn from the outcome. If you learn you never truly "fail".

To gain confidence, you need to power through by sheer force of will. A few tricks may help:

1\. Decompose your tasks. Then decompose them more. Keep breaking down tasks into absurdly small pieces until they seem less intimidating. Then force yourself to do them, one at a time. If you can't, break it down more. "I will create an empty database." "I will list the first table I need to create." "I will fill out 5 columns in that table." "If I miss a column it's ok and I'll fix it later." "I will get my build environment running, and displaying hello world." "I will log into the database." etc etc etc.

2\. Time limits. "I promise I will work on this thing for 1 hour, with no distractions, and then I am allowed to..."

</comment><comment><USER3> Couple of ideas that I've used when working on and through my own stuff.

1) Track your time. Pay for a time tracking app (one that has a timer you can start and stop) and "bill" to your own projects.

2) Renegotiate commitments to yourself and others. Sounds like you get overwhelmed and this pushes you toward depression.

3) Talk to a professional if you have insurance or can afford it. Mental health is no joke especially in this industry. It's ok to realize you need help figuring yourself out. Otherwise, find like minded folks you can talk to, on a regular basis, in person.

4) Work Sustainably, you don't need to get lots done everyday, you need to get enough done for many many days.

Hope some of this is useful. Feel free (anyone) to reach out if you want to chat more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your advice.

1)I've been time tracking in toggl for about 2 months now and all it has done is confirm that I spend too much time doing nothing. It's not unusualy for "Procrastinating online" to be over 60 hours in one week. I'll start thinking "Ok, I just gotta do one little thing" at 9am, and then 6pm rolls around and I've spent another 8 hours browsing the internet.

2) I don't actually have many commitments. I have very little paid work at the moment (less than I need to live) and I'm only surviving because I have inheritance. I formed my company a few months ago but I haven't managed to release a product yet.

3) I have an appointment booked for in a months time.

4) I realise that I need to be more consistent, but I've never managed to crack the 'how'. The only thing I've ever managed to be consistent at was going to the gym, and that was because I would put it before all other commitments. It would often be the only thing I do in a day. Even then, I've never really met any of my gym goals, even after 4 years.

Sorry to be so negative. It just seems like everyone around me can just "do work" like magic. If someone offered me the choice between ending procrastination and $1 billion dollars I would leave the money on the table without a second thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> you can try finding another type of work that you might enjoy more. If you don't like coding you shouldn't try making yourself do it every day. what do you do when you aren't coding? you could be addicted to electronics also. just some random thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER5> I could have posted this same thread.I am desperate for a solution</comment>


Doctorow on the fallacies of prediction - <AUTHOR> http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2010/03/cory-doctorow-making-smarter-dumb.html

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of how _Brave New World_ had elevator operators (this is what the Epsilons did) and large filing cabinets.

<comment><USER3> They also mention that they do not have a Alphas-only population, because Alphas don't want to do menial work. And then they mention than they also had an experiment, where a lot of machines were used on an island to get rid of menial work, but it did not work, because people had too much free time on their hands.

Why did they not try both together?</comment></comment>


URLs in Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://ozmm.org/posts/urls_in_ruby.html <comment><USER2> In Common Lisp:

      EPEEN> #u"http://google.com"
      #<URI http://google.com>

Thanks to the PURI library :-)

The twitter example.

      EPEEN> (let ((json (http-request #u"http://twitter.com/statuses/show/6592721580.json")))
    	   (cdr (assoc :text (decode-json-from-string (octets-to-string json)))))
      "He nose the truth."

Using puri, cl-json, drakma and babel.

<comment><USER3> I think the point of the original post is that Ruby can parse URL-like syntax (e.g., <http://twitter.com/statuses/show/6592721580.json>) as code, no strings attached.

<comment><USER4> That sounds like it might be a little awkward to parse. I think I prefer the Lisp+PURI syntax, just because you can see where the URL begins and ends easily, and don't have to worry about how the syntax interacts with the rest of the language.

<comment><USER3> Oh, it's completely awkward, and completely fun. The point wasn't to create a new library to supplant others (if someone used this code in production, I think the joke would be on them), it's to have fun with what's possible in Ruby, and perhaps save a few characters in irb.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How not to launch your company - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mutlicorp.com/post/33123223025

<comment><USER2> You seem to place a lot of weight on hitting the HN homepage. What is your expectation for would have happened had you jumped to the top slot and stayed there for several hours?

Would you have signed thousands of new paying users? Ignited a media firestorm and suddenly found yourselves on the cover of Inc magazine? Would you be rolling in millions today?

Or would you have had 10,000 visits to your homepage, a small handful of signups, a few dozen comments on the HN thread (half snarkilly dismissing it, the other half arguing about some completely separate issue that the first person to comment happened to mention in passing), and a traffic spike for a day or so followed by a return to your normal levels.

Having occupied that top slot a few times, I'm sorry to inform you that it looks a lot more like the latter case. You still need to build and grow your business from square one, and a year later you'd have been exactly where you are today. A few Techcrunchings and HackerNewsings really aren't going to make a difference in the outcome of your thing.

The real difference is made by the things you did on the other 364 days between then and now. Here's hoping you executed well.

<comment><USER3> I agree. HN certainly isn't the worst place for a Minecraft-related venture, but I bet reddit.com/r/minecraft would have been a lot better for business, and would have practically guaranteed a top position regardless of other news. They could have even targeted ads at that specific sub-reddit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If no one sees your first launch and/or it fails -- just launch it again. Seriously -- the vast majority of people will never notice or know.

I dont get this BS about depending on a singular date as a defining 'launch'. Its a good internal goal to have, but not the ideal way you want to reach your market.

<comment><USER5> If you are launching an app, you get a tangible benefit from a marketing launch, which probably derives from Apple's DNA.

On the App Store, if you do zero marketing, you will likely have your most total downloads the day after your app is approved. The first day, you likely only get a half day, and you have to wait for full propagation on iTunes. Also, the rankings are a moving, weighted average, so unless you have a terrific spike, you need to wait for your average to start kicking in before you move up the charts.

Day 2 or 3, you will peak, then rapidly decline. So, it makes a lot of sense to time your marketing boom for the day after your approval, or rather the first full day of being live on the store. Marketing tends to be multiplicative.

People make the mistake of thinking app rankings get you sales over the long haul - it's more the other way around. But at the beginning, you get a bump, and you should use it. This bump derives from several sources:

* new list on App Store

* lots of robotic websites and Twitter accounts spamming about new apps

* the press cares about "news"

* energy from your team on a specific launch - people tell their friends and social outlets, and actual planned outreach by the company

* Apple featuring you in category or on home page of iTunes

<comment><USER6> I have made quite a different experience with my own app. Since the day it was approved, I have seen a very constant number of sales. I didn't make a big deal about the launch and I didn't post on HN. People just found my app by searching on the App Store (it is a utility app that quite a lot of people need, and it was the only of its kind when I launched).

Over the course of the first year, I saw a gradual increase in sales, presumably due to the page rank of my website increasing, or maybe because adoption of the Mac App Store increased. Now there are slight fluctuations in sales numbers, but they are more or less constant.

So I didn't get that bump, but I was lucky I made an app that was in demand.

<comment><USER5> I had the same experience with a StopWatch app I make actually, also a utility. It has gradually increased overtime. Mostly I see a pop though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Second mistake: don't launch when somebody famous is in ill health.

If you did that, you'd never launch.

<comment><USER8> I found that "don't launch when somebody famous is in ill health" -- as well as the lesson about simply copying Apple's launch dates/times -- could best be summed up by something a bit broader. Namely, do your market research before your launch.

Market research means knowing your customers, as inside and out as you possibly can. And, if HN users represent a significant chunk of who you expect to be your early adopters, then you should make it your business to keep abreast of everything happening in the HN world. The _world_ of stories of potential interest to HN is direct competition to your launch announcement. If you want to be newsworthy, know what news you're going up against -- especially as relates to your specific audience.

(In fairness, I don't think anyone in their shoes could have predicted Steve Jobs's death, down to the day and time. But even still, there could have been a hundred other big-attention topics that would have buried them, had they not been paying attention. Such as another major product launch, or what have you -- things that would have been slightly more predictable.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9>
      There wasn't anything we could do about the poor reception on HN,
      but we'd been working on this for three months
      expecting it to be a smash hit as soon as we launched.

If you're working on something new repeat after me: "It wont be a smash hit"

That way you can make a plan that will actually fit reality and create your own growth.

</comment><comment><USER10> _The next 48 hours were spent fixing hundreds of bugs in all sorts of places we never expected things to go wrong._

Launching quickly # Launching prematurely.

I think that it takes this kind of suffering to fully appreciate the fine line between launching too early vs. too late. Sure, we're all in a rush with too much to do, but everyone should do themselves a huge favor and slow down long enough to come up with a good test plan, before, during, and after development.

I went through the same thing once and will never let it happen again. It was so bad, I actually considered becoming a cook instead. In the long run, it's just not worth it, to your customers, and mostly, to yourselves.

<comment><USER11> If you spend too much time planning you run the risk of never launching. I can sit here and refine my product forever, but at a certain point you just need to pull the trigger and launch the damned thing.

<comment><USER12> I don't think edw519 said anything about "refine[ing] my product forever."

But having a thorough test plan _better_ be a part of your project roll-out. No one wants to go through the rabbit holes of corporatized QA team B.S. but product refinement is a different topic entirely than the point of his comment, which was testing that product before launching it to the masses.

If you think your product won't be seen by many customers, well OK. Set it free. If you have a major push behind it, however, and know 100's of thousands of people are going to be mashing it to death in the first few hours or days, adding a time buffer for testing beyond your close family and friends is wise advice. It will save you money in the long run, too.

The alternative is to become buried under an avalanche of crash reports, bad reviews and ratings. And, conversations like, "If only we'd had more time to test this thing."

<comment><USER13> But there will always be something that might be the next bug, but perhaps not really keeps people from using your product as well. There is a fine line there. And I agree with 'aytekin' below, probably having more features in a product leads to more bugs and thus difficult launches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> " _Don't launch when somebody famous is in ill health._ " Is this intended to be actual advice? I think the real issue is a shabby product, especially after seeing " _make sure your service can sustain more than a couple of people at a time_ " and " _the next 48 hours were spent fixing hundreds of bugs_ ".

Looking at the website I am impressed you at least have an SSL certificate, cause it doesn't look like much more effort went into it. I'm even more confused looking at the about page, it lists David as being a _rockstar programmer_ who enjoys _working on difficult scaling problems_ , yet he didn't plan for more than a couple of users?

If you want to make your service succeed put an embedded Minecraft applet on there and have it link to some of your public servers, maybe even let the user select from a few of them. Just do the same things as <http://minecraft.net/demo>. Add some color to your site, your target audience isn't a bootstrapped web developer, it's a highschool kid who wants a Minecraft server. Add a big old buy now button on that homepage. And why does the Sign Up page not have the pricing options?

</comment><comment><USER15> >Second mistake: don't launch when somebody famous is in ill health.

Is this a joke? Steve Jobs was, more or less, in ill health for years and there are enough famous people to make this advice "don't launch ever."

Somehow I don't think I've ever heard of Minefold. Sounds like something I would have been interested when I was still playing. Two years ago, I dumped a few hundred hours into Minecraft though and got pretty burnt out.

<comment><USER16> I am pretty sure it was tongue-in-cheek.

<comment><USER15> Ah, wasn't sure since the other highlighted mistakes were definitely legitimate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In my opinion, _launching_ is just a PR stunt. If you don't already have users (hopefully paying users!) prior to _launch_ , you're doing it wrong. In my opinion, a _launch_ is really just a media event which you do to get free advertising - that is, you're product should already be well tested and validated through real users and the _launch_ is a publicity thing.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm a big fan of Minefold.

Also, being no stranger to... "problematic" launches, I can totally sympathize here.

Can't wait to see what you guys have in store with the new update, and as long as Cook or Schiller doesn't suddenly kick the bucket, I think you'll be fine with this one :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> Now that you've hit HN front page, wouldn't it be good to actually have a link to your product in that post? I know there's a link in the header on the desktop version, and an image with the URL midway through, but on the mobile version there's nada.

</comment><comment><USER20> When you are wondering what value the "suit" should bring to a partnership, it is experience in what not to do in cases like this and how to recover when you do run into them. Better yet, a good "suit" will make sure that your business success isn't determined by a singular launch event (which is almost always a bad idea for startups).

Sometimes you can recover without that (great job on the recovery!), sometimes you can't. If you choose your "suit" right, your chances of recovery will be better.

</comment><comment><USER21> Minefold is of interest to me and I guess inevitably the answer will be "we're doing great!" but if you can say more than that... how is Minefold doing?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're doing great! But seriously… we went through a hard time after YC trying to figure out where to focus our time. However, it's been growing steadily (almost at 60,000 players) and we've done some great work in the last few months which I can't wait to release :) I don't like taking this long between releases but we've had to re-think a lot of our internal systems (blog posts coming). We've fixed most of the things that people didn't like about Minefold and hopefully added some cool extras too.

<comment><USER21> 60k players? That's awesome, congrats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _Third mistake: make sure your service can sustain more than a couple of people at a time._

As I am thinking to launch an app sometime in the future, how do you test for this? This is something that has been bogging me a lot. I can't find easy to understand info on how you do this, especially running on a virtual server (so how much ram? how much bandwidth? etc.).

<comment><USER23> Low-level tools that just spam requests at your webserver will give you a pleasingly high number (hopefully), but are unlikely to be an accurate picture of how many 'users' you can concurrently sustain.

Try to come up with some automated test or script that exercises the full set of features you'd expect an actual user to be interacting with over the course of a session.

Then, build a harness that slightly randomises those activities, and fires off a large number of 'virtual users' against your service. Running from geographically diverse hosts will ensure you're closest to what an actual user would experience.

Actually determining what mix of operations constitutes an 'average session' is relatively difficult, but there are tools that can record sessions from actual users (look at the HAR dump in chrome, or Selenium[1] testing framework)

All of your test clients should be recording response latencies + errors, which you can later analyse to see what slows down at scale, or which critical features with unacceptable performance you need to target first.

Another thing to consider, especially during release, is that lots of users signing up and playing around is likely to be a completely different workload to regular users using it for day-to-day activities.

You need to make sure things like your transactional email notifications ('your account has been created, verify your email address, ...') can handle peak demand as well.

[1] <http://seleniumhq.org/>

<comment><USER22> This was very detailed and useful, thanks. I ll be looking more into selenium, I knew of its existance, but I never looked deeper into that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Launching early is the first step for testing your assumptions in the real world. You don't learn unless you launch. Don't worry about timing.Just launch.

Lot of first time entrepreneurs learn by launching a product and getting feedback. I think there is no better way to learn than by getting the feedback from an unknown stranger.

</comment><comment><USER25> Maybe it's the mobile version of the post but feels like some of these simple lessons about posting to HN could benefit your engagement rate from this post:

[http://www.meetingburner.com/blog/2012/10/05/a-story-of- two-...](http://www.meetingburner.com/blog/2012/10/05/a-story-of-two-front- page-hacker-news-posts-and-why-one-converted-20x-higher/)

Eg - talk about what your service actually is in the post, link to it, and lay out a call to action so you turn some of the HN traffic into actual users vs browsers . . .

</comment><comment> mck- Upvote because I feel a little bad -- hope you can get the attention you deserve now

</comment><comment><USER26> Thanks for the article and reminder. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER27> www.iceboxpro.com</comment>