The Argument Against Terraforming Mars (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://cosmos.nautil.us/short/85/the-argument-against-terraforming-mars <comment><USER2> > _The decision to terraform Mars would also exhibit hubris. Often understood > as an "excessive pride before the gods," hubris has ancient roots and is > perhaps best epitomized by the fabled Icarus, whose wings of wax and > feathers melted when he got too close to the sun in his attempt to reach > heaven._

One man's hubris is another's whole _raison d 'être_ of humanity. I suppose the reference to Icarus is a good one here, because I wholeheartedly agree with Randall Munroe: "But I've never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.".

I can understand appeals to aesthetics. I can understand pointing out generic irresponsibility of humans in aggregate. But _hubris_? The strong drive to adapt the world to what we see fit is literally what separates us from animals.

<comment><USER3> Let's not forget that Daedelus, with careful engineering and aeronautical prudence, successfully designed and constructed a set of personal wings and flew them 70 miles to safety and freedom. I think that's really the larger story.

The true moral is "do not exceed the design flight envelope on the maiden flight of experimental aircraft". Pretty sensible advice.

<comment><USER4> that's also the original moral.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are more practical reasons not to terraform Mars. Notably, the most valuable resources for human survival (oxygen and water) would eventually be lost to space. It is a slow process to be sure. In practical terms, it would probably outlast humanity as a species (either evolution or extinction, depending upon your outlook). Yet it does seem to go against the basic idea that many of proponents of manned space exploration tout: a second home to ensure our survival. Terraforming Mars would be, at best, temporary.

My take is that we should go out there, exploiting resources as needed, yet adapting to the environment through technological means. Even if we could terraform Mars, we would still have to adapt in order to go beyond that planet since there is nowhere else within reach that is remotely similar to either planet. Even if you could imagine a sci-fi future where the stars are within reach, chances are that a good portion of the habitable planets will have life of some form. That would raise more serious ethical issues than the subjectivity of beauty.

<comment><USER6> would it be easier and a better investment to change ourselves? replace mitochondria with something that doesn't need oxygen to produce ATP. If you're planning on you and you descendants spending forever exploring space, would you want to be vacuum native?

<comment><USER7> Interesting, but is it doable? It is not only breathing that needs refactoring: how do we resist very low pressures? What about radiation?

What else needs a complete overhaul?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There are countless millions of lifeless beautiful giant rock worlds carved and shaped throughout the eons by the interaction of elements. And yet, there's only one of such rocks, that we know so far, has been graced by the beauty of life. Life spreads, grows, adapts, multiplies. It, just like all other elements in the universe that came before it, shapes its environment as it interacts with it. Life isn't any different from the wind and water that shapes the mountains, or the meteor that carves a valley deep into the earth.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd highly recommend reading the referenced Mars Trilogy. The debate has some more detail in the words of the characters (though the summary here gets the major points of the "Reds"). What's missing here but present in the series is the counterpoint. For purposes of profit and self preservation, terraforming is all but inevitable. A more useful debate is about how it should happen if you want to preserve some of the Martian natural beauty.

<comment><USER10> Will second this, Red Mars (and the good parts of the second two in the trilogy) do a fantastic job of working through scenarios of both the sociopolitical and technical challenges we may face as the era of Mars exploration begins.

The general premise of the series is: If you were sent over to Mars with a group of others, who is there to stop you all from creating your own vision for the place instead, if armed with the tools to make it happen? If you have the capability to make your own world as you want it, would you obey the orders of those all the way on earth, or would you make the world in your own image? And what do you do if you choose to craft your mars in one way but others in the group disagree and have the same motivation and are armed with the same tools for their vision instead?

Each character in the series represents and carries out the different possibilities to these questions, and you see the consequences play out over hundreds of years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> We as humans haven't yet learnt to co-exist with other animals and maintain the equilibrium on Earth. What makes us think we are going to treat Mars any better? Please don't get me wrong, I am all for exploring the planets, in fact I am annoyed that we don't yet have the technology to visit a system like TRAPPIST-1. But unless we learn to be considerate towards nature and other species which inhabit this planet we are not going to be good residents on other planets. Just my two cents.

<comment><USER12> The notion of an equilibrium doesn't hold up to scrutiny if we consider all the mass extinction events that came before, or even the continuing random chaos that regularly sweeps species away in favor of others.

Of course, it's also a bad idea to create conditions on Earth where human life is made more difficult or unpleasant. However, we are also part of nature, and other elements of the natural world are only useful in so far as they meet some human need, even if it's just the satisfaction you get from treating another species in a kind way.

Heck, it's not even clear whether leaving nature untouched is actually ethical, considering the form it currently has. As we speak, thousands of beings are violently being killed and eaten by their predators, even with humans out of the equation. The cycle has continued this way for aeons, and only because random events made life evolve in this specific way, with a nervous system that produces suffering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> On one side of the scales we have that Mars is pretty. On the other side, we have the continued existence of humans in the face of one random asteroid.

I care more about hedging against an asteroid strike than I do about the natural beauty of a planet that no one's even seen up close.

</comment><comment><USER14> > _Mars has many features of extraordinary natural beauty. It is home to the > tallest known volcano on any planet, Olympus Mons, whose cap reaches 13.6 > miles high—two and a half times the height of Mount Everest._

> _The decision to terraform Mars would also exhibit hubris._

Speaking of hubris: if we terraform Mars, people are going to want to climb _Olympus Mons_. Perhaps the volcano would acquire a reputation and body count similar to Everest.

Obviously the future holds great potential for lifesaving technology, but at the same time there's always purists. After all, the people who have climbed Everest probably wouldn't have if there wasn't any danger involved.

I imagine much of the danger would depend upon the finer details of how the Mars was terraformed. Namely sea level, atmospheric composition, and anything else that affects weather at altitude.

Would reaching the summit even be possible without oxygen? It wouldn't be on Earth at that height, but I've no idea if that holds for a terraformed atmosphere on another planet.

<comment><USER15> Considering the earth has roughly 2.5 times more gravity, the climb would probably be quite a bit less exhausting (after terraforming Mars).

<comment><USER14> Good point, though climbers can always add weight to get that Earth-like experience.

<comment><USER16> At that point you might as well 'just' climb Everest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The aesthetic argument is weak, because it doesn't make sense to talk about anyone but us having an aesthetic perspective. Mars is beautiful? Fill those canyons with life and make it even more beautiful.

The stronger argument is: look at what we've done to Earth, and it's obvious that we don't know yet how to make a planet better.

</comment><comment><USER18> If we could terraform, we should do it right away, humanity is one meteorite strike away from extinction... the universe is a harsh place and we have to hedge our bets to survive and thrive...

<comment><USER19> There's no rational need to survive as a species. An individual protecting its life is a different matter, but what's the point in struggling so hard to survive as a species? What is it that we hope to achieve in the end?

<comment><USER13> If the species dies, all of my potential descendants die. I have genes that have evolved to prevent such an occurrence.

<comment><USER20> People have genes for all sorts of things, from over-eating to cheating on their spouse.

<comment><USER13> And?

<comment><USER20> Rational decision-making involves second guessing or even countering your genetic programming.

The "my genes made me do it" argument is no less flawed in a discussion about terraforming than one about what to order at McDonald's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The destruction-of-beauty argument is not without merit, but no-one makes that argument about Mt Rushmore. You can make something more beautiful, and that doesn't make the destruction of beauty argument moot but it does make it less convincing. The hubris, or "playing god", argument is utterly unconvincing for me. Our environment would be safer if we spent more time playing god with genetic manipulation and less time worrying that the wheat will grow beaks and murder the farmers in their sleep. One era's playing god is another era's everyday life.

</comment><comment><USER22> What a beautiful piece of writing. I always saw terraforming Mars as a technological challenge, it's great to see someone consider the ethics of the project. The following paragraph stood out most for me.

'Another reason for believing that terraforming would involve hubris is to consider how we treat Earth, a place we might call our "proper place" or "home." If we think of our home as a place which nurtures us and in which we grow to maturity, then a case could be made that until we learn to treat our own planet better, any attempt to reshape another planet and call it our "home" would be hubristic.'

Whenever we apply technology people talk progress. Intuitively I would say that progress implies a destination and that progress is about getting closer to it. But can we really say we're making progress if we do not know the destination: how should people live together? When we agree to terraform Mars we do so in the belief that it's a good idea. But 'good' implies an answer to the question. It's very interesting to try to find these implicit answers and see if we can turn them into an _explicit_ answer. Maybe then we'll find that often technology looks like progress, while it's not getting us closer at all.

<comment><USER23> Well, in order to live well together, people do need to remain _alive._ There's an argument for creating off-world colonies to reduce the chance of human extinction by any one catastrophe (asteroid impacts, supervolcanoes etc).

I definitely think it's important to learn to coexist with our fellow humans, as well as other life forms, here on earth, but / and it will be hard to do that if we all catch fire and die.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The counter from Sax Russell in Red Mars to this exact debate, straight from the book:

> _" The beauty of Mars exists in the human mind. Without the human presence > it is just a collection of atoms, no different than any other random speck > of matter in the universe. It's we who understand it, and we who give it > meaning. […] The lack of life here, and the lack of any finding in fifty > years of the SETI program, indicates that life is rare, and intelligent life > even rarer. And yet the whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is > contained in the consciousness of intelligent life. We are the consciousness > of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, > to live everywhere we can. […] If there are lakes, or forests, or glaciers, > how does that diminish Mars's beauty? I don't think it does. I think it only > enhances it. It adds life, the most beautiful system of all."_ \- Kim > Stanley Robinson, Red Mars

</comment><comment><USER24> Keeping something dead for the sake of beauty is a very sad argument when the alternative is the potential for another living planet.

</comment><comment><USER25> Here's a better argument against Terraforming Mars.

Right now we can't.

If we start approaching a state where we can, other arguments become important. Until then it's similar to an argument against bringing people back from the dead.

<comment><USER12> The pageview-linked revenue is quite real and immediate, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If there are no humans around to appreciate the aesthetic value of mars as is, then what's the point? I think human survival trumps the ascetic of a dead planet.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't think most terraforming plans are remotely practical. One sort of compromise solution involves building an enormous ceiling and walls of glass over areas we want to inhabit. It could hold in heat and an atmosphere and would require much less effort to fill than the entire planet. Eventually the entire planet could be covered, but we could leave regions untouched as "nature" preserves.

<comment><USER28> Makes terrorists too powerful, everyone living under one dome.

<comment><USER27> Perhaps every square mile could be walled off separately so if one area fails the others would be ok.

<comment><USER28> Yeah. Even without maliciousness, it would be good to have airlocked subsections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This formula could be used to argue literally anything.

</comment><comment><USER30> Hmmm if we had the power to bring water to the Sahara Desert and make it bloom would we not do it for aesthetic reasons? The Sahara has been bountiful in the past. There are plenty of other bodies in the solar system to leave in their "natural state" whereas Mars' current condition is more a matter of coincidental timing than of it's being a timeless Platonic object.

</comment><comment><USER31> This sounds like humans are born to be enemies of nature as they inevitably reshapes what nature looks like. But humans are part of nature, and the symbiosis of human and environments led to the co-existence of beauty and ugliness today.

However, I do think Terraforming Mars could be a bad idea. Technology-wise it is unclear it's easier than transforming human ourselves (say cybernetics).

</comment><comment><USER32> These are indeed "arguments". There is an actual reason though. Mars cannot be terraformed because it has no magnetosphere. Which is also probably why it is like it is now in the first place. Creating a magnetosphere is not impossible theoretically but vastly unrealistic at this time.

<comment><USER33> The lack of a magnetosphere is less of an issue than popular science claims it is.

The current atmosphere weighs about 25 terratonnes[1] and MAVEN estimated solar wind is removing 100 grams/sec[2]. That's an annual loss rate of 0.12 parts per billion (10e-10). A thicker atmosphere might strip more quickly, but we only want to thicken it by 2 orders of magnitude. Even if the loss fraction increases quadratically with pressure at 0m altitude, that gets you 10e-6, a millionth o your atmosphere per year, or about 1% every 10,000 years.

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

[2]: [https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals- spee...](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-speed-of- solar-wind-stripping-martian-atmosphere/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Should we terraform Mars is well on its way to being an irrelevant question. Launch costs keep getting cheaper, and there are low-energy (if long) paths between Earth and Mars. The only question is how long before some person or small group decides Mars terraforming is getting started, _now_.

</comment><comment><USER35> We have to terraform Earth first incase of climate chaos surely?

</comment><comment><USER36> Terraforming Mars is our Manifest destiny.

</comment><comment><USER37> tl;dr Mars is pretty and if we terraform it then that will change its appearance. Good people don't break pretty things, and we want to be good people, so we shouldn't terraform Mars.

<comment><USER38> Yeah, this seems to be yet another of the misanthropic arguments about how nature is inherently good, and how humanity is inherently corrupting, without making any attempt to justify these beliefs.

<comment><USER39> I think it's more narcissistic than misanthropic; it presupposes that we are something distinct and apart from the "natural" world. A bird building a nest is "natural", a human building a house is "un-natural". In this worldview, we are a fundamentally and categorically unique kind of living thing. Our behaviour is not that of a highly evolved mammal, but of a lesser god.

<comment><USER19> In as much as we resemble cancer, yes, I struggle to see how the human species works in harmony with the rest of nature, as it exists on Earth. If we want to say we're a part of nature, we should consider modifications that are improvements or at least not wholesale dismantling of planet-wide ecosystems, all in the neurotic hope that science will come in at the last moment or save the day. Or guns will. Or spaceships will. None of them seem likely to. At least not save anything beyond the dregs at the bottom of the barrel.

<comment><USER39> Before all the cyanobacteria turned up, earth had a nice inert atmosphere. They start with their newfangled photosynthesis and suddenly the atmosphere is full of this horribly reactive oxygen stuff. Now the planet is crawling with life, irreparably damaging the unspoilt beauty of our natural geology. You can hardly find a piece of rock on the planet that doesn't have algae or lichen all over it. Cyanobacteria ruined this planet for their own selfish ends.

<comment><USER40> Not to mention that they caused a massive extinction, eradicating most species that can't handle oxygen, except a few survivors that stuck to a few low- oxygen niches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I don't understand why the same people who want to terraform mars claim climate change is soon to be irreversible (which they seem to have been saying since the 60's).

<comment><USER42> We are really good at warming planets up. That's what you need to transform Mars. We not that good at cooling planets. That's what you need to save the Earth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Mediocre People inventing fairy tales to not look as cowardly as they are besides ambitious people.

The problem is, that the writer of such a piece, after completing it- turns around to a humanity hungry for a next, risky, feet. So hungry in fact, it would vote for a mad man to axe the risk avoider caste.

So our writer turns around and exclaims "Sorry, no big feets available today, maybe you all should relax and come back for a nth-chance tomorrow."

Now, where else to turn too? Those claiming to be pro-risky steps? Mostly company cronys, who marketing crowned with "bold moves High-Performers" but who got where they are, by constant small incremental steps, and putting up arbitrary expensive obsticles behind them, to keep a little privacy.

Imagine sheparding a asteroid with a tug-drone from the belt into moon-orbit, how much this price winning inbred hunting-dog-show would wail to avoid the chase, while those with nothing too lose and everything to gain, would be busy drilling in a high-rad, zero-g environment.

This is why we got Trump, and will get Trump again, Incarnation after Incarnation, because this species always voted pro-risk once the mamoth was eaten.</comment>


Synthesizing Constants - <AUTHOR> https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1636 <comment><USER2> > In this piece I want to discuss an aspect of program synthesis that sounds > like it should be easy, but isn't: synthesizing constant values.

Funny, I had always thought of it this way: I was expecting that the compiler engineers had just hardcoded a couple of constant synthesis rules and left it at that.</comment>


A Tale of Two Communities: Diggers Vs Redditers - <AUTHOR> http://www.mushon.com/spr09/nmrs/02/10/a-tale-of-two-communities-diggers-vs-redditers/

<comment><USER2> Overall, this article is of pretty low quality. Poor spelling, poor grammar, and near-zero insight. Also, the content is somewhat inaccurate. I don't read Digg any more, so I can't speak to the accuracy of its summary, but I still do use reddit, and I have to say that the list is missing at least two popular reddit topics: hating Israel and hating police. And hating Digg very rarely comes up.

I'm not really sure who the target audience of this article is, but I can't imagine that it's HN.</comment>


Google Asks for Summary Judgment on Copyright Damages; Oracle Wants a New Jury - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120513090905301

<comment><USER2> And the obligatory alternate viewpoint (likely less popular, but useful if you want balanced perspective in combination): [http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/oracle-and-google-make- co...](http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/oracle-and-google-make- competing.html)

<comment><USER3> "Balanced"?

Florian Müller is an obvious anti-Android/anti-Google trolling FUD-ster and on top of that he currently has a consulting relationship with Oracle. Reading his side of anything Google related for "balance" is sort of like watching Fox News to "balance" the supposed liberal slant of mainstream media.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Judge Alsup: I said, you can make your pitch to the jury. This is being sprung on me... if you want to say to the jury that you're asking for hundreds of millions of dollars for nine lines of code, you can do that if you want. I'm not going to blurt out some ruling now. I took back what I said yesterday: if you want to make out a case for infringer's profits based on nine lines of code and seven files that aren't even part of the Android system, well, that's an extremely weak proposition, but I can't tell you it's illegal as a matter of law. It could be I'd be surprised by some statement in a decision somewhere...._

I'm starting to really like Judge Alsup. Mostly for being an extremely sarcastic bastard.</comment>


Munich considers switching back from Linux to Microsoft software - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sueddeutsche.de%2Fmuenchen%2Fmuenchner-stadtverwaltung-von-microsoft-zu-linux-und-zurueck-1.2090611&edit-text= <comment><USER2> I imagine Microsoft would be fighting tooth and nail over this one. They know that letting a first "success story of migrating to Linux/open source" could start a whole avalanche of such stories. From a PR point of view, it has been a pretty big hit to Microsoft, I think.

That being said, any major "switch" is going to cause a lot of complaints, if it's not done as smoothly as possible. Linux/open source software could be a lot more successful in areas where the users are "new", such as schools, or new government agencies, and so on.

I also feel that the governments aren't making nearly a strong of a case for open source software as they could be making. National security, much lower cost in the long term, giving back to the communities by using software that's paid with taxpayer money, rather than sending the taxpayer money into a private entity blackhole, that isn't even from the country, and is likely to use tax loopholes to pull the money out of the local branches, too. - all of these are reasons they could be pushing a lot more.</comment>


The Pyrex Glass Controversy That Won't Die - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/the-pyrex-glass-controversy-that-just-wont-die-1833040962 <comment><USER2> It happens to a lot of brands. Private equity investors sniff out a name brand that has a lot of customer trust, but management that's probably weak after years of profit and not paying attention. They buy out the company and strip out all the costly materials, fire staff, sell off inventory.

The brand changes, but customers don't know it until your Breyer's ice cream has a label that says it's "frozen dairy dessert product", or your Twinkies are 10% smaller, or your Pyrex glass pans start shattering. Then you wonder what happened to your beloved childhood / family brand you trusted.

Capitalism is what happened. But things come and go, and hopefully newer, better things will take their place.

(By the way, the story of what happened to Twinkies is more interesting, and not just the negative story of a company cheapening out its product for profit's sake. There was a lot of dysfunction/waste in that product line.)

<comment><USER3> This is basically what happened to Tim Hortons in Canada. They used to actually bake things on site, now it's all reheated from frozen deliveries of sub-par donuts and baked products.

It's been riding on patriotism and brand loyalty for 15+ years now.

<comment><USER4> At this point, though, I don't know many people who go there out of patriotism or brand loyalty.

They mostly go there because it's convenient and it's cheap enough, and quality is usually acceptable given the price. I sometimes get coffee there not because I'm expecting something great, but because I need a quick infusion of caffeine-containing liquid and Tim's is 10 meters from my front door while everything else is further.

In my mind, Tim Hortons is all about location. They're everywhere. And even if the quality is mediocre, at least it's consistently mediocre so I know what I'm getting. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Protip: You can tell soda-lime from borosilicate by using a homemade polarimeter. [1] Get a pair of polarizing sunglasses, and hold them in front of a computer monitor at such an angle that the screen looks black. Hold the cookware in between the glasses and the screen. You should now be able to see the screen (see my synchronicitous comment [2] yesterday about the link here to quantum mechanics). If you see a checkerboard pattern, you are holding tempered soda-lime. (The pattern is due to the tempering process.)

Soda-lime also has a distinctive greenish tinge when viewed edgewise. Borosilicate is clear.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=2746878#p27468...](https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=2746878#p2746878)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19406122](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19406122)

<comment><USER6> That's wild, thanks! I tried with a couple of my pieces (although they do say "not polarimeter safe") and they did have some noticeable brightness gradients, though I hesitate to call them patterns.

What DID stand out looked like brown scorch marks or stellar jets/magnetic poles. I don't think they were really scorch marks, but it was striking just how brown that tiny area was.

Edit: got a picture but it's more of a red and blue interplay than just brown.

[http://imgur.com/a/0xRlg9D](http://imgur.com/a/0xRlg9D)

Maybe it's the rgb of the monitor. And I have seen similar colors in windshield polarization. It makes more sense if you rotate the glasses and watch the brown and blue flow through the patterns

<comment><USER5> That's definitely soda-lime. (Judging both by the pattern and the logo.) The reason for that pattern according to the source I linked above is that that is the shape of the air jets used for cooling the glass during tempering. Windshield glass shows the same patterns for the same reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Corning employee Jessie Littleton discovered a new use for the material > after his wife Bessie used a sawed-off borosilicate glass battery jar for > baking.

Sounds more like Bessie discovered the new use, not Jessie.

EDIT: The Corning Museum of Glass credits them both- while noting that it was Jesse's idea to try it.

[https://pyrex.cmog.org/content/littletons](https://pyrex.cmog.org/content/littletons)

Incidentally the Corning Museum of Glass has an a YouTube channel worth checking out. They have a bunch of long, well-shot glass artists doing some incredible work, start to finish- good videos to play in the background while working on other things.

<comment><USER8> I second that, the CMOG channel is great. They have high production quality (especially consider the constraints of the glass shop) and really talented artists / craftspeople.

Bill Gudenrath's series on Venetian glassware is particularly fun because he's such a craftsman but also a fascinating teacher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you want _proper_ Pyrex, just go to ebay or a European site, and find British (second hand) or French Pyrex.

It's all still borosilicate glass. Helpfully the brand logos are slightly different for the different countries, so it should be easy to spot.

It seems daft to me to take away the main selling point of the stuff by starting to make it with cheap glass.

EDIT: Infographic with dates and the different logos: [http://www.biggreenpurse.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/01/Pyre...](http://www.biggreenpurse.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/01/Pyrex-infographic_optimized.png)

<comment><USER10> If you want proper borosilicate glass, just go to a company that has been honest with their branding.

I've found SIMAX ([https://www.kavalier.cz/en/simax- home.html](https://www.kavalier.cz/en/simax-home.html)) to be a good one personally. Made in the Czech Republic by a glass company that still makes labware, and as best I can tell, _everything_ they make out of glass is borosilicate. Even the flower vases.

<comment><USER11> How can you tell? It says made in czech rep but nothing about type of glass.

<comment><USER12> [https://www.kavalier.cz/en/simax-professional/simax- glass.ht...](https://www.kavalier.cz/en/simax-professional/simax-glass.html)

"Simax glass ranks among the types of glass of the group of clear "hard" borosilicate glass "3.3", which excel in a high heat and chemical resistance and which are defined by international ČSN ISO 3585 Standard. It complies to the full with the properties prescribed by these standards."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Based on reports made to the company and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, less than one tenth of one percent of the millions of Pyrex products sold each year experience thermal breakage"

So, that's potentially thousands of people experiencing this each year? Not a record I would be proud of....

<comment><USER14> Also, how many people bother to report a broken baking dish or whatever? Figure the reality is at least 10x worse.

<comment><USER15> This is my small batch, artisanal data: As an avid baker and engineer, over the last decade I've had two pieces of cast iron catastrophically fail vs one piece of borosilicate. I'm not sure if that makes metal twice as dangerous, or if people maybe report things breaking disproportionately to the manufactured volume...

I will say feeding my future father in law a glass casarole was not a strong move.

<comment><USER16> > I've had two pieces of cast iron catastrophically fail

How does cast iron fail? Was this like a cast iron pan or an enameled dutch oven?

<comment><USER17> Cheap cast has impurities causing expansion rate differences. Cast being brittle will cause that to pop. Also one of the reasons brazing cast is not straightforward

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh interesting. We've lost several pyrex dishes. The first was nine or ten years ago. My wife was baking a raspberry crisp thing (or some red fruit), and the dish cracked into hundreds of little bits before we took it out of the oven. Each bit had sides maybe half a centimeter long. It certainly wasn't caused by a drastic temperature change, unless you count opening the oven. It is very unnerving for your dessert to turn into shards of broken glass. I hope this article gets a wide audience, and business goes to a more deserving company.

<comment><USER19> The glass probably had a scratch at a stress point. It doesn't take much for a slight thermal shock for it to explosively decompose at that point.

<comment><USER20> Oh, so maybe these people are using knives to cut things out of the pans, which causes the initial cracks in the glass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Thanks for the article. I was looking to replace a chipped old Pyrex measuring cup about a month ago and found myself going down this same rathole of research.

It all makes perfect sense as I just naturally assume that all old-school US consumer goods go through the same sequence of events:

1) sell the company, close US factory 2) license the name to a manufacturer in China 3) cost reduce, cost reduce, cost reduce 4) profit!

You could make a good BOLTR-like youtube channel by weighing and measuring changes over time in common products. The KitchenAid mixer would be a good one.

<comment><USER22> AvE has one video on the KitchenAid, if I recall correctly he was actually surprised that it was still pretty well-built.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qKp-0h9P18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qKp-0h9P18)

<comment><USER23> In the early 2000s there was a lot of talk about KitchenAid switching to plastic gear housings. They switched back after a few years either due to backlash or warranty issues.

Here's a cool comparison of wahl hair clippers from 50 years ago and a modern pair:

[http://grathio.com/2016/08/teardown-same-product-fifty- years...](http://grathio.com/2016/08/teardown-same-product-fifty-years-apart/)

<comment><USER24> > due to _backlash_ or warranty issues.

I see what you did there. I suspect it was unintentional, but it's quite pleasing nonetheless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wishful thinking in the article. They say:

 _Amazon Basics sells a pair of borosilicate glass pans for $15._

But _clicking_ on the link to those glass pans finds review comments like this:

"These are not borosilicate"

"glass will crack after minimal use"

"Broke first use"

I've never bought an AmazonBasics product, and I don't think I'm going to start any time soon. In my mind Amazon now stands for "cheap" and "counterfeit". Not a brand name I want to trust any more.

<comment><USER6> The internet is about 50/50 lying companies and idiot users. Amazon likes to consolidate reviews for different products, versions, and sellers together, which makes it impossible to know what you're gonna get without actually ordering it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's true that borosilicate Pyrex is better than the newer stuff, but honestly both are inferior to stoneware, cast iron or stainless steel. You will not find any professional kitchen cooking in glassware.

<comment><USER27> Borosilicate glass (and some aluminosilicate glass-ceramic) is transparent, doesn't leech iron or nickel into the food, is easier to clean since limescale doesn't bind easily to it, doesn't rust when exposed to salty water, can be used in a microwave oven, unlike cast iron and stainless steel.

The only disadvantage is that it shatters if you drop it or hit it with enough force.

<comment><USER28> Iron is a nutrient, though.

<comment><USER29> Indeed, and cast iron pans are specifically employed by vegans for the dietary iron they provide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Yet another casualty of moving production to China. I knew one of the Corning execs who headed up moving everything to China and setting up the factories over there.

At the time, regulatory costs in US were crazy, so plenty of motivation. For example, if an accident occurred in a single factory, OSHA would make all Corning employees everywhere go through training about it, even though the accident involved equipment and processes that only existed at the one plant.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is very timely because I had a Pyrex-type glass lid explode on me today. It was a lid to a Calphalon frying pan,and I was grilling a veggie burger and some onions. I put the lid on and set told Alexa to remind me in 2 minutes.

Just before the alarm sounded: "BOOM" and there were a thousand little pieces of glass everywhere.

I've had this happen when I've heated it unevenly, or when I accidentally put cold water on a hot container, but never in normal use.

I'm wondering if Pyrex hasn't changed, but if cook tops have. Are they hotter or less even than cook tops of the past?

<comment><USER32> Pyrex has definitely changed, in the US at least. Pyrex-branded cookware is no longer made out of Pyrex (borosilicate glass). Which is particularly shameless because the whole reason for Pyrex is that ordinary soda-lime glass, which they're making it from now, isn't suitable for this purpose because its high coefficient of thermal expansion makes it shatter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The lawsuit against those researchers was particularly shameless, in my opinion. Will avoid products from this company in the future.

</comment><comment><USER34> My brother once cut his hand badly when an IKEA glass shattered in his hand while washing it. (Either he was washing a cold glass in hot water, or a hot glass in cold - I forget which).

It resulted in a trip to the hospital for stitches and his still has the scar.

I think they've improved these days, but there was a period where certain IKEA glasswear was very prone to thermal shock.

<comment><USER35> I've had this happen to a friend except it was stacked on top of each other. Trying to pull it apart when stuck ended up breaking the glass with the shard going into their hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The link to safety instructions goes to a geofenced 404 for me in UK. Who puts safety instructions behind a geofence? Somebody scared of European consumer laws, that's who. Not a good look...

<comment><USER37> The European product is different to the American product, so it does make _some_ sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> John C. Mauro does some really cool work, if you're interested in the underlying statistic mechanics of glass, and how to use computers to design better glass.

</comment><comment><USER17> I was doing the melt pepto bismol into bismuth experiment and using a rosebud oxy acetylene tip and found some of the soda lime kind. Also demonstrated why safety glasses are important.

That much temperature caused a pretty good boom with shrapnel when the glass exploded

</comment><comment><USER39> More interesting to me is the same issue with CorningWare[1]. I've used this for microwaving food for decades and I've bought a lot of it off ebay. In fact, that's all I've used ebay for in the last 10+ years. According to the wikipedia page, it suffers from the same borosilicate vs soda-lime issue.

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

<comment><USER40> Corning is one of the companies they are discussing in the article

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence)

[https://www.activesustainability.com/sustainable- development...](https://www.activesustainability.com/sustainable- development/battle-against-planned-obsolescence/)

</comment><comment><USER42> Is it possible to buy new aluminosilicate glass dishware commercially?

For some reason I really want to try cooking directly over a flame with a glass pot.

<comment><USER43> No you don't. Glass is nearly the worst possible material for stovetop cooking. With thermal conductivity roughly 1/70 that of cast iron, it's impossible to cook on a range without burning the food, and that combined with a relatively low heat capacity makes it useless even for searing. On top of that, glass seems to be a uniquely sticky cooking surface. It's far stickier than unseasoned steel or aluminum.

I have several pieces of Visions. I would never, ever use them on a range. I use them exclusively in the oven, where the IR transmittance of the glass is useful, and the uniform surrounding temperature makes the poor thermal conductivity a non-issue.

<comment><USER44> How does lower thermal connectivity cause the food to burn easier?

FWIW, when I was a kid we had pyrex bowls with clip-on handles for stovetop heating. Yes, you wouldn't cook with it, but great for re-heating food.

<comment><USER45> Presumably it causes food to burn easier because the areas directly touching the flame/heating element become the temperature of the heating element, rather than spreading the heat out across the surface of the container.

<comment><USER44> Yeah that makes some sense, but I'm skeptical. Like the sibling comment here, I have glassblowing experience and intuitively since glass changes temperature more slowly it is naturally less prone to hot spots. Also, it is generally thicker than most metal cookware which means more distance between the heating element and the food to disperse the head. Speaking from experience, touching a 250°C oven heating element will generally burn you worse than touching 600°C borosilicate glass, strong spinal reflex from the former notwithstanding.

<comment><USER43> > _...intuitively since glass changes temperature more slowly it is naturally > less prone to hot spots._

You've got it backwards. This is a well-known principle in cookware construction, and it's the whole reason that copper and aluminum clad cookware exists. Al and Cu spread heat more quickly, and thus farther across the pan body before it's conducted or radiated away. Remember that the heat isn't just building up in the pan forever; it's dissipated nearly as fast as it's supplied. The heat is conducted to the food in the pan, and in the case of glass it's also being quickly radiated away due to the material's high emissivity and transparence to IR at low-single-micron wavelengths. Thicker glass is generally even worse just because it takes so long to heat up, so the parts that are farther from the flame never reach cooking temperature, while the closer parts are scorching hot.

Look up any review of cookware where they use thermal imaging, and you'll the see the results of thermal conductivity on heating evenness. A pan that uses a lot of aluminum or copper will have a much more evenly heated surface than a pan made only of cast iron or steel. And glass is a hundred times worse yet.

<comment><USER45> I don't have much experience with cooking, but this sounds correct to me from what I know about thermodynamics. After all, air has much less thermal conductivity than glass, but if you stick a potato over an open flame you expect a spot on the potato to burn, rather than all the air to slowly heat up and heat the potato evenly.

<comment><USER43> In fluids like air, heat transfer is dominated by fluid flow, in the form of convection in the case of cooking over an open fire.

It's useful to think of a piece of cookware as a kind of radiator, because that's essentially what it is. Heat is transferred to food by direct contact, but also by radiation. Pots and pans are shaped perfectly to maximize both radiation and conduction by contact, and thus they experience a very high rate of cooling. This means that if you want evenness of heating, then high thermal conductivity is necessary in order to keep up with the heat loss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Frankly you could go through life assuming any company that sues for "defamation" is the bad guy and me right 95% of the time.

</comment><comment><USER47> Reminds me of an experiment in my undergraduate glass lab. Take soda-lime stirring rods and break 50 or so under 4 point bend test. Record strength.

Take another batch and simply log-roll them along the lab bench for half a meter. Repeat break test. Note the reduction in strength signficant at p=0.05 .

Fracture toughness is a bear.

</comment><comment><USER48> The "pleasing heft" the article mentions is a sign that you have soda-lime glass instead of borosilicate. A few years ago after having a 2-cup soda-lime Pyrex measuring cup explode I order the equivalent from Arcuisine in borosilicate and I was amazed at how much lighter it was.

</comment><comment><USER49> That sucks, I bought Pyrex specifically because I thought it was borosilicate. Never another Pyrex for me. I assume my Pyrex labware is ok.

</comment><comment><USER50> >parent company of Pyrex among others, is planning to merge with Instant Brands, maker of the very popular Instant Pot.

Talk about a highly advertised product.

Before Instant Brands starts spamming 'Mom posts', about how great Pyrex is, expect it to be heavy and burn your hands if it gets hot. My tupperware isnt like this.

<comment><USER29> Advantage I see for glass is that it's rather inert, so you never have to worry about BPA or whatever else leaching into your foods, or it catching on fire or melting. Harder to abrade Pericles into your food.

Also, glass can be scrubbed entirely clean, unlike plastic. When I was diagnosed with celiac disease, I had to throw away most of my dishes that were not glass or metal.

Disadvantages of glass clearly include fragility.</comment></comment>


Party Shuffle: Crowd Sourced Playlist Generation from random guests - <AUTHOR>

http://twostepsleftofnormal.com:22333/<p>Unlike a youtube playlist edited by User X, this is meant to be convenient for a completely random group of people with smartphones (aka: no user accounts needed) to control a playlist running on 1 machine from X machines. <comment><AUTHOR> Setup a production aws server, with domain name: [http://partyshuffle.us/](http://partyshuffle.us/)</comment>


Ask HN: Am I ridiculous for finding 8 hours of work as a coder, ridiculous? - <AUTHOR> I work 10am until 6pm every day and I have a lot of endeavors I'd like to partake in post-work, everyone else on the team just works and then chills after work.
Ideally I'd work 6 hours a day, from home with no breaks (obviously a 10-15m lunch) but that's it.
3 hours of mine are wasted every day. 1.5 hour commute/getting read, 1.5 hours lunch + various breaks.
So essentially 8 hours of work, and an extra 1.5 hours of wasted time, taking up 9.5 hours of my day. I could be saving 3.5 hours per day (that's a full month and 5 days every year!)
It just seems ridiculous to me as I've already had two really successful remote roles and the dynamic / team size / software stack is the exact same as previous startups I've worked at.
I'm their first hire and the founders come from a corporate culture so they just do all the same corporate stuff, meanwhile me and the employees are dying and I'm really feeling like quitting. I am cleaning up the mess of their old developers of the past 5 years, I am very good and in one month I have already completely rehauled their entire product myself. I have the stones, the problem is I am very very young and tend not to get taken seriously.
Time is MUCH more valuable to me than money. The money just goes in my account and investments, I don't really go out or drink or anything so that money to me is just future time.
What should I do? <comment><USER2> You have learnt a valuable lesson whilst early in your career. When you consider a job opportunity you have to take into account many factors that are important to you but might not be to the employer. Factors such as your travel time, company culture, remote working, free soda and so forth.

You have three options...

1, Accept it and get on with the job. (Seems like you are not likely to go with this)

2, Request/persuade boss to let you remote work. (Seems unlikely if they have a corporate culture)

3, Look for another job that does match your desires. (Should be easy as you have 'the stones')

</comment><comment><USER3> _What should I do?_

You should probably look for another position elsewhere that is more suited to your requirements. It's not like it's difficult to find work as a talented developer, and there are many opportunities available – as remote workers for startups, or contractors for example.

That said, I'd caution:

 _I am very good and in one month I have already completely rehauled their entire product myself. I have the stones, the problem is I am very very young and tend not to get taken seriously._

This makes you sound arrogant, to put it mildly. You almost certainly didn't do what you describe; it might be worth taking a step back and more realistically evaluating your strengths and weaknesses.

I'm also skeptical that you indeed work for 6 hours with a minimal 15 minute break for lunch – and if you are, it's almost certainly not healthy (physically or mentally).

<comment><AUTHOR> I converted a crappy old PHP code base to a modern one by breaking down their product and re-building it, re-using assets as I needed. It took a lot of time and extra work but I did just that.

You flatter me by thinking that comment comes from a place of arrogance. Assume the aforementioned codebase is complete garbage coded by two non- programmers. It's an MVP essentially.

It's not like I worked somewhere like Facebook and re-did their infrastructure. I remade the work of two business guys.

Why? You just sit there and work, 6 hours isn't a very long time. Maybe I have a unique ability to stay focused for hours on end.

<comment><USER4> Really? After looking at your post history, I found this.

>I've lost the ability to focus on a single task for hours at a time like I used to as a kid. Even if it excites me. My attention has been completely ruined by social media and I don't know how to recover. Always some sort of chat or something in the background. I really don't know what to do, should I get counselling or something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, in my hobbies. Work is a context where I have to force myself regardless of how I feel or I get fired. Motivating yourself to be equally disciplined in your hobbies where there is no incentive to do so is much more difficult. Stop attempting to dismantle me and post a proper reply instead, otherwise we're done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> With so much patting-yourself-on-the-back, I couldn't begin to tell you what you should do. Actually, my advise is to stop patting yourself on the back.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the condescending comment. Really helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You say you are 'very very young'. I worked extra hours for awhile (even if I didn't get paid for these extra hours), just so I can get the experience needed for a better job.

But, pretty much every job is 8 hours. If it's not 8 hours, it's more..not less. You will need to get used to this.

If you want flexibility, become a contractor. You can then work 6 hours every day.

I got tired of this as well, so I started my own company.

<comment><AUTHOR> >You will need to get used to this.

No, I won't, because I've _already had_ two roles that match my criteria, and the conditions at this job don't warrant a mandatory 8 hours per day. We're not doing repetitive tasks that don't have an end in sight. It's win-win on both ends. I get more work done because I'm more motivated and relaxed in my day-to-day life and as a result, their product improves.

There's really no bullshitting in my company. We don't go out, or take excessive breaks, we just work with our music on and barely talk _all day_. It's really quite exhausting. It's not that we don't like each other or anything, we all just come from super corporate F100 companies.

<comment><USER7> At "super corporate" companies people are at their desks for 8 hours, but hardly anyone is working that much. It's all a game of pretending to be working hard (desks where people walking by can't see your screen are highly sought-after).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why don't you go work for a big four company? They'll pay more than enough to live a good lifestyle for a young person, you can get an apartment within walking distance/five minute commute. They offer plenty of life/time saving services. If you're as good as you say, you can absolutely get by working less than 8 hours a day.

</comment><comment><USER9> I know two competent people who have gone from working full time hours to working two to three hours a day from home for only a small reduction in pay.

Both quit their jobs to become freelancers, and mentioned to their bosses on the way out that they would available for consulting. They were then contracted in at more than 4x their previous hourly pay.

</comment><comment><USER10> I was once in a similar situation. The culture of the company was corporate, and I was fixing legacy code (and getting blamed for bugs I didn't introduce). I was also working long hours.

Start looking for a new job. If you don't find one, no big deal -- you're just in the same position. If you do find one, you might be able to correct the problems you're feeling and avoid burnout.

If you really get to a breaking point, don't quit right away. Tell your bosses that you'll be forced to quit if working conditions don't change, but there are things they can do to keep you (better hours, remote work, etc.)

<comment><USER11> >Tell your bosses that you'll be forced to quit if working conditions don't change …

If you put your boss over a barrel like that he'll make the changes you want... long enough to replace you. It's better to be a little less direct - "I want you to know I'm really unhappy with this situation." The implied threat is still there, but your boss won't feel like he's giving in to blackmail if he gives you what you want.

<comment><AUTHOR> I currently only have one chip, which is the pay cut I took to work here. If I use that chip right away, it screams entitlement, which is only compounded by my age. I need to finish the rest of their product and really wrap everything up and prove my worth in relation to their previous developers with hard numbers. Then I need to convince the other employees to side with me.

Only then I can play a full hand instead of pleading and begging and being at their mercy.

The first chip only benefits me. The first two benefit me and the founders. All three benefit everyone in the company.

I think I'll sit on it for awhile longer and go with this strategy. It's perfect because it makes sense for everyone, and if they reject it I know it's not the right company for me because at that level, that decision would be coming from a place of fear, and that's not somewhere I want to work.

<comment><USER12> >Then I need to convince the other employees to side with me.

This seems like a bit much. Why involve the other employees?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't want to magically be the only one who gets to be special and work from home. There's only a few of us, we're in a shared office with our laptops. They've also voiced their discontent.

<comment><USER13> Try easing into it with a "everyone gets 1 WorkFromHome day a week" policy. If there is an enterprisey vacation-planning tool you use already, WFH can be added as a special kind of vacation. This means the managers can approve WFH requests so that, e.g. not everyone works from home the same day of the week.

<comment><USER14> Since WFH breaks in person coordination, you actually probably are better off with the whole team doing it at the same time. I mean, for something like software development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd work on being more humble, and open-minded, especially considering your lack of experience. This is one of the more ridiculous posts I've read on HN.

<comment><USER16> Maybe you should practice what you preach. I'm 34 now and I'd side with the OP on this.

I did a similar thing on my first job: took their web app codebase and totally remade it in the first couple of months, with demonstrable gains on efficiency (Mind it: it was the first web application made by some guys whose previous experience was in Sybase PowerBuilder). I was given a raise the same week I demoed it to my bosses.

I still do programming and I'm still being humbled frequently by the awesome things some of my younger coworkers code effortlessly.

I also share with OP the impression that 8 hours coding as a daily thing is totally overkill. That's suited for factory work where every minute you're not cranking out stuff means losses.

My 'sweet spot' for coding seems to top at 4 hours, a few hours resting and then maybe another couple hours at the end of the day if I feel like I found a better way to do it.

Fortunately I have flexible hours where I work, but I'm still suppossed to put in 8h every day. The result is: when things go well, I complete my tasks and are left with at least 3 hours a day where I'm supposed to be working (so: no relax, no rest, you're on the clock); and when things are not going so well, mostly due to planning mistakes from high up, I have to put in my 8 hours, and then some more.

So please, go tell to be more open-minded to the right people, and let people work to the best of their abilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What you should do is let your bosses know that you're not happy in the current situation. Be reasonable but on the other hand do make clear that if the situation does not improve, you will start looking for another job. But tell them that you would regret that because there are also many aspects of your job which you like. (assuming of course that this is the case)

And then, if things still don't get better, switch jobs!

<comment><USER18> Nice, Polite, but Direct. I'll always recommend this type of way when facing conflict.

Speak your problems logically and show that you've given some thought to them when you talk with your boss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> You're right that it is difficult, probably infeasible, to program productively for 8 hours per day. But there's value for a youngster like yourself in toughening up and working a crappy job for some time. When you go back to a better situation, hopefully you will appreciate it more.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was in this situation, now I'm contracting with Surge, working 100% remotely, making my own hours. There are days where I work 4 hours, and days that I work 12. I enjoy not commuting, being able to work out in the middle of the day, take my daughter to the park, cook lunch, etc.

<comment><USER21> In stackoverflow, there is a job advertisement: [http://stackoverflow.com/jobs/15018/hiring-senior- software-e...](http://stackoverflow.com/jobs/15018/hiring-senior-software- engineers-surge)

The sentence is very important NO OFFSHORE CANDIDATES

<comment><USER22> This is so ridiculous:

        .NET / C#

        Node.JS

        Java

        PHP

        Ruby

        Python

        C++

        Objective C

        Android

        Windows Desktop (WCF, MVVM)

        BS in Computer Science

What exactly are they doing with all these languages? :)

<comment><USER23> It says _One or more of the following skillsets is also required_

You wouldn't necessarily be doing all of those things every day- I'm assuming they go out and find short-term work then assign it to you and you do it. So you could be doing just about anything.

As a side note; I'm only a few years into my career and have extensive experience with a vast majority of those technologies/frameworks, and picking up a new one is a cinch if you just put the time in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've read advice from someone a while ago about this topic. The gist was that you have to ease your bosses into letting you work from home.

Start with the odd day like when you're sick or when there is a single day between weekend and holiday. Prove that you can do the same or more work this way.

Once you convinced them that your remote working does no harm or even helps, you can extend things.

</comment><comment><USER25> Welcome to the absurdity of life champ.

</comment><comment><USER26> You are not being ridiculous and don't let people hate on you.

1\. I see expert programming similar to Mathematics.[1] If you can do two 2-3 hour spurts that produces a ton, it can be draining and you need time to recharge. It's generally better to do a smaller amount of excellent work when programming than a lot of easier busy work. One star feature or optimization or whatever built right can have a much larger impact than hours of crap work in the wrong direction.

2\. In this day in age of material production, why someone with a valuable skill can't earn a decent living with less than 40 hours a week work is kind of pathetic. Don't feel bad if that is what you want. If you are providing value to the company, that is the primary thing, not how many hours your butt is in a chair. Also, this relates to #4.

3\. Time in the office can be valuable. I wouldn't dismiss it entirely. It makes communication a ton easier and can build a better sense of team in people, but remote should be acceptable too (at least part time). Inability to handle remote probably signals a weak team.

4\. Most founders are closer to the VCs than to you. Know what the cap table looks like and what your reasonable exits look like. If you are as talented as you say, make sure you aren't getting screwed. First hire should at least be in the 2-3 percent range and that can still be a screw job if you are providing so much value as to build out their entire tech stack. Remember, most likely exit is none, and then most likely is middle of the road (Founders make $5-10M each, you make what? At 1/20 = $250-500k) Over four years, really as much as you are probably giving up if you worked for a big company (including stock and bonus and more salary). So 50% chance nothing, 40% chance same as you would have made +/\- a bit, 10% chance you make double, triple? .1-1% chance FU money. The founders will probably be flying lear jets before you buy a house. There's a lot of fucking stupid people getting a lot of money, so keep this in mind. [2, 3] Just because people are founders doesn't mean they are competent, just means a slightly above average chance, like going to a good school.

The fact their previous team of developers left is a red flag. The fact that other employees have issues in a small team is a red flag. "Corporate" founders with other people building their tech? Your biggest issue may not be remote but the possible turd of a startup you are working at. 5 years? Startup years are like dog years, how is the company still alive and not growing. Sounds like a small lifestyle business calling itself a startup.

While other people are trashing your arogance, I sympathize. Keep moving until you find a place that feels right, where you respect the people you are working with, and where you feel you are valued and earning or learning or living the way you want. It's your life, don't let other people tell you how to live it.

[1] [http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/08/31/henri-poincares- four-h...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/08/31/henri-poincares-four-hour- work-day/)

[2] [http://nextshark.com/8-reasons-clinkles-lucas-duplan-is- the-...](http://nextshark.com/8-reasons-clinkles-lucas-duplan-is-the-worst- startup-founder-ever/)

[3] [https://www.quora.com/Why-do-so-many-people-want-to-see- Clin...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-so-many-people-want-to-see-Clinkle- fail/answer/Michael-O-Church)

</comment><comment><USER27> It really seems unlikely that the situation will change in your current workplace. Best to start searching for something more fitting to your wishes. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER28> >First hire...old developers of the past 5 years

Are they used to working with contractors? If so they just might need to be educated on the difference between FTEs & guns for hire.

<comment><USER29> >FTE

Fuck The Engineers

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you're the first hire, who were the old developers you're cleaning up after.

</comment><comment><USER31> You don't have to stay... You can find a remote job...

<comment><USER32> It's our market. If you are even an average coder you can have the pick of the market.</comment></comment>


NASA explores inflatable spacecraft technology - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2015-01-nasa-explores-inflatable-spacecraft-technology.html

<comment><USER2> Not far enough. Why not make an inflatable habitat? Two layers of flexible material with a meter of water between (to block radiation). Cone-shaped, more-rigid bottom (perhaps made rigid by ice), towed by a nuclear rocket on the other end of a 1km cable to avoid fallout from exhaust. Live in a large, lighted, artificial-gravity hotel while travelling to Mars.

<comment><USER3> Bigelow Aerospace has the technology for building inflatable space station modules quite far actually, and has test flown them unmanned.</comment></comment>


Did you know: In NYC, yellow cabs are required to take you anywhere in NYC. - <AUTHOR>

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/passenger/taxicab_rights.shtml
I think more people need to be aware that in NYC the yellow cabs are required to take you anywhere you want to go in NYC (any of the 5 boroughs).  They cannot refuse to to take you.  As long as they do not have passengers and are not 'off duty', they have to pull over and take you.
"It is against the law to refuse a person based on race, disability, or a destination in New York City. A taxicab driver is required to drive a passenger to any destination in the five boroughs.  You can make a refusal complaint by calling 3-1-1."  - http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/passenger/faq_pass.shtml#21
What does this mean?  This means you don't need to ask the driver if they go to a certain destination in NYC.  They are required to.  Don't make the mistake of standing and talking to the driver outside of the cab.  Get in and then tell them where you want to go.  If they lock the door and/or drive off, remember their cab number (on the sides/back) and file a complaint.
Why do they not want to take you to a destination?  There are any number of reasons.  One of them is probably since it's a long route and they make more money taking people to shorter and more profitable routes.  However, it's illegal for them to refuse.
Cabs are supposed to make your live easier and get you to your destination quicker, but yet I still see people make the mistake of accepting that a cab does not go to their destination.  In NYC, all of NYC can be your destination!
Why am I posting this?  Yesterday I saw a guy (non-threatening, white, well dressed) get refused by a cab and it seems like he probably got refused by a couple of cabs prior to that.  I didn't take the opportunity to share this information with him as I was in a hurry.  I figure to make up for it, I'll share it with NH since some of you guys may be in NYC too and are not aware of this information. <comment><USER2> Just because there are rules saying that something should happen, does not mean in reality that the thing will happen.

Reasons why cab drivers could not pick you up: 1.) shift change in 15 minutes. So they can take you 15 minutes away but they can't drive an hour into Brooklyn and miss their shift change. 2.) Car maintenance, refueling. If the car is running low on fuel they can pick people up on short drives towards the gas station but it wouldn't make sense for them to go the opposite way.

I am all for dialing 3-1-1 and think people should, however sometimes knowing the full context will take you from being upset at the cab driver to being understanding.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe the law is also to prevent discrimination.

How does one know the true reason a cab might refuse to take you? Sex? Race? Age? What if a cab took a white guy (non-threatening looking) to a location, but refused to take a black guy (also non-threatening looking) to the same location?

Yes, there are valid reasons like shift ending, etc, but perhaps they could have signs stating their hours.

<comment><USER3> It's almost always between 4:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon. If you need to catch a cab at that time in Midtown, it's time to find a hotel queue.

<comment><USER4> Yup, has happened to me. They wouldn't go too far out of Manhattan, midtown exactly, because they're getting ready to clock out and leave midtown. Was supremely annoying, in the rain. And I was only going uptown about 20 blocks. After three refusals, I wasn't so open about my destination when I just got into the next one. I was thinking to myself, "what a crock of sh*t, I can't get a cab between 4:00 and 4:30?! In Manhattan?!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Similar rules in London, UK. And, I suppose, most cities.

The standard way to hail a cab in London is to lean in the passenger window when the cab pulls up to you, tell 'em where you're going and then they unlock the doors and you get in.

A couple of times I had people say they weren't going that way, etc. Once I said "I know you have to take me!" but there's not a lot you can do when they say "feck off you cahnt" and drive off. By the time the next day rolls around it's just not worth the effort to file a complaint.

On the other hand, as many times as that happened, I had cab drivers say that they were on the way home, heading in the same direction as I was, and so they stopped the meter early and I got a discount. I also got meters stopped early a few times for showing them a totally awesome short cut near where I lived.

<comment><USER6> Last week I was refused a cab from the south side of Blackfriars Bridge to Leicester Square, because the driver said it was "too busy" in central London right now. (Fortunately the cab behind him accepted us, and it didn't seem "too busy" at all.) Didn't know this rule applied, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a great book on NY cab drivers and their tricks from someone who worked there a while, the one catch is it's written in Russian as it is authored by an immigrant from the Soviet Union:

<http://fictionbook.ru/author/lobas_vladimir/jieltiye_koroli/>

It came out in the late 80s but the rules and the medallion system haven't really changed. The book describes the business and the psychology of drivers in-depth.

The book helped reinforce two opinions I hold:

Cab drivers are for the most part scumbags. I can't wait for self-driving cars and automated cab service.

"Political exiles" from the Soviet Union are for the most part scumbags (the author of the book is a "dissident" who worked as a propagandist at Radio Liberty but took up cabbying because that wasn't paying enough).

Now as to how this relates to the parent:

There are four reasons why a cabbie won't pick up passengers in NYC (these have been mentioned in various replies here):

1\. Going from the city to the boroughs is a waste of time for cabbies.

2\. Cabbies parked in front of hotels only want airport fares.

3\. Cabbies racially profile for certain categories of people that have a reputation for paying their fares, tipping well, and unlikely to be muggers. This also depends on the time of day and pickup location.

4\. In the 80s certain parts of the city were unsafe (going to Harlem meant being pelted with rocks and getting carjacked; not an exaggeration). Again, depending on who is going and time of day, there is still risk even today.

Yeah, robot cabbies, can't wait for them.

</comment><comment><USER8> While it may technically be true that a cab has to take you anywhere within city limits, it seems to me that it is only polite to ask first before you ask to go someplace out of the way.

On the occasions where I wanted to use a cab to go from Manhattan to Brooklyn or an airport, I always ask first. Most of the time, they say ok, and it's all good. Once in a while (maybe 1/4 of the time) the driver refused. I'm fine with that, you can usually catch another cab within a few minutes -- one who will be happy to serve you.

These guys work long hours and I do not view it is as my right to force them to provide me with service. The law is probably a good one. That said, I believe a certain level of consideration on the part of customer would also be nice.

<comment><USER9> It's not easy for everyone to catch a cab in New York, and unfortunately the unlucky ones are more likely to be going to "somewhere out of the way". Better to prohibit discrimination for all reasons, not that it helps me even though I live in Midtown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am fully aware of this rule, and I have a strategy to deal with it.

The last time I had trouble I was trying to get a ride from the Javits to Queens. Having a friend helped. First we would take a picture of the cab as it approached, getting the number on the roof and proof that he was on duty.

What guys will do who refuse you, but know they aren't allowed to, is switch their on/off duty light. If you tell them you are going to report them and have a picture, they might suck it up and give you the ride.

If they refuse, call 311.

On a moderately related note, did you know that it is a violation of a merchant account agreement for anyone who accepts a credit card as payment to have a minimum charge or to charge you a different price because you chose to pay by credit/debit? If someone is giving you trouble, call the number on the back of the credit card to report them.

<comment><USER11> On your second point, I'd like to ask if that applies to gas stations as well. Because many of them display in big numbers a price that is reserved for cash, while a higher one (~10-15c more a gallon) for credit. Is it illegal?

On a related note, I also believe (no link or citation sorry) that there can't be a maximum on the amount you want to pay with credit. For example, car dealerships tend to say they can only accept up to a certain amount to be put on a credit card, even though the agreements with credit card companies say they can't do that.

<comment><USER10> None of it is illegal. It's just a violation of the merchant account agreement. The worst that can happen if you complain is that they will lose the ability to accept credit cards at all.

<comment><USER12> In many states, including New York, California, Colorado, and a few others, it is actually a crime for them to add a surcharge to a credit card transaction.

For example, in New York, levying a surcharge is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500, one year in prison, or both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The other problem is even though this is the law, I have had friends who avoid taxi's who don't want to take them because of that sense of hostility.

Unless I'm desperate for a cab, normally I would just find a new one. It's not like SF where there's no way you'll ever find a cab, NY they're so abundant

</comment><comment><USER14> My experience is that if you do not look like a white yuppie, cabs won't even stop for you to refuse service, especially at night. I once grew a goatee that made me look Hispanic, and I couldn't hail a cab at night to save my life.

I was upset about this and even once filed a complaint with the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) after a cab slowed down, looked at me, then sped away to pick up a white guy down the street. However, for the complaint to result in a sanction, you have to show up at the TLC court to testify, or the complaint is tossed. I didn't want to spend a day in TLC court so I didn't follow up.

When it got warmer, I shaved my goatee and stopped wearing my leather jacket. Magically, I then got picked up every time. I was disgusted by this and now I take cabs only in extremis.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know when you filed your complaint. However, you can attend the hearing over the phone. You just call and everything is all set on the other end. The driver (and his lawyer) has to be present.

My coworker had his hearing over the phone a few weeks ago.

<comment><USER15> Agreed. My mother-in-law owns a NYC cab. They get hit with complaints all the time...even when its not them and the person had the wrong cab number.

Cab drivers are guilty till proven innocent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Thank you for posting this, could be useful to someone.

But let me remind you that this post does not fall within the general guidelines for HN posting. For your reference:

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

Hacker News Guidelines

What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off- topic.

<comment><USER17> This is on topic and you wouldn't have objected if he put "start-up transportation advice for newbies to NYC"in the heading or the first line.

This is a good tip for anyone who is working or having meetings in NYC. Getting around the city trying to meet clients or partners can be tricky and if you're in a hurry you don't have time to argue if the cab driver can get you there or not.

<comment><USER17> Or further down:

Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Was it around 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon? Likely just shift change cab drought.

Around shift change, cab drivers have to get the cab back to the garage so the next cabbie can take over. If they don't get it back on time, there are repercussions. But cabbies like to maximize their working time, so they're happy to take fares going in the same general direction they're going.

You can file as many complaints as you want, but no cabbie is going to take you to the Bronx when they have to be in DUMBO in fifteen minutes. If this rule was 100% enforced, the alternative isn't more convenience, it's less convenience, since cabs around shift change wouldn't stop at all. At least this way people moving in the general direction of the garage get rides.

</comment><comment><USER18> God forbid a service provider be able to decide for themselves what services they actually want to sell.

<comment><USER19> This is absolutely ridiculous.

Cab drivers are free to pursue any other career path if they so choose and are made aware of the rules before they get behind the wheel.

They are implicitly agreeing to the laws governing Yellow Cabs by driving one.

What you're suggesting would be like if I told my boss I wasn't programming today and if he wanted any work out of me that he better come up with something else.

<comment><USER20> Err, no. It would be like XYZ random client coming to your boss and saying, "I want a website that does FOO. I'm paying your standard fee, and if you don't build it, I'm filing a complaint with the government."

Also, FOO might just be something that statistically increases the chance of your boss getting robbed/murdered.

<comment><USER19> If your boss is required by law to provide FOO upon payment of the standard fee, then our examples are the same.

Cab drivers aren't blind sided by the potential pitfalls of their job. They know the hazards when they start. To suggest anything else is not only ridiculous, but it undermines the judgment of cab drivers.

<comment><USER18> I'm questioning the existence of the law not the judgment of the taxi drivers. I'm also questioning why hackers would report people under this law in the transportation industry when an analogous law in their own industry would be rebelled against and circumvented almost immediately.

<comment><USER19> If there were similar laws in my industry then I wouldn't have sympathy for myself.

I knew the risks of my industry before I started the job. I made a decision to take it based on my salary/benefits vs the potential hazards. Cab drivers do the same. The law is in place to prevent people from being exploited by cab drivers. If my industry likewise needed further anti-exploitation rules, I wouldn't be opposed to them.

But not only that, as fun as it is to debate the merits or pitfalls of laws regarding yellow cab drivers in NYC, at some point it is important to recognize that the laws are a certain way and until they are changed or made "blue", they are the system that we have to work within.

<comment><USER18> Your last sentence confuses me. The way to change them is to first debate their merits and pitfalls. Your entire case seems to be "The law is the way that it is and thats final, anyone who doesn't like it just shouldn't be a cab driver". My argument is that "this system is inefficient and does more harm for the majority of consumers and cab drivers while benefitting the larger cab companies that can work their way towards a monopoly or oligopoly easily so we should act, as consumers, to reform it (or at the very least jeer it)".

If there is a similar law in your industry you'd just give up? Your argument of knowing the risk beforehand is irrelevant. I'm not a cab driver nor do I want to be, I'm just pointing out that this system is ill conceived and as most of us our entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs or just problem solvers in general I am surprised that this sort of scheme of creating an artificially high barrier of entry, price fixing and regulation has received such a positive response.

<comment><USER19> I am shocked that you're still clinging to this argument. You are suggesting that officially sanctioned NYC cab drivers should be allowed to not give rides to people based on race and destination (extrapolate to any service provider be allowed to discriminate against anyone for any reason). The fact that you're claiming racism (and any other subjective thing about a rider) solves harms caused by inefficiency in the NYC cab industry is morally repugnant.

I don't appreciate how you've bastardized my argument and then really eloquently explained yours. But that doesn't matter because your argument is a wash.

Maybe the system is inefficient, maybe it's not. The law came out of people not offering rides based on race and destination. What is the point of a subjectively offered city service with no viable alternative?

I know you think you understand the system, but why do you claim to know the system is inefficient and does more harm to both consumers and cab drivers? Is it based on this article? The comments? Have you done or read studies on effects of official city taxis and how their destination rules impact the citizens and drivers?

I doubt you have. So _this is my argument_ You're trying to impose what you think (with likely not enough information) on an entire industry and all of its consumers. If the industry was so terrible towards cab drivers, then the industry would change because no one would be a cab driver. But there are still more people willing to drive a cab than there are medallions available so this horrible injustice your claiming doesn't seem to impact drivers as much as you wish it did.

If there was a law that made my industry so inefficient it harmed me and my customers so much and benefited my boss to an outrageous extent then I would show my disapproval by changing industries (either permanently or temporarily via a strike). That is how changes to the status quo are made in a market. Reducing demand so suppliers have to change their offer.

<comment><USER18> >>You are suggesting that officially sanctioned NYC cab drivers should be allowed to not give rides to people based on race and destination

My argument is that a private company should be able to offer whatever service they want. If the city of New York wants to offer a complete service then they should add a taxi service as part of the MTA. Also, I don't think I mentioned race. Destination discrimination is mainly about minimizing risk and avoiding areas dense with blue dots on this map <http://projects.nytimes.com/crime/homicides/map>

>>What is the point of a subjectively offered city service with no viable alternative?

This is not a city service. It's a private service in the city that well established companies have lobbied nyc government to increase the barrier of entry for. Subways and busses are city services, they are the ones that should have universal service routes.

>> If there was a law that made my industry so inefficient it harmed me and my customers so much and benefited my boss to an outrageous extent then I would show my disapproval by changing industries (either permanently or temporarily via a strike). That is how changes to the status quo are made in a market. Reducing demand so suppliers have to change their offer.

No, going on strike would decrease supply NOT demand. Also, do you really think cab drivers have an alternate industry to flock to?

<comment><USER19> >My argument is that a private company should be able to offer whatever service they want.

This is not your original argument. The Yellow Cab company does offer the service they want -> A trip to anywhere that cant be discriminated against based on race or destination (it's on the NYC transportation website). Your argument was that each individual driver should be able to pick and choose who to take based on any factors they deem relevant, which DOES include race, religion, or any other factor you can think of.

>This is not a city service.

I apologize, I began to use "city service" instead of "only service governmentally sanctioned by the city." But the argument remains, what is the point of allowing subjectivity in the only government sanctioned cab company?

>No, going on strike would decrease supply not demand

Again, I apologize for not being more explicit. I was referring to the demand for cab driver jobs by potential cab drivers. I switched from talking about the market for cab rides to the market for cab driver jobs without explaining. Going on strike would decrease the demand for cab driver jobs. The suppliers would then have to make a more compelling offer to potential cab drivers for them to get back behind the wheels of cabs.

>Do you really think cab drivers have an alternative industry to flock to?

Yes. At any point I'm sure there are thousands of other unskilled-labor jobs in NYC that cab drivers can get in to. Driving is not a field of specialized labor. Anyone with a license and can pass the test can do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> SF has similar laws. The one I see cab drivers break most often is refusing to accept payment via credit card. If you ever get in a cab in San Francisco and they tell you they don't take credit cards they're either lying or shouldn't be driving the cab in the first place.

<comment><USER22> Chicago had a similar problem when they started requiring that taxi's accept credit cards at no extra charge. When someone tried to pay their fare with a credit card a cab driver who didn't want to pay the service fee would either say that the machine was broken or "accidentally" overcharge riders. They are moving towards screens in the back seat now though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Everyone is saying that they might be on their way back to the garage and I agree except that the driver should have the off-duty light on at that point. They should pull over and explain "Hey I'm on my way back to the garage but I can take you if its close"

 __Note __On the cabby's behalf: If you rent and drive a yellow cab it cost you $150 to get in it. You have to fuel it up at the end of the shift so thats another $30-40 per shift.

At $5-10 per ride and assuming you can average 2 or 3 rides in an hour...it explains why they drive like maniacs and look to hustle.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is asking a cab if they go somewhere in a major city normal? Excuse my ignorance if it is, but I'm from a very small town (so no prior experience with cabs in general) and have lived in Chicago (city and suburbs at various times) for the last 5 years and I have never even thought to ask a cab driver if he goes somewhere in particular. And I've taken cabs pretty far within the city.

The only time I was ever refused was when I tried to get a ride to the suburbs (a mega expensive cab ride but I needed it).

</comment><comment><USER24> It's true. I've learned my lesson after living in Brooklyn and now Queens for the last few years. Just get in the cab, ensure your entire party is in the cab. Shut the doors. Say where you're going and sit tight. I've been fortunate to live by the bridges in both locations so I have an easy counter if they start to argue. Hold your ground!

</comment><comment><USER25> Out of maybe 100 cab rides from Manhattan to Brooklyn, I have sensed reluctance maybe 5 or 10 times. Definitely get in the cab, close the door, and only then start talking destination.

Also, be aware that they have a counter-strategy if they don't want to take you. One time, my girlfriend and I got into the cab, told him where to go in Brooklyn, and within 60 seconds he had "car trouble". I was pretty sure sure he was bluffing and called him on it, and he said either (can't quite recall) he needed to go to a shop immediately, or he needed a tow. We sat in the cab for about 30 seconds, and then got out. He pulled away, almost certainly to find another fare.

Next time, I will get the details and file a complaint. If he really did have car trouble and a record of service, he should be able to have it dismissed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Any idea why a cab driver would want to reject a journey? Is there some other bureaucracy that makes it hard for them to turn a profit if they abide by this?

For example it is very common in England for "distance and a half" fares to be invoked when journeys are outside of a particular region. This is in place so that if a cab driver takes you to "Stixwich" they're not out of pocket on the drive back since there are likely no return fairs from that point. Does NYC deny this 1.5x for further journeys?

<comment><USER27> It's about a New York City that's 25 years long gone, but this question, and thread, reminded of Ted Rall's recollections of driving a Cab in NYC during the early 80s

<http://www.rall.com/longarticle_003.htm>

<comment><USER28> Hey, that's still a great read. I love the little vignette about Woody Allen. I voted you up because reading this completely answers the question of "why won't NY cabbies take me to Brooklyn?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Good info, indeed.

Personally, these kinds of articles always crack me up. New Yorkers know this. Transplants from CT, NJ or whatever cul-de-sac in Wisconsin you people are coming from lately, frankly you deserve whatever crap treatment you get from cabbies.

And don't complain to 311, you transplants complain to much as it is. Just hash it out in a nice little argument with the cabbie. It'll be cathartic and maybe it'll get you down enough to not buy that V-neck.

<comment><USER4> "New Yorkers know this. Transplants from CT, NJ or whatever cul-de-sac in Wisconsin you people are coming from lately, frankly you deserve whatever crap treatment you get from cabbies."

Really? Guess what? Everyone in NYC is a transplant, at some point. And everyone has to learn just how things work, in detail, over time. It's a process, not a badge to brag about. Natives are the worst...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> So I'll ask the obvious question as a person who has visited, but never lived in, NYC. Why is this a problem?

I've never had a problem getting a cab to take me where I want to go in the cities I've lived in nor the ones I've visited. The only downside I can see is if you're requesting somewhere that's remote and that would be difficult for the cab to find another fare on the return trip. NYC does not strike me as a place that would have this problem.

<comment><USER31> There are a surprising number of remote places in New York. For instance, I doubt any cab would pick up a fare to Broad Channel, Queens. The truly far places like Staten Island aren't an issue, because the fare is so expensive nobody is trying to cab it out there anyway.

The fares the cabbies hate are to emerging yuppie gentrification neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Uptown and the part of Queens near Manhattan. Places like Greenpoint, Astoria, Windsor Terrace, LIC, Prospect Heights, Morningside Heights, etc. In these neighborhoods a cabbie is almost certainly not going to get a fare back to the city, especially late at night.

<comment><USER32> Astoria has never caused trouble for me..not once have I been refused, and I cab it back to 23av/31st a couple of times a week from lower manhattan. Maybe it's all of the tlc-oriented services along 21st that make it less of a hassle?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Be polite to the cab drivers. Ask first. You don't have to be an asshole just because the city ordinance allows you to be one.

</comment><comment><USER34> it's odd that tv and movies haven't fixed this problem. i'm always surprised when i see people talking to the cabbie before they get in, because a) i'm from queens and therefore would never do that and b) have they ever seen someone in a movie do that? no. standard protocol is the cab stops, you get in, and THEN say where you are going.

</comment><comment><USER35> It is pretty rare that a cab drives around with his doors un-locked. I almost always have to tell them where I am going before they unlock the door.

Another pro-tip: many times Lincoln town cars will take you like a taxi but they are not allowed to pick you up unless you called for a car so get in before negotiating the price

<comment><USER10> I recommend people never take a non-yellow cab. They have far fewer regulations, so they can charge ludicrous amounts. Even if you negotiate a price beforehand, it might surprisingly change when you arrive.

<comment><USER36> Agreed. I took one of those black Towncars once, and the driver tried to charge me something absurd at the end of the rather short trip. I told him all I had was a twenty, didn't get any change. That was the first and last time I'll ever hail one of those.

<comment><USER37> Negotiate through the window before you get in, they have set prices based on "zones". Those towncars are roughly twice as expensive I find. I Don't tip those guys since it they are doing it without the dispatcher's knowledge so it's pure profit for them

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Thanks for the tip, I see people getting refused for Queens/Bronx/Staten Island from Manhattan all the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually learned of this from my coworker. He filed a few complaints already since they refused to take him from Manhattan to Brooklyn. It's actually to a nice part of Brooklyn too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Somewhat OT, but I'm wondering why you felt the need to mention that the guy who was refused was white along with "non-threatening" and "well dressed". I appreciate your posting this and would like to thank you for it, but it made me feel really uneasy when I came to that part.

</comment><comment><USER40> And that's why I tip really good when I need to cab it back to Staten Island - I understand that they won't make any money on the return trip and that it is out of their way.

</comment><comment><USER41> All this talk of NY cabbies and not a single mention of Uber App? I can't wait for them to arrive here in the city and disrupt this chaotic system of NY and gypsy cabs.

<comment><USER42> What's the distinction between uber app and gypsy cabs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think it is fundamentally immoral to force someone to take part in a transaction that they don't want to, just because the law forces them to do it. You wouldn't point a gun at them and make them do business with you, why do you want someone else to do it.

<comment><USER4> I don't see it as a moral issue, in the least. The law was created, for a very good reason. Prior to the law, I've no doubt the public got screwed over, often, and on a regular basis. Let alone "less desirable" fares.</comment></comment>


A startup opportunity in Genomics for people in tech - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/on-startups/4d16b703aff5

<comment><USER2> An opportunity for popstar.</comment>