How To Validate Your Business Idea By Testing A Hypothesis - <AUTHOR> http://hatchery.io/how-to-validate-your-business-idea-by-testing-a-hypothesis.html <comment><USER2> This kind of advice pops up on HN from time to time and while I believe it to be valuable, I guess it is at least incomplete. Here are two stories from my failed ventures to augment this advice:

1) Years ago I started a small side-business with a few colleagues. It was a web-based service for a very specific group of clients. Best of all: The idea had already been validated. We had our first paying customer before we even built the product. And we quickly found a few other customers. But after a few sign-ups things were not looking so good anymore. Even though our early adopters were well known in the industry, other companies would not follow. Everyone we talked to loved the product, but as we had to learn the hard way nobody was willing to pay for it. Some even went so far as to implement possibly illegal solutions instead of paying us a few bucks.

Lesson learned: Even if you talk to a few possible customers, question hard if those really are representative of your target audience. Also, liking a product/idea is not the same as being willing (or able) to pay for it.

2) A while back I wanted to find out if there would be any commercial interest in an app I had already built. So I set up a landing page and collected email addresses. Since I had already built the app I could easily hand out demo accounts for every interested party. I quickly collected around 60 addresses and set them all up with a demo account. Only a single person ever logged in at all! I sent out reminder emails but did not get a single response. To this day I do not fully understand what went wrong.

Lesson learned: Newsletter- or Beta-signups from your landing page is NOT the same as validation for your idea.

<comment><USER3> _> Also, liking a product/idea is not the same as being willing (or able) to pay for it._

A great thing to do is when you're validating products you ask the prospect how much they'll pay. Then say "Ok, so if I put a contract in front of you that says you'll pay $x if I deliver this product you will sign it?"

You'll find out very quickly whether someone is just being nice or whether they are serious.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, rather than just asking _if_ they'll sign a contract, you can pull out a Letter of Intent [1] and ask them to actually sign it. You can explain that they're not legally binding if you need to keep people from freaking out. But there's something about signing an official-looking document that a) makes people take it seriously, and b) makes people more likely to really sign up when you come back to them.

Depending on context, you can also ask for a credit card number and then not charge it. People are very careful about giving out credit card info, so them giving it to you is a great sign that they're really serious.

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

<comment><USER5> Please, no.

As soon as someone starts trying to maneuver me to take money out of my wallet, I'm __gone __. It 's not _my_ problem that you don't know if your product is good or not. There is no way on earth I'm signing anything, giving you a credit card number, or what have you. I'm utterly shocked that this is considered a good way to gauge interest in a product.

Even if I really am interested, so what? I have a budget, my appetite exceeds my grasp, just because your product might solve a pain point doesn't mean I will buy it. I need to consider the needs of my entire business, weigh pros and cons, and so on. If you are pulling out papers to sign after a conversation, I'm so gone.

I'm reminded of some 3rd party home alarm installers that came around to my house a few months ago. We were thinking of re-activating the alarm in the house, so we talked to them. Didn't take long for the papers to come out, etc., and it didn't take much longer for us to tell them to pound sand.

I don't give emails out (because on average the spamming becomes relentless) to landing pages, now I'm supposed to give you a CC number just so you can do marketing research?

No.

<comment><USER6> So in which situations _would_ you buy something?

Not trying to be snarky or anything, I know yours is a common opinion so I'm just wondering what would be a less offensive way to test the waters?

Perhaps - do the conversation, leave some contact details, give them the papers but just say, "look, no pressure, I'll leave this with you and let you think about it." Then see how many people get back to you?

<comment><USER7> Coin. (onlycoin.com)

They showed a video of what the card would do and how it would work. I actually have no idea if it will work, or does work, but it looks like it works in the video. It looks like they have something awesome. And it won't be $2000 to buy one.

They said, it should be ready within a year and you can reserve one now for 50% of the sale price (regular price $100).

So I bought one, even though I am aware that the product might never come to fruition and that my $50 might disappear. A lot of other people bought, too. I have gotten updates and I have no reason to believe I won't get my product and I'm excited that I got in on it.

But...

What did I buy, _really_?

I saw a guy on a video using Coin, showing how it would work, selecting different options on his card, answering all my potential questions. Man, it sure looks sweet and I can't wait to have one...

except...

did Coin really exist or did they just do a video to show how it _could_ exist? Does it matter? I have pretty good video equipment and coding skills...and I've even hired actors for videos and done pretty well...what would stop me from hiring an actor, shooting a commercial for something like Coin, and then collecting thousands of dollars to fund the actual creation of the product?

Nothing. I just didn't think of it and didn't act on it, and they did. I'm not saying that's what they did at all, I'm just saying that _could_ be done.

That's market validation. They sold thousands of Coin based on their idea. I have no idea if they even had working code or product, or if they were just validating whether it would sell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While I do see the value of validation, this is not a silver bullet. People try to simplify things, find patterns, but this cannot always work. There are so many reasons why I would _not_ want to validate things: \- Sometimes, people will not tell you what they want, because often they do not know what they want, until you show it to them. Someone smarter than me said this before. \- People judge from their experience. You can have the perfect group to validate with.. but their experience will trick you.

Building a product is an art. There way too many things one should consider based on his experience and intelligence, not everything can be quantified and calculated (well, it can be, but still with assumptions, and once you assume...). As one of my favorite photographers says, "There are no rules for good photographs, there are just good photographs". Same can be said when building a product..

<comment><USER9> "There are no rules for good photographs, there are just good photographs". I disagree with this and think that it is a self-defeating, irrational attitude.

Sure, validation is not a silver bullet. However, lots of startups make it or break due to luck and no-one(yet) can't eliminate randomness in a stochastic(debatable) system like technology entrepreneurship ecosystem. Validation helps to decrease the chance of failing, though. The famous quote by George Box reads "Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful."

Also validation is not listening to what people tell, it's also observing actions of users when they interact with the MVP.

<comment><USER8> It's funny that I mentioned randomness in my second comment as well :)

I tend to agree with you to some extent, even about the quote for the comment. But, startups as an example fails to me, because as we all know, most of the startups fail anyway.

p.s. there are rules for good photographs but following the rules can only put you on bar with other people. Learns the rules so that you can break them. Learn to validate so that you know when _NOT_ to validate.

<comment><USER9> Hm, I have an interesting thought. If "rules" is a consensus about best practices it is a standard model of the particular domain. Conditions of narrative manipulation and tragedy of the commons apply.

With that in mind, one should break the rules only if they have a high degree of confidence in their ability to discover a model that is better than standard model or understanding that the entire modelling approach is tainted. However, Dunning-Kruger effect hypothesis states that less competent are irrationally sure of themselves and vice versa. Are we in a situation where most actors on the market are trying to break the rules to their own detriment?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "After all, it took Thomas Edison hundreds of attempts before he invented the light bulb"

-> It still not easy, people were used to candles at that time. Edison did not study the candle making process or the problems of people with candles. His genius was in putting together the solution.

Apart from this, the article is nice indeed.

<comment><USER11> > It still not easy, people were used to candles at that time. Edison did not > study the candle making process or the problems of people with candles. His > genius was in putting together the solution.

^This, and this [http://www.helpscout.net/blog/why-steve-jobs-never- listened-...](http://www.helpscout.net/blog/why-steve-jobs-never-listened-to- his-customers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A startup I know had a great idea, great product name, validation from some actual people in the industry that it was something everyone would want. They built it and launched and discovered that the industry as a whole was technology phobic; the problem was that the supposedly representative people they talked to where among the few that understood the benefits of the technology (in this case mobile). It's like a poll I read about in the 30's where pollers called a lot of people to ask about phone usage. The problem was that they only talked to people with phones so the answers were useless.

<comment><USER13> So... they didn't have validation, then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I usually skip the start-up advice posts on HN but this was worth reading for the first point along "focus on the problem not the solution". Good advice for hackers as well as entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nitpicking, but removing "business" from the title would fit the article body a bit better. Questioning the viability of potential products and services is far different than evaluation of "business" modes or models. Good products will not save or propel a bad business, but good businesses can thrive on marginal and even terrible products.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm trying an idea for a small project that I am sure I stole from Hacker News.

I run a football pool at my office, and I was manually creating each week's list of games. So I scratched my own itch and automated this as much as possible (some manual work). I've made the results available on footballpickempool.net. It simply offers weekly pool sheets for the full season, and results will also be posted. I know many people could find this useful, but not necessarily a paying audience for such a simple offering.

The validation idea I'd seen before was to offer a link to a "feature," and see how many people click on it. So I have a "Start a League" link. The page let's them know that this feature is not available yet. And I also have a Google form on the page asking if anyone would pay a small amount for this feature.

Hopefully I see some results as the upcoming season starts.

</comment><comment><USER17> Look at it from reverse - of all the big/successful startups out there how many used any formality or rigor in validating their ideas?

Even if they did validate early on what made them successful often changed drastically based on what was known when the company was started.

In otherwords, what percentage of the time does this payoff?

<comment><USER18> Out of the four $10b+ companies founded since 2007, Dropbox and Airbnb definitely used Lean techniques[0], and Uber probably did[1]. That only leaves WhatsApp, which there isn't much information about out there. But considering how little funding they took, it's safe to assume that they utilized similar techniques.

0: [http://www.hult.edu/en/news/hult-labs/2013/august/the- lean-s...](http://www.hult.edu/en/news/hult-labs/2013/august/the-lean-startup- methodology--a-movement-transforming-business-development/)

1: [http://www.quora.com/Lean-Startups/Did-Uber-use-any-lean- sta...](http://www.quora.com/Lean-Startups/Did-Uber-use-any-lean-startup- methodologies-or-perform-customer-validation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's quite difficult to validate an idea, after FFF approved it and when you start development. In our startup we found it quite difficult to find the resources, where our target audience is located.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Fall in love with the problem, not the solution" great advice

</comment><comment><USER21> I can give these two piece of advice.

1) Don't delude yourself into thinking you're "changing" the world (for some ridiculous definition of changing). It's most likely that you aren't. Focus on the business fundamentals.

There's an awful lot of startups making very ho-hum products -- small incremental improvements to existing things or dead end paths that nobody would ever possibly want. They've convinced themselves and their VCs that if only the entire world starts using their chat app or appointment reminder, that world peace would break out and we'd live in a Bill and Ted future where Rock music unites us all. They then build a business model that _actually_ requires some percentage of humanity to get on board with their app to become profitable.

They also forget that to the VCs, they don't care about changing the world, the company _is_ the product and in the end the company will be sold for parts to the highest bidder. The business needs to optimize for this case because _this_ is what the end-game looks like. Not a neon colored future where everybody is playing air guitar and peace and tranquility because they used your app.

2) If you're bringing lots of technology into the startup, it's not necessarily an advantage. Technological debt can absolutely cripple you. And by the time you've realized it, you're completely out of money and left with old technology that nobody wants.

I know of a more than a few startups that get kicked off with a million lines of existing software. They think it's the matter of some source clean up and some new paint on the front end and it'll be easy street. Inevitably, they spend most of their VC investment bringing this legacy to market and getting customer #1. Feedback from early customers is positive, but with one caveat, "this software needs to do x, where x requires a fundamental rewrite of the entire product. By the time a decision is made to start a ground-up rewrite to support x the company is a couple years in and has lost all of the momentum a startup needs when coming out of stealth mode.

rewrite = reboot of the company.

You accomplish the rewrite, pitching it as the next version, but shifting entire technology stacks doesn't _feel_ like a version bump to the customers (it's a huge investment for them as well). All the sales activity you've done over the last year is also junk, unless you feel like supporting the old and new versions simultaneously, and you probably don't have the resources to do that well.

By the end, you're out of VC, coasting on what your sales team is pulling in, but not moving revenue in enough of a positive direction to exit or raise another round. You try to sell it on the cheap and recoup the VC, but buyers are wary of the now _very_ old technological debt you've accumulated and the small customer base you're bringing to the deal. Along the way you pick up some very onerous, non-friendly software licenses for some of your components -- %of gross revenue or something even more onerous like GPLv3 which makes your entire technological investment worthless. Buyers doing due diligence decide not to buy. Your company is a zombie at this point.

</comment><comment><USER22> How is the scientific method not used for this always? The scientific method and way of thinking is probably the most useful thing you can ever master. Science allows you to set up a question and then set up an experiment in such a way that you cannot lie to yourself about the result. For example, let's ask the question: Is my business doing well?

A layman's approach will almost certainly be evaluated on a subjective/emotional basis. i.e. "We are doing something great!" "Everyone is happy." "I have so many customers" "Funding is in!" "I got a great review on tech crunch three months ago"

A more scientific approach is to first define the question in such a way that it can be measured. So let's say a business that does well does three things:

Does not lose money, Has happy customers(low support calls/emails, high reviews,product is used), Has happy employees (low turnover, gets quality work done (measurable by issue tracking)

Now you can say: Does my business meet the requirements for a successful business. If no, write down those numbers. That is now your control and baseline.

It is time to experiment. It's best not to change more than one thing at a time in science so you know exactly what the effect is vs the control.

Lets say you realize you're losing money and your customers aren't happy. You do some research and come to believe (not know) that it's because the login screen is incredibly awkward. Google analytics shows that the bounce rate for the front page is huge so there's some data to back this up. It's time to form your first hypothesis.

My business isn't doing well because the login page is so incredibly awkward. If I fix the login page the business will do better.

Remember that both the "awkward" and "do better" while subjective declarations have actual metrics to back them up: bounce rate on analytics and the previously defined metrics for a good business.

Now you do the experiment defined earlier: fix the login page.

Now you collect data. If your bounce rate goes down, your customers are happier and start paying the monthly fee. Then you have solved your problem and you know with a very high degree of certainty how you have solved your problem.

Now let's say you looked at the data at the end of this experiment and noticed a decrease from the control you set a while back. Well, obviously that was not the problem (or at least not 100% the problem, part of science is knowing how certain to be about things) Maybe next you can define the problem as: the site is buggy, issues aren't resolved quickly. If I observe my employees I can see that they spend a lot of time staring at the 98inch projector screen I set up in my 'cool office' instead of coding. Now you can do a trial run of turning off the projector on some days vs others and seeing if the work goes up, stays the same, or goes down. Or you can discuss the problem with your employees and see if they have input. Then define the experiment using that; just don't forget to actually measure something objective at the end of the day.

This way of thinking is invaluable. You can drill down exactly to the problem core. Waste less resources. Argue less. Most importantly you can actually sit down at the end of the day and prove that you have solved a problem with actual data that cannot be easily disputed, and if you've really done it right the experiment can be repeated and have the same result each time.

<comment><USER23> > This way of thinking is invaluable.

Is it the way of thinking or the things you assumed the business already had that were invaluable? You assumed

* The existence of a large enough steady stream of paying customers to quickly gather statistics on. "Steady" is especially atypical in many environments.

* Enough runway that you can afford to tackle issues one-by-one (i.e. using a control) rather than scrambling and guessing at what is going to work. If users come in "bursts" due to marketing campaigns or whatever then this issue is compounded because each burst can cost a significant fraction of your runway.

* The business is at steady state (e.g. you aren't planning a "grab the market" phase that runs at a loss and then a "make money" phase that leverages the brand recognition, network effects, etc that you've built)

<comment><USER22> I assumed all those things in my hypothetical example application of the scientific method to a decision. I'm not really certain what you're getting at?

The article linked above already goes into some detail as to how to use this to simply evaluate an idea. I was just expounding on another possible use just to show how invaluable this is. Heck you can even use it in relationships. You can tell if someone is lying. You can use it to tell if people like you. You can even use it to lose weight. I'm using it right now to see if I need to drink more water daily or if something else is wrong. It's basically a super power.

<comment><USER24> That the assumptions you made are not necessarily feasible/possible/correct in a real world, startup scenario.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cospeciation of gut microbiota with hominids - <AUTHOR> http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6297/380 <comment><USER2> Quick summary: "Gut bacteria therefore are not simply acquired from the environment, but have coevolved for millions of years with hominids to help shape our immune systems and development."

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I guess there are a lot of implications here.

One is that it looks like it's not so easy for a newborn human to pick up the right collection of intestinal bacteria. So, I guess, having the birth canal near the anus makes a lot of sense, in terms of physiology.

Also, what if space aliens aren't really interested in human beings, per se, but in the unique collection of bacteria we harbor? This paper sheds new light on the the anal probes abductees keep telling us about...</comment></comment>


My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@susanjohnson/hi-im-a-mom-and-a-start-up-founder-my-yc-story-3b8c8650ae95 <comment><USER2> There's an interesting back story on the Women.com domain.

NBC owned women.com and women.net from the takeover of iVillage.

A domain broker - Benjamin Padnos - won the domains at auction at SEDO for $1m in 2010, but the CEO of NBC - Jeff Zucker - blocked the domain name sale personally.

Padnos wound up suing NBC and SEDO and settling, taking the domain names(1).

Then he sold them to Susan in 2012 who purchased them with "some of the money she'd earned [at facebook]" (2)(3)

I have a ton of respect for the commitment on that transaction.

2012 was actually a relatively GOOD time to buy TLD's, compared to today's even-more-insane-than-insane-market.

And given that the WHOIS for Women.com is literally registered to her name / email I hope that she's still as fired up about landing that whale as she should be!

(1) [http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/04/nbc-done- lawsuit/](http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/04/nbc-done-lawsuit/)

(2) [http://dotweekly.com/company-domain-movers-riot-games- amex/](http://dotweekly.com/company-domain-movers-riot-games-amex/)

(3) [http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/18/women- com/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/18/women-com/)

<comment><USER3> >I have a ton of respect for the commitment on that transaction

Why?

<comment><USER4> cause it was a lot of money for a gamble that turned out nicely, and also she probably does something more inspiring with that domain than a broker?

<comment><USER5> > broker

Is that the whitewashed version of "squatter"?

<comment><USER6> I guess with domains, "squatter" is one who buy lots of them for cheap without knowing which (if any) will turn out to be useful, and "broker" is one who buys few expensive domains intending to resell them, like real estate.

<comment><USER5> I guess one can make that distinction.

In my dictionary a squatter is one who meets this criteria:

1\. Buys a domain with the sole intention of reselling it for profit.

2\. Does nothing with it while sitting on it... ie. doesn't develop a website one it other than a shitty squatter landing page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I found this very inspirational myself as a mom of 3 (and I'm psyched to have just applied last week!)

</comment><comment><USER8> "Access to venture capitalists: Raising money is incredibly hard and incredibly distracting. The faster you can get it done, the faster you can get back to building something people want. YC is the perfect forcing function to help you raise capital.

Network: Being an entrepreneur is a lonely path. There are few people who truly understand what you're going through and even if your friends (or parents) are well meaning, they still don't get it. YC is the ultimate network and you will be surrounding by people who do get it."

These two points from her essay reveal more about the true nature of YC than perhaps the author intended.

In theory, when you join YC, you and your cofounders give Paul & Co. a sizable chunk of equity in your budding startup in exchange for advice dispensed over dinner--advice and dinners which, given the valuations of certain YC-backed startups and the percentage of equity surrendered, cannot possibly, no matter how enlightening the advice or delicious the dinners, be worth the price paid in shares.

Why then are so many founders eager to make what on the surface seems like a terrible deal? Because what they actually get in exchange for their equity is not mere mentoring, but the access to top VCs like Andreeson Horowitz and Sequoia. Those VCs can in turn, using their money and media connections, hype- up your startup and work to get you bought out/acquihired.

We like to pretend that the startup game is a meritocracy and not all like the cronyism that goes on in corporate boardrooms where CEOs doubling as board members vote on each other's lavish compensation packages, but it is not difficult to recall examples that suggest it is all too similar.

Take Loopt. It was a dying product with a dwindling userbase that while novel in concept for 2004, was clearly too early to market and soon found itself in a market awash with location-aware competitors like Foursqaure and Gowalla. But because Loopt had gone through YC and took investment from board members of Sequoia, strings were pulled to get Greendot to acquire Loopt and reward Sam with a life-changing exit and provide him and his investors with a justification for branding Loopt a success. From there, he went on to succeed PG as YC's president, and using that platform, he's written--without any hint of irony--polemics decrying the lack of innovation[1] and calling for startups to work on "breakthrough technologies"[2] despite having as his major accomplishment a failed feature phone version of Grindr.[3]

I'm happy for Susan and hope her startup is successful, but her experiences has only reinforced my view that success in the Valley startup game is much more about luck and connections than skill and execution. She was suspiciously vague about her financial situation, but one can infer from the essay (buying the domain, flying back and forth, hiring a "full stack" dev), that it's probably much better than most mothers of two, married or otherwise. The requirement that you "move to the bay area"[4] (which she technically violated) all but ensures mothers who aren't rich won't apply, which completely negates her message of "I'm a mom and I did it and so can you!"

[1] [http://blog.samaltman.com/what-happened-to- innovation-1](http://blog.samaltman.com/what-happened-to-innovation-1)

[2] [http://blog.samaltman.com/new-rfs-breakthrough- technologies](http://blog.samaltman.com/new-rfs-breakthrough-technologies)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385178](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385178)

[4] [http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/](http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/)

<comment><USER9> Two points. There was a non-rich mom in my batch in 2008 (one of the hardest fundraising climates in the last decade). She and her co-founder kicked ass and raised more money than most of the batch.

Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is _part of meritocracy_. Imagine it as a multiplier to product merit and,as a founder, you NEED to imagine it as part of your job. In a failure scenario, it absolutely helps turn a zero into a one. But it also helps you hire, sell products, raise money, get press, do bizdev deals, sell companies, etc.

All sorts of other nits I could pick with your comment. Strawmen (really? Does _anyone_ go into YC thinking advice at dinners is the primary value they offer?) and ad hominem attacks (what does Sam's previous company have to do with the merits of his "polemics"?).

Some stats to challenge the "rich white dudes raining gold on each other" theory:

52% of founding teams in the Valley have 1st generation immigrants on them. Just shy of half of the top-ranked venture companies (in case you think all of these immigrant-heavy startups are floundering while rich white guys are winning). Does anyone believe that a meaningful percentage of this group is rich and white? The same study also found that immigrants were key members of the product or management teams in more than 75% of those companies.

<comment><USER10> > Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just > product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how > much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy.

This is why I also include skin color, culture, gender, and how rich my parents are in my definition of merit. This allows me to honestly believe that all my success is based on merit.

Because nothing says, "merit", like being connected to a small group of very wealthy, very insular people who have the ability to magically bestow success on whoever they please.

<comment><USER9> This is another strawman argument. Of course there's cronyism, racism, sexism, ageism, etc. And of course we should discourage that. Was I championing any of those things you're attacking?

I'm going to add some stats to my OP.

<comment><USER11> You said "You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy."

So yes, you may as well be championing gender, race and background, since you've already _redefined_ 'merit' (in a rather perverse way, imho).

Edit: I see others have also commented on this and the Wikipedia link from another comment is interesting [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy)

<comment><USER9> Can you point me to a definition of merit that I redefined?

I guess I'll try to say it slightly differently to clarify: "it's worth working to expand who you know, how much they like/admire you and how much they want to work with you". This is a skill you can get better at. It's hard work that you need to do. And yes, sadly, this work is certainly easier if you're a 25 year old white guy who went to Stanford.

Do you think people who have worked to have a deep network of folks to sell to, hire from, get introductions from, etc., have done meritorious work? I'm suggesting that how hard you work on this stuff (and how good you get at it) is part of your merit (in the world of startups/entrepreneurship). I certainly don't think it's the only part.

Given that about half of the top venture backed startups are founded by immigrants, I'd say the startup is more meritocratic than a lot of people seem to think. But I'd agree with you that we have a ways to go.

<comment><USER12> You can't simply say that it's meritorious to work hard at whatever it is that makes one succeed. Otherwise any non-randomised culture is meritocratic. For meritocracy to be a meaningful term, the concept of merit needs to be detached from real-world success.

Which isn't to say that network-building isn't meritorious, but you can't use that particular argument for it.

(It's also not relevant how meritocratic SV culture is in other areas.)

<comment><USER13> It is fair to say that the YC experience adds value to the companies that participate - even if only by virtue of screening and vetting companies for investors - although that is clearly not the only benefit. For a company that comes in as an idea, and has no revenue / implicit value, the equity (in exchange for funding and value add) makes sense. Companies are not obliged to apply if they don't see value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Each week, I either flew or drove to Mountain View. Burning the candles at both ends, this commuting & scheduling hell allowed me to maintain a stable life for my young daughters and make the most of YC.

I do not recommend this approach and in fact, it's 100% against YC. You are required to move and you should. It's exhausting and it takes your focus off of the most important things: talking to users, shipping code, and exercising. Nowhere in that list is commuting."

If you had to do it all again, would you move and leave your children behind? That seems like an impossible choice to make, and the tone of your story makes it sound like it all worked out well for you. Would you really not recommend the approach you took to someone in a similar situation?

<comment><USER15> I did the opposite: moved for the summer, leaving my wife + 4 kids in Chicago. It wasn't easy. Others I knew moved their whole families for ~4 months. That also wasn't easy.

If I did it again, and budget permitting, I probably would split time — weekends in Chicago, Monday through Thurs or Friday in Mountain View.

What was interesting was how shocked family members and friends were that we'd work something out like this. If it had been a military deployment, though, no one would have batted an eye.

<comment><USER16> I totally valued the experience of being home on the weekends... I was commuting from Utah, but it was really really draining to travel that much. If possible, I think I'd opt to bring the family out. (My wife was pregnant, so that wasn't a real option for us.)

<comment><USER17> If you don't mind. Would you be willing to go a bit deeper into how you were able to afford that (flying every weekend/YC in general)?

I assume you had quite a bit of money saved in order to afford your typical living expense, flying to and from YC every weekend, and a place to stay in Mountain View.

If you did in fact save, were you doing that actively in the event that you got into YC or did you essentially just drain your savings once you got in?

<comment><USER16> We already had revenue which was paying for my salary, and had been for the prior 6 months. We were in a position where YC's value and my desire to be with my family meant we could spend the cash to achieve both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 7% on $100K with a "7 figure" domain name, means that YC is already making a return on the investment even if the domain is only squatted.

This was the easiest investment ever.

</comment><comment><USER19> Good for her, but the commuting process sounds hellish. And from the comments here, several others have been in the same situation. Does YC have any plans to better support founders in that situation?

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm interested how she got that domain, women.com doesn't sound cheap.

<comment><USER13> Article referenced above says she used money she earned while at Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The family sacrifice should not be discounted in any way. Specifically, being away from her children during the week could have an impact on her family for a long time. Probably less so with her three year-old daughter, but there will be an impact with her youngest child. There is still a huge amount of inherent bonding that happens at that age. I'm not disparaging her husband in any way, he seems like a good fella, but I can speak from experience. My daughter was 11 months old when I left for 500 Startups. I did the back and forth thing too. And I tried to be 100% when I was home. But that time away from her altered our relationship. No matter how awesome my wife was while I was gone.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thanks for sharing, let us know how it goes in the future.

That Jordan guy judging from his behavior even with his reply on Reddit seems like a youngster that wants to make easy bucks and doesn't care about the future.

If I was you I'd make a legal case and go full on him.

<comment><USER23> Appears this is in the wrong thread, probably referring to the robocoin ATM thread; [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8457298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8457298)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I started my own business after becoming stay-at-home dad. I know many parents with their own company, startup is good way to escape corporate cubicle, and spend more time with kids. Not sure why being parent as something worth mentioning here.

</comment><comment><USER25> I guess I fail to see what would differentiate between a father/mother. Like why does any option make a difference?

<comment><USER26> Mothers breastfeed. Companies need to have places for mothers to breast feed children, of for mothers to pump breast milk.

Mothers sometimes have complications during birth. This can cause considerable physical difficulty in the following months. Here's some advice about recovery after c-section. [http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Caesarean- section/Pages/Recover...](http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Caesarean- section/Pages/Recovery.aspx)

This post was written by a female parent. We call those "mothers". If it had been written by a male parent it would have used the word "father".

There is currently a gender imbalance and so posts from people who are not male have some interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not most realistic role model for YC women. Affording a domain name like women.com and buying full stack developer?

<comment><USER27> And she conveniently left out the cost of childcare for all the days she was gone. Oh, you know, those little $18-20 per hour* minor details. If her partner works fulltime, that could be round-the-clock care.

But yeah, of course a mom can do YC! (If she's rich and has a very, very supportive partner.)

And yeah, I do remember that tweet from Sam she highlighted. And the thing I tweeted back to him, unacknowledged, still stands: daycare in SoMa is almost impossible to find, in some cases has a _two-and-a-half year_ waiting list. Gee, I wonder why about half the women in tech leave _mid-career_.

* yes, that's the going rate in LA for two children, possibly more if one is a newborn, and/or if you pay your nanny on the books instead of off.

<comment><USER28> If you don't have the resources to fit a startup into your life (in some combination of time or money - she just happened to have a surplus of money), then maybe you shouldn't be doing a startup? Nobody every said startups/YC is a fit for every single person in _every stage_ of their life.

<comment><USER29> Yes, that would be the honest thing for VCs to publicly say. "Now look, you'll want to be a guy, unless you're a woman of some means. We're not racist, as we're heavily composed of both whites and asians. Modulo certain Asian and perhaps lesser-European or -US accents. (That excludes others of course, which we hope you consider a feature and not a bug...) As for coming from a family with money and comfort, well we hardly need to list the benefits of that."

<comment><USER28> So are you implying that no woman has a surplus of time (and that they never do)?

Do you disagree with my assertion that if you want to start a company, you have to have lots of time, and if you don't have that, then you'll have to trade something else for that (like money: for hiring people, paying for flights, etc)?

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you have no time, and no money, don't expect to be able to start a successful startup.

<comment><USER30> You're missing the point. The qualification you describe in your last sentence excludes the overwhelming majority of people anywhere, but especially in the U.S., and it does so by pure (bad) luck and accident of birth. That is to say, the qualification you note is either a polite way to say, "Non-rich, or affluent, or already-connected need not apply," or an incredibly obtuse equivocation. As a result, for example, the subject of the article that started this thread is not in the same set with people who can accurately be described as "normal."

<comment><USER28> No, you're missing the point. Success in _any_ field requires time or money (or some combination of both). You want to be a Nobel Prize winning scientist? You're going to need lots of time to become an expert in your field, publish papers, AND run experiments. You want to become an actor? You'll have to spend enormous amounts of time running around doing auditions, trying to find work.

And that's exactly it. The overwhelming majority of the world will never start a startup. Or become a top scientist. And those that do grow up in poverty but start businesses / become academics / other success have time to spend studying/being entrepreneurs, and those that have little time because of other obligations but still manage to do these things have to make enormous time sacrifices.

The world isn't egalitarian, and it's wishful thinking to think it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Something about that first photo also also reminded me of the Last Supper.

<comment><USER32> Not sure why you're downvoted. It's no doubt a reference to Da Vinci's Last Supper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> My story of applying, getting in, and being gay in Y Combinator.

My story of applying, getting in, and being a white man in Y Combinator.

My story of applying, getting in, and being a Java 9to5 developer in Y Combinator.

<comment><USER34> I looked for the part where her being a mom made any difference what so ever. It must be hard to be away from your children most of the week and of cause taxing on her partner, but that's not really unique to YCombinator or startups.

<comment><USER35> It's not about her being a mom helping or hurting. It's about Her being a mom and going through YC. I think this kind of post can inspire other women with kids to see "maybe I can do it too."

I think it really is that simple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> So is the person sitting next to PG a real prime madonna ? He he... (Sorry!)

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm not saying this to be negative, necessarily, but something struck me in this essay, so I grep'd it. There are 47 instances of "I", by my count.

<comment><USER38> >I'm not saying this to be negative, necessarily, but something struck me in this essay, so I grep'd it. There are 47 instances of "I", by my count.

You already have 2 instances of 'I' in a single sentence (not counting the one in quotes). So on average you're ahead of her already.

<comment><USER37> Why acknowledge sample size when snark is on the line?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I like to think of her kid. What will the other children say on the playground? "Your momma wears army bootstrap" and "Your momma so FAT32..."</comment>


Soon, your brain will be connected to a computer. Can we stop hackers? - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/soon-your-brain-will-be-connected-to-a-computer-can-we-stop-hackers-breaking-in/ <comment><USER2> "Soon, your brain will be connected to a computer." No the fuck it won't...

</comment><comment><USER3> No.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

<comment><USER4> No twice. No, we cannot stop hackers (which is what I presume you meant). And, no, my brain will _not_ be connected to a computer soon (for any reasonable definition of "soon").</comment></comment>


I Hire Engineers at Google--Here's What I Look for (And Why) - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3062713/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/i-hire-engineers-at-google-heres-what-i-look-for-and-why <comment><USER2> I wonder what this Google recruiter would say about this: [https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768](https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768).

<comment><USER3> It's not like Homebrew is a solid piece of software. Every now and then I see somebody complaining about how it resolves dependencies. And the team didn't provide any package verification whatsoever, no package signatures and even no SSL/TLS, and they don't see any problem with that.

Considering this, I wouldn't dismiss the recruiter's decision that easily.

<comment><USER4> Even though if it is a solid piece of software, what is wrong with not hiring a guy who does not know the fundamentals(google standard)? Sounds very much google and i would not expect anything less of a googles employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When google recruited at my university 5 years ago, they asked for high school SAT scores. I thought that was weird.

<comment><USER6> A friend of my wife's, a woman then about 50, applied for a job as business manager of a publishing company a few years ago. They asked her about her GREs, which she must have taken around thirty years before.

Anyway, you're right, that was weird. But you know, if the employees of a company got into the company largely because of their schools, and got into their schools largely because of their SATs, why wouldn't they ask. As far as they are concerned, SATs do an excellent job of predicting performance.</comment></comment>


How to Use Google's Closure Compiler - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/roman01la/closure-compiler-handbook <comment><USER2> Simple. Use clojurescript, it compiles to a format used by Google closure and does all the minification for you.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone try a 2-way coding interview? - <AUTHOR> Would it be fair in a coding interview for the interviewer to be asked by the interviewee to solve similar problems? Such that the interview process is 2-way: if you ask me to solve a problem, then I get to ask you to do the same. So we both come prepared to a coding interview as both interviewee and interviewer. If we're going to work together, I'm just as interested in your abilities as you are in mine. Seems fair no? <comment><USER2> Yes. I interviewed through a full round (i.e. 6) of technical interviews. Once the firm (a startup) indicated interest in moving forward, I requested to meet with the CFO, VP of Sales & Marketing, and everyone who interviewed me.

For each person who interviewed me, I gave them the same problem they gave me with a twist. I wanted to see how they dealt with an unfamiliar problem for which they had some understanding.

Kudos to the CTO for giving me such leeway.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great anecdote. I would expect the approach to level-set the relationship from the start. And, in a way, when both sides of the decision to hire take turns asking questions, the participants will find themselves in a better state by cooperating while they may find themselves in a worse state if they do not, which provides prisoner's dilemma outcomes. For example, in a coding interview, I'll go easy on you because I know you'll go easy on me.

And so how did things go from there?

<comment><USER2> The interviewers were _very_ nervous. I spent quite a bit of time calming them down. Once that happened I was able to determine what it would be like to work with them - which worked out quite well.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is so great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Creating something, and exploiting it is simple...when multiple solutions are found to make the entirity believe more than the other you win. You dont need to win but make them respect you

</comment><comment><USER4> It's an interesting idea. I think the main concern is time frame? I think instead of asking one Question each, it's better to work on the same question together.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is clearly a tradeoff in the approach in that 2-way interviews have the potential to be extended, could even take twice as long. Working on a question/problem together is a great way to establish a working relationship from the start. If it goes really well, we'll always remember it. You gain insights into my thinking process, and I hear yours. This, as opposed to me just asking you questions one-way. For this to work though, maybe a short initial meeting to get to know each other on some basic level and to set the stage for the exercise would be a great way to start.

Ever had the opportunity to try this approach in some way? If so, how did things go?</comment></comment>


Show HN: AI-Generated Fashion Brand - <AUTHOR> https://roarshockbrands.com/ <comment><USER2> love it. great concept + execution.</comment>


A minimalist lifestyle does not make you a better person - <AUTHOR> http://qntm.org/less <comment><USER2> _A minimalist lifestyle does not make you a better person_

But a minimalist coding style _does_ make you a better programmer.

I really don't mind a few extra Philips screwdrivers, kitchen knives, or pairs of shoes in my house, but I every superfluous bit of code in my repository drives me nuts.

Others say I go overboard and they're probably right, but I can't help myself.

If a 6 character variable name can be shortened to 5 characters without losing meaning, then I do it. Same thing with labels and function names. If I find the same line of code twice, I write a function (but only after whipping myself). Complex If Statements are replaced by Case. Complex Case Statements are replaced by arrays and pointers. Two programs look alike? Replace them with one parameter-driven program. Two forms look alike? Replace them with a flexible form app. Reports? Same thing.

Old data? Archived! Old programs? Archived! Old notes? Archived! And not one trip to Goodwill, just to my e: drive. I'm so proud of myself when I can fit the software needed to run a $100 million company on a 256K thumb drive.

There must be a 12 step program for people like me. But then, by the time I was done with it, it would be a 7 step program.

<comment><USER3> > If a 6 character variable name can be shortened to 5 characters without > losing meaning, then I do it

While i totally agree with the general sentiment of your post, i'm really not sure about this one.

Or rather, im rly not sure abt dis one ;)

It's all about balance really, and very often this balance is only subjective, even if we generally don't like this idea

<comment><USER4> Sure, but to be charitable to edw519, it's possible to interpret the remark as "can be shortened ... without _compromising_ meaning".

<comment><USER3> Definitely, that's why i said i agreed with the general sentiment. I generally reason in exactly the same way so i understand from where GP is coming from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _A minimalist lifestyle can have many legitimate motivations. Sanctimonious anti-consumerism isn't one of these, nor is saving money._

Why not? A minimalist lifestyle can save a ton of money. I have a year-long runway to work on whatever I want full-time because I kept a pretty minimalist lifestyle for the last 3 years.

<comment><USER6> Are you sure you're not mixing together minimalist and frugal? I have an acquaintance whom I'd consider very minimalist, however everything she does buy is top of the line and very expensive. When she goes out to eat, it's Michelin star restaurants. When she travels she considers 4 start hotels slumming it. At the end of the day minimalist and frugal or pretty orthogonal.

<comment><USER7> Frugal implies you are sacrificing quality or desire in the name of money. Minimalist implies you find joy in simpler things and a simpler life and therefore don't need or even want outlandish luxury.

I'm just as content sleeping at a Best Western as I am at a 5 star hotel. My Scion gets me to the grocery store just as well as a BMW would, etc. I'm not sacrificing anything, I simply don't feel a need for excessive luxury.

And I agree with the OP of this thread. Thanks to my minimalist lifestyle I too have plenty of leeway to do whatever I want for quite some time. It's a great feeling.

<comment><USER8> OK but minimalist could also be a Patek Phillippe Calatrava instead of an all- singing all-dancing Casio Pathfinder...

<comment><USER9> In other words, if you feel like congratulating yourself on your minimalism, you can pretty much justify anything as minimalist.

Personally I'd say that the minimalist wristwatch option is none at all. I don't think I'd be happier with no wristwatches, though. While my wristwatches bring me only a minimal amount of pleasure, congratulating myself on my lack of wristwatches wouldn't bring me much pleasure either.

I prefer "vaguely appropriate scale"-ism to minimalism. No wristwatches is too few, ten is too many. Pick something in between and stop fretting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pedantic note:

"There is one Phillips screwdriver in my house."

Uh oh. Philips screwdrivers come in varying degrees of bluntness, with the very blunt ones for the very big screws and very pointy ones for small screws. Phillips screwdrivers are not the right area to avoid redundancy. (buying one with variable bits that fit on it would be a better option).

<comment><USER11> Depends on how frequently you use it, and even then it may not be a big deal.

I do tons of home repairs, automotive repairs, build things, take stuff apart and so on. I have enough tools to equip a small production woodshop, plus a growing collection of metalworking equipment. And even after all that I probably use a #2 phillips screwdriver on 99% of anything that has a phillips head screw.

For a "typical" person, a #2 phillips will probably serve all their reasonable needs.

<comment><USER10> We're going off on a tangent here, but I don't agree. I mean, most people do have only one or two Phillips screwdrivers and use them on all screws they see that have a 'cross' on them, and I guess it'll work in the majority of cases like you say, but it's uncomfortable to work with the wrong size, and will damage your screwdriver and/or screws to boot. 'right tools for the job' and all. Having 3 sizes is not excessive IMO, and having only a #2 is not an example of a minimalist lifestyle. For disassembling an Xbox or other piece of consumer electronics you need a #1, for putting up drywall a #2 and for mounting a heavy bookshelf a #3. All fairly regular tasks I'd say.

<comment><USER6> _All fairly regular tasks I'd say_

The vast vast majority of people I know have never done any of those things, and probably never will. If their xbox is broken, they either send it off to get fixed or throw it out and get a new one. If they need drywall or heavy bookshelves put in, they call someone.

I would consider owning no tools and and getting other people to handle all your repair work to be a fine example of a certain type of minimalism.

<comment><USER10> "I would consider owning no tools and and getting other people to handle all your repair work to be a fine example of a certain type of minimalism."

Ah yes, good point, and I agree. I guess I was too fast in making a generalization on my own behavior re: the tasks for which one would use a screwdriver. I guess I own many tools because I'm frugal :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From the comments here, it's fairly obvious that people have multiple conflicting ideas of what 'minimalist' actually means, which makes this blog post moot because no one will ever agree.

</comment><comment><USER13> Maybe I'm missing the point of the article but...

"A minimalist lifestyle does not make you a better person. But it may make you happier."

I would argue that if you're a happier person, you are a better person. So if a minimalist lifestyle makes you happier, a minimalist lifestyle makes you better.

Seems like an odd article to me.

EDIT: Seems like I'm getting flack for about "what if the person is evil but happy, are they a better person?..."

Apologies for not explaining my argument well the first time. The author argues that being minimalist makes him happier, less worrisome, less irritable, and have less liabilities, but not a better person. If being minimalist makes you all those things, then I think it does make you a better person than if you weren't minimalist.

<comment><USER14> I think the author meant better in the sense of morally superior, not happy.

<comment><USER15> And I would argue that an unhappy person is much more likely to be immoral. I know that it's at least true for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> And then you have a kid.

<comment><USER17> Why do children need lots of stuff?

My grandfather was one of seven children, and they had one drawer each for toys and another drawer for clothes. They seemed to turn out OK.

Of course this kind of thing requires the co-operation of both parents, but that's true of a lot of things.

<comment><USER16> I wasn't implying that kids need lots of stuff.

I was implying that then you have a kid and have more urgent things to worry about than whether or not your life is perfectly organized.

Like how to get the kid to stop wiping their poop on the dog.

<comment><USER18> Try having triplets. A perfectly organized (and frugal) life suddenly becomes a huge priority, whether you like it or not.

In my case, I also took a minimalist approach and work towards getting rid of clutter, selling off spare computers or equipment for hobbies I don't have time for anymore.

I haven't had a "singleton" (single born child), but I can imagine the same organizational/simplifying demands are made of you, but to a lesser extent.

<comment><USER19> Having had one and having seen friends with twins, multiples are definitely harder. Yes there are certain economies of scale but I don't think they even come close to balancing up the additional chaos, effort and exhaustion.

(And +1 for sympathy and respect that you've had triplets and are still here to tell the tale).

<comment><USER18> In fact, my experiences (which contrast the article) are what has enabled me to be here and sane. Before, we were fleeting, disorganized, and didn't plan.

Now everything is regimented and organized and "minimalized". That's how we're sane and fairly happy (it feels like the movie Groundhog Day, often. And you _really_ have to focus on marriage time.).

We're finding our experiences to be much more sane than others, when we talk to other multiples parents. They haven't developed a simple life, and a simple set of regiments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been wanting to start an inventory of every item I own with the goal of going minimalist but it's so daunting I haven't started yet. And I'm a college student! (Maybe there's room for an app here?)

<comment><USER20> Why would you do that?

Just open your closet and throw out each thing unless you used it in the last week. Just throw it out now. Tomorrow is a euphemism for never. You can always buy or borrow if you need it later.

<http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/stuff-minimization-framework>

<comment><USER21> You might start kicking yourself when winter rolls around all you have are cargo shorts and a few ironic t-shirts.

<comment><USER9> Luckily I have a "I threw out all my winter clothes and all I kept was this ironic t-shirt" t-shirt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _It shouldn't be conspicuous and self-congratulatory_

Does writing a blog post about your minimalist lifestyle count?

<comment><USER23> No, but submitting it to HN does

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I always wonder what the super-minimalists (< 100 personal items) do about food. I easily have 100 (less if you consider redundancies: should I count each fork individually?) things in my kitchen and most of them get used regularly.

Either they are eating out all the time or they are using someone else's kitchen, both of which seem somewhat antithetical to sub-100 minimalism.

</comment><comment><USER25> We don't spend too much time talking or thinking about it in my house, but we do periodically clean/throw out old junk that piles in closets & the garage.

I agree with his point regarding being sanctimonious about it though. We don't brag to anybody, or even talk about it much. Its just a matter of doing something we know makes us feel better and thats about it.

However, over time it _does_ save you money, because if you have to move or change your surroundings, you only need enough room for your body and not your _stuff_.

We're moving to a new house that is only marginally larger than our current house because we're planning a larger family (it also is a higher quality house too)... not because we need more space for stuff. Its nice to only consider your living space from the perspective of what you do in it, and not have to also worry about how all of your stuff goes into it too.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd say it does. I was a gadget fiend. I know I don't want an iPad, but I would've _needed_ one if I hadn't have tried to declutter my life. Having done so, my tiny house is now that much more spacious (but slowly clutter creeps in and now and again I have to have a massive clearance) and as the article says, I have less to worry about. In addition to this I no longer _need_ an iPad. In fact I used one for a few hours and found it quite heavy.

This year I bought an ebook reader, not because I wanted one but because I was going on holiday and wanted to read 10 books. The cost of an ereader was cheaper than buying those 10 and losing the luggage space. I read 15 books on that holiday, mostly from Project Guttenberg. I could've took a laptop and read them on that as a compromise, but I wanted something my eyes wouldn't get tired over, and a computer screen would've reminded me of work. My E-Reader now sits in the kitchen until the next time I take it out - I'm in the middle of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and I know I should read it but I don't. Still, next year I'll take it out and I'll get my books for much less than taking physical copies.

Last year I had a clear-out of all my old DVDs - and I used to have more than my local Blockbusters (as a massive film buff a lot were obscure too) so I gave them away to charity shops. If I can find epubs of my books I think I'll do the same with them next year.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think that it's most important to know what _you_ want yourself first.

If you know that, then you can easily spend your money on the right things for the right reasons and, thus, spare yourself from owning all kinds of cool, new, luxury, status, or whatever objects that you only bought because you wanted to be cool or successful or _you thought you wanted them_.

For example, I don't need a new car, a high-end mobile phone, or the ultimate gaming setup with a ridiculously expensive graphics card. They wouldn't produce much extra value to me so I don't feel justified to pay for them. However, I do love photography so buying a new DSLR and a set of lenses instead of a pocket camera was well justified even though the money spent on the DSLR was probably ten-fold.

</comment><comment><USER28> Same topic but with more funny -

[http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2010/09/minimizing- windows-j...](http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2010/09/minimizing-windows-just- call-me-aimless.html)

<comment><USER29> The bike snob anti-new-minimalism thread is highly entertaining and informative. The idea that those suffering from extreme poverty are the ultimate minimalists puts the recent "wearing minimalism on your sleeve" trend in perspective IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "I can't stand clutter"

That pretty much sums up the article for me. I'd rather hear from someone who switched to a minimal lifestyle than from someone who apparently has always favored it.

</comment><comment><USER31> A lifestyle without redundancy is a very precarious one. Without redundancy any single failure could turn your day into a nightmare.

<comment><USER9> That's why I have two hearts, in case one needs surgery.

Seriously though, what kind of redundancy are you suggesting? I _could_ have two cars, or two ovens, or two hot water systems in case my first one breaks down, but I can get by with workarounds for a broken-down car, oven and hot water system anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Reminds me of [Paul Graham]: <http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html>

</comment><comment><USER33> "There is one Phillips screwdriver in my house."

How many screws do you strip by not having the right size of Phillips screw driver? How many more can you not engage? Or have you gone really minimal and guaranteed that you have only one size of head on all your screws?

</comment><comment><USER34> I think the author means to say that a minimalist lifestyle does not make him a better person.

He really has no idea who any of us are, or what our goals are, or more importantly what our vices are. Some of us probably would benefit from a more minimalist lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER35> 'A minimalist lifestyle does not make you a better person'

I'd like to understand why, but fixed-width, left-aligned layout at 1680x1050? Fluid width or at least centering the text would be helpful.

<comment><USER36> HTML is a wonderful thing. It conveys structure; CSS conveys presentation, but can be overriden at user's wish. Your browser should have a zoom function. Your browser should have a CSS override function. Your browser should have a "readability" function.

<comment><USER35> But a user should not be forced into using any of those things.

imo, if I have an Apple monitor used by a large number of potential site visitors set at maximum resolution, then the page should at least center the div if you are going to do a fixed width layout, so 1/2 of the right side of the screen isn't a plain otherwise empty blue background. That way at least only 1/4 of the page is empty on both sides, which is less distracting.

Fluid width with adjusting fluid left/right % columns (divs, or table if you must) also works.

<comment><USER36> A user maximizing his browser on a screen 1680 pixels wide is not a user whose particular aesthetic preferences are worth accommodating.

If you choose to make your browser window wider than a line of text you'd comfortably read, you also can choose to apply any settings that will make sites look more to your liking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> generalization/key point as I see it: doing x for x's sake or as an excuse to be self-righteous is bad, do things because they make you happy or make something easier.

This is actually a really useful rule in a lot of other places too.</comment>


Smart Teenage Brains May Get Some Extra Learning Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/09/23/224387862/smart-teenage-brains-may-get-some-extra-learning-time

<comment><USER2> Bullshit alert! Bullshit alert!

The notion that children learn faster is a myth.

There is no such thing as a "flexible brain".

Children learn faster because they have to, i.e. they can't get a chocolate bar unless they ask for it. Most adults learning a new language have the luxury of being able to use their native language to survive, and tend to default to the easy option if given the chance, especially if they are learning in a country that doesn't use the language they are learning, in which case they can't use it all the time anyway.</comment>


IE10 won't run Flash unless website is whitelisted by Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2012/10/11/did-microsoft-just-kill-flash-ie10-wont-run-flash-unless-your-site-is-on-a-microsoft-whitelist

<comment><USER2> The keyword is lockdown.

I am all for giving hate to flash. It is commonly found vulnerable. It produce slow websites which eats memory and cpu. It has poor history in non-windows systems.

But in all, I have serious doubt this call was made for any reason beyond pushing users to their app-store. games? online experience? chat? By forbidding flash, companies are bit more forced to turn to apps with their products. Sure, things can still use javascript, html5 and web-sockets, but I would not trust web-sockets to be left alone if they seriously would start to threaten the app world.

Maybe I am just cynical, but follow the money argument looks to support it.

<comment><USER3> "Lockdown" is not the correct term.

1\. Flash isn't prohibited on Windows RT devices. This is distinctly different from Apple's approach with iOS, and Google has removed Flash from Android. [1]

2\. Existing Flash websites will run on Windows RT devices. Windows RT will ship with the desktop version of IE10. [2]

Microsoft has made explicit what we all know. There are some websites that use Flash appropriately and in a way which benefits the person browsing, and there are websites whose use of Flash makes the web suck.

Having browsed the web for two years with Flash disabled by default, I'd add that here are a lot of sites which just use Flash for the sake of using Flash. When I don't see it, I still get the content I was seeking.

[1] [http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2012/08/adobe-flash-on- an...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2012/08/adobe-flash-on-android- rip.php)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_on_ARM#Limitations>

<comment><USER4> What bugs me is the fact that we are forced (not a default list, not an opt out list, _forced with no alternative_ if you want to use IE) to defer to Microsoft's judgement on what is a "flash appropriate" site and what is not. Did Newgrounds make their list? Shockwave? Pogo?

Quite frankly, I don't trust them with that power. This is the company that just got off of "monopoly probation".

I'm starting to really tire of this trend where developers lock away even power user settings (like the ability to decide what fucking plugins run in your browser) in the name of "security".

<comment><USER5> Read the guidelines [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ie/jj193557%28v=vs.8...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ie/jj193557%28v=vs.85%29.aspx)

> We place sites with Flash content on the CV list if doing so delivers the > best user experience in Internet Explorer 10 with those sites. For example, > how responsive is the content to touch? Does it work well with the onscreen > keyboard, or affect battery life? Do visual prompts comply with the Windows > Store app user experience guidelines? Sites that rely on capabilities (for > example, rollover events and peer-to-peer (P2P) functionality) that are not > supported within Windows UX guidelines for Windows Store apps, and don't > degrade gracefully in their absence, are better off running in Internet > Explorer 10 for the desktop with Flash.

It sounds to me like they're just saying they don't want plugins screwing up their shiny new UI. If you want to run your arbitrary plugins, just do it with the classic desktop version of the browser.

<comment><USER4> >It sounds to me like they're just saying they don't want plugins screwing up their shiny new UI.

The _end user's_ shiny new UI. That's why this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Why not just make Flash click to enable? That'll stop ads and most other shenanigans while still making things that users want to access (and haven't been blessed by MS for whatever reason) still able to access them.

<comment><USER5> > Why not just make Flash click to enable?

"Developers with sites that need plug-ins can use an HTTP header or META tag to signal Internet Explorer 10 to prompt the user to switch to Internet Explorer for the desktop."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember reading this and thinking "nice", back when there were a lot of sites where video couldn't be viewed on an iPhone:

<https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/>

Two years later, and I can even comfortably disable the Flash plugin in my desktop browser.

It seems (thankfully) that Flash is fast turning into a relic of last decade. Not a bad move by MS.

<comment><USER7> I uninstalled Flash from my machine, got tired of it constantly patching/updating/hardening itself. If I want to view Flash-content I use Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, we have come to a point where no one actually cares about IE. Everyone wishes this browser wouldn't exist and most of the people use it as a tool to download Chrome and Firefox.

Having said that Microsoft's new policy is either aimed at discouraging Flash altogether OR this is just a test. They want to test users are willing accept this kind of feature where MS white-listed websites are given more power than the normal websites. Expect more to happen on this front.

<comment><USER9> > _most of the people use it as a tool to download Chrome and Firefox._

Not true. A lot of people still use it as in _use_. I was alarmingly surprised to find the number of users using IE as their main browser in my office, other than mandatory use to access company portal. And oh, my company's entire mail/issue-tracking suite works on this _piece of art_.

<comment><USER10> Chartbeat can speak to this a bit: <http://chartbeat.com/labs/totaltotal/>

You'll need a big monitor, as this was a quick hack and doesn't function very well on small screens, but you can see the number of people using IE across all of the sites our JS is loaded on in real-time.

<comment><USER9> Good source. Yes I can see and it shows IE at number 2 spot consistently.

>> _doesn't function very well on small screens_

Works just fine with "CTRL -"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My initial reaction was oh noo how dare they take something away from me, I then realised I have chrome.

I then got thinking, as a default for a browser that will end up in corporate desktops and home users that this is actualy a realy nice move. I'm sure there will be some registry hack to negate this, but for the common user who lacks the ability to do that are perhaps best left with there internet L plates attached.

In summary, big fat +1 from me on this as anybody who is able to bypass this hurdle will be alot less likely to fall foul of this safty net. Less infected PC's, less spam, less crap in general.

Lets not also forget the big benefit this betowes upon us, less calls from friends who's PC's/Internet seems to be running a little slower and after 15 minutes on the phone you realise it will be easier to see them.

<comment><USER12> Except the desktop version of the browser still has Flash. It's only the Metro, pardon me, Windows 8-style UI version that has no Flash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Big question is: will Silverlight run on websites not whitelisted by Microsoft? Otherwise it's a dirty trick.

<comment><USER14> Silverlight is more dead than Flash and MS killed itby alienating Silverlight developers.

<comment><USER15> The only thing keeping silverlight alive is Netflix. I wonder why they use it in first place.

<comment><USER16> DRM, better streaming, C# and the .Net framework

<comment><USER17> I have to admit though: Netflix's (Silverlight) player is remarkably stable compared to anything I've ever tried in Flash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Microsoft is being like Apple; like Apple, they know Flash isn't a good answer for tablets and mobile and they're guiding people towards something that is. In fact, Microsoft is pushing developers towards HTML 5.

Note that desktop IE 10 supports Flash and other plug-ins just fine. I run Windows 8 preview on the computer in my ham shack and I find that do almost all my browsing with the desktop IE anyway. I just use the Metro IE to visit QRZ, which is a web application for looking up call signs and logging contacts.

</comment><comment><USER19> Earlier, the plan was to have no plugin support at all in IE10 Metro. Microsoft is positioning the whitelist approach as a backwards compatibility shim for high-profile sites that won't or can't give up Flash.

<comment><USER20> And if this is controlled by group policy, then this allows them to increase security for end consumers whilst allowing business customers the ability to carry on supporting the internal use of Flash that they may (feel that they) require.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The whitelisting is on the IE10 thats embedded in the Windows 8 ui (those fancy tiles). The normal IE10 browser that you use to browse the web with has no such limitations. Nothing to see here...

</comment><comment><USER22> As questionable of a move that is, this kind of excites the 'omg, is flash finally going to die' moment i've been waiting for, for years.

<comment><USER23> Why is that? Flash seems pretty logical to me. If you were giving the choice to either design with a single language that compiles to bytecode and runs in a vm(jit), or an array of interpretive scripts that's heavily submitted to fragmentation, which would you choose? You'd probably go for the first, as would I.

Flash may be a bad implementation of good idea, but alternatives have not exactly wooed me either. To be quite honest; they all seem equally flawed to me. The fact that jQuery, Bootstrap, and others originated out of overcoming fragmentation pretty much proofs that point. Also different JavaScript engines give you different performances and have different bottlenecks. At least with flash you had the guarantee it would crash the same on all platforms.

<comment><USER24> I agree that the _idea_ of a cross-browser, cross-OS bytecode platform is really nice. Every time I hear of "X-to-javascript" compilers I cringe a bit.

But with flash the fatal problem is, and always was, that the only viable implementation of the interpreter is a proprietary and buggy blob, not even available for all platforms. Apart from that being a plugin also made it clunky, too much like a "java applet" (it never integrated into a page as well as javascript does).

If it had been based on an open specification (like HTML5 is now) then it could have been successful. Different browsers could have competed for the fastest and most secure JIT, like they do with javascript now. The end result would probably have been great. Alas...

Even non-technical people I hear complaining almost daily about what a piece of crapware the Adobe Flash plugin is, after it crashed for the zillionth time. Everyone wants flash to die, as the last sites that still require it either move to HTML5 or are replaced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4637845>

<comment><USER22> The previous discussion was about Mobile IE10. This blog post is about IE10 on Windows 8, in general.. meaning desktop too.

<comment><USER14> Both the discussions are about the same article and same topic.

<comment><USER22> Didn't think to check the link after i saw the title of 'Mobile Version...', but you're right. Sorry about that DanielRibeiro =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When we data security advocates discuss things like promiscuous trust among SSL certificate authorities and one-click scary page bypass features with browser vendors, inevitably the old adage comes up "no vendor is willing to lose market share by making its security policies more restrictive than the others".

Perhaps this is a test case trying to break out of the old status quo?

Disclaimer: I recently accepted a position at the big M itself.

<comment><USER26> The iphone/ipad web browsers already don't support flash, so dropping flash support isn't entirely a new thing. I for one am looking forward to its death on more platforms.

<comment><USER5> Hmm. Reading the linked MS document, it sounds more like they're desupporting plugins more for user experience consistency reasons than security or anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm becoming confused as to who Microsoft are anymore. They continue to disappoint by chasing other people's customers while alienating their existing ones.

I've been here before with WindowsCE and WinMobile. :(

</comment><comment><USER28> reading the lines, It seems this is only in the Metro version of IE. But still an hassle, where the desktop IE pops-up when non white-listed Flash content is on the page.

Submitting your site for consideration for Internet Explorer compatibility As stated previously, developers who have sites that require Flash Player can mark the page with a META tag (or serve a header) indicating that the site requires a plug-in. This causes Internet Explorer 10 to prompt the end user to open the site in Internet Explorer 10 for the desktop. If a site is on the CV list as compatible with Internet Explorer 10, Internet Explorer 10 will always open it with Flash Player enabled and the user won't be prompted to open in Internet Explorer 10 for the desktop.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting. Flash is not just video and ads. Flex is a powerful and rich application stack on Flash platform. There are numerous sites out there using Flex.

<comment><USER29> Let's get real, very few websites use Flex, it's kind of a dead technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "First they took away Flash, but I didn't care because I was not a Flash developer..."

Whatever your stance is on Flash, this is a scary development if you don't like walled gardens.

<comment><USER31> There was recently a big furor over Notch's statement that he refuses to let Microsoft certify his games for Win8. Many people felt he was being childish and throwing a tantrum, while others think he's a visionary and working to prevent MS from walling off Windows like the 360.

Personally, I think it's a fight worth fighting, since they really could go that route if they got enough buy-in on it. And I don't doubt they would, if they thought it was in their best interests. That's what corporations do.

Luckily, Linux has recently gotten a _lot_ of support from indie developers via Kickstarter (and the players' demands for a Linux version) and it's starting to look more viable as a platform for commercial games. We can hope.

<comment><USER32> The problem with Notch was that it was impossible to find out exactly what he was ranting about when he is fine with accelerating the demise of the PC by having his game run on the locked down iOS but not releasing it in the Windows 8 desktop store which is open.

Read this three part article about the confusion. [http://www.withinwindows.com/2012/09/28/notch-doesnt-hate- wi...](http://www.withinwindows.com/2012/09/28/notch-doesnt-hate- windows-8-hes-just-confused/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> So I cant use e.g. Flowplayer on my site to show IE people a video?

<comment><USER34> Yes you can. The new version of Flowplayer is HTML5 and then falls back to Flash if HTML5 isn't supported.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is M$ trying the Apple approach? To be in control of everything? Is this the beginning of another walled garden? Will M$ succeed at it?

</comment><comment><USER35> thats bad news for 3D games in the browser where HTML5 isnt an option yet.

<comment><USER36> True, but Unity is even better. The same regime might still apply though.

<comment><USER37> Reading the MSDN page posted on a previous comment, it looks like they are deprecating activex interface for IE. Flash, Silverlight and any other plugin using activex to interface more directly with hardware will be affected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> How is this news ? We know this since last May ( [http://www.withinwindows.com/2012/05/23/windows-8-secrets- in...](http://www.withinwindows.com/2012/05/23/windows-8-secrets-internet- explorer-10-will-ship-with-adobe-flash/) ).

</comment><comment><USER39> Personally i think this is great news. And i would very much like to see Java ending up in the same boat.

Having a language that is not inherently designed to be run in a sandboxed environment should not be allowed to run in a browser.

</comment><comment><USER40> Also an interesting information: there are two versions of IE. How and why should the user choose which one is more appropriate? Will the locked down version be default?

<comment><USER41> It's coupled to the "split personality" of the Windows 8 UI. If you start IE from desktop mode, you get "desktop IE", with desktop UI conventions, and web sites with flash will still work. If you select IE off the browser tile in the formerly-Metro "start screen", you get mobile-style UI conventions, and flash breaks unless you're on the whitelist.

Either they're expecting everyone who uses flash in a significant way to get whitelist approvals (and how many people do they have vetting those, anyway?), or they don't mind a period where, from the user's perspective, stuff randomly breaks for reasons that are not likely to be apparent. (Even if you tell them "well, it's how you started the browser fifteen minutes ago", they'll ask, "and why should that matter?" They have a point.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> It'll run flash, it won't run flash, it'll run flash, now it will only run some flash. Headspin. Alienating developers.

</comment><comment><USER43> I wish that Google doesn't whitelist YouTube with MS so everyone migrates to Chrome, I want IE10 dead.

</comment><comment><USER44> By the time ie10 becomes the majority of ie market share, flash will have not mattered for many years

<comment><USER45> > By the time ie10 becomes the majority of ie market share it will never > happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> doesn't the significance of this depend on the roles of the two browsers in windows 8? is that explained anywhere? how can you understand or comment usefully on this without knowing what the difference in uses for the two is?

</comment><comment><USER47> Horay for the death of flash and IE.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you care about politics? To what degree? - <AUTHOR>

Comments invited on to what degree the HN community cares about politics and most importantly follows politics on a regular basis in the main stream media. <comment><USER2> I care about politics.

But i don't care for the media. I believe the media is about molding public opinion. Disingenuously spinning topics to advantage. Everywhere from north Korea to the good old USA.

</comment><comment> atom-morgan I'd say I care a lot since governments play a very large role in our lives whether we want them to or not. They have the potential to control nearly every aspect of our lives from the people we marry to the amount of money taken from our paychecks. They also have a consistent track record of violence.

I care about politics but I don't care about "politics". I'm referring to the politics that is shown on TV. I get most of my news through Tumblr and other various online sources and I read great dialogue about political philosophy. I see what's really happening around the world. I see children killed by drone strikes with their legs blown off. I see ground level videos of bombs going off in streets. Meanwhile, the average person who is interested in "politics" is watching a segment on CNN or Fox News about the jeans Obama wears.

</comment><comment><USER3> Care a lot. . .follow a lot in various media. . .followed state election returns in US last night. . .

</comment><comment><USER4> I care about politics a lot. But I don't like discussion of politics here on HN, where the "discussion" too often turns into potshots. I use multiple sources of information, from more than one country, to gain information about current issues.</comment>


Vacuum-maker Dyson is reportedly working on an electric car - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11299802/dyson-electric-car-vacuum-UK-government <comment><USER2> This is great news. The car industry could really benefit from completely fresh competitors beyond Tesla. And whatever some people say, Dyson did pioneer the bagless vacuum cleaners, and their technology works. It would be cool if they could come up with some completely new how a "car" is made/designed.

Beyond the environmental benefits, electric cars allow companies to completely rethink car design as all the constraints from combustion engines are removed. I am excited to see what the next 5-10 years will bring. Thats also why I would like to see Apple make a car, just to see with what new ideas or designs they might come up.

<comment><USER3> On the contrary. Dyson has not won any independent vacuum tests but usually ranks in the bottom half. Dyson is high price, mainly marketing with gimmicks not results. Dyson is the self marketing part of Jobs without the genius.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi Won't argue because I haven't seen any tests, but I am surprised to read this because my current one is a Dyson and it cleans way better than any other one I've had before. It takes me like 5 times less to clean a room and the result is better, especially when carpets are involved.

It could be that I've just always chosen badly though. Which vacuum would you recommend?

<comment><USER4> Go to any office in the UK and they'll have a Numatic Henry. Go to any factory and they'll have one of the bigger Numatic models. Get a professional cleaner to come to your house and 9 times out of 10 they'll bring a Henry.

It can't just be because of the cute face...

[https://www.numatic.co.uk/](https://www.numatic.co.uk/)

(no affiliation by the way, I just wasn't sure how to put the link inline!)

<comment><USER5> Henry Hoovers have serious fans :

[http://i.imgur.com/fscSWvA.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/fscSWvA.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dyson do actually know a thing or two about making lightweight, high- performance electric motors plus they do actually sell product in volume.

There was uproar a few years ago when Dyson moved their manufacturing out of the UK to Malaysia. I imagine that they will use their Malaysian factories too, further down the line, should the electric car product prove to be successful.

I imagine that the styling and colours that Dyson will use for their car will be very different to anything that has gone on before, the result will not look like a 'normal' car.

Dyson also have a loyal and rich customer base, people that trust the brand and see qualities in the brand that they would want in a car, e.g. dependability, getting the job done.

The article only really cites something vague about battery R+D, that really need not imply a car. Dyson have a lot of batteries in their products and investing in that area makes sense for their product line up. Better batteries, with more power and portability, could be a major USP for them, no need for car side-project. If this were their intent, the R+D plus initial manufacturing facility would cost many millions more than this level of government grant. The sums involved in this are not huge and it could be for just 'batteries for hoovers' that they are making.

<comment><USER7> Not meant to be negative, just another take on some of your points:

* Dyson has a factory in a country with low wages.

* Dyson uses modern styling in their product lines.

* Dyson has a strong brand.

(* Dyson knows about electrics)

It sounds like you can replace Dyson with quite a lot of names.

One of the human brain's strengths is pattern recognition. Wether true or not, we see patterns everywhere. But that applies to my comment too ;)

<comment><USER8> Sure. How many other vacuum companies are also making electric cars?

<comment><USER6> Although failed, the Sinclair C5 electric 'car' was built by the Hoover company in South Wales. Hoover made vacuum cleaners in the UK at the time rather than just offload them from a boat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd actually like a full sized , full power battery powered vacuum. I think that's my biggest mental hurdle to vacuuming. Dealing with that cord.

<comment><USER10> We have an Electrolux full size battery powered vacuum and not having to deal with the lead is the change which had been most effective in getting us to clean more. It's also great for cleaning the car (especially as our model can be changed from an upright to a cylinder vacuum).

<comment><USER9> Wow I didn't know that existed! Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe they'll use vacuums to create downforce.

[https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker- media/image/upload/ki9rasv6uh...](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker- media/image/upload/ki9rasv6uhtxqgiviixt.jpg)

(It's the Chaparral 2J [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_Cars#2J](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_Cars#2J))

<comment><USER12> Chapparal, the famous 'sucker car' was the first ground-effects race car.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_(cars)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_\(cars\))

So effective the sport made it illegal after just one season.

<comment><USER13> The Brabham was made illegal after one race IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Will its propulsion system involve sucking and blowing air over a "special" airfoil to increase the air's velocity?

</comment><comment><USER15> This is so great. It's like watching an early 20th century period piece unfold.

</comment><comment><USER16> Interesting. I used to know a vacuum cleaner repair technician who told me (anecdotally, no citation I can provide) that in her shop's experience Dyson accounted for about 5% of sales and 95% of repairs.

<comment><USER17> Maybe they're expensive enough to be worth repairing. They're quite complex but seem durable enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is Clive Sinclair available for comment? ..

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hco_Av2DJ8o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hco_Av2DJ8o)

<comment><USER19> Looked for a funny Sinclair C5 videos - was not disappointed - [http://youtu.be/2fbzSsHx93U](http://youtu.be/2fbzSsHx93U)

</comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen I heard it's gonna suck. Ha ha!

Ah well in all seriousness I have a few of their products and they are really good.

</comment><comment><USER20> I hope the car will be better than its vacuum cleaners as they are very cheaply made and of very low quality. I know this from repairing a number of them. To be frank you are better off throwing them away and buying a better quality make.

<comment><USER21> That's a sort of inverted survivorship bias - you've seen "a number" break, presumably from similar usage if they're yours, or at least similar temperature/humidity/etc if they're from around where you live if they're from your friends or customers, and you feel that translates to all Dysons everywhere. The reality is that you've seen _at most_ a few thousand if you're repairing them professionally. That probably isn't a big enough sample size to know if they're consistently bad.

I've owned one Dyson, but it's been going for 6 years and I've never had a problem with it. That doesn't lead me to believe they never break though.

<comment><USER22> I assure you a few thousand is enough to know if they're consistently bad.

<comment><USER23> If the few thousand are taken randomly. Not so much if they're taken from the set of "those that broke".

<comment><USER22> Yea, that's a good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The British government doesn't have a great track record funding automobile company's.

Remember the DeLorean? Least John DeLorean had loads of auto industry experience.

<comment><USER21> For a short time in the early 1980s the British government part owned Jaguar, Land Rover and Mini through British Leyland. It didn't work very well (Tory government versus heavily unionised car industry) but it went better than DeLorean.

<comment><USER17> The UK actually does great at making cars - so long as they're either small volume boutique supercars, racecars _or_ the factory is managed by foreigners (such as Nissan).

The big factories were sunk by their appalling labour relations, for which management must take some blame.

<comment><USER24> You're forgetting Honda (Swindon), BMW (Oxford), Ford (Dagenham)... The list goes on.

<comment><USER25> Yep, Jaguar Land Rover (Birmingham) too. And (IIRC) a lot of engine design for various manufacturers still happens in and around Brackley.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm really struggling not to make a "...sucks" joke.

...damn.</comment>