Ask HN: Regarding Bringing on Our 1st Technical Co-founder - <AUTHOR>

We have met someone we would like to work who programs in Python.  They seem like a good fit, and are ready to be on board.  They currently have a full time position but are willing to quit to work full time if we can offer something in the form of equity and bring them on as a technical co-founder position.
Here is where we are at until this point.  Two co-founders non technical.  Working full time since September and have a working prototype we are privately beta testing.  We have been working on this non stop without taking salaries, and have funded this ourselves.  We currently have no funding but have applied to different startup accelerators (including Y combinator).
What is appropriate in terms of offering a percentage equity?  And what sort of vesting schedule?  If there are any other details or questions please feel free to ask in the comment section.  Our startup is SpotHero. <comment><USER2> Vesting Schedule: Three to Four years - and you should give something within 90 days (or sooner) in good faith. The vesting will be given on the anniversary of years one and two - and then likely monthly thereafter. The earlier vesting could be a point of contention - as you may give away something for nothing. But if you look at it from their perspective, they're also giving up something for potentially nothing. Very delicate.

Percentage is a tough one. Depending on who you talk to, they'll tell you very little for a pure developer - more for higher level positions. As a developer, I find this offensive! :-) Anyway, check out the blog for Mark Suster (<http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/>) as he has some excellent advice for the question you're currently asking. Browse through many of his articles! You'll find vesting and percentage info within the posts, and many more nuggets of gold.

Best for you and your startup!</comment>


Watch a robot solve a Rubik's cube in less than half a second - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2019/05/16/watch-a-robot-solve-a-rubiks.html <comment><USER2> Questions, what is the max moves to solve a cube? I mean no matter how you scramble it you can always just reverse the scrambling, but there must be a limit to how far you can scramble a solve-able cube.

So even in you used a thousand moves to try and scramble it, it is possible to solve in fewer moves.

<comment><USER3> It's 20 (or 26 depending how you define a move). See [http://cube20.org/](http://cube20.org/)

Anyway, finding the 20 moves is very difficult and humans use longer path that are composed of parts that are easier to memorize. Probably the typical length is a few hundred of moves. I guess the robot use a similar system.

But IIRC there are some intermediate methods that use about 50 moves, that are easy enough to calculate by a computer but too difficult for humans.

<comment><USER2> Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


I think 3rd party apps using yfrog's API still use Twitter passwords, not Oauth. - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/imageshackapi/wiki/YFROGupload I'm sure this applies to any of these image sharing services, of course, but I'm particularly disappointed in yfrog, since they use OAuth, ostensibly. Are people serious about this OAuth thing? We should make it known that 3rd party apps aren't playing kosher with your passwords. <comment><AUTHOR> I'm sure this applies to any of these image sharing services, of course, but I'm particularly disappointed in yfrog, since they use OAuth, ostensibly. Are people serious about this OAuth thing? We should make it known that 3rd party apps aren't playing kosher with your passwords.

</comment><comment><USER2> Well, aren't they going to have a fun time in June.

[http://apiwiki.twitter.com/OAuth- FAQ#Whenareyougoingtoturnof...](http://apiwiki.twitter.com/OAuth- FAQ#WhenareyougoingtoturnoffBasicAuth)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that's exciting. Good for Twitter.

How does Basic Auth work though? How can they prevent using it? I'm assuming that the website will still have a text login, can't they somehow highjack that? I guess Twitter just won't make it an XML interface or whatnot anymore, so it'll necessarily be a hack.

So are they also saying that you can't have 3rd party desktop apps anymore without registering them with OAuth? That's a bit annoying if you ask me. I guess they'll have an API key like Flickr.</comment></comment>


Why Open Source Startups Fail - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/12/the-real-reason-open-source-startups-fail/ <comment><USER3> Several times I've seen VCs force the shutdown of consulting businesses in companies to make them "focus" on the product.

This is an example of where VC's interests and the companies are not aligned and VCs are pursuing short term goals.

Specifically, they often "request" this be done well before a term sheet. If the company complies then they start running out of cash, making them more dependent on the VC money and less able to negotiate terms.

Further, it's a mistake. These companies were using the income from other companies they were consulting for to build out the product. It's like free development. You get your engineer time paid for, and make a profit on it, and much of the work goes into the product side of things. All you need is to take some of those profits and build up a separate team that is focused on productizing the core product.

IF you do it right, you can bootstrap and never need to take VC funding. Either way, a successful consulting business extends your runway.

The claim about lacking focus is BS. Because the consulting- if being done right-- is in the exact area where the product is being built.

You know what takes focus away? Running the senior management team all over the country or the valley talking to VCs who are mostly going to waste their time because they don't have the balls to say "no"... looking for the 1 in 100 that will invest in the company.

I've seen this many times.

If you're able to secure consulting for your company and it's in the core area of what you want the company to do long term, do it.

<comment><USER4> You're mistaken about why VCs want firms to focus on product rather consultancy, it's not for the short-term as you suggest but rather the long term.

Time spent on consultancy today gets you revenue today but time spent on product gets you revenue tomorrow. Focusing on product rather than consultancy is the long-term play because you're focusing on what maximizes your value 5-10 years down the line rather than what pays the bill today.

The big difference between consultancy and product based development is that with consultancy you're building what the individual customer needs rather than building what your product needs strategically in the long term (if they're both the same thing that great but doesn't happen that often in practice).

There's also a distinctively different mindset between product and consultancy companies. At a consultancy the consultants are seen as the revenue generators and the product developers as a cost base; at a product company developers are seen as revenue creators. It's easy to underestimate the cultural impact that has on companies.

<comment><USER5> I think you're mistaken on a couple of points:

\- VCs aren't interested in "revenue tomorrow" unless you mean a 10x+ exit multiple. VCs want you you to focus on your product because there's an invisible( and sometimes not so invisible) clock running as soon as you take the investment.

\- VCs aren't interested in 5-10 year tails on their investments. Most are looking for an 18mo.-3.yr ROI. If you can prove revenue and 'market traction' they'll extend your runway accordingly, however that's a constantly moving target and generally the types of VCs who are interested in the 'long tail' aren't the same that want to give you money at the infancy of your company.

\- There is definitely a big difference between a traditional consultancy and a product focused organization but only in the sense of the 'end goal'. If your entire plan is to bootstrap your company by building a consultancy, it's easy to keep a separation of concerns between the two halves of your organization. Usually the "clash" that you're talking about is when a consultancy based/focused organization decides to build a product, not when a product company decides to do some consultancy.

Developers (in fact, all of technology) are considered cost centers at ALL businesses. There's not an MBA on the planet that wouldn't jettison the entire technology cost-center of their business in a heart-beat if they could figure out how to do it and still achieve their monetary objectives.

<comment><USER6> > Developers (in fact, all of technology) are considered cost centers at ALL > businesses. There's not an MBA on the planet that wouldn't jettison the > entire technology cost-center of their business in a heart-beat if they > could figure out how to do it and still achieve their monetary objectives.

This is pretty funny because in a software company, devs are the only ones creating _actual_ global value (as in, something that a customer could realistically derive value from). Every other instrument in the company is pretty much how to turn value into incoming cash flow or reduce outgoing cash flow.

It'd be like Apple trying to jettison its designers.

<comment><USER7> This is an extremely cynical comment. First, hard-line profit/cost center thinking is falling out of fashion at top MBA schools like Harvard and has been for years. But also, a reasonable MBA would be able to recognize when the tech team is actually creating value vs. when they are dead weight that could be outsourced. And, it's really myopic (and the kind of thing that people make fun of engineers for) to believe that tech is the only ones adding value. Value (perceived, communicated) is potentially created all up and down the chain.

<comment><USER8> Either they're dead weights or they're not. How does outsourcing change the equation? Certainly not by reducing cost -- not if you want to outsource to non-dead-weight development group.

<comment><USER7> Seriously? Take a bunch of do-nothing office drones, can them all and get a maintenance contract with some consultant in eastern Europe. What's hard to understand about that?

<comment><USER9> You will probably lose the same amount of money you thought you were saving in management and communication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some open source startups fail because they are non-scalable service companies deluding themselves that they are product companies. Furthermore, they do not own enough of any durable advantage (IP, talent, mindshare), and so multiple "product" companies pretend to not compete while offering similar services in a niche that does not have that much demand. Furthermore with FOSS, most potential customers are often politically incentivized to poach upstream code and talent, give nothing back and eschew overpriced "consulting" services entirely. So it's almost always the wrong business model, unless you dominate it.

(I've plenty of enterprise FOSS consulting to realize there are easier ways to make much more $/time, like enterprise startups that are product companies. Also, PGs essays about "consultingish.")

<comment><USER11> Yeah, you are right; look at companies in the hadoop eco system: cloudera, hortonworks, mapr. They are just burning the cash; most of the money comes from the services/consulting. This will succeed if one dominates the sector, the way Redhat does in the area of enterprise linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I worked at Cloudscaling for several years. It seems like this article simplified (actually complicated, read on) the issue too much by truncating it into its two "playbooks." I think the first thing that needs to be argued properly is why open source startups need to be analyzed differently from other startups. If you have a feasible (scalable, sustainable, etc) business model to make money with using open source software - say by deploying it and supporting it - then that business model can be judged by the same criteria as other startup's business models.

The issue of productizing software which several OpenStack companies have attempted is part a basic part of their business requirement for scaling - because supporting dozens of heterogeneous deployments is impossible with reasonably sized engineering & support teams.

This article implies that Cloudscaling used the first playbook. It did do the items listed on the first playbook, but it also did all of the ones on the second playbook too (though, while being a smaller startup didn't contribute as much code back to OpenStack as some of the larger companies/contributors).

Creating new success formulas - like these "playbooks" \- ignores what we know to be true about the success of many great startups in our midst. There are patterns behind that success which are consistent. These patterns and factors have been written about extensively by folks like Paul Graham, Eric Schmidt, and the like. They rarely synthesize new complexities or factors when talking about what creates success. What they do is go back to basic principles. However, the data to analyze failed startups well enough to determine which fundamentals were lacking is rarely available - so we make stuff up. Company culture is a big one - and it may or may not have had a significant impact on Cloudscaling.

</comment><comment><USER13> We're going with the open core model ourselves. In our case focusing on commoditizing our competitors by giving away the algorithms while at the same time enabling companies to build their own solutions.

One interesting aspect of open source is the pitch for enterprise. It aligns your business model with the consumer's needs and if it's close to data (storage or analytics) the risk of a company going under or getting acquired doesn't leave them in the dust (ala apple/foundationdb)

Open core (like cloudera worth 4x horton) allows for the best of both worlds where you don't leave your customers locked in but you can still get licensing fees for added layers on top.

Edit: Let me clarify a bit. Open core is for company's who just want to pay for solutions also allowing them to serve companies who want to build their own infrastructure. There's some amount of lock in with open core, but if the core infra is open source it still allows the customer an easier migration path. In our case we went with an apache license for the core tech and sell a layer on top that allows for easier deployments.

While open source startups are rare I think it's critical for core infrastructure to be open source.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think maybe the most interesting open source companies today are Couchbase and Mongo.

AFAICT, everything Couchbase does is Apache Licensed. An old-school traditionalist could look at them and conclude that they have no proprietary IP at all.

Mongo has perhaps a little more of a boundary because they use the AGPL (which will scare away more enterprise customers than the Apache license will). But still.

AFAIK, both of these firms are paying the significant costs of developing their own software. Neither of them can be characterized as building their business model on low dev costs from the use of community-developed code.

These firms have more funding than many open source firms get from an exit. Both of them seem to have significant and fast-growing revenue. Both of them seem to be on track to a successful IPO with reasonable expectations for continued growth thereafter.

Even in today's open source world, what these two companies are apparently doing seems kind of amazing.

</comment><comment><USER15> This could be simplified: A company needs something that cannot be dublicated using a significant effort. A company that releases their source code to the public really _has_ to build up some knowledge in their domain (because the public source can be easily dublicated), while another closed source company gets away with just selling their product.

<comment><USER16> "I want to believe." ~Poster on Mulder's wall.

You can interpret "get's away with" as "makes better business sense". On a slight tangent - in the infosec space those with closed source products (e.g. WAF's) laugh at those with open source products when it comes to the numbers of embarrassing and business-damaging zero-days reported.

Closed source rocks if you're a capitalist. Those who sell closed source love that open sourcers are so distracted by singing-it from the mountain.

~From a guy who runs a not-that-small open source biz.

<comment><USER17> _> in the infosec space those with closed source products (e.g. WAF's) laugh at those with open source products when it comes to the numbers of embarrassing and business-damaging zero-days reported._

Because no one reports theirs? It's not a good reason to laugh if you think of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You could switch "open source" with "zero-revenue business model" (not quite as catchy).

This is something unique to startups, who can raise huge sums of money (with insane valuations), yet have no revenue model. Having no revenue stream can (and has worked) for many startups, but it is incredibly risky. How long you can keep going until the money/ luck runs out is massive uncertainty (there's enough uncertainty as it is).

<comment><USER19> Fundamentally open source companies and no-revenue model companies are very different, I think it's a mistake to lump them together. The defining trait of a no-revenue company is the investors' confidence that massive revenues or at least a bombastic acquisition will come further down the line.

This model does not work for open source companies, because the "figuring out how to make money later" step typically can't happen without a massive pivot (whether it's all that likely to happen with your typical no-revenue company either is open to debate).

Maybe the break-even point in open source companies tends to come at a later point, but the path to revenue needs to be baked in from the start. Typically, switching on a revenue generator later will require more than just putting some ads up on the company site, so if massive changes are required to make that happen you must include those plans in your DNA from the start.

Open source and zero-revenue companies share the assumption that reach and influence can be translated into money, but when running an open source company the nature of that reach has to be designed more carefully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am working on a Free Software startup. What I think makes it unique is it caters to an underserved market, and customers in that market usually don't have the resources to implement our solutions themselves.

Of course, respecting our (potential) customers' freedom and not withholding knowledge means we have to be innovative in areas other than technology such as marketing, sales, and support. And if we cannot keep customers happy, another company can eventually come in and compete with us by offering better service and/or lower prices.

Edit: fixed a typo.

<comment><USER21> This is probably my most shared link: [http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/tiemans.htm...](http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/tiemans.html)

My favourite quote from that link:

"At first I tried to make my argument the way that Stallman made his: on the merits. I would explain how freedom to share would lead to greater innovation at lower cost, greater economies of scale through more open standards, etc., and people would universally respond "It's a great idea, but it will never work, because nobody is going to pay money for free software." After two years of polishing my rhetoric, refining my arguments, and delivering my messages to people who paid for me to fly all over the world, I never got farther than "It's a great idea, but . . .," when I had my second insight: if everybody thinks it's a great idea, it probably is, and if nobody thinks it will work, I'll have no competition!"

My favourite free advice (worth what you paid for it): similar to what the original article stated, the "innovation path" is for the gold prospectors going out to make it rich. Trying to make a differentiator and then get paid multiples on your good idea won't work for free software because everybody gets to use your good idea.

Free software business models require you to execute at a level higher than anyone else can execute. Usually if you are the person who built that infrastructure, you have an edge, but it really is all about building a viable business, not building crazy software.

In that way, I think free software businesses are inherently less risky. Often you don't need VC, because if you can't get people to pay for your services, you are SOL anyway.

From your short message, you seem to understand this. I wish you good luck!

<comment> bjelkeman-again An interesting aspect of the discussion here is that the opinion is that there seems to be only a few options for funding an open source organisation: venture funded or organic growth. Venture funded is challenging, as it is all about gold digging. Organic growth is generally a slow and hard path.

If you have other goals than just money, there is actually quite a lot of opportunity to work on open source software, with viable business models and interesting things to work on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Along with building customer engagement it is important to build a brand. The brand becomes a gateway to other services like certification, training and consulting.

For an open source OEM, a brand is obvious, but for a community player, it is not so intuitive. The brand is built by focusing on contribution, good writing (blogs, articles etc) and showing visibility on the forum. Like the OP mentioned, you cannot be too invested in the IP as a non-core player.

<comment><USER13> That's been huge for me as well. Speaking at conferences and writing my book over the past year has been a great entrance in to getting business. It's really paying dividends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is a good article but I think the focus on "the IP-based product playbook" vs "the ecosystem-based services playbook" exposes an issue without making it explicit: that these are very different kinds of businesses. Maybe the swing-for-the-fences returns VCs are looking for are not possible in businesses that have such a large services component because of the inability to scale up quickly.

</comment><comment><USER4> Techcrunch is somewhat behind the curve here, ever since IBM started undercutting RedHat on support and stealing their customers open source companies have stepped away from having consultancy as their only form of revenue.

Modern open source based business tend to be about network effect and building ecosystem business (Android, Github, Docker).

(I wrote a blog post on this a while back [http://blog.imranghory.org/open- source-business-models](http://blog.imranghory.org/open-source-business- models))

<comment><USER24> GitLab CEO here, regarding GitHub, hosting open source is not the same thing as being open source.

<comment><USER4> Sure but they're based around commercializing an open source product (Git).

<comment><USER24> Ah, if you see it like that I understand, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The concept of a SV style startup is orthogonal to that of a consultancy. Consultancies face one major problem: scaling.

The problem with growing a consultancy is that their growth is limited to the the number of a consultant's hours they can sell. If you can't scale your income exponentially to the number of man-hours you have available to you, you'll never be capable of evolving into a 100% + growth-per-quarter business.

I can't say I'm surprised that VCs looking for the big winners would not want to invest in a consultancy.

</comment><comment><USER26> This article wasn't really so much about it's headline, but someone in the same industry saying "we are not also in bad shape".

I suspect to answer the actual headline "The Real Reason Open Source Startups Fail", is pretty much why all companies may fail - PLUS the possibility that their paid component is not sufficiently compelling or that while their open source piece is compelling, they have trouble competing iwth their open source component or are becoming too services heavy, which can cut into margins.

It seems the article tries to claim Nebula wasn't "operatioanlly excellent", which is something a competitor would naturally say, but Nebula was trying to make a proprietary "appliance" approach to wrapping OpenStack (apologies if I've mistranslated this) - which I think might have just been too weird.

And that's a reason any company can crash - the product idea was perhaps not something the market wanted.

OpenStack, increasingly, is one of those things large companies are interested in, and if you have a large team of people to wrangle OpenStack, you likely need more flexibility, and want to put the components together yourself.

So were they making OpenStack for the little guy? Probably not, and OpenStack for the little guy is a bit of an oxymoron. It's pretty hands on. I can see where they'd have problems, and I also think it's likely is that there aren't a lot of OpenStack customers - but there are some very very large ones, so it's a huge fight to get someone to pay you - and not someone else - <USER2> something.

But most of the time, there's nothing particularly interesting in OSS business models except finding the right line of how much you are going to give away. In fact, I'd say you have an advantage out of the gate in getting people to be interested in what you do, that makes some parts easier.

I still think SaaS models (.com's, websites), etc, may be more easier though, to avoid the need to maintain that balance. But can you do that in systems software? Not so much, with a few exceptions for hosted monitoring.

Anyway, it's possible to build a good product company on OSS bits - and a services company can be something a lot of companies don't want to build. You just have to find the right line, but I think this was really about product/market fit, and not about open source business model failure, per se.

</comment><comment><USER27> What this is saying is that open source startups are just a PaaS. Act accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER28> It recently occurred to me, free open source project + paid enterprise service companies are the software world equivalent of freemium games.

<comment><USER20> Not always. Some companies distribute 'open source' crippleware and try to sell proprietary extensions, just like 'freemium' games, but you seem to be talking about paid services, not proprietary extensions.

If all of the product is released under a Free Software license, what is there to complain about? Not receiving free consulting services?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This article made me realize that I don't know of any open source startup which got acquired for a significant sum of money.

Can you name some that did?

<comment><USER30> There was Cygnus Solutions, which I believe maintained GNU software (debugger, binutils) and contributed large parts of gcc. Cygnus was bought by Red Hat for $674M in 1999.

HN folks may recognize EFF board member John Gilmore as the founder.

<comment><USER31> And also Michael Tiemann (now at RedHat), and David Henkel-Wallace (now at Technical Illusions, making CastAR).

Their slogan was "We make free software affordable". (In answer to the anti- slogans: "Free software: more expensive than money" and "Linux is only free if your time is worthless".)

I asked David if they named the company "Cygnus" after grepping /usr/dict/words for "gnu". He answered no, because if they'd thought of doing that, they would have named it "Wingnut".

<comment><USER7> Funny, but "wingnut" doesn't actually appear in /usr/dict/words

<comment><USER31> The funniest thing is that David shot that back without missing a beat, with a perfectly straight face, and a somber tone that suggested he deeply regretted the missed opportunity.

Did you know that the word "gnullable" wasn't in /usr/dict/words either?

<comment><USER7> Yup, because I took 0.2 seconds to actually grep /usr/dict/words for "gnu" just recently.

<comment><USER31> I think Gumby was either making a self-effacing joke, or a gratuitous dig at RMS -- I'm not sure which.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingnut_%28politics%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingnut_%28politics%29)

"Wingnut" (sometimes "wing-nut") is an American political term used as a slur referring to a person who holds extreme, and often irrational, political views usually with a religious overtone. According to Merriam-Webster, it is "a mentally deranged person" or "one who advocates extreme measures or changes : radical."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Win lunch with Albert, Fred and Brad from Union Square Ventures - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twilio.com/2010/09/win-lunch-with-albert-fred-and-brad-from-union-square-ventures.html <comment><USER2> Hah, love it</comment>


Google Nears $1 Billion Investment in SpaceX - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-nears-1-billion-investment-in-spacex-1421706642 <comment><USER2> It's quite amazing how this values SpaceX at 10bn, less than 50% of WhatsApp. This makes me think that there's something systemically wrong with the current incarnation of post-oligarchic shareholder-controlled short term interest based capitalism. One can argue that WhatsApp has better money making potential than SpaceX, but that is only because the whole system is warped.

<comment> tuna-piano While I see your point, I think there are two important things to remember here. (Note: I understand the long term implications of an interplanetary species, just providing context)

A) whatsapp improves the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people. You don't necessarily need an absurd customer lifetime value to get a $19b valuation with that many people using your product.

B) SpaceX provides almost no current value to anybody. And the people it does provide value to are "free riders" in the sense that they love watching space travel and get to watch SpaceX regardless of whether or not they pay for it.

Just an inexact thought experiment. Let's say we poll the roughly 1b people living in first world, and ask them each to pay $10 to see SpaceX do whatever SpaceX does. How many people even think it's worth $10?

<comment><USER3> _Let 's say we poll the roughly 1b people living in first world, and ask them each to pay $10 to see SpaceX do whatever SpaceX does. How many people even think it's worth $10?_

I just wan't to add that the problem is not that SpaceX provides less to humanity than WhatsApp.

The problem is that most people are not really far-sighted, but only see things which benefit themselves in a predictable amount of time.

Why companies like SpaceX (or NASA) are important has already been answered with _Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa_

[https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore- space-...](https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore- space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4372563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4372563)

<comment><USER4> >The problem is that most people are not really far-sighted, but only see things which benefit themselves in a predictable amount of time.

Because most people are not upper middle class to wealthy. They are forced to be concerned about paying for food/healthcare/education so their life tends to have different priorities.

The other problem is that your line of 'far-sighted' is completely arbitrary. Someone could easily argue that SpaceX is wasting its time with rockets and we should be spending more time studying theoretical physics to figure out better ways to travel long distances in space.

<comment><USER5> > _Because most people are not upper middle class to wealthy. They are forced > to be concerned about paying for food /healthcare/education so their life > tends to have different priorities._

Which is a problem because if only they could (not that the system will let them do that easily) stop and think a little further, in a little less selfish way, they'd likely figure a way to improve their living conditions.

But hell, that applies also to the "upper middle class to wealthy", especially in terms of convenience. See NIMBYsm, or people fighting tooth and nail for their right to use cars cheaply in dense urban areas. People tend to defect instead of cooperating, for their own demise (and of everyone else who knows better but can't do much against an uncoordinated mob).

<comment><USER4> >Which is a problem because if only they could (not that the system will let them do that easily) stop and think a little further, in a little less selfish way, they'd likely figure a way to improve their living conditions.

This is a completely uninformed view of what it's like to be in this position. Everything in life for them is essentially a borderline crisis (I witnessed my parents going through this). Finding new jobs is extremely difficult so you have to make major compromises to keep your current one. This is even more important when you can't build any savings to cushion the impact of unemployment.

What exactly do you think they can do to "stop and think a little further"? This might be an option if you have no family to support, but otherwise it's a ridiculous notion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having just finished watching The Men Who Built America[1], Musk reminds me so much of the great American entrepreneurs of the last 200 years (Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Morgan, Ford, Carnegie). Ridiculously ambitious and fearless entrepreneurs who literally by sheer force of will moved humanity forward.

[1][http://www.history.com/shows/men-who-built- america](http://www.history.com/shows/men-who-built-america) (available on Netflix)

<comment><USER7> Quite an illustrious group: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_\(industrialist\))

Just pointing out some people have a VERY different opinion of those rich men.

<comment> j-b The origin of the term is quite interesting. From the wiki link:

 _The term robber baron derives from the medieval German lords who charged nominally illegal tolls (tolls unauthorized by the Holy Roman Emperor) on the primitive roads crossing their lands or the larger tolls on ships traversing the Rhine—all such actions without adding anything of value,(see robber baron) but instead lining one 's pockets to the detriment (added costs) of the common good._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been wondering if part of this SpaceX satellite gambit is to help Tesla Motors. Think about it: if and when there are 500,000 or a million or several million Tesla vehicles (including the Model 3) all over the world, plus thousands of SuperChargers, and they all need to be connected to the Net for messaging and value-added services, then what better way than to just have 'em connect to the SpaceX service?

Right now Tesla Model S vehicles connect via AT&T (at least in the US, don't know what the carriers are in other countries). It's a tiny number of "devices" connected to the network so it is probably expensive for Tesla. At some point it gets really expensive. One assumes the Model 3 will have the same always-on connection that the Model S/X has. Millions of Models S/X/3 around the world mean a lot of communications costs. And then there are the SuperChargers, that will in time no doubt be communicating with cars too, to improve the user experience.

I suspect a few million "devices" connected to the SpaceX version of global wifi would be way cheaper than connecting to a dozen or two carriers in countries around the world.

Just a theory.

<comment><USER9> You're overestimating the cell connectivity costs. Amazon Kindle is permanently on 3g/4g, and the device itself costs less than $200.

<comment><USER10> The content isn't that large, and I believe it was only free with the Keyboard version.

<comment><USER11> Still free on the new 3g enabled models. But when you say 'free' it only allows you to browse Amazon and buy Amazon books so they just build the costs into those... So thanks to everyone who buys eBooks on Amazon and funds my Kindle DX's 3g connection :)

<comment><USER12> amazon actually loses money on each kindle book. think about that.

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure that isn't true

<comment><USER12> [http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-losing-money- on-999-e-...](http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-losing-money- on-999-e-books/) This is outdated from 2009, but the pricing is pretty close to this still.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Another one not behind paywall: [http://gizmodo.com/report-googles- finalizing-a-1-billion-inv...](http://gizmodo.com/report-googles- finalizing-a-1-billion-investment-in-s-1680500143)

</comment><comment><USER15> Makes me wish average joe could buy spacex stock. Willing investors shouldnt have to be elite or accredited. Just believers and supporters of a better future.

<comment><USER16> That's all well-and-good for SpaceX but it proved to be pretty catastrophic for the dozens of pump-and-dumps that bankrupted many Americans when we tried that previously.

<comment><USER15> Certainly there's that risk. But saying that only millionaire's are 'smart enough' to invest in private companies seems worse.

<comment><USER17> It's not about whether they're smart or not - it's that a multimillionaire can lose a bunch of money on a private company and not be out their retirement savings. That's not nearly as true for the typical middle class person.

<comment><USER18> Agreed, but I could drop a couple K on SpaceX and it wouldn't hurt me if it disappears.... but I'm not allowed to.

<comment><USER19> Are you trying to make money off of an investment of that sort, or do you merely want to help contribute to the success of SpaceX?

If it's the latter, then there are probably far more creative ways you could help their situation than contributing a few thousand dollars.

<comment><USER20> Sure, but it's not the business of legislation to force him to make that choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am not surprised. In one of the Ted Talks, Larry Page had clearly mentioned that he would rather leave all his money to someone like Elon Musk than donating to a Charity. He is going down that path.

I think this is a great move by Google.

Source: [http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_page_where_s_google_going_nex...](http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_page_where_s_google_going_next?language=en)

<comment><USER22> If I were him, I would put most of my money in life extension technology.

<comment><USER21> I guess that's why he founded Calico ([http://www.calicolabs.com/](http://www.calicolabs.com/))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> We (edit: briefly) changed the url from [http://www.wsj.com/articles/google- nears-1-billion-investmen...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/google- nears-1-billion-investment-in-spacex-1421706642) because (a) this confirmation supersedes that information and (b) paywalls lead threads off-topic.

Edit: Never mind. So many posts of the confirmed news are popping up that there needs to be a new thread. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8919901](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8919901) is a reasonable article and not behind a paywall, so it may as well be the one.

</comment><comment><USER24> Can someone with some experience in satellites tell us what is possible in terms of satellite internet. For example, I really doubt most individual people would be able to actually connect directly through satellites. If that is the case, a satellite radio would have to detect and distinguish millions of different simultaneous data streams. I doubt there is enough spectrum for this.

<comment><USER25> HughesNet has 600,000-some subscribers. WildBlue has over 300,000. They're satellite ISPs with 12-15mbps residential service.

<comment><USER26> Generally satellite ISPs are dial-up for upload and use the satellite link only for download.

<comment><USER27> I can't speak for Hughes but I was a trained tech for WildBlue /Exede. Neither of their services have ever used dial-up for upload. While early generation WildBlue services were fairly slow on the upload, Exede was able to push 4+ mbit to the subscriber fairly constantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm optimistic about satellite internet done right, but I'm worried the speeds and lag are going to make it a bit frustrating compared to fiber. In 5 years (when this will be completed), I think virtual reality will be penetrating the masses. Can satellite internet handle virtual meetings, virtual online gaming, etc without major lagging?

<comment><USER29> No technological innovation can change basic physics. There will always be propagation delay in satellite networks.

<comment><USER30> ... But there's dramatically less when you put the satellites much closer to earth, as they're planning to do here. These are LEO satellites, not the far- away geostationary stuff you see with older communication satellites.

<comment><USER31> In fact, if they enable satellite to satellite communication (like e.g. Iridium) and get full worldwide coverage, there's no reason why they couldn't in theory delivery much shorter roundtrip times than what we get between many locations over wired networks, given how much traffic takes huge detours today for various reasons. E.g. lots of European traffic to parts of Asia still goes the "long way around" via the US because it's a far better served route thanks to massive amount of undersea capacity going in/out of the US to pretty much everywhere, while the land routes to parts of Asia are fraught with problems.

Being able to ignore political boundaries, war zones, problems with theft and vandalism and other concerns that often limit the placement of over-land long distance cables has a huge potential value in itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It says Google inc - do they mean through Google Ventures or something different?

<comment><USER16> Google Ventures' budget is reportedly nearer $300-$500M/year so I would imagine this is something different. There were rumblings of Satellite internet coming out of GoogleX but this seems to fit with their new Energy / Access group (Where Project Loon ended up) too. So my answer is that it definitely won't maybe end up in Google Ventures.

<comment><USER33> Google Inc. does direct investments from time to time. Also they have their growth investment arm, Google Capital, which has invested some large sums recently in Glassdoor, etc. (but surely not $1B in one company unless they acquired that company). Perhaps Google Inc. is leading the investment with the round consisting of many undisclosed players across private equity, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> That's effectively and end-run around the whole net-neutrality debate.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm glad that net neutrality limbo doesn't actually hurt investment in infrastructure!

Musk said the Internet access would be "unfettered certainly and at very low cost". [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/531996243904716800](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/531996243904716800)

Hopefully there's a way around needing a satellite dish, aside from dishes that share their connection over wi-fi.

</comment><comment><USER36> I've put up some thoughts on this and Google/SpaceX' wider rationale and would love the HN community's thoughts: [https://medium.com/@pmurphyirl/why-is- satellite-internet-hot...](https://medium.com/@pmurphyirl/why-is-satellite- internet-hot-right-now-31b658c76d1c)

</comment><comment><USER37> What are the main target markets of this investment? Africa and Southeastern Asia?

<comment><USER38> Yes, and all Comcast sufferers in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Considering satellites at that altitude and quantity would be ideal for cell handsets. I would be surprised if Apple wasn't trying to get a piece of this action as well.

<comment><USER40> EDIT:

Even if he wanted to, Cook doesn't have enough power at Apple, practically, to be actually in a position to do that yet.

I mean clout. He literally can't personally decide to do that (yet) and just do it.

The Apple watch is the first category or undertaking of a similar size and novelty, and has yet to be accepted or succeed. (It will.)

My comment is being misinterpreted so I've clarified above. My comment isn't about what Apple can 'afford to do' it's about what Tim Cook can 'afford to do' (politically and in terms of consequences.)

<comment><USER41> $150 billion in cash says otherwise.

Apple could step in at $1.5 or $2 billion, at twice the valuation, and the deal would be theirs most likely.

If not, then for the same price tag, they could just launch their own network.

<comment><USER42> I think Musk keeps control pretty tightly held. A Google investment isn't something SpaceX can take without his say-so. So Apple can't randomly drop $2B and win the day - If SpaceX takes the investment, they likely a) leave most control with Musk, and b) are the right partner, the one Musk was looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> With LEO satellite internet, would download/upload speeds be symmetric (like SDSL) or would uploading be much slower (like ADSL)?

<comment><USER44> You could do it either way, but probably asymmetric due to usage patterns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I use Iridium a lot, and you need a clear view of the sky. Would it work indoors? Otherwise it'd be a very serious limitation.

<comment><USER34> Cable and DSL also have an 'outdoors' component, adding an external antenna for either improved bandwidth or to get the thing to work at all should be an option for a new broadband medium.

And when you're on the move that doesn't matter. One way to make it work untethered indoors is to simply bridge the satellite downlink box to a wifi repeater. That would get you coverage indoors and outdoors from regular devices around your house, and if they sell enough of these downlink boxes they could conceivably pool the bandwidth by creating a mesh of them.

All kinds of interesting options, even if it doesn't work directly indoors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Could anybody give me a solid reason why would Google invest in SpaceX?

<comment><USER5> In general, because they're awesome. In particular, because Google also wanted to be in global-internet-coverage business (see e.g. Project Loon).

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I don't see why something with a log-in restriction should be in the top posts..

<comment><USER47> I don't see why it shouldn't. This has been the case pretty much every day for a long time so clearly it isn't against the rules. I agree that it isn't ideal but it's better to link to a good source than to find a poorly written article that is free to access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> via Google: [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fgoogle- nears-1-billion-investment-in- spacex-1421706642&ei=ZKy9VKboGc6oyATA2YCICA&usg=AFQjCNE_5ge3jrWUtjkXqiEHh6Mfzp0gyw&bvm=bv.83829542,d.aWw)

<comment><USER49> Gosh. Would it be illegal for HN to do this automatically?

<comment><USER50> Just use [https://paywallbypass.org/](https://paywallbypass.org/) which works like this: [http://paywallbypass.org/?q=http://www.wsj.com/articles/goog...](http://paywallbypass.org/?q=http://www.wsj.com/articles/google- nears-1-billion-investment-in-spacex-1421706642)

<comment><USER51> Unfortunately it doesn't bypass it here. The site routes the page through Google Translate but the article is still behind the paywall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Stupid website asks to subscribe or login to read every time. Can't read it.

<comment><USER53> Here, have a bookmarklet:

`javascript:document.location.href='[https://paywallbypass.org/?q='+document.location.href;`](https://paywallbypass.org/?q='+document.location.href;`)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> It would be awesome to have commercial flights to space in our lifetime!

</comment><comment><USER55> I like the way they've written this article as if it's an extended tweet. Short and to the point.

</comment><comment><USER56> > 648 satellites in low-Earth orbit

Something tells me this might be a little problematic in the future.

<comment><USER57> Why?

<comment><USER58> I would imagine he means trying to navigate the debris when sending _other stuff_ into orbit, or bringing spacecraft home. I've often wondered this myself... at some point do we have so much _stuff_ up there it's near- impossible to get spacecraft out without serious danger to their crews? And what about when it's time to retire them?

Legitimate question.

<comment><USER59> You may find this Wikipedia page enlightening: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Google will now compete with NASA? I kind of wishes SpaceX would stay independent!</comment>


Ask HN:Whats the problem with SVG? - <AUTHOR>

I've been playing around with Inkscape for a while now to create vector image as its one of the easiest solution for Retina-esque site. However I'm having a hard time finding image hosting that support SVG.
My question is, why is it so hard for image hosting service to support native SVG, instead of converting an image to other format. Would like to hear the limitations and challenges that comes with it.
http://imgur.userecho.com/topic/23630-svg-support/ <comment><USER2> SVG implementations on browsers have historically been poor, though this is certainly improving. You'll hit many bugs and unsupported features. IE < 9 doesn't support SVG at all, and Safari < 6 only does so in XHTML. SVG fonts are sparsely supported. The alternative - rasterising SVG on the server - is a heavyweight task, I've not found any libraries which can do this quickly.

The worst problem may be SVG itself - SVG 1.2 which dates from 2004 was abandoned, and most browsers implement SVG 1.1 which is rather lacking in features. This makes it hard if you're a designer to produce SVG documents which a browser can actually render.

At a bare minimum any SVG hosting project would have to involve some sort of SVG lint, to make sure that browser-incompatible SVG elements are not present, implement workarounds for browser-specific bugs, and check that there are no


New algorithm guesses SSNs - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/social-insecurity-numbers-open-to-hacking.ars

<comment><USER2> Most of the problem with SSNs comes from credit fraud identity theft. If you freeze your credit file it prevents lenders from running credit checks without specific authorization. And with a blocked credit check the thief will be unable to borrow money in your name. I've had my files frozen for several years.

[http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/003484ind...](http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/003484indiv.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> They need to make SSN # assignments more random. Right now it seems like its pretty much a consecutive set. You can just add +x to your social security #, and get a valid number

<comment><USER4> No, they just need to not be used for authentication, but only for identification. Everyone's SSN should be published by the government to force people to realize that they aren't (and never have been) secret information.

<comment><USER3> that'll work, frankly I don't understand why the social security card does not come with a photo

<comment><USER5> Because photographing infants is not an especially good ID technique.

You can get a US Passport or state driver's license, and that usually has its own ID number on it and a photo, but that doesn't help your SSN.

<comment><USER3> people update their driver license photos all the time. + infants etc can be issued the regular card, and when they turn 16, they can be required to get the photo and then be required to update it every 10 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> New York Times reporting on same research discussed here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=690538></comment>


Announcing Ember's first LTS release - <AUTHOR> http://emberjs.com/blog/2016/02/25/announcing-embers-first-lts.html <comment><USER2> Why doesn't EmberJS get more love on HN? I started at a new company last summer. From knowing 0 JS knowledge and starting with Ember we've built a large, awesome single page application with tonnes of bells and whistles. The details are boring but the results are impressive.

It was a bit choppy at first but Ember is really really awesome, everything is included and it all _just works_. You have components, ember-data for server- side stuff, routing, templating all included.</comment>


Ask HN: VC backed startup founder needs part-time work - <AUTHOR>

(long time user posting from a throw-away)
I'm a college student living at home for the summer. I recently received angel funding from a top VC in SV, but won't have access to the capital for a while (i'm willing to discuss details privately).
These last couple months have been beyond incredible, but I'm flat out broke. I find myself wanting to turn down meetings with people I've only dreamed of talking with because I can't afford gas.
I have no problem getting a minimum wage job if that's what it comes to, but I'm trying everything to avoid it. I've contacted old clients and local companies to no avail. So I ask, is anyone in need of work? You guys are my last resort, aside from my top secret Obama-O's competitor.
I can do basic website design (html/css/jQuery), basic development (php/mysql), write blog posts, manage social media, research your market and competitors, collect user feedback on your product, work on marketing strategies, etc. I'm willing to do any and all grunt work.
I would deeply appreciate your help. firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> Have you asked your VC for a few K$ of "get me through this" money? If not, why not?

</comment><comment><USER3> RentACoder for the US generally turns into a minimum-wage job, so try that before flipping burgers. At least you get to work from home.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can you share your portfolio or link to design/dev stuff you've done?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely. I'd be happy to email you some past work.

<comment><USER4> genystartup at gmail.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use for uptime/performance monitoring? - <AUTHOR> There are quite some interesting SaaS tools on the market.
Very specific ones, which only test uptime and maybe SSL. More broader ones which also provide status pages to which users can subscribe and get alerts when something happens.
What do you use and works best for you?
Do you use the full feature set or mostly one specific feature (e.g. uptime and alerting)?
Or are you even missing a feature?
Thanks in advance for your time and answers! :) <comment><USER2> Prometheus internally, for metrics. You will want something outside of your stuff for uptime, in case things get real bad.</comment>


100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/s?rh=i%3Aenglish-books%2Cn%3A12661600011&ie=UTF8 <comment><USER2> Any "best" list that has _Stranger in a Strange Land_ and _Starship Troopers_ on it (great thought they may be) and omits _Double Star_ and _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ is probably untrustworthy. MHO, YMMV.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I go about finding a buyer for my business? - <AUTHOR>

Hey, I'm a first generation entrepreneur in India. I own a small software development business, in which we build websites, webapps, etc and are doing a fairly good job. I would like to sell my business and move on to become a consultant. Is there any website or service where I can find some entrepreneur/business who might be interested? <comment><USER2> How big your client base? How many contracts do you have now? How long is each? How much is each?

Most you can hope to sell are: 1) Your current and future contracts, and 2) Your brand and name recognition.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've around 200 clients (around 100 active), with an average business of $1000 per client.

<comment><USER2> Those figures are hard to beat. Why do you wanna sell it then?

<comment><AUTHOR> Some personal reasons, some professional - want to relocate, explore other avenues, focus on a product idea, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hire someone and delegate the management of the business to them over time.</comment>


Show HN: Open-Source cloud gaming service lite, inspired by Google Stadia - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/giongto35/cloud-game <comment><AUTHOR> The project is inspired by Google Stadia. When watching Google Stadia demo, most people will question how good is the latency? Will gaming experience is affected by the network?

I did some researches on that topic and WebRTC seems to be the most suitable protocol for that purpose. Some News also guess Google may apply WebRTC protocol also. I limited the project scope and made a POC of Cloud-gaming with a Go Library of WebRTC. The result indeed surprised me on how well WebRTC performs. In a good network condition, video streaming is seamless and the latency is unnoticeable.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My attempt to create an opensource POC of a cloud gaming service inspired by Google Stadia. Cloud gaming is the future of gaming when all the game logic is handled on a cloud server and then media is streamed to the user, so no installation, no heavy device is needed.

Try the platform at. Recommend to use Google Chrome:

US West (San Francisco): [http://usw.cloud.webgame2d.com](http://usw.cloud.webgame2d.com) | US East(New York): [http://use.cloud.webgame2d.com](http://use.cloud.webgame2d.com)

Singapore: [http://sg.cloud.webgame2d.com](http://sg.cloud.webgame2d.com) | India (Banglore): [http://idn.cloud.webgame2d.com](http://idn.cloud.webgame2d.com)

Europe (London): [http://eu.cloud.webgame2d.com](http://eu.cloud.webgame2d.com) | Europe (Frankfurt): [http://ger.cloud.webgame2d.com](http://ger.cloud.webgame2d.com)

Game Instruction For the best gaming experience, please select the closest region to you.

\- Video Demo: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koqWB1VKflo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koqWB1VKflo) (If you cannot play)

Game Instruction:

\- Arrow keys to move

\- H -> Show help

\- C, V -> Start, Select

\- Z, X -> A, B

\- S, A -> Save (Save state), Load (Load previous saved state)

\- Share button/ W -> your game state is stored in a link in clipboard, next time you can continue your game by loading that link.

\- F -> Full-screen

\- Quit button/ Q -> Quit the current game

*The game is designed as joystick targeting multi-platform, so you can play it on Desktop, Android (IOS is not supported yet). Our purpose is to also to bring the modern gaming experience to Retro game.

</comment><comment> Sean-Der Fantastic work! This is so impressive engineering wise.

This is so exciting for Open Source. All the technology is there. I would love to see something so I could easily play games and then mirror my save games locally. I spend a lot of time on different computers and setting up Wine to play AoE2 drives me crazy everytime.

I just really want a Stadia that respects the users freedom :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Sean-Der and Pion team. All credits belong to the advancement in streaming technology and the open source community. Game mirroring is a very nice thing I would like to work on. I had some plans on that. :p

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Great job! Very well-done giongto!

</comment><comment><USER3> Great job!!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well done!</comment>


Worst IT fail ever? US agency spends millions in useless security - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/worst-it-fail-ever-us-agency-spends-millions-in-useless-security/

<comment><USER2> "Any IT group needs strict procedures on what to do when something like that happen, and the right balance must be maintained between reacting quickly, and not doing things that are either useless or worsens the problem."

The problem here is that the people who would write the procedure are likely to be the ones who acted so ridiculously in the first place. Even if the policy was written, it would likely be so ridiculously detailed (probably indicating which exact software to use to scan for example) that it would be harmful. It would cripple the ability of the organization to respond to newer threats which might not be considered by the authors of the policy, and it would be used as a shield in a future event where an obvious, but not stipulated, response could have solved a problem but went unimplemented.

Like most of the government's problems this could be cured by making the job space in federal employment competitive (and firing uncompetitive employees), however the myriad failed attempts at this in various corners of government seem to indicate that this may be currently impossible.</comment>


How Do You Deal With Stress? - <AUTHOR> http://howtosplitanatom.com/news/dealing-with-stress/

<comment><USER2> How do you maintain a hit centered blog?

We've all run into this problem at some point: We sincerely want to put something out on the web that people will link to, helping us generate ad revenue. But not all of us have something useful or meaningful to say. This is something you can overcome if you just put a little pluck and perserverance into it. Here's what some others had to say...

howtosplitanatom.com - "A good approach for me has been to identify a universal problem and get my friends to relay truisms about said problem. If they're not available, I can Google up a list in less than 10 minutes!"

zenhabits.net - "Pasting universal truisms is great, but I like to throw a little twist in by enumerating them."

And remember to make sure to network with other vacuous blogs so you can upvote each other and downvote the competition on social sites. Happy po$ting!

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually upmodded this because I think it might be worthy of note. All snark aside, "universal" as it may be it's the simple stuff that people deal with everyday that has meaning to them.

Not every post can be a treatise on HMM based speech analysis. Nor should it be.

As always, if something isn't meaningful to you - no one forces you to read it. If you had suggestions for stories you feel are more interesting, feel free to reach out to me (I can't speak for Zenhabits, but I imagine they would say similar).

<comment><USER3> The problem is, as always, that the members of the community that post the best stories and comments start to disappear when the front page becomes stupid. How's that for "no one forces you to read it"?

I agree that not every post should be a discussion on the problems and merits of academic subjects, but every post should be interesting enough that the smart guys here want to read it: be that a PG essay, a story telling that Prosper verifies that poor people must have high interest rates or this year's Berkshire Hathaway letter to shareholders. Boilerplate news can be found _anywhere_ , whereas a highly concentrated feed of stories is a precious rarity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A few years ago I discovered yoga and meditation. I used to be a really sporty guy but I'm amazed at how healthy I feel from the yoga (and good eating) but the meditation and learning to breathe properly have had amazing benefits. I would really recommend it. I still get stressed at times - though far less than I used to - but when I do its being able to deal with it, be centered and focused which makes the difference in terms of how to handle a high pressure environment.

</comment><comment><USER5> Quiet.

Isolation.

Time.

Tea.

Find someplace isolated and quiet, and make a hot cup of green tea. Hold the cup in your hands for a while and just breathe in the smell of it. Drink it when you feel good and relaxed.

Spend less time online and use that new free time for a little more exercise or rest.

Do something that takes you out of the quotidian flow of time and deadlines. Read a book, play a video game, watch a movie, take a walk, but procrastinate in a way that forces you to _stop_ , and deliberately dedicate a couple hours to not doing what you should be doing.

What you _don't_ want to do is spend all that time in 5-minute intervals of "just one more site"; "just one more refresh of reddit"; etc. That will keep you feeling like you _have_ to do something _now_ , and you will quickly, efficiently, and stressfully grind your way through a whole bunch of sites and articles without getting anything done _or_ actually relaxing.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't like the word stress. It implies helplessness. What people call stress is just the world telling your brain to tell you that you're doing something wrong and that you should correct it. Exercise helps cool some of the excitement, but it won't vanquish it. Listening to it and acting on its advice is the only thing that will make you feel better.

</comment><comment><USER7> if you are under stress, you have more work to do than your brain can oversee.

If I am really good, I deal with stress like this:

\- stop doing what you are currently doing

\- analyze the situation

\- make a list of what you have to do in no special order (this includes also private activity like dates in the evening, pick up kids from the kindergarten, buy food etc. Private life often sets me under more pressure than work).

\- define priorities

\- think about what you can delegate and delegate it

\- think about what you can cancel and cancel it early (dates, movies)

\- start work

\- if more disaster happens, iterate this list again

Works like a charm. For me the pressure relaxes most of the time already when I have my list done. I think the real trick is that writing the workplan gives you back control about what you do.

</comment><comment><USER8> By going postal and smashing stuff

</comment><comment><USER9> Surfing (in the ocean) for atleast an hour or two per day.

</comment><comment><USER10> daft punk

<comment><AUTHOR> Good choice, I've always found some Pogues helps as well.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What does HN think of economic collapse? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious what this community thinks about a possible (inevitable?) economic collapse, peak oil, end of civilization, etc..
Personally I am not really all that informed, but people close to me are really beginning to structure their lives around this possibility.  Moving into more rural areas, getting off the grid, setting up water-catchment, and growing more of their own food.  They are really preparing for the worst.
I find myself unable to really do much for myself like they are right now, so I continue to focus on my business, building luxury items that are highly dependent on petroleum products.  I love what I do, but sometimes it's concerning when these people around me are so wrapped up preparing for collapse.
Are you doing anything to prepare for these types of scenarios?  Are you steering your business towards sustainability?  How do you justify your path in entrepreneurship when the growth has to stop someday? <comment><USER2> We're certainly headed for extreme economic contraction. That means political unrest as well. Many (really, many!) wealthy people I know or know through others are preparing for civil unrest. From bankers in The City in London creating places in rural Montana to a billionaire who has built a "bunker" (his word -- although it's more a heavily-secured mansion) in Switzerland, it's definitely concerning them enough to "insure" against it.

I don't see how it _can't_ get really ugly in the next five to ten years, including moments of martial law. The markets are set to go through the floor. My investiment advice is: cash + gold and silver coins in your matress. Seriously.

But I really don't think it will get worse than that. People get romantic and think civilization as we know it will fall apart. I don't see that happening. I do see a violent depression coming, and then after a few years, lifting.

<comment><USER2> Here's someone who says it so much better than I can:

Robert Reich

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIxXZa5Fwzc>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The bailouts demonstrate that climactic politico-economical collapse will never occur.People literally will make shit up in order to prevent the unimaginable. This is also the fundamental lesson of Hobbesian theory of state of nature. None of that to say we aren't undergoing a process of collapse. It's just that it's trajectory of decline is going to be very slow and incremental. The environment will probably collapse before we legitimately experience politico-economic collapse. Some people can see the winds of decline and are taking the self-sustainable route since relying on government guaranteed quality of life will kill you first (for a long time now the governmental allowed corporations to do us physical harm). The real question is: are you one of those people?

</comment><comment><USER4> I think about it, but I'm not to the point of buying a piece of land and building a basement and growing a vegetable garden...

There have always been risks, before it was wars, lately the cold war or terrorism, now peak oil, economic collapse etc.

I don't see any contradiction with being entrepreneur at the moment. Physical growth may be limited but the demand for services is not.

If you're interested in "collapse discussions", you should check out <http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse> (not to read if you're the worrying type though ;-))

<comment><USER2> Here's how it's different now: A lot of the progress of the 20th century was predicated on cheap oil. With a Return on Energy (ROE is like ROI but for energy; how much energy you get vs. how much you need to get it out) of 30 to 1, crude oil essentially still gushes from the ground.

After a certain point, even for the same reserve, that ROE drops. There's still oil, but it's harder to get out. We'll always have oil, but we won't have it cheaply for much longer. Converting to an alternative is possible but it will take time and pain. And that's the sticking point. America especially relies on a JIT inventory of trucked-in goods, cars to get to work, school, the store, etc. The switch will be ugly.

Piggybacking on that is the long, wonderful period of growth that had us overextend. The Great Depression also came after a period of over-extension, but back then we had yet to tap our resources and our debt. We've tapped both out at the start of this depression that's coming. Add to it the increased demand for resources from China, India and the rest of the world. We're out. Bacteria is at its greatest expansion when it hits the edge of the petri dish, and in an instant, it's over.

I won't plant a garden or buy a gun -- I don't think it will ever be so bad -- but for a while, during the process of converting to alternate energies and transportation mechanisms, it won't be fun.

<comment><USER4> True. I'm not denying the fact the risks are different from past risks, the situation is a new one indeed.

I was pointing out that there have been risks (of a different type) and there are risks now. I still think investing in yourself by learning, pursuing business interests is justifiable even in light of these risks.

In terms of adapting to a changing world as an individual, I think being either self-reliant or being close to major population centres (access to jobs, public transportation etc) are both good strategies. It might be good to learn some martial arts, how to defend yourself, learn to live with less etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think that there will be any kind of collapse, sudden peak oil or any other sudden and drastic change of civilization. Some people are bored with their life and want to believe in such things, but it's unrealistic to expect that this will actually happen.

There will be, of course, change. For example, at some point we may (slowly!) run out of oil, which would mean that oil prices will go up. But this will be a process that runs over a decade or more. And by then there will be alternatives, like electric cars, that allow you to live a similar life.

</comment><comment><USER6> Selling to survivalists is probably a great business. Doom! Gloom! Gold! Guns! With anything sort of cultish like that, once you hook people, it's easy to steer them further and further away from the rest of the world.

This stuff came and went in the 80ies, too. This film is a funny portrayal of that particular brand of it: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivors_%281983_film%29>

<comment><USER2> And they can pay for it from their gold which nearly doubled in the last year alone because everyone else is buying too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My dad grew up in The Great Depression and fought in both WWII and Vietnam. My mom grew up in Germany during WWII and it's aftermath. I've done a lot of reading and thinking on "economic collapse" type stuff. And I'm an environmental studies major and have had a couple of classes that covered peak oil.

First of all, even in a depression, people still need food, shelter and clothing. The shallow end of the pool empties first. So luxury items may be an issue but, for example, clothing didn't take as big a hit during The Great Depression as most people would think.

Second, even during The Great Depression, there were businesses that boomed. Second hand stores boomed. Bicycles boomed (people couldn't afford cars but still had to get to work). Some company began selling frozen french fries (and I want to say dehydrated onions) in supermarkets and eventually made a mint (because they were cheaper for the end user at a time when every penny counted -- ie they had real value for the consumer). I read his story (the founder's story) and it was fascinating.

When he was a kid (teen), there was a glut of pigs on the market, so farmer's were killing piglets. It wasn't worth raising them. He went around and offered to take piglets off their hands for free and got a bunch of piglets for free. He had no resources so he would go hunting for wild horses or whatever to feed them. He managed to make it through the few months it took to raise them -- he managed to keep them all fed somehow. And the next year, low and behold, there was a pig shortage. Why? Because the farmers had all been killing their piglets the year before. So he made a lot of money for a kid because he got the pigs for free, worked to feed them (rather than spending money to feed them) and sold at a premium. And he later went into business.

I believe in peak oil and I think it's a serious issue. But I don't think it's an end of the world issue. It's just an end of our current culture issue. (Favorite song line: "It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.") Current culture is constantly in the process of "dying" -- and something else is constantly in the process of being born to replace it. I wish people would quit wigging out about that.

I have given up my car, in part because I believe in peak oil but mostly I couldn't afford both my rent and my car and I decided I would rather walk to work than live out of my car or move back in with family. I don't expect to go back to owning a car, which is rooted in health issues that have benefited tremendously from being carless. So I basically think, yeah, we could all stand to make some lifestyle changes which will be more peak-oil-friendly. But those lifestyle changes should be ones that make sense for us as individuals, not driven by fear. My choice to be carless and remain carless is in line with my belief that peak oil is an issue but it is not driven by that. It was driven by real issues in my own life -- which is as it should be. So I don't think that making decisions to solve your own problems in a way that takes into account the whole peak oil thing actually means we all need to move out to the country, buy a shot gun, stock gold, and start a garden. My future may well include a more rural location and a garden. If living in a rural location makes having a shot gun a logical thing to do, it might even include a shot gun. So my future might resemble some of those details, but not in a hysterical "head for the hills, the martians are coming" sort of manner.

Well, I have to go get ready for work. So my editing is done, whether the post is polished or not.

Later.

<comment><USER8> The guy with the great story of bootstraping himself with pigs and whatever he could feed them and then eventually becoming the frozen french fry king (an important secret to McDonald's success, his were consistent)is J. R. Simplot: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._Simplot> ; George Gilder celebrates him in a book where he ends up being one of the Micron investors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Any scenario in any year is unlikely, but if you aggregate a bunch of long- tail scenarios and take a 40-year time horizon, it becomes worth dealing with.

</comment><comment><USER10> For a fascinating take on the subject, I recommend "Industrial Society and its Future" by Ted Kaczynski.</comment>


Bieber Takes A Picture Of Traffic, Instagram Usage Explodes - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/21/biebergram/

<comment><USER2> What happens to a startup valuation after this sort of thing happens?

</comment><comment><USER3> The boy should provide load-testing services as a spinoff business.</comment>


About Yogurts - <AUTHOR> http://www.bonkersworld.net/2010/09/03/about-yoghurts/

<comment><USER2> I didn't get the IBM one ("What fridge? Just kidding").

<comment><USER3> I presume this talks about them being too cheap to have fridges for employees.</comment></comment>


Making Kubernetes a First-Class Citizen on the DCOS – Mesosphere - <AUTHOR> https://mesosphere.com/blog/2015/04/22/making-kubernetes-a-first-class-citizen-on-the-dcos/ <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: Mesosphere Advisor

I'm really excited about this announcement; as I feel that it gives people the the best of both worlds today. The ability to share the same hardware and use both systems in parallel should lead to some interesting new developments for sure.</comment>


Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and privacy. - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-privacy-pew

<comment><USER2> " If I had to pick the most astonishing aspect of this episode so far, it would be that everyone now knows that the Obama administration's top national security official, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, outright lied to the Senate about NSA programs. And yet - as I said on ABC yesterday morning - not only isn't he being prosecuted for that crime - as much of a crime as anything Edward Snowden is accused of doing - but he still has his job. That, of course, is because the "law" does not apply to high-level Washington officials and DC's National Security State is an accountability- free zone."

Accountability-free zone. Remember that the next time you read a story of some kid at school getting strip searched by a police "resource officer" under the school's _zero tolerance_ policy because she had a tylenol in her lunch.</comment>


When the Apollo 14 Lunar Lander had to be patched in 90 mins - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/chrissanders88/status/882647372903436288 <comment><USER2> I'm betting he didn't write his unit tests.

<comment><USER3> From what I remember this was before the invention of unit tests, when the closest thing was inline checks and exceptions.</comment></comment>


A Heroin Dealer Tells the Silk Road Jury What It Was Like to Sell Drugs Online - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/01/silk-road-heroin-dealer-testifies/ <comment><USER2> There are a few interesting takeaways: \- Pain perscriptions as a gateway to more hardcore drug use that destroys life, it doesn't sound like this individual had any "liberty" to make choices once he had become hooked on painkillers

\- Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in monetary terms, at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive crime to fund it

\- Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in terms of destroyed careers and relationships. Sure some users function normally, but you cannot know whether you're going to succumb or not before embarking - and that is the problem.

<comment><USER3> There's historical precedent for legalized heroin - it's the opium dens of the mid/late 19th century. I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to.

Most of the time when people talk about drug legalization, they mean things like marijuana, LSD, or ecstasy.

<comment><USER4> why not to legalize something that hurts just the one who takes it? The same logic would require us to delegalize alcohol. Remember, we had booze dealers with machine guns terrorizing whole cities, like Chicago, before we came back to our senses and legalized it.

Can you see Corona dealers fighting with Coors dealers for a territory to sell beer? Why not? This is the _EXACT_ reality of 1920s in this country.

I don't care if some idiots are going to kill themselves. As if we didn't have enough economic issues and ways to spend money, to spend so much on prisons, police force and all this other BS to deal with somebody's addiction.

I will tell you what will happen. As 1929 crash forced us to legalize alcohol, the same way 2008 forced us to legalize weed. Hopefully next crash will force us to legalize rest of it and start making money on it to find education vs. taking money from education to keep juvenile institutions staffed with guards.

<comment><USER5> From what I understand, heroin when injected is so addictive that using it even once can put you on a path you never would have gone anywhere near. It takes rational thought out of the occasion, changes your personality and your goals - your life becomes about getting your next fix and you'll do anything to get it.

Beer, weed, ecstacy, etc don't have that same steep addictive power, so aren't dangerous in that way. So it can't be so easily compared to alcohol since alcohol has a much more gradual addiction curve whereas heroin is much much steeper.

<comment><USER6> That's utter nonsense. Do you realize heroin is a fancy name for diacetylmorphine, an analgesic commonly used to treat chronic and post- surgical pain?

In other words, thousands of people around the world received that 'one shot' today and if you didn't tell them, probably wouldn't even know they just had a hit of h (and none of them suddenly loses their ability for rational thought or their life's goals).

<comment><USER5> Thousands of people are given heroin-like (or actually heroin in your case) pain killers for chronic and post-surgical pain and move onto illegal forms like heroin after because they're addicted. Like the dude in the article.

"One shot" is an exaggeration, apologies. My point was that heroin and it's analogues are highly addictive substances, in an aggressive way that beer weed and ecstacy aren't. You can't directly compare and equate beer with heroin for the sake of argument for legalization. Drugs aren't equal and the addictive properties of one are different from another. They have to be considered on a case by case basis.

<comment> atom-morgan It's also worth watching episode 7 of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown where he goes back home to Massachusetts. A large portion of the episode is focused on this.

You have kids in high school who are injured in sports, are prescribed painkillers by their doctors which eventually gets them on heroin. The addicts didn't wake up one day thinking, "You know what? I think I'm going to try heroin today." It was legal pharmaceuticals with falsely advertised addiction rates that got them onto it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It reads more like "A heroin dealer tells the silk road jury what the prosecutor damned well told him to say"

"Duch also described how the Silk Road's customer base allowed him to reach buyers who he believed wouldn't have otherwise had access to his product. "

ergo, one of their arguments is going to be that SR _created_ a drug market, and made addicts of innocent children who were looking for my little pony pictures and got tricked into taking smack.

<comment><USER8> > ergo, one of their arguments is going to be that SR created a drug market, > and made addicts of innocent children who were looking for my little pony > pictures and got tricked into taking smack.

Doesn't that seem reasonable? Not in the extreme form you've taken at least, but in a milder form. It seems reasonable to me that a number of people who otherwise would not try heroin due to lack of access might try it if getting it becomes convenient enough.

It's naive to assume that just because getting drugs is relatively easy that making it easier won't increase the number of people who decide to use drugs. Just as it is wrong for prosecutors to bend reality to fit their interpretation of the facts, it is wrong of those in favor of drug reform to bend reality to fit _their_ interpretation. I would love to see more reasonable drug laws, and I'm probably far more libertarian than most in what changes I'd like to see, however, I recognize that by improving access to drugs you probably will also increase the number of people who do drugs, all else remaining constant.

<comment><USER7> But that's the thing - I don't believe that it _did_ increase access in any substantive fashion - you can go virtually anywhere on the planet, and find someone selling the usual suspects. From those who I know who used SR (fully aware this is apocryphal!), usage actually generally decreased, as rather than buying large quantities infrequently from a local dealer (less risk), folks would buy smaller quantities more often, and thus moderate their consumption.

The only things which certainly proliferated more readily as a result of SR would be RCs (Research Chemicals), which your shady park dealer does not usually carry.

Either way, I reckon that this argument will be pivotal in their case, and they will, over the course of the trial, present hockey-stick graphs showing that SR has turned the entire planet into heroin users.

So - I don't reckon this will have increased the number of people taking drugs. I would rather think that it may have encouraged people to experiment more than they otherwise would have due to increased access, but only in the case of people who are prior users of recreational substances - and as above, if anything, it reduced consumption in areas where a "street" supply already existed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > By late 2012, he was buying painkillers from the Silk Road, which he says he > heard about from news media

This is an interesting part for me. "Exposing" it, actually brought more customers.

</comment><comment><USER10> > _Duch's heroin shipments from a Monroe, New York post office ... disguised > with a fake return address._

That bulk mail envelope scanning program sure must've came handy for tracking the origin of his shipments.

<comment><USER11> Any idea of how he did get caught? I've searched around briefly but haven't found anything.

<comment><USER12> Same question.

<comment><USER4> Police orders it on the Silk Road, then asks USPS where it was shipped from. Then the cameras at the USPS do the rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Trying to sway the jury with emotional impact rather than appeals to reason is not how it should be done.

<comment><USER14> The reason is stablishing two facts: that he wouldn't have sold if not for SR and that the buyers wouldn't have bought if not for SR. Also in he article you'll find why: it's a rebuttal to some defense's argument.

I would have asked the witness the source of the $3,500 _before_ he had access to Silk Road. But it doesn't seem just an arbitrary emotional trick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Aside from offering a hands-on account of how the Silk Road worked from a > dealer's perspective, Duch's story calls into question claims that the Silk > Road reduced violence by moving drug sales from the street to the relative > safety of the internet. Duch's testimony seemed to suggest that he wouldn't > have sold drugs at all if it weren't for the Silk Road...

Wow. What a stupendous flaw in logic and reasoning. I guess I'm glad that the fool who wrote this isn't in charge of building bridges or something, where his astonishing stupidity could directly get people killed. He'll just have to settle for indirectly getting people killed by parroting state propaganda and perpetuating the war on drugs.

 _Obviously_ , the fact that different people were dealing the drugs on the Silk Road, than on the street, does not in any way serve as evidence that Silk Road did not reduce the risk to both dealers and especially users, in buying drugs.

I mean, it seems like Ulbricht really did put out hits on some people - or at least the state is pressing ahead with the charges anyway, and if that's the case he is a danger to society and needs to be locked up. But in terms of harm reduction Silk Road was pretty awesome (fwiw, I never used the service). Not only did it derisk buying and selling drugs, in many cases it would have taken money directly out of the pockets of large drug cartels (i.e. in cases where they didn't control the supply anyway, only the distribution). That's a cause everyone should get behind.

The whole ordeal here just drives the point home, that the drug war is not at all about harm reduction for anybody, not users, certainly not dealers, and not even society at large. I'm not sure the drug war is about anything at this point. It's just a self-perpetuating relic of the past, and it needs to be put down ASAFP.

<comment><USER16> _> But in terms of harm reduction Silk Road was pretty awesome (fwiw, I never used the service). Not only did it derisk buying and selling drugs..._

I don't see how it follows that derisking drug sales necessarily didn't increase harm. Yes, if you were selling drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get into a violent confrontation with a client. Yes, if you were buying drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get into a violent confrontation with the dealer. But the claim here is that Silk Road also dramatically reduced barriers to entry for both buyers and sellers for very serious drugs.

Heroin is no joke and no amount of pseudo-libertarian drug legalization arguments make it any safer. If Silk Road made it available to a dramatically broader audience that otherwise wouldn't have been able to get it, the harm to society, on balance, must have been enormous.

 _> The whole ordeal here just drives the point home, that the drug war is not at all about harm reduction for anybody, not users, certainly not dealers, and not even society at large._

Heroin isn't weed. It destroys lives of its users and certainly harms the society at large. To say otherwise is preposterous, at best.

<comment><USER17> I like how you conveniently ignored the parent's comments about cartels.

Also I don't understand the use of "pseudo-libertarian" here? Drug usage is a personal decision and it's none of state's business. That is the very definition of libertarianism.

It has nothing to do with Silk Road but since you brought it up, legalising drug usage is for the greater good. You see the real danger does not originate from violent confrontations but the circles the the usage drags you in. If it was legally available, there wouldn't be need for an individual to get involved for their recreational needs.

On a medical perspective, it is common not to help out a friend having adverse reactions to a drug used simply because it is incriminating if you call the hospital and then stay with him/her.

And as if this wasn't enough, people just don't seem to get that the war on drugs has been lost in every continent. It will just go on and on and on. You can make it safer, peaceful and prevent it to be a source of revenue for actual crimes, or just don't give a crap and be irresponsible.

<comment><USER16> _> Drug usage is a personal decision and it's none of state's business._

Not unless the drug has been empirically found to have a high probability of harming the individual _and_ a high probability of spreading through communities. Then it's very much state's business because it becomes a matter of social preservation.

 _> I don't understand the use of "pseudo-libertarian"._

"Pseudo-libertarian" is the kind of libertarian that doesn't account of empirical evidence in their arguments.

<comment><USER18> Yea we get it. Drug are bad mmmkay. The fact is that the drug war has done nothing to reduce their use, and it provides a huge source of revenue for actual violent criminals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >"I saw the relative ease that came with it," he told the court. "It seemed like something I could get away with." < Sell drugs throught Internet, it is accessable for a lot of people, which makes it an easy way to exchange drugs, and that might increase the people to do drugs.</comment>


I Ride with Waymo: Roger & Sharon - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/waymo/why-i-ride-with-waymo-roger-sharon-1deacd7cbff9 <comment><AUTHOR> This was an interesting interview with a Waymo rider, showing off how self- driving cars can affect this retired-couple's lifestyle.</comment>