How the Dutch created a casual biking culture - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/8/28/17789510/bike-cycling-netherlands-dutch-infrastructure <comment><USER2> As a Dutch person I am pleasantly surprised by this article, it gets basically everything right. One thing though is that our geography works well with biking. I visited the US recently and you can drive for 30 minutes in a car and you are still in LA, if you drive for 30 minutes in the Netherlands you're in a completely different city. Everything is just closer and hence more bike- able.

As a dutch person I would absolutely NOT want to ride a bike in the US, it's simply too dangerous. There are so many cars that are not looking out for cyclists. For example, I _never_ saw my Uber/Lyft driver peek over his shoulder. In the Netherlands we fail our driving exam if we forget this even once. Another example is the insane speed cars fly past the "share the road"-bikelanes. It's crazy. I would feel really unsafe on a bike in the US.

<comment><USER3> > As a dutch person I would absolutely NOT want to ride a bike in the US, it's > simply too dangerous.

I understand this perspective, but as a counter to this, if no one bikes in the US then this won't change. I ride all over San Francisco. In the last 18 years of me living here things have gotten better and better for the cyclist, but there are still many areas that can be improved. I encourage you to support local organizations, like the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which can pressure local governments to make changes that improve safety for all cyclists.

For too long in the US we've designed our roads with the idea that cars have some right to the road that others do not. We're finally starting to rectify that in cities across the country, and it's only getting better.

<comment><USER4> You would also fail your driver's test in SF if you don't check for bikers when making a right turn. However, this isn't the case if you do your test elsewhere. SF has pretty good bike infrastructure and awareness.

I just did my driving test in the city, and this was drilled into my head by my instructor.

<comment><USER5> > You would also fail your driver's test in SF if you don't check for bikers > when making a right turn.

Infrastructure shouldn't be designed in a way to cause these types of turning conflicts. The general rule of the road is that vehicles on the right make right turns. Vehicles on the left make left turns, and vehicles in the middle proceed straight through the intersection.

Turning conflicts, like what you're describing, are a significant hazard to cyclists. Cars need to check for traffic[1] on their right, move to the right, and then make their right turn. Cyclists need to pass right turning traffic on the left.

[1] Cyclists are traffic.

<comment><USER6> By that measure, we shouldn't have crosswalks at intersections, and walkers should walk into the street, past the right turn lane, to avoid turning conflict.

<comment><USER7> In most countries in Europe (certainly in the UK, and other places I have visited), pedestrians have a separate crossing phase to the rest of traffic.

The US is unusual in expecting pedestrians to cross while traffic is also trying to negotiate an intersection.

<comment><USER8> In some EU countries(Poland) pedestrians have a green light to go, even though cars turning right also have a green light - cars are expected to watch out for pedestrians crossing, even when they have a green light to go.

I live in UK and the part of the traffic codex that seems to be unknown to literally all British drivers is the one that says "pedestrians have priority over cars making a turn" \- so if you are crossing a road near an intersection and a car is making a turn into that road you are just crossing, you have absolute priority even in the absence of a designated crossing - but drivers get really upset and honk and wave as if you are in their way.

[https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/using-the- road-...](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/using-the- road-159-to-203#rule170)

"watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way"

<comment><USER9> _> part of the traffic codex that seems to be unknown to literally all British drivers is the one that says "pedestrians have priority over cars making a turn"_

They have a very efficient system for reminding fellow road users, though. Two fingers in the air slightly apart, a pedestrian's walking legs upside down, indicating the priority reversal.

People are generally very receptive to this, because it is quintessentially British to understand you have to live together harmoniously to get ahead in life.

<comment><USER10> Please don't spread dangerous misinformation, even as a joke.

Note to non-UK-residents: The described gesture is, in fact, a very rude insulting gesture:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign#As_an_insult](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign#As_an_insult)

<comment><USER11> > dangerous misinformation

Oh come on, making a V sign is not dangerous. Most likely, someone shouts an original insult to you.

<comment><USER12> I've been followed home and threatened in the US for giving a driver who was tailgating the middle finger. Are you saying that in the UK this would never happen? I certainly wouldn't risk provoking random strangers, especially those who are not following traffic codex.

<comment><USER13> Very unlikely. Fuels costs are way too high for anyone in the UK to consider diverting from their regular commute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It wasn't always this way.

There's an interesting clip from a documentary in 1972 about the neighborhood De Pijp in Amsterdam, when it was still very much a car-centric city. At the time children in the area protested how dangerous the streets had become and how they lacked safe areas to play.

[https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/amsterdam- chil...](https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/amsterdam-children- fighting-cars-in-1972/)

Compared to the situation now, it's vastly improved. Fortunately the car did not win and the city did not destroy itself with a highway through the middle.

Edit

Here's another (recent) documentary you might find interesting:

[https://vimeo.com/123480693](https://vimeo.com/123480693)

<comment><USER15> It was the same with Denmark. And especially Copenhagen. They went from a very car-centric society to a remarkably bike-centric one. Despite bad weather. All due to the Oil Crisis. Unlike other governments in the rest of EU, it seems that both the Dutch and the Danes understood a change was needed.

I've read urbanism brochures from the 1960s, when the Technical University was getting moved from central Copenhagen to a suburb (Lyngby), and it's remarkable how car-centric the design was. An old airport, where the runway was converted into a huge parking lot, and commuting by car was carefully considered to weight all decisions.

<comment><USER16> Copenhagen's history with bikes goes far back, here's some newsreels from the 20s and 30s: [https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/05/-/9014/](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/05/-/9014/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A main one not pointed out: cars are always (extreme negligence would be the tipping point) liable for crashes with cyclists and pedestrians. That's quite supportive for keeping an eye out for possible danger. To support that liability insurance is obligatory for motorists.

The one on left vs. right really is not even close to an issue. I would guess most MPs of most parties cycle to work. There is literally not a (native) child that doesn't bike by 7. We even have courses for newcomers to learn how to cycle.

<comment><USER14> There's something to be said about which parties favor encouraging or discouraging car use in cities or restrictions of motorized vehicles on the cycle paths (which the interview also did not really cover).

But you're right...no one is discouraging biking.

<comment><USER18> Also, road design in the netherlands is specifically designed to seperate cars and bikes as much as possible. ( a crash between bikes is far less dangerous compared to a car-bike crash).

If that is not possible, they design roads in a way which forces people to slow down to "safe" speeds. (50km/h or lower usually).

<comment><USER19> That is mentioned in the article, full separation is required on any road where the speed limit exceeds 30km/h (~20mph).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It isn't all fun and games. I had to ride the bike to school for 5 years. Over in the neighbouring city. A 45 minute ride. Alone. Through wind, rain, wind and wind. And rain. That's also part of the culture, because it's safe and ok to send kids, 12 years old, on their own, in the dark over unlit forest roads. Through the wind. Also wind. Saves on bus fare. Which is also typically Dutch.

I don't own a bike any more.

<comment><USER21> I would have loved that kind of independence at age 12, but with the fear of traffic, paedophiles, kidnappers and whatever, I wasn't even allowed to walk to the end of the road unsupervised.

<comment><USER22> That's too bad. When I was 12 (late 1970s, Midwest US) I rode my bike all over the place. No mobile phone either. I'm sure there were as many pedophiles and kidnappers then as now, but I never encountered any. I think the risk of a totally random stranger doing anything is very overblown. And traffic was certainly less aware of bikes. You learned to pay attention to cars.

<comment><USER23> When I was 12 (late 70s, Australia) I rode my bike all over the place. Rode to and from school, about 25 minutes each way. And through the forest at the edge of town -- we'd disappear for hours there, riding as far as the next town (1 hour downhill :-)

We knew where the dodgy guy hung out near the public toilets in the park, and avoided him (the teacher at school was a different matter).

I think ... people were less alienated from society then. It seems different now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > The Dutch use bikes as a tool to feed their transit system: 50 percent of > all trips that take place on the transit system in the Netherlands begin > with a bicycle ride.

This is why I'm still waiting for Google Maps and the likes to include an "I have a bike and am willing to use it to get to the closest train/metro/bus station" option.

<comment><USER25> That'd be so handy. Especially when going somewhere where the connection is by train or whatever and half an hour of biking at the ends is no problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Don't believe the lies! All the pictures in this article show a sunny city with happy cyclists. Apart from the last 2 months this is demonstrably false since everyone who lives in the Netherlands knows that if starts to rain the second you get outside to grab your bike and a strong headwind will follow you relentlessly, even when you make a 180 turn.

Those are the facts. Don't believe this propaganda.

<comment><USER27> No offence, but you're strawmaning heavily here.

I mean sure, you're right, the weather in the Netherlands is as nice as those picture only for a couple of months per year, but that's not the point of the article, nor does it prove/disprove anything.

The Dutch cycle year round, and while it is true that traffic in the summer is like double, cycling is still the main form of transportation for a significant portion of the population.

<comment><USER28> I'm quite sure the post was tongue-in-cheek. The point was basically that Dutch weather isn't great, disguised as a complain of propaganda.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was amazed at how mellow everyone in Amsterdam seemed while riding their bikes.

In US cities, most cyclist act like they're in a race. They must run every stop sign, charge down every hill, graze every pedestrian... in downtown Amsterdam most people were going at a leisurely pace and if you get in their way, they just ding a little bell at you.

<comment><USER30> I was turning left to park at lunch and a bicyclist blew through two stop signs at ~45mph and almost t-boned me. I had wrongly assumed he'd stop at the two stops signs and I had plenty of time. Luckily he happily pulled into oncoming traffic to swerve around me.

I'm sure in the near future he'll be donating organs to some lucky recipient.

<comment><USER31> This is so inaccurate, it's almost laughable. The max speed in sprints during the Tour de France [1] is 43.5mph. Unless you encountered a Tour de France rider, I doubt the cyclist blew through at ~45mph.

1: [http://slocyclist.com/whats-the-average-speed-of-tour-de- fra...](http://slocyclist.com/whats-the-average-speed-of-tour-de-france- riders-in-mph/)

<comment><USER32> If the cyclist had just descended a steep hill, being in the realm of 45mph is not at all unbelievable. I hit 35mph coasting down a very small hill on my commute every day.

<comment><USER33> Except drag increases quadratically so going 35 -> 45 mph is a much higher increase in energy than the numbers would suggest.

No, I'm going to go with "person who never travels under his own power has no concept of human speeds".

<comment><USER34> I've hit 70km/h going downhill with some tail wind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Another way in which biking in (some parts of) the US isn't casual: pretty much every biker you see in Silicon Valley has bike shorts, a jersey advertising a race or energy drink, clip-in shoes and is riding at VO₂ max. I feel out of place tooling around in street clothes.

<comment><USER18> This is suchs a strange concept to me as a dutchman.

Americans seem to think biking is mainly a sport instead of a mode of transportation.

Most dutch people ride on bicycles which are either A) in a constant semi- broken state (students are notorious for this) or B) riding a luxery city bike (usually high income families).

<comment><USER36> You only have to drive across the border to Germany to find full-kit alpine hikers (poles and all) walking their leisurely stroll in their local park. This reflects essentially the same attitude as what the GP described.

<comment><USER34> Maybe it's different in west Germany, but I've never seen anyone wearing hiking gear in a park.

<comment><USER36> It was a slight exaggeration... but only slight. When I was visiting my bro in Freiburg I was amazed at the number of full-kit w __ __*s walking up and down the relatively flat paved path that hugged the Dreisam river. Half of them were practically dragging the poles behind them too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > Dutch design manual classifies roads depending on the speed of the cars > traveling in them. If there's any major difference in speed, then full > separation is required

> What is the speed threshold?

> Anything where cars are traveling faster than 30 kph. So, what's that, 19 > mph?

As a Dutchman, this is so obviously wrong that it makes me doubt everything factual in the book they wrote. 50 roads without physical separation are the default, and 60 roads are often back roads where there is not enough traffic to warrant the space (=money) required for a separated cycling lane so those typically also have no physical barriers.

I guess the limit is 70km/h, as I can't off the top of my head think of any 70-80 road where cyclists don't have separate infrastructure, though I'm sure one can find an exception.

I was very surprised to learn that in Germany, they have no trouble with having people drive without even an indicated bike lane (I'd feel unsafe driving on a 50 road if people drive 50, there is no space left over, and there is no bike lane outlined) on 100km/h roads.

> Cycle tracks are all paved with this easily identified red pavement, an > inch-thick top coat of dyed red asphalt

Inch-thick? 2.6cm? Have they even been to the country at all? Never have I ever seen the red paint so thick that you'd notice it when driving onto it, I'm fairly certain that doesn't exist anywhere in the country. The only tactile paint we have is the white lines on the sides of highways, which I assume is to wake dozers up.

<comment><USER38> That's because they're talking about a "Dutch design manual". Not a law. So obviously local governments won't implement this if it is prohibitively expensive. It's just a suggestion.

'inch-thick top coat', they're talking about a top coat, not just the paint. To make sure the paint doesn't wear after a couple of months the entire top part of the cycling path is red asphalt. Though I doubt it is 2,6cm everywhere as it differs per municipality. But its definitely thicker than a coat of paint most of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> My wife and I were in Amsterdam a few weeks ago for a music festival and we were blown away by how easy it was to get around on a bike. I don't have much to add to what's in the article just to say that I was shocked by how comfortable riding a bike in Amsterdam is. I live in Austin, TX and would never in a million years ride to work here. There is so little infrastructure to make regular bicycle riding less risky.

<comment><USER40> Amsterdam is one of the worst cities to bike in (on a Dutch scale). It only get's better in other cities!

<comment><USER41> I didn't know that, I've only been to Amsterdam, what is different in other cities?

<comment><USER42> Less tourists on bikes that are the most dangerous cyclists around, every Dutch person knows :-)

<comment><USER37> Dutch person checking in, can confirm. I had to stop my Syrian classmate from crossing the bike paths without looking in, you guessed it, Amsterdam!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Oddly enough I'm in Dordrecht, NL right now on a work trip and it's bike heaven here. Bike lanes the size of car lanes. Bike depos next to the train station that are a block long. Everywhere you go there's close to 50 bikes parked outside.

It's a great place to visit. Lots of nice people and history.

</comment><comment><USER44> The thing about NL is that it's totally flat and a tiny piece of land. The biking culture is a result of their geography, not anything else. For example, in Norway, where biking infrastructure is quite decent and people are generally positive about biking/being environmentally responsible, biking is simply impossible in most cases because of the larger hilly landmass and the cold snowy winters.

<comment><USER34> Yeah I'm sure five decades of deliberate city planning have nothing to do with it. Berlin is also perfectly flat, quite dense and has a nice climate and yet in the Netherlands three times as many people commute by bike.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The Netherlands are (is?) also very flat. If you go up a tower with a viewing area in one of the bigger cities, you'll see what I mean. You can see really far in the horizon! Maybe it's just easier to bike there so more people do it?

<comment><USER46> E-bikes are flattening terrain. Source: I live in Seattle, am an avid biker, and those Lime e-bikes are _everywhere_. People who wouldn't dream of biking because of the hills are now out on casual errands with those things.

<comment><USER47> Unfortunately I don't get the economics of lime ebikes.

You pay $6/hr to ride one, which, assuming a very generous average speed of 14.5mph (the maximum of the bike), is an end user cost of $0.41 per mile minimum.

It costs me ~$0.35 per mile to drive a car. I also don't have to bother with any apps or worry about the battery being charged, both of which are inconveniences.

Also, just to set the record straight, I own an e-bike as well, and my cost to ride (assuming a 500*30 mile battery endurance) is 4 cents per mile, about 1/10x of what I'd pay for a limebike.

There is an upfront cost, yes, but you're also getting a much better quality bike than what you would get with a lime bike (which seems to be an almost- bottom-of-the-barrell chinese made ebike)

<comment><USER4> You completely ignored all the other costs of owning a car: insurance, parking, maintenance.

You're paying much, much more than $0.35/mile my friend.

<comment><USER22> How do you know? Perhaps he has an old car that he maintains himself, parks in free lots, and only carries liability coverage so insurance is cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I once drove my bike through The Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, France and Belgium.

They all have bike lanes (well France sometimes have them) but what is different is that most bike lanes in The Netherlands are separated from other lanes. So you are and feel mutch safer.

So I believe that bike lanes are not enough. They should be realy separated from other trafic.

<comment><USER49> The other thing is that Europe doesn't have nearly as many huge SUVs as America. Helps a ton with visibility, driver awareness, braking speed, and less momentum in collisions.

<comment><USER50> _huge SUVs_

Oh yes, those huge things (trucks, too) with dark tinted windows are the pox on wheels. On a motorbike you sit higher and can look over regular passenger cars, and you can see all the road in front of you. But if you ride behind one of these antisocial fuck-you-I've-got-mine hulks you can't see the road, and it's life-threatening.

<comment><USER51> Even being in a car these damn things are a problem. I would prefer a refund sedan as my next car, but because your visibility gets negatively impact when sitting in a low cat like that with all the SUVs around you, it will likely have to be a higher car like a Rav4 again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I love this, but I wonder if cycling in The Netherlands is similar to my experience in Germany.

I would classify myself as a "wielrenner". In Berlin for example, whilst the cycling infrastructure is also generally good as a cyclist you're practically forced to use these really thin cycle paths full of "fietser"s (to continue the Dutch terminology). That, in combination with generally very bumpy paths, can make getting from A-B quickly highly frustrating. However, cycling on the road is a nightmare. In some situations its forbidden altogether, and generally drivers are really aggressive about your mere presence even when they're perfectly capable of driving around you. Coming from the UK, I'd actually rather drive on the road with the knowledge that I'm a first-class citizen of said road, and be able to cycle at my own pace.

<comment><USER19> > I love this, but I wonder if cycling in The Netherlands is similar to my > experience in Germany.

It's likely a better experience, and at any rate it's significantly safer: [https://twitter.com/greenpeace_de/status/1034350589696716800](https://twitter.com/greenpeace_de/status/1034350589696716800)

(I don't speak german but using google translate it looks like yellow is accident risk, light green is proportion of cyclists and dark green is cycling-related spending)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Relevant: what Seattle can learn from Dutch street design: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0GA901oGe4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0GA901oGe4)

A presentation with a ton of examples of small infrastructural touches that make it safer to cycle in the Netherlands.

</comment><comment><USER53> _the bike alone doesn't replace the private automobile, and neither does public transit, but when you combine the two, that's when the magic happens. Then the car becomes redundant in cities._

I love the picture of a guy moving a bed on an oversized and strange (to my eyes) three wheeler.

<comment> the-dude 'Bakfiets'. Bike with a 'bak', which would be a container?

They are mostly rentals. I think IKEA rents out bakfietsen too.

<comment><USER40> The one 'bakfiets' in the picture may be a rental, but I know a lot of people owning one. All my friends and myself included own one. When I bring the kids to school in the 'bakfiets'. There is a 'bakfiets' traffic jam. It's also great for groceries and going to the beach!

<comment><USER28> Those are not the wide ones like in the picture though - almost nobody owns those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Visiting San Francisco and San Jose every year, I don't see many improvements. US is for cars right now how it looks like. Uber, Light Train, renting a car, but no options to just take a bike from hotel to a conference site.

<comment><USER55> Bike shares (docked and dockless) are growing in the bay area. I know many non-cyclists use them daily for their last mile commute from the train. You could probably use these in SF to go from a hotel to a conference venue. Also, numerous large SV companies have their own campus bikes as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> From having spent quite some time in Amsterdam, I would say that you're safer on a bike than on foot. When a biker rings the bell on you in Amsterdam it's not a heads up or suggestion to get out of the way like in the rest of the world; it's quite possibly the last thing you will ever hear. From my experience, they go fast and expect you to move out of the way. Or you could try to not walk in bike lanes, I guess; not that I had much luck identifying them.

<comment><USER57> I lived in Amsterdam for more than ten years and recently moved to a smaller city. Amsterdam really has it's own bike "culture". Cyclist in the rest of Holland are far more forgiving to pedestrians and other traffic in general in my experience. I have no trouble cycling in Amsterdam, but I do have to pay a lot more attention than normally.

<comment><USER36> The over abundance of naive tourists blocking the way probably destroyed any goodwill Amsterdammers may have had.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> > But the biggest education — while it's not mandatory throughout the country, > it's done by most schools — is students around grade four or five, in the 10 > and 11 age range, start taking cycling skills courses.

Having been raised in The Netherlands, and being educated from kindergarten till university, and having three kids older than 11 years... I've never heard about a _cycling skill course_ in Dutch schools. Sure, there a classes (part of primary school education) about traffic rules, but children learn to cycle in their play time. I guess 75% of kids know how to drive a bicycle before they're 6 years old.

> Between the ages of 11 and 12 they have to take a written exam to show that > they understand the rules of the road. They also do a practical exam.

Indeed, these exist. But the only training for that practical exam that I'm aware of is that the teacher is biking the route (it is known in advance) once with the kids, like a week before that "fietsexamen".

Oh, and nowadays that exam is part of Fietsexamen Nederland (related to Veilig Verkeer Nederland?), not the Fietsersbond.

</comment><comment><USER59> The US mostly has different land use laws than the Netherlands. For example, minimum parking requirements and minimum setbacks from property lines basically require sprawl. You get more bang for buck on bike infrastructure when a neighborhood in denser than what is usually allowed in the US. There is usually stiff resistance to changing the US zoning rules.

</comment><comment><USER60> maybe biking adds to the fact that not much obesity in NL compared to the US?

<comment><USER61> Yea and WAY less sugar in our food.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> From a bike racing perspective their bike culture seems anything but casual! They are often the hardest of the hard.

</comment><comment><USER63> Easy - they have no hills.

<comment><USER64> Hills end. Wind doesn't. (Source - memories of biking upwind against the air coming off the North Sea.)

I'll take Seattle hills over Dutch headwinds any day...

<comment><USER37> From the few months living in Amsterdam (30km from sea, 1km from a huge lake) for studies, the difference between this and my home 150km inlands is huge. The kind of wind we get maybe four times a year is a bi-weekly occurrence in Amsterdam. Super annoying to have to bike to school, even if it's normally only like 7 minutes, against yet another feels-like-huge-storm wind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Do helmets help in full on collision - yes they do.

[https://youtu.be/ivQHuU-Ykws](https://youtu.be/ivQHuU-Ykws)

</comment><comment><USER66> By having flat roads and the fact that bikes are cheaper than cars? I honestly don't think one needs to do much to create a biking culture. Maybe some investment and biking lanes separated from roads are needed.

<comment><USER40> Adding bike lanes to existing infrastructure may not be as simple as it seams. Then there's culture. Kids in The Netherlands learn to ride bicycles when really small. My son is 5, cycling to and from school. My daughter is 2 years old, cycling around the house. That's important for a life long appreciation of the clean, cheap and healthy bike.

<comment><USER66> Yes and so do all kids in Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, China, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Cities designed for bikes and bicyclists, are still not cities designed for humans.

[https://newworldeconomics.com/the-problem-with- bicycles/](https://newworldeconomics.com/the-problem-with-bicycles/)

Bikes are expensive personal transportation, compared to not owning any, they take up space in every home with muddy, oily mechanisms, they take up a lot of space in bicycle parks outside every desirable destination serving to push everything further apart for humans on foot, they don't mesh well with pedestrians (in a collision with a pedestrian and a fast moving metal bike, the pedestrian loses), they require equipment you might need to carry (locks, helmets, other), they need ongoing maintenance, they don't go well with nice clothes and tend to require places to change, carrying a change of clothes, or even showers, after any but short journeys in mellow weather.

<comment><USER68> Dutch-style bicycles go perfectly well with nice clothes, the oil is inside the chain compartment and they don't really become very muddy inside the city.

Yes of course walking is better but not everything people want to do is within easy walking distance, and bikes are preferable to huge infrastructure for public transport within a city.

<comment><USER67> Not everything is, but most daily things should be. And when things aren't, there can be public transport, bike hire, taxi hire, car hire. But they shouldn't be the default, the city shouldn't be designed around them, designed for them, they shouldn't be necessary.

 _bikes are preferable to huge infrastructure for public transport within a city_

preferable to whom?

Everyone pooling their resources should make for way way better solutions than everyone solving the same problems individually over and over.

<comment><USER69> A lot of my shopping can be done within walking distance, and I do that. I'll only bring my bike if I need to bring more stuff home than I can carry, as a bike dramatically increases your load-transporting capacity, compared to walking.

However, if I need to go to the hardware store ~5km away, I would have to take a long walk of about an hour, or take a ride on two busses taking a total of ~30-40 minutes each way, or I could simply jump on my bike and be there in ~15 minutes.

Yes, we should absolutely pool our resources as much as possible, but _not everyone is going the same place at the same time_.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Just moved to SF, what's the best way to discover local startup scene? - <AUTHOR>

Hi there,
I'm a hacker, who just moved to SF (The Mission) after traveling around the world for a year. Currently, I work remotely building iOS apps and hack some side projects in my spare time (http://github.com/nderkach)
I know it sounds generic, but I'd like to get out there and meet cool folks who are involved in startups. Frankly, being an outsider to the Bay Area, I'm a bit overwhelmed with a number of meetups and hackathons, and don't know where to start. And hints are appreciated! <comment><USER2> Just go to the ones that interest you. meetup.com is a great place to find hack nights, meet friends, and find startups. When I first moved here I went to Ruby meetups, hack nights, dev talks. I quickly realized that everyone here was way smarter than I was and it was awesome. So much to learn.</comment>


Ask HN: .io vs .ai for a startup? - <AUTHOR> .com is taken, both .io and .ai are available.<p>Would you pick .io or .ai for a business app where ML/AI is major value proposition? <comment><USER2> None, leave it and find an available .com

<comment><USER3> Today .com is a serious asset. It it's taken, buy it as soon as you raise money.

Investors won't protest if you buy a $XXX asset that might not loose value if everything goes bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> .io is becoming increasingly popular amongst startups.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/christophersteiner/2017/05/03/m...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/christophersteiner/2017/05/03/most- startups-still-believe-they-need-a-dot-com-domain-but-that-is- changing/#542f33bc6a21)

I would go for the .io TLD myself.

</comment><comment><USER5> It sounds like the .io TLD is very poorly managed, what with people being able to take over the nameservers. [https://hackernoon.com/stop-using-io-domain- names-for-produc...](https://hackernoon.com/stop-using-io-domain-names-for- production-traffic-b6aa17eeac20)

<comment><USER6> Agreed good advice that came from this was to host anything important (API) on www.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would go for .ai because thats the core feature. domain with .ai gives away your core offering (i.e. ML/Al) and you would have customer attention from the very beginning. According to me, it also adds credibility and legitimacy in a subtle way which goes a long way in lead conversion.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would personally get both: you want the .ai, because that's your niche, and add on the .io given that it isn't very expensive at $32.88/year.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would go with .io and .ai is not bad neither

</comment><comment><USER10> I would only get .io or .ai if the .com is taken but can be bought. Otherwise add a word to take the .com.

</comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't matter at all but "AI" is still in the buzz cycle might as well hop on board.

</comment><comment><USER12> Either is going to be fine honestly.

I agree with the others in that I would choose .io

</comment><comment><USER13> Which domain registrar would you recommend?

<comment><USER8> I like HexoNet ([https://www.hexonet.net/](https://www.hexonet.net/)) and NameCheap ([https://www.namecheap.com/](https://www.namecheap.com/)) and pick the one that has the lower price for the TLD that I'm interested in.

In this case, HexoNet has .ai for $80/year, and NameCheap has the .io TLD for $32.88/year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> .ai is the new .io

</comment><comment><USER15> buy both

<comment><AUTHOR> Several people suggested to buy both, in that case, which one you will make primary and other for redirect?

<comment><USER3> Don't redirect. Just setup the same site with the same content and see what happens / converts better / etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you organize/track your personal goals? - <AUTHOR> - Monthly, quarterly, yearly? - notes, kanban, outlines? - how do you visualize your progress? <comment><USER3> On paper. Physically writing stimulates neurology. This then gets embedded into the subconscious.

\---

And some tidbits on goalsetting which I'd have liked 15 years ago...

Goals are \- SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-oriented, Time- bound) \- written in present tense. \- stated in the positive. \- attached to an identity, or 'self-image'. \- expansive.

"I will own 30 apartments" (future tense) -> "I own 30 apartments." (present tense) -> "I am the owner of 30 apartments." (identity) -> "I am the owner of 30 or more apartments." (expansive)

"I will quit smoking by July 31." (future tense) -> "I quit smoking by July 31." ('quit' is negative)-> "I am free from cigarettes by July 31."

More important than the outcome, is how you see yourself. If you couldn't imagine yourself as a person achieving the goal, then it won't occur.

Who do you have to become, to achieve the goal?

Never leave the scene of plan without taking action. After setting a goal, at least 1 crumb-sized action must be taken immediately. Who could you message, call, email...?

<comment><USER4> Might be of interest to you [https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/when-smart- goals-are-not...](https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/when-smart-goals-are- not-so-smart/)

<comment><USER5> I think the problem is that the definition of goals is too vague and narrow causing the problem with using SMART system. I believe you need a hierarchy of goals, like so:

\- Mission: This could be specific like "bring humans to Mars" or it could be vague like "accelerate space exploration".

\- Strategy: This should be the principles and methods used to implement the mission. Example: "Starting up a private company that works on rocket technology. Sell electric cars on the side to make money."

\- Roadmap: This should be actionable, measurable and time-based such as "build a reusable rocket by 2016"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Daily stuff, I use breeze.pm, which is a bit like Trello except has swimlanes. For current stuff I have a board separated into three swimlanes - client work, my work and personal. These are separated in columns - this week, today, doing, blocked and done. I'll add to and move between columns as necessary.

I keep pretty high level (like I don't want a million tiny tasks), but everything that's listed has to be accomplished within a few hours or a working day at most.

Anything there over a week, or not getting done is moved to a 'longer term' board, which is more of a brain dump of ideas and things I'd like to get moving on at some point. Basically I want my to do list to be current and not a bucket list.

I keep the 'stuff in play' Breeze list pinned next to a Google Calendar window. GCal has dates of everywhere I need to be and dates of everything I need done in different colours.

I think I could still be more efficient, but this works pretty well for the time being.

For 'reach' goals, I've separated the year into 4 quarters of 12 weeks with a week off between each one. It's easier not to lose motivation over 12 weeks. I have a BitBar plugin that shows me days gone and days left in the quarter. Before each quarter I'll write down what I want to achieve and then how I intend to do it. After 12 weeks I'll review and revise. Most of these can be tracked with something like HabitBull - "I want to lose 5kg this quarter, I'll visit the gym 3 times a week". Then just tick as you go. If you don't hit it, figure out why and what to change next 12 weeks.

<comment><USER7> Intrigued by this breaking the year into quarters idea. What's the name of the BitBar plugin you use for this?

<comment><USER6> I wrote it myself. You're more than welcome to have the code if you want it (it's pretty simple!!). The quarters are like new year's resolutions - <USER2> easier to stick to because it's only 12 weeks. The plugin is just a visual reminder of where we're at.

<comment><USER7> That'd be great! Do you have it online in a repo somewhere you could link me to?

<comment><USER6> Drop me an email. Domain in my profile :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use org mode for both regular work as well as one off targets. Org mode allows me to clearly bucket tasks into what is scheduled and needed by when, tag related tasks together but define them anywhere, also allows to define subtasks and track task progress in terms of sub tasks. It allows you to see your agenda on a configurable time period, and can also equally support GTD. Personally I find it to be a really nice place to dump all your thoughts and with trivial effort get them organised in a nice to see and search format.

<comment><USER9> Seconding org mode. It's great. Super configurable but easy to get started with.

<comment><USER10> Orgmode has been great. However, after Org Timeline was recently removed, I've struggled to get the same functionality with custom agenda views.

<comment><USER11> I've never used Org Timeline, but these two links may be of interest to you:

\- [https://www.reddit.com/r/orgmode/comments/7hps9j/rip_orgtime...](https://www.reddit.com/r/orgmode/comments/7hps9j/rip_orgtimeline/dqt4pfs)

\- [https://github.com/Fuco1/org-timeline](https://github.com/Fuco1/org- timeline)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I take a video of myself each morning talking about what I want to get done that day. At night I watch the video, take a mental note of what I need to work on the next day based on what I did and didn't accomplish that day. Repeat.

<comment><USER13> That's interesting. How long do the videos tend to be? Any particular reason why you think this works better than just writing them down?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Loop Habit Tracker for Android is the only thing that has ever worked for me for tracking goals -- and sticking to them.

[https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits](https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits)

Simple interface where you set your "habits" and how frequently per week you expect to do them. (E.g. exercise 4x per week, eat healthy 6x per week). Then you simply check off each day whether it happened. The analytics makes it clear if you are doing the right thing. Really good.

<comment><USER15> is there any ios alternatives? I found an app called Loop - Habbit Tracker (by Qinzen Xu) on appstore but I think that's not the one that on github.

<comment><USER14> A friend of mine, upon seeing my setup, said the recently launched product Habitify was similar (iOS & MacOS), but I haven't tried it:

[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/habitify-for- macos](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/habitify-for-macos)

<comment><USER15> hey thanks, I will definitely check it out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For personal projects and goals I keep a couple of index cards aside - one I used for GTD - 2 columns on one side (Next Action and Inbox/New Items) , 3 on the other (Waiting For, Projects, Someday). And then another index card or two for notes and sketches. I find it good to limit them (and keep just three folded in half in a back pocket) , otherwise I end up dragging around a stack of cards and not using them. If I limit them but replace as needed, I seem to use them more and keep them to hand.

I redo my GTD card weekly and drop stuff off every time that I 'thought' I wanted to do but just the act of writing it down and reviewing shows me it is not a priority. For a while I kept my old cards, but now I ditch them.

GTD = Getting Things Done - [https://hamberg.no/gtd/](https://hamberg.no/gtd/)

-

I use a combination of a mental/back of index card kanban board for purchasing goals (a cadence of what I can afford to save/spend, leading me along a list of prioritised items I want <or don't want by the time I can buy them in cash usually>) - been thinking about making an app for it for a while, but beyond my skills.

Right now I have two or three 'main' hobbies - paddle boarding, brewing beer and cycling. While I have a good salary, we have 2 kids and a single income, so things I would have just bought without thinking just a few years ago, now get thought about for a good while before pulling the trigger. If anything I'm happier this way. I stops me buying 'hobby crap' that I never use, and gives me time to find the best item I'm looking for (is it worth buying that huge saucepan cheaply, or waiting to get a better one? Or second hand?)

</comment><comment><USER17> Semi-Related: How do you come up with long-term-goals? Owning a car in the Bay is worthless, real estate is too expensive. Traveling the world is nice, but it might get boring after some years.

I kinda like my work and my life, but I feel like I should have a big future goal.

<comment><USER18> If you want to take a mystical angle on it, start reading stuff about one's True Will.

<comment><USER19> Sounds interesting, can you point me to a little more?

<comment><USER18> I'm too lazy to do more than drop you in at the deep end: [http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/True_Will](http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/True_Will)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A collection of google drive documents. I went through the process of deciding on Core Values (viz. the Integrity Report that James Clear does), and life time goals. Now I set yearly/monthly/weekly/daily goals that wrap up into larger scale projects. One useful process has been period reviews (daily reviews at the end of day, etc), where I'll check how well I did with regard to my goals, and whether I'm living with integrity (according to my explicitly set Core Values). During these reviews, I'll make note of the next level up, e.g. during monthly reviews, I'll check my annual reviews and update them as necessary.

[https://jamesclear.com/integrity](https://jamesclear.com/integrity) [https://jamesclear.com/goal-setting](https://jamesclear.com/goal-setting)

</comment><comment><USER21> I use a Trello board for my 10 year goals. Lists are:

1\. Primary Goals

2\. Secondary Goals

3\. Immediate Goals

5\. To-do this week

6\. Daily

I started it at the end of 2015 so there's a card in primary goals list for each major thing that I would like to have accomplished (or just continued to do) by the end of 2025. Each primary goal gets its own label and a checklist of what specifically accomplishing that goal means to me.

Secondary and immediate goals are how I broke down the bigger goals into smaller, more manageable parts. For example, one of my primary goals is "Health." So a secondary goal might be "rock climb twice per week" or "research ways to improve my memory". Every card in every list has a label/labels that relate them back to a primary goal.

The weekly and daily todos further break everything down into things that I can focus on in the next day or week.

Here's what I learned:

\- For all of 2016 (the first year) I would update this Trello board religiously every day with my weekly and daily todos. I found that I actually didn't enjoy doing this. While things were getting done, they didn't seem to be things that were that important or impactful. I stopped doing this so I could completely cut out those last two lists. Now I re-visit the board every so often when I feel like I need a reminder or what past-me thought was important. Sometimes I update the primary goals (I've only added to this once and never removed from it) and more frequently I'll decide that a secondary or immediate goal didn't make sense so I'll get rid of it or add a new one. The whole process is much more free form and I think that works better for me.

\- One of my mantras that has come out of this exercise has been "don't do something for just one reason." The things that I tend to enjoy and accomplish successfully are ones that have multiple primary goal labels on them. Sometimes they only have a loose relation or benefit but it's still more compelling to me because if it turns out one of the benefits doesn't work out the way I planned then there's still a reason to be doing this thing for another reason.

Still an ongoing experiment but I'm generally happy that I'm doing it.

<comment><USER22> I also use a trello board. I have one column for each year, plus a wishlist column with short/mid/long term goals and a separate column just for travels that I want to do. Once a task is completed I mark it with the green label. If I just don't care anymore about something or I "fail" the task, then I mark it in red.

I find this setup quite helpful for:

\- breaking down huge goals (such as learning a new language)

\- having short/mid/long term goals all available at a glance

\- giving priority to stuff I'd otherwise keep procrastinating (I tend to procrastinate for weeks or months doing several things until I put everything in one checklist at the top of the current year column and power through them all in a short time)

\- giving myself some perspective and appreciate all the things achieved in the past months/years. Things that were once just dreams or seemed very hard to achieve are now the normal day-to-day life and it's way too easy to undervalue them.

I use the board in a positive way, in the sense that I don't see deleting tasks or failing to achieve something as some kind of failure. I only celebrate the green "done" labels.

EDIT: formatting

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't. Live is hard enough without you constantly pushing yourself and giving yourself a bad conscious for not reaching your goals. Relax, kick back and just do what you feel is fun.

<comment><USER24> Most people already do that.

<comment><USER25> If they did, mid-life crisis wouldn't be so common. I'd say many people have lofty yet rather undefined goals in life, which is why they crash hard when they realize they are far from achieving hem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I find that organization helps me accomplish much more; taking the time every Sunday to plan out my week makes focusing significantly easier and more productive.

For standard tasks, I use Excel to track my weekly tasks. I prefer Excel compared to a web application because it's just always open on my laptop: [https://imgur.com/a/bp2sJYY](https://imgur.com/a/bp2sJYY) \- I break them down into priorities (Low - Absolute), class (blacked out column, I use the names of my two orgs), category, and a target date I set at the beginning of the week. \- Anything not completed transfers over to the next week and is reassigned an appropriate priority and date. \- Started this level of detail in Jan. 2018 and have been very happy with it.

For larger, more complicated projects I use a top-down approach I call strategic planning. I wrote a detailed article on the approach here: [http://bit.ly/2zWlARj](http://bit.ly/2zWlARj)

</comment><comment><USER27> Google Keep.

I have four types of notes: personal, work, learning, and health. For each type of note, I have a short term and long term list of tasks.

All tasks in my short term lists should be cleared within 1-2 days. This includes everything from paying bills, doing a few online course lessons, committing a PR or two, running 5 miles, purchasing something online, etc. I also include a few habits in this that I try to build, like "daily affirmations". The key is to make these as bite-sized as possible.

My long term TODOs are essentially a backlog dump that I pull from when I need to refresh my short term TODOs. Many of these are fuzzy ideas that I haven't broken into actionable steps, like "learn docker", "plan europe trip", or "hack on X". Some of these are small tasks that I just haven't gotten around to doing, like "add expenses to tax return", but at least its written down somewhere. I groom this every now and then.

I have a third type of note -- daily accomplishments. I essentially just bullet everything I accomplished that day outside of routine chores like "cook dinner" or "call parents". I archive this daily. I get lazy and don't fill this out 80% of the time.

Not sure if this is the best system, but it sure beats my old system of having a giant list of TODOs written on a piece of paper

</comment><comment><USER28> One of my goals this year is to be better organised at tracking my goals :) so far I haven't got around to it.

In all my note taking I try and keep things plain text. I have a folder for the year with a file called goals.txt with a list of everything I plan to achieve. I then have a done.txt file with everything I did achieve, divided my month. This is because life invariably throws things at you which were not on your initial plan, but are worth remembering that you did

</comment><comment><USER29> I break a Trello board into four columns:

1\. Habits which have some weekly frequency (meditate 10 mins 3x/w) and are all aligned to one or more...

2\. Goals which are measurable (complete 3 headspace packs) and all align to...

3\. Values which are unique to me (mental health) which agree with...

4\. Principles or rules of nature which apply to everyone (better mental health leads to more happiness, happiness leads to better life quality)

I create a board every quarter to re-adjust my values, goals, and habits.

<comment><USER30> I do something similar but not very structured. I've got a few questions:

      * Do you represent the alignments (e.g. goals aligning to values) in the board somehow, or is that you just in your head?
      * Do you track progress on 2-4, or just on the actual execution of habits? If so, how?
      * Are the values (3) just a subset of (4)?

<comment><USER29> Nice. I could talk all day about this stuff.

I represent goal/value alignments by assigning each value a label and labeling each goal. For instance mental health might be blue, professional competency might be yellow, etc.

Tracking depends on the specific thing. Most habits I track in an iOS app called Streaks. For skills which require introspection to improve, I keep a journal right in the trello entry for that specific habit. For instance if you play a musical instrument and you get feedback from a teacher weekly, you may want to journal that.

Values & Principles were later additions (I only added principles in the last year). The distinction is that values are specific to a person while principles are broad. For instance a lot of people agree in the principle that giving back to the community leads to deep happiness in the long term. But some might choose to do it by teaching python to kids, others might make dance tutorials on youtube.

My thought is: values do change over time as we get older or re-prioritize things in life, principles should be more steady. And it's useful to ground our values to reality.

Granted it's probably impossible to write down principles objectively, but I think it's worth a shot, even if to remind us that our values are only that: things we value, not necessarily others, who are all on their own journeys.

[https://medium.com/the-mission/the-difference-between- princi...](https://medium.com/the-mission/the-difference-between-principles- and-values-789b95452422)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Not really a solution, but a problem that I have (which this thread has actually given me several new ideas to try fixing) isn't so much organizing or tracking my goals, it's that even when I get them organized, and plan out my days (not excessively, but a handful of easily achievable things I want to do in a day or week) I find that I don't have the drive or motivation to accomplish them half the time.

Getting home from work exhausted, not from stress exactly, but from just being focused and working for the whole day + commuting + going to the gym, makes it hard to find the energy to do the things I WANT to do. So I end up going for the easy thing, which is browsing HN or Reddit, watching TV, playing video games. I do enjoy those things, but feel like I waste time when I do them.

I have realized in the past several months the very common idea that getting started is the hardest part. Most of the time when I force myself to just start on something, I end up investing hours into it.

The other problem is that I want to do too many things, and often don't want to start on a side project, or practicing an instrument, because I don't want to do just one thing for the night and neglect other things, which leads to just doing nothing of value that I wanted to do.

I just try to constantly remind myself that if I spend an entire night practicing keyboard, it's a thousand times better than thinking about the things I want to do, and then browsing the internet all night.

To the original topic though: I use a combination of Keep, OneNote, and a Habit tracker to help. It's just the breaking through and starting on things that is the main issue for me. Thinking of trying out a kanban board to track personal goals though.

<comment><USER32> I found these comments on 1) Getting Started 2) Focusing on What You Really Want to Achieve 3) Avoiding What You Really Want to Achieve by Wasting Time / Not Getting Started as the most important and most challenging for me on this message thread.

Regarding the question... As a solopreneur, it is important that I create my own strong structure and discipline - I use a combination of methods to track my personal goals/habits.

First, it's the Coach.me App to track my daily habits/ritual - the core of all progress. I'll execute tasks that are routine for me, and its a reminder to focus on habits I am struggling with or striving to build. These change overtime depending on my goals (next piece).

Second, it's a series of planning documents that include a) mission, b) long- term goals/focus, c) short-term goals/focus and d) maxims/principles to live and work by. I keep all these in a folder in my desk below my pile of weekly business bills called: 'Focus / Structure'. I review it periodically on different levels of focus, and if I notice I am struggling with something, I'll keep a duplicate copy of the specific item that needs focus on my desk alongside my day-to-day work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have found it more effective personally to focus more on priorities and habits than SMART goals. To track habits and progress and notes on _everything_ , I heavily use a tool I've mentioned before, which I wrote (after trying org-mode, collapsible outlines in other tools, etc). It uses postgres, and I hope that "sharing" data exchange features are coming (though it already does export to org-mode-like text, and to html). Best code is that in github, though a downloadable .jar is available. Currently keyboard and desktop-only (text-oriented). The most efficient/effective thing I have found for notes/lists/details of all kinds, and should be easy to learn to use, as all the essentials are on the screen. There is a tutorial.

By marking things done or "archived", it also provides a journal feature or personal log, of entries created or archived in any date range (defaulting to "yesterday and so far, today", to help with daily standup reporting).

[http://onemodel.org](http://onemodel.org) (AGPL)

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm assuming by 'personal goals' you are referring to the category of goals for life-long-learning, and not "vacation at the cabin this July".

If that's the case, then for me this is the wrong question. To suggest I should try to organize my goals is similar to asking me to graph the neurons in my brain, or catalog my dreams. My objective is to "capture/track my ideas" and aspirations. I work to develop my practical skills for, writing, coding, drawing, reading, recall/findability.

Many ideas prove low-value, or impossible to realize. I simply work to find a way to effectively express my personal ideas in the highest fidelity. If I imposed organization on this mess, I would sub-consciously limit my expressions.

That said, if an idea proves to have merrit, then I devote my time towards definable projects. I hope to complete them in a timely fashion.

I'm not part of a leasure class. I have enough pressure at work, so I don't sweat it. That's my choice.

</comment><comment><USER35> Large whiteboard with a 100 day mind map of goals. Daily journal structured to write out what I'm doing towards each goal that day, then daily 1 min video check in repeating those goals along with a general assessment of how I'm feeling/things I'm thinking about. Has been transformative to do things this way.

</comment><comment><USER36> Over the past few years I've tried: \- Checklists, OKRs, Kanban

Currently, I use a goal system with 3 components: (1) long-form essay writing to explore goals, desires, interests. I then capture this into a Google doc for the year and make it the Backlog. (2) Google spreadsheet for logging, tracking and measuring progress. (3) Periodic Reviews and retrospectives in the form of blogposts.

Here's the Goal System Tracker: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U0ufWHqntVcz89nebyRt...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U0ufWHqntVcz89nebyRt7RNvej6J2TpdVOwaGH- RmcE/edit?usp=sharing)

Here are the Blog Posts (Reviews & Retrospectives) [https://apicardami.com/category/goals/](https://apicardami.com/category/goals/)

</comment><comment><USER37> I use an app that I wrote, meditations, in order to break down goals into daily habits: [https://github.com/ioddly/meditations](https://github.com/ioddly/meditations)

e.g. "I want to run a marathon" becomes a daily "Exercise" habit. It's good for both progress and logging; now if I want to know what program I was running on June 28, 2015 for example I just filter for Exercise and go back to June 2015.

It was originally a Trello board so it's got an obviously kanban-ish look to it, but it's got things built in to collect things like time spent on habits overall, streaks.

I'm still working on the best flow for longer-term projects and "negative habits" (i.e. losing weight, not compulsively using the internet).

</comment><comment><USER38> I built an app for this for myself. Showed it to some friends casually and they really liked it, so I launched it:

[https://www.aspireapp.io](https://www.aspireapp.io)

It's positioned as a career development app but it can be used for anything, really.

</comment><comment><USER39> I only have a single personal goal in life and it changes slightly over time as I learn more about life so it wouldn't make sense for me to write it down. I just think about it and work towards it every minute of every day so I don't need to track/organise anything. It's more like a principle than a goal.

The idea that someone would have a rigid list of goals and work through it like some kind of checklist sounds very self-indulgent.

I could make it my personal goal to eat a fruit for breakfast everyday for 1 month; that type of goal would be achievable enough for me to put into a list; but the idea that I would get any satisfaction out of this is cringeworthy.

<comment><USER40> It might be cringeworthy for you, but others may need goals like that which can become incrementally more challenging for their discipline.

Breaking down a goal into a checklist can be useful, e.g. one of my goals was to work at a big company. I broke it down into action items, like who can I talk to? What habits do I need to implement for the medium term to accomplish this? With this systematic approach I made it happen. Another goal I had was to learn a third language. I broke it down into different modalities to hack it over the past year, and now I'm about to spend several months in the country practicing the language.

A list of goals does not need to be rigid, and they could be secondary goals for one's primary goal or mission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I personally use trello for keeping track of the things going on in my life. I don't necessarily use it to set goals for myself but whenever I want to do or learn something I make a list for that topic on my board. Then I start adding content (in the form of cards) to the list, to flesh out what it is exactly I want to achieve or how I might get there.

I sort lists by priority, so things that are the most important are on the left of the board. This really helps keep me focused on only a few topics at a time. Usually 4-5 lists are actively worked on.

I also have one list completely to the left of the board for things that need sort term attention. For example a paper I need to finish by next week or if I want to, for example buy a new pair of headphones, I make a card for that on that first list.

Then finally I have two general lists that are usually somewhere in the middle of the order about "Blog posts and Articles" I need to read and another one titled "Books" (list of books I am interested in reading). I keep both of these lists fairly short so nothing ends up forgotten in a forest of cards.

I found that keeping track of everything really helped me get more stuff done. But it also helped me to discover new things I want to do.

</comment><comment><USER42> I used to keep my goals in a journal and review it yearly but it didn't help me stay on track. After a few months I mostly forgot the goals I set until the next year. Now, I'm trying to review my big goals quarterly. I have Kanban boards for each goal (e.g. home improvement, skills development, side projects) in Trello that track task state really well.

But, Kanban boards by themselves still leave a gap for me. They're great at tasks but not necessarily how those tasks fit in with my goals. For that, I'm trying to be more proactive about what I choose to work on each day (staying in quadrant 2 for those that have read 7 Habits[1]). I'm building Natrium[1] to help me with that. Every day it reminds you what your long-term goals are and prompts you to enter what you plan to do for the day.

On the backside, every week it prompts you to review your progress, a bit like an iteration retrospective in scrum. This helps me stay mindful about what I achieved the past week and where I need to change focus. Because it organizes the retro per-goal, it's easy to see when I'm avoiding working on a goal or putting too much focus on one at the expense of others. For example, this summer I've spent way too much time on lawn care instead of my other goals.

It's very new and doesn't have all the features yet, but if you have any feedback I'd love to hear it!

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effecti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People) [1] [https://natriumapp.com](https://natriumapp.com)

<comment><USER43> _disapprobatory throat-clearing noises_ [http://forum.beeminder.com/t/natrium/4122](http://forum.beeminder.com/t/natrium/4122)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> With Beeminder. This is the best application that I've ever use to track and nudge me into incrementally working towards my goals.

</comment><comment><USER45> As a high school teacher, I like to use diaries and sticky notes to track them. Once in a while, I go through them and update them.

</comment><comment><USER46> I want to be able to leave notes on my phone by using short voice commands, then later export everything to ascii, and analyze it on a computer. I'm not aware of a solution for this, but in combination with some data-mining, it would be a great tool for analyzing habits (and keeping track of diet as well).

<comment><USER47> You should try Rec. It's a voice recording app that has a built in human transcription feature.

</comment></comment><comment> house9-2 I don't have personal goals.

I do have TODO lists I track on paper, usually things that need to get done within a month.

<comment><USER48> Without goals, how do you decide what you do and don't need to get done?

<comment><USER39> I think that it's better to be guided by passion and personal principles than some cheesy list of goals that you tick off one at a time.

Maybe they just have a single unachievable goal that they work towards endlessly; I think that's a worthy goal and it definitely wouldn't fit into a list format.

<comment><USER34> Exaclty! Except I use many unachievable goals that I work towards endlessly...to develop my touch-typing skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I use a Trello board that I update weekly. There's a list of tasks, and then 7 lists for each day of the week. I assign the tasks to each day and archive them when I've completed them. If they're only half done, I just shift them to the next day and so on. For things that _need_ to be done by a particular date, I assign them dates and link it to iCal.

Having been doing this for the past 3 months and it has helped put some structure into my life though sometimes I find it a bit too micro-managing. It also gives me tunnel vision since I can only do short term plans.

I've tried various other GTD and OKR methods without success. I've noticed that if I don't look at them at least once a week, I'll quickly forget about it and return to my old habits.

</comment><comment><USER50> complice.co which I've written a love-letter to here: [https://medium.com/@seanaubin/an-open-love-letter-to- complic...](https://medium.com/@seanaubin/an-open-love-letter-to-complice- fd89ac5fe837)

</comment><comment><USER51> I started just writing it down in the Notes app included with macOS as a list and mostly keep it in my head. I guess I try to look at it at the beginning of the year and see what I achieved but it's mostly bigger generic points ("get raise to be over $amount", "sign up for $class").

I don't think there's much value in micro-managing your life, especially if a lot of things are out of your hand and there's not really a good way to measure progress. Writing down some top-level goals and keeping them in mind feels helpful to me and I don't think a specific tool or task managing methodology is needed there.

<comment><USER52>
      print $amount;

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I use OKRs for personal goal setting and tracking. All best practices that apply to OKRs apply here. See [https://amzn.to/2LP9myF](https://amzn.to/2LP9myF) and [https://amzn.to/2OxEBN1](https://amzn.to/2OxEBN1) Keep goals SMART [http://bit.ly/2LIQX7z](http://bit.ly/2LIQX7z)

I use vimwiki [https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki](https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki) to organize everything.

</comment><comment><USER54> I use Getting Things Done with our own Tool Zenkit. The most time I work with Kanban Boards and organize everything in several columns (e.g. Inbox, To do today, next actions, calendar). I work with it every day and are happy when I can tick off the tasks I already did. For appointments and due dates, I switch to the calendar view to have a good overview. In Kanban, you can see your progress by having a look at the "Done" column.

At first, I organized everything with pen & paper but I always forgot to take my planner with me, so I switched to our online tool.

</comment><comment><USER55> I record my quarterly goal as my work computer login. This forces me to review it every 90 days and makes me keep it short. The main benefit is that I have to repeat it to myself several times a day.

</comment><comment> your-nanny I have a paper notebook with a daily to do list. sone todo items are necessary some aspirational. you can classify as urgent/not-urgent important/not- important. but each day I rewrite it out. if things I didn't finish yesterday aren't compelling enough I won't expend the effort to write it back down. I can always go back if I want.

the main thing I think is just taking the time at the start of each day to think about what you are doing, what's important and why, to have some semblance of a plan.

</comment><comment><USER56> Another +1 for journal here. Specifically, the bullet journal: [http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/](http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/)

It's very modular, so you can do whatever you want with it. But I write a daily to-do list and also use it to keep track of longer term tasks and goals.

I have used it for 3 years now, have filled up two moleskin-type journals, and my SO and I are convinced that this is the single best thing we've done to improve ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER57> I use a journal.

I strive to layout daily goals in the morning and then reflect on the day in the evening. Lately it has been difficult to consistently layout goals in the morning, so the evening portion has morphed into reflection on the day and planning what to do the next day. I will also occasionally update monthly and yearly goals if necessary. It has been a great benefit for me to be able to go back and see what I was occupied with at a given time and be able to put my current situation into perspective.

</comment><comment><USER58> I have a bunch of goals every year. They're written down on a small whiteboard that I've got hanging right next to my desk. Whenever I wonder what to do, I'll look at that whiteboard to tell me what currently has my highest priority.

At least, that's the theory. It doesn't always work out that way, but I can just write new goals down next year (or leave/rearrange the ones I didn't reach).

</comment><comment><USER59> Plug: I wrote an app to do this in a minimalist way. It's called Casual Planner ([https://itunes.apple.com/US/app/id1320558091?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/US/app/id1320558091?mt=8)) It has repeating events, and goals for "soon" and "sometime".

</comment><comment><USER60> I personally choose to have so few goals that I can count them on one hand, and remember them at all times. This means I have to say "no" to a lot of interesting ideas that come to mind, so it's a compromise for sure. But it means I'm always on top of my goals and always making progress towards them.

</comment><comment><USER61> I used todolist for everything on organizing tracking. I start a completely new one each once and a while so I'm forced to purge or reconsider old and forgotten tasks. Saves as an simple .txt file.

[https://abstractspoon.weebly.com/](https://abstractspoon.weebly.com/)

</comment><comment><USER62> I am using [https://www.trask.life](https://www.trask.life)

</comment><comment><USER63> I recently read 'Measure What Matters' and find OKRs to be a great way to track personal goals.

</comment><comment><USER64> I don't use any app for tracking goals. Rather I use a marker and board for that. I tried trello but its not good with respect to personal context. I suggest people to use diary and pen. Writing down things you want to do and cut it down once you had done.

</comment><comment><USER65> I use this really simple app on Android - [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.isoron.uha...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.isoron.uhabits)

</comment><comment><USER66> Using TeX syntax (or any language with collapsing blocks of text), a text file with branches.

[https://hastebin.com/gocibazeji.rb](https://hastebin.com/gocibazeji.rb)

</comment><comment><USER67> If I didn't use Evernote for storing and carrying my life around I'd use [http://notion.so](http://notion.so)

</comment><comment><USER68> I got a simple XML document, that contains tasks and todos. I query it from either command line or via a web interface, using mainly XQuery and a little XSLT.

</comment><comment><USER69> I like to keep it simple, I have 5-10 goals in google docs. I revisit my goals and progress about monthly and log where I am and how I see my future progress.

</comment><comment><USER70> Peter Drucker style Life List, which oddly enough I fell into doing well before I read any related Drucker material.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm testing Things 3 right now. It's based on GTD philosophy.

I'm looking for a way to visualize my progress yet.

</comment><comment><USER72> OT: achieving the goal is just a temporary pleasure.. remember to enjoy the journey!

</comment><comment><USER73> I've tried and failed to use and stick to many productivity systems over the years. It almost seems like an obsession at this point to find technological means for improving throughput.

I was able to take certain ideas from GTD but I've never found myself able to stick to a particular system. They all introduce too much friction and I end up discarding them in favor of just using mind, memory, and physical reminders.

What starts to go missing when I ramp up productivity is the meaning behind what I'm doing. It's too easy for me to announce, 'doing things this way is stupid', putting the whole thing down, and then go back to relaxing.

The big problems in life don't really respond to any amount of productivity improvements. You can't GTD your way to having more meaningful personal relationships. And you can't GTD your way to more deliberate practice, you just do it, day after day.

I'm not _quite_ at the point where I'm willing to write off productivity hacking as profoundly missing the point of life. But tracking and organization is what you do to things that need to be done that you can't bother to make enough of a priority to where they can be focused on with 100% of your attention and creative energy. And if you are focusing on things with 100% of your attention and creative energy, then tracking just gets in the way.

That all said, I am actually actively working on a productivity system. It's a console and text-based system where I add things just by typing `add <COLLECTION> <ITEM>` into a terminal. Triage is accomplished by using `sort <COLLECTION>` and going through item after item with one strike of a key. Using Ruby metaprogramming superpowers, I'm slowly hacking away at the friction behind creating little software tools that all interoperate with each other.

What triggered this was when I got the idea to move all my personal scripts off of Github and onto Dropbox. I don't need version tracking, I need syncing and durability. This seemingly little change made all the difference in my interest in recreational coding. Being able to just pop open a console in any machine that I've set up and start running commands without having to pull git repos feels amazing. I can literally stop typing, letting the text editor autosave, then get up, go home, and get on one of my personal machines and pick right back up where I left off.

The grand idea is to profoundly reduce the amount of friction involved in integrating software into my life. I'll be able to `add idea vacation` then `sort` it into a category, then `plan` it, the end result being a flat list of action items that I can accomplish X number of every day.

Is it overkill? Absolutely. But the dream of absolute perfection is the only vision compelling enough to get me to even think about productivity improvements anymore. There's no lower fruit left for me to pick that actually moves the needle on anything.

<comment><USER74> You might be interested in TaskWarrior [https://taskwarrior.org/](https://taskwarrior.org/)

Or maybe not :) I originally found the terminal-based aspect appealing but in the end found the tool didn't work for me. And maybe you just want to work on your own tool, which would be a fair reason not to stop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I used 43things.com for years. Now I mostly make lists in text files.

</comment><comment><USER76> if you need to write it down is it really a personal goal that is core to you or your likely to actually do?

</comment><comment><USER77> I just ask my spouse what I'm supposed to be doing on any particular day, and she tells me!

Relax! Just kidding :-)

</comment><comment><USER78> I spend hours making notes and then I do not read them or action them.

Instead I do the bare minimum to get through the day.

<comment><USER79> Same here, I even sync my notes across devices and put them under version control

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Google calendar</comment>


Users lash out at Reddit boss for 'deleting' posts on hubby's lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://nypost.com/2015/03/18/users-lash-out-at-reddit-boss-for-deleting-posts-on-hubbys-lawsuit/

<comment><USER2> I've just stopped visiting Reddit. I used to spend all day every day on the site, and now I visit once a day and post extremely infrequently (I have two 100K+ karma accounts, to give you an idea of how once active I was).

Reddit used to be a site for fairly intelligent discussion mixed in with some humour and memes for good measure (I am talking back in the pre /r/Reddit.com era), then the discussion slowly got worse and worse, and in recent times the bigots have moved in and the site is now intolerable.

I could live with the lower quality discussions but the bigotry is hard to stand. It also spreads like a virus into other subs and into the comment sections, and now you cannot read anything without seeing a race/gender/fat people/disabled people/etc "joke." Ick.

Then on top of that you have what can only be called "hate subs." These are places that exist only to bully and harass. They take pictures of members of the public to mock and victimized, several of which have tried to complain or hurt themselves, but nothing has changed.

Sorry, but it isn't a site for me. I don't like bullying and bigotry which is what Reddit has turned into through and through.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Reddit is known as a democratic site run by its users where free speech is sacrosanct. The more votes a story gets, the more likely it will be posted on a front page."

It's an example of why direct Democracy doesn't work. Anything that is even slightly against the extreme-left majority is down voted and ignored.

The average Redditor probably loves this...until the same thing happens to them.

<comment><USER4> Reddit is not an "extreme left" site. I'm a bit confused how anyone who's spent any time on Reddit could come to that conclusion.

<comment><USER3> I guess if you change the definition of "extreme left", you might have a point. But otherwise, just look here:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/politics](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics)

The headlines are all about: Evil Republicans, Capitalism and how the government should be paying for Healthcare, Employment, and a basic income. There is no middle ground, everything is shown from one, extreme, biased, view.

The comments show even more evidence of this.

<comment><USER5> Wanting publish healthcare is "extreme left"? Isn't the US pretty much the only first-world country that doesn't have it yet?

<comment><USER6> Single payer healthcare? No, only a handful of countries have it (Canada, the UK, a couple others). The majority of first world countries have a mix and public and private.

<comment><USER5> Canada and the UK have a mix of public and private healthcare available as well... having public health care doesn't necessarily preclude private healthcare.

I guess I was caught up on the distinction between "government paying for everything" (single-payer) and public healthcare, which most developed nations besides the US do have. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publicly_funded_health_care#Var...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publicly_funded_health_care#Varieties_of_public_systems)) I'm in BC which is apparently the only province to not have single-payer. Instead we make mandatory insurance payments that are adjusted based on income.

In a "left vs right" context though I'm not sure there is much of a practical difference between public health and single-payer health. Either you give a government-determined amount of money to the government who passes it on to the healthcare system, or the government requires you to give a government- determined amount of money to the healthcare system directly. I would imagine any conservative against one would be against the other? What am I missing that single-payer health care is considered so crazy left wing?

<comment><USER6> > Most developed countries, with the exception of the United States, have > partially or fully publicly funded health systems.

I don't think this line from the article is correct, unless it was written before the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)? Doesn't the US have partially publicly funded healthcare? Of course conservatives don't like this, but they'd be way unhappier with something more extreme like single-payer or socialized medicine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> And while they're deleting those posts people are free to repost images of vulnerable users, with added sexualised language, and send pms telling those vulnerable people to kill themselves.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9233996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9233996)

<comment><USER7> As reprehensible as that sort of thing is, I think Reddit's admins are just trying to live up to it's claims of offering free speech. Or at least free until the press hates them or someone threatens legal action.</comment></comment>


Spontaneous praise for Gandi by its customers - <AUTHOR> http://www.gandibar.net/post/2010/05/31/Gandi-will-apply-Verisign-s-3rd-price-increase-on-July-1st-2010

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm a Gandi customer, not a shill of some sort. I saw this on their website and found the comments to be remarkable. A _price increase_ inspired testimonials from customers about how Gandi was worth any price differential.

Any business or endeavor we start should inspire this kind of response. If a domain name registrar can do it, so should we be able to.</comment>


Ask HN: We're moving into a new office, suggested resources? - <AUTHOR>

The company that I work for is outgrowing its current office space, and so we're moving onto a new floor in our building with a lot more room. Right now its completely empty and lacks sufficient power and ethernet ports. We're going to be buying new tables, chairs, shelving, lamps, you name it.
We're not too sure how to lay it out or what kind of tables we should be buying. We all have our own ideas as to what kind of tables we'd like, how we'd like the space to feel, etc... but none of us have the expertise to get it all out on paper.
Have any of you brought in professional designers or architects to design your spaces? What kind of costs might we expect with having someone design our 2000 sq. ft. office?
We're also having a pretty hard time convincing our CEO to really invest in this move into the new area. Any advice there is appreciated as well. <comment><USER2> Get cheap ass folding cafeteria style tables, chairs out of dumpsters, and make shelves from wood and cinderblocks.

Pay someone to design your space ? Are you kidding ?

One trick, is to get everyone to commit to once every three weeks, completely re-arranging the space. Have everyone stay late one day, do it, and then go to dinner together. It will keep things feeling new for longer, and if people arrange things in a way that sucks, you only have to put up with it for three weeks.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe Joel's "Bionic Office" will give you some inspiration:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BionicOffice.html></comment>


Ask HN: Anti-bias system for the free (unpolitical) web - <AUTHOR>

After having read tons of biased articles, I've discovered that:
1. I could tell the writers were biased because I've read-up several other articles on the same topic
2. Know that many people make important decisions on such reviews and are likely to make the wrong one after reading 1 or a few of such biased articles.
3. Some write-ups were not just biased but were flat-out lies, scripted stories or novels. Written to discredit or promote 'something'

  *We need something to 'manage trust'.
  *a bias rating
  *truthfulness rating
 I believe I'm not the only one that would find such a service useful.
I have a few ideas about how it could work.
1. Lets say I am reading a page and alarms are going off in my head. I could pick the url and paste them in a site to check the rating of that page.
2. A browser extension gives me ratings and allows me to rate too.
3. Javascript code that works replicates the basic functions of browser extension <comment><USER2> how does that stop people from rating something as true that confirms their already existing bias?

<comment><AUTHOR> honestly, i really don't know. But i've noticed from comments on different sites that some commenters:

1\. Know those who are biased towards an idea

2\. Know those who frequently invent stories.

Maybe the solution requires AI that's not possible at the moment.

If something can just tell me 'hey if you want an accurate view of topic X stay clear of Mr Y' or 'Site X has a story fabrication rating or XX' it would be very useful.</comment></comment>


4 Years In – Uber raises 1.2B at 17B valuation - <AUTHOR> http://blog.uber.com/4years

<comment><USER2> There is more discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7859084](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7859084), so we'll call this one the dupe.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think what they're doing is great. But does anyone else feel like "job creation" is a distracting data point? I can't help feel that companies like Uber are really just positioning themselves early for the self-driving car revolution that is coming. They will be in a very good position and heavily incentivized to switch to a driverless model once the technology arrives. Perhaps I'm premature in my expectations of how soon this will realistically happen.

<comment><USER4> Even if they don't switch to that model, someone else will. Humans are a big expense.

<comment><USER5> The thought of a fleet of driverless electric taxis is amazing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Technically they're raising at $18.2B or $18.4B in the typical sense of the word "valuation" since the 17 is pre-money.

Also, as an investor in such a late round, there are likely multiple provisions for getting your money back such that while a large investment, it may not be particularly risky. Even if Uber crashes and burns and gets acquired for only $3B, investors in this round probably still double their money.

</comment><comment><USER7> They're making the world a better place.</comment>


The lockdown death of a 20-year-old day trader – Free to read - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/45d0a047-360f-4abf-86ee-108f436015a1 <comment><AUTHOR> Also at:

[https://parentsecurityonline.com/parent-kids-the-lockdown- de...](https://parentsecurityonline.com/parent-kids-the-lockdown-death- of-a-20-year-old-day-trader-free-to-read/)</comment>


Virtlet: run VMs as Kubernetes pods - <AUTHOR> https://www.mirantis.com/blog/virtlet-run-vms-as-kubernetes-pods/ <comment><USER2> The real reason for these projects (Virlet, KubeVirt, RancherVM) is that OpenStack is too damn hard. Even with all this focus on containers these days people still need an onprem VM solution. But the requirements are really pretty simple for most use cases and the cost and complexity of OpenStack is not justified.

Edit: disclaimer: my company does RancherVM.

<comment><USER3> The reason for this project was that people want to migrate to containers as industry is pushing them forward to it, but - there will always be cases in which "normal" containers will be out of scope - when you will be dependent on piece which is: a) based on other than linux based operating system b) you need a specific linux module which for some reason should not be loaded on host kernel c) you need a hardware separation using virtualization because of security reasons All that can be achieved using "somewhere around" openstack, but what about integration/common interface with other parts of stack? That's the reason why we did Virtlet - to have the same interface for "normal" (docker image based) pods and VMs (hard disk image based), with the same kubectl command, with the same api (so it can be used for deployments, daemonsets, statefulsets and so on), with the same thing configuring networking in whole cluster (CNI, hopefully any of your choice - if it's not working, please fill the bug on GH).

<comment><USER2> I don't fully buy that explanation. If OpenStack was better they would have already had success on that platform and then would be asking for a bridge between k8s and OpenStack (openstack could easily be a virtual kubelet). Instead people are looking to abandon OpenStack in favor of something hopefully better.

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying that OpenStack is better/worse - it was only out of our goals. For sure OpenStack has better tenancy support, much more mature approach to networking or storage (in containers world we are still working on [https://github.com/container-storage- interface/spec](https://github.com/container-storage-interface/spec) ) but in the same time - we only needed to have a qcow2 based vm running between already deployed pods, with the same user interface. That's all, without other story around that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting to see how this _really_ compares to KubeVirt, which seems to be doing the same thing. I don't think KubeVirt is "just" pets as far as I understand. [disclaimer: I've been very peripherally involved with KubeVirt because they asked me about integrating virt-v2v support].

<comment><AUTHOR> You can't have a StatefulSet of VMs on KubeVirt, although you may want one if you're using unikernels or want to run a nested Kubernetes cluster for testing, like here: [https://github.com/Mirantis/virtlet/blob/master/examples/k8s...](https://github.com/Mirantis/virtlet/blob/master/examples/k8s.yaml) On the other hand, you can't have VM migrations with Virtlet.

<comment><USER4> Be nice if there was just one "virt for Kube" technology. I guess virt-v2v will end up having to support both.

<comment><USER5> Given that the container ecosystem is a huge land rush with many obviously missing pieces, there are going to be multiple projects for every piece.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm using kubevirt for this. My usecase is to allow preconfigured windows VMs to boot up inside of kubernetes - so that both Windows VMs and Linux containers are manipulated using the same API. It works very well!

<comment><USER3> the key is that with Virtlet you can use you windows VM as other pods in replicasets, daemonsets, statefulsets, what can not be done using CRD offered by kubevirt. In the same time, assuming that your windows image supports cloud init (e.g. using [http://cloudbase-init.readthedocs.io](http://cloudbase- init.readthedocs.io) ) - you can setup it during the boot, configuring users, passwords, running arbitrary scripts - you have full control about what will be done during cloud init phase using only pod annotations (you don't need prepared specific image with predefined content as in KubeVirt case). In case of Virtlet you have a possibility to merge data from different sources (config maps, secrets, annotations) and use the result in output cloud init image.

At the end - KubeVirt provides you a way to run a VM as a custom resource in an app on k8s (virt-launcher), while Virtlet provides a way to run VM as first class cluster citizen, as a pod, with the same interfaces as for other pods (so you can use kubectl logs, kubectl attach -it, as with other "normal" (docker image based) pods).

ok, with windows vm you will see in kubectl logs only cloud init logs as thats the only part which is using serial console to output something :P

with other types of vm images (based on linux, bsd or unikernels) you would probably appreciate more possibility to use kubectl attach -it, or kubectl logs ;)

<comment><USER3> btw. both solutions have they strong points - virtlet is a bit closer to k8s interfaces, while kubevirt provides closer to libvirt options (e.g. TAL on [https://twitter.com/dummdida/status/992037913352392705](https://twitter.com/dummdida/status/992037913352392705) )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's the key difference between Virtlet/KubeVirt and just running VMs alongside your Kubernetes pods? Is the main goal to centralize management? That seems reasonable, I'm just wondering.

Also, how does a Kubernetes-managed VM compare to a plain VM from, say, AWS EC2? I imagine it's a little less efficient, since the situation I'm imagining involves various VMs running a Kubernetes pod running the VM, but I may have this all wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> Besides using kubectl to manage VMs, you also get VMs that join the cluster network as first-class citizens. In this blog post you can see a k8s service pointing to a VM and accessing k8s services from within the VMs. Also, compared to EC2 / GCE / etc., you can use Virtlet for bare metal on-prem clusters, too.

<comment><USER7> That makes sense, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> reminds me of vmlets term from the virtual virtual machines [https://pages.lip6.fr/vvm/publications/0008SBAC.pdf](https://pages.lip6.fr/vvm/publications/0008SBAC.pdf)</comment>


Show HN: Dogtag PKI certificate expiry notification and auto-renewal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/eveith/dogtag-notify-expiring-certificates <comment><AUTHOR> This repository contains two simple Perl5 scripts that:

1\. Check for certificates that are about to expire, and notify the owner, 2\. automatically renew a local certificate if it is about to expire.

The scripts work with the Dogtag PKI ([http://pki.fedoraproject.org/](http://pki.fedoraproject.org/)). Their raîson d'être lies in the necessity of many companies to have their own PKI, which then also is used to identify internal servers (instead of, for example, Let's Encrypt). However, there is not automatic certificate renewal for those server certificates (as the ACME protocol clients provide, for example), even though a certificate may be automatically renewed through the corresponding certificate profile. Additionally, there is no easy way to notify users (not servers!) that their certificate is about to expire and they need to renew it (if they can and may do so).

I hope somebody finds them useful. :)</comment>