Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? - <AUTHOR> http://www.chadfowler.com/2010/12/30/dead-end-jobs-are-you-suffering-from-stockholm-syndrome <comment><USER4> Dead end jobs destroy transferable technical skills. I've witnessed miserable scenes. Many people are stuck maintaining large pieces of poorly written software. They forget how to actually program because their work involves very little development, and becomes all about knowing how the specific piece of software works (and the company's admin procedures) so that they can fight fires and make minor changes.

Escape involves gathering the confidence and the determination for self study, so that applying for another job is even a viable option. Skunk-works type projects at work are strongly recommended.

<comment><USER5> I did three years of maintenance programming on a proprietary enterprise Java Big Feaking Web App framework, fighting fires and making minor changes. I learned more about engineering in those years than in college, first job, and building two software businesses from scratch. Possibly combined. YMMV.

<comment><USER6> Writing and maintaining terribly-designed software is actually a really great way to learn software design. It makes it so that when you read about a technique or pattern, the application of that pattern is very real to you, in the sense of "Oh, if we had done this on component X of product Z, it would have prevent bugs like Y."

<comment><USER7> Understanding what to avoid can be as valuable as having an idea of what specifically to do. I feel like I'm learning a lot about the software development and management fields where I am now, mostly because I'm starting to realize why some things are so important as I learn about ways that the system can be terribly inefficient even while following the letter of Best Practices.

At least, I'm telling myself it's valuable experience so I can stick it out for the next six months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm in the process of cleaning up my resume to send out today.

* My responsibilities as a programmer have constantly been increasing. Every year I become the maintainer of more projects as others quit.

* We fired a sys admin and now I'm outright doing his job in addition to my own. Management was slow to get a job posting up and has not brought people in to interview. I feel like my breadth of abilities are being abused to save money. At this point I can't be a good programmer and a good sys admin.

* I asked to telecommute one day a week and the response was actually laughter. After speaking to someone high up the policy was changed and now I need to "Justify why it would be good for the department." Which is literally impossible. There is a key set of words I need to discover that would actually activate the policy, like it's a game or something. Now I'm questing for a new employer.

* I'm working with consultants from a Big Name Firm currently modernizing our X. These consultants send conflicting information and documents which aren't even internally consistent and then bill us while I work with them to clean up their bullshit. These people are earning 5x my pay and can't do their job. Then I was asked to work while I was on vacation this week to check up on the consultants progress. And sure enough they fucked up.

* Salaries are frozen even though we are profitable.

* A majority of my coworkers have no will to learn. I can dictate pseudo code to them to help with an issue and they will actually start typing the pseudo code into the editor and then be confused when it doesn't work. And a week later they will have a very similar issue with no ability to make the mental connection to the work done a week earlier.

Whew, nice to actually type all that out.

<comment><USER9> _"Justify why it would be good for the department." Which is literally impossible. There is a key set of words I need to discover that would actually activate the policy, like it's a game or something. Now I'm questing for a new employer._

You just answered your own question:

key set of words = "Now I'm questing for a new employer."

better key set of words = "I quit."

<comment><USER8> Oh I was well aware what I should say once my "not having to drive is akin to a small raise" was shot down as "being good for you, not for the department"

I don't want to bluff though, so at this point I'm just moving on. If I'm required to throw a tantrum and threaten to quit to get what I want I'm happy to find work elsewhere.

Oh, and I just remembered. The only training we were ever offered came in an excel spreadsheet with over 1000 courses offered by some training firm.

We were told to email back "Three of four choices" and if there was enough interest in one of the courses it would be paid for. There was no possible way for any single course to be chosen definitively by the staff with so many choices.

But at least management got to feel good about "offering training, but there wasn't enough interest."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just left a job that afflicts Stockholm Syndrome on employees. Thankfully as a systems programmer in a research firm, I avoided the worst of it, but most people weren't so lucky. Here are some management behaviors that were effective:

 _Never thank people for finishing something on time, on budget, and to the project specifications. Instead, heap attention on those who finish in an all- nighter that ends in the final demo._ Heroic measures are sometimes necessary and deserve reward, but being part of the process is a big red flag.

 _Never set expectations or milestones, just expect the project to be finished on the due date._ This had an interesting effect on the work pace. Due to Parkinson's Law, individual workers finish days before the deadline, but that's not enough time to test integration. Major problems are discovered late, and everyone works ridiculous hours to fix it. Thank everyone for making it work at the last minute, rinse and repeat!

 _Tell employees to work weekends and nights for projects that could be unnecessary. Make these individual efforts to maximize the time one person wastes._ When burning the candle on both ends, it's satisfying when you're done and the work was needed. After all, you took on the impossible, and here it is! But when days or weeks of your life are thrown away with a laugh, you would find another job if you actually had the time.

The Perceived Threats were the Bad Things that would happen if our demos failed. Funding lines would dry up, the company would be in trouble, etc. So everyone pitched together to keep the system going. Everyone became so focused that they stopped realizing that it could be done another way.

<comment><USER11> A couple others I've witnessed:

 _Ideas only go down_ When employees tell you of actually useful innovations to a product do NOT agree it is a good idea. Mention that it is cute they are trying, and pretend to forget about it. In 3-6 months have a VP flash brilliance and push that innovation down from the top. All employee protests of "I have been pushing for this for months" are to be stonewalled, possibly with discipline.

 _Permanent emergency mode_ VP or CEO comes down to the dev team in a panic at least once a week handwringing about how "OMG we're fucked if we don't fix this" Complaints of "its been crunch time for a year" are met with replies about other duties as assigned, how if they just did their job this wouldn't be necessary, and company solvency.

 _Praise only the shitty employees_ Never ever ever praise the employees who solve a problem. Actively deride the employees who consistently solve problems, deliver results and so on. This triggers a "what am I doing wrong" response in them, and gets them working even harder.

 _Keep the situation confusing_ Give employees a set of tasks today and have them undo that same set of tasks tomorrow. In a week, do it over. Half way through a day, come down and demand something at top priority, then raise hell at the end of the day that they didn't finish the work you preempted w/ a top priority request.

 _rules!_ (this one works quite well in the food service industry) - <USER2> rules that almost make sense at slow times, but which add unnecessary process and overhead. Insist on these rules being followed strictly during the busiest times. If the plebes find ways to speed up the process that is still with in the rules and has the same effect, begin the firings. Double down if the process reduces tips or rate of sales for the business. (It turns out most employees want to make you money, even waitstaff).

 _Find ways to keep your employees cash-poor_ Make them pay out of pocket and have very slow reimbursement procedures. Delay paychecks or even sneakier, have "problems" with direct deposit. The net effect is employees with less liquid money than they might otherwise have... helping get them into that nice trapped state.

<comment><USER12> Funny, the company I just got out followed all of those points. Many "emergency fix this" moments and "problems" processing checks. Often times, paychecks were lower than they were supposed to be.

Glad I'm out..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you liked the article, you should also read this blog post: "How to keep someone with you forever" - <http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html>

It's written from the opposite point of view and goes into more details - <USER3> if you were a manager, you can do X, Y and Z to encourage Stockholm Syndrome and keep your employees emotionally bound to you. It's a pretty scary 'how-to' guide!

<comment><AUTHOR> The additional reading links at the end are also interesting and relevant[1]. Also, this strip illustrates a horrible example of an abusive workplace[2].

[1] [http://www.liberatedthinking.com/data/Library/SATANISM/Satan...](http://www.liberatedthinking.com/data/Library/SATANISM/Satanic%20Bible/AirVII%20Not%20All%20Vampires%20Suck%20Blood!.htm)

[2] <http://bigbigtruck.deviantart.com/gallery/9680890#/d24ih85>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been mindful of this since my teenage years, which is why I swore to myself a few things before I had even turned 16:

* If I don't like a situation, I will leave it. After all, the easiest way to change your environment is to escape it.

* Fear of failure is a great motivator. When you quit without having another opportunity already lined up, you have a lot of obvious motivation to find a new job since your income is $0. I've found it easier than lulling myself into complacency by continuing to get my income from the source I hate.

* Don't just zig, zag. I've been programming professionally for 12 years. Eventually I will stop, at the very least from being bored. Honestly, I want to work on Formula 1 cars, preferably before I'm 40. One day I'll stop building massive data engines for finance, and instead work on bleeding edge race car engines for racing teams. In the next 18 months I'm working on chasing another crazy dream successfully enough to have the option to walk away from big finance research.

It's difficult to describe my mindset about this, and being a ruthless, very self-critical perfectionist probably helps tremendously. I always joke that it's my mission in life to prove everyone else wrong.

The one that is hardest to follow is the first. For instance, I've never completely struck it out on my own, and have always worked for startups run by other people. My solution was to create a business that could be successfully run by myself, with no help from anyone. That's in the works... but in the meantime, I'm at another startup.

<comment><USER15> Reading your post, I feel like you're me, except I haven't worked at startups. Addressing your first two points:

* If I don't like a situation, I will leave it. After all, the easiest way to change your environment is to escape it.

I feel conflicted with this one. While what you say is true I can't help but feel, when I try to apply to certain situations in life, like I'm quitting... or that I'd beat myself up for "being a quitter who didn't try hard enough to make things better" at a particular job or relationship or something of the sort. There's something to be said about the potential payoff relative to the amount of effort involved in making things better, of course.

Your second point is something I've been personally stuck in for awhile, mostly given the economic downturn and seeing friends go unemployed for quite a long time. Still, I probably have to make that jump sooner or later.

<comment><USER16> I understand your point, but I think it might not always be possible to improve the work situation enough to justify staying there. I think it's always worthwhile to give it a try and see how much change you can effect, but there is a practical limit.

As far as unemployment - I only know of one friend who is currently unemployed, and that's by choice! Not that this is indicative of North America as a whole; but it does reflect what I've heard others say in regards to there always being good jobs available for good people who are skilled.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, that's what I was referring to when I talked about the potential payoff. I certainly have skills and a decent resume, but have had trouble getting interviews my way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I once worked at a company that managed to pull off all four conditions with one brilliant but devious hack: The warehouse uniform was a t-shirt imprinted with, "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

 _Perceived Threat_

This implied that problems were the workers' fault, not the boss's. Subtle, but effective.

 _Small Kindness_

Believe it or not, many people were actually glad to be given their own t-shirt by the boss.

 _Isolation from Other Perspectives_

 _Everyone_ had the same t-shirt. Eventually, what started out as a joke became the accepted condition.

 _Perceived Inability to Escape_

There was never any doubt who was in control. Resistance was futile.

<comment><USER17> Oh yes, I recently escaped from a company like this. I'm not afraid to name names: ClickBooth.com, a Sarasota company in the affiliate marketing space.

Myself and other programmers that once worked there all feel so grateful, we all get together on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out.

Here's a funny anecodote. They were having a hard time finding new developers. About 9 months ago, if you look through my HN posts, I posted to a "Who Is Hiring" thread. I mentioned a few of the cool things about working at Clickbooth and put my work email address in my post.

The next day I was called into my managers office. The HR woman saw my HN post. She was upset. For some reason. Still don't understand why, exactly. But it's not "my place" to post these things, I was told. And I should go delete my post. And my manager, he played the "good cop" routine... "I talked to the CEO and I'm not going to pursue this further." Oh, really? How lucky of me. You won't discipline me for, ya know, going above and beyond and trying to attract good developers to the team. Oh, gee, thank you sir, so much, for your kindness.

I didn't mean to rant for so long, but boy, it feels good.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the post.

Anybody know if there is a good place on the Web where people can be honest about what it's like to work at specific companies?

<comment><USER19> glassdoor.com is probably the most popular I know of. There's also vault.com.

<comment><USER20> Glassdoor weirds me out a bit from the other side.

It's a little unsettling going there the day after a round of interviews and basically reading a description of what it was like to be interviewed by me. No names, but I can definitely identify myself and some other co-workers by the questions we asked candidates.

<comment><USER21> A little weird, but getting good feedback on your performance sounds like it would be pretty nice to me. I mean, it might not feel great, but at least you'd know what needs improvement.

<comment><USER20> It wasn't feedback so much as it felt...disconnected and impersonal. The candidates didn't offer opinions, just descriptions of the interview flow (number of interviewers, how it was structured) and the types of questions asked. It felt like I was reading a transcript of a wiretap or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> You can become mentally locked into a programming language or development tools or an operating system, or to particular approaches to solving problems, too.

Learning something entirely new is more work, as is spending your own money on this given employers can tend to avoid funding career-unrelated tools and learning.

Corporations themselves can become locked into products and solutions and businesses.

Counterintuitively, there can be value in the _bungee boss_ approach in countering this syndrome; of a policy of periodic and scheduled managerial evictions with business reviews and a review of the bosses, and of institutionalizing _some_ instability within organizational management. A Darwinian policy of up or out; where each middle-tier and upper-level bosses are treated as and measured akin to a self-contained CEO and sales rep, and where each is going to be promoted or pushed out.

<comment><USER23> Agreed. I spent several years shackled to the Microsoft tool chain, exhibiting multiple symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome. I'm grateful to be free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The modern corporate structure has evolved to exploit this dynamic, so it ought to come as no shock that most everyone here has experienced it. In fact, my guess is that more than half of HNers who think positively about their current position will eventually look back upon it with feelings of having been manipulated in this way.

Even shops that style themselves as non-traditional will adopt this corporate body plan as they grow, because the new directors and officers have had "best practices" ingrained in them.

One term specifically stands out throughout my career: if you are told by the company that you are "empowered," then you're not.

<comment><USER25> >Even shops that style themselves as non-traditional will adopt this corporate body plan as they grow, because the new directors and officers have had "best practices" ingrained in them.

Any idea how to solve this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Doesn't this situation describe about 3/4 of the working age US population ?

I find it ironic that a nation where freedom is supposedly so highly valued accepts relegating most of its people to corporate slavery.

<comment><USER27> Exactly. At my last corporate job, there were a few extreme libertarians who would rail against "big government taking away our freedoms" at the drop of a hat -- but these same guys would meekly submit to all of the 1984-esque corporate BS (swiping a badge 9 times to get to your desk, weekly 'IT Security' reminders that your every action is being logged, surveillance cameras everywhere...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Like some here, I recently escaped a company which pulled off these four condition on every employee in every dept. Am not ashamed to name and shame them either. ComXo, a Slough UK, based umbrella company with call2.com, buttontel.com and multivoice.com brands under them. Here's the deal....

"We run a tight ship, everyone has to be in at 9am" ... The employer had one person he believed is the cream for the week and their given top spot...everyone else is treated like dead wood for the next week or two. Percieved threat of getting fired if you were the dead wood, and some did...to our amazement..this kept the rest quiet, head down, trying utmost not to get noticed!

Small Kindness...This was amazingly executed. The employer introduced an great bonus scheme and got you to agree to it and the job/project delivery based on it. The scheme is known as "MBO"

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_objectives>).

The objectives were set, one/two meetings take place and then you got a nice tidy sum, around 8% of the total bonus...then the scheme was shutdown, your locked in to the project, otherwise...see perceived threat above!

Isolation from other perspectives - provided you met the project deadline, did the utmost to killoff the competition to be the "cream" mentioned about, you were in with a chance to be IT / Sales / product (you name the dept) manager.....keep waiting.....the perception was..."we dont need an manager, we do a great job without one". The employer is the manager for all depts, have you heard such tosh!

Perceived inability to escape - Majority was told, they could never get paid as well as they do there, the jobs easy and "you" make it difficult, all you have to do is A, B and C, we have to do D, E and F-Z..your lucky! They even went as far saying how would they cope without you...praise that were simply words to keep some staff working till 9PM when they would refuse to pay a penny over the 9-5 allocated!

Myself and other ex-employees all feel extremely grateful, we all get together on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out when we did too! We were only lauging last week when we found they were using their own employees to advertise their services on youtube (try serching for "comxo"), amazing what they got their employee to do in the name of the company!

Sorry for the long rant.

</comment><comment><USER29> While Stockholm Syndrome may be the observable result, the underlying emotion is fear.

Addressing one's fear is a shared part of the human condition. Which may be why we admire those who act, persevere, and succeed.

</comment><comment><USER30> A poor economy doesn't help either. I think part of the fear is not being able to find other work to pay the bills so many of us settle for the current situation... or work on startups on the side!

<comment><USER31> Yeah- the threat is very real for people underwater on their mortages, with huge student loans, or about to put kids through college. It definitely is an awful position to be in, but a lot of people are forced to do this to make ends meet. It's not just psychological disorder.

<comment><USER32> It's also tough for people who are actually not in much debt, aren't underwater, aren't in financial stress. Because they can only make do with a few months unemployed. That's a small margin for failure/experimentation/following your "passion".

<comment><USER30> Whatever happened to the American Dream? These scenarios certainly don't sound like it. A lot of Americans (if not a majority) are in a similar situation.

<comment><USER15> "It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it." -George Carlin

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> A wider look at similar ground is "The Gervais Principle." [1]

1\. [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

<comment><USER18> That's totally worth reading

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> So, to summarise, S.S. type of jobs can be ones that provide:

\- occasional bonuses

\- competitive salary

\- great tech to play with

\- high status within the company that you might lose if not keep up

Now, the question is, does that really sound like a terrible job environment to you? Where one is supposed to go from there? Entrepreneurship? Consulting? Cause actual salaried jobs don't get any much better than that.

<comment><USER35> I don't think that those things all necessarily combine. For example, you could hate everything about the job, but be afraid to leave because the benefits package is good. There is also the chance that you haven't 'shopped around enough' and think that the benefits package is better than it actually is.

E.g. my employer was touting that our healthcare costs are ~$300/month less than the 'industry average' (though they didn't state _which_ industry they think that we are in -- it's not cut-and-dry like 'financial services' or something). Someone that I know left the company for a ~$30K/year increase in salary. The difference in benefits payments does not out-weigh the salary difference, but if you're focusing too much on something like 'competitive salary package' you may not have the whole picture. [Obviously it's more nuanced that this, because different healthcare packages have different levels of coverage too, but this is just a simple example off the top of my head where focussing too much on the micro can cause you to miss the macro.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't know why anyone would put up with this nonsense. The market for tech is amazing right now and has been for years. It's inexcusable that anyone worth their salt should feel trapped in a dead-end job.

<comment><USER37> I think imposter syndrome (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome>) contributes, and a grim view of prospects combined with lack of knowledge on how to find jobs. If all you're doing is reading monster.com postings or whatever then the majority of jobs postings that are out there are terribly written and deeply discouraging.

<comment><USER38> Any advice on what could be better than reading monster.com ? (genuinely interested)

<comment><USER37> Meeting people. It's not easy and it's not fast, but if you can find an interesting and relevant meetup, or user group or some-such you can start talking to people doing interesting things.

Local technology associations are also good sources. I'm in Waterloo, where there are organizations like Communitech (<http://communitech.ca>) and Canada's Tech Triangle (<http://techtriangle.com>) that offer social events and whatnot. Also, if you're really bored or motivated, you can go through their membership lists checking out all the companies in the area and see if they're doing interesting things.

Look for Camp events in your area too. DemoCamps, StartupCamps, BarCamps, FooCamps, yadda yadda.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I was starting to feel like I was in a dead end job a couple years back and then I started programming like I wanted to quit but leave the company in a good position. I automated everything. All of a sudden I had copious amounts of spare time to work on interesting projects and the business started growing rapidly as we were able to scale easily to larger operations and add more revenue with fewer mistakes and more customer satisfaction. I kept up the same pattern, and a couple years later the company is doing better than ever, I've gotten raises, etc. I've also been able to move-on from boring maintenance to new projects as the old stuff practically runs itself.

Moral of the story is, if you are getting bored you're probably not automating enough or making tools to let non-tech people do most day to day stuff. If your management has a problem with that, or prevents you from doing that, then you should move on.

</comment><comment><USER40> The author should add "Founder's or CEO's promises of grandeur, huge exits, and unbelievable equity". I'm currently leaving for greener pastures (after three years), but this is so common in our industry that it's not even funny. If you're promised fame, fortune, equity, and power, and in two or three years you're not at least one step closer to those goals - you're being played. Over confident founders with delusions about how great their idea really is are the life force of said Stockholm Syndrome for employees.

</comment><comment><USER41> My wife read this over my shoulder and said it is extremely accurate for teach for America. They not only make you love your employer, but feel like a terrible person for quitting.

<comment><USER42> Obligatory: "Teach for America Chews Up, Spits Out Another Ethnic-Studies Major"

[http://www.theonion.com/articles/teach-for-america-chews- up-...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/teach-for-america-chews-up-spits-out- another-ethni,1293/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> _> >Perceived threat_

Put in place a procedure to rate people in a relative fashion, and link this to benefits and compensation. Make hard slabs in percentage for each rating (excellent 10%, good 25%, average 50%, below average - rest). Does not matter if there is a team full of awesome wonderful guys, someone is going to get rated as 'below average'; and in a team comprising mostly of below average guys, many still end up getting 'excellent'/'good'.

 _> >Small kindness_

Boast of world-class infrastructure, gym, sprawling campus. This would trump the fact that BigCo pays less than industry average, or the abysmal type of work involved.

 _> >Isolation from other perspectives_

Again, the cult of personality and culture vacuum as mentioned in the post. And a lot of make-believe thrown in. And Goebbels style propaganda to instill that "all's well" notion, worked out masterfully. Not many within this BigCo would know that the tools of the trade are, or the best practices, or even the options in terms of technology.

 _> >Perceived inability to escape_

In case of few places I know, this is not just perceived, it would be a hard fact and reality. Maintaining legacy VB code, spending an average of 6 months on every sort of technology (without mastering anything), and being an excel warrior aren't really great on resumes (except of course when applying for BigCo, that is).

"Institutionalization" is the word that many of my colleagues use to convey the feeling. :(

</comment><comment><USER44> Living in a society where you have to pay taxes and obey the law, matches the Stockholm Syndrome characteristics. Society, the political system and its forces (police, army) is the abuser that threatens if you don't pay your bills, taxes etc., isolates us from different perspectives, occasionally shows a little kindness, and it's seamingly impossible to escape that situation.

The difference is we get to choose who's the abuser going to be.

</comment><comment><USER45> SS is phenomenon of structural deficiency, not contextual input.

some will have SS in their job, in their affective life, in their intellectual life. others will use their job, their affective life, their intellectual life to achieve beyond. and sometime they ll even use SS of the first.

Nicolas

</comment><comment><USER46> _If you work for BigCo, you learn to do things The BigCo way._

Apologies for going off on a tangent, but this sort of jumped out at me. Is this consistent? Shouldn't it be either

a) ... do things the BigCo way.

or

b) ... do things The BigCo Way.

Native is not my English tongue, so I just want to make sure. :p

<comment><USER47> It depends if the name of the company name is "The BigCo" or just "BigCo", but as he referred to it as BigCo just before then it would seem to be a mistake.

<comment><USER46> Ah, thanks for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't enjoy my current job. However, as soon as I mentioned quitting after six months to my family and friends they reacted uniformly negatively. "You can't do that, it wouldn't be respectful to the people who hired you." "You'll make (friend who recommended and vouched for you) look bad." "It will look really bad on your resume to only have a job for six months."

It was enough to break my determination to quit and now I find myself looking for a new job much more casually. I have dreams about changing things from the inside. Let's see how long that lasts...

<comment><USER48> I've never had a job that lasted longer than six months. Some employers think it's weird but I don't really mind. Just one job that didn't last doesn't look so bad, just say "We just didn't mesh well", or something like that. There's no reason to let your friends scare you about that -- again, almost everything I've done professionally has had the universal disapproval of family and friends, and it's not that big of a deal. If you're unhappy, blow it; your family and friends aren't the people stuck sitting around hating their life all day every weekday. When I worked a "real job", I would always hate how short the weekend was, and spend most of Sunday in dread anticipating Monday's return to the death world of the office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I thought this was a great comment from the original article (comment #18): "We're lucky as software developers, even if we're moderately good we have a lot of options, the pay is good, it's not the same for many others in other industries. If I broached this subject with friends who are not software developers they'd tell me I'm a bigot and I should be happy with what I have."

</comment><comment><USER50> This is one of the reasons I prefer contracting/consulting. I feel like much more of a free/non-enslaved human being than I was before. I'm not totally "free", in that I still have to do things for others, follow external rule systems, I have to obey physical laws, etc. but I am more free than before. Closer to a state of bliss, as they say.

</comment><comment><USER51> _Please stop wasting your precious time._

yep, i'm senselessly stuck in bad job situation. lol

</comment><comment><USER52> There was a very good piece on this posted to HN this fall. Wish I could remember the source...

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm printing this and pasting it in my bathroom's mirror.

</comment><comment><USER54> The same might be said for grad school...

<comment><USER55> "It's not just a job... it's an indenture!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Amazing, I never thought if that way. This notion really explains some phenomenon that I've seen. Coworkers I knew drove themselves insane programming themselves to death for someone they didn't even like. Leading those individuals to suicide to escape. It never occurred to them that they could change jobs. Stockholm Syndrome definitely affects programmers. If I catch anyone doing this again I'm blowing the whistle.

</comment><comment><USER57> I remember working at a very large, technically oriented company.

After it was discovered I had actual development skills, I was asked to work on a project in my off time without any extra compensation for it.

They pretty much wanted me to go home after a full days work, and put in more work to develop a system for them, totally unpaid.

Later that month I gave my two weeks.

<comment><USER58> Why did you give two weeks as opposed to just boxing up your stuff and letting them know you were done? Would they have shown you the same courtesy?

<comment><USER57> No probably not. At the time though I thought I needed to use them as a reference.

I made good friends with my boss though, so I probably could have used him as a reference and quit without the two weeks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I know. Fear-based top-down command and control is fundamentally flawed.</comment>


FTC Says Unlimited Data with Throttling Doesn't Count as Unlimited - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2015/01/28/ftc-says-unlimited-data-with-throttling-doesnt-count-as-unlimited/

<comment><USER2> StraightTalk has already addressed this by advertising:

3gb at high speeds, 64kbps thereafter

[http://www.straighttalk.com/wps/portal/home/shop/serviceplan...](http://www.straighttalk.com/wps/portal/home/shop/serviceplans)</comment>


Facebook's Project to Find Out What People Really Want in Their News Feed - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/revealed-facebooks-project-to-find-out-what-people-really-want-in-their-news-feed-799dbfb2e8b1

<comment><USER2> I wonder if the 600 people working from home are doing it all in one four hour block like the original in-person group. It seems like that would be enormously biasing the result - if you give people something to look at for four hours, they're going to want it to be entertaining.

</comment><comment><USER3> the trouble is that they pollute the newsfeed with all the crap your friends 'like', when they should only show stuff that they explicitly 'share'

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anybody have a read about the approach and software stack that they use to make this "recommender" system work ?</comment>


US planes challenge China air zone - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25110011

<comment><USER2> keeping up foreign relations, you know?</comment>


Show HN: Video conferencing web app with positioned audio - <AUTHOR> https://inthelocus.com <comment><USER2> Haven't tested the product yet, but here are two things I can tell you before I do:

\- Love the name, I find it clever (location, locution, pocus) and easy to remember

\- Website is a 4/10: look is not very appealing, does a poor job putting your main feature forward.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

Btw. Locus is "room" in latin. Our goal is to make conferencing feel more like being together in a room.

We do recognize that the design and messaging can be crisper. We are a team of 2 at the moment.

The service is up and running well. Now we're looking for feedback on whethe the problems we're going after resonate as important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've used the product a few times and I love it. Super easy to create/ join a room and the image and sound are really clear.

</comment><comment><USER4> Other co-founder here. We built this out of frustration with other video conferencing solutions, and pretty much use it exclusively now.

Here's some background on our motivations:

Audio & video conferencing have improved a lot in the last few years, especially when it comes to voice and picture quality, but most conferencing still feels stiff. People go into "presentation mode", and it's much less interactive than an in-person meeting, especially if you're brainstorming, or having a group discussion or a casual catch-up.

We're building a tool to make freeform meetings more comfortable, more possible, more useful. We call it Locus.

In Locus, conversation takes place around a room or other natural space. And we've improved the audio so that you hear people talking from where you see them (like in real life). Accidental interruptions no longer destroy conversation flow, and you can tell who's talking even if faces aren't visible. Say goodbye to the typical distracting, hyperactive mode of conferencing, where faces move around every time someone new starts talking. Locus rooms are also easy to create and share: just copy the link from your browser. And when you join a room, we verify your audio and video are working, so you can skip the "can you hear me?" ballet.

We'd like to go even further. There are so many ways to make Locus better for everyone, and in some cases better than being in-person. For example, wouldn't it be nice to know who's looking at you? Wouldn't it be nice to present a polished face even if you just woke up?

Also nice: sharing a virtual document everyone can see and draw on. Perhaps using a tablet or phone that lets you use your hands to draw and share a quick sketch? And don't you want to see people's reactions -- or what they're looking at -- when you share your screen?

Years of working on the hard problems of transmitting voice and video have paid off. Now it's time to work on new hard problems, to create a conferencing app that works with you to make better meetings. Our long-term vision is to increase the productivity of real-time remote collaboration through more natural meetings, and Locus is a first step. Try it and let us know if you like it and use it -- or if you don't, what's missing?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would love any thoughts. Agree that conferencing products are all the same and can use improvement? Or are you happy with your current experience?

For more on our motivation for creating Locus: [https://medium.com/@chris_82106/https-medium-com- chris-82106...](https://medium.com/@chris_82106/https-medium-com- chris-82106-its-2016-why-is-video-conferencing-still- terrible-1b8802032aae#.eoopg5z0b)</comment>


Is Instagram Ruining Architecture? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/opinion/sunday/instagram-architecture-design.html <comment><USER2> maybe it's just me but this article seems terribly written. the topic had so much potential...</comment>


And the sun sets - <AUTHOR> http://tale-of-tales.com/Sunset/blog/index.php/and-the-sun-sets/ <comment><USER2> I found this user comment fascinating:

 _I am one such person. I am interested in Sunset and fully intent to play it, but have not yet purchased it, for the simple reason that there are many titles that I already own that I have yet to play; I am suffering from a massive backlog, and from what I can tell, this is the case for an overwhelming majority of RPS readers_

Here is a person who likes the genre, but they _already own_ so much product that they don't have time to play a new game. What that says to me is that game publishers are doing themselves a huge disservice by charging so little for their games. If you could imagine a fine art store where everything was $0.99, you might have dozens of paintings in your collection that you don't have wall space to put them on.

So rather than paying a lot of money for a game and valuing it such that it is played before the next one is purchases, people binge on a dozen different games which never satisfy and only a few are "worth it".

It is a sad place for game developers (charge more but get few sales as people work through the crap) or charge less and get few sales because nobody knows which are good and which are crap.

<comment><USER3> One person having a backlog doesn't mean that games themselves are overpriced. This isn't true of physical goods (like books), and certainly not true of digital goods, which are not limited in the same way on the production side.

<comment><USER2> The concept I was going for wasn't "overpriced" as it was "too much choice". I first experienced it when I reached a point where, when walking into the computer store to buy a replacement PC, I had enough funds to buy _any_ computer in the store. Before that point buying a computer was easier, I took the amount of money I had, read reviews, and then bought the one that best met my needs and stayed in my budget. But without a budget, the number of choices is huge. And to some extent overwhelming. It lead to the worst laptop purchase I ever made (which was a Sony 8 lb monstrosity).

When things cost "a lot" in ones mind, it makes us far more discriminating buyers. That was certainly true when Games were $60 a pop, but not true when they are $1 - $9 each.

<comment><USER4> I find that to be an odd opinion. More competition tends to work out in the consumer's favor, doesn't it?

I think what we're missing is curation. In the hardware world, there are companies like Alienware and Apple that whittle down those choices into fairly straightforward options (though for a hefty premium, usually). For gaming, Steam is working on a Curators[1] feature that seems to be an alright start, but still needs a lot of work.

[1] [http://store.steampowered.com/curators/](http://store.steampowered.com/curators/)

<comment><USER2> Yes and no, more choices add cognitive load to the choice. So up to a point its a good thing, beyond that point it becomes a more difficult thing. In a generally commoditized market such as computer games or laptops, curation is a good helper, doesn't completely solve the problem though because there is the question of how much like the curator the buyer is (some movie critics for example will pan movies that I find enjoyable so I have to calibrate my opinions with the critic's opinions)

Back in the day I got three different computer games magazines and could reliably buy the games that got high scores in all three, knowing I would get enough enjoyment out of them to feel they had good value. My Andriod and iOS game experience has been spotty at best.

<comment><USER4> I agree that relying on reviews/critics work best for similar tastes, but a responsible consumer should be aware of a (modest) variety of sources for that information to account for unavoidable biases.

Metacritic tries to do that by aggregating reviews, but apart from the extremes it just winds up rating everything as "average", which I suppose is accurate, but not really informative.

Other than a variety of sources providing a variety of perspectives on any given game, though, how else could consumers make an informed decision? Your suggestion that price correlates to quality doesn't add up particularly where games are concerned, as there have been several very high-dollar flops and disappointments in recent years. It also sounds like you're suggesting creating artificially higher barriers to entry to get there, which I disagree with philosophically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> After reading this, and having never heard of the game before, I checked it out and just spent 90 minutes playing it. It has some serious problems, and those are in my opinion the reason why it's not selling very well:

The basic idea is great. This game has the kind of factors that _make_ you _want_ to like it: it's experimental, it hints at a great story, it's a period piece. However, the disappointments keep adding up as you interact with it.

Sunset's graphics performance is abysmal on OS X. On a current, maxed-out iMac I had to keep lowering the settings throughout play and still wound up with intolerable choppiness. The game _does_ look good, but not _that good_ as to justify having these issues.

In the beginning, it's fun to play. You discover the house, and the house keeps changing in interesting ways every time you visit. It's atmospheric. The music is as stark and beautifully depressing as the apartment. I enjoyed doing the chores, and took great care of what I did in the house. But it soon dawned on me that my actions don't really have any consequences. The "plot" keeps moving along, telling you of the results of your actions, whether you actually performed them or not (at least as far as I can tell, it's kinda difficult to say).

The chores get old very fast, and you start to skip your work. Which doesn't seem to be of any consequence at all. The more you play, the more you get the feeling that you're moving on rails, pushing difficult-to-reach yet pointless buttons in the process.

The monologue put forth by the protagonist isn't encouraging either. While at times poetic, it seems mostly banal and fake - which is astonishing considering the subject matter. Talking about banality, I played this on Steam, and you literally get achievements for zooming in on book titles and record labels, for no apparent reason.

More than anything, it's a missed opportunity. Nobody involved in the process stopped and looked at basic factors like: the pacing, the graphics, the dialogue/monologue, or the user experience overall. The game feels like something you'd expect to be still in development.

Although the game is most likely a labour of love, the jarring shortcomings in its implementation make it look like it's coasting along lazily on the merits of its premise without any intention of actually delivering on it.

<comment><USER6> This is a really excellent point, doubly so when three of the bullet points in the article about what they did to sell Sunset had zero to do with improving the game itself (namely, hire a PR firm, take out a pricy internet ad, hire an image consultant).

Advertising your game is great and all (although I seriously question if their PR/ad markets were well researched before their money was spent, because their ROR on those dollars was essentially nil) but you HAVE TO have a good game in the first place or else no one is going to want to play it. After reading the article it seems like they were more interested in going around saying "hey we made this game and we really really want you to pay us money and play it!" instead of making a kick-ass game in the first place.

<comment><USER5> _> what they did to sell Sunset had zero to do with improving the game itself_

There are genres where this could and does work, but not in the niche Sunset is playing in.

 _> although I seriously question if their PR/ad markets were well researched before their money was spent_

I agree, and it's an easy trap to fall into for anyone. Spending money in all the wrong places is always a danger, and the problem is that the people you are paying of course won't tell you even if they know you're making a mistake.

 _> instead of making a kick-ass game in the first place_

I believe _someone_ on the team thought the game was excellent as is. Development shops and teams of all sizes can exhibit work dynamics where problem areas get ignored and sub-par stuff is getting churned out. In a big company this might be due to politics and power structures. In small shops this might be because you don't want to disappoint a close friend.

Somebody at that company should have said " _this is a good idea, and a promising prototype, now let 's get back to the drawing board and keep iterating_". In retrospect I don't get the bitterness expressed in the article. It's not like they lack talent, and it's not like they're drastically under-appreciated for unknowable reasons. Those would be reasons to quit. But not this. This is something you can learn from and improve on.

<comment><USER7> _> I believe someone on the team thought the game was excellent as is_

Behind every terrible work of art is a creator insisting that it's brilliant.

Artists love their art the way parents love their children. That means they're not really reliable judges of its quality, so a key to success for them is finding people who can be objective, and learning to listen to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They have made "The Path" ([http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/](http://tale-of- tales.com/ThePath/)), for me on favourite example of something on the edge of "a game"/"a non-game". And playing with convention of a game (you need to fail to "win") and a story (what is real, what is a metaphor?).

I love the analysis on [https://gamerdame.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/in-depth- analysis...](https://gamerdame.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/in-depth-analysis-for- the-path/) (ALERT: heavy spoilers and an interpretation that can affect your perception).

<comment><USER4> I know them better as the developers for "The Endless Forest" ([http://tale- of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/](http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/)) which made a bit of a splash a few years ago as something original and different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Indie game makes no money, news at 11.

Also, paying PR and marketing people to market some niche 'art' game? WTF are these people thinking?

</comment><comment><USER10> I think their conclusion - that the advice they got just didn't fit for _their_ games - is a little too neat, and leaves out a couple of factors that were absolutely in their control (pricing, for instance).

</comment><comment><USER11> I hate to be harsh. I read that whole piece and I'm on board. But despite that, and looking up the game [1] on Steam, I still have no freaking clue what the point of the game is. The description makes it seem like you're cleaning some guy's office. The trailer doesn't show any gameplay footage. The screenshots look like a poorly rendered interior decorating catalog. What are you supposed to do in this game that is fun? I'm sure there's something - I'm guessing it's one of those graphical adventure type games, but I have no idea. And if I have no idea what kind of game this is, I'm not going to drop 10 bucks on it. And I can't tell from any of the normal channels companies what this game is about, other than being artistic.

1) [http://store.steampowered.com/app/287600/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/287600/)

<comment> david-given Emily Short (of interactive fiction fame) did a really good review of it a few days ago:

[https://emshort.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/sunset-tale-of- tale...](https://emshort.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/sunset-tale-of-tales/)</comment></comment>


WCGridView, simple grid view and controller setup for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wess/WCGridView

<comment><USER3> It looks quite nice: couple of non-code related suggestions - <USER2> submit it to cocoacontrols.com where there's a nice growing library of these sort of code snippets, but also maybe think about putting a screen-shot into the readme?

<comment><USER4> Yes to both please. It frustrates me when people don't put screenshots in their github repos. I tend to skip over them for inclusion in cocoa controls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> See also AQGridView, which is similar in nature but more mature.

<comment><USER6> Here's another alternative, KKGridView – has support for some pretty cool stuff like sections with headers.

<http://cocoacontrols.com/platforms/ios/controls/kkgridview>

Actually, here's a list of them

[http://cocoacontrols.com/search?utf8=✓&q=grid](http://cocoacontrols.com/search?utf8=✓&q=grid)</comment></comment>


Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/boosted-boards/ <comment><USER2> These contraptions are illegal to use in public and if they become popular the laws against them will be enforced immediately, because they're incredibly dangerous.

It is impossible to provide effective braking on a skateboard. The rider has absolutely no means of impeding their forward movement, so even if the board has effective brakes it's just going to throw them off. This is a minor problem if you're rolling around a skatepark, but it's a Big Fucking Deal if you're commuting in traffic.

It might be conceivable to overlook this failing if it weren't for the fact that tiny unsuspended wheels have almost no capacity to absorb bumps and road defects. Anyone who skated as a teenager will remember being thrown to the ground by a small piece of gravel stopping the wheel.

Add 2000w of tractive power and city traffic and you've got a recipe for disaster. Someone is going to die, their family will sue and they will quite rightly win enough money to bankrupt a small company. Boosted Boards are marketing their device as a vehicle and advertising it's suitability as a means of transport, which completely obliterates any defence they might have had. The laws against unlicensed motor vehicles will be enforced and the police will start confiscating them on sight. The electric skateboard returns to it's rightful place in the gimmick section of a sporting goods store, next to the mini-scooters and the moon shoes.

The bicycle has been a safe, practical and sustainable means of transport for over a century. Modern bicycles are lightweight, efficient and have excellent ride quality and braking. Short-range urban transport is a solved problem in all but marketing - Americans remain inexplicably certain that cycling is not for them.

<comment><USER3> With the caveat that I'm not a skateboarder (I inline-skate), I don't think your assessment of the braking is right. As the brakes engage you shift your center of gravity back and you end up with, I reckon, even more stopping power than a bike, since you have more rubber-to-road surface area.

The same applies to the "tiny rock pitches you forward" argument, which I can speak to from experience. On inline skates I can plow through grass, gravel, potholes, anything, by shifting my weight back as I go over it. If something in the road catches you by surprise that's another story.

EDIT: For the rest of my counterargument, I turn to xkcd:

<http://xkcd.com/139/>

<http://xkcd.com/409/>

<comment><USER4> As another (rather skilled) inline skater, I'll second the ideas in the above post. When I was a newb, rocks were Teh Evil. Now rocks just spit away, if I don't just avoid 'em in the first place.

Physical skills have a learning curve. Whether riding a bike or driving a car, some significant skills acquisition is needed before safe use. For cycling, first there's existing cultural folk knowledge on learning to ride a bike (e.g. what you learned as a kid). If you want to be a properly skilled commuter, then you'll really want to brush up on additional skills ala Effective Cycling or a similar program.

I don't see this longboard as being particularly different from either cycling or driving, except that it's new. Living in a very hilly part of the USA, I love that they've designed for that from the get-go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have been riding an electric skateboard through Copenhagen for a few years (Evo 600: <http://en.evo-skate.com/street600wood/>). We have great bicycle tracks all over the city which is ideal. The principle of the board is the same, board strapped with an electric motor, controlled by IR remote in the hand. I'll share a few thoughts.

First off, my board has a 600 watt motor and does around 20mph, which is _fast_ in the city. I overtake most bicycles (people's faces are priceless). I cannot fathom what a 2000 watt motor would do, seems kind of life-threatening honestly. I haven't had any accidents, flew over the top a couple of times when I hit a high edge, par for the course when skateboarding, but I wouldn't want to go any faster.

My board does around 10 kilometers per charge, which is enough for a commute in the city. Not sure how well a 2000 watt motor would fare, I definitely could not accept less range. But my board has the older SLA battery, a lithium battery probably evens the score, while being lighter.

How easy is it to drive? You need experience skateboarding or you'll have quite a learning curve. The accelleration needs a good stance to not get dropped off the back, same with breaking vs. flying over the front. Turning is even more cumbersome than with a real skateboard because the board is so heavy, so you need pretty good technique (and space).

About safety: If you fall off, drop the remote etc. the board stops, the IR must be in your hand to activate and has a short range either way, so no chance of the board running away from you. As soon as you stop accellerating the board slows right down, and you can brake with the engine too (big advantage over a real skateboard). The engine is engaged all the time so you can't just roll like on a real board. Hopefully these guys solve this problem, would be useful if you're out of battery.

About sound, it's not annoying but not quiet either, your regular medium-sized electric motor. In the street it's not particularly noticeable.

About legal issues: It's illegal in the street but no one cares. I pass patrol cars all the time and most don't notice that it's not a regular skateboard, or don't care.

<comment><USER6> Regarding the dangerous speeds that a 2kW motor could propel you to, the full 2kW might only be used when going uphill. At 100% efficiency, 2kW will let a 75kg person travel at 10 meters/s [1] (sprinting speed) on a 15% incline.

[1] 2000 / (75 * 9.8 * sin (15))

<comment><USER7> As a cyclist, 15 deg incline is steep. Honestly, steeper than all but rural roads and even then rare. There might be some hills like that in SF. Even in the mountains, graded switchbacks are not nearly that steep, for the most part.

Which beings me to who and why would you want to ride _down_ something so steep on a skateboard? I have a hill a mile from my house, thats ~200 vertical feet, and a around a 1/4 mile, its 12 degrees max on my GPS topo. I'm easily 35-45 mph on this, coasting. No hands descent would be NFW. 40 mph on a skateboard and there is a piece of gravel on the road, I'm not sure a Helmet will even help you with the face-plant potential.

But other than that, I think for a flat city it may be of interest. Or even a flat-ish area like soma/mission. But Manhattan? Nah. I'd pass. Maybe in the sub-urbs or exurbs? Where its just a long slog down a random road to the store or whatever would be more interesting. There is a lot of sprawl out there. And this would be cooler than a segway =D.

<comment><USER8> SF actually has streets that reach over 30 deg incline.

<comment><USER9> 37 degrees to be exact. Prentiss between Chapman and Powhatten

<comment><USER10> I think you must be mistaken. 37° is steeper than any road you've ever driven. It would be very hard to even walk !

<comment><USER9> Ooops, my bad. I didn't know there was a different between grade and degree.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(slope)>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is way cool, but the company has a few challenges to face to be "serious, eco-friendly transportation devices that could replace your bike, scooter, or maybe even your car."

I live and work in manhattan and for the summer I've been skating to and from work nearly every day (40ish blocks). According to my research, skateboards are considered "play" devices. Whereas bikes and all motorized vehicles are required to be in the street, skateboarders under 14 must wear a helmet and are not allowed to ride in the street. Older skateboarders have the option, but not the requirement to ride in the street. With the narrow streets, stop and go traffic, out of control cabbies, and people not used to looking for skateboarders, I feel much safer on the sidewalk.

There is a law that prevents the reckless operation of skateboards on sidewalks (<http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/ADC/19/1/3/19-176.1>), and I always take care to be courteous and provide plenty of space to all pedestrians.

Where there are bike lanes available, I'll take them, as that also seems to be a legal option, but I've had more run ins with pedestrians in bike lanes than on the sidewalk.

I've been stopped by cops twice and told I could not ride on the sidewalk, yelled at by private security and pedestrians, and had pedestrians step out in front of me without looking when I had complete right of way in the bike lane --causing me to have to bail.

This said, for any company looking to use skateboards to revolutionize urban travel, education campaigns at all levels will be necessary.

<comment><USER12> I agree with your sentiment and would like to take it a step further.

As someone who lives in San Francisco and commutes using all three of bike, foot, and car (and back in college rode a skateboard around a large and busy campus) I don't think skateboards belong on the sidewalk - and definitely not motor powered ones.

Anything that has the potential to move much faster than a person running at full speed is extremely dangerous on the sidewalk for everyone involved: cars, bikes, and especially pedestrians. It breaks everyone's mental model for what could possibly be coming from where. Cars making a right turn do not expect bikes or skateboards to entering the sidewalk at 5-10 mph from their blind spot and so they almost never check. Pedestrians turning a corner don't expect the possibility of something oncoming that is moving too fast to stop before hitting then and so they almost never look. And so on..

As an individual YOU might be a considerate skateboarder who has learned when and where to be careful. That's great, but it doesn't change the fact that there are still idiots and assholes out there that are going to do idiotic and asshole things. The only system that makes sense is: fast-stuff in one place where everyone knows to look out for fast-stuff, and slow-stuff on the sidewalk.

<comment><USER11> I don't think you can make rules based on potential speed, and your division is far too simplistic and arbitrary in terms of speed. While I agree my skateboarding is limited to 5-10 MPH (jogging-running speed), is that really that fast?

If I (and my skateboarding kind) should be in the street based on speed or potential speed, then so should rollerbladers, scooters, segways, motorized wheelchairs, anyone able-bodied person (as they have the potential to start running).

It's a complex issue and courtesy and being alert go a long way... as well as knowing the law. Wherever I'm supposed to be by law (NYC law leans toward the sidewalk) is where I need to be, and other people need to respect that.

<comment><USER12> Yup, its definitely a dicey issue. 5-10 mph on a skateboard is definitely a courteous and safe speed.. The problem is that 12-20 mph is also attainable and unfortunately not everyone is as courteous as you. It's the bad apples that spoil the bunch.

Yes, I do extend this to rollerbladers and scooters. Segues have a maximum speed of 12.5 mph and restrict their own downhill movement. I'd say they're sidewalk safe. Same with wheelchairs.

<comment><USER13> If there was a way to limit the speed of the board based on the grade of the hill, that could be an easy, innovative solution. I imagine that might be built in already to some degree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some context: The average electric bicycle has a 300 watt motor. These baby's have 2000 watt motors (or 2 x 1000 watt motors, I couldn't tell) that are roughly a 5th of the size of an electric bike motor. Include a battery big enough to power that motor and the fact that they're adding regenerative braking, which electric bikes don't have, and this is a seriously awesome engineering challenge.

<comment><USER15> Trek's Ride+ uses regenerative breaking. [http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/collections/electric_assist/f...](http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/collections/electric_assist/feature_tour)

TBH, it's not that big of a deal (over-hyped).

P.S. I only mean regenerative breaking isn't that big of a deal. This product actually looks pretty cool to me.

<comment><USER16> I wonder how the Trek Ride+ does on hills?

<comment><USER15> It's pretty great. There are 4 assist settings from barely helping (1), up to _make you feel like superman_ (4).

On the 3rd-4th setting hills are a breeze, on the 2nd setting you still work a bit, and on the 1st setting it really just makes up for it's weight imo (motor + battery = heavy).

You can also go into resistance / negative settings (-1 to -4) is you're a masochist (or in amazing shape).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No motorized skateboards in CA :( <http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21968.htm>

However, I wonder how strongly this is enforced...

<comment><USER18> There's another electric skateboard company already in CA, www.zboardshop.com, so I guess there's more to this law, or it's just not enforced at all. I see electric skateboards by the beach all the time.

Edit: Another .ca.gov page says they're only legal on private property: <http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/motors.html>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Are they waterproof? Could I ride this in Seattle & SF rain all the time without damaging it? Otherwise it's just a fair weather vehicle and it's not something I can rely on.

If not, why would I choose this over all the other electric skateboards?

Is it safe to use on the steep downgrades you have in SF? Is it useless to use when going uphill on those same hills?

<comment><AUTHOR> The electronics will be somewhat water resistant, but we don't recommend riding in the rain. A big reason for that is the wheels (from standard longboards) are slicks and are somewhat dangerous in wet weather.

It is very capable at uphill climbing and downhill braking. Our ability to stay standing on it is usually the limiting factor.

As for why you would choose this over others, it's the lightest, has way more power than most, and has a fantastic design and riding experience.

<comment><USER19> It's unfortunate nobody has made a waterproof electric skateboard yet, it's what makes me stop buying any of them. How would it perform with knobby all terrain tires?

<comment><USER20> Reread the statement you are commenting on. The reason that you don't want to ride this board in the rain is inherent to longboarding, not to electronics. It is entirely possible to design the mechanical enclosures of electronics to withstand rain, it is simply a design choice. If people shouldn't be longboarding in the rain, why design for it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting that YC companies are now raising money with Kickstarter instead of VC... great if you can get it.

<comment><USER22> They are likely doing both. KickStarter allows them to show proof of interest without actually having to build the product, which paves the way for a big VC round.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> One feature suggestion, which you've probably already thought of, is automatic braking in case you fall and the board starts rolling away.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anybody not know how to skateboard, but would rather do it because of the form factor?

What I'm trying to say is: Is there a long board riding tutorial for people who just want to slowly roll around, aren't really in the "skater" scene?

In the promo video they're getting onto CalTrain. I'd love it for the quick ride over to BART/CalTrain station.

<comment><USER12> A great way to train yourself for the type of lateral position front/back balance needed for all types of boarding (skate, snow, surf) is the Indoboard.

<http://indoboard.com>

I'd recommend the longer "Pro" model if you're targeting longboard skateboarding.

It's amazing how much Indoboard helps. It will quickly give you an innate sense for where to position your feet, how far forward or backward to lean, and (for a shortbaord) when you're approaching that "oh shit" threshold where the board will fly out from your feet like a banana.

After that, get a longboard and start slow in as much empty pavement space you can find. Try to always keep your knees bent. Start with kicking in front (i.e. the way you're facing) with your back foot instead of in back with your front foot.

Beware of cracks.. beware of hills- even gradual ones. Mentally prepare yourself for some bloody knees, elbows, and palms. Enjoy- it is a really fun way to get around short distances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> How is this different from: <http://www.alteredelectricskateboards.com/pro- line_600.htm>

Except that it has twice the price and half the range?

Ok, seems like it's significantly ligther (12 vs 40 lbs). Any other differences?

Stronger motors, but still same speed .. strange

<comment><USER26> That's ugly.

It doesn't even look like a skateboard. I think the reason Boosted Boards looks _so_ awesome is the fact it actually looks like a longboard... with a _motor_!

<comment><USER27> It's not even just that it looks like longboard, it is an actual longboard that's been modified. It's a Loaded Vanguard from what I can tell which is a really nice board. The existing electric boards tend to be made specifically for the electric board and the result is a not very good skateboard/longboard.

Also, the difference in weight is huge. 40 lbs is something that I need two hands to pick up and is a pain to carry. Bringing the weight down to just +4 lbs over the original longboard means this is something I can actually carry under my arm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Those battery housings are pretty small. That, and the 2KW motor, make me worry about range. (They say 6mi, but it's trivially easy to lie about range) The kickstarter page doesn't mention capacity, so let's do some wild ass guessing.

      It's boards are just 12-15 pounds, only twice as heavy as the
      lightweight, top-of-the-line 7 pound Loaded boards they build their
      electric motors into.

12-7=5lbs of equipment. Assume the motors, drivetrain, and casings take up 3lbs, that's 2lbs for batteries. Assume 200Wh/kg Li-on batteries, which work out to 90.6Wh/lbs, for a total system capacity of 181.2 watt-hours.

The watt-hour is a simple unit. A 1 watt-hour battery can run 1 watt of load for 1 hour, or a 6 watt load for 10 minutes, or a .5 watt load for 2 hours.

A 181.2 watt-hour battery will be discharged after running:

      A 2000 watt load for 5.436 minutes.
      A 1000 watt load for 10.872 minutes.
      A  500 watt load for 21.744 minutes.
      A  250 watt load for 43.488 minutes.
      A  100 watt load for 108.72 minutes.

The worst case scenario is even worse than you'd think, since electrochemical batteries don't have a flat discharge curve: the harder you discharge them, the less capacity you have.

Boosted advertises their 2000 watt motors in bold print, but if you actually ran them that hard for any length of time, you'd discharge the battery.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why is there an obsession with calling things "magical"? Technology is the opposite of magic. The word "magical" both creates unrealistic expectations and handwaves over all of the incredible technology inside.

<comment><USER29> I've ridden the board.. calling it magical is not a stretch.

<comment><USER21> The industry should use words like "brilliant" instead of "magical" to emphasize the skill and dedication required to create amazing products, instead of tacitly implying that they are outputs of inscrutable black-box processes. Kids who ride this skateboard realize that someday, they could engineer something even better than it.

<comment><USER30> I'm not sure kids with imagination get stuck on semantics like that.

<comment><USER21> Word choice absolutely does affect how people think. Terms like "intelligent design" exploit this by cloaking nonsense in the guise of logic, and if you explain to a kid that a lightbulb or an electric skateboard works by "magic" that's a lot less inspiring than saying "a kid just like you studied how things work and invented it."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> You can buy one right now, made in Portland OR, for cheaper:

[http://metro- board.com/low_cost_electric_skateboard_buynow.h...](http://metro- board.com/low_cost_electric_skateboard_buynow.htm)

</comment><comment><USER32> Pretty interesting idea!

Serious question by a non-skateboarer: Unlike the Segway this doesn't provide any stability assistance, right? How safe would it be for a newbie to start using this?

I'd be worried about falling off this thing. AFAIK, the Segway goes to great lengths to mitigate that risk [although GWB managed to defeat those systems :)].

<comment><USER33> Segways are actually pretty hard to ride if you've ever ridden a standard skateboard. The stability control gain needs to be super high because it's so tippy, so you can easily get it to oscillate if you're not used to riding a self-balancing vehicle.

The acceleration stability problem for electric longboards is actually totally solvable (and solved, just not in a commercially-available machine) by detecting the rider's weight distribution.

I built a prototype back in '06 that (unlike the zboard) had the weight sensing system distributed over the entire deck, so there was no fiddly stance that you had to maintain.

It was super intuitive to ride, even for beginners, and had just an on-off switch as a controller (I used a little car-alarm-style key fob).

I teamed up with a buddy in Vancouver to improve it, and we converted it from a single rear hub motor to dual front hub motors (so no belts or anything to wear out or break). We showed it off at the Bay Area Maker Faire in '07.

On the trip back our prototype got stolen, and real life intruded, and we haven't done much with it since. I'd love to get another unit put together soon though.

<http://3wdm.blogspot.com/> for more info.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands "Nothing's scarier than getting going too fast down a hill on a skateboard." Actually if you know how to power slide, going down hills is actually quite fun.

Also, is this a full electric board, or do you have the option of pushing and then you can use the motor when you want to?

<comment><USER33> Since the motors are engaged full time (no freewheel) and are self-exciting, they're going to give some drag due to iron losses, which is magnified by the gearing of the belts, as well as some stored angular momentum.

So I think it could work as a non-powered board, but not very well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Add a handle, a steering device, a seat, and make it wider, and I would definitely buy one.

<comment><USER35> Are you looking for a moped maybe?

<comment><USER34> If you added doors, a roof, and a few more seats to a moped, that would be my perfect vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's difficult to group this directly with the segway. The segway had to adapt it's users to a new form of transportation, the boosted boards already have a large consumer base to dip into. It's a great enhancement.

</comment><comment><USER37> If this is funded, why is it also on KickStarter? I can't help but feel KickStarter is used mostly as a hype building machine in a lot of cases. People go on their with money burning a hole in their pocket.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is so cool. I don't even care about the practical implications of using the board in the city. I just want it for walking my dog. $1199 to you. First kickstarter project backed.

Skateboarding today is forever evolving and the electronic skateboard should evolve with it. Way back when the mega jump was created guys would hold onto motorcycles to gain enough speed to get super air and do insane tricks. I wonder if this technology could give professional riders the ability to gain infinite (or seemingly) amounts of speed.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have to wonder though, that kickstarter may not be the best platform for them to get funding for such a project. It seems that most people fund projects on kickstarter because they wish to receive a sample of the soon to be made product, however in this case a long board seems to be geared towards a younger audience, of which usually wouldn't have $1100-$1200 to spend on such a luxury good. Great work though! Would definitely be interesting to see people ride uphill.

</comment><comment><USER40> Alot of people are getting down on this... I'm very excited.

I live in downtown San Jose, and _alot_ of people tool around on long-boards already; I've been thinking about getting one and I'm a dedicated cyclist. The city is quite flat, and the bikelanes and side-walks are wide and nearly empty. Combined with a high bike-theft rate, and this would be a great way to scoot around.

So even if it might not work where you live, there are places where this contraption fits perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER41> Rode a prototype on Stanford campus. This is the real deal, amazingly fun and powerful. $1200 is past my cutoff but I'd love to get one if the price comes down.

<comment><USER42> hopefully v2 will be $600

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have been longboarding for 10+ years, and riding Loaded boards for most of it (the company that makes the deck they are using). Loaded decks are friggin amazing, and i'm super excited to see a product like this exists. If they can make it function with similar flex as the normal loaded board, and disengage the motors as needed to ride like a normal longboard this could be the best short-range commuting vehicle ever!!

</comment><comment><USER44> Two questions:

Can it be used as a normal skateboard when the battery is dead?

How loud is it?

<comment><USER45> It's pretty quiet, just a bit of a hum. Kind of like a Prius at low speed -experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Are these boards common in America or elsewhere. Here in Dublin, Ireland I have seen perhaps one long board in my life.

Is there a certain terrain or area which suits these boards or are they good for any urban street type scenario.

At that price, I can see no advantage over a bike or even a small motorbike. Wondering is this something that people think will do very well in the market they are targeting?

<comment><USER47> Yes, these are pretty popular in college towns in the U.S. I live in Missoula, MT and see them all the time. I'll often see a dog on a harness pulling the rider along too. That looks pretty fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I don't think this will ever be able to replace bicycles or cars. This thing cannot be safe. Let's say Mr.A is riding one of tbethese on a busy road and has to make a quick brake on high speed. The board will come to a stop but the momentum his body has gained will make him fall seriously injuring or killing him. So its a toy, not a serious transportation device IMO.

</comment><comment><USER49> Something I've always wondered about longboarding as a form of transport. What do you do if you're going downhill like in San Francisco?

<comment><USER50> In most cases you don't go down them. Bombing hills is a huge part of longboarding, but that's not something you can really do on a typical commute with vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

I haven't been able to figure out how to control my speed on a hill on a sidewalk (not wide enough for turns, and I can't really powerslide yet).

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Seems like a lot of users not familiar with skateboard/longboarding are weighing in their opinion on the safety issues presented by this product.

This product presents no more danger to the user or the general public than does a normal skateboard/longboard.

So obviously yes, just like a bike or skateboard, don't expect to just be able to hop on and cruise from day 1.

</comment><comment><USER52> From a former electric skateboard user: make it light.

Three times lighter of that first gen electric skateboard. That means 10 lbs.

</comment><comment><USER53> These are cool and I desperately want one but the price point doesn't seem reasonable for what it does.

Also, why do they keep showing people walking their boards up stairs in the video, seems counter-intuitive.

<comment><USER54> I think they're trying to show that it's easy to cart around at either end of a commute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> For 99% of the people this is going to be just a toy. You can't expect general public to be riding these. I wish they would pivot to something similar to Segway for $1000.

</comment><comment><USER56> Boosted Boards are wicked fun to ride - awesome team, too.

</comment><comment><USER57> Cool, when can I get one equipped with smartwheels?

</comment><comment><USER58> Neat. I'd like to see some real tires on it, though, as Chicago's roads/sidewalks would never permit my commuting on that thing.

</comment><comment> jim-greer Looks awesome - I'm wondering if the engine braking is reliable enough to depend on going down a big San Francisco hill?

</comment><comment><USER59> Since the motors aren't direct drive, what happens when the belt gets wet or the trunks flex and the belt slips off?

<comment><USER33> Looks like they're toothed belts, so they should perform OK when wet.

It also looks like they have a belt per wheel, so there's a good deal of redundancy. Because there's apparently no differential gearing it means you have to lift up the outside wheels in tight (e.g. walking speed) turns, but that often happens naturally anyway on a skateboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I love the promo video, it's awesome

</comment><comment><USER61> How many of these were brought to Burning Man this year?

</comment><comment><USER62> the Freebord was also a Stanford engineering project which went to production

<http://freebord.com/>

</comment><comment><USER63> Just backed the project. Good luck Boosted!

</comment><comment><USER64> What type of battery does this use? LiPo?

</comment><comment><USER65> Don't call it magical if it can't fly.

</comment><comment><USER66> "all I could think was that this will change how we interact with our cities."

Anyone else reminded of Dean Kamen's predictions for the segway?

<comment><USER67> This is a bit different, I believe. Segways just do not look cool, and you would be kind of embarrassed riding one, unless you really don't give a fuck what the world thinks. These on the other hand are cool enough that you are ride them without looking like a clown.

<comment><USER68> Interesting fact: in Prague there are people offering sightseeing tours on Segways; it seems to be quite popular there.

<comment><USER69> I think Segways are great for sightseeing tours, and I've done (and enjoyed) a couple on my travels. Segways basically created a new way to sightsee.

I can't imagine how tours would be able to operate 12-15 mile 2 hour "walking" tours otherwise. You're able to see a significant part of a city from eye level without a huge amount of physical effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Djfifjd third fjdid I jdjjsjj ddjdsid jdjfjdjdjdhefucisjwbejruchx wheuuvdbwejeheheheheheywhwwehdjdjehehehehehe hdhdjdjehehrjfogpgotjrhehdfifjsgwgqhwuufuvux hshababdnfjcixjsbwbtigivjcjsnanwkrogpfjxjsjw nenriguvuxhsbwjrugjfjdjahwjduhchdh</comment>


Technology Acceleration Economics 101 - <AUTHOR> http://synaptify.com/?p=613748

<comment><USER2> What's "abundant" in the article is emphases.

Just to take a few... "much more interested", "far greater variety", "very bad", "a much greater variety", "much more of an Extremistan", "a huge difference", "a lot more complex", "a lot more volatility", "very far removed from" "The ever increasing complexity", "making it very hard to accurately measure", "it is very challenging", "it is very important", "very interesting observations", "a huge deficit", "far ahead of the other countries", "very abstract", "very abundant". "completely different"...

And a lot of "a lot of"s.</comment>


Wish that was 2 years ago - <AUTHOR> http://www.hp.com/go/ubuntu

<comment><USER2> Following the "Learn more" link under _Laptops & Hybrids_ just takes me to [http://store.hp.com/us/en/cat/Laptops](http://store.hp.com/us/en/cat/Laptops) with no Ubuntu in sight. (FWIW I'm in the US.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is 2015 the year of Linux on the desktop? :)</comment>


Google's Self Driving Car Takes Blind Man To Taco Bell (VIDEO) - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/google-self-driving-car-blind-man-taco-bell_n_1387930.html?ref=technology

<comment><USER2> why can't he just order his tacos and have them delivered by helicopter like everyone else? [e.g.]([http://www.pcworld.com/article/252412/tacocopter_delivers_ta...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/252412/tacocopter_delivers_tacos_by_quadrocopter_is_this_for_real_updated.html) "recently posted to HN")</comment>


Ask HN: Do you keep a personal balance sheet? - <AUTHOR>

Do you keep a personal balance sheet? Where do you keep it? A paper notebook?<p>Are there any simple software of webapp for this purpose? <comment><USER2> I have tried using countless apps, spreadsheets etc until I resorted back to plain .txt file for my personal finances. Even for my startup finances, we still use a simple Google spreadsheet in-house.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not web based, but simple and straightforward:

[http://www.ledger-cli.org/](http://www.ledger-cli.org/)</comment>


Richard Gere Has a Theory About Why Mainstream Hollywood Dumped Him - <AUTHOR> https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/richard-gere-hollywood-china? <comment><USER2> I don't think it's so much that "it'd upset the Chinese" as the fact that he just got old, there's better (younger) actors out there that bring more to the table. He had a good run though.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> to the admins: the submission is not intended to be political, just interesting to see how things change.

<comment><USER3> If you are wondering whether the submission is appropriate for HN, it's always good to review the guidelines:

> _What to Submit_

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

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

Another I ask myself is what I expect (not hope) the resulting discussion to look like. Is it constructive and civil?

If it passes these, I think in general you can feel confident that the mods (and the HN community) will find it useful.</comment></comment>


Announcing Docker-Based Development Environments - <AUTHOR> http://bowery.io/posts/dockerfile-support/

<comment><USER2> interesting to see more vendors proividing other apps for docker support.

<comment><USER3> surprised all of the vendors didn't get behind rocket and abandon Docker [https://coreos.com/blog/rocket/](https://coreos.com/blog/rocket/)</comment></comment>