Moody's Buys Climate Data Firm, Signaling New Scrutiny of Climate Risks - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/climate/moodys-ratings-climate-change-data.html <comment><USER2> Moody's, the security rating agency whose one job was to signal the diseased state of asset backed securities leading up to 2008 and completely failed since the subjects of their analysis are also their clients.

This is just branding for more clients

<comment><USER3> I agree, but Moody's does have a reasonable defense against being called a failure.

We can't really expect them to ascertain the true state of things, because that is impossible and nobody can do that. And if they could do that, they'd put their knowledge to use as a trading firm rather than telling people what is going on.

Their job is to compile what 'everyone' knows and report it because that is all they can reliably do. That is something that can be achieved consistently, and that their customers probably do want to know.

<comment><USER4> > Moody's does have a reasonable defense against being called a failure.

"the subjects of their analysis are also their clients." sounds less like failure and more like fraud. 'Failure' is what they hope it's seen as, to avoid legal consequences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the start of what I've been waiting for. But I don't think we'll see real action until the risk starts getting priced into coastal real estate, both directly and indirectly (i.e. insurance and reinsurance).

<comment><USER6> I would have started with the assumption that the risks are already being priced into coastal real estate (because real-estate investors are not ignorant of climate change). What is your evidence that they are not?

<comment><USER5> Empirically, it doesn't appear to be the case. [https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Miami-Florida/market- tren...](https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Miami-Florida/market-trends/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Things brings to mind an issue that I haven't seen addressed. Profiting directly from climate change will be an increasing threat. If investors start snapping up real estate in northern Canada, for example, it creates perverse incentives--not just to ignore climate change, as oil companies have, but to encourage it.

Don't think that people won't devise ways to make a fortune from this disaster.

<comment><USER8> > northern Canada

I've been frequenting r/collapse and one of the perspectives there is that increasing heat in the north will create desertification and thus not a very hospitable place to live. Which leaves me wondering, where at all would be? Maybe no where... I live near the equator at low elevation and I can't imagine it will be better here either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hmmmm. I'm not so sure I want big corporations becoming entangled with climate change data. Sometimes those profit motives cause some less than optimal usage of resources.

</comment><comment><USER10> Moody's rate co2 AAA. Just like distressed debt securitisation...

</comment><comment><USER11> Weirdly enough this actually gives me a lot of hope for humanity and is the beginning of a realistic and scalable solution to climate change.

The main problem with the free market has been lack of accountability and dollar damage projections on environmental damage.

Most fossil-fuel energy companies have lobbied against it because it would make their product a lot more expensive to produce if their customers had to pay a market-rate fee for it's burning/disposal. The ammount of carbon that can be dumped out is finite, yet the cost is artificially set to zero/free which makes no sense unless you live in a communist system.

By accounting this into credit risk, it makes it more expensive for governments to ignore the environment. It means they have to pay a lot more interest on their debt which puts maximum political pressure on them to address the money problem regardless of their ideology beliefs.

This also makes clean energy companies actually competitive at market rate since they have very little carbon dumping to pay for.

It also puts a lot more pressure to improve the measurement accuracy of carbon emission if it is actively being traded. It also greatly increases insurance costs for new fossil fuel development because now they can face liability when people's homes are flooded for the first time.

On the positive side, It also makes local farming produce more competitive and economically stable too because it needs to burn a lot less gas, thus pay for less carbon waste for delivery compared to a similar product that's shipped from extremely greater distances.

Because shipping does not pay a market rate for carbon waste, it creates some absurd situations.

For example a lot of pepper farmers here in Ontario actually ship their produce all the way to China for packaging and then ship it back here to sell because it saves them a small margin this way in the current cost.

By enabling the market to factor in environmental costs, you're basically letting a distributed graph-based computer, a giant hive mind, the market, address the problem a lot more efficiently and with massively more processing power than you would have with central planning.

<comment><USER12> Wish I shared your optimism. It is simply too little, too late for humanity to avoid serious, calamitous effects of climate change.

Take a look at these graphs:

1\. Annual worldwide CO2 emissions by region: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by- re...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-region)

That graph keeps growing _every_ year (save for major recession years). Consider how much effort it would take just to reduce the growth to 0, where we would still be very much screwed.

2\. Global CO2 concentration: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co- concentration-p...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co- concentration-ppm)

Again, up and to the right, consistently, for decades, with no sign of slowing down.

3\. Same graph of CO2 concentration, but over a longer timescale, to really freak you out: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-concentration-long- te...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-concentration-long-term)

I'll start having optimism when I see even a small change in the direction of these graphs.

<comment><USER11> There are more drastic ways to cool the planet and they're actually economically feasible too.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJFtdvrTZs4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJFtdvrTZs4)

By no means are they safe or anything, the environmental impact is vast and with many unknowns. However at some point in the passing decades it will be unethical not to use them. The environmental damage of the continuing warming will be greater that the possible environmental damage of the geo-engineering methods. Therefore we will most likely use them.

The 2 most practical methods that can be enacted by a single nation today are ocean fertilization to spur growth of oxygen producing plankton and spraying of reflective sulphur dioxide dust in the stratosphere, even if all the permafrost melts, methane in the atmosphere has a half life of only 7 years.

The carbon is the main problem. At 1000 ppm we can still breathe despite the impact it has on our cognitive health. Most likely we'll offset that with massive tree planting at scale. Other carbon capture methods are not that scalable in my opinion. Wood is basically captured carbon, it makes great building material and certain species of it can grow pretty fast over and over again like bamboo which grows 91cm/3ft per day. Genetically modified derivatives of it are quite likely to be developed too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Northern passage is opening up, trade with Chinese goods will be much cheaper. There is a lot of profit to be made on top of dead bodies of millions of future victims of the climate catastrophe.

<comment><USER14> Cheaper for who? The Panama Canal is a pretty direct route.

<comment><USER15> It saves about 4000 km and 4 days off of Vancouver -> Finland, which for one early transit was worth about $200K:

[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on- business/breakthro...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on- business/breakthrough/will-cold-dark-northwest-passage-see-more- ships/article16231502/)

There're still a lot of practical problems with the Northwest Passage - notably, the most direct routes are too shallow, there remain lots of icebergs and ice sheets, it's not well-mapped, and there are few resupply ports along the way. I'm not sure I'd agree with all the criticisms in the article (notably, they assume the Northwest Passage will always have ice in winter, but in many "greenhouse earth" scenarios the arctic is ice-free year-round), but it's decades out, not years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wouldn't this also be related to the European requirement for companies to account in their filings a measure of how climate change may impact them ?

</comment><comment><USER17> Why did it take this long? Serious question. Was weather not considered an insightful input/value until now? Why?</comment>


5 Steps for Niche Website Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://www.innovators-house.com/1/post/2011/03/winnowing.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I recently developed this process and have found a few niche website topics with it. But, I am curious, has anyone used a similar process and how successful is it for you?</comment>


Google just released Lullaby, a C++ library for developing for VR and AR - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/lullaby <comment><USER2> Not sure it is fair to say "Google just released Lullaby" in the submission title:

1\. The README.md file indicates "Disclaimer: This is not an official Google product."

2\. This site's guidelines prohibit editorializing of titles.

A more appropriate title would perhaps just be "Lullaby: C++ libraries to help teams develop VR and AR experiences." This uses only the text on the actual linked page.

There are many repositories under the "google" organization on GitHub. A great number of them are not "Google products" but just projects that Google employees work on.

<comment><USER3> "Used by multiple teams across Google incl: VR Home, Play Store, YouTube, Play Movies, and Earth." is also there in README.md. But yes, it's not a Google product but it's Google's library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've looked pretty closely at Lullaby in my work at Google* on VR. Initially, I was pretty skeptical of the Entity-Component-System architecture, but once I "got" it, the architecture actually became pretty appealing. I like the idea of treating the entire "universe" of an application relationally, with attributes orthogonally stapled to each object in a decentralized way.

* Note: I am speaking only for myself.

<comment><USER5> Isn't the entity-component-system architecture more or less standard for game engines? That might explain the DNA that Lullaby is cut from.

<comment><USER4> It is --- I just hadn't done much with game engines before. I see the logic now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The links in the documentation aren't github compatible.

Fixed in master here:

[https://github.com/Jon-Biz/lullaby](https://github.com/Jon-Biz/lullaby)

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks fairly well organised but it doesn't seem to have a build file!

</comment><comment><USER8> no unittests :(</comment>


Cilantro Haters, It's Not Your Fault - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html?ref=science <comment><USER2> Huh... odd... Cilantro leaves are not used much at all here in northern Italy (to my knowledge), although the seeds are used, occasionally.</comment>


Ask HN: What database should I use for analytics data? - <AUTHOR> Let me rephrase that. I'm running Simple Analytics where we collect page views, events and specific details about a page view (url, time, referrer, utm_source, screen width ...).
At the moment we use PostgreSQL which serves us pretty well. We have some caching tables setup and with our processing scripts we have the data in customers dashboards within 2 minutes. We move our raw visits in tables with visits aggregated per hour and per day.
This is all working fine. But we want to start targeting bigger clients now and would love to be fine then as well.
A few things that are important to us when selecting a database:
- it is very popular (we want to solve issues fast)
- it is free to use (the license)
- it is easy to maintain (very important)
- it can run on my own servers
One that really appeals to us is Apache Cassandra with Apache Spark.
But we're not sure if we should optimize our PostgreSQL workflow. I wouldn't mind investing 1 or 2 weeks of my time into setting up a new database, but it should also save time in the future. The common queries we will have are (see our demo dashboard to see what we show [1]):
- get (unique) page views from a website grouped by per 24 hours
- get list of most visited pages and show those with the percentages of referrals aggregated by day (/contact: twitter.com 20%, organic 80%)
- get conversions between events of sessions/list of events
There are probably many tools out there to help, but I wouldn't use a sledgehammer to hammer a nail.
[1] https://simpleanalytics.com/simpleanalytics.com <comment><USER2> I would surely look at ClickHouse for such use case.

If you're rolling your own solution (rather than using DBaaS) ClickHouse is unparalleled when it comes to scaling and efficiency. Its SQL is somewhat restricted but it should be able to do what you're looking very well, especially it was born out of the needs of Yandex Metrica which is quite similar use case of yours.

If you're using Kubernetes there is great Operator available from Altinity to run Clickhouse on Kubernetes.

<comment><USER3> I've also had a great experience with clickhouse. Very easy to set up and maintain. Perhaps a little rough around the edges compared to Postgres, but I would look to clickhouse first for analytics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > This is all working fine

Are there any specific reasons that you think Postgres won't be able to scale?

I don't have personal experience solving the problem you're describing but if you do choose to use something other than Postgres I think Apache Kafka might be interesting for some parts of your infrastructure at least.

Segment [0] has written quite a lot about their tech in a similar space.

[0] [https://segment.com/blog/the-10m-engineering- problem/](https://segment.com/blog/the-10m-engineering-problem/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you are right, I'm kind of looking for a technical challenge where I actually should just improve the current setup. Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've built some dedicated analytics systems handling billions of events per month on the past, here are my comments:

1\. Always know your limits. PG is impressive even on a large scale, so I would suggest you clone your existing database server and fill it with dummy data. After this, check how well it performs and when it breaks. Who knows, maybe you can live 5x the traffic with your current setup.

2\. I can personally recommend checking HBase[0] and thinking about OLAP[1] based analytics. The relational version of OLAP is very good, but it's not very scalable. However, you can build it on top of a NoSQL solution (like HBase) as I did in the past. It was very robust and performant.

3\. Lastly, it doesn't matter which database you select, as long as you understand how it works and know its limits. But generally, you might want to move away from relational databases as they're not designed to deal with massive datasets (although, you always can shard).

[0] [https://hbase.apache.org/](https://hbase.apache.org/) [1] [https://www.guru99.com/online-analytical- processing.html](https://www.guru99.com/online-analytical-processing.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> We also developed a product that collects the user event data via SDKs ([https://github.com/rakam-io/rakam](https://github.com/rakam-io/rakam)), depending on the data volume the users pick one of the two deployment types. The first one is based on Postgresql 11 and it takes advantage of partitioned tables (one table for each event time for the configured time period such as month, week, etc.), BRIN indexes, and materialized views.

It's capable of handling 250M events per month without an issue but beyond that we suggest the users to use data-warehouse that supports horizontal scaling and columnar storage engine so we use Snowflake with Snowpipe, Kinesis or Kafka (pluggable) and S3.

I have also tried using Clickhouse which is much cheaper but it lacks tooling for automatic scaling.

</comment><comment><USER7> I built Freshlytics using PipelineDB (Postgres extension) - [https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics](https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics)

It uses continuous aggregations so you don't need to manually run rollups every few mins/hours. You don't need to store individual events so it's better for user's privacy.

Here's the link to the sql - [https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics/blob/master/src/ser...](https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics/blob/master/src/server/migrations/1561030715992_init.sql)

</comment><comment><USER8> Have you tried to feed some extra generated data into your current setup? Maybe you'll be happy with the performance.

The queries sound like something that should be aggregated over time once and saved so you don't have to do any non-trivial query from the dashboard.

If you're actually pushing limits on the current database, then I don't think 2 weeks will be enough to get familiar enough with operations and failure modes of a new one.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I can still optimize the extra generated data. And I think you're right about the 2 weeks being to limited. I will optimize my processing scripts (those are the culprit now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use MySQL for running some analytics in my project. I thought on switching to a time series database, but haven't done because I could see it would give me a lot of trouble. I also end up with your same solution. Running a worker that caches the different data for the dashboard plots. If you make the change, I would be happy to read about your implementation.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you can meet your demands in PG currently, you will probably never need something as heavy as Spark.

If PG is currently working for you, then chances are it'll keep working if you optimise it (partitioning, clustering, etc).

If you do want something else, the particular use cases you described are pretty much exactly what Clickhouse was built for.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've built a couple data warehouses around Google BigQuery - it's not free, but nothing is.

Think of it as petabyte scale SQL as a service - and a lot of things connect to it now, so you can use whatever tools you want for the visualization piece.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. I don't want a free product (should have been more clear) but I would love a free to use license. I'm more than happy to run it on my own servers. Actually, that's a requirement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe CrateDB is worth a look.

[https://crate.io/products/cratedb/](https://crate.io/products/cratedb/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I use [https://clickhouse.yandex](https://clickhouse.yandex) for first-party analytics.

</comment><comment><USER14> We also have very good experience with Google's BigQuery.

</comment><comment><USER15> Look at Druid or Imply</comment>


Show HN: K8up – Kubernetes Backup Operator Based on Restic - <AUTHOR> https://k8up.io/ <comment><USER2> Any advantages over velero? [https://heptio.github.io/velero/master/restic.html](https://heptio.github.io/velero/master/restic.html)

<comment><USER3> It says 404 there isn't a GitHub Pages site here... where did heptio docs move to now that they are VMware?

<comment><USER4> [https://velero.io/docs](https://velero.io/docs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We've been using k8s-snapshots[1] Very easy to setup and use. Very simple to add snapshots too.

How does this compare?

[1] [https://github.com/miracle2k/k8s-snapshots](https://github.com/miracle2k/k8s-snapshots)

<comment><AUTHOR> * K8up uses Restic, k8s-snapshots Tarsnap

* K8up doesn't do snapshots but file-based backups supporting any RWX storage and to some extend RWO (still to be improved)

* K8up can do pre-backup tasks like dumping a database to have application consistent backups

* K8up has a great amount of monitoring backed in for providing a good overview via Prometheus if the backups really work

* K8up can send webhooks about backups available to allow integrations into third party control panels. F.e. Lagoon[1] uses it

[1] [https://github.com/amazeeio/lagoon](https://github.com/amazeeio/lagoon)

<comment><USER6> "* K8up uses Restic ..."

Does that mean I could use the SFTP transport of restic and send my K8up generated backups to any old SFTP server ?

<comment><AUTHOR> In theory yes, we need to implement support for more remotes. Please open a GitHub issue so we can take care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You can also try Stash [https://github.com/stashed/stash](https://github.com/stashed/stash) . This has been in use since 2017 and always worked with Restic.

Disclaimer: My company, AppsCode is the primary developer behind Stash.

<comment><USER8> How does this compare? It appears to only backup chosen apps, not necessarily a whole cluster?

<comment><AUTHOR> K8up currently is optimized for PVs and will probably be able to backup objects in the future. It's not meant for cluster disaster recovery or full- cluster backup. (Deployment artefacts should anyways come from GitOps)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I actually have a cluster that I need to tear down and do disaster recovery practice on, but didn't know how, so I'm still paying for the "important data" that I generated on it.

I will use it tonight, thank you friend!

</comment><comment><USER9> Cool. I was about to hack a CronJob to take some backups with pg_dump, but I'm going to give this a try.</comment>


Russian State Hackers Use Britney Spears Instagram Posts to Control Malware - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/russian-state-hackers-use-britney-spears-instagram-posts-to-control-malware/ <comment><USER2> That's really clever. Using social media feeds as a control channel, hiding in plain sight. It's reliable, practically undetectable until you reverse engineer the malware, and it probably won't be blocked very soon. I don't think the big social media sites have measures to detect or prevent this yet.

You could easily increase the complexity and variety of the comments, use multiple channels at once etc. I'm expecting a lot more 'hijacking' of public social media systems in the future.</comment>


The Giant Wasteland and the Tiny Vault - <AUTHOR> http://42floors.com/blog/the-giant-wasteland-and-the-tiny-vault/

<comment><USER2> It's interesting that at the end of the article the author mentions that the end game is often the creation of a newer better vault. I often wonder what it would be like if everything that was in the biggest best vaults was unleashed to change the wasteland into something better. As it stands so much money and technology gets sequestered away to be used in emergencies or to maintain the advantage. The world could really use some of that vault tech everyone stores away.

Edit: Almost forgot to mention that hopefully the trend of creating new vaults goes away and is replaced with that openness that would let our wasteland prosper.

<comment><USER3> My different interpretation of that metaphor is that the wasteland is by definition an infinite sink. No amount of resources can make all of it anything other than wasteland. On the other hand, finite resources can make part of the wasteland into a vault, which may be larger or smaller, more or less attractive to different people, more or less interoperable with other vaults etc. But a vault nonetheless.

<comment><USER4> There's probably a lot of opportunity in simply connecting said vaults and making switching costs lower, with fewer mutants, radscorpions, and less radiation to endure between vaults.</comment></comment></comment>


Wiffiti: A pretty twitter feed for large TV screens at live events - <AUTHOR> http://wiffiti.com/

<comment><USER2> No. It spends more time on head-ache inducing bouncing stuff around than on actually displaying the message.

This feels like the late 90's/early 00's MP3-player-apps .. totally 'leet acid-green sci-fi-alien techno UIs and little more than the very bare minimum functionality.</comment>


The inside story of Israel's bombing of the Syrian nuclear reactor - <AUTHOR> http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/bombing-the-syrian-reactor-the-untold-story/

<comment><USER2> This was a great read. It gave me a lot of insight on how the big decisions were made and some of the motivations of the key players in Bush's second term. I very much liked how Bush let this play out. He basically allowed Israel to take care of its own business while letting Rice develop a plausible UN solution that he knew would be unacceptable to Israel in case it became public and blew up in our faces.

For the US it was a total win. The reactor is gone without direct US military action, Israel was appeased and we got plausible deniability and the ability to look like the good guys if it all went sour.

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny how Syria is a "regime", while Israel is not - meanwhile the 2.5 million Arabs living in the West Bank are ruled by Jews and have no vote, and no say in anything whatsoever. The Arabs in East Jerusalem have just been completely cut off. Yet Israel is called a "democracy" and bankrolled by my American tax dollars, while countries the Zionists occupy, like Syria (in the Golan Heights) are "regimes".

<comment><USER4> Woo boy, you went full Father Coughlin on that comment, didn't you?</comment></comment>


Yahoo offers $12.50 corporate store voucher for vulnerability report - <AUTHOR> https://www.htbridge.com/news/what_s_your_email_security_worth_12_dollars_and_50_cents_according_to_yahoo.html

<comment><USER2> $12.50 to yahoo, or several k $ selling a 0day by auction. brb, doing the math, this is tough!</comment>


YC's Xobni: Lessons learned in the last 14 months - <AUTHOR> http://www.xobni.com/blog/2007/05/29/and-then-there-were-four/ <comment><USER2> Thanks to them for being so transparent. I'm definitely interested in seeing what they create and I'm rooting for them. I feel like they're borderline on about 6 of "18 mistakes" though, so I'm a bit skeptical. Upgraded office, slow launch, hiring lots of people pre-launch, devs with a C#/Java background, QA people, product managers, desktop software? Perhaps they'll handle it all well, but those are some red flags to me.

<comment><USER3> Why are these "red flags"

Devs with C#/Java background a red flag? Why is that? Should they use Ruby or Python for the desktop app that supports Outlook as a plugin instead of C#?

If they haven't launched and they got financial backing (huge), that means they have a solid business model that's important

<comment><USER2> Perhaps they do need to use C#/Java for their desktop software but that doesn't mean they need a "Software Engineer with a C#/Java background". Taken in the context of them hiring Product Managers and QA people it seems like a red flag to me.

<comment><USER3> Why not? If they can get someone who knows C#, more power for them. The faster for the new guy to adapt with the code given he/she knew Java/C#. Java is a language close to C#. I still don't understand your objection.

Product Managers and QA? Why not? Who will test the product? uh-huh, it's the QA.

It's not like your ruby/php/python code can be tested just by a simple unit test. It's not like your desktop app not need to be tested (UI wise).

<comment><USER2> There's a difference between hiring someone who is a C#/Java programmer and someone who can program in C#/Java. That's my point.

As for Product Managers and QA people. They have a tendency to slow development down to a level they can manage and test. I avoid them both like the plague.

<comment><USER4> Um, what's so bad about being a Java/C# programmer? Is the hubris of the scripting crowd really that sky-high?

<comment><USER2> Not sure. I didn't say anything was bad about being one. I don't speak for any crowds either.

<comment><USER5> Oh, for the love of beans, they're taking the words straight from the mouth of St. Paul:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice story but all that matters is the product you make. So where is it?

<comment><USER7> Desktop software is difficult. Be patient bro, we're even more excited than you are to release to the public.

<comment><USER5> "more excited than you"

I'm willing to guess this is true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes out of xobni. I've heard nothing but good things about the team.

btw, the blog header doesn't render correctly on FF/ubuntu: <http://abstractnonsense.com/xobni-bad-rendering.png>

<comment><USER9> abstractbill - thanks for pointing that out! I think it was a browser font size setting vs. div size problem.

Should be fixed now. Let me know if you're still seeing this.

<comment><USER8> No problem. Yup, it's fixed now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Man. I wish I could build hype like these guys can.

<comment><USER11> Throw enough money at it, and you too can have it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Heck, I'd just love a description of what they are building. "take back the inbox"? What does THAT mean? :-) Are they replacing Outlook?

Email is certainly a pain point... So I'm rooting for 'em.

</comment><comment><USER13> Too bad it's a desktop app (it's probably windows only as well which automatically makes it useless to me)... Personally, I haven't used a desktop email client since early 2001 (after losing my laptop and after failing to restore my backup). I prefer to have email online since it's accessible from everywhere and it's backed up (one would hope anyway).

But I think what they're building is cool and I hope some of their ideas end up in online email clients.

<comment><USER14> While we might have reasons to limit our immediate scope, please don't constrain us that much :)

Rest assured, we are also users of other platforms and the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Vaporware is web 3.0:P Those guys are great, we are rooting for them.

</comment><comment><USER16> this is a great story straight from the founders. My key takeaway was its going to take longer than you thought. And don't underestimate the legal/admin costs and time. Not sure why they need 3,200 sq ft. of class A office space, they obviously have a big vision that investors are jazzed about

</comment><comment><USER17> wtf? People from Boston eat at Boston Market?</comment>


Ask HN: Do you think MS will ever open source Windows? - <AUTHOR> It would be the ultimate olive branch to the open source world and would fully commit them to a managed windows / software as a service company I think. What they might gain is much faster codebase cleanup if they went this route and said: "Hey help is clean up our old win3.1 bloat and unneeded backwards compatibility or legacy code". Or they could open source it in hopes to create some sort of windows Linux hybrid. <comment><USER2> Think of it as a game of monopoly. Microsoft got lucky and bought the pink and the orange street, got hotels over it. It was enjoying a good revenue. But then few people(the open source community - chiefly Linus) bought the brown street and the blue street, which aren't much costly. But it affected the monopoly of Microsoft. So, Microsoft is breaking the hotels now. But still has a lot of houses on its land. For Microsoft to loosen up, either we need some big projects coming up(a substitute for Microsoft) - consider this the green and the dark blue street. These projects, as their street names suggest, need to be heavily ambitious. Or we need a bad phase for Microsoft. What I want to say is, Microsoft won't be making Windows open source until it has Monopoly.</comment>


Ask HN: Are solo founders as screwed as they're led to believe? - <AUTHOR>

As it is I'm looking at becoming a solo founder for an app-based venture. It just happens that all of my friends are liberal artsy people, and the couple programmers I know are happily buried in corporate culture.
I've heard over and over that co-founders who lack a connection and strong history don't do well in the long run, and it makes sense, so I'm hesitant to just go co-founder shopping at tech meetups. And anyway, at this point, I would be hesitant to bring someone on board with equal share when I've developed the entire business plan and written the initial app myself. I would happily hire employees and give them relatively small share, but like so many others I'm just very new to all this.
How do you hire your first employee as a solo founder without giving them 50% of your venture? <comment><USER2> I'm in the exact same situation as you. I have an App on iTunes since May 1st. I got there all by myself with a contract dev (a fantastic guy I met on HN!) and I'm the Chief Everything Officer. I want to keep bootstrapping as long as possible, but I would also love to be able to afford the talented people I need to continually improve the product and build a community.

Elwell's comment is apt. I need to obtain recurring revenue or at least be increasing my user base week over week (the app is free) in order to move forward. So that means I'm spending 80% of my time on marketing!

Don't go Co-Founder shopping - just get on with building the app and your business. Good Luck!

<comment><USER3> So... who is this fantastic contract dev and is he looking for work? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > How do you hire your first employee as a solo founder without giving them > 50% of your venture?

> I've developed the entire business plan and written the initial app myself

It's sounds like you already have an MVP ready. Depending on the specific nature of your startup, I would most likely launch it before thinking about hiring any employees. If you can get some recurring revenue by yourself, then you can hire and give them very little shares <2% with a good salary. If it's more of a B2C venture you'll probably have find an angel investor soon, which is never easy (esp. for first-time solo founder).

</comment><comment><USER5> I think you can be a succesful solo founder... but you need some kind of positive support group or network.

Especially if it's a "niche" or lifestyle kind of app (as opposed to the take- over-the-world plans VCs prefer to fund).

By support groups or networks, I'm thinking coworker spaces, accelerators (like YC itself :) ), meetups or other places where you can network, bounce around ideas, get motivated, etc.

And maybe you'll find a cofounder there :) , but I'd go to meetups and events with a very different mindset - just discussing ideas and learning from others and generally motivating yourself :) .

What I've heard is that co-founders help smooth out the ups and downs in motivation and the emotional state that comes with the startup roller coaster.

I never tried quitting my job to be a "solo founder", but I did try several side projects. All of them failed so far:

For my latest "failure" (which might revive :) ), I teamed up with 2 friends which were also working full-time, and we didn't agree on the direction, the tech stack, etc. and we didn't "put in time". I'm especially guilty since I was supposed to be the leader.

I've also failed teaming up with family members (which expected to be the "idea guy" and let me do all the legwork). The ideas were good, but they weren't available and didn't want to commit their time.

And mostly, I've failed on my own, starting up a project, and letting it die by not commiting time to it. Lack of motivation. If I'd put myself out there and validated them, maybe they could have grown. So, I've failed as a solo "founder".

I'm cautiosly optimistic about my current side project, I teamed up with a coworker, we see each other every day so we can prod each other :), we agree on the tech stack (what we do everyday), and have a similar vision. We also have a prospective customer and beta tester :) who was the one that initially expressed the need to be solved.

Besides being a second set of hands to work on the project, I really appreciate his perspective and motivation. That's what I get from a "cofounder".

</comment><comment><USER6> What I learn is that don't force yourself to hire someone just because solo founder doesn't have a good reputation. As others have stated focus on your product and growth. Nothing matters as long as you have growth (PG's startup = growth).

At the same time don't hesitate to give a good chunk of equity if you find someone who you think will be essential to your company. Don't forget that you want to have a small chunk of big pie than having a big chunk of essentially nothing.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a solo founder, and it's hard keeping motivated, if i'm not committing to the code, it's just not getting done. If I had a cofounder there would be someone else adding code, and I'd feel compelled to do my share.

It's definitely doable though, and it's much more productive just working on your idea than hanging around meetups hoping to meet that someone special.

[http://www.getwith.in/](http://www.getwith.in/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Your goal right now should be to make money, not to maximize the portion you have. If something requires giving up equity but gives you more money, it's the right choice.

If you want to bring someone on, I would suggest the fair equity system: 1\. Compensation is based on hours worked * salary 2\. A worker or an investor can buy stock in the company, either through compensation or directly in cash. There might be some minimum to this, i.e. at least 25% of your income is in equity.

</comment><comment><USER9> > How do you hire your first employee as a solo founder

With money. If you can pay market rates, you don't need to give any equity.

Without revenue, profit, traction, something ... your equity is valueless, so it's not a good way to hire anyone.

If I want to work for valueless equity, I'll work on my own idea.

</comment><comment><USER10> As a Co-founder I can attest to the fact that it is a very valuable asset. But with that said, my co-founder and I left our jobs at the same time to start our company and had complementary skill sets. He is the development side of the house and I wear the "biz dev" hat.

There is a really good post by Mark Suster that talks about hiring your co- founder. It is a the best of both worlds in some cases because you get someone that is on the same commitment level, but you don't have to give up all the equity that comes with a 50/50 split.

Here is the link: [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co- founder...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co-founder- mythology/)

</comment><comment><USER11> >How do you hire your first employee as a solo founder without giving them 50% of your venture?

If you feel don't deserve 50%, don't give them 50%, but that is besides the point. Right now focus on growth and customer development and acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hiring and equity are 2 different things. You should treat equity as gold and only dilute your stake for very good reasons. And hiring your first employee is not one of them unless the person is an absolute star.

And don't be too hasty to hire. The old saying "if you have enough employees, then you have too many" is very true. Being solo for the first while means that you have to work smart. For example, in my latest venture, I am using PayPal for billing, so I don't have any billing issues to bog me down; otherwise I would probably have to hire someone. I understand the PlentyOfFish dating service guy did all the work himself for years.

</comment><comment><USER13> Money brings movement. If you can build an MVP and obtain some funding then you can get your tech co-founder on board. Or at least, the thought of money will bring movement.</comment>


Researchers Expose Locations of Pirate Bay Uploaders - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/researchers-expose-location-of-pirate-bay-uploaders-120831/ <comment><USER2> People are acting like this is surprising news. I guess people don't actually understand how BitTorrent works, which is troubling. When you connect to a peer on BT, you have to be told its IP address (or that of a proxy, and most users obviously aren't using them) in order to connect to it. You can easily then run a reverse IP lookup on that address and usually find out the ISP.

Matching that to the initial seeder should be pretty trivial so long as you get to the torrent quickly enough after it was first seeded so you can see who the only person with 100% is. Even if you can't get to it before there are a handful of seeders, you should be able to narrow it down by looking for the common IP among several torrents.

<comment><USER3> Many clients let you look at the seeder list and show geoip data. Been doing this with rtorrent for ages. I'm with you... how's this news?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mapping ip addresses to ISPs is somehow HN-worthy when it's wrapped in torrentfreak's propaganda? These articles should be used as a honeypot to identify people who might prefer getting their tech news at reddit because that's where torrentfreak and its fans belong.

<comment><USER5> I used to go to slashdot for news, but i like HN better now. What sites do you recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If this information can be gathered by researchers who have no special access, just think what law enforcement agencies could be doing. What a scary world we live in.

What hope is there for being able to exchange massive amounts of data in an anonymous fashion?

<comment><USER7> Why is it hard to use random open wifis? Walking around my neighborhood there are at least 5 open wifis in my block. With google fiber, high speed, open public wifi will only get more common.

<comment><USER8> > _Why is it hard to use random open wifis? Walking around my neighborhood > there are at least 5 open wifis in my block. With google fiber, high speed, > open public wifi will only get more common._

If you are in the US (and in some other countries), you know it's illegal, right?

<comment><USER9> > If you are in the US (and in some other countries), you know it's illegal, > right?

Not necessarily. An open WiFi hub can represent a free service offered by, for example, a restaurant or lodging establishment, both of which expect and accept public logons in order to attract business. It's not obvious how an individual might distinguish between these hubs and a private hub that happens not to have a password.

If someone decided to prosecute a user of an open hub, they would have to shoulder the burden of evidence to prove that a person knowingly defrauded the hub operator, rather than innocently accessed a public resource.

If the hub has a password, that's a different story altogether, but in the case of an open WiFi hub, the burden is on law enforcement to prove that an individual knowingly stole the service. Innocent until proven guilty.

Imagine someone driving along a public road, next to a drive-in theater. He pulls over and watches the movie over the top of an inadequate fence. Is he guilty of a crime?

Imagine someone walking along a street who stops and reads the newspaper headlines through the front of a newspaper vending machine. Is he guilty of a crime?

Both the above examples would require the prosecutor to prove "guilty knowledge", knowledge that the behavior was wrong. It's the same with open WiFi hubs. There are plenty of open hubs that are intentionally public, and that accept logons from anyone. And there are hubs owned by unsophisticated computer owners that don't have a password simply because the owner doesn't know how to set one up. Is the public required to distinguish between these cases, or face prosecution? No.

<comment><USER8> > _Both the above examples would require the prosecutor to prove "guilty > knowledge", knowledge that the behavior was wrong. It's the same with open > WiFi hubs._

No, it's not.

You are not supposed to _use_ a wi-fi, even if it's open (that is, unlocked), unless you have specifically see it advertised as freely available to the public (i.e in an airport, a cafe, etc).

> _Not necessarily. An open WiFi hub can represent a free service offered by, > for example, a restaurant or lodging establishment, both of which expect and > accept public logons in order to attract business. It's not obvious how an > individual might distinguish between these hubs and a private hub that > happens not to have a password._

You're not supposed to distinguish between them. You are only supposed to use the restaurant or lodging hub when you are AT the restaurant or the hotel, as a customer. And you're supposed to know which is their wifi name.

Being in a cafe that offers free public wifi doesn't give you an excuse to bypass the law and connect to any open nearby Wifi signal you can get ("But, Judge, I couldn't tell which was which").

<comment><USER9> > You are not supposed to use a wi-fi, even if it's open (that is, unlocked), > unless you have specifically see it advertised as freely available to the > public (i.e in an airport, a cafe, etc).

Many service providers that depend on open WiFi hubs would vigorously disagree. There are a great number of places where open, unsecured WiFi hubs are intended to be accessed by the public, and there are an equal number of client programs that connect up to an open hub and alert the user that a service has been located -- all automatically. Reference:

<http://www.ehow.com/how_2193989_connect-wifi-wireless.html>

Also, those WiFi hubs that serve as a portal to a paid service often use an open, unsecured hub as a gateway. In this case, the user is meant to log on automatically and then open a browser to complete the authentication process. If people believed they weren't allowed to log onto an open hub, this system would collapse.

> Being in a cafe that offers free public wifi doesn't give you an excuse to > bypass the law and connect to any open nearby Wifi signal you can get ...

As shown above, this is simply wrong. Some hubs require a password, some do not. Of the latter, some hope you will log on to begin an authentication process, some hope you will log on just to drum up business.

I visited a town in Alaska this summer that had a McDonald's with an open hub -- no password. I asked about it, and the proprietor said it was open to attract people to his business, and he didn't care that some people used it without buying anything, especially because the lurkers needed to gather around his place of business (to get adequate signal strength), making it look popular and attracting paying customers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What lies beneath the surface of New York Harbor? (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/news/features/56609/

<comment><USER2> Why does that diver have a gun?

NYPD detective John Drzal looks like an idiot carrying a AR-15, without any apparent waterproofing, while wearing flippers and a dry suit. He is also using scuba, not a rebreather, so any potential target will see/hear him coming miles away.

And is that a scope on that rifle?

What possible scenario would require a police officer to carry an automatic weapon while scuba diving? Really. What job is he going to do? Hostage rescue, underwater? Or is he going to run out of the water rambo-style to arrest underage drinkers at the beach ... with a scuba tank on his back ... in flippers.

<comment><USER3> NYPD coming out of the toilets maybe? No-flush warrants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _In case anyone very familiar with NYC infrastructure is interested_

Intentional or not, #1 is wrong. The Battery Park City current diversion affects the southern PATH train tunnel between Exchange Place in Jersey City and the World Trade Center station. Several years ago the Port Authority quietly embarked on a project to dump clay and sand on top of the exposed tunnels and then placed large convex metal plates on top of the new fill to protect the tunnel shells.

This article also, intentionally or not, inaccurately describes the project: [http://nypost.com/2010/11/30/path-tunnels-get-600m-ring- of-s...](http://nypost.com/2010/11/30/path-tunnels-get-600m-ring-of-steel/)

Interestingly, the alleged flood gates did not stop seawater inundation during Hurricane Sandy.

</comment><comment><USER5> I threw up some pictures on my blog and added a few lines about Hoboken, a small city directly across the Hudson. It's beautiful above the water. It's also cool that Uber opened a little office here.

[https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/views-from- hoboken/](https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/views-from-hoboken/)

<comment><USER6> Hoboken is an awesome little city! I spent about 1.5 years there, commuting to SoHo on the PATH, and absolutely loved it. Everyone that visited me fell in love with it as well. I'd move back in a heartbeat.

Every morning I'd take a run around the city: up Willow to 12th, over to Sinatra Dr and down to Newark St. Watching the sunrise over NYC and the Hudson was breathtaking.</comment></comment>


HN: I'm building a TC alternative. Will you share your startup's story with me?  - <AUTHOR>

Recently I've began to notice that the sort of articles I read on TechCrunch are less about startups, and more about business that are already established. There is nothing wrong with this, it's just not the type of articles I'm really excited to read about.
I know there are others out there like me. People who would love to read news exclusively about startups, so I decided to start my own TC alternative. I've almost finished the site, and I'm just looking to build up some really great content before I push it live.
Would you be willing to talk about your startup with me? I'm looking for 30-45 startups to write about over the next month, and would love to get started with the HN crowd. The site and Twitter account will be launched later this week. I wanted some time to write a couple days in advance.
Although I can't promise a huge amount of traffic, we will be regularly plugging it from our blog that gets 45k hits a month. I'm hoping to grow this site well beyond that.
If you would like to follow us our Twitter handle is @startupfoundry .
The best way to get in touch with me is to email me email@example.com.
Thanks HN. <comment><USER2> I think this is great. My first impression, though, was that the name "g0atbutt" does not inspire confidence. Just my 2 cents.

<comment><USER3> I think it's hilarious, and actually makes me want to talk to him more.

<comment><USER4> Same here. If you want my attention, you're much more likely to get it by being outrageous, than doing something "normal," "safe," and "professional" (that is to say, "BORING.")

<comment><USER5> Bathroom humor is a lame way to be outrageous.

<comment><USER6> You're saying that "g0atbutt" is bathroom humor? You know that goats butt things, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think you need to do a lot of lists. I'm serious. There are a LOT of tiny startups out there and you can hit upon 10 at once this way, while also building good content.

I'm going to be self-serving here, but it makes it easier to articulate my idea and point. I have a small, "lifestyle startup"/hobby -- a daily email newsletter where I share awesome/true facts like how Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service the day he was fatally shot. (Really -- <http://dlewis.net/nik> is the subscribe URL, the archives are linked thereto, and it's in the archives.) There are a LOT of small, wannabe thrillist/daily candy email newsletters out there. Featuring one is stupid, but writing about this emerging/cottage industry is interesting.

Basically: "Ten Interesting Email Newsletters" is a great post, potentially, as is "Ten Ways To Manage Your Business Connections" (hashable? cloudcontacts? cardmunch?), as is "Ten Sports Startups" and ... well, you get the idea.

<comment><USER8> You probably know that space pretty well then. Would you be willing to write that list and post it on HN or on your blog?

<comment><USER7> I'd be glad to. I don't really use my blog. I could do it as an HN post, but that'd be a bit too self-serving....

<comment><USER9> If you tell me something I don't know and want to know I am happy for it to be 'self-serving'. Some things I would like to know (disclose what you are comfortable with): how to you monetize? How do you acquire users? How much (assuming you buy traffic)?

<comment><USER7> Right now, I don't monetize much. I occasionally add in an Amazon affiliate link.

I acquire subscribers in many ways, but I've bought very little. I spent $20 on a reddit ad which netted me (I think) 3 subscribers -- that's 100% of my marketing budget to date. The most effective ways: * I syndicate posts to certain blogs, asking the blogger to plug the newsletter in exchange for letting him or her run the whole post for free. * Word of mouth and asking readers to tell their friends about it. * Links to individual issues, which have on them subscription boxes and links to the archives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As of 4:12p eastern time, 19 startups from HN have already gotten in touch with me. There are some really great companies brewing on HN, and I'm looking forward to covering them.

The response has been fantastic. I can't wait to see what else comes in.

<comment><USER10> Consider switching to a more neutral nick for the extra professional look and/or flesh out your profile.

I realize you mean well but my first association was with goatse and that can't be your intention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please, try to be more professional in tone and more reliable in information than TechCrunch.

<comment><USER12> To be honest, I kind of like the tone of Techcrunch. The fact that many of the writers on Techcrunch have their own voice makes Techcrunch more fun to read than other tech blogs.

If you're looking to build a competing startup news blog, I think creating a unique voice for yourself is a good way to build your brand.

<comment><USER13> Another option would be to have two versions of each article. First, the "your own voice" article, and then the "journalistic style" article which gets to the point quickly, doesn't inject opinion into the news, etc...

<comment><USER14> Interesting idea. Perhaps even do it in a 'readability' style where the main article is in your own voice with injected opinions and the 'readability' version is just facts.

Maybe even allow the 'readability' version to be edited wiki style...

<comment><USER15> 1\. That would be great - _\- Wiki could be a bullet list -_ \- And a list of tagged links

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I really look forward to reading this site!

I suggest you get in touch with Andrew from Mixergy.com - he has plenty of connections to get you started.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion. Just sent him an email from his contact box on his site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Talk to swombat on #startups, you guys should link up!

</comment><comment><USER17> Good for you. I recently removed TechCrunch from my RSS feed, and I haven't missed it for the last two weeks.

I was trying to find a feed that let me exclude certain authors, but I ended up ditching everything.

</comment><comment><USER18> I helped start <http://bootstrapped.it> (@bootstrappedit) where we interview bootstrapping entrepreneurs and try and get them exposure.

I agree, there needs to be more news about startups. Good to see that other people are doing this as well! There are plenty of startups to write about.

</comment><comment><USER19> Awesome - I don't have any startup news to share at this time - but best of luck! There's a need for this type of news and TC isn't filling it anymore.

</comment><comment><USER20> Good luck with that. I stopped reading TC (AOL) about 4 month ago.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'd love to see more stories about app developers - I'm getting a little tired of only hearing about web services to be honest. :)

</comment><comment><USER22> You're so right. I knew something was up when I saw a post about Johnson Controls on TechCrunch recently. I worked there and it's a Fortune 100 company. Good luck!

Vik

<comment><AUTHOR> Vik, are you located in Holland, MI? My office is actually in downtown Holland.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It would be great to go into a bit more depth than TechCrunch does with their articles on startups. Problem is though that you are more likely to capturer a wider audience with the shorter articles and they are easier to write. For most people around here though I think it would be great to see more long articles really getting into details about the founders, their stories and exactly what their startup is doing.

<comment><USER24> I think this is a great approach. The way to execute is to write several short articles on the startup, then stagger the publish dates

<comment><USER23> The one that really illustrated the difference to me was when adioso launched a new version. The TechCrunch article was based off a quick phone call, was a couple of paragraphs and got confused about some of the facts/ didn't grasp a concept.

Another site (i forget which one now) spent a couple of hours with the guys and did a multiple page writeup really getting into the new version and where the founders had come from. Of course the quick writeup was probably seen by many more people than the quality in depth article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Have you looked at Beyond the Pedway?

<http://www.beyondthepedway.com/>

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks like this might have the same idea? --> <http://startupanimal.com>

</comment><comment><USER27> Sounds like a good idea. Sent you an email about Swappa: <http://swappa.com>

</comment><comment><USER28> That's great. There really is a big need for something like this, and I look forward to checking it out when it's live.

</comment><comment><USER29> Email sent, best of luck with the site

</comment><comment><USER30> TCs comments suck - look at what boingboing does for moderation that might be helpful. Also I am probably in the minority but I rather read and respond to one really good article a day than 10 spammy articles. I think focusing on quality is key (just my 2 cents).

<comment><USER31> Two words: good headlines. Non-link-bait headlines that are accurate and descriptive, now written to incite. TC's major flaw (or as some might argue: TC's major strength) is what might be described as _arrogant Arringtonism_

A couple examples from the top of my RSS feed:

"Five reasons the PSP2 won't succeed" "... the Dystopian Hellscape" etc, ad infinitum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> > I know there are others out there like me. People who would love to read > news exclusively about startups, so I decided to start my own TC > alternative.

I hope you're going to have an editor :)

</comment><comment><USER33> Good luck with your venture. Just stay true to your original intent. Please do not sell out to the giants once you'll make it :) Focus on startups and not on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER34> Send you a mail about my startup (<http://doosracricket.com>) Best of luck on your new venture.

</comment><comment><USER35> Write about us => <http://elearnapp.com> <= Pretty please with goat butter on top!

</comment><comment><USER36> Funny name. Serious sandwich.

Wait, that was something else. Just sent some info on ParkGrades.com...

</comment><comment><USER37> done! hope we get featured and goodluck with your endeavors. there is need for real* tech news now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I just got your email, and will be taking a look at it in a little bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> When we are closer to launch I'll send you an email.

</comment><comment><USER39> What about talking to you in a month?

</comment><comment><USER40> this is good, i'll send you email about songslike.me and strangrchat.com soon

</comment><comment><USER41> Only if it works out!

</comment><comment><USER42> Shot you an email.

</comment><comment><USER43> i want to be a part of ths,im a copypaste blogger.lol

</comment><comment><USER44> i will</comment>


Lyft ends electric scooter operations in Oakland, Austin and San Jose - <AUTHOR> https://news.yahoo.com/lyft-ends-electric-scooter-operations-171711550.html <comment><USER2> What happens to all the old / retired scooters when something like this happens? I'd love to buy a "project" scooter and refurb it back to my satisfaction

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh my God, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You may have the opportunity to drive through a green light and not have a scooter run a red light or stop sign.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is great news for everyone. I'm a big fan of expanding mobility options, especially if we can take cars off the road, but I'm sick of tripping over scooters.

<comment><USER5> I'm a big fan of electric cars, but I'm sick of everyone having one.</comment></comment>