Study of ancient and modern cat genomes reveals an unusual history - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/cats-are-an-extreme-outlier-among-domestic-animals/ <comment><USER2> I have 2 and they could not be more different. One is calm, lover type. Other is spastic and a hunter type. It is funny to watch the calm one when the spastic one wants to play. Love them both. They are part of the family. The set before this I had for 20+ years. When they realized my wife was pregnant they became very protective of her, getting between her and any stranger. The younger one would sleep at the base of the crib after my daughter was born. If my daughter cried she would come and get us. It was quite hard on her when we did the, "okay you need to go to sleep and crying does not help bit." I miss them to this day.

<comment><USER3> Our two Burmese cats also have _very_ different personalities even though they are from the same litter and have experienced exactly the same environment.

Their "official" names are quite descriptive:

Purfidelis Babe Magnet

Purfidelis Tasmanian Devil

[NB We just call them Cookie and Brownie].

<comment><USER4> I have willow (its hard to sex kittens, he's a boy) and ash (girl).

Couldn't be less alike. Only see willow when he wants feeding.

Ash is welded to my leg if I'm home.

Love them both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > House cats also show none of the typical signs of animal domestication, such > as infantilization of facial features, decreased tooth size, and docility.

this is probably false? your average house cat is obviously more docile than an actual wild cat. Devon Rex, Cornish Rex, and Siamese all have exaggerated infantile features (you could argue that all house cats have similar features compared to say, a bobcat). and their teeth are all much smaller across the board.

plus a host of other domesticated animals (chickens, horses) only meet one or two of the above criteria. so if the question is "are cats as domesticated as dogs?" the answer is definitely not. but the article seems to harp on a weird definition of the word "domesticated"

<comment><USER6> Also, I've read that all(?) cats meow as kittens but wild cats lose the habit as they mature whereas domestic cats retain it and that they don't meow to each other but only to humans.

<comment><USER7> > they don't meow to each other but only to humans

My two cats actually "talk" a lot to each other, inviting to play, checking each other statuses or indicating their discontent if other is disturbing. Older cat was always making some sounds even when he's alone - he vocalizes just about everything - even jumping down from a chair. Another cat was silent when we've adopted him, but learned to "talk" in a few months, from the older one. That's not exactly meowing - but they're making all sort of sounds. While there's usually a human around, they "talk" to each other even when they're alone.

And I heard two wildcats actually meowing loudly, in deep voices at each other, as they were about to fight. Don't think they were forewarning humans to step aside. ;)

<comment><USER8> Caterwauling is not the same as mewing.

<comment><USER7> Ah, thanks! I didn't knew that word before. Thought "mewing" is a sort of umbrella term for the sounds cats make. My bad.

Searched for words for cat sounds and found that there are a lot: [http://www.catster.com/lifestyle/cat-behavior-sounds-cats- ma...](http://www.catster.com/lifestyle/cat-behavior-sounds-cats-make-what- they-mean-talking) Then, I guess it's right, I only heard cats meow to humans. I think what my cats commonly use are variations of trills and burbles. Not mewing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting article!

I'm a relatively new "cat person" who grew up with dogs and it has struck me how starkly different cat personalities seem to be from each other vs. dog personalities. Also the wild behaviors (bunting to put their scent on you because they like you, clawing anything of a rough texture, the hours of preening, the wide variety of sounds they can make, etc.) Our cat is an extremely chatty mush who has no odor whatsoever on her, she's like a living stuffed animal, loves to sit on my lap, loves play, and we call her Granny because in cat years she's actually the oldest in the house lol.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Or maybe cats will continue to defy domestication. They could carve out a > place as one of the only animals to befriend humans without ever falling > completely under our control.

Let's hope so. It doesn't strike me as a very healthy relationship that one party controls the other's DNA... :P

<comment><USER11> They must be fighting it well enough. I know they suggested it's "early in the domestication" but it seems doubtful much will change. Cats have apparently changed very little in the last 10k years. (Assuming away sophisticated genetic modification. That's probably likely at this rate though) guess what I'm saying is cats may otherwise stay pretty wild without something like actual genetic engineering.

I, for one, hope they're never fully domesticated. I think their curiosity would be fast to go.

<comment><USER12> Curiosity is one of appreciated traits for a cat and I doubt it would be left to disappear. I actually think it would be a trait sought after. I expect first to go to be traits less appreciated in modern environment, like their hunting instincts.

<comment><USER13> Our cats are not the best mousers, but since we have an old house and the mice try to move in in the fall, their hunting instincts definitely keep the house free of vermin. This is quite good.

We keep them inside, so they don't bring in songbirds.

<comment><USER12> I understand that there still are legitimate uses for keeping a cat around for utilitarian prospective but these are becoming less and less common. Majority don't rely on cats to fight vermin, the majority employ chemicals and keep cats around solely as pets. I remember a family that actively trained their feline to stay away from rodents, especially from dead ones. They said it's in the cat's best interest, because most of the dead rodents must have been poisoned. I think now that there is also the family's interest to keep their cat as clean as possible so they won't worry when it interacts with children.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I recently ran across "Tigers, Lions and Humans: History of Rivalry, Conflict, Reverence and Love". [http://www.josephjordania.com/files/35-TIGERS-LIONS-AND- HUMA...](http://www.josephjordania.com/files/35-TIGERS-LIONS-AND-HUMANS.pdf)

The book talks, in depth, about the convergent evolution of humans and lions in the environment of the predator-ridden savannah (both species with ancestors coming from trees).

</comment><comment><USER15> [http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/79/just-so-stories/1296/the-cat- th...](http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/79/just-so-stories/1296/the-cat-that-walked- by-himself/)

Not a cat person but I remember "The cat that walked by himself" from my childhood.</comment>


Introducing the Amazon Fire TV Cube - <AUTHOR> Https://www.amazon.com/firetvcube <comment><USER2> I've just started using the Amazon Prime Video app on Apple TV 4k. It's web- based and frankly horrible. And not just horrible because of the technical constraints imposed by having to target a web runtime - there are some serious, glaring beginner type UI anti-patterns in the UI.

Is this experience indicative of what I can expect with an Amazon TV device? (I suspect so.)</comment>


Ask HN: What milestone did you achieve this month? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Not really a milestone, but I've been able to somewhat relatively stick to programming a side project. After many ideas, and much anger. I've started working on a little project. Somehow it came together. Using react and python, and it's a cryptocurrency app. This is big because it's the first time where I don't feel the stress, anxiety, or rush. It's just doing it for the sake of doing it. There is potential, but I seem to be going with the flow and it feels good.

<comment><USER3> Congrats! I've been working on a personal project now for a couple months that I originally conceived 2 years ago. It is still difficult to stick with but it is getting easier the more progress I make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ran my first marathon! 10 weeks training, 0 injuries, had a fun Sunday morning jaunt around San Francisco.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds great. An inspiration for some who spend most of the time on devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure if this would qualify, but last weekend started teaching swimming for my 2year old. He enjoyed it the most and learnt to move in water (with float) albeit short distance on his own. I learnt swimming when I was 23 and even now freak out when I'm in water. Proud moment for me as his teacher.

</comment><comment><USER6> Contributed to Anarki.

Nothing _great_ mind you, not even good, but it's my first practical experience working with a Lisp.

[0][https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki](https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki)

</comment><comment><USER7> My first profressional development project went to production.

<comment><USER8> tell us more please

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Security+ Just passed a few hours ago.

</comment><comment><USER10> Became a senior developer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Congratulations on that. Hope to see you progressing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I made it one month closer to death and survived another month without dying.

<comment><AUTHOR> You sound so low about it. It's all about the journey that matters and not the end.</comment></comment>


Jobs: Pikup.ai building new age autonomous stores - <AUTHOR> At pikup.ai, we are building the new age autonomous store, using Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision and Sensor Fusion. We believe that after vending machines, malls, e-commerce, this will be the biggest disruption in the world of retail. We are a team of world class tech and business hackers with renowned and significant accomplishments who are looking for like minded people to join us to help create the future.
We are looking for 1. Director/VP AI: Experienced in latest state of the art deep learning algorithms, have done multiple full cycles of AI products (from prototype to production), responsible for owning and leading all AI efforts. 2. Principal AI / Computer Vision Scientist: Experienced in training and creating vision based deep networks and expertise in classical computer vision. 3. AI / Computer Vision Engineer: Experienced in implementing deep networks, classical computer vision, optimising models on Tensorflow and multi GPUs. 4. Full stack Head of Engineering/VP: Experienced in Low latency realtime systems, Big data, Scalable systems, Fault tolerant systems, IOT, and managing a team of determined and passionate hackers. 5. Full stack Tech Lead Software Engineer: Experienced in Low latency realtime systems, BigData stream processing, Fault tolerant systems, IOT, Android, iOS
Founders include hackers and entrepreneur running a successful Unicorn with background of working at Yahoo, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle and winning TechCrunch Disrupt twice in 2013/2015. Reach-out - email@example.com <comment><USER2> Sounds like a job for existing facial recognition capabilities paired with additional security on a inventory supply management infrastructure. Aside from the computer vision, none of this is rocket science, and FR of the type you'll want can be acquired from companies like my employer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Where are you based out of?</comment>


Adobe acquires Nitobi (Founders of Phonegap) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.nitobi.com/andre/index.php/2011/10/03/nitobi-enters-into-acquisition-agreement-with-adobe/

<comment><USER2> The code has been submitted to the Apache Incubator:

[http://wiki.phonegap.com/w/page/46311152/apache-callback- pro...](http://wiki.phonegap.com/w/page/46311152/apache-callback-proposal)

</comment><comment><USER3> This makes the move to transfer PhoneGap itself to the Apache Foundation all the more reassuring.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know why people are so surprised with this acquisition. Adobe has wanted a piece of the mobile development world for some time (look at the export to iOS they released not too long ago). They already have a decent suite of development tools and this will only make them stronger. A write once, deploy to all strategy is quite appealing, and if Adobe can manage to wrap it all up in to a nice piece of development software, they'd have a real winner on their hands.

<comment><USER5> The thing is, Adobe has a history of not releasing anything remotely like 'nice development software'.

Even their installers and update processes are universally horrible.

Out of this, I expect some sort of massive IDE targeting mobile devices with HTML5/JS, basically like Titanium only an order of magnitude slower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure why everyone is surprised. Adobe has just come out with a slew of new HTML5 products (Muse, Edge) and they already have Dreamweaver which is typically used for HTML editing.

Adobe doesn't have a strong future with Flash but they still need to support their existing Flash/Flex customers. They can't simply shutdown Flash.

<comment><USER7> Flash may well die for its current uses, but I think Flash 11+ will be the best cross-browser solution for GPU-accelerated 3D graphics for a while (unless IE adopts WebGL, which I don't think will happen, but I hope I'm wrong).

Unity, one of the most popular game development tools, will soon release a "publish to Flash" option. (Unity can already publish to Windows, Mac OS X, Unity Web Player, iOS, Android, Wii, and soon PS3 & Xbox.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> PhoneGap and Typekit in one day? Two services I love. I see the TypeKit purchase but not exactly this. Because it's well out of what Adobe does, I envision them turning it into some kind of full premium application which would really deter me from using PhoneGap.

PhoneGap did recently launch Build a simpler solution for this and they may keep the old PhoneGap but develop build in a new way but as Adobe were never fans of HTML5 I don't see how this could have a great outcome.

<comment><USER9> Rather than assume Adobe will veer PhoneGap away from HTML5 interoperability, I take this as a sign that Adobe is instead veering toward PhoneGap and HTML5.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow- Adobe really are going on a buying streak these days.

I can see the reason for the TypeKit purchase, but never expected this one. I'm a little concerned, but Adobe have been good on their promise to push HTML5 so far, so I hope that this simply means that PhoneGap has a ton more resources at it's disposal, and not that it'll get forced down some Adobe- centric route.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Adobe isn't a Flash-only company, but they _are_ invested in cross-platform when it comes to mobile devices. Will be interesting to see what happens.

<comment><USER11> They had integrated PhoneGap with Dreamweaver 5.5 --- not totally shocking, and makes sense to move more towards html5

<comment><USER12> Wow, they still make Dreamweaver! I remember trying to make websites in it when I first discovered the internet. Good old days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd be interested to know why Adobe opted to buy the company (Nitobi) rather than the product (Phonegap). Was it already Apache licensed which tied Adobe's hands to lock it down? Or was it more of a talent acquisition?

<comment><AUTHOR> I also wonder whether Adobe has acquired Nitbobi more for phonegap build and talent than phonegap itself

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> HN traffic seems to have crashed the site - getting a DB error page.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is the source code for the Phonegap Build API open?

</comment><comment><USER16> Damn, I thought Phonegap was going to be good.

<comment><USER17> It is pretty good already. And since it's open source, there's nothing to stop a community fork if Adobe screws up the stewardship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> NOOOOOOOOOOO..... (as if thousands of linux and webos users suddenly cried for help)</comment>


Show HN: Domain availability and price checker for Android - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.domcomp.main&hl=en

<comment><AUTHOR> This started as side-project to learn Android. The app ended up being quite polished and so I might as well share with the world. Some of you guys might find it useful.

I currently use it to quickly check whether a domain is taken, when a good name pops into my head. The app also displays full price and coupon details as well.

The backend is based on my main project, domcomp.com, which more or less does the same thing. However, I think now that the native app does indeed provide a better experience (which is a whole separate interesting discussion).

For now, the app has a basic set of features. If you guys like it and start using it then I'd be happy to add more. Comments welcome!</comment>


Why Ruby is not my favorite language - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codeslower.com/2008/10/Why-Ruby-is-Not-My-Favorite-Language <comment><USER2> I had a great question in a job interview yesterday: "What do you like least about your least favorite programming language?". I picked Ruby as my least favorite, as there's not many languages out there that undermine themselves so totally (I may not want to program in basic, but it does what it says on the tin). Here's my answer:

      Matz's decision-making process
        He tries to make Ruby be all things to all people
          Lots of confusing sugar and overloading baked in
        I much prefer Guido's hard pragmatism

      The panoply of function types: Methods, Blocks, Procs, Lambdas
        All intertwined and yielding into one another.
        I love that in Python there is only one:
          Objects with a __call__ method, defined metacircularly.

      The culture of adding/overloading methods on base classes
        Many gems do this en masse, and there are a lot of low-quality gems
        Especially disastrous because it's unscoped, and infects the whole process
          For a language with four scoping sigils it sure screws up scope a lot

      The Matz Ruby Implementation
        The opposite of turtles-all-the-way-down (Smalltalk crushed beneath Perl)
        It punishes you for taking advantage of Ruby's strengths
        The standard library is written almost entirely in C
          It doesn't use Ruby message dispatch to call other C code.
          That means that if you overload a built-in, other built-ins won't use it
        Anything fiddly that's not written in C will be dog slow

<comment><USER3> _I had a great question in a job interview yesterday_

For what it's worth, this has recently become a 'standard' interview question for developers. I predict that people will start game it by having a canned response, thereby rendering it virtually useless---just like all other standard interview questions.

<comment><USER4> "For what it's worth, this has recently become a 'standard' interview question for developers."

I used to ask interviewees to discuss what they didn't like about their favorite language. If they had a hard time finding stuff to criticize, there was a good chance they didn't really know the language. or were not particularly critical developers.

<comment><USER3> Right, that's why it was _initially_ useful. Now that lots of people use the question, though, even mediocre developers will make sure to come to the interview with a list of criticisms of their favorite language.

<comment><USER4> "... even mediocre developers will make sure to come to the interview with a list of criticisms of their favorite language."

Which is fine if, when pressed, they can back up what they say. The question (like most good interview questions) is largely an excuse to help guide a conversation and some exploration to avoid canned responses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another (old?) rant about open classes aka "monkey patching". There's a lot of fear and hand wringing over open classes. It's certainly a language feature that can be abused, but it's also incredibly useful. There are things you can do to be safe:

Check for the existence of methods before adding them. Don't overwrite existing standard lib methods. If you do overwrite one, alias it, call the alias from your replacement which should _add_ something without noticeably changing the original behavior.

If you write unit tests, it shouldn't be too difficult to detect that a library you depend on has changed the behavior of a standard method in an unacceptable way. I've encountered collisions like this, maybe, a handful of times and each time finding and resolving the problem was not difficult.

I've been writing ruby software for several years now, and there are definitely libraries that annoy me ( _ahem_ activesupport), but the utility of having open classes has _far_ outweighed any of the negatives. Let's face it, in any programming ecology there are going to be some _awful_ libraries. Bad programmers don't need open classes to do damage.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's a fundamental problem of language design.

In Lisp, extending the built-in functions is trivial, so lots of people built Lisp up into the language to solve their problem in, and Ruby makes it easy to do the same. Rails is extends the language, and some people like it. Even the JSON gem does -- when you do "require 'json'", you give arrays the power to convert themselves to json strings. Ruby lets you convert arrays to Ruby- evallable strings, so it's natural to convert them to JSON-parseable strings.

So, do you do what Java does, in making the String class final? Languages only exist for people who speak them, so you need to gauge the social aspects whenever you choose a language. Perhaps Java means that your bozo coworker won't trample your toes. Perhaps Haskell means that you can import just as much as you want. That's ultimately your call.

There are lots of valid complaints about Ruby 1.8: the syntax can be baroque, the scoping rules have too many gotchas, they're (thinking of) taking out continuations in the next version, the VM is dog-slow. But 200 methods on an object is small fries in comparison.

</comment><comment><USER7> This argument is totally spurious. You can find terrible, brain-bending libraries in every language. Why is ruby a write-off because of ActiveRecord?

Seems like the implicit argument is that Root-Object modifications are unmaintainable. But the reality is that assertion really isn't backed up anywhere.

There are lots of valid complaints against Ruby. This is not one of them.

<comment><USER8> He said "Ruby is a great language," but not his favorite language. I don't consider that writing-off the language.

<comment><USER7> It just seems like he's claiming citing something and claiming it's a mess, but there's no real evidence that it is a problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So there's this Ruby tool called RDoc that will introspect your project and tell you all about what's inside. Problem solved?

Here, look at RDoc's features (from the RDoc website):

\--Generates structured HTML documentation from Ruby source. \--Authomatically extracts class, module, method, and attribute definitions. These can be annonated using inline comments. \--Analyzes method visibility. \--Handles aliasing. \--Uses non-intrusive and implicit markup in the comments. \--Readers of the original source needn't know that it is marked up at all.

Or to come at this from a slightly different angle, don't Ruby's introspection powers provide a release valve for the problems the author is talking about?

Anyway, this is just another occasion to state the old adage, "With great power comes great responsibility." You don't have to crapify your Ruby projects if you don't want to. If you need to enforce clarity at all times, I see no better alternative than Python (which I think makes it a better candidate for scientific or math-intensive projects, MRI slowness aside [although I am curious about the implications of genetic algorithms + Ruby introspection]).

I do speculate that if you take two programmers of equal skill levels and give one Python and the other Ruby, the Rubyist can gain a productivity advantage over the Pythonista via judicious use of Ruby hackery. But this comes at a cost: it does require more thoughtfulness before execution. Maybe you don't want to think that hard, and that's a totally legitimate and respectable position. In the end, which of the two languages you choose will probably have more to do with personal workflow preferences or project management ideologies.

In the case of Rails, yes, it hacks in a DSL and extends Ruby classes, but Rails relies heavily on conventions and things being put in designated areas. It's therefore hard to get lost in a Rails project unless you really have no respect for the conventions (in which case, it doesn't matter what language or framework you're using).

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how much of the monkey patching is really necessary? Recently I have looked at Rails again, and in prototype (Javascript) "function" is monkey patched to have a bind method, so you can write function.bind(object). In Mochikit you have a method bind(function, object). It is not even longer to type. Mochikit is not monkey patched - although admittedly "bind" is in the global scope. Mochikit can prevent the global scope optionally, though.

That is just one example, but I suppose it is more attitude than necessity that makes the difference here...

</comment><comment><USER11> So what's the alternative?

<comment><USER12> Well, the alternative could be more like Python.

Python supports both object methods and functions. Ruby only supports object methods. However, Ruby does allow you to define methods outside of an object - these become methods of the Object class. As such, any methods defined like functions become changes to all objects since they inherit from Object.

Python is also very explicit about its namespacing and imports. In Python, you should always be able to know where any name you're using is coming from. In the example from the article, 'to_yaml' is added by requiring rubygems. That isn't so apparent (in the way that 'gem' being added by requiring rubygems would be apparent). Names are reused all the time. Names sometimes aren't related to their package in an apparent way.

With Python, you have three options (one of which Python programmers will flog you for): from package import name, name2 import package from package import * -- should really only be used in an interactive python shell and not in programs

In the first one, you could then call name(something) or name2(something). BUT you can see exactly where those names are coming from -- package. Unlike to_yaml which could come from wherever, it's explicit that it comes from 'package'. In the second one, you can do package.name(something) and the like. Similarly, you can see that it comes from 'package'.

Ruby is really flexible, but I would argue that the author is correct in assessing that the ability to modify all objects implicitly is a bad thing.

<comment><USER13> Also, information hiding is rumored to be important in real software. Ruby gives you the ability to nominally "hide" data, but it's trivially easy for any later programmer to violate the encapsulation. It's DHINO programming -- Data Hiding In Name Only.

Not only isn't this considered a bad idea in the Ruby world, but it's actually a _common_ technique. Use a third-party library, and you may well be re- writing core parts of the language. Sound good? _You can't prevent it._

I like parts of Ruby; it's a fun language. But the author is right -- it's not a language for large projects, or projects with more than a few programmers. My alternative to Ruby would allow the fast-and-loose stuff that makes Ruby fun, but also give you a way to make classes immutable and guarantee data- hiding and encapsulation when you need to do real software engineering.

<comment><USER14> I don't like the "real software engineering is big heavy Java projects" thing (aka "bondage and discipline"). Plenty of "real software engineering" has been done to great effect with dynamic languages.

Here's a random idea: rather than strict locks, perhaps transparency would be a good approach. Load up a third party library, and you get informed that it's fiddling with things, and can then find out what. Maybe it really does need to fiddle with things. Or maybe in a given situation, fiddling with things is the most efficient way of accomplishing something.

<comment><USER13> _"rather than strict locks, perhaps transparency would be a good approach"_

Transparency is a great, but you still need rules when you're working with any code that's bigger than what you can hold in your head at any given time. Doubly so when you're working with a team.

Programming in a team is hard in the same way that taking care of a room full of toddlers is hard -- obviously, you want everything out in the open, but you also want to hide the sharp objects, put caps over things that can shock, and otherwise make the big, transparent room as soft and bouncy as possible. You need locks on the cabinets full of poisonous chemicals. Obviously, the locks _need_ to be open-able, but only in special situations, and certainly not by nosy toddlers.

(Before you criticize me for being paternalistic, realize that I include _myself_ in the "toddler" category. I much prefer code that's written in a defensive style, because it's easier for me to maintain later on -- and that's where any programmer spends the majority of his time. I've developed this attitude because I know that I'm _stupid_ , not because I'm arrogant.)

<comment><USER15> While I agree that writing code defensively is the way to go when a team is involved and/or you plan to have to maintain the code for years, I don't think it's the language's job to take away all the 'sharp objects'.

Programmers should be smart enough to know what is sharp and how to avoid it when needed, and they should collaborate enough that no one can sneak through sloppy code.

I'd rather have the ability to do certain things and rarely use it than not have the ability at all. If other programmers are constantly doing really dumb things, don't use their code in your projects.

<comment><USER13> Even in strict languages, there's rarely anything that _absolutely prevents_ you from doing what you need to do; they just make it harder to do bad things accidentally. Languages like Ruby actually make it harder to do things _correctly_ , and constantly tempt you with hideous shortcuts.

Again, I view programming teams as groups of nosy toddlers. Thus, any sentence beginning with "programmers _should_ be..." is wrong by definition. Programmers are people, and people make mistakes. People also get lazy, try to take shortcuts, and therefore make even more mistakes. The way that people minimize mistakes is by setting up systems that make it harder to do wrong things. This is a fundamental tenet of engineering.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Advertise with HTML5Sites - <AUTHOR> https://html5sit.es/advertise/

<comment><AUTHOR> Advertise with HTML5Sites for only 250$ per month!</comment>


Introducing Initialized Capital - <AUTHOR> http://initialized.com/ <comment><USER3> Hi HN! Happy to answer questions here, which is funny because this is where it all really started for me back in 2007 when I was first thinking of starting my first company. I started as an HN reader working at a friend's startup, applied to YC and got in, became a YC partner, and then an early stage investor.

We're engineers and designers and product folks, and most investors aren't still (which is crazy, right?) so we figure if we can do what we're doing while being the investors we wanted when we were founders, that's about as good as it gets.

<comment><USER4> I just read your team page and you feature Palantir somewhat prominently/proudly (you and Alina). If I feel uncomfortable with mass government surveillance, should I simply not apply for any sort of funding from your fund? I see no ethics sub page, could you outline your basic ethics code (what sort of companies won't you invest in, will you invest in competing companies etc.)

This is a serious question, I hope it gets read and answered and not down voted into oblivion.

<comment><USER3> You're mistaking Palantir for the NSA. Palantir has rock solid access logs and access control that actually prevent the government from breaking with due process without court orders.

Personally I'm anti-surveillance and have been for a long time, particularly the kind of stuff Snowden and others have exposed where there are warrantless wiretaps and long term storage of private citizen information. I've blogged about it many times on my blog. Palantir didn't have anything to do with that and to my knowledge never has.

Initialized doesn't invest in alcohol, tobacco and firearms as a rule because of a mandate from some of our limited partners. Just rationally we believe in funding things that do help people. We generally stay away from investing in directly competing companies and when that does come up (usually through one company pivoting) we make sure that a single partner is assigned to each and those partners are particularly careful to firewall sensitive information. It's similar to what YC and SV Angel have done for years and it works well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For full transparency: I was Garry's Chief of Staff for 2 years before joining YC.

Garry and Alexis are the most founder friendly investors I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Late nights and early mornings in every time zone were normal for them. When I managed Garry's schedule, he held 3-5 hour blocks every single day to talk to founders. Then, in addition, we'd squeeze in as many calls and meetings the schedule would allow to speak with founders who reached out cold asking for general advice. A nightmare logistically sometimes, but a true testament to just how much they care about helping others.

When stereotypes of fund investors are that they are sluggish to make investments, quick and impatient when it comes to vetting teams and products, it is refreshing to see that Garry and co consistently break that view with their founder-first approach.

It might be an understatement for me to say that I'd recommend Initialized to any founder!

</comment><comment><USER6> We met Garry, Alina, and Alexis at YC16 investor day. After talking for twenty minutes, they said "we're going to go talk about you behind your back, then give you an answer."

They made a decision in 2 minutes.

That's what it's like working with other founders. There's no bullshit. They proactively ask how they can be helpful, are empathetic and understanding when we go through tough times, and push us in a great way.

I'm pretty critical of a lot of Silicon Valley, but we are big fans of Initialized.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've known Garry since 2010. Even though he didn't know us at the time - <USER2> met up with us to help us hone our YC pitch. He later became our adviser. Awhile after, when I showed him our growth numbers, he offered to invest, which then triggered a round. He didn't need to follow anyone else to decide. When we had an announcement, Alexis helped get us press. There are tons of helpful moments like this.

When I talk to other founders, I keep hearing how helpful they are. This is one of the most talented and genuine groups of people in the valley.

Congrats on the raise!

</comment><comment><USER8> I met Garry in 2014 during YC. After our first office hours with him, I knew Garry would be a valuable go-to. He's a legit advisor because he can dig in at any level with you - founder stuff, company, go to market, users, working with big companies, design/code, hiring, raising money, prioritization, etc, etc. Part of that comes from being a YC partner and seeing that large sample size of startup problems. But he has also built inspiring products, led teams at large companies, is a brilliant developer and designer, and flat out an all around great guy.

So for me, this announcement is bittersweet. Initialized will be great for so many early stage founders, but now I don't have a simple way to book office hours with Garry. Well actually, I bet if I shoot him a message, he'd still be glad to help anytime.

<comment><USER3> Thank you so much Paul! Yes, you know where to find me. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> hey - this is apoorva from instacart s12. we'd not have been in YC had it not been for Garry Tan! full story here: [https://techcrunch.com/2012/08/18/how- instacart-hacked-yc/](https://techcrunch.com/2012/08/18/how-instacart-hacked- yc/)

really happy to see this happen. i think this will be great for the community.

</comment><comment><USER10> Congratulations Garry!

A few questions.

1\. An obvious question is: Why start out on your own rather than via YC as you've done for a while and seems to have succeeded for you.

2\. Would you actively seek investments from outside the United States? As you may well know, emerging markets are gaining a load of attention. In 3 months Nigeria would have hosted Zuckerberg, YCombinator and 500 Startups. (You're always welcome :D)

3\. What's the investment thesis of Initialized. Didn't see an Investment Thesis on the website.

Congratulations and all the best!

PS: Not sure if you remember me but you were in the panel that interviewed me for YC in Summer 2014

<comment><USER3> YC is awesome and I remain a super big supporter. I owe half my career and most of my friends to what an awesome family YC has become. What I realized was just that I could help companies the most in that 9 to 18 months you have after YC is done. I have a pet theory that in the next ten years, you're going to see the YC alumni turn into the most powerful set of investors in tech, and that'll be a good thing because we have a pretty strong shared culture around being good to founders and helping, and frankly doing no evil, which seems like it should be a basic thing for early stage investors but really isn't.

We have no specific mandate for US-only, and we think startups are absolutely happening everywhere and we want to help them.

An investment thesis at the early stage is really hard to do because we don't know what people are going to start when they're just a few people starting out. E.g. it would have been impossible to write an investment thesis that would include Coinbase early on because nobody was thinking about cryptocurrencies.

Thanks so much for your questions Oo!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Story time folks! I have known Garry and Alexis for many years now. They lead our seed round and we invited Alexis to be on our board for a brief period of time.

So, when we were raising Series A, the negotiations with some new investors were getting a little tenuous. I knew and appreciated that investors are professional negotiators and do this for a living. I on the other hand was a first time CEO. So, for some time during the process, I was feeling a tremendous amount of pressure.

So, one morning I come in to the office feeling sick and questing my ability to withstand the kind of pressure a growing company's CEO has to endure. First thing I see is this short email from Alexis "How's it going? How can we help?". I had talked to Alexis and Garry a few months before about raising a Series A but I was sure that famous people in the valley with full-time jobs had more important things to do than check in on a small, pre-series A company with 10 employees.

I welled up. It was the first time in months that I had felt like someone had my back. In the end we were able to raise a successful A followed by a successful B as well but I still go back and read that 2 sentence email from time to time.

Garry and Alexis are not only awesome investors but wonderful human beings.

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats Garry -- I just wanted to chime in with others to say that Garry was an incredible investor in our seed round -- always helpful, and has been very loyal in good times and bad. If you can work with him I highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is there a reason why the startup list is a giant image rather than a table of links? It'd be nice to hit each startup's landing page as I'm browsing your list of clients.

Not that big of a deal, though. Interesting VC being product people instead of finance people :)

<comment><USER3> Working on it. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I met Garry while he was a part-time YC partner during S11. Office hours with him were always helpful and productive. He gave thoughtful product feedback, facilitated countless fruitful introductions, and helped us navigate fundraising and an acquisition. He's laid back, easy to talk to, and doesn't bullshit or play games. After YC Initialized invested a small amount in us and he continued to be one of the most value-add investors we had. I can't stress enough how much value these guys bring to the table. I'd be honored to work with them again.

</comment><comment><USER15> Garry was one of the first investors in Coinbase and acted as my CEO coach for the first ~6 months of the business, during a very stressful time. He was incredibly helpful to us early on! Would recommend them as a firm.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is fantastic news for entrepreneurs everywhere.

Garry has been instrumental to the success of my company from the earliest days when we were back in YC W11 through to the present day - I'm so excited for all the new founders who will get an opportunity to work with him as a result of this new fund. Garry is not only an extremely kind person, extremely smart,but also completely understands what it means to have ups and downs as a startup since he's been there and helped hundreds of other companies through those ups and downs. So when you need someone in your corner he's there every step of the way. If you're an early stage founder I couldn't recommend Initialized and Garry more highly - super excited for what Garry and team are going to build.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you haven't met Garry, Alexis or the rest of the team, by now you will have read that they have all worked very hard to earn all this good will that's reflected in the comments. And if you're wondering how you can be like them one day, it's really very simple - pay it forward and be kind. Obviously, it helps if you're also incredibly smart and experienced, but the first two items alone will get you very far.

I first met Alexis in 2011 in Austin, and to this day my wife and I often reference the many different nuggets of wisdom he shared with us. A couple of years later, I met Garry at YC, and his support far exceeded the typical business stuff - we were having a hard time at one point, and his help made all the difference.

What I appreciate the most about people like this group is that they are setting a high bar for everyone who's trying to be a value-adding investor - and people are also stepping up to the plate. The amount of help that my current startup has received from people with no skin in the game is truly remarkable, and people like Garry are the real reason why building a startup in the Valley is easier than anywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER18> Just wanted to echo the sentiments about having an investor/friend who sticks with you through the thick/thin. I think some investors are all about downside protection and it usually manifests in legal instruments that benefit the investor if anything goes wrong, but more importantly, you can tell by the way you're treated. It's rare that investors don't have the "game" change them. They start to focus on their returns, care only about a few number of winners (when in fact, writing the check is just the beginning to making sure you have an active winning investment). Lots of these investors completely forget why they are VCs in the first place.

When Esper was changing from an AI assistant company to a calendar analytics company, we went through one of these moments. Some investors were immature frantically trying to find an edge, while some others did everything in their power to help us transition. When things get tough, you realize who has grit.

I remember thinking that Garry was uncannily nice with us during this trying time (to be fair, I've known him since we were both founders and consider him one of my best friends in the bay area). He was always solutions oriented, introducing us to people, thinking through problems and just giving more of his and the Initialized team's time than probably we warranted. The reason why he was that way was because he cares about you (the founders and the team) to tackle a problem you care about. He would always say that when he started investing - "I'm just afraid of being a straight vampire" i.e. an investor who is just leeching off a growing beast.

In a weird way, he's the type of investor, similar to how PG describes great companies - they're kind of like non-profits. They just want to solve problems and it'll work out. That's probably the reason why he's done so well.

Anyway, respect him because he sure as hell respects you.

</comment><comment><USER19> This comments section feels like an Amazon review page of a product that launched a month ago with 1000 5 star "received product with discount here is my unbiased opinion" reviews.

<comment><USER20> It's because Garry really cares about (a) other people and (b) what he does. That kind of thing produces this sort of comment section.

The effect is amplified because many of the people Garry has helped are part of this community. That includes me personally, not to mention various things he's done for HN itself over the years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Congrats Garry, Alexis and team. Just to add another anecdote: We are backed by Initialized coming out of YC S16 batch. Incredibly awesome to work with such founder friendly investors. I'm sure the perspective that Garry/Alexis gained by going through YC themselves gives them this sort of empathy towards other founders.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just a quick note to say congrats to Garry and Alexis. Garry helped us out a ton at 7 cups. He said a startup is like a magnet. The more users you attract, the more powerful your magnet becomes. Alexis has also always been very encouraging and helpful in figuring out things that are not obvious. I highly recommend Initialized!

<comment><USER23> > He said a startup is like a magnet. The more users you attract, the more > powerful your magnet becomes.

It doesn't matter what I swap out for 'users' in this analogy, I can't make it make sense. It sounds impressive though.

<comment><USER24> network effects. If you are a marketplace or service you need both sides ramping up fast- the more users you get the more valuable it becomes and easier to attract more and so on.

<comment><USER23> ...and this is like a magnet.... how?

<comment><USER25> Might be something like adding an iron core to your magnet? Not sure, the analogy is sketchy at best.

<comment><USER3> One talk I like to give at college campuses is such: A startup is like the obscure 1990's Playstation game Katamari Damacy. You start off with a small magic ball about the size of a pencil eraser. You can pick up anything smaller than you, but if you try to pick up something too big, you bounce off and get smaller. You start picking up paperclips and chess pieces, and then by the end of the game (spoiler alert) you end up picking up skyscrapers and continents and such.

It's like that. You start with bringing your cofounders together. Then you add your first customers. Then maybe you raise a little bit of friends and family money, and that lets you put more money into customer acquisition, which gets you more cofounders, which lets you get more revenue to hire a few more people, and raise more money, and so on.

So startups are like katamari damacy, and if you win, you end up picking up an entire industry.

<comment><USER26> Upvoting this because of the Katamari Damacy shout out!

Unrelated, but did you ever play Nobi Nobi Boy from the same creator?

<comment><USER3> Yes, a long time ago — I forgot what it was called but thanks for the reminder! My 15 mo old at home will love it!

<comment><USER26> Hahah! Yes he will. Happy to help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Congrats to Garry and the Team. Garry was one of our partners during YC W15 - he was incredibly insightful on product and design, generous with his time, and just plain nice throughout.

<comment><USER3> Thank you so much Dan! Really appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sanjay here from Boosted S12. Garry and Alexis and team were one of our first investors and have been some of the best people we've worked with. I am so excited for them and for all the new founders who will get to work with them.

</comment><comment><USER29> Our company was part of YC S12, which was a huge batch before YC sharded itself into clusters. During that summer, Garry was one of few partners we actively sought out for advice. He was always extremely helpful, especially with product and UI suggestions.

Initialized was one of our earliest post-YC investors and we've been incredibly happy with their support for us during the many years since YC. We're happy to have them onboard and still talk with the partners quite frequently relative to many of our other investors. I'm excited to see what these guys will accomplish with their new fund!

</comment><comment><USER30> Has one of the GPs directly invested in each of the startups listed on the "About Us" page or are some of those startups listed because of an advisory relationship or indirect investment (e.g. carried interest)?

<comment><USER3> We've invested in all of them, almost all of them in the earliest possible seed stage. (Small nit: Carried interest doesn't have anything to do with advisory shares.)

<comment><USER30> The sentence was a bit ambiguous. I should have written "or _other_ indirect investment, like carried interest" to be clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Did you guys recycle a domain name? Blocked due to security concerns. You may need to work with the big vendors to get yourselves off the naughty list for actions taken by prior domain owners.

<comment><USER3> We finally got the initialized.com domain this year. What are you seeing? Let us know and we'll take care of it. Thanks for the note.

<comment><USER31> I wish I could be more helpful but I'm not aware of what vendor supplies my work proxy / site access rules: it's not part of the error message. I asked if the domain was parked for a while because it's flagged as potentially a placeholder domain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It has been great to work with Initialized so far. When we had bad times, other investors acted poorly, they supported us. When we were going through a pivot, Garry gave us weekly office hours during a very busy time in his life. This allowed us to keep pace like we were still in YC even though it was 3 years after still under the same company and it set us up properly for the crazy growth we had for the next year. I would highly recommend them to anyone who has a chance to work with them.

</comment><comment><USER33> Garry, Alexis, and Initialized have been extremely helpful and hard-working investors in my company for ~5 years. I love that they're founders themselves, which means they know what it takes and they work really hard to help their portfolio companies. These are the investors you want on your side, particularly when you run into road bumps. I highly recommend them as investors, and I'm happy to answer any questions (my email is in my profile).

<comment><USER34> They sound like amazing guys to work with. I'm sending you an email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I feel very lucky to have had an opportunity to work with Garry and Initialized. They are incredibly helpful investors and I expect big things to come from the new fund.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is fantastic news for founders. Survata (S12) was pumped to have Initialized in our Series A last year. Garry worked the closest with us of all YC partners, and Alexis had already been a customer! They make valuable customer intros, always offer time to help, and have such a pro-founder view of the world.

</comment><comment><USER37> Hi Garry, and congrats on your new firm.

the age old question comes to mind; how do you value startups with a prototype with little traction. assuming the target market is the size of markets for airbnb,facebook,dropbox, etc.

do you guys follow YC with a fixed rate, (7% for 120K) like 10% for 1M; do you have a min and max for equity and valuation?

Thanks,

<comment><USER3> At the early stage this is always classically difficult. For both founders and early stage investors, you're balancing dilution vs. percentage ownership.

We think buying 5% of the company is the right level for a given seed fund. It's enough to be significant to return the fund, but not so much that you're crowding everyone else who you would want in the round. It takes a village to build a great startup and we particularly like to help founders put together a good syndicate of angels and seed funds, all of whom can help with advice, connections, customers, employees and just general support.

It's basically binary whether a company gets to metrics that help it either be profitable or get to a Series A— so that's why at the early stage (all the way to Series A really) most VCs work backwards from percentage ownership. So we write checks of as small as $300K for earlier companies at lower valuation, up to $1M or more for companies later stage.

It's enough to either get to the next milestone, or put together a good round. All of the real work happens after the raise, and it's usually a huge relief to founders to be able to get back to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Garry and the Initialized crew are simply the best!

You can really judge investors by how helpful they are during adversity. Through ups and downs, but especially the downs, Garry and Initialized have been the absolute best!

If you're a founder and you have an opportunity to team up with them, do it without hesitation!

</comment><comment><USER39> Initialized is venture capital without the attitude. Garry has been an incredible advisor to us ever since our first YC interview (he and Alexis were both there actually). Could not imagine a more down to earth, insightful and energetic group. Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER40> Garry - way to go!! Raising a fund of 100M+ while being so founder friendly is not easy. Of course building a stellar team helps. Nicely done!

I read your farewell letter when you left YC - you hit the nail on head by saying you haven't decided what to do because that would obviate the "founder's perspective". Founders who are going to a known from a known will never know the unknowns faced by a startup.

Everybody I've talked to has raves to say about you. We're solving the problem of paper Checks. People and Businesses are still writing paper Checks. Contrary to popular opinion, Checks moved 5X the money as VISA and MC combined in 2014. We're already seed funded but would love to talk more.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the note. I'm happy to talk more — email@example.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Congratulations to Garry, Alexis, Alina, and team! Such an awesome group---and an immense pleasure to work with. You won't find a more beloved group of partners in the entire Valley. So excited to be sharing in this journey together!

</comment><comment><USER42> Seeing that minority black founders/teams only represent on average 3% of YC batches and you're current portfolio represents almost 2/3 YC, how would you suggest a founder who just so happens to be black navigate success or an opportunity with Initialized?

Also, if warm intros are the most effective lead source for deals but most of the YC network is non-black how does that at all address the huge diversity issue thats happening in Silicon Valley that everyone swears they are attempting to fix.

Does Initialized remotely care about this? If so, what are the numbers you can show to prove it?

<comment><USER3> We absolutely do. Kim-Mai Cutler has been great here making sure that we invite a diverse set of folks to our happy hours and events. We don't track ethnicity in our portfolio but do have many Latino, Latina and African- American founders. We are gonna do more here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This site needs to be recategorized [https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/initialized.com](https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/initialized.com)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for this. Working on a fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I don't know these guys. I just want to say kudos for launching a VC fund the way they did:

-Announced in public and on VC website.

-Who you are

-What you look for

-What you offer ($ size _and_ intangibles from partners)

-What track record/prior vintages look like

-How to reach you

Too many VC funds are too opaque or they ask founders to go hunt down a random mutual connection, bother that 3rd person and then circle back to get introduced to the VC.

I like Initialized approach here and wish you a lot of success.

P.S. If nitpicking the website isn't exactly the most impressive looking. Doesn't bother me one bit. KISS. Hope founders look past that too.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is great news for future startup founders! Having worked with Garry personally I can absolutely attest he is top notch. (disclaimer / cred: our startup is a part of the Initialized portfolio)

</comment><comment><USER46> Garry and Alexis have been a huge help in getting Priime started, and have consistently given us solid feedback along the way. I can't say enough how excited I am to see them launch. Congrats guys!

</comment><comment><USER47> Garry is bar none one of the best investors I've ever had the privilege to have worked with. Garry is down to earth and a great advisor. Highly recommend working with Garry to any entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER48> I still remember the time we came to office hours with Garry to get some advice on how to approach designing a new product, and in 15 minutes he sketched out an entire design -- which we used.

</comment><comment><USER49> Congrats, Garry! It's a rare treat to get to work with people as smart, savvy, helpful, and kind as you and your team. I'm glad more founders will have the chance w this new fund.

</comment><comment><USER50> Garry saved my company … twice. There is nobody like this team.

</comment><comment><USER51> Super stoked to see this announcement, I know Garry has been cranking on the new fund.

Canadian founders, Garry+Alexis are super canuck friendly, some of the best investors we have :)

</comment><comment><USER52> Congratulations Garry, Alina and Alexis! We feel incredibly lucky to be backed by them. Super founder friendly, tremendously helpful and always have your back!

</comment><comment><USER53> Garry and Alexis were early believers in Cleanly and have been incredible seed investors. Highly recommend them if you can get them on your side.

</comment><comment><USER54> Could not recommend an investor more strongly. Incredible how they've progressed since we met them with their Initialized hats on in 2012.

</comment><comment><USER55> Few investors I've met feel like they're completely on your side. Garry and Alexis are two of few, and there is absolutely zero doubt.

</comment><comment><USER56> Garry and Initialized have been amazing to work with. So happy for you and can't wait to see what awesome companies you invest in next...

</comment><comment><USER57> Another upvote for Garry and Alexis from a YC alum! Garry was such an empathetic, helpful person throughout our startup journey.

</comment><comment><USER58> Can't recommend Garry and the team highly enough. They've been incredibly helpful and we owe a lot to them!

</comment><comment><USER59> Garry & Alexis are two of my favorite investors. They came on early in our startup and did everything you would want from a good investor. Besides being 2 of the nicest people on earth they're smart, connected, and will do everything they can to help. Love these guys.

</comment><comment> yc-kraln I'm curious to know if there is a specific market you are focusing on (in terms of target market, such as IoT, Security as well as regionally).

How would someone make the determination that you are the right firm to pitch to? How would they bend your ear? What's the best way to get your attention? I'm missing a lot of this from your site.

<comment><USER3> We built software companies, so that tends to be what we know the best.

I think the question of sector is really hard for this stage of investment because early on I learned that the best companies to invest in aren't the ones who are hitting some specific buzzword like IoT, etc. Great startups don't work that way — they start with founders going after some specific problem and then later they become trends.

So that's why we think of meeting founders as just "doing the work." We have no choice but to talk to as many people as we can, and then meet them in person when it's useful, novel, or real. Please email me directly — email@example.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Garry, this is a big fund. What can you do for founders with a large fund that you can't do with a small one?

<comment><USER3> There are lots of small seed funds now! And many of them are new. This way we can lead seed rounds and so when a founder gets our money, they know they'll be done soon (lots of smaller investors will follow on quickly) and will be able to get back to work faster.

Fundraising is always the worst, so anything that helps founders get done faster is the right thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Garry is an amazing investor and a great advisor! Wishing these guys the best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER61> Garry is an amazing investor and advisor! Wish these guys the best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER62> Hey Init! Congrats on the launch.

Curious, have you funded any startups under Init? If I had to guess, "Our Startups" are startups you (Garry / Alexis /et al) personally invested in.

<comment><USER63> I noticed that and felt it was a bit disingenuous; it's not as though Instacart (for example) interacted with or benefited from Initialized Capital in its early stages, and the relationships between Instacart and the Init team members who once invested in them are not necessarily good proxies for the type of service Init will provide new startups.

<comment><USER3> That's not actually true, we invested in their seed round directly from Initialized Capital. Apoorva's in the thread above with a testimonial. :-)

<comment><USER63> I stand, corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> What percent of company do you expect in return. YC has a pretty deterministic formula. Do you have a similar formula? Or do you decide (or negotiate) on a case-by-case basis

<comment><USER3> It really varies based on the company, stage, market. Check size typically $500K to $1M. We typically try to be the biggest investor in someone's seed round, and when we invest, the founder knows their round will be closed soon and they can get back to work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I want to pen IT management office in Armenia can you answer me about startup amount

</comment><comment><USER66> Are you actively seeking startups or do you wait for them to come to you?

What would be your Ideal investment and are you investing in Food Tech startups?

</comment><comment><USER67> Garry was our group Partner in YC S'14 and I am lucky enough to know Alexis as well. Fantastic team that you want on your side.

</comment><comment><USER68> Congrats Garry!! Curious who else is on the investment team?

"We're founders who are engineers, designers, and product people. "

<comment><USER3> It's just me, Alexis and Alina. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Salute Garry and team.. congrats Q:how founders will get in touch with you? Via referral like the rest?

<comment><USER3> I'm at firstname.lastname@example.com!

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> garry and alexis are two of the best in the valley! a big congrats for all your hard work :)

</comment><comment><USER71> congrats Garry and team! Any entrepreneur is lucky to have your team in their corner.

</comment><comment><USER72> The news is out! Congrats guys!

</comment><comment><USER73> Congrats Gary! Will you be sharing your deal flow or syndicating any of your deals?

<comment><USER3> We're trying to figure this out now — we're friends with both FundersClub and AngelList folks and it's something we've been talking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Huge congrats Garry. Maybe we will find a way to work together in the future!

<comment><USER3> Dude yes. Congrats on the ongoing success!

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> very cool. i know you guys mention startups, and IMO thats a pretty generally encompassing term. would that include game development?

<comment><USER76> Probably not. They're looking for companies with upside potential in the billions of dollars and game development doesn't really do that.

Unless you're aiming to build the next Unity or game dev/hosting platform, it's unlikely you'll get a Silicon Valley VC to invest in gamedev.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> What are you looking for in your portfolio?

</comment><comment><USER78> Congrats Garry!

</comment><comment><USER79> any interest/aversion to hardware or hardware/software?

<comment><USER3> We've definitely funded hardware and hardware that's software-enabled. The economics and and execution required are very critical, so the bar just gets set higher, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> congrats guys! great partnering with you and look forward to seeing where you dig in with this fund

</comment><comment><USER81> Congrats guys!

</comment><comment><USER82> Dear Garry - is any VC really "founder friendly"? VCs expect founders to work for zero or minimal salary. Even a below-market salary is incredibly painful in any metro.

My question -- will VC-funded startups ever enter the realm of the non-wealthy and/or beyond bro's willing to bunk up in a studio apt?

<comment><USER83> Not true at all. The general opinion of investors in Silicon Valley is that is that after a seed round, founders should take a salary where they aren't worried about their bills but aren't getting rich.</comment></comment>


To MySQL gurus: how to get InnoDB to release space? - <AUTHOR>

A few times I've let an InnoDB table grow so much that it takes all available disk space. Then in a panic I will drop the table and re-create it (the data in it is not that important). However InnoDB will not release the actual space on the disk, rather it will just mark it as available and continue to use it for future data. Fast perhaps, but not that cool when you have less than 1MB free on your disk. Any way to tell it to REALLY release free space? <comment><USER2> RTFM

13.2.5. Adding, Removing, or Resizing InnoDB Data and Log Files

You may also find the discussion in <http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=1341> interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, wow need to recreate whole database.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you really DROP or TRUNCATE the table, or do you DELETE all rows? Doing the latter could be the problem as far as I know. You may also want to search for 'purge process' somewhere in mysql/innodb docs.

<comment><AUTHOR> DELETE would take I think like a day, so I do a DROP.</comment></comment>


Video: Cats Get Shot With Water By A Motion Sensing Hose - <AUTHOR> http://vidergy.com/2011/05/cats-get-shot-with-water-by-a-motion-sensing-hose/

<comment><USER3> obviously the technology development outpaces personal development of humans.

Left the mark - got water shot, attacked an ill elk - got lead shot (the fate of Montana wolves what Obama administration allowed to kill)

There are other ways to manage the situation, yet it is the human nature that it always choose the way of violence. Redneck shooting a wolf experiences the same pleasure as a geek shooting water into cat.

<comment><USER4> Oh please. The water wasn't strong enough to knock over the wind-up giraffe. There's no way the cats are getting hurt by this. It's set up to startle them, so that they stop peeing all over his car.

Notice that zero cats who are kept under control by their owners appeared in this video.

<comment><USER3> why the humans think they have rights to punish or keep under control? This planet isn't exclusive property of humans. Humans are only guests here, vicious, polluting, killing everything they could. Cats are much happier than they roam free. Don't like your car being pissed on? Get a garage, moron.

<comment><USER5> Note that the country that this was filmed in was Australia. Cats do a lot of damage to local wildlife. Wildlife that is unique to Australia. Keeping your pet cat under control in Australia and preventing them from roaming around is exactly the right thing to do.

<comment><USER3> what a bunch of rubbish.

>Cats do a lot of damage to local wildlife.

even if they were doing it, the damage by cats would be incomparably lesser than damage by humans that live in the same village, town, ranch, etc...

Actually, cats are protectors of the wildlife. Whenever cats are removed (it happened on more than one occasion that such idea got implemented by the stupid human race), the wildlife gets significantly damaged by rats, rabbits, etc... (the rats what humans bring with them as a little bonus as if all the other damage wasn't enough)

>Keeping your pet cat under control in Australia and preventing them from roaming around is exactly the right thing to do.

yep. Otherwise the pets would damage the wildlife which is happily roams around where people live. Are you kidding? Or just too lazy to think?

<comment><USER5> <http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/144/paper/WR98092.htm> <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Feral_cat>

Cats definitely kill native wildlife. There is no doubt that this happens.

You are correct that they may control other introduced species. But that is not an excuse to let introduced species run around uncontrolled. Also this is not a sure thing. If you are in Sydney, there are no rabbits running around suburbs and the rats do well to stay out of sight. Are you suggesting that the local cats will search out rabbits and rats instead of try and hunt the local birds (which I have seen cats do)?

All the introduced species need to be controlled, even if they can help with other introduced species.

<comment><USER3> >If you are in Sydney, there are no rabbits running around suburbs and the rats do well to stay out of sight. Are you suggesting that the local cats will search out rabbits and rats instead of try and hunt the local birds (which I have seen cats do)?

The rats are there. Humans can't without them. Cats, like all other predators go for the easy target first and do overwhelmingly hunt rats/mice ("small vertebrates" :), insects. And if a cat would catch an ill or stupid bird - <USER2> is a favor for the bird's species that some predator is required to perform, and due to the human presence the natural predators are unavailable. For example, about who is damaging the bird population - here in the Bay Area in the few small spots without development i regularly see Asian people gathering wild birds eggs. They just clean it up, taking it all. The local newspapers, of course, are from time to time actively discussing how cats are damaging the birds population. To try to "help" the birds, at one park here they even eliminated the ferals - and were surprised that [the morons should have read history of the other such cases before doing it], the immediately grown population of rats destroyed the rest of the eggs that humans hadn't, and the bird population was completely decimated.

For thousands of years free roaming cats protected humans from rats and everybody around humans from humans' rats. That is the evolutionary machinery that brought a cat to live with humans - the easy availability of a fat rat. And by the way, nutritional value wise the rats/mice are much better than birds. Have you seen "Living with Wolves" btw?

>All the introduced species need to be controlled

yep. The most damaging introduced species - humans - needs to be controlled for other species to have a chance for survival. Until that happens, the poor cats and wolves and the others will be scapegoated for human stupidity, greed, hypocrisy...

The article you linked forgot to mention that in natural steady conditions, without human intervention, the presence of foxes and cats never eliminates the "small mammals" population - instead due to natural predator/prey relationship (which exhibit well known cyclic patterns through the years - which includes described in the article cycle step of increasing prey population with decreasing predator population (which in turn leads to increased predator population, which in turn leads to decreased prey population which in turn leads to decreased predator and so on... ) the "small mammals" population is kept healthy and naturally evolves ... well, until human intervene</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Pentagon Is Declassifying Lots of Info About What's in Orbit - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/a25562991/pentagon-declassifying-space-traffic-data/ <comment><USER2> Lots, but as the article says not everything and they use the same model they did in GPS: information is dithered for assets which have orbital mobility and tactical importance like EMP busting comms in polar orbits.</comment>


Tech Breakthroughs That Could Make People Love the Bus - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/five-breakthroughs-that-could-make-you-love-the-bus/559832 <comment><USER2> Tech breakthroughs won't help. There's no replacement for an investment in infrastructure. Let me explain.

I used to live in Seattle, without a car, which meant taking the bus. I thought it worked pretty well until I moved out of downtown to just off the main drag in West Seattle (California Ave.) There, the bus still worked great! Until King County Metro decided to pull service. Suddenly, all-day, all-week service from the stop by my apartment turned into 5 rush-hour trips to downtown a day, weekdays only, peak direction only. Getting anywhere else suddenly required a 2 mile walk to Alaska Junction (or, unrealistically, a local bus transfer. The 2 mile walk was faster.)

I was naive and a fool (fortunately, didn't invest much and was able to move shortly thereafter.) People who invest in areas on the basis of bus service are fools. It's constantly being tinkered with for a host of regions (fluctuating budgets, political pressures, and the damnable need for people making careers to "do something.") You cannot trust a bus route.

Tunnels or tracks in the ground, and associated stations? Those don't move. (They do sometimes get abandoned in the worst cases of nonfeasance.) One can generally rely on continued service over a period of time suitable for investment. There's no substitute for sunk costs as a signal of commitment. It's the investments in density that come with a real transit network that make the difference, not "attracting ridership with fancy buses." See yet again, Seattle. (Sorry, RapidRide is a joke.)

You know what has historically driven ridership and attracted investment in Seattle? Areas around the trolley bus lines. Because, again, you know the route's not going away if the lines are up.

<comment><USER3> What did your local government say when you contacted them about this? That sounds extremely frustrating.

<comment><USER4> I'm guessing the OP is talking about the big service change in the Fall of 2012. In cases like that, the county council actually has to approve the changes. So they'd probably tell him too bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Of those, only "Seamless Payment" really seems relevant to most people. The rest is just stuff transit nuts like to think about. But being able to pay as a regular person without buying a pass or finding change or using a vending machine is big. Just walk on the vehicle unimpeded and pay using nothing but what you carry around with you (e.g. a smartphone).

And it inexplicably misses the single biggest and most obvious criterion: _SERVICE FREQUENCY_. No one cares about how slick the bus service is if you have to wait 10 minutes for it to show up. Because while 10 minutes might be OK for most people what that really means is that inevitably a vehicle gets skipped or breaks down (this happens a lot more than you think) and you have to wait 20 on a day when you really can't wait 20 minutes for a ride.

If you can't get the buses to show with no more than 10 minute wait at every stop on every day, people won't take them. If you can, they're better than cars. But you have to have the service level first before worrying about glitz like the stuff in the linked article.

<comment><USER6> From the article: ""If there's a 12-person little vehicle coming down the street every 5 minutes versus a 40-person vehicle coming every 20 minutes, then you've got more capacity in that corridor and and a much better experience for people,"

Total game changer.

<comment><USER7> > If there's a 12-person little vehicle coming down the street every 5 minutes

What about a 5 person little vehicle that only comes exactly when people call it?

And for even better service it works point to point, which cuts down of fuel and wasted time.

And to reduce costs even further maybe drive it yourself instead of paying a driver. Although we need to a cost analysis on this. It could be some people would prefer to pay a driver, and other would drive themself.

<comment><USER5> Because there's an external point that having a million "5-person" little vehicles driving around the city containing on average only 1.2 people is a tragedy of the commons. Personal cars _simply do not_ "cuts down of fuel and wasted time", and to argue that is to argue in bad faith. Personal cars are a disaster in the modern megapolis.

<comment><USER7> But a 12 person car is alright?

Where's the sweet spot between 40, 12, and 5?

<comment><USER5> A vehicle carrying 12 passengers literally increases the bandwidth of the road it travels on by an order of magnitude. Yeah, that sounds acceptable to me. If you have alternative numbers I'd be happy to evaluate them. But "drive my own car" is just not going to work in this realm.

<comment><USER7> It's not that simple. First of all they are never full.

Second the trips are longer, since they have to drive fixed routes, so people are in the vehicle for longer - sometimes MUCH longer, so more road capacity is taken up.

They way they stop and start constantly also reduces road bandwidth.

To me bus service is about money and parking - not being able to afford a car if you only rarely drive, and a place to put the car.

I am not convinced buses help with congestion. (Trains/subway/T are different because they have a whole new road built just for them.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In America, it's frustrating, but the breakthrough Americans need is some sort of separation between mass transit and poverty - that mass transit is something for all of us, not just the poor.

(I also argue that it needs to be faster than individual transit. Unfortunately, individual transit is something people won't accept being slower, even if mass transit could make the whole trip faster.)

<comment><USER9> Do NYC residents look at the subway as something only poor people use? Honest question, I don't live there. I don't consider "associating with the poors" to be an impediment at all.

What stops me from using mass transit (including bus and rail service) is that its schedule in my town is totally inadequate. Stops are not frequent enough, service starts too late in the morning and ends too early at night, and travel time to most destinations is slower than by car. Fix these major problems and I happily use transit.

<comment><USER10> > Do NYC residents look at the subway as something only poor people use?

No, but subway funding and management is controlled by the state, not the city -- and the majority of residents of the state do not use transit. I get the impression that a lot of people in the state still think of NYC as the crumbling inner city of the 70's: the place where poor people live.

The governor is more interested in optics ("Now you can charge your phone on the bus! We replaced the tiles in this subway station!") than restoring service, let alone expansion. He has diverted funds from the subways to, among other things, pretty light shows on bridges and supporting failing upstate ski resorts. With the subways failing, those who can afford to are taking cabs and black cars more and more, which contributes to the traffic congestion crisis.

The mayor gets driven everywhere in a black SUV and seems to have never learned that not only to most of his constituents not commute in personal vehicles, the majority don't even own cars.

Additionally, the city has a LOT of public buses. In some ways (frequency, coverage), bus service in the city is much better than most of the rest of the country. In other ways, it's unusably bad (mostly, time to get from A to B due to traffic, too-frequent stops, silly winding routes, slow payment/boarding, overcrowding, inufficiently frequent service outside rush hour, bus bunching decreasing apparent/useful service frequency).

The NIMBYs and traffic enforcers all seem to believe that bus riders are "not us" (and yes, outside of a few crosstown corridors, bus riders average poorer than subway riders). The result is obstacles to the creation of bus lanes and busways, and utter lack of enforcement of those we do have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I live in Scandinavia where public bus systems are plentiful, heavily subsized (with my taxes...) and reasonably on schedule.

The things that make me avoid them and instead use my car:

\- You get sick by using them. The passenger density is way too high and invariably you'll end end up having a seat neighbor with some cold or flu virus.

\- There is no privacy at all during rush time - it's super packed and just a horribly stressed environment. I don't want to sit squashed up to some random stranger.

The solution to all of this is obvious: Instead of 2+2 seat arrangements, look at business class seat configurations. Or just make the buses longer, and go with 1+1 seat configs.

<comment><USER12> 1st class train service is one answer for this problems. While 2nd class service remains jam packed during rush hour 1st class sections are always nice and quiet.

<comment><USER11> We are talking about buses there though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you think these things will make "Normal People Love the Bus" you don't have any understanding of why they hate the bus in the first place.

<comment><USER13> Care to elaborate? I love the bus and would like to think that I belong to the category "normal people".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> >"The thing that Uber and Lyft have done that is really revolutionary was just removing some of the transportation anxiety that exists from not knowing whether you're going to be able to get a ride, not knowing how long it's going to take for that ride to get there, not knowing exactly how much it's going to cost," he said. If bus operators could make all of this information as transparent as Uber and Lyft do, they'd win more riders.

I think up-to-the second awareness of time remaining would be a major improvement to the experience. I know the time remaining is uncertain, but a lot of information exists but is not making its way to the user.

Allow me to browse my phone while I wait, without paying attention at all, until I get a notification when the bus is 30s away.

If I'm wandering whether to go in the nearby bakery, allow me to see a "best guess" estimate and a "surely won't take less than this much" estimate for the remaining time.

For very infrequent routes, allow me to set my alarm clock to X minutes before the "surely won't take less than this much" estimate to the stop near my home, to be evaluated at runtime.

</comment><comment><USER15> This post reads like a Buzzfeed article of pointing out not quite impressive iterations of known technologies or fixes to "it ain't broke" situations.

Electric buses have been around for a while, they're called trolleys. Putting the batteries inside the buses is an improvement, but hardly a breakthrough, and I'm not entirely sure it would make me "Love the Bus"

Likewise, autonomous buses have been around for at least a couple decades in the form of driverless trains. For high-density routes with lots of passengers doing the same itinerary, I feel it's probably cheaper in the long run, more maintainable and safer to use rails, so I'm not sure an autonomous bus is an innovation we want over trains.

Seamless payment is not a tech breakthrough at this point, it's just a matter of getting regulators and government contractors to implement seamless payments.

"Accessibility" is not a tech breakthrough and the things mentioned in the article make me question the author's understanding of the state of assistive technology and the actual current needs of people with disabilities.

As for "Minibus or 'trackless train'", that's indeed a super interesting question that hasn't been solved in the space of transportation: given a very dense ad-hoc demand for transportation from region A to region B, how can you broker a collective transportation solution that is cheap, efficient and desirable over, say, a slower multimodal option, or more expensive private transportation. Sadly, the article discusses minibuses (which we've had, in Brazil at least, for longer than I can remember) and only mentions they "can" be routeless but doesn't fully explain how that could be achieved.

</comment><comment><USER16> A large part of my issue with busses is that where I am they stop literally every block. It makes them miss every light (since if there's any traffic, they can only get to their stop during a green light), which just makes them too slow to be very useful.

</comment><comment><USER17> Seamless payment is very handy. Buses should just take contactless payments; some already do.

Driverless is an interesting prospect, but shared unsupervised transport starts to feel like a safety issue, especially late at night.

Systems that don't already have live bus tracking, syndicated into map apps etc, should get it - it makes the system _far_ more usable.

Edinburgh already has hybrid and full battery buses, and I believe Glasgow will get some soon. The main driver here is dealing with diesel emissions. [https://lothianbuses.co.uk/news/article/Lothian-introduce- th...](https://lothianbuses.co.uk/news/article/Lothian-introduce-the-first- all-electric-buses-to-Edinburgh)

</comment><comment><USER18> I commute daily by "coach" \- I live thirty miles outside London in the commuter belt, and in general it is great. But it's great because mostly there is a bus service locally (dr gong round picking people up every few hundred yards) and then mostly a motorway drive to London - once past the first drop off (Canary Wharf) it grinds to a halt along with every one else in sheer weight of traffic

The fixes needed are simple - and related to the to comment on "infrastructure as a commitment signalling device".

Just charge the living bejesus out of single occupancy cars, force major roads to be bus and cycle _only_ , and have serious decade long plans for pedestrianising most city areas - the car has to go.

</comment><comment><USER19> I already love the bus. The trick is to live somewhere with great public transport.

</comment><comment><USER20> > _My brief electric bus ride was not mind-blowingly different from a > conventional one._

It has been possible to experience an electric bus ride for well over a century to verify that it's not "mind blowingly different".

Ever heard of the trolleybus? It's an electric bus that draws power from overhead cables.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus#History)

<comment><USER21> I lived in a city with a "trolley" that turned out to be a bus painted like a trolley and I've heard of others with the same experience. I have to laugh when I see a city advertise it's trolley service when in reality it is nothing of the sort.

<comment><USER22> That's not really what the OP is talking about. Not sure why they aren't popular in the US, but many cities in Europe have extensive electric bus networks powered by electrical lines overhead.

I suspect the benefits are you don't have to lay rail + you can use normal vehicle lanes + you get the benefits of not having a combustion engine (smog, mechanical issues, fuel storage/re-fill).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The only thing I want is a quiet engine and adult sized seats. I rode the bus for two years until back pain and migraines from the noised made it so I vowed never to ride one again.

</comment><comment><USER24> Electrification will cut the exhaust stench down a lot, but it won't stop the lurching or the overheating in winter, both of which reliably make me nauseated.

I'll stick to my bicycle.

<comment><USER25> That depends on what the source of the lurching is---if you live in an area where surface street road quality is rough (e.g., Seattle), then it won't help much. But electrification can mean the bus will use a fixed gear instead of a rough-shifting transmission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How about "enough room to sit comfortable if you have long legs" and then on top "I can work on my laptop".

</comment><comment><USER27> I feel like what would make me love the bus is rails and a reasonable time schedule. These are all lipstick on a pig for me.

</comment><comment><USER28> Wow do I resent this headline.

It implies that people who currently take the bus should for some reason be considered _ab_ -normal, which they definitely should _not_ be, by any non- classist definition.

<comment><USER29> We've removed that from the headline. Regardless of interpretation, it's a little weird and clearly distracting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Here's a non tech "breakthrough" to help people love the bus: have the goddamn police enforce people who double park, and rip out parking and car lanes for buses only. Buses are great when they work, and they fall off when not. Its easy AF and proven across the world without the need for techbro innovation.

<comment><USER31> Double parking is not even close to the number one concern making buses unpleasant.

1) Time it takes to walk to the station.

2) Waiting for an indeterminate amount of time, often in excess of 10 minutes, which is considered a good peak-hours frequency for some reason.

3) Standing-room-only, overcrowding, the relatively intense motor coordination task of staying upright while the bus lurches around, the unpleasantness of holding an arm over your head for tens of minutes.

4) Difficulty of escape from someone trying to talk to you or polluting the cabin with the smell of urine or music from a shitty phone speaker.

5) Absurd travel times 3-5x what it would take in a car due to frequent stops and use of surface streets.

I rely entirely on public transit, and the only good bus experiences I've had were with a suburban commuter express which behaved like a car (or better, due to priority lanes) for the vast majority of the trip. But it was so infrequent, and the subway from my office to the bus depot had such high variance due to extreme congestion among trains, that it was no better for end-to-end travel time than a car.

<comment><USER32> There is also the loss of flexibility and freedom. Having your own car available -- even though it sits in your workplace's parking lot 99% of the time during business hours -- gives some comfort to some people. I have not lived in NYC for some time, but during the brief I did reside there, I never got used to being utterly dependent on public transportation. I suppose I would have in time. But, for the majority (in terms of area) of the country, taking public transportation occasions a nagging feeling of being 'trapped' at a location. (This isn't a knock on dense cities where subways/busses are essential due to the impossibility of everyone driving and parking... But, for a second-tier city where parking is plentiful, the 'freedom' factor is significant.)

<comment><USER31> The _most_ flexibility and freedom comes from access to high-quality public transit in addition to a car. Only being able to go places with ample parking is also constraining.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> None of these "breakthroughs" address cleanliness.

Dedicated lanes addresses timeliness but if the number of people per hour of a bus lane is less than the traffic it replaces it's a net negative from an infrastructure perspective (yes it's more environmentally friendly, whether it's worth it is up for debate)

Autonomy would be nice because then you could cut some pretty big costs but I expect unions to prevent that.

Accessibility is basically catering to edge cases. As others have pointed out in the past, it's more efficient to have a subset of buses be handicapped accessible or have a dedicated handicapped accessible van service

This is just a puff piece that doesn't really address any hard issues.</comment>


When you code, write down everything - <AUTHOR> https://swizec.com/blog/write-down-everything/swizec/8851 <comment><USER2> At an age of 72 I find that writing down my thought processes when I'm programming or debugging is of huge benefit. Holding a Q and A session with myself that echos each thought as it appears works best. In a crude sort of way I think it halves the time to accomplish a goal. I don't think it's just because I suffer the effects of aging. I wish I had started younger.</comment>


The Eero Beacon is the perfect addition to its family of mesh WiFi products - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/28/eero-beacon-review <comment><USER2> Really impressed by these guy's trajectory.

Was suspect, but their product just works.</comment>