Ask HN: Why blog as a developer? - <AUTHOR> The common answer is, "It's nice to give back, blah blah".<p>Besides that, what real value does blogging give to you, the developer? <comment><USER2> I'm starting to write TILs (Today I Learned). At the beginning of the day, I open up a markdown post, then proceed to write whatever I'm learning that day. It's not very polished or finished, but I publish it on my site at the end of the day.

I've tried writing blog posts before, but there was too much friction, as I was trying to write for a fictitious audience.

TILs help me write for a specific audience - me.

<comment><USER3> I really like this idea. It looks like you just started the other day, but I hope you keep it up.

I can see two aspects to this habit. One, it functions as a kind of journal of work that would be useful to look back on in the future when you're trying to put together the highlights of what you've worked on over the last few years.

Beyond that you'll probably write about a lot of stuff that other people would find useful. Though it might be hard for people to sift through and find. If you made sure your content was easily searchable I bet a lot of people would really appreciate it.

<comment><USER2> Good points. I definitely think of it as a journal of work.

Making it highly searchable would make it more useful for me as well as anyone visiting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I write down things I've had to look up or research while working, or little snippets which might come in handy in the future.

I also find that writing a tutorial-style post helps me understand new frameworks or concepts better, since I have to make sure I know enough about the subject to be able to explain it.

It's also nice that people read it and recognise you - I've worked at a couple of places now where people have mentioned one of my posts has been helpful.

</comment><comment><USER5> Visibility and marketing of yourself to your future employers which might translate into better jobs for more money.

If you wrote amazing piece of code and nobody (except your coworkers) saw it, did it really happen? How would a potential future employer know?

By blogging about things you learn you establish yourself as someone who knows the stuff you blog about. It might lead to incoming job opportunities and helps when you submit your resume.

<comment><AUTHOR> What if you don't care for employers or what people think of you? (self employed, etc.)

<comment><USER5> What if I tell you another reason and you ask "what if you don't care about reason X" ?

So maybe instead of asking other people, it's time for you to figure out yourself why millions of people blog.

<comment><AUTHOR> The answer you gave (a valid answer) is well known and understood (vanity).

I'm curious why developers blog other than vanity.

<comment><USER6> to reinforce one's own understanding. you're motivated to get things right if you know that other people will be reading it, rather than, say, writing something in your own private notes.

<comment><USER7> This is why I do it. I don't blog for "vanity" mostly because there isn't much glory in it at the level I'm blogging. There are so many others out there way smarter who do it better than me.

I do it simply to:

\- Share with others cool stuff I've learned

\- Formulate stuff I've learned into a structure so I better understand it

\- Put it out there so people will criticize/mock it, and improve my game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The rate of people recruiting me for interesting work had an uptick after a technical blog post. I've had several professional recruiters tell me they liked one of my non-technical posts that they could understand -- so people do look at it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Blogging allows me to really learn something, because I tend to write technical posts that are deep dives on topics. e.g. I pick a topic, say neural style transfer ([https://harishnarayanan.org/writing/artistic-style- transfer/](https://harishnarayanan.org/writing/artistic-style-transfer/)), and then I force myself to learn a bunch about deep learning before I write about it.

In addition, it gives me exposure, opens up opportunity for talks, and sparks interesting conversations with many people.

<comment><USER10> How much time it take to write that blog? Can you please elaborate the time management etc. Normally I do not get time to work on that kind of thing.

<comment><USER9> It takes a very, very long time (like many months per post). And I don't mind, because the goal is not to have a quick stream of posts, the goal is to learn something and explain it without magic. So I let it take the time it takes.

I work on it steadily (like a set few hours per week + some really concentrated days on weekends when I can make the time).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When I first started to blog as a developer, I was paralyzed about what to write as I wanted to make _extra_ sure that my posts were nothing short of life changing. Thus, I didn't do it that much and the posts were incredibly painful to write.

However, one of my cohorts said that he blogged for nobody else but himself- mostly as a point of reference for a later date. I absolutely loved this idea and have ran with it since.

Granted, my blog may look pretty random these days as its sprinkled with things that I'm learning and things I want to use for reference, but I also don't have to look up the esoteric things that you don't do often (such as setting up symlinks).

I wouldn't discount the power of a blog. Even if its not prolific or life changing, it is a good example of what you're working on and learning, which will inevitably come in handy somewhere down the line for you.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's a good way to crystallise and cement new knowledge; especially if you're in a work situation where you don't get many opportunities to exchange knowledge with your colleagues.

I'm lucky enough at the moment to be in a very collaborative team, where knowledge sharing is just part of daily interactions; but I've been in positions in the past where those interactions were not present and I found that writing howtos and reports on experiments was a great way to review the things I'd learned.

</comment><comment><USER13> I find it a good way to think through ideas in more detail.

For example, I always wanted to implement a few financial trading software ideas using programming languages I don't use at work, such as scala and javascript. By writing a blog post, I force myself to make the project at least somewhat complete and understand it enough to explain it to others. It is a good way to commit to something, at least for a few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER14> 1\. If you blog about something it's a good as a go to source in future, be it programming problems you have to solve again or arguments on the internet (here's one I prepared earlier).

2\. It improves your writing, particularly technical writing, something developers are notoriously bad at. Written communication is just as important as coding chops for most developer jobs, sometimes more important.

3\. It's a good outlet for whatever is frustrating you at work. None of my friends are developers so my old man rants (a skill is still in it's infancy for me) are lost on them.

Edit - The spelling mistakes indicate I still have room for improvement.

<comment><AUTHOR> I find #2 to be very interesting, I can also see how the action of writing can help reinforce other skills/knowledge. Therefore blogging could be a form of self education or improvement.

#1/#3 seem quite specific but I can see how some people may write with those in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't tech blog mainly because I don't have time right now and I would say I'm still very fresh and young so that my material wouldn't be too interesting but here are my views.

From an outside scope:

* Marketing and exposure to others about yourself as a developer

From a personal level:

* When you write about anything, you think about it in deeper terms and understand it better. For tech, it would help you solidify concepts and be similar to teaching others (if that's how you want to write it)

* May or may not improve writing skills, which can be good all around. (It will definitely improve if you're writing for OTHER people. If you're just writing for yourself, maybe not)

</comment><comment><USER16> Because "if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it enough"

I blog to make sure I understand the new concepts I learn.

As a woman in tech, I also blog to inspire and get more women interested in technology.

</comment><comment><USER17> I started blogging (then stopped) mostly to share general ideas about tech and thoughts I had. Usually things that most people would not agree on.

I would say, I was blogging in order to share my personal opinion with who ever wanted to read.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've been blogging for over a decade. As an independent consultant... While the leads I get over the Internet tend to be weak, it's still given me visibility. Most colleagues & startups I meet with in NYC have already heard of me. Name recognition is huge.

As others have said, honing your ideas is also a process that blogging chisels & fine tunes.

[http://www.iheavy.com/2017/03/13/30-questions-to-ask-a- serve...](http://www.iheavy.com/2017/03/13/30-questions-to-ask-a-serverless- fanboy/)

</comment><comment><USER19> \- learning something yourself by teaching it

\- understand nuances in something by teaching it

\- improving your writing skills

\- seeing a purpose in helping others

\- building a personal brand that helps you to land jobs in the future or create a business from it

</comment><comment><USER20> Writing about something you've learned can help to solidify that knowledge. Also, it's like a diary -- you can look back and see how you've grown over time.

</comment><comment><USER21> You either do it for yourself:

\- So that you have some place to store interesting solutions, things you've learned, notes, et..

\- So recruiters / others can find you and offer to hire you.

Or you do it for others:

\- If you spent the last two days bashing your head against a problem and found a good solution, then chances are that there will be others out there looking for the same solution. Just as you found solutions of others useful, this is a way for you to give back to your fellow developers.

</comment><comment><USER22> The best way to learn something is to teach it!

</comment><comment><USER23> Blogging, or writing in general, fortifies your knowledge. By having to actually write down what you think on a topic, you first have to actualise what it is you think. Your gaps in knowledge become really apparent when you try to write with authority on some topic.

</comment><comment><USER24> I started blogging because I kept losing notes. Having it in one place meant i didnt have to worry about it anymore, then you realise that you are getting traffic and feedback and actually helping people. Which is nice

My blog is mostly java and spring - www.javabullets.com - any feedback is good

</comment><comment><USER25> I've found myself referring to my own blog posts when I re-visit a subject, or when I want to show something cool to someone else I can just send them my posts. Beats explaining the same thing 100 times.

</comment><comment><USER26> Developer before I was a blogger.. but I love both!

Just a quick note: I'm a psychology major... I was fascinated with industrial- organizational psychology, or more specifically, the workplace, and I had wanted to do something with it. I have yet to pursue my masters but hope to in the future. Anyways, after college and teaching English in another country for a year, I ran out of money, and returned home where I turned to a self-taught skill when I was a teenager: programming. Never thought I could do it for money, but apparently, there is a demand for it. And that is where I am today. One job led to another led to another.. and I'm just in a very good place right now.

So... I began [http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com) as a hobby. Didn't know where it would lead. Didn't really think about what it could be used for or what value people would get from it. All I knew is the value I would get from it: learning why people go to work (money or other reasons), what we can do to make the workplace a better place to be, and how we can get along with our co-workers better. Hopefully it is something I could use towards research when pursuing a masters degree.

Confessions of the Professions is a source for understanding jobs, careers, and the workplace. It started out as an outlet to rant about my workplace, my boss, my co-workers. I must've had a good 10 stories to tell and already written up before the blog even began.

After some time, I asked my family and friends about their jobs and tried to convince them to write about it, but they wouldn't. They only told me their stories, so I wrote them down as best as I could and I had new material. I then solicited on Craigslist and even paid a bunch of people on Fiverr to write about their experiences in the workplace. MyBlogGuest ([http://www.myblogguest.com](http://www.myblogguest.com)) and MyBlogU ([http://www.myblogu.com](http://www.myblogu.com)) would also be extremely helpful in my efforts to solicit even more articles.. and then infographics, ebooks, etc.

Over time, it had gotten more popular.. and I began receiving dozens of emails a week with more companies and people wanting to be a part of it. I no longer solicit on any website. The emails just keep coming. I've gotten contributions from reputable universities like Ohio University, Florida University, UCLA, etc. I usually receive articles from their psychology, business, or science departments. I also get articles or infographics from businesses as well, usually from hotels and the hospitality fields. A lot of marketing companies use the website as an article distribution source. Everyone shares and it keeps getting discovered. I'm helping everyone out and they are helping me out. It has become a great community. I have over a dozen repeat contributors who keep coming back with new material.

It has been a great experience.. it's been running for almost 5 years now. I keep writing. Others keep writing. It keeps going. I have certainly thought about just stopping and no longer maintaining it, but then I get more emails, and I can't ignore them, so I just keep it going! I get to learn a lot of new information before its even released to the public. I have learned a ton about SEO and people in general. I've gotten to speak to people from all over the world including most parts of Europe, the Philippines, India, South Africa, Australia, and I think I even spoke to someone from Hongkong once.

There has been a ton of benefits to keeping it going: exposure to visitors. New information. Networking. Connections. Writing. Thinking in a mature manner, especially in dealing with people. Learning about new web design trends. Optimized coding. I also loved the email I got last week from an elementary class who was using the website for their project on learning about saving money for retirement. Random viral confessions. My average daily count of visitors is usually around 1,000 a day, but for about 2 weeks just last week, I was receiving about 10,000 visitors a day. A different article was going viral everyday. Unfortunately, I could only track down the source as Google, but I wish I had known where it was coming from and why. Sometimes, the website just gets hits from popular trends or keywords such as "unemployment" or "retirement" or even "webcam model". And I do make some money from the ads.. not a crazy amount, but it pays for the domain and the server.

The website is technically no longer "my blog" as it has become everyone's blog. I occasionally get to post my own articles, but I do give everyone else priority over mine. And I wish I could publish more than once or twice a day, but behind the scenes -- it would mean a lot of work to do more than that.

It has also made me learn and be more confident as a developer. I've moved the website from shared to optimized VPS to cloud server. If it weren't for the website, I probably would have never bothered to learn what "cloud computing" was. It is my baby, my first ever website that I pushed out to the public. Some weeks there will be no emails, and then all of a sudden, it's like everyone got the memo, and I'll get about 20 articles or infographics all at once. Definitely not my full-time job, but it keeps me busy, and I do it because I love it. Apparently, there are many people out there who also understand its mission too.

<comment><USER27> Very interesting and somewhat unusual blog story. Congrats.

I too have been blogging for some years now - around 9 years. Enjoying it. And I get work inquiries and training inquiries because of it - I know because some of my clients have told me that they found me through my blog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why blog? For ad revenue.

</comment><comment><USER29> Because recruiter emails make you warm and fuzzy inside.

</comment><comment><USER30> I initially used to do it because that what all the cool kids were doing.

Now I'm starting again to use it as open note-book.

Because some of my past google searches literally pointed me to my own old blog post. Every time that happened, it gave me a very _smug_ feeling.</comment>


SimplyServe: Serve Directories along with its docs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Naresh1318/simplyServe <comment><AUTHOR> Imagine you've collect a ton of data on large number of experiments. Now, imagine you want to share it with others and explain how things are organized. You might just host it on any of the file sharing services out there and provide additional document that explain how data is organized.</comment>


Warn HN: Lots of Launches Coming - <AUTHOR>

Every cycle we warn startups not to wait till 2 weeks before Demo Day to launch if they can avoid it, because there's always a glut of startups launching then.  Every cycle they do anyway.
It's now 2 weeks before Demo Day, so there are
going to be a lot of new startups launching in the coming week.
Please be nice to them.  For you their launch may be "yet another YC startup," but for each individual startup this is their big moment. <comment><USER2> pg, can you ask the YC founders to stop announcing their new companies as the "The This of/for That" for example (from the front page):

"Leaky (YC S11) is Hipmunk for Car Insurance"

I honestly don't care if your new company is "* (YC S11) Is The Facebook for Unicorns," since it really tells me nothing. I have to figure out what a Hipmonk is before I can understand what they do. Hold on while I call the Dalai Lama to ask about the difference between a monk and a hipmonk.

Of the YC S11 batch with announcements up, it seems the Snapjoy folks are doing it right (from the front page):

"Snapjoy (YC S11) Will Organize Your Photos For You"

Now the Snapjoy announcement above provides concise and useful information about what they could do for me, the potential customer.

<comment><USER3> It makes perfect sense to me. Obviously, if you don't know what Hipmunk is it's hard but on the other hand, knowing Hipmunk, that sentence conveys more information than a generic one ever could.

<comment><USER4> Leaky (YC S11) takes the pain out of finding the best car insurance.

That would work for those who know about Hipmunk and those who don't.

<comment><USER3> Well yes but at the same time you proved my point. This works but it only tells me that the site is about finding car insurance. For all I know, I could end up with yet another sales person on the phone trying to convince me to buy something.

The Hipmunk line gives me the idea that I will have a simple page where I can compare options easily which seems to be the case so far as I can tell from their video.

<comment><USER5> Leaky: Actually compares quotes rather than using estimates

Longer summary: Hits the APIs of every insurance company and fills out their forms for you to get you an actual price, rather than just purporting to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Please be nice to them. For you their launch may be "yet another YC startup," but for each individual startup this is their big moment.

I'm usually quite pleased with what comes out of YC. That said, in this competitive market, I don't think that being nice (just because) helps anyone the week after launch.

I personally look forward to the day HN tears apart my project so I can say I truly learned something.

<comment><USER7> He doesn't mean be nice to them even if they have a shitty project. He means don't let the onslaught of launches actually partially sour your perception - use your un-saturated viewpoint that is then cognizant of the bias saturation imbues - to determine your true opinion of their service.

Which - if still bad then - should be correctly harsh and honest.

<comment><USER8> No, you're wrong. He means be nice to them because they're WITH HIM.

<comment><USER9> No, he means, if you are going to criticize something, use constructive criticism. i.e. Don't just say, your product sucks.

<comment><USER8> I don't think Paul wants anyone to criticize YC companies. A potential customer asking for changes is different. I am actually not sure there is any value to criticism. "Constructive criticism" seems like a sneaky way to assert authority and drain, without providing any real value.

<comment><USER10> I didn't downvote you, but I completely disagree. Criticism is telling someone there's something wrong with their project. Constructive criticism is telling someone what specific things should be changed, and in a helpful manner.

"Your home page sucks"

Criticism, not useful.

"You should have a better call to action on your home page. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do here."

Constructive criticism, very useful. It tells someone what's wrong so that it can be fixed. If they're very nice, they'll add a suggestion too.

It's foolish to ignore someone's advice just because they're criticizing your project. Often times, if they're criticizing civilly, it's because they want the project to succeed. If you brush them off as "haters", you're just doing yourself a disservice. Honestly examine all criticism you receive. Yes, plenty of it will be useless criticism from people who want to bring you down, but if you don't pay attention to the ones that care, you're throwing away valuable advice and only hurting yourself.

<comment><USER8> The more critics the better! Let my fans vote with their wallets!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pg, can you try adding a tab up top for new startups? I personally love to read about them but sometimes the launches etc. This would make it a lot easier to find the latest ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think most users would want a tab for it, but you can easily get this from HNSearch:

[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=%28...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=%28YC+S11%29&sortby=create_ts+desc&start=0)

<comment><USER12> Hi Paul. I would love to see a tab for people launching new products in general. i.e. a way to submit your startup for review. Since HN is essentially a startup community, wouldn't it make sense to distinguish a 'review my startup' entry from a 'NASA discovers oxygen on Pluto' entry ? ... especially considering that the submitter often has put months and months of time into it, and would REALLY appreciate and value feedback from others, instead of quickly dropping off (or not even making) the front page ...

<comment><USER13> I would love to see that too.

<comment><USER12> ok, I resubmitted my request as a thread, here's hoping it gets read by enough people to upvote:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2868110>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm bit uncomfortable that Techcrunch's coverage of these launches isn't being made with a disclaimer that Michael Arrington is an investor in most of them (via Angel Fund).

</comment><comment><USER15> It's always exciting to see what's in the works. In every cycle it seems like there is a YC site that I end up using a lot.

Has the culture around here gotten so hostile that a "be nice" request is needed?

<comment><USER16> FWIW: I didn't read it as "don't be openly hostile". I read it as "please remember they have their heart in their mouth and are drenched in a cold sweat and even yawning indifference can be soul crushing, yet we realize there are so many it will be hard to get all excited about each and every one of them (especially with so many of them announcing their launch at essentially the exact same time)".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Pg, is there any way you can make your demo day a live event (may be on justinTV) - and to add the spice you should also make it interactive where viewers can rate each startup with proper scoring system - and if you and startups are comfortable then you should let all the VCs and Angels be able to see scores & ratings coming in live from all over the world (however this may also have negative impact but nothing wrong to try it).... this way investors would right away know what is HIT & HOT !!!

<comment><USER18> Some of the startups demoed have not actually launched, and in any event, I think they like to cultivate something of a feeling of exclusivity around the event. Not to the point of snobbery or anything like that, just to make it kind of important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Surely such sentiment should be extended to any startup, not just YC startups?

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is that the arrival of YC startups is spiky, with 2 big spikes a year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Be prepared to defend yourself startups. Put on your armor. Some with malice in their hearts will thrust daggers at you. Fight with strength and honor and the crowd will love you.

Win the crowd and you will win your freedom.

To those startups who do not fight with valor? You will be subject to the mob, as was Airbnb. Even the Emperor will not be able to silence the cries for blood!

Startups... I salute you.

LET THE LAUNCHES BEGIN!

<comment><USER21> Investor: Are you ready to do your duty for the internet?

Founder: Yes, investor.

Investor: You will not be funded.

Founder: Which wiser, older startup is to take my place?

Investor: My funding will pass to others, to hold in trust until a better startup is ready to launch once more. The internet is to be innovative and profitable again.

Founder: Investor?

Investor: Yes. My decision disappoints you?

Founder: You wrote to me once, listing the four chief virtues: Novel concept, challenging problems, technical excellence, and forging new streams of revenue. As I read the list, I knew my startup had none of them. But I have other virtues, investor. Group purchasing. That can be a virtue when it temporarily eases the deal fatigue that everyone's experiencing. Social sharing, perhaps not in a way that generates revenue, but... there are many ways to measure value. Mashups copying one site but adding a single tweak from another site, because it's been done before so must be good. But none of my virtues were on your list. Even then it was as if you didn't want me for your investment.

Investor: Oh, Founder. You go too far.

Founder: I search the faces of other apps... for ideas to copy, to make you proud. One seed investment, one small round... where you wrote out a check for more than the $150K I've already received. Would have been like feeding a third world family for a thousand years. What is it in my idea that you hate so much?

Investor: Shh, Founder.

Founder: All I've ever wanted was to be like all the other apps out there.

Investor: [Gets down on his knees] Founder. Your derivative idea of a startup is my failure as an advisor. Come [Gives Founder a hug]

Founder: [Founder hugs Investor and cries] Investor. I would have copied all the apps in the world... if you would only invest in me!

[Founder begins to asphyxiate Investor while they hug, Investor grunts]

<comment><USER22> For those who don't get the reference: it's from Gladiator (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172495/quotes?qt=qt0404384>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Good luck to all the current YC guys, I'm sure you're all feeling the pain right now only 2 weeks away from the big day!

As for launching around the same time, I'm of the opinion that if your own (non-YC) startup is good enough, it will stand alongside, or even above some of the YC guys and perhaps "cash in" on the startup fervour around at the time.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if there's any observed correlation between earliness of launch (per pg's advice) and likelihood of future success?

</comment><comment><USER25> Congrats to Snapjoy, Leaky, and Kicksend for launching today! Keep'em coming!

</comment><comment><USER26> Should have a special title tag. Show HN YC: ... or something to that effect.

<comment><USER27> They probably will. Keep your eyes out for "(YC S11)".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm really hoping to see a YC company launch on the startup foundry or such, but it may not be wide enough exposure yet. Eventually.

</comment><comment><USER29> "Please be nice to them"

With very few exceptions, I enjoy seeing what the YC crowd releases, but isn't this going a bit to far? Aren't we the perfect audience to provide constructive criticism? On the other hand, if you're asking us to be empathetic at the same time, I couldn't agree more.

Go YC!

<comment><USER30> Niceness and constructive criticism are not mutually exclusive. They can even coexist in a single comment.

<comment><USER29> True ... and the Internet as a whole could use a lot more "nice". It's amazing how much different some people behave when they're not having a face-to-face conversation.

<comment><USER16> Part of that is not that people behave worse but that communication in writing, without facial expression and voice tone and the like, is prone to sounding a lot harsher than it likely would face-to-face. Especially if someone is prone to hyperbole, sarcasm, irony and so on, the lack of voice tone and facial expression tends to have a huge negative impact on "tone".

<comment><USER29> That's also true ... I'm a practitioner of sarcasm myself and have to be very careful not to use (overuse) it on the Internet. But if you work hard enough, you can convey tone through your writing.

I think the two other culprits are the de-personification that can so easily occur in our interactions and the tendency to interpret statements with the worst possible meanings. This problem never seems to happen when the person is someone we know in "real life".

Enough with the thread hijacking :) ... and if this gets much deeper I'll have to consult with my psychologist wife as I'm sure there are proper terms for most of these behaviors. (And yes ... I am her live-in case study)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> When I saw two launching today I automatically thought this had to do with the economy souring. I had just read Jeff Clavier's tweet:

 _Just maybe? The VC industry is going to wake up and go back to value investing - not FOMO throwing cash at everything, no matter the price_

But Dave McLure says it's business as usual

[http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/08/08/early- stage-i...](http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/08/08/early-stage- investors-unruffled-by-stock-markets-bad-day/?mod=WSJBlog)

</comment><comment><USER32> Nice! Its always good to see them. Tip: Dont launch your product if you are not in YC. Chances of getting coverage are none. They will get it all!

</comment><comment><USER33> Thanks for the reminder. It's easy to get jaded about this stuff, but you're right. Good luck on demo day everyone.

</comment><comment><USER34> Does anyone know of any blogs from YC founders that cover the personal struggles and conquest of these final 2 weeks before Demo Day? I think it would be a great read (even if they were bit sized entries) to find out what it's like to be under such enormous pressure but on the precipice of your big moment.

</comment><comment><USER35> Good luck guys! Take feedback with a grain of salt and stay focused on your vision.

</comment><comment><USER36> It looks like Techcrunch is getting the scoop on every single launch.

</comment><comment><USER37> alternative suggestion...if you are about to launch a new startup...hold off for a month or so.

no sense in wasting the launch PR boost when everyone is getting swarmed with pitches

</comment><comment><USER38> Good luck everyone!

</comment><comment><USER39> @jcr "the facebook for unicorns" FTW

</comment><comment><USER40> Congrats to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'd just say it here, once and for all - YC startups suck

<comment><USER42> Yup, every last one of them :)

I doubt you really stand behind that. Maybe you really mean, for example, that a majority of the YC startups make things that aren't useful to you.

<comment><USER16> I get the impression I am missing some "in" joke. :-/

<comment><USER42> There's no in joke (I don't know helwr). My first sentence was meant to be sarcastic. I was encouraging helwr to explain his/her opinion, since saying "YC startups suck" without any further explanation doesn't really contribute anything.

<comment><USER16> They have quite high karma (as in "they are on the leader board") but their profile states nothing about them. I was assuming you knew something about them from their comment history. (I am sort of guessing they either were funded by YC or applied and got rejected or some such, but I don't really feel like doing some massive search of the site or combing through all their comments/posts to confirm my hunch.)

<comment><USER43> They have 919 submissions, the top 142 of which have between 11 and 252 points. They only have 206 comments by comparison; their second-highest-rated comment was a direct link to a pdf of Hacker Monthly #2.

<comment><USER41> HN search is a bit out of sync, e.g. see the top result here: [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=by%3Ahelwr+...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=by%3Ahelwr+predator&start=0)

and the actual link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403290></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Study: Diet soda doesn't help you lose weight - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/10/diet-soda-health-problems/2507219/ <comment><USER2> Er, this whole topic can be a little misleading. I haven't found a single reputable study that claims diet soda itself causes weight gain. Rather, just as the reasoning in this article suggests, the only scientific fact they present is that the consumption of diet soda itself does not encourage weight loss.

Side note: Do any brands really advertise drinking their diet soda as a method of (actual) weight loss? I can't think of any that actually present it this way.

It goes on to say that substituting sugary soda for diet soda isn't enough for most people to stop gaining weight. This is probably because you're likely to substitue the calories and sugars for something else, since your body notices its getting less of something and will crave it.

Yet you have things like this:

"One large study found that people who drank artificially sweetened soda were more likely to experience weight gain than those who drank non-diet soda"

This again is a correlation with the typical behavior of a diet soda drinker. They're not drinking diet soda because they want to lose weight. Rather, they're drinking it because they don't want to gain weight. They could have a terrible diet overall and this alone does nothing but move the problem over into, say, consuming two scoops of ice scream after dinner everyday. All because the soda they had during lunch didn't satisfy their bodily craving of refined sugars.

So this is a case of correlation not being causation. These types of articles do nothing but encourage this error to propagate. Perhaps the term "diet soda" is misleading in itself, but perhaps telling people that drinking a calorie- free drink will make them gain weight is just as silly as telling people it will make them lose weight.

<comment><USER3> Very misleading. In fact, the author of this study is a behavioral neurologist, hence studying human behavior relating to diet drinks rather than diet drinks themselves. Drink as much diet soda as you like, if the rest of your diet is healthy then you're fine. This article is just typical fear- mongering against artificial sweeteners, I'm surprised it got up voted here.

<comment><USER4> > I'm surprised it got up voted here

A disturbing number of HN readers have batshit insane viewpoints on food.

<comment><USER5> Yes, because being sceptical of substances that get approved after some hasty testing, with big push from a few large multinationals is "batshit insane".

The sceptic thing is to thing scientists are above human and infallible. And to ignore tons of precedents of BS substances and drugs being brough to the market, only to be recalled a few years or even a few decades later.

Because "science" is a magic word, that somehow overcomes systemic problems in how burecreacies work, how people (including whole teams) react to money, and how judgements can be wrong. To suggest otherwise is "batshit insane".

After all, those doing the safety testing can take their sweet time to study long term results, aren't ever lured by money, and understand all possible effects of the substances they approve equally well as the collective scientific community understands non artificial substances used for centuries or millenia, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Study: Sunblock doesn't help reverse skin cancer.

<comment><USER7> The best line from the article was the opening one: _" Diet soda, it turns out, may not be the panacea for weight loss that we all thought — and many of us hoped — it was."_

It would make a very nice lead in to an Onion article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think what's misleading is not the guidance of this article: but rather the idea that calories are calories.

We've been told calories are calories are calories so many times.

BUT

Calories are clearly not treated the same way by different people: two people can eat the same thing, and live the same lifestyle, and one will be overweight. Should we really assume that the same notion can't apply to an individual who treats themselves differently?

What's the elephant in the room? Metabolism!! And whether your body _wants_ to store weight.

What you eat affects both metabolism and whether your body wants to store weight. Sure, everyone's going to be require their own unique mix.

BUT the important point is that what you eat has reflexive impact on how your body uses what you eat and thus on whether you'll be overweight.

So calories are not the only thing. And thus it's entirely possible that a calorie-free substance, which has impacts on metabolism and how your body decides what to store, can impact weight gain.

<comment><USER9> > What's the elephant in the room? Metabolism!!

The stuff I've seen says that metabolism can only account for about 300 kcal/day difference, until you get into extreme cases like "starvation mode" where the body starts to shutdown (women's periods stop, etc). In the end there's no way around the first law of thermodynamics.

Most anecdotes about "but he eats the same stuff I do!" are just the extremely common cases of people under and overestimating caloric value.

<comment><USER10> _" In the end there's no way around the first law of thermodynamics."_

The first law of thermodynamics only applies to a closed system, and doesn't _automatically_ have much of anything to do with whether something as complex as a body stores fat or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Study: Marketing doesn't accurately represent product

<comment><USER12> Drew Curtis wants his comment back

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Summary: Fat, unhealthy people drink diet soda. We don't know if it's correlation or causation. Lots of people have different theories, but they're all over the map.

Reading articles like this in news media sources is so frustrating since they only ask questions and never answer any of them.

</comment><comment><USER13> Isn't the point of diet soda to reduce the amount of sugar you consume while not having to actually give up soda? Who died and said Diet Coke would make you lose weight?

</comment><comment><USER14> You don't need a study to know that none of the Soda drinks are of any help to any humans. Humans lived without soda for very long time until someone invented Pepsis and Cokes and .... and they are not something you use to help yourself for anything. So why bother?

<comment><USER15> Your post could be paraphrased as "It's obvious X isn't helpful because X isn't ancient and X isn't helpful. Why do people do/use X?"

Please use better logic. Also, fetishizing ancient things is an impediment to progress.

The long term survival of the human species in the presence of something is (weak) evidence that the thing isn't harmful, but the logical inversion isn't true. That is, the survival of the human species for a long time without something is neither a valid argument for nor against that thing's benefit.

<comment><USER14> Using or not using a so-called useless thing is not a question of human survival. Humans are consuming soda and it has been proven that it isn't HELPFUL. So the question is really about the continuous waste of time, resources and energy (in producing and consuming) versus that of the intent behind all these (time, resources and energy).

Unless of course you believe that producing/consuming Soda is HELPFUL in a sense that it is helpful towards economy (someone's making and people are consuming it). In this case, I have no argument here because the intent is clear enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> First I though it is smart commercials from Panic and their Diet Coda

</comment><comment><USER17> Wow, people really needed a study to finally realize it.

<comment><USER18> If we didn't study the obvious, we wouldn't figure out that the earth is not the center of the universe.

<comment><USER19> actually, it is, for some values of universe (observable, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As far as I know, the US is the only country where sugar-free soda is referred to as "diet".

The notion that it would help lose weight is totally new to me, I'm presuming that is because most countries outside the US would never allow it to be marketed that way.

<comment><USER21> It's called diet here in Canada as well. In any case, diet does not and has never meant "lose weight". If you pay any attention to what you consume, you are "on a diet".

<comment><USER22> > In any case, diet does not and has never meant "lose weight".

It plainly does, whether that usage makes you happy or not: [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diet?s=t](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diet?s=t)

<comment><USER21> One of five possible definitions includes losing weight in no universe means that diet means "lose weight" \-- you don't get to choose what Diet means on a can of soda.

Diet is nothing more than the things you eat, and a "diet" can be to lose, gain, maintain weight, or simply to pay attention to what you eat for the purposes of healthy eating. A diet soda is a soda modified to reduce/eliminate sugar, which again is in no way manifestly correlated with losing weight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Of course it doesn't. For the same reason Subway doesn't have fresh ingredients.

<comment><USER15> You're saying the body makes analogous supply and demand decisions about energy balance that Subway management makes when setting up their supply chain? Please elaborate, because this is either a deep insight beyond my understanding or else shallow and simplistic. I hope it's the former.

<comment><USER23> It's simplistic but not shallow.

People are in general far too trusting of commercial labels like "diet" and "fresh" when they should be making healthy choices about their companies they buy from instead of the products.</comment></comment></comment>


How Google Will Use Firebase to Supercharge Its Cloud Computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/11/why-google-acquired-firebase/ <comment><USER2> In most Hackathons I have encountered, client/server interactions have become increasingly essential to woo a jury. The best way to quickly get a result over a weekend is to use Parse or Firebase. And hobbyists with some base knowledge can use it to build prototypes quickly.

Want to achieve the same result with Cloud Endpoints and an Android Client? You will need a couple of hours just to get the dev environment and skeleton code up and working to get started. Google has so many clever engineers, but the barrier of entry to their solutions isn't as low. I think this is where the Firebase acquisition comes into play. It's a much lower barrier to entry to use the Google Cloud environment and is probably mostly a play against Facebook's acquisition of Parse than against Amazon.

<comment><USER3> I feel like Firebase has a great hackathon demo, but still find it hard to believe that people might actually be using this for their actual backend. The lock-in is extremely high, and migrating to something else would be extremely challenging.

<comment><USER4> As someone who is currently building out some products with Firebase I don't think the cost to swap platform would be too high as long as you isolating your data layer properly.

I'm writing it with om/clojurescript; however, the same would be true for reactjs or any declarative setup. The only code I would need to rewrite would be the read and write hookups to the server.

<comment><USER5> And, you know, the real-time data backend itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Somebody really needs to write an open source Firebase clone. There's a gaping void in the market for something that doesn't lock users in and supports on- premise installs. This could be a pure open source project or open source business like MongoDB.

It doesn't need to be exactly Firebase. But Firebase sets a high bar. To my knowledge, there is no production-grade datastore that supports realtime sync, range queries, and eventual consistency in the face of intermittent connections.

Email firstname.lastname@example.com if interested trial customer / sponsor.

<comment><USER7> It's not a data store, but doesn't Meteor's functionality set get you pretty close to the same thing? You can essentially build the same type of behaviors on top of Meteor as you can with Firebase.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: 10 years of recreational programming, what takes me to the next level? - <AUTHOR> Almost completely self taught. Was forced to take a VB + Matlab class for my chemical engineering degree, but I basically didnt show up to class. At that point I was already a programmer and would only do the homework/tests. 4.0, easy class.
Outside of that its been google + stackoverflow + tutorials.
Thats been great and I've completed a full stack app, working on my second using react-native. Doing python automation when I get tired of that.
What I'm looking for is something that I'm missing. I spent time reading wikipedia about OOP and I found that very interesting to put names to things Ive been working with for years. I dont know if this improved my skill much, but I only put a few hours into wiki.
What should I put resources into next? Goal is to spend either a few hours or ~week into something that can improve my abilities. I'm not even sure what my weak points are. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> I think it depends on your goals and your interests.

A friend of mine is self-taught (mainly front-end programming, JS, HTML, CSS). He started in his 40s and work in a completely different field. He developed surprisingly good programming habits by himself, but he's strongly lacking in some areas, compared to people who followed a conventional CS education. For instance, he has little knowledge of algorithms: he can't write a merge sort, assess its complexity, or work with dynamic data-structures. These are the type of things that can be hard to figure out alone. I think it's worth investing some time on this. There are tons of resources, e.g. a few good Coursera classes.

You can also focus on different layers of the software stack. You've been working on the front-end, but you can have fun with things like system programming (e.g. writing a UNIX shell in C), or a compiler for a simple programming language.

I personally enjoy doing programming projects from various universities. There are tons of cool projects at all levels.

</comment><comment><USER3> Get a job as Junior Developer. You can self-taught a lot but nothing substitute experience. As an alternative, you can contribute to open source projects.</comment>


Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.brainrules.net/

<comment><USER2> Geoffrey Grosenbach of the Ruby on Rails podcast interviewed this author, John Medina, in the following two podcasts:

[http://podcast.rubyonrails.org/programs/1/episodes/john- medi...](http://podcast.rubyonrails.org/programs/1/episodes/john-medina)

[http://podcast.rubyonrails.org/programs/1/episodes/john- medi...](http://podcast.rubyonrails.org/programs/1/episodes/john-medina- conclusion)</comment>


Medium iOS App - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/m/app

<comment><USER2> The app looks beautiful, and hopefully solves some of the frustrations using the Medium site on a mobile browser.

<comment><USER3> I'll have to try it out to see if it's an improvement, but for content so well-suited for browsers, do we really need Yet Another UiWebView-based App that does everything the non-app store version does?</comment></comment>


The Input Club: Meet the Guys Looking to Disrupt the Keyboard Industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/input-club-interview-mechanical-keyboards,33140.html <comment><USER2> No mention of integrated three-mouse buttons and TrackPoint (tm) equivalents. The KU-1255 [https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/61cStKyNITL...](https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/61cStKyNITL._SL1000_.jpg) remains the best compromise between cost, features, comfort, and availability. If they can make a better mousetrap, I'm in.

</comment><comment><USER3> No numpads? :/

That K-Type looks nice, and I'm in the market for a new KB, but stripping out the function keys and especially the keypad makes it a deal-breaker for me.</comment>


Crime around your walking directions (Chicago & Philly) - <AUTHOR> http://mapmeld.github.io/crimestep

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea, but really, crime is opportunistic. If all of a sudden geeks toting iphones start walking a block or two away from what the data (of unknown quality) says is a "hot spot", the crime will follow where the targets are.

Moreover, how does one actually determine a hotspot? By Robbery stats? carjacking? larceny from auto? arrest count? sex offender registry data? Drug activity? Poverty-level? forclosures? Truancy?

The best way to avoid being a victim is to go about your business, pay attention, and use common sense.

Crime can happen _anywhere_ it doesn't cling to particular corners or blocks. Trying to avoid particular areas because of the crime or the preception of it, won't necessarily work. You might as well use a divining stick.</comment>


Why the community is not discussing Polymer more often? - <AUTHOR> Hi, Looking at reddit and HN, Polymer project seems to be generally ignored by the masses. It seems to solve similar problems like react, it doesn't have additional patent clause and build on W3C standard technology. Google launched gaming.youtube.com and google play music services with it, so that proves its production ready for "critical" services. It also allows for easy mixing with other web-component elements. Why people are pretending it doesn't exist? Because of the 0.5 version fame of being slow and not ready of production? <comment><USER2> Polymer isn't as tapped into the current JS trends as React, and isn't as established as React or Angular, and it's been somewhat hampered by skepticism of the web components standards.

I believe Polymer is actually out ahead in terms of it's technology and philosophy in many ways. With native Shadow DOM and Custom Elements support coming to a majority of browsers this year, I think the skepticism will subside, more people will realize the benefits and Polymer will get more and more press.

</comment><comment><USER3> Because I don't think it's going anywhere.

React solves the same kind of encapsulation into modular component problems but a lot more besides.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Because I don't think it's going anywhere.

Why, there seems to be more and more uptake of web components .

> React solves the same kind of encapsulation

What exactly react adds? (Never used react so I have no idea)

I compared TODOMVC examples and polymer looks really awesome.

Besides we can reuse webcomponents with other frameworks out there, so that seems like a good idea to me.

Maybe I'm wrong but React doesn't provide that I think?

<comment><USER3> > _Why, there seems to be more and more uptake of web components_

Doesn't the question that started the thread imply the exact opposite? Where's this "uptake" \-- outside of Google, who can use whatever they want, their teams use stuff that few outside use too, like Dart.

The shadow-dom (and it's speed, predictability benefits), being able to run on the server, uni-directional data flow, being able to run on native platforms, all are things that webcomponents don't provide.

See here for some more discussion: [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/225400/pros-a...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/225400/pros- and-cons-of-facebooks-react-vs-web-components-polymer)

>* Besides we can reuse webcomponents with other frameworks out there, so that seems like a good idea to me. Maybe I'm wrong but React doesn't provide that I think?*

Well, the core React lib (e.g. without flux helpers, router, etc) can be used as the view/template layer in many frameworks that allow you to replace their own view layer.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Doesn't the question that started the thread imply the exact opposite?

I'm asking about demographics here avoiding the discussions. People are leveraging webcomponents all the time, recently i saw job opening at slack for Polymer dev.

> Where's this "uptake" \-- outside of Google, who can use whatever they want

I saw questions about webcomponents/polymer pop up all the time for aurelia and other frameworks (how to integrate nicely), github uses components too, salesforce. It seems that _here_ is it treated like something that doesn't exist.

> The shadow-dom (and it's speed, predictability benefits)

React doesn't provide shadow DOM I think? Polymer does, i think it is the opposite?

> Being able to run on the server

This is cool and a nice selling point, I've been interested to do that multiple times but it appears that this is only possible if you build your app in node.js?

> React native

This is also awesome selling point, I still have reservations about PATENTS clause in all FB-related open source projects.

<comment><USER3> > _I saw questions about webcomponents /polymer pop up all the time for > aurelia and other frameworks (how to integrate nicely), github uses > components too, salesforce. It seems that here is it treated like something > that doesn't exist._

I don't think it's only here (on HN) though. Check Reddit reactjs, polymer and webcomponents subreddits for example. The first has constant traffic everyday, the other have 1-2 recent posts, and get to month old posts on the first page.

Same for tutorials and blogs. Polymer/WebComponents related ones are few and far between, React ones are everywhere.

GitHub: polymer 14000 stars, react 37000 stars (and 4 times as many forks).

Regarding the "shadown-dom", yeah, you're right, meant to write "virtual-dom" (a much lightweight dom copy, with faster access and the ability to diff to avoid doing costly work to the real DOM).

> _This is cool and a nice selling point, I 've been interested to do that > multiple times but it appears that this is only possible if you build your > app in node.js?_

You can run it at any app server that can execute JS. So not just Node but also Meteor, and Java servers to (Java as of late comes with JS interpreter built in).

And you can also fork out from any other framework and do the rendering part in a JS interpreter, e.g. like this:

[https://github.com/tildedave/universal-react-without- node](https://github.com/tildedave/universal-react-without-node)

I'd say the most practical versions would be Node and Java though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, I do python for living though... so I'm out of luck :P</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why does HN say "please try again" - <AUTHOR>

Hello,<p>I don't know if this has been occurring for others but for some reason every time I try to post an link I receive "please try again". Does any one know why this is happening. <comment><USER2> I don't even bother any more. I got rejected a bunch of times, I think it said something about duplicates. Odd thing is I see duplicate posts all the time so I don't see why other people can post them but not me.

<comment><AUTHOR> All I want to do is post a link from Medium (where I host my blog). This needs to be fixed!</comment></comment>


What do you think of this idea? 99 Designs for marketing / sales pitches - <AUTHOR> Software developers are notorious for building something great but people poor at succinctly pitching it.
I wish there was a "99 Designs" for sales and marketing pitches.
Say I have a great new product, it's often hard as a developer to really figure out the best way to pitch it.
It would be great if I could go to www.pitchbitch.com www.itchtopitch.com or www.pitchit.com or pitch.io and put up a post listing the website and asking for the best marketing / sales pitch and offer a reward to the winner.
Thoughts?  Good idea, crap idea? <comment><USER2> Sounds like a good plan to me. Pitching requires special skills to.</comment>


Work starts in £15m plan to get Concorde flying again - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8712806.stm

<comment><USER2> Air transport is one area where technology has seemingly stagnated, or even reversed. Airliners seem pretty much the same as when I was a kid. You certainly don't get to your destination any faster. There have been improvements -- aircraft such as the 787 are built with light and strong composites; the A380 is the biggest airliner ever; low cost carriers have driven down prices; you can get WiFi on certain flights. But you're not going any faster, or traveling any more comfortably.

Compare that to the period from 1955 - 1975. Jets entered commercial service, displacing slow and noisy gas-powered propeller planes. The Concorde made its first flight in 1969, entering service shortly after. The US had its own supersonic airliners on the drawing board. There were even proposals for hypersonic transports. We ended up getting stuck with cosmetically identical jetliners and a series of unmanned hypersonic test vehicles. Remarkable feats like SpaceShipOne are few and far between.

Aerospace technology relies on inspiration. "Because we can" used to be a large motivator. It's tough to get around economic or military reality, but at the same time it's sad to see fewer mind-blowing engineering achievements. Most of us couldn't afford a Concorde ticket, but I bet there were plenty of people who still thought it was damn cool.

<comment><USER3> I _just_ had a thought... could a nuclear powered aircraft be possible? With some form of electric turbines? Even if the thing could only land at a couple airports, it could easily serve as a bulk transport for people / equipment to get part-way to their destination. I mean, it'd have to be _huge_...

I mean, sure, people would _freak_ about a flying reactor, if only on principle. But that sort of thing dies down with time.

/me starts hunting for weights of marine nuclear reactors

<comment><USER4> It has been done before.

In the 1950s, both the US and USSR did some fairly extensive research into nuclear-powered aircraft, culminating in flight tests by a US NB-36H carrying an operational 3 MW air-cooled nuclear reactor and a Soviet Tu-119 with a reactor powering two of its engines. The US had progressed quite far in developing nuclear-powered engines, culminating in Heat Transfer Reactor Experiment-3 (HTRE-3), but the project was cancelled in 1961 before it could go much further, with the Soviet project being cancelled soon afterwards. [1]

The program didn't solve all the problems that nuclear-powered aircraft could case, such as escaped radiation after crashes, but it did prove that crew shielding could be done safely at a low-enough weight that the concept remained feasible.

 _Scientific American_ featured an article [2] a couple of years ago about some people's recent calls to resurrect the idea for commercial use. But the inherent safety risks remain a big issue.

It's probably an inevitable development at some point, once the core problems have been solved. And with a new generation of high-temperature reactors emerging, such as South Africa's Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, we may see reactors that are ideally suited to this sort of thing coming through.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_aircraft>

[2][http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear- pow...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-powered- aircraft)

<comment><USER3> _exactly_ the sort of reply I was hoping to get. This site is fantastic.

And oops ^^; should've checked for "nuclear aircraft" on wikipedia first. I dove into details without hunting for attempts first. Thanks for the summary!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I get the impression they're spending £15m just to fly for the Olympics. If true, what a waste of money!

<comment><USER6> Worth every penny to see the Red Arrows and Concorde in the opening ceremony.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are two Concordes at Le Bourget: The prototype F-WTSS, with only 812 flight hours, and F-BTSD, with close to 13,000 flight hours. The Concorde they hope to fly again is BTSD.

I was hoping they'd get the prototype flying again. It's been sitting stationary for a lot longer than the production model, but it doesn't have nearly as much wear and tear. And it is, IMO, a more significant aircraft.</comment>