The Book Thieves of London - <AUTHOR> http://thedabbler.co.uk/2015/03/the-book-theives-of-london/ <comment><USER2> I worked in the book trade between 2000 and 2004. I did catch someone's eye once who left the store before putting all the neat piles of hardback books he had stashed under a table in his briefcase.

And I also marked Rough Trade and Lonely Planet guidebooks with invisible ink. After Robert Jordan was arrested I had to identify my handwriting to the police and be available for a court date, but never had my moment in the witness stand... there was no need

<comment><USER3> If it's of any interest, you can read Ronald Jordan's Court of Appeals judgment here:

[http://www.bailii.org/cgi- bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/...](http://www.bailii.org/cgi- bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2005/197.html)

For what it's worth, mention's made of books being marked.

As an aside, I find it quite incredible that the police office brought in to calculate Jordan's earnings did so on the basis that Jordan was paying his thieves 60% of face value. Sixty percent! I'd be kinda surprised if it was as high as twenty!

<comment><USER4> Police have no incentive to accurately price out earnings, and may not know about the details; rather, to overstate them to impress the court & press. I see a lot of this in drug cases - the police will say a bust resulted in a street value of $50k where the person only spent, say, $500, because they're using rounded up figures of the highest street price, and nothing at all realistic. Sometimes it's funny: yesterday I was reading a NZ article where the lawyer was trying to explain to the judge that just because his client was caught importing something like 100 doses of MDMA off Silk Road (cost ~$200, IIRC), his client wasn't a _dealer_ \- it was simply that because European MDMA is so cheap and there's overhead in handling an order & shipping it into NZ with decent stealth, few SR sellers will bother with small orders under 100!

<comment><USER3> Well that's the ironic thing - by overstating how much he was paying, the police officer showed that he earned _less_ because his costs were so high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> While the site is still down, here's the Google cache of the page:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1-86FF_...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1-86FF_XgR4J:thedabbler.co.uk/2015/03/the- book-theives-of-london/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=pl)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is as good an opportunity as I'd be likely to get to heartily recommend "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_Thief](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_Thief)

One of the finest books I've had the pleasure to read.

<comment><USER6> This book is surprisingly hard to find on Amazon.

This one's title appears to be "By Markus Zusak The Book Thief": [http://www.amazon.com/Markus-Zusak-Book-Thief- First/dp/B00N4...](http://www.amazon.com/Markus-Zusak-Book-Thief- First/dp/B00N4EMS2C/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1425398139&sr=8-5&keywords=Markus+Zusak+The+Book+Thief)

This one has the same title, but the author appears to be "-Alfred A. Knopf-": [http://www.amazon.com/Markus-Zusak-Book- Thief/dp/B0084V2R7Q/...](http://www.amazon.com/Markus-Zusak-Book- Thief/dp/B0084V2R7Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1425398181&sr=8-2&keywords=Markus+Zusak+The+Book+Thief)

Only searching by ISBN was I able to find what I'm reasonably sure is the actual genuine book: [http://www.amazon.com/Book-Thief-Markus- Zusak/dp/0375842209/...](http://www.amazon.com/Book-Thief-Markus- Zusak/dp/0375842209/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425398262&sr=8-1&keywords=9780375842207)

What's going on?

<comment><USER5> Alfred A. Knopf is the name of the US. Publisher for said book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Quote: "It only took Roy a minute to _discretely_ nudge the pile ..."

A small, barely detectable but finite nudge? Or did the author mean to say "discreetly"?

</comment><comment><USER8> Reminded me of this story from my old stomping ground, the bookstores of Ann Arbor: [http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/02/davids_books_own...](http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/02/davids_books_owner_charged_in.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> 500 error. I don't think this is a site that can handle large amounts of traffic.

<comment><USER10> Indeed. I got in there just before the stampede. A short, entertaining read about the dying art of book theft, and a summary of some of the 'characters' of the trade.

Google cache here:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:thedabb...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:thedabbler.co.uk/2015/03/the- book-theives-of-london/)

<comment><USER11> During the London riots, bookstores' inventory was left untouched. If there were any book thieves left they would have had easy pickings.

First hit on Google: [http://www.thewire.com/global/2011/08/its-pattern- london-rio...](http://www.thewire.com/global/2011/08/its-pattern-london- rioters-are-leaving-bookstores-untouched/41142/)

<comment><USER12> Stupid gaudy trainers and wide-screen TVs only. Tsch, kids today eh?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A beautiful but fundamentally sad tale about the decline of the physical distribution of information and it's associated sub-cultures.</comment>


Updated GPG Key for Signing Firefox Releases - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2019/06/13/updated-firefox-gpg-key/ <comment><USER2> Is this key signed with the old key? Is there a way to check if it all adds up?

<comment><USER3> $ gpg --import < /tmp/g1 gpg: key 61B7B526D98F0353: 24 signatures not checked due to missing keys

it's signed by 24 things. I didn't drill down into what, but its obviously highly cross-signed. Somebody could do a sunlight on the key thing about it?</comment></comment>


How my program passed the Turing Test - ELIZA [1989] - <AUTHOR> http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~humphrys/Eliza/eliza.anon.html

<comment><USER2> passing the turing test doesn't count if the subject is a moron.</comment>


Ask HN: The Effects of the New Bubble - <AUTHOR>

There are dozens of stories pointing to a growing bubble in startupland, especially in Silicon Valley. Many of the stories have been on the HN homepage the last couple of days.<p>My question is, what effect will this have on the economy at-large? With most of the bubble investing happening in VCs and other private investments, how will this affect the public markets? <comment><USER2> It'll be a neglible effect. The startup bubble will only hurt angels/VCs who continue to dump money into shitty/me2 companies, so they can collect their 10% management fees.

The real bubble is in commodities. All the extra $$$ the Fed is pumping into the US economy is leaking into the emerging markets, where banks can get a better ROI on their bets, instead of investing in US small businesses.

This asymmetry between the stagnant developed economies, and the bustling emerging markets may lead to global stagflation, from high inflation, and high unemployment.

The effects will be increasing political instability throughout North Africa/Middle East, that could enter Europe visa via her large North African diaspora.

Also, China may have to take greater action curbing its money supply, which could push the all resource-centric countries (Chile/Australia/Canada) into recession.

The solution is to incentivize big banks to give out more loans to small US business, which make up the bulk of US employment, instead of making abstracted bets on financial instruments.

The American financial system is broken, and with it American capitalism, because capital isn't reaching the most product parts of the economy. Rather, it's going to lucrative, short term bets, that may be unproductive for the economy in the LONG run.</comment>


Sleep: Everything You Need to Know - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-healthy-life/b65f8e19ed18 <comment><USER2> One tip which I didn't see: set an alarm for _going to bed_ , not _waking up_. You should be able to wake naturally, but artificial lighting changes your perception of when you should go to sleep, shifting you from a naturally 23-hour circadian rhythm to a 25-hour one.

So just set an alarm for 11pm, and when you hear it, immediately stop what you're doing, save any open documents, turn the TV or computer off. The next 30 minutes are for brushing teeth, settling into bed, and preparing for the following morning only. By then you should be settling into a good night's sleep.

<comment><USER3> You're clearly not a student :). I'd love to choose when to go to bed, but that's not really compatible with a workload challenging enough to appease admissions counselors.

<comment><USER4> If you think life's going to become any more considerate of your sleep requirements, think again.

Use time-boxing as a scheduling mechanism. If you find you have more work to do than time to do it, start lopping off items from your to-do list, and/or identifying how you can accomplish a sufficient effort in the time available.

 _That_ is likely to be a far more useful life lesson than whatever subject it is you're studying at the moment.

You _also_ have to learn how to schedule downtime. People cannot run 100% 24/7/365, and attempting to do this is at best very painful, and at worst, literally, suicidal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This post seems like one big, long unsubstantiated bunch of app spam for "zeo". I don't think scientists understand the "fact retention" mechanism as well as OP claims, for instance. It's fairly clear that sleep is important, but there's a lot of unsourced information here that's presented as fact.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback! I worked for Zeo a year ago, however they've since shut down so I have no affiliation to them. I'll be sure to go in add the relevant sources.

<comment><USER5> Sure thing. I don't mean to imply that you are intentionally misguiding. Your general advice (i.e. sleep enough and do it consistently) is good and the post was fairly well-written. Cheers, good sir.

<comment><USER6> I'm not picking on you specifically, but I think this is an example of a very common problem on HN. Someone posts a very harshly-worded negative comment. Then the OP responds to it, and the commenter walks back their comment and praises the post.

It seems like once people realize they're communicating with other real-life human beings, they are much more civil. Couldn't we try to consider that ahead of time, and avoid the off-handed negativity in the first place? It would make HN (and nonverbal communication in general) much more productive and enjoyable.

If the two comments combined fully capture your viewpoint, why not say something along the lines of, "Your advice is good and the post is fairly well-written, but it sort of comes off as a product advertisement. You cite scientific evidence, but you don't provide any sources, which makes it seem unsubstantiated."

Just a suggestion.

<comment><USER7> > I'm not picking on you specifically, but I think this is an example of a > very common problem on HN. Someone posts a very harshly-worded negative > comment. Then the OP responds to it, and the commenter walks back their > comment and praises the post.

Or they're being honest the entire time, and simply posted about the negative part, because who wants to be that chucklehead going '+1' or 'Good post' ("that's what voting is for, dummy!")? Unfortunately, this then leads to comment sections coming off as negative and essentially being a bugtracker for a submission.

(Some relevant musings on this topic: <http://lesswrong.com/lw/3h/why_our_kind_cant_cooperate/> & [http://lesswrong.com/lw/372/defecting_by_accident_a_flaw_com...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/372/defecting_by_accident_a_flaw_common_to_analytical/) )

<comment><USER8> I view comments as a form of feedback. As such, they go both ways. As a contributor, I would want to see sincere examples of both positive and negative feedback. We don't only learn from mistakes, after all. Upvotes are nice, but comments are generally considered to be more meaningful.

HN tends to err on the side of critical feedback, which is a reflection, in part, of the evidence-driven ethos that permeates hacker culture. This is generally a trait I hold in high regard, and take the downside as par for the course. However, I agree with the parent in that having some empathy for those we critique would improve the general tone of discussion here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really wonder how much sleep people lose worrying about their sleep habits.

Trying to micromanage everything from your sleep schedule to your work schedule to your calorie intake to your fat intake to your social media intake to your exposure to cell phone radiation results in being even more stressed out than you would be if you weren't attempting to keep track of eighty different pseudoscientific lifestyle prescriptions.

Go to sleep. Wake up. Eat food. Do those things, and try to enjoy life while you have it... burning it trying to "optimize" everything is a painful waste of time.

<comment><USER10> I reject the idea that optimization leads to burnout. If you're consciously thinking about ALL of those variables at once, yes, you will achieve burnout.

But the entire point of life optimization isn't to sit around thinking about all of this, it's to build healthy habits that allow our "autopilot" to pilot us down previously consciously decided paths.

You should be unconsciously a better person after reinforcing new healthy habits, quite identical to your final phrase of "wake up, eat," etc.

If you're burning out with optimization, you are literally doing it wrong.

<comment><USER9> I've done this myself to a point, but the point I'm making is that there's so much of this flying around and so much debate about so many often- unsubstantiated 'optimizations' that there's often not any real reason to believe they _are_ optimizations.

And if they're not, people are going to waste a lot of time trying to learn new habits, then find out that they are no better off or perhaps worse, except now they're stuck with new, bad habits to unlearn.

My argument is less with optimization than with spending too much time and effort attempting it without actually gaining anything, or having a reasonable expectation of the same.

<comment><USER11> > they're stuck with new, bad habits to unlearn.

I think the point of this is not to optimize for the sake of optimization but to solve a problem. People have problems and they look for solutions. They try anything that can help once all else fails.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As an audiologist, I would not recommend wearing earbuds all night. Ventilation is important for your ears.

Also, your ears are very adaptable: plugging your ears with earbuds will decrease the sound pressure by about 10 dB, which isn't really all that much. As a hearing loss, it would not require treatment. Your ears will adapt and you will still hear most startling sounds. In fact, your ears will have to "concentrate" more, which is known to lead to fatigue.

</comment><comment><USER13> I thought it was a good article, but a lot of it seemed like opinion stated as fact.

I wear ear plugs at night, but no mask. I suffer from "night terrors" however, and when they strike I am very disoriented. The earplugs make that worse, and I imagine a mask would be a bad idea too.

I use these earplugs because we go through a lot. [http://www.amazon.com/SparkPlugs-Disposable-Earplugs- Nascar-...](http://www.amazon.com/SparkPlugs-Disposable-Earplugs-Nascar- Uncorded/dp/B0015TD50C/)

They are large, but still comfortable.

<comment><USER14> Totally anecdotal, but I suffer from occasional night terrors too, and have found that an eye mask actually helps quite a bit. Something about the consistent deeper darkness seems to stop me from 'waking up' and having a spell. Mine were also much worse when I slept in new places, and having the eye mask seems to eliminate that distinction as far as my body is concerned.

Between the eye mask, limiting eating large meals later at night, and cutting back on caffeine, I've reduced my night terrors by about 90% in the past 2 years. YMMV.

<comment><USER15> If you haven't done so yet you both should rule out sleep apnæ with your doctor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great article! I changed my sleep habits about a couple of years ago, almost given up coffee, eat healthy and exercise regularly. I rarely ever feel grumpy or tired in the morning and a lot of that is attributed to 7+ hrs of peaceful sleep. You don't necessarily need an app for this, you just need a lot of will power.

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting post, but I'm not sure if some of this advice can work for me. I've tried earplugs, but to be honest, it makes me paranoid that I won't hear the fire alarm or burglar coming in, which makes me much less relaxed. This isolated feeling is also weird for me. Covering my eyes just feels uncomfortable and also isolating. It's probably just me.

Also, I'm not entirely sure where I heard/read it, but I thought it's actually good to wake up with (natural) light, which brings you into a more natural cycle or something. I think I also heard it could help with jet lag, releasing melatonin or something of that sort.

<comment><AUTHOR> When you first see sunlight in the mornings it helps regulate your circadian rhythm and it tells your body "The sun is out this is when I should wake up". Which is why if you're traveling you want to make sure you wake up at the right time locally and open the windows right away, it'll help reduce the # of days in which you're jetlagged.

However if you're sleeping at home you want your body to sleep for as long as it needs to, uninterrupted. That means no sunlight, no noise and no alarms. If you get into a consistent schedule you're body will wake up at around the same time everyday. However if you have sleep debt that you need to make up, you also want to give your body the chance to sleep a little extra.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Consistency is key, I've heard time and again and my own experience seems to support (FWIW).

However, perfect consistency is hard to maintain. Even if one avoids the late parties and whatnot, eventually emergencies get in the way or illness comes along and increases the amount of sleep required.

My question is, when consistency must falter, what piece is most important? Going to bed at the same time, getting up at the same time, getting the same amount of sleep, or getting at least some particular amount of sleep? The article here claims it is not the last.

<comment><USER19> This is the part I wish he hadn't glossed over, especially since at least a small handful of studies suggest that we naturally adopt > 24h cycles when left away from light cues and set time responsibilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you want to use a screen at night and you don't want to mess with your sleep cycle, make sure you have a device with an AMOLED screen that has the ability to run a profile that uses red pixels only.

Samsung Android devices like the Note and the Galaxy S3 have AMOLED. On the Play Store, there is a free app called Galactic Night that will let you run the device in red only. Add on another free app called Screen Filter, and suddenly you have a device with perfect lighting that allows you to keep your night vision and let your eyes rest while you drift off to sleep. CyanogenMod used to have this feature; not sure if it still does.

Backlit LCD screens (even ones that use Flux or Red profiles) won't work because even the black pixels are backlit. I've tried using a jailbroken iPad with Color Profiles and it's just not the same.

Finally, you can use an e-reader but I recommend a light source you can add a red gel to. This will have the same effect.

Source: I've been reading on a screen before bed since the days of the Palm III. Also, I used to develop film in a real darkroom.

</comment><comment><USER21> OP mentions that earbuds (plugs) are one of the best things he's done to improve sleep. Has anyone out there reviewed a few different brands of earplugs? I've used Hearos Ultimate Softness but I'm reading that there are better plugs out there. It looks like the best consumer grade plugs have a NRR of 33. Anyone have suggestions or insight into this?

<comment><USER22> Completely anecdotal, but when we had our child I did night shifts, and wife decided to use plugs to make sure she'd get enough sleep to be ready to go for the morning.

She settled in on the soft silicone variety, like these [http://www.amazon.com/Macks-Pillow-Silicone-Earplugs- Value/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Macks-Pillow-Silicone-Earplugs- Value/dp/B000067NMJ/ref=pd_sim_misc_4) but she gets the pharmacy or grocery store brand. They let in enough noise that you're not completely isolated, but dampen enough that you're able to sleep through usual noise like spouse snoring, dogs waking up to stretch/scratch/re-position, baby gurgling over the monitor, etc.

Edit: And they're much much more comfortable than the foam varieties tried.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am surprised the article doesn't mention anything about alcohol and its effect on sleep. Does anyone want to chime in on this?

<comment><USER24> From what I understand being drunk when going to sleep relaxes the muscles around your throat increasing your chance of apnea. The relaxed muscles around the throat means that the airway closes yielding a similar effect to choking (which is essentially what apnea is). The end result is that you choke periodically throughout the night meaning that the quality of your sleep is much inferior to what it could be; this is probably a large contributing factor to hangovers.

Edit: My source is a knowledgeable person on the subject, feel free to contradict or doubt the truthfulness of the answer - makes sense to me at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Really interesting read... but out of curiosity, how does exercise play into the sleep schedule? In order to maintain a good sleep rhythm, when is latest one should exercise? Also I'd like to know where you get your supposedly free stopwatches.

<comment><USER26> Physical activity that makes you feel tired and/or relaxes your mind is very good before going to bed as your thoughts will not wander and you will doze off within minutes. I used to have this problem of going to sleep after switching off lights and going to bed. I started doing simple exercises like cleaning/arranging my room or relaxation yoga which would take my mind off thinking a lot before falling asleep. Also I started reading books (not e-books, which make you insomniac) for 15-20 minutes everyday before going to sleep. You can exercise just before going to bed. For a free stopwatch you can use your smartphone or alarm clock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think drinking cold water before bed is not as good as you make it to be.

Cold water is like shock to your system. It wakes your body up.

Your body needs to work on warming the water first.

Although water itself should be good, warm/hand temperature water should be best.

</comment><comment><USER28> Who lifts _daily_? Don't do that, bud.

<comment><USER29> > Who lifts daily?

I lift 5 times a week, with another day of cardio and I'm in my mid 30's. My life is pretty good.

> Don't do that, bud.

Based on what information? Many popular lifting schedules call for 5 days on and 2 off per week. I think your projecting your own personal experiences here.

<comment><USER30> I'm thinking of starting this up myself. Lifting weights has definite health benefits.

Do you go to a gym or have a home gym? What kind of program are you following?

I'm thinking of half hour max early morning, rotating between major body parts.

<comment><USER31> Starting Strength is the way to go:

<http://startingstrength.com/>

The basic outline is that it's 5 exercises, three times a week, with three exercises per day - you alternate some of them. It should take about an hour including warm ups.

There's a wiki, but buy the book. For equipment, you'll need weights, a barbell, squat rack, and bench. It's all stuff a gym should have, or is relatively easy to find on craigslist for cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> For anyone interested, heres a list of additional things that may help you sleep: [http://www.favemaven.com/themaven/tips-and-tricks-better- sle...](http://www.favemaven.com/themaven/tips-and-tricks-better-sleep)

I'm also a big fan of flux which lowers the amount of blue light emitted by your monitor: <http://stereopsis.com/flux/>

Its one page from my first django project which has been abandoned for a while. Its basically a curated affiliate link site (similar to what refer.ly has become)

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't trust advice from anyone who uses apostrophes with plurals. If you can't figure out basic English, why should I be convinced you've figured out things more complicated?

<comment><USER34> That's like dismissing Einstein's work because he pleasantly married his cousin. Some people place less importance or stress on certain things than other people do. Get over it, this article is truly helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Loved my Wakemate, but have since moved to all-Android. Are there any decent equivalents to the Zeo/Wakemate that work with Android phones and are still in business?

</comment><comment><USER36> I usually sleep on my side but, when I do, I never dream. If I force myself to sleep flat on my back, I almost always dream. What's up with that?

<comment><USER37> There's a difference between not dreaming and not remembering your dreams. Everybody dream every night.

This is just speculation, but perhaps you sleep better on your side, so that you don't remember your dreams as easily? E.g. if you wake up several times a night, you will remember more dreams than if you don't wake up during the night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> One of things that helps me is a sleeping cap. Mine is just a thin lightweight hat. I surmise this helps in the same way the article suggests to wear socks to keep your extremities warm. The only thing is, I hate wearing socks to bed, instead I wear the cap! :)

I also like to think the act of putting on my sleeping cap is also a nice subconscious cue that it's sleep time.

</comment><comment><USER39> What of being woken several times each night? I have two kids and two dogs and a wife; between them all I'm woken at least twice.

<comment><USER40> According to an article I saw on HN a week ago, apparently, evidence shows we evolved to naturally wake up once each night about half way through, for around an hour. Of course, we went to sleep when it became dark and woke with the sun. Something that isn't conducive with todays lifestyle.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5542453>

<comment><USER39> I've seen the "first sleep" references too. That's not what I'm talking about. Waking up naturally for a half hour in a pleasant relaxed state is one thing. Having the dog bark "let me out or I'm peeing on the carpet" and having to run downstairs, having the other dog jump on me at random intervals, having two kids separately get me up for a half hour each fussing about whatever, and having m'lady decide she must check her email at oh-dark-thirty, well, that's quite something else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Does the headband really work? Detecting "brainwaves" and eye movements sounds fairly dubious to me. Does it cover your eyes?

<comment><USER42> It is a bluetooth EEG headband.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEG>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain–co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain–computer_interfaces)

<comment><USER43> ... waiting for research of the influense of bluetooth on sleep, especially when in close proximity to a brain :]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I can't go without 10-15 minute power naps in the afternoon or evening. Whether it's physically effective or just placebo, it feels essential. That being said I drink coffee before the gym at around 7-8pm, which probably isn't the optimal time (though I have no problem falling asleep at 12:30-1:30am which is when I want to go to sleep).

<comment><AUTHOR> Power naps can be very effective when used right (i.e if you're consistent with them). In the last month of my semesters I switch my sleep over to Polyphastic sleep schedule. 6 Hours of sleep at night and one 20minute nap in the afternoon. It gives me more time to study for finals/finish up class projects.

Check out this post for more information: <http://dustincurtis.com/sleep.html>

<comment><USER45> Do you mean polyphasic sleep? If you sleep two times in a 24 hour cycle, that's biphasic sleep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I agree with short naps concept but i think rather than following "the earlier in the day, the better", another concept of mid-day napping can be followed. You just need to take a short nap of 30 minutes ,15-20 minutes post-lunch. That is the time we can easily fall asleep, also you feel very refreshed and productive once you wake up!

</comment><comment><USER46> If someone see my comment, there are many information here: <http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm> It is really big so the best solution is to see it fast and read the summary. And it's worth it.

</comment><comment><USER47> How am I supposed to hear my alarm in the morning if I'm wearing earbuds/earplugs?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're consistent you should reach the point to where you don't need an alarm and your body is capable of waking up at the same time everyday.

However even if you're wearing earplugs you'll be able to hear an alarm, they don't block off noise that much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> A very interesting post. However, it is making some strong claims without really backing them up. It would be nice to see some citations.

</comment><comment><USER49> no no no, i don't even need to read any of that. 6 hours sleep. perfect for me. not tired, almost always in a good mood. very simple and effective. i don't need no recipes, to know about deep sleep and all that.

you should not forget that people are very different. so don't try to impose all these rules on everyone just because it works for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment! At the end of the day you have to find what works best for you. For some (lucky) people they can kick ass on just 6 hours of sleep. For others, they need to be consistent and sleep for 7-8hrs.

I didn't mean to impose anything on anyone, just trying to share some of the things I've learnt :).

<comment><USER49> ok, but your shouldn't make it look like rocket science. it's pretty simple for me and maybe I'm lucky, but I guess the most important thing is to tell people to experiment with their sleep. i would say most of these sleep issues have a rather simple cure and you don't need sleep apps, wrist devices, zeos etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> What about waking up between sleep cycles?

<comment><AUTHOR> You never want to wake up in the middle of a Deep Sleep or REM sleep cycle. The best time to wake up is when you're in between cycles. Which is what the "Smart Alarms" are supposed to do, they wait until you come out of a sleep cycle to wake you up.

The Zeo is the most accurate (since it picks up brainwaves), however it's also slightly uncomfortable and buggy. I personally use the Jawbone UP which works good enough. All of the apps that say they do that aren't the most accurate since they rely on the movement of your mattress. However I know some people who swear by them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> *than

</comment><comment><USER52> You don't need to time sleep and you don't need to weigh calories. You just need to make sure nothing is fucking up your true sleepiness and that nothing is messing up your appetite.

You have sophisticated systems in you to govern consumption of sleep and food. Just don't screw things up with drugs, digital stimulation, social isolation, or junk food. It's all the same issue.

</comment><comment><USER53> "Turbo shots" or "red eyes" in your coffee are a placebo btw. Espresso has a lower concentration of caffeine than standard drip. So by putting a "turbo shot" in your cup, you're actually lowering the caffeine concentration.

Wants to be hyper-rational and metric-aware about his sleep but didn't know anything about caffeine?

Okay.

<comment><USER54> I hear a lot about cutting caffeine after 3pm to have it not affect your sleep, but I generally assume people are talking about coffee when they mention this time. I care more about when I should stop drinking tea, which apparently contains less caffeine.

Can I just halve the time required if tea has half the caffeine (let's say)?

<comment><USER55> There are some pretty good decaf black teas (not herbal) which are reasonably satisfying if you want to have a cuppa later in the day.

If you're in the US, the Stash decaf range is IMO the best of the common supermarket brands (the normal American teas like Lipton and Tetley are pretty terrible in their decaf versions). If there's a gourmet store around, they may have the English brands such as Typhoo or PG Tips in decaf, which are pretty great. If you're in the UK then any advice on tea from the likes of me should just be ignored out of hand... :)</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft SuperPreview: a New Way to Test Web Sites - <AUTHOR> http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/03/19/microsoft-superpreview-website-tester/ <comment><USER2> SuperPreview is disappointing, IMHO. It shows screenshots of the various browser's renderings, but they aren't interactive. Since a lot of cross- browser bugs are JS related that doesn't really help.

Xenocode's browser sandbox on the other hand is great: <http://www.xenocode.com/Browsers/>

It lets you run all versions of IE, Opera, Firefox, and Safari without having to install them. They were also sharp and included the IE Developer Toolbar in the packages. Highly recommended.

<comment><USER3> I think that the browser sandbox and SuperPreview serve different purposes. The sandbox will allow you to do the js checking, but SuperPreview allows you to look more at design elements through overlay and rulers. This is the same feature provided in Adobe browserlab (mentioned in another comment), but browserlab is currently closed to new users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really wanted to like this, and didn't mind the 250MB download, because I just got my coffee while it was downloading. But the first address I entered caused an error page about insufficient memory even though my system shows 800MB of free memory. It has a nice bug report facility, but wanted me to signup for Microsoft Connect in order to leave feedback. Which I did because I want this product to succeed. So a big "meh" overall on this one at this point.

</comment><comment><USER4> I was about to download it, but 250MB? That is more than the total size of all the browsers it supports!

<comment><USER5> Of course it's going to be bigger than all the browsers combined. They have to include all the browsers plus extra software to contrast and compare the output.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If it offered a real-time html/css editing facility for any browser it contained akin to firebug, I'd be a happy boy.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting that Adobe brought this out a few months later - <https://browserlab.adobe.com/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> It looks quite useful, and it fills in a huge gap in the market.

The gui could use a bit of clean up though.</comment>


Kholsa offers land swap over access rights - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Billionaire-Khosla-suggests-land-swap-in-fight-6698310.php?cmpid=brknow <comment><AUTHOR> Speaking of land use, Silicon Valley, and money...

The saga continues and Kholsa continues to portray himself as having a tin ear.</comment>


IKEA bypasses QR codes, catalog to use augmented reality - <AUTHOR> http://agbeat.com/real-estate-sales-marketing/ikea-bypasses-qr-codes-catalog-use-augmented-reality/ <comment><USER2> demo: <http://youtu.be/K5OKaK3Ay8U>

13th Lab raises $700,000 to build its 'UI for reality' [http://gigaom.com/europe/13th-lab-raises-700000-to-build- its...](http://gigaom.com/europe/13th-lab-raises-700000-to-build-its-ui-for- reality/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is cool on a few levels, IMHO.

First, down with QR codes! – They go exactly the wrong way, making information only machine readable rather than making the machine process human readable information. IKEA gets this and they do it the right way here.

Second, I love the prototyping/concept communication done in this video. Using low-tech looking demos to portray a high-tech solution just works – it highlights the value of the concept, not the glitz of the technology or device. (Also, it really seems to fit with Ikea's brand image, but that's a different topic).

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm really not sold on this. Something that could be delivered exclusively to the device is now inexorably tied to a piece of paper--scratch that; many, many sheets of paper.</comment>


On the road with the 13-inch MacBook Pro - <AUTHOR> https://sixcolors.com/post/2016/11/review-traveling-with-the-13-inch-macbook-pro/ <comment><USER2> I bought the same model last weekend, and am very happy with it. Of course, it replaced my old 13" MacBook Air, not a Pro.

I was worried about the keyboard but have grown to love it (I couldn't stand the MacBook one, but this is much better). And the P3 Retina display is gorgeous. The colors and brightness are truly stunning, and the audio is surprisingly clear and "present".

Still, I miss MagSafe. It was metallic and elegant and had the perfect little charging light. This plug is white and plastic and cheap-looking and no light... it's a shame.

I mean, I get standardizing on USB-C only for peripherals, but I don't get it for power. You've always got to carry the power brick anyways, so the connector doesn't have to be standard -- or do we expect that someday USB-C charging cables will be so ubiquitous you don't need to take it with you?

<comment><USER3> >Still, I miss MagSafe. It was metallic and elegant and had the perfect little charging light. This plug is white and plastic and cheap-looking and no light... it's a shame.

I think part of this transition is Apple subtly suggesting that people don't need to have their laptops plugged in as a default any longer. The Magsafe is so easy to attach, most people I know have one in their usual work spot and just snap it on every time they sit down there, even if it's just for 10 minutes to check email. The comparative inconvenience of the USB connector means they will likely be a little more intentional about plugging it in...but the incredible battery life of these devices now means you really don't need to. There's no need to snake a power cable to your table at the coffee shop when your laptop gets 10+ hours of battery life. You don't even need to plug it in on your desk at home, or working in your bed, on the couch...if you're just plugging it in on a side table when you close it up for the night now, the whole tripping hazard becomes a pretty moot point.

Edit: ah, I see jakobegger has beat me to this comment below ;)

<comment><USER4> So removing MagSafe is a feature? Laptops have diferent power profiles when they are plugged in than on battery.

Again, this: "You don't need to plug in your laptop all the time" works for the regular MacBook, but we are talking about the 'Pro' line here, MagSafe should be standard.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't read him as arguing that removing MagSafe is a feature. Just that the tradeoff is more understandable now given battery life than it would have been earlier. It's definitely fair to disagree with the tradeoff. I'm pretty ambivalent about it, myself. I'd like to see something like the Griffin BreakSafe supplied by Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I find the lack of response in the keys unpleasant, but I can still type at > full speed and accuracy when I use it.

I'm not worried about losing speed, I'm worried about developing hand and wrist pain over time, which seems, at least for me, to be an issue with using low travel keyboards. Maybe I just need to learn to type with a lighter touch.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been fortunate enough not to have any type of chronic RSI pain associated with typing. Am I reading you correctly that your pain is due to striking the keys and slamming into the keyboard when the key bottoms out?

<comment><USER6> That has been my experience. I have noticed that my mechanical keyboard is much gentler and less likely to induce RSI relate pain because I almost never have hard impacts due to bottoming the keys out. On my MacBook (2013 15" rMBP) it's a different story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For what it's worth, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports (this one) gets a hair over 16 hours of battery life in Ars' Wifi Browsing Test. Unfortunately, this benchmark did not contain a measurement for the 13" MacBook Air, its spiritual predecessor. The old 13" Pro got 14 hours.

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/11/review- cheapest-2016-ma...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/11/review- cheapest-2016-macbook-pro-is-good-but-its-missing-all-the-cool-stuff/4/)

</comment><comment><USER8> > trains zipping through the Irish countryside.

Calling bullshit on his performance claims. None of our trains ever "zip" here.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a questionable review, bordering on dishonest.

It makes no mention that the new machines provide almost no performance improvement over last year's models, despite the significant price hike: [http://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/apples-newest-macbook- pro...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/apples-newest-macbook-pro-slightly- faster-previous-models/)

Edit: If the folks downvoting me would like to dispute the benchmarks, please feel free to contribute some new data to the conversation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I get the impression from the review that the reviewer is reporting his experience with using the MacBook under real-world conditions. He's not performing benchmarks. Whether or not there's a performance improvement wouldn't really need to be included in that, would it? Indeed, he specifically mentions that he didn't have the opportunity to perform speed tests:

 _" Being on the road, I haven't been able to do methodical speed or battery tests, but I can say that the battery life on this laptop seems to be a lot more than on the MacBook Air. It also handled some more intense work—editing multi-track audio in Logic Pro and removing noise from audio with iZotope RX 5—with aplomb. Some of that may be the result of the faster SSD in this model, but some of it is at least the responsibility of the processor."_

Do you get the impression that he's trying to hide something? Do you have other criticisms besides this point?

<comment><USER9> It's hard to tell if he's ignorant or deceptive, but he claims some of the speed-up is from the processor. Real benchmarks show otherwise.

It certainly feels like he's trying to promote the product rather than give an objective review. It's fine for him to have his opinion, but I just want to point out that this is not a trustworthy review.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If they had somehow packed what was in 15" model into a 13" model, then it would be a great machine. This, it's not appealing to me the way it is.

</comment><comment><USER11> He is listing the size of the new MBP vs the 13" Macbook Air as a pro, but in fact even the previous MBP had a slightly smaller footprint than the 13" Air, this is even smaller though. The Air is in fact a pretty large 13" laptop in terms of footprint.

</comment><comment><USER12> Those are the most elongated escape keys I've ever seen!

</comment><comment><USER13> It seems appropriate given the reviews to start calling these new machines the MacBook Pro Air as it seems that it's Apples goal to increase prices and reduce functionality to fit into a smaller frame.

<comment><USER14> Macbook Prair?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is very little information in this post.

The only question I had after reading this was: how does one become become a blogger that gets a Macbook Pro from Apple to review?

<comment><USER16> The blogger in question, Jason Snell, used to be editorial director of Macworld, an extremely popular Mac magazine going back long before Apple's current successful period: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Snell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Snell)</comment></comment>


Trump Is Losing the Battle to Keep His Finances Secret - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/7kppwq/trump-is-losing-the-battle-to-keep-his-finances-secret <comment><USER2> Something will happen so that he can keep them secret. Too many people in power have made Trump's infallibility into the source of their power to let this data out. The fact that Trump has consistently stonewalled release, and fought as hard as possible against laws that demand its release would seem to indicate that something is fishy about his finances.</comment>


The Billionaire's Typewriter (A Critique of Medium.com) (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://practicaltypography.com/billionaires-typewriter.html <comment><USER2> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9063177](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9063177)</comment>


The best multisignature wallets for 2016 - <AUTHOR> http://bravenewcoin.com/news/the-best-multisignature-wallets-for-2016/ <comment><USER2> Awesome review</comment>


KFC is working with a Russian 3D bioprinting firm to try to make chicken nuggets - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/18/21329453/kfc-russia-bioprinting-lab-chicken-nuggets-sustainable <comment><USER2> Why a Russian 3D bioprinting firm?</comment>


Blogs are from the past, welcome feathers: blogless writing and sharing - <AUTHOR> http://feathe.rs In our team, we all like to write. We want to share our thoughts and opinions. But blogging has it's own set of limitations and expectations that don't always fit with how we write.
You need to manage a platform (either hosted or as a service) with everything that comes with it - setting up a theme, defining tags, categories and so on. You need to constantly write otherwise a new visitor may think your 2 months old blog post outdated and that you've moved on. Visitors also expect consistency of topic, while we may want to write a variety of posts about different aspects of our life and being. A flame post about the actress we hate, or a personal post about how life is going in general. What's more, the internet as we know it never forgets, while our opinions change.
The word "Blog" comes from the combinations of the words "web" + "log", meaning that all blogs result in a list of all articles. We want to focus on each article and we want to give that article only to our readers. There are enough networks and services that allow you to share what you write with interested people, why do we need them to register and follow your blog as well? Rather than taking up your time to create an intricate blog, why not just offer a direct link to the article and save your readers time too? When that article is no longer relevant, and is not shared or read anymore, we believe it should slowly and automatically disappear.
We believe writing is an important part for everybody's personal growth, but a blog with all it's limitations and expectations can be daunting to the casual writer. If you are curious and believe in our manifesto check out http://feathe.rs and sign up. We will open it up for everyone soon. <comment><AUTHOR> In our team, we all like to write. We want to share our thoughts and opinions. But blogging has it's own set of limitations and expectations that don't always fit with how we write.

You need to manage a platform (either hosted or as a service) with everything that comes with it - setting up a theme, defining tags, categories and so on. You need to constantly write otherwise a new visitor may think your 2 month old blog post outdated and that you've moved on. Visitors also expect consistency of topic, while we may want to write a variety of posts about different aspects of our life and being. A flame post about the actress we hate, or a personal post about how life is going in general. What's more, the internet as we know it never forgets, while our opinions change.

The word "Blog" comes from the combinations of the words "web" + "log", meaning that all blogs result in a list of all articles. We want to focus on each article and we want to give that article only to our readers. There are enough networks and services that allow you to share what you write with interested people, why do we need them to register and follow your blog as well? Rather than taking up your time to create an intricate blog, why not just offer a direct link to the article and save your readers time too? When that article is no longer relevant, and is not shared or read anymore, we believe it should slowly and automatically disappear.

We believe writing is an important part for everybody's personal growth, but a blog with all it's limitations and expectations can be daunting to the casual writer. If you are curious and believe in our manifesto check out feathe.rs and sign up. We will open it up for everyone soon.

<comment> mck- Interesting concept - I think a little more 'value' on your homepage would work for me -- it is beautiful and sleek, but not enticing enough for me to leave my email, because I don't see what it is...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, agree! We'll add the manifesto there in the upcoming days :)

<comment><USER2> We don't need a manifesto. Just examples of what it looks like and how it works. Are you looking for customers or adherents?

<comment><AUTHOR> It will be a free service so not looking for customers but more for people that want to have a fix as we do for the above mentioned problems, so yes probably I'll call them adherents:) Of course we will roll out more in the upcoming days as we are still fine tuning the service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Gr8 Idea guys - I am just fedup with managing a blog vs focusing on writing a piece of content, seems you nailed. Signed up, looking forward to it

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OK here we go, our manifesto is online and of course written using feathe.rs :) stay tuned!

</comment><comment><USER4> awesome ideas! i just dsigned and immedately loved it! Cannot wait for more from you! :)

</comment><comment><USER5> cool, I'm in! looking forward to it!</comment>


The Cruise Origin - <AUTHOR> https://www.getcruise.com/origin/ <comment><USER2> This is _exactly_ the use case I think self-driving cars are perfect for: a shared fleet of cars continuously picking up and dropping off passengers within cities – eliminating the need for parking and allowing cities to reclaim that ROW for other uses (bigger sidewalks, bikeways, parklets/seating, or even dedicated bus lanes and light rail for high capacity routes, maybe even housing in some spots), finally allowing vehicles to become a crucial supplement to higher capacity public transportation rather than a competitor to it, and hopefully decrease the amount of space dedicated to cars (think highways and sprawl in addition to parking) within cities.

I hope they can pull this off.

<comment><USER3> You are describing a bus company ;)

"a shared fleet of cars continuously picking up and dropping off passengers within cities"

And just like existing bus companies, the self-driving ones will also require you to take a detour so that other passengers can be picked up or dropped off along the way.

So the main novelty is that you eliminate about $0.2 per minute in salary, but in exchange you now have to maintain much more complicated vehicles with much more expensive replacement parts.

Oh and have you ever considered that the same people that you hate meeting on the bus could also be combined into your ride? Except that now they are not 3 weirdos out of 80 people but 3 out of 4.

So unless this is so expensive that most people cannot afford it, it'll have the same drawbacks that rich people currently hate about taking a public bus.

I expect these companies to lead to more traffic, because afterwards you will have the regular poor-people bus and in addition the almost empty rich-people bus vehicles.

<comment><USER4> I'm wondering if you have ever ridden a bus, and also a shared Uber? The car gets you where you are going a lot faster than the bus, because you need to wait for at most 2 other stops instead of 17 or whatever, and you never need a transfer. Whether or not this argument convinces you, experiencing it yourself makes the difference obvious. It's one of those things where you can actually do an experiment to find out the answer instead of just arguing about it. You could also try entering a destination into google maps and compare the estimated arrival time with bus vs Uber.

The self-driving car will presumably be a similar experience to the Uber, but addresses the labor issues that are the main problem with that model.

<comment><USER5> The Uber-like "pick me up where I am" is a pre-fit incentive that will be dropped later.

I take buses regularly. Uber too. Taxis too.

All in all, the de-humanizing/automation part that's getting traction from capital. It's not a strictly human/modern need that's being met, it's an addictive service (faster, exclusive) that's being sold and cost-optimized.

You can be certain that the day Uber-automated-cars are the norm for transit, for cost/efficiency reasons, you will be kindly asked to join a specific pick- up point; and off-loaded at a specific location as well.

Those locations will be computed & decided by the provider, not you (you know, bus). Unless you pay another premium (taxis).

<comment><USER6> What you describe is a car service with an automated driver. Car services have existed for decades, and saving $20-25/hr on a driver isn't really _that_ big of a net gain. The biggest innovation Uber offered is app-based dispatch.

There is a lot of skepticism that automated vehicles will ever happen without massive infrastructure changes that remove human drivers from the road in large numbers. The liability issues are huge -- accidents _will_ happen and people will die. In a case where fault must be determined between an autonomous vehicle and a human driver, human judges / juries are going to overwhemlingly side with the human. If anything, automated vehicles will require _more_ costly regulation than human drivers do.

Car services are a hard business to make money in because the job isn't very skilled, so there was a lot of regulation in place to ensure those services were priced in such a way that they continued to be reliable. Uber sidestepped a lot of that regulation through creative accounting and VC subsidization, but my guess is that when Uber and Lyft implode in a year or two, much of it will be reintroduced to fill the smoking hole they will leave in last-mile transit since they put the taxi companies out of business.

<comment><USER7> Getting rid of the driver is huge. Even with mass transit, where there is a huge ratio of drivers to passengers, labor is the dominant cost.

> Personnel expenses are the largest portion of Metrobus budget. For FY2019, > personnel cost is estimated at $522.5 million or 80.2 percent of Metrobus > budget, which represents a decrease of $27.7 million from FY2018 budget.

<comment><USER8> Is that just drivers or also the mechanics, planners, IT, etc. There are many more personnel than drivers necessary to run a giant public transit dept, and many would still be necessary with self driving cars/busses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No release date or price or anything? I honestly don't even know what this is. Is it for the city or for the individual? What are its capabilities? I sure would love ANY concrete details. This is all just tech marketing speak, same old bullshit.

<comment><USER10> Yes. Cruise has been "fake it til you make it" since their original demo video. Now "all vehicles shown on road are renders" in fine print.

Here are the CA DMV's autonomous vehicle accident reports for 2019.[1] Cruise has a lot of them. Mostly being rear-ended by a human-driven car. A surprisingly large number are with the vehicle being driven manually, or right after the human driver took over. True driverless still seems a long way off given those results.

I've seen Cruise cars in SF, most recently making a left turn off Union St in manual mode.

GM's first try at self-driving, Firebird III in 1958, was far cooler than this mini-bus thing.

The mini-bus area seems a good place to start with self-driving. I was once thinking airport parking lot shuttles. Controlled environment, low speed - that could work. But the financial numbers don't work out. You get rid of the driver cost, but you add sizable engineering cost and vehicle cost, and you don't sell many vehicles that way. Local Motors and some other startups have been struggling quietly in that space for years now. Local Motors' Olli has three live installations, with about six vehicles total, all very recent. A college campus, a casino area, and a dedicated track at an industrial park are the public installations. Demos, basically. The thing is so slow that walking might be faster, and any bicycle or electric scooter would be much faster. Not fast enough to get people from Economy Parking to the terminal.

Navya, from France, seems to be further along. They provided the self-driving shuttles for the Las Vegas strip. They have a number of live mini-bus installations in Europe. They've announced an autonomous cab, but it is not deployed yet.

This is still something that can only be done if someone is willing to finance a money-loser. However, this is perhaps the best time in history for that.

[1] [https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auton...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/autonomousveh_ol316)

[2] [https://youtu.be/xKOdux6Gjno?t=649](https://youtu.be/xKOdux6Gjno?t=649)

<comment><USER11> "Finance a money loser" is exactly how local government has been deploying buses all over my country for decades. I assume many countries are like this. Outside of major cities, the main users of the 100,000s of buses are those who cannot drive, primarily school children, disabled and elderly. The bus users pay more per mile than car owners, and the majority of the population pays a lot of taxation and air pollution. Removing vehicle emissions is a no-brainer, but removing the driver makes it possible to replace 50+ seat buses every hour with 4-6 seat buses every 5 mins and vary the routes or add additional vehicles dynamically in response to demand. Sadly this will take a long time - local government won't do anything until forced or until they see an obvious vote winner

<comment><USER12> Cars aren't a money loser? Think of all those parking spots that cities pay for as well as the massive road infrastructure (as well as extra utilities that have to be run to account for urban sprawl). Cars are massively subsidized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there a rule these days that your startup isn't allowed to clearly describe what its product is?

Anyway, I guess this is an unmanned self-driving taxi service. Looks good, honestly. If it's significantly cheaper than a taxi with human driver, then maybe it really could help people not need to own a car. Especially if they can optimise routes to get more people riding at once.

Having to hunt for what the thing actually is also got me to notice the small disclaimer though:

> All on-road images of the Origin are renderings.

<comment><USER14> [https://medium.com/hackernoon/for-the-love-of-god-please- tel...](https://medium.com/hackernoon/for-the-love-of-god-please-tell-me-what- your-company-does-c2f0b835ab92)

<comment><USER13> Well at least someone else has noticed. Off-topic but I've also started seeing modern software websites with no screenshots, to the point that I can get a better idea of what a product is like from the screenshots on Google Images than I can from all the text and pretty graphics on the site itself.

<comment><USER15> I suspect they do that because every update to your software/interface then renders your example screenshots outdated. For a startup at least and in my experience, that's a painful distraction when you want to just focus on building and getting people to your site. But I also go looking for screenshots and appreciate sites that provide them up front.

<comment><USER16> Quite possible but in that case I usually treat the website with scepticism. There are plenty of "fake it till you make it" type of products out there, and no screenshots or photographs on the site is a big signal for problem in my opinion.

Getting new screenshots doesn't seem very work intensive plus you can easily put screenshots of an earlier version and a disclaimer that the screenshots may not be fully up to date.

<comment><USER15> Big companies do it as well, to the point where I can't tell if it's split tested and proven more effective, or just a stylistic thing that they think is more important than effectiveness?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why can't we just invest in buses? This will become the luxury/premium version of "public transit"

<comment><USER18> The only reason busses are the size they are is the labor cost of the driver only makes sense with many, many passengers. When that is eliminated, the equation changes.

Even if these weren't point-to-point, smaller vehicles can a) serve more routes that would otherwise be below breakeven for minimum passengers served by a bus, b) be more comfortable for passengers to enter/exit, and c) take up less room on streets. Buses barely fit on streets, they only make sense on very dense thoroughfares as an alternative to rail.

<comment><USER19> > c) take up less room on streets.

Not on a per-passenger basis, which is the metric that matters more in streets full of people traveling.

<comment><USER18> I appreciate that argument and in some/many situations it is likely true, but in others it is not.

What matters isn't people per square foot, it's throughput. And the larger the vehicle, the more likely:

a) people are to want to stop at each stop,

b) multiple people are to get on and off at each stop,

c) the less likely it is to be full, and

d) the more awkward and slow it is in maneuvering on streets.

A/B/D all delay every other passenger, and make 3 mile trips take half an hour through a city.

Cruise Origin isn't the only autonomous bus. The great thing about autonomy is that it allows us more degrees of freedom to optimize transportation needs including offering a variety of shapes and sizes and densities, while removing the labor cost and the physical space cost of a driver.

You can just as easily design an autonomous bus to have density to match a larger bus while retaining the footprint of smaller vehicles, which improves all of the above issues with larger busses.

<comment><USER20> Bus dwell time plays a nonzero role in bus performance, but many multilane urban streets are choked with cars during rush hour. It's often the case that congestion accounts for the lions share of bus transit time, yet there are typically more people on the bus than in all the cars on a given block. Creating a dedicated bus lane can dramatically improve bus performance, and has a follow-on effect that since congestion has been mitigated, the same set of buses (a fixed capital cost) can, in the same timeframe (fixed operating cost), make more circuit trips. So not only does a single trip get much faster, a bus lane magically produces more capacity.

<comment><USER21> The Origin looks van sized, which is perfect. It doesn't take up significantly more space than a car while moving or stationary but can carry more people (and more importantly for congestion, likely _will_ much of the time). Averaging three people per car/van sized vehicle would likely solve the vast majority of current congestion needs, as it would likely halve the vehicles on the road.

<comment><USER10> _The Origin looks van sized, which is perfect._

Remember Supershuttle? They had vans. "Never more than 3 stops". Remember the long, long indirect routes of Supershuttle? Remember what happened to Supershuttle?

<comment><USER18> On the other hand, Lyft Line and Uber Pool seem quite efficient.

Supershuttle was concentrated pickup but distributed dropoff, whereas with network effects leading to more vehicles & considerably more efficient routing, you can even that equation out a bit more.

<comment><USER21> I was thinking along the lines of alternating between a distributed pickup and concentrated drop off and concentrated pickup and distributed drop off. That is, you use these for last mile travel at either end of a commute artery.

Given there are many different bus/rail stops along a route (and many routes for buses), there's a relatively small geographic area to pick up in and drop of to when the other side of the trip is bus/rail. So you might have an automated van drive through an area and make a quick 4-6 pickups in a few block area, drive to a bus stop or rail station, drop those people off, and pick up 4-8 people for drop-off in close geographic proximity. Rinse and repeat.

The point doesn't have to be that they solve the last mile by _replacing_ current mass transit, but by supplementing it in a way that allows for people that were far enough away that it was hard to use previously now have an easy and cheap way to do so, because you've expanded the coverage area of mass transit stations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > With the Origin's ability to drive day and night and last for more than a > million miles, we'll be able to cut up to $5,000 in transportation costs per > San Francisco household, per year.

What counts as a transportation cost? Do average San Franciscan households have $5k of local (i.e. replaceable with a robocab) transportation costs? We're one of the US cities with the most households without vehicles [1].

But even looking at the US average, $5K would be a big promise.

E.g. a quick search finds claims [2] that average US households are paying $250 in gas per month (-> 3k per year). That same source says the household average for transportation (including planes, trains, ships, vacations) is $9k.

For comparison, an SF muni pass with bart within the city is $98/month.

[1] [https://www.governing.com/gov-data/car-ownership-numbers- of-...](https://www.governing.com/gov-data/car-ownership-numbers-of-vehicles- by-city-map.html)

[2] [https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-household- budget#transp...](https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-household- budget#transportation)

<comment><USER23> > that average US households are paying $250 in gas per month

Gas is definitely not the only expense to driving. Amortization of the vehicle value, insurance, and maintenance are all costs that you have to consider as part of vehicle ownership (or leasing).

If Origin were the difference between someone owning and not owning a car, it would be pretty easy to get to $5k. As you noted, $3k per year for gas. Another $1k for vehicle insurance. Another $1-2k for the value of the vehicle.

<comment><USER24> Calculated cost of purchasing and operating a used Ford Focus wagon for 7 years and 124600km, minus what I sold it for when it looked like it needed a new transmission: 36k EUR, or 0.29 EUR/km. Given Germany's allowed tax deduction of 0.30 EUR/km for long commutes or charity work, this was a relatively inexpensive car to operate. I could have optimized even more by dropping my high-deductible comprehensive/collision down to liability-only after the first two years. Despite Germany's really high fuel taxes, fuel was only 27% of the cost.

Details: [https://mandie.net/2018/11/08/good-news-my-cars- transmission...](https://mandie.net/2018/11/08/good-news-my-cars-transmission- is-failing/)

<comment><USER23> That's awesome! Thanks for the link.

I've been meaning to track my actual TCO for a vehicle, but I've always been too lazy. Appreciate you sharing.

<comment><USER24> Many thanks are due to my husband, who first started me thinking that way about cars when I was selecting this one, mapping out the estimated running costs of various used cars I was willing to consider, and then getting me into the habit of writing down the mileage for each tank.

Writing down the average liters/100km the car displayed for each tank gave me a good general feel for how much fuel it really used for various situations. Driving 220 km/h to Frankfurt for an emergency flight home? 14 l/100km (do NOT recommend, but hey, I got on that plane and had that last week with my mom). Normal Autobahn speeds down from the Austrian Alps? 5 l/100km. Speed or Stau (traffic jam) Autobahn traffic that's the usual situation in Germany and helped convince me that I really do prefer German trains, despite some schedule problems? 6.5 l/100km.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I got to ride on one of Lyft's self-driving taxis during last year's AWS conference.

If Lyft (and most of the other commentary on self-driving cars) is an accurate picture of the current state-of-the-art, then let's just say the tech has a long way to go before its ready for the kind of everyday use that we're being hyped up for.

<comment><USER26> I didn't think Lyft was even on the radar in terms of self-driving capabilities. Cruise is one of the top players and Waymo is _still_ years ahead.

<comment><USER27> Is Waymo really years ahead of Cruise? Given the different environments they're testing in, I'm not sure it's clearcut to compare how well the two are doing relatively.

<comment><USER26> Hard to tell but in 2018, Google had 3x the driving miles and less than half the disengagements per mile than Cruise did.[0]

[0] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/13/18223356/california- dmv-s...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/13/18223356/california-dmv-self- driving-car-disengagement-report-2018)

<comment><USER27> It is hard to say how similar different companies are when deciding what counts as a disengagement that needs reporting, but if the headline numbers are accurate, having twice as many disengagements per mile is extremely impressive; the SF environment is far more than twice as hard to drive in as suburban / highway environments.

Also, Cruise's disengagement rates are already ahead of what Waymo averaged in 2018: [https://miro.medium.com/max/1644/0*lYhqv0Bd82ocQP5T](https://miro.medium.com/max/1644/0*lYhqv0Bd82ocQP5T)

Waymo disengagement rates were halved in 2018 though so they might be continuing to exhibit substantial improvements as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The big concern is human drivers hitting it. Like the Las Vegas autonomous car that was backed into by a truck within the first hour of going live. [0] For example, does it have a side impact safety rating?

I also noticed on their technology page [1] they say that they have "Deep Resources"

>> We have raised $7.25 billion in committed capital from General Motors, Honda, SoftBank, T. Rowe Price, and others. These investments help shave years off of our timeline to launch all-electric, self-driving vehicles at scale.

$7.25 Billion?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7pV4vxD1bs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7pV4vxD1bs)

[https://www.getcruise.com/technology](https://www.getcruise.com/technology)

</comment><comment><USER29> I would love for this to exist but don't really trust Cruise to get there. I see their cars around SF every day and almost always see someone with hands on the wheel. And one time I ran into one in self driving mode in an area with construction it was driving really erratically and scared me (biking).

<comment><USER30> Yes the safety driver must have their hands on the wheel at all times for - you guessed it - safety. Doesn't mean car is not driving autonomously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> So is this a concept car? Has it been built or launched anywhere? Unclear what this announcement actually is.

<comment><USER32> They say it's not a concept car; their intent is to put it in production. They need to get some approvals and exemptions first.

Edit: More details in this video from The Verge: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3E7p4S_1m4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3E7p4S_1m4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The car has a pretty easy acceptance test:

1) Board the CEO and the CTO (with their families)

2) Drive from downtown LA to Lax.

Until than...

</comment><comment><USER34> This mode of transport is very similar to how people ride Jeepney's in my country, the Philippines. I didn't see anything on how it would pick the routes, but I can tell you that it can get pretty smelly in there without windows.

Jeepneys are great though, I hope this mode of transport catches on.

<comment><USER35> Which reminds me of this article - [https://medium.com/swlh/self-driving-cars- should-be-tuk-tuks...](https://medium.com/swlh/self-driving-cars-should-be- tuk-tuks-2ed22edabd70)

Which reminds me that one concern with the Cruise vehicle is that, understandably, it looks as if it's heavy and built to US passenger car safety standards.

Whereas a tuk-tuk or jeepney designed exclusively for slower speed urban travel could be built sub-500kg which would be better for pedestrian safety and energy efficiency.

(Of course, especially in the US market, there are other factors that go into consideration, such as the perceived or real need to travel in 30+ mph mixed traffic, the need for large batteries that allow a high utilization factor between charges, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I can't quite tell, but do the front seats face backwards? I for one would never be able to use those seats. I'd get carsick in no time.

</comment><comment><USER37> Reminds me of Zoox [https://zoox.com/](https://zoox.com/)

<comment><USER38> How so? What overlaps do you see? Anything significantly different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> $7.25 Billion - [https://www.getcruise.com/leadership](https://www.getcruise.com/leadership)

Yep, same GM, now add Honda and Son-sama and we're ready for act 2: [https://youtu.be/p-I8GDklsN4](https://youtu.be/p-I8GDklsN4)

Just in time for global warming

Anecdotally, Cruise has been cruising around the city for years like they're helping rebuild Apple Maps or something.

Now we know, hard to miss the big launch, getting out of the 47 Van Ness and seeing the usual special event at SVN West.

How ironic it was at the old Honda dealership and less than 1/2 block away from the homeless navigation center.

Seeing as homeless folk ride free in MUNI, I have to wonder will they get to cruise in Origin, too? Maybe good Breed PR gesture.

Probably not. Wrong use case.

If they crash and burn hopefully the IP will be worth something. Otherwise seppuku time.

All the data from tooling around the city has got to be worth something.

</comment><comment><USER40> Awesome product that does not exist.

<comment><USER41> Come on, it's just the first month of the new decade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Medium post that goes with this: [https://medium.com/cruise/the-cruise-origin- story-b6e9ad4b47...](https://medium.com/cruise/the-cruise-origin- story-b6e9ad4b47e5)

</comment><comment><USER43> The fact that it looks symmetric could be confusing to other traffic. You can't tell which side is front, and thus where it is (most probably) going.

<comment><USER44> Just put some lights on it. White at the front, red on the back

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> So, they made a bus?

<comment><USER46> Yeah, an autonomous, dynamically routed minibus that might significantly extend the reach and lower the cost of public transport. Not good enough for you?

<comment><USER47> Except that they don't actually have a working self driving technology to power it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Incredible tech from the videos through the technology page and the medium post :O

Their UI looks incredibly sexy [https://medium.com/cruise/the-disengagement- myth-1b5cbdf8e23...](https://medium.com/cruise/the-disengagement- myth-1b5cbdf8e239)

Also the quality of their simulator, I've never seen anything like this in production.

<comment><USER49> > Their UI looks incredibly sexy

Are you talking about the GIFs in that article? I work on that tool, and just in case you're interested, it's open source, so you can play with it yourself: [https://webviz.io](https://webviz.io) :)

<comment><USER48> Nice work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I hope they sell this to cities. We would seriously regret the privatization of public transit.

<comment><USER50> What if multiple competing companies run fleets? Like taxi companies. No one player to rort all the riders?

<comment><USER51> Last time I visited a city with multiple competing bus companies, each had their own return tickets and annual passes that only work on their busses. I naively brought a return ticket for the _green_ bus company from the train station, and when it came time to return that meant I couldn't get the _black_ bus or the _pink_ bus that came to the stop before the next green bus.

Needless to say, if each bus company runs two busses an hour, such a system changes a one-bus-every-ten-minutes route into a one-bus-every-thirty-minutes if two thirds of the busses won't accept your ticket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I guess my question is - how would I use this with 3 kids, wife and car seats? I only have 2 kids now but hoping for a third sooner or later. I guess I would go in the category of "people who couldn't use this on the daily".

</comment><comment><USER53> Why didn't they call it The Cruise Destination? Always think past the sale.

</comment><comment><USER54> Am I the only one noticing an outstanding resemblance to cars from Detroit: Become Human game? Wonder if its design was inspired somehow by it.

</comment><comment><USER55> Does anyone else just see a blank page? I'm assuming there is supposed to be a hero image?

<comment><USER56> On mobile the top image never loaded for me, but scrolling down worked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Do they have an estimated launch date?

</comment><comment><USER58> What's the 'club' going to be called?

</comment><comment><USER59> So, it's a bus?

</comment><comment><USER60> Manufactured by Tesla®

</comment><comment><USER61> My money's betting that there's a remote driver sitting at a desk in Asia who is commanding this. Driverless, sure, but not autonomous.

<comment><USER13> Has anyone done this successfully so far? I would have thought that the round trip time for the video feed + returning inputs would be prohibitive. I've done a similar thing with vehicles in videogames, and anything over around 150ms was pretty much undriveable.

<comment><USER61> You can have low level autonomy features but high level overrides and route planning by a person, including protected rights, jaywalkers, and some emergency manual driving for construction zones, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Not a single job role open for security. Hope they've solved the adversarial attacks against ML before these hit the road. The rendered images look great though!

<comment><USER63> This is probably the last thing to knock Cruise on. They've hired a lot, a lot, a lot of good people on the security front</comment></comment>


U.K. Paid $20M for New Coronavirus Tests from China. They Didn't Work - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/world/europe/coronavirus-antibody-test-uk.html <comment><USER2> They worked exactly as the ccp intended... see no new cases in Wuhan</comment>


Ask HN: Which financial templates did you use for your startup? - <AUTHOR>

Where can I get good excel templates for startup financials?
I want to create my balance sheet, income statement & cash flow statement.
I know the default answer is 'docstoc' or one of these hosting sites, but a lot of the templates I have seen seem like overkill for my simple needs. <comment><USER2> If you have a decent number of transactions you might want to consider using GnuCash which can generate all of those financial statements automatically.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not that many.

Very simple statements...nothing too complex at all.

Probably under 200 transactions (including all expenses paid and income received)...if so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Friends of mine have built <http://vumero.com/> \- It may be what you're after.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely not. That's wayy too complex.

I just want a simple template that will allow me to do my books for my company.

That's all...nothing complicated.</comment></comment>


Jeff Bezos 1997 Interview [YouTube] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWRbTnE1PEM&feature=youtu.be&t=1m7s <comment><USER2> His statements in 2016 might appear rather obvious, but this video was taped 20 yrs ago! (Bezos still had hair)

He was without a doubt way ahead of his time and his success is evident.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dude knew what was up and stuck with it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can anyone comment on why this might be worth watching?

<comment><USER5> "This is an interview with Jeff Bezos - the founder of Amazon in 1997. It is very clear that Jeff is already on the right track in 1997 (three years after the introduction of NCSA Mosaic). While his words seem obvious now 15+ years later - in 1997 - he was way ahead of his time. The book "Long Tail" by Chris Anderson was published in 2006 (9 years later).

Watch the baby in the background escape from its mother at 2:16 and run towards the taping :) The mother came rushing through the frame to get the baby which caused the edit at 2:17. Taped June 1997 at the Special Libraries (SLA) conference in Seattle, WA. Video courtesy of Richard Wiggins."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> what is the value of his video?</comment>


List of 39 Low Cost Linux Friendly Boards and Products  - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/06/26/list-of-39-low-cost-linux-friendly-boards-and-products/ <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to joshu</comment>


Ask HN: How do you quit your (good) job gracefully? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a web designer & developer working for a small 5 person web shop. The job itself is great - I can work remotely whenever I choose, the owner and coworkers are all great people, no complaints except the boring nature of client work, really. That said, I can't tolerate client work much longer and have been waiting for the right opportunity to join a startup (or similar) company.
However, recently my boss came up with a "revolutionary idea" for a project/task management type app and is gung ho that it's the next big thing. He's already got "investors" lined up and has me spending half my days building an MVP by myself. As great as this would seem, I don't really believe in the idea and it's definitely not the true startup type environment I'm seeking, as I'm still stuck doing BS client work on top of creating the MVP on my own. I'm starting to be overwhelmed with work, have little time for my personal projects, and am generally becoming much less happy every day. Our client work pipeline is starting to run dry, and my boss is starting to bank on this app as the future of the company.
I've got some savings (~4 months of living expenses) and I'm turning down freelance work every week. I'm starting to realize I need to make a power move soon to change my situation.
Here's the problem: I'm the only one who can program (php/mysql/js) in the company, we're knee deep in a couple large client projects, and the MVP is far from finished. I have such a great relationship with the owner and I want the best for the company, but not sure how much longer I can take it before breaking down.
How do I exit this situation without completely screwing them over? <comment><USER2> Option 1: have a meeting or a one-on-one and gently bring up the economics. Whether the MVP is actually great or not is very subjective, but you can put a number on the opportunity cost of development (in lost client revenue, using existing data). Explore some contingency scenarios: a competitor launches something similar just before you do, or someone rips off your code, or a patent trolls comes out of the woodwork, or you get hit on the head and forget all your programming skills.

You don't have to oppose your boss's strategy or goal, but if he's going to bet the company on it it's reasonable to point out what the risk factors are. A non confrontational way to do this is to ask what he would need from you if any of these (entirely plausible) situations arose, so that you are appropriately prepared. You seem like an ethical person, and asking for guidance on how to allocate your limited resources seems like a constructive approach to strategic uncertainty. You might not get answers immediately, and indeed that might be a good thing because it would show that your boss is actually thinking about the issues.

Option 2: make a power move inside the company. Ask to hire an assistant or two, train them into the less complex work, build up your own skills as an architecture/CTO sort of person. Do this in the context of a commitment to a product release, that gives your boss some security but also allows you to raise your entirely legitimate points about the time/effort involved.

Option 3: tell your boss straight out that you've hit the limit of your productivity and are rather worried about burning out due to stress. Most people would be sympathetic to the situation where you no longer enjoy your work and want to do something different, even at some inconvenience to them. Your boss would only hold it against you if you began to compete within the same space/customer base, which it does not sound like you plan to do. It's OK to have ideas and goals of your own, and it's highly likely your boss felt the same way before starting his own firm. He might well be wondering about how best to keep you interested and challenged, so as not to underuse your skills with run-of-the-mill projects.

Use your judgment about whether to have a conversation like this in the office, or maybe over dinner or some non-work environment, like a ballgame or something else you can both enjoy. Both you and your boss sound like good people, so just airing the issues may be sufficient. Just think of the situation as a bug/QA issue in the business model, and give your boss a chance to fix it the same way you would fix a technical flaw. You develop and maintain code, your boss develops and maintains deals. Your wellbeing is an important input for your productivity, and you have a mutual interest in maintaining that. Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> You need to communicate how unhappy you are. What would break your relationship is if you quit without ever voicing your discontent - it coming as a complete surprise is what will make it seem like you "screwed" him and the company over.

Communicating how unhappy you are, the reasons why, will make it so that the hope of a friendly exit is possible.

You can also communicate that you're looking to leave in the next X months, and that you're willing to invest the time to help find a replacement (and interviewing that individual, etc).

<comment><USER4> Make sure you prepare the conversation you're going to have. Blurting out what may be pent-up frustration (as I read it) will ruin it. Be ready to explain yourself and hear counterarguments.

Don't change your mind during the conversation! Make the choice beforehand (if you're already sure now) or give yourself a few days to think about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. "Boss, I love you, I love the company, but it's time for me to move on."

2\. "I'll give you (at least) 2 weeks to find someone new."

3\. "Heck, I'll HELP you find my replacement."

4\. "Boss, I have total respect for you. I'm going to help you transition to the new person with no disruption."

5\. "I hope you understand, and I hope you'll be cheering me on as I make my way with my own new thing."

Take the high road, but be firm; and everything will be just fine.

PS. Congratulations in advance. The end of your last day of those 2 weeks (or however long) will be one of the best days ever.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is the owner aware of how unhappy you are? Is your boss aware of how unhappy you are? Is there any chance you can be happy at your current company?

If the answers are "yes, yes, no", then your path seems pretty clear. Give appropriate notice, leave on good graces, and move on.

Otherwise, if you think there is a chance you can be happy at your current company, go talk to your boss and / or the owner (I'd go to the boss first so that the boss doesn't ever think you've gone behind his back). You might be surprised by what they're willing to do to keep you. The results of those conversations should solidify the answer to whether there's any chance you can be happy at your current company, and therefore make clear your next path.

Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> Besides the excellent advice, I enjoy this article quite a bit:

[http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/08/20/9-tips-for- quitting...](http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/08/20/9-tips-for-quitting-a- job-gracefully/)

Truncated: __ "1. Go before things get bad. .."I realized I was hitting a point where I was going to start acting out." Like Lynn, you need to know yourself and be honest about how you're feeling on the job so you don't let your emotions get out of hand.

2\. Make a good first step. "The very first person that you should tell you're leaving is your boss,"..

3\. Leave the door open a crack. If you've done good work, there is no reason you couldn't come back later..

6\. Trust that the company can continue without you. "People think the world is going to end if they quit their job," says Lynn. "In my last job, everyone who quit thought everything would go wrong, but it's easily fixed and everyone's replaceable."

7\. Set yourself up for a good reference. .."You want to be sure the trail you leave is a positive one,".."I have never, in my 20 years of recruiting, had someone not answer questions about references." [I can attest to this..regardless of legality]

8\. Manage the in-between time carefully. "Burn no bridges," warns Brendon Connelly, author of the popular blog Slacker Manager. Sometimes quitting a job is as loaded as dumping a lover. ..

This is one of those times we tend not to see ourselves clearly, writes Daniel Ames, professor at Columbia Business School. Hitting the right note of assertiveness — not too much and not too little — is hard to do. We notice poor balance in our colleagues but rarely notice it in ourselves. So keep in mind that the bottom line of quitting well is assertiveness. Have enough to leave when you need to, but tone down your assertiveness enough to keep your friends and colleagues on your side even as you're walking out the door." __

</comment><comment><USER8> Although my situation wasn't as serious, although I was the sole developer, I ran the companies "tech department"(consisting of me) for the last about 2-3 months on 3-4 hours of maintenance a week.

I had a decision to make and was asked by my boss whether I would be available for the summer, similarly he had a lot of projects lined up, but I became sick of the pressure and boredom of a job which lined up meaningless tasks with a code base that was neither innovative or exciting to work with.

Instead, I told him to hire someone as a replacement and I spent my last 3-4 months, doing an hour or two a week bringing the summer intern up to speed on the project and the codebase. This was greatly appreciated and had an extremely appreciative lunch from my previous boss who has given me a very positive referral. Its a tough decision and I have really put myself into the unknown relying on a summer internship in college which I may still not get, but I am pursuing new challenges and its a lot of fun.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you have a good relationship with the owner, then you need to speak up and let them know that you're feeling the stress. Tell them that you feel like you need a change of pace. What you could do is have your boss look for a likely candidate and have that new employee shadow you for 2-3 weeks to make sure he's capable and can take over your duties before leaving.

If you feel that you can do better, you should really do it. Life's short but plentiful, there's always something better out there.

</comment><comment><USER10> Tell him exactly what you told us. Seriously. If you have as good of a relationship as you think you have, you guys should be able to come to terms.

</comment><comment><USER11> Just follow your heart, seriously. You only have one life so live it.

If you are really that critical I would give them a month notice which is more than enough time to find a replacement. That is the best you can do. If you give them plenty of notice, they will have no reason to think you are screwing them. You'd be screwing them if you just quit and left the next day.

</comment><comment><USER12> First off, you need to talk with your boss. If you don't believe in what you're doing, he needs to know that.

Secondly, no-one else will look out for you, so you have to look out for yourself. Do whatever is the best for you. You can be sure that if your boss isn't happy he wouldn't hesitate in firing you.

Basically, what philco said :)

</comment><comment><USER13> You could give them extra notice, above and beyond the normal 2 weeks. Beyond that, you could also make your services available as freelance resource, set number of hours a week and a good rate for them. But that's only if you really want to.

</comment><comment><USER14> Some times a person is just ready to move on. Give ample notice with a firm date, offer to help transition the knowledge to your replacement and then shake hands and leave.

It's been my experience that bosses that come up with the next best thing do it because what they originally set out to do is failing. Some will call it pivoting, others will call it getting the code monkeys to write something different while we figure it out. Either way, without a financial stake in the new product, you have no power and since you're the only developer there...</comment>


Joyent: Let my People Have Root - <AUTHOR> http://www.joyeur.com/2008/04/08/let-my-people-have-root

<comment><USER2> I thought that point was self-evident. If anything, that post suggests to me that traditional hosting companies are starting to get nervous, if they have to state the obvious... anyone else read it that way?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not self evident to me anyway. Which point?

<comment><USER2> That by going with something like Google's App Engine (or Amazon's solutions, really) you trade off control for convenience.

The article also implies that control is always better than convenience, which I don't agree with. But the main point seems to be the tradeoff, which I thought was obvious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't care about root if this new service lets me launch all kinds of random sites and see what sticks. I've had a (Textdrive then) Joyent account for a long time, and the cost and 3-domain name limit makes it harder for me to try random things.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Beyond that, you are locked into their authentication systems, their email > systems and most importantly, their specific approach to scaling.

Getting "their specific approach to scaling" for free, without having to do much myself, sounds like a really good deal to me. Scaling stuff up is a pain, and something a lot of people (myself included) have only taken so far.</comment>


Ask HN: What Alpha Test Legal Agreements do you need for your app? - <AUTHOR> I am about to release a very early Alpha version of an app I have been working on to friends and family. What legal agreements do I need to put in place for this, if any? Or is this all semantics and should I consider my current release the "Beta" version of my app?
As discussed in this article (https://instabug.com/blog/beta-test-legal-agreements/), it makes complete sense that you need a legal agreement between you and your Beta Testers, but what about at the Alpha testing stage? Should you trust your friends and family without any NDAs, terms and conditions, or limited liability? Or are you better off finding some boilerplate legal document that basically says, "If you use the app you won't (1) sue me unless something goes really wrong; and (2) you won't copy my idea." Or is putting this in place overkill and unnecessary before you even know what you have?
I'd be especially interested to hear how Dropbox handled the release of the Alpha version of their product since they went through YC (https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/dropbox/). It is clear they had Beta testers so I'd be interested to know what type of agreements they had in place with each tester before signing them up.
For what it is worth, it is a web app that should not have the ability to cause any physical injury. However, data protection is obviously an important responsibility that poses liability risk if user data was compromised without any legal agreements in place.
Any advice is greatly appreciated! <comment><AUTHOR> Beuler?</comment>