VW 'Dieselgate' software developed at Audi in 1999: report - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-audi-idUSKCN0XG2DN <comment><USER2> I'm actually looking at getting a car at the moment so I've been looking into this to better understand the repercussions for consumers.

It's weird, VW say that if your car if affected, they'll fix it. It's a software update that a) won't affect performance and b) won't affect fuel consumption.

So, why did they do it in the first place?

Edit "VW confirmed the fix will not affect the performance or fuel economy of the cars, while Mueller also said the cars will pass the European emissions test (without cheating) after the fix has been installed." \- [http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volkswagen/92893/vw- emissions-s...](http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volkswagen/92893/vw-emissions- scandal-recalls-compensation-is-your-car-affected-latest-news)

<comment><USER3> What the software actually did was stop the mixing of DEF[0] into the exhaust gases. DEF is a consumable catalyst that reduces NOx emissions[1]. If they had mixed it in properly as they did when the car was under test, then fuel consumption or performance would not change, but the resovwair of DEF inside the car would be depleted more quickly.

My theory is that they reduced the consumption rate of DEF so that it could be filled up during regular services without being depleted before one was due. They could instead just provide a larger reservoir of DEF, or schedule more frequent maintenance. Either solution would not impact fuel consumption or performance but would fix the issue. Remember DEF is injected into the exhaust gases and does not interact with the engine at all.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid) [1] [https://lwn.net/Articles/670488/](https://lwn.net/Articles/670488/)

<comment><USER4> Maybe that's the case for engines that use DEF, but the cheating was done in engines with no DEF injection systems too.

In those engines at least I doubt very much "the fix will not affect the performance or fuel economy", unless they resort to extremely expensive changes that seem unlikely (like adding said system to cars that don't have it).

<comment><USER5> So they'd be dumb to say it just for PR reasons - A bunch of people will test it, if their statements turn out to be false, they'll be a massive class action suit that will be pretty easily won.

It's entirely possible, of course, that they are counting on this, and decided by then things will have died down enough PR wise that making the PR statement makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So the software used was written in 1999 at Audi, designed to be "capable of turning off certain engine functions", for what purpose? Cheating purposes? Testing purposes? Does not say.

I personally find that not really informative, but ok.

Regarding VW: Everyone living at Germany the last years and following the news heard that same mantra over and over again... "to be the most successful car maker", every end of the year the story was how far behind they were compared to Toyota or in other words: how much closer they came.

Problem is that they were absolutely obsessed with beating their competitors, especially Toyota, at the same time VW relied heavily on the earnings of their premium brands Audi and Porsche, the margins of VW itself were always somewhat thin, especially compared to Toyota.

Too many models, too much variation, they are definitely pursuing now to shift to less models and (even) more modular platforms, but at the same time closing down plants in Germany and shifting to foreign countries will likely not happen. The state of Lower Saxony holds ~20% of the company, VW has repeatedly pledged to "stay a german company" and doesn't want to cut jobs in their home country.

Under those circumstances, competing with Toyota might just have not been possible. VW heavily made its bet on the Diesel Engine, and maybe that was wrong, as they had to cheat to make that bet pay off. VW needs a change in culture, desperately, that is unlikely to happen though. Interesting times to come, I wouldn't bet on VW though... but then again, what somewhat rational thinking person would, I know.

<comment><USER7> The software has been written by Bosch by Audi's request. Bosch have even put a disclaimer that it might be illegal using it out of testing lab.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find this very confusing because the software that caused "dieselgate" was written by Bosch and other companies and not by either VW or Audi.

<comment><USER9> I work in the industry, but have no knowledge of those particular Bosch/VW projects.

Yes the Tier-1 supplier is responsible for building the final software image that runs on their ECU, and for some smaller OEMs the Tier-1 will write all the application software in addition to the basic platform software. However, it's not unusual for the bigger OEMs (such as VW) to develop parts of the application software themselves and provide it as object code for the Tier-1 supplier to link. This is effectively a black box as far as the Tier-1 is concerned.

<comment><USER10> Wait, so VW or Audi would develop software and supply it to Bosch? And in object code format?

That does seem backwards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So the manipulations have been going on since 1999 (2005 for VW) and appear to have been deliberate, rather than snuck in by a small group of engineers.

Will be interesting to see how VW and the other brands mentioned here get out of this. Their crisis management so far certainly does not help.

<comment><USER12> According to this article Audi developed the software in 1999 and never used it. So it's incorrect to say this has been going on since 1999 (assuming this article is correct). I guess they could still claim that this mysterious small group of engineers snuck the code, which Audi developed, into the VW ECUs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Right before this happened I was looking into getting a Golf SportsWagen Diesel TDI. When the news broke, the dealership I was working with stopped selling them. They tried to get me to buy a gas model instead. I asked them how much they were willing to work with me. They wouldn't even budge saying that the gas model wasn't affected, and that they didn't feel like the depreciation would be affected. Screw you VW!

<comment><USER14> I believe VW has been running good incentive programs since the diesel scandal broke (for obvious reasons), but losing the diesel models really hurt the SportWagen lineup. The diesel was the upper trim, and carried some of the nicer features (like a 6-speed manual available across the range)

<comment><USER13> I haven't paid much attention to pricing lately, but they pretty much lost my business because of that. I'm sure the dealership was hurting too but it was bad business all around. The 6-speed manual was the whole reason I wanted it. I can't imagine how angry I would've been if I had just bought one and found out a few weeks after.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To be honest it would really surprise me if Audi is the only one pulling these kind of tricks. A lot of car manufactures like to skew numbers.

Look at the fuel/distance range some are advertising with. I never once got the same fuel/range ratio or the difference is a lot bigger in practice.

<comment><USER16> It's pretty well understood that government tests are not reflective of real world driving habits or conditions. The test is however consistent and can be used as a basis for comparison of different vehicles.

It's very much like synthetic benchmarks for CPUs. They won't give you a 100% accurate picture but they're a good basis for comparison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am German and went to school in Germany. I completed the 11th grade at an American high school in Oregon, as an exchange student.

One of the more unexpected culture shocks I experienced, was how academic cheating was seen as bad _even by the American students_. In contrast, let me give you a brief, personal account of academic cheating in my school(s) in Germany:

We cheated. A lot [1]. Mostly, it was "cooperative cheating" (copying each other's homework, comparing answers during exams), but sometimes it was cheating to get ahead personally (using cheat sheets). Only rarely did we copy homework off the internet, but mostly, because the internet was pretty new. Having others (parents) flat-out do homework for us was, at least to me, unknown, and would have been seen as "bad" cheating, even by the students.

Our teachers were by no means oblivious to the problem. Quite the contrary! Having cheated in schools themselves, they knew all the tricks. They spotted us. And they mostly let it slide. I guess if all students are cheating, they still have a level playing-field? In any case, the cooperative nature of our cheating, and the "us vs. the teachers"-attitude, created a strong bond among us students, and helped integrate the nerds among us (myself included) into the general student body. Imagine my surprise, as I tried to recreate this bond with my fellow American students at the Oregon high-school!

Most times, the consequences for getting caught cheating in an exam were (from 1st grade to final exams at University, including medical "boards", my wife tells me): You get a warning for being caught the 1st time, a stern warning for being caught the second time, and you fail the exam for being caught the third time. This is _per exam_.

The only times I ever heard second warnings being issued, was teachers mocking the students for being too obvious. I don't recall ever seeing someone fail an exam for cheating, although I hear, it does happen.

Cheating subsides as you move up in the academic system. Cheating on your PhD- thesis is not seen as a trivial offense anymore, but as a serious offense not entirely unlike fraud.

And here is my points about Dieselgate: I would not be surprised at all if management and the whole engineering team were in on it together - at every German (and possibly European) company simultaneously. With a mindset of: "If everyone is doing it, noone is at an unfair disadvantage." Just like school. Or like quoting fuel-consumption measured by the European standrad such-and- such. Or like giving projected battery-life for a tablet or notebook. Or ...

I have since come to appreciate the American way of treating (academic) cheating, but, at times, I also appreciate the German way. It's simply a cultural difference, and I don't argue for either way as the "right way".

[1]: [http://www.zeit.de/2012/34/C-Abschreibestudie-Interview- Satt...](http://www.zeit.de/2012/34/C-Abschreibestudie-Interview-Sattler) (This German article describes a study, in which 4 out of 5 students admitted to having cheated in the last semester, at university. If anything, I would expect the fraction of cheating high-school students to be even higher.)

Addendum: I have also worked with students from countries, where cheating seems to be even more blatant than in Germany. I was (Of course! Certainly!) morally outraged! I only later realized my hubris.

<comment><USER18> Cheating was rampant at my American high school; teachers were either completely incompetent or were aware of the cheating and didn't care. Penalties were similar to what you describe.

That said, I wasn't in the Pacific Northwest, and my general impression is that people from that region are, on balance, more honest than in the region that I came from. But of course generalizations and grass is always greener and all that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The practice of adding "gate" to the end of every scandal should have ended in the last century.

</comment><comment><USER20> No, they still haven't got it. It was developed by Bosch, probably on request by Audi, and it was parameterized (= enabled) by Audi 1999.

Most others engine manufacturers were also tested positive to use this cheat setting.

<comment><USER20> And this is a recent investigation by german authorities, confirming that everyone cheated.

[http://www.thelocal.de/20160420/several-german-car- manufactu...](http://www.thelocal.de/20160420/several-german-car- manufacturers-cheated-on-emissions)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "But they never used it" ORLY ?

<comment><USER22> Haven't we all created software that is never used?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've noticed changes in my personality since this scandal happened.

Before it, I strongly believed that it's possible to be just as successful and competitive without breaking any rules.

I didn't go to exams which I didn't study for and refused to cheat when everyone else was doing it. I had opportunities to earn a lot of money by doing shady things, but I've always refused, because I didn't want to compromise on my moral values.

But diesel gate made me stop and think.

If Germany's largest company does it - then who else does it ?

Add to that the wiki/snowden leaks and now the panama papers (to name just a few) and I'm totally confused:

It seems that the rich and successful are all corrupt cheaters.

Why do I have to part with 30%-40% of my earned income so that some corrupt politicians can spend them on wars and distribute them to their cronies ?

Why do I have to play by the rules when the only advantage of doing so is a "clear conscience" which nobody gives two cents about ... maybe just my 5-year old daughter.. but she also believes in Santa Claus.

So this scandal has really put me at a moral crossroads - will I go on being a "sucker" or play by the "big boys' rules" and be taken 'seriously' \- take advantage of the weak, find ways to avoid taxes, steal, cheat, etc ?

What's even more disturbing is that this scandal was provoked by maybe a handful of executives at VW, but now tens of thousands of engineers and workers are going to pay the price - in the form of layoffs, reduced bonuses and so on.

Once again, very unfair, since most of those people, I'm sure, are good professionals.

So yeah, scandals like this generate more than financial losses or pollution. They generate loss of faith and disappointment and encourage others to step over the line to the "dark side" and become corrupt themselves.

<comment><USER24> Funny, because for myself, reading about these events from a marxist perspective, not a single one of them is surprising. In fact, all of them are completely predictable.

The story that we've been sold about laissez faire capitalism and neoliberal economics is a farce, pushed by the epic levels of deregulation during the Reagan era.

There is no "crony-capitalism," it's just _capitalism_. That's it, that's what capitalism does. It breeds inequality.

<comment><USER25> Your statement is light on meaning unless you can explain how X avoids breeding inequality. Alternatives to capitalism breed inequality as well. Compare any ruling Communist Party to a civilian in their regime.

<comment><USER24> Yes, a member of the communist party cadre in certain historical times was separated from the workers they represented. They were full time revolutionaries, no longer part of the working class. This was one of the main issues (in my opinion) with the USSR.

In modern socialist revolutions, the representation must not be separated from the working class. Though, I am also more supportive of tendencies that uphold grassroots democratic behavior. See Rojava for more interesting ideas on that.

<comment><USER26> The system you are talking about sounds like a cross between a direct democracy and a post-scarcity communist society, if you've not read the works of Iain M Banks you should check them out, you are pretty much describing The Culture :).

<comment><USER24> > The Culture is a fictional interstellar anarchist utopian society

Woah, yes, that's going to number one on my reading list. Thanks for the recommendation.

<comment><USER26> IMO possibly the best sci-fi ever written, the stories are incredible and his writing style is sublime.

I envy you getting to read them all for the first time.

<comment><USER24> I'm reading the Mars trilogy right now. It's also really good.

<comment><USER27> Haven't read the others, but Red Mars is excellent, and better than Culture, in my opinion (though the latter varies in quality).

For another vision of a futuristic post-scarcity anarchist adhocracy, see James P. Hogan's _Voyage from Yesteryear_ , which features less "magical" AI and is more of a reflection on cultural conditioning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Please, don't call it 'dieselgate' as it is only a VW group fraud.

<comment><USER29> Yes?

> The VW scandal more generally raised awareness over the high levels of > pollution being emitted by diesel vehicles built by a wide range of > carmakers, including Volvo, Renault, Mercedes, Jeep, Hyundai, Citroen, BMW, > Mazda, Fiat, Ford and Peugeot.[22][23] Independent tests carried out by ADAC > proved that, under normal driving conditions, diesel vehicles including the > Volvo S60, Renault's Espace Energy and the Jeep Renegade, exceeded legal > European emission limits for nitrogen oxide (NOx) by more than 10 times.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#Automotive_industry_and_other_commentators)

<comment><USER30> I think that's probably a little misleading. The European emissions limits are based on a specific driving cycle that's known to be kinder than real-world driving. If you use a more realistic test cycle with more aggressive acceleration you're going to get worse efficiency and pollution than the NEDC tests.

<comment><USER31> Exactly. Those are two different, though related, issues. 1\. Cheating on the NEDC tests. 2\. Emission limits are not coupled to real driving scenarios. Edit: This is important to distinguish. 1 is illegal, 2 is the law but maybe changed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Are You The Blue Guy? - Getting Noticed - <AUTHOR> http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/2010/08/david_bragdon_leaves_town_blue.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Admit it, this guy would have never gotten any press unless he was a bit over- the-top.

Launching a startup? How can _you_ be the Blue Guy?</comment>


Ask HN: Why can't we have our own AMAs, like Reddit? - <AUTHOR>

Tech focused, startup focused AMAs. <comment><USER2> HN tends to want to distinguish itself from Reddit, as befits a younger sibling. But we'd be interested in hearing from you all about what a more HN- native AMA-like thingy might be. I feel like this is an area where we could do something interesting.

One thing I mean by "more HN-native" is placing the emphasis more on substance than celebrity. An idea we've tossed around is to invite people on to discuss specific work they've done, or even to commission them to write a new post about work they did, and then come here to discuss it.

"Work they did" might be a paper or an open-source project or anything the community finds interesting. We would invite them, not to answer _anything_ , but rather to explain and answer questions about this specific work.

The minute you say "ask me anything", the focus becomes the individual, and diluted that far, the topic becomes unsubstantive (though it can still be fun as entertainment). But focus on the work—that seems like the HN way to go about it, and potentially exciting.

<comment><USER3> That sounds extremely interesting.

Are you considering invite-only for these, or simply running them in the same way as Show HN?

<comment><USER2> Don't know. This is really just thinking out loud.

<comment><USER3> Could always start out open and move to invite if the quality's too low or the quantity's too high.

FYI, I'd certainly be interested in doing one if my projects / areas of expertise would be of interest. (tech-driven hacker-mentality filmmaking).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Because

1\. The publicizing of AMA's requires a lot of meta discussion and threads and one of the things that makes HN HN is frowning upon the promotion of meta discussion.

2\. HN tries to be somewhat meritocratic, and AMA's are intrinsically tied to celebrity.

3\. AMA's happen spontaneously from time to time on diverse topics, e.g. some project hits the front page and the author shows up in the discussion thread or a company hits the news and the founders show up to answer questions.

4\. HN would turn into Reddit, which incidentally is the only acceptable meme on HN.

5\. HN has a specific business purposes for YC. General internet interest does not appear to be among them.

6\. Without coordination, the Ask HN page would be flooded with AMA's. e.g. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5250690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5250690)

<comment><USER5> On point 2: AMAs initially started out as a way for people to share what mundane thing about them makes them unique. It was much more community- oriented than celebrity oriented. The problem is that once this scaled beyond a niche community, people didn't want to read about other folks that were just like them, they wanted to read about celebrities who were willing to mingle with the common people. r/casualiama is much more like what r/iama started out as, and is IMNSHO more interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I personally think that it would be nice but the deeper discussion normally removes the need for AMA's imo.

</comment><comment><USER7> sama (Sam Altman, president of YC) did an AMA here couple of months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238839](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238839)

</comment><comment><USER8> What is an AMA?

<comment><USER9> There is a subreddit called /r/iama where people can say "I Am A <noun>, Ask Me Anything" and then answer (or not) the myriad questions asked of them.

It is, perhaps, not too much of a stretch to say that it is this particular subreddit that transformed the site from a venue for engineering types to the mass market beast it is today. For better or worse.

<comment><USER5> It's a bit of a stretch. :-)

The techie overshadowing was already underway nearly from the beginning. r/politics had displaced r/science and r/programming as the most popular subreddit by 2007 [1]. r/nsfw was the most popular subreddit in 2006. Indeed, one of the major impetuses for the creation of subreddits was to get all the damn political content and soft-core porn off the front page so that the science & techie types could have their own community.

r/IAMA was itself a spin-off of r/AskReddit, which was filled with frivolous questions at the time. It wasn't created until 2009. I'd argue that the creation of Hacker News in 2007 was really what transformed Reddit from a venue for engineering types to a mass-market beast. Before then, the programming types would hang out on r/programming, but afterwards, a good portion of Reddit's programmer userbase migrated to Hacker News.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Reddit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Reddit)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: is CAC of ~$1 high for an early stage startup? - cac-question

Do you think a CAC of $1/user is a high for an early stage startup?<p>thanks. <comment><AUTHOR> If you're paying $1 to get someone to sign up for a game which has freemium monetization where 2% of signups pay $1 and 0.1% of signups pay $100, then it is unsustainably high.

If you're paying $1 to get the email address of an end-user or decisionmaker for B2B SaaS sold on the traditional $50 to $500 a month price points, and you don't totally screw the pooch on converting them, you're doing _very_ well.

If you're paying $1 to get leads for enterprise software, Oracle et al want to buy you just to take those leads, because they're used to paying $10+ _per click_.

</comment><comment><USER2> Depends on a lot of factors but its probably on the low side. if your doing a game outside of the US you might be there but outside of that your low.

<comment> cac-question no, it's not a game, but a service marketplace (think 99designs, ebay, airbnb, uber, lyft type of service), so this CAC would be a cost just to get users to sign up to the site to provide the supply and demand. Not counting if they will be using the service.

<comment><USER2> Here's the thing if you can earn $3 for each one of those sign ups your doing great. So, if only 1 out of ten of those give you $30 your doing good.</comment></comment></comment>


Is Good Design a liability when you're trying to appeal to the Masses? (MySpace vs. Virb) - <AUTHOR> http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2007/03/virb-vs-myspace <comment><USER2> In a sense, by definition not, since good design is design that achieves its purpose.

Sometimes ultraclean design can send a message of fanciness or snobbishness that turns off "ordinary" people. But I think a good designer can temper that fairly easily.

<comment><USER3> I don't believe that most users will put up with poor design.

It's just that some sites like myspace have so much momentum that users will go to them despite their poor design because all their friends are there already.

The problem in terms of design is just the opposite. I would say that users' high expectations with respect to presentation have hurt web startups in a big way since many founders can't afford a professional web designer. Flash over substance is always a bad thing.

<comment><USER4> Quick quiz: To make the most profit, sell by:

\- reason, to solve needs

\- fashion, because they can be made to want it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Virb does look real good. My only worry is that it doesn't offer many features that matter to normal people. The best addition is the button to stop customization. For the majority of myspace users they're not going to care for most of the techie features. They could have some tricks up their sleeves though.

When Purevolume updated their site a while back I was real dissapointed at the lack of additional functions. They just added the social network part into the site. I'd hope that they are taking a more innovative approach to this project and not just trying to compete directly with everything Myspace offers.

</comment><comment><USER6> Heh. I would like to see the author's home page circa 1998. I will bet cash it had a textured background, MIDI file, cat picture, stock art animation, link to Lycos, etc.

 _Everyone's_ first web page looks ugly. Most will stay ugly.

But there's something to the idea that ugly works, that worse is better. Direct Marketers have known for decades that a 'downmarket' look improves response, at least in the US. Junk mail looks trashy because that's what thousands of generations in a viciously competitive ecosystem has produced. Ugly works.

<comment><USER7> "Direct Marketers have known for decades that a 'downmarket' look improves response"

Interesting. Source?

<comment><USER6> 3 years doing ads for the Yellow Pages and DM. This guy has the same conclusion with good examples:

<http://alistapart.com/articles/whitespace>

<comment><USER7> How sure are you that the relevant quality of the successful ad shown in the link isn't downmarketness but that it's eyecatching? As the author says, the 'upmarket' one is harmonious - which is a really bad quality in an ad. The damn thing needs to grab you! If you can do that and maintain an upmarket, snooty feel, then you have a big win when selling such beauty products. Probably most things, too.

Let's hear about your experiences.

<comment><USER8> [aristus, lost my passwd :)]

"Eyecatching" means garish, cluttered, etc. This is not always desirable. Usually it's reserved for wide-spectrum ads for cheap items, hence "downmarket". Audience drives design. If your audience is a few thousand rich wives you'll take the elegant route. If your audience is a million working girls your best response comes from more strident stuff. Since there are so many more working girls versus rich wives, it seems as if all DM is "downmarket". I am sure of this because I've seen the difference even a few changes can make, and I've seen years and years of real-world research on how different styles gather response for different things.

Let's say I'm doing an ad for big copiers. Artsy doesn't work here. You need strong, reassuring. Price isn't listed. Instead you want a couple of pictures, big (local!) phone number, local address, and an IBM-ish logo. IKON, formerly Alco, wanted to establish a trust brand that buyers don't have to think too hard about. So: IKON came out of "I Know One Name".

Now you are selling pizza. Number, types of food, price, delivery options, hours of operation. Closeups of bubbling cheese. Sizzle, not steak.

Cut to the iPhone. Popular yet hip. It's a fine line, and very few orgs can manage it. That's why Apple is the darling of the ad world. They are an outlier.

Another great fine-liner was Grey Poupon mustard. They took the visual cues of the rich, the exclusiveness, the clubby feel un-rich people imagine exists ("But of course!") and placed it right in front of the fact they were flogging mustard for 4 bucks a jar. But once that hook was in and the audience was ok with funny crunchy brown stuff, other fancy mustards went right back to the more familiar downmarket themes of "fun for kids" and "kick it up a notch".

...and so on. Non-commercial (and, frankly, inexperienced) artists tend to make the mistake that ads are not thought about too much or are made by folk who lack taste. Sure, 90% of every profession is crap, but the aim of commercial art is different from Art.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Unequal Cofounders - <AUTHOR> http://blog.eladgil.com/2017/08/unequal-cofounders.html <comment><USER2> My experience is the following:

IF you are starting a company with others, decide _week 1_ what the split of equity is and who (of any persons included) are cofounders or part of the "founding team".

IF you are starting a company with other cofounders, _week 1_ split the equity evenly and assign functional roles (not necessarily titles - those can evolve).

I have seen multiple companies explode, friendships deteriorate, businesses die a slow death, or waste hundreds of hours (and dollars) working through the emotional debt built up from not splitting equity evenly.

\- Edit - changed _day 1_ to _week 1_ because typically there is a process of "should we start a company", "should we do it together", then "how" that takes some time. But once the "we are going to do this phase starts, you're in _week 1_

<comment><USER3> One important part you need to add: The equity vests over time. So if one of the co-founders leave they just walk away with the part they earned over time and not the same share as the rest that stays.

<comment><USER4> A vesting schedule is so crucial. Many founders find themselves in the position of being partners with someone who is all but inactive with a substantial portion of equity. Not only is it unfair to those doing the work but even if all parties are willing fixing the split later can be costly, time consuming, and have serious tax implications.

<comment><USER5> Vesting isn't perfect though. It treats all contributions the same and only really looks at the time it took to do some work.

The ideal situation seems to be that anyone doing work immediately vests ownership upon performing the work.

<comment><USER6> This is very hard to administer and will be a source of constant debates. From personal experience, such flexible system is not worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author focuses on several _extraordinarily_ successful companies, and it may be true that a startup with one dominant founder is more likely to become an _extraordinarily_ successful company than a startup with an even split.

But of course, the vast, vast majority of startups do not become extraordinarily successful companies. Most fail, and of those that succeed, most are moderately-very successful.

I wonder what the data is around moderately successful companies. It is less important to me that I raise my chance of being extraordinarily successful from .0000001% to .0000002% (a doubling!) than that I raise my chance of being moderately successful from 20% to 30%.

It is possible that having an even split makes it more likely that you get to some level of success, even if it makes it less likely that you make it to the stratosphere.

<comment><USER8> It's also important that point out that two of his examples of successful companies because of unequal splits, involved very famous cases of the dominate player actively screwing over and defrauding the other founders.

Yeah. I'm talking about Jobs and Zuck. Fuck those guys.

<comment><USER9> Zuckerberg was always the dominating founder of facebook. He programmed it in php and he made it viral in the campus.

Jobs: I heard Wozniak gave up his shares to other co-founder voluntarily. Not sure as I am as apathetic as possible about Apple.

<comment><USER8> WRT Jobs, we have the famous "We agreed to a 50/50 split. It sold for $700, so here's your $350." When in fact Breakout sold for $5000. Perhaps you're thinking of the time Jobs said "I give him nothing", when asked about stock options for early employees, and so Wozniak funded the pool himself.

Zuck famously fucked Eduardo Saverin by making sure Saverin's shares got diluted from 30% down to 0.4%, while protecting his own stake. There was a huge lawsuit about that.

So no, this isn't some decision from the start. these people have a track record of screwing over their founders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cool post. But I don't understand this obsession with taking lessons about such miniscule variables as equal/unequal cofounders from such a small sample set, like the top N=10 companies. There's no way, I bet, that that is enough to determine with any actual statistical confidence what configuration of the variable is optimal. Best you can do is take vauge inspiration from it, but then it'll still be just word against word.

<comment><USER11> It reminds me of a class I took in B-School called "Organizational Theory" which was a essentially a long pointless discussion on whether the top level of the corporate hierarchy should be split by product (you make 3 widgets, each is a top level of the hierarchy) or function (i.e. sales, marketing, finance, engineering).

As a company grows, people in authority often have few levers they can actually manipulate, so they endlessly obsess over them. Especially if its an engineering-centric company, and the person doesn't have any engineering knowledge.

<comment><USER12> Can you give an example of these "few levers" that they obsess over?

<comment><USER11> It reminded me of the article - which is about having asymmetry of founder power. Another one that comes to mind is founder age - younger is better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > The key is to be pragmatic and to think through the long term value each > person brings to the table, the relative leverage each has, and investment > made in different ways.

This sounds bad to me - it might not be what the author meant, but it sounds subjective. I feel like making the equity split subjective and based on some perceived "value" of a person or their contributions is a way to guarantee fights and bad feelings in the future, when the person who said they'd solve all the problems backs out, or when someone unexpectedly invents the key algorithm or closes the deal that keeps the company alive. The value of founder contributions (other than time & money) cannot be known in advance.

There are ways to define contribution, relative risk, and time/money investment in purely objective financial terms that are fair to everyone and still benefit the early risk takers. Some of them have been posted already.

I did let someone talk me into inflating their share once, and it was a big mistake. I wouldn't sign up ever again to start something with someone else who argued that their share should be larger because they're more important to the company or that their time is more valuable than anyone else's.

</comment><comment><USER14> My dad ran his own company for 35 years. One piece of advice he gave to me was to always have control. My corollary to that is to be fine being a minority stakeholder, but recognize that you don't have control so the one with control ultimately will call the shots.

Over the last 15 years I have participated in CEO groups with around 30 companies. My limited anecdotal experience says that a 50/50 split is bad, but a split where two people have leverage over a 3rd is ok. So a 3 way split is fine.

Ultimately there just can't be deadlock, when everyone disagrees, someone needs to be able to make the call.

</comment><comment><USER15> Interestingly, this cuts exactly against the advice of Michael Seibel, the current CEO of Y Combinator, who advises co-founders split equity equally: [http://www.michaelseibel.com/blog/how-to-split-equity- among-...](http://www.michaelseibel.com/blog/how-to-split-equity-among- founders)

<comment><USER16> Some of the arguments are a bit difficult to follow, if not swallow:

> Small variations in year one do not justify massively different founder > equity splits in year 2-10.

Yet this is, essentially, how it's done for employees. At least recently, YC seems to be embarking on a campaign to bridge the gap in risk-vs-compensation between employees and founders, as they did between founders and investors.

> More equity = more motivation.

I'm not sure this is always true. I can certainly attest to its falsehood when equity is in the sub-1% range, as for most employees.

Even assuming its truth, however, since equity is zero-sum, that means that the motivating ability (the "more"-ing characteristic) of equity is zero-sum, too. It doesn't, however, mean that its motivating ability is the same on every founder, nor that such motivation is of equal value.

> If you don't value your co-founders, neither will anyone else.

> Startups are about execution, not about ideas.

Besides potential other critiques, the above two concepts seem, to me, to contradict each other.

> Equity should be split equally because all the work is ahead of you.

> what we almost always recommend at YC: equal equity splits among co- > founders.

All that said, I think this is probably the best reasoning: equity split at the beginning isn't likely to be something worth spending a ton of time/stress on for the vast majority of early startups, so equal split makes a sensible default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd like to read about first-hand experiences founding startups with equal or unequal equity splits. A postmortem of sorts, what worked about the founder arrangement and what didn't and why, or if it was even a relevant factor at all.

I could believe that unequal equity splits are common in these mega-successes just because everyone involved is savvy enough to push hard for their own interests, but that ultimately it's an irrelevant detail to the success of the business. They'd be successful either way, but this way is the best possible outcome for the founder.

<comment><USER18> _I 'd like to read about first-hand experiences founding startups with equal or unequal equity splits._

30+ year old company, started with equal split (5 ways, 1 founder bought out early).

We are not hugely successful, though I have a nice house in a nice & expensive city because of it. It is my belief the company would not exist if the CEO had gotten control early on. The equal equity was a check & balance on his power. However, there are really two possibilities:

1\. The check on his power prevented us from being wildly successful because there was too much consensus needed for risky, but potentially rewarding, decisions.

2\. The check on his power prevented him from screwing over everyone else.

On #2. About 7 years after starting, my CEO intimated to me that he made a huge mistake with the initial equity split, and when I asked why, he said he would be cash cowing the business for his own personal gain and he would be much wealthier. Now, he didn't phrase it just like that, but that's what he meant.

The truth is, once you have control of the shares, you can do anything to anyone.

I won't give the name (let's call him Mr. X), but an early investor in the company was serially successful at startups and making a lot of money. Two related facts about him:

* One of X's co-founders once told our CEO that he made almost nothing from the startup that X had made many millions from. His initial stock had been diluted to nothing, because X controlled the majority of shares and the board.

* In the 90s the SEC went after X for dubious sales practices (selling hardware and buying it back under the table to inflate company value... yes, they were public). He paid a large fine and agreed not to be an officer of a corporation for 10 years, but he died before that expired.

After these two events, I started to look at successful people in an entirely different light. Nothing I've learned in the 20 years since has changed the view that 99.9% of successful people, aside from being smart and hard working, are either in the right place at the right time or use ethically dubious methods to get ahead. There are exceptions, but they are exceedingly rare.

Sorry for the rant.

<comment><USER19> > _1\. The check on [CEO 's] power prevented us from being wildly successful > because there was too much consensus needed for risky, but potentially > rewarding, decisions._

Wait, so equity share dictates consensus? In my 20 years of working in startups, I haven't seen a relationship between share ownership and board control (other than chairman) and the company executives.

The CEO dictates what happens, period. He can either be a consensus builder -- to his benefit or detriment as the case may be -- or a dictator ala Jobs. Just because everyone has an equal share doesn't mean the CEO needs to build consensus. And he doesn't need a check & balance on power. He is in the position of CEO because the rest of the folks trust his leadership, not because he has 1/5 + 1 shares.

It sounds like you had poor corporate governance, unrelated to equity sharing.

EDIT: TFA states this directly, as well.

> _Unequal co-founder relationships are a way to dampen future co-founder > issues. By making it clear how decisions are made and who is in charge > early, you decrease the likelihood of a founder blow up. This is separate > from how you divide equity ..._

<comment><USER18> _Wait, so equity share dictates consensus? In my 20 years of working in startups, I haven 't seen a relationship between share ownership and board control (other than chairman) and the company executives._

If all the shareholders are employees _and_ the CEO has a minority share _and_ the other employees have a majority, then they can force the CEO out fairly easily. That kept things civil, in our case.

 _Just because everyone has an equal share doesn 't mean the CEO needs to build consensus._

Again, you are right, to a degree, but even if all employee founders were fired, they could band together, in the situation being discussed, and toss the CEO. That changes the psychology of the situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'll only work in equal-split partnerships. But that doesn't mean every partner has an equal say in the business; I'd also be leery of working on any founder team that didn't have someone designated as President or CEO.

<comment><USER21> For me I think it's too complex an issue to say equal-spit or nothing. Not every partnership has partners taking on equal risk or bring equal capital to the table.

100% agree with team needing a President or CEO. to expand on that, co-ceo's, that's bonkers.

<comment><USER22> I don't think this is too complex at all. I know what the process of raising a successful startup from scratch is like, I know what I bring to the table, and I also will only consider an equal split.

My direct observation is that capital is one of the least critical things someone brings to a software startup at day 0. A nontechnical CEO that brings funding is not entitled to special endowment; _that 's their job_.

<comment><USER21> I was asked to join a startup from scratch that wasn't offering me an equal share (I may be proving your point here), the other founders were taking a much larger risk than I. So they wanted a larger stake. I ended up not going and the whole thing fell apart. I felt like you at the time. But now I've come to realize that what I thought I was bringing to the company was actually worth a lot less that what they were bringing. I believe now I would be in a much better place had I accepted the offer. My point is just that I believe it is complex and you may not think it is, but maybe you are not giving it the thought it deserves. I didn't fully understand the sales side of the business how how critical that is.

<comment><USER22> I have been through this now a few times.

Yes, the sales side of the business is critical. So is the engineering side, and the product side, and the support side. In a startup _everything_ is critical. Which is why an equal share is the only reasonable approach; otherwise you're arguing over which of your organs is more important, your heart or your lungs or your liver.

If your founding team thinks "sales is less important than engineering" and thus deserves a smaller share (or vice-versa), you're already set up to fail. I went through this once with a CEO with an outsized belief in his contribution and I consider the lesson learned.

I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions to the "equal share" rule, like very junior engineers - but you might want to consider whether that's a good idea for a startup.

I look at this from the other side, btw. In my current startup I had the moral authority to demand an asymmetric split, but I chose an equal split anyway. We're going to be at this a long time. Day 0 is a dumb time to get greedy.

Or look at it this way: The other founders in your company got greedy and missed out on an opportunity to bring you on board, and your contribution may have been the difference between success and failure. That's their fault, not yours. I hope they've learned their lesson.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Isn't Google the obvious counter to this? IIRC Larry and Sergei were equal and possibly co-CEOs until Eric Schmidt was brought in.

One of the biggest companies in history is a major counterexample to Gil's argument and deserves more than a footnote about equity split at IPO.

</comment><comment><USER24> Can we get some examples where the dominant cofounder was the reason why the business did not succeed? These success stories reference generally smart and savvy executives.

</comment><comment><USER25> disagree with this article. The so called dominant co-founder is the one that is most visible from the outside. It is not clear for example if Jan Koum is the dominant co-founder in WhatsApp. He is the most vocal one on the outside, but who knows how it works on the inside.

I tend to believe that people that spend a lot of time advertising themselves on the outside, do not spend a lot of time managing things on the inside of the company.

</comment><comment><USER26> The book "Slicing Pie" delves into the topic of how to split equity before receiving any outside funding in detail:

[https://www.amazon.com/Slicing-Pie-Funding-Company- without/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Slicing-Pie-Funding-Company- without/dp/B00MFXJJYS)

[https://slicingpie.com/](https://slicingpie.com/)

The idea is to dynamically adjust equity based on how much everyone is contributing.

Some people report good experience using this dynamic split method:

[https://cofounderslab.com/discuss/has-anyone-used-the- slicin...](https://cofounderslab.com/discuss/has-anyone-used-the-slicing-pie- method-of-managing-equity-allocations-through-a-grunt-fund)

With that said, I am sure there are a lot of different methods that could work depending on the people involved, it's not as if there is only one "right" way to do it.

</comment><comment><USER27> The founders equity calculator gives a nice way to look at this and adjust variables (that of course plug into their formulas/values) [http://foundrs.com](http://foundrs.com)

</comment><comment><USER28> Here's what I want to know.

"The most successful" being defined by some metric (public valuation, exit price etc.)

Then look at all the companies that qualify by that metric, and then see what % of them are unequal equity splits.

I definitely agree that there should be a clear leader who makes the call. But the argument for an unequal equity split feels extremely weak.

</comment><comment><USER29> I wrote up a model for dividing equity in the very beginning, and it often ends up with different splits among co-founders.

See: [https://payne.org/blog/dividing-founder-equity-in-the- very-b...](https://payne.org/blog/dividing-founder-equity-in-the-very- beginning/)

TL;DR: (a) figure out ratios of ownership in the beginning (vs absolute percentages), and (b) use simple "buckets" of contribution to figure out the ratios should be.

For example, the two founders that have been working on the idea for 6-12 months may end up with more equity than the next "founder". Or a part-time (e.g. academic) co-founder may get a little less.

<comment><USER30> If you are going down the unequal route, I recommend an approach like this. We used a spreadsheet with weighted buckets. This forced us to define the weights as well as our respective contributions and overall made the process transparent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This post is making a point about _leadership_ more than anything, not equity. It's saying that the easiest way to have a consistent line and to operate without hesitation is to have a dominant co-founder or, at least, a dominant vision.

</comment><comment><USER32> Ignoring whether correlation is the causation here, this post demonstrates a confirmation bias. Id like to see another list of successful companies with equal cofounders to be more objective.

</comment><comment><USER33> Unequal cofounders is a great to basis for future unequal equity for employees. "Mister Future Employee, you see that even the second person in the company has much less equity that CEO, so you should be content with your 0.00001% vesting over 50 years. Just imagine how big a payoff will be when we'll sell for ten trillion dollars."

</comment><comment><USER34> there are multiple configurations of compensation, equity and decision making that are not equal, but which all parties can feel good about agreeing to.

the problem is when folks behave secretively, tilt too far towards selfishness, and lose respect for others.

</comment><comment><USER35> This all seems like common sense, but the article articulated it very well.

</comment><comment><USER36> _"All founders are equal, but some founders are more equal than others"_

—- George (The Startup Farm)</comment>


C Standard Undefined Behavior vs. Wittgenstein [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.yodaiken.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/ub-1.pdf <comment><USER2> dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17188955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17188955)

</comment><comment><USER3> Undefined behavior is almost inevitable if optimum performance is desired.

A function which _appears_ to need bounds-checking (for instance a function which takes int *x and immediately returns x[0]) might _in-fact_ only ever be called after bounds-checking has already been performed. Adding bounds- checking into said function would waste time.

The compiler can't determine whether or not the function will or will not be called dangerously, that would require solving the halting problem.

To reconcile our security demands with our performance demands, we must develop a language which has UB, but whose compiler only accepts programs accompanied by formal proofs that those programs are safe.</comment>


How the Nielsen TV ratings work — and what could replace them - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/#!5636210/how-the-nielsen-tv-ratings-work--and-what-could-replace-them

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the question that will be the game changer: Will the current ad-break- supported television model even be around in 20 years?

I can't imagine that this model will hold up. Will the broadcasters eventually be cut out of the equation except for maybe live events?</comment>


Show HN: Fun new web game/app to learn bartending - <AUTHOR>

To teach myself Python and GAE, I recently made a new web game/app to help people learn how to bartend. I'm pretty happy with the results, and it was tons of fun to make. I currently can't make any changes to the app, as it is an entry in Mozilla's GameOn 2010 challenge (gaming.mozillalabs.com).<p>Any and all comments and suggestions would be appreciated though! www.drunkenweb.com <comment><AUTHOR> for your viewing pleasure: <http://www.drunkenweb.com></comment>


Show HN: Use machine learning and enlarge your image without losing quality - <AUTHOR> https://deep-image.teonite.com/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting concept, but it only kinda works with simple shape images, and doesn't work with more complex images (photograph) Using the resize filter, I ended up with images where the image elements edges are sharpened. So yes, the final images were not blurry but it definitely lost quality.

Update: To be fair letsenhance.io didn't do a good job with images I tested either. Maybe worse. And you are correct, their website tricks you into signing up just to test it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I provided a fairly low resolution image which was capture from a 3d map tile. It enlarged and didn't lose quality, but what I was most impressed by was removing the jpg artifacts.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> we know that letsenhance.io was relases some time ago, but: a) our _core_ code for this was relased 2 years ago, b) LE requires signing up c) there is no information how they approach this subject, as we give all information with detailed alogritms

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know how this compares to superresolution using fractal image coding?

<comment><USER5> Maybe here is the answer [https://teonite.com/blog/deep-image-thanks-to- machine-learni...](https://teonite.com/blog/deep-image-thanks-to-machine- learning-we-get-a-larger-image-with-a-much-better-quality-2/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Only result I get is:

"Something went wrong. Please upload image once again."

</comment><comment><USER7> Why three are only a few filters? Can one add a new one via PR?

<comment><USER8> We just implemented these ones. We plan to opensource the app soon (the core code is already on our github but not the complete webapp), the we will accept pull requests.</comment></comment>


Google's Don't Be Evil Not "Ordained Motto" Says Marissa Mayer - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/15/googles-dont-be-evil-not-ordained-motto-says-marissa-mayer/ <comment><USER2> _It's too bad they couldn't get Buchheit to take it with him when he left to found FriendFeed._

Arrington is either a brilliant troll or an incredible asshole. Mayer was effectively pointing out that moral relativity gives even SEO spammers an excuse to claim that Google is "evil" in whatever way they frame it, and it falls to the GOOG to fight this perception. So Arrington (tongue-in-cheek, I hope?) apparently decides it would have been better if one of the more demanding corporate mottos ever embraced were to have left with Buchheit.

Regardless of whether Google would have been better off (doubt it), the rest of the world would likely be poorer for it, since many painful decisions would be a lot easier to justify on the basis of profit-and-loss than right-and- wrong. I'll bet you that motto (and its consequences, and the perception boost from trying to follow it publicly) is worth far more than even Google's PR folks calculate, over the long haul.

<comment><USER3> But since they went public, they do have a responsibility to justify on the basis of profit-and-loss. Granted, they make so much $$$ that they have room to consider right and wrong, but I'm sure "Do No Evil" has cost them and Google shareholders some opportunities.

But that's just me playing Devil's Advocate. I wish they would continue to Do No Evil, and I'm glad for what they've done so far.

<comment><USER2> _But since they went public, they do have a responsibility to justify on the basis of profit-and-loss._

Sort of. Have you looked at the manner in which GOOG's shares are structured? Their responsibility is actually much greater to internal shareholders. (I view this as another plus.)

Most companies have CEOs who could be fired for doing the right thing. Google has insulated itself from this a little, although a profit must be turned each quarter. The voting weights of their shares are a very concrete implementation of their bias towards long-term strategies, rather than the Street's manic focus on quarterly growth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It darn well better be, with the amount of personal leverage we hand them when we let them keep track of our every move online and target ads to us right in our email. DARN well better be the motto I say.</comment>


Ask HN: Why are crypto markets down? - <AUTHOR> Really just curious -- you would think this type of uncertainty that is bringing down the stock markets would have people hoarding crypto. Why isn't that happening? <comment><USER2> Because despite cryptos intended usage, most people buy it as an investment - and are trying to cut their losses as it declines

</comment><comment><USER3> The actual usage of crypto is as an investment just like stock.

It doesn't matter what the ethos behind Bitcoin is, if the market uses it like an investment just like stocks, then that's what it is, and that's how it will behave.

</comment><comment><USER4> Because it is a mostly speculative investment. Also because we deep down all know a flu like virus shouldn't be tanking the global economy, but it is, and we simple don't know how to measure irrational fear. It's inertia at this point, we'll snap out of it when we all suddenly realize 'ah, ok, so Cruises? Remember those? I'd like to go on one of those again, weird how we thought those companies would go bankrupt, guess we all got a little weird there for a bit'.

There's no rhyme or reason to this, Bitcoin is in flux just like everything else.

</comment><comment><USER5> Theory: Do you expect there's a risk you're going to need to money you put in crypto soon? If yes, would you rather turn it to cash now, or after the price has fallen further?

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd expect there are 2 main reasons.

The first is that investors requiring cash to cover margin calls for all the other markets that are tanking. This is likely to be a reason for the big drop in gold prices yesterday.

The second is a general flight to quality as evinced by the drops in Treasury yields in US, UK and Germany.

Or it could be wibble. It's crypto so we'll never actually know.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would be very nervous about keeping money in cryptocurrency form if that money is something the I expect I'll need access to suddenly. If the economy crashes hard, I expect it would become extremely difficult or expensive to convert cryptocurrency to cash.

</comment><comment><USER8> One theory: Institutional investors getting into crypto the past couple years made it more correlated to traditional financial markets.

Also could be due to leverage trading becoming super popular the past year or two.

</comment><comment><USER9> People may sell their crypto to cover their shorts in the stock market.

</comment><comment><USER10> Several coins are tied to the price of energy, as you mine coins. With oil prices collapsing because of the Russia / Saudi fight the price of energy should go down.

</comment><comment><USER11> Pretty simple: More sellers than buyers. People of libertarian bent have already loaded up with Cryptos. Not many buyers left.

You can see a similar thing with Gold, and gold miners as well.</comment>


Nobody Cares - <AUTHOR> http://bhorowitz.com/2011/10/08/nobody-cares/ <comment><USER3> At the risk of pounding the Jobs-is-dead meme too hard, this reminds me of a good story I read recently about Steve Jobs:

 _Jobs tells the VP that if the garbage in his office is not being emptied regularly for some reason, he would ask the janitor what the problem is. The janitor could reasonably respond by saying, "Well, the lock on the door was changed, and I couldn't get a key."

An irritation for Jobs, for an understandable excuse for why the janitor couldn't do his job. As a janitor, he's allowed to have excuses.

"When you're the janitor, reasons matter," Jobs tells newly minted VPs, according to Lashinsky.

"Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering," says Jobs, adding, that Rubicon is "crossed when you become a VP."_[1]

[1] [http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-07/tech/30043798...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-07/tech/30043798_1_janitor- steve-jobs-vp#ixzz1aDW7Q1Y0)

<comment><USER4> We can go back further than that. Hal Geneen was the CEO famous for expanding ITT into a multi-national conglomerate using rigorous metrics-driven management. His favourite saying was,

"Managers must manage." As in, your job as a manager is to overcome the obstacles, not to use them for excuses. What do you manage if not the impediments to success?

<comment><USER5> So true. It reminds me of working on a project and there are so many times when some piece of the stack that we didn't write is acting up. You want, so bad, to say "well, we can't do this because X has a bug in it". But then you remind yourself that your users don't care why your product doesn't work, just that it does. And you spend some frustrating amount of time finding a work around.

<comment><USER6> You just described my last few years working with SharePoint :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This post reads more like the author trying to come to terms with his own tortured, confrontational, win/lose outlook on running a company. It also reads like a case of passive/aggressive venting on a portfolio company CEO who is driving him nuts, or the aggregate of several such cases.

In any case, this is not useful advice. And patently untrue. When the chips are down, people do care, and people help out, if you explain the challenges you are facing and the odds you are up against. Not least of all, "your mama".

The article also strikes me as a misinterpretation of the quote and the exchange between owner and coach. I would read it differently... the coach is at his wits end, calls the owner for advice, and the owner doesn't merely say "nobody cares"! He says "just coach your team". Meaning, don't worry about all the things you thought you were going to do (with the team roster you thought you had) and just hang in there, stick to your core strength (coaching) and do your best to make it work.

No wonder the author has anguished posts on his blog like "What's The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology" wherein we read such gems of wisdom as "It's like the fight club of management: The first rule of the CEO psychological meltdown is don't talk about the psychological meltdown." Not really. The first rule is relax, don't take yourself so damn seriously. Actually, there are no rules. Isn't that why you became CEO?

People infected with attitudes like this suck all the life and joy out of doing business. It's not all about people standing around yelling "no excuses! yo' mama don't care!" at each other. Carrying around excess psychological freight like this only slows you down, makes you hate yourself and the industry, etc. If there are problems, you deal with them. Often times, solving problems means figuring out the parameters of the difficulty, putting all the resources you can against the problem, and then going and finding the right people who care to help you out with the rest.

<comment><USER8> I like this. I think there's a common fallacy where people want to think that other people are more selfish and uncaring than they are. Maybe it makes it all seem more explicable?

But it's not true. Humans haven't managed to colonize the whole planet because we're so mean to each other-- that doesn't even make sense. The physical universe is impartial and uncaring; people have succeeded primarily because, most of the time, we _aren't_.

We have access to such great information sources these days, we hear so much about war, crime, and poverty, it's easy to forget that we actually live in the most peaceful, prosperous times that mankind has ever seen. It's so easy to get ahead for a little while by screwing the other guy, we forget that the only reason any of us exist is because a relatively short time ago, and ever since, some apes realized that if they just put aside their differences and worked together for a little while, they could conquer the world. _And they were right._

A little bit of trust, humility, and respect for humanity goes a long way. Have a problem? Tell your mother. She probably can't do much to help, but she'll _care_ , and that is way more important than people think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this is great advice for a CEO's emotional well being. But it isn't true. I know I care a ton about the challenges our portfolio companies face and I know many other stakeholders who do too. Capitalism isnt uncaring

<comment><USER10> Sounds like some good tough love for CEOs (and everyone else really) who care too much. That's probably most of them, and a whole lot of employees, investors, and even customers too.

IMO the why matters, but only for a moment, and then the "what are you going to do next?" has to become the focus. That way caring so deeply doesn't become unproductive -- you grieve the pain of mistakes and unfortunate outcomes for no more than a minute or two ("and this too will pass") and then keep moving. Startups are like sharks, if we stop moving we die.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is great advice that applies to life as much as to work.

Just changing the last three words of the last paragraph gives:

"All the mental energy that you use to elaborate your misery would be far better used trying to find the one, seemingly impossible way out of your current mess. It's best to spend zero time on what you could have done and all of your time on what you might do. Because in the end, nobody cares, just LIVE YOUR LIFE."

</comment><comment><USER12> No. You should care.

If it's your own team/project/company, odds are very good that it's not the things you're doing right that are in the way, it's the things that you're doing wrong, or that are going wrong. A systematic analysis of failure modes ("5 whys" in Scrum) is going to help.

Education is learning from other people's mistakes. If the it's another organization's problems or failures, then learning from them is a great way to avoid making the same mistake yourself. When forwarding the recent AmEx information disclosure story to my team, I added the question "do we have a '?debug=true' feature?"

comp.risks has been one of my go-to reading sources for a few decades. There's a reason for that.

To point on the story: identifying causes (and corrections) for injuries has been a big part of professional sports in the past decade. Moneyball is a story of doing highly systematic analysis of what it takes to win (and avoiding the mistakes leading to losses), in a manner any scrappy startup can appreciate: not enough money.

And much of the story of early industrial organization (and risk management) was taking a statistical approach to production (and loss) and realizing that though both were based on stochastic principles, this did _not_ mean that the conditions or outcomes were unmanageable.

<comment><USER5> He's not saying _you_ shouldn't care, he's saying nobody else cares what the reason is. Nobody is going to give him a win just because his best players are out.

<comment><USER13> Sure they care. Sports fans are easier on a coach if they know he's got an injured team; customers are easier on businesses if they know the reason their product isn't working is due to an independant third party.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a great lesson in capitalism. When you're the boss, nobody gives your partial credit for good attempts. Either the team succeeds and everyone is happy, or they don't, and the boss takes the fall.

Taking this a step beyond the intended message (of football and business), this shows an interesting dichotomy in education in jobs. In many countries (example: Japan, France) school is results based, with admissions based soley on rigorous exams. The real world is softer based more on credentials and connections than results. Compare that to the US... Being a good football player (or trombone player) can help you get into school, but the real world is much less forgiving.

Our economy has tough times, but the unforgiving cruel world helps us stay strong.

<comment><USER15> _"This is a great lesson in capitalism. When you're the boss, nobody gives your partial credit for good attempts. Either the team succeeds and everyone is happy, or they don't, and the boss takes the fall."_

Perhaps in pure capitalism & small business, but what with the era of large salaries & golden parachutes often those who mislead aren't really "punished". There is also plenty of CYA & scapegoating in the professional world along with a lot of people who eat it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This should not stop at the CEO level, it needs to apply to every job within the company, at every level.

Nobody cares about your excuses, whoever you are. Everyone's job involves goals, milestones and deadline. If you are performing you deserve commensurate rewards, if you are failing nobody should care to hear your excuses - <USER2> what could you fix and perhaps why you believe you deserve another chance.

The performance of the CEO and overall company performance depends on everyone pulling their weight. If the CEO does not enforce accountability throughout the entire organization, he/she is heading for failure and nobody would care about their sorry fate!

<comment><USER17> Most employees have a very different mindset. It seems that a company composed only of people who understand and follow the 'nobody cares' principle would be a perfectly operating entity where everyone always smoothly goes in the right direction, but I'm not actually convinced that's possible. 'Nobody cares' personal philosophy is very much correlated with alpha personalities, and you can't have a team where everyone is an alpha - they'll rip each other apart with conflicts. It's very tricky to balance this well - I'd like to see how different leaders do it in organizations of different sizes.

<comment><USER18> The incentives at a typical corporation are also not setup to encourage "nobody cares" attitudes. Employees are paid whatever the results are, unless they do something egregiously bad. They have every incentive to care about their effort and motivations - that's what they get fired for - and no incentive to care about results. That's diametrically opposed from an equity- owning cofounder (who basically can't be fired, unless the board forces them out) but doesn't get paid anything unless the company succeeds.

You could argue that this is the _reason_ why anyone would accept a salaried employment position. In a well-run knowledge organization, employees have just as much freedom as startup founders do. The difference is risk assignment: under an employment agreement, the employer assumes the risk (and reward) that the product may fail despite the employee's best efforts, while in a startup, the founder assumes the risk that the company may fail for reasons outside his control. (The incentives issue actually falls out of this as a form of moral hazard.)

Note that the alternative of paying everyone by results doesn't always work either. Many financial firms use this approach. The problem is that realistically, in a decent-sized organization, people _don't_ have a measurable effect on outcomes, and results will be dominated by randomness anyway. If you pay for results but results are not under the worker's control, you end up incentivizing risky behavior, because the worker's upside is potentially unlimited but their downside is generally capped at "everything they own". This was the problem at Enron, LTCM, and many hedge funds in the financial crisis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is this meant to be taken as advice or something? Because it's useless advice. He could have at least said something like, "Be prepared for the day when all your assumptions about how to proceed are upended and you are left with nothing. Be mentally prepared to be broadsided by fate. Be operationally prepared to rebuild from scratch. Be prepared to get a carton of Tums and make the tough decision that gives you a bloody ulcer."

<comment><USER20> I think you completely missed the point. The point is this: nobody cares why you failed, just that you failed, so put your energy towards finding a way to turn it into a win rather than coming up with an excuse for why it all fell apart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's no asterisks in startups.

<comment><USER22> Not even Twilio? :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> When Parcell asked: "What should I do?" .... is he not, in fact, spending his time on "what you might do" ?

Kinda makes the story pointless, if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me of one of my favorite drawings from Hugh MacLeod (www.gapingvoid.com)

Nobody Cares: Population 6 Billion [http://alecsharp.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/nobody- cares.jp...](http://alecsharp.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/nobody-cares.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER25> The NYT obit for Al Davis [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/sports/football/al- davis-o...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/sports/football/al-davis-owner- of-raiders-dies-at-82.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> RIP Al. I'm no Raider fan, but I definitely respect your passion for your team and football!

</comment><comment><USER27> or.. put more succinctly

" Success has many fathers, failure none. "

The above has an interesting spin to it. Failure is often caused by not having enough people to care.

" Care " itself is strongly associated with being a father.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen Typo: "As I was feely sorry for myself..."</comment>


TwoTone: Data Sonification - <AUTHOR> https://twotone.io/ <comment><USER2> Clicking through "Get Started" is completely unusable on mobile safari.

[https://i.imgur.com/fxzaS1F.png](https://i.imgur.com/fxzaS1F.png)

</comment><comment><USER3> This would be super useful with MIDI Export.</comment>


Beating the CAP Theorem Checklist - <AUTHOR> http://ferd.ca/beating-the-cap-theorem-checklist.html <comment><USER2> Nice checklist! I really like Coda Hale's "You Can't Sacrifice Partition Tolerance" [0]

I think part of people's frequent confusion is thinking it's "CAP: Pick two" when really it's "C or A: pick at most one for any particular situation".

0: [http://codahale.com/you-cant-sacrifice-partition- tolerance/](http://codahale.com/you-cant-sacrifice-partition-tolerance/)

<comment><USER3> The Oct 22 update basically says "nevermind".

<comment><USER4> No; the Oct 21st update notes that someone (important) "disagrees", and then the Oct 22nd update takes that disagreement, quotes a particular paragraph from it, concedes a single point (one that is mostly about terminology), and then has a "that said" that in turn disputes the overall conclusion of that disagreement both in this specific aspect and in the general case over the following paragraphs (which all back up his overall position that A vs C is valuable to consider).

In fact, the part being disagreed with on Oct 21st wasn't even the idea that CAP is itself correct, or that "you can't give up partition tolerance", but instead is over the contention that choosing A over C is ever the correct design decision: the argument from Stonebraker is that in real-world systems A is hopeless to obtain anyway as while network partitions do occur, they are far less frequent than "bohrbugs, application errors, human errors and reprovisioning events".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One thing they don't teach in CAP theorem class is that you can be AP sometimes and CP others. For instance you can be strongly consistent within one system boundary (perhaps a datacenter) and eventually consistent between datacenters.

The CAP theorem can thus be annoying on both sides of the divide: people who think they can beat it, and people who think every system must be fully described by either AP or CP. Real life is messy, and for most real distributed systems you can't adequately characterize thier behavior just by pointing to a single spot on a Venn diagram of CAP.

<comment><USER6> More than that. Individual operations in a system could be AP and others CP. If you have something like dynamic quorum sizes, making quorums a majority would work towards some form of CP, while making it smaller than a majority could work towards AP constraints.

There are of course more mechanisms to consider when positioning yourself on the spectrum, but nothing would keep you from requiring CP for operations that have to do with subscriptions, and AP for operations that show how many people are online on a website, for example.

Then you have to consider 'refinements' over cap such as PACELC, where you can decide to switch modes depending on cluster health. For example, you could decide that when there is a (P)artition, you are (A)vailable, (E)lse, you are (C)onsistent. Nothing also stops you from providing, if you want extremely low latency, no consistency at all. For a cache, choosing latency (which would be PAEL, where L stands for Latency) would make sense.

CAP is just the very basic set of rules to consider when going distributed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In case someone does not recognize the reference, this is a parody of the Spam Solutions Checklist that used to be circulated when e-mail spam was a new issue: [https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt](https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt)

</comment><comment><USER8> I think everyone accepts that the CAP theorem (as proved) is true. The issue is what conclusion you draw. The theorem just says you can't be perfect on all three axes. Some people conclude that we must throw everything away, and e.g. use a key-value store.

To my mind, that's a bit like learning about random bit-flips, and giving up programming.

<comment><USER6> Here are a few examples:

[http://nathanmarz.com/blog/how-to-beat-the-cap- theorem.html](http://nathanmarz.com/blog/how-to-beat-the-cap-theorem.html)

[http://dominictarr.com/post/44516618714/working-around- the-c...](http://dominictarr.com/post/44516618714/working-around-the-cap- theorem-with-rumours-db)

[http://scale-out-blog.blogspot.ca/2012/04/disproving-cap- the...](http://scale-out-blog.blogspot.ca/2012/04/disproving-cap-theorem.html)

Not everyone accepts the CAP theorem yet, or some have an understanding of it that is flawed enough that they think they can beat it.

<comment><USER8> One of those was posted on April 1st :-)

Nathan's post is very interesting - thanks for posting that. He has taken on board the implications of CAP, and built a system (Storm) that is genuinely different.

I wish more people did that. If you're going to use CAP to justify building a database but having it be less capable, that's just marketing. If you're going to look at CAP and think "OK, we can't get to 100%, but how can we get closer", then that's great. For blog marketing reasons, you might describe that as "beating the CAP theorem"; but it's actually finding new solutions within the constraints.

<comment><USER6> Good catch for April fools! I shouldn't have included that one, obviously.

For the nathan post, reading the comments reveal that he ends up acknowledging CAP is true, which would make him fall into the "( ) nice try, but blatantly false advertising" box of the list.

CAP theorem _can_ be used as an excuse to provide weak systems that don't do much (unfortunately), but it doesn't mean it's what it is meant to validate as an idea, fortunately. As I mentioned in another comment, it's more or less a very basic set of rules (axioms?) to consider when building distributed systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be fairly awesome if the page parsed params to put x's in the appropriate spots, so you you could use the appropriate link to customize it for the recipient you send it to.

</comment><comment><USER10>
        * Rich Hickey on Datomic, CAP and ACID [1]
        * Exploiting Loopholes in CAP (Michael Nygard of Relevance) [2]
        * How to beat the CAP theorem (by Nathan Marz of Twitter) [3]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093037](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093037) [2] [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Loopholes- CAP](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Loopholes-CAP) [3] [http://nathanmarz.com/blog/how-to-beat-the-cap- theorem.html](http://nathanmarz.com/blog/how-to-beat-the-cap-theorem.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Seems to have been inspired by the Programming Language Checklist: [http://colinm.org/language_checklist.html](http://colinm.org/language_checklist.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> I understand that this is probably wrong somehow, but what about a system wherein there is sufficient capacity to take a "partitioned" datacenter out of the loop entirely and serve web traffic from your other locations, then bring it back up to speed while still offline after the disruption ends?

Again, I accept that that's probably bad, but why?

<comment><USER13> Your strategy as I understand it is CP. In the case that you have a partition and it's not a majority, it stops accepting traffic or goes read-only.

Say an outage leaves your three DCs (or more generally, N partitions, of which none are a majority) unable to talk to one-another. They are all a minority and so all go offline or read-only. No partition can accept writes without risking that another partition is too, and that those writes will be inconsistent.

You're partition tolerant, and have consistency guarantees, but you're not available.

<comment><USER12> Can I "cheat" by having satellite, PSTN, cell phones, semaphore, smoke signals, sneakernet, etc. to allow the DCs to negotiate (perhaps randomly) which will consider itself the master? Then the non-masters could direct users to the master.

I guess this isn't a true "partition" and if we're talking about an internet backbone cable cut, it might go unavailable for _some_ users who could not be redirected, but for the rest it is intact. While networking failures are to be expected, could I minimize my risk of a complete partition by sharing this status information? I suppose if we're in a cartoon end-of-the-world scenario where my 3 DCs drift out to sea on separate continents, I go unavailable, but at that point everyone has bigger problems to worry about.

If the PSTN, cell phone network, Internet, dedicated fiber link, shortwave radio, roads, and navigable airspace (drone, helicopter, carrier pigeon) between all 3 of my locations are severed, then the system goes completely unavailable, but at this point we're talking about a mass casualty incident, civilization collapse, or other situation where no one would be trying to use my system anyway. Medical records for first responders would have to fail to "eventually consistent" but patients can only be in one place at a time. Unless my system is the nuclear deterrent, does it matter?

<comment><USER14> The partition part is about how tolerant your system is to a partition situation. Having massively reliable communications between systems will reduce your MTBF, but it doesn't address how your system will actually handle a partition. You do need to account for it one way or the other. If you get a partition, you can't keep operating with consistency across the whole system.

Now when you look at patient data .. sure, eventually consistent might be just fine.. but that's not consistency as referred to in CAP. So while it's perfectly acceptable to your app, it's not about making CAP invalid.

<comment><USER12> >If you get a partition, you can't keep operating with consistency across the whole system.

But why can't I shut down some nodes and direct all my users to the other(s)? As long as I have enough of a channel to communicate which node is now authoritative (and if all systems including driving between DCs fail simeltaneously, nobody needs my app anyway) can't I keep serving my users out of one DC?

Thank you for engaging this thought experiment, by the way. This is fascinating stuff.

<comment><USER15> As the linked site notes, clients are part of the distributed system, which means they can be partitioned as well, both from each other (more important in a P2P app) and from your servers. So you may not be able to "direct all your users to the other(s)."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Recreational Pot Use Harmful to Young People's Brains? - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/61940/recreational-pot-use-harmful-to-young-peoples-brains/ <comment><USER3> People seem to hold very strong opinions on factual issues, which always strikes me as odd, because the funny thing about facts is that they stay the same despite your opinion.

A lot of people I know believe that marijuana is seriously damaging to the brain. I also know a lot of people who believe it isn't dangerous one bit. And I've also noticed that online (being a much more liberal environment generally speaking), any study showing that marijuana could be a potentially damaging substance is immediately discredited somehow (and always by people who aren't experts in the field).

The fact is, the laws of physics have and always will continue to operate the same way regardless of your opinion on how they should work, so it's wise to keep an open mind toward all studies and consider the evidence yourself before immediately embracing or discrediting an idea with little thought into why you're doing so.

<comment><USER4> Meh. This one isn't really worth the bother though.

It's got a very small sample size, no accounting for correlation vs causation. The areas of the brain that are apparently different are involved with reward- seeking behaviour.

It seems perfectly plausible to me that pot causes some changes in the brain as it continues to develop through young adulthood, but it's also perfectly plausible that these differences are pre-existing and encourage drug-seeking behaviour.

What you absolutely cannot say from this study is anything other than 'differences in brain structure have been observed'

In that respect the Time article is almost criminally ignorant from the title onwards - "Recreational Pot Use Harmful to Young People's Brains"

<comment><USER5> Link to the study: [http://jn.sfn.org/press/April-16-2014-Issue/zns01614005529.p...](http://jn.sfn.org/press/April-16-2014-Issue/zns01614005529.pdf)

20 people in each group (control and MJ), 9 male and 11 female.

<comment><USER4> That still seems a small sample size. The study itself seems to be well titled and not make many sweeping statements. It even says towards the end that early exposure to alcohol may even be behind some or all of the effects.

I like this analysis - [http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/study- finds-re...](http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/study-finds- recreational-cannabis-use-associated-abnormalities-brain)

<comment><USER5> Not disagreeing at all, I was just adding some more infos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did a review of the literature on the harmful or beneficial health effects of marijuana several years ago and didn't find any convincing (non-marginal- result, controlled) studies that showed marijuana had long term negative effects on health. The literature I find is pretty weak. Not only are these studies weak, but there are even mixed results - some (similarly unconvincing) studies suggest marijuana has positive health effects (anticarcinogenic, etc).

This study is in line with what I found. I find it plausible (and rather obvious) that marijuana use causes _short-term_ negative effects. I'm more interested in the long term effects, though. I take it for granted that marijuana use is going to have negative cognitive effects in the short term (e.g. the next week).

</comment><comment> torrent-of-ions Obvious question: how do they know that those parts of the brain were changed by the drug? Is this yet another correlation with no evidence at all of causation?

Also, even if the drug does change the brain, is this necessarily bad? The implication seems to be that users have narrower horizons and enjoy fewer things. Is this meant to be a measure of quality of life? I know plenty of people whom I consider to have narrow horizons and it would be very easy for my to assume that they have a lower quality of life than me because they don't even derive any pleasure from things that I enjoy. That would be a ridiculous assumption, though.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think people see what they want to see. Current Zeitgeist is pointing towards approving use of pot for recreational purposes while ignoring all the risks or even discrediting anyone saying the opposite. I deeply remember one episode from my adolescence when another kid smoke a large amount of pot in the basement and suddenly started yelling: "Dragon, I see dragon!" while having his eyes open in an expression of fear for a few hours. From my point of view, pot smoking is another horrible idea such as cigarette smoking - <USER2> annoys anyone who doesn't smoke as the air quality deteriorates and damages both active and passive participant's health. Moreover, certain parts of population are prone to damage their brains as well as compromise their will, instead running away to "lalaland" whenever they face any challenge. There is a saying in Frankfurt nightclubs that you can't build a business on stoners and some nightclubs had to close due to having their business deteriorating due to unofficially allowing pot inside. Similar to crack cocaine in Rio de Janeiro when the drug trafficking favelados decided not to sell it anymore as it was killing their own customers and business. As a professional photographer I can see what drugs are doing to my models - you have a world- class awesome beauty with a great personality one year, and the next year a train-wreck with horrible changes to physiology and likely involved in escorting business. In other words, I see the movement to legalize pot as another insanity in progress. And we think humanity is evolving...

<comment><USER4> Personally I see the mass incarceration of people and the billions of dollars and many lives wasted in the War on (some) Drugs as a far greater tragedy than you getting upset about air quality and a few people making bad choices.

<comment><USER7> Yes, it's a horrible tragedy what is happening in Mexico, especially border cities like Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana, as well as other South American or Middle-Eastern countries due to drug trafficking. Ask people in northern Mexico what do they think - most of them will tell you that they just want Americans to take all the drugs and the facilities to USA and keep them away from Mexico so that they can live normal lives and not be threatened by Zetas and Gulf cartel gunners hijacking buses and forcing participants to fight in gladiator-style for survival, or to dig 5000 graves of women killed by gangs of Juarez at the outskirts of the city. Why do they have to suffer all the consequences when some people in the US need to be "high" to feel good about themselves? The problem is in YOU guys, not in the war on drugs.

<comment><USER8> You instantly focused on the uninteresting part of his argument.

It seems clear to me that harm reduction is clearly a better policy then zero tolerance. We are not going to fix the smoking problem by banning it, just like we aren't going to stop people from drinking by banning it.

People still smoke cigarettes. But it is better then it was, especially in the USA. This happened with heavy regulation, heavily advertised evidence of harm, and eventually social pressure making it "uncool" in most cases. Meanwhile, pot has been the target of a "war" that ruined far more lives with jail time them the drugs themselves would have, and it is more popular then ever.

Holding on to failing idealism is just stupidity.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DumpTruck Online Storage (from Giganews) - <AUTHOR> http://www.giganews.com/dumptruck/index.html

<comment><AUTHOR> so, I thought this was interesting. Giganews has done a lot on their field (usenet). encryption, compressed headers etc... Due to the nature of their business, privacy has always been a big deal.

For those who keep complaining about Dropbox not being secure enough, this looks like it'll be an interesting alternative. Still in private/invite beta.</comment>


If you are waiting for the decade to end, you have already missed it - <AUTHOR> http://iloapp.quelsolaar.com/blog/news?Home&post=62

<comment><USER2> "Lucky for all of us I don't think the 80s lasted very long. "

Wow. I'm guessing this person did not live through them. It was a great time for art and music.</comment>


Announcing Rust 1.34.1 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rust-lang.org/2019/04/25/Rust-1.34.1.html <comment><USER2> How much longer until async/await is as easy to use as it is in JavaScript?

<comment><USER3> Several releases at the minimum. The futures API has been stabilized for 1.36, but the async/await call syntax is still unstable (from what I understand).

Even then, there will still be more friction in rust compared to javascript, since there is just more to make decisions about (e.g. ownership, it's generally lower-level, etc.)

To see a full status on async stuff in rust, see [https://areweasyncyet.rs/](https://areweasyncyet.rs/)

Edit: There will be a ton of churn as well in the eco-system since everybody will need to move to the new api, but there are api shims that let you use the new stuff on the old stuff, so that makes it a little easier. There's going to be a ton of _visible_ progress this year.

<comment><USER4> async/await still scares me a little since I would prefer that the language core stay small and universal.

<comment><USER5> async/await is sooo much easier to use than combinators though. I struggle in remembering when I should be using and_then/or_else/map/then, and then juggling all the references as things pass into and out of closures.

I wrote a small redis clone with async/await and it was a joy to write. It was fast and so easy to reason about. It's so worth it to add it to the core language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't there a 'Rust announcements' mailing list instead of having HN polluted with every minor point release?

<comment><USER7> If it wasn't upvoted it wouldn't make it to the front page.

<comment><USER6> Just about anything with 'Rust' in the title makes it to the front page.

<comment><USER8> Note that HN's ranking algorithm also rapidly sinks things off the front page whose titles contain common keywords like "Rust", "Go", "Apple", etc.

<comment><USER9> That's an interesting observation, but not true!

As far as stories like this go, we do penalize minor release announcements across the board (unless there's something there that gratifies intellectual curiosity), but that's done manually.

<comment><USER8> Interesting, thanks for the insight. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A necklace that glows red during your period - <AUTHOR> http://shameless.jewelry/ <comment><USER2> I'm a guy but I think there should be more stuff like this. Shaming or being ashamed for a natural function is not right. The sooner we get passed that the better. I applaud them for doing something about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perfect, now I know when exactly to avoid my girlfriend without pissing her off.</comment>