Mario Kart Wii: The History of the Ultra Shortcut [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmJ_LT8bUj0 <comment><USER2> The most interesting speedrun I've ever seen is the Super Mario World credits warp, which requires the player to write + execute arbitrary code in game by carefully positioning koopa shells. At first thought to only be possible with tools in an emulator, this has been done on an actual console!

Summoning Salt video about the overall history of SMW speedruns: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USBboeK7oDA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USBboeK7oDA)

Detailed explanation of how the credits warp exploit works: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAHXK2wut_I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAHXK2wut_I)

<comment><USER3> And since people learned how to inject custom code into the game you get amazing creations like a full level editor running inside SMW:

[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/01/how-a-game-playing- ro...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/01/how-a-game-playing-robot-coded- super-mario-maker-onto-an-snes-live-on-stage/)

<comment><USER4> I'm on mobile and don't have a link right now, but there was a guy a while back that did a TAS speedrun of I think Pokemon red/blue, and got a full RCE exploit to work, rewrote the cartridge to the play the opening to the next game in the series (Pokemon gold), and after playing that for a bit hit the endgame credits of the first game breaking the world record at the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Summoningsalt has really raised my respect for speed runners. His narrative ability is top notch as well. I wonder what his day job is.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. I'm always impressed with the production quality of his videos, he clearly spends a lot of time on them. He even has a google doc linked in the description to all the songs he uses in each video.

<comment><USER7> That's probably because in every Youtube video ever, there's always someone asking what's the song in the background. I think it should be recognized as law akin to Godwin's law, the Darud Sandstorm's law.

<comment><USER8> I think this might be the minting of an eponymous law, or at the very least, one I will attribute to you in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does it feel if you are a developer and people devote their lives to your creation?

Particularly if you spent weeks making it and people have spent years playing with it?

Then how does it feel if millions of people play?

Game developers are kind of cut out of the story. It would be nice to have their take on the story, to hear what they have been creating whilst others have merely played.

<comment><USER10> I know John Romero of id software fame is (still, after 25 years) a big fan of a lot of the Doom community's output and I see his comments and likes popping up on speed runs, mods, fan art etc.

I even had a very brief conversation with him on Instagram after posting a Doom-related photo which was very cool considering he was one of my childhood heroes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Along the same topic, this YouTuber made a fantastic video explaining the Mario Kart 64 Choco Mountain shortcut: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y99Wj- NStok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y99Wj-NStok)

</comment><comment><USER12> I start listening: Nintendo wii.. hmm old.. Mario kart.. ok cool.. Speed running with short cuts.. hmm ok esoteric but sure I'll give it a shot.. Interesting historical narrative about this random corner of the internet subculture.. hmm cool! Listened to the whole thing.. well done!

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I didn't expect to watch a 30+ minute video on Mario Kart speedruns, but I sure did!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think it's a really interesting video, talking about race game programming (in the constrained environment of a game console), and how people manage to reverse-engineer it to discover some extremely large shortcuts.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is there also a video on how to defeat Blue Shells?

Because I would pay cash money for that info.

<comment><USER15> Depends on the game. In some I think it's not possible, in others it's a frame perfect trick

<comment><USER16> Note: frame perfect means that the opportunity only exists during a specific frame of a game, in other words within a specific moment at the rate the game displays discrete images. Nearly all older games (and most newer games) have their rendering code and logic code running in lockstep, so frames are not just discrete graphical events, but discrete ticks of the universe simulation as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's really interesting to see how broken Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart Wii are compared to Mario Kart Double Dash. MKDD has only two out-of-bounds glitches that I know of; one on Waluigi Stadium and one on Bowser's Castle.

The Waluigi Stadium one is quite easy, requiring you to ramp off of a while at the right angle getting you high enough to enter the OOB zone for a later part of the track.

The Bowser's Castle OOB requires you to be hit with a blue shell right after the finish line, so it can't be used in time trials. The world record manages to get hit twice, and it's pretty nuts[1].

[1] [https://youtu.be/3hb2RH2tpWo?t=285](https://youtu.be/3hb2RH2tpWo?t=285)

</comment><comment><USER18> I've spent god knows how many hundreds of hours on this game and had no idea such tricks existed. I'm impressed by the dedication some guys put into understanding the mechanics and trying to break them.

</comment><comment><USER19> The takeaway for me is to not overcomplicate things when developing software. The reason all these shortcuts work is because they use weird esoteric rules for when you can hit a checkpoint. All of this could have been prevented by simply making it so that you can only hit a key shortcut if the last key shortcut was the one before it. I'm sure they had reasons to make the choices they did at the time, but they are inscrutable to me now.

<comment><USER20> Your suggested system is basically the same as in Mario Kart, but without accounting for players moving backwards. As evidenced by your comment, it's not trivial to come up with a problem-free solution.

Further, no programmer makes perfect decisions all the time. The system they used wasn't that overcomplicated and is similar to many racing games. The description in the video makes it sound slightly more complicated than it really is.

The differentiating bug here is that they allow the player to go from key checkpoint 0 to the last key checkpoint without, at that point, decrementing the internal lap counter, instead decrementing that only when you pass backwards over the finish line.

<comment><USER19> Why would it have to account for people going backwards? All you want to check is if people have driven through them all, isn't it?

<comment><USER20> Drive through all the key checkpoints, drive backwards to the start line, get credited for a complete lap. Not likely to be useful, but still a bug.

<comment><USER19> At that point, just give them the lap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "doesnt have to do with gameplay ... It has to do with the game's mechanics."

What is gameplay if it's not mechanics?

<comment><USER22> My understanding:

Mechanics are "when I jump, I get X feet off the ground", "I accellerate at Y feet per second" etc.

Gameplay is "I want to run and jump on to that block".</comment></comment>


Leaked Internal Documents Show UberPool Was a Cash-Burning Machine - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/priya/uber-pool-burn-rate-frisco?utm_term=.efZxneO8nB#.aoGEJVY4J1 <comment><AUTHOR> I guess this explains all those 3 dollar pool rides where I was the only passenger</comment>


Six contenders to be Uber's new CEO - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/policy/technology/339257-six-contenders-to-be-ubers-new-ceo <comment><USER4> There are two types of contenders:

1\. Successful ones who have to be convinced that they should risk their reputation and take on the headaches at Uber.

2\. Less successful ones, where you have to convince the current Uber decision makers to give them a shot.

I think the field is narrower than this article suggests.

<comment><USER5> and this may be even more problematic that it appears.

the ones from category one might have difficulty knowing what to do - <USER2> we're talking about the lyft CEO they know success from something other than uber. that might not necessarily be good.

the ones from category two might have the same trouble as one, but add to that that they will have to compete/convince the board of probably every little move.

and if they don't do something fairly dramatic, fairly quickly, the good people at the mid and lower levels will start to flee for greener pastures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Who suggests these contenders?

They seem somewhat arbitrarily selected. I don't think it is credible to suggest, for instance, Sandberg. I don't think it is remotely plausible that she would be interested in the position.

It would be interesting if the reporting revealed a little more about the decision/justification.

<comment><USER6> there was a report last week, i dont remember who published it, that Arianna Huffington, who sits on Uber's board, was pushing for Sandberg. the report strongly suggested that she had no interested in leaving fb, as you mentioned, but i dont think her addition to the list was arbitrary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only one sitting here thinking that maybe one of the qualifications for the position should be someone with _some domain knowledge or experience_? Yeah, that's probably hard to come by, but this doesn't sound like the author's even trying.

Despite all the public hand-wringing, Uber's problem isn't all the bad press. The problem is that it's an immature business that hasn't figured out how to make money yet. It doesn't matter how progressive the captain is or how happy the crew is or how much fanfare the trip gets if they still steer the ship into an iceberg.

Maybe the theory is that the head of a company that big doesn't really need to know the problem domain, just be a "good manager"? That's hard for me to believe; it certainly hasn't been true at any scale I have experience with.

<comment><USER8> Right now, the required domain knowledge and experience at Uber is "quietly running a large company without controversy", not "knows a bunch about taxis and self-driving cars".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If they hire someone for image reasons, Uber is going to fail badly.

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure the board will do just that. I'm looking forward to Yahoo 2.0

<comment><USER11> Since Marissa Mayer is being considered, that's a very real possibility.

<comment><USER12> didnt she successfully prop up Yahoo enough to get sold to AOl? given that uber's investors badly want this to go public, she seems like a potentially good person to do that with

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems like Uber would be a big step _down_ for Sandberg.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. I'd be shocked if she did this. FB is a premiere tech company. She's second in command there. If she leaves, it would be to be first in command at another premiere company.

Uber is a startup that doesn't make money (actually loses quite a bit per ride), has just been rocked by a major scandal and doesn't posses any sort of tech or business process that is really unique. There is nothing that Uber does right now that another startup could just copy.

They lose money on each ride, and it's incredibly unclear how they will make money outside of trying to run taxis companies out of business by subsidizing fares with VC money and then jacking up fares when there is no more competition.

<comment><USER15> > it's incredibly unclear how they will make money outside of trying to run > taxis companies out of business by subsidizing fares with VC money and then > jacking up fares when there is no more competition

If you look at the numbers, all they need to do to reach profitability is increase fares by 7% without increasing the driver's cut.

I'm not suggesting they can just do that overnight without impacting their competitive position, but it's not "incredibly unclear" to me.

<comment><USER16> "Raising fares 7% without increasing the driver's cut" is a complete fantasy at actually should emphasize how unprofitable Uber is. In many other transportation industries, 7% is just about the _total_ profit margin - <USER3> companies in these other industries could raise their revenue by "just" 7% they would double their income. They don't because they can't.

<comment><USER15> I disagree. The average $15 fare becoming $16 will just absorb a lot of consumer surplus that Uber is leaving on the table for competitive advantage. Cabs are still generally more expensive.

<comment><USER16> And you don't see Lyft as seeing an opportunity to sell for $15?

<comment><USER15> Actually I think the bigger threat would be lyft charging $16 and paying the drivers more. But outside of a few big American cities Uber dwarfs lyft so they would need to scale up before they could really threaten

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like how it's possible to go from contributing nothing to Yahoo (whose value was basically proportional to their share in Alibaba minus a small bit) to being a top contender for CEO at another company.

<comment><USER18> Well, let's just say this CEO is going to play the role of John Sculley or Gil Amelio as a placeholder CEO until Travis's _glorious_ return, then maybe it makes sense.

I mean, take a look at Leo Apotheker at HP - he was a complete fall-guy.

<comment><USER16> > I mean, take a look at Leo Apotheker at HP - he was a complete fall-guy.

What? Apotheker wasn't a fall guy - he made plenty of awful, horrible decisions all on his own, like the Autonomy purchase and his ruminations about divesting the PC business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sheryl Sandberg or Marissa Mayer would be a huge win for Uber. I've worked with both of them, and know that they will bring extremely positive changes.

<comment><USER20> I worked under Marissa at Yahoo, and am happy to state (with my real name attached to this comment) that

1\. She was a good person, and went out of the way at times to make employees feel good.

2\. She was a terrible boss, who would pass edicts like "our cubicle walls will be cut to 50% of their tomorrow", and pass it off as "because natural light is better for you".

3\. I believed as an employee that she cherry-picked data to support pet beliefs like hiring at selected schools, banning remote work and closing satellite offices.

4\. She had a preference for ex-Googlers/ex-Google APMs

She would definitely bring positive change in terms of the scandals, but any competent HR department that has the company's long term interests in mind can do that, no?

<comment><USER21> Re 2: If you are dealing with anything north of 5 people any permanent decision is likely to upset a percentage of your staff. Just because some dislike your decision that that does not make it less sound.

Re 4: You have your preference as well, so does Google, IBM, Yahoo and the small law firm where I work. Everyone does when it comes to hiring.

<comment><USER22> Re Re 2: The problem that I am seeing here is the lack of logic and thought put into the justification behind such a drastic change. Noise levels in a typical cubical environment are distracting enough to the average engineer. Same issue with the remote work policy. What it boils down to is a leader who creates "edicts" based on a personal preference or "cherry picked" facts rather than reason, logic, market research, A/B validation testing, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why not internally promote one?

<comment><USER24> They're trying to clean house.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: When is the time to walk away from a startup? - <AUTHOR>

I've spent the last six months or so working for a startup with little to no funding. I'm getting paid (not much) and it was fun for a while, but financial worries are eating me up (I make just enough to last 30 days and then I need that next check).
From a technical standpoint, it's a nightmare - this development model isn't Agile or Waterfall, it's all apparently a whim and guesswork and it's making me insane.
I'm not sure I'll be mentally stable if I stay, but then again, I'd be walking away from six months of work with nothing to show for it thanks to the NDA.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> I think in your situation the answer is to start looking for your next opportunity now. It may take you a while to find that next gig and during that time you will have a little longer to evaluate / make changes to your current opportunity.

It sounds to me like you have also learned something; a lean mean start up where you have to live paycheck to paycheck is not the best type of environment for you to operate in. If finances stress you out then I am sure they are negatively impacting your work and personal life. I strongly suggest when looking for that next gig make sure you get a position where the wages will be enough that you don't have them as a source of continual concern.

Tons of startups fail for any number of reasons, walking away from 6 months work shouldn't overly bother you unless you believe strongly that the startup is close to turning the corner. Define turning the corner in whatever sense you need to - creating a great product, getting funded, becoming ROI positive without funding, etc.

Finally remember sometimes you will do more good by leaving than you ever could have by staying. If the technical process is making you insane, it might be best for you to go and for them to get someone else in who might be able to unmuddle the situation. Either way there is no shame in leaving, just be sure not to purposely burn any bridges when you do.

Best of luck with your decision.

</comment><comment><USER3> " _but then again, I'd be walking away from six months of work_ "

This is known as the Fallacy of Sunk Costs (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs>). While it's very hard to view such a situation dispassionately (I know from experience), you should at the very least ask yourself the classic question: Forget about the past. What will future investment (continuing to work for this train wreck) bring me?

Insanity and madness, from what sounds like true capriciousness, do not recommend themselves.

" _nothing to show for it thanks to the NDA_ "

Perhaps you can, as a condition of your giving them two weeks notice, negotiate for the release of a few code samples that don't reveal anything secret or terribly useful about the company? Building up a portfolio of these sorts of things is a good idea, I have one that's about 1/2 thick showing everything from code, design, documentation of both and for users, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> You probably should have left a long time ago, from the sound of what you're saying.

Main thing to keep in mind (and that people too often forget in situations like these) is that you don't _owe_ it to them to stay in this job. If something in your gut is telling you that what you're doing isn't just isn't right, "it's insane", killing you financially... then it probably is.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it's _much_ better to quit and have nothing to show for 6 months of work, than... to get fired / laid off and have nothing to show for 6 months of work (and/or possibly not getting paid for the last several weeks of this.) Get my drift?

So it's up to you to "do the right thing" here. You'll wait until finding another job before giving notice of course. But the main thing is to do what's right for you, and on your timetable, not theirs.

See also:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

</comment><comment><USER5> What is your time worth? Generally startups seem to have a fairly common lifecycle (at least in the embryonic stages). Vision -> work to prototype/proof of concept -> { Seed | Exit }. If it is not self-funded the founders should have talked to at least Angel investors, they should have a list of questions that investors have been asking them prior to deciding to invest, and they should have a plan for answering those questions. If they don't, then they may have lost their way. If they are lost then staying is a waste of your time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I've started the process of hunting for something else. I'm not going to burn all my bridges at once, but I definitely want out quick.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Further note: I'm a coding grunt and I like it that way.</comment>


What is the Rails framework of the Machine Learning world? - <AUTHOR> Rails is famous for being easy to get started. With scaffolding, helpers and the fantastic ActiveRecord library you can put things together in no time. Is there a high level Machine Learning framework in the spirit of Rails? <comment><USER2> Here are some that I use Shedding Light on Black Box Machine Learning Algorithms: Development of an Axiomatic Framework to Assess the Quality of Methods that Explain Individual Predictions [https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.05054](https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.05054)

Manifold: A Model-Agnostic Framework for Interpretation and Diagnosis of Machine Learning Models [https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.00196](https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.00196)

Neither are for Deep Learnng or Neural Networks

</comment><comment><USER3> Tensorflow & Keras would be the closest analogy

<comment><USER4> I would say tensorflow is the anthesis of "convention over configuration" rails is lauded for! w/ TF relative to most frameworks, you have to configure all the boilerplate!

If you're looking for a higher-level approach a lot of the community likes sci-kit which has lots of nice defaults for popular models.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Resources for learning manual software testing? - <AUTHOR> My partner is going to be testing software I've written. He handles the business side of things and isn't a programmer.<p>Can anyone suggest some resources for him to read to how to best touch our software? <comment><USER2> I agree that it's largely a mindset. From [https://twitter.com/sempf/status/514473420277694465](https://twitter.com/sempf/status/514473420277694465) :

"QA Engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders 999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a sfdeljknesv."

<comment><USER3> Don't forget, he came in on February 29th.

<comment><USER4> Two years in a row.

<comment><USER5> In two different time zones.

<comment><USER6> Via front and back entrance at the same time

<comment><USER7> Walking like a Fremen in the desert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While other commenters are correct that manual QA is a mindset, there are readings that can help develop that mindset.

I have new QA engineers read the first five or six chapters of "Testing Computer Software":

[http://www.amazon.com/Testing-Computer-Software-2nd- Edition/...](http://www.amazon.com/Testing-Computer-Software-2nd- Edition/dp/0471358460)

to get a feel for the mindset and methodologies and to help them understand what testing can and can't accomplish.

"Lessons Learned in Software Testing", mentioned by another commenter, is another good resource. Lots of good anecdotes:

[http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Learned-Software-Testing- Conte...](http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Learned-Software-Testing-Context- Driven/dp/0471081124)

Both are a bit dated in some ways ("Testing" has a section on filing paper bug reports), but the lessons and thinking are still highly relevant.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hmmm. I think you're looking at this the wrong way: it is not he who should be learning more about manual testing, it is you who needs to learn about how to write manual tests.

Manual testing is not at all that different from, say, integration testing: you write a specification of a task that needs to be performed, you write down the expected output, and you compare it with the actual output.

What you end up with is a document containing dozens of pages full of small tables with test specifications, somewhat like [1].

So, to sum it up, it is you who should be doing the hard work of finding out what to test. You make a document full of tests which are as specific as possible, and let your partner walk through it. He doesn't understand what to do? Then you failed at being specific. He cannot find the functionality you ask for? Either a usability issue, or once again, not specific enough.

Hope this helps you somewhat!

[1] [http://www.polarion.com/products/screenshots2011/test- specif...](http://www.polarion.com/products/screenshots2011/test- specification.png)

<comment><USER10> What you are describing is _exactly_ the type of test that should be automated.

Manual testing should be exploratory, it shouldn't be following a script. Computers are there to follow scripts.

<comment><USER11> I do software QA on a physical device, that has a computer in it. We set up scenarios that exercise the software in specific ways. It is very much manual, following written tests driven by software requirements. This is specifically software testing, although we use the hardware to exercise the software.

Even exploratory has written tests that basically say "explore," and they are often assigned with a particular focus.

<comment><USER10> For something like what you do I find that there's often a cost/benefit trade off to be made:

#1 Create a mock system that you can run automated tests against.

#2 Only do the manual tests.

Which one is the 'right' decision depends largely on the expense of creating that mock system, the complexity of the system under test, the nature of the bugs you're getting from customers and the frequency with which your software changes.

Simple, infrequently changing system? Expensive to set up a mock system? #2.

Complex, frequently changing system? #1 will help more than you realize.

>Even exploratory has written tests that basically say "explore," and they are often assigned with a particular focus.

Of course. However, exploratory shouldn't mean following a script and it shouldn't mean doing repetitive work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Explore It" by Elisabeth Hendrickson [1] is a short, easy-to-read introduction to exploratory testing ("manual testing") that has many concrete ideas for what and how to test SW.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Explore-Increase-Confidence- Explorator...](http://www.amazon.com/Explore-Increase-Confidence-Exploratory- Testing/dp/1937785025/)

<comment><USER13> Related is the "Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet" [1] that she and others put together.

[1] [http://testobsessed.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/04/testheuri...](http://testobsessed.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/04/testheuristicscheatsheetv1.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A good start would be the ISTQB foundation level syllabus. While the ISTQB seem to be a litte outdated in terms of their views on the software development process: A focus on sequential waterfall-like models - it is a good resource to learn the vocabulary of software testing. Furthermore it explains different types and stages of software testing: [http://www.istqb.org/downloads/viewdownload/16/15.html](http://www.istqb.org/downloads/viewdownload/16/15.html)

<comment><USER15> Yes, this is a real problem! I learned testing in a waterfall environment (basically followed IEEE standards, ISQTB processes) and now work at a company that is more Agile. So many of the skills/techniques are fundamentally incompatible.

<comment><USER16> Predictably the concept of testing in an agile environment has also been been explored, even if not in the core syllabus:

[http://www.istqb.org/certification-path-root/agile-tester- ex...](http://www.istqb.org/certification-path-root/agile-tester- extension/agile-tester-extension-in-a-nutshell.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Testing (effective testing I should perhaps say) is linked to the domain that it operates in. Understanding the nature of "what" the software does is often more important than "how" to test.

"How" you test will be impacted by other things as well. Some environments (companies) have a need to formally record testing. Others use 'non IT people' to run the testing. Some have expert users who know the app inside out as 'testers'. etc etc The need for how much detail is in the test scripts, and in fact if you document manual test scripts will depend on nature of your company.

You will find a couple of schools of thought on "how" to test. ISTQB is formal and has a good bag of technique, the other school of though has some good ideas (like session based testing) but IMHO tends to throw the baby out with the bath water. The ISTQB technique can be applied in an agile environment what you would not use the documents they describe.

What I have personally found is that a good tester picks up ideas, techniques (BVA, EP etc), and applies these where the will return the best value.

I see the arguments in the testing world a bit a kin to dev's fighting over strongly typed vs. loosely typed.

Automation is good BUT if you don't know what you need/want to test then really it is a means to get is a mess really quick.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think something that drove it home for me is an actual written test script at my first part time job (before university). I was testing a tool called Internet Call Manager (if you used dialup and received a call while on the internet, this software would pop up a notification on your screen and allow you to decide whether to ignore the call or to take it).

Basically it was a table with the left hand columns being the instructions to perform, in point form, and the definitions of the expected/correct behavior, and the right hand columns being checkboxes and blank spaces to write in, indicating whether the software performed correctly.

It was super clear and to the point, and it was just a document that could be easily updated (and was, I believe I later made some modifications to the script when new versions of the software came out, but it was so long ago that maybe someone else was the one to do it).

Maybe you could write one of those up and he'd get a better idea for what his job was, and you could run through it with him a few times. After he gets the hang of it, I think it will have some value outside of just testing the code: he may come to understand how changes in one part of the code bring up issues in unexpected places (and get an intuitive grasp for, say, code reuse); he will be a true expert on the product (I've always noticed that QA people are often better versed in software than the assigned Product Manager, come demo time); and perhaps he'll start to grasp at a more physical level what your work actually entails, and it'll help give him context for software development as a process.

\--

"The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought- stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures.... Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construct itself. […] The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be." \- Fred Brooks

Let him learn some of the magic behind the poetry :) To your whole idea (biz/product guy getting hands dirty with product work), hear hear, bravo, etc.

</comment><comment><USER19> The Ministry of Testing is a good starting point, [http://www.ministryoftesting.com](http://www.ministryoftesting.com)

If doesn't sound like you are providing an API but if you are feel free to mail me directly (email is in my profile) for some resources; my company works in that area of testing.

<comment><USER20> > _(email is in my profile)_

The "Email" field in your profile is private, others can't see it. You need to put your email in the "About" field for it to be publicly visible.

<comment><USER11> Some manual testing would have uncovered that.

<comment><USER19> Got me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> To be completely unhelpful, I've found it's largely instinct. Some people can look at a thing and find a way to break it. Only those people benefit from formal QA processes.

</comment><comment> V-2 First and foremost one has to know the domain, what are the things that tend to go wrong. And this is platform specific knowledge.

I mean, you're testing a web app? Disable JavaScript in the browser.

Testing an Android app? Rotate the phone to change screen orientation, especially when there's a background operation going on - that's a typical spot for bugs, but no amount of general manual testing know-how will tell you that. And so on

</comment><comment><USER22> I am assuming that as programmer, you have completed the unit/system testing so your partner should focus on the acceptance testing such as usability. I have found creating personnas and putting yourself into the position of those personnas a good starting point.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am assuming that you have done the unit/system testing as the programmer, so your partner should look at the acceptance testing. I have found creating personnas (of your end customers) and testing as though you were one of them a really good starting point.

</comment><comment><USER23> Give uTest a try, you can participate in crowd-sourced test cycles and gain both experience and money.

And they have really cool resources over here: [https://university.utest.com](https://university.utest.com)

</comment><comment><USER24> TMAP Next is a good read. It's a little heavy, but there are some very insightful chapters on the what and the how of testing.

</comment><comment><USER25> I found Art of Software testing to be a good guide on the subject. I recommend reading it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Regardless of what else you read, try this one technique for manual testing. You're probably interested in getting more serious about testing because of a couple of major defects that you have seen in the software after your last release. Create a test plan document that walks through the procedure of verifying those defects are not present in the software. On each release, add to the test plan to make sure new features you've added work properly. As you work on the product, the test plan will grow. But it won't grow as much as you might expect, because often several new features can be tested just by making a couple of edits to the test plan.

The goal of testing is to prevent defects from surfacing in production. So track every defect that surfaces in production, so that you can watch that go to zero over time.

Whenever a defect comes up in production, edit the test plan such that you would have caught that defect. Now you won't be bitten by that class of defect in production again.

If you keep updating the test plan in this way you will see a dramatic drop in defects released to production. Once you've done this for a while, you will probably discover that your biggest source of defects released into production have to do with how different your test environment is from your production environment. So you will then start attacking that issue by setting up a proper staging environment, where the staging environment mirrors production as closely as practical.

Then you will start to discover that your biggest source of defects released into production becomes other things, such as little problems with your release methodology, which you can then address.

But the key concept here is: document what your test plan is, and continuously improve it. It's important to note that you must actually follow the documented procedure for this to work. If you write a document so big that you won't actually do it, you're doing it wrong, make a smaller document. If you feel like you only need to do 2 minutes worth of resting, document what you will do during those 2 minutes. You can start with an empty test plan and that will work, as long as you continuously improve your test plan. The same goes for the procedures that you use to deploy. Always follow the same procedure exactly as documented, because you will need to improve that procedure.

I have followed these procedures at a number of companies and in a variety of environments, and seen it turn chaotic messes around many times.

Once you have this process down solid, you can automate some or all of it. But the important thing is the overall set of processes around testing and deploying software, and the process for improving those processes. How much of it is automatic versus manual matters a lot less.

As for resources, I'd recommend books on continuous improvement. Because as you get better at testing, you'll discover that General process improvement is what you really need in order to cover the range of things that cause defects in production.

</comment><comment><USER27> Point him to "Lessons Learned in Software Testing" by Bach, Kaner and Pettichord: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0471081124](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0471081124)

Also, "manual testing" is a slightly unfortunate monicker for the activity we are discussing. It is bound to generate some degree of incomprehension or even hostility on the part of some people, for no foreseeable benefit. "Testing" will do. It is something you do with your head primarily, your hands being involved to pretty much the same degree that they are in programming (and we don't usually call _that_ "manual programming").

<comment><USER28> I believe the OP used the term "manual" to differentiate from "automated" testing, e.g. unit tests.</comment></comment>


Telegram and the Cypherpunk Rebellion Against the Libra Empire - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/telegram-and-the-rebirth-of-the-cypherpunk-revolution-g61l320rf <comment><USER2> I love Telegram and use it daily, BUT: I still need to use my phone number to validate my login. Even though I've been on the platform for nearly five years.

This means that, effectively, someone wanting to log into my account could be greatly advantaged by just owning my phone number -- something quite trivial for a government entity.</comment>


OAuth 2.0 resources you can understand - <AUTHOR> https://buttondown.email/LearningComputations/archive/158a9bc5-8f4a-4820-b3ad-d76e0db76dbb <comment><AUTHOR> Resources that make OAuth 2.0 as simple as pie to learn.</comment>


Elon Musk to outline 'Hyperloop' idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23666173

<comment><USER2> No upvote from me... tired of seeing articles like this. You're too busy to actually tell us what it is.. but you're not too busy to tweet, debunk others theories, or give comments teasing people with small details.

I'm worn out.. don't care anymore. You keep it.

<comment><USER3> Agreed about tired of hearing speculation but he has only mentioned it a handful of times and said he would publish a paper/plans in August of this year (now).

It's pretty amazing that a vague futuristic concept can generate so much publicity.

<comment><USER4> Remember how the Segway was going to be bigger than the internet?

That said, I think the hype bubble for the HLoop has a small radius. Very much concentrated in tech circles. None of my non-tech friends (we fondly refer to them as normies) have heard about the Hyperloop.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. Even my intelligent but not super nerdy friends had no idea what the hyperloop was when I mentioned it, Elon is not a name they know, and Tesla barely rings a bell.

<comment><USER6> The finance community, on the other hand, is _very_ aware of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Musk

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The last paragraph is a downer:

Mr Musk says he is so busy with SpaceX and Tesla that he will not immediately try to develop Hyperloop himself. Only if no-one else picks up the challenge will he consider attempting to make it a reality at a later time.

Hyped up article.

I wonder if the idea of such tubes is practical though. It's like a giant hi- tech metro tube with certainly only one or two stops. That's high maintenance stuff. More than one thousand km of infrastructure. A plane might be more expensive but its 100meter long tube is less to take care off.

OTOH today's metro infrastructure is quite huge too if you were to line it up.

<comment><USER8> You have to consider the total cost of ownership. The exercise goes like this. What is the total traveling population per year that would get from point A to point B that would ride planes if not for hyperloop (assuming it becomes reality). That gives you the number of planes that would be used per year. Need to consider per year, because a lot of traveling is seasonal. Then what is the cost to maintain those planes, operating costs like fuel and pilots, insurance costs for damages and risks, etc, etc.

I have no idea how the total cost of ownership would compare. But I wouldn't write off hyperloop just because it would be expensive. It may be possible to make it work. Given how much plane tickets cost, I can easily imagine people paying more money for something that's seemingly more convenient and safe than planes.

edit: The man figured out how to turn launching rockets into a profitable business. The man thinks it's possible to build a nation-wide charging station network that can charge all the cars his company builds for free. With this type of thinking, I think he takes cost feasibility seriously, so I'm curious what he has up his sleeve.

edit2: Maybe what I wrote above maybe sounds too much like hero worship. I'm not saying he has everything figured out. I'm just saying I'd be very on the fence and would not bet for him or against him, _but_ most definitely not against him.

<comment><USER3> There is not wrong with admiring heros, and I personally feel that any entrepreneur who changes the world and helps humanity as much as Musk has in just 10 years deserves to be called a hero.

"Let's start a rocket company in effort to ensure the survivability of humanity." (something that only super-power are currently able to do)

"Let's start an electric car company (and solar panel company) in effort to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels." (since other car companies are barely trying)

Then to have the resources and perseverance to actually make these very difficult goals a reality is outstanding.

Gates is doing something similar with his Thorium reactor research. Hopefully that will be another game changer.

The Google co-founders have been doing similar projects for the past 10 years. Even if it does make them tons of money it's still admirable to give awesome software and hardware to the world at cost or free.

<comment><USER9> Gates' work in public health which has actually impacted the lives of people across the economic spectrum around the world. Musk and the Google Guys have some work to do before we can say that they've actually changed things for the better through their philanthropy for humanity as a whole. They have big plans, but its still a work in progress, and they don't deserve to be called heroes just for thinking big and spending money on interesting sample runs.

<comment><USER10> Though still think it's quite unfair to call Tesla and SpaceX "interesting sample runs".

<comment><USER9> Tesla's cars are prohibitively expensive for all but the most monied. As I've understood it so far SpaceX is a novelty to date that is supported almost entirely by NASA grants in the hope that it will eventually spur a true space industry. Both projects carry great potential, truly great potential. You don't deserve hero status for your potential, but how it is ultimately realized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Get back to me when it's been announced and when someone who knows what they are talking about has taken a look at it.

(and by "someone who knows what they are talking about" I don't mean TechCrunch)

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how much of Musk stepping slightly back from this is the realistic notion that he could spread himself too thin and how much is a realisation that Hyperloop could be less of a home run than first thought? Any tough proposal will have its critics or become mired in government/environmental hassle. If it was exceptional, I don't know that it would be released in this way (after a wait, freely, etc).

I'm also curious, if it is a strong concept, as to who will pick up the ball and run with it? People talked about electric vehicles and commercial space exploration for a long, long time before very few people did either as effectively as Musk has done.

One thing that I think he might've overstated is the ability to show up and leave without the waits seen at airports due to security. Even the Eurostar has a security line. Unless baggage was deposited/couriered to a departure point in advance and passengers showed up later?

If it is all the real deal, Sydney-Melbourne would be a good pairing. Ranks as the third highest route for passengers flown if Wikipedia is to be believed.

<comment><USER13> Taking the baggage separately is an interesting idea and possible solution to the security problems.

If the 'Loop is as I'm imagining it (based on scant details, granted) then the actual vehicle components are small, numerous and frequent. Given the short transit time it could be reasonably expected that people carry NO luggage whatsoever and could be quickly processed by a walk through a (potentially computer-operated) backscatter x-ray machine. Luggage runs could be carried in separate vehicles, spaced so that if anything were to 'go off' there would be loss of infrastructure but no loss of life.

<comment><USER14> Since Musk said that it was a people transportation concept everyone immediately jumped on that bandwagon. The hyperloop could be a concept that disrupts the cargo train market. I could see GE taking a look at this concept with the idea of improved cargo transport.

<comment><USER15> What would be the market for transporting cargo at the speed of sound, and why would anyone able to afford such a service prefer a train to a jet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'll just take the wise approach here of "wait and see". Way too much hype going on.

</comment><comment><USER9> "The hype is reminiscent of the pre-launch publicity for the Segway."

</comment><comment><USER17> Man, I'm sad I won't get to fly in a Concorde (or any supersonic by the looks of it) - 3 hours London to New York sounds pretty awesome...

</comment><comment><USER18> Has there ever been this much fanfare and media speculation over the unveiling of an _idea_ before? The hyperloop is not a product or research, its just an _idea_.

I can't think of an instance when this has happened in my lifetime. Kind of bizarre

<comment><USER19> people are tired of the current transportation systems and its about time we have something faster

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What time are the details due? Anyone know?

<comment><USER21> Today: [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/356776740409974785](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/356776740409974785)

<comment><USER20> I meant like 5pm EST. I'm aware it's today ;)

<comment><USER20> BTW, Elon will reveal the details at 1:30 PDT:

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I would love to see this announcement today on a livestream. The fanboy in me is thinking of this like the steve jobs keynotes from a few years back. "Oh and one more thing, it can bend space time"

</comment><comment><USER23> +1 for everything about that Segway image.</comment>


Scientist says aliens in UFOs might be Earthlings from the future - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/science/2020/01/24/scientist-says-aliens-in-ufos-might-be-earthlings-from-the-future/ <comment><USER2> Interesting. How do/did/will they solve the "space problem"?

[https://medium.com/swlh/the-space-problem-of-time- travel-93b...](https://medium.com/swlh/the-space-problem-of-time- travel-93b873264b98)

<comment><USER3> If you only want to go back as far as 2nd half 20th century, there are probably logs of GPS devices, possibly available to future travelers, that could help minimize this problem. Then if you want to go back a little further, the effect is smaller than it would have been, since you "made it" to a predicted location.

Or maybe it "hasn't" been solved, and ʻOumuamua took a really long time to "get back" ... "here."

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua)</comment></comment>


Soylent hits its 1.0 formula, nears release - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/12/soylent-hits-its-1-0-formula-nears-release/ <comment><USER2> I've been supportive of the idea of soylent, but this article actually made me worried, is it accurate?

Only rice protein? Not complete... there's a reason it is usually paired with beans.

That amount of carbs does not match the early human diet, but rather the modern one. Not the end of the world, though.

Also a physician isn't a dietitian/nutritionist. The fact they've brought the former on board instead of the latter is another unfortunate red flag re: cluelessness. Hopefully I've missed something.

<comment><USER3> Wow, where to start. You are seriously repeating the protein combining myth? In 2013? Protein is measured by scaling its amino acid profile compared to the ideal for a human. 100g of rice protein provides 100g of usable protein for a human, the same as 100g of beef protein does. That 100g of rice protein is just significantly more than 100g of raw ingredient, as there's a bunch of "wasted" amino acids.

We have little to no evidence to support the paleo fad. Human beings have consumed grains for at least 100,000 years.

A physician is not a dietitian or a nutritionist. They are far more qualified. A dietitian requires simply a bachelor's degree in pretty much anything (social sciences is fine) and then a short internship where you learn to repeat what the book says. Nutritionist is just something anyone can call themselves with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever. Picking a doctor over those options is not a red flag.

<comment><USER2> As a sole nutrition source as soylent is, the increased biological value of vegetable protein combining would be a valuable improvement in efficiency. The "myth" is that micromanaging every meal is necessary (it's not), ... unless of course you are on a meal replacement product for weeks at a time.

A higher number of nutrition sources is better than a single one... a varied diet.

Grains, not in large quantity. Agriculture is about 10,000 years old. Yes, the diet of ~4 million years is a "fad" while the one 400 times shorter is normal. Taken to extreme, the modern diet, where everything is pumped full of sugar has lead to an obesity epidemic.

Also, physicians are far more qualified in _other_ subjects and take only a fraction of the nutrition courses a dietitian would. There's a reason a doctor will refer you to one--it's not because they are less qualified.

<comment><USER3> Efficiency of what? You need X protein. They provide far more than X. There is absolutely no problem with their protein source. The fact that they could use slightly less raw ingredient to get there doesn't matter if that other ingredient is hard to source consistently.

We've had proof of grains being milled 100,000 years ago for several years now. The 10,000 myth that is used to promote fad diets is not accurate.

Dietitians require barely any training. Just a degree in whatever and a brief "read this book and learn how to repeat what it says". You can do it in two weeks. They are absolutely less qualified than doctors. Doctors refer you to them because doctors have limited time and teaching people the food pyramid is not a valuable use of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > One is that the carbohydrate mixture has been nailed: one 500g bag of > Soylent will contain 210g of oat flour and 132g of maltodextrin. The protein > mix has also shifted—our beta Soylent contained a mix of rice and pea > protein, but production Soylent will contain 102g of brown rice protein > isolate.

Anyone else tried Brown Rice protein, and found it's undrinkable, harsh, and indigestible, probably because they use also the bran and germ to derive the protein from?

Maltodextrin pretty much made me feel terrible and weak when I took it in the past.

And eating oats in the morning these days for some reason messes with my ability to fall asleep later on.

> This has been simplified, with the main oil switching from grapeseed to > canola.

I consider grapeseed oil to be the perfect oil. It's light and easily digestible. All other oils have been known to give people headaches and migraine that have sensitive digestive systems. Especially when mixed with whatever you're eating - causing digestive issues with that food.

They've turned their product into 1 big allergen for me. Though that's just me, you might not have any problems with it.

<comment><USER5> But in any complex system there can be various factors that lead to things being out of balance. I know someone who can't take multivitamins because there's too much iron in them and it upsets her system. If she were getting too much iron somewhere else, though, and cut that back, then they would be fine.

The point I guess is that perhaps these things aren't bad for you, but rather they're bad for you in the current context of your environment, health, and current dietary intake.

On the other hand, maybe they're just a bunch of things that are awful for your specific metabolism. Given the issues you posted, I probably wouldn't want to try it out if I were you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They've also done a REALLY good job of addressing peoples' critiques.

For instance: manufacturing. They've contracted with an experienced, FDA- certified manufacturing facility that Does This Sort of Things.

Can't wait to get my soylent!

(My girlfriend has been trying to create DIY soylent, so I'm really curious how hers will taste different than the "real" thing. The experiment from last night: soylent flatbread!)

<comment><USER7> The hype around Soylent is unbelievable. You realize you don't need to wait for it if you want, you can just go out and buy Ensure and similars?

<comment><USER8> I'm no expert, but as I understand Ensure is a supplement for your meals, Soylent is a replacement for them.

You shouldn't consume only Ensure, but you could do it with Soylent. They are completely different products.

<comment><USER9> > You shouldn't consume only Ensure, but you could do it with Soylent.

[citation needed]

Malnutrition can have effects years down the line. A bunch of early-adopters with confirmation bias trying it for a couple months proves little about its long-term safety.

<comment><USER8> Sure, but if your regular meals are pizza, hamburguers, instant noodles, junk food and the like then you are on your way to malnutrition already. Soylent could be a very positive change for those people.

It's not like meals are an arcane science working some unknown magic on your body, it's about biological needs and chemistry. And it's not like there are chefs cooking healthy food in every home. I don't claim anything about Soylent, I have never consumed it, but it sounds like a possible solution to a big problem. Time will tell.

<comment><USER9> > Soylent could be a very positive change for those people.

It could also be _worse_. Without long-term, scientifically valid studies, no one knows for sure.

> It's not like meals are an arcane science working some unknown magic on your > body, it's about biological needs and chemistry.

The workings of the body are not fully known, even today. There are many unknowns in nutrition, which is precisely why none of the pharmaceutical companies have a "replace all meals!" product.

<comment><USER8> Again, I'm not disagreeing (at least completely) with you. Research is necessary.

I would like to try this for those times when I'm short of time to cook and resort to ordering a pizza for example, not as a complete replacement. And I think it would be advisable for the people interested to do that as long as there's not serious research.

However, currently there are serious studies about the bad effects of fast food on your health, it's not an unknown. The way I see it, you are more worried about something that could be bad than about something we know is bad. It doesn't add up to me. Sounds like neophobia. And I'm sorry in advance if I seem rude.

<comment><USER9> The risks of fast food are a known quantity, and folks eating it as a large component of their diet tend to be folks doing so for financial reasons. Soylent is comparatively expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is absolutely ridiculous - if you want a real cutting edge diet, check out keto or paleo. Too many carbs, too processed, not enough (or any? not sure) animal protein.

That he would be quoted talking about "saturated fat" as if it is evil, shows how clueless he is.

<comment><USER11> Soylent is not a diet; it is a food product. I don't think you understand the problem they're trying to solve. I can't go online and order a supply of keto, can I?

<comment><USER12> You can go online and order a supply of 50/30/20 carbs/fat/protein, though.

<comment><USER13> Which I can poor into a blender and make and consume as a meal in less then 5 min? Is it cheap? Does it require minimal consideration on my part? Then you are pushing something totally different and irrelevant.

<comment><USER12> Yes, it's more expensive than cooking but less expensive than eating out, yes, rude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been thinking some about Soylent and the criticisms leveled against them, mainly that we still don't know as much as we'd like about exactly what types of food the human body needs to survive.

One the one hand, it was my understanding that most nutritional deficiencies are relatively slow to develop, and whatever happens as a consequence of them usually goes away after the sufferer resumes normal eating. So if there is a problem with it, whoever notices it will probably be able to just go back to whatever they were eating before and be no worse off.

On the other hand, what better way to learn more about what the human body really needs than to create a food like Soylent and have a bunch of people try to live off of it long-term? If it turns out that there's some vitamin or something that we need a little bit of every so often and didn't know about, then we'll find out about it from people eating Soylent, and they'll add that to it and keep going. So good for them on actually getting out there and trying it, instead of talking about how impossible they think it is.

<comment><USER15> A really big contribution to the effort to get to Mars and other destinations farther from Earth would be to have a bunch of people try to eat nothing but stabilized foodstuffs for a period of time like 2 years. It would be something like: nothing but Soylent and MREs for two years.

<comment><USER13> Seems like they have plenty of people willing to give it a try already. If you wanna try it now you can. If you wanna wait a few years to see if it is safe, you can do that too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm concerned about the macronutritient ratio... I mean, 50% carbonhydrates? Half of which (132g of 500g, according to the article) is maltodextrin (which has a higher glucemic index than SUGAR)? I don't consider a diet healthy if it consists of 25% sugar.

If they changed the ratio to perhaps 20/50/30 or similar and elimitated the sugar, I'd be interested.

</comment><comment><USER17> I still don't understand the excitement behind this, but apparently everyone here can't stop talking about them. So I guess they are doing something right.

<comment><USER5> It's the ultimate in appeal to the geek crowd. It optimizes away a process which is a balance of expensive, inefficient, time consuming, and often unhealthy.

Breakfast and lunch are throwaway meals for me; I eat because I have to in order to live and be productive and healthy, but none of my choices seem optimal. I can eat a fresh, healthy meal at work (expensive), I can reheat yesterday's dinner (microwaved food is less appetizing and often not as healthy), I can grab a quick meal (unhealthy and often expensive), or I can prepare a proper lunch ahead of time (time consuming).

The promise of soylent is simple: from now on, you can eat meals because you want to, not because you have to. On top of that, you only get what you need, and not what you don't want.

I compare it to, say, Linux. You can compile all your software from scratch, install dependencies, and customize absolutely everything, and some people do that because they enjoy it. Many people don't, and don't want to deal with it, and we have distributions like Ubuntu that take away 80% of what you used to need to do to get a proper Linux distribution running.

With Soylent, you still have the option of other meals; it's entirely up to you. You can drink it as your sole nutritional intake, you can have a Friday dinner out, or you can eat dinner with the family and just replace breakfast and lunch.

<comment><USER17> They have meal replacement shakes out, and have for years. They have much more attractive sounding names.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow this is great news! unless I read wrong it should be totally vegan now as the fish oil is not required? I love the idea of cooking being a collaborative ritualistic experience you engage in for holidays/celebrations and soylent being something you use the rest of the time.

<comment><USER19> _The EPA / DHA fatty acids from fish oil are incorporated directly into the oil blend now._

Sounds like the fish oil is still there, it's even pre-mixed so you can only avoid it by replacing the oils entirely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> They really need to redo the source footage of their intro video. The audio is awful and the green-screen they used had some not-great lighting. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSkOVkgd8hY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSkOVkgd8hY)

</comment><comment><USER21> Hopefully they got all of the rats [1] out of the production facility.

[1] [http://www.vice.com/motherboard/life-after- food/](http://www.vice.com/motherboard/life-after-food/)

<comment><USER22> They addressed this here [http://blog.soylent.me/post/66807143901/this- morning-vices-b...](http://blog.soylent.me/post/66807143901/this-morning- vices-brian-merchant-published-a)

>> We would also like to emphasize the fact that Soylent 1.0, the product for which we have accepted over $1.5M in preorders, will not be manufactured by hand by our executive team. We have signed a purchase order with RFI Ingredients, a contract manufacturer with over 20 years of experience producing FDA-approved food products.

I was extremely skeptical of these guys, but they seem to be addressing some of the major concerns I had. I still think there's a lot of testing to be done before this lives up to all the promises, but they get some definite kudos for their quick responses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> So, average male's daily need in one 500 gram bag... How much does this cost again? I mean I'd be interested in replacing one or two meals with something like this, but only if it's not too expensive.

<comment><USER24> Why don't you start using some of the ones currently on the market then?? Why wait?

<comment><USER25> Could you link some of these products available for purchase for purchase please? I've heard a few times times that there are soylent equivalents currently available, but from my searching I've only ever been able to find meal supplements and not complete replacements.

<comment><USER26> [http://abbottstore.com/sub-brand/Ensure- Complete-31.aspx](http://abbottstore.com/sub-brand/Ensure-Complete-31.aspx)

Ensure Complete has an interesting nutrition panel: it's 25% of everything listed, if I remember correctly. A four pack is 1400 calories and everything you need for a day. In my local stores, it's about $8. Jevity isn't marketed in grocers like Ensure Complete is.

<comment><USER3> >it's 25% of everything listed, if I remember correctly

You don't. If you tried to live on ensure complete (which they seem to only sell in the US?) you need to add potassium, choline, more fat, more calories in general, more fiber, more sodium and chloride, but unfortunately not in the ratio they are found in salt (that was bright) and you now have diarrhea all the time from the magnesium. All that and it is more expensive than soylent. This crap is precisely why people are stoked about soylent, we've tried the existing products and they suck.

<comment><USER26> Ah, quite right, I see that's on their site:

[http://abbottstore.com/adult-nutrition/ensure-complete- milk-...](http://abbottstore.com/adult-nutrition/ensure-complete-milk- chocolate-8-fl-oz-bottle-case-of-16-62758)

But, this crap is not why people are stoked about soylent, since the vast majority of people who are excited about soylent don't seem to be aware that there are a bunch of products that are pretty close (or possibly better in some cases) already.

<comment><USER3> But there aren't a bunch of products that are pretty close or better, that's the point. The only 100% complete nutrition products are medical products for tube feeding, and they are expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is exciting, especially the updated texture.

I used Soylent because my dinners were so depressing (crumbled tofu with deactivated yeast) that I figured I might as well just gulp liquid nutrition. But, honestly, that was even more depressing. So I just learned to make some nicer simpler dishes, and I've been fine.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Dr F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, a professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and senior attending physician at St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital."

\- that's one handful of buzzwords and reinforcement degrees to hush the infidels

</comment><comment><USER29> This is definitely looking much better. The marketing folks at Soylent seem to have kicked in. The packaging looks sort of like space food. The texture looks more "substantial", and the color is a step up from beige. I wouldn't be surprised to see flavoring coming next, with more color varieties.

<comment><USER30> I believe the color was added by the author for the photo; it still comes beige and unflavored. But, the author also experimented with adding flavoring, too, to reasonable effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Like many of you, I have some pretty serious concerns about soylent. I encourage you to check out [http://diy.soylent.me/](http://diy.soylent.me/) and consider mixing your own formula or trying one of the others that have been developed in an open-source manner.

</comment><comment><USER32> Anyone who would willingly forgo food for Soylent on any kind of ongoing basis should have their Homo Sapiens card revoked.

Eating healthy, delicious food (not mutually exclusive, for the record) is one of the simplest, most fundamental joys of existence.

<comment><USER33> Like sex, delicious food is a fundamental joy of existence. But also like sex, eating 3 delicious meals a day is past the point of diminishing rewards.

I find I enjoy life most when I eat real, delicious, handmade food a few times a week in a relaxed setting with friends or family, and something quick and healthy I don't have to think about the rest of the time. Currently I alternate tuna+beans with protein shakes for the quick meals, but I can't wait for my Soylent to get here.

(I'm a Soylent investor)

<comment><USER32> Eating 3 delicious meals a day is diminishing returns only if you consistently prepare one off meals with no leftovers. I understand using Soylent as an an occasional meal replacement, but Soylent's message has consistently been one of "food replacement" which while certainly provocative, I find antithetical to optimizing enjoying being alive

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I find the idea of a foodstuff reaching a '1.0 release' somewhat... offputting.

<comment><USER35> Top notch chefs have been doing it for decades just without the gimmicky software versioning nomenclature.</comment></comment>


How Bad Is the Coronavirus? Let's Run the Numbers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/how-bad-is-the-coronavirus-let-s-compare-with-sars-ebola-flu <comment><USER2> One question that's been on my mind: The number of Coronavirus cases is likely far more than what's being reported. Apparently there are those who get coronavirus and are unaware that they have it before they heal. However everyone that dies of coronavirus is reported as a coronavirus case.

Does this mean that there's a good chance the death rate is lower than the current calculated 3% with so many recoveries going unreported?

<comment><USER3> So early on I was suspicious of the numbers from China, but since they have managed to control the spread (and it would be obvious if they didn't and other cities started to look like Wuhan), that means they have done a good job of catching almost all of the cases, not just the symptomatic ones. Otherwise the ones they miss would continue to spread.

Therefore it feels like at this point their data would be pretty representative of what percentage of the cases are severe vs critical and what the death rate is (accounting for both the overwhelmed medical case in Wuhan and for the under control case in rest of China).

South Korea is also doing a pretty good job with testing to control the outbreak although they haven't yet gotten it as under control as China does. So their numbers would be a good data point to cross-validate the China numbers.

In countries like Italy (or Wuhan early on) the number of confirmed cases wasn't equal to total cases as evidenced by continued growth of the epidemic. So it's reasonable in those cases to assume that more severe cases are being found and less severe ones are being missed.

<comment><USER4> I'm no epidemiologist, but I think we might have to wait another month or two to see if there are any resurgences in China before we can be certain the containment really worked, no? Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm recently said on a podcast that he and his colleagues expect there to be another outbreak in China within the next few months, once people start fully co-mingling again.

<comment><USER5> They've done more than lock down in China:

[https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928](https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928)

I don't see why they would back off of the monitoring and fever clinics without some better measure in place (a vaccine or effective treatment or whatever). It's of course very likely there will be new cases. The likelihood of unchecked spreading seems much lower.

<comment><USER4> I know nothing about all of this, but I guess the idea is there are too many closely concentrated people and too many variables to control for, so if there are new cases, they could potentially turn into new outbreaks if they aren't detected and handled in time. And it's likely just a matter of probability whether or not they all get detected. Even the most advanced and restrictive surveillance state in the world can't possibly catch everything with 100% probability.

I think there's a decent chance the outcome won't be nearly as bad as the worst case scenario, but the worst case scenario is pretty scary. There is a non-zero probability that this wave is only beginning, that there are going to be future outbreaks and pandemic waves this year, and that by year's end there'll be millions of deaths globally.

<comment><USER5> In the video he talks about taking temperatures every time someone enters a building.

Anyone with a fever is screened for the infection using a portable CT scanner (they don't do a full image, they take a couple slices).

People with suspect CT results are tested and held in quarantine until the test result comes in.

The virus simply _will not_ spread as fast in those conditions as it did when local officials were covering up, and people can start moving around more without backing off those conditions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From a Penn State epidemiologist (note that the quote below speaks of the "infection fatality rate", which is different from the "case fatality rate", the difference is explained in the article)[1]:

 _" Scientists working at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London and the Institute for Disease Modeling have used these approaches to estimate the infection fatality rate. Currently, these estimates range from 0.5% to 0.94% indicating that COVID-19 is about 10 to 20 times as deadly as seasonal influenza. Evidence coming in from genomics and large-scale testing of fevers is consistent with these conclusions. The only potentially good news is that the epidemic in Korea may ultimately show a lower CFR than the epidemic in China._

...

 _" On balance, it is reasonable to guess that COVID-19 will infect as many Americans over the next year as influenza does in a typical winter -- somewhere between 25 million and 115 million. Maybe a bit more if the virus turns out to be more contagious than we thought. Maybe a bit less if we put restrictions in place that minimize our travel and our social and professional contacts._

 _" The bad news is, of course, that these infection numbers translate to 350,000 to 660,000 people dying in the U.S., with an uncertainty range that goes from 50,000 deaths to 5 million deaths. The good news is that this is not a weather forecast. The size of the epidemic, i.e., the total number of infections, is something we can reduce if we decrease our contact patterns and improve our hygiene. If the total number of infections decreases, the total number of deaths will also decrease."_

[1] - [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-this-epidemiologist- is...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-this-epidemiologist-is-more- worried-about-coronavirus-than-he-was-a-month-ago-2020-03-09)

</comment><comment><USER7> This guy did some back of the envelope calcs I found interesting/scary

[https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or- peop...](https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will- die-f4d3d9cd99ca)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for posting this. It's exactly the sort of analysis I would want to do if I had way more time, and he explains his reasoning completely in a way that a non expert can understand (and provides his models), perhaps because he is not a professional epidemiologist.

<comment><USER9> Meaning the calculations are worthless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A general question to all. Disclaimer, I'm no epidemiologist and not even a statistician. I may totally misunderstand something here. That said, I copied the data from the US, UK and Italy on cases (go to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_outbreak_of_no...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_outbreak_of_novel_coronavirus_%282019-nCoV%29) and click on the relevant flag in the table, copy the data off the graph, scrub with regexes).

I dumped this into Tableau, graphed it and put an exponential trend line over the top. The UK and US data dropped almost perfectly onto an exponential (R-squared > 0.99 for both, P value better than 0.0001 for both, whatever those mean). The visual fit was remarkably good.

The italian data very obviously did not fit so well. It clearly was flatter than the best fit exponential (strange, given that covid is totally ablaze there) and it had an R-squared of 0.946, though it's P value was still less than 0.0001.

Can anyone comment? The raw data for italy is below.

      date,cases
      2020-02-21,20
      2020-02-22,79
      2020-02-23,150
      2020-02-24,227
      2020-02-25,320
      2020-02-26,445
      2020-02-27,650
      2020-02-28,888
      2020-02-29,1128
      2020-03-01,1694
      2020-03-02,2036
      2020-03-03,2502
      2020-03-04,3089
      2020-03-05,3858
      2020-03-06,4636
      2020-03-07,5883
      2020-03-08,7375
      2020-03-09,9172
      2020-03-10,10149
      2020-03-11,12462
      2020-03-12,15113
      2020-03-13,17660
      2020-03-14,21157

Edit: for comparison, US data is below.

      date,cases
      2020-02-26,15
      2020-02-27,15
      2020-02-28,19
      2020-02-29,24
      2020-03-01,42
      2020-03-02,57
      2020-03-03,85
      2020-03-04,111
      2020-03-05,175
      2020-03-06,252
      2020-03-07,352
      2020-03-08,495
      2020-03-09,643
      2020-03-10,911
      2020-03-11,1182
      2020-03-12,1577
      2020-03-13,2184
      2020-03-14,2628

<comment><USER5> A possible explanation is that their testing can't keep up with the spread. ~13,000 test per day for the last several days, with more positive results yesterday for the same number of tests.

<comment><USER10> If true that would apply much more to the US data, where I understand the amount of testing has been extremely low.

In any case the data is surely of confirmed cases, so these have got past the testing, no? And I'm not sure if that would produce a flatter-than-exponential curve, which seems to be what it is.

<comment><USER5> It depends on how many tests are needed. If they are running 13,000 and need 50,000, the growth will look flat.

And then for the US, if most places are doing a high percentage of the needed tests, then the test results should reflect the real growth. Given the limitations on testing, we likely won't have a good understanding of this for weeks to come (people on the internet saying they should have been tested is only worth so much).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Mirror: [http://archive.md/fyPMl](http://archive.md/fyPMl)

</comment><comment><USER9> Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business.

A total layman on the subject matter. Stop writing about corona if you're not an expert. Stop reading and sharing non-expert opinions.

</comment><comment><USER12> tldr:

This article leaves off about where a similar report on epidemiological models did a couple of weeks ago: Covid-19 will be very very hard to control if persons showing no symptoms spread the disease too often, but we do not know whether or not they do.

<comment><USER13> This article does explicitly discuss pre-symptomatic transmission, specifically it being worse than SARS but better than flu in that regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article does a better job than most, but I think still only half-asses the thought process necessary to logically reason about COVID.

The naive or "known" CFR is the fatality rate to-date divided by the number of positive tests to date.

For example, China at one point decided to consider a large number of people as positive cases based on purely clinical symptoms because they didn't have the test capacity or specificity to definitively diagnose them. Which is why their case count gapped up one day.

The CFR after all cases have concluded is an upper bound on the IFR. There seems to be no true consensus on the percentage of asymptomatic or very mild cases which would not seek treatment or even testing. This number (which is basically unknowable during an outbreak) is a multiplier on the case count, and acts to reduce the true IFR.

Lastly, as we've seen quite clearly... How bad it is depends almost entirely upon the person, or at a higher level, the demographics of the people who are infected.

Italy as of March 11;

> _Of the patients who died, 42·2% were aged 80–89 years, 32·4% were aged > 70–79 years, 8·4% were aged 60–69 years, and 2·8% were aged 50–59 years > (those aged >90 years made up 14·1%). The male to female ratio is 80% to 20% > with an older median age for women (83·4 years for women vs 79·9 years for > men)._

Likewise, the outbreak in a WA nursing home was devastating to an elderly population where they would see 5-10 patients die in an _average_ month.

IMO the path forward is either successful containment—which seems extremely unlikely given the transmission characteristics, but apparently China was able to do it? But where you constantly have to be watching for pockets of reemergence and clamp them down.

Or, if we can keep the virus away from high-risk populations while it spreads "like a flu" through the majority of the population, then you will see herd immunity kick in which ultimately works like a vaccinated population to prevent further outbreak and protect the at-risk population from ever becoming infected.

[1] - [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(20\)30627-9/fulltext)

<comment><USER15> China's method of containment was to scan pretty much the entire population for fever and quarantine everyone who might have been infected immediately and involuntarily, including taking children from parents. Needless to say, that will never happen in the us or Europe.

<comment><USER16> > taking children from parents. Needless to say, that will never happen in the > US

They separated Native American and immigrant families in the recent past, why stop now

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At this point I'm more worried about food, water, and toilet paper shortages due to people hoarding 20 times more than what they need. The virus itself doesn't sound too bad if you're under 70.

<comment><USER15> Even for people under 40, it's 20 times deadlier than the flu is.

<comment><USER18> People don't need numbers any more. It's only going to matter to some people if someone they view as a 'healthy, normal' person tests positive. Even more of a freak-out if someone like that dies. If a famous celebrity or athlete gets were to die from this, it would set off a lot more worrying

<comment><USER19> Imagine how tortured you'd be as the doctor that let Tom Hanks die. If he dies people will freak out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why does a blog post require 14 sources of javascript?

Will await a mirror.</comment>


Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week? - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2018/02/if-youre-so-successful-why-are-you-still-working-70-hours-a-week <comment><USER2> Because I like to work.

People who don't like to work often misunderstand this when looking at the stories of successful people. They think successful people force themselves to work hard in order to be successful. In fact successful people often like their work so much that there's nothing else they'd rather do. I doubt for example that there's anything Jeff Bezos would rather do than run Amazon. I bet it seems to him the way a gigantic Lego creation seems to a 7 year old.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. My father told me a story of when he was stuck in traffic with somebody who was then about the 10th richest person in the world. To make conversation, my father asked him what his plans for the coming year were. The guy listed all sorts of business goals. My father asked if he had anything personally that he was planning. The guy basically replied that those _were_ his personal plans. He made no distinction between work and play.

<comment><USER4> There is a HUMONGOUS difference between owner of a business and employed by a business.

Makes sense for the "10th richest person in the world" to work long hours. It's his call. He is working basically for himself.

Totally different when you're making say 50K and the "10th richest person in the world" wants YOU to work all day every day too.

<comment><USER5> This hits the nail on the head. Most of the value that you're creating is captured by someone else. So why should you be expected to spend all your life to benefit someone else's interests?

It's quite strange that today slavery is a completely taboo subject (rightfully so) and yet workplace slavery is not only tolerated but encouraged. It's essentailly the same; someone else uses their coercive power over you to essentially steal a big chunk of your life. The worst part is that it's a first-in best-dressed, roll-of-the-dice kind of game.

<comment><USER6> Speaking as an outsider to Western/American culture, this is one of the worst parts of America. There are millions of people peddling the bullshit dream of "success" (whatever that means) and the implied message of "work harder" in every corner of the media and workplace. Which is great if you reap 100% of the rewards, but for most its only a way to make them compliant worker-bees competing with each other for scraps that the higher-ups dose out at their leisure.

<comment><USER7> Unless we're in some kind of rent-seeking or monopolistic situation, you never get 100% of the rewards. Businesses increase their revenues by providing more value to clients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can have meaning or you can have happiness. You cannot have both -- at least not all of the time. This conflict can be seen clearly in a movie like "Office Space", where both the male and female leads are working for happiness (and survival) whereas the work environment expects them to be working for meaning. (How many pieces of flair are you wearing?)

The trick to this discussion is that people on one side of the discussion frankly don't understand folks on the other side. The things they say and do don't make any sense. If you're a meaning person, you read the title of this essay -- "If You're So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week?" and think if you're successful, why _wouldn 't_ you be working 70 hours a week? You're doing what you love, making a difference in the world! It's only those that are unsuccessful, those who work for meaning but aren't very effective, that would spend a lot of time doing nothing.

For both camps, it seems the world is full of people from the other camp, basically ruining things for the rest of us. It would be great if we could convey this critical piece of information to people early on in life. So much time and energy is spent in conflicts with other folks where it's not needed.

<comment><USER9> I used to work 60 hours a week because I absolutely loved what I did. It gave me meaning. Then I had a son and it fell to 40... Then 30... Then I quit. Now I'm home with him and absolutely love what I'm doing. I still feel successful nurturing a little human. It gives me more meaning than my job ever did. Financially I need to work again, but I doubt it will ever be the nexus of my day.

<comment><USER10> Are you male or female?

<comment><USER9> Typically I'd question why it matters but I appreciate that this is a very gender role specific topic. I'm male.

<comment><USER11> Were you a web developer?

I found my web dev colleagues were much more aware of the gender imbalances in the world and the expectation that I (female) would be the nurturer in my family.

<comment><USER9> I'm a geographer (The STEM program that was 51% female at my university). I'd like to think I have nurtured a balanced progressive view of the world, but we all have our biases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For the most of my career, I was certain that there was something wrong with me. After the first few months at a new job, a sense of meaninglessness grew in me. Is this it? Am I really babysitting this ASP.Net app from here on out? I tried to find meaning in my work but always came up short. Cue a miserable year followed by a job hunt. Rinse and repeat every 2-4 years.

After 12 years of this, it suddendly struck me - I don't like working. I don't hate it, not at all - I enjoy coding and fixing bugs. However I fail to see any deeper meaning in the work I do. So last month, I quit, started my own consultancy and sell my skills and time to the highest bidder, max 6 hours per day. Couldn't be happier! I really feel more like a plumber or electrician than a coder and for the first time in my career I don't feel anxious about doing something meaningful, because I've redefined what "meaning" is.

<comment><USER13> Thanks. As someone who struggles mightily with the same, I've always thought that path is one I should follow, but I'm not great at networking / hustling for the next contract, which you kind of have to do, right?

<comment><USER12> The local market here in Sweden is super-hot so I can pick and choose. Usually, I go through a broker who takes 10% of everything I invoice but does all the selling for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article profiles people in a bunch of professional firms, but ignores the changing market for those professionals. An ABA study showed that in 1965, a typical billable hour target for a lawyer was 1200-1600. Today, 2000 hours is a typical target. That can't be explained by culture. Law has always drawn "insecure overachievers." In reality, it's due to the changing marketplace. Decades ago, it would be highly unusual for Philadelphia company to retain a DC firm for a matter. Today, it's routine—your competition is nationwide. Golfing with local business people doesn't cut it for business development anymore. And like other industries, the work has shifted to larger players in big markets (NYC/Chicago/SF/DC).

External competition also breeds internal competition. I used to work at a firm in New York. There was no competition in the partnership, by design: everyone was paid in a lock step fashion strictly by seniority. Business development meant checking your messages when you got back from lunch. Partnership was for life and partners never left. That was typical 30-40 years ago. Today it's very much the exception, a model retained by a handful of firms that have major institutional relationships. The typical model today is "eat what you kill." Partners are compensated based on how much business they bring in, and regularly hop from firm to firm depending on who is offering the best pay package.

Of course all this isn't necessarily bad. Increased competition means more work, more hours, more availability. But where there is a lack of competition, that's often a sign of people being kept down. Back in 1965, many firms didn't hire Jews, Asians, African Americans, women, etc. Business was given out over drinks instead of having competing firms pitch for it in a transparent way. All of those things increase competition and decrease the value of "good old boy" networks.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if organisations are getting the benefits they perceive, I suppose if you bill by the hour you are but I know from personal experience nothing kills my creativity like overwork.

</comment><comment><USER16> It is odd to ask this question without any consideration of culture.

Perhaps our culture defines "success" in a way that can only be achieved by working 70 hours a week.

Also, where is the law that says devoting time to idle leisure is superior to working?

<comment><USER17> Are these 70 hours productive? I need downtime to think. So if you include thinking as part of that 70 hours then fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm technically a successful professional, but I'd certainly love to work less than 70 hours weeks. I don't have a choice, we're understaffed. It's been shown in black and white to management who is betting a sale will bring those people in. The scam comes into play when we realize we're salary. I used to look at salary as something to achieve, flexible work schedule where I could put in the work and go home when I was done. Now the work is never done. I enjoy what I'm doing, and I'm good at it, but the drive to push everyone in the tech industry into burnout is a cancer that's carving the industry out.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sometimes it helps if you think back to one year before you started with your current work, what things were important to you then.

</comment><comment><USER20> New success quickly becomes the new baseline and a personality that chases success will continue to pursue greater success.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is it bad to just like work?

I couldn't think of anything I could do for the number of hours that I work that wouldn't send me insane. Travelling, hanging out with friends, partying, sports, random interests - not that I don't like them a bit, but I would lose it after just a few weeks.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> At the heart of it all is the amount of insecurity we have about our work, it's quality and relevance.

</comment><comment><USER22> My parents probably had this. "life is short" dominated anyone who lived through the great depression, and WWII and I think it influenced their sense that purposeful activity was better than other choices, what was work and what was pleasure blended, because you had a sense it was better to make things happen, than let entropy rule.

I had this as an engaging drive until 15-20 years ago when I somehow lost my work ethic, in a dark corner and I've looked for it fitfully since, but if I am honest, not very hard. I appreciate that its better to build, and leave something behind, but I am less driven to do this 24/7.

</comment><comment><USER23> And then on your death bed :damn! I could have put in 80 hours a week!

Regrets, regrets... Regrets.

</comment><comment><USER24> What is success, really?

</comment><comment><USER25> I have to work almost all the time. My day typically begins at 3am and ends around 7pm. The reason for this is that my own projects and goals are often contingent on the successful completion of projects by other teams, and organizationally we tend to hire C workers at best. So I spend a lot of time pushing other people and other teams. It doesn't make me popular but it does make me effective.

<comment><USER26> Where will this lead? How would you react if you were laid off ?

<comment><USER27> You're replying to the CEO of Apple.

<comment><USER28> That's a very bad thing for a CEO to ever say. He is the one dictating that his organization hires C workers at best.

But, anyway, I'm really curious about know how he would answer that question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's great to see an article about this. I think it's clear that as automation replaces a lot of jobs we're all going to work less (finally) and find meaning, purpose and happiness in other ways.

Certainly some people really love their work, and that's fantastic. Other people would rather work less, and that's great too.

</comment><comment><USER30> The number of hours people work is not important. What is important is whether they freely _choose_ to work that amount of hours or not. There are poor people who work a lot more than 70 hours a week (2 to 3 different jobs). But that is not something they _choose_ to do.

</comment><comment><USER30> Also, measuring success in money earned is misguided. Success is personal. Success is achieving what gives meaning/fulfilment to _you_ independently of what gives meaning/fulfilment to others.

</comment><comment><USER31> Maybe those valuing a lifestyle with less work opt-out earlier and work part- time in a just mildly successful career

</comment><comment><USER32> Working 70 hrs a week is a signal to me that one is not competent. Computers work for me, not the other way around. As for the people with "bullshit jobs" I assume they do it because of imposter syndrome. The only other category I can think of is doctors, doing it because there's literally no one else who can save a life. That's a management/credentialism issue.

</comment><comment><USER33> Maybe that's how they became successful. It's a well established fact that industriousness is one of the strongest predictors of success in people.</comment>


Amazon Launches Storefronts Selling Products Only from U.S. SMBs - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/17/17869198/amazon-storefronts-us-small-medium-businesses-featured-products-deals <comment><AUTHOR> "The new page will feature over 1 million products from almost 20,000 companies, along with curated collections, deals, videos, and stories highlighting individual companies. Each week, there will be a featured "Storefront of the Week" for a specific company selling on Amazon, along with a series of "Meet the Business Owner" profiles...

The definition of what Amazon considers a "US small and medium-sized business" also seems pretty flexible. There's the Little Flower Soap Company, which is set to be the subject of Amazon's "first-ever national television commercial featuring real businesses that sell on Amazon" (an incredibly specific milestone that essentially means nothing to anyone who doesn't work at Amazon). But the storefront also features wholly digital products like Kindle Unlimited books that are only debatably a "US-based business" and major tech products like the Eero mesh Wi-Fi router, the ChefSteps Joule, and the Essential Phone. Those probably not what most people have in mind when they think of homegrown American small business."</comment>