Ask HN: Alternatives to work/life balance? - <AUTHOR> I think work/life balance is a faulty concept and doesn't characterize what many of us, especially in tech and startups want or need. We love our work and aren't trying to balance our work again our lives and don't buy into that dichotomy anyway.
Has anyone come up with or found any really effective alternative mental models?
EDIT: an indicative quote from The Fifth Discipline: "There is also another, in some ways deeper, movement toward learning organizations, part of the evolution of industrial society. Material affluence for the majority has gradually shifted people's orientation toward work— from what Daniel Yankelovich called an "instrumental" view of work, where work was a means to an end, to a more "sacred" view, where people seek the "intrinsic" benefits of work. "Our grandfathers worked six days a week to earn what most of us now earn by Tuesday afternoon," says Bill O'Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance. "The ferment in management will continue until we build organizations that are more consistent with man's higher aspirations beyond food, shelter and belonging. Moreover, many who share these values are now in leadership positions. I find a growing number of organizational leaders who, while still a minority, feel they are part of a profound evolution in the nature of work as a social institution. "Why can't we do good works at work?"" <comment><USER2> Of _course_ management will try to sell you your job as "higher aspiration" or a "sacred" goal (drink the startup kool-aid!). Means you'll work harder and longer and bargain less. They will also happily fire you, lay you off or cut your wages when times are bad. And then your lower aspirations (food, shelter) will suffer too.

Which is not to say you shouldn't _enjoy_ your job, or aim to do fulfilling meaningful work. But doing one thing to exclusion of all others is not healthy. It's not productive, either - work/life balance will make you _more_ productive: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/10/work-life-balance- so...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/10/work-life-balance-software- engineer/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're thinking with the framework of contemporary corporations and 'employment' structures. I think many of us need to look outside of that box.

I've found there are organizations that are actually working toward higher aspirations, I don't think this is always or even often a bait-and-switch tactic which is what your 'kool-aid' comment implies.

Where's the implication that 'work' is only one thing? My work is almost certainly TOO varied.

<comment><USER2> If you can start an organization with a fundamentally different power structure (and _maybe_ cooperatives could fit the bill) that seems maybe possible. If you're working for a normal company, you're just deluding yourself. I quite like the people I work for... but it's still in part an economic relationship, they have investors, and we might run out of money. So there are circumstances where I will need to find a new job. So my current job better not be my religion however much I like its goals or my coworkers.

Just because the organization works towards something meaningful doesn't mean it should consume your life. You still become distorted as a human if you don't have time just for playing, and friends, and family. It's called workaholism, and it's not a good thing.

<comment><USER2> Oh, and you'd need a fundamentally different economic system where people don't need to work to get basics like shelter or food or social status. All for that, but until we get there you're describing a goal which only the independently wealthy can afford to think about.

<comment><AUTHOR> > until we get there you're describing a goal which only the independently > wealthy can afford to think about.

That sounds true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It sounds like you're young and you know everything. The geezers harping on about "work-life-balance" and protesting all-nighters and weekend sessions don't have a clue.

Just because you're fresh and excited right now doesn't mean that you're not susceptible to burnout. It can and will creep up on you much faster than you think. If you don't believe me, you can try it! I realize this sounds a little mean. It's my opinion, and I sincerely hope it's wrong and I wish you the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel like you're referencing a work/rest balance, I'm not opposed to that. I'm religious about taking one day off a week. But work/rest alternation seems very different from work/life balance to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Work/death balance. How much and in which ways do you want to die of overwork and burn yourself out?

</comment><comment><USER5> This book may be a relevant read: "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work"

<comment><USER6> That's the second time this has come up in the last few days on HN. That must mean something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So you're saying you want to make your work your life? How about "my work is my life," or "I'm married to my job?"

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't buy the dichotomy between work and life, and maybe those ideas should be thrown out altogether. The whole notion of 'work' is flawed.

<comment><USER7> No it isn't, "work" is what I do because I have to and "life" is everything else.

I have no idea what sort of response you're looking for.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's how you feel. Not everyone else does.

There's a pretty compelling quote from the first chapter of __The Fifth Discipline __:

"There is also another, in some ways deeper, movement toward learning organizations, part of the evolution of industrial society. Material affluence for the majority has gradually shifted people's orientation toward work— from what Daniel Yankelovich called an "instrumental" view of work, where work was a means to an end, to a more "sacred" view, where people seek the "intrinsic" benefits of work. "Our grandfathers worked six days a week to earn what most of us now earn by Tuesday afternoon," says Bill O'Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance. "The ferment in management will continue until we build organizations that are more consistent with man's higher aspirations beyond food, shelter and belonging. Moreover, many who share these values are now in leadership positions. I find a growing number of organizational leaders who, while still a minority, feel they are part of a profound evolution in the nature of work as a social institution. "Why can't we do good works at work?""

Senge, Peter M. (2010-03-25). The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization (pp. 4-5). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

<comment><USER8> This doesn't really answer the main question that is being asked of you by a variety of people: What, in general terms, are you looking to define or accomplish when you're talking about an "Alternative to work/life balance?" Are you talking about altruism through the office, or is it more about time- spent between the work and the rest of life? What goal, are you looking to accomplish with this, or any, alternative?

The general premise of work-life balance is finding a level of deference between the thing that makes you money and the things you get to do with that money when not attempting the goal of making the money. This interest in a different motivating factor, "good works at work," while noble is NOT an alternative to work-life balance, but a supplement. Investment in your "higher calling" may be with your church group, volunteering, donations, etc; and some offices do community outreach as parts of their team processes, but I'm not seeing it as a direct alternative to work-life balance.

If YOU are wanting to motivate YOUR work through a higher purpose or need, then by all means go ahead. You're given the station to do so through the income that you are afforded through your work. But I'm very much NOT motivated to donate my time to some corporate goal of altruism, because a corporation doesn't do anything for free.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't define work as 'the thing that makes you money' or life as 'the things you get to do with that money when not attempting the goal of making the money'. Many people continue to work after they've made enough money to satisfy their needs and be comfortable hundreds of times over. (E.g. Elon Musk)

But it's not limited to those people: many people do lots of work that doesn't earn any money and lots of people earn money without doing any work.

Lots of people start another company after a successful exit, and I'd bet their motivation is not 'the goal of making money'.

I reject those definitions. This is the sort of thinking I believe no longer works. Or at least doesn't work for me. I'm inquiring about alternatives to this.

<comment><USER9> If you want to work for the sake of what you are doing and not the material gain, then it's your calling or passion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not work that covers Maslow's entire stack by default? Material, psychological, and spiritual gain. No decoupling as a rule?

<comment><USER10> Because 99.9999...% of the population doesn't have that as an option. The cheeky expression "they wouldn't call it work if loads of people wanted to do it" comes to mind. As a general rule, if someone (a group, etc) is willing to pay you to do something it's not something that's going to provide "psychological" or "spiritual" gains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's a relevant article that might be a good read for you:

[https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/11/theodor-adorno- work...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/11/theodor-adorno-work- pleasure-gadgeteering/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing!

Beautiful paragraph: "In a magnificent essay titled "Work and Pleasure," Adorno dissects one of the most perilous such modern myths — the tyranny of work/life balance. Just a few years after his compatriot Josef Pieper — an obscure German philosopher of extraordinary prescience — argued for reclaiming the dignity of leisure amid a culture of workaholism, Adorno examines the psychosocial origin of the toxic work/life divide that fractures our inner wholeness."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Indoors vs outdoors; focusing vs relaxing; earning vs spending; customers vs family; profit vs nonprofit; etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't know how to actually answer your question.

First I can recommend an essay of _Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness_. Not because what he says is true because it is more a reflection or a philosophical enquiry than a demonstration of something so it cannot be true of false in itself. But because it might provide some questions to ask about the source of ideas behind the concept of how we do work.

Second: related to a new mental model. I think in order to have a new mental model there should be a problem (a crisis) with the existing one.

What is the existing model?

A possible speculation (in IT) based on common mainstream ideas:

\- There is/was a general move from seeing jobs/work as means to live to "making a dent in the universe" or "changing the world"

\- There is/was a supporting atmosphere of believing that work can happen anytime and anyplace - we have access to what we need to work from everywhere and every time we want to

\- There is/was a general idea that everybody should love what they are doing and should want to do that all the time

\- There is/was a large support for work from home, which (at least symbolistically) means that work and home are not antagonistic concepts

\- There is/was (maybe not majority) support and focus on spreading concepts of: one should hang together with one's peers afterwork, one should go to hackathons in weekends, one should read more about technology during personal time, one should come early to the office or one should leave late ...

\- Now the outsiders are seen as being the ones who are saying that after work they are not doing programming but something unrelated to IT

Based on the mainstream ideas above then one possible logical conclusion could be that: (in general) we are not moving toward a work/life balance but to work being the main activity of the day and life being a complement.

What I agree with is that we don't yet have a name or a good understanding of the current model works - what what it is (which is not work/life balance). And it might be that we don't have such understanding because we are in a transition period.

Historically I think we passed through multiple periods for the vast majority of people:

1\. When there is not life after work (and no concept of happiness, well-being ...) - from the dawn of humankind until manufacturing era

2\. A period when the focus was on the life after work. When people were working to have money to spend after work. In this case it did not matter what kind of work was. It matter how much time one spent there and how much money could bring it. I think it lasted up until 70s - 80s.

3\. A period of high purpose - let's called it "enlightenment" \- when people wanted to "make a dent in the universe", "want to change the world" and basically everybody was talking about passion, ideas, ....

4\. Now - a period of unrest or anxiety about the future

In the end I think there is one subject we are not talking about and I think it might define how we explore the topic you are providing and that subject is a question to ask ourselves: What is a GOOD life? Where GOOD is a personal concept including morals/ethics, happiness/well-being, tranquility, being content with life, but in the same time a concept defined or imposed by society.

edit: formatting

<comment><USER14> > When there is not life after work (and no concept of happiness, well-being > ...) - from the dawn of humankind until manufacturing era

Actually, people in primitive (pre-XX century) agriculture (at least in my country - Poland) had lots of free time - for example, during winter there just wasn't that much to do. I think they slept a lot and also crafted stuff (ex. clothes). Of course, in the busy season (ex. during harvest) they worked longer than 40 hours a week, but I think in general they might have had more free time than the modern worker. And certainly, they had more agency. Of course, I am only referring to people who were lucky enough to have enough land to sustain themselves (a big issue in overpopulated Europe before chemical fertilizers were developed).</comment></comment>


Israel deploys automated military robots - <AUTHOR> http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160824/p2a/00m/0na/020000c <comment><USER2> Not fully automated. These may be autonomously driving, but not autonomously shooting. The article hints that that is technically possible, but also states that it is not implemented.

<comment><USER3> Can't we just get a kind of programmer's Hippocratic oath going here? Let's just all not facilitate autonomous shooting. I know both sides of the argument. I know it won't prevent it being done. I just mean if enough people agreed not to do it, then we'd at least generate enough disapproval for it not to be the subject of any PR Puff.

<comment><USER4> Isn't it better to have robots fighting and dying than humans?

War sucks, and I do wish that we could have world peace. But if war is going to happen, I'd rather it be robots that are the ones in harm's way.

<comment><USER5> That's not what's going to happen. One side will have robots, the other will have humans.

This is already happening.

<comment><USER4> That's better than both sides being humans.

Seriously. Incremental improvements are worthwhile.

In general, militaries never want to comprise their effectiveness. So if given the chance to implement a life-saving intervention that harms their effectiveness, they will be reluctant at best to implement it. But _this_ is a life-saving intervention that possibly even increases their effectiveness!

That's what truly makes it awesome. A way to save lives that militaries are not only willing to implement, but rather are actually enthusiastic about implementing.

<comment><USER6> That's a best case scenario. What it could do is make military intervention an even easier decision. The loss of human life is a deterrent to engaging in war. If one side isn't concerned about that, wouldn't they be more inclined to go to war?

<comment><USER7> Conversely removing the threat to human life may reduce the probability of escalation and make a response more measured.

For example two men break through a security fence. A robotic patrol would seem to be much less likely to respond with deadly force than a human patrol would in that situation.

If the men were refugees or wounded soilders looking for medical care the more measured response of the robotic patrol may prevent a death and actually de- escalate conflict.

Also assume that the two men were hostile and fired on the patrol. The destruction of the mech is much less likely to provoke a political and civilian response than the death of a human and may lead to a more measured response.

My bigger concern is that a fully mechanized force may decrease the apparent cost of oppressing a civilian population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This classic scene from Robocop seems apt...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mqDjcGgE5I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mqDjcGgE5I)

</comment><comment><USER9> It looks like we don't have to wait for SkyNET to produce an army of robots and autonomous vehicles with guns.

We make them ourselves, against ourselves.

Can't wait to see someone hacking these machines and turn them against their former owners.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would be more impressed if their opponent were more technically sophisticated.

You have people pretending to build a tank on one hand and people with automated robots on the other? Seems a bit overkill and pointless IMHO.

<comment><USER3> "Overkill" is the defining feature of Western military. We've got to the point where we consider a ratio of 1 (of ours) : 1000 (of theirs) unacceptable. It's very hard to present an argument that says we should accept more deaths on our own side in order to be "fairer" to the other side. However, the net effect is that we continue to minimize our risk in ways that de-humanize conflict and increase collateral damage.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure we are really increasing collateral damage, relative to where we started 100 years ago. The days of firing 1-3 million heavy artillery shells in a day[1] are past, as are the days of dropping tens of thousands of tons of bombs indiscriminantly on a city[2]. Blowing up a single house with a drone- launched missile, or taking out a bridge with a single laser-guided bomb is far more surgical. One can imagine in the not-too-distant future bug-sized drones that could pick a target out of a crowd and inject a trace amount of some very deadly toxin or sedative.

[1] [http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battles/battles-of-the- wester...](http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battles/battles-of-the-western- front-in-france-and-flanders/the-battles-of-the-somme-1916/british-artillery- bombardment-before-the-infantry-attack-on-the-somme/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_Wa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II)

<comment><USER9> It's true we are making less collateral damage then in the golden days, but the problem is that the more advanced one side becomes the less of a chance the other side has.

It's not just about fighting terrorists. We don't know who will be in command next. Giving this tech into the wrong hands will do some massive damages. There is always a chance to find ourselves on the wrong end of the drone.

Also the drone targets a single house, bombs it to oblivion and then someone says they are 80% sure, they bombed the right house with the right people in them. Not to mention a lot of times the people killed are civilians who were actually supportive, but because they are dead now, we just make the rest angry and make them side with the enemy.

We are a long way away making sure we are killing the right target.

<comment><USER12> " We don't know who will be in command next." Thats the real issue. Drone armies is every dictator's wet dream, an unstoppable mass-produced force.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The scary thing is once these things get a bit better it'll become cost effective to build thousands of them and just zerg rush your enemies.

</comment><comment><USER14> A brainwashed suicide bomber is not much different from an autonomous bio- robot.

Indoctrination [1] doesn't let you question or criticize your programming, unlike modified Asimov's Laws [2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics)

</comment><comment><USER15> A potential advantage or military robots is you could make them non or less fatal. In Aleppo type situations robots might be able to taser and arrest people instead of trying to kill them.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder what the cost differential between The Trump Wall, and autonomous vehicle patrols would be.

Electric vehicles with solar charging would be very cost-effective as a border security mechanism.

Where are all the border security startups? Lots of government cash on the table I would think.

<comment><USER9> Well, a wall for start wont shoot you in the face just because you want to cross a border.

A wall, doesn't need electricity.

The maintenance cost is lower.

Can't be hacked.

Oh, and you can paint nice big pictures on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> 10 Initiate provocations in Gaza

20 Run live tests on technology

30 Use the proof of real life usage in a low boil conflict to sell the technology at international arms fairs.

40 Use realistic test conditions to refine & develop new technology for 2 years.

50 GOTO 10

This efficient QA/development cycle is a serious competitive advantage, since it's hard for other countries to replicate the same controlled conflict conditions. Hence these great sales figures: [https://rwer.wordpress.com/2016/01/12/the-15-largest-arms- ex...](https://rwer.wordpress.com/2016/01/12/the-15-largest-arms-exporters- per-capita/)

And it's been ~2 years since the last conflict, so...: [http://europe.newsweek.com/us-calls-americans-leave-gaza- soo...](http://europe.newsweek.com/us-calls-americans-leave-gaza-soon- possible-492974?rm=eu)</comment>


Contact lenses project Images Straight to your Eye - <AUTHOR> http://revolt-tech.com/archives/723

<comment><USER2> So, apparently, these things will be wirelessly powered, likely through the same antennae that receives the display information.

also given the current state of wireless power, that means a lot of power is going to be wasted.

As cool as it would be to have an always-on heads up display, I REALLY don't want that much RF radiation near my brain.</comment>


Ask HN: Cheap ways for publishing small web apps for a small audiance? - <AUTHOR> Say I want to share with a small number of people (about 20) my small web apps, for as cheap as possible. The backend is in Python, frontend is plain HTML and some JS files. Those web apps I would like to be usable 24/7 for the next 10 years. Should I invest in a RaspberryPi and self host? What options do I have? <comment><USER2> For fully static sites it is hard to compete with "upload files to S3 and host via CloudFront" with the caveat that it costs about 10 cents per gig*month to store data and 10 cents to send a gig out.

If your usage will be small enough that those prices aren't painful then you get true 24/7 availability, reasonable performance and a lot of convenience.

Add the python server and your costs might go up. For applications that are mostly static but have an occasional form (say email newsletter subscribe/verify/unsubscribe script) the economics of the lambda functions and the web service gateway are great. If you are going to have a python script called for every html page (e.g. conventional CMS) you might not like the economics.

You could run a small cloud server with the dynamic parts, you will always feel some tradeoff between "throw a lot of resources at it and be delighted with performance" and "try to save resources and find your server upside down with the casters up occasionally"

As for the rasp pi that was a fantasy that I remember internet anarchists being into back in the days of Hakim Bey and Falun Gong. It seemed "liberating" to people to have the 23/6 availability and inconsistent performance of running a low-price server at home. It might feel good to you but the users won't appreciate it.

Today it seems something a conservative politician would do: host the web server to get welfare benefits on a rasp pi behind a slow connection.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like "free" may be even better than cheap, given the small number of people you mention.

For instance, an always-free f1-micro instance from Google Compute Engine would work well.

Or Vercel [https://vercel.com/pricing](https://vercel.com/pricing) (formerly Zeit, I believe) may also fit your needs, assuming you can adapt your Python where needed.

Another option that might require modest refactoring of the Python: host the site as a static site on Github pages or Netlify. Then make the backend (still in Python) using AWS Lambda or Azure Functions or Google Cloud Functions.

</comment><comment><USER4> I use DigitalOcean to host and deliver web apps. You can get a "VPS" (virtual private server) for as low as $5 a month, which is probably less than you can run a server from home on a Raspberry Pi.

Another option is to create a disk image for a Raspberry Pi that has your web apps installed and let them download it or purchase an SD card from you so they can run the app on their own Raspberry Pi.</comment>


Analyse Asia Podcast #12: New Questions in Mobile, the Asia Edition - <AUTHOR> http://blcw.me/17tDcAR <comment><AUTHOR> Synopsis: Sameer Singh (@sameer_singh17) from Tech-Thoughts.net comes online with our host Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) to discuss and debate with an Asian perspective on Benedict Evans' recent piece "New Questions in Mobile". We first return to a lost discussion where we discuss Uber and its recent problems in Asia and categorically provide an answer to some US pundits that it's virtually impossible for Google to acquire Uber. Then we discuss Xiaomi with their recent sales figures, fundraising and also what lies ahead for them, and finally discuss the fate of Android OEMs using economic principles, an educated guess to where Google will take Android, and Facebook's messaging app dilemma in whether to attack Asia's top messaging apps: WeChat, LINE & Kakao Talk with either Facebook messenger or WhatsApp. Finally, we end with a discussion on why wearables may not be the next big thing but something in Japan that may hold the key to the future.</comment>


New MacBook Airs ridden with bugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/11/1/new-macbook-airs-ridden-bugs/

<comment><USER2> Couple of issues is haaaaaardly "ridden with bugs". One issue already addressed by Apple. If thousands of users were experiencing the same dozens of bugs then the subject is warranted .. otherwise .. just an attempt (admittedly probably successful!) to generate traffic at thinq.co.uk

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't as big of a deal as the headline makes it out to be. The article describes a video playback issue that Apple's already released a software fix for.

<comment><USER4> Your statement is misleading. The article does indeed describe that playback issue, but then goes on to describe a number of other issues reported by users that go a bit beyond a 'video playback issue'.

So yes, probably not as big a deal as the headline makes it out, but also not just one bug already addressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sigh. I ordered one of the new 11"-ers last week. I really should know better. I even thought, "dude, don't buy 1st-rev Apple hardware," but ignored my gut instinct. "Ooh, shiny!" won over.

<comment><USER6> Isn't this the second Air?

<comment><USER7> it's actually the 3rd generation Air

<comment><USER8> By generation he means in this design revision - this air is drastically different to the last one. I owned the first Unibody Macbook Pro, ordered it an hour after release... I'm on my third motherboard. Sometimes the first batch of hardware has issues fixed later on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Datapoint: My new MacBook Air has had zero problems so far.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've had some sleep issues and errors being thrown by UserEventAgent about SCNetworkSignatureCopyActiveIdentifiers returning nil both of which seem to be caused by Transmission, but otherwise it's behaving fine. (13" Air)

I do wish this platform had better diagnostic tools.</comment>


New Amazon EC2 Feature: Boot from Elastic Block Store - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2009/12/new-amazon-ec2-feature-boot-from-elastic-block-store.html

<comment><USER2> This is tremendously useful and lowers the barrier to entry for new adopters. Unfortunately, it's also a temptation to make poor design decisions.

One of the key benefits of EC2 and other cloud offerings is that, in a properly automated environment, it is faster and easier to replace a faulty node than to troubleshoot it. The same is true for upgrades - simply boot a new instance from an updated AMI or Chef/Puppet/Cfengine/RightScale config and point traffic at the new server. Minimal wheelspin, minimal downtime.

Those who use this new feature to take a, for lack of a better term, "server- hugger" approach to cloud computing will miss out on this. Though it may reduce their cloud onboarding time, it's inefficient in the long term and will be an operational burden as the environment grows.

<comment><USER3> As cool as they are, I have 2 problems with Chef/Puppet/CFengine/Rightscripts.

1\. Long boot times. This gets worse as your recipes get beefier.

2\. Same script, different results. Running your recipe next year might not yield the same result (e.g. if you don't specify a precise version of a package to install).

<comment><USER4> I agree. I do use Chef and Capistrano to automate creating AMIs, but then I like to just save the AMIs and boot from them. Also, creating a new AMI from an old one is quick and easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This simplifies the old way I had to do this:

* Boot a 4MB busybox ami (very fast to load)

* init script loops trying to mount /dev/sdj

* Manually attach EBS root volume on /dev/sdj

* init script mounts /dev/sdj in /new-root

* pivot_root /new-root /old-root

* chroot /new-root /sbin/init

</comment><comment><USER6> EBS costs $0.10 per GB and $0.10 per million I/O requests. Any ideas how much it would cost per month to replace a "normal" AMI (which is free) with an EBS- backed one like this?

<comment><USER7> You store a normal AMI on S3, which is $.15/GB. If you care about costs, you should be doing all of your high IO tasks on the /mnt swap drive, so your IO costs should be pretty low. It's probably a wash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great for people who have 1-2 machines running a website, but doesn't really make any difference to people who are actually elastically scaling.

In fact, maintain state between stops/starts increases headaches for me. It's a lot more tempting to incorporate manual voodoo instead of baking it into the build process.

</comment><comment><USER9> after i just spent all day yesterday building and rebulding amis... this is great.

i can see a lot of advantages in terms of boot time and having a much bigger root but for us since boot time is negligable compared to puppet config time, the biggest saving will come the next time we're doing the the whole configure/test/ec2-bundle-vol/ec2-upload-bundle/ec2-register cycle, which is so tedious.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish they had released this new feature a year ago - it would have saved me a lot of effort setting up both customers and my EC2 backed applications.

I'll use this in the future, and I will convert my own permanent EC2 instance. There is a bit of trickery that I had to learn to auto mount EBS volumes when my AMIs start up - some Ruby scripting code I probably won't have to use anymore.

<comment><USER10> You mention conversion ... Anybody have any suggestions about how to convert an S3-backed AMI to an EBS backed one (linux)? I'm wondering if there's some grub trickery that needs to happen over and above the file copies to make booting work?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do we safely lift the lockdown to avoid another outbreak? - <AUTHOR> Given the chances of a vaccine being found within the next month or so are slim to none?<p>Obviously it'd likely have to happen in stages, but what should those stages be, and how could we prevent a huge outbreak due to people rushing to go out/do stuff/socialise as things gradually reopen? <comment><USER2> israel's plan : [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-hi-tech-and- pre...](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-hi-tech-and-preschools- then-malls-and-sports-israel-s-coronavirus-exit- strategy-1.8762359?utm_source=morning_brew)</comment>


Steve Job's End Game, the Iphone is a Trojan Horse (Predicted in 2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.innovativedisruption.com/disrupt-this/bid/50793/Disruptive-Business-Strategy-What-is-Steve-Jobs-Really-Up-To

<comment><USER2> Wow, thanks Justin. Nice to see my old analysis getting new play. In hindsight, I think this illustrates perfectly how there are dimensions other than "performance" (which is pretty hard to define anyway) on which you can come in below the competition, and "low cost" as levers to disrupt markets. The iPod and iPhone are both illustrative of how if other other important problems are solved for the customer, you can still disrupt a market with a high price. Christensen has described this as a non-conforming exception to disruption theory, but I think it conforms perfectly, as the article you posted describes. Thanks for giving it extra visibility.

<comment><AUTHOR> It deserved to hit front page of HN. Great insight.

<comment><USER2> I appreciate that. I got called an "Apple fanboy" and worse at the time. Ironically, I didn't own any Apple products when I wrote this, and still don't have an iPhone (even though Blackberry is getting killed by the iPhone and now Android), I needed a cell plan that included Canada, which AT&T didn't have, and that one thing saved me several hundred dollars per month by going with another carrier and a Blackberry.

The important thing to remember is it comes down to customer needs. If most people needed what I did, the iPhone would have flopped solely because of the exclusive arrangement with AT&T. But, it clearly was a game changer. That's hard to dispute today.</comment></comment></comment>


A concrete illustration of practical running time vs big-O notation - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2009/06/12/9728292.aspx

<comment><USER2> For a long time now, people have complained about Big Oh notation. The problem is not the notation, it's the people. The notation is absolutely brilliant. People do not understand how to use it and complain that "in practice" it breaks.

Big Oh is simply a mathematical tool that is helpful to abstract away uninteresting details. But what people do not realize is that by using this tool, they perform some abstraction of their own -- it can be used to count anything, and the most important thing to establish is what you count. Most importantly, you want to count time & space used by an algorithm. But you don't always want to count the time used by an algorithm as the number of instruction performed. For example, we may compare comparison-based sorting procedures by the number of comparisons they perform. Why? Because we are smart and realize that this (# of comparisons) is a good way to compare such algorithms.

For some algorithms, you might want to count the number of memory accesses you make. Or the number of level-i memory accesses in a memory hierarchy. Or the number of network packets. Get it?

<comment><USER3> I think that they main stumbling point for many people is the fact that Big-O notation is aimed asymptotically; in other words, it is only concerned about the performance of an algorithm (for example) when you have a _bazillion_ items to process. If you're dealing with real-world (limited) cases, you need to pay attention to the constants-- those "uninteresting details" get interesting very quick.

<comment><USER2> You get to choose which details to ignore. Making the wrong choice will of course lead to invalid results.

No model is perfect, but some models are useful.</comment></comment></comment>


Do you translate part time? (37signals-like approach to translating) - <AUTHOR> http://ebiwrite.com/home.html

<comment><USER2> OK, what am I missing here? What is the advantage of doing this in a poorly- featured browser page rather than a word processor or text editor? The dictionary feature seems to be 'write your own dictionary' - so I'm still going to need an actual dictionary for, you know, looking up what words mean. I can't do much formatting, so for anything substantial I'll have to copy/paste into openoffice (or emacs for latex, html, etc). Maybe it'd be useful for translating short, online documents from somebody else's computer - but not much more useful than a couple of textboxes side by side.

Good luck to them - at least they're trying something new. But I can't see where they're hoping to go with it.

<comment><USER3> you format at the office through the api. this lowers the barrier to acquiring translators in faraway places. smart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think have 37 signals in the title is wrong.

imho,.rb</comment>


Avoiding quasiparticle decay may allow control&stabilization of quantum matter - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-019-0535-3 <comment><AUTHOR> >Scientists Find Evidence a Strange Group of Quantum Particles Are Basically Immortal

source: [https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-evidence-a- stra...](https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-evidence-a-strange- group-of-quantum-particles-are-basically-immortal)</comment>


Powerful Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/powerful_ideas/ <comment><USER2> This scratches the surface of an unmatched essay by Harold Goddard called Atomic Peace. Both pieces seek a virus (or a chain reaction) that could end war, but Adams falls short. Indeed, education is not enough and can actually encourage war. Although I'm hesitant to omit even a piece of Goddard's essay, I've reproduced excerpts from the beginning below.

 _The Atomic Bomb is the outstanding fact of our time-- not just as a scientific triumph and military weapon but as a symbol of what our so-called civilization has brought us to. As Emerson remarked, "Civilization crowed too soon." How shall we meet the menace of modern scientific war-- not the menace of atomic attack but the menace of the bomb itself, of the ugly fact of its existence? The fission of the atom is an intellectual achievement of the first order.... we can understand what Emerson meant when he declared that "pure intellect is the pure devil". Over the entrance to Plato's Academy at Athens was the inscription, "Let none ignorant of geometry enter here." If I could choose a similar inscription for the entrance of all the colleges and universities int he world today I would pick that great sentence of Montaigne's "All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science of honesty and goodness."_

 _WANTED: a force for good as potent as the atom bomb is for evil, a force, preferably, to complete the analogy, that produces a vast result out of a chain reaction of little forces each of apparently negligible amount-- a result, however, not of disintegration and destruction, but of integration and creation._

 _It its widest manifestation life itself as revealed in the process of organic growth is such a force and it is not chance that the bomb came into existence for the express purpose of defeating that process, as if it recognized in it its natural and opposite enemy. For what is cellular proliferation but a chain reaction of millions of tiny forces each contributing to a tremendously disproportionate total result of integration and creation? This chain reaction of the tiny into the mighty may be observed, though on a smaller scale, in the mental and spiritual life of man even more convincingly and often at a more rapid tempo than in his physical development...._

Goddard goes on to explain this mental and spiritual force in detail. I simply cannot do his work justice with with excerpts from the rest of the essay. You'll have to go read it. It may be the most important thing you ever read.

<comment><USER3> I couldn't find much online about this essay. Is the text online anywhere?

<comment><USER2> The text is not online as far as I know. It's available here for like $10 shipped: [http://www.pendlehill.org/bookstore?page=shop.product_detail...](http://www.pendlehill.org/bookstore?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=5679&category_id=21&manufacturer_id=100&keyword=atomic+peace). That's where I got my copy.

It was republished in a collection of essays in 1971, so imagine it's still under copyright. Hrm.... I'll take a look at what the collection says when I get home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> He didn't actually take the metaphor this far, but as I was reading his essay, what I wanted it to be about is this.

If the corollary to virus is meme, than what is the corollary to t-cell?

We can't engineer real t-cells, but wouldn't it be fun to engineer their idea- space equivalents?

Snopes.com, for example, is sort of a t-cell that can attack and kill a lot of memes, if the infected person is vaccinated with snopes after exposure.

<comment><USER5> There's a theory that religion, as well as being a parasitic meme, is also an inoculation against newer and more damaging memes: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorde...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorder/)

<comment><USER6> I wanted to say the same thing as soon as I saw the article. You can look at religions as memes or viruses that propagate from person to person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _A wanted truth is always stronger than an evidenced truth_

Ouch. That one hit me hard. What I would give to switch that around in myself.

<comment><USER8> Reminds me of Terry Goodkinds 'Wizards First Rule'

"Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true."

Although the wording from the book is quite strong, essentially 'people are more likely to believe things if they want them to be true, or if they are afraid of them being true'.

So far I have found it an important and practical lesson for many situations.

<comment><USER9> Why's that a problem? People might have good instincts, in which case they should trust their instincts as well as their reason, especially if they are stupid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wouldn't say that education is the _antidote_ to war; rather, I'd say that education is the _vaccine_ for war.

<comment><USER9> I'd say Christianity has been the most successful large scale war restraining ideology. Not that it is perfect, but name a better large scale ideology.

<comment><USER11> > ...name a better large scale ideology.

OK. Civil rights.

Have two countries that grant full legal equality to both men _and_ women ever gone to war?

<comment><USER12> Wikipedia: women could vote in the USA since 1920, and in the USSR since 1917. Though the Cold War was more of a series of proxy wars and an arms race.

But the argument in the grandparent post is not supported by history either. The military monk orders of the Crusades are just one example.

<comment><USER9> The crusades were a defensive battle in response to Islam militantly taking over previously Christianized Africa and eastern Europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think Scott needs to re-engineer his idea virus, it's not quite on the mark. Ultimately, it will only ever (at best) end up as a famous quote like "Give peace a chance" for similar mentioned reasons, but also because the virus doesn't offer immediacy. It's not something that an individual whose been infected with the virus can act on, rather it's something that will ultimately require collective action on. To be more power, Scott should revise the idea virus such that the transfered idea is something simple, and can be taken on by an individual that will ultimately lead to the end of war.

I'll leave the revision to Scott himself, but I will offer an example.

For instance, if my goal is to ultimately solve cancer: A simple catchy saying "Donate $1 today, Write it off Tomorrow -IRS.".

The idea is catchy because it implies personal benefit as a direct compensation. "Writing it off", hell every one wants a way to reduce how much money gets sucked up by taxes every year. To imply that being generous, we can alleviate some of our tax woes, the idea gains traction with people. Of course, the truth is you need a certain net amount of donations to really write it off, and even if you do, you don't gain any money you simply choose where it is spent--the over all net result is still a loss. But that simple matter isn't caught by those rational filters.

Obviously, the idea doesn't constrain what is donated to and as such could be donated to some opensource project not even related to cancer research. Nor would a single dollar donation likely benefit any cause, much less cancer research. However the net effect of the idea, is an overall increase in charitable giving. More money is given, by more people, as the idea spread. The best part about the idea is the immediate positive feedback. Unlike Scott's initial "Education is the antidote of war", an idea like "Donate $1 today, write it off tomorrow" is more likely to spread and achieve it's ultimate goal.

I think Scott should revise his approach by simply adding a fourth trait: An idea virus must be actionable on the individual level.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reading through the comments at the end of his entry, it is sad to see how many people missed the point entirely.

Everyone got so caught up on his meme that they didn't see the power in memes. Evidenced by everyone discussing the meme and forgetting the point.

</comment><comment><USER15> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_McDonald...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_McDonalds_franchises#Golden_Arches_Theory_of_Conflict_Prevention)

<comment><USER16> Yes.

Also, Yugoslavia had McDonald's franchises since 1988 and was subsequently attacked by the United States and several other countries, acting under UN pretenses.

A more interesting point on war and business would be that no country which has decided not to sell oil it controls to the US in US dollars has NOT been subjected to war.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reason, logic, science, requiring evidence before one believes something. These are what prevent conflict.

Education is way to vague and seems to me to imply wisdom imparted from a position of authority to those who internalize it, which is not something that necessarily promotes reason or logic.

</comment><comment><USER6> This reminded me of this summer's blockbuster movie Inception. Much like this article, it examined how ideas are planted in our minds and what effects those ideas have once they take over the mind and become impossible to eradicate.

<comment><USER18> From the movie:

      Cobb: What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm?
      An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain
      it's almost impossible to eradicate.  An idea that is fully formed -
      fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The most effective way to put an end to all war is nuclear apocalypse or viral pandemic. Maybe both at once.

As long as people want stuff and stuff is finite there will always be war.

</comment><comment><USER19> why stop at ideas / eg. catchy phrases? I think the bigger topic Scott Adams actually adresses is subversion. Manipulating peoples behaviour and ideals has long been practiced by many governments. Just take a look at old war posters: They're actually quite catchy.

</comment><comment><USER20> The folks at laptop.org even have a shipping product that could be used for that.</comment>


How to overcome information overload. Any advice? - <AUTHOR> I always feel like I am reading or assimilating way too much information. How you all manage this? How to beat FOMO on something interesting.Greatly appreciated any advice or thoughts on this. <comment><USER2> I'd like to go a little meta.

If you really want to do it, then stop looking for a reason to do it. Because any piece of text containing _the answer_ is probably going to fit in a few HN comments, because that's what you're currently looking at, an HN thread. You are looking for a small piece of text giving you the reason to limit your information intake and providing a technique to do so.

Most likely you won't find what you're looking for. And even if you do find something that appears to be _that_ , it will be inferior to your experience of actually doing _that_. Imagive a set of all possible HN comments. It contains no element that is better than you simply deciding, without any good reason or a way to do it clearly formulated in your mind, to simply set aside a couple of weeks and read only one book exclusively.

Now you might have two objections.

First, what if the piece of text is large, like a book? To that I'll say that books have to satisfy publishers and earn a profit, which manifests itself in disgusting ways like containing a lot of filler text and flawed case studies that presumably prove the author's point. I couldn't read "Shallows: What the Internet Does to Our Brains" and "Deep Work" because of that. All books about talent or peak performance are pretty much worthless in my eyes. I might be wrong about their value, but one thing is certain - they do not contain a clear answer and come with it's own set of issues.

Second, my claim that taking two weeks and doing one thing is better than any HN comment. I'll say it doesn't even matter. Two weeks are gonig to pass regardless, so you might as well try doing that instead of simply looking for a piece for text saying whatever. You might decide to do two things or three. That's fine, the point is to get meaningful experience doing a few things over a period of time. It could be that it is simply not for you. It also could be that your brain, physically, reached the point where neurons are wired in such a way that you're never be effective. Good luck rewiring this mess with an HN comment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Beautiful. Thanks for this comment. Straight and upfront.

Why did I ask her , 2 reasons

1 . Selfish to find reason , I am addicted and I need some good reasons as reaffirmations. It is just me looking at a coach or turning to something positive and reaffirming. You did provide that here for me. This piece of text did that trick.

2\. To others if they stumble upon this post , might do the same ( my best positive guess ) .

Cheers mate for this wonderful piece of text that is making me to check less social sites and more productive with my static site generator idea I am working on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Having experienced something similar at one point, I'll claim this is not about the information itself, but about the state your brain is operating in. It is not my intention to offer a diagnosis, but keep in mind these conditions are a spectrum, a large percentage of the population has various (sub- threshold) levels of things such as ADHD, sensory modulation disorder or anxiety. If any of these ring a bell, solving these problems (which really is a single issue at its root) will solve the information overload.

And when I mentioned brain state, I was referring to the electrical activation pattern of the brain, which you can see with an EEG device.

</comment><comment><USER4> By accident I found a way to spend easy less time on HN. I was looking for a way to find more niche posts and made [https://hackerer.news](https://hackerer.news) that separates posts by time from votes. Now I can quickly scan a day's posts and see new ones without rescanning the popular ones repeatedly. It's so quick to see everything at once in sections that I often get bored and do something else. It goes back a few days that I never feel like I'll miss anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> why this site of yours is not picked up by a lot. Should be in showcase. Will bookmark this one ( but less often I will try to visit )

Cheers

<comment><USER4> Thanks. Hope you enjoy your visits. Clicking the title heading or clock/triangle can change modes. Word of warning: visits will save you time but may reduce excitement of HN as it takes away much of the slot machine effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Physiologically speaking, the symptoms of data deluge probably most closely resemble that of sensory overload. Think of tourists visiting NYC, London or Paris for the first time. The mind attempts to "shut down". Or triggers a full blown panic attack including hyperventilation.

It's a spill over in your cognitive load balancer. That section of the brain that exists to mediate and filter incoming requests has become congested. I'd look into the literature of traumatic brain injury that results in increased sensitivity. For example, in patients with acute photophobia, one remedy is replacing fluorescent indoor lights, with outdoor sunlight and adopting a more natural circadian rhythm with the rising and the setting of the sun.</comment>


How to Write Dockerfiles for Python Web Apps - <AUTHOR> https://blog.hasura.io/how-to-write-dockerfiles-for-python-web-apps-6d173842ae1d <comment><USER2>
        Using an appropriate base image (debian for dev, alpine for production).

No you don't. It's nonsensical to use a "convenient" development environment, and then make the production application work in something more bare- bones/stripped down/different. I've never used Alpine Linux, but even I know there's a LOT of subtle differences between it and Debian. Nontrivial stuff that matters, like C library implementation (GNU libc vs. musl) and init system (systemd vs. sysv init). You don't want that, because it opens up a multiverse full of potential, exclusively bad surprises that you'll be unprepared to debug.

<comment><USER3> Sort of defeats the whole point of single consistent environment if you are going to change the base container itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Using an appropriate base image (debian for dev, alpine for production).

Seems to me like this is a good way to introduce subtle differences between dev and prod.

I'd just use the same base images for everything. Consistency is king.

<comment><USER5> I don't think alpine solves the process reaping problem. The only base image suitable for production I found so far is: [https://github.com/phusion/baseimage- docker](https://github.com/phusion/baseimage-docker)

<comment><USER6> Process reaping and signal forwarding are solved by using tini. You can call if from inside the container, by installing it and then changing the entrypoint/cmd. You can also specify it in your docker run/docker create command by adding "\--init" I haven't seen the phusion base images in production in almost a year. Usually when an organization gets more experience in building images, they use better solutions then phusion images.

tldr

Don't use Phusion base images. If you need ssh and logrotate and etc, use lxd or a vm.

<comment><USER5> I am not currently running docker on prod (but I am about to) you Sir pointed me to a good direction. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One thing that's missing from the RUN command is '-u', for unbuffered output (essential when using the default loggers).

But there are simpler ways to build dev images using build stages... I maintain two for my own use, one for web dev and another for ML/back-end stuff:

\- [https://github.com/rcarmo/alpine-python](https://github.com/rcarmo/alpine- python)

\- [https://github.com/rcarmo/ubuntu-python](https://github.com/rcarmo/ubuntu- python) (because musl doesn't play well with some binary dependencies)

I also tend to rely on uwsgi or sanic rather than gunicorn (which feels a bit dated to me) but those boil down to personal preference.

<comment><USER8> +1 for `-u` this one caught me out when I first used python services in docker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just curious, why do you need gunicorn for auto-restarting the server inside a docker container, if you can just restart the container? It's pretty lightweight operation for config changes, imo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Restarting the container is manual work. I prefer restarts being automatically taken care by watch tools or the server.

<comment><USER10> Another solution could be using docker in swarm mode to let docker automatically restart containers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8>
        COPY src/requirements.txt ./
        RUN pip install -r requirements.txt

This has always confounded me as we always put `-e .` in our requirements.txt. Has this fallen out of favour? It doesn't appear the author's application needs to be installed like most pyramid or click applications do.

<comment><USER11> I haven't really looked at Pyramid in years (I do mostly Django). Why does it need `-e .`? In the projects I've worked on, that would be a really weird thing to do.

`-e` in a requirements.txt is always a bit of a hack. If you really have to do it, it's highly recommended to pin it to a particular sha1 or tag. But I guess my bias is from spending a lot of time and effort trying to get python projects to be as close as possible to reproducible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> out of curisoity, why gunicorn instead of uwsgi?

<comment><AUTHOR> Apart from gunicorn being easy to configure, i just happened to use gunicorn first. I'm sure the same Dockerfile can be applied with uwsgi. Are there any benefits to using uwsgi over gunicorn? Open to exploring.</comment></comment>


Pull the plug. Your battery will thank you - <AUTHOR> http://thisweekinbatteries.blogspot.com/2010/02/pull-plug-your-battery-will-thank-you.html <comment><USER2> I've had Apple laptops going back to the release of the Titanium PowerBook and I've almost always used them plugged in for the vast majority of the time and I've never had this dreaded battery death that articles like this talk about.

However, I have a friend who seems especially apt at killing the very same batteries in the very same laptop models. My rather uninformed theory is that there's a specific kind of behavior that adversely affects them - but whatever it is, I don't do it and he does. I _think_ the key is that he uses his _without_ power a lot, running it down frequently, etc. which seems to be what this article is suggesting (and most articles about prolonging battery life suggest).

Given my own experience, I'm continuously confused at the pervasiveness of this advice given how counter it is to my own experience - but perhaps there's some intelligence in the batteries/charger that's protecting me from myself?

I mostly think of my battery as a built in UPS and not as a gas tank.

<comment><USER3> FYI, Apple have a page providing advice on battery care:

<http://www.apple.com/batteries/>

One of the things it says is...

"Standard Maintenance

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it's important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her MacBook Pro on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This keeps the battery juices flowing. If on the other hand, you use a desktop computer at work, and save a notebook for infrequent travel, Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month."

<comment><USER4> _For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it's important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally."_

I knew I shouldn't have set my air conditioner to absolute zero...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a Lenovo laptop and it has the feature it describes. You can set a manual charge cut off or do the following:

"Optimize battery lifespan (automatically change for me)"

Right now, it seems to not charge the battery unless it gets under 96% charge, and then it charges to full. Its language implies that it changes that charge level based off of a good compromise between battery life and charge. As someone who doesn't want to think about the battery issue, I really love this feature.

<comment><USER6> Macbooks do the same, but I haven't found a way to change the threshold. 90, 85 or even 80% would be fine for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, why don't laptops completely bypass the battery when the battery is charged and the power is plugged in? If the laptop can work when the batteries are removed, it should be able to cut-off power to/from the battery when fully charged as well.

<comment><USER8> When the laptop is at home, just charge the battery to 50% then remove it so it works only from the plug. I don't move my laptop as much as I did before and I noticed that I get much better battery lives than my friends who continuously keep their laptop plugged in and with the battery attached.

<comment><USER7> Obviously this is the current solution. I was pointing out that laptop manufacturers could remove the need for fiddling with your power connection by automatically disconnecting the computer from the battery when it is not needed.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but you need a way to tell it whether you don't want to use the battery in a long time (so 50% charge is good), or whether you want to get up and go on the road soon --- where 100% charging is nice.

<comment><USER8> Allegedly Thinkpads have that. But I run Ubuntu on mine so I don't have access to the fancy bios setting utilities from Lenovo. I just snap the battery out. That seems to work for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> While correct, I really view this as a non-issue.

I suspect for most people, their in-memory data, time, and attention are far more valuable than not having power redundancy protection against an accidental cord disconnect or possible increased degradation on a ~$100 replaceable component on a $1k+ machine--namely the battery.

</comment><comment><USER11> Huh... that's annoying. 95% of the time, I use the laptop in my home office and don't really want to mess around with plugging/unplugging it:-/

<comment><USER12> For desk use, it's best for your battery to remove it from the laptop once it's fully charged. You don't want to continuously plug/unplug your laptop because that would just cycle the battery a lot, and that's not good for it either.

As for me, I usually just leave the battery in: it's a nice UPS, worth the expense of perhaps a few months of lost life.

<comment><USER13> Do you know if one can hot swap batteries (which would also allow simply removing or adding it) on most laptops that will run without a battery? I want to try removing the battery from my computer while it's running or putting one in while it's running, but I'm a little afraid of death.

<comment><USER14> If you're laptop is plugged in you should be able to hot swap the battery. If you're worried about data loss, put your machine to sleep first, wait ~10 seconds, swap the batteries, wake it up from sleep. This is safe even if your machine loses power totally while swapping out the batteries.

OSX and Windows both support writing out your ram to disk, losing all power, then resuming from this state exactly where you left off when power is restored.

It's the default on OSX and may need to be enabled on Windows depending on your hardware: [http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-7/turn-hybrid-sleep-on- in...](http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-7/turn-hybrid-sleep-on-in- windows-7/)

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I've done it after hibernating, but hibernating and waking up from it is like a 3-minute process for me.

It's not data loss I'm afraid of (I always save, even moreseo if I'm doing stuff that might make my computer turn off), it's like sparks and other such stuff that can happen when you're dealing with electricity.

<comment><USER15> I hot swap all the time, even if the computer is plugged in there should be no problem with sparks or anything like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Where I stay in Bangalore, we have about 3 one hour power cuts per day. So my laptop battery is getting good exercise!

</comment><comment><USER17> The article mentions that Thinkpads come with a utility to set the charging cutoff point. Has anybody figured out how to do this on Linux?

<comment><USER12> [http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Tp_smapi#Battery_charge_contro...](http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Tp_smapi#Battery_charge_control_features)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article is right, but it's hard to read. If you don't read carefully, it seems to suggest cycling your battery more, when actually it just suggests not pushing it near 100% charge too long.

Here's a complete and simple summary of good practice: <http://batteryuniversity.com/partone-21.htm> (more details on other parts of that website) - for most geek-apparel, the LiIon column will be applicable.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've had my MacBook for 1.5 years now, and my battery life is still a little more than 4 hours. I keep my machine plugged in all the time, and completely run it down once a month. On the other hand, my friends who have the same MacBook have terrible battery lives. They use the laptop on batteries all the time.

I'm inclined to believe this guy has no idea what he's talking about.

</comment><comment><USER19> simpler solution than constant plugging and replugging for me was to remove the battery if I'm not going to be moving the laptop for an extended period.

<comment><USER20> It's nice having that battery as a UPS though, in the event of an outage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I always knew you shouldn't leave your laptop plugged in all the time, but I never really knew why, and my subtle misunderstanding was actually harmful. I thought the issue was just that sometimes you needed to let the battery drain and recharge it from a drained state. That's not very helpful though if the rest of the time you're running at full voltage. Thank you for the submission. Great article.

</comment><comment><USER22> Over the past four weeks my Macbook Pro battery's performance declined precipitously, and I think this is the cause. I tended to leave it plugged in whenever I was at my desk, which is most of the time. Got to the point where the MBP wouldn't last more than 5 minutes unplugged. Just received a new battery and all is well. Think I'll be giving this technique a shot.

</comment><comment><USER23> Seems like it would be easy for laptop makers to design something into the laptop to manage how the battery charges/discharges when it's plugged in. That way you could leave it plugged in 99% of the time (as probably many of us do) and not impact the battery negatively.

</comment><comment><USER24> Interesting... sounds like an interesting application for this idea:

[http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/green-ideas/leech-plug- unplug...](http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/green-ideas/leech-plug-unplugs- itself-after-it-completes-a-charge-108847)

</comment><comment><USER25> Newer Sony laptops come with "Battery Care" software that automatically keeps the battery between 50 and 80% at all times. According to Sony engineers, a battery that is always kept at or below 50% will essentially never degrade in capacity.

<comment><USER26> so what's the point of having a big battery then if it never charges to 100%?

<comment><USER25> Well, it's still more battery life than a small battery that never charges to 100%, right? I think regardless of the battery size, you can make the decision to preserve the long-term life of your battery or have the extra capacity in the short-term.

Plus, charging from 20 to 80% is much faster than charging from 20 to 100% (I estimate that about half of the time is spent just going from 80 to 100).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I killed 2 macbook pro batteries in 2 years by not following this advice. Now I make sure to unplug and carrying around the laptop whenever I can. Eliminating all wired peripherals was a key step to actually doing this in practise.

<comment><USER28> I thought the MBP battery switched off charging when it was full, so that it charges up the battery and then disconnects it if you are plugged in. When the battery has self-discharged some amount, it tops it up again. But maybe I misunderstood.

The flipside, though, is that Li-ion batteries also age from discharge cycles. So I really don't think it's better to run the battery down, charge it up, and repeat. The number of charge cycles is limited, so I bet that will kill it faster. If you really want to save the battery, you can take it out and put it in the fridge when you are plugged in.

<comment><USER29> > If you really want to save the battery, you can take it out and put it in > the fridge when you are plugged in.

Unfortunately MacBook Pro batteries are not removable anymore. That really grinds my gears.

<comment><USER30> Well, technically you can and it doesn't look too hard: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42qcvlftmcM>

But it seems apple is not officially selling those batteries, which makes _my_ gears grind. I don't want to walk to an apple store or send my laptop away just to have the batter swapped.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is hot desking dead in a post-COVID19 work world? - <AUTHOR> https://www.itnews.com.au/news/commonwealth-bank-cto-snapped-up-by-google-548236 <comment><USER2> I may be missing something... Surely post-COVID19 work will see an _increase_ in hot-desking. Remote work is going to be on the up, but not everyone will relish working every day from home. So you're going to get large numbers of workers coming to work 2 or 3 days a week. There is _no way_ that companies are going to pay for seats that are empty most of the time. So hot-desking is practically necessary.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hotdesking with barriers and partions and more cleaning. Probably as it should of been in the first place.

From what I am seeing is plenty do want to go in to the workplace and realise if others do work from home they can use it to their own advantage.

There is a good chance that eventually the risk of Covid for most people will somehow be much more remote.

Do we really think people will not try to use in person social contact as an advantage?</comment>


Deverstating: 6.3M EarthQuake Struck NZ and 53 in the last 24 hours - <AUTHOR> http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/

<comment><USER2> that is pretty amazing :(

<comment><AUTHOR> and very sad ...

Cathedral in Christchurch destroyed

Before: [http://cmdt.co/w/christchurch- earthquake-2011/stickies/d12d5...](http://cmdt.co/w/christchurch- earthquake-2011/stickies/d12d5f5c3e8711e0ac85/what-the-cathedral-used-to-look- like)

After: [http://cmdt.co/w/christchurch- earthquake-2011/stickies/e322a...](http://cmdt.co/w/christchurch- earthquake-2011/stickies/e322a1873e8711e0838d/cathedral-in-christchurch- destroyed)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://cmdt.co/w/christchurch-earthquake-2011></comment>


I Worked at Fyre Festival. It Was Always Going to Be a Disaster - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/04/fyre-festival-exumas-bahamas-disaster.html <comment><USER2> Accountability. Literally the only name I've found to blame is "Ja Rule." Surely there's more/better people to be shamed. I found one other: "Ja Rule's partner, co-organiser Billy McFarland" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_McFarland_(entrepreneur)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_McFarland_\(entrepreneur\))

Also, if you've heard of "island time" there's a reason it's extremely hard to build anything on small islands on time or budget. Everything there works less well except the sun and the waves.</comment>


Hacker Says - API for retrieving quotes for external needs. - <AUTHOR> http://hackersays.com/quote

<comment><USER2> Appears to be down for me (comcast/San Jose, CA).

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you see? 403 Forbidden?

<comment><USER2> I can't resolve the name; However, I can access the google cache, so Google clearly has been able to see it.

<comment><AUTHOR> What does nslookup show you? This is output for me: Non-authoritative answer: Name: proxy.heroku.com Addresses: 188.8.131.52 18.104.22.168 22.214.171.124 184.108.40.206 Aliases: hackersays.com hackersays.heroku.com

Can you access hackersays.heroku.com?

<comment><USER2> nslookup:

        $ nslookup hackersays.com
        ;; Got SERVFAIL reply from 184.108.40.206, trying next server
        Server:		220.127.116.11
        Address:	188.8.131.52#53

        ** server can't find hackersays.com: NXDOMAIN

hackersays.heroku.com nslookup:

        $ nslookup hackersays.heroku.com
        Server:		126.96.36.199
        Address:	22.214.171.124#53

        Non-authoritative answer:
        hackersays.heroku.com	canonical name = proxy.heroku.com.
        Name:	proxy.heroku.com
        Address: 126.96.36.199
        Name:	proxy.heroku.com
        Address: 220.127.116.11
        Name:	proxy.heroku.com
        Address: 188.8.131.52
        Name:	proxy.heroku.com
        Address: 126.96.36.199

EDIT: SSHing to my east-coast server resolves it fine; maybe DNS record changes are still propagating?

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't be since we haven't done any DNS changes for a few weeks now.

<comment><USER2> Well, it's up now. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin as part of over the counter derivatives reform measures - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorkfed.org/financial-services-and-infrastructure/financial-market-infrastructure-and-reform/over-the-counter-derivatives <comment><AUTHOR> Seems like the primary problem precipitating the 2008 financial crisis was counterparty risk in the otc derivatives market. Bitcoin is a sort of an over the counter forex market that allows better risk management between counterparties.

People think wealth is owned by banks. But wealth is owned by people. Banks are just one part of the wealth management infrastructure. OTC derivatives are another part of it, and are not going away. They just need better decentralized tools for risk management like bitcoin.</comment>


Ask HN: Recommend Open Source Software/SAAS for an online t-shirt store. - <AUTHOR>

I want to set up an online t-shirt store. Basically, I want to sell t-shirts online to a niche segment(fixed designs) in only India(but may expand world wide if it works). I would need a shopping cart + online payment + order status inquiry system. I want the site to be simple and minimalist.
Should I develop a custom web application or this can be done through some open source software/SAAS?
Recommend which open source applications I can use for this purpose. <comment><USER2> Have you looked at: <http://www.shopify.com/></comment>


Show HN: Site in beta, feedback appreciated - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
I would really appreciate it if you could take a look at my new site that I have put into private beta this weekend. In summary it is  a site for photographers, graphic designers and web designers to get private feedback on their work.
There are plenty of sites out there were we can post our work and get it seen but sometimes you need to be able to get some feedback before having it on a public display. This is part 1 of the longer term plan. The beta has the basics to enable users to review each others work, the number of images are limited at the minute but I will be extending that over the next couple of weeks. Part 2 brings the ability to buy reviews from experts in each of the fields, I am currently building those relationships up. I have been tweaking for the last few weeks and finally had to stop and let people use it.
A bit of background
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
My medium term hobby (3 years) has been Photography and I have managed to get to a level where I pulled a portfolio together and found getting feedback on what worked well together quite difficult. I had limited success with individual images on sites like Flickr/500px etc but really needed someone to see my work as a whole and let me know what needed to go, what areas to focus on and what didn't work. I went along to a couple of in person portfolio reviews and found them really useful but when you are producing work at any frequency it is hard to get along to the reviews with a day job and when you factor in travel and time they become really expensive.
So about a year ago I had the idea to build this site and for about 6 months worked through how it would work with the intention of paying a developer to build it for me. I had lots of good conversations with both local and remote developers but had a nagging feeling that I wanted to have a go at it myself. My only other experience coding was about 10 years ago when I butchered a basic recruitment site together in Dreamweaver. In between I have worked in various IT roles mostly described as a Suit but not laid down any code in this time so this has been a great learning experience. I built it with PHP/MySQL and bought some design skills in through Theme Forest templates.
Here is the link https://www.reviewport.net/rp/register.php and use access code 8000RP
Thanks </comment><comment><USER2> 1\. Congratulations for getting it launched. I think the idea is nice but there are many similar sites. e.g. deviantart.com. I hope you have some usp and a plan to compete if this is going to be a startup.

2\. Design is nice lookwise, but need some changes from usability perspective. e.g., better icons can be used for categories, filter button is too small. etc.

3\. In preview portfolio page, I would prefer to see the actual design first and then description. It would be better if it appears side by side for a quick look.

4\. In Start Reviewing list, a small thumbnail of design can make things more interesting. (See threadless.com critique section for details. You can learn a lot from threadless model)

5\. Why separate review screen? Can't it be done in intial project page? Try reducing number of clicks wherever possible.

6\. Instead of drop down try star ratings. It's quick, easy and well accepted. Put rating widget and buttons in one row. Make comment textarea small. Don't make user scroll if not necessary.

7\. My flash plugin is either outdated or corrupt. I'm unable to upload images on site. Basic HTML version of file upload?

Overall, nice try. Keep improving and be prepared for competitions. All the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback.

1\. I hope so to, looking for a smaller more focused market than deviantart/dribbble/flickr etc, people who need to put a whole portfolio together rather than individual images and get it reviewed by experts

2\. Yep agree, still needs some love to get it looking okay

3\. Thats a neat idea, the work is more important than the text as you say

4\. Yeah good shout on threadless, like their rating style as well

5\. It's to give people a chance to see the work in case they don't want to review it, might have to rethink how this is presented though

6\. I have this in progress now, the dropdown is plain ugly

7\. Yep good spot, added to the list

Thanks again for taking a look

<comment><USER2> Also look at this :

[http://forrst.com/posts/Matthew_Freeman_Web_Design_Portfolio...](http://forrst.com/posts/Matthew_Freeman_Web_Design_Portfolio- waS)

5\. Let them browse the project images at top and review it at bottom that is optional.

Row1- Thumbnails

Row2- Large image preview on image selection. First image loads as default.

Row3- Review Form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> While trying to browse through things I can review, if I select a filter such as "Photography" and hit the filter button when I view a portfolio I'm unable to use the back button to go back to the listings because it was a POST.

Have you considered making the filter search work using AJAX, which would solve this problem and also make it a nicer user experience?

Edit: I made a portfolio and added a single photo to it, but now when I try to add another photo it says "You've reached your limit" even though it says I can add up to 4 more photos.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, AJAX is definitely on my todo list, lots of places it could enhance the UX. Just need to work out exactly how :)

Fixed your add image error just now. Thanks for having a go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I discovered that your site refused to register me when I included characters like '*' and '#' in my password. I think that makes it difficult for users to enter more secure passwords. You might want to look into that also

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will add that to the list

<comment><USER5> Is there any reason to have a whitelist of characters that can be the part of the password string?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> having only 1 meg for photos is quite limiting, as it means resizing my images for your site. Looks like it's fuzzy at around 1.5meg though.

My portfolio title was given an escaping \ when I used an apostrophe in it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the catch will get that fixed.

If you could let me know the rough size of your images in meg that would be a good data point for me? I could happily consider increasing the size if there is a demand for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> clickable: <https://www.reviewport.net>

other: <https://www.reviewport.net/rp/register.php></comment>


Once We Listened to the Beatles. Now We Eat Beetles. - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-28/once-we-listened-to-the-beatles-now-we-eat-beetles <comment><USER2> This might, just possibly, be the worst headline of all time.</comment>