'Super Angels' Alight - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703321004575427840232755162.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTWhatsNews

<comment><USER2> As someone working in a "super angel" / "micro VC" firm, I can attest to this shift. Happy to answer any questions HN has.

<comment><USER3> VC's have been hindered by a lack of IPO exits. I guess "super angels" are benefiting from the increased M&A activity.

I guess the question is if IPOs will rebound and "super angels" will then fade into the background again as startups go for the home run again.

<comment><USER2> I think the fundamental shift that has occurred and carved out this space for Super Angels is that the cost of starting a company has come way down. It no longer takes $1mm to get a startup off the ground (2 guys and a pallet of ramen seems to be standard now). This increased capital efficiency has allowed startups to raise less money to reach the same inflection points that they historically have. As a result, a seed round of $500k can take a company to the point that normally, a $2mm Series A would have required.

Not needing millions of dollars in capital means that startups don't have to knock on the doors of VC firms with large funds. Instead, they can approach a Super Angel to lead a $500k round with $300k with $200k left for 4 to 6 value added investors.

I doubt that even if IPOs rebound, Super Angels will fade away. I think it's more of a tectonic shift and Series A's are de facto turning into earlier, smaller seed rounds.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps the lowering of barriers for a web type startup also makes large IPO exits harder? Since any hacker can copy it in China, Russia, Brazil and Israel.

Your perspective is that Super Angels are basically taking the place of VCs for certain scale of funding, which was previously not very popular (100k-1m range).

<comment><USER2> I don't think that IPO exits are necessarily harder because barriers of entry are coming down. I think two things:

1\. It's a hard economy in general, which is suppressing IPOs overall.

2\. The IPOs that the tech community are "used" to were during artificially high periods, setting the watermark at levels that realistically, not many companies can touch.

Addressing your point about copycatting, I think that there will always be competition abroad and it will be successful, but not nearly as successful as the original idea. There are countless Groupon clones out there, but only 1 has earned a $1.2b valuation. Further, I think that an integral part of the nebulous equation that makes a successful startup is the founder/team. Getting the right people behind the right idea is absolutely crucial, and if you don't have the right people, it will almost always fail.

I think that Super Angels are offering startups a metaphorical stepping stone where previously, financing was tough. As the niche grows, however, I think that the stepping stone will start looking more like its own plateau.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a great article. The shift to super angel is primarily a model that favors entrepreneurs structurally. I would expect the trend to continue until the entrepreneur/angel group is hard to differentiate. Talented people will jump back and forth and fund each other's companies so that it appears your startup is funded by a ton of other startup CEOs.

</comment><comment><USER5> Aydin and Dave are a real pleasure to work with. I've co-invested with both of them, as well as their funds.</comment>


Is Bitcoin the Future of Money? - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenation.com/article/179620/bitcoin-future-money?page=full

<comment><USER2> Betteridge's law of headlines would seem to apply.

<comment><USER3> You should read my new article, "Is Betteridge's law true?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's the current of having-your-money-stolen, so there's that.</comment>


ASK PG: Have you ever funded companies that compete with each other? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious if you have ever funded companies that knowingly competed with previous seeded companies. <comment><USER2> Yes. They funded every major email crm plugin (etacts, rapportive, and xobni)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, they have (in the email delivery space if memory serves).</comment>


Blockchains don't scale. Not today, at least. But there's hope - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/blockchains-dont-scale-not-today-at-least-but-there-s-hope-2cb43946551a <comment><USER2> The problem with blockchain is that the number of transactions are too less than the needs of current "scale" world. For example, when you consider a scaling database, probably you need to process millions of rows per second.</comment>


A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/boeing-787-code-leak-security-flaws/ <comment><USER3> > But Boeing counters that it has both "additional protection mechanisms" in > the CIS/MS that would prevent its bugs from being exploited from the ODN, > and another hardware device between the semi-sensitive IDN—where the CIS/MS > is located—and the highly sensitive CDN. That second barrier, the company > argues, allows only data to pass from one part of the network to the other, > rather than the executable commands that would be necessary to affect the > plane's critical systems.

Well geez, it's a good thing that there's no class of bugs in which a certain amount of data, maybe more than the receiver was expecting, or terminated in an odd way, overwhelms the receiver in such a way as to cause the data to then be interpreted as commands which are run in place of the receiver's code...

<comment><USER4> Every exploit payload is comprised entirely of data, so I think you're even giving them too much credit there...

The thing that triggered me the most was that they got the engineers who wrote the code to test it, and report back that their own code was fine. From the sound of it they didn't even test the vulnerability, they just did an external test, without specifically testing the segmentation controls or the components in question.

<comment> mark-r They probably rely on network segmentation to keep the various components separated. If they consider the segmentation to be 100% effective, there'd be no need to do the kind of in-depth testing you advocate. I don't think it's justifiable to assume that segmentation doesn't have its own bugs that could be exploited.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that seems to be what their attitude is. I have a couple of major issues with that though.

1\. Relying on segmentation to protect vulnerable components is not a reasonable standard operating procedure. Segmentation is supposed to be an additional layer of protection, you're also supposed to secure individual components.

2\. It seems as though the researcher believed there may have been a way to bypass some of the segmentation (the segmentation between the medium-sensitive network and the highly-sensitive network). The article kinda implies that they didn't test that layer of segmentation, that they only tested the most external layer (the segmentation between the non-sensitive network and the medium-sensitive network).

The whole response comes across as dismissive spin, that they hope will be consumed by people who don't have a particularly sophisticated understanding of network/application security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My $0.02: I came across Boeing's documentation for their "Boeing Update" solution. (think Windows Update, but for 787s).

It described in detail how the planes are updated with new firmware for the avionics, entertainment system, and the engines. I was shocked to learn that the 787 uses a lot of COTS kit internally, such as standard WiFi and Ethernet connections. There's an RJ-45 jack at the front landing gear accessible from the outside of the plane at any time!

It was by far the best technical document I have ever read, of any type, ever by at least a factor of ten. It was so good I read it like a novel. Twice. The security design was amazing. The PKI was amazing. The patch management was amazing. The network design was amazing. The documentation was amazing. My estimate was the the document _alone_ would have cost multiple millions of dollars to write, not including any of the engineering work that went into the solution itself.

Boeing's engineers thought of _everything_. EVERYTHING. This scenario was catered for:

      - The plane is rented, not owned.
      - The IT department is outsourced.
      - Aircraft maintenance is outsourced.
      - The plane is currently on the ground in a country that is hostile.
      - A critical update has been released, without which the plane is unsafe to fly.

This is one of the scenarios that is literally spelled out, in plain English, and you're left completely certain that the update will be safe and secure despite all of that.

The security is just nuts. Everything uses explicit, hardcoded whitelists. TLS is bidirectional (clients are verified by the servers too). Patches must be _quadruple_ signed by Boing, the parts manufacturer, the FAA, and the airline at a _minimum_ to be acceptable. There are physical connection breakers and PIN codes on top of that. There are two _nested_ VPNs on top of the already encrypted WiFi. It just goes on and on.

No part of it left me thinking they could have done better. I've used that document as a template for my own work, and it's the better for it.

Since then, I've insisted on flying 787s whenever possible, because I'm certain that the engineering effort that has gone into those things is about as good as humanly possible.

<comment><USER6> Reading that just makes me think about how "wild west" self-driving cars seem to be, and most people seem to think that's acceptable.

We have Teslas that don't have anywhere near this kind of security or redundancy "autopiloting" themselves right now on highways.

People seem to be ok with that because it's a car and not a plane. But the way I see it, there's thousands of those cars on the roads, and a software bug across the fleet could cause just as much damage as a plane crash.

<comment><USER7> >We have Teslas that don't have anywhere near this kind of security or redundancy "autopiloting" themselves right now on highways.

Not just Teslas, modern vehicles in general. I would say that in terms of security Tesla is probably doing a more bang-up job than the other automakers; it was only a few years ago that Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek remotely killed a Grand Cherokee on the highway.

<comment><USER8> As an automotive security engineer, I have to interject. Miller and Valasek hacked into a car that was very far removed from what we consider modern automotive electronics. Any truly modern car will have decoupled networks with firewalls in-between. It will have intrusion detection systems, secure boot, signed code, encrypted memory, will communicate critical information via TLS etc.

The Jeep hack (as well as their Toyota and Ford hacks) was exptremely important, because it put public pressure on the less technologically capable OEMs to get with the times and implement a (somewhat) secure electronics architecture. As someone who shares the road with those shitty cars I'm thankful for that. But even at the time of the hack, there were many OEMs whose cars were not anywhere close to that vulnerable and the industry hasn't stood still since then.

And since you mention Tesla, I also have to point out that they are one of the worst at security. E.g. they have an RJ45 port behind the dash that you can just plug into. It used to be that this gave you complete access to everything, but people abused it. So Tesla made it a little bit harder, though not impossible, to get into their system. Tesla also has a lot of bugs in their smartphone integration that allow "fun" exploits like remote unlocking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel like this is the kind of thing that would've been completely ignored by everybody except for a handful of concerned hackers had it not been for the recent media outrage against Boeing (and in my opinion absolutely deserved).

I guess the question is how bad is it (from the article it's hard to tell exactly, but it sure doesn't sound great)? And another question is how many of our systems that we rely on, from bridges to airplanes to traffic lights, are just actually very insecure but either nobody notices or nobody exploits them?

That said, Boeing's abysmal PR and completely blanket "it's not our fault" statements make me assume the worst here. I have no idea how that company will ever earn back my trust. But maybe they have enough regulatory capture, much like Equifax, that they just don't care.

<comment><USER10> I can tell you traffic lights are extremely insecure. Last month there was a traffic light that was turned the wrong way, such that it was impossible to tell if the light was green. So I climbed the poll and turned it to the right direction. Another fellow pedastrian thanked me.

A bad actor could do anything from a DOS (positioning it the wrong direction) to tampering with the bulbs (for example swapping out all the greens with reds).

The reason most society doesn't collapse is because we assume most people are good actors. Unfortunately once your device is hooked up to the internet you vastly increase the odds of dealing with bad actors and have to spend more time and money securing against bad actors.

<comment><USER11> > I can tell you traffic lights are extremely insecure.

All municipal infrastructure tends to be. It's usually implemented to a cost and security considerations are completely absent.

You can bet that in any given city, all those street light control cabinets are keyed alike and the city has no true idea who has keys and who doesn't.

This exact problem applies to so many domains it's literally for lack of effort that they haven't been exploited yet.

<comment><USER12> In India I found that in Bangalore (a city with far better infrastructure than most other), for a lot of intersections the traffic lights are toggle switches that some cop flicks on and off every so often. There is no lock on the switch cabinet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems insane that all this code isn't just open source by default. No one's going to be able to rip off airlines by stealing it, you still need to have a company that, you know, sells planes.

Keeping it closed seems like a full admission that "there are probably a bunch of bugs in here and we don't want people to see them"

<comment><USER14> Because by keeping it closed, it is safer. /s

Most executives care about profits, security is simply not important. Even if an engineer explains that he needs more time to properly secure something, he will be asked to cut corners. Then, when shit hits the fan the executive will make a "pikachu face" and engineer will get fired for not properly implementing security.

<comment><USER15> Having met a fair number of top executives I don't feel this is true. People at the top do care quite a bit, and put personal pride into their company being good. But all low level decisions are made downstream, and middle managers are far less personally invested. Reactions to bad press are reactions. Hard to say whether it reflects anyone's reality.

<comment><USER16> Leadership starts at the top. If middle management is making bad decisions, the fault rests with their superiors.

<comment><USER15> Hmm sounds reasonable but I think not. Management is hard and information is imperfect to all actors. With a god like view you would probably conclude that there's a variety of people who should be removed from an org for its health and performance. The top may be accountable for things, but I wouldn't think it's correct to blame them personally

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Who thought that having _any_ communication path from the passenger entertainment system to flight control was a good idea?

<comment><USER18> Connecting entertainment systems to _flight control_ sounds very wrong. Connecting entertainment systems to _flight management_ would be common; it should be one-way communication (entertainment can only read FMS data, not send any), for the purpose of driving the moving map displays for passengers.

<comment><USER19> > it should be one-way communication (entertainment can only read FMS data, > not send any), for the purpose of driving the moving map displays for > passengers.

Would you agree that this logical boundary should be physically enforced? Such as an opto-isolator?

<comment><USER20> > Boeing maintains that other security barriers in the 787's network > architecture would make that progression impossible.

They probably do something to that effect

<comment><USER19> The longer I'm alive the more firmly I commit to never assume anything.

I have seen things. Terrible things.

<comment><USER21> Connectivity between zones is something FAA actually caught in 787 when it was still being built and forced a redesign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> From the article: "He was surprised to discover a fully unprotected server on Boeing's network, seemingly full of code designed to run on the company's giant 737 and 787 passenger jets, left publicly accessible and open to anyone who found it. So he downloaded everything he could see."

Is that even legal? Will he ever be allowed to cross the US border after admitting this?

<comment><USER23> >Is that even legal?

Generally no. There is a difference between being unprotected and being open to the public. While in some cases a person can claim to not have known and proving mens rea for such a crime is much harder than if it was protected and the protection had to be bypassed, it isn't impossible.

Such laws are selectively enforced, but being this is Boeing, you can expect it will be enforced on their behalf if they have any desire for it to be (given the current PR issues and the impact this might have, they might let this one go, at least for the time being).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> ...an FAA spokesperson wrote in a statement to WIRED that it's "satisfied with the manufacturer's assessment of the issue."

Can't help but read this as: "We don't have a clue and depend on the manufacturer to tell us everything is 5 by 5."

<comment><USER25> The FAA was satisfied with Boeing's design for the 737MAX. Sorry, but I now have zero trust in the FAA.

<comment><USER26> Given in the US that corporations are allowed to contribute to political campaigns, and that one party has a very strong sense of "regulation is bad", there is intense pressure to deregulate as much as possible. And with the current administration and its choice to not staff many positions while cutting budgets (and while enacting executive orders to eliminate some regulations), the FAA is really unable to do anything.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2019/03/18/did- tru...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2019/03/18/did-trump- executive-orders-further-weaken-faa-oversight/)

<comment><USER25> That's not true, because they just did something: they said they were satisfied with Boeing here. They could have been honest and said "we're not competent to properly evaluate Boeing's design decisions".

<comment><USER26> But the mandate is that because of budget cuts, the FAA must depend on the manufacturers themselves to be the SMEs. Thus, they are asking Boeing to judge Boeing's own systems.

If B says, "It's all good", and B is the SME, then FAA must agree and pass.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If I owned a 787, would I be likely to have the rights to lend it to security researchers to test the exploits, or would it be prohibited through a contract that Boeing requires customers to agree to?

Is there a reason that an individual would own a 787 for personal use— eg - <USER2> it a plane that people change the interior layout for use as a private jet, or are these planes all tied up in commercial use?

If I owned one, I would lend it to the researcher as I would want to know the flaws and risks more clearly.

<comment><USER28> Drake owns a 767 [1], and the founders of Google own one [2]. A couple members of the Saudi Arabian royal family are reported to own 777s [3]. It's not inconceivable that an individual could own a 787, though I can't find any reference to one yet.

I think, though, that the sort of person who owns one doesn't tend to want to tinker with it. You just hire someone to fly it, and know that it's always available. The difference between owning and renting, at that level, is mostly financials. Besides, even if you own the aircraft, it's likely you don't own the engines [4], and they're kind of an important component of the overall system.

Likewise, I don't know anyone who owns a car who has loaned it to a researcher to analyze it for design flaws. A couple people have done it [5], but for the vast majority of owners, you just use it normally, and if something breaks, you deal with the problem then. Airplanes are loaded with redundancies for critical systems so a lot of things have to go wrong for it to crash.

[1]: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-air-drake-rapper- unveils...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-air-drake-rapper-unveils-new- massive-767-plane-which-could-cost-more-than-187-million/) [2]: [https://searchengineland.com/your-guide-to-the-google- jet-12...](https://searchengineland.com/your-guide-to-the-google-jet-12161) [3]: [https://www.private-jet-fan.com/private-jet-owners- register....](https://www.private-jet-fan.com/private-jet-owners- register.html) [4]: [https://www.quora.com/Do-some-airlines-not-own-the- engines-o...](https://www.quora.com/Do-some-airlines-not-own-the-engines-on- their-aircraft) [5]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2015/07/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2015/07/22/car-hacking-just-got-real-hackers-disable-suv-on-busy- highway/)

<comment><USER29> >Likewise, I don't know anyone who owns a car who has loaned it to a researcher to analyze it for design flaws

Oh, tons of people! There's a whole industry around hacking cars, most of those people aren't the kind of researchers that do con talks though.

<comment><USER30> To be precise, in the culture itself it's usually called "modding" or "tuning"; but the newer parts of it, especially around modifying ECUs, does involve work closer to traditional computer hacking.

(I'm an automotive enthusiast myself, although I'm more into the "old school" non-computer-controlled stuff. Mostly because it's simpler and inherently resistant to remote hackers.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm slightly astonished that the 3 networks mentioned aren't airgapped. I suppose the entertainment system needs to know where the plane is in order to display the flight map, but that should be provided by a dumb serial link with the RX wire cut.

<comment><USER32> Receive only to my box on the 787. (Not the IFE, but rather a data gathering LRU for maint. and owners)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is nobody going mention the irony that the source code was discovered because of a misconfiguration and Boeing is claiming that these vulnerabilities aren't important because of their secure configuration?

</comment><comment><USER34> The level of not giving a shit from Boeing and the FAA is astonishing.

<comment><USER35> But... it's a researcher making claims and assumptions but no working code... just because the target is Boeing doesn't mean the researcher might not be full of shit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I would assume in-flight entertainment is Level E and wasn't ever subjected to verification. And yeah that requires physical separation from higher-level systems. So... surprisingly I think I'm on Boeing's side here?

<comment><USER18> The subsystem that connects in-flight entertainment to anything on the flight deck (assuming an intended one-way, read-only connection) would probably be Level D. I would guess that that subsystem is in error here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Nice to read an article that's covered in 20 billion ads, great experience.

<comment><USER38> uBlock Origin blocks 35 (26% of) requests on that page

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > To be clear, neither Savage nor Koscher believe that, based on Santamarta's > findings alone, a hacker could cause any immediate danger to an aircraft or > its passengers. "This is a long way from an imminent safety threat. Based on > what they have now, I think you could let the IOActive guys run amok on a > 787 and I'd still be comfortable flying on it," Savage says. "But Boeing has > work to do."

</comment><comment><USER40> Don't people here think that if boeing ever get over the current set of investigation without collapsing they're going to create the safest plane ever designed ? With the amount of scrutiny they're encountering at the moment i have the feeling every single dark corner is going to be under the spotlight..

Or is the reason too deep, the whole corporate structure too rotten at the core, that there's no hope ?

<comment><USER6> The larger problem that the FAA doesn't have the capability to actually check Boeing's safety claims, so are forced to take their word for it.

Funding hasn't dramatically changed for the FAA, so won't it just be more of the same? "We've fixed the AOA sensor problems (again). Trust us, our engineers have deemed it safe!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Honestly, if the airline industry partakes in agile development I will not be flying anymore.

<comment><USER42> Too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Legacy code...

[https://www.tripwire.com/state-of- security/featured/boeing-7...](https://www.tripwire.com/state-of- security/featured/boeing-757-hacked/)

</comment><comment><USER44> So people hack planes now. Well this is just great.

</comment><comment><USER45> The article says the 787 runs VxWorks which has just had a number of vulnerabilities identified in the tcp/ip stack.

</comment><comment><USER46> I wondered how much part some kind of hack played into downing these planes.

</comment><comment><USER47> Boeing: "We investigated ourselves and determined there is no issue"

</comment><comment><USER48> I would be interested to know how today's internet-connected cars are prevented from remote exploitation. I wish they at least separated steering wheel servo controls from infotainment and remote access but I have no way to verify it...

</comment><comment><USER49> Almost seems like this source should be open.

</comment><comment><USER50> Would planes be more or less safe if all the code was required to be put in the public domain? I would think more.

<comment><USER51> I think the obvious answer is "less safe at first, safer in the long term". Only that a plane is not something you want to ever be less safe, so it's a risk that might not be worth taking</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm stuck on the Microsoft stack – help? - <AUTHOR> I recently moved to a new position where we're using the Microsoft stack - specifically .NET 4.5, SQL Server (w/ SSIS, SSRS), C#, and Entity Framework. I come from the open source world and am having a hard time finding valuable learning resources.
My company has a training budget and I've gone to  a few classes, but I feel like there has to be more I can do in-between on my down time.
Where did you go (or what did you read) to learn the Microsoft stack? <comment><USER3> I've moved stacks a few times. Here's what works for me.

Learning a new stack, is like baking bread. You can't just throw all your ingredients in at once. You have to start with a base, and then slowly fold in more as you're kneading the dough.

In software concentrate on the core language first. When I moved from .NET to Ruby, learning the language was pretty straight forward. Almost everything I knew in .NET is there in Ruby, just under a new name. I spent a few weeks getting really comfortable there. Then I started learning rails, then i started learning active record etc. Just fold in one framework at a time. After a while you'll have a good skeleton, and then you can start using your previous experience to ask more pointed questions.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you like video-based training and your company's paying, Pluralsight has a _ton_ of Microsoft-stack content, much of it with downloadable code you use to follow along with the author.

If you prefer books, anything published by Microsoft Press is usually very good.

StackOverflow is very .NET friendly for questions.

One of the things that Visual Studio and many platform components (like IIS) have going for them is discoverability via UI - spend some time opening menus, right-clicking things and poking around to see what you can do.

Linqpad is great for discovering C# and trying little things out quickly; I highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would start off by getting more familiar with Visual Studio - [https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/get-started/overview- of-g...](https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/get-started/overview-of-get- started-tasks-vs.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER6> Google "free microsoft ebooks" (no quotes) and you will see a bunch of links for official Microsoft sites - not pirated ones. Several years ago Microsoft started giving them away free to, I assume, encourage platform adoption.

Dig around and I'm sure you'll find a few that are useful.

<comment><USER7> This is one of those, I believe -- Eric Ligman is Microsoft Senior Sales Excellence Manager (whatever that is) and he apparently posts large lists of free Microsoft-stack-related eBooks on his blog at MSDN, such as this list from a few weeks ago (which I think was mentioned on HN back then):

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mssmallbiz/archive/2015/07/07/i-m- gi...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mssmallbiz/archive/2015/07/07/i-m-giving-away- millions-of-free-microsoft-ebooks-again-including- windows-10-windows-8-1-windows-8-windows-7-office-2013-office-365-sharepoint-2013-dynamics- crm-powershell-exchange-server-lync-2013-system-center-azure-clo.aspx)

As far as your needs are concerned, while there are no ebooks about programming languages in this list (aside from PowerShell), there's a bunch about SQL Server in the second half of the list and perhaps other things of interest as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I assume you're using MVC, so I have found the tutorials here extremely helpful:

[http://www.asp.net/mvc](http://www.asp.net/mvc)

The tutorials will include a general intro to the Entity Framework.

Of course MSDN is the ultimate reference. So get comfortable referring to it. Just google the names of some of the classes you are using, for example "ActionResult MSDN."

I would also suggest keeping an open attitude (I'm referring to your use of the word "stuck"). I don't have a lot of experience developing outside of the MS framework, but I find reflexive distaste for MS to often be a case of "strong opinions, weakly held."

</comment><comment><USER9> One of the features of the Microsoft stack is a robust market for traditional books targeted at diverse technical backgrounds. Amazon or a physical store is where I would start. Congratulations on the new job.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER10> There's a lot of useful information about Microsoft technologies - API docs, sample code, etc. - <USER2> [https://msdn.microsoft.com](https://msdn.microsoft.com).

</comment><comment><USER11> Coding is not a spectator sport. Just write code. C# is powered by an amazing CLR. .NET Framework has very comprehensive and highly optimised libraries. For most of the simple tasks you don't need any external libraries.

You don't have to bother fighting dependencies hell.

MSDN is an almost exhaustive documentation, proper documentation, for most of all available methods and objects inside .NET Framework in all available languages.

Visual Studio is years ahead most of the IDE in terms of productivity tools, speed, integrations with other tools, plugins and debugging.

Just write some more code.

</comment><comment><USER12> Pluralsight. $30/month and has tons of videos on all of those topics.

</comment><comment><USER13> That seems fine. C# is a _great_ language and the Microsoft stack is becoming more and more open all the time. (E.g., products being open sourced, but also other products being released to multiple platforms like their new editor Code)

</comment><comment><USER14> What specific tool are you having issues with?

<comment><AUTHOR> What are the advantages of the MS stack?

I'm familiar with Apache - Where can I learn more about IIS? What are some good C# learning resources? I have been using Safari Books' videos so far. Where can I learn more about Entity Framework?

<comment><USER15> Channel 9 ([https://channel9.msdn.com/](https://channel9.msdn.com/)) and Microsoft Virtual Academy ([http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/](http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/)) have a ton of content that might be useful. Here are a couple good intro courses for C# and EF:

[https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/en-US/training- cours...](https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/en-US/training- courses/c-fundamentals-for-absolute-beginners-8295)

[http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training- courses/deve...](http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training- courses/developer-training-with-programming-in-c)

[https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Seth-Juarez/An- Introduction-...](https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Seth-Juarez/An-Introduction- to-Entity-Framework-with-Rowan-Miller)

<comment><USER16> If the OP is also going to be using ASP.NET MVC, two additional recommended courses on Microsoft Virtual Academy are:

Introduction to ASP.NET MVC [https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/en- US/training-cours...](https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/en-US/training- courses/introduction-to-asp-net-mvc-8322)

Implementing Entity Framework with MVC [http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training- courses/impl...](http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training- courses/implementing-entity-framework-with-mvc)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


AndEngine - Free Android 2D OpenGL Game Engine - <AUTHOR> http://www.andengine.org/

<comment><USER2> In case the author gets to read this, the site needs a clearly-labelled "Features" page. I'm not going to waste time watching half a dozen youtube videos or trawling Javadoc'ed source code. Sell it to me, tell me what it can do.

</comment><comment><USER3> @teamonkey thanks for the hint, now that you said it, its pretty obvious I need a dedicated "Features" page =)

@zyb09 LGPGL is a free license! Google it!

@zitterbewegung The Augmented-Reality is not well tested, because in pretty much every Android version, stuff that is needed for the extension was changed.

<comment><USER4> HN has threaded comments; you should be able to reply to each one individually. This has the bonus of showing up in the HN user's "threads" page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought the LGPL required you to allow the user to update the library to a newer version (usually accomplished by making it a dynamically linked shared library). Near as I can tell, Android doesn't yet support user installed shared libraries. Does this mean the engine is only usable from GPL and LGPL Android apps?

<comment><USER6> The LGPL doesn't require in-place modifiability, just that a user could build a working binary from a newer version of the LGPL'd library and your binary, along with appropriate dev tools and assuming no interfaces have changed. For statically linked C code, the LGPL suggests providing a linkable object file (.o) that the user can use to relink against newer versions of the library. I think that's already the case with Java apps by default, though, because a user can just dump new versions of the library's .jars in to your app, overwriting the old version. Even if you've slurped everything up into one big .jar, they can still extract the new .class files into the .jar, overwriting the old ones. Then they sign the app with their own key and install it on their phone.

In practice though most LGPL-software authors don't even seem aware of this clause (I wasn't until recently) and aren't inclined to enforce it. A bunch of LGPL game libraries, like Ogre3d, have explicitly added a "you can statically link with no hassles" exception, to formalize that understanding. Might be a good idea here?

<comment><USER5> I think it'd be a good idea to explicitly state it, but you know, it's up to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The examples look very interesting. This seems to be well developed considering the time they have put into the library and the examples. I haven't seen anything like this for iPhone and its great that it is free. I did encounter one of the examples crashing (augmented reality) and this was on a Motorola Droid

<comment><USER8> ... I haven't seen anything like this for iPhone and its great that it is free.

This is roughly equivalent to Cocos2d for iPhone. Cocos2d is also being ported to Android.

<comment><USER9> Actually the iphone Cocos2D is much further along in development than any of the android engines. Also, if you are referring to this cocos2d port here: <http://code.google.com/p/cocos2d-android/>

it is a buggy and rather useless port due to the liberal use of temporary object allocations which totally chokes the garbage collector on dalvik

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love Rokon as an open source OpenGL ES engine/library for Android

<http://www.rokonandroid.com/>

Plus, I like the license better.

It's unbelievably easy to use and to get started with.

<comment><USER9> The problem with rokon (when i looked at it) is that it runs both the rendering and game logic on one thread, which is not optimal for performance. AndEngine takes this a step further by running it on 2 threads and only locking them into sync during the geometry submission phase of the rendering pipeline. By doing this, you save about 10-12ms per frame to do your game logic while an eglBufferSwap is happening (on my Mytouch3g), which in some cases can cause a big speedup for your game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is exactly what I needed! The canvas is too damn slow, and open GL is too confusing and close to the metal. I have been putting off my game for over 3 months because I knew I would have to write this first, now I don't! Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER12> It's not free it's LGPL.</comment>


Why the ExpressionEngine community is good - <AUTHOR> http://www.bybjorn.com/371/

<comment><USER2> As far as I can tell, you have to register to find the price.

<comment><USER3> EE starts at $99.95.

<http://expressionengine.com/overview/pricing></comment></comment>


100+ of my business ideas - <AUTHOR> Thought it would be good karma to post these.
Check it out: http://ideashower.posterous.com
Help me pick out 1 of these for me to work on, and feel free to pilfer any of them for your own needs as well :)
Oh, and I am always interested in meeting a co-founder here. Am located in Sweden. <comment><USER2> Filter this into a prioritized list that you see cursory potential to solve a problem, ordered by size of the problem (in terms of market size or cost). Take #1, create some assumptions and subject it to a "validation towel off" by speaking to the consumer and the customer (can be one of the same, may be different). Lather, rinse and repeat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's the kind of thing I need to hear!

I think I am more of an inventor at heart than I am an entrepreneur. But willing to learn! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting post. Are you an ideas man or a developer? Incidentally I've been working on the "Spotify for $foo" concept for a while (not music btw) and are in the pre-launch stage.

My view is exactly like you said, the next stage of the internet is wealth redistribution, but you need the right business model to make that work.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am actually a quite competent programmer. And I have execution experience via another project I've done (Interesting Times Magazine).

My main problem is simply picking 1 idea and getting psychological traction. I honestly don't know why I haven't gotten started yet :p

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Regarding the grocery stores... Layout changes from time to time, often in subtle ways such as (locally, this happened several months ago) the chilled juices being swapped with the chilled raw meats. They were back-to-back, in adjacent aisles. However, this would cause people to have to go searching for these relatively highly sought products.

This, in turn, would lead them past special offers and other 'impulse purchase' shelves. It keeps people in the store for longer, which may lead them to spend more money.

I don't believe it's in a grocery stores interests to get people in and out as soon as possible, so don't expect their cooperation ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point.

Maybe it could be a crowdsourced app then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for sharing, reading your ideas has spawned lots of inspiration for the projects I'm working on. I'm still considering which I'd vote for you to implement. Lots to choose from!

<comment><AUTHOR> Do tell me which ones you liked :)

<comment><USER5> The ones that caught my interest were things like exposing the informal job market (always interesting to read about)& Simple File Transfer (no account)

I encounter this need on a daily basis. The issue with using FT sites that already exist (sendfile etc) they tend to have a spammy feel, end up being blocked in a corporate world so offering a professional, overly secure site would possibly tap into the business market.

Perhaps a business solution where they register once for the entire organisation, provide their IP range and anytime your site is accessed from their machines you allow them a secure, simple way to transfer files.

This is how Yell.com allows search access to companies to their online phone directory.

I think the issue with having NO users account details means you cut out a lot of avenues for monetization quickly. By aiming it at businesses you would still gain revenue but the end user would have a seamless, account free experience.

I also think the home market is well covered with Dropbox and the likes where there's no restriction on what you access, sign up for etc.

The other idea that I noticed was the Cleaning DVDs one. While the only phrase I understood was 'cleaning my toilet' it certainly made me smile.

I think there is a small niche product to be made out of that one! Heck, I'd probably even buy one, you could market it as How to hack your housework! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am sort of doing the browser in the cloud idea. Except the value of mine is security, not tab management.

If you really wanted tab management, that seems like an easy job for a simple browser add-on.

<comment><AUTHOR> How are you implementing that?

<comment><USER6> Cilent side: Firefox plugin for graphics and extension for browser integration. Server side: openvz for process isolation, webkit for browsing, openssl for crypto. I started using vnc as the protocol but it is too slow. Now I'm using NX.

<comment><AUTHOR> Way cool!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One major issue I have: thinking that all of my ideas suck balls, and that I need to keep churning out ideas until I find something good. Hence why I'm posting here: you guys can help me see the value in the ideas that I do have.

There are several ideas that are not on this list, simply because someone else came up with them and implemented them (Verbling and LikeALittle come to mind as two startups whose basic ideas I thought of like 1 year ago yet didn't consider good enough).

<comment><USER7> The trick is to evaluate _why_ they suck and use that to improve your ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> most of your ideas seem to center around learning, especially accelerated learning. there's also a meta post on hacking chinese. Why not combine these 2, and go for an idea that helps accelerate foreign language learning? There's this dude that owns the blog alljapaneseallthetime.com. He learned to speak Japanese fluently after 1.5 years with some very smart and saavy techniques. They include things like listening to any Japanese 24/7, even while sleeping...

Some of it is specific only to Japanese, but a lot of it is just incredibly smart. AntiMoon.com is also another good resource. The core message is to concentrate on input and understanding first...

The big businesses in this field: Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, etc... they own this field.. but in reality, they all suck (well Pimsleur is ok, I guess). Their techniques is NOT how you learn languages if you want to be fluent.

And so many startups focus on connecting language learners through Skype or a community. Sexy.. cool.. but NOT how you should learn languages if you want to be fluent.

The way to learn is to be like a baby... just listen, listen, listen. Get used to the flow. Get used to the accent. Get used to the nuances... it's ok if you just do this for a month, 2 months or even 3... No stress to start speaking.. no fear of mistakes.... listen, and your brain will start making those synapses and connections. People say babies learn languages faster than adults.. that's total nonsense. It's because babies are learning 24/7 for 5 straight years before they start speaking a single word. If adults had the time to do that, they'll freaking learn how to speak Japanese or Chinese as well. Babies are NOT special.

How does this translate to a startup idea? No clue... ChinesePod.com does this very well for Chinese, so you basically should start with a single language.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh and you're correct about accelerated learning being my focus. If I got to pick, I would do something like Skillshare but with a new twist. Ideas are welcome!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link for the lazy: <http://ideashower.posterous.com>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's about 2 pages worth of ideas in Swedish, somewhere in the middle. ('Cause I imported this straight from my email conversations with friends).

Just ask me if they sound interesting but you can't figure out the meaning.

</comment><comment><USER9> itmag: FWIW I mostly skipped over the many, many dating related ideas but the one that resonated with me the most was the connect with a mentor idea. I'm not sure how you could make the process more of a value add for both parties that would be better then more traditional methods (find/contact via internet / telephone) but at a minimum aggregating people willing to mentor by topic would be helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting, as that's my preferred idea as well.

I am really really good at finding people in various niches and getting them to do stuff (in my case, getting them to write articles for my magazine for free). So I can probably get a site seeded with content without too much hassle. Or maybe I am totally delusional about my ability :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Btw, you can all subscribe to this. I'm adding new ideas as I think them up.

<comment><USER10> Sounds like a great idea! I have my own collection of ideas and added your site to my collection of links to finished ideas here: [http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/Finished- ideas/Links-...](http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/Finished-ideas/Links- to-finished-ideas/) (Made in Sweden as well :))

Happy idea hunting!

<comment><AUTHOR> Tack!</comment></comment></comment>


Academics steal data from air-gapped systems using PC fan vibrations - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/academics-steal-data-from-air-gapped-systems-using-pc-fan-vibrations/ <comment><USER2> Excerpt:

"In past research, Guri and his team at the Ben-Gurion university's Cyber- Security Research Center have shown that attackers could steal data from secure systems using a plethora of techniques such as:

LED-it-Go - exfiltrate data from air-gapped systems via an

HDD's activity LED

USBee - force a USB connector's data bus give out electromagnetic emissions that can be used to exfiltrate data

AirHopper - use the local GPU card to emit electromagnetic signals to a nearby mobile phone, also used to steal data

Fansmitter - steal data from air-gapped PCs using sounds emanated by a computer's GPU fan

DiskFiltration - use controlled read/write HDD operations to steal data via sound waves

BitWhisper - exfiltrate data from non-networked computers using heat emanations

Unnamed attack - uses flatbed scanners to relay commands to malware infested PCs or to exfiltrate data from compromised systems

xLED - use router or switch LEDs to exfiltrate data

aIR-Jumper - use a security camera's infrared capabilities to steal data from air-gapped networks

HVACKer - use HVAC systems to control malware on air-gapped systems

MAGNETO & ODINI - steal data from Faraday cage-protected systems

MOSQUITO - steal data from PCs using attached speakers and headphones

PowerHammer - steal data from air-gapped systems using power lines

CTRL-ALT-LED - steal data from air-gapped systems using keyboard LEDs

BRIGHTNESS - steal data from air-gapped systems using screen brightness variations

<comment><USER3> > DiskFiltration - use controlled read/write HDD operations to steal data via > sound waves

There is almost nothing I miss about spinning disks, but having an audible indication that something was going wrong was helpful. I refer to inappropriate disk usage (too little or too much) rather than the noises that preceded a disk death.

<comment><USER4> You know how some electric cars create fake engine noise at low speeds to avoid sneaking up on pedestrians?

I wish that was an option with SSDs. A little speaker included with the package that I could toggle on. All it does it make fake HDD sounds. Bonus if those sounds match the underlying logical distance and "shape" of the read/write activity.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if one could make something driven purely by the diskactivity LED that's mildly convincing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They don't "steal" the data from an uncompromised system but establish a backchannel on a compromised one.

<comment><USER7> That's an important distinction. I was wondering how in the world arbitrary data was making it to the fan.

<comment><USER6> Yep. As long as you have control over the system, you can use any physical phenomenon to communicate: blink the LEDs, beep with the speaker, tap it out with robot arm etc. Not very groundbreaking per se.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Guri says that malicious code planted on an air-gapped system can control > the speed at which fans work. By moderating fan speed up and down, the > attacker can control the frequency of the vibrations coming off the fan.

Ah, so it's a malicious program using fan vibrations to communicate data to an attacker via sound where the attacker doesn't have a network connection to the computer the malicious program is running on?

I thought it was going to be something to do with e.g. passively reading passwords/keys via the fan vibrations somehow when the system was running non- malicious code.

</comment><comment><USER9> I "stole" data about when my co-workers were starting npm based on when I heard their laptop fans come on.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here's an article from 2016 about the same team. In this attack, they use the _sound_ of the fans instead of the vibration. The difference is, they would need microphone permissions in infected smartphones, whereas the vibration method can be transmitted with accelerometers (which doesn't require user's permission)

[https://www.wired.com/2016/06/clever-attack-uses-sound- compu...](https://www.wired.com/2016/06/clever-attack-uses-sound-computers- fan-steal-data/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyone know how practical these attacks are in the real world? Are they just an academic exercise or is there a real threat?

One issue that jumps out at me is if the system is air-gapped, how does the malicious software get there in the first place without being detected?

<comment><USER12> I would say they are impractical if you have perfect physical security. Assuming your initial condition is that the air-gapped system is 100% clean to start with, you would need physical access at least one time to kick off the show for all of these crazy schemes.

<comment><USER13> Unless you control each and every provider is difficult to achieve perfect physical security. Most companies just bought the fans from somebody else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Use case for air gapping technics, despite their small bandwidth:

\- very powerful agencies with the aim to get valuable information exists

\- they want and do infect as many systems as possible automatically, by sneaking into them by all means avaiable (OS updates, hardware backdoors, zero days, ..), wih the hope of getting to valuable targets eventually (but zombies have a value, too)

\- any organization with very sensitive data, high value research or other (smaller) intelligence agency knows that, so they try to have their most sensitive data on air gapped networks or single computers.

\- the attackers already drown in information and do not want their virus to be exposed so easy, so air gapping technics will likely be not used normaly to reduce dedection risk (also the are slow and unreliable)

But, now to get the most sensitive informations, all the atackers have to do, is checking if the system is air-gapped. Means, it is likely that it is a high value target.

Now the various technices come into play, so the virus tries to communicate with the outside world in the hope of a also infected device nearby with which it can maybe exchange a few kb.

If he can make a small connection, then a human (or algorithm) can check, if it is really a high value target worth deploying more sophisticated attacks, or just a paranoid hacker trying to protect his personal stuff, or just a old forgotting pc.

In other words, if you have really sensitive data, air gapping it, might be the way to attract attackers in the first place ..

Computer security is hard.

</comment><comment><USER15> In theory, anything that can have at least two distinct observable states can be used to store/transmit data. That is, after all, the whole principle which makes binary digital computing possible.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why is this research? Everyone knows that software can control fan speed either directly with commands or indirectly with load. Everyone also knows you can hear the sounds fans make and microphones can pick up sounds or vibrations. It seems to be just a mundane engineering job or hobby project. Maybe there's some value in getting a higher bandwidth or longer range detection or whatever, but the basic principle is too obviously true to need to be proved.

</comment><comment><USER17> How fun. Practical implementation in most cases is movie plot level implausible, but for certain high value systems we already know that state level actors have the resources and patience to do something like build a side channel link by having air gapped systems relay in and out via acoustics with HVAC or whatever.

This is going to be a lot more serious as IOY device capabilities increase -- so many available microphones and radios built into everything.

</comment><comment><USER18> So I guess on an air gapped computer, it's a good idea to set the fans to 100% in BIOS, rather than smart control / auto.

<comment><USER19> given the list of other exploits these guys have for exfiltrating data from airgapped computers, it seems like if you are going to the trouble of making an airgapped computer, you should put it in its own room with no other computers and that nobody is allowed to bring their phone into.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> They could try it with coil whine

I am just working on a chart that shows a tooltip when the mouse cursor hovers over a data point.

Everytime the tooltip is shown, my laptop cheeps

edit: or even if I just scroll the browser window

<comment><USER21> Quite a problem, especially when considering cryptographic implementations. Here's am article from 2016:

[https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2851486](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2851486)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The data bandwidth for fan speed modulation has to be very slow when compared to more traditional data transfer methods I'd imagine?

</comment><comment><USER23> Maybe, I am wrong, but none of these seem particularly high-bandwidth

<comment><USER17> As a practical example, the keys and metadata for a root certificate authority are only a few kilobytes.

<comment><USER24> The article says:

> In fact, data can be exfiltrated through vibrations at a lowly speed of half > a bit per second, making AiR-ViBeR one of the slowest exfiltration methods > that Guri and his team have come up with in recent years.

My personal private key has a file size of 3,243 bytes. At the quoted speed, it would take ~14.4 hours to steal assuming that the time spent recording is completely continuous.

A single ASCII character would take 16 seconds to "steal".

<comment><USER25> ASCII is a 7-bit encoding, it would take 14 seconds.

<comment><USER24> I suppose for plain text files, converting the encoding from extended ASCII (aka 8-bit) to regular ASCII (7-bit) is worthwhile if one really wants to pursue this type of worthwhile.

Although in retrospect you can get even higher speedups by condensing the character encoding table down to A-z and 0-9 and omitting quite a few of the ASCII characters from the lookup table.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are you tips for landing an engineering job in 2017? - <AUTHOR> Here's what I found:
1. Don't rely on one single application/company
2. Apply for at least 5 companies at the same time
3. Schedule your interviews by order of preference (google last!)
4. Don't get married to one company
5. Don't get distracted by a failure, it doesn't mean you're not prepared
6. The interviewing process is %200 subjective. So anything can happen!
7. You'll be surprised how relaxed you'll be half way into your interviews... The beginning is always stressful.
8. Interviewing with companies is the only effective practice. Keep interviewing even for companies you don't care about. It'll turn you into a machine gun after a while and you'll be ready for the big guys. <comment><USER2> Great list. They are applicable for any year, and not just engineering jobs.

For 8. I would say persistence instead of repetitiveness. You need to adapt as you learn more about your job market but keep pushing ahead.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right. I used repetitiveness as "the more interviews the better".</comment></comment>


Google Maps Bugged? - <AUTHOR> http://www.trailbehind.com/trips/view_report/111

<comment><USER2> Hoping for covert listening device scandal, got decimal number mismatch.

</comment><comment><USER3> Note to trailbehind.com: the word "bugged" has a specific meaning, and that meaning is not the same as "has a bug".</comment>


The Blessing of Failure - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jamesallworth/the-blessing-of-failure-4bf7af9238e8#.hjstxi9qc <comment><AUTHOR> The distinction between the results of the Amazon Fire Phone and the Echo / Alexa is interesting, but does leave out some other reasons and subtleties. For example, the Phone was launched into a category that was nearly completely sold in to consumers, while the Echo was creating a new category; these are very different problems to solve.</comment>


Flipping the Metabolic Switch: Applying the Health Benefits of Fasting - <AUTHOR> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.22065 <comment><USER2> I've had serious weight issues for my whole life, primarily due to my love of chocolate. As I approached 400 pounds, I took a hard look at myself and decided to make a change. For the past month (29 days now) I've been doing alternate-day fasting* where I eat about 2000-2500kcal on eat days and cap myself at about 100kcal of half-and-half with coffee on fast days (gotta get that joe).

While a lot of it is no doubt non-lipid mass (glycogen and such), I just passed 30 pounds of mass lost yesterday. After the initial drop from glycogen loss, I've been averaging 0.4-ish pounds a day of mass loss.

A few things I've noticed: What I eat doesn't really affect long-term weight loss. Carbs will cause my weight to rise, but it's definitely just due to the storage and retention of glycogen and water, as I get right back on track with my projections 2-3 days later. However, if I eat carbs and fast the next day, I will get serious hunger pangs. If I eat a mostly keto diet, then I can pass between eat days and fast days with no trouble at all.

My biggest take-away though is that fasting has helped me practice self-denial to the point where I can handle my sweet tooth very easily now. The difference in apparent willpower is so immense that I can hardly believe it myself. I definitely suggest that anyone who has self-control issues with regards to food go on a week of alternate day fasting. Additionally, a fast day is a great way to counter out a day of eating to excess. When I lose my weight, I'll still keep fasting as an option, because it's a remarkably powerful tool.

* It's actually 3 days of fasting, 4 days of eating a week. I do social eating on Fridays and Sundays, so I keep those as fixed eat days, so I just fast on Sat/Mon/Wed, eat on Fri/Sun/Tue/Thu.

<comment> martin-adams I just listened to The Obesity Code by Jason Fung and my mind is kinda blown. Everyone you've said matches what the book covers.

The takeaway points are:

\- Raised insulin is the key driver in weight by preventing the burning of fat and triggers the storage to fat. Insulin is the hormone that tells allows cells to absorb glucose

\- Type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance, which happens over years of prolonged periods of raised insulin without periods of lowered insulin. Carbohydrates and sugar convert to glucose, insulin resistance prevents it being used by cells, triggering the ask for more glucose by those cells to be available, by way of asking for more insulin. Raised insulin and glucose contribute to more fat being stored.

\- The western lifestyle is based around eating evenly throughout the day reducing our fasted state. This means our insulin levels don't have a chance to lower.

\- Fasting is a way to give your body a break from raised insulin, use up the glucose energy first, then switch to fat burning (Ketosis).

\- Sugars and carbohydrates do not trigger the hormone that says we're full when compared.

If this is of interest to you, I highly recommend the book. I'm still learning all the specifics so some of the above may be incorrect.

I very much plan to start reducing my sugar and carbohydrate intake and introduce intermittent fasting.

<comment><USER3> > Sugars and carbohydrates do not trigger the hormone that says we're full > when compared

It's important to note the difference between refined sugars (candy) and natural sugars (fruits). Refined sugars are basically fructose (hello High Fructose Corn Syrup).

Refined sugars -- super hella bad.

When you eat the refined sugars, your liver actually traps the ATP, blocking the pathway to the brain, making you still feel hungry.

Great 10 min clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ve6XQH68mg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ve6XQH68mg)

<comment><USER4> > Refined sugars are basically fructose

sucrose (white refined sugar) is half fructose, half glucose

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

High Fructose Corn Syrup has a variable amount of fructose, but is usually similar to cane sugar because it is used as a substitute.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- fructose_corn_syrup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup)

<comment><USER5> HFCS is generally in the range of 50% to 90% fructose. In other words, it's typically worse than sucrose for you.

Fructose does not provoke a satiety response in the human gastroenteric system, unlike glucose.

So if you _do_ eat candy, prefer sucrose to HFCS and glucose to sucrose. Sucrose will be listed on packaging as "sugar".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I highly recommend looking into the work of Dr. Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. She has extensive material explaining the science behind IF, and many other topics relating to bio pathways and aging.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6KClPkotxM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6KClPkotxM)

[https://www.foundmyfitness.com/](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/)

<comment><USER6> And broccoli sprouts! Don't forget the broccoli sprouts!

Jesting aside. She is cool, talks very fast and deliver an awful lot of information in a short time.

<comment><USER3> Hah gotta get that sulforaphane!

Though I do agree - her podcasts can sometimes be a bit of an information overload for those who aren't biomed folk. However in my opinion, her youtube channel[1] is significantly easier to follow as there are often animations and more lengthly explanations.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/foundmyfitness](https://www.youtube.com/foundmyfitness)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been experimenting with water fasting, intermittent fasting, and calorie restriction for over two years with good results. I gradually went from an "obese" BMI to normal, and reduced the symptoms of some medical conditions, especially after 3-5 day water fasts.

I think that if one is going to restrict calories, it's a good idea to eat a high-nutrient diet. Mine is _mostly_ vegan + fish, and based on vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, and fruits. Almost zero sugar, low salt, no flour, and not a lot of grains.

A saying that helped me stay focused is, "Food is not a recreational drug."

<comment><USER8> Please note: dry fasting is incredibly dangerous and one will struggle to find non-crackpot sources that say humans should attempt it for any reason. Healthy people can survive a month or more without food. Without food AND water they last less than a handful of days.

<comment><USER9> You might be surprised, but most Muslims do dry fasting each year on Ramadan ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fitting to see this during this month, as it is currently the holy month of Ramandan for Muslims, who fast from sunrise to sunset for 30 days.

<comment><USER11> Well, perhaps it's good for the metabolism of my muslim colleague, but right now his productivity is way down. Also I don't the ramandan fasting is particularly good since muslims usually eat a lot during the night to compensate.

<comment><USER12> I generally don't have a problem at work (Ramadan + Keto). Then again I don't get up at 2 AM to eat. (Generally have a 18:6 fasting to eating cycle)

Can you share how you are measuring changes in his productivity? I find that, in general, to be fairly difficult to measure, let alone find trends in small time intervals (like a week)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can 100% vouch for this, roughly 90 days ago I implemented:

* 16h+ intermittent fasting

* increased exercise (>600kcal Apple Watch active kcal)

* caloric restriction (average of 450kcal deficit).

I lost 20lbs in 90 days (5ft5in 145 -> 125). I've since gone to a full ketogenic diet as an n=1 experiment.

I find the research on this lacking, but fascinating -- its been a very educational experience. Based on the many papers I've read, and talks I've listened to, it seems like society's current ailments of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease (and maybe Alzheimers) tie back to excess carbohydrate consumption leading to hyperinsulinemia.

Re: this paper -- they cite that "Mice fed a high‐fat diet ad libitum develop obesity, elevated plasma glucose, insulin and leptin levels, and impaired glucose tolerance" However, reading the source for that, the diet of those mice was: "18% protein, 61% fat, 21% carbohydrates" \-- probably still too many carbs.

<comment><USER14> Not eating for 16h-18h is not intermittent fasting for me, but how I've lived huge parts of my life. Lunch at noon or soon after, dinner before 8, nothing else. Didn't notice anything remotely pointing towards losing weight to a reasonable weight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Like many programmers, especially us older folks, I've struggled with my weight my entire life.

Three weeks ago I went on a ketogenic diet. This week I've added intermittent fasting, only eating between noon and six.

After the "keto flu" period ended, it's been quite enjoyable. The IF comes quite naturally and is painless.

I'm not one to spot diet trends, but my intuition says that keto/IF will be a big thing over the next few years. It feels like it's reached critical mass.

<comment><USER16> I'd be curious to hear more about what you experienced during your keto flu

<comment><USER17> For me it was very similar to the early stages of a bad flu. Tired, headaches, body aches, irritable, and mild nausea for about 5 days. I've heard that MCT oil can ease the transition a bit, but be careful because too much can cause stomach cramps and violent diarrhea. (I've never been able to handle more than one tablespoon at a time.)

<comment><USER13> Make sure you are getting enough sodium and potassium, its my understanding that being in ketosis increases excretion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 12 hours? Sounds like just skipping breakfast would constitute as intermittent fasting for me. My breakfast is usually pretty light anyway.

<comment><USER19> You're exactly right. Just skip breakfast and don't eat snacks after dinner and you'll be at 16 hours easy. Try it for a week and see how you feel.

I've been IF'ing for 15 months now and it's great. Lost 20 pounds without even trying and have more energy during the day.

<comment><USER20> Turns out I IF'd all throughout high school without even knowing it!

<comment><USER21> this was my realization too when I first started hearing about IF several years back.. "I do this already, but on accident" I have never eaten breakfast in my adult life. I eat once at 11:00AM for lunch, then again at either 6:00PM or 9:00PM for dinner depending on if I train that night or not. I don't snack or drink any calories, so this is basically intermittent fasting right? It seems weird but it does make sense, I am relatively lean and don't put much effort into it.

<comment><USER22> I'm the same way. People always nag me to eat breakfast but that actually just makes me hungrier and throws off my schedule. Generally if I don't eat anything I won't get hungry for a few hours after waking up, until 11-11:30 like you. I'll have a "big" lunch, like chipotle burrito size, then a light dinner 7-8 hours later. No snacking and stick to drinking water, black coffee, and alcohol. I remain at the same weight I was in high school and haven't fluctuated more than +/\- 5 pounds over my entire adult life. It honestly rules and I don't even know how I got into this routine, just that eating breakfast usually seems gross to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It would be cool to see measurements of people on Survivor or all the alone in wild shows. Like blood glucose, ketones, movement tracking, and sleep. Maybe even a few IQ and strength tests. There's all this great documentary monitoring and doctors already on site. I assume that academic ethic review boards would never allow a researcher to participate, but it would be great if the shows shared it. Maybe the individual competitors could.

I wish there was some middle ground between self tracking and big expensive studies that don't really change anything.

</comment><comment><USER24> Sounds great, but is this compatible with:

\- bodybuilding

\- 20 miles daily commute by bicycle

\- intellectually intense work, e.g. hackathons

?

<comment><USER25> Lots of people do Ramadan while bodybuilding, playing international level soccer (football) while fasted including no water.

<comment><USER26> That's not really fasting in a metabolic sense, though. More like time restricted eating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Fasting is great and all if you don't have to perform mental tasks throughout the day.

When I am on vacation and have time off of work to just relax, I regularly forget to eat, and I barely even notice.

When I'm at work and doing programming, however, even the slightest reduction in my caloric intake schedule results in me feeling lightheaded and "foggy". My ability to code effectively plummets, and I also find myself unintentionally being more irritable towards co-workers.

As such, my job as a professional programmer basically requires me to eat regularly. Fasting is not an option for me, unfortunately.

<comment><USER28> You could fast before and after work. Eat all the calories you need in your 9 hour window, fast in the remaining hours.

<comment><USER27> Oh, well, that's basically what I already do. I don't eat at night time (obviously).

There's a reason why the first meal of the day is called "break fast"...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > The metabolic switch usually occurs between 12 and 36 hours after cessation > of food consumption, depending on the liver glycogen content at the > beginning of the fast, and on the amount of the individual's energy > expenditure/exercise during the fast.

I guess that since my breakfast time is around 8 am, then should stop food intake before 8 pm. The earlier the better. And some light exercise during that period, even better. Let's do this!.

</comment><comment><USER30> About 4 years ago I started changing my diet. I drastically reduced foods with sugar and carbs and gradually shifted to a one main meal a day regiment. I eat my main meal (4 eggs, half an avacodo, cucumbers, tomatoes and bell peppers salad with some feta cheese) around 12-2:00. I usually have an apple later. Some weeks I fast for 44-48 hours. I workout at a boxing gym twice a week (about 1.5 hours of a strenuous workout). I've been going to the same gym for 10 years, but after changing my diet my stamina increased, sometimes I feel like I can be there all day.

The 44-48 hour fasting are interesting and are hard. Not because of feeling hungry(you're but for me it's more mental, the thought of all the food I should eat the next day), but because of other factors. The second night your brain is very alert, almost feeling like consuming a lot of caffeine or other stimuli. So if you wake up middle of the night it's hard to fall asleep again. In the morning, I'm very hyper again as if I had consumed a lot of caffeine and if I drink tea or rarely coffee just before the end of my fast the effects are greatly magnified. Your brain races like mad. I feel like I have an improved cognitive ability, but I've not tested that in any form so it could just be a reflection of being hyper. That said I've gotten physically stronger, since my diet change and my fasting. I end my boxing workout with some weights and now I often get comments how strong I am for my body size. And I know I've gotten stronger, because the increased reps and weights I can do. There was some research on fasting and how your muscles become more efficient, so I'm not sure if that's playing a factor or my increased stamina has allowed me to workout longer and that resulted in increased strength. The other factor helping me here I think it's reduced inflammation. It feels like my muscles recover faster and I have less inflammation problems because of my diet.

Some interesting anecdotes. One of the guys who works for the gym commented at my transformation and said I look like a "jock" now and asked details of my diet. My former boxing instructor who initially told me for best recovery I needed to eat after a hard workout instead of fasting, now has changed his diet as well. So there is something to all these and I'm never going back, but I think we're still far from knowing the longer term effects of it and also learning about any genetic variability. But I recommend everyone trying it for themselves, it's easy after the first 7-10 days.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've been doing intermittent fasting for about a year--it seems to work for me because I struggle with controlling portion sizes. Mon/Wed of every week I limit caloric intake severely--I skip all meals and snack on olives, pickles, maybe a small amount of avacado in the evening along with a couple of La Croix. Not sure why olives/pickles, other than I wanted to keep the fasting foods keto-friendly. Other than that, I used to chew a lot of gum during fasting, but have since stopped because I'm not sure what exactly "sugar alcohol" is doing to my body.

It has worked out well for me. I started at 230 in June and hit my baseline of low 190's in mid-November. I've been there since doing the 2-day fast. It is not too bad so long as you can stay busy, although it does really affect my mood on those fast days. It has helped my mountain/road biking immensely.

Just wanted to share my experiences...if anyone has other recommendations for fasting days, please share.

<comment><USER32> How has it effected your biking? More endurance? Peak Power? or just being lighter?

<comment><USER31> I think it is just being lighter, but the difference in endurance/recovery from hills, etc is pretty significant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> One thing you have to pay attention to while aiming for a 12+ hour gap is that you don't accidentally consume calories in drinks, especially from sugar... so no milk, honey, or sugar in your tea or coffee. A little sugar calories will prevent the switch flip, leaving you in a starvation state where you feel awful and eat your own muscles.

<comment><USER16> Folks in the keto/fasting space seem to present salted water as a good option here

<comment><USER34> Also, bone broth, chicken broth and vegetable broth.

<comment><USER35> How does that work? Doesn't broth generally have calories?

<comment><USER36> No it doesn't and I suspect the broth is just to make the salted water taste better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Want to see something crazy? This guy has a huge YouTube following and preaches (through obscene language) long fast [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_yUeH8TsG5pxqvkOxBtsFA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_yUeH8TsG5pxqvkOxBtsFA). He experiments on himself and "coaches" people on dieting.

Along with the posh attitudes of fad diets can also come extremism. Do go too crazy with fasting!

</comment><comment><USER38> So do we know enough at this point to confidently recommend a fasting schedule that ought to be safe and worthwhile for most adults?

Or are we still bathing in incomplete/flawed studies, bad reporting, and the promotion of diet-fads?

This sounds like something I'd like to try if the reported upsides are real, but I don't have a lot of time to filter out junk science.

<comment><USER13> It's a pretty easy n=1 trial -- stop eating at 8pm, and eat again at noon. Maybe exercise in the morning to accelerate the glycogen depletion. Try it for a month, report back!

There are many studies on this, the literature seems to suggest it works, and I can say it worked for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Anyone read The Hacker's Diet?

[http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/](http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/)

I find it interesting that he mentioned as kind of a side note that he only eats one meal a day. A man ahead of his time :-)

</comment><comment><USER40> Robert Lusting has cery intersting book on this, and more specifically the influence of fructose sugar in diet.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFyF9px20Y](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFyF9px20Y)

</comment><comment><USER41> What if you have to exercise? Should one exercise while fasting?

Or to put it another way, if you only eat between 10am and 6pm (let's say), what is the best time to exercise? Before work or after work?

<comment><USER42> That depends on the type of exercise you're doing.

<comment><USER41> x fit?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The summary mentions that fasting is used to deplete glycogen stored in the liver.

Doesn't moderate aerobic endurance exercise do the same thing?

If you regularly go on long bike rides, will you get the same benefit?

</comment><comment><USER44> For anyone interested to read about fasting, there is an amazing book written by Arnold Ehret, Mucusless Diet Healing System [1], published in 1922. Interesting fact, the book is from Steve Jobs' reading list.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Mucusless-Diet-Healing-System- Scienti...](https://www.amazon.com/Mucusless-Diet-Healing-System- Scientific/dp/1884772005)

<comment><USER45> I would be cautious to make health related reading recommendations where the book comes from 1922 and was on a reading list of a man who was rejecting science based medication for his serious sickness until it was too late.

<comment><USER44> Good point. The problem is that Steve Jobs ignored Ehret's concept of a "transition diet," and became taken with the idea of being a fruit-only eater right away.

<comment><USER46> I thought the problem was that he ignored getting treated for cancer and died?

<comment><USER44> No way?! How confident are you? Anyways, I mentioned Steve Jobs just as an interesting fact. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't personally believe that anybody should be cautious recommending a book. It's a whole separate topic, but in short, can't help one if he's stupid enough to try whatever is on the internet, but I'm glad to share useful information with the smarter one. Otherwise there is no neither progress nor evolution.

<comment><USER47> > No way?! How confident are you?

Not just confident, but certain. From Jobs's authorized biography:

 _To the horror of his friends and wife, Jobs decided not to have surgery to remove the tumor, which was the only accepted medical approach. "I really didn't want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work," he told me years later with a hint of regret. Specifically, he kept to a strict vegan diet, with large quantities of fresh carrot and fruit juices. To that regimen he added acupuncture, a variety of herbal remedies, and occasionally a few other treatments he found on the Internet or by consulting people around the country, including a psychic. For a while he was under the sway of a doctor who operated a natural healing clinic in southern California that stressed the use of organic herbs, juice fasts, frequent bowel cleansings, hydrotherapy, and the expression of all negative feelings.

[...] His friends repeatedly urged him to have surgery and chemotherapy. "Steve talked to me when he was trying to cure himself by eating horseshit and horseshit roots, and I told him he was crazy," Grove recalled. Levinson said that he "pleaded every day" with Jobs and found it "enormously frustrating that I just couldn't connect with him." The fights almost ruined their friendship. "That's not how cancer works," Levinson insisted when Jobs discussed his diet treatments. "You cannot solve this without surgery and blasting it with toxic chemicals." Even the diet doctor Dean Ornish, a pioneer in alternative and nutritional methods of treating diseases, took a long walk with Jobs and insisted that sometimes traditional methods were the right option. "You really need surgery," Ornish told him.

Jobs's obstinacy lasted for nine months after his October 2003 diagnosis. [...] In july 2004 a CAT scan showed that the tumor had grown and possibly spread. It forced him to face reality."_

<comment><USER44> I read the book. It was a sarcastic comment. My point is that the reason why he died doesn't necessarily have to be linked with the Mucusless Diet Healing System, especially knowing that he didn't follow all the recommendations from the said book.

The reason I made my original comment is because the benefits of fasting described in the submission are known for almost 100 years now (to a certain extent) and one may find it interesting to know where the roots are coming from.

<comment><USER47> > I read the book. It was a sarcastic comment.

Your sarcasm was misplaced. You stated that "the problem is that Steve Jobs ignored Ehret's concept of a "transition diet," and became taken with the idea of being a fruit-only eater right away."

That was not the problem at all, as @stevehawk stated and my quote proves. You are pushing a pseudo-scientific book from 100 years ago and mentioned Jobs's name to enhance the recommendation's credibility. Jobs's belief in pseudoscience cost him his life.

> The reason I made my original comment is because the benefits of fasting > described in the submission are known for almost 100 years now (to a certain > extent) and one may find it interesting to know where the roots are coming > from.

And the history of modern chemistry traces back to the days of alchemy; it doesn't mean there is any deeper truth to be discovered by reading alchemy books today.

<comment><USER44> I was wrong saying "the problem is", whereas what I should have said instead is that he didn't even follow the book, so there is no reason to avoid an interesting read.

> And the history of modern chemistry traces back to the days of alchemy; it > doesn't mean there is any deeper truth to be discovered by reading alchemy > books today.

You don't need a deeper truth, but be aware why the believed truth is truth, ie seeing the problem from all the angles. You don't know what you don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> as always there is news to the contrary indicating harmful effects : [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321864.php](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321864.php)

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm not at all overweight and personally don't see what this fasting thing is about.

If I even skip breakfast forget hard thinking or strenuous effort.

</comment><comment><USER16> seems to be becoming more and more "scientifically" clear that brains run better on ketones, and burning fat is cleaner for the body

<comment><USER50> Wait I might have to dig up the sources. But it is generally accepted in the "Keto sphere" that the brain runs on glucose. Even in ketosis the body creates some glucose for this purpose.

<comment><USER13> I don't have sources handy, but IIRC the brain will generally to run on about a 60/40 or 70/30 mix of ketones/glucose, but in some experiment they gave people in ketosis a does of insulin to drop their blood sugar to near 0, and they didn't pass out and were otherwise fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Lol. For years I talk about fasting here on HN and get downvoted to oblivion. Intermittent fasting is what they now say is healthy because it means you're still consuming food so they still make money. A far better alternative and a cure to many many "diseases" (yes, cure, I said it) is a prolonged water fast (10 to 40 days), and/or a dry fast (no food no water) for 2 to 10 days.</comment>


Anyone up for a web application framework rumble? - <AUTHOR>

We're throwing an open source conference at University of Illinois at Chicago called Flourish (http://www.flourishconf.com).  As one of the attractions at the event, we're going to have a Web Application Framework Rumble.  I was thinking that maybe some of the Chicago hackers here might want to take part in this.
We'll be building an application for a non-profit in a period of about 3 hours, using different web application frameworks.  During the course of this, we'll be showing everyone's progress with various frameworks and sort of encouraging some friendly competition between the different camps. And everything will be released under the GPL.
So far, we've got interest from 37signals for RoR and the CakePHP and web2py core developers. Also, there will be free food.  Any interested parties? <comment><USER2> mail sent :)</comment>


3d Printing from Minecraft with Mineways - <AUTHOR> http://repraprip.blogspot.com/2012/01/tutorial-printing-from-minecraft-with.html <comment><USER2> On the rational side, this is obvious, and I'm surprised it hadn't been done already. On the geek side, this is bloody cool and made me squee. Just saying.</comment>


Why I Wear a Disco Ball - <AUTHOR> http://blog.willwashburn.com/post/49477700526/why-i-wear-a-disco-ball <comment><USER2> My old boss told me this quote and I've always loved it. When the self-made millionaire was asked what he'd do differently if he got to do it all over again, he responded "I'd ask for help."

<comment><USER3> Man... I was just told recently by a good friend that I am very good at helping people but bad at asking for help. I guess it's time for introspection...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I kept reading just to understand why anyone would willingly walk around, all the time, looking like this:

<http://estb.msn.com/i/AB/E27F92B0A904EC9D92B8EE897D0B4.jpg>

I also wondered how he'd eat and talk and sleep. I didn't understand what it had to do with startups and hurricanes.

It took a while until I realized that that's not what "wearing a disco ball" means in NY.

<comment><USER5> Please do enlighten me. I read the whole post and am still not sure. Searching the web seems to be polluted by a nail polish brand named 'disco ball'. Is it simply slang for not taking oneself too seriously?

<comment><USER4> I suspect that he has a little disco ball hanger on a necklace or bracelet or something. I'm sure he'll tell us himself soon enough.

<comment><USER6> Sorry if I'm being obtuse ... you did see the large photograph at the top of this blog post showing the author wearing said disco ball necklace, drinking milk?

<http://i.imgur.com/DdeDfzyl.jpg>

<comment><USER5> I had seen the picture, but I had totally missed the necklace. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This guy is like all the entrepreneurs I've met, mashed together. He even has a blog full of pictures of himself.

Cool story anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> The point of my post was to say I need to get over myself. Apparently it's still a work in progress. My b.

Thanks for checking it out.

<comment><USER8> I enjoyed the pictures; don't listen to the haters. Milk-chugging at a disaster scene was a big enough "WTF" to keep me interested.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I didn't notice there were so many at first, but now it does seem kind of vain.

NOW IM QUESTIONING EVERYTHING.

<comment><USER9> If it helps, I didn't notice that there were so many pictures. I was impressed with your honesty in sharing about your mistakes and shortcomings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It says a lot about the endurance of the human spirit that in the midst of a catastrophe like Sandy, you still found the inner strength to chug a gallon of milk like a true meathead frat boy and presumably upload it straight to Facebook.

The disco ball is fitting, I think. You should keep wearing it.

<comment><USER11> Not sure where all this hate is coming from. "meathead frat boy"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for having my back!

I can understand how it might look if you don't know me and there's probably a lot of people who thought the same thing.

Looking back, it was just a coping method. In the same way that I make lame jokes when I feel nervous, this was just a reaction to the idea that my life just got flipped upside down.

And I totally posted it directly to instagram. Spade is a spade, I guess.

<comment><USER11> I seriously don't understand why you're supposed to feel bad about posting 4 pictures of yourself and making a joke photo. It didn't seem that wanky to me, so it's surprising that it was able to inspire this many people to forget about human courtesy and throw childish insults on the interwebs.

I was wondering if maybe these people know you and there's some kind of subtext here or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This guy is a real life Ryan Howard. Wow.

<comment><USER13> Counting the one with his feet in it, he's put 7 pictures of himself on that page.

<comment><AUTHOR> I mean comon, can we really count the one with my foot in it? 7 sounds waaaaay bigger than 6.

<comment><USER13> I didn't count the ones where you're in the mirror, you got off easy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair. For real though, is Ryan Howard's character really into himself?

Don't want to be that guy who doesn't get the joke but I am totally the guy who isn't getting the joke.

IS THIS SOMETHING RYAN HOWARD WOULD SAY?!

<comment><USER14> His character iterates over the different seasons.

I thought it was a mean remark, but maybe I'm just a sensitive blossom.

Howard does work on a startup (in a cupboard) which is pretty funny. And there are definitely worse characters on the Office.

FWIW I really liked your post. You hit all the points that I've found in the past, and you included the Ben Franklin effect too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, haha ok. My startup had the word "social" in it, so I think some not-so- subtle jabbing is probably deserved.

Appreciate you checking out the post! (and thanks for filling me in on the joke)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I just read this moments after giving in, allowing my dad to take a 401k loan in exchange for the title to my car (I insisted) to help me pay rent and keep my startup dreams afloat a cpl more months. Humility doesn't come easy for some of us. Thank you for sharing Will. I really needed to read this today.

<comment><USER16> With all due respect - what is going to change about your startup in the next few months? Things like retirement account loans from your parents are to get you over a rare and unexpected setback in an otherwise exciting curve. Otherwise, you're just borrowing other people's money who need it (i.e. these are not wealthy individuals taking a risk with money they can afford to lose).

<comment><USER15> Bahahah. Let me clarify, I've been managing peons like yourself since high school. I've already climbed the six figure ladder. The view wasn't to my liking. See I decided to quit & build products designed for social good, hence why I turned down a CIO role at a bank last week & turned down $125k work- from-home contract at Wells Fargo today. I can make money anytime I return a headhunters voicemail. Maybe that's why my parents are cool with the risk. Go ahead Google me, my resume speaks for itself.

<comment><USER17> Your attitude isn't very appealing.

You should consider finding other ways to express yourself.

<comment><USER15> Usually I dance

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Liked the story! Curious though, why are you living on the UES, when you can live in Brooklyn for half the price?

<comment><USER19> UES is cheaper than Brooklyn now.

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044357090457754...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443570904577547231942958966.html)

<comment><USER18> Whoa damn! I knew Williamsburg was 'up-and-coming' when I lived there but that appears to have changed a lot in the last 5 years. Gentrification at it's finest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I haven't read the post, just these comments. Easily the strangest comments I've seen in the past 4-6 months.

</comment><comment><USER21> so will, what are you upto now? would love to read a follow up post.

<comment><AUTHOR> I spent the few months doing what I described in the post - pretending it didn't happen. It's amazing what you can convince yourself of.

When I finally decided I was being an idiot, I started to focus on finding a job. It was way harder than I thought it would be (there is a theme of being arrogant here - another post another day).

I'm now working at a startup as a software + product guy. Learning from some really smart people and loving it so far. In lots of ways, the storm was the best thing to happen to me.

I can only say that because I really have a lot of great people around me. It made me appreciate all the opportunities I've been given and can sympathize more with people who haven't had the same support.

Thanks for checking out the post.

<comment><USER22> So you gave up your dreams?

I was hoping for a story about how you found investments in your own startup.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps he's just looking for a different route to get to his dreams?

<comment><AUTHOR> 100%, thanks.

There is more than one way to skin the old meow meow. Getting over myself enough to realize that was the big take away from all this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Pics with the disco ball!

<comment><AUTHOR> There are plenty haha! I have a few extras if you want one.

<comment><USER23> For those, like me, that didn't notice it at first, its a very small one on a chain around his neck. I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Dear Will,

Are you gay? Inquiring minds want to know.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, sorry.

<comment><USER26> Unfortunate. I'd like to be with you, and I'm straight. :-P

(Thought I'd take the opportunity to make a lame joke.)</comment></comment></comment>