Tell HN: I quit my job to bootstrap my startup by myself. - <AUTHOR> I'm 24 and worked as a developer for a consulting company working on custom enterprise apps. I got tired of watching the startup world from the sidelines, so I took the plunge and quit my job to work on my own projects.
I don't have paying customers, thousands of Twitter followers, a large presence here on HN, or even a cofounder. I'm starting from absolutely nothing and will be building from the ground up. All I have is 12-15 months of savings and my hacking skills.
I moved back home with my parents to save some money and build the product out, but will hopefully be moving out to San Francisco sometime this year.
I started a blog (www.itschris.me) if you would like to stay up to date on what I'm up to or get in touch. <comment><USER2> Don't move to SF before you're making the money to afford it. Those savings will stretch a lot further living with Mom and Dad.

<comment><USER3> Don't move to SF at all. It never ceases to amaze me how 1st time web start- ups think moving there is the only way to succeed. Grrrr.

We're located in Bath, England. That's right, not even London. We launched our new startup in June 2010 and we just hit $600K in yearly recurring rev. MRR grew by almost 20% this month. Don't believe the TechCrunch hype about funding and the Silicon Valley scene.

<comment><USER4> Ryan I am impressed with all of your achievements including <http://thinkvitamin.com/> but I am not sure your advice is as sound as your business. Your team has built a great brand globally over many years with the conference business, and in my opinion you have done a nice job leveraging that brand equity for your new startup.

I do agree that if you are building a revenue focused company, you don't have to go to San Francisco.

But it's hard to argue against how easy it is to raise money or get acquired in the valley vs anywhere else in the world. Look at how easy it was for Path and Instagram to raise money and to get cheap money at that. In other markets many VCs want to see revenue not just traction and that revenue can work against you and lower your valuation - making the money more expensive.

For reference to Instagram, see this Chris Dixon interview with Kevin Systrom

"He also talks about how the serendipity of Silicon Valley contributed to the formation Instagram, remembering a party that Dixon once threw in San Francisco where Systrom ended up meeting his key angel investors."

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/02/founder-stories- instagram-l...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/02/founder-stories-instagram- launch/)

<comment><USER5> It does make me a little sad that there are companies that are not "revenue focused". It would be a shame if the word "revenue" started getting thrown around with the same disdain as "lifestyle business".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Firstly, best of luck with your startup! That's an exciting move. I'd also recommend moving somewhere like New York, SF, Boston, Austin where there is an active community of technologists with whom you can bounce ideas.

I wanted to point out though that your startup's name brings forth strongly negative connotations.

Your startup is photo sharing site called Hard Candy.

There's a movie called Hard Candy about a 32 year old pedophile photographer who gets castrated by Ellen Page's (Juno) character and then kills himself.

Something to be aware of as people see your site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yeah, I'll change the name. It's not intended to be the final name. Just until I can think of something better. I've never seen that movie.

<comment><USER7> And you don't want to. Trust me. But yeah, I agree with the OP. The name "Hard Candy" immediately inspired thoughts of castration.

<comment><USER8> Why not? I enjoyed the movie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Congratulation. Good for you to save up 12-15 months for expenses. Try to stretch that out to 24 months. Enough financial reserve will give you peace of mind to pursue your startup goal.

Spend your biggest asset, time, wisely. Block off HN/Reddit/Facebook/etc. Turn off IM and set your email polling to a hourly basis. Try to contract yourself to do the work. Set up a hourly rate for yourself and bill yourself to do the work. It's easier to see the value of time once you translate it into money. But don't get burned out either. Exercise. Jogging or walking in the park or along the beach is free.

Try to work at home, or go to library and cafe if need to go out. No need to rent office space or share-workspace. Most libraries and cafes have free net connection. Get a Google Voice number as your work number and route it to your phone.

If you are in the SF Bay Area, there are events you can go to for learning and socializing.

Hackers-and-Founders, <http://www.meetup.com/Hackers-and-Founders>

BAYCHI, <http://www.baychi.org/program>

SFBayACM, <http://www.sfbayacm.org>

ETL, <http://etl.stanford.edu>

Android Developers Meetup, <http://www.android-android.net/events/>

Search the web or wiki for other interest groups.

Good Luck!

</comment><comment><USER10> Are we seeing "The Rise Of the Solo Founder"? Being solo myself, I wonder if we, solo founders, should build a league? "The League of the Solo Founders".

As a solo founder, I feel like an "only child", there is always that suspicion that something might be wrong...

<comment><USER11> Created this: <https://convore.com/single-founders>

<comment><USER12> Convore needs to let me join by emailing (maybe they do, but I couldn't find how) and without signing up.

<comment><USER11> I have to add your email. Whats your email? Email me railsnoob at yahoo dot com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hey Chris,

Good luck! I know where you are coming from. Normally I'd suggest you read my book on the topic (LFF - free on www.hunterdavis.com), but it sounds like you're already over the first hump (saving for the startup). I'm 29, and last June along with a co-founder quit my 9-5 to start www.discursivelabs.com. We've got some upcoming products and some sites in active beta. The best three pieces of advice I would give you:

1\. Be open to contracts when they come up. Seriously, just being open to the possibility of contract work and attending appropriate trade shows can get you through the lean times. 2\. Betas. Always beta, beta often. Don't rush to go public with your beta. We've gotten so much valuable insight into our product from our beta testers It's staggering the difference in quality feedback between 100 motivated private beta testers and 10000 mediocre public ones. 3\. Build your word of mouth with useful information and verify it exists with site analytics. I was lucky in that I had a fairly active community of programmers and hackers reading my personal website, but I had a fairly good number of folks email after a good StackExchange reply I posted. People appreciate useful information, and it's a good chance to mention your product.

</comment><comment><USER14> There's an increasingly-active startup community in DC -- consider staying here and saving money staying with the rents.

Here's a quick overview of the major spaces to meet-up with other tech folks in DC:

Best Resources for Web & Software Product Startups <http://www.socialmatchbox.com> <http://dcstartupwiki.com> <http://www.meetup.com/DC-Lean-St..>. <http://meetup.hackernewsdc.org/>

Best Resources for Social Media & Consulting Startups <http://www.techcocktail.com> <http://www.meetup.com/socialweb/> <http://www.meetup.com/DCSPOTTER/> (also misc. startups)

General Networking <http://ngagedc.org/>

Best place for events all around: <http://www.meetup.com> <http://www.dctechevents.com> <http://www.baltimoretechevents.com>

Note: this list came directly from Quora. Be sure to follow and keep updated with any new groups/sites: [http://www.quora.com/Business/Im-24-living-near- DC-working-f...](http://www.quora.com/Business/Im-24-living-near-DC-working- full-time-and-want-to-be-involved-in-the-entrepreneurial-community-Whats-the- best-way-to-get-started?__snids__=13704336#ans381629)

<comment><USER15> Don't forget <http://proudlymadeindc.com> to see all the MANY different active startups in the DC area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm 29 and thought about quitting and doing my own and was talked out of it by my older peers at my corporate job. I was about 24 for then. In hindsight it was by far one of my regrettable decisions. I see products and ideas being created that were all in my personal incubator. Not to mention they are all profitable. So I say this, if you have internet, time & a mind anything is possible. Good luck on your ventures. I'm sure success will find you.

<comment><USER17> Out of curiosity, why not still do it? If you regret it, what in your mind is convincing you it's too late to try?

<comment><USER16> Really its out of comfort and fear of the unknown. I do freelance development and it scratches the itch I have to do interesting work for now. I also have decided to wait until I stumble upon a great idea. Really I'm to the point now I'm just working for healthcare. Meaning I'm paid well but spend nada.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Good luck, and come to the launch conference next week as my guest, ping me @Jason

<comment><USER19> Awesome Jason!! I really love your interest in helping people..

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Good for you.

I promised myself I would give notice today. I don't think it's going to happen. Maybe it's just because I'm older (28) and have more inertia (wife, dog, a bunch of stuff to pack or get rid of and moving) to overcome.

<comment><USER20> I hate to reply to my own post, but in this case I think it's good form.

I'm going to give notice as soon as my boss is back from wherever he's gotten off to.

I do have another job offer that I'm debating. I think it's probably better to turn that down and finally get out of this backwater (a city of ~40k people in a mountainous US state).

That means moving in with my parents in Nebraska until we get things together for a move somewhere more startup and tech friendly. While I'd be happy moving to the Bay area and eeking it out in a one-bedroom place, I'm not going to drag the wife and dog (can you even find dog-friendly places out there?) into that.

I hope none of the affected parties reads this...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You should've really started on a project without quitting the day job. But since you did, try and work as if you have only three months left instead of twelve. A year of carte blanche is a LOT, it will entice you to sidetrack and spend time on stuff that doesn't matter. So assume you are already running out of time and set your priorities based on that.

In any case - good luck. It's going to be interesting :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I'm about 90% done with my project so I would much rather go all in at this point.

I wouldn't have quit if I had more responsibilities such as a mortgage, kids, family, etc.

<comment><USER21> Ah, ok. Great to hear that. The way I read it was that you quit and only then would start on a project. 80/20 rule still applies though :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why San Francisco? Move to San Diego and pay _a lot less_... I'm out here building a startup and there are many others doing the same.

<comment><AUTHOR> San Diego is also on the list. I should've put "The Valley" in general. Thanks for the comment.

<comment><USER23> Not sure where you're geographically located but San Diego isn't anywhere near anything that could be considered "The Valley".

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking of San Jose :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hi Chris. I must say you are doing exactly what I did 5 years back. I would like to share my experience with you.

Starting up my own company was my dream since my college days but I worked at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. as a SAP ABAP Developer for 2 years after completing my graduation. It was a nice job with smart people around me and interesting work to do, not to forget the high salary SAP consultants get. It was good for 2 years but then I felt my job was dragging me away from my dream. The whole corporate environment started to suck. It was time to leave the shores and get into the deep sea.

I had some good ideas related to web. My plan was to work together with two of my college friends and they both agreed on this thing. I never asked them to quit their jobs but to just work on weekends. One of them backed out at last moment.

Lesson learned - Don't make your plans dependent on others. Make sure you alone can handle it if required.

Its getting long so I will just point out other suggestions I have for you:

1\. Have a fail back strategy for everything.

2\. Get a co-founder but make sure he is as committed to your idea as you are. Some of them will try to tell you how you need to do something else to get some quick money and then use that for your project. Those people are interested in earning money and not in your idea.

3\. Spend as little cash as possible.

4\. Focus on only one project - your dream project - as early as possible. Don't waste your time on random projects for learning or to earn quick cash.

5\. Choose a technology platform early and stick with it.

6\. Release your Version 1.0 as early as possible.

7\. Don't work 24/7/365. Its not good in long run. Give 8-12 hours per day and take a day off on Sundays. Important thing is to be consistent.

8\. Network with people who can help you - other hackers, designer, entrepreneurs, etc. Use your weekends for this.

9\. Stay away from your friends or family members who discourage you. Stay away from their negative energy. However you positive or sure you may be it will affect you. Good thing will be to have a limited contact with such people.

10\. Don't get involved in love relationships unless your girlfriend is supportive.

Best of luck.

<comment><USER25> All good and sound advice. But Nr.2 I don't understand. Why is pivot'ing not good?

<comment><USER24> Everything you do in your startup should lead to your primary goal and not distract you from that. Small, related projects or activities that can somehow help you make progress in your main startup idea isn't a bad thing.

What happens is that if someone joins your startup and he is more interested in earning money than the implementation of idea itself, he will try to convince you that your idea is going nowhere and you should put it on hold for sometime, may be for a year or two and do some other things like consultancy, web design etc. to earn money. Thing is that you will get dragged into other unrelated activities(that you don't enjoy doing) and will waste the time you should be utilizing to work on your primary project. In this case, your and your partner's objective aren't aligned. Such people tend to switch projects too often as they want quick money. You will find yourself switching from project A to project B to project C and it all will be a big mess. After a year or two you will realize that you have failed in all of those, your partner isn't interested in continuing anymore and you are at same place where you started, all alone.

Thats why point no. 2 - Get a cofounder who is "genuinely interested" in your idea. Make sure his goals and your goals are aligned. For example,

"I want to develop an X web application that will help Y users in doing Z tasks and which will be profitable after 18 months of launch"

and

"I want to develop software to earn some money as early as possible. It can be your idea or any other depending on the availability of clients and opportunity."

aren't goals that are aligned with each other.

Edit: A related link - [http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/06/pivot- dont-jump...](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/06/pivot-dont-jump-to- new-vision.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> First, good luck and hope you do well.

My startup Socialblaze is in the social/analytics space, and it looks like you're entering this space as well. Good luck! It's a fun space to be in (and moving very fast).

Here's a few things I think you should figure out before starting to build your product:

\- Are you really aware of your customers' needs? Have you talked to any that would use your product? Would they pay for it? (Also, a customer saying that he/she would loves that product and would pay for it is very different then keeping them as an active user with an active subscription for 1+ months).

\- Small businesses, musicians, and influencers don't have much money, what's your pricepoint? Would they be willing to pay?

\- What's your customer acquisition strategy? Have you tested it? Do you know it works? What's your backup?

\- If you're providing analytics, make sure your customers actually get ROI from it. It's possible that a white-label twitpic with 10 new features won't increase engagement at all or not enough to justify costs, making your analytics prove that your product isn't useful.

Honestly, I suggest that you first move to the Valley and join a funded early stage startup as employee #3-5. You'll learn a ton and have the experience + connections (these are so important!) to do your own startup in a few years.

And startups aren't as glamorous as you think or read on Techcrunch, read Suster's post on the startup lifestyle: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/30/should-you-really-be-a- star...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/30/should-you-really-be-a-startup- entrepreneur/)

If you still want to do it: fail fast, fail early, and iterate. Also, find amazing advisors as quickly as you can.

</comment><comment><USER27> Thanks for sharing Chris, great last blog entry on your site, very honest and to the point. I worked at BigCo for 3 years, quick BigCo, consulted for 7 yrs, started an Agency for 5 yrs, then sold it last year.

Now I'm back to consulting, taking a breather, as those 5 years were many 70hr/weeks of blood/sweat/tears.....get ready for the same :)

Good luck to you man!

</comment><comment><USER28> Best of luck to you. We are a bootstrapped startup here in the SF Bay Area. It is true that living expenses in this area can be higher, however the opportunities you would get is also better, IMHO. From what people who live in SF the city told me, food is actually cheaper than the suburban cities. Once you are here, start networking (you can start by looking for suitable meetup groups in the meetup site) because in general people are very willing to help. Once again, good luck.

</comment><comment><USER29> If you're looking to save some money, there are a bunch of hacker houses in the Bay Area that tend to be pretty friendly to having people crash and live on the cheap while doing the startup thing.

There was an HN thread about this a while back (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1536822>) but no current information. Anybody have connections?

</comment><comment><USER30> I admire your dedication! You don't have too much to lose, but a lot knowledge to gain. Your bootstrapped approach is great and your time-frame reasonable for a smaller project. Good luck!

If I should ever do a start-up again, I'll go for boot-strapped as well. If people give you big wads of money they often try to influence your business too much ... sometimes even beyond recognition. Aw... ugly memories.

</comment><comment><USER31> Get something out there that people can use, quickly. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I'm about 1 month away from having something people can use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Good luck to you! I previously worked at Booz as well. You may be surprised but your experience (and connections) in consulting will help down the road. A friend of mine (Booz alum) is also transitioning from software development at a consulting firm to the start up world - he is in b-school at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It looks like there are several people from Booz leaving to work on a startup!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I noticed you worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, is that the consulting company you recently quit from?

I am 23 and worked for Booz Allen 4 months ago before I quit myself to work on my startup.

Best of luck my friend! It is a much better feeling to be working and struggling for the things you love than having it easy with the things you don't!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I worked out of their headquarters in McLean, VA. I would definitely like to keep in touch. Good luck!

<comment><USER33> Yea, I was based in San Antonio. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Excellent! I did the same thing about a month ago (although I left another startup, not a BigCo).

Haven't decided whether or not to move in with Mom & Dad though. The savings would be nice, but I live in Santa Clara already and they're an hour south of that. The connections in the valley are worth more, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER35> Good on you for having the foresight of having enough runway for yourself in terms of savings. Moving back home was definitely a good call too.

It really depends on what side of the fence you're on. While you "can" start an awesome company outside of the Valley, it can be challenging (not impossible) to raise money for a pre-revenue company that has a sole founder. Starting something in a major metropolitan hub be it NYC, Boston, Seattle, (insert major US city flush with VC money) can afford you advantages such as connecting with a supportive and entrepreneurial community. It'll allow you maybe even find a co-founder as well.

And don't forget to signup for the www.startupdigest.com to be in the know of all things startup in whatever city you may decide to settle in.

</comment><comment><USER36> Congratulations on starting out!

I'm 24 as well and working on my own ramen-profitable startup.

This is a good time in your life to risk it all. My suggestion is to try and go for revenue as soon as possible. Even if you just get to making $1-2k a month, you can live on that at this time in your life.

</comment><comment><USER34> Clickable: <http://www.itschris.me>

</comment><comment><USER37> Awesome to hear you're taking the dive, especially when coming from a consultancy. My co-founder is from Accenture and he's looking to take a LOA in few months as well. I did a similar thing 3 months back when leaving my job as a head hunter. It just dawned on me one day when I had to grab lunch with a candidate I was placing vs a meeting with prospective alpha user who was calling about the idea I was conceiving over a paper mock-up. Being the business guy it was the best move for me. Before that move I had trouble recruiting co-founders outside of my friends. My co-founders are now all people I've met through networking in trying to achieve a similar vision rather than simply being a friend and convincing people to join up with you. More importantly, my co-founders are now 3 other engineers to complement my business skills. Going full-time put me fighting right in the arena rather than commentating from the stands.

I think I've come a long way even in the last 3 months going full-time when thinking about the stupid things I did 5 months ago. Basically I was about to pay with my initial co-founder/roommate $20k to prototype the mock-up. Instead I've picked up coding (even at what I consider the old age of turning 27 but what the heck i'm in this for the long-haul) and found 3 other engineering co- founders who are all contributing to bootstrap and have instead $20k surplus to start with now.

Strangely enough, I offered equal equity as well but they said I should keep more of it since I'm full-time and invested more time into it up to that point. Furthermore, even though I never pushed it on them, two have approached me already to go full time starting the summer to pick up the pace as they've begun to get more excited about the idea. Now we're on our way to launching an alpha in 2 weeks!

Oh, and to note the paper mock-ups did wonders. If I had paid to outsource the project with all the iterations I had done up to that point based on the usability testing I would have easily paid triple. Thankfully, we haven't had a need to pivot yet from the responses, but we definitely have iterated a whole bunch since even three months ago which I could never have imagined I would have found out if I never left the job. If you ever wish to chat and exchange ideas/stories email me anytime. Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER38> Congrats on taking the leap.

Having worked on startups with co founders and currently as a soloist here are a couple of tips that may be of use;

Investigate your Market size and typical search traffic thoroughly.

Begin your seo campaign as early as possible, now would be great, if your new to this ping me a mail and I will point you to some good starting points and resources.

Be very selective with your choice of co-founder and try to avoid the attraction of teaming up with business people who promise the world, absolutely demand a track record.

Finally, have fun, build something that interests you, there is nothing worse than having to drag yourself to a pc for a project your not enthused by.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER39> Good luck. I did the same a coupla months ago (except I didn't even "Tell HN").

</comment><comment><USER40> I wanted to say good luck with your startup/move. I once had a nice big corp job on the east coast but I always had a startup I wanted to take to silicon valley.

I quit the job, moved out to San Francisco, started a small but successful consultancy doing what I love (SEO) and am using half my time and the bulk of my consulting revenue to fund the startup.

You don't even know how right you are about finding like minded people out here. Everyone is interested in tech, excited about new startups, supportive of new startups, and there is a ton of talent and $ throughout silicon valley.

Best of Luck.

Mike Coughlin

</comment><comment><USER41> Hey, Boa sorte !

I like thousands here am planning to do the same but with Rails. Your Idea seams nice and the site already looks good. Would be if you post info about the site, when it happens so we can follow.

Cya later !

</comment><comment><USER42> Good luck. I'm working my notice. Only question now is whether I start to build before or during travel. Better to try and fail than never try at all.

</comment><comment><USER43> Good luck! Keep us posted. Lots of us (myself included) are interested in doing something similar. It's great to here how people are getting on.

</comment><comment><USER44> Bold move and congrats! One word of advice: Don't underestimate how difficult it is to get customers. Hacking skills are great but if you want to be successful you will want to spend at the very least 50% of your time worrying about getting customers for whatever it is that you build. Either that or partner with someone who is really great at this.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm doing the same thing, except leaving my corporate job (moving to half time there, to keep bennies/some money). I have spent 3 years on this startup, but only my last pivot got me to where I'm willing to take this move.

It's part scary, part exciting, but mostly I'm pleased at making a major change that I believe will move my life in the right direction.

</comment><comment><USER46> Good luck, I hope you succeed! I'm in a similar situation, although I have a couple of products bringing in modest revenue. I found that there's always heaps of things to do when you're a solo founder, and it can be overwhelming. Also, things _always_ take longer than you expect.

Would be happy to exchange thoughts (email in the profile).

</comment><comment><USER47> What are you building?

By the way, <http://www.itschris.com> is pretty great, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm working on Project Hard Candy (<http://cndy.co>). It's an itch I wanted to scratch for a while. I need to come up with a better name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Good luck! Have you decided what you want to work on yet? Look me up if you want someone to bounce ideas off of, maybe we can hack something together.

I've got an invitation to Sparkmuse (about to enter beta) for you if you would like to discuss some of your ideas there too.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm in almost exactly the same boat, except you'd have to transpose the digits of my age. I almost quit my job today. I have about the same amount of "runway" in savings. I'm planning on moving to Austin instead of San Francisco, though.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm in a similar situation. Mail me (profile) if you want to exchange thoughts or ideas.

<comment><USER51> Same here. Although I'm doing a slightly different thing, I'd still love to chat. Perhaps I can offer some input as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I just quit my job too, but I did it to join an existing startup. I've started many little projects on the side before. I feel watching someone else do it first, learning from them before doing it myself is far safer. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER17> Congrats, Chris! It was a blast grabbing dinner with you a while back and I look forward to seeing what you've got in store.

All, Chris is the real deal; bright, motivated, and a real "product" guy.

Excited to potentially room with you in the future :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man. Best of luck to you and Ains!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Great job and good luck to you! I'm also a single founder but don't have the courage to leave my job just yet (nor the financial means either) so I'll definitely watch out for your progress.

</comment><comment><USER54> Hi Chris, I have added my story after reading yours, its here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2222501>

</comment><comment><USER55> Hi Chris, feel free to email me. Similar situation here. Cheers,

Milan

</comment><comment><USER56> I plan to do the same this May. Good luck to you!

</comment><comment><USER57> Chris, I'm from around the HSV area, if you want, shoot me an email (In my profile) and we can grab lunch sometime.

</comment><comment><USER58> Love hearing stuff like this. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER59> Good luck! I am doing the same, but did not quit my day job.

</comment><comment><USER60> Good luck... But, be sure about the business plan...

</comment><comment><USER61> my advice:

MVP

multiple, built in parallel or serial

redouble your effort investment on whichever seems to be getting most traction

<comment><USER62> Where is this advice coming from? I.e. have you done this or do you think it's the best idea?

<comment><USER61> both</comment></comment></comment>


Erlang Installer Beta: A Better Way To Use Erlang On OS X - <AUTHOR> https://www.erlang-solutions.com/blog/erlang-installer-a-better-way-to-use-erlang-on-osx.html <comment><USER2> I think I'll stick with `brew upgrade` or, more accurately,

        brew update
        brew upgrade
        npm -g upgrade

        for f in ~/projects/*; do
          cd $f
          npm update --save
          npm update --save-dev
          mix deps.update --all
          elm-packages update
          bundle update
          npm test
          mix test
          rake test
        done

<comment><USER3>
        # I fixed the script for you:
        [...]
        for f in $(ls -1d ~/projects/**/); do
          cd -- "$f"
          [...]
        done

<comment><USER4>
      [...]
      pushd .
      for [...]
      popd

I'm always a fan of ending up back where I started.

<comment><USER5> Piling on the nitpick train :) If an error occurs along the way popd won't run, so a subshell might be a better way to accomplish the same thing:

        (
          for ...; do
            cd ...
          done
        )
        # script exits, you're back where you started

If you'd prefer to see it in isolation: pwd; ( cd /tmp; pwd ); pwd

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A couple of months ago I stoped using rvm, kerl, exenv, nvm and started using asdf - "Extendable version manager with support for Ruby, Node.js, Elixir, Erlang & more".

I've been pretty satisfied with it, and haven't had a single problem with it yet - it just works (™).

I recommend trying it out, relevant links:

[https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf](https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf)

[https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang](https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf- erlang)

<comment><USER7> That's funny. I was just talking to somebody about all the different version managers we wind up dealing with. I'll have to look at it more later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting, I'll try it out.

On Linux I used the 'kerl' script to easily switch between installations: [https://github.com/kerl/kerl](https://github.com/kerl/kerl)

Seems like it works on OS X too: [http://stratus3d.com/blog/2014/10/24/install-erlang-16-on- ma...](http://stratus3d.com/blog/2014/10/24/install-erlang-16-on-mac- osx-10-dot-9-with-kerl/)

<comment><USER9> I use Kerl on OSX and have had zero issues with it switching between different Erlang versions. I haven't evaluated other options, but can confirm Kerl works on a mac.

<comment><USER10> Yep, I rely heavily on kerl on macOS (will take a while to get used to that name). Great tool.

A similar tool, written by a former co-worker of mine: [https://github.com/metadave/erln8](https://github.com/metadave/erln8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like the idea however another menu bar item seems to be the wrong way to go about doing this. Why is brew a bad idea?

<comment><USER12> Homebrew sometimes takes a while to get new erlang releases available. I seem to recall a release about a year ago that took over a month to become available. Something about other apps in homebrew that use erlang having to update before the homebrew erlang could be released, or something like that, I don't recall the details.

At any rate I've been using asdf [https://github.com/asdf- vm/asdf](https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf) to manage my erlang and elixir installs on a per project basis for a while now and it has been working well for me.

<comment><USER13> If I recall correctly, Erlang 19 was held up for a while in homebrww because the couchdb formula needed to be updated also.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm a big fan of this. An example of a similar tool that I love is Postgres.app [0]. Compare using Postgres.app with having to install and configure MySQL... It makes a world of difference when you're first learning how to use these tools.

The killer feature of these installer options is that they make the tools much for approachable for everyone!

Configuring and setting up a bunch of tools that you don't understand makes it very hard to get your feet wet. I think once you're familiarized with the tools it's important to learn how things work. But if you're just getting started, there's no reason for you to waste your time configuring anything. The default config should be beginner friendly and provide sensible defaults.

[0] [http://postgresapp.com/](http://postgresapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> In order to use erl/erlc from the command line, would I have to launch an "Erlang Terminal" from the menu bar or is there a convenient way to get the current default Erlang's bin folder on my path?

Edit: I mostly work with Elixir and have Erlang installed via Homebrew right now.

</comment><comment><USER16> I prefer something akin to the `rustup` CLI to a native app personally.

<comment><USER17> check kerl: [https://github.com/kerl/kerl](https://github.com/kerl/kerl)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's good to see language communities/committees taking steps to improve UX.

That said, since we're all using this to announce our idiosyncratic package managers, I use Nix.</comment>


Go-bootstrap: Generates a lean and mean Go web project - <AUTHOR> http://go-bootstrap.io/

<comment><USER2> Excellent overview. I'm sick to death of landing pages that are vague, hard to navigate, and leave you wondering what the project is all about; you avoided all of that. In particular, the "Decisions made for you" clearly answers many of the questions someone will have when they investigate a project like this. Kudos.

<comment><USER3> I can't agree enough! More projects need this "decisions made for you" section in them.

Hmm, maybe I should go through the common Ruby frameworks and add a section like this in a pull request...

<comment><USER4> Indeed, it is one of the best one page introduction for a project I have ever seen. Making me go back to some of my projects and redo the READMEs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >It does not use ORM nor installs one.

Take a look at [1]. Congratulations, you've written an ORM.

The belief that ORMs are evil is precisely the belief that this sort of code should be repeated everywhere database access is performed. If you have generalized routines for interacting with the database with more comfortable abstractions then string concatenation, you _are_ using an ORM, but possibly a poorly tested, poorly documented homegrown one instead of a generally accepted solution that has more eyes on it. You are what you claim to be above.

Which is not bad, lightweight ORM is awesome. You could also debate terminology that these are not really objects, but the spirit is still pretty similar to activerecord and sqlalchemy.

[1][https://github.com/go-bootstrap/go- bootstrap/blob/master/bla...](https://github.com/go-bootstrap/go- bootstrap/blob/master/blank/dal/base.go)

<comment><USER6> And if you look at dal/README.md [https://github.com/go-bootstrap/go- bootstrap/tree/master/bla...](https://github.com/go-bootstrap/go- bootstrap/tree/master/blank/dal) , they say that they got the "data access layer" defintion from wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_access_layer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_access_layer) , and in the last line of the wiki page says:

> _Object-Relational Mapping tools provide data layers in this fashion, > following the active record model. The ORM /active-record model is popular > with web frameworks._

:D

<comment><USER5> It may be technically true that this DAL is not _really_ on ORM, but saying that the project skeleton does not contain an ORM is misleading at best. It would be simplest to just rework the language to something like, "a lightweight ORM" or "a database access layer like what's found in traditional ORMs" or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the project. You integrated a lot of well known and standard packages that people writing Go-WebApps would want, and didn't make the project super heavyweight. Very useful and still very light. I will definitely be using it, since one of my biggest problems with getting new go machines set up is going out and finding all the packages I have used in the past.

On top of that, you got me another Gorilla Secure Cookie default integrity key to add to my project for attacking Gorilla SecureCookies.

<comment><USER8> This project generates scaffolding code, that key should be generated too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent feedback! I've updated the code to randomly generate the key during bootstrap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Would love to see something like this for RESTful Web Services built on Go with /users, auth, rate-limiting, etc already working out of the box.

<comment><USER10> I wrote something like that a while back: [https://github.com/iangudger/basicGoAPI](https://github.com/iangudger/basicGoAPI)

No rate limiting, but it has pretty much everything else. If you want to add it I would welcome a pull request :)

<comment><USER11> Your project is GPL licensed. Is that your idea of a joke?

There is a place for the GPL, but this is not it.

<comment><USER12> I have found the GPL is workable in web projects:

[https://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/132485/does-...](https://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/132485/does- a-website-running-modified-gpl-software-have-an-obligation-to-release-their)

I understand why people don't like the GPL but its not a showstopper for most business applications.

<comment><USER11> You are grossly misguided and should consult a lawyer.

Linking to a random programmers stackexchange question is an unwise way to make licensing decisions.

Per GNU's own faq at [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#UnreleasedMods](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#UnreleasedMods):

      A company is running a modified version of a GPL'ed program on a web site. Does the GPL say they must release their modified sources?

      The GPL permits anyone to make a modified version and use it without ever distributing it to others. What this company is doing is a special case of that. Therefore, the company does not have to release the modified sources.

      It is essential for people to have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately, without ever publishing those modifications. However, putting the program on a server machine for the public to talk to is hardly "private" use, so it would be legitimate to require release of the source code in that special case. Developers who wish to address this might want to use the GNU Affero GPL for programs designed for network server use.

In case you missed it: _However, putting the program on a server machine for the public to talk to is hardly "private" use, so it would be legitimate to require release of the source code in that special case._

There are numerous other potential consequences to the GPL and the question of when propagation occurs is ambiguous.

<comment><USER13> In fact, you are actually the one who is grossly misguided. Per that exact quote,

      The GPL permits anyone to make a modified version and use it without ever distributing it to others. What this company is doing is a special case of that. Therefore, the company does not have to release the modified sources.

Specifically

      Therefore, the company does not have to release the modified sources.

The faq is explicitly stating that the GPL would not require releasing modified source, and that if you want to force the releasing of modified sources, you should use the AGPL, as it has a clause to cover network server software

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> After fiddling with the initial rev, and having issues - I pulled your May 8 commits and this is very nice and working well! Thank you so much! I've been using a "book in progress" for better practices for go web programming ([http://www.manning.com/chang/](http://www.manning.com/chang/)). But this was much better for me to get going! Cheers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to hear that the project helps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm a bit confused as to why the initial step is a "git clone". Why not "go get"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point! I've updated the instruction.

<comment><USER15> Looking better, but since the 'go get' step compiles your main.go and puts it in $GOPATH/bin/go-bootstrap, the instructions could be simpler still:

        go get github.com/go-bootstrap/go-bootstrap
        $GOPATH/bin/go-bootstrap -dir github.com/$GIT_USER/$PROJECT_NAME
        cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/$GIT_USER/$PROJECT_NAME && go run main.go

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wrote a simple one of these for rust using nickel.rs a while ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9519642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9519642)

</comment><comment><USER17> Just got this up and running, this is fantastic! great work

</comment><comment><USER18> This is really exciting. Thank you very much.

Anyone with a 'large' web project written in Go want to chime in?

<comment><USER13> IMHO, once you've got a db attached, "secure cookies" are a bad idea.

<comment><USER19> without reference to this project -

Perhaps you meant storing all session data is a bad idea versus just an ID? (If so, I'm with you)

If not - how would you identify an authenticated user? Or, how would you look up all their relevant session data in the DB?

<comment><USER13> "securecookies" is a term used, at least in the context of github.com/gorilla/sessions, to refer to a session storage based on encrypting all of the session data and sending it as a cookie. That means all of your session data, including if the user is authenticated and even which user it is, is sent to the browser and back to the server on the next (and subsequent) request(s). This is an interesting concept, but IMHO, rather flawed. About the only valid use is for small micro-apps that don't have any server side persistent storage.

A db based session, which really wouldn't be that hard to set up with github.com/gorilla/sessions, would just send a randomly generated session id to the client in a cookie, save the data in the db, then read that data back out of the db on the next request.

<comment><USER20> > That means all of your session data, including if the user is authenticated > and even which user it is, is sent to the browser and back to the server on > the next (and subsequent) request(s). This is an interesting concept, but > IMHO, rather flawed. About the only valid use is for small micro-apps that > don't have any server side persistent storage.

I'm curious: what do you consider particularly flawed? DB backed sessions with simple ID-storing cookies suffer many of the same problems, with the primary issue being that you can MitM the cookie and masquerade as another user if not served over HTTPS.

DB (SQL, Redis, et. al) backed sessions are nice if you are storing genuine data (i.e. form data), because cookies typically have a 4KB per domain limit in most browsers.

If you are just storing a user ID, email address and/or admin flag, the cookie is authenticated (to prevent modification of those values) and served over HTTPS (only, ever) then there isn't an immediate problem there. You also don't have to worry about hitting your DB for each request - Redis is real quick, but (without hard numbers) I don't expect that sending 1KB of cookie header data would be slower either.

<comment><USER13> Keep in mind, your authenticated cookie is exactly as easy to MITM as a ID storing cookie, and potentially more dangerous. A session can be deleted from the db, and then that session cookie is dead. An authenticated cookie is good forever, unless you start putting expiration times or something similar. Issue with that is now you have to make sure it's all done correctly, and there's no bugs that may make the cookie good forever/impossible to revoke. Whereas, you get that kinda stuff for free with a db backed session, just delete the session and they are logged out, period.

<comment><USER21> You could always, you know, change the code (which is simple) so that an "infinite" expiry date is no longer valid. Line 215.

[https://github.com/gorilla/securecookie/blob/master/secureco...](https://github.com/gorilla/securecookie/blob/master/securecookie.go)

As for "impossible to revoke" well if you have control over your server you can do whatever you like so this falls into the very not-at-all-impossible category. As a baseline as long as there is no personal information in the "secure cookie" there really is no issue at all.

<comment><USER13> So you just removed the ability to have a "Log me in forever" checkbox.

A expiry date system is literally impossible to revoke without somehow maintaining a list of valid or invalid cookies, and by that point, you are hitting a database for each cookie.

So, one way, you don't have as much control, and you can't revoke a stolen cookie with potentially high level access rights. The other way, you are replicating a db backed session, and heaping complexity on top of it.

<comment><USER21> If we are dealing with a subset of bad cookies, then I suppose it becomes a hard question of what-to-do. We could put something into the code to distinguish and then require a minimum last good date of some sort. It is messy and I wouldn't want to do that, but really I just want to point out that your insistence on it being "impossible" just isn't true. If we just let ourselves revoke everything, then it is much simpler. I wonder how the "known subset of bad cookies" situation arises. I suppose it could, but you could in turn release an announcement telling your users that for all of their protection you are requiring that they login again, insert a minimum required date and move on with life. There are plenty of ways to deal with the situation and none of them are impossible.

<comment><USER13> Really? Could you try actually reading what I've written?

        impossible to revoke without somehow maintaining a list of valid or invalid cookies

Completely true. A minimum date like you are saying is still "some kind of list of valid or invalid cookies". Or are you going to get into the semantics of "that's not a list"? As an example of something that you can't do without tying a database into it, I've seen sites that let you log individual computers out of the system from your account page. No way to do that without a valid/not valid check in the DB.

<comment><USER21> Values are values whether or not they are in a db. It is situation dependant and probably not (happily) manageable in a large scale application. Saying things are "impossible" with such a heavy hand is a bit over the top. If my cookies have a date that is valid, then I can easily keep that bit of nasty logic in the code. I wouldn't do that personally, but it is doable. Take it easy :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> You can also check this one [http://defaultproject.com/](http://defaultproject.com/) Based on Goji and Mongo.

This site uses it [http://gifuk.com/](http://gifuk.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> great initiative ! thanks a lot !</comment>


Shrthnd – Convert CSS into shorthand syntax - <AUTHOR> http://shrthnd.volume7.io/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi DN,

We designed and built Shrthnd in just a few days.

Simply input your CSS and shorthand syntax will be used wherever possible.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, comment and feedback. We're also aware of some bugs. Feel free to open an issue on GitHub.

Thanks! Alex

</comment><comment><USER2> What kind of size reduction do you see in file size for typical sites? Does gzipping mean you don't see much improvement?</comment>


Caving into bullies (aka, here we go again) - <AUTHOR> http://www.lessig.org/blog/2009/02/caving_into_bullies_aka_here_w.html <comment><USER2> Dimitri Skylarov got jail time and brutal treatment just for making pdf files readable. Something necessary for people with sight problems, for example.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitri_Skylarov> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_v._ElcomSoft_Sklyarov>

Lessig's 2001 writings were months before the arrest and the whole ElcomSoft saga.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is why I won't buy a Kindle.

What I'd really like, is an E-Ink device about the size of a sheet of letter- writing paper (A5), based on an open platform (BSD, Linux, etc.), with a touchscreen. It would make not only an excellent platform for textbooks and reference, but also for taking notes and drawing.

I'm half-tempted to build one of these for my own use; anybody know where I can get an A5-size E-Ink display?

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, I'll be sure to vote with my cash and only buy books that allow TTS. I spend a LOT of money on books (I am a bookworm) and would like the ability to listen to them sometimes.

And as for the publishers who disallow TTS, we'll.. there's always certain IRC channels and bittorrent networks. If they intend to fuck me over, they I likewise them, I say!

<comment><USER5> Hopefully the madness will stop one day. I never bought any DRM music but then I bought a bunch of stuff since DRM walls came down and I was able to do as I please with my purchase. Somewhere down the road there is an economic incentive for the publishers to make readers happy.</comment></comment>


Rails 5 allows setting custom HTTP Headers for assets - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bigbinary.com/2015/10/31/rails-5-allows-setting-custom-http-headers-for-assets.html <comment><AUTHOR> Read How Rails 5 allows setting custom HTTP Headers for assets and how it solved some Caching Issues for us on Heroku and Fastly.</comment>


DNSimple experiencing another major DDoS attack - at-fates-hands https://twitter.com/dnsimple <comment><AUTHOR> This is, unfortunately, affecting us and some of our clients.

Is there anything we can do to mitigate downtime at the level of our DNS provider? It seems unlikely to me, but this is the right group of people to ask.

<comment><USER2> You can set up multiple DNS providers before the DDOS attack begins.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands Hackers have been hammering these guys for some time now.

They've already had two major attacks. One was in June of 2013 ([http://blog.dnsimple.com/2013/06/incident- report-20130603/](http://blog.dnsimple.com/2013/06/incident-report-20130603/)) and another one in September of 2014 ([http://blog.dnsimple.com/2014/09/incident-report- ddos/](http://blog.dnsimple.com/2014/09/incident-report-ddos/)). I'd probably pull the plug on their service, or have some mitigation plan in place if you stay with them</comment>


Show HN: A neural net for predicting Bitcoin prices from past 60 days - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lutherism/bitcoin_oracle

<comment><USER2> Neat. For the 25%-35% of the time that it's wrong, how much of that is due to the occasional crazy spikes? That is, what happens when you remove the outliers?

</comment><comment><USER3> May I ask same but for oil rates (urals will be best)? ;)</comment>


Lime Text – Open Source Sublime Text alternative (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://limetext.org/ <comment><USER2> As an emacs addict/user, what I really want is a credible alternative to that cockroach of editors.

Price of admission: run in a terminal, run graphically, run on every possible system, be open source, be ridiculously, easily extensible.

What a successor might add:

Not be riddled with bugs.

Not be ridiculously, terribly bad at actually displaying text (quickly, smoothly, large amounts).

Not be extended in a language that's so slow that most "intelligent" modes end up being piles of half-correct regex hacks.

Not not care about correctness, in general.

Hop to it, dear idealistic genius whiz-kid reader!

Or fund me, overly-$-laden startup lottery winner. I'll take a crack at it.

<comment><USER3> Atom (hear me out):

\+ runs graphically

\+ runs linux, macos, windows (nothing else?)

\+ open source

\+ ridiculously, easily extensible

\+ not riddled with bugs (slowness is not a bug)

\+ for small files, comparably quick to Sublime on my machine

\+ major dev community; already much better than 6 months ago

\- slow in some instances, esp. large files

\- doesn't run in terminal

\- doesn't run in less-popular OSes

+/\- moderate RAM usage, decreasing

<comment><USER4> Honestly I don't get the Atom hate. It's a great editor.

I came to Atom from Sublime because the plugin ecosystem was growing much faster and the community felt more active. I haven't looked back since.

And no, Atom not designed to open 30Mb files. Complaining about this is akin to stomping on a land mine and complaining that your Timberland boots didn't save your foot. Just use Atom for its intended purpose: editing source files written by reasonably reasonable people.

<comment><USER5> I just want to be able to look at the first 10 lines of a 15MB JSON I downloaded of the internet without having the entire application crash. It doesn't seem like too much to ask. There's a big difference between asking for a 15MB file and a 500MB file. 15MB is a pretty reasonable size for a text editor to be able to open without crashing, IMO. Unfortunately, I have to peek at those in Vim instead. Nothing wrong with Vim, but I hate having to switch editors to look at one file.

<comment><USER6> head ?

<comment><USER7> head — [https://linux.die.net/man/1/head](https://linux.die.net/man/1/head)

tail — [https://linux.die.net/man/1/tail](https://linux.die.net/man/1/tail)

less — [https://linux.die.net/man/1/less](https://linux.die.net/man/1/less)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Funny - Sublime has been taking a pounding from all angles over the years, but still seems to be bouncing back off the ropes and swinging hard.

This project looked familiar, and I seem to recall coming across it a while back. As others have pointed out, the blog hasn't been updated since 2014, so it looks like a stalled project. Another points victory to Sublime perhaps? ;)

<comment><USER9> It's hard for these other Electron based editors to completely replace Sublime when they are so much slower. People say that they don't notice how slow Atom or VS Code are, but try running them on a 5+ year old laptop like mine.

<comment><USER10> This one isn't Electron based, but rather it uses QML (i.e. Qt Quick).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The headline on the Landing Page says "Elegant Free Open-Source". I for one applaud these great selling propositions.

And I'm speaking after using Emacs and VIM for 15 years having not seen one other editor concept that was ultimately superior.

Sublime Text was horrible in that it offered an easy refuge so many young and inexperienced people. But ultimately it was a closed source prison that they got pulled into. And yes, I'm a professional developer having founded multiple companies. I'm a capitalist, nothing wrong with selling software. However, having great tools that last a lifetime available is one of the most important point I learned and like to teach to my students (I'm a lecturer, too).

Why lock yourself in? Just because it looks more shiny and is easier in the first week? That's a good reason to use many things, but not your primary driver as a professional software engineer.

Hooray for these new editors that look shiny and are open source. And then, when the students ask how I did those crazy things in Emacs, they still get those huge eyes and want to gobble all the information in. This kind of curiousness happens rarely with people locked into proprietary systems.

<comment><USER12> The problem with Emacs and vim, to me, is that they don't fit in.

I'm currently trying to take up Emacs (I pick up one of vim and Emacs every few years. Not sure why. Feels like a thing I should do). Here is some of my list of Emacs problems.

* The big one. Every other app on my Mac uses the same shortcut keys for cut, copy, paste, save, open, search, search + replace, spell check. That's probably 95-99% of the keys I press, and Emacs has to be special and support none of the standards. I know there are good historical reasons for this, but that's no use to a new user.

* Server mode doesn't seem to "understand" Macs -- when I shut down my Mac it just hangs and I have to force kill it. Without server mode I end up with loads of Emacs which seem to load slower than atom can open a window.

* I like editting text ,(as opposed to code) in a variable width font. Doesn't seem well supported.

* The default settings seem very limited, so then I wonder if I should use something like spaceman's, but that is massive and brings it's own bugs.

I can be comfortable, and fairly productive, instantly in sublime, atom, lime and vscode. Why can't Emacs, by default, have a "be like a Mac app" mode?

<comment><USER13> Personally I'd prefer if everything else were more like vim. Most platforms seem to have complete abandoned keyboard navigation as a priority.

Actually the vimium plugin for Chrome is great in that respect. I guess I can do 80% of my work with vim keybindings now.

<comment><USER11> Spot on!

One of the biggest strengths is just this. I use VIM key bindings everywhere: Chrome, FF, Terminal, even Emacs. Back in the day where I also did much work on Windows, I also had them in Visual Studio and MSSQL Manager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was an interesting attempt but I think development kind of stalled. The original creator, quarnster, left the project.

<comment><USER15> You're right. Blog and roadmap haven't been editted since 2014.

<comment><USER16> Git commits to the project are from August this year.

I see many projects with a similar public perception issues. Pages and blogs need to reflect their activities better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As much as this is refreshing, Sublime just works though.

Even Sublime 2 wasn't that bad you'd want Sublime 3. For heavy projects I use IntelliJ. I was happy to pay for Sublime. I remember switching from Textmate to Sublime because it had compelling arguments.

Sublime is the perfect editor between Notepad and IntelliJ. Anyway I hope this is just as good.

<comment><USER18> Do any of these text editors you mention include a screensaver? I was just trying BREEZE for MS-DOS today and found that feature really appealing. I came back to my desk and the entire UI had just vanished and turned into a field of twinkling stars. I would love it if one of my more modern text editors did that.

<comment><USER19> Does anyone use desktop screen savers anymore? It used to be amazing how much customization some people put into to something that only appeared when they weren't using it.

More apps need boss mode though.

<comment><USER20> I do, to lock my mac on demand. I think there's another way to do it now, but I'm stuck in old habits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> People might be interested in this one too - got a weird name, and it's still under development, but it seems pretty good [http://www.vim.org/](http://www.vim.org/)

<comment><USER22> Really, this is more like [NeoVim]([https://github.com/neovim/neovim](https://github.com/neovim/neovim)), in the way it's structured and with its aim to rebuild its namesake in a modular fashion with swappable UIs.

<comment><USER23> As an old prgrammer feeling the limit of neuron counts and possible premise of alzheimer, I avoid tools where you have to know by hart all the commands or have to read a long help text to find what you need.

I use vim as editor for system files, but I only use the 1% of its capabilities I really need. All these shortcuts make me sick because I can't remember them and can't easily find them. That's also why I don't like Atom, sublime, Visual and all that kind of editors. I'll give a try to this Lime editor.

The best IDE around, in my humble opinion, is QtCreator because the interface is remarkably simple and intuitive. I regret no one tries to copycat this one.

<comment><USER19> Vim is a language, not a bunch of commands to remember. A sufficient vim user would probably be unable to tell you how exactly they accomplished something.

I gave QtCreator a try just a couple of weeks ago actually. I wanted to give qml a go and expected this to be where it shined. But the create project dialog wouldn't fit on the screen and the create button wouldn't enable for some reason (possible something off screen).

<comment><USER24> > But the create project dialog wouldn't fit on the screen and the create > button wouldn't enable for some reason (possible something off screen).

This really reminds of using KDE3.x & QT in general a decade ago or so :)

<comment><USER19> I never encountered it with KDE, but I always ran it on the standard 15 inch monitor of the day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Am I the only one sick of projects declaring, "written in rust", "primarily developed in go", etc? Why do your users care about your implementation language? Do you have any features worth mentioning? If your main selling point is that you used the shiny new language, I'm already doubting the usefulness of the endeavor.

Just the straw that finally broke the camel's back . . .

<comment><USER26> I've been guilty of this. When meteor.js was new, I made an issue tracker, and proudly submitted it to HN with a title something like "Issue tracker made with Meteor".

Some things I found:

1\. You have a much better chance of getting upvotes if you appeal to a popular technology. Had I not mentioned Meteor I suspect I would never have made it to the front page.

2\. In my case, most of the initial interest came from those more interested in the underlying technology than the application.

3\. I found it very difficult to market the project as an issue tracker as it was already established as a meteor project.

<comment><USER27> I guess this one? [https://github.com/dcw303/mindmeld](https://github.com/dcw303/mindmeld)

Could not get it to run. Broken with current meteor?

<comment><USER26> That's the one. It hasn't been updated since Meteor 0.6(?) a few years ago, so I'd be amazed if it still worked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > Lime Text is a powerful and elegant text editor primarily developed in Go

It's very interesting to me that this is the most important statement the creators can make about their project. Of course anyone making a text editor will say it is powerful and elegant. As an end-user, I rarely care what language a text editor is written in. At least not right up front. It might matter if I'm interested in extending or modifying it. Maybe this fragment can be improved.

The second half of the sentence actually gives me an idea what problem it is solving and why it exists:

> that aims to be a Free and open-source software successor to Sublime Text.

(Awesome!)

The second paragraph is also very interesting and draws my interest.

I love the "Roadmap" button, neat touch. It shows very clear goals and a reasonable amount of progress.

<comment><USER29> For the people they are targeting by calling it a successor to Sublime, the language actually does matter.

Many, likely most, Sublime users are taking advantage of the myriad of plugins written for Sublime in Python. I immediately discounted the usefulness of this product simply because it is written in Go, which would mean I need to find new equivalents for the plugins I use on a day to day basis, or write Go versions of them myself.

I honestly don't have enough to complain about with Sublime that would make switching worth that amount of effort.

<comment><USER30> For what it's worth, it does aim to be (mostly) compatible with the Sublime Text Python API[0]. The base editor is written in Go, but the plugins are Python (much like Sublime itself is C++, but uses Python plugins).

That said, I wouldn't get too excited about this - not much has really happened on it since April 2015.

[0]: It's the fifth point on the roadmap: [https://github.com/limetext/lime/wiki/Goals](https://github.com/limetext/lime/wiki/Goals)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm a very happy Sublime Text user, but I wish it were open source. I don't mind paying, since I get so much value out of it. If it were open, others could make contributions, and I wouldn't have concerns of my favorite editor dying off.

From the activity graphs, it looks like development on Lime Text has stalled a little. There's some updates in the wiki entries, but not much more. Hopefully things pick up!

In relation to editors, I've been playing around with Spacemacs and evil mode enabled, but so far I haven't found the time to give it an honest chance as my daily editor.

<comment><USER32> Being open source has really small relation to project not dying off. In your own example Lime Text stalled even tho its open sourced, same with textmate which went open source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Something about the phrase "Successor to Sublime" rubs me the wrong way. It's condescending and misleading.

I initially thought, did the author of Sublime open source his work like the author of Textmate? But no, it looks like this looks like an independent project, and since Sublime is still updated, can there be a successor yet?

<comment><USER34> It's what the French call a "dick move".

<comment><USER4> If you're thinking of "coup de bite", that doesn't mean what you think it means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why "successor"? Has SublimeText died somehow? Last time I've check my copy was running happily.

<comment><USER36> To be fair, this was back in 2014 when people thought sublime was dead and abandoned by Jon. However now that's not the case and the dev team are rolling out releases again, and expect a stable v3 to come out soon

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Don't enough text-editors exists, things are getting outta control now. Vim, Emacs, Sublime, Atom, Lime... Shit, pick one of the four and be happy damn.

Same thing is happening with programming languages. There is a new one everyday that doesn't offer anything better than what we had before. Everyone just has their eye on the shiny new toys I guess...

<comment><USER38> You're not obligated to use it. All existing editors (and languages) also have their flaws* and room for improvement, and I'm happy to see people try.

* Preempting the "then send a pull request": sometimes the flaws are fundamental or otherwise unlikely to change, like VimL, Emacs's keybindings, Sublime Text's closed-sourcedness, Atom and VS Code's Electron bloat…

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> OK, but what does it do that Emacs doesn't (yet - give it a week)

</comment><comment><USER40> I am afraid this is project is stalling. I would like open source alternative to Sublime. I use Emacs as of now, but it is funny how so many years down the line, we can't make good, robust editor that is _focused on performance_. Sure eye candy should be present in some degree (I am bitch about colors and nice UI, since I spend a lot of time in it, I like to make it look cool to me, but I always put performance and function on first place). Xi looks like it has potential, but it is pretty early in development. I just hope Ralf sticks to it, and in few years I think we will have great editor, with right technology, right philosophy and hopefully right community.

</comment><comment><USER41> [https://github.com/limetext](https://github.com/limetext)

[https://github.com/limetext/backend](https://github.com/limetext/backend)

</comment><comment><USER42> Given that the goal for the plugins API is "I'll probably never implement this 100%, only the api bits I need for the plugins I use." [0] I don't see this getting traction. Piggypacking off an existing ecosystem is a great way to bootstrap a project but so long as it's wack-a-mole to discover if all your plugins work, this remains a pet project in my mind.

[0] [https://github.com/limetext/lime/wiki/Goals](https://github.com/limetext/lime/wiki/Goals)

</comment><comment><USER43> Looks interesting. I'd recommend packaging some installation options instead of just source. I plan to check it out later, but it would sit higher on my queue if it were easier to try out.

</comment><comment><USER44> It'll be interesting to see how this stacks up performance-wise.

My main reason for using Sublime over something like Atom is that Atom is a hog, both in the large (memory) and slow senses of the word.

</comment><comment><USER45> This looks really awesome...

But how on earth do I start using it? No download, no install, nothing! That is going to be a major hurdle to adoption.

</comment><comment><USER46> Textmate, Atom and Sublime were been successful editors, I've seen limeeditor since 2008 or something they've been there for windows only, and now trying to do with cross platform, very interesting.... the roadmap looks promising too. Hope we wil be able to get an nice editor soon

</comment><comment><USER47> Why not just pitch Jon (creator of Sublime) on open sourcing his editor. A business model where there is a community version and a professional version could work. I am sure you would be able to hit a Kickstarter goal pretty easily.

Disclosure: I've worked with Jon previously

</comment><comment><USER48> Previously seen on HN 2 years ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8196245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8196245)

</comment><comment><USER49> Is there a direct download link for the mac?

</comment><comment><USER50> pretty cool seeing an opensource alternative to something I like so much

</comment><comment><USER51> did Atom hasn't be open source Sublime alternative?

</comment><comment><USER52> Pretty cool</comment>


Linux Trojan "Hand of Thief" ungloved - <AUTHOR> http://blog.avast.com/2013/08/27/linux-trojan-hand-of-thief-ungloved/

<comment><AUTHOR> I find it interesting that it detects if it's run in a VM or chroot and then exits.

It seems Linux Desktop is now mainstream enough to have become a target for malware. So is there already a good free anti virus solution for linux? (I had a short look at clamav, but it seems targeted mainly at windows viruses and seems not too reliable at detecting them ...)</comment>


Massive Fire Engulfs Mexican Oil Rig, 4 Dead - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/04/01/world/americas/ap-lt-mexico-oil-platform-fire.html

<comment><AUTHOR> There's an alternate article at Boing Boing that has photos and appears to be more actively covering the ongoing story: [http://boingboing.net/2015/04/01/explosion-oil-spill-and- fir...](http://boingboing.net/2015/04/01/explosion-oil-spill-and-fire.html)</comment>


You Snooze, You Lose: Insurers Make the Old Adage Literally True - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/you-snooze-you-lose-insurers-make-the-old-adage-literally-true <comment><USER2> In case someone doesn't read all the way through (and you _should_ and you should donate to propublica):

 _" Umansky was bewildered. He hadn't been using the machine all night because he needed a new mask. But his insurance company wouldn't pay for the new mask until he proved he was using the machine all night — even though, in his case, he, not the insurance company, is the owner of the device.

"You view it as a device that is yours and is serving you," Umansky said. "And suddenly you realize it is a surveillance device being used by your health insurance company to limit your access to health care."

Privacy experts said such concerns are likely to grow as a host of devices now gather data about patients, including insertable heart monitors and blood glucose meters, as well as Fitbits, Apple Watches and other lifestyle applications. Privacy laws have lagged behind this new technology, and patients may be surprised to learn how little control they have over how the data is used or with whom it is shared, said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum."_

<comment><USER3> The most infuriating part of all of this is that you know it was some middle project manager who got some minor bonus in the grand scheme of things (probably in the tens of thousands) for introducing some practice that is literally ruining people's lives. It is absolutely maddening to look at this entire system and see what it has become because of above happening tens of thousands of times over.

<comment><USER4> I wonder how often that middle manager looks back and regrets the move. Or how often he/she doesn't.

It might be the reality that those people in society who ruin 9/10 lives are amorally oblivious, and stay that way through long, comfortable lives of their own.

<comment><USER5> Actualy if the life of that middle manager is mildly miserable they won't have the time to look back or regret, or really think about what they are doing for a living.

And by definition they're sandwitched in a hierarchy, that can be a hell of its own.

I'd argue the health of our society could come from healthier life for these corporate workers.

<comment><USER6> I don't know if you've seen The Gervais Principle[1] before.

It's a cynical but interesting way to think about some of the amoral behavior you see in corporations.

It touches on how middle management gets stuck with the short end of the stick between upper-level management and lower-level employees.

I'm not really sure how you could change the incentives to make things better for mid-level employees.

[1] [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _When his doctor prescribed a CPAP, the company that supplied his device, At > Home Medical, told him he needed to rent the device for $104 a month for 15 > months. The company told him the cost of the CPAP was $2,400.

Levy said he wouldn't have worried about the cost if his insurance had paid it. But Levy's plan required him to reach a $5,000 deductible before his insurance plan paid a dime. So Levy looked online and discovered the machine actually cost about $500.

Levy said he called At Home Medical to ask if he could avoid the rental fee and pay $500 up front for the machine, and a company representative said no._

This looks an awful lot like fraud. Remarkably, the mark-up disclosure and best-pricing rules required to fix this could be largely copy-pasted from the securities industry.

<comment><USER8> >This looks an awful lot like fraud. Remarkably, the mark-up disclosure and best-pricing rules required to fix this could be largely copy-pasted from the securities industry.

This is something that bothers me a lot about the American health care system. It's not that costs are exorbitant. It's patients being defrauded every step of the way. Most medical procedures, devices and pharmaceuticals would be dirt cheap if there was a) price transparency and b) competition.

That not everybody is insured is one problem, but that most people need insurances just to have someone negotiating on their behalf is not sustainable. Especially when there's a quid pro quo between insurances, devicemakers and hospitals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is going to get so much worse. There's a whole category of health tech startups chomping at the bit to help insurance companies and billing departments instead of patients.

A moment for founders to truly question whether their work will change the world for the better.

<comment><USER10> Its just really hard tending to patients without insurance: you would niche yourself on rich and wealthy people exclusively.

<comment><USER11> _in the USA_

There are many countries in the world that are able to service their populations healthcare needs without involving private insurance brokers.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but thats what the situation is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Monitoring patients also helps insurance companies advise doctors about the best treatment for patients"

Since when did insurance companies become doctor advisors? That's very alarming.

The whole concept of unsuspecting data sharing is wrong, disturbing and should have everyone concerned.

<comment><USER13> _Since when did insurance companies become doctor advisors? That 's very alarming._

If you want to, you can make this sound sinister. But it's pretty common, and the reason behind it is simple.

Many people who need medical care do not see a single doctor for all of their needs. They have a primary doctor, but also see one or more specialists, perhaps have occasional visits with a nurse, deal with a pharmacist, may sometimes need to go to a clinic that's open on a day they can't get an appointment with their regular primary doctor, etc. etc.

Out of that potentially large pool of providers, how many do you think are automatically and quickly sharing full records with the primary doctor? How many others of them receive that level of records from the primary doctor and from all the other providers? How many of them even know about all the others' existence?

This is a genuine problem, because it means that _none_ of them see the full picture of the patient's health. They see isolated bits and pieces of it. And that's dangerous. Pharmacists get a reputation as the last line of defense for many people against different doctors -- ignorant of each others' existence -- unknowingly prescribing badly-interacting and possibly fatal combinations of medications to a single patient, for example.

In the US system (and this is not an endorsement of it), there is exactly one entity that sees everything: the payer (i.e., insurance). All of those providers want to get paid for their services, so every one of them submits claims to the payer, including details of diagnoses, procedures, and so on.

Given this status as the only entity which actually sees the whole picture, it makes a lot of sense to be sharing that information with the medical providers who see the patient. This is part of the original idea behind the HMO model of health insurance (where all the providers are a single super-entity coordinating with each other), though it comes with the widely-hated downside of being unable to see a doctor who _isn 't_ part of the HMO. And for many years, even PPO-model insurance plans have introduced more and more active collaboration with providers.

<comment><USER12> That makes sense though I still feel there is a huge conflict of interest and the system is broken. I do see your point regarding insurance being the all seeing eye so to speak. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > supplies would be substantially cheaper if they didn't have insurance at > all.

Imaging is another area with altered pricing and lessons to be learned. I had a lumbar MRI at an imaging standalone and asked about cash pricing. The procedure costs $295 when paid in cash or $395 if paid in cash and counted against my high deductible insurance policy.

</comment><comment><USER15> So the patient rent a device for a price higher than retail, got personal data collected so to be denied for medical treatment and trust some device manufacturing company for transmitting data securely. It is eyeopening on so many level

</comment><comment> noir-york What the article described is just one device. With all the sicknesses and ailments that afflict people, the insurance companies must have a very extensive playbook...

Or you know, get a national health service that treats human beings with dignity and humanity.

<comment><USER16> >national service

>treats human beings with dignity and humanity.

Anyone who's been to the RMV knows you can't have your cake and eat it too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > insurers may agree to pay higher prices for some services, while negotiating > lower prices for others, to achieve better overall value

That would make sense if they were paying everything. It's a really nasty trick when they negotiate for higher prices on things they don't cover in exchange for lower prices on things they do.

</comment><comment><USER18> People wonder why I loathe insurance companies. It's really upsetting how our modern world has gotten, thanks to legalized protection rackets.

<comment><USER19> I'm very pro-capitalism. I love it. I think it's great. But no matter how terrible I was raised to believe that socialized medicine would be, it simply cannot be worse than what we currently have.

<comment><USER20> The thing is that some problems are not solved by an immediate profit driven market. Healthcare, education and public transportation all suffer when the required payback periods are relatively short.

A good healthcare system will pay itself back by adding to the next 50 years of economic output. Good, accessible education will continue to improve the economy over generations. Good transportation increases the mobility of the entire population which allows for more competition over longer distances in a given region.

By no means should we socialize everything, but we should certainly socialize the things that the free market has been failing at for decades.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Tracking... seems to be everywhere. Yesterday, I discovered that the head of fund raising of a group in my city gets an email whenever a donor's concert ticket is scanned at the door. Presumably this is one of the "compelling" features that the ticket-company offers its clients. (It may be Ticketmaster, but I am not sure). I have asked the group to send me their privacy policy. Maybe someone here can confirm that online ticket companies routinely offer such a feature.

</comment><comment><USER22> I thought it was the UK that had things like 'Death Panels'.

<comment><USER23> Because healthcare requires resources and resources are inherently finite, rationing is inevitable. This means there have to be policy decisions. If you want to, you can label the policy decisions over rationing "death panels", or you can say it's just "market forces" or "God's will" or whatever turn of phrase suits your pre-existing position. Obamacare as originally designed would have such a policy setting panel, now it does not so you're at the mercy of whatever for-profit insurance companies decide.

In terms of the specifics, the UK has an public body named NICE that makes decisions about how to spend limited resources in the NHS, it uses a model called Quality Adjusted Life Years, in which it tries to spend no more than a certain amount of money to buy people healthcare that will improve the amount of "quality adjusted" life they get, where e.g. "Give blind toddler normal vision" would be a big boost of quality even though it doesn't actually increase their lifespan, whereas often cancer treatments have a headline boost to lifespan but quietly admit you spend the extra time crippled by pain or other health problems the treatment does not fix or even exacerbates, so NICE would discount those extra months accordingly.

But NICE does not directly mandate patient care, they're like the legislature making a sentence guideline, not the judge passing sentence on a specific criminal. NICE provides guidance, individual doctors can override that guidance, although where it's very expensive they may need clearance from somebody controlling the purse strings. For example NICE guidance might say Drug A is recommended because although Drug B has slightly better outcomes in most respects, Drug B causes incontinence in most patients and the loss of dignity from being incontinent makes for poor quality of life. Your doctor sees you're incontinent anyway for other reasons, figures you may as well have Drug B and suggests you have Drug B. They're the one signing a prescription, not NICE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Isn't the profit motive a great driver of I N N O V A T I O N

<comment><USER25> Health INSURANCE should not be profit driven as it's a risk pool, and profit driven means they will charge high premiums and attempt to deny as much as possible. Health CARE should be driven in part by profit.

<comment><USER26> Insurance is a business, and of course it should be profit-driven. Competition should keep excessive profit-taking in check. A problem with health insurance is that regulations prohibit very much competition.

<comment><USER27> An insurance company is incentivized to NOT provide service, so no, it doesn't make sense to be profit-driven.

<comment><USER26> Not in the face of competition. Better service is a competitive advantage.

<comment><USER25> And yet that hasn't worked so far at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The CPAP business has been a scam for many, many years. As more people use them, it's just getting worse.

I think the crux of the problem is the intersection between a large population in need, the ability of the machine to keep people alive, and the machine's foray into into what once was well-marked regulatory territory, the respiratory therapist.

I expect it to get worse.

I need my CPAP to stay alive. I have severe, obstructive sleep apnea. So there's no option for me except "do whatever it takes to keep and maintain a CPAP"

That tends to be a powerful motivator to separate people from their money. And the machines themselves, even with the cost of regulatory compliance, aren't extremely expensive. Retail they're 500-1200 bucks. From the parts involved, manufacturing costs are probably a tiny fraction of that.

I've had my CPAP for years, and I was burned by the system getting it. My wife was prescribe a CPAP as well about a year ago and had an even worse experience.

She was told to go down to the local CPAP shop and pick out a unit. Her insurance would cover it after her deductible.

When she got there, they gave her the nicest one. Then they told her because of compliance worries, she would be paying only so much every month. If she decided she didn't want it? She could take it back in the first month or two. Makes sense, right? Then if she wanted to file with the insurance company to cover her rental, that was up to her.

Flash-forward six months. The insurance company refuses to pay. She's not using it enough (even though she needs to. Long story.) So she calls up the CPAP folks. No, they will not take it back. And guess what? If you stop payments, you now owe us for the full cost of the CPAP. Not the cost you could get online. Nope. The "cost" we've put on our special price list for insurance companies.

She's now in a spot where she's paid about twice the cost of the machine in "rent", _plus_ the CPAP folks want her to pay twice the cost again -- or they're taking her to court.

Try to sell it online? Great idea. They won't let you. You can't sell medical equipment online!

The best part is that the manufacturer of the CPAP now bugs the hell out of her to buy all sorts of replacement parts. And why not? They're all covered by insurance!

She finally gets them to shut up and leave her alone. Decides to pay off the CPAP dealer. Yet again. She goes back to the machine, more out of anger and spite than anything else.

The machine refuses to work, makes you screw around with it. It's nagware, reminding her about all the supplies she needs to keep ordering.

It's a fucking scam. God only knows how many billions of dollars they're screwing people out of.

<comment><USER29> Why didn't she read the contract before signing it? She's the one who signed it and is responsible for fulfilling her part. That doesn't make it a scam.

<comment><USER30> From the Original Post: "Not the cost you could get online. Nope. The "cost" we've put on our special price list for insurance companies."

Sure sounds, at least scam adjacent or abusive in the least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just a quick plug for cpap.com. I am a satisfied customer and have no financial interest in them.

Check out their pricing for devices vs. what is listed in the article...

<comment><USER32> Wow, that's still over priced. I'm in Canada, check out [https://www.monstercpap.ca/](https://www.monstercpap.ca/) \-- remember that 1USD = 1.32CAD

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Catch-22 gets more real every day

<comment><USER34> Unfortunately, not as funny as the book.

<comment><USER35> Try rereading the catch 22 in your 30's. I laughed at it in college, I wept at it after being an adult for a decade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> About 80% of obese people with sleep apnea would be asymptomatic if they reduced to a non-obese weight. For this subset of people, shouldn't insurers (and often the Public) encourage the patient to use the free, safe, and natural solution (eating less) before being dependent on an expensive machine?

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021364/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021364/)

<comment><USER29> Not sure why you're being downvoted. If your problems are caused by being overweight you should be incentivized to lose weight and do so.

<comment><USER37> "Just lose weight" is not that simple and it's unhelpful and cruel to imply that it is.

I personally haven't been seriously obese - moderately overweight at worst - but even then I've experienced how difficult/impossible it is to get down to an ideal weight when also dealing with health complications like auto- immunity, stress/trauma/anxiety/depression, or hormonal issues.

I do know others who struggle with more serious obesity, along with some combination of the aforementioned issues, which when you pay attention turns out to being almost always the case with obesity.

"Just lose weight" is simply not possible.

"Just overcome all your auto-immune, hormonal and emotional issues" is really what you're saying, in which case the response must be "OK, give me about 15 years and a ton of support and patience along the way".

<comment><USER29> No one said "just lose weight." I'm not sure where you got that from.

<comment><USER37> The parent to your comment said patients should:

"... use the free, safe, and natural solution (eating less)"

Your comment said:

"you should be incentivized to lose weight and do so"

I'm not sure where the nuance is that my paraphrasing failed to capture.

It's not as if people don't already have huge incentives to lose weight. Those that have not lost weight are likely unable to for complex physiological or psychological reasons. Telling people to "eat less" amounts to trolling.

If you or the parent commenter have insights on what methods of weight loss could work for people who have yet to find an effective solution, then there might be an interesting discussion. I do have some insights on this, for what it's worth.

The parent commenter signaled that they have no such interest, hence the downvoting and the ban after their blatant troll comment downthread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Even though I'm an atheist, the more I see this kind of shit, the more I see wisdom in traditional religious values.

Thousand years ago they (the people that "created" religions) already knew that humanity left to it's own wouldn't grow in a positive way.

I'm not far from opting out completely from this inhumane society.

<comment><USER39> Random crazy rant there. Even as a militant atheist, this is nothing to do with religious values. It's the ethic of reciprocity. But bastards are just bastards and that's life. Holding people accountable for being a bastard and saying "no that's not ok" is what we should be doing, not try substituting value systems trying to find a less cruel one.

<comment><USER40> > this is nothing to do with religious values. It's the ethic of reciprocity.

This is an odd thing to say. The ethic of reciprocity is a value. What do you think religious values are?

<comment><USER39> The ethic of reciprocity is a simple logical construct which defines a survival advantage for the adherents to it.

Religious values are merely an abstraction over that which define a lot of specific super-rules, some based on faith and some on opinion but rarely on logic. Fundamentally the only reason there are "religious values" is so that the idea survives as well as the people.

It's difficult separating the two concepts.

To note I have no problem with people believing what they want but I think the universe is simpler than we like to make it out to be. That might be a little scarier than god though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I read EPAP should be a viable and cheap alternative, why aren't many people using it?

<comment><USER42> My understanding is that it is usually better than nothing but not nearly as effective as well adjusted CPAP or Bilevel PAP even in relatively mild apnea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> An obvious question: why aren't more CPAP machines generally available for sale to end users? Amazon and Ebay mostly sell accessories. Maybe there's a business opportunity here.

<comment><USER44> I believe that's partly a government issue. They're considered a prescription medical device. So they can only be sold by specialty stores that can validate the prescription.

<comment><USER26> I wonder why? Are they significantly risky if used without medical supervision?

<comment><USER45> The definition of medical device is terribly non-granular, classifications notwithstanding. Something like an IV pump which directly literally kill you if it breaks or is misused is subject to the same kind of sale prohibitions as a CPAP whose absolutely worst failure case is giving you a shitty night's sleep.</comment></comment></comment></comment>