Google's Cloud TPU Pods are now publicly available in beta - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/googles-scalable-supercomputers-for-machine-learning-cloud-tpu-pods-are-now-publicly-available-in-beta <comment><USER2> I wonder if they will apply the same terms of service as with their Cloud Machine Learning offerings (Auto ML, Cloud Vision, etc).

A snippet from [https://cloud.google.com/terms/service-terms#12-google- cloud...](https://cloud.google.com/terms/service-terms#12-google-cloud- platform-machine-learning-group-and-google-cloud-machine-learning-engine):

      Customer will not, and will not allow third parties to: (i) use these Services
      to create, train, or improve (directly or indirectly) a similar or competing
      product or service or (ii) integrate these Services with any applications for
      any embedded devices such as cars, TVs, appliances, or speakers without Google's
      prior written permission. These Services can only be integrated with
      applications for the following personal computing devices: smartphones, tablets,
      laptops, and desktops. In addition to any other available remedies, Google may
      immediately suspend or terminate Customer's use of these Services based on any
      suspected violation of these terms, and violation of these terms is deemed
      violation of Google's Intellectual Property Rights. Customer will provide Google
      with any assistance Google requests to reasonably confirm compliance with these
      terms (including interviews with Customer employees and inspection of Customer
      source code, model training data, and engineering documentation). These terms
      will survive termination or expiration of the Agreement.

<comment><USER3> Sincerely thank you for the public service of posting that. You've probably saved a lot of folks on here from a big mistake.

I had no idea GCP had such terms. I had been considering alternative cloud hosting for a ML SaaS but will definitely not consider GCP.

<comment><USER4> You'll probably find that all ML SaaS EULAs look about the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cloud TPU pods are seriously amazing. I'm a researcher at Google working on speech synthesis, and they allow me to flexibly trade off resource usage vs. time to results with nearly linear scaling due to the insanely fast interconnect. TPUs are already fast (non-pods, i.e. 8 TPU cores are 10x faster for my task than 8 V100s) but having pods open up new possibilities I couldn't build easily with GPUs. As a silly example, I can easily train on a batch size of 16k (typical batch size on one GPU is 32) if I want to by using one of the larger pod sizes, and it's about as fast as my usual batch size as long as the batch size per TPU core stays constant. Getting TPU pod quota was easily the single biggest productivity speedup my team has ever had.

<comment><USER6> Are TPUs drop-in replacement for CUDA if you were using TF?Can I simply change device from CUDA to TPU and run any TF code? Last I heard, TPUs still had long way to go towards making this happen...

<comment><USER7> If you are using TF, you can look in Tensorboard at your model graph and it will show you any incompatible operations.

These days it's pretty good. Not perfect, but you can do RNNs on it now. The FAQ has decent docs: [https://cloud.google.com/tpu/docs/faq](https://cloud.google.com/tpu/docs/faq)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you want to view their header image at larger size but right-clicking doesn't give you the option to "Open image in new tab", the direct link is below. Not a big deal, but it might save a few clicks for some:

[https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog- publish/origin...](https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog- publish/original_images/TPUpod.png)

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this pretty bad news for Nvidia?

<comment><USER10> Nvidia could have released a DL specific chip a long time ago, if they wanted to. I'm not sure why they haven't (market not big enough?), but they probably will at some point.

<comment><USER11> (I work at Google on compilers for ml, including compilers for Nvidia gpus.)

Devices like the v100 and t4 _are_ ml-specific chips. You can do graphics stuff on them, but that doesn't mean that Nvidia if leaving a ton of ml performance on the table by including that capability. Indeed there may be economies of scale for them in having fewer architectures to support.

They aren't dumb. :)

<comment><USER10> V100 has 640 tensor cores, and 5k general FP32/64 cores. Most of DL computation is done by tensor cores. Can you imagine how much faster it would get if they released a chip with say 10k tensor cores?

<comment><USER11> > Can you imagine how much faster it would get if they released a chip with > say 10k tensor cores?

I can, actually. :) Adding 10k tensor cores to a GPU would not make it run much faster, and would be prohibitive in terms of die space. Moreover _getting rid of the 5,000 FP32 cores_ would slow down DL workloads significantly.

The 640 Tensor Cores vs 5,000 F32 cores comparison is misleading, because they are not measuring the same thing.

An "FP32/64 core" corresponds to a functional unit on the GPU streaming multiprocessor (SM) which is capable of doing one scalar FP32 operation. One FLOP, or maybe two if you are doing an FMA. V100 has 5120 FP32 units and 2560 FP64 units.

In contrast, a "Tensor Core" corresponds to a functional unit on the SM which is capable of doing _64_ FMAs per clock. That is, a Tensor Core does 64 times as much work as an FP32 core. Integrated circuits aren't magic, if you're doing 64 times as much work, you need more die space.

Moreover, there is nothing to say that nvidia isn't able to use some of the same circuits for both the fp32 and tensor core operations. If they are able to do this (I expect they are) then reducing one does not necessarily make space for the other.

Increasing the number of tensor core flops by a factor of 20 (500 -> 10,000) would not make the GPU 20x faster, probably not even 2x faster. This is because you will quickly run into GPU memory bandwidth limitations. This is not a simple problem to solve, nvidia GPUs are already pushing what is possible with HBM.

Lastly, although you're correct that, in terms of number of flops, most DL computation is done by tensor cores (if you've written your application in fp16), that doesn't mean we could get rid of the f32 compute units, or even that significantly reducing their number would have minimal effect on our models. Recall Amdahl's law. We usually think about it in terms of speedups, but it applies equally well in terms of slowdowns. If even 10% of our time is spent doing f32 compute, and we make it 10x slower...well, you can do the math. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law)

Indeed, I was just looking at an fp16 tensor-core cudnn kernel yesterday, and even _it_ did a significant amount of fp32 compute.

The implicit argument I read in parent post is that nvidia could build a significantly better DL chip "simply" by changing the quantities of different functional units on the GPU. This is predicated on nvidia being quite bad at their core competency of designing hardware, despite their being the market leader in DL hardware. It's kind of staggering to me how quickly nonexperts jump to this conclusion.

Here's a talk I gave at cppcon about much of this (note that it's pre Volta). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHa- OSrZPGo&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHa-OSrZPGo&t=1s)

<comment><USER10> Thank you for the detailed answer.

I think your main point is that memory bandwidth would prevent the performance speedup. Are V100s memory bound when executing F16 ops on tensor cores?

Second, do we really need dedicated FP32 cores for DL? Tensor cores accumulate in FP32 (is that what you meant when you said they did a significant amount of FP32 compute?), and recent papers indicate we're moving towards 8 bit training [1]. Besides, do TPUs use dedicated FP32 hw?

Finally, if the memory bandwidth is indeed the bottleneck, perhaps all that die area from FP32 and especially FP64 cores could be used for massive amount of cache.

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.11046](https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.11046)

<comment><USER11> V100s are often memory bound when using tensor cores, yes. But I guess my point is broader than that. There is a "right shape" for hardware that wants to excel at a particular workload, depending on the arithmetic intensity, degree of temporal locality, and so on. The point is that you usually can't just turn up one dimension to eleven, it's not usually that simple.

For example, massively increasing the GPU last level cache size would not have the effect of increasing memory bw much on most workloads, because cache only helps when you have temporal locality and gpus like to stream through many GB of data.

This is covered in Hennessy and Patterson if you're curious to learn more. I also talk about it some in the video I linked above.

(Also I doubt that getting rid of f64 support would be a significant die size win. I notice that v100 has, in their marketing speak, twice the fp32 cores as fp64 cores. What do you think are the chances that Nvidia decided a priori this is the optimal ratio? What if instead they are sharing resources between these functional units, at a ratio of two to one?)

To the question of, do you really need fp32 cores, I am not aware of any "widely deployed" GPU model today that does not do significant fp32 work. Perhaps there is research which suggests this isn't necessary! But that is a different thing than we were talking about here, that Nvidia could somehow make a much better chip _for the things people are doing today_.

I don't want to speak to the question of whether TPUs have f32 hardware, because I'm afraid of saying something that might not be public. But I think the answer to your question can easily be found by some searching and is probably even in the public docs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can anyone comment on the reliability/availability of these pods?

<comment><USER13> They have been at this for multiple years internally; I have to imagine they are battle tested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Unfortunately for Google, NVIDIA's offerings are very strong, and TPUs are a pain the rear to use and require TensorFlow, which in itself is a pain to use, making it doubly painful, to the extent that using their offering requires a significant degree of desperation or not knowing any better.

<comment><USER7> Well you'll be glad to know that PyTorch is available (in development form) on the TPU: [https://github.com/pytorch/xla](https://github.com/pytorch/xla)

<comment><USER14> If it's "available" but doesn't do anything useful, it's IMO not really "available". It's a good start though. I hope they don't throttle it in favor of TF because that'd only prolong TF's agony.

<comment><USER7> I think this is pretty unfair.

I know a bunch of PyTorch using people who have switched back to TF 2.0, and that is ignoring things like the Swift TF implementation.

The deployment story around TF is a lot better too.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


People crave silence, yet are unnerved by it - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2018/05/19/people-crave-silence-yet-are-unnerved-by-it <comment><USER2> The article is interesting but I wish it went deeper into one of the theses: that people aren't craving silence as much as they are craving a lack of distraction. Noise has always existed in varying levels, but what I think may be different about the 21st century is how distracted our environments have become, which can feel like noise.

Here's something strange that happened to me last week. I went to my local gas station to fill up the tank on my car. As I was standing idly and staring off into the distance, I heard a voice talking to me. I spun around but nobody was around me. Afterwards I noticed that the voice was coming from a small, iPhone 8-sized screen embedded on the gas pump. It was showing advertisements as well as looping the "Hot News" of the day. Admittedly, I became irrationally angry about this. It felt like an invasion of my mental space. Here I was pumping gas, already paying money to the business, why are they continuing to invade my mental space, which is the last bastion of "freedom" an individual can have? I noticed the whole event put me in a heightened state of tension and anxiety. I wanted to leave as fast as I could. I wasn't bothered by the other cars driving on the road, I wasn't bothered by the local homeless population trading and bartering a few dozen feet from me, I wasn't bothered by any of this background noise. What bothered me, and what felt "noisy" to me, was this invasion of my mindshare.

<comment><USER3> I live in Oregon, where you can't pump your own gas (except in very limited circumstances). I stopped at a station that I don't normally used and was horrified to see one of those in-pump screens blaring away.

My annoyance turned to laughter when I realized that you can't even see or really hear the screen from inside a car (I was on a motorcycle). The ads just play to the poor, beleaguered station attendant all day long.

<comment><USER2> Not being allowed to pump your own gas has always fascinated me. I believe Vermont also has the same law in place. Or maybe it was New Hampshire?

Does the overall price increase as a result of not being allowed to pump your own gas? From the gas station standpoint, they would need to offset the wages given to the station attendant. Is this difference passed down to the customer?

<comment><USER4> There is no cost benefit. Self-service increases the insurance premiums for a gas station about as much as it costs to pay the people who man the pumps.

I still want the option to pump my own gas, but I have resigned myself to the fact that it will probably not happen here. Even if we made it a requirement that full service still be offered at no additional cost, Oregonians would vote it down.

<comment><USER5> If the costs are the same, isn't employing people a better use of money than insurance?

I've never used a full-service pump, so I don't get what the problem is. Why do you prefer to pump your own gas?

<comment><USER6> > If the costs are the same, isn't employing people a better use of money than > insurance?

You don't think insurance companies employ anyone?

<comment><USER5> How many people do you suppose an insurance company hires every time they sign someone up for a new policy? My guess is that it's a lot less than 1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > People crave silence

Not really. Just an escape from noise.

> unnerved by it

... when it seems unusual, or unnatural. In the woods you don't expect the deer to be shouting on their cellphones.

A heavy, windless snowfall is as quiet as the world gets. Nobody finds that particularly unnerving.

<comment><USER8> I've been told that within an anechoic chamber [1], it's so quiet that people start to hear their own blood circulation, which can be pretty unnerving.

> Cut off from the daily noises that usually drown out our body functions, it > becomes possible to hear the grind of bones as your joints move, the ringing > of tinnitus can become deafening.

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170526-inside-the- quietest...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170526-inside-the-quietest- place-on-earth)

<comment><USER9> I've been told that within an anechoic chamber, it's so quiet that some people start to hear the quiet high-pitched chatter of their nervous system screeching out a tune not unlike that of a 90s telephone modem.

But if you know what to listen for, you can hear it without an anechoic chamber.

<comment><USER10> Around 3am occasionally I wake up and yes I can hear the high pitched buzz of what I assume to be my nervous system or possibly just blood circulating around my inner ear. My neighbourhood is very quiet indeed at that time.

UK: Malvern, Sugarloaf Hill. On a crisp day in autumn. Walking down the escarpment in complete silence. No birds. One of my most vivid memories. Strange isn't it?

OA: I found Kagge's book a little thin and shallow - lots of information about his lifestyle and satisfactions, less analysis. Perhaps that is just me.

<comment><USER11> There must be something about the Malvern Hills! Last year I ran up Worcestershire beacon from Great Malvern on a gorgeous spring day. Quite a few people were up there enjoying the day. There wasn't a breath of wind, no one was talking, and the only sound was the buzz of a drone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Somewhat related, here's the trailer of an interesting documentary on finding areas of the US unaffected by human made noise. The jet age has made these areas quite rare. In a sad twist, the man who has spent his life trying to find places untouched by human noise is now going deaf (this was a few years ago, not sure his current prognosis).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0xHfFC_6n0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0xHfFC_6n0)

<comment><USER13> Is that sad news? Surely he would enjoy the silence...

<comment><USER12> Watch the video, he wasn't trying to find silence, he was trying to find the sounds of (just) nature. I imagine going deaf would be quite traumatic for someone who spent their life recording sound.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The closest I've come to true silence was trekking into the Sahara desert. At night I went about a km from the camp and sat in the dunes. No wind, no insects, no sound at all. And I have to say, it was unnerving. Your breathing, your heartbeat suddenly roar in your ears.

<comment><USER15> I've had something close to that, in the Mojave. Your footsteps are _loud_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't agree with this idea. My wife and I rented an RV and are camped at least a half mile away from anyone else. The quiet today before dawn and morning was fantastic. Similarly when I lived in the mountains in Arizona it was a huge pleasure to hike somewhere with no sounds but the wind and sit and read or meditate. Quiet is healing.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think people really crave silence inside of their own head, rather than silence in their environment. People tend to live by default through several layers of filtering (emotions, relation to the past, protection of sense of self, scanning for threats, etc.) and also one or more voices constantly telling them things that may or may not be related to their current environment (thoughts).

It is possible to cut through most or all of this and experience relative silence inside your own head through regular meditation. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER18> Do people really crave silence? I always seem to crave quiet over pure silence (where the hissing of my tinnitus can become too distracting). There's a hum and a rhythm to a busy room that doesn't need to be loud: the chatting at a coffee shop, the rattle of keyboards in the office, the laughter and splashes at the beach, or of course the sound of a rain storm in full swing. I crave the peace of those moments and the gentle lull of their sound waves.

</comment><comment><USER19> I expect there is a huge personal preference here, as my wife likes things much quieter than I do. More along the lines of 'hear the tinnitus' but I on the other hand want some background noise but nothing that triggers cognition. I can think really clearly for example while sitting on the beach or next to a waterfall.

Working in open plan offices helped me train my hearing to ignore stuff but then it gets weird when there is no noise at all.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Or silence may open listeners up to the unknown reality of themselves: to a universe within as infinite as the stars. With good reason, that is what humankind may be afraid of. It has taken mystics to brave it: St John of the Cross venturing into the noche oscura in which the soul meets the Lover, or the writer of the Chandogya Upanishad, 'meditating on this visible world as beginning, ending and breathing in the brahman'. Like a deep dive, engaging with silence is an act of faith."

Beautiful.

There are some amazing western teachers who teach how to experience this, such as:

Eckhart Tolle: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtuiEDBKgBU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtuiEDBKgBU)

</comment><comment><USER21> Can people not get used to the silence they are unnerved by?

I keep the fan on at night because I'm used to the white noise throughout the day, so to have no white noise at night is kind of jarring. But there are times in the year when I have to keep it off because it'd be too chilly. It's a bit "unnerving" since I'm now subjected to the jarring silence and all the little noises made by animals at night, but after about 3 days, I'm already used to the silence and so it's no problem at all.

<comment><USER22> I use a white noise generator at night as I live near a major street. More customizable than a fan, extremely compact, and won't affect the temperature. Just putting this out there so people in similar situations become aware of this option.

<comment><USER4> We have a white noise generator that uses a fan inside to make the sound ;-). Makes far more pleasant white noise than anything with a speaker, in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's not surprising that optimal sound environment is neither a barrage of sound nor complete absence of any sound. The optimum is somewhere in the middle.

<comment><USER24> I think so. It's probably a reason why some people prefer a bit of "human buzz" when working remotely — e.g. a not-too-noisy coffee shop or a pleasant library, where you can work at peace, but still feel the human presence around you. Which can be a welcome change to always working from home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> just some random memories this brought up for me:

I attended a lecture with my to-be wife while she was in undergrad, where she had a Deaf studies minor. It was about self-inflicted deafness (this is not the speaker or material but could get you started if you're interested to learn more: [https://primemind.com/deliberately-deaf- fbeed775c563](https://primemind.com/deliberately-deaf-fbeed775c563)).

After visiting India for a few weeks it was stunning how quiet Boston seemed when I returned. It was pretty unnerving at first, felt like the city was locked down or something. More recently hiked the Long Trail for several weeks in Vermont, and returning to Boston was overwhelmingly stressful. Silence seemed to be both unnerving and calming depending on the context.

</comment><comment><USER26> In the feature the most valuable thing will be silence

\-- Voltaire

</comment><comment><USER27> 1/3:

Another way to look at silence is to see it as a mode of experiencing, rather than a lack of sound waves reaching our ears. Can we tune off the perception of the sounds around us?

If we can, is that a valid experience of silence? In fact, it might even be a more meaningful interpretation of silence than as the physical absence of sound -- after all, even when there is an absence of sound, we can be holding a conversation in our heads with a frenemy...

[Edit: 1/N => 1/3]

<comment><USER27> 2/3:

Carrying that analogy further, let's say we did "conquer" the perception of sound down to switching it off. But our visual stimuli is very active. Either we are captivated by a busy scene in front of us, or though we have our eyes closed, we are actively dreaming up images. We are still busy. Technically silent, but not silent in the spirit of the concept.

So to extend our contemplation, perhaps true silence is when we tune off all perception -- sounds, sights, smells, touch, taste and yes, abstract thoughts too. For if we are busy thinking up, say, a proof to Pythagoras theorem, that doesn't quite fit the bill of the concept of silence either, even if there are no sights/sounds/etc involved.

[Edit: 2/N => 2/3]</comment></comment>


Who needs WebSockets for a liveblog when you can just use 3 static files on S3? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/03/how-ars-slayed-the-moonshark-on-building-and-running-liveblogs/

<comment><USER2> Ha, the general strategy of archiving the Content you need to 'bootstrap' an initial display in S3 is what we do at Livefyre.

For example, a Comment widget hits this when it loads on the page, which uses Varnish to do an ESI from S3, which is super low cost compared to going to the application layer. <http://bootstrap.livefyre.com/bs3/livefyre.com/4/NTg0/init>

He left out an important detail about where 'recent.json' is served from. I hypothesize WordPress itself as a dynamic request, meaning you still need to scale that proportional to your viewership. If it were in S3, it wouldn't be true real-time as S3 has double-digit-second latency in updates.</comment>


Why Isn't WikiLeaks Trending on Twitter? - <AUTHOR> http://studentactivism.net/2010/12/05/wikileaks-twitter-3/

<comment><USER2> I think this guy's comment (who says he works at Twitter on trends) is a valid explanation for this: [http://studentactivism.net/2010/12/05/wikileaks- twitter-3/#c...](http://studentactivism.net/2010/12/05/wikileaks- twitter-3/#comment-11619)

I'm not so sure it's a giant Twitter/State Department Consipiracy.

<comment><USER3> i don't think it's a conspiracy -- activists of all political persuasions have been complaining about this general phenomenon for quite a while

it does reveal a lot about Twitter's trending topics algorithm, and the discussions on Student Activism have been quite good

<comment><USER4> What's trended on Twitter has changed quite a bit over the past few years. It used to be that we could get a random video that we'd make at Podcamp trending in a few hours easily, and now it seems to be flooded by silly populist memes that are rarely intelligent conversation, or any significance, or anything that matters to me. Unfortunately, this is a decent reflection of the real world, where few people actually care about things that matter and don't integrate such things into their daily conversation.

Instead Justin Bieber, #noonelikesyoubecause , #thingsimiss ,and #rappersthatmightbehomeless rule the conversational airwaves.

No conspiracy here at all.

<comment><USER5> I agree, no conspiracy theories, just changing algorithms for trending topics.Even popular (and issues based) discussions with certain #tags are removed from trending topics after a fixed number of days, no matter how many people are still tweeting about that particular topic, with that particular #tag.So, if you want to keep a topic alive, you need to change the related #tag after that certain time period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Twitter, don't you do it, don't even think about it.</comment>


11 Inspiring Life Lessons from Bruce Lee - <AUTHOR> http://www.dumblittleman.com/2010/06/11-inspiring-life-lessons-from-bruce.html

<comment><USER2> _"Do not concentrate on my finger, or you will miss all of the heavenly glory."_

<comment><USER3> Great quote, but without the opening, "It's like a finger, pointing at the moon." It doesn't really make sense...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at."

This principle seems to have adapted by google as presented here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1440685></comment>


Intrade discovers a $700k cash shortfall - <AUTHOR> http://www.intrade.com/v4/home/

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of the time I worked for one company and prior to going public, we called in some Sarbanes-Oxley consultants to vet us. After a thorough SOX compliance effort (which was ridiculous - one recommendation was "print out all source code and file it"), I showed up one day and an accountant in the corner had disappeared.

Seems that he had a gambling problem, but was allowed to both cut checks and sign them ( _fall into the GAAP_ ). He embezzled, IIRC, close to one million dollars and was only found due to the SOX compliance effort.

<comment><USER3> Are you able to discuss in more detail what exactly helped find him?

<comment><USER4> Your good old financial audit. Debits must match credits, and all debits must make sense.

<comment><USER5> It's a little scary that SOX was required to force them to do this... that company was run very poorly, IMO.

<comment><USER6> They were doing it, they being the embezzling acct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember being perplexed looking at the intrade exchange pricing during the last presidential election. I wasn't the only one. Nate Silver and Paul Graham wondered about it too

[http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/oct-23-t...](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/oct-23-the- virtues-and-vices-of-election-prediction-markets/)

[https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=2615138971341414...](https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=261513897134141440)

The bets on Obama not being re-elected seemed way too high. I convinced myself at the time that this must have been due to either personal bias or perhaps a strong republican leaning userbase on Intrade. But now it's starting to seem like it may have been part of some scam.

<comment><USER8> I assumed this was because a pool of funds had been set up to prop up Romney's odds to make him appear more viable -- or at least to stave off a story that Intrade users were betting heavily against him. Intrade was a small enough market that this could have been done with a comparatively small investment compared to media buys, and without any technological or financial chicanery. It's not illegal to pay too much for something that could have been had for less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone have a copy of the proposed forbearance agreement for large account holders? It seems pretty brazen to ask people to give the company some slack on repaying deposits when they haven't really come clean on what went wrong. "For legal reasons we are not yet at liberty to document them" isn't good enough explanation; an announcement of specific arrests or civil lawsuits might be.

<comment><USER10> Not tipping someone off that they're about to _be_ arrested constitutes "legal reasons."

<comment><USER9> Arrest first, ask for your creditors to give you a break second.

<comment><USER11> That's a nice idea, but what if they go out of business before the arrests are made?

<comment><USER12> Typo on my part. My comment was in reference to this:

"It seems pretty brazen to ask people to give the company some slack on repaying deposits when they haven't really come clean on what went wrong."

Which is _exactly_ what Cyprus is doing with its banks right now. They've frozen most of the assets of their depositors and are taking a percentage of the existing accounts.

And still no one wants to actually analyze the problem to see what's wrong.. the answer is simply "throw more money at it."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds like the writings been on the wall for a while now. They were fined by the CFTC in late 2012 and had to withdraw from the US market for not being a licensed exchange [1].

Most of their customers were in the US so this was a major blow to their business.

I wonder if there's an opportunity here for a Bitcoin based predictions market?

[1] <http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-the-us-killed-intrade>

<comment><USER14> It looks like their demise was due to fraud/embezzlement. Not sure how bitcoin would help here.

Also, users of such an exchange would be heavily exposed to the volatility of BTC/$major_currency when making long-term bets. Unless one doesn't care about currency risk, but it's not easy to ignore it unless as long as one's future expenses are still pegged to $major_currency.

<comment><USER15> The Bitcoin protocol has built into it a sophisticated scripting component which would make it possible to make multiparty contracts (like those on a predictions market) that could not be broken by any means, other than an attack on the underlying Bitcoin protocol. It hasn't yet been fully implemented in any client, but it's there to be used whenever the devs feel comfortable putting it in. This feature has the potential to make Bitcoin fraud/embezzlement much more difficult than it is now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Golly gee, I wonder where it went!

</comment><comment><USER17> Did you post the URL in the wrong field?

<comment><AUTHOR> When I put the URL in the URL field it forwarded me to a post a few months ago about Intrade ceasing trading. The latest announcement and that announcement a few months ago were both put on the Intrade homepage so I guess the forum thought I was reposting something.

<comment><USER10> Yes; what people usually do in response to this is to add a query string-- e.g., <http://www.intrade.com/v4/home/?ohno>

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll remember that for the future. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Are they not insured?!

<comment><USER19> Is it possible to get insurance against embezzlement?

<comment><USER20> It is. It seems weird, but there it is... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidelity_bond>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> rorrr, you are hellbanned.

<comment><USER21> ...and for good reason too. Go back and read his comment history before you warn him.

<comment><USER22> Why do commenters feel the need to point out hellbanning? It seems to defeat the whole purpose.

<comment><USER23> Sometimes users get hellbanned for no good reason. I was hellbanned for a few days and only noticed because I knew what to look for. I emailed email@example.com and they said it was an accident, and reinstated me.

I agree with anthonyb though, you should probably make sure they're not actually trolls before pointing it out.

<comment><USER24> The reason for hellbanning is <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5413912>

"Adria Richards is an evil cunt.

SendGrid is a shit company that I would never want to work for."

Not exactly stellar material.

<comment><USER21> No need to inflict it on random passers-by though :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is the forbearance agreement the business equivalent of the "Don't Tase Me Bro!!"?</comment>


The Paris Compressed-Air Power Network (2018) - <AUTHOR> http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/airnetwork/airnetwork.htm <comment><USER2> Paris also used to have an incredibly extensive network of pneumatic mail tubes: [https://www.cix.co.uk/~mhayhurst/jdhayhurst/pneumatic/book1....](https://www.cix.co.uk/~mhayhurst/jdhayhurst/pneumatic/book1.html)

as did several other cities (NYC, Philadelphia, Prague, ...) to a lesser extent: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube)

</comment><comment><USER3> Another interesting method for power transmission in the early days of industrialization was the line shaft ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_shaft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_shaft)). These were used only for a single factory, not for a whole city, though. You can see these if you go visit old textile plants in New England, for example.

<comment><USER4> Also hydraulic accumulators:

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

[https://99percentinvisible.org/article/running-on-water- the-...](https://99percentinvisible.org/article/running-on-water-the- hydraulic-system-that-tapped-the-thames-to-power-london/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Amusingly, modern hydraulic accumulators of a different sort may still have a role in power generation. I'm working on a couple of wave generator projects where the waves pump hydraulic rams, storing pulses of pressure in hydraulic accumulators, where it's then used to drive a generator at a more constant speed.

<comment><USER4> Intresting, though wave power is a minusculy small overall altrnative energy source with massive capital feqirements. There are better options to pursue.

Pumped hydro is ... after a fashion ... a vastly more appropriate hydraulic accumulator, as is CAES.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I stumbled upon one of its remaining manhole covers a few weeks ago, which led me to discover about this network.

I have been living in Paris for 10 years but never knew this existed before.

</comment><comment><USER6> I loved this. Really interesting. Some of the French translation is a little off IMO. I would say that "usine" probably translates better as "plant" or "factory". "Particuliers" means individuals in this context. So these are supplies to individuals rather than businesses (theatres, cafes etc). I really enjoyed it nonetheless

<comment><USER7> I found the same with the translations, I was looking for a contact/feedback option to tell them, but couldn't find any way to contact the site owner. Throughly enjoyed this anyway! PS, I believe "usine" translates to "Oven" or "furnace", at least that's what I've learned in high school (French wasn't really my strong suit though), which makes sense in that's where the coal is burned to generate heat>pressure>power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Unrelated, but as soon as I saw the domain name I got excited. This is indeed the same Douglas Self that has published a ton of interesting information on audio amplifiers. Really fascinating info all over his site, both about electronics and other random things (like the compressed-air power network)

<comment><USER9> He's one of my favourite ex-coworkers. His knowledge of audio electronics is superb and his thoughts on subjectivism are worth a read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _In contrast, the worst that could happen with compressed air was a burst pipe; this would not be a good thing to be standing near, but since the pipes ran through the sewers the chance of this was very small._

Even more reason to avoid standing near a burst pipe.

<comment><USER11> Actually its a burst reservoir that is nasty.

I was told at college that in the event of the small full service (electricity water and air on tap) lab block's compressed air reservoir blowing it would take most of the building with it.

Steam is even worse BTW

<comment><USER12> But reservoirs pretty much never burst unless relief valves fail or oil gets into them.

(inb4 a bunch of hand wringing about rusty compressor tanks, those just leak and are generally harmless)

<comment><USER13> This is what the ASME was formed for - to create standards for safe pressure vessels. At the time it was founded, there was just over one steam boiler explosion a week in the US...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone know what pressure came out at the consumers end? The article mentions a 10 bar (145 psi) steam engine. Most modern air tools require about 90 psi.

I wonder what the efficiency of the system was. I am sure a lot of air leaked all over the place.

<comment><USER15> Compressed air is pretty terrible at energy efficiency. The main source of energy loss is due to heat at compression. When you compress air, a lot of the energy ends up just increasing the temperature of the compressed air and this is then quickly lost in the transmission process.

<comment><USER14> Of course! I forgot about the loss during generation. I have had to deal with my fair share of overheating compressors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> No mention of drying the air in the network. They had to have good driers to prevent water from entering the network or elaborate number of venting points to remove water from the low points of the network. Anyone know more?

<comment> m-app I'm no expert on this, but could this be the reason of the confusion in the picture titled "Section of the Quai de Gare usine: 1892", where the author mentions "A = drying channels (not sure what that means- they look like sewers in cross-section. May just mean 'drainage')"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This website is awesome. Internet should be like this.

<comment><USER18> I really enjoy the section of the site on engine designs; some of them are even animated, like this bit:

[http://www.douglas- self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/unusualICeng/axial-...](http://www.douglas- self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/unusualICeng/axial-ICeng/axial-IC.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19442938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19442938)

</comment><comment><USER20> Whenever I read about ancient technology like this, I wonder if any of the equipment and infrastructure survives today.

<comment><USER21> You usually end up with overlapped left over portions of old networks. Paris is a good case study for that, the entire underbelly of the city is an nightmarish amalgamation of tunnels and pipes.

<comment><USER22> You have that in basically every city after after a certain period of time. In Europe even more as some settlements, like Paris, go _way_ back. The city I live apparently can be crossed undergroung in everything ranging from Roman relics to whatever was added. The historic center at least

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is one of the best HN articles I've red in a long time - a fascinating look at a very well-developed infrastructure system in one of the most technologically advanced cities of its day.

</comment><comment><USER23> Today I learned something about the city where I'm living. Thanks HN!</comment>


I'm investing $10,000 into YC – here's why - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@preetnation/im-investing-10-000-into-ycs-fund-a835fb33cf9e

<comment><USER2> > _YC routinely ensures that its companies' posts show up directly on the > front page, driving extra exposure to stories that benefit their > investments. That's a significant advantage to have._

Factually incorrect: only job postings get automatic exposure on the HN front page, and _nothing else_. (although, there's a slight bias toward YC company announcements in terms of upvotes from other people due to the fact that other YC founders are on HN, but it's not easily discernable, and bad submissions are quickly corrected through flags)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. Edited and adjusted

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "as soon as they let me" So it's hypothetical investment, because such an index fond doesn't exist.

<comment><AUTHOR> sadly it doesn't, but this is sort of a hail mary approach to make one exist

<comment><USER2> I don't think a _blog post_ will cause SEC restrictions to magically disappear.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, they could definitely open an AL Fund that would be SEC compliant</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you launched a failed web business? - <AUTHOR> Or maybe you launched something that is just languishing, not even paying for it's hosting? In retrospect, were there any warning signs the business would fail? Could you have done anything different to help the site succeed? <comment><USER2> I made an app for a friend that completely failed. We worked on the project for a couple of months during which I built an MVP. But we never got any users. My friend tried all kinds of things to advertise it (press releases, looking for distribution partners, etc) but nobody seemed to care.

Early warning signs: Nobody was interested in it. If you can't get a single one of your friends to use it, that might be a sign you are doing it wrong.

Edit: My friend is still working on this. He's invested a lot of time and money into the idea, and keeps finding things that will get him closer to success (if I just get this one strategic partner on board...). He's spent a lot of time on all the formalities of setting up a company and following all possibly relevant regulations, no matter how costly. I really like him, and I like the idea, but in the end there's no point in it when there are no users...

<comment><USER3> > He's spent a lot of time on all the formalities of setting up a company and > following all possibly relevant regulations, no matter how costly

This is common mistake most first time entrepreneur do. I did the same in my first go around. Focusing on company formation and things that don't directly impact product or customer. But next time I wisened up and waited until a customer sent us a $2,000 check as advance payment. "Hey someone sent us a check to a company that doesn't exist. We need to deposit it in a bank account. I guess we need to setup a company for bank account."

Keep in touch with your friend even if you don't want to get involved right now (though it is a learning opportunity). Dedicated people like your friend are hard to come by and typically figure out and succeed if not this time, maybe in next go around.

<comment><USER2> > Dedicated people like your friend are hard to come by (...)

Yes. That's why I liked working with him so much. But when your MVP doesn't gain any traction, you must pivot or accept that it doesn't work. Dedication and determination is a double edged sword when it leads you to double down on the wrong idea.

<comment><USER3> While I don't know this specific situation, I have seen both situations where either people quit too soon or didn't quit soon enough. A lot of these things are much more clear in hindsight than when they are in progress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does a web hosting company count? Some years ago I was basically running a hosting company off a single T1 and then into a colocation cage. But it was never making me any money, and eventually expenses were adding up. I slowly wound things down to what I had started out doing and am just doing some small scale hosting for a few friends.

What could I have done different? I don't have any business sense. I didn't calculate costs vs expenses, I just ran with what I thought was best. I also lacked the technical expertise for the networking side of things. Also what really killed off my dream was the quick rise of bargain basement web hosts like 1&1 and Dreamhost, offering unlimited everything for dirt cheap prices. I could never compete on that scale. I tried to pivot somewhat and offered more "personalized hosting & support" but again, couldn't compete on price. Potential clients would say "Why would I pay you $20/mo for web hosting when I can get unlimited space and a free domain for $1/year?"

It was a big learning experience for sure. I learned a lot about business and that it's not always as easy as "just be your own boss."

<comment><USER5> Given I'm currently paying about $60/mo for a bunch of OpenShift (basically like Heroku, but from RedHat) instances that barely utilise the service at all, I'd totally pay you $20/mo for personalized hosting. Basically meaning I want someone who understands English and doesn't act like a badly programmed chatbot when I need support... Because that's what you get with the cheap hosting providers. I'm sorry you had to close down...

<comment><USER4> Part of me has thought about starting it up again, even if it's just a decent tax write off. But I'm too far behind on things as far as security knowledge goes.

Another thing that really felt like a knife in the back was Google Apps. Trying to get a small office to go with a locally owned web host is difficult when their response is something along the lines of "Well I can just use Google Apps for free. Everyone knows Gmail! It never goes down!" Google's offerings are difficult to compete with. I think people underestimate just how widespread their influence is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Many years ago, I registered some business names at the appropriate county office and set up a business bank account and that sort of thing. I had all the window dressing, but no actual business. Never made a dime.

So, I still blog and what not. It is still not wildly successful (in terms of income), in part because my highest priority is still dealing with my chronic health issues. However, I am getting better at things like figuring out what the value position is and also figuring out how it will lead to money.

So, rule of thumb: If you do not have paying customers, you do not have a business. At best, you have a time consuming (potentially expensive) hobby.

Whatever thing you like doing, if no one is paying for it, it isn't a business. _Paying customers_ of some kind are the heart and soul of business. The leather brief case and yada, that is all window dressing.

In essence: Don't confuse style and substance.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. In my latest venture, which I have marketed for a couple of months, I told someone that I finally have 1 paying customer and he kind-of laughed. I said the absolute hardest thing in business is to get the first customer that will look at your invoice and sign a cheque. Everything is downhill after the first paying customer. He really didn't understand this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yep!

Me and one other guy built a web app called FitQuick which was basically a 2-sided marketplace to find personal trainers. Idea being you could use it to find PTs who offer group sessions in the park near you, for example.

I learnt that apparently you need to actually talk to people to figure out if someone would want to use (i.e. pay) for your product in order for you to get anywhere.

We ended up building an MVP but up until that point we didn't actually have any input from potential users so we were pretty off base and it just lost momentum because we were so deflated from no one wanting to use it.

I also got insight in to how small businesses and in this case PTs operate. A lot of them are terrible at running businesses and seemed more interested in working out than making their business a success. I'm not sure entirely what my takeaway here is, but I will remember this next time I do anything that's B2B.

In terms of warning signs there were probably obvious ones that we didn't notice because all we cared about was making a 'cool' product. When the penny dropped for me was when I went to demo it to a PT manager at a gym (we kinda pivoted) and she turned up 10 minutes late and then proceeded to do administrative paper work while talking to me and only half paid attention.

\--

In truth, it took a while for me to get over it because it felt like I was being shat on despite giving it a go. What I've come to realise is that no one cares if you're giving it a go except you and I shouldn't have expected gold stars for participation.

I'm building something else now and have 2 actual users (non-paying) who are consistently using the product and providing feedback, so that's really, really, really rewarding. Here's the shitty-free-heroku-dyno version if you're curious: [https://simplerm.herokuapp.com](https://simplerm.herokuapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER9> Siasto.com was a project management tool I built with a cofounder that never took off. In retrospect, the biggest issue was that we simply never found product-market fit. The product was too vast and ambitious for me to do a good job building as a solo developer. When it didn't strike a chord with customers, it took too long to learn what was wrong and make changes.

Shameless plug here, but I launched IndieHackers.com a couple days ago. There are lots of successful businesses on it, but I'd love to include some "failed" businesses, too. Otherwise there's too much survivorship bias, and readers won't learn how to see the biggest warning signs. Email me at email@example.com if you're interested!

</comment><comment><USER10> After I graduated High school. I devoted nearly all of my time to working on a web application aaggregator meant to be a platform where people could discover and share web apps. The site would also have hosting capabilities so that you could deploy your project on site. Think of it like a github pages with a featured projects page for interactive content. After launch I posted it on several forums hoping it would catch on with developers but in the end I only ended up having about 10 people register.

In retrospect I attribute my failures to 1) Not being in touch with what people wanted, or gathering feedback throughtout the process. There were a lot of extra features that I implemented which consumed a great deal of time that never even ended up being used.. So I should have launched a MVP and took things from there. I was scared of launching since I beileved my project wasnt ready even though all of the core features were implemented.

2) Lack of marketing/logistics knowledge. After I was done building the site, I truly didnt have the cash or knowledge for giving it the exposure it needed to gain traction. I naively thought that after launch my product would just organically grow itself, by word of mouth without having to put much marketing effort. Very stupid assumption.

3)planning and organization. I took on way too much technical debt for the project to the point where I cant even modify it. I built the site at a time where I was also learning web development and it was my first project ever. I ended up minifying the code, and was not even a Git user at the time. The variable names were lost and I only have the minified output. This is probably my biggest technical mistake.

So in hindsight these are probably the largest factors that contributed to my project being a complete failure, and honestly have discoraged me a bit from following some of my other ideas due to the fear of failure, which might just mean I am more concious of where I spend my time or it might be something that is holding me back. I am not quite sure.

<comment><USER11> Sounds like you learned some truly valuable lessons applicable to future endeavors. That's precisely why you should not be discouraged; you're better prepared than ever before. Good luck, whatever your future holds. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Two things I've found at the top of the list: Team & Traction.

My previous go (c2012) we failed cause we couldn't keep the team engaged. Silly distraction from little disagreement, not going in the same path. Ultimately led to a low quality product and then lack of customer

I've thrown up a few over the last few years. Just trials to gauge Traction. When nothing pops I bail.

There is an awesome book about Lean Customer Development which has loads of good ideas on the traction side.

I've also found that potential investors put Traction and Team at the top of their evaluation.

</comment><comment><USER13> [http://www.linuxonaposter.com/](http://www.linuxonaposter.com/)

(Excerpts of) the Linux source code printed on a poster you can hang on your wall. Not one sale to date.

It's a niche market, and I haven't found a successful marketing strategy yet. (I donated one to the local LUG's raffle, and a couple people fought over it ... but apparently nobody wanted to pay actual _money_ for it.)

When November rolls around, and people are starting to think about buying Christmas presents, I might go buy some Google ads.

<comment><USER11> Unsolicited feedback: less code so it's more readable across the room & sex the design up a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I spent years making a website/webapp similar to metacritic, which aggregated new releases of new movies, games, apps etc, except the data was crowd- sourced, like wikipedia. It worked great and looked good. However, it never made more than a blip on the internet. It stuck around page 10 of google and I couldn't get any visiblity for it. And without being able to build a community it would never work so I had to pull the plug, which was very depressing. I wasted a large amount of my life working on that.

</comment><comment><USER15> Along with a friend, I made an app for getting team feedback after the team meetings. It was done in short span during holidays for a hackathon. Also submitted here. Got some feedback but not many sign ups. Since I am not good at marketing what I did, we dropped the idea.

Had some pivot plans to change it to be a customer feedback platform for folks who are always mobile and dependent on their calendars while meeting with their customers. Not much enthusiasm left, hence dropped.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8855648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8855648)

Every now and then would see something and get inspiration to reignite this but didn't go back.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nope, but I'm probably about to! It's not an app so much as it is an offline service - travel planning to Italy. Not "here's your plane ticket and hotels" but what to actually see/do/eat/drink when you're there, for those that want to get beyond the tourist traps. I'm thinking that for the amount of time off we (don't) have in our lives, some might be willing to pay for some custom planning based on experience (versus who's paying for the most Yelp/TA reviews or placement).

<comment><USER17> > but what to actually see/do/eat/drink when you're there

I assume this would be high-end, correct? As in, it's based on the client's preferences - someone who's willing to pay for that kind of attention to detail. I would also assume the information is delivered by some sort of tour guide (though a thorough-enough app could work here, too).

I was just in Italy and during the Roman part, I divided my time into sightseeing (75%) for the first week and relaxation (25%) for a few days after. The former, while beautiful, was monotonous and tiresome, and the latter was a slice of heaven. My enjoyment of the two, percentage-wise, was the inverse of how much time I spent on each. Which is to say, the relaxation part (which consisted of hiding away in a Roman neighborhood and only interacting with Italians, in Italian) was way nicer than the sightseeing.

<comment><USER16> Mid- to high-end is my target, but it really depends on preferences. I'm generally not going to take care of flights unless it's an award booking, and I'd have a separate fee for that. I can take a budget and suggest accommodations, but I don't want to dip into low end because the low end budgets I've worked with had mid/high expectations and that's sometimes impossible.

Delivery is flexible: My default is a PDF with a daily list of suggestions, plus some maps to find your way, and anything interesting/relevant that I can add based on what I know of the client. Others plan to be online, so I go over how to get a SIM and service closest to the point of arrival, and also send everything electronically - particularly useful with the maps, since they're Google Maps based. I'm considering adding a Slack channel to ask questions, but I can't come up with a reasonable SLA on responses other than "best efforts".

This is basically for the crowd that is willing to pay a bit to filter out the noise in the online reviews and arrive at a plan so that they can go enjoy, whatever enjoyable means to them I work with. I also do pretty well with families with children.

That said, I am planning for an initial consult, phone, IM, whatever is easiest for the client. We through length of trip, pace, preferences/travel style and budget. I come back with suggested accommodations, things to see and do, where to eat. I'm trying to stick to Italy because I've traveled it a bunch, Italian is my first language and I still speak a couple of dialects, and I have a pretty solid network of folks there who can help me fill in the gaps on what's good, what's a tourist trap, and what used to be good but has become a tourist trap (that last category sucks). Totally custom, though, meaning I'm not running out the same PDF for each city or anything. While I do project initially to get a lot of Rome-Florence-Venice first timers, which is great, I'm hoping I can help some repeat clients with trips in the South, which is massively under-explored by American tourists.

Your travel style sounds a lot like mine. So far I've mostly worked with clients that want to basically live somewhere else for a couple of weeks. For instance, in Rome I'd probably suggest a couple of AirBnbs in Monti, a neighborhood close to the sights but not really touristy, or out in Trastevere if you're cooler than me and don't mind crossing the river to see stuff. And food recs for each day, as well as how to score a reservation, etc. For some I get more hands on and do some of the legwork, but I'm leaving that out of the MVP for the web presence.

I'll do a ShowHN once I get the technical side to look better than shit.

<comment><USER17> Sounds interesting. A few years back, I wrote down a travel guide app idea here on HN which describes some functionality that might be of interest to you.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7617048](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7617048)

My one fear, as far as what you're describing, is that making every single trip customized would require a lot of your time (assuming you're also managing the business end). But, that being said, it's of course possible to create client types/profiles with the data already plugged in. For ex, "High- end Adventurous" which would then be matched up with the City profile. The initial consult could work in tandem with the "data-driven" side, sort of like how translators use Translation Memory programs to ease the load.

In bocca al lupo, mi sembra un'idea figa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I launched 2 websites before my current startup. 1\. Drawmics.com. It was about social comic creation. It failed because I couldn't find enough creative people to post comic on the website nor could I get them to create comic on it. There was no organic traffic and people wouldn't share the comic. Didn't know how to sell. 2\. Findero.us. It was location based QnA iPhone app. People could post questions defined by radius of city/state/country. Failed because I sucked at user-acquisition strategies.

Now that I am on my third start-up I could see what different things I could have done with my previous 2. 1\. Build a product that solves a problem, however small, for a big audience. This means that you have to work on your product until you find that problem. If there is none, it will not work. I remember I read something about finding questions before finding answers. Questions are more important than finding answers. 2\. Once you know you have the solution, go aggressive with user-acquisition and then fine-tune the product. People will complain about missing features, but you want scale before you go for product enhancements if you are solving a real problem.

</comment><comment><USER19> yes, i launched a site that did some pretty cool stuff with photos, but i mis- read the customer, they are too lazy to do anything with them, they expect the cloud to automajically suck up whatever drivel they capture, waste untold amounts of diskspace saving it, and that the world will beat a path to their door for it - take a hard look at your customer - make sure they are willing to do their part in your value proposition

<comment><USER20> _make sure they are willing to do their part in your value proposition_

What an incredibly self-centered way to think about your failure.

Sounds like you not only misread your customers but are hostile towards them as well. Never a recipe for success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> www.lpcentral.net. Very simple site as a central repository to store mortgage/lender data that any stakeholder could access (rather than spend their own resources). Everyone was interested. Idea died because a) lenders/banks are incredibly lazy, and 2) 800lb industry gorilla decided to pull a microsoft and announce their own vaporware version which has never materialized.

In retrospect I should have been smarter about the politics of business.

</comment><comment><USER21> FillSkills.com - The idea was to allow people to aquire skills based on market demand. I got market demand by looking at how many jobs are on offer for the skill, the salary data for that skill and the historical data if available. Started with software only. Kept building the tech. Spent no time or money in doing market research or marketing. Was afraid to share it thinking people would laugh at it or say something hurtful.

<comment><USER22> Gotta tell you: when I looked at your idea, I was thinking "wow, I could totally use that."

You do have to get used to being told you suck. I've got customers who have been using my software every day, for almost a decade, who still complain. Just had a call with one this past week and for the first time ever, he didn't say it sucked.

But then I got an email from him two days later and the suck was back.

This is life. Don't let it get you down. Every piece of feedback is a "dot" creating the pointillist painting of what your market wants.

<comment><USER21> Thanks! That means a lot. I have been getting that from reading HN for a while. The community here is very supportive of allowing people to make mistakes and continue improving and growing. I think it maybe time for me to give this idea another shot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My first time round was a year spent building prototypes which soon I realised was something I was doing because the non-tech part of starting up was so frightening and alien to someone who has been behind a keyboard their whole life.

The idea was simple: scheduling meetings is a pain, shouldn't this be simple by now. E.g. I don't care when or where I just want to meet with Susan tomorrow for 15 mins. You're my Corporate calendar and you know both our availability. Go figure, I'm busy. It was a search engine of sorts for meetings: "Susan tomorrow 15 mins".

Whilst this solution never intended to replace existing calendering or email, etc and just serve as a front-end, I came to the conclusion that companies already have solutions to booking meetings. The existing system works so why pay more. My USP was in time savings made => less cost. I gotta say in writing this it's making me think perhaps there is still something here I should pursue.. and I later found out another company was doing something similar after I shelved this.

I knew from day 1 I should have been validating my idea but it was so much easier to build stuff. I learnt a lot from failing this way: 1) You may have solved a problem, but it could be insignificant to the target market. 2) You have to listen to people and build meaningful human relationships in order to be successful. 3) Find someone else's problem to solve and you're likely to be on to something. 4) Fail fast, learn more

I just launched [https://conciergeapp.uk](https://conciergeapp.uk) on the August 5th, after a month of development and then spent a week feeling miserable because nobody will sign up or reply to emails. It's a simple tool for facilities to take utility meter readings in private residential apartment blocks. This tool notifies the residents of their readings, as they cannot get to the meters themselves in order to tell their energy suppliers. As a resident it's certainly useful for me.

This is potentially another failed product because it's not important for facilities management. it's a great tool but it doesn't solve any of their main problems. This all came about because of a conversation in which I got excited about something and then engineered a solution for a non-existent problem. I should have prodded some more to find the real pains.

In the space of 1 month and a week I find myself failing again, but this time I failed much faster and have learnt the following: 1) Find the right problem to solve and validate it before you write a single line of code. 2) Listen more. 3) Get up-front financial commitment prior to writing a single line of code

</comment><comment><USER24> Partly related: I just asked a similar question for desktop apps here:

Ask HN: Ever launched a failed desktop app? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286883)</comment>


I renamed my blog taco.computer - <AUTHOR> http://taco.computer

<comment><USER2> I support this because I like tacos and I like computers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let's all start the .computer movement! If you get one share it with me and I will start a list of .computer internet places.

<comment><USER3> Like a webring?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, something like a webring... shit ok exactly a webring, let's make a .computer webring.</comment></comment></comment>


How I'm Learning ARKit - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@gmcerveny/how-im-learning-arkit-baee5376a6a2 <comment><USER3> I've been doing mobile AR since 2011 and it seems like there is probably demand for some AR app best practices now that ARKit and FB Studio are coming out. Is that accurate?

If so I'll take the time to write up something if people are interested.

<comment><USER4> Yes! I work on building AR applications and I would find any best practice you have very helpful!

<comment><USER5> The ARKit example app has a readme doc that lists best practices when developing ARKit experiences. I feel that list is super valuable when building ARKit apps in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This post is a list of links you'll find on the natural Google searches. That's fine as a gateway drug, but you'll get more mileage out of frequenting one of the AR/VR subreddits or chats.

For things in the early stages, plugging yourself into the community is more valuable than consuming the right news or tutorials.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like good advice.

What are some of the AR/VR subreddits or chats you like?

<comment><USER7> After scanning some of the more promising subreddits, I made a few notes:

/r/augmentedreality

      - 6K Subscribers
      - Demos of things people have built
      - <USER2>

/r/virtualreality

      - 39K Subscribers
      - Mix of gaming news and "see what I built" articles

/r/vr_ar_ux_design

      - 220 Subscribers
      - Very UX article heavy

/r/AR_Innovations

      - 1K Subscribers
      - Mix of consumer news and development resources about AR

/r/virtuality

      - 1K Subscribers
      - Mostly hype about VR, few development resources

/r/Vive

      - 77K Subscribers
      - Mostly about gaming, not development

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I made a sample code to place a 3D sphere with ARkit. it differs from the official demo by detecting not only horizontal surfaces, but also feature points (for example, vertical walls). But so far I wasn't able to achieve the same kind of accuracy as shown by the ruler video and few other demos.

The ARKit api is very simple, I don't know what else I can do to improve the accuracy.

<comment><USER5> You should look at the ARKit Example app, I think they do some averaging of the feature points you get to better stabilize anchoring in real world.

Also note that since ARKit identifies points from image features, stickiness will be improved with areas that have a lot of texture, like a wood table.

I've been experienmenting with ARKit to see where it works and where it fails, it does terrible if you use it in a car. Try it! That's shows that Apple relies so much on the motion data on the phone.

Message if me if anyone has any questions or interests in ARkit, love to chat :).

<comment><USER8> Thank you! is the placeobjects code on this page [https://developer.apple.com/arkit/](https://developer.apple.com/arkit/) , the ARkit example app you mentioned? I have been learning this code. I will double check.

<comment><USER5> Ya the example app. They have some really nice tips on User experience, but the code is dense. I need a few days to sit down and read through it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Started a ARKit project, I am trying to accurately place a shape based on user touch. Is this possible without vertical plane detection ? I am new to Swift, but have been picking it up quickly.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been playing with ARKit quite a bit recently and enjoying it. There's a plugin available for Unity now that integrates with ARKit which makes converting models convenient.

</comment><comment><USER11> Do people have strong opinions on building ARKit apps with XCode vs using a Unity plugin? Does it matter if I'm coming mostly from a JavaScript / web dev background?

<comment><USER3> Not sure what you are asking because XCode is an IDE and Unity is a 3D engine. You would be using both on an iOS project. You'd export your unity project to an XCode project then publish the .ipa from XCode.

Are you wondering if it's better to use OpenGL/Metal instead of Unity? I'd say stick with Unity unless you've written a shader before. You're not going to build an optimized 3D/AR app without quite a bit of experience.

<comment><USER5> Well the Example ARKit app is based off of scenekit, which is a wrapper for Metal. Scenekit is a more natural choice to people who have background with Three.js or want to develop more with code.

Ive been developing ARKit stuff solely with scenekit, and I enjoy it. I would like to learn unity, but I dont see a point now cause of the high learning curve to learn unity and since ARKit is iOS only, no point in using something thats cross platform. But would love to hear of any feedback on using Scenekit vs Unity!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ARKit looks cool, even though I am as far as one can be from the iStuff.</comment>


Piep: bringing the power of python to stream editing - <AUTHOR> http://gfxmonk.net/dist/doc/piep/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's inspired by a similar tool called `pyp`, which I considered extending but ended up going my own route instead. Here's some more information on why: <http://gfxmonk.net/2012/03/28/why-piep.html>

</comment><comment><USER2> Its sad that the author strongly discourages using pip to install the package.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why is that sad? Because it goes against python community norms, or some other reason?

<comment><USER2> Yep. Now i need to go after another packaging tool to try it out. Well not a big deal.. However imho it would be awesome if everyone stick with the standard tools.

<comment><AUTHOR> You absolutely can use `pip`, if you want. I made sure of that (or at least tested it once), because I know it's widely used and convenient. But I personally think it's a terrible way to install and distribute software, and would love for more people to try Zero Install, because I think it's the way that software _ought_ to be distributed.

<comment><USER2> Havent tried it yet. Will definitely read up on zero install.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Along similar lines: <http://geophile.com/osh>

<comment><AUTHOR> somewhat, although that seems fairly heavily geared towards clusters of machines, which I've not really tried to address with piep. I've used gnu- parallel and cluster-ssh in the past for that sort of thing, though I'd likely prefer a pythonic way of doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why not just bite the bullet and add optional {}:s to Python instead, so you don't have to learn a tool just to get normal command line (/oneliner) usability?

The total sum of complexity to learn/use would be about the same (and Python would get multi instruction anon funs.)

<comment><USER5> Python one-liners are already possible using ;

        python -c 'import sys; a = int(sys.stdin.readline())) ; print(range(a))'

EDIT: Not that I'm saying piep is useless; far from it, it seems very interesting. I'm saying that optional {}s wouldn't solve the problem that piep is trying to solve.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but my point was: How do you add an if to that Python code... or anything else dependent on Python indentation?

Another example: map {} is better than having to learn weird single instruction variants like list comprehensions. And so on.

In this case, it is easy to have a shell alias that loads a module and executes its parameter in any other language. Then you have any piep functionality not already built in. Ergo, no need for extra things to learn, in those languages.

<comment><USER6> You add an if using the ternary style syntax. i.e. "if foo then bar else baz". I think that's sufficient for what piep is trying to do. I can't imagine trying to do anything else with indentation that couldn't be accomplished with list comprehensions.

<comment><USER4> Sigh, do people really don't _want_ to see that full support for one liners (not to mention anon funs of > 1 instruction) is a feature?! :-(</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Michael Atiyah claims proof of 160-year-old Riemann hypothesis - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180406-famed-mathematician-claims-proof-of-160-year-old-riemann-hypothesis/ <comment><USER2> There is significant scepticism[0][1] surrounding this, and many, many submissions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18049016](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18049016)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18046533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18046533)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044050](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044050)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042687)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042513)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042116)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041616)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18039613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18039613)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18038790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18038790)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036367)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18032207](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18032207)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029551)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459)

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>===

[0] [https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9hl35w/sir_michael_at...](https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9hl35w/sir_michael_atiyah_announced_a_proof_of_the/e6cxbin/)

[1] [https://mathoverflow.net/questions/311062/sir-michael- atiyah...](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/311062/sir-michael-atiyahs- conference-on-the-riemann-hypothesis)

<comment><USER3> Only [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459) has non trivial discussion.

[I agree that the proof will probably not check out.]

<comment><USER2> ... and even that is just four comments.

But there's not a lot to discuss at this stage.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How much % for the Idea/Concepts behind a Startup - <AUTHOR>

I have started a start-up in January and since have gathered several co-founders who will be joining full force in the Summer. I want to have a equity sharing vesting-over-time structure finalized and agreed upon. Since money is not involved yet, equity sharing seems to be the only fair option towards everyone. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=580930)
I want to make it fair for everyone including my self, and wanted to know what % of the ownership is usually held by the original founder, as the person responsible for the key ideas/concepts and as someone who risked it all and went all in working on it a few months before the rest of the team was formed.
In other words: How much is the key ideas/concepts behind a start-up worth?
Thanks HN
edit: when I mean how much it's worth, I am also meaning idea/concept/research work/proof-of-concept as a whole. I think it was a bit misleading the way I worded it earlier. <comment><USER2> _the person responsible for the key ideas/concepts_

That's worth approximately 0% of the shares.

 _as someone who risked it all_

That's also worth approximately 0% of the shares.

 _working on it a few months before the rest of the team was formed_

I'd look at this from a perspective of how many months you'll have spent working on this vs. how many months everybody else will have spent working on this at the point where you could reasonably expect the company to start paying you market rates in cash instead of equity.

Based on a complete lack of knowledge of your company, I'd pick a two-year horizon and say that you should get 25% more than new people, in light of your 6 extra months of work. So if this company is you plus 3 other people, I'd split the stock 29.5 / 23.5 / 23.5 / 23.5.

<comment><AUTHOR> But without the original idea, the start-up wouldn't come to formation to begin with, right?

Also the even split between the co-founders isn't quite possible either (one is working summer only, another is part time over summer).

<comment><USER3> Funny, how people seem to value their ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not really something I want to spend any time on, but I would much rather do it now than leaving it for later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There aren't any rules about this, and anyone who tells you that there are hasn't been doing this for very long. Unfortunately, however, equity is one of those places where you have to assert yourself and potentially be a temporary asshole to get what you want. You should have asserted yourself and your claim from the beginning (I.e., "this is my company, here's what you could get if you joined"), but it seems you've missed that opportunity. I'm actually surprised you have allowed this to drag on for such a long period of time -- take care of it immediately. The only "rule" is to do whatever you can get away with that leaves you with the greatest share while keeping others happy. Oh and, whoever tells you to ask your INVESTORS how to split it up is truly ... Well ... Nevermind. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> For my startup, we had 5 people in on it from the beginning. The workload is split evenly, except the President is def. putting more time in than the other guys. We spoke with some funding groups, who said they like to see the President have a greater interest (seems to help by giving someone a bigger vote in the direction). So VCs might like to see an uneven split; we each decided to give the President 1.25% of our overall share.

BTW, we're currently a friends/family funded, bootstrapped company that's post-revenue, but not yet ramen profitable.

<comment><AUTHOR> A equal workload would have made things a lot easier for us, but some of our co-founders have other obligations so not everyone is working full time on this.

I didn't know about the VC's requirements as that, but seems to make sense. Good to know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> On Noam Wasserman's blog, <http://founderresearch.blogspot.com/>, he finds that the idea guy typically gets about 5-10% for the idea. IIRC. I cannot find the URL right now.

You should really negotiate with the rest of the team members based upon a) how replaceable they are and b) how much effort they are putting in.

Milestone-based vesting may also be appropriate in certain circumstances.

<comment><USER6> You should also try asking your question on thefund.com. Their forums are more geared towards term sheets and negotiation nitty gritty details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> one would think (100 - equity needed to incentivise other workers)... sarcasm aside, that's the only thing that counts - you have to make a deal and the only thing you have to buy their time is equity in your idea. 1% of a x-million dollar company or 100% of a not-million dollar company.</comment>


Etymology of "dude" is traced to "doodle," as in Yankee Doodle Dandy - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/10/21/dude/ <comment><USER2> It says that "Immense!" was a common dude expression in 1883 -- it doesn't say for what, exactly, but I presume appreciation. I like it, actually! I'm going to start using it and see if I can start a trend.

Immense!

<comment><USER3> I'm kind of excited about "but aw."

I'd like to imagine it means "I know, right?"

<comment><USER4> I don't know the true origin, but it sounds like Scots to me. "Aw" = "all", and "but aw" would presumably be like "after all", or "though" in Bristol (or maybe Yorkshire?) dialects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In summary: dude originally meant "hipster."

<comment><USER6> Apparently. Which tells you that nothing new actually is. It also makes you wonder what a Roman hipster would have been like in Caesar's time.

<comment><USER7> a greek.

<comment><USER8> "I used to make burnt offerings to Athena before it was cool."

<comment><USER9> You mean Minerva.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _" For a correct definition of the expression the anxious inquirer has only to turn to the tight-trousered, brief-coated, eye-glassed, fancy-vested, sharp- toes shod, vapid youth who abounds in the Metropolis at present."_

I submit that this definition is as true today as it was in 1887.

<comment><USER4> The contemporary term is "hipster".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Dude! what doth my tattoo read? Sweet! what doth my tattoo read? DUDE! What doth mine read?

Dude Where's My Horseless Carriage

</comment><comment><USER12> I never thought that I'd have the chance to submit on topic one of my favorite figures from history. Behold the king of the dudes: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evander_Berry_Wall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evander_Berry_Wall).

ed. This is actually a better link: [http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/1907811](http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/1907811)

</comment><comment><USER13> I always thought "dude" meant: The crusty tuft of hair on a horse's asshole?

Seriously, a science teacher in high school read that definition from a dictionary, and handed out photocopies of it to my class, in the hopes that it would discourage us from using the word, because he got sick of hearing it. It had the opposite effect, obviously.

...but anyway, that's why I laughed when The Stranger in The Big Lebowski implied, with subtlety, the same meaning when he said it was a name "no one would self-apply" where he came from.

I'm sticking with "hairy horse anus."

<comment><USER14> I don't know about the horse's ass part, but 'dude' is supposedly similar to 'yankee' in the rural western US, in the sense of being a useless, helpless outsider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Google needs to update their database then: [https://www.google.com/search?q=etymology+dude](https://www.google.com/search?q=etymology+dude)

</comment><comment><USER16> Dudine is my new favorite word. I think it has a very pleasant sound when used as a greeting.

<comment><USER17> I'm trying to figure out: Should it be dood-eye-n (like wine), dood-een, or dood-een-eh (like a german might say)?

<comment><USER4> As an English & French speaker I would say [du̵ːˈdiːn] (dood-EEN).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm curious about how the Hacker News duplicate detector is working today,

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6677539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6677539)

and how the policy about titles of submissions is being implemented by the moderation team. The article kindly submitted here is a very interesting article.

</comment><comment><USER19> I always thought dude came from the Irish word "Dúd" or "Dúdaire".

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/nyregion/08irish.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/nyregion/08irish.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> _Etymology of "dude" is traced to "doodle," as in Yankee Doodle Dandy_

Which tells us nothing of what the 'doodle' in Yankee Doodle Dandy means. Yankee fine; Dandy, a foppish hipster type; Doodle???

<comment><USER20> To answer my own question: _' The word doodle first appeared in the early 17th century to mean a fool or simpleton. It may derive from the German Dudeltopf or Dudeldop, meaning simpleton or noodle (literally "nightcap").'_ [1]

Not sure why the author of this article couldn't be bothered to complete the etymology he started.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodle)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> doodle -> dude

google -> guge

(sorry that must have come)

</comment><comment><USER22> lol

</comment><comment><USER23> the Doodle abides....and somehow I take comfort in that...

</comment><comment><USER24> Thanks for the info Dude! (",)

</comment><comment><USER25> He peed on your fucking rug.

</comment><comment><USER26> Cue a hundred "Dude" jokes.

<comment><USER27> Fuck it, Doodle, let's go bowling.

<comment><USER28> the dood abides.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What amazing successes started with a "Show HN"? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Dropbox

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

<comment><USER3> "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem."

I still love it when I see that quote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> PagerDuty - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=758653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=758653)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to think that Show HN is "life changing".

I'm not sure if it's true but I would be interested in people who did a Show HN and see what happened in terms of traffic/connections/outreach etc...

<comment><USER6> I made a "Show HN" post a while ago ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6681238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6681238)), found my current job thanks to it ([https://nylas.com](https://nylas.com) \--- btw we're hiring) and moved to the US.

Definitely life changing and I'm very grateful for it.</comment></comment>