Show HN: Our new property search website for London - Locatable - <AUTHOR> http://www.locatable.com <comment><USER2> Looks good!

When you click 'places' the 'cancel' button to close the popup doesn't work for me (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:16.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/16.0 ID:20121010235235)

I added a place with a 20 minute radius, then realised I wanted to go back and make it a 30 minute radius. It wasn't obvious how to do that with the UI, I ended up adding another place by mistake.

When I have two places, if I choose place 1, adjust the time radius slider, then I choose place 2 I get a new popup and my previous settings change is discarded. Could the changes auto-save, like when you drag and drop the place marker?

I'd also suggest, after I've picked a price range, instead of the "Property listings will appear here - click anywhere in the orange areas to see what's available in that area." bit why not auto-click somewhere suitable, removing a step from the UI process?

Also, if I could have a house cost heatmap with and without travelcard costs, that would be awesome. At the moment it's easy to visualise travel distances, but a heatmap would let me visualise the travel distance-house cost trade off.

What's your source of train time data? Are transfer times taken into account?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! How the filters are set up right now is that the grey ones in the top right are the available ones for you choose from, and the orange ones below are the actual ones you've added and are active.

However, as I've said elsewhere, improving the usability of those controls is a big issue for us, we're looking at all the comments we get. Thanks for your suggestions around this.

>>What's your source of train time data? Are transfer times taken into account? Train time data comes from the government's Naptan data set (<http://data.gov.uk/dataset/naptan>). Transfer times not yet fully accurate, it's on our to-do list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's quite neat - would be useful to those of us looking for property in London.

But, and I'm sure you've heard this from other people, the biggest problem with finding properties in this town is that basically every single property shown on any website has already been rented. I'm a bit worried that your site will just be a nicer, cleverer interface to show me a whole lot of flats that aren't on the market any more.

<comment><USER4> What do you think of this as a solution to properties that don't exist? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0no7GcERjY>

<comment><USER3> Well, first, I applaud any efforts to improve/disrupt/whatever the rental market in this town, which is just comically awful. This sounds like it'd be exactly the kind of thing I wanted the last time I was looking, but ended up having to give up on at the time.

But - I don't actually see a solution there. You've got a very apt description of the problem and of what the solution would look like, but I do think there's a big leap from identifying those to actually going to something that works. The critical point to get past is of course actually having a number of interesting properties listed on your site, which requires overcoming the awkward network effects inherent in that market which the real estate agents obviously have a massive interest in perpetuating.

But don't let me get you down - I'm a bit cynical about this after my last experience flathunting, but everyone I speak to hates the system at the moment and would love something better. There are a ridiculous number of real estate agents in this town which implies there must be an awful lot of money in the market - ample room for someone to seriously undercut them while offering everyone involved a better deal.

Best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice idea. To be honest, I doubt you're ever going to get high-quality timely data on available places, but I think the site is still very useful if only as a guide to what property is like in the area and which estate agents to call.

A few issues/suggestions based on 5mins clicking around:

* Lose the 'label' field on each area the user picks - they're already choosing a search term for google maps, why can't you just use that?

* Having chosen two places and chosen some property parameters, the right-hand-side of the page contains two 'property' buttons: one grey, which does nothing, and one orange, which allows me to reset the parameters. The grey one is useless and confusing, lose it

* Having chosen these places and parameters (I chose 'crouch end' and 'dulwich'), I can't see any properties, just the standard gmaps lollipop icons on the map. I guess this is a bug? In any event it's unclear what I should do next - you'd lose me at this point

* There's a big transparent grey footer that doesn't contain anything - what's the purpose of that when you could just show more map?

HTH etc. Nice idea, will check back once in a while...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

>>Having chosen these places and parameters (I chose 'crouch end' and 'dulwich'), I can't see any properties, just the standard gmaps lollipop icons on the map. I guess this is a bug? In any event it's unclear what I should do next - you'd lose me at this point * There's a big transparent grey footer that doesn't contain anything - what's the purpose of that when you could just show more map?

Sorry about that - this sounds like a genuine bug. The grey footer is meant to display some text that tells you what to do next (property listings will appear in that area once you click on one of the orange areas of the map). If you could ping me to let me know what browser/version etc. that would be much appreciated!

Apart from that, everything else comes under "search controls usability" which is one of our top priorities for improvement, we'll definitely be doing some more work on those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey guys, OpenRent [1] founder here.

Firstly, site looks great and seems to function well. We built a similar commute time search last year, our interface could definitely do with some work - but it's a feature I think is awesome and people use.

However, in my opinion, the real problem with property searching of the past 5 years has been data. The data quality is poor as letting agents aren't incentivised to keep it honest, and keep it current. After all, they want tenant leads of any sort.

And that's just the search side. When you start looking into how else you can save money and improve the system for tenants and landlords you'll realise you're only scratching the surface.

Hence, whilst it's an awesome tool, I think the whole sector needs to be improved first. Maybe you can limit your search to OpenRent listings, and then you'll be keeping tenants happy! ;-)

But seriously, good luck with it - and if you wanted to chat, you can catch me anytime via the email in my profile.

[1] - <http://www.openrent.co.uk>

<comment><USER4> Are you guys going to market to agents? Or is OpenRent another tech agent trying to undercut others?

<comment><USER6> Currently - we don't offer anything to letting agents who are simply performing a tenant find service to landlords. Why? Because they charge tenants admin fees for services we provide for free.

However, reputable property managers who are simply looking to find high quality tenants, we love to have. They can use our Rent Now system, tenants aren't ripped off, and they save money.

Our model is totally different, we do everything you need to let your property, the landlord does the viewings. It's not a case of undercutting, it's a case of improving the whole system for both sides.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We've spent the last few weeks building Locatable, a property search website for London. We've integrated lots of transport data (tube/rail/road) to help you figure out where to live. Road travel times are a bit off at the moment, but we're working on it. Just looking to get feedback from other HNers, let us know what you think!

<comment><USER7> I really like this.

Do you think it would be possible to add cycling as a variable?

As in... based on average commuter cycling speed of 14mph including lights, etc.

If so, then great I'll go and tell a load of cyclists about it.

I guess the next problem for you though is the chicken and egg of getting data in there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Cycling is one of the data points we are planning to add v soon, pretty much as you described (using average speed profile to calculate the travel times).

We're also planning on integrating a lot more data - there's a whole load of open government stuff (think crime stats, schools data) in particular that we're looking at.

<comment><USER7> Cycling is an interesting one as most avid cyclists want to live somewhere around a 30 to 45 minute cycle ride away from wherever they work. They appreciate that it's easiest to get fit and stay fit when a commute is built- in to the daily cycle of things.

So they are enthusiastic about that not being a convenient place by public transport or car. Basically they can get really good value accommodation as not being near a train station has no impact on their ability to access an area.

Most cyclists I know (a lot of them) have congregated in the South East of London purely because of these factors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool!

One issue - when I enter a place and then a property, I click search and all is good. I then click Property again, which pops up, but the search results cover the "cancel/search" buttons on the Property page. Means I have to reload the site and start over. A button to close the search results, or closing them automatically on smaller screens could be a good thing (I'm on a 1366 x 768 resolution tablet). Unless such a function is there and it doesn't work on IE10.

Some functional enhancements would be great -

\- In the Property search box it'd be awesome if I could filter by type (house/flat/etc).

\- It'd also be nice to see a price heat map of not just the area covered by a place, but of a wider area around that place. A bigger house for the same money is an incentive for a longer commute.

Otherwise, awesome!

</comment><comment><USER9> Hitting errors. The page loads fine directly!

XMLHttpRequest cannot load [http://api.locatable.com/search?filter=place_filter,20,51.51...](http://api.locatable.com/search?filter=place_filter,20,51.513806,-0.098412,tube). Origin <http://www.locatable.com> is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow- Origin.

XMLHttpRequest cannot load <http://api.locatable.com/feedback>. Origin <http://www.locatable.com> is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin.

</comment><comment><USER10> Your numbers are way out.

It says that Highgate is 10 minutes away by road from Old Street. The 271 bus takes more like 40 minutes on a good morning. I don't think it could be done in 10 minutes even without traffic.

The AA route planner gives it as 20 minutes which is optimistic [http://www.theaa.com/route- planner/index.jsp#fromNode=182600...](http://www.theaa.com/route- planner/index.jsp#fromNode=18260052008760%7CHighgate,%20London%7CSTREET%7C527853%7C186835%7CtoNode=18260063160635%7COld%20Street%20Underground%20Station,%20London%7CSTREET%7C532754%7C182528)

Enfield is 20 minutes from Old Street by road? I don't think so!

<comment><USER11> It told me that the City and some parts of London south of the river were 20 minutes away from Highgate. While I have managed to drive from Highgate to Moorgate in seven minutes, it relied on every traffic light along the way being green, it being 7am on a public holiday and a loose regard to the posted speed limit. Any other time forty minutes would be more accurate.

Were you to take the existing road times and triple them, you'd like get a more realistic circle IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This might be useless feedback, but those big orange buttons to me looked click-able, but they are not. I clicked 'search' (2) to try it out - the "get started" button was below the fold on my screen (22" widescreen)

Even after clicking get started, I find the interface unintuitive to use.

The main problem though is the same as here in the US, nobody but craigslist has the data and everything else just has stale data which no matter how well or conveniently it is presented isn't useful. You have the same problem in London where the existing real estate agents are not in anyway motivated to share their data.

</comment><comment><USER13> Nice! My wife and I have been looking in North London lately.

A huge problem is that properties that have sold are still listed a long time afterwards.

We've had to stop using online search helpers because of all of the false positives.

Will your site help with this?

<comment><USER6> We're solving this problem at OpenRent [1], for rentals at least. All of our properties, if stated as live, are available to rent now. We can do this because we talk directly to landlords.

[1] Take a look: <http://www.openrent.co.uk>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of the YC-funded Movity which was acquired a couple years ago by Trulia. Good work, guys!

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks great! I'd love to use it the next time I'm looking for a flat.

Unfortunately, by using Zoopla's listings, you still have the most annoying problem of showing flatshares and studios when looking for 1-bedroom flats.

</comment><comment><USER16> Really great - the only thing I'd change is the ability to add a price filter for renting in £ / calendar month (rather than just / week as it is).

Other than that, brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER17> I really like this project, I'll be going into uni next year and I know this will become useful later down the line.

</comment><comment><USER18> See also <http://www.where-can-i-live.com>

</comment><comment><USER19> Is this a spare time project or are you all involved in it full time?

<comment><AUTHOR> The three of us have been working on it full time since September, having done some spare-time prototyping in the preceding months. We're now trying to secure some angel investment to help us continue building and growing, it's something we're all passionate about!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congratulations. As others have said below, this is pretty, but not solving a problem people have. The data sucks; solve the sucky data problem and you'll have something incredible.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER20> it's nice but the help popup is extreamly annoying.

</comment><comment><USER21> you could be interested in cravify.com too :)</comment>


On becoming a household name - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/on-becoming-a-household-name.html <comment><USER2> Seth recommends banner ads to become a recognizable name. They are worthless for generating click-throughs, but work for raising awareness, so that in some other context your name is recognizable. Makes sense to me, particularly for a clean non-offensive (in the senseof distraction) ad with nothing more than a name, a tag line, and a pleasing graphic. This being Seth Grodin, there is no data or analysis to back it up.

<comment><USER3> Just like road-side billboards, and sponsor labels printed on race cars, static ads printed on the sidelines during sporting events, and the majority of television ad spots.</comment></comment>


NuScale's small nuclear reactor is first to get US safety approval - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/first-modular-nuclear-reactor-design-certified-in-the-us/ <comment><USER2> From the press release

[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200828005299/en/](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200828005299/en/)

"NuScale spent over $500 million, with the backing of Fluor, and over 2 million labor hours to develop the information needed to prepare its DCA application"

Not cheap :)

On scaling down reactors to micro size (nuscale is kind of larger) and costs:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gtog_gOaGQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gtog_gOaGQ)

$0.25/kWh until large series (17mn30s).

<comment><USER3> This certification is great news. I wonder how much sooner one of these small reactor designs would have come to market if there was $50 million dollars of paperwork needed in instead of $1/2 billion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 2 million pages of additional requested documentation? What would all of that possibly contain?

</comment><comment><USER5> The Skunk Works people have been on about a fusion substation you could 'fit on the back of a truck' for years now and they are still working on it you gotta love those kind of high risk high reward R&D budgets

>Lockheed Martin says that the CFR design could eventually be small enough to fit inside a shipping container, but still be able to power a Nimitz class aircraft carrier or up to 80,000 homes

[1] [https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29074/skunk-works- exot...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29074/skunk-works-exotic- fusion-reactor-program-moves-forward-with-larger-more-powerful-design)

</comment><comment><USER6> Who do I have to marry to get one of these planted nearby?</comment>


An elementary illustrated introduction to simplicial sets - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.4221 <comment><USER2> I'm surprised that this level of sophisticated mathematics would show up on Hacker News at all. I can't imagine many readers finding it useful or even interesting.</comment>


Ask HN: Many of you running startups out there using Office 365 email? - <AUTHOR>

Startups are natural early adopters, and a great way to spread the word about a new product. Trying to figure out if this is a viable route to market for my startup. Hard to know how MS is perceived by startups these days. <comment><USER2> I am with office 365 for my startup but I dont understand what you really want to know about that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Stumpyfr,

Thanks for the reply. Just trying to get an idea of how many startups are using Office 365.</comment></comment>


Why Aren't Rich People Happy With the Money They Have? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/12/rich-people-happy-money/577231/ <comment><USER2> A while back I noticed that my HN karma was rising at a rate that would put me on the leaderboard, so I decided to make an effort to submit content and post quality comments just to see if I could crack the top 100. After a few months I did it, and kept rising up to a high of 85 (today I'm #88). Then I realized I was spending way too much time on HN, and how easy it was to fall into this trap of thinking I was doing something worthwhile just because people were upvoting me. There is something visceral about looking at a _number_ that you have somehow convinced yourself is a measure of your value as a human being, and seeing that number get bigger, even if at the end of the day that number is utterly meaningless. And, of course, when it comes to money the number is _not_ meaningless, which makes the effect that much more powerful.

BTW, money is not just good for buying material things. You can spend arbitrary amounts of money on philanthropy and political donations. Once you start to do that, a lot of people start to want to be your friend. That kind of attention and deference can also be a very powerful drug.

<comment><USER3> I agree. We have been conditioned to use wealth - which is neatly expressed as a 1-dimensional value - as a proxy for merit.

If we are asked to do something that in abstract we would consider stupid or pointless, but is now accompanied by a large amount of money, we accept with the presumption that no one would offer so much money if it weren't very important.

Money provides a very simple, neat way of valuing every item or service on Earth. Deceptively simple.

<comment><USER4> > neat way of valuing every item or service on Earth

Isn't that the very concept of money? :)

Edit: newlines

<comment><USER5> Yes, the problem is that people associate _what you have_ with _what you are_. Which are not the same thing. And therefor, make money the root of all evil today.

If we traded in goats, it'd be how many goats you have. It doesn't matter at all the medium, as long as the value is tenable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There was a well written comment on Reddit a few years back about how your life changes at different levels of wealth:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/)

The main gist was that in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again. In the $30-100 million range you can start doing "rich people" things like have a private jet (though this might be a stretch at the low end), have multiple residences in expensive parts around the globe, have personal staff, etc. After that level of wealth, more money doesn't really get you material things anymore, so much as influence and access to other important people.

<comment><USER7> > in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having > to worry about finances again

This statement strikes me as very disconnected from the reality that the vast majority of people on this planet live in, and honestly, a little bit irritating. I'm well aware that many here on HN would be millionaires, but as somebody who grew up in poverty and is now a full-time uni student with no savings in the bank, and no safety net, I wouldn't describe my life as comfortable, but I'm not starving or sleeping on a park bench either. My largest expenses are rent, food and medical expenses. If somebody were to give me a hundred thousand dollars to invest, I am quite certain I could live comfortably for the rest of my life. I'd never own a Ferrari, but why would I need to?

In other words, I think your comment reflects the very problem that the posted article is discussing. To me, the idea of needing $10 million to be comfortable and not have to worry about finances seems absurd. Unless your idea of a comfortable life involves owning a luxury car, or renting a $2,000 a night suite. I live on what many here would consider to be an extremely low income, and the only thing I feel I'm really missing out on is desperately needed dental work, and even that would be measured in thousands of dollars, not millions.

I apologise if my comment sounds harsh or impolite. It is not intended to be. I'm just amazed that anybody would think they need $10 million to be comfortable.

<comment><USER8> 100k * 10% = 10k/year.

10% is about the best return you can count on (very optimistically) I don't know what country you live in, but 10k in the US, even for a single person, would put you far below the poverty line. No way you could afford that dental work after you pay rent on that. And let's not even talk about all of the other huge expenses that will come up later in your life.

$10m * 3% = $300k/year

That's a high end salary in the US. You could cut this number in half, and that would be ok too IMO. Less than some developers make. But you can buy a reasonable house, car, etc. Not a farrari though, unless you're irresponsible.

If you actually intend to live on this money _forever_ , then the return you receive is really the maximum you can spend. And that's really not as much as you would think. Especially when you figure there will be some years where you won't earn anything (during recessions).

Again, if you live in an expensive country like the US. If you live in a poor country, maybe 10K is enough. But this article and these numbers, aren't really about that situation.

<comment><USER9> Am I weird? I spent a year living somewhat frugally (still enjoyed myself, still took a trip now and then) in San Diego and spent about 20,000. That was only my share tbf, my wife covered her half of expenses. We had a flat in a nice neighbourhood, shared an old but decent-condition car, took one trip to New England that year..

We had obamacare which helped a lot.

I see people on HN talking about needing massive amounts of money to live and I just wonder where it all goes? What's it for?

<comment><USER10> The massive amount of money basically sits in an investment account and generates dividends to live off of. That's what people are talking about. In order to have a salary they're used to they need like 20-30x the cash in the bank to generate it (preferably a bit extra to keep up with inflation too). Otherwise if you weren't using it to do that presumably you'd eventually run out of money and have to go back to work (except now you're old and 30 years out of date)

<comment><USER7> Yes. What has become clear to me in this discussion is that some people, when talking about being "comfortable", are talking about maintaining a much more lavish lifestyle, funded by passive income, than many people like myself, are used to or feel that they need. For many, comfort is simply feeling like they aren't at risk of starving or becoming homeless. That's the definition I'm working with, but it's clear to me that others are talking about something different, as you have articulated in your comment. Thank you.

<comment><USER11> I think one of the disconnections here is that you are talking about extra cash (over what you currently earn), whereas rgbrenner (and probably others) are talking about all income.

And I think they have a point: $100k is a lot of money, but what if you got sick and couldn't work anymore, ever? Wouldn't you be at the risk of starving or becoming homeless if you had to stretch that over 30 or 40 years?

<comment><USER7> > I think one of the disconnections here is that you are talking about extra > cash (over what you currently earn), whereas rgbrenner (and probably others) > are talking about all income.

Agreed.

> And I think they have a point: $100k is a lot of money, but what if you got > sick and couldn't work anymore, ever?

That's a fair point. I don't really worry too much about getting sick and never being able to work again ever. I think some of this comes down to the level of risk that each individual is content to live with. If I had children or a family, perhaps I would be a lot more worried.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some thoughts from Seneca:

 _" Let me share with you the saying which pleased me to-day. It, too, is culled from another man's Garden: "Poverty brought into conformity with the law of nature, is great wealth." Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud, or to submit to the stern frown, or to the kindness that humiliates; nor is it necessary for you to scour the seas, or go campaigning; nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores. That which is enough is ready to our hands. He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich."_[1]

 _" Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough."_[2]

 _" I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him."_[3]

[1] - [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_4)

[2] - [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_2)

[3] - [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_1)

<comment><USER13> One of my favourite philosophers and one I try to follow the most, but the unacquainted reader should be made aware before reading his commendations of poverty that Lucius Annaeus Seneca was the richest man in the Roman Empire.

<comment><USER14> Thank you. I'll pass on reading _The Bill Gates Guide to Being Poor and Happy About It_ too :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another perspective outside of the SV bubble. I grew up in a typical middle class home - mother a teacher, father a factory worker.

Because of $reasons I really didn't focus on my career until my mid 30s. I bought a house in my late 20s in a new (statistically) middle class neighborhood. All of the houses around the area and all of my friends were middle class. Some houses slightly bigger, some cars slightly better but no serious differences.

Then I got married and had (step)children who were use to going to school in the more affluent part of town. When I was single, I really didn't think about the school system. I was making more by then and we moved to the more affluent part of town. While we were on the bottom of the top quintile by income, since by definition the top quintile is boundless, there is a much wider disparity in income between the 80 percentile and the 95 percentile. I was exposed to the lifestyle of people with a lot more money than I have.

I have a much nicer house (relatively - its nothing extravagant), in a better part of town, making twice as much as I was but I actually _feel_ poorer even though my income is more than double what it was 10 years ago and I'm much more comfortable now.

We are not at all "rich" but as a software developer/architect with a working spouse, our household income is more than 80% of households - again not bragging, almost any experienced developer working in a major metropolitan area would be in the same boat.

<comment><USER16> I've had the experience of thinking I'm doing well and then getting exposed to another level of "well". Here in Tokyo, at least before 2008 but I think still, there were lots of "expats". In my vocabulary, "expats" has a different meaning than just "someone from another country". It specifically means someone sent to a foreign country and "set up". A good example might be not only do they make $300k to $1million a year but their company, trying to reproduce their lifestyle back home in order to compensate them for asking them to move abroad ends up renting them an extremely nice place, usually in the $4000 to $8000 a month range and paying the rent for them.

There was an English language magazine who's ads targeted these "expats" showing the apartments in that range and other service far far far out of reach of anything I was making.

So in that sense I felt more like a failure.

That said I don't believe I'd always want more if I had 10x what I had now. What I have now is not enough to stop needing an income. 10x is enough to stop and then just do what I want without having to worry that I'd better have a real job saving for when no one will hire me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > feeling wealthy is about comparison with others in your reference group

I guess the solution is to not hang out with other rich people, don't move to a wealthy neighborhood, and just don't care about your social status. "Ignorance is bliss".

I would be very happy if I had $200k in passive/investment income. That would be a SaaS company worth ~$1.5M, or ~$6M invested in index funds. If I ever get there, I hope I can resist the temptation to just keep going and waste my life trying to make more and more money. I just want a small house, unlimited free time, and no responsibilities. Then I'd like to spend time on hobbies, non- profit work, and maybe start new companies to solve problems (but not for the money.)

There must be lots of people on HN who are multi-millionaires from startup exits. Did you notice a change in yourself, and you started to want more money?

<comment><USER18> In the UK it's been common advice to buy the worst house in the best neighbourhood. Perhaps it should be the other way round for your wellbeing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A rich man is just a poor man with a lot of money.

The biggest drug with having money is the opportunities that come with it. Financial freedom is freedom to chose what you want to do with your life and who you want to do it with.

That's one half of the drug. That your days suddenly can look like one long adventure without too much repetition besides what you choose.

The apple in paradise is that other people have more than you and thus you start comparing to richer people and make that the new standard.

Finding the balance between enjoying what you have and wanting more is such a fundamental struggle in humans and start with the poor person without the money.

<comment><USER20> Right, all money ever buys you is time. The big problem most people have is that they are miserable money or not. The best advice is to find something to be involved in, find a hobby to master, find a cause to support. There is such power in a supportive community of similarly focused people working for the same end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> But isn't it the well oiled marketing and advertising industry that is keeping us constantly unhappy and forcing us to compare our own (projected) shortcomings against others?

My hypothesis is that wealthier people are even deeper in this trap, as once you can afford nice clothes, accessories, cars, houses etc., you are immediately exposed to others in the same (or higher) wealth bracket, thus exacerbating these feelings of comparison and inadequacy. It is a self destructive feeding frenzy that can never assuage itself.

<comment><USER22> It is not advertisers who are all to blame. Pride and envy predate magazines and TV.

<comment><USER23> So does cholera. But if you spend your work time trying to spread cholera you get a bit of blame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm immediately reminded of the denouement of "This is Water": [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhC_N6Bm_s](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhC_N6Bm_s) . It's become/ perhaps always has been a little trite or on the nose, but it's also not wrong.

 _If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life-then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It 's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race"-the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing._

<comment><USER25> It's a nice thought, and gives a sense the world is fair. But it doesn't ring true to me.

Some people are hot, and they know it. They do not feel ugly. Ditto for intelligence.

<comment><USER26> I think the key word is "worship". Not e.g. "value intellect" etc. but worship it.

I draw a parallel to sports. It's easy for young athletes to "worship" ability in their sport...to the point where, when you achieve success, you look down on those who are worse than you and look up to those who are better. Reality is that while athletic accomplishment is admirable it does not automatically make you a good person and vice versa.

My experience with "intelligence" has been a bit similar although I have found that smart people I encounter also tend to be wonderful human beings. But I know correlation is not causation.

Anyway, my point is that I think there's an unhealthy "worship" vs a healthy "value" of intelligence beauty etc, and DFW's quote makes sense to me from that perspective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> One comment I read somewhere is that with increasing wealth you lose the ability to make sense of the numbers anymore. What is the difference between 50 and 100 million in an emotional sense?

The fear of losing it all, however, stays the same no matter the amount, and so the urge to keep accumulating doesn't go away despite a rational view that would recognize that 100million is more than enough.

<comment><USER28> > What is the difference between 50 and 100 million in an emotional sense?

It's roughly the difference between being able to own a private jet. There's probably always something spurring one on to the next level if you let it.

<comment><USER29> Seriously. Octopus cost $200 million. Anyone who wants her is going to have to be a billionaire. There's always something out there you can't have till you're mega-rich.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have had the sense that guilt plays a part in dissatisfaction with wealth, whether consciously or subconsciously. The way the economic system is set up, a person can only have money, wealth at the expense of others. I only have what I have because someone else has been deprived of it. Its difficult to enjoy something when at the back of ones mind, it is earned off the suffering (real or imagined) of others.

I came to this conclusion one night whilst walking along the street some time back. I wanted to buy myself a packet of fries. Not far from the door of chips shop, there was a woman there with three children, laying down cardboard preparing to sleep for the night. The sense of what turned out to be guilt and shame that came upon me was palpable. It actually hit me that I could casually walk in and buy myself something I didn't really need whilst here was a woman with three kids sleeping on the street with nothing.

Investigating my feelings further brought about I had so much compared to them. And what I had was not enough to make a real difference in their lives. Further investigation and thought brought about the idea that this might be the same not just for me, but for all people, getting progressively worse the higher up the wealth steps you go. The basic idea being that as currently set up, economics means that it is a zero sum game. In terms of money, either I have the 100 dollars or you have 100 dollars, we cannot both have the same 100 dollars.

This means, (and I am open to being corrected) that what I have is at the expense of another - my boss, my brother who is having a hard time making ends meet, or all the others who have to walk kilometres to get to work to save on money used in public transport.

My take away and current struggle is that at some point, in order to just live, we have to find a way to deal with this feeling of guilt - which in my case, took on the form of first denying responsibility and assigning blame on others (government & other institutions, parenting, poor decision making, lack of intelligence etc), or just ignoring it because 'there is nothing I can do' about it because 'I also have problems and I dont have enough to make a meaningful difference'. I still don't have a good answer to this.

Thats my 2 cents.

<comment><USER31> You might really enjoy this essay. It changed my life.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ph7Enkr...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ph7EnkrHDRoJ:www.aaronsw.com/weblog/handwritingwall+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=se&client=opera)

I came to terms with ideas like this by changing careers to a profession which, at least abstractly, benefits humanity. I've taken upon myself a modern/global idea of "noblesse oblige". The fortunate have an obligation to use their vast resources in a way that benefits others. We are fortunate to live in the West during this time, but that also means we have access to tremendous knowledge and ability that we are uniquely equipped to make good use of.

Of course, I may just be fooling myself and the resources I consume would still be better spent directly helping others.

I try to be clear that I'm far from a saint in this respect, but it's difficult to discuss these things with others without inducing guilt and defensiveness. I think these kind of things needs to be discussed though, so I'm glad you brought it up.

<comment><USER30> Thanks for the link to the essay. It captures the struggle I alluded to in my comment rather well.

I find like my mind is resistant to actually going ahead and helping, the aforementioned excuses rear their head and the justifications come hard and fast and anything else seems like I am being an idealistic, wide eyed naive hippy.

On some level I can recognize the need the writer points to, and what is being said. I feel there is a flaw in my thinking and in how I am approaching the world and living my life. Then the selfishness (is there a better word for it?) stares right back at me. There is safety in its coldness. I recognize it. I know it. I hate it too, but I know it. It is familiar. Leaving its cold embrace is too scary.

I will be sharing the essay with like minded people when I can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Seems like a rather superficial discussion of possible motivations for the behavior of the most greedy among us. Articles like this may sell magazine subscriptions but they don't teach us much that is useful.

</comment><comment><USER33> > Where did Norton find his rich people? For that particular study, an > investment bank connected him with some of its high-net-worth clients. But > Norton also told me that he had previously consulted with a pool of Dutch > millionaires willing to respond to researchers' questions

Sounds like that would impose a pretty hefty sampling bias.

I'm fairly sure there is a large pool of people who are very quite and quite happy with the money they have, enabling them to focus on doing things they love.

But such people probably won't show up in this survey.

<comment><USER34> >Dutch millionaires willing to respond to researchers' questions

The researchers didn't tell them what the questions were about ahead of time.

<comment><USER35> And ? Maybe people prone to answering a survey from researchers have other behavioral similarities and thus make the sampling is biased.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16: The Divine and Demoniac Natures TEXTS 13-15

The demoniac person thinks: "So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more. He is my enemy, and I have killed him; and my other enemy will also be killed. I am the lord of everything, I am the enjoyer, I am perfect, powerful and happy. I am the richest man, surrounded by aristocratic relatives. There is none so powerful and happy as I am. I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give some charity, and thus I shall rejoice." In this way, such persons are deluded by ignorance.

Purport:

The demoniac man knows no limit to his desire to acquire money. That is unlimited. He only thinks how much assessment he has just now and schemes to engage that stock of wealth farther and farther. For that reason, he does not hesitate to act in any sinful way and so deals in the black market for illegal gratification. He is enamoured by the possessions he has already, such as land, family, house and bank balance, and he is always planning to improve them. He believes in his own strength, and he does not know that whatever he is gaining is due to his past good deeds. He is given an opportunity to accumulate such things, but he has no conception of past causes. He simply thinks that all his mass of wealth is due to his own endeavor. A demoniac person believes in the strength of his personal work, not in the law of karma. According to the law of karma, a man takes his birth in a high family, or becomes rich, or very well educated, or very beautiful because of good work in the past. The demoniac thinks that all these things are accidental and due to the strength of his personal ability. He does not sense any arrangement behind all the varieties of people, beauty, and education. Anyone who comes into competition with such a demoniac man is his enemy. There are many demoniac people, and each is enemy to the others. This enmity becomes more and more deep-between persons, then between families, then between societies, and at last between nations. Therefore there is constant strife, war and enmity all over the world.

</comment><comment><USER37> I disagree. I think the primary motivation is you can always lose it all, or at least a lot of it. No matter how much you have or where you put it. The more you have, the more you stand to lose, especially due to macroeconomic shifts beyond your control, hyperinflation, war, etc. That's why what you have is never enough and seems like 3x (twice as rich, plus 1/3 as a backup) would be.

<comment><USER38> Yes, or even the fear of dropping a status or income level can be enough motivation for some.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> >"The sensation of 'being well-off,'" [...] "is not about fulfilling a childhood dream of buying a sailboat or something; feeling wealthy is about comparison with others in your reference group

When there is a debate about increasing % of taxes further for higher income (often in the name of redistribution, reducing inequalities), I often hear the argument that it will reduce the motivation for the higher income people to keep working and keep contributing to society. I think the argument is wrong: it's a social game, and if the same rules apply to all, they all can keep playing the same game with the same motivation of outdoing their peers.

<comment><USER40> Rich peoples' reference group isn't limited to a single country though. There is no way we can apply the same rules to all, unless there is a new global order I haven't heard of.

See: the disaster of the US yatch manufacturing tax

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is a stupid article, it's like making a case that an author is not happy with their past works because they keep writing even after having a best seller. Or that a director is not happy with their movie after having a blockbuster and winning top industry awards because they keep creating.

<comment><USER42> Your analogy is wrong. If you were to translate what the author of this article said onto your author/director comparison, the author would keep writing books because others have written more/better books than him and so would the director keep making films in order to elevate their relative status. The reason for always wanting more money isn't for the self- satisfaction that creative types feel when they produce a work, but to elevate your status above that of those around you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I read "health" .. this article was confusing at first.

Wealthy people are as unbalanced as poor people, good to know. I believe that a good group (friends/village) can tame that. You stop caring about your posession when you care for the group and its joy fulfills you.

</comment><comment><USER44> There is a critical component in such motivation that is not even mentioned in this article. The more money you have, the more ability you have to change the world around you.

Among many, many financially successful people I know, there are a LOT who are motivated by money and competitiveness themselves. However, NONE of them are founders of new businesses. (Real new businesses, that intend to stay in the picture and actually do something for the customers, instead of ending up acquihired or otherwise melted back into some comfortable corporate structure. Most of tech start-ups are really far from this image, and are created people who know exactly what their exit strategy is). These founders are always motivated by their desire to change something in the world: they love the field they're working in, and they love the product they're creating, and they wouldn't miss it for the world. And yes, they want more money, because it's the universal resource out of which they build the things they so love building.

So, in other words, the headline of this article should have been "Why Aren't New York Finance Executives And Other Thin Subset of Rich People We Got A Hold Of Happy With The Money They Have".

</comment><comment><USER45> The more money and assets I accumulate, the safer I feel. This is one driver that will likely prevent me from retiring early - the fear of destitution.

<comment><USER18> The "one more year" problem, I'll just work one more year to top up my funds.

In reality I suspect most people have the decision forced on them either by their employer, the jobs market or health problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I had always assumed it was a matter of self-perpetuation given what I have seen at lower levels with thriftiness and it holding despite being amply able to afford it. Those who are in habits of saving and investing money will keep on doing as an end to itself well past the actual needs.

The biggest score cards show a bit of priorities. Many wealthy industrialists eventually turn to charities despite being ruthless out of concern for legacy,spirituality, or a sense of noblise oblige.

I would like to think that if I got 'buying additional mansions doesn't make a dent' \- obscenely wealthy I'd start funding major biotech research projects both to do good and because lifespan is the limit anyway.

That is something that I've found a bit odd about the megarich - that we don't see more throwing their fortunes away at biotech research given lifespan is a limit far beyond - and most don't plan on giving full fortunes to their heirs anyway.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'll buy this picture. Feelings of insecurity created by someone (anyone) who has more than you fits in with 'keeping up with the Joneses'. Further reasoning about irrational behavior is as unconvincing as science trying to explain magic. (Which in many cases might be helpful in explaining the long chains of coincidence that led to wealth, despite the often-fragile egos involved.)

Some of the very rich try to invest in philanthropic causes. Studying the magnates of a century ago can be helpful. (E.g. the story of T. B. Walker. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._B._Walker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._B._Walker) ) On the whole, today's ultra-rich seem less-inclined to give a damn (not unprecedented in history).

<comment><USER48> "On the whole, today's ultra-rich seem less-inclined to give a damn"

That view seems inconsistent with this: [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed- bill-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-gates- and-warren-buffetts-giving-pledge.html)

<comment><USER49> There are 2,200+ billionaires in the world. 14 is a blip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Interesting how most of the activities listed were related to meeting high- status people. I guess this is probably the attitude that made them billionaire in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER51> I can see there being some weird stuff that can happen. Say the Hilton girls or Bill Gates or anyone who is exceptionally wealthy. Eventually you realize there's nothing that can be bought that you can't have. And nothing with a price that you can't do. I guess that's why some of them decide to go to space. It's a huge thrill ride. In my case, my wife and I struggled a lot. Both from low income families. We struggled through college. I struggled in freelancing and consulting with clients that didn't pay or paid very late. She has and continues to struggle with mystery health issues. But we always had each other, and we make each other happy. Once my salary cracked over 100k/yr it gave us a lot of breathing room. We're less stressed. We can actually enjoy life. We both smile more. But we're both still relatively new to it. I'm sure once your net worth is in the hundreds of millions or billions then there's so little to worry about that life can get boring.

</comment><comment><USER16> The article said they interviewed people with at least $1 million net worth but $1 million net worth isn't really rich is it? In SF you might be able to afford a 1 bedroom studio apartment. I'm guessing the same is true in NYC, London, much of Los Angeles, Tokyo.

Sure, with $1 million maybe you could retire in Cambodia but for most 1st world people $1 million is not enough be able to stop working for someone else and do what you want.

I guess that'S my definition of rich. It would basically be, can I afford to have say a 3-4 bedroom apartment or house for a family of 4, be able to travel 2 or 3 times a year, and not have to go to work for someone else if I don't want to. I'm not saying want to do nothing. I am saying to me "rich" equals enough money to have no more income for the rest of your life and still live like you're making enough to support a family of 4 without having to pinch pennies.

I'm confident $1million is not even close enough to be able to do that in most 1st world countries.

<comment><USER52> >Sure, with $1 million maybe you could retire in Cambodia but for most 1st world people $1 million is not enough be able to stop working for someone else and do what you want.

.

>I'm confident $1million is not even close enough to be able to do that in most 1st world countries.

The average HOUSEHOLD income in the US is around 59k.

1 million is about 300k more than I need to retire today at 33 with a 3% safe withdrawal rate assuming I never work another day in my life and never marry. I only gross 34k a year.

<comment><USER53> So, in other words, it's not enough to meet GPs threshold of not work for anybody _and support a family of four_.

It's enough (by your description) to not work for anybody and support a family of _1_ (at a level a little over to the US current median _individual_ income.)

<comment><USER52> >So, in other words, it's not enough to meet GPs threshold of not work for anybody and support a family of four.

I have a co-worker that supports a family of four, with a mortgage, on not much more than I make.

Do they take fancy vacations? No.

Do they drive new cars? No, in fact they have 1 car.

Do they eat out, buy convenience foods, buy fast food? No, they make their meals and enjoy them together.

Do they have the latest gaming consoles? No but his kids are both teens and are still happy with 2-3 generation old consoles.

Do they wear new clothes? No, most of their clothing comes from second hand stores, often barely warn.

You don't have to spend gobs of money to have a family. Loo at any number of Christian denominations and you'll find people living quite happily with not a lot of money going out, if you want to really see it look at many families that are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints (colloquially known as Mormons) and you'll see families larger than 4 that do are quite healthy and happy, in the US, on household incomes well under 6-figures.

Simply buying food in bulk, buying used cars and buying clothing on sale and/or second hand (and passing it down when it comes to children) stretches money considerably:

\- 50lbs of rice $17.98 29,550 kcals

\- 25lbs steelcut oats $32.98 42,500 kcals

\- 15lbs potatoes $6.98 5,205 kcals

\- 5lb bag instant mashed potatoes $6.98 9,600 kcals

\- 25lbs flour $6.98 41,275 kcals

And for meat, if you buy as little as 1/4 of a cow at a time you get rather steep savings. A quarter beef is anywhere from 80-100lbs of meat (a lot of steak but mostly roast, chuck roast, 3-5lbs of short ribs and the bulk being ground beef) for 6-8$ a pound. Buy a whole beef and you're talking 350lbs~ of butchered weight at 8-9$ a pound.

<comment><USER54> Living costs drop dramatically when you don't need to work. The costs of transportation and time-saving meals is pretty incredible. Ignoring depreciation and interest, even a Civic costs thousands in gas, maintenance, and insurance to run 40 miles daily.

Side note: the prices on your bulk beef sound pretty high. My local grocery has ground beef at $3.29/lb, $9/lb is almost what they charge for t-bone steaks. For cheap meat, I stick to whole chickens at <$1/lb or pork when it's BOGO.

<comment><USER52> >Side note: the prices on your bulk beef sound pretty high.

I'm talking about buying 1/4 or 1 whole specific cow directly from a farm that gets butchered and wrapped for you, it's actually quite cheaper than the grocery. The average cost per pound is absolutely higher for ground beef because you're getting a LOT of steak and ribs.

For 1/4 beef you're talking like 50ish pounds of ground beef, like 20lbs of various roasts, 40ish pounds of steaks and probably some ribs.

Yeah, you can get ground beef or ground chuck stupid cheap at the grocery, especially if you're buying the big rolls of it. 2-5$ depending on the quantity and fat content, but buy a 1/4 , 1/2 or whole beef gets you a ton of steak, roasts, ribs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> The paper is at [1].

It's by no means a random sample. (That would be pretty difficult.)

I wonder what you'd have to do to find the people who say "enough is enough?" It seems they're not customers of this firm.

[1] [https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53540](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53540)

</comment><comment><USER56> _The High Price of Materialism_ by Tim Kasser is a good read. It's a popular work that goes through a lot of research on how focusing on material definitions of success can ultimately run counter to your emotional well- being. The pleasure of a big new acquisition is fleeing, so you get stuck forever chasing bigger and better highs.

</comment><comment><USER57> Wasn't it really about power from the get go? Money is a pretty straightforward proxy for power and power(over people) is always relative.

To me it all plays out in a much weirder manner among common people in countries that experienced rapid growth. Before my eyes my environment went from that of brutal poverty to - sometimes very uneven - prosperity.

<comment><USER58> That's what Nietzche argues is humankind's ultimate drive — [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> "For one study, Norton and his collaborator paid each respondent about 46 euros for every completed questionnaire. "You can run a survey on regular people for like a dollar," "

Hmm I refused to give my email to a cable provider for a $100 Best Buy gift card (I was in Best Buy). At the time I thought who would trade their email address for a lousy $100?

Now I know.

<comment><USER60> Do you only have one email adress? I wouldn't give out the main one, but some of the others.. or just make a new account somewhere and forward it to your main, then delete it if it ever collects spam.

<comment><USER59> I don't like to give out my fake one either. Wouldn't want my porn spam to get diluted by COMCAST offers.

Actually you could learn a lot about me and who I am by cross referencing all the places i've given my fake address to. Since I don't want to create a thousand fake addresses, I don't give that out either for a mere $100

<comment><USER60> I see, though $100 is not that little.. I like mailhero (mailhero.io) where you can give out unique email adresses (free, but maybe better not for important stuff) but of course it is not very hard to trace.

(It works like this: You have one identifier (eg smith) and then add anythingn before the dot, like firstname.lastname@example.com), so the identifier is the same in all cases.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Mostly because money has nothing to be with being happy, sad, healthy, immunity from disease, depression, or death.

The utility of money is to make you comfortable, give your freedom, and take of other things while you suffer though life.

Money or wealth should never be conceived as a hammer to down all nails.

</comment><comment><USER62> TLDR; Michael Norton did the survey of people with networth > $1M and most said they need 2 or 3 times more. People with networth > $100M also don't feel satisfied because they tend to answer the question "Am I better off than last year?" by comparing to other folks who did even better than them.

It looks to me that if you are in $3M to $10M bucket, you have financial freedom to live low key upper-middle class life. This is what Tim Ferris refers to as "New Rich".

However when you are above $10M, something else happens. While you have financial freedom, you are also just starting to taste _freedom of will_. Sooner or later it might get annoying that you must wake up at 5 AM because that's the only flight available OR that you can't get the penthouse suit because someone more wealthier decided to book it out for entire year. You still depend on publicly available utilities fiercely competed upon. Unlike your peers with $100M you can't own GulfStreams or have $25M Malibu mentions overlooking Pacific with infinity pools.

When you get to $100M, things change again. Now you do have little gulfstream but it's far cry from private 747 with king size bedroom, office, bar and a chef. Sure, you got that mention in Malibu but that large paradise estate in Hawaii with its own beach and waterfalls is out of your reach. When you meet your billionaire friends in blue waters of Greek island of Creet, your little yatch looks like baby's first toy missing things like its own sub and helipad. Life is good but not _that_ good because resources at your disposal have still limitations to achieve maximum possible _freedom of will_. People tell you how awesome you are but you keep finding new limiting ways you are restricted to act by your will _every single day_.

I think its only above $3B that you are in realm of pure score keeping, the quality of material possessions cannot be improved further and _freedom of will_ is pretty much maximized. Now you are truly limited by time, and much less by ideas. So until you get in to that top 1000 individuals, it's going to sting one way or another.

<comment><USER63> This is very similar with what I tell people: that every time you put another zero on your net worth, your world changes.

The follow-up is that you probably shouldn't be taking life advice for your immediate situation from people who are more than one zero in either direction away from you because they're giving advice for their world, not yours.

my personal financial life goal is never to be worth more than $10M and I am knocking that go a lot of the park right now!

Life after $10M, from knowing people with that kind of money, just gets more and more complicated and no one seems truly happy, as they drown in first world problems.

<comment><USER64> I hope so - I have been saying for a while, once I get to 10m, I'm going to quit working and start focusing on doing things to help other people. I figure 4% = 400k, take 200k and reinvest it, and take the other 200k and use it.

Its christmas time, I'd like to go to my local box store and buy out the lay- aways. Donate some hams and turkeys to the poor.

As long as I've done what I can to take care of myself and family, I think its important to start helping other people.

One of our big flaws in society is we try to categorize people too much. That leads to the wealthy looking down on others. Middle class looking down on others. The poor looking down upon who they can. It is not necessary. Once you have food, home, and some basic luxuries, all you need is to save for the retirement days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I think it's possible that some people became rich because they were not satisfied with money they had.

They are just still unhappy with money they have because nothing changed about their happiness and their sources, they just got more money.

</comment><comment><USER66> I'm a regular participant on 'Bogleheads' forum. If forum posters are to believed, there are quite a few high net-worth individuals there.

Many are motivated by 'the game'. But I am not depressed by this. On the contrary, it seems to me that most take care to use their money in constructive ways. They seek to find ways to build better futures for those that will follow them. Some even pledge to give a bunch of it away, after the great examples set by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

There are some bad apples, probably, but I think there are a lot more good ones.

<comment><USER67> Whether they are good people or not really depends on what they would do to make their money, rather than how they would spend it.

The lengths one would go to to become rich rather then where a rich person throws the breadcrumbs of what they already have truly defines them, and also, what evil may be created in this world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I think this helps explain a question I've had for a long time, from reading articles and from listening to second-hand stories from my CPA wife. The question is "Why don't rich people just pay their damn bills?" I mean they quibble and fight over $7000, which most can find in their couch cushions. It means that they get behind in their game. Never mind it's not a game to the contractors and drywall installers and plumbers they're screwing over.

</comment><comment><USER69> I don't know about anyone else, but in the case I were hypothetically independently wealthy, I'd still be miserable based on the fact that the system was still stuck in a mode where doing something I'd done would be required.

I don't believe "play or starve" economics are the be all, end all of human existence, but I'll be damned if I can figure out a way to make it work without just about everyone else being willing to " _come along for the ride_ " as it were.

</comment><comment><USER70> No matter how much money I acquire, it will not help me to understand a mathematical theorem or become a master craftsman. Real wealth is what's inside you.

</comment><comment><USER71> Some people enjoy making money. It shouldn't be a surprise that very rich people got that way because they enjoy making money - and why should they stop?

<comment><USER72> The reason I enjoy making money is because I think of it as creating value for others. For some reason, I just enjoy creating value for others.

<comment><USER71> In a free market, money is made by creating value for others.

<comment><USER73> ...or by owning the means that other people use to provide value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> If you judge worth by others, you can be in trouble. If you judge worth by impact, what others get can be hugely significant. Somewhere between the two is a movable balance point where what people say influences how you believe they are impacted.

This works for people making huge donations, people of less financial worth donating their time and work, but alas also justifies the Kardashians who perceive impact somewhat differently.

</comment><comment><USER75> The process of evolution doesn't reward long-term "satisfaction" and essentially makes animals "greedy". Sure, after a good meal or romance one may feel temporarily satisfied, but in a day or two you are back for more. Generally digestion is more efficient if the body is not moving fast or bumpy, so a feeling of satisfaction will tend to make animals rest after a big meal.

</comment><comment><USER76> Sorry, no citation, but I remember reading of a study years ago that basically determined that no matter how much income a person has, they feel that they need about 10% more to be truly happy. This was consistent across a wide range of income. Honestly, I think it is simply normal human psychology to keep us striving. Complacency is not an evolutionary stable thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER77> There's no possible way that anybody could save up more than maybe a million dollars based on their own personal labor. Anything more than that is some form of legal theft. There's no reason we can't restructure society so that ownership and decision making is pushed down to a democratic level; it would solve almost all the current problems we face.

</comment><comment><USER78> The bourgeoisie have false consciousness too.

</comment><comment><USER79> Missing self-actualization in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

</comment><comment><USER80> It's not about the money.

</comment><comment><USER81> Why would anyone be happy with the money they have in a world where the next day your fortune may change and you lose it all? Capital is a self-hosted safety net.

</comment><comment><USER82> I don't think a lot of rich are into making more money to be happier. But rather to have more than the guy next to him. It's treated more like a game.

<comment><USER83> That is literally what the article is all about

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> so being successful drives people to continue trying to be successful or even more so? it is a personality which works at many levels but I guess it is more interesting when applied to the really really rich.

I have never known a rich person who wasn't always trying to do more. however I have had and still do have some acquaintances who go out of their way to not have money

</comment><comment><USER85> Perhaps it's just me but the article makes it look like rich people only ever hang out with other rich people.

Hang out with people who aren't rich and you'll notice they're just as happy as everyone else.

I happened to grow up with classmates whose parents were both billionaires and cab drivers. There's research that suggests beyond a certain threshold you won't get happier from any extra money and that certainly seemed to be the case.

</comment><comment><USER82> I think some rich people are not into making more money to be happirr but just to have more than the guy next to him.

</comment><comment><USER86> Well, for starters, volatility.

I know, very well, know how quickly this pile of cash can evaporate. To keep from starving again I'd rather have a significant (like orders of magnitude at this point) chunk dedicated to buffering me from that outcome. I do not trust the market to remain stable - I will go out and make more.

I've lost fortunes some of you youngins can only dream of, but came out OK because I was not content to sit on my laurels.

</comment><comment><USER87> I read somewhere that net worth of $1 million is not enough to send two kids to Ivy League schools. There are many ways $10M will revolutionize your life compared to $1M.

</comment><comment><USER88> Hedonic treadmill</comment>


Building low-overhead metrics collection for high-performance systems - <AUTHOR> https://blog.wallaroolabs.com/2018/02/building-low-overhead-metrics-collection-for-high-performance-systems/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm the author of this post and I'll be happy to answer any questions here.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the write-up. Why did you DIY instead of using an existing system like e.g. Prometheus?

<comment><USER2> We didn't set out to replace Prometheus, our Metrics UI was designed to give Wallaroo users insight into several parts of the system to spot bottlenecks while developing applications.

What we did do from scratch was write the instrumenting of Wallaroo in order to collect the metrics that could be used by our Metrics UI or Prometheus.

We thought it'd create a better user experience to provide a tool that provides the metrics information in a meaningful way as opposed to letting our users pick from Prometheus, Grafana, etc off the bat and having them set it up themselves.

In the end, if a user wants to use a tool like Prometheus they can write an adapter to convert our Metrics Protocol into a format suitable for Prometheus.

<comment><USER3> I see, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those who don't know (including me), Wallaroo appears to be a competitor to and/or similar to Kafka: high-throughput stream processing. If I'm incorrect, please let me know!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Mike,

Yes. The core of Wallaroo is for high-throughput, low-latency stream processing.

We currently have a Python 2.7 API released and Go API preview release out.

I don't think of it as a competitor to Kafka although Kafka streams does provide a means to do stream processing.

There's a number of JVM based solutions out there (Apache has several). We are looking to be the solution for folks who want to use Python, JavaScript, Go and other non-JVM languages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pardon a newbie here. I was wondering how, or if it's even possible, to use wallaroo with c# and/or java apps?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi VP of Engineering at Wallaroo Labs here.

At this time, we support Python 2.7 and Go (preview release is out).

Python 3 and JavaScript are on our roadmap.

Java/C# would be things we'll be considering for the future.</comment></comment>


New Fin-Tech Startup: Qmetrica Back-Testing Platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.qmetrica.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Reply here if you'd like an invite.</comment>


Idiots with drones have shut down the UK's second largest airport - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/20/18149819/london-gatwick-airport-drone-shutdown-reports <comment><USER2> They have created hundreds of millions in damage with a few thousand in drones, and have yet to be caught. While you may be angry with them, the facts hardly paint the suspects as 'idiots' just yet. Embarassing a first world nations military ability to find and disable a drone and its operator with a remote control heli is almost halarious if it wasn't indicitive of a gastly level of incompetince in drone warfare. Its hardly new.

<comment><USER3> Shouldn't it be possible to track the radio control back to the source?

<comment><USER4> If there _is_ one.

10 WAIT 3600

20 FLY UP +200

30 FLY WEST +1000

40 FLY NORTH +1000

50 FLY WEST -1000

60 FLY NORTH -1000

70 GOTO 30

In other words, set your drone on the ground, drive off, and have it follow a preprogrammed route until batteries die. Never any radio traffic.

<comment><USER5> It practice you would have a GPS on board and give absolute waypoints to take wind into account. So maybe GPS jammer in this case ? Not very practical.

<comment><USER4> It would be imprecise, but if you only need to sow chaos, you don't care where precisely the drone goes. Plus you've dragged in a host of external dependencies, all hungry and some of them networked: GPS and left_pad and bcmath, oh my!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So what's the best way to take these things out if we're not comfortable firing bullets (reasonable). I would think other drones casting wide nets might work?

<comment><USER7> I'm guessing the problem is that making the drone fall out of the sky is not safe either, in the general case. So either a bird that will grab a drone and return to the handler, or some kind of way of scooping up the drone in a net held by multiple drones seem like the best options. It's an asymmetric situation.

<comment><USER8> The story of weapons vs. countermeasures is for the most part, a history of just such assymmetries in favor of weapons. With few exceptions, weapons are generations ahead of countermeasures. It is still much much easier to shoot someone than to defend against being shot. It's easier to drop nuclear warheads than intercept them, to lay mines than sweep for them, and so on.

I think it's just the usual wages of entropy, in the same way that it's easier to spread falsehoods than recitfy them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I recall some airport was using trained hawks to hunt down drones. I wonder what happened with that approach.

<comment><USER10> Since this is a '£5k' drone, I wonder if it is too big for the hawks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was thinking a kind of chaff, long wires coated in a thin film of plastic to slow their decent, fire a load of these into the air around the drone and it will come down by tieing up its propellers. I also considered rubber bullets would work too.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if an air vortex cannon could be built powerful enough to take one of these down

</comment><comment><USER13> I thought by now all airports should have some kind of anti drone weapon to handle cases like this.

<comment><USER14> Something like DroneShield? Anyone know whether those things are effective or just a gimmick?

<comment><USER4> Active radar? GPS+comm radio jammer? If that works as promised, not something you would like to deploy at an airport.

<comment><USER15> Drone disabling Kalashinikv gun

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mlfHzg-p38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mlfHzg-p38)

<comment><USER4> Yeah. A jammer. Seems to work great for tens of meters...how does it cope with inverse square law, I wonder?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Polly wanna drone? [https://youtu.be/kAYVyj6vf3Y](https://youtu.be/kAYVyj6vf3Y)</comment>


Creating a Raspberry Pi Pandora Player with Remote Web Control - <AUTHOR> http://thisdavej.com/creating-a-raspberry-pi-pandora-player-with-remote-web-control/ <comment><USER2> Interesting project and lots of good content on that site. If anyone is looking for a /much/ /much/ easier way to do this, try pi musicbox. Its the first project I suggest for people new to rpi because its so easy and has great results. I've had an rpi with musicbox for years and use it almost every day. Love it.

[http://www.pimusicbox.com/](http://www.pimusicbox.com/)

<comment><USER3> I'd love to build something like this hooked into a wall mounted eink system or a larger home automation system.

<comment><USER2> I want to use eInk on so many projects, too bad it is ungodly expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey Dave - Kyle here. Awesome to see Patiobar used! Looks like a lot of the steps to get it all working were related to Patiobar. I've been meaning to add a 'setup' script to the repo for a while now which does the `npm` and `mkfifo`, creates a default pianobar config (if one doesn't already exist), fixes the TLS fingerprint, etc. If you're interested, feel free to message me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Kyle, thanks for your excellent work making this project possible! A setup script would be a great bonus to automate the Patiobar aspects. Feel free to message me on Twitter (@thisDaveJ) so we can discuss since I don't know how to get in touch with you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool stuff, Pandora should definitely add the feature like Spotify did

</comment><comment><USER6> Or just use mpd: [https://www.musicpd.org/](https://www.musicpd.org/)</comment>


Google Container for Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/containers-everywhere/contain-google <comment><USER2> Why do you need an add-on for facebook or google containers? Don't you just open a container, login to facebook, open a different container, log into google, and don't log into either in any other container?

<comment><USER3> Last time I checked, the site-specific container extensions (Facebook and Google) had a "don't open anything except the target site in the container" feature that appeared to be missing from the multi-account containers extension.

I agree that the best solution would be to add that functionality to the base extension rather than create a specific extension for every site people might want to block.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You don't need to have separate "site specific container" to do this. You can use Multi Account Containers[0] to configure any sites.

[0]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi- account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account- containers/)

<comment><USER5> It's not quite the same functionality. If you open Google in a regular container and then click a link that goes to a different site, it will load the new site in the same container. The Google container would open the new site in a different container.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a chrome equivalent to this?

<comment><USER7> The irony. You are asking if there is an extension that blocks the browsers company from tracking you. I don't think they would allow it on their web store.

<comment><USER8> Chromium extension then please.</comment></comment></comment>


Completely Painless Programmer's Guide to XYZ, RGB, ICC, XyY, and TRCs - <AUTHOR> http://ninedegreesbelow.com/photography/xyz-rgb.html <comment><USER2> For the merely curious, my recommendation is that you carefully not learn about this stuff unless you need it for something.

I built an automated lighting system for my house using Hue bulbs. I wanted to have more "natural" light throughout the day. Ignoring a warning from a friend ("It's as bad as knowing about kerning," he said), I learned a fair bit about color, including the very mutable and slippery concept of "white".

I like my automated lighting system just fine, but the downside is that I now notice color temperature of lightbulbs. It's as annoying; things that were previously fine are now the sources of enduring irritation. So now I'm the apparently crazy person at work who unscrews lightbulbs and moves them around my work area because somebody has randomly scattered very-warm-white and very- cool-white bulbs around the place with no attention to aesthetics or utility.

I was honestly happier not knowing. There are some things you can't unsee, and color temperature is one of them. I'm glad I could stop before I understood how bad the color representation is on my various screens.

<comment><USER3> You should try f.lux [1], it will drive you up a wall.

[1]: [https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/)

<comment><USER4> Redshift does the same thing (supports Windows and X11), no idea what the difference is. Apparently at the time redshift was created 6 years ago f.lux didn't work properly on GNU/Linux. [http://jonls.dk/redshift/](http://jonls.dk/redshift/)

<comment><USER5> Redshift is free (libre) software and fl.ux is "patent pending".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This description is _not_ painless. It gets into the technical weeds before giving a good big-picture overview, which in my experience trying to teach the basics of human vision and color science usually makes people fall asleep or start walking away before they learn much. In this particular case, the technical pieces are also a very narrow and decontextualized, which as curriculum always results in severe misconceptions. This is a subject that desperately needs to be taught with many diagrams and pictures, and absolutely must begin with a basic explanation of how eyes work. Just linking to Wikipedia doesn't cut it, as unfortunately the relevant articles on Wikipedia aren't very good.

Unfortunately there aren't any especially good concise explanations of color science on the internet to link to.

These SIGGRAPH 2001 notes are okay but leave a lot out and don't include enough pictures: [https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-02-spring/04cdr...](https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-02-spring/04cdrom.pdf)

The best online resource I know is [http://www.handprint.com/LS/CVS/color.html](http://www.handprint.com/LS/CVS/color.html) but it's very long and kind of rambling.

Some layman-friendly answers to various color science questions can be found at [https://www.rit.edu/cos/colorscience/rc_faq_all.php](https://www.rit.edu/cos/colorscience/rc_faq_all.php)

But really, books are better. There are a number of decent ones, e.g. [http://amzn.com/047119459X](http://amzn.com/047119459X) or [http://amzn.com/0470024259](http://amzn.com/0470024259) or [http://amzn.com/1118173848](http://amzn.com/1118173848) or [http://amzn.com/1568811616/](http://amzn.com/1568811616/) or the first half of [http://amzn.com/1119967031](http://amzn.com/1119967031)

<comment><USER7> I agree wholeheartedly. It goes from 'wavelength' to 'chromaticity and intensity' to 'three dimensional cartesian coordinates' without explanation. The 'color in one paragraph' paragraph would be incomprehensible if you didn't already know all the missing steps, I felt.

And the need for diagrams: amen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's always the classic "Color space FAQ":

[http://www.poynton.com/ColorFAQ.html](http://www.poynton.com/ColorFAQ.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Relatedly: HSL and HSV's concept of brightness does not match that of the human eye. HSL blue at 0.5 lightness is darker than HSL red at 0.5

</comment><comment><USER10> Well, now I need to recalibrate my monitors, except this time I will know what I am doing. Thanks for the great article.</comment>


Creating SVG vector graphics for maximum browser compatibility - <AUTHOR> http://voormedia.com/blog/2012/10/creating-svg-vector-graphics-for-maximum-browser-compatibility <comment><USER2> Most of the SVGs of this page don't test at all the described features, they're just PNGs or JPEGs embedded in SVG files. The author didn't even open its SVGs generated by Illustrator: a drop shadow in Illustrator does not mean a drop shadow in the generated SVG!

For example, look at the source of the "mesh" test, it's a beautiful embedded base64 PNG: [http://voormedia.com/blog/2012/10/creating-svg-vector- graphi...](http://voormedia.com/blog/2012/10/creating-svg-vector-graphics-for- maximum-browser-compatibility/images/gradientmesh-19c02adf.svg)

</comment><comment> jarek-foksa There is a lot of wrong data in the "Browser compatibility" table at the end of the article:

\- gradient meshes were never defined in SVG spec and none of the browsers supports them. This feature should be introduced in SVG 2

\- WebKit-based browsers do support inner and outer glow effect (via combination of feGausianBlur, feFlood and feComposite filters)

\- WebKit-based browsers do support drop-shadow effect (via feGausianBlur, feOffset and feMerge filters)

\- WebKit-based browsers do support custom fonts (e.g. WOFF via @font-face, SVG fonts are _dead_ )

\- WebKit-based browsers do support linked and embedded images (using data:uri with base64 encoding)

\- envelope distortion is not supported by any browser, SVG spec defines only affine transformations via transform attribute

<comment><USER3> The gradient mesh and drop shadow were exported as an embedded image by Illustrator, so it was never tried to do it via pure SVG.

But I guess the author doesn't have much experience with SVG's feature set and instead just fiddled around with Illustrator, looking at the export results and drawing conclusions for SVG.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't it strange that Chrome is lagging behind in SVG support?

<comment><USER5> And Javascript :( <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript#Versions>

<comment><USER6> That chart is misleading. V8 supports (and has supported it for a long time) the vast majority of ES5. Since version 13 it's supported every ES5 features with the exception of Zero-width chars in identifiers, and I don't know when, but it was implemented somewhere between 16 and 23.

<http://kangax.github.com/es5-compat-table/>

<comment><USER7> Webkit does support SVG filters but there is a bug which prevents displaying the filters when embedded in HTML.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Raphaël JS is great for using vector graphics across multiple browsers: <http://raphaeljs.com/>

<comment><USER9> Does it address any of the issues presented in the article ?

<comment><USER8> Cross-browser vector graphics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this has to do with the fact that the SVG graphics are embedded as <img> instead of just embedding them directly into the document as <svg>.

If you load them directly into Chrome, the SVG renders fine. [http://voormedia.com/blog/2012/10/creating-svg-vector- graphi...](http://voormedia.com/blog/2012/10/creating-svg-vector-graphics-for- maximum-browser-compatibility/images/gradientmesh-19c02adf.svg)

Maybe this has something to do with Chrome's process of rendering this as a bitmap? (Random guess)

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks awful under Chrome (Windows): <http://i.imgur.com/c6t6f.png>

<comment><USER12> Yeah, if you scroll down to the test block with all the different effects, Chrome is a blocker for SVG. Might as well be VRML.

<comment> jarek-foksa The data included in that table is totally wrong. Chrome supports most of the filter primitives defined in SVG spec, IE9 supports none of them, Firefox supports vast majority but with serious performance issues.

The real blocker for SVG is the lack of good authoring tools. Illustrator (used by the author of this article) apparently generates SVG files by rasterising many vector effects.

I suspect that there is a bug in WebKit that breaks bitmap rendering in certain circumstances, this would explain why some Illustrator-generated effects failed on Chrome.

<comment><USER12> Point being: SVG is still a non-starter. :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Based off of the blog post previous to this one about the implementation of SVGs site-wide, I'm confused why they'd risk using SVGs over just CSS alone or CSS+PNGs or even matte'd GIFs? Maybe I'm behind the times, but that seems like a nightmare to maintain comparatively.

</comment><comment><USER14> My biggest problem with SVG has always been FF's inability to select text: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=292498>

</comment><comment><USER15> The feature table around FF 3 and 3.6 is just wrong. Opacity is in FF 3 and so are lineargradients, I've used both in it.

I haven't tested any others, but I strongly doubt the author did either.

</comment><comment><USER16> You might try our Rails Rumble entry: blacksmithapp.com. It helps you creating icon webfonts based on SVG graphics.

<comment><USER13> Awesome problem to solve (been looking for something similar without having to use three different tools), but there's no tutorial on how to use this or what it can do. Does it assume I've already assigned the glyphs in another piece of software or will it let me assign to characters if it can't tell?

It'd also be nice if there was a live specimen preview so I could adjust the ascent/descent visually. Also wish the weight was a drop-down that showed 100-900 and where the typical weights fall in e.g. 100 (Hairline)/ 400 (Regular) / 900 (Black).

Obviously you guys just built this thing two weekends ago, so those are just my two cents :)

<comment><USER17> you might want to also check out <http://icomoon.io>

<comment><USER13> Don't know how I haven't stumbled across this sooner - thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My experience is that SVG is simply not ready to support anything but the most basic vector art.

I'm never sure if it's Illustrator's SVG output, the format, or browser support that's lacking. But it's a total crapshoot if any kind of sophisticated techniques are going to make it out of AI. (Hell, it's a crapshoot if they'll make it through another PDF renderer, too; when I prep books for print, I just make a ton of TIFFs.)

Here's some other ways I might try to make that radial gradient in AI. And their results after eyeing the generated SVG.

\- Draw about 8-10 lines in different colors radiating out from the central point. Make them into a blend. (This is an idiosyncratic use of the term "blend"; when you blend between two or more shapes, AI will draw a bunch of intermediary shapes that morph between them. You used to have to do this all the time before AI added the quick and easy gradient tool.)

This translates into SVG as a bunch of lines - SVG doesn't understand the concept of a blend, or at least AI's exporter doesn't, so six lines grouped into a blend become a hundred or so. It looks pretty good.

\- Make a linear gradient; use a distortion mesh to turn it into a radial gradient. [1]

This translates into SVG as an embedded image. But it sure looks good.

\- Draw about eight wedges. Blur them.

If I use AI's native blur, it turns into several embedded images. Also it's a bit pale as there are no 100% opaque pixels.

If I use an SVG blur, it's very compact - just a few blurred shapes. However, the rendering is just vile, with bounding boxes based on the edges of the polygons rather than ones expanded out to cover all that blur. Also it has the "no 100% opaque pixels" problem.

Also it's worth noting that Illustrator's UI for SVG effects is absolutely terrible; you've got a tiny list of cryptically named effects, and if you want to change the parameters you get to edit code.

\- Finally, I revisited the line blend and turned those lines into long, thin wedges. Looks perfect. Translates into a whole ton of shapes.

I haven't tested file size. I suspect that it may not be a win over a bitmap until you get to like 1K pixels square.

Some of these results might be better if I was using Inkscape. If anyone would care to try doing similar things in that I'd be curious to see how well it fares on these methods - and on others you may come up with!

Reference JPG: <http://i.imgur.com/ZSDAZ.jpg> Source AI and generated SVG: <http://www.sendspace.com/file/rn83zw>

[1] Tutorial here: [http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/quick-tip- cr...](http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/quick-tip-create-a- conical-gradient-with-adobe-illustrator-in-two-minutes/)

<comment><USER4> Yes, I can confirm that a lot of what your experiencing is Adobe CS's compromise with the SVG format, and indeed Inkscape is much better in this specific use case. In general, AI predates SVG, and in general is much broader in scope than SVG, especially with regards to integration with the rest of the suite, and blurring of the lines between illustration and photographic effects.

<comment><USER18> Out of curiosity, do you know of any other ways to get an image from AI into an SVG besides Illustrator's SVG output?

<comment><USER4> No not really, although if I was in need of some kind of option, I would explore a couple of things 1) Clipboard formats... like WMF on the clipboard into Inkscape 2) Printing as PDF or PS and then using Inkscape or Ghostscript to go from there... 3) See what kinds of options you get with obscure features of Photoshop like AI->Photoshop->Print as PDF ... in general I think for large complex drawings AI suffers from losing track of its own internal scene graph, or at least there are drawings and layers of effects that can suffer from the halting problem and just crash AI. I have seen several people in the creative coding and graph theory worlds struggle with this kind of problem regardless of tool. Best of luck to you!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone have a personal dashboard they use? - <AUTHOR> Whether created by you or a service you use? <comment><USER2> Some of my favourites: Google Analytics - helps me understand what the heck my writing is doing online, how's the performance Hootsuite - my pet solution for social media Alto - well kinda, for emails lastly, plain Excel - my solution to everything!

</comment><comment><USER3> I m creating my own dashboard to see my business Stripe numbers and analytics better. I am aware of services like baremetrics but they don't cover my use case (custom subscription logic in my own app and stripe is only used for processing payments).

So far, I only got to building a simple chart for calculating Monthly Run Rate (MRR) but will build few more things like Churn rate, Customer growth % etc. I also will add some analytics like where my customers are coming from (google analytics sort of integration) all in one place.

It is built using PHP/Laravel framework with vuejs in front.</comment>


Blue Origin Plans to Begin Colonizing the Moon No Later Than 2023 - <AUTHOR> https://futurism.com/moon-colonization-blue-origin-2023/ <comment><USER2> And yet nobody is spending money to free us from the police tyranny we live under on this Earth.

I hope that future Moon colonists have much more freedom than we currently do</comment>


FeedBurner Shut Down: The Facts and Tales from the Front Line - <AUTHOR> http://www.feedblitz.com/feedburner-shut-down-the-facts-and-tales-from-the-front-line/

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess shutting down a service just like that with out providing a good exit path for the user is pretty bad. They slowly started killing the users one by one, by deteriorating the service more and more. Good work Google.</comment>


Show HN: Tolk – Talk with strangers about topics anonymously (PWA) - <AUTHOR> https://tolk.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, I created this app as a hobby project over a lot of weekends. I was tired of existing random chat services that only end up in either A/S/L nonsense or me talking to a bot.

By asking for a topic, I hope to mitigate this problem and allow for more directed, meaningful conversations.

It's a progressive web app, using the Vue framework with the server running Elixir (Phoenix).</comment>