Why a 'paperless world' still hasn't happened - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/29/american-reams-why-the-paperless-world-hasnt-happened <comment><USER2> Anyone who thinks the world hasn't gone paperless, really needs to recall how it used to be in the 80s and 90s.

\- We don't send physical letters in envelopes anymore, we send emails.

\- We don't send documents via fax or courier, we send them digitally.

\- We don't apply for jobs by mailing in resumes, we apply online.

\- We don't file taxes or other applications using snail mail, we send them online.

\- We don't receive statements and invoices in our mailbox, we get them in our inbox.

\- We don't send photocopies, we send pictures.

\- We don't use checks or even currency notes, we use credit cards.

\- We don't read physical newspapers, we read articles online via HN.

\- We don't read physical books, we read e-books.

Yes yes, I know people still do some of the above things. But the quantity of paper-use for the above has fallen precipitously, and it's falling even further everyday.

I still use pen-and-paper occasionally to sketch out my thoughts in an unstructured way, and I do like sending letters as a gesture of my extended effort. But for any kind of business dealing or inter-person interaction, paper is on life-support, and is going to be DOA in another decade or two. And everytime I think of paper statements and requests for photocopies to be mailed in, all I can say is good riddance.

<comment><USER3> Why would anyone e-file their taxes? It's at least $25 for the most basic e-filing software, or 49 cents to drop in the mail.

<comment><USER4> There are more countries than America.

I do it each year for free.

<comment><USER5> Yup. There you do it in your browser, which is free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's quite simple. Paper is a near-perfect technology. What replaces it has to be similarly perfect. When people look at what replaces paper, they think screens. Screens are pretty-near perfect too. But screens are not what replace paper. Files are. Screens merely display information, files store it.

And file storage and manipulation is still in the Stone Age. It's about as far from perfect as any technology can be. To kill paper you have to make it perfectly easy for people to design applications without it. Because it's already perfectly easy to design applications and systems that use paper.

We have to fix software development before we can truly kill paper.

<comment><USER7> While paper used to be the near-perfect technology for storing and distributing non-ephemeral information nowadays this has been turned on its head to the extent that using paper for these purposes has become downright detrimental:

Information stored on paper in some filing cabinet in some office for all practical purposes simply doesn't exist. It can't be easily searched, retrieved or accessed by someone who's not in the same room and doesn't exactly know what he's looking for. In other words: That information is lost.

Old habits unfortunately die hard, which is why people still seem to be thinking that storing non-ephemeral information or knowledge on paper is a good idea.

<comment><USER6> Information locked away on some local user's desktop also doesn't exist. If information isn't stored on a dedicated application-specific storage system staffed with people skilled in it's use and repair, then it's the exact same thing.

We can't just take information and dump it on a block storage device. It needs proper archival. This is the same with paper, only if you lose the key to your file cabinet or the drawers stop sliding so easily, you can still get at the information.

If your RAID backplane dies and you don't know how to fix it, you're in for a bad day.

There is a skillset you can learn to work with paper more efficiently. But most people can muddle through without those skills. Not so with digital.

<comment><USER8> I was recently researching some of things archivists have to do, and the general consensus is that their skills are needed _even more_ in the digital age, not less, because it introduces a whole host of new problems: files that fork, forgeries, losing the ability to read old file formats, etc.

There was also a project by MoMA (I can't find the original article), where they had to get a whole team together to create formats that will ensure survival in the future by doing things like including the instructions to view the format in a readable way.

<comment><USER9> Reminds me of a quote from the early days of the internet. It went something like "The internet is like a library with every book in the world. But all the books are on the floor."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's kinda funny, I worked for years as an artist and never used paper and then I became a programmer and I'm drowning in paper. I use post-it notes, notebooks, and loose sheets of paper to track progress, work through concepts, sketch layouts, etc...

I'm not sure what it would take to replace that. Working on paper allows me to disconnect from the digital world and concentrate on logic, it also allows me to organize my information physically.

Maybe a very advanced augmented reality system could offer me everything there plus the ability to hang my post-it notes in mid-air. I'd give that a whirl.

<comment><USER11> If you've tried the new iPad Pro with Apple Pencil then you'll have your answer. It's fantastic for sketching and taking notes - the new display eliminates all lag between the stylus and the screen.

It is an expensive solution for sure, but as that kind of technology becomes cheaper, the use case you describe for paper will be reduced as well.

<comment><USER10> It wouldn't really replicate my multiple notebooks scattered precisely across my table, unless I had like 5 ipads. Also, not really a fan of Apple's mobile ux, so it's not the solution for me.

I have managed to get rid of some paper usage by having multiple dry erase boards of various sizes. One digital solution I have considered is something like the boogie board. If you're not familiar, it's basically a 10 inch digital whiteboard that can save the screen to an image and costs around $20. That's cheap enough I could have a pile of them and mostly replicate my current process.

<comment><USER11> iPad UX has changed a lot with iOS 11, I think you'd be surprised at how easily you can switch between notebooks on an iPad or have them side by side. One thing I would suggest is to go to the Apple Store, buy the 10.5" iPad Pro and try it out for 2 weeks with an app called Notability and then return it before 14 days is up if you dislike it. They have a great no-questions-asked return policy at the Apple store. If you end up liking it, you can look for a used model if the new one is too expensive for your tastes.

I think it's a better long term solution than the boogie boards because it has handwriting recognition and it's seamless + synced to the cloud without you doing anything. Also, the 120hz refresh rate on the new displays make it behave closer to the physical experience than on past displays where there was a short lag between your stroke and the stroke appearing on screen.

The boogie board is also a great solution if most of your notebooks are meant to be throwaway scratchpads. It might be a better solution than iPad if you don't intend on keeping the stuff you sketch out. Plus it's cheaper like you said.

All I'm saying is that it's something worth trying out at the very least since you can try it with no cost. It's been working very well for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Paper is high-tech. We tend to look down on certain technologies just because they're older, but paper and paperless both have pros and cons.

There's a chasm of complexity between paper and its alternatives. In addition, we already have tons of experience using paper, along with the knowledge of how it should be handled and preserved.

I suspect that much data will be lost due to bit rot, proprietary formats, legacy adapters, DRM, etc. AFAIK, we're still figuring out how long data can be safely stored in many of these newer mediums.

IMO, it's highly desirable to have both options available. I don't really want everything I do passing through computers over which I have no control.

</comment><comment><USER13> Part of it might be generational. I'm older. Any time I'm in a meeting with a presentation, I print it out and make margin notes while the discussion happens.

This really increases my recall and understanding of what was discussed. I've tried digital equivalents of this and it just doesn't work the same for me.

I have noticed that this type of thing is more prevalent with people in my age group (40+). Writing things down, even if you throw it away right afterwards, seems to increase recall more than typing it.

<comment><USER14> > Writing things down, even if you throw it away right afterwards, seems to > increase recall more than typing it.

Your intuition here is spot on and backed up by actual research:

[https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention- students-...](https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put- your-laptops-away)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> TLDR: sales decrease in paper for printing & writing more than being offset by Amazon effect (packaging; food and drink too) & tissue.

</comment><comment><USER15> On a side note, I am still looking for a simple solution for paper to archivable, searchable PDFs. The tools coming with my printer/scanner are horrible.

Something without the need to compile a million dependencies and setting up a DBMS.

Ideal process would be: scan to folder, tool runs cleanup and OCR, creates searchable PDF (perhaps with a nice file name) moves to archive folder, done.

Ideas would be more than welcome :)

<comment><USER16> Now this is a startup that I would totally be evangelist for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> See also: attempts to replace whiteboards/blackboards.

<comment><USER18> We bought some Cisco whiteboard thing at work. Great! Collaborative whiteboarding with our team in Austin.

Guess what _one fucking feature_ it didn't have?

That's right! You couldn't just dial another whiteboard on the network and start immediately drawing together with another person.

(Ironically, when I tried to demonstrate this issue to one of our IT folks, the damn smartboard refused to start right up because it needed to install a firmware upgrade - that provided this functionality.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm glad the article mentioned ReMarkable. Mine arrived about a month ago and I love it -- carry it everywhere now. It's done a great job of taking care of my need for scratch paper to jot notes on, and it's really kind of an improvement over keeping track of lots of bits of paper or having a separate notebook.

It's so far the best of both worlds of paper and electronics.

Bit pricey though.

[https://remarkable.com/](https://remarkable.com/)

(I haven't been paid, reimbursed, or otherwise incentivized for this in any way, except that I think it's cool and I want it to be successful.)

</comment><comment><USER20> What do you intend to replace it with? PDFs?

If there's to be a universal "digital paper", it would need a lot of planning and agreement. With the amount of churn of stuff in technology these days I don't see anything stable enough to "replace paper" anytime soon.

Thinking about this problem reminds me of the transition from linotype machines at the New York Times, to fully computerised systems in 1978.

The computer systems are shown at the end of the wonderful documentary 'Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu' [https://vimeo.com/127605643#t=24m55s](https://vimeo.com/127605643#t=24m55s)

The amount of thought and preparation put into those systems, and the thought and preparation put into the change from ink-and-metal to pixels-and-bytes seems remarkable. Perhaps the (lack of) co-ordination between hardware and software today is to blame? Many industries have their IT problems handled with software-only solutions, generally with little thought for what the solution will look like 10--or even 5--years down the road.

I would love to hear from people in industries like medical software, and flight software; where thought and preparation is--hopefully--given some budget and priority.

</comment><comment><USER21> I blame the lack of good open source tools for creating and verifying signed PDF (or an alternative format).

Faxes are deeply misunderstood, I still occasionally have vendors and clients say "we need an original" or "we need a signature" or some other brain damaging excuse. And these aren't companies in the sticks that don't know it's 2018, these are large (legacy) companies in big cities.

</comment><comment><USER22> When I look at banks they incentivize you to go back to paper. I signed up for paperless for a while only to realize that they allow you to retrieve online statements only for the last 2 years. If you have a business and need to be ready for an audit, you are better off with paper statements.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why I don't go Paperless..

1\. Only My paper bank statements posted to me are correct.

My bank statements printed off from the internet and replacement ones posted out are incorrect.

The interest income earned is only shown on the correct dates on the original paper copies posted out, all the others the interest dates are shown in the incorrect month and thus don't match up what should be shown in my income tax return and don't agree with the interest summary by the bank.

2\. Only my original posted Credit card statements are guaranteed correct.

I have had changes made by the bank IN PREVIOUS FINANCIAL YEARS!!!! on the online versions of my statements, such as changes to amounts paid!!!!

Without the original paper copies I could never argue my case.

</comment><comment><USER24> A "pay per less" world has happened; each year you pay the same, but get less.

</comment><comment><USER25> Whenever I fill up PDFs for my work visa to the US, I saw paperwork reduction act or something written on the PDFs. I thought it was to reduce paper usage or was it paperwork ?. But in the end, there is always a pile of paper. I would say in the last mile of the process paper is used. I applied for Canadian immigration fully online. But in the end they asked "signed certified photocopies", statements, declarations, consents, affidavits everything in paper with notary's ink seal and sign.

Maybe the laws has to change too. Many laws & processes still needs ink seal and signatures. A digital signature or a digital photo is not enough.

</comment><comment><USER26> Analog will always be practical.

</comment><comment><USER27> If we could snap our fingers and have ultra thin flexible paperwhite lcd sheets how would they be best put to use?

I could see binding 100 of them together that you could 'flash' to create a true e-book

<comment> crooked-v Star Trek comes to mind for me. PADDs, though (ironically enough) bulkier and clunkier than any real-world tablet device today, are treated as basically disposable. Characters are usually shown with one at a time, but it's implied they can get as many as they want, with a few scenes where a character has five or six PADDs laid out to compare different texts in a physical way despite them (presumably) all accessing the same data source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Paper seems to have greater weight in court than electronic records, so people keep everything on paper in case they need to show documents in court one day.

</comment><comment><USER29> Could you imagine how much wasted paper comes out of a supermarket in the form of receipts? Most are printed by default then discarded.

I reckon at least 10 garbage bags worth of paper a day at least from one store alone. Maybe I'll run some quick numbers later on.

Paperless in that case would be gold. Just email my receipts so I can archive 'em because I'll only ever need them in the future, not the present.

</comment><comment><USER30> If it were up to me I'd shut down the postal service. Everything I get in the mail could come digitally (such as bills), not at all (freaking junk mail), or via Fed Ex/UPS/Joe's Courier Service (anything someone really, really thinks I need to have physically and wants to pay for).

I hate dealing with paper. I especially hate it when it is redundant. Hate it with a passion.

</comment><comment><USER31> I just want fax to go away.

<comment><USER32> What did you use it for last time?

<comment><USER33> In healthcare, all the time: [https://www.vox.com/health- care/2017/10/30/16228054/american...](https://www.vox.com/health- care/2017/10/30/16228054/american-medical-system-fax-machines-why) . Faxes help impede competition and raise provider profits.

<comment><USER34> Our healthcare industry seems to be unwilling to leave the 20th century.

<comment><USER32> The only aspect that left 20th century is the cost of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> As both an interface (including actively functional, not just passive, e.g. mark-up) and a data store, it still has advantages.

Of itself, and in the way we function, cognitively (e.g. spacial orientation).

P.S. Thank god they still haven't managed to make it blink at me. Harry Potter and his animated pictures, be damned! ;-)

</comment><comment><USER36> When new mediums appear, usually they don't get rid of the previous ones but coexist with them. Besides, paper is really good at some things, changing it just because it is more techy is not something valuable to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER37> The aim is not to get rid of paper but to use the best tool for the job. So paper still is the best tool but for less and less jobs. We won't ever need to get rid of paper though.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've noticed eGovernance increases paper usage

</comment><comment><USER39> Majority of paper is used as toilet paper while rest of the paper usage is being slowly replaced by digital means. So stop using toilet paper. Use bidets. Having diarrhoea equals many trees ! As long as there is demand for toilet paper, there won't be a paperless world. Western world will find this difficult to admit this, but any counter arguments are welcome.

</comment><comment><USER40> My world has been (near) paperless for almost a decade. Perhaps I'm special?</comment>


Why don't my teachers improve themselves? - <AUTHOR>

I cannot complete some of my CS university courses because most of my teachers are incompetent, their speeches are incoherent, misleading and more often than not flat-out wrong.
Even the best hackers on this site could not pass my exams, because the correct answer is not that you'd expect -- it is always the misbelief the teacher heard about years ago.
We have the Linux-fanboy who keeps joking about how Windows is not scriptable (PowerShell was released in 2006), the OSX-fanboy with his anti-Microsoft pet peeves...
Another teacher disapproved my home work because the results were different on his machine. It was a benchmark you idiot! Of course the results are different!
We are presented facts that became untrue a decade ago. They all go into OS flame wars, language syntax flame wars and the like.
Yet we are looked down so much, the whole atmosphere becomes so dragging, I'd rather just stay home and code.
I recently realized I attend classes only to socialize a little before and after the course.
Is this a problem elsewhere too? <comment><USER2> Unless you go to a top university like MIT I doubt much will change. If it were me I'd quit and move to Bay Area and join or create a start-up.

I have a degree and it is definitely totally useless to me other than the prestige of the thing. Some employers look at it as a requirement, but if they do, it is probably a boring place to work.

<comment><AUTHOR> My feelings exactly. Nobody around me, not even my family understands that a degree is so last century in this field, unless you design rockets of course.

<comment><USER2> Ha ha! That's my degree Aerospace Engineer. But it was too boring working for huge aerospace corporations so I do programming now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can you transfer to another university?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, no. I wish I could, but I believe the situation is roughly the same anywhere in the country.

<comment><USER4> No it's not, quite a few teachers work everyday to 'improve themselves', sucks that you got the shitty lot of the teachers but the fact is at the end of the day what matters most is what you teach yourself.</comment></comment></comment>


App Annie is expecting revenue of the global app market to pass $100B by 2020 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-releases-inaugural-mobile-app-forecast/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=appannie <comment><USER2> Highly misleading title. App Annie is expecting revenue _of the global app market_ to pass $100B by 2020, not revenue _of App Annie_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Updated.</comment></comment>


Gmail Adds Multiple Inboxes - <AUTHOR> http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-in-labs-multiple-inboxes.html <comment><USER2> It's kind of inspiring that they keep innovating or at least try to innovate with such an old product. I wonder how many engineers they have working on Gmail, does anybody know this?

<comment><USER3> I used to work on Google Translator, and the GMail team was very close in proximity to us. It's more than 10 engineers but probably less than 30... can't give you an actual count. But I do remember a whole bunch of them crazies running around trying to get us to be in their videos that they record (I'm not sure how many they've released, but I'm sure you've seen the one with the traveling envelope).

<comment><USER4> Amazing what small teams can do. Digg has more engineers than Gmail...

<comment><USER5> Off-topic, but seriously, what the fuck is digg doing with all their people and money? They've got a huge team and every time I venture over there, everything looks pretty much the same. Do they realize that digg is a sinking ship and they're all building lifeboats?

<comment><USER4> Wasting other people's money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I personally have no interest in multiple inboxes. It's great that my gmail UX doesn't have to change for others to get this feature. Too often, products make everyone suffer in order to provide a feature that 10% of the users "must have". I only hope they can do the same thing to appease the people that "can't live" without folders.

<comment><USER7> I agree. I turned the feature on, but discovered I didn't really need it, and that it cluttered the screen.

<comment><USER8> I turned the feature on, then realized I need more than a handful of personal emails (not newsletters) to actually justify its use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Most importantly, their filtering, labeling, and displaying options make a _huge_ improvement on the bane of my internet life: email overload. Finally hundreds of emails a day are approaching manageable. Yes: thank you for continuing development on gmail.

</comment><comment><USER10> Or you could just add folders like everyone has asked you to since you launched the service, then display the tree like Outlook does for easy browsing while not removing the reading pane. Just a thought.</comment>


Lua 5.3.0 (work1) now available - <AUTHOR> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.lua.general/100866

<comment><USER2> Roberto Ierusalimschy included this in his talk at Lua Workshop 2012.

What is Next for Lua: A Personal Perspective [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izhUbMGUIPE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izhUbMGUIPE)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "The main change in Lua 5.3.0 is support for integers."

<comment><USER3> Lua has always supported integers, as a compile time setting. Instead of having a full numeric tower, it has a LUA_NUMBER type that can be changed (doubles, by default), and also makes adding new numeric types at runtime (such as libGMP bignums) easy via metatables and dynamic linking.

While this may seem strange, keep in mind that Lua is designed for scripting code in another language. It tries to assume as little as possible.</comment></comment>


Working on HTML5.1 - <AUTHOR> https://www.w3.org/blog/2016/04/working-on-html5-1/ <comment><USER2> Has this diverged from WHATWG's "living" HTML spec or is it just a snapshot of it?

<comment><USER3> I'm guessing it's yet another hostile fork: [https://annevankesteren.nl/2016/01/film- at-11](https://annevankesteren.nl/2016/01/film-at-11)

As far as I understand, they (the W3C) do this every few months in an attempt to wrest defacto control of HTML back from WHATWG. They copy the WHATWG spec, strip out the licensing and authorship information, and publish as "their" HTML spec.

Then a few months passes, their copy falls behind the actively edited WHATWG one, so they have to fork it again. And so on, and so on.

It's really pretty pathetic.

<comment><USER4> This message by Hixie is very insightful if you like to delve into the details of WHATWG/W3C politics: [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www- archive/2014Apr/0034...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www- archive/2014Apr/0034.html)

<comment><USER5> That's a really interesting look at the politics between those two. Applies to some stuff I'm involved in too. Useful link, thanks very much for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can somebody in the know please summarize the major changes from 5.0 to 5.1 for every day developers? I found the changelog a little too detailed to read and grep.

</comment><comment><USER7> It would be nice if people claiming to support web standards (Mozilla) would actually implement HTML5 already (new HTML5 input types).

<comment><USER8> Agreed. The whole concept of browsers only supporting some parts of the HTML and CSS specifications but not others (and this support differing quite significantly between browsers) is ridiculous. How about they focus on getting on the support down for major recommendations before trying to spend all that effort on supporting drafts with about two years to go before they're ready for production?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Changelog available here: [https://w3c.github.io/html/changes.html](https://w3c.github.io/html/changes.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> _The goal isn't perfection (which is after all the enemy of good)_

Who has this much arrogance?

This isn't the 1980s there aren't a few hundred developers playing around on spare university machines here.

This spec is one of the most expensive documents in the world.

I'd be suprised if tens of billions of dollars hasn't been lost because of just HTML 5 nevermind its predecessors.

HTML 5 affects \- the cost of computers: having to buy better ones as it hogs more ram and cpu \- the accessibility of the internet as swathes of poorer users are cut off from websites that don't support their mobile phones or won't load on their internet speeds \- the accesibility of millions more who can't browse on internet enabled devices (internet enabled TVs, unupgradeable phones, etc) \- the accessibility of websites as screenreaders stop working \- the huge cost of development as web developers have to skill-up \- the stresses on developers and businesses who don't want to have to re-develop their work again and again and again and again \- the monopolies that run in the internet as development of alternative browsers for \- the backwards compatibility conundrum: we've nearly got rid of the pervasiveness of of the HTML4 only browsers \- the cost to the environment (this is serious: mobile devices use some pretty horrible rare metals, they use energy and they aren't easy to dispose, so if you have to upgrade it's not good) \- the list goes on ...

So the goal should pretty much be perfection, because at the costs involved _good_ simply isn't _good enough_

If that is too much, then modularise the specs, delegate the work into manageable specs and if you've not got a spare billion lying around to develop it, then find it because this spec needs to be awesome.

Failing that, since HTML started: the Linux community realised that X11 isn't good enough; Microsoft canned its UI framework (or three of them?), Apple and Google brought in new Mobile UI frameworks and also, J2ME and Symbian largely disappeared: it might be time for us to consider deprecating HTML and finding a more appropriate body capable of creating a better web language.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there 6.0 in the works also somewhere? Given the language's importance in a future universally-connected world, it would not surprise me.

<comment><USER4> Kinda. WHATWG (who do the actual work on HTML) have dropped the version number and made HTML a living standard: [https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/)

See also the FAQ: [https://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#What_does_.22Living_Standar...](https://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#What_does_.22Living_Standard.22_mean.3F)

And this quote by Hixie: "You know what will be around ten years from now by looking at what is implemented in two browsers today. If it's implemented in two browsers today, I can almost guarantee it'll still be around in ten years. If it's not, all bets are off. This has nothing to do with "living standard" vs. versioned specs, though. HTML4 has all kinds of features that aren't in HTML anymore — for example, <object declare> and <a coords>." ([http://html5doctor.com/interview-with-ian-hickson-html- edito...](http://html5doctor.com/interview-with-ian-hickson-html-editor/))

<comment><USER11> Will we still be saying "HTML5" in ten years?

<comment><USER8> The WHATWG thinks we shouldn't really be referring to it as HTML 5 now, just HTML.

[https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/introduction.html#is-...](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/introduction.html#is- this-html5)?

[https://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#What_is_HTML5.3F](https://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#What_is_HTML5.3F)

<comment><USER12> I think even the buzzword is a misnomer. Hint: What did people call <canvas> before "HTML5" took hold?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is it a joke?

<comment><USER4> "HTML5 was released in 2014 as the result of a concerted effort by the W3C HTML Working Group." \- Sure looks like one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> From the document: _HTML is a very large specification._

My translation: HTML is an evolutionary dead end, and because it's so large it won't die in our lifetime.</comment>


You are your own(ly) limit. - <AUTHOR> http://www.brendanpickering.com/2010/01/10/you-are-your-ownly-limit/

<comment><USER2> This will be, for many people, unattainable. I won't deny that it is uplifting, and I am genuinely happy that you are experiencing a modicum of success, but it takes more than looking in the mirror for most people.

The points you raise do have merit, and I would suggest this post to anyone who is thinking of taking the plunge and starting their own blog or project.

</comment><comment><USER3> That was really interesting, though I've heard similar things before. Still, I liked the writing style.

Kinda felt like art.</comment>


VC Valuations Are On The Rise - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/1215/VC-Valuations-Are-On-The-Rise-Is-Your-Startup-Worth-More.aspx <comment><USER2> I guess it must be just me, but I think onstartups.com articles have close to zero content.</comment>


Watch a Startup Party in Slow Motion - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thestorefront.com/the-storefront-dream-why-we-do-what-we-do/

<comment><USER2> This is awesome! How did you shoot this?</comment>


How a basement hacker transformed Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600 - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/09/how-a-basement-hacker-transformed-donkey-kong-for-the-atari-2600/ <comment><USER2> Haha. Funny how one little trick can really make a product.</comment>


Fable II - <AUTHOR> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/12/fable-ii-arguably-better-than-getting.html <comment><USER2> Just because it's Steve Yegge does not mean a review of a mediocre game deserves to be on Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think he liked it.

</comment><comment><USER4> if it's so bad, why'd he finish playing it?

and the time he spent playing it is worth WAY more than the $160 (as he must know).</comment>


Oura Ring 2 Teardown - <AUTHOR> https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Oura+Ring+2+Teardown/135207 <comment><USER2> I saw a talk on consumer wearables in sleep at the Sleep Trends conference this spring. There was a great presentation comparing consumer sleep trackers, and how their advertised reporting of "accuracy" can be misleading.

If you do a thought experiment: let's say I make a "sleep tracker" that is just a piece of plastic, no sensor, and write an algorithm that always presumes the wearer is in stage N2 sleep. Since we spend around 50% of our night in N2 sleep, this algorithm would start with a fairly high baseline accuracy of 50%.

Sensitivity and specificity are much better measurements of accuracy, because they measure the false positive and false negative rates. A comparison of Oura against a medical polysomnogram showed that while it's very good at detecting sleep, it's very bad at detecting _not_ sleep:

From [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095823/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095823/): "ŌURA ring had a 96% sensitivity to detect sleep, and agreement of 65%, 51%, and 61%, in detecting "light sleep" (N1+N2), "deep sleep" (N3),and REM sleep, respectively. Specificity in detecting wake was 48%"

The current state of the art in sleep measurement really requires some sort of EEG measurement beyond just PPG and HR, what Oura uses. The Dreem headband is a good example ([https://dreem.com/](https://dreem.com/)), but it's definitely more cumbersome than a ring. It's tailored more like a medical service for insomnia than for the average consumer interested in quantified self.

<comment><USER3> >It's tailored more like a medical service for insomnia than for the average consumer interested in quantified self.

There used to be a EEG headband aimed at the quantified self group (cost $100 or $150) but they went out of business. Probably because for that group a fitbit like tracker was good enough. So I'm guessing the medical side and higher price point is seen as a better business model.

<comment><USER4> Last time this came up I mentioned the Dreem headband which is still actively produced.

<comment><USER3> The post I replied to mentioned Dreem but they're at a $500 price point from what I can tell which is beyond the usual non-medical need consumer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A long-time HN user here and I'm stoked to see our product on the HN front page

Note: If you are interested in working at Oura, we are hiring SW Engineers both in Helsinki, Finland and San Francisco.

Current open positions can be found on [https://ouraring.com/careers](https://ouraring.com/careers) and new positions are opening in a few weeks.

<comment><USER6> Congrats on getting your product ripped apart on video ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ultra-low power indeed: I often get 6+ days of use before having to recharge. I've been very happy with mine; the sleep tracking seems quite consistent with my subjective experience, and the activity/exercise detection matches closely with the data from my Apple Watch.

<comment><USER8> I love the aura ring. AFAIK it is clearly the best non-intrusive sleep tracker and I would recommend it to anyone for _sleep_ tracking. But in my experience the activity tracking is horrible because the ring achieves low power consumption by being off most of the time. I would suggest using a different device for daytime activity tracking.

<comment><USER9> Serious question - what is sleep tracking useful for? While I can see the benefit of tracing activity, I have no idea why would I want to track my sleep. I fall asleep, I wake up, what is there to track? Or rather, even if it tells me that I had a period of less/more movement during the night, what kind of actionable information can you possibly get out of it?

<comment><USER10> It allowed me to identify food intolerances that had a significant impact on my sleep.

<comment><USER11> I am struggling with a similar problem (food, and gas in particular, affecting my sleep) and was wondering if you'd be willing to share more about your experience.

<comment><USER10> Sorry for such a late reply. For me the two biggest culprits are sulfites (increased sleep disturbances) and fructose (reduced deep sleep and more chaotic cycles).

What's weird about the fructose is I don't have the symptoms associated with such an intolerance; namely gas. Good news is that there is an enzyme (Fructaid) that helps mitigate it for me, so I don't have to completely cut it from my diet.

In the US, sulfites can be sneaky. Labels are required to list them if directly added to a product, but not for sulfite-containing ingredients sourced from a third-party. So the raisins in that trail mix very likely contain sulfites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Also worth noting that the ring itself is not designed by Oura but by another company: [https://haltian.com/reference/oura- ring/](https://haltian.com/reference/oura-ring/)

Further, even though Oura is a private company, its financial information is public (as is any Finnish company's): [https://www.finder.fi/Tuotekehitys+tutkimus-+ja+suunnittelup...](https://www.finder.fi/Tuotekehitys+tutkimus-+ja+suunnittelupalvelut/Oura+Health+Oy/Oulu/yhteystiedot/2792854)

<comment><USER5> This is incorrect, the Oura ring 2 has been mostly designed by in-house team, not Haltian. They have been involved in the process though.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the correction! I don't know the details on the second iteration (assumed same applies as with the first gen), so I assume you have better information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Before buying one I tried to make research about its effectiveness and there are some very alarming reports, coming, of all places, from the research published by the same company. So this isn't even biased...

        "From EBE analysis, ŌURA ring had a 96% sensitivity to detect sleep, and agreement of 65%, 51%, and 61%, in detecting "light sleep" (N1), "deep sleep" (N2 + N3), and REM sleep, respectively. Specificity in detecting wake was 48%."

        Specificity in detecting wake was 48%! If this was a medical test, it would never be approved by FDA.

        A specificity of 48% means that there is a 48% chance that someone is awake when the device says they are asleep.

        That is horrible.

This is very surprising and alarming. As the author later goes on to describe, this has real implications and possible negative effects, this is not just a benign error here and there. Users are apparently supposed to use the Oura data to change or at least adjust and improve their sleep habits, and of course if they will do it based on faulty information, the adjustments themselves are going to be faulty and it can lead to worse or sub-optimal sleep!

Apparently you can still use Oura to track heart rate and HRV, but their own proprietary markers like "readiness" are probably based on all of their data including sleep, so they are not going be that accurate either.

<comment><USER14> This matches my experience having received one Nov 2018 (and returning it a few weeks later). It was constantly getting my actual sleep times wrong, more often than not marking me as being asleep while watching tv in the evening.

After contacting support, their solution was an upcoming update to their app where I'd be able to edit the data so that I could override the app whenever I knew it was wrong. Which completely invalidates the primary reason to own this product. I mean, if I knew when I was asleep, why would I need a ring to track it?!

So given that it couldn't properly track sleep, doesn't track activity (by design), the only other purpose in my mind was to track HRV. And count me as skeptical of the accuracy of that data as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just did the Tour du Mont Blanc (8 days of mountain hiking) with the oura 2 in plane mode. It recorded everything.

I misplaced it in the washing machine twice and it still works as brand new.

Besides the proprietary aspect of the platform and false positive reporting sleeping while not, I have only good things to say about mine.

Nifty little device.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you have an oaura ring you can participate in a USCF study that is trying to determine if it can help predict COVID: [https://ouraring.com/ucsf- tempredict-study](https://ouraring.com/ucsf-tempredict-study)

I think the idea is similar to what the NBA is doing: monitor doctors and nurses with the ring to try to detect COVID. But they are trying to properly study the idea.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am impressed with my ring after having had it for about a year. The battery life seems to be as good as ever. The only concern I have is that I often have to wear it on a different finger. My hands are less bloated, which I credit partly to having been more active since I've had it.

</comment><comment><USER17> From my experience the last thing you need for good sleep is a tracker. I'd try to fix sleep hygiene first and adapt a strict sleep schedule you do every day.

<comment><USER4> Some people (myself included) fix (sleep) hygiene problems by first closely watching and diagnosing them.

Your comment would sound silly if it said "last thing you need for good code is a debugger, I'd try to add a linter first". Or "last thing you need to maintain a good weight is a scale, I'd try to eat better first".

Neither are exclusive, and the former helps the latter if you use it well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > The Oura Ring came out in May 2019

Wait, what? I got mine in Feb 2019. Did they re-release it or something?

<comment><USER5> Oura ring 2 launched in Dec 2017 and shipments started in April 2018.

<comment><USER19> That's a long time since new launch. Have they refined it since 2018?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Didn't know what this ring was. Is it better than binary sleep/wake tracking? Here's the closest thing to a study on this thing I found: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095823/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095823/) :-/

<comment><USER5> There are a few others, some of them by in-house science team

[https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6579/ab840a](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6579/ab840a)

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335764849_Following...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335764849_Following_the_heart_what_does_variation_of_resting_heart_rate_tell_about_us_as_individuals_and_as_a_population)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's a great device.

If there is a primary flaw, it's that it can't be resized. If you are sufficiently motivated to become more active, the ring becomes too loose over time.

Not the worst problem, but it ends up in caught in the drain more than I'd like.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if it's currently technically feasible to make a version with swappable batteries while maintaining the same form factor, functionality and other properties the product has as-is.

I know a lot of other products could have better serviceability and repairability if one were to sacrifice form factor, dimensions or aesthetics, but for a product like this it doesn't seem obvious to me how one would go about that, but it'd be very interesting to speculate on.

<comment><USER23> Not really no, the whole package is encased in a completely waterproof way.

Any kind of swappability would require connections, which in turn would compromise the IP rating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What's the reason that you can't use this ring for exercise? It feels like such an obvious feature to include so there must be some technical reason?

<comment><USER25> I would assume that to achieve a 7 day battery life they only take rare measurements of your heart rate, which makes it unfit for the kind of high resolution heart rate tracking people are used to from fitness watches. They also mention that any sport which has a significant level of hand involvement might disturb the reading.

They do still track general intensity of activity though, which for general health is probably a more relevant metric than exact heart rate.

<comment><USER5> Night-time PPG measurement of Oura ring IS high-resolution. PPG is measured only when you are still enough.

Activity tracking is based on accelerometer data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anyone else prefer the text + pictures teardown format over the video teardowns they've been doing recently?

</comment><comment><USER27> Would it be possible to have this device charged kinetically, or via body heat, or ambient wifi?</comment>


Earnest Capital Trailhead - <AUTHOR> https://earnestcapital.com/trailhead/ <comment><USER3> I really appreciate how this is an inversion of the "time-honored tradition" of making founders do loads of extra work within arbitrary deadlines in addition to growing their company. Too often, this is more a one-sided scramble (resembling an "audience with the king") than a mutually respectful conversation.

It's really promising to see that you value the time of the founders you fund so much that you are ready to talk to them in a way that suits them, not just you.

I like this.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! The gate-keeping / "kiss the ring" approach to raising money has got to go.

<comment><USER5> Investors need companies but often don't act like it.

I go to LP meetings from time to time and it's fun to see the inversion.

<comment><USER6> Reminds me of the way many landlords seem to treat their tenants.

<comment><USER7> Tenants much easier to replace than finding a good company to invest in.

<comment><USER8> There are maybe millions of companies in line looking for funding, and they all say that they are good.

<comment><USER9> But will it fit traditional VC model? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> hey folks, I'm the founder of Earnest Capital and love to hear questions or feedback. The gist here is I think the way we make founders pitch investors is pretty lame and we can do better. Definitely a v0.1 of our thinking here and would love suggestions for how to take it further.

<comment><USER10> Tyler, this is really innovative. The VC model needs rethinking, aligning more with founders, and along the lines of what you're doing here. Your mentor model works great also.

As a founder of a company that has gotten to 8 MM users across 95+ countries, and $1M in revenues, and there is a lot more I can tell you in a private conversation. We've applied to VCs along the way, but the model is not always aligned with companies like ours, which make revenue from the beginning rather than hockey stick growth and zero revenues.

One of the major reasons is that these kind of startups often need small amounts to get to the next level, but the due diligence of a VC sometimes costs more than that amount. If there was a "roadmap" model that VC would fund, say, $10K to get to the next level, then $20K, _etc._ and if it falls short, then they have to seek another such VC and syndicate. A bit like taking on lenders except it would be more along the lines of your Shared Earnings Agreement + Equity. Everything would be clearly spelled out, and rather than spending tons of time on due diligence, it would just be about a history of execution.

 _PS: We filled out your "regular" application in early April, please check email from @qbix.com ... would love to talk next week._

 _PPS: If you 're a startup founder chime in and add your 2c, does your own experience in early stages resonate with what I've said? That if you were able to break down what you need to get to the next level, in $10K and $20K increments, with a second or third chance on slightly worse terms, you'd be happy to be funded in that manner, and work hard to make serious progress and document it._

<comment><USER11> It's likely not worth the time investment to them for whatever return you'd be offering them for each $10k to $20k increments.

<comment><USER10> Under the current model, that is correct.

That's like paying a UBI of $300 a month vs paying a whole department doing means testing for $100/month and then paying $300 a month of welfare to those who qualify.

May as well do something more automated and send the money. Like what Tyler is doing here — collecting info over time. Make the entrepreneur spend most of the time providung the due diligence in the format you want. They have the time not the money — and it is reusable for other investors too.

It should be a portal. Like the "Prizes, not Patents" debate. Same thing.

<comment><USER11> Another thought I had: they don't want to help you succeed in small increments because then you're 1) not likely to need their help any longer (they don't have you on a metaphorical leash), and 2) the more successful you are the more leverage you have in negotiating and could find other suitors to fund you at better rates.

<comment><USER10> Well, I think there are different kinds of VCs. And anyway, as usual there is a way to address this... they can just get options (but not obligations) to have preferential rights in follow-on stuff, such as right of first refusal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hate when things pop up when I select text, because I have a tendency to randomly highlight text as I'm reading it.

This little speaker pops up, so I clicked it out of curiosity, and it started to speak the text. The icon choice is a little unusual (I'd expect a play button or something, but that icon is typically used to control volume). But then I couldn't get it to stop playing. I even closed the tab and it was still playing. And for some reason Chrome doesn't show that tab as even playing audio so I could mute it. What the heck is going on there?

<comment><USER13> I tend to do the same, clicking, right-clicking, and highlighting text. Very likely using the Web Speech API[1]. I was able to reproduce your report of the audio not stopping when closing the tab so I dug a bit and found this open bug[2] in chromium.

[1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_API)

[2] [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=517317](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=517317)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm curious if any firms will be created where they're happy receiving 2-5x return after 5-10 years, the terms of these novel investment firms - <USER2> better than traditional VCs - are still trying to get extra icing from the cake and not just happy with the icing on their own slice.

Re: [https://earnestcapital.com/shared-earnings- agreement/](https://earnestcapital.com/shared-earnings-agreement/)

"One reason for wanting to handle every possible outcome is that we are committed to a SEAL not having any control over the business: no equity, no shares, no board seat, no preferred voting rights." isn't congruent with "... there is a residual Equity Basis that remains after the Shared Earnings Cap is fully repaid" \- I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding or you're first saying there is in fact an equity-like function but in the conclusion claiming "no equity" taken?

Also, anything regarding to the value of the mentors-investors that they claim will help out an investment (because they're incentivized) is all just ear candy and hype without evidence that they'll actually add any value or give useful direction for whatever business model(s) you implement.

Maybe earn trust with founders before asking for or expecting extra icing?

<comment><USER4> investors like me are at a basic level middlemen. We have to raise capital from other sources and then invest it in founders. So it's not so much a questions of what kind of returns we're 'happy' with as it is, what kind of returns will enable us to keep collecting more money that we can turn around and use to back founders. If I was already a billionaire deploying my own capital, it would be a different story (and I'm actually a big proponent of folks investing with lower return expectation because I think entrepreneurship is an inherent social good) but that's not our situation.

> is all just ear candy and hype without evidence the only evidence i can > think of would be reviews from other founders who've worked with us. They > are a super nice bunch and are generally happy to have a chat if you're > curious. Here's one founder quoting another on the non-cash benefits of > working with us: > [https://twitter.com/_rchase_/status/1233074457406771208?s=20](https://twitter.com/_rchase_/status/1233074457406771208?s=20)

>Maybe earn trust with founders before asking for or expecting extra icing? 100% Agreed.

<comment><USER11> What I dislike most is the unlimited extra icing. The first part with the cap is nice because the return is measurable. The unlimited extra icing required to be given on the tail end (based on negotiated %, whatever that range may be) is however not measurable, nor is what value the network may actually bring even at a basic level - and assumption is generally bad. If it was a % up until a cap of $ then arguably that's more digestible, more tangible, because it allows weighing of a reciprocal relationship within a best or worse case scenario; and of course you think that extra payout on selling company is nice but that is weighted towards the investors. A different mechanism does introduce an issue with figuring out how to implement follow-on investment agreement if future funding is a loan with 2-5x return with % equity until a $ cap; not explaining myself so well here.

I just don't like uncertainty and I like measured fairness. I understand the excitement of getting an extra payout if there's a big exit but I feel 2-5x return on investment is already a great payout - and I don't like the VC justification that a higher return is aimed for to diversify risk because that's just an excuse for VCs that are making bad investments in an unskilled, inexperienced way, hoping for a few unicorns of 100x+ return that cover the losses of bad investments + that provide all their profits.

Ultimately my goal, if I ever raise any outside money, is to retain as much equity as possible, for myself and for the team - especially early on so then later at higher sums of money are necessary for expansion then equity is more likely to be necessary to be part of the equation but the company being in a better position allows better leveraging.

I'm not trying to disparage, this is much better than traditional VC already and I also like what Indie.VC is doing - the flaming unicorn in the hero of their landing page is a nice Minimum Viable Personality touch too. Just used this opportunity as a thought exercise, I appreciate your responses. Maybe the timing just isn't right for me to be able to as reasonably consider this model until I am certain I would continue on the external fundraising path.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is no such thing as bad capital.

But looking at the web site, over approx 2 years, 15 investments, I presume low-6-figures.

So out of 1000s online applications of "self builders" u have a 1 in 1000 acceptance rate?

This statistic is just as important as being "founder friendly" or "no song and dance needed".

<comment><USER4> i hear you. not enough. we're scaling up as fast as we can!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great to see innovation in the fundraising process. As a founder, the things that bother me the most about fundraising are:

1\. The experience imbalance. VCs do pitch meetings every day for years on end. Founders, not so much. No wonder the expectations mismatch.

2\. Wildly unpredictable outcomes. Early stage fundraising is more like working a fuzzy strategic partnership than applying for a loan. The same inputs probably don't produce the same outputs.

<comment><USER4> Yea, for founders going down a traditional VC path, there is some what weird but actually sensible logic to the idea that "being good at pitching VCs" is actually a useful skill to filter for. If I'm a Seed VC, assessing how well the founder will do at raising from Series A-F investors is actually part of the game.

We do "funding for bootstrappers" so most founders that work with us don't really plan on needing to raise more capital (it's not prohibited or anything, just not Plan A). So we and they don't really care about how "good" they are at playing the game of pitching.

<comment><USER15> > for founders going down a traditional VC path

Has this been much of a choice? I figure most tech founders either get on the VC track or don't get to have a company.

"Funding for bootstrappers" seems like a relatively new concept. Good to see another option!

<comment><USER4> I'd say the number of non-venture-backed software businesses exceeds venture- backed by at least 20:1. See also "patio11's law" [https://twitter.com/mmcgrana/status/1260250538299408387?s=20](https://twitter.com/mmcgrana/status/1260250538299408387?s=20)

<comment><USER15> Assuming that's true, it would be interesting to know what the alternative funding sources are, and whether they're appropriate or accessible to non- wealthy first timers building product companies.

VC is ostensibly generally accessible. Even accelerators like YC are VC-track.

<comment><USER4> the untold secret of bootstrapping to date is that is has often been done from positions of privilege: family money, savings from a very high paying career, spouse's salary, inheritance. Very hard to make broad generalizations since the companies are often privately held and under the radar (so no statistically significant data) but my experience is that the case far more often than you would think.

On the other side, I see many many founders essentially twist their business plan into something VCs want to see because accelerators/VCs are the only source of capital for early stage tech companies.

Funds like Earnest trying to change that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This looks pretty cool. The experience of doing this sounds very similar to participating in YC Startup School.

> You can leverage the Founder Summit forums for feedback from the Earnest > team and our broader community of awesome founders and mentors (a free trial > is included for everybody on Trailhead).

I'm not familiar with the founder summit forums, but this sound sounds similar to the community aspect of Startup School.

You mentioned that people get a free trial, but it sounds like someone can sign up for trailhead and stay in it for the long term without ever deciding to raise the earnest. What do you guys do in that case? When does someone get kicked out of their free trial? :)

<comment><USER4> Thanks! Definitely pulling on the same thread as Startup School (though I've never done it myself). Some structural differences might be

1/ this explicitly designed to be a replacement for the application process at Earnest. Over time you build up a profile that contains most of what we need to make an investment decision. We'll still need to chat and do diligence, but we're trying to remove a lot of the uncertainty around what should be in a pitch and when to time the pitch. Basically pitching is not a skillset we optimize for at Earnest (since most of the founders we back not intend to raise continuously more rounds of capital).

2/ This is explicitly opinionated in structure. Everything will intentionally skew towards our "funding for bootstrappers" strategy vs being generic advice. This should help founders decide if they are a fit for working with us long- term.

3/ This is not a "how to build a business" process. It's much closer to "here is a bunch of questions and prompts that we have found valuable to strengthen founders' thinking and strategy + some resources"... we're not here to _teach_ you how to build a business with this.

> You mentioned that people get a free trial, but it sounds like someone can > sign up for trailhead and stay in it for the long term without ever deciding > to raise the earnest. What do you guys do in that case? When does someone > get kicked out of their free trial? :)

good question. this is subject to experiments/change but the way we're thinking about it now is 1) Founder Summit remains a paid community (we are still a small fund and this allows us to hire an awesome team + pay people for workshops, etc) 2) We want to avoid a "pay to pitch" scenario so Trailhead folks get a 3-month free trial. 3) At the end they can choose: don't apply to Earnest but stay in the community and pay, apply to Earnest (portfolio co's get free access), or decide they've gotten what they need and move on from both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Love what folks at Earnest are doing. I was reading one of the draft LP documents, I am assuming it was shared here.

Keep up good work, we need a different route/way of building business as well. :)

<comment><USER4> thx! probably this one: [https://earnestcapital.com/investment-memo- fund-2/](https://earnestcapital.com/investment-memo-fund-2/)

<comment><USER9> Yes yes. This is the one. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats on the launch! Both Trailhead and SEAL are very interesting ideas, and I really hope they take off (read: get copied by more investors ;)

As an early stage bootstrapping founder, I'm curious to see how Trailhead works in practice. But regardless of whether or not it works, thanks for thinking like a founder and being willing to experiment.

btw small typo: the link to 1 Second Everyday in your portfolio actually directs to yac.chat

<comment><USER18> The SEAL is basically debt with a super weird equity kicker that could completely ruin your cap table if you need to raise before paying any debt back, so hoping nobody copies it.

<comment><USER17> It reads like debt funding that turns into a SAFE if you decide bootstrapping isn't for you after all. That sounds reasonable to me, but the devil is in the details.

As a founder, it's nice to have options though. Fundraising is a series of pros and cons. As we're seeing in this downturn, SAFE's aren't that safe either, but I'd still choose that over the hassle of a priced seed round.

Ideally investors would provide multiple options, and one could choose the vehicle that aligns with your goals the best.

<comment><USER18> Reads like, but isn't anything like a SAFE. A SAFE converts at a discount (20%?), a convertible note converts including an interest rate (7% annually?), a SEAL converts at 3-5x investment amount.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One concern with this kind of model is the potential for it to become a honeypot for widespread data collection (eg. Startup School).

Any thoughts yet on how to address that?

<comment><USER4> Can you say more? We explicitly do ask, at the end of each section, if founders want to (optionally) send us the results to build up their profile/"application"... so there's some above board data collection happening.

What's your main concern re: data collection with SS and/or trailhead?

<comment><USER19> My concern is the moment when the question arises: "what else can we do with all this data co's are sending us" besides form a relationship with that co?

At your scale, it's not much of an issue yet. But at larger scale, like SS or with what Social Cap's Capital-as-a-Service program was trying to do, founders are freely contributing their co's data to unknown investment algorithms, in exchange for ??. .ie a honeypot.

That's not really different from how it is now (giving your data away to VCs). But rather than solving the asymmetry problems between founder / investor, my concern with any kind of VC platform model is that asymmetry will be magnified at scale.

(All that said, I think Trailhead is a great approach to invert the standard process based on how things stand today.)

<comment><USER4> Ah yes, fair. I'm not sure there can be a true _solution_ to "we have to see your data before know if we can invest or not"

Our approach here is 1) we always give value before we ask for anything. Some strategy, resources, writing prompts, and anything else we can think of on a topic.. THEN we say "hey if you want to share your thinking on this here's how" 2) it's 100% optional. Founders can go through the entire process, get feedback from the community, hopefully improve their strategy, without ever sharing anything with us.

But good points to consider and thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Looks interesting, but curious about the name. Trailhead is a fairly well known trademark of Salesforce:

[https://trademarks.justia.com/865/88/trailhead-86588816.html](https://trademarks.justia.com/865/88/trailhead-86588816.html)

<comment><USER21> It's also just a generic term for a guidepost at the beginning of a journey – which is a perfect symbol for the product. I don't think there's any risk of confusion with a vendor-specific training portal.

<comment><USER4> +1. Let's hope</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Destroy ISIS. Crowdsourcing a Map of ISIS Strongholds - <AUTHOR> Any opinions of whether it would be useful to create an Arabic and English site that allows normal people who are living in ISIS territory to submit intelligence about ISIS.<p>For example: Mark ISIS locations on a map. This could be used by western air forces to carry out strikes. <comment><USER2> Western air forces have been conducting airstrikes on ISIS for 5 years now, and didn't do jack. A map where informers can paint ISIS locations will only get them killed, every major player in the middle east has intelligence from satellites where they can see where troop movements originate from, and where they're going. The problem is the will to really fight them in a total war, going straight for the money - bombing the oil wells instead of makeshift refineries that take a day to set up. Its the same problem where US isn't willing to destroy opium poppy fields for fear of angrying the locals (and since I got my tinfoil hat on - there were probably other geopolitical considerations there as well). Lack of data isn't the issue, Putin will clean out ISIS from Syria within half a year.

</comment><comment><USER3> An interesting approach to this would be to scrape social media for ISIS content and extract EXIF data from images.

I remember reading sometime last year that USSOCOM was using a similar strategy to direct fire missions.

I think, however, that a more realistic strategy would be a mass trolling campaign where everybody poses as disenfranchised women seeking to marry jihadists. The goal is to get them to spend money on plane tickets, bribes, and accommodations without actually producing results.

</comment><comment><USER4> Security and anonymity will be paramount here. The last thing you want is for ISIS to get a hold of submitters identities.

I think it's quite possibly a great idea though. Optimize for mobile web and keep the bandwidth requirements down. Even if the service provides just one or two tips that make a difference in the fight it would be worth while.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting thought, but would require a lot of validation to ensure that the location submitted was in fact an ISIS base and not the submitters ex-wife's house. I would imagine that a large amount of people would quickly abuse the tool, forcing the government/intelligence agency to discontinue use.</comment>


PGStrom: GPU-accelerated PostgreSQL - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PGStrom <comment><USER2> It actually works with openCL. I had to do a few changes to make it work on MacOSX, but I beleive the language barrier and the fact that his project is in a flux and I came out of the blue caused these few lines to not merge. Please see my fork of his dev branch, that works with 9.5dev: [https://github.com/pg- strom/devel/pull/144](https://github.com/pg-strom/devel/pull/144)

correction: those changes to compile on macox did get pulled so [https://github.com/pg-strom/devel](https://github.com/pg-strom/devel) should build with openCL on your mac to link with 9.5dev.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here are a couple more resources where the lead gives a bit more description:

[http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2015/presentation/S5276...](http://on- demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2015/presentation/S5276-Kohei-KaiGai.pdf)

[http://www.slideshare.net/kaigai/gpgpu-accelerates- postgresq...](http://www.slideshare.net/kaigai/gpgpu-accelerates-postgresql)

edit: His slideshare page [http://www.slideshare.net/kaigai](http://www.slideshare.net/kaigai) has even more recent presentations. I've only had time to skim much of slides, but it seems he's flip-flopped a couple of times between OpenCL and CUDA

</comment><comment><USER4> If I simplify this & other news to the statement, "our GPUs are Turing- complete", then one question seems to follow logically: When will our CPUs become multi-core on the scale of a GPU? Or is that a stupid question that only looks logical?

<comment><USER5> When/If HP finish _the machine_ with 2500 cores, that will basically result in the CPU becoming as parallel as GPU's.

<comment><USER6> What NVidia calls a core and what Intel calls a core really aren't comparable. If you go by the Intel definition which is more or less "Capable of independantly issuing an instruction" then you might find 15 cores in a Xeon versus 24 SMM "cores" in the top NVidia chip. Going by the NVidia definition which is more or less "Things that can execute instructions from a queue" NVidia would have 3072 cores in it's top chip and Intel would have 120 cores or "execution ports" as they call them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was under the impression that to get the speed benefits of CUDA you had to coalesce memory access. Does anyone know how nested loop joins can use indexes without messing up the memory access coalescing?

</comment><comment><USER8> What would be nice is a document which would _explain_ how to convert queries to use the GPU as its best, a document which would not require its reader to be a GPU geek nor a Postgresql expert. A technology can only succeed when the average programmer can use it without doing much errors, or can find quickly a solution using google.

<comment><USER9> >how to convert queries to use the GPU as its best, a document which would not require its reader to be a GPU geek nor a Postgresql expert

Uh, isn't this like asking "how do I do calculus without being a calculus geek"? I mean it's specialized - how do you get around being a "GPU geek" if you're coding for a GPU "at its best"?

<comment><USER10> Agreed. This is squarely aimed at database geeks which is a fairly esoteric audience. It's gonna get geeky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like it that there's lots of robust criticism in the comments, but I think people are maybe being a little pessimistic. This is pretty exciting, isn't it? GPUs have sped things up in a lot of technologies, and I'm intrigued to see what they can do for databases.

</comment><comment><USER12> What the what? 10 times faster for one join?

[https://wiki.postgresql.org/images/5/50/PGStrom_Fig_MicroBen...](https://wiki.postgresql.org/images/5/50/PGStrom_Fig_MicroBenchGpuJoin.png)

Or am I reading that incorrectly?

How is that possible?

<comment><USER13> Joining a large number of tables is a sweet spot for PGStrom where in which there are a lot of parallelizable computations. For a lot of queries it can actually be slower.

<comment><USER14> Hopefully the query planner would choose whether or not to use PGStrom for a specific query.

Many interesting queries in normalised databases involve a lot of joins. In a BCNF database most interesting queries use 3 or more joins. Whether or not I believe the microbenchmarks is another thing :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I got excited until I saw CUDA instead of OpenCL...

<comment><USER16> And the use of GPL license which means that this code cannot be contributed upstream to PostgreSQL itself because it uses a more liberal license: [http://opensource.org/licenses/postgresql](http://opensource.org/licenses/postgresql).

<comment><USER17> Ok this is annoying, why do they choose GPL instead of something similar to PostGre?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is cool but is there actual news about the project other than existence?

<comment><USER18> Unfortunately most of the discussion seems to be going down in Japanese.

That said if you don't mind just reading diffs you can get an idea of the state of the project by taking a gander at their github: [https://github.com/pg-strom/devel](https://github.com/pg-strom/devel)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This reminds me of MapD ([http://www.mapd.com](http://www.mapd.com)), though I am not sure which database MapD builds their stuffs on.

</comment><comment><USER20> I imagine this isn't production ready. Or is it? It looks very cool and like a good direction to go in. You'd need a VPS with GPU access though.

</comment><comment><USER21> Anyone have a sense for the kinds of queries this would actually help with?

<comment><USER22> Probably queries that have a lot of brute-force comparisons involving full table scans. "select foo from bar where baz > 30" with no index, for example.

(Source: I've done a fair bit of experimentation in GPU queries in the domain of CSS selector matching.)

<comment><USER23> Interesting thought. I was assuming that the impressive performance figures based on joining 10 tables together would be making use of indexes, because with full table scans it might be difficult to keep the GPUs fed with data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> does anyone know if this would work with postgis?</comment>


Seth Priebatsch: Get a life - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupswami.com/2010/11/seth-priebatsch-get-life.html

<comment><USER2> The simple fact is that he'll burn out, sooner or later. That kind of energy can be initially compelling, but very few great leaders thrive without compassion and charisma.

There's a large element of the media that champions sociopathic tendencies. It's good for the HN types to visibly push back against it, even if every situation is different.

Sometimes it's good to cry it out with people. Hard to do that if you can't sign a contract ahead of time.

<comment><USER3> This is more autistic than sociopathic. It's quite possible that he won't burn out, simply because he really isn't interested in socialization.

<comment><USER2> Do you know that the man in question is in fact autistic?

Austism and Aspergers are conditions that get casually assigned to geeks with eccentric or anomalous behaviours far too often. Given the degree to which the founder in question is functioning, it's medically unlikely that he has either condition.

Meanwhile, I believe that being averse to forming complex friend relationships combined with creating a culture of constant work (which many would describe as abusive) is sociopathic: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopathy>

<comment><USER3> I didn't say he was autistic. I said the described behaviour is autistic. Which it is.

Sociopathic is what it isn't.

<comment><USER2> You are just being argumentative. Autism is a condition, not a type of behaviour that you can opt-in to.

By your logic, anything someone does that is sufficiently abnormal qualifies as autistic. I guess I'd hope that you'd step away from this conversation and stop calling non-autistic people autistic. "Weird and frustrating" is probably more appropriate anyhow.

<comment><USER3> How is saying that non-autistic people have autistic traits any different than saying non-sociopaths have sociopathic traits? You're being hypocritical.

Certainly there are traits that are well established as being "autistic" and "sociopathic". This is the former, not the latter -- the latter is characterized by a more predatory or ambitious nature, which this guy seems to lack, at least by his own descriptions. It's morelike he doesn't see the point in socialization. Sociopaths, on the contrary, are very social.

And, despite the fact that you keep claiming I did so, I did not call him autistic, and the _first_ time you accused me of calling him autistic, I said that wasn't true. I guess I'd hope I wouldn't have to tell you things twice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Out of the last 4 CEOs I've had to work with, the 2 that had no life were definitely the ones I _hated_ working for.

Their constant stress made the rest of the company very antsy. It's unhealthy all around.

</comment><comment><USER5> While this is a worthwhile discussion, and I fundamentally agree with the points made by the article, I find it distasteful to see articles which isolate a specific person and publicly tell them how they should live their life. Not too long ago there was another article about how it was tragic that Patrick didn't use his skills for more ambitious projects.

The same points could be made without making the article gravitate around the personal life of Seth Priebatsch. If you are concerned about that person in particular, and would like to host an intervention, you can do so privately via email.

<comment><USER6> I don't think he's isolating it as an attack on Seth, but as an attack on the media that glorifies Seth's behavior.

<comment><USER5> That could be done with a title such as, "Mass media: stop glorifying entrepreneurs without a life". If you call it "Seth Priebatsch: Get a life" you are framing the discussion in a confrontational, ad hominem manner.

<comment><USER6> touche :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Different lifestyles work for different people. I know Seth -- he's energized and motivated by the work at hand. He's happiest when he's working.

That doesn't mean he doesn't know how to have fun. We were racing bicycles around Google Ventures just for kicks. He's also 21 -- he doesn't have a family he has to worry about. In fact, I'd say his employees and his company are his family.

I like work and life balance, but not everyone needs it. or sometimes you find your fun within your work.

<comment><USER8> I disagree that not everyone needs work/life balance. If you're a leader at a company, your employees count on you to make good decisions regarding their future. I don't think you can make reasonable decisions here if you spend all of your time working and thus lose the perspective one gains from an outside life.

Let's say that I'm an employee of yours and I have a pregnant wife. I wish to take off at 3 PM once a week to accompany her to the doctor. I make this pitch to you, my 21 year old CEO who lives at the office. If you're buried in the business all day, every day, could you comprehend how important something like this would be to me? Even if you did say yes, what would you think of my commitment to the company? Would you factor my behavior into your decisions about my future?

You may find great meaning within your work, but others will have much different priorities in their lives. I think you lose your ability to realize that with this sort of workload.

<comment><USER9> My remark may be dismissed as trolling, but seriously think about the scenario you are putting forward:

"Let's say that I'm an employee of yours and I have a pregnant wife. I wish to take off at 3 PM once a week to accompany her to the doctor. I make this pitch to you, my 21 year old CEO who lives at the office."

This is at a startup?

The early phase of a startup is short - within 2 years the company either takes off or dies. I really, seriously think that if you and your wife want to have children, you should get a job at a larger and more stable organization - its good for your kid, good for your wife, good for you. If you have a pregnant wife, you should not be working at a startup. Find something more stable and secure.

<comment><USER4> I'd like to buy enough downvotes to make this comment disappear forever.

A startup is still a job, and a job is still only part of your life.

There are jobs before and jobs after, but nobody lays on their deathbed wishing they would have spent _less_ time with their family.

<comment><USER9> You write:

"nobody lays on their deathbed wishing they would have spent _less_ time with their family"

I keep seeing this idea repeated time after time, yet I've never seen any formal study of this issue. I know this idea has been asserted by some people with very large followings. Stephen Covey, in his book "The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People" asserts nearly the identical sentiment that you've expressed here.

All I can say is, from what I've seen, this is just one of those things that varies a great deal from one family to another, and from one person to another. I know that both my mother and my father keenly felt the strain of having children, and both of them wished they'd had more time and money to advance their careers. My dad was lucky enough to be successful as a commercial photographer, but increasingly after he turned 50 he wondered why he never broke through to the top ranks of photography. He made good money but he never became famous. He thought, not unreasonably, that if he had less demands from his family, then he might have more money and energy to reach the top ranks of his field. When he was in his 70s he made several attempts to get into the top galleries in New York City, but he only had one small success in that regard. He died of cancer at the age of 79. Since I stayed with him every day during the last month of his life, I can tell you without a doubt that when he was on his deathbed he did wish that he had had more time for his career - a tradeoff that could only have been purchased by him spending less time with his family.

From what I can see, my dad is hardly an isolated case. When I talk to my friends, and to people older than myself, what I hear, again and again, is disappointment. Many people, perhaps most people, feel that they have somehow failed to live up to their true potential. At least among my friends, most feel that having kids has imposed a heavy sacrifice on them. I can not think of a single one of my friends who hasn't thought, at some point, that they might be much more successful if they did not have kids.

More than that, not everyone is happy with their family life. If you suggest that family life is always rewarding, in a country where 45% of all marriages end in divorce (I'm using the USA as an example here) then you are simply in denial of reality.

I think this is an issue that at least deserves a frank, honest discussion, especially on a forum like Hacker News, where we all expect honesty regarding the tradeoffs of the entrepreneurial life. This is not the right place for sentimental nonsense about the joyous wonders of family. This is a place for bluntness and honesty.

Your attitude about "buy enough downvotes to make this comment disappear forever" is really worrisome.

<comment><USER10> This is much better than your original comment which was muddied by a grand pronouncement about kids and startups. In this comment you acknowledge individual differences, and you take some conventional wisdom to task. In the former comment you jump up on a soap box and proclaim what people with kids should do.

So first off, as a #1 employee in a startup that had a baby right during the early stage, I'm living proof of the fallacy of your judgement. I pull off the work-life balance thing pretty well (stay-at-home mom helps a lot), and my effectiveness at work is not diminished. The fact is that commitments at home give me an ongoing sense of urgency that keeps my overall productivity up without inducing burnout the way 18-hour days do. And in any case, the variance between individuals is far greater than the variance between hours worked. You'd be a fool to hire lesser talent just because they're willing to work 80 hours a week.

More to the point about this last comment, you're absolutely right to think about future regrets. Having a family is a big sacrifice, and it will not necessarily make you happy. On the other hand, slaving away at startups, even if you find financial success may not make you happy either. Today's media culture (of which silicon valley porn is a significant part these days) programs our ego with all kinds of beliefs about happiness: if I'm rich I'll be happy, if I'm famous I'll be happy, if my talent is recognized I'll be happy, but the belief doesn't make them true. The sad truth _may_ be that _nothing_ will make _you_ happy, and you are destined to be miserable, or vice-versa. It may be that the greatest accomplishments require a certain discontent, and in fact you care more about the accomplishment than the happiness. It's a mess that you have to sort out for yourself. Anyone preaching how others should live their life is invested in a particular belief system that may or may not apply to you. When you are making these kinds of decisions I think deep soul searching is the only way to go. I wouldn't place too much stock in other people's regrets, because there's no way you can sort out the baggage underlying someone's stated beliefs to really get a read on how it might apply to you. Instead your only recourse is to go with your gut. This is the ultimate gift and curse of living in a free society.

<comment><USER9> I realize that my point is unpopular, however, it remains true: if you do not have children, then you will have more time for your startup.

The fact that this idea is unpopular does not make it untrue.

You can downvote it as much as you want, but it still remains true.

This is Hacker News. This is forum for bluntness and truthfulness when it comes to the entrepreneurial life. We should not shy away from a truth just because it makes us uncomfortable. This is a forum where we all expect frank conversations about the trade-offs that we face when we pursue the opportunities presented by a startup.

If you have children, then you will have less time for your startup. It's as simple as that.

<comment><USER10> First of all, you're talking right past my whole point and just restating your original point, which is pretty disrespectful of the time I put in crafting a balanced response.

You claim you want frank discussion, but then you reduce the whole debate to a time equation. The problem is that it's only as simple if you measure success by hours worked. As someone who has pulled many many 100 hour weeks, I can tell you that I'm more effective in 40 hours now then I used to be in 80. This may not be true for everybody (I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live their lives), but for me, I draw energy and inspiration from the downtime. I'm in touch with real human beings outside the echo chamber, giving me insight into building products that normal people will buy. When I get to the office, most of the time I know I have only until 6pm to get my todo list done. When I was single and working 100 hour weeks, it was easy to get caught on tangents, or work when over-tired, because hey I have 12 hours on Saturday and 12 hours on Sunday to catch up.

Limiting your work hours can be constraint that leads to increased creativity and effectiveness. It also creates a buffer when you really do need to put in extra effort to make a critical deadline. Time spent away from work lets your subconscious process things and come to more optimal solutions.

I'm not denying that there is a correlation between highly successful entrepreneurs and long work hours, but it's a fallacy to treat it as a causal relationship. How many people work 24/7 in silicon valley and never get anywhere? A lot more than you think because no one is telling their stories. The focus should be on efficiency, creative thinking, intelligence and above all persistence. It's possible to jeopardize all of those by forsaking work- life balance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seth Priebatsch: Love a life. Hey guys--I've had the pleasure of working with Seth. He's a stellar entrepreneur. He is intensely intelligent. He's a humble and thoughtful hacker. He's living a dream--enjoying what he does and working hard. And isn't that the special thing about geeking out today? We get to do the things we love to do. The things we stay home on a Friday night to hack at? It's a choice I make all the time and I love to hear Seth talk about it with a sense of passion. It doesn't have to be your choice--but it's one many of us make--and Seth gets my nod.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Tunnel vision helps. Being a bit of a shit helps. A thick skin helps. Stamina is crucial, as is a capacity to work so hard that your best friends mock you, your lovers despair and the rest of your acquaintances watch furtively from the sidelines, half in awe and half in contempt" - Felix Dennis, Media Mogul

</comment><comment><USER13> Give him a break, he's only 21. I mean, he wasn't allowed to drink an alcohol a year ago! I bet when your're a bit little older, you already know what it means to have a balanced life.

</comment><comment><USER14> And yet the Macintosh was created under precisely these conditions. This is often how amazing things are created. It's not the only way, but it definitely can work.

<comment><USER15> Oh, its true that the Mac was created under these conditions, but I doubt that any of the creators would describe the experience as a pleasant one. Even the stories on Folklore.org (which highlight the most pleasant parts of the effort) contain a distinct undertone of tension as a reflection of the enormous amount of pressure being placed on the team by Steve Jobs.

<comment><USER14> I bet a good number of them also think that was one of the best times of their lives.

<comment><USER16> Only after Mac got successful. If not, it won't be the best times of their lives.

Here's another bet: ask them if they want to do that again for at least 2 more times with different companies and unknown leaders, wonder if they'll take it.

<comment><USER17> Disagree, but anecdotally so. I look back with extreme fondness on a 5-month period of my life in 1998/1999 when I was working 80-hour weeks on a project that was ultimately doomed to market failure.

I learned a tremendous amount, and my team accomplished some truly great things that will forever occupy a warm spot in my memories.

Most of the people I worked with on this project agree heartily with this sentiment. You don't have to become an AAPL millionaire on a wildly successful project to make the process of creation something of great enjoyment.

<comment><USER15> Well, it also depends on your boss and your teammates. In my case, the boss wasn't exactly competent at .Net, but insisted on writing code anyway. What ended up happening is that we'd spend half of day n+1 reworking what the boss had written in the latter half of day n.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Nothing has been produced from that".

Uh-huh. Maybe because watching a movie together is a very poor way to spend time with someone you care about.

Instead, spend even 30 minutes talking about the things you care most about. I guarantee then something "will be produced from that".

<comment><USER19> Personally, I think not being productive is the _point_ of going to movies. One only has so many hours they can spend being productive before they become wrecks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's nothing great about being the Napoleon of CEOs. Get some proper rest. Enjoy the company of your friends and enhance those relationships. Get perspective on personal life before stress bites you in the ass.

<comment><USER17> There's no obvious indication that the CEO in question is under large amounts of stress. Generally, many founders who work this much do so in a state of flow, which is very much a non-stressful manner of working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I look at our minds and bodies like a formula 1 car, you may not like it, but at some point you need to replenish. You can either do it in intelligent intervals that allow not to live with that lingering sense that you might blow up at any given moment. Or, you can push until everything starts to fail and you're forced to recover.

The question isn't whether we need to pause and recover, it's whether we'll choose to integrate that time into intelligent intervals that let you feel good along the way or hold out for one big boom the also happens to leave you feeling increasingly like garbage as you approach your limit.

Just look to the structure of ycombinator. It isn't 6, 9 or 12 months. Because nobody can sanely keep that level of intensity or pace for that long.

Plus, once you're far enough into life to have people and activities that allow you to come alive outside of work (even if you love your work), you do a disservice to both your professional and personal vision by ignoring those people over long periods of time.

</comment><comment><USER22> 1) Who cares if he's spending that much time doing it? If he loves it, that's all that matters. If everyone dedicated themselves like that to something that ignited their passion, the world would be better off in general.

2) I would assume that while he does probably work his ass off, there is a bit of exaggeration there. It's for the investors. They want to know they're investing their money in someone who is dedicated to the product and not afraid to bust ass and work long hours. I'm sure he does, but the glorifying of it is probably to retain investor confidence.

3) Someone buy the kid a copy of _Rework_

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a bit odd that the best idea Seth Priebatsch's ever had is to add a game layer to the world. If he were to apply his talents to a real business problem not only would he make substantially more money, he'd change the world. Don't get me wrong, Scvngr is a neat idea, but it's like creating a baking soda volcano for a science fair project when you're capable of demonstrating cold fusion. Hopefully he'll tackle something big after he exits this company.

As an aside; I have no idea what he should do next. I just hope that he can solve a bigger problem in his lifetime than the one he's working on.

</comment><comment><USER24> Matt Douglas (the author) is CEO of <http://punchbowl.com/> whose users have a life. It makes sense for him to have a lifestyle that helps him relate to his users. How big a part do you think the lifestyle of your users should play in optimizing the work-life balance of founders?

I'm looking forward to discussing this and other topics with Boston-area hackers at today's meetup.

<comment><USER25> What/where is the meetup today?

<comment><USER24> <http://anyvite.com/events/home/pypehqiqsd#1>

5:30 at Cambridgeside. Bring friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The post makes sense, and we should not be putting people like him on a pedestal. It's in bad taste to call out someone specifically. He is not the only one who does this, and this article can be generalized to any over zealous leader. I feel bad for him for missing out on so much in life, and he's young - there's no reason to knock a young kid when he's down. Eventually it will catch up to him.

</comment><comment><USER27> According to his bio on scvngr - "Seth Priebatsch was born in Boston, MA at the age of 7." (<http://www.scvngr.com/about/team>)

How can you hold someone to conventional standards when they're _born_ at the age of 7?! He's got a lot of catching up to do.

</comment><comment><USER28> Some of our best ideas come from when we are away from the computer totally engaged in something other than work. I think Seth and others will ultimately learn this.

</comment><comment><USER29> Maybe he can't get friends, so he says he doesn't want them.

</comment><comment><USER30> Personally, I don't care as long as you don't expect me to be there with you on Saturday. In that case, we have a problem.

</comment><comment><USER31> Here here. There's nothing as hard as achieving success in all aspects of your life.

</comment><comment><USER32> Dude, stfu and get back to work. I mean really, who tells someone else how to run their business? If it works for him, it works for him, and that's that.

<comment><USER33> The tone of your comment got you downvoted into oblivion but that was my reaction too. Just seems like whining about image.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Cutvid.io – Open-Source platform to edit and share videos - <AUTHOR> https://cutvid.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I'm launching this app today, it's not perfect yet, there are many features that I'd like to exist instantly, but at some point I have to pause iterating and release something, so here I am.

By the way, here is an example of what a shared video page:

[https://cutvid.io/share/?29-zg8kxKwc17X7fnPAsOwz](https://cutvid.io/share/?29-zg8kxKwc17X7fnPAsOwz)

<comment><USER2> I get:

      Websites prove their identity via certificates. Firefox
      does not trust this site because it uses a certificate that
      is not valid for cutvid.io. The certificate is only valid
      for lattefx.com.

      Error code: SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN

<comment><AUTHOR> Weird, it worked both on my wifi and LTE. This could be some internal dns glitch, lattefx.com (hosted on the same server) should be redirecting to cutvid.io which does have valid certificates. Anyway, I deleted the lattefx part of my nginx config now so it should not happen anymore (I guess).</comment></comment></comment>


The Horse or the Jockey? - <AUTHOR> http://siteboat.com/the-horse-or-the-jockey/

<comment><AUTHOR> Which is more important for a startup to succeed, the idea or the entrepreneur(s)?</comment>


Is Instacart deceptive? - <AUTHOR> http://webpolicy.org/2014/07/08/instacart/

<comment><USER2> Wow! I always suspected this. Thank you for the detailed analysis.

This makes me question Instacard.</comment>