What's the right amount of swap space for a modern Linux system? - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.com/article/19/2/swap-space-poll <comment><USER2> Interesting that most voters on the page believes that zero swap is a good thing. Taking a quick look at my own servers and desktop usage it fits perfectly in table 2, ie. the same as the authors and Fedora's recommendation.

In what situation would you be 100 % sure you could _never_ run out of RAM or would rather have an OOM situation than using swap? Seems extremely counter- intuitive to me.

<comment><USER3> It more like, I prefer to get out of memory error sometimes, rather than watch a slow death via tons of swapping

<comment><USER4> The thing is that you don't get "out of memory errors" you get the kernel to almost randomly choose a process and sacrifice it in order to free ram.

If the chosen process is a database... That's not funny. At all.

Edit: you could adjust the oom score to avoid Linux killing important process, but I don't want to discover if Linux is actually going to follow the oom score or just "keep it in mind" when choosing a process to sacrifice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These estimates are bizarrely high, in my experience.

Laptop: RAM + 1GB.

Laptops hibernate, and they need space for that. The extra gig is for temp space during the hibernate/restore time periods.

Desktop: 1GB.

Linux will often use some swap space when available for libraries which are technically loaded into memory but will never actually be called again. This is typically in the 100-300MB range.

Server: minimum 1GB -> 1/16 RAM -> maximum 8GB

Servers shouldn't swap; as soon as they do, you should either be adding more RAM or figuring out what went wrong. In the meantime, a little swap will let you ride out a short storm. If you're actively swapping on 8GB of RAM, you have a more serious problem anyway.

Assume that these numbers will change, mostly under the impact of new storage technology. SSD made swapping much less nasty for the system's performance, but at a more serious cost to the storage's lifetime.

<comment><USER6> These are close to optimal recommendations. They capture the modern truth that swap is too slow to actually transfer to and from, but that it can enlarge the effective memory slightly by providing a place to park very rarely used data.

However, this is only a minor optimization and mostly it is not worth the trouble of configuring it. On servers especially I prefer zero swap. The mere existance of swap can cause pain as inevitably some new admin will come along and insist on monitoring swap use and sending alerts when it becomes full. "We have critical situation: we are using 99% of (8GB) swap on the database host (1TB main memory), I'm rebooting it". True story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd like to see some differentiation between a server and a desktop, since the correct answer varies wildly.

On app servers I'll often do no swap because I don't want the performance hit of an unexpected swap. I have real time memory monitoring and self-healing in place to prevent OOM. On a bastion server that isn't handling user traffic I probably will add a swap so I can get by with lower total memory on the box, and have a buffer before the OOM killer starts hacking away.

On desktop I'll often have a large swap that's there mostly so I don't get to that horrible locking hell when the OOM killer starts mercilessly hacking processes I care about while leaving ones I don't alive. This gives me time to handle it myself. Also I may want to hibernate.

So tl;dr: the rules all change depending on what the box is used for. Asking this question generally is like saying, "what should the towing capacity of my car/truck be?" Well the next question is: what are you towing? do you care about fuel efficiency, etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> My 8gig ram linux system runs out of ram and sometimes crashes when I run Android Studio. It refuses to use the default swap file on the ssd hard drive.I created a 16 gig swap file and set the swappiness value to 100. It only uses a few megabytes of the swapfile sometimes and still runs out of memory when I run Android Studio and then crashes. I ordered 16 gig ddr4 ram today and will remove the current swap file when the ram arrives. Seems like the only solution. I don't have time to burn another night reading up on this.

</comment><comment><USER9> The 'right' answer is to stop allocating swap in a separate partition, and share swap space with the filesystem.

Whether you do this with an LVM, or by pinning files and swapping to their underlying extents is less important. But assuming at system setup time that you can bound the amount of swap that will be required in the future to support some specific workload is silly, and in order to avoid being wrong, you have to penalise most systems most of the time.

<comment><USER10> > The 'right' answer is to stop allocating swap in a separate partition, and > share swap space with the filesystem.

Does hibernate/suspend-to-disk work with non-partition swap? IIRC that is/was a limitation.

<comment><USER11> It does, but your suspend-to-disk tool has to support it.

(Linux supports discontiguous swap – and therefore suspend-to-disk – in general. The suspend-to-disk mechanism just needs to know where the suspend space starts, and the mechanism of determining that varies by filesystem.)

See [https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/power/swsusp.txt](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/power/swsusp.txt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 0</comment>


What to Do If Your Blog Goes Viral: 10 Tips - Apple-Guy http://birdabroad.wordpress.com/2011/08/20/what-to-do-if-your-blog-goes-viral-10-tips/

<comment><AUTHOR> While I sympathise with OP's frustration at others making money from their work - there is provision in UK copyright law: "using any work, for the purpose of reporting current events, with sufficient acknowledgement, is a valid exception to copyright".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_dealing_in_United_Kingdom_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_dealing_in_United_Kingdom_law#Reporting_of_current_events)

</comment><comment><USER2> > Consider watermarking all of your photos

This part isn't such an awesome idea.

<comment><USER3> Why not, specifically? I can imagine technical and aesthetic reasons. What are your objections?

<comment><USER2> It's self-defeating because it degrades the quality of your site, it's self- defeating because it blocks some user behaviors for discussing your site, and it doesn't work. Rule of thumb: if you don't want something shared, don't put it on the internet.

There are a few reasonable exceptions. Stock photo sites should probably use watermarks and reduced-size images. Unobtrusively signing images sometimes also makes sense (not watermarking) as it can serve branding interests.

But trying to block browser interactions is just annoying. Don't do that, it's a great big sin against usability that violates the rule of least surprise. If it's over-done, it may keep me from easily opening links in a new tab. It also makes it hard to open _images_ in a new tab if I'm trying to get a better look at them on a limited display.

<comment><USER3> Thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Design Of SQLite4 (work in progress) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sqlite.org/src4/doc/trunk/www/design.wiki <comment><USER2> Sqlite is really just one of those rare software projects that simply makes the world a better place. No more thinking about file storage formats, searching and indexing strategies, long term file readability (it's almost as future proofed as ASCII), extensible, flexible, fast and all around awesome.

The number of projects where sqlite turned a difficult project from impossible or very hard to doable is almost uncountable.

Here's a fun use case. Generate sqlite databases for each user, let them do whatever they want in that database from whatever interface you are letting them use. Store the sqlite file as a binary blob in a "real" database with associated metadata for fast look up and retrieval, plus whatever other things your database gives you (replication, redundancy etc.) And now you basically get sand boxed work spaces for your users almost for free.

<comment><USER3> I am interested in more details/criticisms of the above use case. Better approaches? or "Holy balls, that's idiocy!"

<comment><USER4> Hrm... an online application perhaps like autocad where you have hundreds/thousands of bits of information for every user's "file"?

Instead of saving all that data in xml/json you could keep it in a database. This would also allow you to release in versions of the main software by keeping older users and their files on the previous version.

Even as I type this I start to see massive alarm bells but it was something that came to mind.

Another option is an external application (like survey monkey) that publishes a sqlite file that you could then use in your system to store data for that external form without modifying your database... again much pain could be had down this road.

<comment><USER2> That's almost exactly the use case I've seen it used for. A custom modeling software with collaboration features. Modellers built models in local client software which stored the model as a SQlite database and u/l them to a central MySQL database for distribution.

When changes were made to the model, a new one was simply uploaded and a flag was set in the old one to take it off line (or was it only the newer versions were available unless the user requested an older one...I can't remember to be honest).

The metadata about the model gave details like the user who created it, dates and times of upload, name of the model, various key words about the model etc. "Replacing" an older version with a newer version just involved uploading the new version into a new row in the database and copying over a dozen or so meta-data fields.

Once the model user downloaded a model, it was as easy to work with on their end with a variety of tools as new tooling simply had to be written to the schema not to some bizarro binary format or parse some gargantuan text file into a data structure. Plus elements in the model were already indexed in the SQLite file so internal searches for model elements was trivial.

There simply wasn't a case where two users would be writing to the same SQLite inner database, but dozens could read them without problem as that was all handled by the outer database, and it preserved old versions of the models without issue.

It also meant migrating to a better outer database meant only migrating a fairly simple meta-data schema and extracting out the SQLite database then just writing it all back into the new database. It took a few days to migrate a few TB but a very short time to write all the migration scripts...an hour or so.

The plus side is a modeler could take their model off-line with them and work on them at their leisure, then upload them when they came back into work.

I was never personally involved in the project, but thought it was one of the craziest MacGuyver-esque things I'd ever seen. But once I stopped thinking about the SQLite inner databases as databases and more as just file blobs with a convenient to work with standard format it all made sense. The outer database was never responsible for searching/reading/writing the inner databases, that all happened at the client end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As long as SQLite4 preserves the level of testing we've seen in SQLite3, I'll be extremely happy: <http://www.sqlite.org/testing.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> Sidenote: this flat file organization (<http://www.sqlite.org/src4/dir?name=src>) gives me a wonderful feel about the design and size of the project, although it probably makes Java programmers cringe.

</comment><comment><USER7> "The default built-in storage engine is a log-structured merge database. It is very fast, faster than LevelDB, supports nested transactions, and stores all content in a single disk file. Future versions of SQLite4 might also include a built-in B-Tree storage engine. "

Faster than LevelDB, _and_ in a single file? Interesting.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, also I thought that comparison was a little out of place...

<comment><USER8> In all fairness, the LevelDB guys made the comparison first: <http://leveldb.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/doc/benchmark.html>

Maybe outperforming LevelDB is a design goal for SQLite 4?

<comment><USER9> The leveldb page shows mixed results wrt sqlite3 - I would say that it is generally faster that sqlite3 based on the results. There is no comparison to sqlite4.

Most notably in large value operations, and also slightly in random reads, sqlite3 wins. In in other benchmarks however, leveldb is faster.

The leveldb page notes that they perform poorly with large values due to the increased I/O that is done. The relatively poor random read performance isn't discussed but my guess is that it's due to having to fetch a compressed page of data that contains values for other keys, thus leveldb is doing "more work" than strictly necessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The thing that really bugs me with SQLite3 is the inability to modify tables. It's not much of a problem unless you have foreign key constraints and then it's a nightmare. Ultimately I resorted to just recreating the entire database from a script every time I had to make a change. If this is "fixed" in SQLite4 then I'm sold.

I'm surprised that there aren't any real binary integers stored anymore but I can see how that would reduce complexity compared to how numbers were handled in SQLite3.

<comment><USER11> You can alter tables to add columns. Doing more complex modifications would require SQLite internally to do pretty much what you do - recreating a new database from existing content.

<comment><USER10> I'd love if it just created a new table, moved the data over, and dropped the original table _while maintaining the foreign key relationships_. That would be perfect.

If you have foreign key relationships referencing the table, you can't drop the table. You can't remove the foreign key relationships without modifying the related table. But you can't modify that related table, you can only drop it. But you can't drop that table because of other foreign key relationships...

<comment><USER12> But, last I checked, you could PRAGMA foreign_keys=off temporarily, which would also inhibit the automatic handling of foreign key constraints in other tables when the target table is renamed or dropped. Then you can create a new table, populate it, drop the old one, rename the new one to the old name, and turn foreign_keys back on, and the constraints will now target the new table.

<comment><USER10> Does that actually work for dropping and renaming tables? I thought I tried that.

<comment><USER11> In any event you can get the foreign keys from sqlite_master, delete them during the reorganisation and then put them back afterwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> SQLite3 is great. Had a few questions that were not directly addressed on the linked page. 1) Will the SQL implementation be identical between SQL3 and SQL4? 2) Does "I/O is direct to disk" indicate the same sort of locking that exists in SQLite3 (the database is locked DML which makes its application as a web server db somewhat limited).

My guess is yes to both...

</comment><comment><USER14> I want all sorts of things in SQLite4, but let's start by saying that usign a log-structured DB format is very welcomed news.

I'd also like the VFS to provide the page cache, so that we could use mmap(2) windows instead of read(2) and pread(2), which should result in fewer data copies and better performance.

Everything else I'd like to see in SQLite4 is icing on the cake.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm a big fan of SQLite3, and fossil-scm is my weapon of choice for solo projects. '4 is looking good.

</comment><comment><USER16> > SQLite4 does all numeric computations using decimal arithmetic. SQLite4 > never uses C datatypes double or float (except in interface routines when > converting between double and the internal decimal representation).

Is it only me who thinks this is a bad idea? Suddenly, what the DB computes for you won't be bit-for-bit identical with what your C program would have computed using IEEE arithmetic. Also, Goldberg has a number of slides showing that (counterintuitively), extra precision and multiple roundings produce LESS accurate results.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, this section of the design document made me do a double-take. The problems with this aren't just limited to the impedance mismatch; it also seems that arithmetic will be a _ton_ slower due to lack of dedicated hardware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nearly-on-topic warning: Android automatically deletes corrupt SQLite files <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7764943>

</comment><comment><USER11> Not enough of a change from the existing SQLite 3.

What I'd like to see most is trivial interoperability with JSON. Almost all the code I write that goes near SQLite has a trip through JSON as well and it gets tedious mapping between them. This also means being able to support things like a value being a list which Postgres can do.

Other than that a way of doing offline mode and online synchronization builtin. CouchDB tried to address this space, but wasn't practical to integrate into most products.

<comment><USER19> This really sounds like the kind of thing that is perfectly doable outside the SQLite 3 core.

<comment><USER11> Which bit? Be able to do lists and a flexible schema would have to be part of the core.

Being able to do synchronization can be done outside of the core, but is fiddly and error prone. It is far better done as a fundamental part of the database.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Good news. Sqlite3 has already been great. It's also good to read that the API will not be changed much, it's very important.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wonder how this pluggable storage architecture relates to the SQLite/BerkeleyDB hybrid that Oracle created a while back.

</comment><comment><USER22> TL;DR All replacements for fopen() grow until they span multiple files.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why multiple files?

 _The (default) on-disk database image is a single disk file with a well- documented and stable file format, making the SQLite4 library suitable for use as an application file format._

<comment><USER11> Incidentally SQLite isn't actually a single file. The main database is. Transactions in progress and the WAL are stored in other files. If you copied just the main file at an inopportune time then it would be invalid. You have to keep the main file and the journal/WAL together.

<comment><AUTHOR> Journal is a temporary file created when writing into database, which you can turn off.

<http://www.sqlite.org/pragma.html#pragma_journal_mode>

WAL mode is a different beast specifically not intended to be a replacement for application format database, and it's not used by default.

So, no, SQLite is a single-file database. It provides more options than that, but the statement is true.

<comment><USER11> You can't turn off the journal unless you are happy to lose data in which case don't bother with a database. See section 1.3 of <http://www.sqlite.org/howtocorrupt.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> There are many more reasons to use single-file databases other than safety of file write operations.

TextEdit in OS X also creates a temporary file when it saves a document, and then atomically renames it to the original filename; would you claim that RTF document consists of two files in this case?

<comment><USER11> Not even a close analogy as the text file is always valid.

More accurate would be changes being done by modifying blocks of the original file as well as appends on the end so that it is not valid by itself, and storing enough information to make it valid/undo in a second file.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple could be used as a 'bargaining chip' in the trade war, China warns - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/07/apple-china-us-trade-war-bargaining-chip.html <comment><USER2> Steve Jobs famously told Obama that "those jobs aren't coming back" when he was asked about moving US manufacturing back to the US. Maybe Jobs was wrong. Apple's concentrated bet on Chinese manufacturing has opened it up to a lot of geopolitical risk, which can't be good for it.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america- an...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a- squeezed-middle-class.html)

<comment><USER3> Manufacturing of iPhones may come back to the US, but the jobs won't.

<comment><USER4> Robots are more fiscally responsible when manufacturing in a place with high labor cost. But it would create jobs in robot techs and programmers.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm having a boring summer. What should I do? - <AUTHOR> I'm a college student and because of health reasons last semester, I wasn't able to get an internship.
I'm taking two online classes (calc 3 and physics 1) and I find them in credibly boring.
What fun/ intectually stimulating things should I do?
Please help. <comment><USER2> Try doing something you never did before, that would really challenge you and that would upgrade your life.

Never been a sport person? -> start practicing one very days Never been a music person? -> learn to play the guitar Never been a social person? -> find a bartender job

and that's just examples

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe meet some new people? I don't know about your locale, but in larger cities there are usually lots of interesting groups on meetup.com. Could be painting, photography, learning a new programming language or just socialising.

Or maybe find a Toastmasters club in your area? [https://www.toastmasters.org/](https://www.toastmasters.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm in a fairly untechy large city.

For me the problem that I've had is that because I'm 19 I tend to be unable to go to the 21+ events.

<comment><USER3> If you'd like to chat, feel free to send me an e-mail. My contact info is in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why do you think internet strangers know what activities you find fun?

Try taking classes outside your comfort zone, since you're already a student. College is the only time you get to selfishly, voraciously learn about niche fields of knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER5> Build something, or write something, or paint something, or...

</comment><comment><USER6> Be less boring.</comment>


Carrier IQ -- the best reason yet to switch to the iPhone? - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/107337-carrier-iq-is-the-best-reason-yet-to-switch-to-iphone

<comment><USER2> What a load of crap. "We found tracking software on an 'open' platform, so you should switch to a closed platform"? Did this author ever stop to think that the reason we haven't found this on closed platforms is because it's harder to detect on closed platforms?

Has anyone ever said "oh, we found a bug in the Linux source, so you should switch to Windows because you can't see bugs in their source code"? Or "don't dive into that clear water, there's a rock there, dive into this murky water instead." Closing your eyes doesn't make it go away.

There's a valid argument in switching to open Android ROMs or having a real open source alternative.

>Given the choice between a closed software ecosystem and an open phone that spies on its user, we'll take closed software every time.

HOW DO YOU KNOW APPLE DOESN'T SPY ON YOU, TOO?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it's the best reason to switch to free software...</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone use Rackspace Managed Cloud Servers? - <AUTHOR>

I've used Rackspace Cloud Servers for awhile, but I'm thinking about adding the "Managed" support level to my servers. Anyone have experience with the service? Is it worth it? <comment><USER2> I have had them "monitor and manage" production servers where we were paying a small fortune in services(20k+) to them and there were more than a few times where they didn't even notify us the prod DBS were down. Basically they scom or mom and make calls after you get an email about an incident. Lame sauce, just get server density and manage it yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes. In my unscientific experience their I/O is faster than Amazon, but I migrated away from cloud servers completely because it didn't fit my needs.</comment>


20 Words from Around the World With No Single-word English Equivalent - <AUTHOR> http://matadornetwork.com/abroad/20-awesomely-untranslatable-words-from-around-the-world/ <comment><USER2> Cute, but linguistically it doesn't mean as much as it claims. English happens to be an isolating analytic language— meaning that words tend to be made from a small number of individual units of meaning (morphemes), with more complex meaning being conveyed by the use of additional words.

All of those languages listed (that I know of) are what are called synthetic languages, meaning they tend to use words made up of many (in the case of polysynthetic languages, very many) morphemes. Thus concepts that are expressed in an isolating language using several words — happy at his suffering, so bad it's good, mid-life crisis, to use a few examples from the article — might be expressed in a synthetic language with a single "word", but which is still composed of several meaningful morphemes.

Basically, "words" in these languages don't fulfill the same function as words in English, so the comparison isn't really valid, and the fact that there isn't any single-word English equivalent isn't very interesting. Not to say some of those aren't nice words, of course.

<comment><USER3> This I noticed right away but I didn't know the linguistic terms for it. (Isn't agglutination something to do with this by the way?) For instance the very famous schadenfreude that everybody has come across at one point or another and arguably has been imported into English at this stage (and so _is_ an English word as such) has two distinct words - schade meaning pity (i think) and freude meaning joy (i think). This example is silly because it is allowable and possible to compose reallylongwords in german from shorter words but not in English. What would be neat is if there were a single undecomposable word in German that has no ready, handy English cognate.

I wonder how many "words" on this list or not morphologically discrete.

<comment><USER4> German here. "Schaden" in this case means harm or damage or misfortune (which causes someone else's joy). It can mean pity in other contexts, though, as in "that's a pity".

A nice example of an undecomposable word in German that has no ready, handy English cognate is Gemütlichkeit. From Wikipedia: "Its closest equivalent is the word "coziness"; however, [...] Gemütlichkeit connotes the notion of belonging, social acceptance, cheerfulness, the absence of anything hectic and the opportunity to spend quality time."

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that clarification. I was going by my rusty German and Google translate :)

Gemütlichkeit sounds like a great word. So German and grand. An interesting word on the list from the page of the article is Dépaysement ... meaning "The feeling that comes from not being in one's home country" which if you squint closely is un-country-ness in English which indeed sounds odd. But we do we the word _discplacement_ which could be overloaded with this typically gallic connotation.

<comment><USER5> How do we distinguish Dépaysement from alienated?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> First, the "there are 250K words in English" statement is kind of wrong, it's probably much higher, e.g. OED states on their web page (<http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/93>) that "If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million." English undoubtedly is the world's richest language in the sense of having the largest vocabulary.

As for the "they have a word for it and we don't" thing: The examples given are delightful, also see the book "They Have a Word for It" for other interesting examples. I can give more examples from my native language, "kismet" "ayip" that are untranslatable. But look at that first word, _kismet_ : you've probably seen it used, albeit rarely, in magazines, etc. (putting aside the wireless sniffer, of course, of that name). _This_ is the power of English, it voracious appetite for word adoption.

Ask yourself this: How many of those language listed in the article have a thesaurus, and is they have how thick it would be. Many languages are lexically shallow, i.e. there is usually one word for many concepts, with few synonym sets.

<comment><USER7> Kismet: Destiny

Ayip: Shameful

There are worse Turkish concepts to choose to translate (the many alterations of Gule Gule that can be added for one, I've never been able to get my head around the construct) and the mis suffix (to have experienced something indirectly or via another person is probably the easiest way to put it).

Having said that, Turkish can be extremely beautiful as a language, particularly for conveying emotion, beauty or craftiness.

<comment><USER6> Yep, these are the standard definitions that would be found in a Turkish- English dictionary, but I don't think they cover the nuances of these words. For example, "destiny" is very well represented by "kader", whereas "kismet" seems to have a hint of luck, etc involved. It has a certain pagan feeling to it, I think.

That being said, Turkish is a good example of a language that suffers from a relative synonym deficiency. When I was working on linguistic steganography, where a message can be embedded into text by replacing words with their synonyms, I discussed applying same concepts to Turkish with a Turkish professor (Bulent Sankur). They complained that this approach is general does not work because there aren't a multitude of synonyms for may words, as in English.

The reason for this is partly the brutal pruning of many Arabic-Farsi synonyms during the Language Revolution and its aftermath that were common at the time (1930s) to create a "pure" Turkish.

<comment><USER7> That's interesting. To me (being a fairly basic Turkish speaker but nowhere near fluent) the difference between Kader and Kismet is that Kader is stuff that's meant to happen in a strictly secular sense (e.g. a man goes to jail because he committed a murder, this I would view as kader although perhaps incorrectly) whereas kismet is more spectacular, indeed by the will of god for those that believe in such things, such as bumping into a long lost lover on the other side of the world by chance, rekindling a relationship and getting back together - that to me is definitely kismet. I've yet to see a decent romantic story that features kader :)

I think the pruning of Ottoman from modern Turkish is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it makes learning basic Turkish incredibly straightforward. It took me two weeks to get to a level of proficiency similar to that of a 7 or 8 year old with my mother in-law. It's almost deceptively easy, because when you start talking to Turks in the real world a lot of the Ottoman loan-terms never really disappeared.

Also I've noticed while I can talk to my mother and father in-law, I have real trouble understanding my anane, who almost speaks an entirely different language.

The other thing I've noticed (in Istanbul at least), is the anglicisation of Turkish. I remember when computers were 'knowledge desks' (Bilgisayarlar), not 'laptops' or 'pee-sees'. I've noticed this particularly with technology, but even just overhearing conversations in taksim cafes it seems that young Turks are more likely to use English words in general conversation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An example going the other way: Russian does not have an equivalent to "artist". There are words specifically for "painter", "singer" etc, but nothing generic. The closest is "творец" (tvorets) but it's closer to "creator" and calling yourself a "tvorets" would be very very pretentious, unlike calling yourself an artist.

<comment><USER9> It would properly be better if we removed the word from English too -- Creator does more accurately describe what one does, and nobody would say "you can't judge a creation" the way they claim art can't be judged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My favorite is the Russian word _Pochemuchka_ , which means "One who asks lots of questions." The literal translation is more like "Little Why-er".

</comment><comment><USER11> Take any agglutinative language (Hungarian, Finnish, etc.) or one with propensity for constructing words by gluing other words together (German) and you will find thousands of "words" that have no single word English equivalent.

Some of the words from the list are interesting, but overall this is quite superficial, "word" is not a building block in the exact same way in all languages. Besides, some items are not words but expressions, one is a slang term related to mobile phones, that probably has equivalents in most languages, a large part of the words refer to some sort of melancholy or nostalgia. Not exactly that? Well, I'm sure the word "melancholy" already means something different for any two persons, let alone speakers of different languages.

That being said, I always have trouble explaining "kitsch" in English (see the M. Kundera link :) and always have trouble understanding "serendipity" in languages other than English :)

<comment><USER12> _one is a slang term related to mobile phones, that probably has equivalents in most languages_

It has no equivalent in American English. That may be because in the USA you pay for time spent on the cell phone, whether you initiated the call or not, so that behavior doesn't exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> `Doch' is close to my favourite. It's mainly used in German to say disagree with a negative question, but can also be added to normal sentences for emphasis.

</comment><comment><USER14> A Scot here - I've never heard "tartle" being used.

Much more frequently used is _dreich_ \- A combination of dull, overcast, drizzly, cold, misty and miserable

</comment><comment><USER15> 9\. _prozvonit_ is to _prank_ , in slang I've heard & used here in Australia.

bonus: _tingo_ \- "to borrow things from a friend's house, one by one, until there is nothing left" in Pascuense language of Easter Island <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Jacot_de_Boinod#Career>

<comment><USER16> Prozvonit's equivalent in English is a "bat-call." A bat-call can also be used to notify the other person of something (not necessarily to prompt a call back). As in, "When I get to your house, come outside when I give you a bat- call"

<comment><USER17> > _Prozvonit's equivalent in English is a "bat-call."_

Nice. In which country?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I came here to post the Dutch word 'gezellig' but luckily I read the article first and discovered that apparently the Danish have a cousin word, 'Hyggelig', that was included in the list :)

</comment><comment><USER19> Seems relevant:

The Korean concept of _Han_ , as explained by The West Wing: "There is no literal English translation. It's a state of mind. Of soul, really. A sadness. A sadness so deep no tears will come. And yet still there's hope."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_%28cultural%29>

</comment><comment><USER20> Another Russian word is _rodina_ (родина) which very superficially translates to homeland, but really means the place where you feel at home. I think there are some cultural reasons why American English doesn't have this word: basically, no need for it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Any Russian speakers here? Is _sehnsucht_ an adequate translation of _toska_? It's not really an English word but I think it's sufficiently well known due to the work of C.S. Lewis.

<comment><USER13> From the description of toska in the article, Sehnsucht may be right. (I speak German and almost no Russian.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Man, I tartled something fierce last week at a dinner party I threw in NYC. Thank god I finally have a word for it.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a shame number 17 is four words, not one. Otherwise, some interesting words.

</comment><comment><USER24> Toska: looks like Melancholy Saudade: how is that different from mourning?

<comment><USER25> Mourning is more like an act, a ceremony of showing sadness. Saudade is the little pain that lingers on long after the mourning; the settlement of mourning that never heals. As brazilian singer Chico Buarque says "Saudade is like a sting on a limb I lost long ago" or "Saudade is the boat that makes an arc and can't reach the harbour". In saudade there's a constant questioning of "what could it have been only if..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If we're being picky, "l'appel du vide" is actually 4 words.

</comment><comment><USER27> Some words ought to be universal. Shark would be a good one.

</comment><comment><USER28> I suggest that English steal 'tartle' and 'prozvonit'.</comment>


FiveThirtyEight's take on basic income - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/#hn2 <comment><USER2> Maybe change the title cause I thought this was going to be an opinion piece but it's actually just a thorough summary of history of basic income.

Two things I don't necessarily agree with:

1\. You can get rid of the "welfare cliffs" without basic income. Just get rid of means testing. In Europe there are various welfare services that are not means tested. I believe various European countries have child allowances for everyone.

2\. It is not at all clear to me that it will be cheaper and more cost effective to replace any given welfare service with a direct cash payment to the recipients. The government can negotiate prices from a much better position than single individuals can. Just look at how much cheaper drugs are in places where the government forces a monopsony.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11563958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11563958)</comment>


FBI: Foreign students and researchers could be spies - <AUTHOR> http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/counterintelligence/higher-education-and-national-security edited from "FBI: Many foreign students are spies" as per comments some made. <comment><USER2> Your title is not an accurate reflection of what the paper says. Quoting specifically, it says:

      > Most foreign students, researchers, or professors
      > studying or working in the United States are here
      > for legitimate and proper reasons. Only a very small
      > percentage is actively working at the behest of
      > another government or organization.

Nowhere can I find it saying that "many" are spies. I've searched specifically for the word "many," but perhaps I've missed the section you are quoting.

From <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> :

        You can make up a new title if you want, but
        if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it,
        the editors may rewrite it.

Please could you quote the section from which your title derives?

Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had to distill what it meant in a few words. I used the word many because I couldn't say "most," "a few" or "some."

Bloomberg has their own take with examples but I chose to link to FBI instead [http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-08/american- univers...](http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-08/american-universities- infected-by-foreign-spies-detected-by-fbi)

 _"American Universities Infected by Foreign Spies Detected by FBI"_

<comment><USER3> "A small percentage of foreign students are spies" would not be too long.

Though the actual article concerns "students, researchers, or professors." There's something like 700,000 foreign university students in the US, and 1 million foreign born workers in science and engineering.

Which means that "Many foreign researchers are spies" would have been more correct, by your logic. For that matter "Many foreigners are spies" is even shorter.

Fewer than 400 Americans have been to space. Would you honestly write "Many Americans have been to space"?

I'm with ColinWright - your headline is not an accurate reflection of what the paper says.

<comment><AUTHOR> EDITED to a more neutral title. The title will never be perfect but FBI is certainly concerned, as are US colleges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Foreign students contribute 12bn+ to US universities by way of tuition fees; the majority funded by their own government, organisations or families. If the US government wishes to limit foreign nationals ability to contribute to and participate in valuable research they may find the funding for that research will disappear as well.

Not to legitimise espionage, but you can't have it both ways.

This is actually a bigger issue that also encompasses outsourcing manufacturing and technology development to foreign countries where they don't play by the same rules as far as patents and IP rights.

<comment><USER3> Moreover, there have been similar spies in the US probably since we first started as a country. Klaus Fuchs is perhaps the most well known example for his work during the 1940s in informing the Soviet Union about the US atomic bomb research.

I have a fictional book written during the 80s where one of the characters is a foreign industrial spy.

Then there's the false negatives, as with Wen Ho Lee at Los Alamos.

For that matter, it goes the other way. The Russians regard the researcher Igor Sutyagin a spy, and convicted him as such, even though he and the US deny it.

So I think the right way to see this report is as a reminder of how the world works, and not as a specific call to action in response to recent increases in the amount of espionage.

<comment><USER4> Certainly. Can't have the population forgetting that the world out there is a scary place - think of the starving defense contractors!

If this is a precursor to any push for legislative changes (and increased enforcement powers) then the target is more likely non-state players and the likes of anonymous: Terrorist is a little overused these days and spy is the next best scary label.

<comment><USER3> Spies for our side are cool. Spies for the British are also cool, as long as they don't spy on us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> excuse-me At least the government is reacting to the threat. Successive US administrations have done their best to try and ensure that there is no longer any cutting edge university research to steal!

</comment><comment><USER5> this is just blowing up a tiny number up to generate page views very similar to the Spy mania at the out break of WW1 or McCarthy like witch hunts in the 50's</comment>


How much does having a personal website impact your career - <AUTHOR> I am seeing a lot of people/sites claiming personal websites are a must. but does it really impact your career? Should I spend time in making one? please shed your thoughts on this <comment><USER2> I do not have a personal site. I've been in the industry software industry 20+ yrs primarily in the Microsoft ecosystem, but not exclusively.

"Impact your career" can involved many things, but I'm reading your question as two-fold: 1) Getting a new job at a new company 2) Moving up at an existing company

For 1, the goal is to show someone that doesn't know you, what your capabilities are, and what you can bring to the table - that can be through various ways, people who say you must have a personal site are really just saying that a personal site is your portfolio that you can show people, but github and others are suitable as well. Here you've got to be able to demonstrate your capabilities - it is easier with a site, or some other publicly accessible form of portfolio (github, etc).

For 2, it is about growing yourself technically and politically and your internally executed work IS your portfolio. Succeed on your executed work and challenge yourself by taking on additional responsibilities where able and the rest will follow. YOU are always your best portfolio.

HTH

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for replying, I have a GitHub repo that extensively shows my work. however, I do not have a website separately. I feel peer pressure cuz everyone is building a portfolio website. so was curious to know</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Unsupportive spouse/partner/SO? - <AUTHOR> I read a lot of stories here about the entrepreneur that quits a job, and begins the startup of their dreams with the full support of their partner - thats great for them.<p>I am curious to know if anyone else out there is facing resistance or lack of support from their partner in going out on a limb with their startup.  I am aware of those who might say "life's too short, leave them" or "if they don't support your dreams then they don't deserve you" etc but I would prefer to discuss the methods HN'ers have used to get their partner on board or otherwise convince them of the value of their endeavour rather than issuing ultimatums or walking out on a family etc. BTW I am in this position now so its a practical question - thanks. <comment><USER2> Try to understand why the spouse is unsupportive.

Did they have a reasonable expectation that you would be the primary "bread- winner" of the family. Do you have children and is the spouse concerned about their well-being ? Did you look at worst-case financial situations for your family and discuss that with your spouse ? Do you have a deadline for making reasonable money through your startup and have you told your spouse that you will go back to a regular job if the startup fails ? Does your spouse think that a startup may reduce your family-time ? Some of these questions may be relevant, some may not and there are other questions that I didn't list.

Ultimately, though I'd go back what I first said. Your post doesn't say why your spouse/partner/SO is unsupportive. I think you need to find out why he/she is unsupportive before asking the next question of how to "convince them of the value of their endeavour"

<comment><USER3> It's also worth saying that different people have different relationships to money.

I know that seems obvious, but it's not. Different people conceptualize money in different ways, and most of us have very profound emotional connections to it and what it represents for us.

So, I agree with the above poster: try to find out why your spouse is unsupportive, and be prepared to really listen to what s/he is telling you, on their own terms. Treat the analysis as you would a business problem: give it the full "5 Whys".

For my part: I cashed out of my first start-up, and am now on my second. There's no doubt in my mind that my wife would be happier if I gave it up, and just got a salaried job somewhere stable. And there's no doubt in my wife's mind that I'd do exactly that, if my ability to provide adequate security for the family were at stake. That's a balance that seems to keep everyone happy, in our case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The thing is, people more rarely regret what they've done rather than what they haven't done.

The reason people bring up the "life's too short" answers is that finally, eventually, that is the question you can't avoid and you must prepare for.

In the case that your partner won't conveniently budge you _will be faced_ with this very priority-setting question: "Do I want to do this thing of mine (and let my S.O. possibly leave me) or do I value the companionship of my S.O. more (and let myself pass on this idea)?" The answer to that question is not an ultimatum per se but an ultimatum can very easily be made out of it.

Then, the reason I do bring this up is that you have to have the answer to that question all laid out before you go ask the opinion of your S.O. Otherwise you're really not asking: you're just knocking on the doors at random, in hope for an easy answer.

However, as soon as you have the answer things will, once asked, unfold much easier. One party being clear about his life helps the other party find clarity as well.

If you're certain that you want your startup, then your S.O. will read that and it's his/her turn to evaluate his/her priorities, and it might very well be that he/she will find the supportiveness for your endeavour now that you're dead serious about. On the other hand, as long as you're just toying with the idea, he/she will just carelessly drop you an initial opinion because he/she's not really enforced to face it yet. And people don't like to face questions unless they're forced, at least to some extent.

This is pretty much want you _can_ do: find out what you want and then see how it goes. It's okay to bring it up seriously but still cancel later if you get scared enough. At least you've tried.

What you _can't_ do is change other people. They will change themselves if they feel they want to but you can't convince or talk them into these things. And it's pretty damn hard for them to change if they don't who you are and what you want.

<comment><USER5> "If you're certain that you want your startup, then your S.O. will read that and it's his/her turn to evaluate his/her priorities, and it might very well be that he/she will find the supportiveness for your endeavour now that you're dead serious about."

Or they will be pressured into grudgingly going along with it (and resent you for it), except at every small downturn where it seems you will fail (and I hear there's no shortage of those in a startup) they will, possibly in their very own passive-aggressive way, push you to give up--and when you don't, you'll just add to their growing resentment of you.

<comment><USER4> In the end, it's up to them.

You can't possibly verify if other people made their choices in full clarity and if they're willing to live by it. You can just support them in achieving that, mainly by not pressurizing them and hurrying their decision.

Other people can _always_ give up too much for you and resent _you_ for that, whether it's about life's big crossroads or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> People are really concerned about money, money, money. But, in my opinion, working for yourself to achieve your own vision is so fun.. and this is on what I put emphasis when people around me don't understand why I don't work for a big company or something.

So, instead of saying, I might be the next facebook, or I will make 100x more then you, or whatever concerning money, I usually just say, I never had so much fun in my life and I wouldn't never go back to a "normal" job again. : )

<comment><USER7> I agree with your position, but I beg to suggest that it doesn't fit in this discussion. Promising you'll have much fun isn't likely to quell your SO's doubts.

<comment><USER6> It's not that much about the "fun" but more the way you want to live your live. I mean, our goal might be to work hard and save money for later.. or it might be to enjoy each days of our life. So it's all about what you want to do.. if working for a big company makes you happy, that's the way to go. But if working in a startup is what you really like, I think it's more important than the amount of money involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In 1998 I passed all of the phone interviews to work at Lycos and they said all I had to do was come down they liked me so much I was certain to get the job. I was really happy, I was trying to move up and get into the excitement but my wife didn't want to move from San Diego.

Back then I thought marriage was an equal partnership but what I gave up was getting to a place where I could support my family. I never did much better then what I was doing before, I know I missed out on a life changing opportunity. Granted Lycos was no Yahoo or Google but it could have been the thing that moved me (my family) in a promising direction but I wasn't man enough to take charge.

<comment><USER9> Or perhaps if you had "taken charge" you would have gotten caught up in the Silicon Valley startup mania, and done very well for yourself, but made your wife unhappy in leaving San Diego. Would it have been worth it?

<comment><USER10> If the wife's happiness is in a city instead with her husband, then he is not her happiness regardless to where they are. If marriage is a partnership, then both happiness worth the same, the argument of "does your dreams worth more or less than your wife" sounds more like a guilt trip. I made that mistake and I regret it.

<comment><USER8> My wife would not have left me over the move. I understand yours did but your wife was likely good looking and desirable. My wife is a little more average.

I could have used some extra firepower for my resume, I ended up working for one company this entire time until about 8 months ago. I have spent a lot of years doing ASP Classic / SQL Server and find myself not very employable now. I have had to take a job making a cool $3,500 a month after being unemployed for 4 months. My wife's car was repossessed, I could no longer maintain her credit cards, and our electricity was shut off. None of those things made her happy either but she didn't choice but to accept them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your partner's sincere, absolute, and wholehearted backing is necessary for you to maintain both the relationship and do the startup. You've mentioned dropping the partner, but I just wanted to suggest dropping the startup instead. Most people with families seem to value their families much higher than their professional accomplishments.

If your partner remains unsupportive, it seems like a bad idea to continue the relationship AND do the startup. You'll likely end up destroying both. So if you can't convince your partner, choose between them and your dream, make a clean cut, and deal with whichever loss is easier to bear in your own way before moving on.

<comment><USER11> I support this. Its people that make your life and family is a big deal. In other words, don't "flirt with the idea of a startup", develop a healthy enduring friendship ;)

<comment><USER12> Family is a big deal but IMHO the only real commitment in life is children. If you haven't got kids follow your dream.

The harsh reality is that your current spouse isn't 'the one' because there is no such thing, we don't live in a hollywood dream and no one has friends like the friends in Friends. Don't spend your life living their life, live your own. If they are not willing to compromise why should you?

I speak as a man who has kids and a supportive partner who I have both supported and been supported by.

At some point you'll be rotting in a hole, what mark will you leave beyond a dark patch an archaeologist may stumble upon?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the comments, I can see things a little differently now. In my case she has some directionless (slacker) men in her extended family and I think her perception is that you either work hard full-time in a job or you are a slacker like them.

The most important issue here I realise is stability as we have a young family, mortgage etc and the salaried job makes everything easy to manage on a monthly basis.

I would readily give up the startup idea for my family, so in this equation, the lowest priority is the startup - but it still burns a hole in me night and day thinking about it and the potential.

I guess the easiest way to eliminate most of the unanswered questions is to chip away to a level of profit somewhere close to my salary in my spare time and only if that happens, revisit the idea of going full-time. Fortunately, it might prevent me from chasing a bad idea before its proven.

On a side note, I was not expecting such insightful feedback on a "software" issue like this - but its very much appreciated.

<comment><USER13> > young family

That might be worth thinking about. I think things might get easier to manage when the kids leave for school, but I don't know, because we're not there yet. Our 2 year old is a lot of work, and I've more or less put things on the back burner for the time being.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> For about a year I really wanted to spend more time on my startup, but my wife pointed out that we needed a steady income to support our family. Naturally, she was right - I wrote about it here : [http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/2010/02/part-time- entrepreneur.htm...](http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/2010/02/part-time- entrepreneur.html)

What I have discovered is that you need to be clear about why and how your business is going to work. Be really honest with yourself and with her. You don't have to leap straight from full-time employment into full-time Startup, a gradual change is much better.

In my case, I soon moved from full-time into contracting, working from home. I continued to do my startup part time, by this point I had the dicipline since I had been working 60 hour weeks (40 fulltime + 20 Gridspy) for months. See my corresponding blog entry : [http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/2010/06/breaking-away- from-the-man...](http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/2010/06/breaking-away-from-the- man.html)

More recently, our business is starting to become more serious. However my wife sometimes calls it "my hobby" - her point is valid, until GridSpy is making serious money I need to keep cash coming in to support my young family.

 _Realise that your wife probably has a lot of valid points. She won't want to hear your argument until it is clear that you have heard hers._

Talk together with her about a plan that can bridge the gap between your current job and a startup. Begin by spending more of your free time on the startup in a regular and productive way. Then look into either spending less time at work (talk to your boss) or explore contracting opportunities. You might find that you can get a higher contracting rate than the rate you currently earn full-time.

There is a very good chance that your startup will fail or simply go nowhere. It takes a huge amount of persistance to get to success, and you will need her support. Don't throw away all you have for nothing. Communicate your goals and how you will live up to her expectations and she will probably support you.

</comment><comment><USER15> My wife is supportive, but not the entrepreneurial type, risk averse and favours stability. On top of that we have a baby boy and own a house. My family rank way above anything else so throwing in the day job is really not an option.

I have a small amount of time each night after bedtime where I work on my own things. My goal is to generate what value I can and show enough to justify taking a bigger step in future. I'm kind of bootstrapping but time is the scarce resource, not money.

It's not easy, don't let that stop you.

<comment><USER16> Get your wife a time-consuming hobby ;-)

<comment><USER15> Well we had the baby...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A spouse can see things from an outside perspective. If your spouse thinks it's a bad idea, then maybe it really is a bad idea.

<comment><USER18> Yes, after lots of trial and error, my wife can quickly see through my flimsy ideas even though I still can't much of the time. I get excited about some pretty stupid things.

In the past, I was upset that she wouldn't connect with my vision. After lots of failures, I find that I would much prefer her to be constructively critical of me in this way, rather than always supportive. For one, if she trusted me blindly, then I would have immense guilt when my ideas crash and burn after costing us time and money for no return.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Are they unsupportive of you doing a startup, or are they unsupportive of the startup you are currently doing?

<comment><AUTHOR> She can grok the startup idea - its a simple, revenue generating idea that is just a slow-build type of thing. Its the risk of a startup she doesn't support, especially when continuing with the safe, risk-free fulltime job seems to make so much "sense".

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can relate to your question however I found the problem is more so the fact that I get lazy around my partner.

When I was single and miserable in my little apartment, I was superbly productive at night, would get so much done over one weekend.

Now though, very different story... I get home and we eat like a family, we follow tv shows religiously and when bed time comes, I have a hard time giving real reasons to stay up and I'm constently reminded that I'm just "geeking out".

Imagine how I feel about kids.

</comment><comment><USER21> If you don't have kids I think it's fairly simple: Do you respect the reason your SO is not supportive of your startup? If you do, the perhaps he/she has a point.

If you don't, then how can you seriously consider being in a relationship with someone whose view on such an important matter you don't respect?

Some possible reasons a spouse might object are: Fear of the unknown, risk aversion, desire for predictable salary income, etc.

Or, it's possible that your SO doesn't realize how passionate you are. I suggest you make a 10 minute pitch in which you lay down how important it is to you and why. You should articulate your exit strategy from the startup too.

There are also some reasonable objections a financial partner (as many SOs are) might have to you taking a lot of risk that was not part of your initial agreement. Say you both earn $100K now and your salary will drop to $10K... this places more stress/burden on the SO to support both of you, which he/she may not want to do (he/she may want to buy a new car, etc. instead, which isn't entirely unreasonable).

If the objection is reasonable and you respect it, it's probably not permanent, and chances are you can negotiate terms that the SO will support and get behind (such as, for example, you save up $50K before you quit your job, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER22> Just to complicate things a little bit more for you: even if your SO says she supports you she may not always do and vice versa. My wife is supportive but, as the female prerogative goes, if she is in a bad mood I will still get the "why did you quit your well-paying job, now there is pressure on me to keep working" spiel. Even though my startup is doing great. And she may be totally different the next day. It's not a binary yes/no as we hackers would like.

Ah women. I think the species it too complex to come up with generally applicable advice. You should still aim to get support though. Years ago, my entrepreneurship professor wrote on the blackboard the very first day "EENASWSI" - "Every Entrepreneur Needs A Spouse With Second Income". It's hard enough to do a startup without having to fight a battle on two fronts.

</comment><comment><USER23> You could compare a start-up to "going back to school for 2 years". The costs (lost income, lots of time, some expense) and benefits (an exciting project, and possibly better employment in the future) are arguably similar.

I'd actually say "I'm thinking about either starting my own company, or going back to school for 2 years". That way, you can thresh out the issues in terms she has a better feel for.

Also, she will have a laundry list of things she objects to. Is the big issue (and there will be a big issue) a long term or short term problem?

</comment><comment><USER24> Given you're ruling out ultimatums or walking, I would suggest the following:

1) Work on the business a little bit every day. Every day is important, because it builds momentum, keeps you focused on it and keeps you making progress. The progress is important because it demonstrates that you're serious and not a flake.

2) Once you've made a bit of progress (say a few months), see what she needs from you in order to be supportive and see if you can work out a solution. For example, if you're the sole breadwinner and she's worried about surviving, work out how much money you need to survive for a year or so and work out (with her) how you can achieve that. If she's not willing to discuss it or compromise, emphasize to her how important this is to you.[1] Involve her in coming up with solutions so she'll feel she owns them.

3) When you've got agreement, undersell on the expectations. If you tell her it's all going to go brilliantly from day one she's going to be annoyed when it doesn't. If you tell her it's going to be a long, hard struggle then she'll be more accommodating.

4) Keep her in the loop, so she can see stuff is actually happening, and celebrate what small successes you have.

5) When you get in fights and the business is brought up, don't respond. Don't get into an argument over it as that will just cause more resentment later.

[1] If you've been working on it for an hour or two a day for three months this will be demonstrably true.

</comment><comment><USER25> basically if you are: -Young = fire the SO -Married / old / with childen = you can't do it if you don't have enough money

I do not suggest you try to make a compromise, people doesn't change.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's not about their support or lack of it -- it's all about the priorities. Basically, if you have conflicting vectors in your life, you need to choose one that is more important to you; or put another way, you need to decide whether to have your cake or eat it.

To cut the long story short: decide which is more important to you and stick with that. If it's the SO who is opposed to the idea of you starting a business, then forget the business and enjoy your life with her/him. For me personally, there is much more people around than business opportunities, but YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER27> My $.02 (crossing my fingers and hoping I have fixed the formatting problems -- apologies if I haven't):

I'm a former homemaker. I got my first full-time paid job post divorce, when my oldest child was 19. I was also a top student at my high school, with lots of academic awards, and had visions of having a very egalitarian marriage, staying home briefly with my kids while they were little and then pursuing my own career goals. Things didn't exactly go like that and I've read lots of books, articles, and statistics trying to figure out a) what went wrong and b) how to avoid similar pitfalls in the future so I don't end up bitter about my life.

Some stats about the lives of American women, some of which may not be up to date but should give a general idea of the situation women find themselves in, often in spite of their best efforts and best intentions:

The majority of poor people in America are women (and their children) who were solidly middle class until one of three things happened: They got pregnant. They got divorced. Or their husband died.

About half of all American marriages end in divorce and 90% of the time, when one spouse buries the other, it is a woman burying her husband. As best I can figure, this means that about 95% of American women will face the need to start their lives over without their spouse at some point. In most cases, even men who were excellent providers while alive don't do a great job of planning for her needs in the event of their death. Alimony and child support laws have eroded overthe years so that women are typically entitled to relatively little financial support post-divorce. To make matters worse: One third of divorced fathers pay their child support obligation in full. One third make partial payments. One third skip town and stop making payments.

Women who have no children and no spouse make, on average, about 98% of what men make who have similar education and work experience. Once they either marry or have kids, they are highly likely to fall into the majority of women who make 2/3 of what men make (or, said another way, men make on average 1.5 times what women make). Some of the reasons for this include:

Women are much more likely than men to take time off from their career to raise kids, care for elderly parents and so on. Even in a two career couple, it is typically the wife who takes time off from her job to take kids to the doctor, attend parent-teacher conferences and so forth. Most of the time, when a couple relocates for the sake of a better job, they are following him to a better job and she is quitting her job to do so. Most of the time, relocating because you accepted a job elsewhere involves a step up in your career but quitting your job to follow your spouse typically means that your next job is a career setback. Women frequently choose "pink collar ghetto" jobs which leave sufficient energy and mental focus at the end of the day to pull their "second shift" of housework and childrearing. Homemakers typically spend 60 hours a week on housework. Women with full-time jobs typically still spend 40 hours a week. Men have tried to take up some of the slack at home and do, on average, about 10% more at home than they used to do. This amounts to about 10 minutes a day or an hour and ten minutes a week, which doesn't begin to make up the difference in the 20 hours of work no longer being done by her. Studies typically indicate that women are chronically short of sleep and often cannot afford to take the demanding, physically exhausting jobs which pay better.

Generally speaking, time taken off from pursuing a paid career will hurt your earning capacity. The one exception that I am aware of is when you take time off to pursue an education. I found that going to college part-time, even with health problems and special needs kids, was very do-able. Lots of colleges today cater to working adults and have online classes, condensed classes, evening and weekend classes. Such things worked really well for me.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi did research into the psychological relationship people have to time. I read one of his books when my oldest son was between 5 and 8 years old. They had people do timelines of their lives. Women, especially homemakers, were very prone to listing nothing but endings: All their kids would graduate high school and move away, their husband would retire and then die and then they would die. This profile had a high correlation with depression. In contrast, men would write things like "I'm going to retire -- and finally get that boat I always wanted and go fishing every weekend!" This was correlated with a much more positive outlook on life. I swore to myself right then and there that I would go to college and make plans for my future and not set myself up for "empty nest syndrome". I'm content with the outcome so far.

My understanding is that one of the biggest fears that women with small kids have is that their spouse will die. Given the statistics listed above, this isn't exactly irrational. Adequate life insurance can help calm such fears. So can a resource packet and plan for what she would need to do if you died. In my marriage, a phone call to let me know when he was going to be late from work would have made a huge difference in my sense of security. He was really bad about not calling and there were way too many nights that I spent 2 or more hours worrying myself sick that any minute now there would be a knock at the door and it would be a police officer informing me he died in a car wreck or his commanding officer informing me he died in a training accident. My husband knew that but was very slow to change his habits. It was a big point of contention in the marriage.

Since women do typically make a good deal less money than men, a level of debt that a man is comfortable with can be very intimidating and problematic for a woman. Reducing debt is generally a good idea if you hope to go out on a limb and start a startup and will also generally make a financially dependent wife feel more secure. When I was married, more income never helped increase my feeling of security. It only seemed to go towards financing a higher debt load and this made me really crazy. It was another really major point of contention in my marriage.

Women are psychologically risk-averse due to the above financial realities. Shoring up her actual security by having adequate life insurance and similar measures can go a long way towards making a woman more risk-tolerant. It is a tactic used by the American military, which provides a generous benefits package, including free medical care, life insurance,and so on. Also, look at info on how women typically start a business. They usually do it in much the same way others in this thread have suggested: Work from home, part-time, don't borrow money for it, etc. Pursuing that type of busines model is likely to involve a great deal less actual risk and be far more psychologically tolerable and practically supportable.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you cope with quickly fading interests? - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I am currently studying computer science and mathematics at university and still figuring out what I want my career to look like once I get my degrees. The problem is that the things I find interesting today are not the things that I will find interesting in a week.
Two months ago I could not stop thinking about differential geometry and was sure it would be awesome to do that kind of research. Two weeks later and all I thought about was deep learning and convoluted learning. Then a month goes by and I find myself in love with zero-knowledge proofs and crypto, or learning how to build a home studio to record some music, or buying wood to build a DIY skateboard.
I believe this can be problematic as I will not be able to deepen my knowledge in any of these disciplines and then make a living out of one of them.
Do you have this problem? How do you cope with it?
Thank you very much <comment><USER2> I had this problem when I was an undergraduate.

I think that if you have the energy and intellectual capacity to follow these various interests without it adversely affecting your grades or future prospects (I didn't) then it's not problematic.

Otherwise you need to develop stronger self-discipline in order to get done what's necessary to jump through the hoops the system requires you to jump through. I wasn't able to develop this until several years later in life but I think that if I had been able to do so while still in university my life may have turned out better (though one can never really know).

As for how to develop this discipline, I don't really know because for me it just seemed to happen when the time was right. Meditation may help because it can help you gain some distance from your thoughts and feelings and make decisions about what to do from a calmer, higher level perspective, rather than following your immediate curiosity.

In any case I don't think you should try to suppress your interests too strongly. At this stage of your life you should be exploring different interests so that you can develop a clearer idea of what you really want to focus on. The key is maintaining balance and making sure that you're spending enough time and energy on your current course of study.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to suffer from this problem. I still do, but not as much. Two main techniques I use: 1)I quickly get to a point where I can do something creative in the field of interest. Then the urge to keep my "baby" alive takes over. 2)I get my friends involved if possible, so that the urge not to let them down also takes over. Problem with 2 is that sometimes the friend cares less about the field than you.

</comment><comment><USER4> You have to separate work (and studying) from hobbies.

It's great if your work is what you enjoy doing, but that won't always be the case. So focus your studying on what appear to be long-term saleable skills that will lead to a job (or to an academic life, if that is your objective).</comment>


UFO Found on Ocean Floor? - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/15311-ufo-ocean-floor.html <comment><USER2> Well, there's two possibilities. Either it's a crashed alien spacecraft, or some kind of rock.

Therefore it has a 50% chance of being a crashed alien spacecraft.

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks an awful lot like the Millennium Falcon...

</comment><comment><USER4> Can't be a UFO. Hasn't been spotted flying.</comment>


5 Secrets Entrepreneurs Will Never Reveal - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/aileron/2013/07/03/5-secrets-entrepreneurs-will-never-reveal/

<comment><USER2> I was thinking it would be something like "headcount, top-line revenue, last valuation, and hmm I wonder what else".

Instead it's a bunch of self-help goo.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. lonely at the top, do not count on anyone but yourself to solve all issues 2\. Profit and cash flow, look it takes cash to make the company last. In order to do that you need to monitor your profit. 3\. Not a fairy tale, you will get your share of sleepless nights and empty stomachs from all of the worries about how to run the company. 4\. Time, it is crucial in the business, because you need all of the time that you need to complete the work in the month. water and electricity bills and salary will NOT stop for you if time goes by. 5\. Better have enough cash reserve to want to make this company work, often times people give up easily or run out of cash. You cannot run a company on hope, you need cash.

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess you have to be an entrepreneur yourself to understand the true value of the topics raised

</comment><comment><USER5> I bet something funky was involved with getting this to the front page</comment>


The Tao of IETF - <AUTHOR> https://www.ietf.org/tao.html

<comment><USER2> How do you tell if an RFC is a standard? TLS says "proposed standard" published 7 years ago: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5246](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5246)

<comment><USER3> The main way is the "Category: Standards Track" part at the top. There are a few different categories: Experimental, Informational, Historic, and Standards Track.

This may not be 100% accurate, but basically: Anyone can submit an Internet Draft for the Experimental or Information categories, whereas the Standards Track ones have to come through a more intensive process, an IETF working group, etc. The Standards Track ones are the ones that are technically 'standards', or which are intended to be standards.

That said, some non-Standards Track RFCs do end up getting widely implemented (such as IRC: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1459](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1459) ), and an RFC being on the Standards Track doesn't necessarily mean everyone's going to implement it -- or at least not right away (such as IPv6: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2460](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2460) ), so it's normally best to take a look around and see the real-world usage for the specific technology/RFC.

For a more in-depth explanation, the IETF is the best place to take a look: [https://www.ietf.org/about/standards- process.html](https://www.ietf.org/about/standards-process.html)</comment></comment>