Lessons in Growth Hacking a Skillshare Class - <AUTHOR> http://www.growhack.com/2012/10/02/lessons-in-growth-hacking-a-skillshare-class/ <comment><USER2> I've been thinking about writing an article like this for a while, but most of my tips are New York City specific, so it won't help most people.

Here are things I've learned from my Skillshare Class (<http://skl.sh/NlGdYU>) that might help you:

1\. Get out of Brooklyn. Seriously. It's really really difficult to get people to come to Brooklyn. Finding a venue can be hard, but keep it in Manhattan.

2\. If you NEED to have a class in Brooklyn, lower the price significantly. TELL people you lowered the price.

3\. Teach your class even if only one person signs up. Some days are just bad for sign ups. Teach your class anyway.

4\. Ask for endorsements/feedback at the end of your class, stress how much it actually helps you.

5\. I find higher attendance rates on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

6\. If you want your class to eventually be $39, teach 3 or 4 classes at $10. Get the positive endorsements, then up the price for future classes.

7\. Blog about your area of expertise. Promote your blog, not just your class.

That's all helped me. Good luck!

<comment><USER3> Thanks Dan (Josh here).

I've only taught @grind - I'm trying out Brooklyn next week because I wanted to test another area. So far, no good.

I always stress endorsements, which is why I have 11/13 endorsements.

One thing I've also offered was money back to those who've already taken the class when they refer a friend (forgot to include this one). Still, no one has taken me up on that yet.

Interesting that M, T, Th are best days. I've always wondered about that.

Btw, my class can be found here: <http://skl.sh/SsWGKJ>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think OP may be over-looking something obvious ... maybe people just aren't that interested in a Poker class?

A few arguments why this might be the case:

1\. through WPT, ESPN, youtube etc, it's easy to get access to poker pros to hear their war stories ... i.e. it dilutes the draw of "experts"

2\. good (not great) poker strategy is pretty simple ... play premium hands aggressively pre-flop from late position; following that advice would get most people to break-even, but, that strategy can be boring (lots of waiting around)

3\. most people play poker for the social element (i.e. to get drunk and suck out on their buddies) ... improving this usually means finding ways to encourage your buddies to drink more

I definitely agree that marketing is hard ... but, when you've made a good- faith effort to get the word out, and nobody is biting, it may be time to "pivot" and find something else to sell.

<comment><USER3> This is very possible, and something I've worried about. I don't agree with your reasoning, but that's probably because it somewhat belittles what I teach. Still, it's very possible that startup people just aren't as interested in poker. The finance market is probably a better target market for me.

<comment><USER4> Didn't mean to belittle, I was just trying to talk out loud as to why I haven't signed up for a poker class.

In some ways, I'm an ideal student (play casually 1/mo, visit Vegas / Reno 1/yr, know enough to know that I don't know enough, etc), yet, I've never taken a class. I have purchased a few books.

Part of it might be that for something like poker, at the point of decision, I'm thinking "I could spend this money on the class ... or I could take this money and go play poker." Tough business! Good luck

<comment><USER3> im surprised you purchased a book (which is often stale) but wouldn't consider a relatively cheap class. i can pretty much guarantee you you'd learn way more with me.

in any case, good luck on the felt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was disappointed to see that this was really a list of things that haven't really worked out well for the author.

As someone who's having a hard time gaining lots of new users for my service[1], I was really looking forward to some actual lessons in what's worked. I checked out the Case Studies, but the content wasn't anything new or particularly relevant to the scrappy startup situation. I think the most useful content on Grow/Hack right now is this post with actual lessons learned in growth hacking: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603640>

[1] It would be remiss of me not to mention it: Iron Money <https://ironmoney.com/>

<comment><USER6> The lessons of what not to do is just as useful as figuring out what to do. Because you might try out things that won't work, rather than trying new ideas that nobody knows work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Adwords? I just typed in "poker course" and no adwords came up. Way different timezone but it's interesting that nobody is trying to get my business.

Also, I think you're using a shotgun method - try everything, see what works. I suspect if you can pin down who your absolutely ideal customer is, target your marketing at them, and charge higher prices, you'll do better. Have a way to increase the potential customer lifetime value much more than the $35-ish price - e.g. 1-on-1 classes for more money. Who is the type of customer who would pay you e.g. $200-500 for a lesson? What do they _need_? Or run a 6-month subscription class where you guide a customer's learning and play a couple online games with them here and there, check them on video for tells, measure their skill over the period.

I've bought a book on poker at one point and did read it but was not particularly good. I played a home game this last weekend that was Texas Holdem, so brushed up a few skills, bought a book on holdem math and am trying to work my way through properly calculating EV etc. I downloaded PokerTH and run it in the background every so often. What could you do for me above and beyond that?

I ask mainly to help you think about the customer's needs. I live far away and we probably share very little wake-time. I imagine there are home-game losers who want to beat their friends, people who want to be able to play in local tournaments, people who want to iron out a couple weaknesses for online games. Each will pay different amounts according to the value you can offer them.

</comment><comment><USER8> oh god now a whole site dedicated to the fluffy job title. Posting an ad on craigslist is not a growth hack, people have been posting classified ads for over a century now (albeit through other media, but the idea is the same).

If we must use the term "growth hack" it should really be in reference to actual novel ideas, like some sort of incentivized social referral system or a play on game mechanics in an otherwise standard application.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe no one wants your product?

<http://startup-marketing.com/the-startup-pyramid/></comment>


CD - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc <comment><USER2> OP, I'd be interested if you could highlight what interested you about CDs.</comment>


Proceed to Checkout: The Unexpected Story of How Ecommerce Started - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGyhA-DIYvg <comment><AUTHOR> I'm the Dan Kohn at the end of the video.</comment>


Show HN: gitver, simple version string management for git - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/manuelbua/gitver

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here: i've just started the project, thanks for any feedback you can give me!</comment>


Atom 1.6 Released with Pending Pane Items, Async Git and Top and Bottom Bar API - <AUTHOR> http://blog.atom.io/2016/03/17/atom-1-6-and-1-7-beta.html <comment><USER2> I love the concept of Atom and have a lot invested in its success. That being said, I switched back to Sublime because of the responsiveness, and here's why:

Programming (for me) is a craft. When I'm in the flow of coding, there's a conversation between me and my program, mediated through the editor (and my REPL). Even a subtle typing lag is enough to subtly disrupt that flow state – the speed of thought and text no longer coincide, and that slight, almost subliminal perception of delay build into a sense of frustration and just being out of sync with my program.

It's a problem that's most noticeable in its absence. Like when you go to the gym for the first time in a while and realize "oh, yeah, this feeling is what I've been missing", switching from Atom back to Sublime feels... right, refreshing.

For a great analysis of typing latency, and why it's important, see: [https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/](https://pavelfatin.com/typing- with-pleasure/)

(I am happy Atom is still moving forwards, though, and eagerly await the day I can switch fully from Sublime. Easy modification of ones own tools is another big component of my personal programmer-as-craftsman ideal.)

<comment><USER3> I've had the same feeling about the startup speed issue, but with javascript / typescript, I've found that Visual Studio Code occupies the middle in startup performance, and I've found the "intellisense" information to take a load off the mental difficulty of work and memory.

So now I use Sublime to make quick edits, but for anything longer, I use Visual Studio Code.

<comment><USER4> Visual Studio Code is built on electron and both are javascript running in chromium and I still don't understand the difference in performance between VSC and Atom.

Here is a conversation about VSC better performance. It was an interesting read [https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/10188](https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/10188)

I have tried both and both are slow and sticking with Vim and RStudeo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The new features and updates are great, but the one thing holding me back from using it is the fact it is extremely slow and laden with performance issues. Anyone who has ever attempted to open a file with a lot of lines of code will attest to the fact that Atom has issues.

Ironically, Microsoft's open source Visual Studio Code editor is based in part of some aspects of Atom and it has exceptional performance and is a great editor in comparison. They need to focus on fixing the slowness. VSCode proved that Electron is not the bottleneck but rather Atom's code itself is.

<comment><USER6> I simply don't understand the appeal of the thing. To a person, everyone who raves about it says, essentially _" just like Sublime Text, but in Javascript!"_, and yeah, that seems right. Just like Sublime Text, but in Javascript...and plagued with the performance problems you'd expect from Sublime Text, written in JavaScript. There's not really a killer feature that makes me want to switch from the editor I use already.

I must be getting old, because _"...but in JavaScript!"_ is not a selling point to me. I _don 't care_ what language my editor is written in, except that I'd prefer it to be written in whatever language allows the developers to implement its features in a performant and scalable fashion.

(I really love the downvotes for disagreement. Perhaps, if you like the thing so much, you could explain _why_ , instead of just trying to silence people?)

<comment><USER7> > Perhaps, if you like the thing so much, you could explain why

I am an avid Atom user who acknowledges how slow the thing can be. None of the slowness on my end approaches any of the horror stores in these threads, but for me, opening the program from a cold boot takes long enough for the wait to irritate me, the first time I save any file after opening the program takes a second or two, and opening a new window takes a second or two.

However, I stick with Atom for a few reasons.

First, Atom is like Sublime Text, but nicer. It has real settings pages! It has a built-in package manager! And although you might consider the fact that it's written in what is essentially a web browser to be a downside, there is a huge upside in that packages can create interfaces with that flexibility that Sublime Text simply can't match - compare something like this [https://atom.io/packages/php-debug](https://atom.io/packages/php-debug) with Sublime Text's best-effort [https://github.com/martomo/SublimeTextXdebug](https://github.com/martomo/SublimeTextXdebug) . Not only is trying to assemble an interface out of text buffers not as flexible as a webpage, they also tend to be brittle and break in odd ways if you do any window manipulation on your own - this is actually a complaint I have about Emacs and Vim as well. Also, it just feels like Atom's plugin API is more complete in general - I remember there being a Sublime Text package that required making a copy of your theme so it could add its own styles, and I haven't seen anything similarly hacky in Atom yet.

Second, Atom is open source. I had bought both Textmate and Sublime Text and both of those editors had updates slow to an absolute crawl to the point where it felt like the developer had abandoned them. I feel like Atom being open source makes it less likely to be abandoned completely, especially considering how vibrant the community that has sprung up around the editor.

<comment><USER8> Having a real settings page and a real package manager are Atom's main draws to me.

I tried to switch back to Sublime after being annoyed with the performance of Atom but kept running into configuration issues and really really disliked having to read documentation on how to configure the damned thing.

<comment><USER9> I've actually tried a couple of times to make a graphical settings manager package for Sublime, but the second problem of not having an interface beyond text buffers has made it a bit of a non-starter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been ignoring the Atom hype because "geeze a programmers editor written as a big blob of JavaScript on my desktop that sounds like a dumb idea".

Then I tried it and it's wonderful and magical.

<comment><USER11> We actually forked Atom and built an email app. It's worked surprisingly well!

<comment><USER12> Why a fork of Atom rather than a brand new Electron app?

<comment><USER11> We actually started building the app before Electron was released. They had just made the split to atom-shell and brightray.

Once Electron got it's footing, we migrated there. It's also easier for us to contribute upstream patches for things like touch events. (We launched swipe- to-archive a couple weeks ago.)

Atom is lagging behind Electron. It's still running on Electron v0.34.5 which was shipped in November of last year. They're trying to keep up, but the community of folks around Electron is growing fast.

If you're based in SF and interested in this, you should definitely check out the Bay Area Electron User Group: [http://www.meetup.com/Bay-Area-Electron- User-Group/](http://www.meetup.com/Bay-Area-Electron-User-Group/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really wish there was a way to use Atom in client/server mode. I'd like to leave a headless session running on my home Linux server and be able to attach to it from work. Right now, I use SSHFS to mount the remote directory so I can edit locally, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

Considering that Atom is all just Node and Chromium under the hood, it's surprising that there's no way to run at is as a server.

<comment><USER14> Check out nuclide.io. It's built on top of atom by Facebook. I haven't tried it, but one of its features is remote development using client/server.

<comment><USER15> Unless I'm misreading, parent is talking about something like X11 where the heavy lifting happens on the "server" side and the client is more of an interactive viewer. Nuclide is cool but it looks like the client / server stuff is for doing live development where the code lives on e.g. A web server. This is a thing in other IDEs too (such as IntelliJ), and it's a useful feature, but it doesn't get the main workload off the "client": [http://nuclide.io/docs/features/remote/](http://nuclide.io/docs/features/remote/)

Edit: Actually, running atom over X11 could work if you have some beefy remote machine / AWS workspace. You could even use Nuclide's remote capability above to connect _back_ to your laptop to edit local code, remotely, using a local client and running atom on the X11 server. Not that this is sensible or _not_ ridiculous, but if you really need that c4.8xl to run your text editor, it's possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Has anyone given Atom a lengthy comparison in performance on a Macbook Retina versus non-retina machines?

I've owned 3 Macbook Retinas to date and every single one has had sluggish behavior in many apps. Google Chrome and Electron apps seem to fall into that mix for me. I've yet to give Atom a lengthy test on a non-retina machine, but I can say that I definitely get the performance issues with Atom in regards to app and document behavior and type latency. Plugins just make it even worse. In fact, some plugins like linters and live markdown preview bring Atom to a point where it's literally unusable.

What the Atom contributors have done is quite amazing and the app has come a long way. I'd go as far as saying it has everything I want in an editor for a front end developer. I would use it as my primary editor if the type latency could disappear.

As of right now I basically just keep Atom up to date with my SublimeText preferences and give it a try on each release.

</comment><comment><USER17> I really hope they'll improve the discovery of third-party plugins, the repertoire of available atom plugins is insane, yet finding something you want is still a /lot/ harder than with sublime + package control...

</comment><comment><USER18> I use Atom (the beta channel) every day - it has become my favorite editor because of all the nice support for different languages.

It could be a bit faster, but I'm confident that it will get better.

I also made the mistake of opening a large data file (100 MB) with it one day. I won't try that again :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> If you like it when editors are fast and lightweight, have a quick startup time, are able to load really big files (e.g. database dumps) without any problems and generally do not distract you with random annoying things while you are working on code, then you will be happy that development on geany is going on - there was a new release [0] this month!

Yes, of course there are several [1] packages, e.g. for Ubuntu [2] - so you do not have to waste your time checking for a new version, downloading it via your browser and installing it manually, like it was done in the last century.

I am not affiliated with geany developers in any way, I am just not a follower of the new-old church of bloatism.

[0] [http://www.geany.org/Main/20160313](http://www.geany.org/Main/20160313) [1] [http://www.geany.org/Download/ThirdPartyPackages](http://www.geany.org/Download/ThirdPartyPackages) [2] [https://launchpad.net/~geany- dev/+archive/ubuntu/ppa](https://launchpad.net/~geany-dev/+archive/ubuntu/ppa)

</comment><comment><USER20> Despite Atom's shortcomings that everybody knows about, I really like it and use it frequently. It has a huge number of high quality plugins (and some not so high).

That said, eventually I see myself moving to vscode. Text editors are meant to be opened and closed frequently, unlike an IDE. So I typically will have atom opened for various tasks, but will use vscode to "check out" a file. vscode is also written in typescript and something that I'm very interested in. I'd probably move to vscode for a bunch more tasks if it had a decent vim plugin.

In some kind of ideal world, vscode could use atom plugins, but I know that's probably a recipe for disaster with huge instability issues.

I'd really love for Atom and VSCode to actually come together one day in the not too distant future. I think it makes sense to pool resources in the "Electron editor app" ecosystem.

But congratulations to the Atom team, nonetheless. When things work, it's a very pleasant experience....especially considering the technical roots it comes from.

<comment><USER21> I don't know that I fully agree; I leave my Vim instance open for literally days at a time in a tmux session, which works somewhat as my "IDE". Much as I've heard I'm only supposed to do this with "real" IDE's, I have yet to really notice a single drawback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Lack of MRU tab switching and preview tabs are two reasons I haven't switched from sublime. Glad they are listening to requests.

<comment><USER23> Dude read the change log, this is explicitly added in the new 1.7 beta.

<comment><USER24> I believe he knows that, was acknowledging that those issues were blockers in the past, and complimented the devs for listening to requests like his.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't really want more features for Atom. I just want it to be faster. Right now it's incredibly sluggish compared to e.g. Sublime. Is there any hope on this front, or are the performance issues intrinsic?

<comment><USER26> I see this comment every time an Atom post gets on HN. Are you sure it's not just your computer specs? If Atom continually makes the HN front page then many people must be using it just fine and like it? Personally I'm not sure why we need another text editor of all things, but hey its made in javascript which is hip at the moment.

<comment><USER27> A quad core, 16GB RAM rMBP with SSD should really be able to run a text editor for a 500 line Python file without caret lagging behind typing :/

Sublime can do it easily, Atom still can't. Am I holding it wrong?

<comment><USER28> I don't have any lag. Do you have lag with a plain text file? Does this happen with default install no added plugins? I recently was editing a 10M log file with no lag.

I've had problems sometimes with all these editors with occasional bad performing plugins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> >> File types can be easily associated with Atom now it registers itself so it can be associated with file types. No more need to hunt for atom.exe

This is great! I've had to associate with atom.cmd for quite a while now, which has been a bit annoying.

</comment><comment><USER30> For the people complaining that it's slow: what plugins are you running?

My contribution: Community packages used most often: api-workbench, fonts, language-sql-mysql, term3, vim-mode Others: dash, export-html, language- docker, linter, markdown-pdf, markdown-preview-plus, markdown-preview-plus- opener, markdown-scroll-sync, markdown-writer, stash-tabs

</comment><comment><USER9> My biggest problems with Atom:

        Too slow, especially with large files

        All the plugins I seem to want to use are constantly broken

My problems with Sublime:

        Confusing json settings hierarchy

        UI not extensible enough, plugins try their best

I wish one camp would fix these so I can finally settle.

</comment><comment><USER31> It just locks up my MBP until I eventually close it just like atom 1.5 did. I've never understood the point of this editor, however to be fair, I've never been able to use it without severe performance issues. I can run 8+ instances of jetbrains without even breaking a sweat but running atom out of the box is a non-start.

</comment><comment><USER32> My choices:

      - Jetbrains' IDE for heavy projects.
      - Sublime Text for single file editing.
      - VSCode (new coming for me): very good UI/UX, fast and free. Good choice for agile projects.

Sorry, have no place for Atom.

</comment><comment><USER33> Seems like the biggest complaints are around performance. I'm assuming Atom (and VS Code, etc) are using asm.js or some other library to get them close to native performance. Anybody have thoughts on that? or am I completely wrong?

<comment><USER34> Atom is (almost) like any normal web app from a performance standpoint. Runs on electron.

No asm.js magic here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> [https://github.com/atom/atom-keymap/issues/37](https://github.com/atom/atom- keymap/issues/37) is still open.

Yet another broken release for half of the world.

<comment><USER36> Oh yeah, lets just wait a few months for chrome to release KeyboardEvent.key and then ship a new release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is there any way to port Atom to run in the browser through a webserver? My work flow is autossh + tmux + Vim so that I can work from any computer on my server. If Atom had something similar I'd be interested.

</comment><comment><USER38> When it come to performance - on Atom (on OS X, with Git Plus) it takes me min 10 sec for git add-commit - versus instantaneous when using command line.

I am still using it, but delays really break the flow.

</comment><comment><USER39> "Block Decorations" worries me as I experience slowness in my browser whenever there are lot animated Gif pictures. Will Atom suffer the same thing?

</comment><comment><USER40> I really like Atom, but it kills my battery. I got a macbook pro mainly because of the battery life.

</comment><comment><USER41> The pending pane feature is really an improvement, because I found myself closing tabs way too often.

</comment><comment><USER42> that's beautiful... suddenly I resent my decade long addiction to a certain other editor. kinda.

Does anyone have experience using vim-mode?

<comment><USER13> As a longtime Vim user, I've been pleasantly surprised with the quality of Atom's Vim bindings. Text navigation and pane management bindings mostly work as expected. You get multiple registers for yanking etc. That's the extent of what you get, however. There's no emulation for the colon prompt, no macros, and it obviously doesn't support any Vim scripting.

I've been happy with Atom after transitioning from Vim, but there are still a few pain points. One that's particular annoying is that Atom's search/replace is very poor compared to the power I'm used to having with :%s.

<comment><USER43> If vim-mode doesn't go quite far enough, make sure to try vim-mode-plus.

Adreed, I miss %s pretty much every day. Also tabular.vim -- tried a few but haven't found an Atom equivalent yet.

<comment><USER44> I just did %s/a/b and it worked. I think you need to install the ex-mode plugin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> While I agree with most people that Atom is kind of unresponsive, don't you think that we have talked about it enough? Stop acting like you are the first person to notice. Since its first release that is the major complaint point. They either can't or don't want to do anything about it. Deal with it.</comment>


A Deep Dive into Qualcomm's Centriq 2400 for Windows Server and Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/11737/analyzing-falkors-microarchitecture-a-deep-dive-into-qualcomms-centriq-2400-for-windows-server-and-linux <comment><USER2> Something deep (and rather important) would be knowing it doesn't need special blobs and patches to boot.

<comment><USER3> EL3(TrustZone) presumably invalidates that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's great, Qualcomm is bringing Linux 3.x into the datacenter! They save big organizations 10% of TCO by stripping out all the user management bamboozle, it's no good anyway, with their custom Linux blobs everyone is root in no time.</comment>


(Cross-)Browser Fingerprinting via OS and Hardware Level Features [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://yinzhicao.org/TrackingFree/crossbrowsertracking_NDSS17.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Source code: [https://github.com/Song- Li/cross_browser](https://github.com/Song-Li/cross_browser) Demo: [http://www.uniquemachine.org](http://www.uniquemachine.org)</comment>


Bike Share Graveyards - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/08/china-abandoned-bike-share-graveyards/566576/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I'm not usually the environmental type but this shit is sickening. So much waste. So many resources pissed away for nothing.</comment>


Your thoughts on startup, joday.com - <AUTHOR> http://joday.com/#.UxmGvBcA8UI.twitter

<comment><USER2> Curation of video is a fine idea, but I wanted to comment on the actual messaging of the site so far.

Something the tone of the copy bothers me. "Let's meet Joe. Joe is an everyday internet user". "Joe is confused!". I don't think most users, even every day users, would describe themselves as "confused" about what to watch. Pandora certainly doesn't position itself as helping music listeners be "less confused".

I think it would be more useful to focus on the benefits, and how/why someone needs this. And while we're on benefits, focusing on real features/benefits has to be more impactful than saying "it takes only a few seconds to login". Having that in there almost detracts from the real point you're trying to get across, which is that you make video recommendations based on your viewing history.

<comment><USER3> I see. I will see, how we change the wording to be more meaningful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool concept, would be interested to see it in action. It's probably something I'd use a few times but would only use regularly if it showed interesting videos within the first few tries. Music is easier because it can be tuned out in the background, while videos demand almost 100% of the viewers attention. So if you're asking for that much attention, you better deliver =].

That said, _please_ refrain from the animations in the website's content. Although it's trendy to have scroll-initiated animations, it really bugs the shit out of me and makes me feel like I'm being treated like a toddler.

<comment><USER3> Yes, finding relevant video is the goal but there would be lot of hit and miss in the beginning... I guess having manual quality control over the machine selected videos may add value... will keep that in mind... thanks for the comment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pandora for videos? Interesting. Seems like it would be difficult to generate relevant recommendations as there is not as much metadata on videos as there is for music (least I don't think there is). Would almost have to rely heavily on a per channel type thing then per video I would think. Anyways, I ramble. tl;dr: I would try it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi Guys,

Do you think Idea is worth to pursue?

If Yes, what would be the most useful feature you want from it?

Also would you like to be beta user?

Thanks, Nish

</comment><comment><USER3> Please sign-up for early access. It would truly encourage us to work very hard and deliver great product to you. 1.10am PST Mountain View, CA

thanks, joday team</comment>


Heatmap of Covid-19 cases in Florida by age bracket over time - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mbevand/florida-covid19-line-list-data <comment><AUTHOR> My commentary of the heatmap: [https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1276578004072673280](https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1276578004072673280)</comment>


Show HN: Plait.py – a fake data modeler - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/plaitpy/plaitpy <comment><USER2> I've found the _faker_ library [1] useful.

The fake data that I've bothered to model are weighted age ranges. Fortunately, as of Python3.6, you can access it from random.choices [2] in the stdlib

[1] [https://github.com/joke2k/faker](https://github.com/joke2k/faker)

[2] [https://docs.python.org/3/library/random.html#random.choices](https://docs.python.org/3/library/random.html#random.choices)

example: [https://gist.github.com/Dowwie/8409d871ddae913e44c61bc4d47ce...](https://gist.github.com/Dowwie/8409d871ddae913e44c61bc4d47ce1cc)

<comment><AUTHOR> part of what prompted the work on plait.py was that joke2k/faker was reasonably slow to generate 10K fake names for me: [https://paste.ubuntu.com/26354987/](https://paste.ubuntu.com/26354987/)

PS. that's a really cool python tip!

<comment><USER2> Well done, then! :) Is plait a drop-in replacement for faker?

<comment><AUTHOR> it's a drop in replacement for stympy/faker, but not joke2k faker

joke2k/faker is python and the data is stored in code (all or most of the random values are in .py files around the codebase), perhaps leading to its slowness.

stympy/faker is ruby and its random values are in yaml files, with some fields defined as ruby functions (those are not supported by plait.py).

can use 'plait -l' and 'plait -ll name' and 'plait -ll name.name' (more info in the README) to get a list of fake fields available.

<comment><USER2> if/when you tire with the latest performance improvement, consider porting to Rust and adapting it to python via cffi

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another great approach to generating notional data is using the Haskell QuickCheck library and specifically the Arbitrary type class. Super simple and extremely flexible/composable.

Probably also available in other languages.

<comment><USER4> The ones I used and can recommend:

"hypothesis" package in Python (+pytest plugin)

"rapidcheck" in C++

"quickcheck" in Rust

<comment><USER5> good list for generating model data / fake data

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting, though I must ask: Why YML instead of a DSL?

Granted, I come from Ruby, and writing DSLs is pretty typical. Maybe not so popular in Python.

I am asking this because I become suspicious of config languages that read like code. Is not a bonafide programming language the better choice in this scenario? i.e. all overly-configurable formats (e.g. Terraform .tf files, JSON schemas...) converge on just being a new scripting language?

<comment><AUTHOR> good point! i'm not against a DSL. as I was working on plait.py, one thought going through my head was: "am i re-writing haskell or lisp but worse"? my experience with python and DSL is that I need to use YACC / PLY to create a grammar and so on. maybe a lot of work. i take it that its easier in ruby?

yaml was a format I chose because it is easy to write (close to human), but can not express full programming concepts (but yes to some metaprogramming). i did not want the templates to be full powered as they are meant to be able to express relationships between variables, but not much more (especially not side effects). they also support lazy evaluation - statements do not need to be in order. this is closer to a "mathematical language" for me.

the choice for yaml was also based on the premise that if performance becomes an issue, can hopefully move to another language but retain templates (will have to re-implement python's "random" compat, though)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool, is there a way to use it to dynamically generate data (for streaming)? Would be nice to be able to just call something like .next() and get another record so a simulator can run for an indefinite period of time.

<comment><AUTHOR> if you create a template and keep calling .gen_record(), i think it will do what you want. Template() does not implement python's __next__ or __iter__ at the moment, but that's a good idea - i'm very open to diffs :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could I use this to generate XML?

<comment><AUTHOR> if you already have a way of printing XML, you can add a "printer" field (that is a python function) to your template, like so:[http://github.com/plaitpy/plaitpy/blob/master/templates/test...](http://github.com/plaitpy/plaitpy/blob/master/templates/testcase/codechef.yaml)

if that function uses an import, you might also need to add an "imports" field, like in this example: [https://github.com/plaitpy/plaitpy/blob/master/templates/web...](https://github.com/plaitpy/plaitpy/blob/master/templates/web/browser_with_geoip.yaml#L26)

otherwise, that's a feature that can be added here: [https://github.com/plaitpy/plaitpy/blob/master/src/fields.py...](https://github.com/plaitpy/plaitpy/blob/master/src/fields.py#L1019), if it works for you (and is added as a flag), i'd be happy to take patches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What advantages over faker

</comment><comment><USER8> Could this be used to generate XML?

<comment><USER10> Yes, it's open-source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> a faker faker</comment>


Do You Really Need a Smart Watch? Or Just a Smart Watch Back? - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/do-you-really-need-a-smart-watch-or-just-a-smart-watch-back#.VXDc9TEyGlU.hackernews <comment><USER2> This is pretty interesting. Functionally, I think it would cover most people's needs.</comment>


Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-02/electric-bike-makers-woo-americans <comment><USER2> The e-bike situation in China is very different from the US. These are people who are moving UP from human-powered bikes, or walking, to their first vehicle -- not buying them so that they can leave their car at home and feel the wind in their hair. Here's a photo of a very typical Chinese e-bike: [http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00zsrEyYQIYOqo/Chinese- El...](http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00zsrEyYQIYOqo/Chinese-Electric- Scooter-for-Men-and-Women.jpg)

As you can see, it has a second seat in the back for a passenger, and is built much more like a very lightweight motorscooter than a bike. The batteries are typically lead-acid, not lithium, so they are big and heavy, and probably don't give all that much range. I'm curious how people charge and store these vehicles, since most people in Chinese cities live in multi-story dwellings -- I guess they must lug the batteries upstairs with them at night?

The real reason these work in China is that in most of the cities I have been in, they make up 30 to 40 percent of the traffic on the streets at any given time, and so they become a force to be reckoned with in terms of traffic flow. That makes a HUGE difference in terms of rider safety, especially when compared with the US where drivers are often confused or surprised when they encounter a single cyclist mixing it up with eight lanes of car traffic moving along at 45 mph.

I think it's really admirable that China has been able to get a sizeable fraction of the population riding these silent, lightweight e-bikes, instead of polluting, noisy motorscooters or big, inefficient cars. However, I really question whether this model would ever fly in the USA.

<comment><USER3> Another _huge_ reason is that China outright banned the use of gasoline powered motorcycles in many big cities; since the majority of people just can't afford a car, the only replacement they could have is electric bikes.

Maybe one day we'll also see gasoline powered personal vehicles be banned in the West ? I kind of doubt it, seeing how important the car is in our society, even though there is some progress towards it (see for instance the car-free days in Paris ([http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-36243119](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36243119)), and I'm sure in other places as well)

As always, more information on Wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_industry_in_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_industry_in_China#Electric_bike_and_motorcycle_development_in_the_90s))

<comment><USER4> This kind of ban only makes sense with dense electrical and infrastructure penetration. Good luck convincing people in the country to give up four wheel drive and switch to a vehicle where fuel cannot be stashed.

<comment><USER5> ... because people in the country don't have electricity?

<comment><USER6> ...They have to drive farther.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pretty serious MTB/cyclocross racer here that's done a lot of trailbuilding and trail advocacy: a lot of dudes are scared that offroad ebikes are going to kill access to hard-won trails. It's a not-unfounded fear as motorized bikes are pretty dang close to motorcycles in most people's eyes.

That said, I'd love to have an ebike! I have a 26 mile one-way commute (that's a 30 minute train ride) but every once in a while I ride my road bike in. I arrive sweaty and have to clean up in the bathroom. Not ideal. If I had an ebike, I could ride in assisted without sweating all over the place and then on my commute home, turn the motor down and get a workout in.

<comment><USER8> Long time cyclist and bike shop owner here. I recently put an electric hub motor on an old DH bike and have been riding local trails. I have to admit, I did not expect the push back that I have received from cyclists. I get trolled, called names and targeted all because I like to ride my ebike on the trails. Funny thing is, nobody else seems to care. Only other cyclists.

<comment><USER9> Those other cyclists will be the ones who will loose access to the trails. After two difficult decades of finding a balance between hikers and bikers on the trails these new breed of trail ebiker destroy the hard found compromise. As sooner as ebikes are forbidden on trails as better.

<comment><USER10> They're motorcycles, they are already forbidden.

<comment><USER9> In europe they are still allowed everywhere if they are constructed as a pedelec with a top speed restriction.

<comment><USER11> 25kmh with pedaling (you can go faster, but the engine will stop assisting at that point) and 6kmh on just engine.

I keep seeing videos on /r/ebike and similar from USA where some yahoo has ordered engine and battery from Ebay or China that can push the thing way into motorcycle range.

<comment><USER12> > 6kmh on just engine.

FWIW that makes it not a bicycle according to EN15194. EN15194 recommends a bicycle classification for vehicles which

* only ever provide assistance

* below 25km/h (with progressive cutoff)

* with maximum continuous rated power of 250W

Anything beyond that is classified as a moped.

Though EN15194 is a recommandation, member states are free to follow it or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> eBikes are sincerely a great alternative to cars for me. I've been using an electric bike (Stromer ST1) for about 3 years now in LA and Boston. It makes perfect sense for these cities.

The total cost of ownership is way below a car, due to the low cost of Uber, other people with cars, insurance and gas. In high traffic and hard parking cities like LA and Boston, I get to my destination faster. And though a bicycle is almost 7x as dangerous per mile ridden, I travel much less—maybe 1,000 miles a year instead of the 15,000 I did by car. While the weather is a problem in Boston sometimes, some gloves and a warm coat tide it over well. Besides, who wants to drive in a snowstorm? Overall, the experience holds up to close scrutiny.

Conversely, I am pretty much subsidized by other people's vehicles. And in LA, I nonetheless still owned a $1,000 Toyota with a $50/mo insurance and low hundreds in parking tickets to keep it outside. While that ownership was only a small part of time, it was necessary.

eBikes I think can really effectively complement ride sharing and car sharing. It will save everyone money. And as more people adopt them, the danger of biking will decline through changes in infrastructure like bike lanes and lower speed limits.

Ironically, probably the least persuasive thing is pointing out how the Chinese adopt eBikes. Americans don't want to emulate Chinese anything. It needs to seem cool, organic, high class. Besides, a $3,500 eBike won't break when you come to a fast stop the way a $500 eBike conversion will. Better to keep it safe and expensive than mass manufactured and dangerous.

<comment><USER14> What's your source on the claim that bicycling is 7x more dangerous than driving a car?

Most sources put it around 2.5x more dangerous than driving, and I'd wager most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders who don't know the traffic laws as applied to bicyclists.

Fatalities Per Mile

Motor Vehicle Travel.................... Bicycle Travel

42,000 killed........................... 813 killed

2.56 trillion miles..................... 21 billion miles

0.016 fatalities per million miles...... 0.039 fatalities per million miles

Data from Traffic Safety Facts 1997 and The Environmental Benefits of Cycling and Walking

Pulled from [http://www.bellboycott.com/cached/www.kenkifer.com/bikepages...](http://www.bellboycott.com/cached/www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm)

<comment><USER15> _Most sources put it around 2.5x more dangerous than driving, and I 'd wager most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders who don't know the traffic laws as applied to bicyclists._

Unsure about deaths, but it turns out that more experienced cyclists are actually _more_ likely to be injured, even taking into account that experienced cyclists generally ride more.

I can't find the paper now, but [1] shows a similar finding:

 _accidents were associated with.... cycling experience (curvilinear association)_

[1] [https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=1356866](https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=1356866)

<comment><USER14> That's interesting. Your comment jogged my memory on a study of how automobile drivers act around bicyclists based on drivers' assumptions about the appearance or perceived level of experience of the cyclist.

According to the research, overtaking vehicles drive closer to better equipped cyclists (wearing a helmet, reflective vest...) than a woman with long hair and no helmet.

Also, the bicyclist with protective gear might be more prone to engage in risky behaviour. [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but- true-h...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-helmets- attract-cars-to-cyclists/)

"The implication," Walker says, "is that any protection helmets give is canceled out by other mechanisms, such as riders possibly taking more risks and/or changes in how other road users behave towards cyclists."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I rode a manual bike for several years, and bought an e-bike about a month ago for my 25-mile (round trip) commute. It's been amazing. I still get cardio (albeit not as much), I don't have to change in my lycra, don't have to shower when I get to work, and the commute is actually faster than driving (the 101 sucks). I'll still do the occasional ride on my old bike, but it's mostly e-bike now.

<comment><USER17> What e-bike are you using?

<comment><USER16> Stromer ST2

<comment><USER18> Do these really sell for $6K+? I'd love to have an electric assist option for my 30 mi round trip, but the cost is a tough pill to swallow... $3K I'd do in a minute.

<comment><USER16> Stromer ST1 is about that much. ST2 doesn't buy you much more tbh, it has a GPS and theft protection, little bigger battery. $3k actually seems to be the magic number where ebikes are good. Also, as others have said, building your own is a cheaper option. At 30mi you would likely want to charge at work (I do anyway, it's easier on the battery).

Also, FWIW, I was debating a second car (married w/kids) or the bike, and am 100% satisfied with my bike and the price I paid for it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Daily (manual) biker here (~70 miles per week).

These ebikes are a clever hack. In China they skirt motorcycle laws. In the US they can make use of bike paths. You can make good time and your commute is generally the same duration regardless of traffic. At least, that's true in Silicon Valley.

Last I checked (a few years ago) pedaling the ebikes is like pedaling a tank. Batteries and motors a heavy bike make. So you're using the motor and there's not a lot of cardio happening.

I ride my bike because I want to live longer/better. I don't think you get that with these, but there's definitely a niche for them.

<comment><USER20> If you're male, consider that long-term bike riding can cause infertility, erectile dysfunction, and prostate problems esp. depending on the saddle you use.

<comment><USER21> That's if he uses a saddle.

<comment><USER22> What's the alternative? Standing on the pedals? Or are there other styles of seat, not covered by the word "saddle"?

<comment><USER14> There are "noseless" saddles and saddles with a channel down the middle that may help protect the sensitive bits. [http://www.thebirdwheel.com/noseless- saddles-tested-updated](http://www.thebirdwheel.com/noseless-saddles-tested- updated)

But my biased opinion is buy a recumbent! Fewer back, neck, and nether region issues, plus, they have comfy seats! [http://www.bacchettabikes.com/recumbent- bikes/](http://www.bacchettabikes.com/recumbent-bikes/)

VERY comfy seats! [http://www.hpvelotechnik.com/produkte/scorpion_plus20/index_...](http://www.hpvelotechnik.com/produkte/scorpion_plus20/index_e.html)

A long wheelbase (crank behind the front wheel) and a more upright riding position is perfect in city traffic. On my commuter, my eye level is about even with drivers in crossover vehicles.

<comment><USER22> OK, that's closer to what I thought. I was kind of thrown off by the previous comment, which I read as implying "there are things besides 'saddles' that you can use".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I drive an electric motorbike/scooter in Saigon. It's bigger than the ones this article is talking about; 6 batteries, 1800 watts, 80km/h top speed, 100km distance.

It's been great except for what it's doing to my electric bill and the fact the batteries are lead acid. Hoping to convert to LiPo in a couple of months.

To charge it, I have to bring it in the elevator of my building which is fine though it is the size of an actual gas motorbike and way heavier because of the batteries.

<comment><USER24> 1800 watts isn't nearly enough to do 80km/h. Maybe 60km/h, tops.

Power goes as the cube of speed, so 80 takes more than 4 times as much power as 60.

Of course, your speedometer could be lying to you.

<comment><USER23> We tested it with a car and another motorbike.

It can only do that on a full charge and the bike shakes a bit too much for comfort. But traffic in Saigon rarely goes above 30km/h anyways. When I have free charge of the road, I average about 55km/h.

<comment><USER24> My ebike maxes out around 1400W -- that's an actual measurement made with a power meter -- and the fastest speed I've ever seen is 56km/h (and that was with a tailwind). And this is with relatively fast tires (not racing tires, but smooth road tires) and a big fairing!

Given the same tires and aerodynamics, the difference in top speed between 1400W and 1800W is the cube root of 1800/1400, or 1.087 -- you can go 8.7% faster. That gets you to 61km/h. And I bet your aerodynamics and tires are both worse than mine.

So something is out of whack here. My guess is it's a combination of things. Most speedometers in cars read high, many by as much as 10%. So let's say you were really doing 72km/h. Maybe with a full battery you're really getting quite a bit more than 1800W. For my bike to do 72km/h would take at least (72/56)^3 * 1400W = 2800W. It sounds a bit unlikely that you could really get that much, but who knows, it depends on your controller and motor. (You'd think they would have rated it higher, though, if it could really do that.) To really get 80km/h would take over 3800W.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A: No.

Why?

1\. Hardcore cyclists are elitists in the US and will hate it and make life miserable for the e-bikers.

2\. Non-cyclists will do dumb things in them like ride on the sidewalk.

3\. Many state laws require registration and plates for these things.

<comment><USER26> 1) That is changing, as the hard core cyclists begin to realize that more bikes on the road period means more demand for proper cycling infrastructure (or at least have roads that aren't bicycle hostile -- give me more than an inch beyond the white line).

2) As it gets more popular, hopefully more education will happen. In many cases, you have a seldom used sidewalk that runs for miles next to a bicycle hostile road. Is that a sidewalk or a multi-use path?

3) State laws are catching up -- see the new classification system that California passed (different regulations based on pedal assist vs. throttle, max speed, power, etc). They seem to have struck a decent balance.

<comment><USER27> _Is that a sidewalk or a multi-use path?_

Is there a pedestrian present? If so, that's a sidewalk.

<comment><USER25> Unless marked as a multi-use path, it's a sidewalk.

<comment><USER27> Well sure I assumed that it's _actually_ a sidewalk, but there's no reason to be authoritarian. If there really aren't any pedestrians around then cyclists really aren't harming anyone. If one is cycling on the sidewalk and sees a pedestrian, one simply hops off the bike and walks it until the pedestrian is out of range.

<comment><USER28> Sidewalks are a lot more dangerous for bikes than you might think. The problem is cars have expectations on how fast people approach and will often assume an area is clear based on walking speed. Further even low speed collisions with pedestrians can easily send a rider into traffic.

<comment><USER27> One might err in assumptions about what I think. Parent had " _seldom used sidewalk that runs for miles next to a bicycle hostile road_ ". Obviously that is different from a regular grid of streets, where _no one_ should cycle on the sidewalk. As soon as crosswalks appear get your ass in the street. Even in the situation the parent described, however, the presence of one pedestrian makes it a sidewalk again so no cyclist will ride and no low speed collisions will occur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I ride 20 miles a day in Minneapolis on my e-bike.

My biggest fear is when we will ruin it for everyone. There just isn't the proper infrastructure for them. Bike paths around here have 10mph speed limit signs and are mostly mixed use. Not enough connecting roads have bike lanes.

It will grow wildly popular once a cheap US based lithium battery supplier appears (Tesla/Panasonic).

<comment><USER2> Exactly, e-bikes are an odd tweener. They don't mix well on bike paths if you're bombing along at 20 mph, and in a lot of places people still just don't feel safe riding anything with two wheels on public roads.

I don't see a lot of people who aren't already comfortable cycling to work (though maybe preferring to get there faster and with less sweat), going out and buying an e-bike.

<comment><USER30> That was one of the issues with Segways as well. A lot of people (understandably) didn't want them on sidewalks. But they weren't really suited for roads either.

<comment><USER31> Likewise kick scooters. Fast and quiet enough to make pedestrians think "you are like a bike and I should treat you like one," but in fact far too slow for roads and unexpectedly agile on sidewalks.

Basically, all the vehicles that sit in the intermediate gradients of speed/acceleration are in a position for their simple existence to offend everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Tons of people rolling around Seattle on these long ebikes with some cargo and a couple kids on the back. I love it! Although anecdotally, ebike riders are much more likely to ride way too fast and pass dangerously close on trails.

</comment><comment><USER33> Delivery guys use these all the time in NYC and I'm seeing more and more folks riding on them, even fellas in bizness suits. I'd say they've arrived.

<comment><USER34> When you consider e-bikes are illegal in NYC thats even more impressive

<comment><USER35> Yeah, laws about the lightweight end of the spectrum in powered transportation came into being when we were talking about noisy, polluting two-strokes. They make little sense in the context of lithium ion batteries and silent brushless DC motors.

<comment><USER36> Having these things silently blasting down the sidewalk at 20+ mph is incredibly dangerous.

<comment><USER35> People can bicycle at 20mph too using their legs. On paths and lanes where these things are banned.

Common sense wattage restrictions (I have seen 1hp or 750W as a threshold, for example, and apparently parts of Europe do 250W limits) are perfectly feasible.

Apparently federal law on imports dictates that the class of 'low-speed electric bicycles' is defined by a maximum of 750W and 20mph, which is a surprisingly appropriate envelope - about as much as you'd want out of a single-rider passenger bicycle with a heavy rider or cargo in a hilly city.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#Defined](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#Defined)

* [http://www.alysion.org/ebiketours/power.html](http://www.alysion.org/ebiketours/power.html)

<comment><USER12> > apparently parts of Europe do 250W limits

That's part of the EU recommendation for classification as an assisted bicycle (pedelec) rather than an electric moped (e-bike): 250W maximum continuous rated power, assistance-only (user must be pedalling for engine to engage) and progressive cutoff _to_ 25km/h[0] (so the cutoff starts earlier, at 25km/h or above there's no assistance)

[0] ~16mph

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> We see them frequently here in Hamilton, Ontario and it's quite unfortunate - culturally, theyve ended up on the bottom rung of society. Idealists bike, pragmatists drive, so e-bikes are the domain of drunks and the unemployable.

The perfect low-cost solution to traffic carbon emissions and we hate the people who use it. Expect the same in USA.

</comment><comment><USER38> I believe e-bike (along with the quantity) is one of the secrete that contributes to the huge eCommerce success in China.No media mention or notice that yet. The cost of the last mile delivery makes a big difference, the competition is flatten along with the whole China, the market is extremely efficient.

</comment><comment><USER39> I lived in China, and I can say that ebikes is a cultural thing. The way that people navigate, the average age of bikers who ride the ebikes, and the way people navigate cities is not found in the US.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm an American living in China and I used to own one of these. Here are my thoughts that I wrote down a while ago:

Why e-bikes are the next big thing

Like a car, they offer cheap on-demand transit to your exact destination. Unlike a car they do not support long distances, heavy loads or more than 2 people, but often those features are not needed by the urban commuter. Furthermore they lack many of the drawbacks of a car; getting stuck in traffic, the need for parking, the need for insurance, licensing requirements, high fuel requirements etc. Furthermore an e-bike is a signifigantly smaller investment than a car. Having it lost, stolen or damaged poses less of a personal risk to your finances. Unlike a classical bike, e-bike's do not require the user to be in shape or even exert effort to operate. Thus we see that in the personal transport market, e-bikes represent the best of both worlds for the urban commuter. We can see proof by demonstration that in the right conditions they can be enormously popular (China). Why haven't they taken off all over the world yet?

1\. Topography. They are generally not powerful enough to go up steep hills. Sadly this rules out San Fransisco which would otherwise be quick to pick up on an eco-friendly trend.

2\. Weather. In the cold winter with icy roads these vehicles are unpleasant to drive. A 40 km/hr wind chill on top of 0 degrees will make you sick. The Chinese have invented a sort of bike apron/jacket that helps with this but although it is an unfashionable solution. For this reason the bitter North East and flat-but-frigid Mid West probably wont take to them (ruling out the otherwise perfect market of New York).

3\. Regulation. These vehicles neither qualify as motorcycles nor bicycles and thus are often ambiguous or de facto illegal in many parts of the states.

I think point 3 is a huge mistake. If the US is serious about green technologies, deregulating e-bikes would be a huge boon.

Further thoughts: People initially think e-bikes are unsafe. That is because of historisis. If e-bikes developed before cars then most traffic would be e-bikes for the practical reasons cited. If most traffic were e-bikes then they would be seen as enormously safe. In general they do not have the momentum to seriously damage pedestrians or other e-bike users. It is actually cars that are the dangerous vehicles. Furthermore if most traffic were e-bikes then the throughput of a given road would go up because about 4 to 5 e-bikes can easily drive in the same space currently used by a car. This effect is partially canceled by the fact that e-bikes are slower than cars, but within a city driving speeds are only about 30-50 km/hr anyway. The amount of parking space available in the city would also go up for similar reasons.

</comment><comment><USER41> A friend of mine builds his own e-bikes and they're incredible. He made a very stylish one, with big tires, that makes him meet lots of people who want to know where to buy one :) He made another one with a suitcase-sized battery pack and tremendous power (20kW) just for fun, but it's fugly with its big boxy battery :) I should have taken pictures :)

</comment><comment><USER42> Here's an interesting e-bike that recently launched on IndieGoGo and raised $1.6M mostly in the US.

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flux-electric-bikes- with-...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flux-electric-bikes-with- attitude/x/8982031)

<comment><USER43> 250W is on the low end. You'll notice the difference but it's not going to get you up hills at 15mph+.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> They are also increasingly common in Copenhagen. Both regular style bikes and three-wheeled cargo bikes.

<comment><USER45> Interesting. Besides the bike. I've read reports that Norway and Denmark want to ban gas and diesel cars by 2025. [http://www.renewablesinternational.net/will-norway-ban- gas-d...](http://www.renewablesinternational.net/will-norway-ban-gas-diesel- cars-by-2025/150/537/94287/) What do you think about this?

<comment><USER46> I think you may see a rise in the number of "work" vehicles if the ban passes, just like people in the UK buy "industrial" incandescent light bulbs.

I also think that a critical point, use will take off, and safety will go up.

I think that when someone rides a bike they become much more aware of cyclists, so getting more people on bikes makes them safer from vehicle drivers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm a year-round bike commuter in the upper Midwest. I also use my bike(s) for errands, recreation, etc., though I own a car for longer trips.

These days I'm seeing a growing number of e-bikes on paths that were designed as bike infrastructure but are multi-use. My view is that they'll be OK so long as the behavior of the riders doesn't get out of hand, which we'll find out when the accident statistics start to pile up in bigger cities. For now they're relatively few in number, and the riders tend to be quite courteous.

I'm supportive if it increases demand for bike infrastructure and awareness of bike safety.

</comment><comment><USER48> > Electrics "finally have legs to be able to take off in the U.S.," because > cyclists are feeling safer on the roads, battery and motor technology is > improving, and retail prices are dropping, says Todd Grant, president of the > National Bicycle Dealers Association.

I like the idea of bikes. I want to ride them on bike trails. But I wouldn't ride it on the streets in suburbs, for example. It it just not worth the risk to me. It would take considerable infrastructure rebuild, bike lanes, better planned intersections, etc before I would consider riding a bike.

</comment><comment><USER49> In countries where the car is dominant, one of the most important factors is safety. Cars can easily kill someone on a bike, scooter or motorbike just by running into them from behind, e.g. if the bike is stopped at lights, and the car driver is not paying attention behind them. In a car the most you'd get is whiplash.

</comment><comment><USER50> I like the idea of banning motorbikes, but it is probably impossible to ban american-freedom-harley-wake-the-whole-neighborhood lifestyle in US.

IMHO ebikes are not less safe. You can manually pedal faster than most ebikes, and just because their average moving speed is higher, that does not make them intrinsically less safe.

</comment><comment><USER51> Make it expensive to own and park a car, and make it a challenge to drive it in towns and cities, then absolutely ebikes will become popular in the USA. But if the above is true, then regular bicycles will still be MUCH more popular than ebikes - as they should be.

</comment><comment><USER52> I loved my electric bike, especially when I went from heavy, slow SLA batteries to an expensive LiFePo pack.

Then I got a car and got lazy and tired of the dangers of trying to travel across town next to people texting on their smartphones in two ton SUVs

</comment><comment><USER53> Wow. I would totally start biking to work if I had one of these. So cool

</comment><comment><USER54> Does anybody know of a good, complete, ebike conversion kit for an older trek mountain bike?

I have a 4.4 mile round trip commute but I don't really want to spend $1000+ , plus I'm pretty diy.

<comment><USER55> Mr Money Mustache recently posted a writeup for a conversion for _about_ $1000. I think you could do the same conversion for less if you source your kit and battery cheaper- these same kits sell for less on ebay.

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/25/recipe-for-a- badas...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/25/recipe-for-a-badass-diy- electric-mountain-bike/)

<comment><USER56> AliExpress (Alibaba for b2c) has a better selection and is generally cheaper than ebay but shipping is literally the slow boat from China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> What's holding me back is what I read about batteries, how fragile they are and how they self destruct if you don't keep them plugged in all the time. Is this still true?

<comment><USER58> Sort of.

Individual cells are usually fragile (as in, you can dent or puncture easily). However, they are usually protected by their enclosure.

If you are talking about lithium cells, then you should not drain them completely. Which means that they should be kept with some charge. But, unless you intend to keep them stored away for months at a time (and maybe even then) you should be fine.

There's also that fact that, when people think about batteries, they think about laptop batteries. Those are optimized for power density above all else. They are not the only type of cells available.

If you are worried about safety (and charging cycles), get a LiFePo battery ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery)). This is the same kind usually found in electric vehicles and hybrids.

<comment><USER57> I'm not worried about safety, I'm worried about having to buy a new battery every year (at a cost of >$500) because I would use an electric bike only 6 month a year at the most, and it would destroy itself during the time I'm not using it, or if I forget to charge it for a week or two, etc.

<comment><USER59> A lithium ion battery stored at half charge in a cool place should last perfectly fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I see more and more people in Belgrade too, which is weird. I am really thinking about getting one. It could be healthy, fun and geeky.

</comment><comment><USER61> Not quite the same, but before getting my license i had a small moped which was a lot of fun. I wouldn't switch back to it though.

</comment><comment><USER62> A lot of delivery boys use them here in NYC. I don't like riding among them because they are quiet, and go faster than any man-powered bicycler can conceivably go. They're kind of a hazard.

</comment><comment><USER63> There are very different safety implications when so many of the vehicles on the road here wouldn't even notice when they creamed a biker.

</comment><comment><USER64> Everyone in Tel Aviv uses them--ordinary people use them to get to work. They make a lot of sense, especially in places with good weather and bike lanes (though there are many tricky places to ride bikes in Tel Aviv too because of the traffic and motorcycles!)

</comment><comment><USER65> Probably not. It's really safe to ride a bike in China anywhere at anytime. Many cities in the US you'd be subjecting yourself to random beatings by strangers.</comment>


"I made the first animated 'under construction' icon" - <AUTHOR> http://www.metafilter.com/85695/Please-Be-Patient-This-Page-is-Under-Construction#2774563

<comment><USER2> That's quite a story. It is humorous to think about how someone could have such a huge impact in the early days of the internet.

Now animated GIF's are very passe, and I'm glad. Those old GIF laden sites were worse than modern MySpace.

<comment><USER3> _Those old GIF laden sites were worse than modern MySpace._

I disagree. There was a certain innocence and enthusiasm about them that made them almost charming, or at least quaint. MySpace is just... bad taste.

<comment><USER2> I guess when you look at it like that I have to agree with you. The quality of those old GIFs might have been bad but at least they were used with fairly good intentions and "innocence" as you put it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This brings back memories of developing websites in the late 90's. Some people would purchase domains and want to setup a website just so they could put this animated construction worker on the site. It was enough for some businesses to look like they were cutting edge.

</comment><comment><USER5> In 10 years time, I wonder what we'll look back on and see as the equivalent "under construction" for today's internet.

\- Any guesses?

<comment><USER6> That little zoo of "bookmark this" icons that appears next to posts on some blogs. The one with a Digg icon, a Twitter icon, Facebook, StumbleUpon, et cetera, all right next to each other.

Tag clouds.

<comment><USER5> I'd say those "bookmark this" and "email this" links are getting pretty tired as well...

<comment><USER7> I find the "email this" link to be extremely useful for when I want to read something, but don't have time to right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm 23 and was just getting started in web development as frames where becoming unpopular. It was amazing to read about a point in time where animated gifs and frames where amazing new technologies that made his life easier.

It helps me to see that maybe the things I find as very important technology- wise, might be just as futile as an animated gif.

<comment><USER9> I remember thinking frames were the best thing for navigation because you only needed to keep the one file updated, I didnt even know about server side includes back then :) css came a few years later too.

<comment><USER10> I remember when all my sites ended with .shtml and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

<comment><USER11> Do you also remember the days before Google? When we had to literally submit our sites to Yahoo's directory, etc.? Good old days :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Makes me nostalgic and depressed at what we thought was cool at that time. In 1996, I made a javascript image slide show hosted on geocities for pictures of me and my girlfriend. She was really impressed at my thoughtfulness and effort. She showed it to so many of her friends...a modern day equivalent of that would be to post a youtube video with annotations on how beautiful she is and do status updates on facebook/twitter about that video 900 times. :)

</comment><comment><USER13> I used his animated mailbox icon when I was in 5th grade on our elementary school page ([http://web.archive.org/web/19971008155351/www.ttsd.k12.or.us...](http://web.archive.org/web/19971008155351/www.ttsd.k12.or.us/schools/tua/tua.html)). The internet has certainly become larger and less anonymous feeling.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm kinda interested in how they did the server push animations. Does anyone know how exactly this was set up?

<comment><USER15> I'm struggling to remember now. It was done with MIME, but instead of finishing with an EOF after the boundary, you would start the next image. When it arrived (i.e. reached the next boundary) the browser would replace the image it had with the new one. It was similar in principle to HTTP/1.1 reusing a socket.

It did have one use - if you were doing something "live" on the server, you could generate an image on the fly and send it, e.g. for self-updating graphs without reloading the page. After it fell out of fashion, it wasn't until Java that you could do that again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That's all well and good, but who made the first horizontal rule 'rainbow' GIF, hmm?

</comment><comment><USER17> I think I remember spiders pick of the day. Crazy.

</comment><comment><USER18> I made the first animated "under construction" icon! Here it is!

In 1995 I had a site called the "Micro Movie Mini Multiplex" (MMMM). It originated as a collection of push animations. Push animation isn't used anymore, but it involved feeding individual animation frames through "server push", which means that a connection between the server and the client was kept alive while individual frames were fed through the connection. It was resource intensive, but when the site began it was the only way to do animation on the web. I collected every example I could find on the web and built a site that aggregated these animations. I tied the individual animations together through (what I thought was) clever commentary. The site was relatively popular (it was Spider's Pick of the Day, who remembers that?)

In December of 1995 I was searching the web for more push animations when I came across an unusual reference to a new form of animation. Netscape 2.0 was in beta, and it could handle a new form of animation. Someone had hacked the GIF image format, tweaking the interlacing so that individual frames were displayed at regular temporal intervals. There were only a handful of examples, but it was obvious to me that these "animated GIFs" were a major improvement over server push animations; you didn't need to keep a connection alive and, more interestingly, the animations could be treated like any other image... you could save the image and reuse it. I realized that these animated gifs would replace server push animations.

I rebuilt MMMM. I'm not an artist, but I spent several feverish weeks animating. I took icons that were already standard on the web, imported them into Photoshop, then modified them pixel by pixel, frame by frame, until I had a bunch of animated icons. My total output from that time is here. (The rebuilt MMMM used a couple other Netscape 2.0 innovations; frames, image maps, and Javascript.)

And people loved it. They saved the animated icons and put them on their own pages. For a very short time my site was the major supplier of animation for other people's webpages. I had given the GIFs somewhat distinctive names, so I was able to track their dispersal through Altavista searches (Altavista returned pages that contained images with specific filenames) and at one point, estimating the traffic on these pages, it occurred to me that my animations were seen by more people daily than any other animation in history.

I did all this anonymously and without monetary reward (which made sense, somehow, in the early days of the web). Eventually animated GIFs became commonplace, annoying even, and my anonymous 15 minutes of fame faded. But someday I'd like to record the moment for posterity, even if I have to do so in some forgotten thread on some community weblog.</comment>


Assasination attempt on judge of the Epstein/Deutsche Bank case - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/19/us/federal-judge-esther-salas-shooting-investigation/index.html <comment><USER2> Details are more grim than the title...the judge's husband and son were shot by a gunman dressed as a FedEx driver. Son died, husband is in critical condition.

<comment><USER3> I wonder how they know how the shooter was dressed if the son died and the husband is in critical condition. Ring doorbell camera or maybe the son or husband was able to give a description before passing or going to the hospital. I hope there is video evidence.

<comment><USER4> They don't know this, it's speculation. There was a Fedex driver in the area, but they don't know if he's the perpetrator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow. That's a great way to not only piss off the judge, but bring the full wrath of the federal government down on you.

Piss off is not the right word, because it marginalizes what happened. But man, that judge is not going to be on your side.

<comment><USER6> I'm not saying that the speculation implied by this headline is true, but, if this were related to the Epstein case, which explicitly involves the president, who just commuted the sentence of one of his several criminal associates... I'm not sure why you'd imagine the government would act with moral force and clarity here.

<comment><USER7> Trump is just one man, not the government.

The Justice System as a whole will take such an attack 'personally' and _everyone_ in the system will be 'on the move'.

Imagine a corporation of people just 'doing their jobs' and punching out.

Now imagine said corporation where everyone is personally, emotionally committed towards 'getting that special project done' and everyone is 'all hands on' and they 'really mean it'.

There won't be internal fighting over who gets what, anyone who needs help from anyone else is going to get i because 'we're gonna get that guy'.

To boot, they didn't kill the judge, they killed their kid. This just makes it a lot worse. Every cop, judge, detective, FBI agent is thinking about their families tonight.

<comment><USER8> I really hope you are right, but sometimes when people are scared, it feels safer to think of the victim as _" the other"_. Someone which while maybe didn't quite got justice, got what was coming.

This is one time I hope for esprit de corps to prevail, oddly enough.

<comment><USER7> This is 'revenge' (not quite that, but like that) - a very specific kind of 'esprit de corps' and very deep motivator.

A lot of people joined the forces after 9/11, somewhat similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For a moment I will consider the conspiracy: If you kill a judge, another will simply take their place and the process will continue. Ergo the only way the conspiracy holds water is if the judge could not be persuaded to violate her oath, etc. or the chances of a judge who would be more favorable would be set to take her place. It's madness.

<comment><USER10> If you are the replacement judge for a judge whose son was murdered you will probably save your own family and rule in favor of the powerful party that ordered the hit.

<comment><USER7> Probably the opposite. There will be so much oversight now, and 'all eyes will be on'. I don't think the system is likely to cower like that in the face of such a big, literally international issue.

<comment><USER11> Considering the limp-dicked response to Epstein's 'suicide' , what makes you have so much faith in 'the system' when possible powerful elements in this system are implicated?

<comment><USER12> That begs the question of why was asset Epstein left out to dry. Wexner, for example, is still protected by media shading lack of investigation of that prime 'sponsor' of Epstein's very well promoted career as a financial genius.

Since this was like a mob hit, I think the global protection racket you refer to as 'the system' is possibly manifesting conflict in 'the commission'. You see this at every level these days. There is a re-alignment going on, it seems, and not everyone is on board. (Just speculation.)

<comment><USER11> > That begs the question of why was asset Epstein left out to dry.

Perhaps he threatened someone that he'd talk. Perhaps some scapegoat was needed to take some pressure off. Perhaps it just wasn't worth protecting him because of mounting evidence. Or perhaps someone just hated his guts.

If it's possible to have someone 'whacked' in jail with little repercussion (which seems to me a somewhat plausible assumption), I can think of all sorts of reasons why things happened the way they did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a big deal, and it's not the only hit on a lawyer recently, and we also don't know whether the judge or the judge's husband was the target, and why. Epstein is actually an unlikely factor.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's a link on the Epstein connection [https://news.bloomberglaw.com/securities-law/deutsche- bank-i...](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/securities-law/deutsche-bank- investors-sue-over-epstein-ties-stock-drops)

</comment><comment><USER14> The title is both editorialized and making assumptions.

We do not know the motive nor the intended targets of the perpetrator.

<comment><USER15> Titles are usually editorialized?

<comment><USER14> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

 _" Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."_</comment></comment></comment>