traviswingo

I've always imagined blimps floating around and filtering our air above all the major cities and places where air pollution/CO2 density is worst. Does anyone have any reasoning as to why this isn't really being done?

Congrats to the author. I remember first hearing about this as a side project and thinking it was a super cool and fun thing to work on!

As a side note, nearly half this thread is talking about health insurance...really?

"Alien" actually doesn't refer to little green/gray humanoids from the movies...by the very definition the plants are "alien," since they differ from Earth and are unknown (or foreign) to us.

This could possibly be the most impactful thing many of us, here, have read (consumed) recently. Bookmarked.

How many people do you think it takes to make a single product? From what you listed, they average 26 employees per product. The products aren't released at the same time. Most of their products are the same, with minor differences depending on the language they're supporting. IMO they have too many employees...

I have it set to only notify me on direct messages or mentions for all channels. It's significantly reduced the number of distractions on a daily basis.

That's great :). Most problems worth solving aren't easy by any means. This could be a huge market if you do it right!

Seems like a good idea, but I wonder about the true quality of the review? In my experience, only a true team member who's familiar with the project (i.e. has actually been working on it) can provide a quality code review. Beyond that, they're just looking at ways to optimize blocks or find weird bugs in non-breaking recursive lines...

No paywall: http://archive.is/JNiVT

I'm starting to get sick of everyone coming out with their own streaming service. I cancelled my $200/month cable because I could pay $10/month for Netflix. I now pay for Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, and Hulu...it's starting to add up again. At this rate we're going to be right back where we started.

Just consolidate already and get over it. Sheesh.

@siddhant's recommendation to use the algolia search is probably the best way for simple searching of what you want. You could also always use the API and build a UI that better suits your needs, should existing ones not suffice.

https://github.com/HackerNews/API

Nope :). It's just a problem I've come across a bunch before. I'm exposing it so people will have a quick resource to use for a side project. As long as things stay relatively modest, I'll keep it open for free.

Hey all. I built this as a simple to use solution for parsing free-form street addresses around the world. It's currently integrated into my other side project, postcardbot.co. I've had many people reach out to me about the address accuracy, so I've decided to separate it out into it's own project.

I'll keep it free for now, unless people start abusing it.

Thanks for pointing that out. Left behind from some cleaning/testing. It's back to normal now.

There's a great documentary on Netflix about this titled "Something Ventured."

Doesn't Coffeescript convert Coffeescript to JS? `coffee -c input.coffee`.

It's a metaphor...the authors' point is that hour in do not equate to value out. An engineer can develop a solution worth tens of thousands of dollars to a company in just a day, by merely automating tedious tasks.

This is more of a thought piece than anything.

It sounds to me like this is _exactly_ what you wanted! You're tired, frustrated, don't believe in the product anymore, want to stop working on it, and a bigger company offers to acquire you. That's perfect!

Of course, the acquisition price will usually never be what you wanted, but you've made it further than most, and now get to wear the "I started a company and sold it" belt. Congrats :)

I say take the acquisition, use this as a learning experience, take some time to catch your breath, relax, pat yourself on the back, and try again when you're ready.

This title made me think they had a down round...

There is one aspect of this that is not being fully addressed - storage of the captured CO2. Yes, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere is a good thing, but storing it somewhere on Earth still poses a threat to the climate. A single mishap could bulk release years of stored CO2 gas and essentially undo all those collection efforts in a single day. Not to mention the potential for terrorist to target such stores.

IMHO it's because, once you decide to go open source, you're creating with the intention that this is a "for the community" type of product, not a "for profit." It's like a non-profit company with unpaid volunteers. There's a cause that many people believe in and anyone can help work towards that cause to make it a reality.

I was under the impression that they start with Android and sorta roll their own OS from there on out. At least, that's what I would do if I were bold enough to start a new hardware company with the likes of Apple controlling the sector.

Software and hardware each built with the other in mind is how Apple is able to support updates for 4 years after you buy your iPhone. Manufacturers who use Android aren't able to do so because the two aren't coupled.

Hopefully Essential does it right and take full ownership of their OS. That would be a real game changer.

Such a rad idea. Good luck! Also, design looks a lot like Stripe... :p

No paywall: http://archive.is/tSeuX

From what I've heard (don't quote me on this), I think Instagram was having serious financial difficulties at the time of the acquisition. The costs to run the service (media transfer and storage are a massive infrastructure cost) were astronomical. The Facebook buyout was almost the only way they'd stay alive without giving up a massive piece of the company in a funding round.

Yeah. This is where something like Final[1] would be super helpful.

1. https://getfinal.com

This is a tough decision, but you're absolutely not alone.

I've dealt with this in founding a company with my closest friends. I didn't agree with many aspects of how the company was being run and simply picked up and left. I also owned a significant portion of the company in my departure.

In my opinion, you keep the shares that have vested to you, not the shares you are entitled to. I left 2.5 years after signing my stock purchase agreement, so a large percentage of shares were already allocated to me. They tried to get me to give back some of my shares, but I worked extremely hard and sacrificed a lot over the 2.5 years (including working for free), so the shares were the only feasible form of compensation I could argue for.

Eventually what happened was the company issued more shares, effectively diluting my holdings to nothing.

They're still puttering along, doing the whole "I'm the CEO, bitch" thing, we're all still close friends, and I honestly don't regret a single thing about my decision because I was miserable working on it and fighting with my best friends every day.

Do what you feel is right and what will make you happy. In the end, that's what's important. Keep your shares. The chances of them being worth a significant amount are low, but in the event they're worth anything, you've earned that payout.

I like this idea; however, this is very subjective. Laying out 6 solid reasons for _why_ a startup failed is a bold statement. In reality, there usually isn't a concrete reason why, but I guess it's a good exercise to at least think about it collectively.

Seriously, though. I never understood why Groupon, Snap, etc. turn down these multi-billion dollar acquisition offers. It's not like these products/services have a huge impact on the world (if they were to disappear, who would really care?), take the money and run.

It's easier to argue money doesn't matter when you're not making a sh*t ton. If you have a family to support and are making a crap ton of money it's more difficult to walk away from. But yeah, it's definitely not worth dying inside for.