ralph

Having someone to talk to about technical issues specific to the problem you are solving also helps.

Yes, it's helpful. I have programmer friends who are happy to go over stuff like this. They don't need to be co-founders to be helpful friends.

I moved to caffeine-free Diet Coke when it was launched here from Diet Coke. I was happy to put up with the taste difference thinking I'd get used to it. However, by the end of the week I realised my consumption had more than doubled and concluded it was because I was in search of the caffeine so reverted. (I do tend to open a can and sip it over a couple of hours normally.)

Sounds crackpot, I know, but the end result has been to make me detect these now unusual items, e.g. if a newspaper is somewhere in this area of the house. I guess my tolerence levels have come down as my exposure has dropped. There's an awful lot of crap floating around these days. Perhaps that's why country folk visiting the city can take a dislike; "All the noise and commotion gave me a headache". Or what they breathed in?

Good idea to give up drinking the stuff. I'd like to but find it hard to drop the caffeine first thing in the morning. Coffee's too much of a kick and more of a slippery slope.

I suspect a lot of people that automatically reach for a Diet Coke every day would also spot the difference.

I get the impression you don't drink it?

Yes, some countries do have bizarre rules. When I worked in France, we couldn't go into the office at the weekend because the whole site was shut down with only security present. We used to hire a hotel conference room instead and work there.

In England it's completely different. Other EU countries may be the same. Typically, whenever some backing EU treaty gets created, sane countries negotiate an "opt out" and ignore it.

bootload has started doing this. I think it's good. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26422

If I could search YC I'd point back to an earlier discussion we had on S3. One of the points that came up was how do you know when your uploaded file is "safe", i.e. not when the upload has finished but when all N copies exist so you can go back to your user and say "fear not". A simple fetch of it is insufficient; S3 is selling itself on its redundancy so it needs to prove it. Anyone know of a way to do this?

My poorly made point is that old fashioned advertising may be an initial way to attract users if they're targetable.

Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. -- Blaise Pascal, Lettres provinciales, letter 16, 1657. (I am sorry for the length of my letter, but I had not the time to write a short one.)

Paul, I agree it needs to attract, entertain, and hold the reader but feel the verbosity is laziness in editing rather than style.

I'll see your Padova roundabout and raise you The Magic Roundabout: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)

It's five roundabouts arranged in a circle with connecting roads between them on the edge of the circle. It effectively creates a bigger roundabout in the middle with contra-flow.