>> Is there some kind of widespread anger at truck drivers?

I'm just one data point, but I've driven the I-5 in California between the bay area and southern CA a lot (about 180,000 miles on my 2005 Tacoma truck) as well as Hwy. 99 in the same vicinity.

I'd say that I've become apathetic towards truck drivers in general. I've been nearly run off the road twice (once where I was sure I was going to wreck real bad - got lucky), been cutoff, etc. by truckers more times than I can remember. Most truckers are safe, but the ones that are not can really skew your perception. Considering, in most cases, when a 18-wheeler causes an accident (I've witnessed a few), there is little damage to their truck or to themselves...the 'regular' car on the other hand is usually destroyed with devastating injury to the occupants.

This story made me feel like a jerk for moment (I've flipped off truckers before) - but the emotional aspects of the story can be applied to everyone else on the road too. Truckers are not the only ones that have to drive for their livelihood or have personal issues to deal with.

Having spent a lot of time in a truck, I can tell you it's extremely difficult to cope on high-traffic roads. Most car drivers will crowd around you giving you no chance to change lanes, etc. Sometimes you have no choice but you just start creeping over and scare everyone out from around you. Obviously most truckers know what they're doing and they won't actually run you over -- it's bad for them, too.

When I'm out on the highway in a car and I see a truck ahead of me trying to get over into my lane, I'll most likely slow down to hold up the lane behind me and give them a quick headlights flash to they can get over. I'm sure the other cars hate me for it, but who cares.

The headlight flash is trucker code...if you do it for them they typically flash the trailer lights back...kinda like a salute and I can say they are typically appreciative (BTW...not a high beam flash but an off/on flash).

My father was a long haul truck driver (lower 48 states) for 35 years. 9mos/year on the road, moving furniture, loading his own truck as an owner operator...he was one of the good truckers with over 1 million safe driving miles...I cannot say they are all good drivers but a lot of them are. If they are an owner/operator all expenses are paid out of pocket (fuel, repairs, tires, food, taxes, etc.) so typically an owner operator is going to be more cautious than a driver who doesn't have to pay for damage.

On a side note there are certain trucking companies which hire mostly new drivers (Swift is an example) I typically watch out for those trucks.

Wish I could do an on/off flash. Darn automatic headlights can't turn off while driving. But most drivers know this and a quick brights flash is understood the same way.

Around the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St.Paul) you get a lot of people in SUVs not taking into account the size and maneuvering of trucks. I have seen a couple try to pass from 3 cars back when the truck has already signaled a lane change. Then they get mad at the truck (lots of honking, cussing, etc.). It is especially annoying when you see the "look for motorcycles / bikes" bumper sticker on the vehicle acting like an idiot.

You are so right about the headlight flash, help the truck driver quite a bit.

There is no reason for a truck to be in anything but the right lane unless it is doing or about to left turn.

The problem isn't on roads where you can turn left at all. It's a highway problem. And in the Northeast, it's standard for any three-lane road to have trucks in the right two lanes. Having trucks solely in the right lane leads to merging problems.

It seems like most of the folks who've commented with such authority ("there is no reason", indeed!) aren't really familiar with why the rules are as they are.

Just like irrational fear of airplanes, truck drivers suffer a bad rep because of the availability heuristic[1].

*Edit: The article and comments also relate to the fundamental attribution error[2], where we often think someone is a "jerk" if they are speeding for example, but we often fail to take into account their perspective and situation.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

Fun read - I especially liked the last statement of the interview:

>> Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering. When you finally get done and get to appreciate what you have done it is like a part of yourself that you've put together. I think a lot of the people here feel that way.

I would recommend joining the SVForum if possible - They offer, among many other things, 'office hours' with technology/startup law firms;

http://www.svforum.org/

Regarding carrot quality, both Bolthouse and Grimway Farms have been growing a different type of carrot specifically for the baby carrot products.

A family friend is an exec at one of the above companies and he mentioned that the taste of the baby carrots are indeed more bland than the 'regular' carrots. I just conducted a highly scientific experiment and tasted one of each at lunch - my conclusion: he is correct :)

I agree. They generally don't taste as good. My carrot consumption is down since I don't often eat the big ones.

There's also way too many baby carrots per bag and most of them go bad within a few days (crusty and dry with white blemishes on the skin). I'm sure you could re-peel them since it's just the skin, but that's a lot of effort for the size.

We let a mid-sized oil services company beta test our software for free and had our lawyer draft a non-compete/IP protection contract letter;

For the amount and quality of feedback we received, allowing the free beta test worked out great - I could not have paid a group of QA testers to provide as good feedback as I got from the beta test company;

In addition, most companies do not like to 'pay to test' a product.

In our situation, the company ended up purchasing our software and about 18 months later was acquired by Halliburton - Halliburton has its own software division and no longer needed us;

Goes almost without saying that Epic develops great game engines; however, IMHO, Crytek's cryengine at GDC was more impressive and has done a better job of rendering outdoor environments and foliage better than the Epic's Unreal engine; Unreal still has top spot in market share but I think Crytek will make significant gains in the next couple of years;

That said, Tim Sweeney is still a hero.

This has been true for over 5 years (far cry came out in 2004...). And yet, CryEngine has basically only been used in other Crytek titles. If destructible trees couldn't sell game engines, theres little new hotness in CryEngine 3 that will. I bet in another 5 years, we will be saying pretty much the same thing.

>> What else do you do besides computers?

Wife and one child provide a lot of 'doing' :)

I have a mountain bike that I ride around nearly every evening for at least an hour (a lot longer on weekends)- I ride that same bike to a gym three times a week;

Read a book;

Having bootstrapped my own business, my biggest issues were dealing with stress and 'the unknown'. I was unmarried at the time so I could handle the pay decrease and living without niceties.

Cash flow was always on my mind - if a client postponed payment, or flat out refused to pay for whatever reason (happened to me a few times, even from 'established' clients) I would be mentally overloaded trying to figure out how to get by for the month.

You go through such a roller coaster ride of emotion - There is no better feeling of joy and accomplishment than having a client sign a contract and pay with a nice check; there is no worse feeling than sitting at your desk, staring at the wall trying to figure out how you'll pay the bills for the month...

Anyhow, I would never trade the experience for anything, though I'm not sure if I could have handled it if I were married at the time; I would echo Dave's sentiment that bootstrapping is hard but also extremely rewarding. You'll come out a tougher SOB for it, thats for sure! ;)

I agree that the experience is worth it. I'm currently in it with a wife and 3 kids, and I wouldn't trade it for anything right now.

> ...there's the obvious question of what the heck do you do with all this data? If you have a crummy night sleeping you're going to wake up and have a bunch of graphs and charts that basically say "Yup, you sure had a crummy night." You can apply tags to the data, things like "cat scratch" or "creepy owl outside window" to help you figure out why your evenings aren't as restful as they should be. But, really, wouldn't a pen and piece of paper achieve much the same thing?

I was about to pre-order a wakemate several months ago, but I had the same lingering thoughts above and canceled my order;

> There are a lot of people asking in comments whether the thing managed to make us feel more refreshed when waking up, and the simple answer is no. That's because, more often than not, the battery was dead by the morning or for some other reason the wristband failed to trigger the alarm.

Considering the wakemate had several delays prior to launch, looks like they should have let it bake a little longer...

> my favorite place Ten Ren down in Chinatown.

Ten Ren is awesome - friendly folks who also educated me about how to prepare tea and let me know that you could steep it multiple times (which was news to me at the time since I only steeped once and then threw out the leaves).

Having since moved to Southern CA, I visit their store in Monterrey Park. Good folks still, but I miss the charm of the Chinatown store.

Yes, agreed. They're very friendly and humble. The quality of their teas speaks for itself. I didn't know they had one in CA! A good tea dealer is worth so much win.