Lyft

I usually bicycle around Silicon Valley leaving my car parked. It usually starts, but sometimes it seems the starter just spins, oh well, with a manual transmision it isn't the end of the world to have to push it on. However yesterday I decided to try 10 of the $20 rides that Lyft gave me, thanks it now feel like I have to blog about this. Get your $20 with code: ralf4 I wanted to go to Docker, Kubernetes, CoreOS and Big Data in Apache CloudStack (Hosted at Apple) so there were 8 cars swarming around and one came in 9 min, didn't show up in the right driveway so I walked a bit, but a quick call solved it.

Once you get there you get a clear email showing you what was charged.

Thanks for riding with Bachson!

Ride ending February 24 at 6:04 PM

Ride 11.0 mi & 41 min:	$28.19
Trust & Safety Fee:	$1.50
Tip:	$2.00
Lyft Credits:	-$20.00

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Total charged:

$11.69

Had no bag, just to travel light, but given the way this works, it is pretty good, can bring a few people, cars usually have 4 empty seats, maybe 3, not sure, but it works well fast and I can rely on it, costs are higher than driving yourself, of course.

Keep in mind the prices below are in Silicon Valley, look up your pricing.

Lyft Pricing

Base Charge	$2.25
Cancel Penalty	$5.00
Cost Minimum	$5.00
Cost Per Mile	$1.35
Cost Per Minute	$0.27
Trust And Safety Fee	$1.50

Plus Pricing

Base Charge	$3.37
Cancel Penalty	$5.00
Cost Minimum	$7.00
Cost Per Mile	$2.02
Cost Per Minute	$0.40
Trust And Safety Fee	$1.50

It is rather annoying that you can't use Lyft or Uber on the computer, as Chrome also has location available, it should be seem less to hail your ride from the computer to than move the experience to mobile when you leave your desk. So this is smart phone only. Lyft works on iOS and Android, haven't tried it on a tablets it seems to be discouraged due to worst GPS and connectivity.

You come to realize that future versions of Taxi's will be self driving, after all the cost of this would so sink if you had electric self driving cars parked at a charger while they wait for you to summon them. These app based taxi companies seem like the perfect place to try them first.

So I could drink beer at my meeting or wine, no problem, 4 min after asking for a Lyft, one was roaming the parking lot. My second driver also had an Uber phone as did the 3rd driver, seems common.

Ride 7.9 mi & 22 min:	$18.95
Trust & Safety Fee:	$1.50
Tip:	$3.00
Lyft Credits:	-$20.00

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Total charged to credit card ***xxxx:

$3.45

So try them while they are viciously giving out the free rides, this is better and cheaper than a taxi, although it is P2P so you really depend on the algorithms to weed out the bad players. However is it worst than a taxi in that sense, I think not, the rating system should weed out bad players and the rally bad players, there are a small percentage of people anyhow, they could just as easily drive a taxi.

new body

Given that we get old and our bodies get worn out and broken, I would like to be able to upgrade my hardware.  However I guess the closest thing to this would be reproducing and programming the new firmware.

Burnout and Ops

I burned out at a start-up some 3 years ago before I got a stable good job with a large company.  Back than I was hoping to give the developers some more power and get them to define the kind of servers that we would need so that I can automate the starting of these servers on AWS.  The guy who hired me was talking to his next job he saw the writing on the wall.  This talk is very enlighting, wish I had listened to it before the job

Little Bits

These look like they would be fun and educational, however they aren't cheap.  I am thinking of getting one for my 6 year old, maybe in a year or now, haven't decided.

you can buy one plus one today

Funny that for black Friday the only concession One Plus One gives is that you can actually buy the phone.

Homeless in Silicon Valley

I wasn't aware how close to me the homeless bus is since I don't generally take the late bus or was even aware of the 24x7 nature of the 22 bus on El Camino, the main rode in these area.  Further more there is a whole area of homeless encampments right in my area.  I definitely understand how this can happen in this area of wealth.  Not everyone makes it in the tech industry and this area like Hollywood attracts more and more talent from around the world so the competition is tough to get jobs.

It makes sense that if you get on the 22 bus with nowhere to go, you might as well stay in it and keep out of the cold. Would be neat if the VTA could apply the fare to a cheap motel, but I guess they aren't in this business, even if by happenstance the buses are moving people to nowhere.  It is a sad reality, I get that the AOL intern was lucky enough to sleep at his old job as no one turned off his badge and was able to eat sleep and slower while working on his start up.

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead

I got interested in blending organic produce when I watched Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead some years ago, at the time I was doing pretty badly and I started trying to eat better and ride a bike, but my physical stamina sucked.  I later also watched Food, Inc. Forks Over Knives, Super Size Me, and probably some other movies that talked about the pitfalls of the industrial food complex that feeds us lots of corn often in the form of high fructose corn syrup.  My health got worse and I ended up on prescription medication, which these days I am weening off from slowly, but I digress.  The point is that we often don't feed ourselves with the right nutrients to sustain a healthy life, or exercise enough. I decided to move out of polluted El Segundo to Silicon Valley, Got a house close to work, which is a very low stress environment and must say that I feel much better these days with far more energy. So part of what i have done is buy a bicycle to ride to work every day rain or shine, summer or winter.

I bought a Ninja to chop up organic veggies and fruits which FarmFresh sends me a fresh box every 2 weeks for $33 of fruit and veggies. Coupon: RALF3127 will get you $10 off the first one. Neat idea, seems more good quality and fresh that what we got before from the market. For one time I also tried to get a bag from work, but cycling home that wasn't too convenient.  Anyhow I am trying to grow my own, but the process is still stuck at making compost also not figured out how to eat my own stuff, the birds and squirrels usually get the best of my crop anyhow and water is expensive here in the desert.

I feel good about the changes i did in my life in the last 3 years ;)