Scientists Build Anti-Mosquito Laser - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680870885500701.html

<comment><USER2> Is it only me or the whole article reads, smells and looks like an hoax? Consider the evidence: a) "... are tuning the strength of the laser so that it kills mosquitoes without harming other insects or, especially, people." Laser barriers capable of killing people, directly out of the movies. b)"Each time the laser strikes a mosquito, the computer makes a gunshot sound. When the mosquito is hit, it bursts into flame and falls to the ground, and a thin plume of smoke rises." Go to Kongregate and you will find dozens of flash mini-games doing exactly that. c) "Other ideas include devices that disrupt the mosquitoes' senses of sight, smell, and heat; feeding them poisoned blood; infecting them with a genetically altered bacterium; and creating a malaria- free mutant to overtake the natural mosquitoes." I like "poisoned blood" most, because it can kill vampires too. But "Mutant mosquito from the outer space X bacteria controlled mosquitoes from hell" would be a blockbuster...

<comment><USER3> As long as we're talking science fiction solutions, I'd like to propose a chemical weapon. It would have to be so safe to humans that you could mix powders of it in your drinking water, in quantities sufficient to create iced tea, without any ill effects. It would have to be simple enough that an illiterate peasant could deploy it using technology routinely available in the early 1900s. It would have to be dirt cheap enough to spray into every home in an at-risk region in Africa. It would have to be patent unencumbered, so that anyone could produce it. It would have to be stupidly easy to synthesize in quantity. It would have to have decades of research put into finding a fumigation protocol to defeat those crafty mosquito's pesky tendency to develop immunities. And it would have to be guaranteed to work, for example, by being successfully used to totally eliminate malaria in every continent inhabited primarily by white people.

If only such a magic chemical existed, we wouldn't have to waste time thinking up ways to swat mosquitoes singly with radar-guided laser weaponry. We'd just hire a bunch of folks to go around and spray a bit inside of dwellings, and bam, malaria cases would decrease by 90% within the first season of treatment, saving thousands of lives and removing an enormous economic loadstone from Africa's collective neck.

I know, I know, it sounds like a sucky sci-fi book because if the chemical is so perfect then where is the conflict? Aha, you see, that's where we bring in a group of religious fundamentalists who view it as a totemic embodiment of the devil, and will oppose it automatically, no matter the costs, from the luxury of their malaria-free gardens.

<comment><USER4> An LD50 of 113 mg/kg isn't exactly what you would call "Safe" - it's about as dangerous as caffeine (192 mg/kg)

But, point (very) well made (if somewhat subtle for a significant portion of the audience...)

Edit: Actually, knowing this audience, perhaps not that subtle. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't that ... Intellectual Ventures Patent Troll Nathan Myhrvold?

He'd BETTER wipe out malaria. It'd do his massively guilty conscience some good.

<comment><USER6> I doubt very much that Myhrvold has a guilty conscience. There is no reason for him to have one, anyway: he's just exploiting the current nature of the patent system. That is called "acting rationally" (assuming that his venture works out, which isn't at all clear).

<comment><USER7> And the mosquito is exploiting your exposed blood supply and acting rationally. So?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could this be adapted into a crowd sourced game? Take turns at the helm of micro laser canon to stop Imperial Mosquitoes from taking the blood and lives of the Rebel forces.

Save some money on the AI. Pay to play the game. Prizes, badges, and acheivements. :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Isn't detecting mosquitos much harder than killing them? How do they solve that? Echolocation? I'd love to win the war against malaria with robats!

</comment><comment><USER10> From two years ago: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSIWpFPkYrk>

</comment><comment><USER11> Would've loved, say, a dozen of these lasers every time I visit relatives back in Taiwan.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wouldn't it be better to invest in vaccines, instead? A laser powerful enough to kill a mosquito seems to be powerful enough to cause retinal damage. Am I missing anything obvious?

<comment><USER13> This thing can selectively kill them by gender which is pretty cool. Vaccines only help against the individual diseases spread by mosquitos, targeting the mosquitos directly is useful too.

<comment><USER12> I can see that, but note that there are always budget constraints, and it would not be unreasonable to ask whether there are other more cost-efficient ways of killing mosquitos or fighting malaria.

How many malaria-carrying mosquitos are there? Billions? Trillions? What would be the cost of burning them all with lasers? Given that biotech has made quite some progress, a more efficient solution would be perhaps to infect male mosquitos with some disease that does only kills female mosquitos, and when they f*ck the females, they would pass on the disease and remove malaria- carrying bugs from the face of the Earth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe we should attach lasers to the head of other mosquitos and start a civil war!</comment>


Mercedes Readies First Tesla Rival in $12B Attack - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-04/mercedes-readies-first-tesla-rival-in-12-billion-attack-plan <comment><USER2> Meh. MB are planning to _start_ production sometime in 2H2019, and no real details about the capabilities of the car. Meanwhile Porsche's Taycan will cost more than the Model S while having Model 3-like specs. The new Audi e-tron will also have 250 mile range and a 6 sec 0-60, both worse than the Tesla Model X.

Meanwhile Tesla has another 16 months or so to keep selling the Model 3 in large quantities. Color me unimpressed by the german companies' efforts thus far.

It is telling though that most of the companies are focusing on SUVs and not sedans. Tesla needs to up its game with the X and Y to address this.

<comment><USER3> I literally want a large Tesla Camper Van.

Or at least one of these in Tesla:

[https://www.mercedes-benz-vans.ca/en/sprinter-4x4/cargo- van](https://www.mercedes-benz-vans.ca/en/sprinter-4x4/cargo-van)

EDIT:

To further this thought, what I would truly wish would happen would be that A Tesla-like "drivetrain platform" were available to boutique shops who could build whatever type of cab they wanted onto a standardized system.

I worked with a guy in the 90s that took a Corvette Z base and put a 1938 ford on top of it.

I'd like to have the same be done with Tesla drive train bases - where you can have an upper made to fit the lower. Clearly, there would have to be safety standards to be met, so don't waste time arguing that point...

<comment><USER4> How about an electric VW van? [https://www.caranddriver.com/news/volkswagen- id-buzz-ev-conc...](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/volkswagen-id-buzz-ev- concept-photos-and-info-news)

Supposedly goes into production in 2022, and I can't imagine they won't kit some kind of camper version. If not, Sportsmobile or someone, and worst case is you build it out yourself. We're seriously thinking about one to replace what will be an old first-year Leaf and a 2005 Scion xB. Combine DogMobile and electric into one vehicle. :-)

<comment><USER5> Here's a non-tracking article on (presumably) the same car accessible to EU visitors: [https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/08/19/volkswag...](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/08/19/volkswagen- microbus-id-buzz/583225001/)

If that picture is correct, though, it doesn't seem to resemble the old van enough to be appealing, IMHO. Like many pre-Tesla electric cars, it seems like it's going for that "futuristic" look...

<comment><USER6> I think there's a market for something like it, but I'd argue the Buzz's success hinges more on whether the market is big enough, and whether the car is capable of long trips - they're associated with road trips as far as I know, and no one wants a car for trips that doesn't get you there and back without worry. (I suppose there are a few years for the charging situation to improve, but I'm not counting on it.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the interesting things that stuck out in this read was that Mercedes is going to invest more money to make electric cars than Tesla has[1].

The superchargers are a weird thing. Tesla has been building them out of their own investment pocket. Is Mercedes going to do that? Are we going to have bespoke recharging stations competing for bits of commercial real estate? How about parking lots where there are the 'mercedes spaces', 'nissan spaces', 'bmw spaces', and 'tesla spaces'? How does that work?

I think it is great that BMW and Mercedes are "seriously committed" to electric cars, is now the time to seriously commit to some standards when it comes to charging and maintenance? Will we see third party battery packs at some point?

I keep thinking, is there an electric car market or is there a Tesla market? Remember when tablets were just iPads and everything else kind of sucked (and kind of still does?) Is that where we're going in the electric car space?

As you can tell I have way more questions than answers here. What does the 'flip' look like when automakers really flip over to electric as the mainstream car?

[1] Jim Collins (who is a Tesla bear) notes 19B raised including the acquisition of Solar City -- [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2018/04/25/a-brief-h...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2018/04/25/a-brief- history-of-tesla-19-billion-raised-and-9-billion-of-negative-cash- flow/#138b64f63d65)

<comment><USER8> > Is Mercedes going to do that?

One of top execs at MB is my good friend so I'm getting this information from top source; he told me their idea is to go with replaceable batteries. You will have some sort of docking station in your garage and when you park short- term the car flips the batteries for you with a loaded one, or long term just auto-plug itself and charges overnight. No cables, no mess.

They work on this solution together with Citroen and BMW but I cannot find anything official or online. Ii will be offered to gas stations around the country and will take 1/3rd of a space that car washes are taking currently. Supposedly you won't even need to get out of the car - you just drive on it, stop, wait for green light, continue with freshly loaded battery! Much more comfortable solution than Tesla's stations.

BTW: I spend summers in Florida and looks like Teslas supercharges are dissapearing; I seen plenty of them at all Wholefoods parking lots in number of 10 or 16; now there is only one.

<comment><USER9> > "You will have some sort of docking station in your garage and when you park > short-term the car flips the batteries for you with a loaded one"

Are you serious? Tesla did this and presented a tech demo in 2013:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY)

> "auto-plug itself and charges overnight. No cables, no mess."

Another Tesla tech demo: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI)

Also, what do you mean "superchargers disappearing?".

It seems that Tesla is way a head on a lot of things and it will take quite an effort/investment for the incumbents to catch up.

Though in reality, wide EV adoption is a WIN for everybody and is actually the core mission of Tesla, which is to "Accelerate Sustainable Transport"

<comment><USER10> > > "You will have some sort of docking station in your garage and when you > park short-term the car flips the batteries for you with a loaded one"

> Are you serious? Tesla did this and presented a tech demo in 2013

Tesla seems to have faded it out of their roadmap. Cool tech but people seem to want to own the battery since it's a sizeable part of the investment in a car.

Europeans are different in that battery appears to be seen as a liability and therefore leased.

At stake is how much fast charging you use, as that seems to be what has the largest impact on the battery's life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just wait until it really sinks in for their dealers that selling electric cars means greatly reduced maintenance. Given what fraction of their dealers' revenue comes from maintenance, this will be a left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing kind of situation as the manufacturer and the dealer's interests fail to align.

Tesla worked hard to avoid having dealers. And I believe that dealers will be a weakness for the legacy auto industry here.

<comment><USER12> Yes, EVs have "low" maintenance but they are not without maintenance and other usual car issues like A/C, accident related fixes etc.

Owning Tesla outside of Warranty is worse than owning Benz outside warranty. Unless Tesla expands its support and does a better job with "ownership" and "repairability" of their Cars, I would Trust an 8 year Benz to an 8 year old Tesla .

<comment><USER13> That dealer avoidance also means that fixing a Tesla (regardless of warranty) might commonly become horror story [0]. And this drives insurance costs through the roof [1]. Having a network that can provide proper support might be more important than being able to make a sale when the product is shiny and new.

[0] [http://fortune.com/2018/07/24/tesla-repair- damage/](http://fortune.com/2018/07/24/tesla-repair-damage/)

[1] [http://www.thedrive.com/news/23278/report-tesla- model-3-insu...](http://www.thedrive.com/news/23278/report-tesla- model-3-insurance-approaches-porsche-911-costs)

<comment><USER14> > And this drives insurance costs through the roof

One bit of anecdata: full coverage on my 2017 Model S 100D (all options except performance) is only slightly higher than full coverage on the car it replaced: a 2014 Prius C with no options.

I was bracing for the worst, Re: insurance, but (I'm with Geico) the rate is...in my mind at least, very low. Perhaps they're factoring in all of the built-in safety features?

<comment><USER15> I'll piggyback this to add my own anecdata.

I pay about $95/month for Progressive insurance on my $28,000 Subaru BRZ. I got a quote on a $135,000 Tesla Model S P100D, and for the same coverage (Full coverage + Liability with moderate deductibles), it was $140/month.

<comment><USER16> The BRZ is a low end sports car frequently bought and wrecked by teenage drivers. Unless we know your age, driving history, zip code, miles driven per year, etc etc... we don't have the picture the insurance companies do.

Here's some actual data: USA Today found the Tesla Model S to be _the most expensive_ car to insure. [1] This was apparently such a problem that Electrek reported Tesla was considering starting their own insurance company. [2] Both of these articles are from 2018.

1: [https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/budget-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/budget- and-spending/2018/05/25/25-most-expensive-cars-to-insure/35234533/) 2: [https://electrek.co/2018/05/29/tesla-insuremytesla- insurance...](https://electrek.co/2018/05/29/tesla-insuremytesla-insurance- model-s-most-expensive-car/)

<comment><USER15> > The BRZ is a low end sports car frequently bought and wrecked by teenage > drivers.

I certainly don't doubt that at all. 200 HP isn't a lot, but combined with being rear-wheel drive and coming with economy tires, it's enough to get you into trouble if you're stupid.

I'm 36 though and bought it because I wanted a car that has some pep when I want it, and good fuel economy when I don't. I average 33.5 mpg when it's stickered at 24 city/30 highway!

> Here's some actual data: USA Today found the Tesla Model S to be _the most > expensive_ car to insure.

What I'm hearing is that the area I'm in generally just has really cheap insurance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> An aircraft carrier can't turn on a dime but when it eventually does turn around you've got a fuckin' aircraft carrier!

Tesla quietly crept around and made electric cars cool and economically viable while the industry had it's backs turned. They've certainly succeeded in becoming a reputable brand, everyone's at least heard of them. It remains to be seen whether they'll continue to be viable once the incumbents bring into play their ability to write fat checks and spin up production facilities without teething issues at every turn. The big players in the car industry aren't ignoring EVs anymore.

Personally, my money is on GM dominating the market. Maybe there's a place for Tesla and some of the later players in the high end.

<comment><USER18> The funny thing is, had Tesla just said: we don't need to innovate upon lean manufacturing at the same time as we're innovating on electric cars, they'd be super safe now. Instead they had to automate everything, then rollback, and now are limping towards 10k cars per week.

<comment><USER19> I think this hubris is what is going to kill them (unless they , hopefully, wake-up). They couldn't admit that maybe other people made cars pretty well already and that they'd make that process even better over time.

I think they imagined themselves too much like Apple and it's attempts at automating it's production of the Mac. However, they forgot that by this point Apple/SJ had already figured out a lot of how to do assembly of computers quickly and automating a good process is much easier than figuring out a process that'll be automated.

Prior to this automation everything was done semi-manually for Model S and Model X, with huge delays, so automating whatever they had was not the next logical step. It was short sighted of them to go to automation first and it's frankly causing unneeded delays to delivering the Model 3s and volatility in the market.

<comment><USER20> The problem was they are trying to shift to large-scale car manufacturing, and car manufacturing _is hard_.

They basically have a tent erected in the Nevada desert, next to their stalled plant, where they are hand-assembling cars now, which is causing all kinds of quality issues [1].

Honestly, the buyout from VW would have solved this issue because VW knows how to build cars at scale [2]. The fact they shot this down is exactly that - hubris - and now they're burning through the last of their cash reserves on their way to bankruptcy.

[1] [https://jalopnik.com/bumper-falls-off-brand-new-tesla- model-...](https://jalopnik.com/bumper-falls-off-brand-new-tesla- model-3-after-30-minut-1828306917)

[2] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-bravado-private- doubts-h...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-bravado-private-doubts-how- elon-musks-tesla-plan-unraveled-1535326249)

<comment><USER21> The tent and plant are in Fremont, in the East Bay of the SF Bay Area. You're thinking of the Gigafactory plant, which is where they make the batteries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As a German, where the car industry is really big, I have felt a little embarrassed for a long time that the German car companies apparently were unable to get off their asses and rethink the engine.

I remember 18-20 years ago, fuel cells got a lot of publicity, but nothing ever came of it. In retrospect, I think it was just a decoy.

Now these companies, that have been around for over a century in some cases, are facing competition from out of nowhere, and they behave like they were paralyzed.

It has been clear now for a few decades that in the long term, internal combustion engines need to be replaced. Car manufacturers appear to have been asleep at the wheel, so to speak.

If the industry is finally beginning to wake up, that is a good thing, but I am doubtful they will be able to turn around the ship in time. If they had started seriously some twenty years ago, who knows?

But I think it is too late now. It will take quite a while for companies that big to go belly up, but their fate is sealed.

<comment><USER23> Fuel cells were not a decoy, there was a really big push for them.

The 'problem' is that after a lot of investment ... they just never became economical.

Most of the car companies have been doing stuff in this area for many years, and it's not like electric cars are some kind of existential threat to them; they'll be just as happy selling them as combustion engine cars.

Cars are not software. It takes time.

As for 'waking up' \- they've been doing stuff for quite a while now, and the game has barely just begun. Electric car sales are a tiny fraction of sales and that's not going to change overnight.

The big auto companies are in a very good position, the entity the most likely to go belly up is Tesla, though I hope they don't.

<comment><USER22> Regarding fuel cells, I was never able to tell. I remember I was excited when one laptop manufacturer announced a fuel cell-driven laptop, but the project got delayed (which fits your statement), and by the time it got to market, the laptop did not get any more lifetime out of the fuel cell than its battery driven competitors, while being a lot more expensive. Now that you mention it, there is a fuel cell-driven submarine, which of course caters to a market, where money is not quite as much of an issue.

If the established car manufacturers were throw their weight (i.e. money) behind electric cars in a big way, they may indeed make Tesla eat their dust.

But that is a big if. Large established companies tend to develop a kind of inertia that is almost impossible to counteract, unless the company faces an existential threat. I would be glad to be proven wrong, but I doubt the major German car manufacturers are currently in a position to overcome this type of inertia. Maybe, if the state enacted some laws/regulations to push the manufacturers in the direction of electrical cars, but given the number of jobs that depend on the car industry, again, I am doubtful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Renault has been doing electric cars for some time.

One of my friends drove me recently in his Renault Zoe ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe) ) and I was favorably impressed.

A new, cheaper and with extended range, version should be available next year: [http://www.auto-moto.com/nouveautes/scoop/renault- zoe-2019-1...](http://www.auto-moto.com/nouveautes/scoop/renault- zoe-2019-174346.html)

<comment><USER25> Renault Zoe has a small battery, only 210km, while Model 3 is 500km.

<comment><USER26> Disclaimer. The following comment was re-written after Greg replied:

Responding to Greg's points, if you buy out the battery lease on the long range car, it's $34,000 dollars. The Tesla Model 3 you can buy today starts at $54,000 dollars. I didn't know about NEDC vs EPA, so I was off about the range. Looking here it seems like a rough average for the range is 284km. [https://pushevs.com/2018/07/29/range-efficiency-test- of-10-e...](https://pushevs.com/2018/07/29/range-efficiency-test- of-10-electric-cars/)

Maybe it's worth it for most people to pay $20,000 for ~200km more range, but certainly not in Europe. I'm also consistently met with points that 99% of trips are below 70mi. Plus as I said earlier, you get actual instruments and not one massive touchscreen, and quality control from a company not struggling to make cars at any cost. Then, if something breaks you don't have to wait months for the part, and if you order a car now, you get it, you don't go on an indeterminate wait list while they hold your money.

<comment><USER27> You're comparing NEDC range with EPA range, and the price to buy a Model 3 with the price to buy a Zoe with a leased battery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've been waiting for a big automaker to respond to Tesla in full. If they've managed to ignite competition in electric vehicles, then we all win, even if Tesla goes under.

<comment><USER29> Not to be pedantic but... I thought Toyota got the ball rolling with the Prius and Tesla stoked the fire? (never mind, you said ignite _competition_ ) Either way, you're totally right, we all win. :)

<comment><USER30> Introducing the Prius (or Leaf) on the economy side of the market didn't put much pressure on anyone. I don't believe the incumbents started making serious strategic adjustments until Tesla started taking sales on the high-margin side. Maybe only the timeline shifted, but that's still substantive, IMO.

<comment><USER31> Toyota sold more priuses last than cars Tesla has made in its entire history.

<comment><USER30> > With a fully charged battery, Prius Prime has an EPA-estimated 25 miles of > EV

\-- [https://www.toyota.com/priusprime/](https://www.toyota.com/priusprime/)

That's not even in the same league, performance wise; the Model 3's range is ~300 miles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Even if Musk loses the profitability game he will have won in helping to push ICE manufacturers to produce electric vehicles which really seemed to be his ultimate goal considering he said he would open source Tesla technology. [https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong- you](https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you)

<comment><USER33> Exactly. It's the "match that ignites an industry" and increases competition in order to create an economic imperative for the rest of the industry players to make electric products.

Supposedly this has been goal number one the entire time, so Tesla ought to be very proud to have played a role in finally breaking the electric car into the mainstream--not as a single company which may persist or may fail, but as an enduring concept adopted across the industry.

[https://medium.com/@cormiston/the-elon-musk-business- model-c...](https://medium.com/@cormiston/the-elon-musk-business-model- canvas-b0964e8c880f)

Musk has his flaws, but it's not a bad strategy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is really why I'm a little bearish on Tesla. It's not because of their issues, which can be overcome, but because now that the EV market has been validated other bigger, richer, and more experienced car companies are going to come into the space and offer Tesla a whole lot of competition.

Unlike space flight (Elon's other big venture) cars are not an industry that has been totally moribund since the 1980s. It's a lot harder to disrupt a healthy industry than it is to disrupt the walking dead (ULA, Roscosmos, etc.).

<comment><USER35> Have you seen the car on stage? [https://www.pscp.tv/w/1kvKpaEpLekGE](https://www.pscp.tv/w/1kvKpaEpLekGE) at 17:00.

I would reserve that (it won't be available before 2020 and they have yet to have the battery production ready to make the car in volume!). Tesla's Model Y will be presented in a few months.

I seriously doubt that Mercedes will be able to make good EV in volume before Tesla.

<comment><USER36> >I would reserve that (it won't be available before 2020 and they have yet to have the battery production ready to make the car in volume!). Tesla's Model Y will be presented in a few months.

This. EV production comes down entirely to battery availability. It looks like Mercedes is making the same mistake as Nissan initially did, and thinking they can roll their own battery tech and production facilities. They would be far better off striking deals with LG or Panasonic as the rest outside of Tesla have done. The 64kWh 2019 Nissan leaf (only real competitor to Model 3) will be using LG chem batteries, as does the Chevy Bolt/Volt.

There's absolutely no way Mercedes will make up for a 15 year head start on battery tech that Tesla has. I'd expect to see them building EVs at $100k+ MSRP and quantities under 20k/year, and having serious battery degradation issues along with other idiosyncrasies of LiPo chemistry that have taken decades to work out in large scale manufacturing. They will be making small batches of pricey luxury EVs while Tesla, Nissan, and GM are producing millions of units for the masses in 5 years.

<comment><USER37> If I'm not mistaken, Tesla still uses battery cells from Panasonic in their cars.

<comment><USER36> They do, but they have their own cell chemistry and they're really the only car manufacturer with their own production coming online soon at quantities high enough for volume.

<comment><USER38> Plus they do the battery pack design, construction and software themselves. That includes testing of what temperature, power draw and charging regimes cause degradation, how to keep the cells within a good regime while maintaining performance, when to cheat, how to prevent fires and so on. You don't just put 7000 cells in parallel and call it a day. (Well, some manufacturers do, but the results vary).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> _Tesla deserves kudos_ for getting companies like Mercedes, Audi, Porsche, and Jaguar to invest gobs of money to launch electric cars.

Extrapolating from the size of Mercedes' investment ("over $12 billion," according to the article), I suspect the industry is spending north of $50 billion to launch a range of new electric vehicles over the coming years.

For comparison, Tesla's annual capital spending is between $2 and $3 billion.

</comment><comment><USER40> "attack"

Getting very tired of such headlines and such language in reporting.

How about "inevitable technological evolution" and a corresponding "business plan".

Despite appearances, the world is not constantly on fire -- in every last corner the news cycle touches.

I'm glad there is increasing competition in what seems to be the next step in the automobile's evolution and that of personal transport. (Like it or hate it. Just try prying individualized timing and control of travel, from the hands of many in the U.S., for one thing.)

</comment><comment><USER41> The article suggests Tesla will produce/sell 24,900 Model 3s in 2018. That's roughly what they produced in Q1 and the production rate has increased since to the point where Tesla will likely produce more than 150,000 Model 3s in 2018, maybe even close to 200,000. According to the graph in the article, Tesla won't even reach that number in 2021.

<comment><USER42> That graph does deserve some explanation, but perhaps it is sales by year rather than production? Tesla is currently running off orders they booked years ago, so production rate is running well ahead of sales rate.

<comment><USER35> >production rate is running well ahead of sales rate.

Source?

<comment><USER42> Tesla's own SEC filings.

<comment><USER35> Quote?

I got different information

>Robin Ren - Tesla, Inc:

>Correct. Another thing I want to point out is that we are actually – since we opened the configurator to the general public in early July, we are seeing an increased demand coming from people who do not currently hold a reservation. I think that's something that we found super exciting, because these are the people who actually had no idea about Model 3 and they heard about Model 3 is available to order, many of them requested test drives and since early July, we have over 60,000 test drive requests in the U.S. alone and these people come into our stores, do the test drive, and they become super excited and they decide to order the car.

>So, we believe that the strong demand coming from especially the non- reservation orders is going to dramatically increase as we increase our test drive population. To give you an example, three weeks ago, we had only eight stores having test drive cars to Elon's point earlier. Now we have over 90 stores having test drive cars.

[https://seekingalpha.com/article/4193497-tesla- tsla-q2-2018-...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4193497-tesla- tsla-q2-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Im a professional engine mechanic for a small chain of service centers, and this reminds me of the hybrid race and the car manufacturers that had to scramble to make up for lost time. The only difference being it wasnt Mercedes and luxury makers, it was consumer giants like Ford.

Chevy and Dodge bet boatloads on the american consumers lust for the SUV even if gas hit $5 a gallon, only to find out just how wrong they were in 2008. Few people know this but Hybrid Synergy Drive from Toyota became the de-facto standard in US hybrid systems. every Ford hybrid licenses it, and many Nissan hybrids do as well. Honda developed their own hybrid system but as far as I know it was never licensed.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive#Patent_is...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive#Patent_issues)

Now you have the Chevy Volt, which was half of Chevrolet pleading with shareholders and management to embrace electric, and the other half puffing on their cigars and chortling over "battery powered" cars. The result? some kind of design-by-committee plug in hybrid electric with a motor thats a generator? Needless to say the Prius casually crushed it.

Finally theres BMW with their i3, but who cares? A p75 will dominate it in terms of both power and range. Many mechanics I know attest that BMW could only bring this to market by building most of the car out of carbon fiber.

The glaring fact remains that everyone in the industry is back to 2005 all over again. pulling up their pants and sprinting to keep up all over again with something they all insisted wasnt going anywhere. My apprentice tells me Porsche's Taycan electric will do 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, but again, who cares. a P100 will absolutely embarrass any porsche model gas, or electric, in a sub two second quarter mile with ludicrous speed and still have enough charge to get something at the mcdonalds drivethrough on the way home.

<comment><USER44> I hope you see this reply, because I'm very curious about your opinion on this I have watched from afar as Tesla (wisely, to me) approached the market top down with the S and Roadster. But I'm definitely the type that is very practical as far as vehicles go: get me from point A to point B, do it reliably for a long time (10-15 years with regular maintenance), and hopefully do so for around $25k base.

Where do you see the Model 3 vs the Prius (or Bolt? I think I can pick up on your feelings on the Volt) currently, in those terms? My mind is literally blown by some of the 0-60 and quarter mile numbers, but those end up as very low priorities for me when I'm thinking about getting a new vehicle.

edit: the technologist in me loves the Tesla platform, but the car buyer in me loves being 4-5 generations into a platform, at least.

edit 2: ... so, I have no idea why people are downvoting me. If you did, I'd appreciate some feedback so I can avoid it in the future, but I asked a car question on a car submission in response to a car comment.

<comment><USER45> Good question. Consider the short range Model 3 vs the longer range Nissan Leaf thats supposed to be coming next year. They will both have similar prices and ranges. Then its the choice between the cool looking, more futuristic car which might have issues vs the more regular, likely more dependable one. I think Tesla are counting on autopilot to differentiate them, but that wont be compelling to everyone.

<comment><USER44> I can't see how anyone that's spent a minute in an infosec related position could desire autopilot. I am trying closer to the "trying hard to tolerate that it's present" stage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Tesla was founded in 2003, that's a long time for all these companies to have been sitting on the side line. Subaru is still in no rush.

</comment><comment><USER47> After hearing Musk describe in more detail how the future Roadster has achieved its massive range and current capacity (two 100Kwh Model S batteries stacked), I've become a lot less confident in Tesla's technology advantage.

If it were mostly due to battery tech breakthroughs, the situation would be much different. But no, it's just a heavier, bigger pile of existing batteries.

The established manufacturers just need to decide to commit to competing with Tesla. They already have mass production solved, and there doesn't seem to be any major technological breakthrough Tesla owns preventing them from competing on performance.

</comment><comment><USER48> The Jaguar I-pace already is a good Tesla rival. And now Mercedes will follow.

I think Tesla won't go away but I think in a few years they will be just an other electric car brand.

<comment><USER2> The i-pace is a very nice car, but their sales challenges make it unlikely to be a serious competitor. I thought about buying one myself, but Jag's reputation scared me off.

[https://autoweek.com/article/luxury/jaguar-i-pace-ready- poun...](https://autoweek.com/article/luxury/jaguar-i-pace-ready-pounce-ev- market)

The sold 250 cars in europe in its first full quarter of availability, compared to 7K Tesla models sold:

[http://carsalesbase.com/european-car-sales- data/jaguar/jagua...](http://carsalesbase.com/european-car-sales- data/jaguar/jaguar-i-pace/)

[http://carsalesbase.com/european-car-sales- data/tesla/](http://carsalesbase.com/european-car-sales-data/tesla/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The real news is from Audi; they've already started mass production of the e-tron. [https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/03/audi-starts-mass- productio...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/03/audi-starts-mass-production- of-its-first-all-electric-suv/)

Mercedes isn't starting production until 2H19.

<comment><USER35> Mass production? What are the number?

I'd have said just "production". How much can they even build with their current battery procurement contracts? As far as I know, Audi doesn't make batteries and their Chinese suppliers still prefer to keep their battery for the domestic market (or will only export them at high margin).

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Every one of these reads like all those old 'next iPhone killer' headlines.

Elon's publicly stated goal was driving more EV adoption whether it is Tesla or others and he's most definitely succeeded at that.

That being said, there is far more to Tesla's than just being an EV at this point and that won't be killed anytime soon!

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm always amused by the constant hating on Tesla while they at least manage to ship and have products that aren't just announcements and just have issues with scaling up and some parts of the hull not being perfectly aligned while everyone else is just showing off prototype after prototype, luxury cars or overpriced entry level cars that don't even come close to Tesla's mileage.

Faraday Future and Lucid also don't seem to be able to get their act together.

This leaves just Tesla, Chevy with Bolt and VW with the E Golf.

I'd also be surprised if Tesla wasn't going to end up being the quasi monopoly battery manufacturer in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER52> I measure Tesla's success by how many major auto makers they force to adopt electric vehicles. Even if Tesla is not the leader in the segment in a couple decades, if the majority of cars on the road are electric, this is a big win for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER53> Now would be a good time to re-visit "Who Killed the Electric Car?" [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/)

</comment><comment><USER54> Perhaps as Musk gets further down the road of actually being a car manufacturer his thoughts will change, but he should welcome this. He gave out the patents freely so that more competition would come, he wants the electric car market as a whole to improve.

That said I can't say I'm overwhelmed by this. I think both Tesla and to a lesser extent the Nissan leaf have better concepts. The I-pace, EQC, e-tron all still sound like geek gimmicks. Tesla and Nissan have built great cars that happen to be electric.

</comment><comment><USER55> We could have had nice electric cars like 10 or even 20 years earlier if legislation had limited normal cars to something reasonable like 40 horsepower / 30 kW. (yeah go on and tell me about your family of 9 that needs to go up a 20% incline in strong headwinds;-)

But no, it ended up being an arms race to have the biggest vehicle on the road.

And ironically most people in those huge contraptions cry about there not being enough parking spaces.

</comment><comment><USER56> The big thing about Tesla is they have their supercharger network, are these other brands expected to run their own versions or just use Tesla's stations?

<comment><USER57> They can't use Telsa's network. If that's what you meant?

I took delivery of a 2018 Nissan Leaf 4 months ago in the UK. The car is amazing - the charging network is a sad joke. Luckily I have a drive so largely negated, but the problem for Tesla competitors is, the larger the battery the slower the charging infrastructure feels. If you need to recharge 70kwh on a 48kwh charging port, its not great waiting 1.5 hours at a motorway services.

None of the competition are aiming at the model 3 or Leaf either, which is where the real market is. Nissan have announced a ~60kwh Leaf for 2019. They seem to be the only ones who are really close behind tesla.

<comment><USER58> > None of the competition are aiming at the model 3 or Leaf either, which is > where the real market is. Nissan have announced a ~60kwh Leaf for 2019. They > seem to be the only ones who are really close behind tesla.

The Chevy Bolt EV is an excellent offering in this space, I have a 2017 model. ~230 mile range, ~$37k price tag before tax rebate.

<comment><USER45> I'd love to have a Bolt if Chevvy could be bothered to sell it in my country (UK). They dont seem to have any interest in selling it.

<comment><USER58> Evidently GM is shipping a lot of Bolt EVs to South Korea, contributing to low inventories elsewhere (including here in the colonies). It took almost a year for me to get my Bolt after registering my interest with local Chevy dealers.

GM claims that they'll increase production for the 2019 model year, but time will tell.

[https://insideevs.com/south-korean-chevy-bolt-ev-sales- crush...](https://insideevs.com/south-korean-chevy-bolt-ev-sales-crush-u-s- for-june/)

<comment><USER45> _Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle won 't be sold in the UK_

[https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-detroit- motor...](https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-detroit-motor- show/chevrolet-bolt-electric-vehicle-wont-be-sold-uk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> The interior design looks very cybertrashy and pseudofuturistic. Why is the automotive industry so diconnected from general design trends and minimalism?

</comment><comment><USER60> These attacks should be taken seriously only when the carmakers actually start promoting them:

[https://electrek.co/2018/09/03/automakers-not-advertising- el...](https://electrek.co/2018/09/03/automakers-not-advertising-electric- vehicles-study/)

<comment><USER35> And only when they secure some battery production capacity to make these cars in volume. That's an even better indicator.

Mercedes et al. always had big plans to produce batteries. But the plans remains plans. Every year.

Tesla, on the contrary, keeps growing its lead over the legacy automakers. They are still have 5 to 10 years ahead on this front and their competitors are still writing press releases...

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> People are talking about the big manufacturers making competitors to the Model S/X/3, but who is a making the core component (i.e the battery)?

Tesla is the only one doing both ATM. Tesla will happily make batteries for other big manufacturers and will succeed as long a electric car uptake is standardized.

<comment><USER62> Do you mean panasonic

<comment><USER35> Panasonic makes cells (on Tesla's specs) not batteries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'm just waiting for my fully electric minivan. Ideally it would be identical to my current Honda Odyssey, just electric. I tried the model X, and while the driving experience was amazing, the inside felt like a Corolla. I saved $100,000 and got the Honda instead.

</comment><comment> King-Aaron I just want a company to release a two-mount/north-south or three-mount/east- west electric drivetrain kit, that I can adapt OE mounts to and fit to most consumer vehicles.

If Chevrolet etc can sell crate engines, I want to see Tesla (etc) sell crate drivelines.

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm rather unfamiliar with electric vehicles, but I was curious if all of these future EVs will have a standardized charging port. I get the feeling in order for there to be electric "gas stations" they will all need to have the same plug.

</comment><comment><USER65> I wish car companies would stop trying to make EVs so goddamn garish looking. This car is so abysmally covered in blue LEDs that is just fucking SCREAMS "I'M AN EV" in the least subtle way possible.

</comment><comment><USER66> A rugged, fun electric that can be repaired by mortals would be the real sell. An all-electric should be simpler than an IC, not more complicated.

</comment><comment><USER67> When your approach to marketing is "My product will kill this other product", you most likely are approaching it wrong.

</comment><comment><USER45> "Pricing has not been announced"

</comment><comment><USER68> Why do we need to target Tesla? Why not broaden the EV market and target ICE vehicles?

</comment><comment><USER69> I really wish companies were more careful with the colors used in graphs. The colors used for Model 3, e-mini, and BMW iX3 are nearly indistinguishable for some forms of color blindness. There are good palettes out there already, please us them!

</comment><comment><USER70> Tesla could sell their great battery technology to other manufacturers and they're in the battery business. Tesla ~ Electricity, right?

</comment><comment><USER71> Why electric and not hydrogen?

<comment><USER35> Because efficiency: [https://insideevs.com/efficiency-compared-battery- electric-7...](https://insideevs.com/efficiency-compared-battery- electric-73-hydrogen-22-ice-13/)

<comment><USER71> Thanks, that was informative

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I assume the range of the discussed cars is at least on par with the Tesla; > 250 miles?

</comment><comment><USER73> Dang, this car looks really cool. Like TESLA cool [https://www.wired.com/story/mercedes-benz-eqc-electric- suv/](https://www.wired.com/story/mercedes-benz-eqc-electric-suv/)</comment>


Inventing a new kind of matter - <AUTHOR> http://exactlyscience.com/archives/11696.html <comment><USER2> Blogspam of

[http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2017/march/mrsec-dogic- fraden.ht...](http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2017/march/mrsec-dogic-fraden.html)

with actual author credit stripped out.</comment>


A Python cross-version decompiler - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rocky/python-uncompyle6 <comment><USER2> Just from taking a quick look at their description of how it works, this appears to essentially be a glorified pattern-matching approach to decompilation. This is generally the worst approach to take to the issue, since it's extremely brittle and trivial optimization or obfuscation will complicate your approach.

A modern decompiler framework tends to take a very different approach. For native executables, the hardest problems are actually disassembly and higher- level type recovery. Bytecode is easier in that the type information is essentially retained and code is very nicely and obviously differentiated from data; no need to worry about jump tables or constant pools.

Control flow for a decompiler is recovered via some form of control flow structuring; the problem is essentially a graph grammar parsing problem, but this is not an easy problem to solve. In practice, it's the existence of goto- like edges (gotos, breaks, and continues) that really screws things up. It's usually easy to tell what the structure should look like without these edges, but identifying which edges fall into this category turns out to be challenging in practice. Especially if you start trying to undo jump threading.

The other interesting issue is working out what the decompiled variables are and should have been. SSA is actually a pretty clean way to separate out different variables that get assigned to the same register (this identification problem exists even in bytecode, as local variable slots due get reused whenever possible), but doing the PHI elimination and finding out where you've got bitcasted type magic going on (more of an issue for native code) can be a challenge.

<comment><USER3> Do note that CPython bytecode has explicit break, continue, and "for loop" instructions, and (ofc) the language itself has no goto- so you can unambiguously recover high-level structure from a CFG far more easily than you might with compiled C.

<comment><USER4> Yes and no. If you are sure that you start out with something generated by Python, then assuming the Python compiler is faithful, then of course you can always produces source code that doesn't have goto's in it. If instead someone crafts custom bytecode, like I did here: [http://rocky.github.io/pycon2018-light.co/#/](http://rocky.github.io/pycon2018-light.co/#/) it might not have a high-level Python translation.

When there is a translation, is it always unambiguous? No. The same bytecode could get decompiled "a and b" or as "if a: b".

Why this happens less often in Python, especially earlier versions fo Python, is that it's code generation is very much template driven and there very little in the way of the kinds of compiler optimization that would make decompiling control flow otherwise harder.

Using the example given above, I believe earlier versions of Python would always enclose the "then" statement/expression with "push_block", "pop_block" pairs. Even though in certain situations (no new variables are introduced in the "then" block) this isn't needed. But the fact that those two additional instructions are there can then distinguish between those two different constructs.

It is sort of like matching ancestry based on the largely "junk" DNA strands that exist in a person.

Finally, I should note that Python with its control structures with "else" clauses like "for/else" "while/else" and "try/else" make control flow detection much harder. And this is the major weakness of uncompyle6.

That's why I started [https://github.com/rocky/python-control- flow](https://github.com/rocky/python-control-flow) to try to address this. In contrast, the current python uncompyle6 code which has a lot of hacky control flow detection, this creates a control flow graph, computes dominators and reverse domninators in support of distinguishing these high-level structures better.

<comment><USER3> Definitely- though, arguably trying to decompile something which was never Python into Python is a bit of a fool's errand!

Didn't think of for/else and friends, yeah, that's tricky.

Definitely using doms/idoms is the right approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The README mentions that some Dropbox source code is included, though I don't see it in the repo?

      We include Dropbox's Python 2.5 bytecode

Dropbox is pretty well known for building their desktop clients in Python. I recall they're stuck on Python 2 and use some obfuscation and opcode remapping with a custom interpreter so its a little hard to decompile but still possible. Would love to see what this decompiler can generate for them though.

<comment><USER6> > I recall they're stuck on Python 2 and use some obfuscation and opcode > remapping with a custom interpreter so its a little hard to decompile but > still possible.

[https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2018/09/how-we-rolled-out- one...](https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2018/09/how-we-rolled-out-one-of-the- largest-python-3-migrations-ever/)

Currently (custom) Python 3.5, I guess.

<comment><USER7> Am I missing the details in their blog post or do they detail the customizations that they've made to Python 3.5 to suit their purposes?

<comment><USER6> I also don't see any details of their Python 3.x customization in that blog post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could this be good for converting Python 3 code back to Python 2 (to target CentOS 7 specifically)? The final code doesn't need to look nice, it just needs to run.

<comment><USER9> That sounds much more difficult than installing python 3 on centos 7. Why can't you do that instead?

<comment><USER8> Because that would mean all my customers have to find and install Python 3. Most of them won't allow EPEL packages to be installed because they're not supported, and even if they did there's a huge barrier to asking people to add an extra repository.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone use this and have a good example they've round-tripped through the CPython compiler and this decompiler? I would assume variable names are lost, like in most other bytecode compiler languages.

<comment><USER10> Actually, variable names should largely /not/ be lost - Python is insanely dynamic and needs variable/function/etc. names to remain.

At most you might lose the names of local variables inside a function (i.e. variables that, due to internal scope, have a limited lifespan), but member variables, global variables, function names, class names, method names, etc. would all need to be kept in the bytecode.

<comment> ben-schaaf Considering `globals` and `locals` exist I would be very surprised if _any_ name got lost. Python is so dynamic you can actually mutate the bytecode of a function at runtime[0] (LISP esque), so the compiler can't actually make any assumptions and optimizations based on your source code.

[0] [https://pypi.org/project/byteplay/](https://pypi.org/project/byteplay/)

<comment><USER6> Ah, that's unfortunate. I sort of assumed the compiler would be able to optimize stack variables and only do the slow thing if `locals` was actually invoked.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your problem? - <AUTHOR>

In the spirit of identifying niches that HNers could develop products and services around, I'd like to ask what your problems are.
I'm guessing the majority of readers here are not self-employed or actively working on startups, and most niche-identifying-problems stem from the work place.  I'll start...
I want to be able to scribe meeting notes and have them recorded digitally for circulation to colleagues and CRM systems.  This could take the form of a printed note-taking template, where by OCR could determine different sections (attendees, date, actions, notes) when scanning them in.  It is not good etiquette (here) to scribe notes on a laptop during a meeting, and typing them up by hand is very time consuming.
What are your problems? <comment><USER2> My problems? Okay, I'll try to list them honestly. Try to build some startups from this:

1) It's too cold in Moscow. The gray sky sucks.

2) I fall sick easily. Now slowly recovering from a brutal case of stomatitis.

3) I can't easily find new people to play music together in a casual setting. I'd do this every couple days if it were simple.

4) Whenever I have >1 concurrent girlfriend, I have trouble separating them. Shutting off the phone sucks. Three girls at once give me so many worries that I wonder why I even bother.

5) Getting visas to foreign countries sucks, and air tickets are too expensive. Okay I can live with the ticket prices - my salary is high enough - but the visa humiliations are too much for me. You Americans have no idea.

6) The Flash platform is really poorly documented around the edges. I'd love to see something like quirksmode.org for Flash.

7) I can't seem to wake up early.

<comment><USER3> "Three girl(friends)s at once..."

This is a problem? :-) There are actually several web applications to help people get into that sort of situation.

Seriously, doesn't caller ID help this situation? Maybe you could convince them all to download a location-based app so you can track them and see when two are headed to your apartment at the same time.

<comment><USER4> If they find out, it most certainly is a problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Problems faced by the denizens of this site are more likely to be well-served by what already exists.

Try asking people in industries that rarely interface with the tech world. That's where you find the big, underserved problems.

<comment><USER6> Which industries would that be? What is a good way to get in touch with them without looking too opportunist or ruining yourself? (genuine question)

<comment><USER7> Go work in them.

Most of us could probably spend a single day in the office of a company in a different industry and pick out a handful of ideas on ways they could improve their processes, or speedup tasks, or cutout waste. Not all of those ideas will require a technology-based solution, but surely a few of them will.

If you really want to find good problems to solve, try working as a temp for a few weeks. Ask lots of questions and make notes, I'm sure you'll find plenty of work to do.

Maybe that's a good startup idea right there; build a site where businesses can post their problems, procedures, workflows, painpoints, etc, and professionals can comment on them, offer suggestions, either using existing solutions (technical or not), or try to make business connections ("we can build that for you").

<comment><USER8> 'Maybe that's a good startup idea right there; build a site where businesses can post their problems, procedures, workflows, painpoints, etc, and professionals can comment on them, offer suggestions, either using existing solutions (technical or not), or try to make business connections ("we can build that for you").'

I think it's a good idea but don't you think most businesses would be reluctant to show their problems to the web world?

<comment><USER9> Plus I think you would be inundated with a bunch of unique one-off problems that while technically could be solved/improved via a tech solution, lacks the footprint to make it worth anyone's time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Certain large, critical organizations that I work with have a paperwork process that goes:

1) Receive information through web form or email

2) Print it out

3) Scan it in to document management system.

There are whole offices of people whose job it is to do this.

<comment><USER11> Hey there, you're stealing my idea :P

Actually, that one is a good one.

I'll add my own problem: paperwork. The organization I work for has lots of seemingly useless paperwork, but it cannot be automated because of the legal requirements - we NEED to have paper signatures of customers' contracts.

That said, we're looking into minimizing it as much as possible - if only there was a widely recognized and legally accepted electronic equivalent to the signature, we could automate most of the process :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I want to program the iPhone/iPad, but don't want all the headaches required for this:

       - Buying a Mac dev box
       - Learning Objective C
       - Dealing with the whole Apple Developer's Program paper shuffle

<comment><USER13> I'm going through the same process right now.

I've just bought a Mac Mini + Magic Mouse + VGA Adapter + AppleCare for £700. I've got a decent monitor, KVM switch and keyboard already.

I'm going over my K&R book at the moment, running through all of the exercises — especially pointers.

Once I've finishes with K&R my plan is to go through 'Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X' by Hillegass. Aiming for a completion date around the end of March. After that my iPhone development begins as I should have a decent foothold over core Mac programming and will, hopefully, only need to fill in a few blanks using the online references.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have a big procrastination problem. An effective tool/strategy/app for reducing this procrastination could be massively useful to me.

<comment><USER15> This is a part of the problem. You are not going to see an improvement if you don't face your problem. Stop seeking an escape strategy and come to grips with procrastination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My problem is time. I am still a student in India where you have one exams after another and all on completely different levels. I want to do what I love with programming and be part of projects which interest me, whose products I use (best example would be Ubuntu), but I know if I start, I will only be able to do it for a couple of weeks and then its back to studying something totally unrelated. This on and off sessions keeps me totally out of shape for programming as I am not able to get good practice. I eagerly wait for the day when I am free to do what I love indefinitely.

</comment><comment><USER17> Make this use case easier, or just parts of it; for all critical IT infrastructure that isn't core to my business:

I'm looking for a wiki program to run. I want to force people to login before they can read any of the wiki (it's for internal use). It also needs to support LDAP.

Currently, I load up Wikipedia and find their table (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software>). I can then take that table and import it directly into a Google Spreadsheet, which lets me do better filtering. Hopefully the table on Wikipedia has the fields for the comparison I want. If not, I have to go and fill out the list myself (and then add it to Wikipedia). I then spend the next few days playing around with the short list until I'm satisfied with my choice; then implement.

Thats all well and good. But I'm not the IT department! Okay, as a startup, I am, but it isn't core to my business. And I feel like it has got to be a solved problem. How about for inventory tracking? A trouble ticket system? Etc.

This shouldn't be that difficult.

Asking people what they use certainly helps, but they may or may not have the same requirements.

As an app, a better way to use tables on Wikipedia would be great (especially when things are split across multiple tables as the list of wiki software is).

(I'm not affiliated, but while writing up my use case, I came across this: <http://www.wikimatrix.org> )

</comment><comment><USER14> I know this is in some ways a claim to be smarter than google, but I always feel like email clients just aren't up to it.

I have some fuzzy ideas on better webmail I plan to experiment with one day.

<comment><USER13> You're not the only one: <http://inessential.com/2010/01/16/email_init>

Looks as though the project is going to be called 'Letters App' and the president is John Gruber.

<comment><USER14> Interesting. Looks more mac specific than I was thinking.

My musings on interesting areas:

* I don't care about IMAP/POP/all that stuff. Mail comes in via SMTP, goes out via SMTP.

* Messages go straight into postgres

* There's gold in them thar messages headers - there's a lot of structure hidden in there that gets ignored, it must be possible to do _something_ interesting.

* GTD motivated one-message-at-a-time, file/reply/mark to reply later.

* There must be something interesting you can do with automatic email classification.

* Only client is webmail.

* Unashamed focus on people who need to manage 500 messages a day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Failure to finish. I've had, to date, 7 ideas that, had I finished executing, I would have been first to market (in most cases, by years). I would have been beaten to market on one other product, and really close to tied with another few.

In imaginary-land, where I live, of the 7 companies I beat to market, 4 of them had million dollar + exits or acquisitions, so I COULD have been worth 45-55 million, give or take.

My number one challenge in doing anything is not having somebody else to motivate me, or even just tell me what to do. With almost everything I do, I solve the challenges first; the bits that otherwise make the product, or the bits that aren't obviously going to work... once I've built those out, the project is mentally done for me.

I will often fail to do the little things, the EASY things even, like building the change password page, or sending an email for account creation, etc. I'm so bad at it, even, that I will often stop after I have figured out HOW to solve the problems, without ever even bothering to actually implement.

So yeah, that's why I'm stuck with my 9-to-5. Good question.

<comment><USER19> You have just described me too... Countless ideas started and very few completed or even got to a launchable status. I know exactly what's required in every case but struggle to wrap things up.

Funnily enough, I think I'd make a solid startup/side-project coach and it's exactly what I need, also. Would love to see a small group work together to motivate each other, like an online version of the YC dinners (going by what I've read of them on here).

<comment><USER20> I have the same problem. I find it difficult to keep up the motivation to do the boring work that makes the difference between cool side project and actual product. I think this in large part is because I do things alone, because I don't have a problem with day-to-day drudgery in my day job.

Of course, I wouldn't be fiddling around with new product ideas if I was satisfied with the day job either.

I'd definitely be into the small group idea - it would have to be quite a bit smaller and non-public than HN though :-)

<comment><USER21> I'd also be interested in something like that.

maybe we need to make a new website? ;)

<comment><USER18> Hopefully none of the participants of this thread take on the task. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Thanks to a habit of bad posture I'm very limited in how much work I can do. But terse code is often incomprehensible and English can't be compressed too much either. I want a way to reliably code/write without using my hands, and/or to minimise the number of input gestures I need to do.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am bilingual (french/english), but one thing really bothers me: I never get to speak in English. I read books in English, I watch movies in English, I read/write in English, etc. but I never get the chance to practice my _spoken_ English. The end result is that although I understand/write English very well, I lack confidence when talking. I wish I could _talk_ on the net so that I "get" the accent and intonation. The best scenario would be to be able to discuss about things I'm interested in at the same time (startups, programming, etc.). I could actually host a Ventrilo server (anyone interested?) until someone builds an app for that :D

<comment><USER23> I would highly recommend playing online video games with voice chat. With almost any game you choose, you'll find a mature group of individuals that play casually and would enjoy chatting with you.

<comment><USER6> That's what I used to do actually. It was indeed a very effective way to speak English but I pretty much lost interest in video games now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I want to read a Jquery book... I didn't succeed yet, I'm building a $20K project with that thing called Jquery, but it seems that I need to read something like 500 pages before being able to parse the DOM with ease.

I need to read it quickly, the project need to be complete within 1 month... or I'LL DIE :'( :'(

</comment><comment><USER25> I need a web based wiki/concept-map hybrid.

</comment><comment><USER26> Personally, I have no significant problems that can be solved with technology.

However if you look around, there are far better places to go looking to solve problems then HN. The recession is plush with opportunity. Not just opportunity to help someone with some insignificant problem, but to truly help someone live better. Personally, I am doing pretty well but when i go back to the place where I grew up everywhere I look I see unemployment especially in young people in their 20's. I've spent a great deal of thought towards analyzing why this is. I've come to many conclusions, but in the end I think its an education system that prepared a large body of students for work in industry that was lifted up and handed to computers. So now there is at least one town (and I would imagine there are more) where there are young people eager to find a job. I feel like the internet is a great solution, the local economy may be devastated but the global economy probably still has something for them. Sites like etsy are one step towards this direction. I think if you can find something more specialized, with the principle of self employment. you have something special.</comment>


The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - <AUTHOR> http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html <comment><USER3> This quote has been floating around for a while (I first came across it in the early 90s if memory serves). According to [1] Marcus Aurelius never wrote it, but I still think it's a great little quote:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

[1] [http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6999/did- marcus-...](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6999/did-marcus- aurelius-say-live-a-good-life)

<comment><USER4> Interesting way to hedge your bets, but to me it seems absurd that the clay should dictate the rules of the potter.

<comment><USER5> Why should one worship a god that can't tolerate a pagan man that nevertheless lived a good life? If a god wants the man to be virtuous, why can't the man expect the same from the god?

<comment><USER4> A god implies that something is created(c). That god could be good or bad based on c's standards, but the god would still be the definer of the rules if it wished to do so. How would c even know if it is accepted or rejected based on goodness? And if it is so, how would c know that it lives a good life? By whose standards? [Update spelling]

<comment><USER6> Even if I could create sentient beings, this wouldn't imply the power to declare what is good or true by fiat. 2 + 2 = 4, massive objects attract each other gravitationally, and it's morally problematic to put children in ovens for being Jewish even if a _maximally_ powerful alien or wizard said otherwise. These things cannot be changed by any fiat, and being very powerful doesn't make it any more possible.

<comment><USER7> A very powerful being could change gravity, but I agree with you on the rest.

<comment><USER8> No, the gravitational force would still be there, he might just overcome it with a different force.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius has often been recommended to me as the source of the earliest pro-homeschooling quotation found in Western literature:

"From my grandfather's father, [I learned] to dispense with attendance at public schools, and to enjoy good teachers at home, and to recognize that on such things money should be eagerly spent."

<http://learninfreedom.org/notable_quotes.html>

That does reveal a cultural difference between East and West, as the oldest Chinese quotation to speak to the issue of family education of children (a much older quotation from Mencius) specifically claims that education of children by their own families is a bad idea, because injecting the teacher relationship into the family wrecks family relationships. I respectfully disagree with Mencius, having homeschooled my half-Eastern, half-Western children while living both in Taiwan and in the United States. It's interesting that Marcus Aurelius was already concerned about "public schools" at a time when "public schools" just meant "schools outside one's home" rather than "schools funded by taxes and operated by state employees."

<comment><USER10> It would pay to bear in mind what SORT of education occurre in roman schools: For the most part it was rote memorisation of the letters and the sounds they made to give literacy and very little else. A roman education was not a 'Greek education', rhetoric and logic were not taught.

Mike Duncan's 'a history of Rome' podcast was very informative on this and though Marcus Aurelius would have had private tutors for these things that is really what he was likely talking about when he says to have in the home

<comment><USER11> Did you mean Roman public education only taught basic literacy? For aristocrats, pupils were taught Greek and Greek literature early on since later republic era. Julia Caesar's mother went so far as to have a Greek slave accompanying Caesar from early childhood so he grew up bilingual. Marcus Aurelius was as comfortable in Greek as he was in Latin. His extensive training rhetorics is obvious from his writing. He wrote "Meditations" in Greek, because that was the language of philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure why this is on here really, but I will say I picked this up about a year ago and started reading it and was absolutely blown away by how relevant it still is 1,000 years later. ...Think about how grounded you have to be to turn away from the life of material fulfillment that is offered to you as a Roman Emperor and instead live a life of philosophy and the mind. Wise dude, and it's worth reading what he wrote.

<comment><USER13> If you enjoyed Meditations please keep a lookout for anything by Epictetus. Depending on the publisher titles may vary, but _Discourses_ is common (iirc they were notes compiled from his many stories and teachings). You won't be disappointed.

<comment><USER14> Seneca's essays are also great!

<comment><USER15> Yes, I would read Seneca first or I highly recommend "A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy". Then reading Epictetus and Aurelius. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson can also be added to the reading list in my view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The most accessible guide to Stoicism that I've ever found was recommended by Derek Sivers, and written by William Irvine "A Guide to the Good Life".

[http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient- Stoic/dp/01953...](http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient- Stoic/dp/0195374614)

I really highly recommend it myself. A bit of history of Stoicism, but also a lot of practical advice about how to put it into practice in modern times. (Always going back to the key Stoic thinkers.)

<comment><USER17> Agreed that this is a great book to introduce Stoicism. This, and Seneca's works which I've read since, have been life changing for me - I think it should be required reading for all entrepreneurs, if not everybody.

<comment><USER18> Add Epictetus to that list, as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Following Ryan Holiday's recommendation (<http://www.ryanholiday.net/reading- list/>), I highly, highly advise you to go with the Gregory Hays' translation (<http://amzn.to/XQSimT>)!

I have a copy of Long's and it doesn't do it justice.

If you want to dive deeper consider Pierre Hadot's 'The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius" - <http://amzn.to/YuWyvh>

I am also fond of these YouTube lectures on the Meditations: <http://youtu.be/nLD09Qa3kMk>

<comment><USER20> I second this. But don't take my word for it. Here is 5.24 (one of my favorites) translated by Long:

      "Think of the universal substance, of which thou hast a
      very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short
      and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of
      that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it
      thou art."

And by Hays:

      "Remember:
      Matter. How tiny your share of it.
      Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it.
      Fate. How small a role you play in it."

<comment><USER21> Very diffeernt styles but I'm not sure how I would choose one over the other. I don't know which is closer to the original.

Actually, I'm not even sure that's a consideration I'm interested in. I might be more interested in a translation that most efficiently communicates the intended message.

<comment><USER22> A literal translation, the Stoics having doubtless written in formal Latin, it being so concise, might appear more as riddle than prose to English speakers.

<comment><USER23> Koine (vulgar or Hellenist) Greek, actually, but the point still stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Suppressing rueful grin here -- I fled a philosophy PhD to run a startup, and it's shocking how often the degree turns out to be practical -- if not in substance ( higher-order logics, paradoxes of game theory, history of set theory, common fallacies ) then in style (the framework-vs-lib debate is a weird recap of the continental-vs-analytic divide, IMHO.)

Aurelius is recommended reading, but he needs to be cut with some Epicurus. They start from the same position but reach very different conclusions. I like to think of Aurelius as being noneuclidean epicureanism. :)

</comment><comment><USER25> Geeks, nerds, tech people: we seem to have ended up with a fair amount of global influence.

I know a lot of us are into -- or getting into -- some kind of "traditional wisdom," even if we're not traditionally religious.

For me, Buddhism resonates strongest, so I'm walking that path.

Whichever path, by walking it, you affect the world. Living ethically is a great gift; it makes you a source of safety and peace.

And that shines through in your work, and many of us have livelihoods with global effects. That's a powerful fact.

<comment><USER26> Stoicism resembles Buddhism in its focus on practical psychology and mastery of the mind through reason. The Stoics do not deny the reality of the physical world and the ego, but they teach that unhappiness comes from attachment to undependable things, things outside one's own control. The Stoic road to happiness comes from training one's mind, through the application of reason, to care about nothing except one's own ethical actions, and the ultimate measure of a philosopher consists in successful application of this training, not in knowledge or argumentation.

There are glaring differences between Stoicism and Buddhism, of course. The Stoic definition of ethical behavior is not rooted in compassion like Buddhism is, for example, and the Stoics did not create a practice of mental training anywhere near as well-elaborated as Buddhist meditation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am going to run afoul of the common thinking...but this is one of the reasons I really value my liberal arts degree. I was exposed to a wide variety of disciplines and forced to spend time digesting them. You can certainly walk yourself through a philosophy of ethics class but a lot of the value was having the professor walk us through things, guide the resulting discussion and ensure a certain level of rigour.

My favorite philosophy reading was Plato's Republic.

Text: <http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html>

Discussion of politics and ethics: <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato- ethics-politics/>

Plato generally: <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/>

The last two links are from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I highly recommend it if you are interested in philosophy. <http://plato.stanford.edu/>

</comment><comment><USER28> I have to recommend the newer translation by Gregory Hays, which makes the book immensely more readable. I got through it in an evening.

One thing that pops out of the Hays translation that isn't so obvious at first glance in the Long translation, is that _Meditations_ wasn't a philosophical treatise at all, but rather a series of philosophical "Notes to Self" -- the sorts of issues he was struggling with at the time.

When you think about how you'd like your life to be different, it gives you a little bit of perspective to realize that the Emperor of the Roman Empire appeared to be primarily preoccupied with (1) death, and (2) how much he hated his coworkers (the Imperial court). Reflecting on death, he mentions if you lived thousand lives, it would be just be the same stuff over and over again. How true.

</comment><comment><USER29> To get a better understanding of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, a king, you should read The Discourses of Epictetus, a slave, who has truly affected the philosophy the of former. They have a deep relationship although they did not live in the same era. Marcus was a king who lived like a slave, and Epictetus was a slave, although freed later, who lived like a king.

</comment><comment><USER30> For a discussion of the philosophy of Stoicism, the BBC's In Our Time program is very good :

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9fs>

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Stoicism, the third great philosophy of the Ancient World."

Angie Hobbs is always worth hearing, as is this program. It's a reason to pay the license fee.

</comment><comment><USER31> If you enjoy this, you should also pick up a copy of the Davie translation of Seneca's "On the shortness of life"[1]. Seneca is another stoic, and a much better writer than Aurelius.

"Nothing concerns the busy man less than the business of living: nothing is so difficult to learn"

"There is, therefore, no ground for thinking that, because of his white hair or wrinkles, someone has lived too long: he has not lived a long time, but existed a long time"

Epictetus's "handbook"[2] is also very good. You will get a lot out of both.

[1][http://www.amazon.com/Dialogues-Essays-Oxford-Worlds- Classic...](http://www.amazon.com/Dialogues-Essays-Oxford-Worlds- Classics/dp/0199552401/ref=sr_1_1)

[2][http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Epictetus-HPC- Philosophical-C...](http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Epictetus-HPC- Philosophical-Classics/dp/0915145693/ref=sr_1_1)

</comment><comment><USER32> I love Meditations. I actually use it as a journalling tool.

I have about four copies of Meditations sitting on my bookshelf. What I really enjoy about reading it is that at any point, I can pore through a chapter, find something that "hits" and is relevant to something going on in my life, and I'll process it in pen, on the page, whether I actually agree or not with the line. I write down the date whenever I pick up the book, so it's a kind of diarying reflective process.

In my experience, reading it more than a chapter or two at a time is a bit of a waste. Too many ideas going in one ear and out the other - I hit two or three and that's all that's going to stick in my head.

</comment><comment><USER33> Ah, classics..the patience and study of the philosopher's common book and their grounded theses revealed. A best seller or a mention in lecture halls reassures that you've evolved into someone unique or you're a man with minimal words who aggregates the ordinary and his niche topic into art.

I've still haven't found someone who open sourced their common book journey, their resources, and resources' resources, as linked data.

Thanks for all these reading lists comments though. I REALLY appreciate it!

</comment><comment><USER34> Another great translation of these is by two brothers, David and C. Scott Hicks. It's called The Emperor's Handbook[1], and is an attempt to translate them in a way that is less literal and more "in the spirit" of what Aurelius was trying to convey. I definitely suggest it.

[1][http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743233832/ref=wms_ohs_prod...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743233832/ref=wms_ohs_product_img)

</comment><comment><USER35> i wonder how true the translation is to the original text. nevertheless, marcus aurelius was an extremely intelligent and well-learned man. i particularly liked book 1, his thanks to rusticus:

From Rusticus I received the impression that my character required improvement and discipline; and from him I learned not to be led astray to sophistic emulation, nor to writing on speculative matters, nor to delivering little hortatory orations, nor to showing myself off as a man who practises much discipline, or does benevolent acts in order to make a display; and to abstain from rhetoric, and poetry, and fine writing; and not to walk about in the house in my outdoor dress, nor to do other things of the kind; and to write my letters with simplicity, like the letter which Rusticus wrote from Sinuessa to my mother; and with respect to those who have offended me by words, or done me wrong, to be easily disposed to be pacified and reconciled, as soon as they have shown a readiness to be reconciled; and to read carefully, and not to be satisfied with a superficial understanding of a book; nor hastily to give my assent to those who talk overmuch; and I am indebted to him for being acquainted with the discourses of Epictetus, which he communicated to me out of his own collection.

this screams out to me a man with principles and integrity and perhaps the reason why the roman civilization was so successful, the level of reasoning and education is astounding.

note that i live in china now (for the past 6 years) and find that there's a lack of general scruples because the environment is rife with corruption, greed, deception, cheating. but as the saying goes, when in rome, i find myself adapting to these circumstances in order not to get burned, so it's really, really nice to read these thoughts. i'm not saying ancient rome wasn't filled with similar things, and who knows if marcus was a man of moral fiber or just talked the talk, but surely i'd like to believe that his uprightness got him to where he was.

</comment><comment><USER36> On Amazon, there is a free Kindle version of Meditations.

Here is the URL that worked for me:

[http://www.amazon.com/Meditations- ebook/dp/B0082XJGRK/ref=sr...](http://www.amazon.com/Meditations- ebook/dp/B0082XJGRK/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1359967270&sr=8-4&keywords=meditations%27)

</comment><comment><USER37> So I'm wondering, If humans can create things that did not exist (computers, mobile phones, cars) etc, to solve problems they had, will it be too far fetched to assume that we were also created by someone/something more intelligent to do something?

<comment><USER38> My guess is "to form a higher collective awareness"

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't really see the value of translating this into archaic "thy, thou and hast" english.

Have there been any more recent translations. I could understand reading it (untouched) in the original language. But if you're going to translate it anyway...

<comment><USER40> There are more recent translations, but they're not in the public domain. Take a look on Amazon if you're keen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Free Kindle ebook: <http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-ebook/dp/B0082XJGRK/>

<comment><USER42> And to stop Michael Hart from spinning in his grave, the Project Gutenberg link: <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680>

EDIT:

His overall outlook in the project was to develop in the least demanding format possible: as worded in The Chronicle of Higher Education, to him, open access meant " open access without proprietary displays, without the need for special software, without the requirement for anything but the simplest of connections."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_S._Hart>

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> More thought provoking stuff without the stoic fluff: <http://www.accesstoinsight.org/>

<comment><USER44> Stoicism is like Buddhism without the sitting meditation fluff.

I'm halfway through Meditations, and I do find that there are similarities. But when you look at intense practice of stoicism vs. buddhism, they promote different goals. Buddhism encourages you to abandon a normal life to dissociate yourself so you don't have to be reborn. Stoicism seems to be neutral on what to actually do with your life, besides the broad "be a good person and grow yourself" aspect.

Oh, and your vinegar is sour. My vinegar rocks. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_tasters>

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> For those of us that have ebook readers. <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680>

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm actually more curious why this link hits the top of HN right now. Its been available for many many years already. What changed?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the guy who submitted this, and I can't even explain why it's at the top. I mean, I'm not saying it _shouldn't_ be.. I wouldn't have submitted it if I didn't think it were of interest. But I didn't expect so much of a reaction.

Anyway, I don't think anything has "changed" I think it as just a case of somebody taking the initiative to post this, and it just happening to be somewhat timely (there was another thread discussing stoicism earlier) and being of interest to a broad cross-section of HN readers. _shrug_

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Ha, my greatest takeaway from reading Marcus Aurelius was "All is vanity" - <USER2> good one for the entrepreneurial crowd...

</comment><comment><USER48> It'll be interesting to see when HN gets into Political Philosophy : )

</comment><comment><USER49> This is so strange - I feel a disturbance in the Force!

Hackers are getting into Stoicism now? The world really is coming around to points of view that I thought were my individual peculiarities. Fantastic!

Couple of links to contribute something other than my amazement:

<https://sites.google.com/site/thestoiclife/the-course>

<http://www.ibiblio.org/stoicism/>

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't seem terribly strange to me. I've seen the occasional reference to Stoicism and/or The Meditations on here before, and on other sites that were geek/hacker centric, going back quite some years now.

<comment><USER49> "I was shocked to come back online after a couple of hours and find this at the top of the front page"

Well mindcrime, Stoicism has been on my mind for well over 20 years, and I'm simply agreeing with your "shock" that a simple link to the Meditations is on the front page.

Let me assure you, this level of recognition of the very word is new. It may be only the Tim Ferriss PR machine, but I think it's more than that.

Geek/hackers that I've come across over the last 30 years have much more in tune with such awful hackneyed dungeons and dragons/Tolkien crap than anything so sophisticated.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough. Me using the word "shocked" might have been a bit of hyperbole, maybe I should have said "surprised". But nonetheless, I'm not shocked to see some meaningful interest in this subject among this crowd.

Of course, I'm FAR from an expert on this topic myself, and one thing I'm really happy about, from this thread, are all the great links and suggestions for other reading material.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> After you read Meditations, follow up with Essays by Montaigne and then Markings by Dag Hammarskjold. Thank me later!

PS - don't just read, take notes and write your own reflections. That's the way to learn.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any site outlining the key security concerns for web apps? - <AUTHOR> Reading the while(1) thread I got wondering if there is any reliable site that outlines the key security issues web developers should know about? <comment><USER2> \- [https://cto-security-checklist.sqreen.io/](https://cto-security- checklist.sqreen.io/)

\- [https://github.com/FallibleInc/security-guide-for- developers...](https://github.com/FallibleInc/security-guide-for- developers/blob/master/security-checklist.md)

And there are more that have been posted here: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=security%20checklist&sort=byPo...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=security%20checklist&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.owasp.org](https://www.owasp.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks but that doesn't really cut through the noise. It's not really for dummies, it would be nice if there was a good UI site with simple explanations and solutions. I'm sure this will be decried as trying to simplify something which can't/shouldn't be simplified but it seems otherwise web developers largely stay ignorant

<comment><USER3> have you seen their Top 10 lists and other cheat sheets? [https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Top_Ten_Cheat_Sheet](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Top_Ten_Cheat_Sheet)

They're not necessarily great at explaining the issues, but they cover what to do quite extensively.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks that does seem helpful, it could be improved by explaining the background to each of the 10

<comment><USER4> there is considerable information behind each item for example A1 has its own link [0] describing much in detail. there is an incredible wealth of information there if you poke around a little, I suspect it has everything you are looking to learn.

[0] [https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2013-A1-Injection](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2013-A1-Injection)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A practical security guide for web developers | Hacker News [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12140477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12140477) DevGuide/02-Policies, Standards and Guidelines.md at master · OWASP/DevGuide [https://github.com/OWASP/DevGuide/blob/master/01-Foundations...](https://github.com/OWASP/DevGuide/blob/master/01-Foundations/02-Policies%2C%20Standards%20and%20Guidelines.md) Security Engineering - A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems [http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html) Wiley: The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws, 2nd Edition - Dafydd Stuttard, Marcus Pinto [http://as.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118026470...](http://as.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118026470.html) LastPass Security Notice | Hacker News [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9721212](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9721212) LastPass Security Notice | The LastPass Blog [https://blog.lastpass.com/2015/06/lastpass-security- notice.h...](https://blog.lastpass.com/2015/06/lastpass-security-notice.html/) Linux workstation security checklist | Hacker News [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10134009](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10134009) KeePass – questionable security | Hacker News [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727297) SJCL – Stanford JavaScript Crypto Library | Hacker News [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13820722](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13820722) System design primer [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823979](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823979) wordpress stripe plugins. how secure are they? The Netflix Tech Blog: Netflix Security Monkey on Google Cloud Platform [http://techblog.netflix.com/2017/03/netflix-security- monkey-...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2017/03/netflix-security-monkey-on- google-cloud.html) Quick Start Guide — security_monkey 0.6.0 documentation [https://securitymonkey.readthedocs.io/en/latest/quickstart.h...](https://securitymonkey.readthedocs.io/en/latest/quickstart.html#gcp- configuration) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13862253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13862253) Try to get CS 161 University of Berkerly - Highly recommended esp Prof Wagnor or Prof Weaver [http://www-inst.cs.berkeley.edu/~cs161/sp16/](http://www- inst.cs.berkeley.edu/~cs161/sp16/) Laptop security [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13854625](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13854625) [https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/jessy-irwin-on-making- security...](https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/jessy-irwin-on-making-security- understandable-for-everyone)

I am sick today. So I couldn't sort the links or format them. Hope it helps you.</comment>