'The China Hustle', a finance documentary - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/finance-documentary-the-china-hustle-revisits-chinese-reverse-mergers-and-activist-short-sellers-2018-03-30 <comment><USER2> I remember reading about these _reverse mergers_ about 6-7 years ago in a series of articles on ZH. They had even created a basket of short trades which closed at 40% profit in a year:

[https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-03/two-years-too- late...](https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-03/two-years-too-late-sec- wakes-chinese-reverse-merger-fraud-closing-chinese-fraudcap-b)

<comment><USER3> It's kind of crazy how people have been talking about this and the real estate and shadow banking and zombie companies for almost an entire decade, but the Chinese economy remains resilient.

I wonder: were people talking about the subprime mortgage crisis that long? Do we just hear about stuff sooner because of the Internet being more mainstream? Is China possibly immune to a downturn just given its sheer size in population, the fact that it's basically a dictatorship, and that it's not affected much by outside money?

I've been bearish on the Chinese economy since 2012. Luckily I didn't bet on it.

<comment><USER4> If China had normal capital flows, their economy would've corrected Japanese- style a while ago.

However, they don't. And like Japan, they have a huge amount of reserves. But it is supressing future growth, probably.

<comment><USER5> Has Japan ever gotten "correct?" To your point, economies can be weird for a long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seeing how American investors sucked the last drop of blood out of several German companies over the last decade or two by "restructuring" those companies, effectively signing ridiculously expensive consulting contracts with themselves, I can't feel too bad about this. Capitalism gets glorified and justified unless someone else starts beating you at your own game.

<comment><USER7> Presumably, these _restructuring_ s were fraudulent under German/EU law? Otherwise I don't see how your comparison works.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps his point is that law and morality are not the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can't watch in outside the US, well going to wait for a torrent then.

</comment><comment><USER10> For folks living where this is not available ... 07b34e798b700abb19ecdcd81bccaff721838e0b ... ^U in your favourite client, paste this DHT id

</comment><comment><USER11> I want to comment as a Chinese. All the facts presented in the film are solid and true, but the problems lie in the interpretations and implications.

Lack of law enforcement doesn't mean there's no rule of doing business in China. In fact like an old saying in China, 'no rules, no shapes.' Rules aren't necessarily laws, as mentioned in the film, 'Guanxi' is something you have to build up if you want to do business in China. Larger your 'Guanxi' network, faster and easier you can do things than others. And there's 'Koubei' come into play. It means the trustworthy of an entity, not defined by some auditing companies, but complimented by other fellows in the field. A decent 'Koubei' worth more than any auditing report. Like in the film where a company can buy auditing reports to fraud investors, but a company with decent 'Koubei' but no auditing reports would never do that (at least not to local investors). So the rule here is you have to build your 'Guanxi' network with people of decent 'Koubei', meanwhile maintaining your own decent 'Koubei' so others want to build 'Guanxi' with you.

This is something even Chinese kids would know, but just appears to be difficult for the West to get a grasp of it.

Can't trust the government doesn't mean you can't trust anyone. At least we trust in common interests. There's another saying in China, 'only kids talk justice, adults talk interests.' In a market where you can basically do anything with your 'Guanxi', there's no right or wrong in doing things, what only matter is your profits. (Of course there are red lines you should never cross and none of these were written in the law neither. They are the 'unspoken rules'.)

This is where things get funny when foreign investment firms like Roth Capital entered the market. They know nothing about the rules here, and neither these hungry American investors who wanted so hard to take a bite on the largest pie in the century. And they don't even know how to protect their selves in China. No surprise they will be fooled.

But seriously, who can you blame for? There's another old saying in China, 'you came to the town, you play by the rules.' You should do your research before betting your pensions on some random factories oversea.

The last part of the film made me laugh. They were implying that since these crappy factories are frauds, all Chinese companies including Alibaba and Sinopec are lairs. This just shows how ignorant they are and they still don't understand the Chinese rules. Sinopec is the second largest SOC in China. Their don't even need to have 'Guanxi', they ARE the 'Guanxi'. And Alibaba is like Amazon, YouTube, eBay, PayPal, Yahoo etc. all combined. It's the monopoly in this field in China. It's simply too large to fail. If you are comparing companies like these with random crappy factories out of nowhere, you just don't seem to understand how powerful these companies are in China, and clearly you don't understand how the Chinese market works.

The last part is mainly pathos-based, and full of logical mistakes. But I don't know, since this is basically what they've always been doing, getting people worked up against the companies so they can make money from shorting.

Here are some short reviews from Chinese viewers [1], and I think they represent the mainstream opinion of Chinese people.

[1]: [https://movie.douban.com/subject/27115571/comments](https://movie.douban.com/subject/27115571/comments)

</comment><comment><USER12> I enjoyed the documentary! I would recommend watching and supporting it.

</comment><comment><USER13> The trailer is pretty heavy-handed and sensationalized.

<comment><USER14> Yes the whole point of a trailer is to hype the release.

<comment><USER15> Those trailer is using clips directly from the film, watching it now, and it's no less sensationalized than the trailer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This happens all over the world, not just China.

</comment><comment><USER17> Dear Magnolia Pictures,

I would like to watch this documentary and in return give some of my dollars to you. These dollars don't smell and they don't look different. These dollars are all digital and not contagious, you will not catch a virus, I promise. I know that I don't live in USA, but does it make my dollars worth less? You have 18 different streaming options, I tried a few, but all of those sites discriminate me based on my location.

<comment><USER18> It's on Netflix.

<comment><USER19> Can't find it on Netflix Germany.

<comment><USER20> It's on Netflix Hong Kong :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Kind of know the story and fearmongering without watching the film. World invest gigatrillions in China, it is all a scam and innocent mom and pop types lose everything, watch this film now so you can survive the inevitable meltdown that will make 2008 look like a blip, right?

The reviews for this film go back six months and that makes this video already old.

<comment><USER22> Not right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The timing on this documentary is quite off. Though it's worth mentioning how China has seemingly hustled the West particularly the U.S. on a bigger scale. They have not only usurped the already dwindling middle class but are in the process of destroying the education system wholesale. And I am not just talking about undergraduate and graduate schools. This is happening in K-12. US is effectively using tax dollars to educate millions of Chinese. The only benefit I see is the asset bubbles, namely the housing market, that will help the forthcoming demographic offset (baby boomer retirements).

<comment><USER24> Can you elaborate on how we're using tax dollars to educate millions of Chinese?

<comment><USER23> Over 350K Chinese students in the US every year which implies only three years of churn to reach one million. Increasingly more of these students are in K-12 and in public systems. But private institutions benefit from tax dollars and are often drivers of regional economies which then ties back to tax dollars. Moreover, the top schools across the country have limited seats for both international and domestic students. If these institutions then prefer and accept more Chinese international students who almost always end up paying full tuition instead of domestic students in need of financial aid then it is easy to make such an argument. Anecdotally, go to any nice neighborhoods with good schools and you will more than likely find a house with a single Chinese high school student living in it. I am not saying international (and Chinese) students do not add value to the education system here in the US but when there are so many of them flooding the market effectively pricing out well- deserving domestic students then we clearly have a problem.

<comment><USER24> At the college level, they pay exorbitant tuition, so there's no reasonable case that they're getting taxpayer support. More like the other way around: international students paying enormous tuition subsidize other students.

I know a lot of Chinese people in the US, in wealthy neighborhoods with excellent schools, and I've never even heard of high school students living alone in a house like you describe. I'm sure it's been done, but I'm more than a little skeptical that it happens in any significant number.

<comment><USER23> On the surface, you are right, it appears international students help cross- subsidize domestic students and I would even concede that this is true when you look at the immediate impact ceteris paribus. However, I also think you have to consider the fact that NPV of college education even at full tuition is positive. And that NPV actually declines quite a bit as you move down the quality axis which comes back to my point of displacing domestic students who now face lower NPV and lower quality education. Supply is always limited. I understand it cuts both ways but the current dynamic is very much one sided in my view.

<comment><USER24> Supply isn't particularly limited. Schools can expand, given enough money. International students pay more than enough.

If international students disappeared, the result wouldn't be all those spots filling with American students, it would be a bunch of spots disappearing due to lack of resources.

Education is not fundamentally different from any other product here. When China gives Boeing a couple of billion dollars for some airliners, they're not taking airliners away from Americans.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Karmurl - give feedback to receive feedback - <AUTHOR> http://www.karmurl.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Karmurl is a free and simple way of getting instant feedback for your work. You give feedback to receive feedback.

The idea was inspired by a comment made by photon_off (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1683309>).

I should mention that I have already submitted this once previously (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2999852>), but at the time it had very few users and therefore offered less value than it does now.</comment>


Feudal Security - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.html

<comment><USER2> _...it's time we step in in our role as governments (both national and international) to create the regulatory environments that protect us..._

Or putting on other imaginary hats:

 _...it's time we step in in our role as technology corporations to circumvent and mitigate broken government regulations which harm our customers..._

 _...it's time we step in in our role as malevolent crackers to cease-and- desist thieving things which do not belong to us..._

 _...it's time we as terrorists, child pornographers, and film pirates stop doing naughty things, so that people stop asking for digital surveillance..._

How is the counterfactual, "we the governments", any more sensible than the "we the corporations", or the sillier ones? Schneier isn't a government. Inference along the aligns of "If I were the government I would...", in a democracy where you and everyone who kind-of agrees with you are an insignificant fringe, is barely more rational than pretending to be any other third party.

The main effect of this reasoning flaw is to accede more powers to the biggest digital-rights threat of all, national governments, out of the fatal illusion that they will be used to protect you, as imagined in your "If I were government" fantasy. The evidence strongly suggests that the government--which you are not--would much rather use new powers _against_ you, to the benefit of established, paying clients (MPAA).

 _...we, as private citizens, should oppose regulation of our networks, because governments have been very bad at it, and we do not control them well enough to expect better._

<comment><USER3> I, for one, would be much happier with government brokering than corporate. At least with the (democratic) government, I will have some control. There are parliamentary processes, voting, constitutional rules, albeit often slow, that give me a say.

With the corporation, I only have illusion of control, zero transparency, and often contractual binding to an entity that only has incentive to take advantage of me.

Now, as far as government working properly: surely, it often doesn't work well. For one, governments are often too large (in citizen count) for individuals to participate effectively. This often leads to powerful interests taking over. But, perhaps this is because our governmental structures were invented way too long ago to be current.

The 'private citizen' part is interesting. I would prefer to have peer-to-peer relationships that are effective and strong enough. But, that's a ways off, isn't it?

<comment><USER4> When dealing with a corporation, I can dump their services and go with a competitor. When dealing with a government, there are no competitors. You are automatically in their jurisdiction.

<comment><USER5> _I can dump their services and go with a competitor_

Says who? Or, more to the point, whose army? When the corporations that hold your email and bank statements refuse to be dumped, you'll need someone to break into their server rooms, wipe their hard drives, and arrest or shoot anyone who resists. I want those people to obey the law, and be under democratic control.

<comment><USER6> How exactly could an email provider or bank legally prevent me from using another provider by holding back my information?

If I opted into using their service and agreed to their TOS that included them keeping my data. Then thats my fault.

But if they act maliciously, them having my data is hardly going to keep me from continuing to use their service.

<comment><USER7> > If I opted into using their service and agreed to their TOS that included > them keeping my data. Then thats my fault.

You forget that _all_ service providers have these TOS. You don't have a choice.

> Them having my data is hardly going to keep me from continuing to use their > service.

If you've been using a Gmail account for several years, good luck closing it if you don't want to lose future emails sent to that address.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> People tend to infer two-way bargains that have some degree of fairness; they are upset when those expectations are violated.

The general bargain is "You provide some services, I agree to let you see the data that I put in and either show me some advertising or charge me a small fee." This holds true for Facebook, Google, Apple... The problem is that many people assume that their data will be kept reasonably (not perfectly) private. Advertisers get to specify the attributes of people who will see their ads (age, large geographical area, expressed interests) and not, say, phone number, name, birthday and address.

But that bargain has not actually been struck.

And if you do read the pages and pages of legalese, and manage to comprehend it all, it can still all be changed out from under you.

People who realize this generally aren't happy about it.

</comment><comment><USER9> My guess is we get far less cases of minor security breaches "my computer has a virus and I lost some files" but occasionally suffer massive scale data breaches. For example "somebody got into my facebook, bank and dropbox and has stolen my identity".

The amount of software that is being automatically downloaded , installed and executed every day on millions of devices from a handful of "trusted" servers is really quite frightening.

You just know that someone out there is busy trying to work out how to forge Apple certificates.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd rather have the freedom of choosing a feudal e-lord than trust governmental regulations. Maybe there's a reporting bias but the ones I hear about are always god-awful.

From seizing domains[1], blocking fairly random sites[2] to threatening ISPs over content[3], governments make Google, Canonical and the like look very attractive in comparison. Especially considering you can dump them with only moderate effort and cost.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/feds- seize-101-do...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/feds- seize-101-domains-for-counterfeiting-in-cyber-monday-operation/)

[2] [https://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-block-pirate-bays-artist- pr...](https://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-block-pirate-bays-artist- promotions-121202/)

[3] [http://olgierd.bblog.pl/wpis,jak;urzad;celny;bogu;ducha;winn...](http://olgierd.bblog.pl/wpis,jak;urzad;celny;bogu;ducha;winny;portal;odcinal;od;internetu,86592.html)

<comment><USER11> Is the government offering to provide Internet services to you? You're comparing apples and oranges.

A government still can, and will, seize domains, block sites, and issue takedowns and warrants on content to Google. Suppose I own xyzzy.com, set up to use Google Apps to handle mail and serve some web pages. Just like if I was hosting at home or in a colo somewhere, the government can still come in and demand the data. In fact, the biggest difference is that companies like Google are more likely to just roll over--see the stories about cell carriers just handing over tons of information just because law enforcement said please.

<comment><USER10> And did the actions governments have taken inspire your trust to give them even more control?

> companies like Google are more likely to just roll over

More likely than who?

<comment><USER11> If I self-host, for example, then I can hold on to my stuff until either I get a subpoena or the cops show up with a warrant. In the meantime, I can decide if I want to risk charges for destroying any evidence, I can call for lawyers, all these various actions I can take before my data gets handed over. Beats the hell out of getting an email to your backup account: "Your domain has been taken down at the request of law enforcement. Please have a nice day. Do not reply to this message."

<comment><USER12> How exactly does self-hosting protect you from the government taking down the domain? Unless you run your own domain registrar, the government can just change the DNS servers for your domain. That doesn't give them the data but it takes it off of the internet (as far as they're concerned; depending on how dynamic your IP is, it could be a nightmare for anyone to try to find via IP address or IP address range).

<comment><USER11> Yeah, that's one you're kind of screwed on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd rather trust cloud provider X then have the government regulate the Internet. Please, let's not go down that slippery slope!

<comment><USER14> I don't agree. The cloud provider is a company only existing for the sake of generating revenue for the share-holders of this company. The government is a (usually) democratically elected institution. That is why I prefer to trust governments.

<comment><USER15> The advantage of a cloud provider is that you can unilaterally sever the relationship without serious penalty.

<comment> B-Con You can? Migrate _everything_ from Google to Apple. Then check back in 5 years and see if it's as painless.

That was one of the author's points. We're becoming a culture where you pretty much buy into one provider or another provider. One of his assumptions was that it's only going to get more locked in and more difficult to switch. His conclusions were thinking about the future based on those assumptions.

<comment><USER15> I never said painless. However Apple doesn't have (yet) the power to imprison or execute anti-Apple subversives.

Vive la résistance!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nothing is going to happen with digital security rights so long as the NSA wants to be able to store everything indefinitely and we have a Congress that can't even agree on more critical issues like the budget.

It wont be an issue unless people make it, and for most people security isn't even a consideration.

</comment><comment><USER17> repost - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831842></comment>


Instagrammers Are Getting Scammed by a Mysterious 'Con Queen' - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j575vg/instagrammers-are-getting-scammed-by-a-mysterious-con-queen <comment><USER2>
      being scammed out of almost $16,000

This makes no sense. The claimed takings amounted to $1400, and she insists she paid nothing more to the scammer. The offered travel "budget" was $14K, but all they paid for was the flights.

She was only "scammed" out of $1400; the $16,000 never actually existed.</comment>


Hyperloop lets you travel on a resonant acoustic wave? - <AUTHOR> http://conscienceofanentrepreneur.blogspot.com/2013/07/hyperloop-lets-you-travel-on-resonant.html <comment><USER2> "Elon Musks final invention will be a time machine. It will only work once before exploding. Before entering it, Elon will turn around and tell us he has done his duty and given us many gifts, and now we must use those gifts to advance mankind. He hopes great things for us.

We beg for him to stay and aid us further. He smiles sadly, He looks at us with his tired but happy eyes, shakes his head, and steps into the machine. He returns to an early 21st century earth...and begins his work once again. As it has always been, as it always shall be."

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of Silverberg's amazing short story "absolutely inflexible".

<comment><USER4> Excellent story. Thanks!

[http://www.sblib.com/book/silverberg-robert-absolutely- infle...](http://www.sblib.com/book/silverberg-robert-absolutely-inflexible/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a surfer, let me volunteer that it's a bit like a highway onramp: you want to match speed exactly when the front arrives. Tiny adjustments in speed, pitch, yaw, roll, and center of gravity make the difference between making it, falling off the back, and getting eaten.

Mistiming your drop leads to bad outcomes that are directly proportional to the kinetic energy of the wave and are inversely proportional to the depth of the water. This is huge kinetic energy with a distance to the wall of, probably, microns. I want to see how this thing works, but oh, Nelly, what a wipe-out!

<comment><USER6> I'm somewhat new to surfing but am thinking this is slightly different than what you are imagining. I also know next to nothing about acoustics and wave forms.

Wouldn't the wave be the height of the tube, and the vehicle be near that same height? That way you can't "miss" the wave. Unlike surfing their is no room below the wave for the vehicle do dive and throw the surfer off, and unlike surfing , a soundwave (to my knowledge) doesn't break, so there is no tumble. If you enter at the point where you're off the back of the wave, you're positioned to be picked up by the next wave, which because your vehicle height is near equal to the height of the wave, your vehicle automatically gets pushed along.

That's how I'm visualizing it, but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER7> (experienced body boarder/body surfer, novice actual surfer ;-)

I think the point is that, regardless of which wave you decide to catch, whether it be the first or second one, at some point to need to sync-up. If you miss the first one, then you still have to speed up or you're going to miss the second one too.

There's definitely an optimal timing that takes the minimum amount of energy to accelerate and synchronize with the "sweet spot" of the wave; beginners need to paddle early and paddle hard, whereas an expert has a better feel for it and will exploit his or her experience with the timing to expend less effort catching a wave.

When you surf, paddling up to speed and the timing will make or break catching a _particular_ wave - which is very important is the "good waves" are rarer. With an acoustic loop, it's may be more predictable, but you still probably want to get it right the first time, while you're still in the main accelerator section of the tube.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not to be funny, but it seems like every other day has another "hyperloop uses acoustic waves" article. It's a good guess, but it doesn't even contain new speculation (another article went into detailed theorising about how cars would accelerate and decelerate).

Seriously, until we have a solid info, or even a new guess, can we lay off Hyperloop?

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't mind the article if it contained some kind of real analysis as to feasibility from a physics and engineering perspective. That type of analysis would be interesting independent of hyperloop.

<comment><USER10> Worst of all this article is just a rip-off (a paraphrasing) of another article. He is kind enough to point to the original article, but he isn't adding anything new, just putting the old wine in new bottles.

<comment><USER11> No, it's not. The pointed-to article says that if you travel with the density peak of a sound wave, you get reduced drag, but you'll need some other system (like a railgun / gauss gun) to actually provide propulsion. This article says "I bet it's more than that, I bet the sound waves are actually providing the driving force like in this cool YouTube video of acoustic levitation."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The hyperloop is feeling like the segway at the moment. I remember the hype before the reality of the segway and everyone being disappointed when they found out it was just a slightly altered scooter.

<comment><USER13> The hype before the Segway was so immense, that even if they announced something exactly like the Hyperloop people would have felt disappointed. People _actually considered anti-gravity belts to be a possibility_ at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> For someone who has taken nothing more than undergraduate physics as a requirement for my degree, can someone explain the benefits/risks of using an acoustic wave system over others? Has anyone previously looked at this sort of system for travel? If the wave were to be disrupted and these capsules come to a screeching halt, how fast of a deceleration are we talking about? Never more have I wanted to crack open my physics texts again.

And how will this affect the elephants?

<comment><USER15> This depends entirely on the drag coefficient of the train car. If the engines on a supersonic jet cut off, it's essentially a rock traveling at the speed of sound through still air. I don't believe the acceleration is cataclysmic for the occupants (although probably jolting). Remember also that normal commercial gets travel at like 80% of the speed of sound, and they can easily handle a loss of engine power. (Although maybe typical engine cut-outs are more gradual than a suddenly ruptured hyperloop tunnel?)

So the train car need only have aerodynamics similar to an air plane in order to avoid bad stopping forces. An aerodynamic design makes sense anyways since you want to avoid drag.

<comment><USER16> If the passenger cabin were smaller than the capsule, the cabin's movement could be softened by hydraulic dampers. This could also prevent casualties (e.g. through brain trauma, as often happens in train crashes) in case of an instant halt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > the tunnel would be opened up to the outside atmosphere. That would > immediately ruin the resonance and all capsules should come to a screeching > halt.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my intuition is that this would also lead to quite a bad explosion. I mean, the amount of energy I imagine it would take to initiate a standing wave between LA and NY should be massive, (and certainly not a small amount to maintain it either, though far less than the initial amount if it truly stores the energy well). But if it is _storing_ this energy, then any rupture should release it quite... quickly. No?

A standing wave is not nothing.. it is a huge amount of pressure oscillating back and forth in an underground cavity. A controlled hole in the cavity wall could release it properly, but a crack in the side could effectively lead to rupture, couldn't it?

Another thing, if the air pressure inside the tunnel is indeed quite high, the train cars would also need to be pressurized. This leads to some other potential dangers.. not to mention the time to pressurize would be added to the total trip time.

<comment><USER18> It doesn't need to be a standing wave, it doesn't need to be from LA - NY (it only needs to be the length of the train), and it doesn't need to be in an enclosed tube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A Hyperloop sounds to me like a marketed trademarked copyrighted patented implementation of a traditional Launch Loop aka Space Fountain. A wiki link:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain)

You could buy a kids toy circa 2005 implementing a model of the design using what looks like a shoelace and a blacklight. My kids thought it was pretty cool.

So, take a magnetically controllable loop, like a wagon wheel tire. It'll collapse under its own weight it stood up. Turns out if you spin a rope ridiculously fast it inevitably turns into a circle and can support well over its own weight. Basically you build a linear induction motor to get dragged along and remove the clamps at the appropriate time. Think of how you can ride upside down in a roller coaster as long as you exceed critical speed (too slow and you fall out, whoops)

Compared to a space elevator its well within modern current day tech to build one. I donno if its economically within modern day ability.

Three major problems, if that dude splits at the wrong time its an unholy mess as it augers in, and there's something of a dynamic stability puzzle to stabilize movement and temperature, and finally you need a plan of sorts if the clamp or whatever you call it sticks and hauls the first stage back for another go of it.

One optional problem is to build a loop that stores energy by spinning a bit fast, faster than a vehicle re-entering for a second loop can handle nose first. That makes the "stuck clamp" hollywood disaster even worse. Of course a smart engineer would never do that... would they?

There's a fixation on SSTO, of course. However, aside from economic issues, you can make a real loop thats as worthless as you want, and any delta-v it gives for free to a launch vehicle is a net win. So make a "mere" 10 mile diameter one that only replaces the first stage of a launcher, thats cool. How about reducing the mass fraction for a "SSTO" from 95% to maybe 50%? That would still be cool, even if its not "SSTO".

If you can't mentally handle this rotating stuff, think of it like a really long aircraft carrier catapult... so long it can loop back on itself no problemo. And think of cablecars, although it'll probably be magnetic not literally clamping onto a cable, although that would be a charming steampunk aesthetic.

<comment><USER20> Except that Musk has said it's the 5th mode of Earth Transport after Trains, Cars, Airplanes and Boats.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent point! Throwing in space travel would be obvious feature creep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's been a lot of speculation on the hyperloop without accounting the 'air-hockey table' comment from Elon. I personally thought it meant using the ground effect.

</comment><comment><USER15> I can't figure out how the OP proposal differs from Charles Alexander's. Low frequency (long wavelength) waves travel around the tube at the speed of sound. By traveling at the same speed, and correctly choosing a point along the wavefront, one can take advantage of significantly reduced apparent drag. It's implicit in Alexander's suggestion that either (a) the total length of the loop is an integer multiple of the wavelength of the waves, so they are "resonant" in that sense, or (b) the envelope of the wave is much less than the length of the loop. (If neither (a) or (b) held, the wave could not be formed in the first place.)

So what distinction is OP making? That it's resonant, and so definitely (a) and not (b)? I think it would require a calculation of how fast the wave would disperse in the tube, which OP has not done.

<comment><USER22> I don't think there is any distinction. He's just reblogging. He did link the original at least.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not so, I felt it with my own gut!

Another difference is in Charles' model you would have to travel at the speed of sound. Due to the shape not being a perfect line airflow will have to be supersonic somewhere over the surface of the craft. That's generally not good for energy efficient travel. My "design" allows for the capsule traveling at subsonic speeds.

<comment><USER23> I suspect that design by gut is not necessarily a reliable approach to this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea? Why do you think so? Did you look it up in a book? You should have felt it, with your gut! [1]

1\. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBRKPoAPXEQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBRKPoAPXEQ)

<comment><USER23> and my gut tells me that's how our nervous system works... :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can't wait for Elon Musk to silence all the low self-esteem full-of-envy idiots talking shit about him and mentioning "vaporware" without even understanding how vaporware works! I bet $100 he'll have a prototype to showcase given the engineering power at his disposal.

<comment><USER25> I'll take that $100 bet.

<comment><USER26> And I'll hold your money. Bitcoin, anyone?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How might one get on and off this thing at these speeds? Perhaps a 2nd loop near entry/exit points?

<comment><USER18> Just like a normal train would - you route off the main track. As far as actually stopping it, it could just be a "rail gun in reverse" which would allow it to regain a huge portion of its energy upon deceleration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy1w6rTpC2g](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy1w6rTpC2g)

</comment><comment><USER29> Whatever it ends up being, this is exciting!

</comment><comment><USER30> If the solution involves a tunnel or tube from SF to LA then I fail to see how it can be as cheap as has been claimed. I suggest it's an accelerator that launches capsules ballistically, "skips" them to maintain velocity, and recaptures a good deal of energy on arrival.

</comment><comment><USER31> Do you ever think that Elon has no plan, but he's just put this idea of a plan out there and let us crowd source a solution. That would be neat way to solve an 'impossible' problem.

</comment><comment><USER32> 6,437km/h (4,000mph) to zero is going to be one hell of a stop.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, where did you get those numbers? The distance from SF to LA is about 380 miles, and the speed of sound is about 760 mph. Whether or not the principles of sound movement are involved in Musk's plan, the speed is roughly equivalent if we're talking traveling back and forth in half an hour. Still a jolt, but you're talking about six times that.

<comment><USER34> Either way, pretty much any accident will result in everyone's death.

Car accidents at 50 MPH result in 80% death.

760 MPH is much much much more, considering the amount of energy needed to be dispersed grows quadratically (E = 0.5 * m * v^2)

<comment><USER19> "Car accidents at 50 MPH result in 80% death."

Actual stats from Great Britain in 2008 on motorways, presumably always speed limit above 50 MPH, "6% of the total killed, 3% of total seriously injured, 5% of total with slight injuries." at least per wikipedia.

So there's about a 9 in 10 chance if you crash on a GB motorway, at least in 2008, you'll walk away without a scratch, rather than your 1 in 5 stat.

Also all minor aircraft accidents involve flying faster than 50 MPH although death from anything but fire is relatively rare. True though, that controlled flight into terrain at cruise speed doesn't usually leave many large pieces on the mountainside.

<comment><USER35> Given traffic in the UK, I don't think it's a safe assumption all those accidents were at > 50mph.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Like most titles that end with a question mark - "no". Why would you use some kind of acoustic wave system over tried and true maglev?

<comment><AUTHOR> Drag?

And by the way - the title doesn't end in a question mark. ;)

<comment><USER36> It does on HN : P

Well, the acoustic idea wouldn't solve drag at all. The craft would still have to move through air.

<comment><USER37> I refer you to Charles Alexander's idea, which goes through a bit of the math for why traveling with the peak of an intense, low-frequency sound wave would give freakishly low drag.

[http://charlesalexander2013.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/hyperlo...](http://charlesalexander2013.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/hyperloop- riding-sounds-density-peak-to-exploit-the-drag-equation/)

<comment><USER36> Ah, I see. That's an interesting idea. Sounds impractical - if you're going to do all that engineering work, might as well just get rid of the air in the first place - but cool concept.

<comment><USER37> Do you know how difficult it is to build and maintain an evacuated tube of that size? Not all loopy tubes are created equal.

<comment><USER36> As opposed to building this thing, filling it (perfectly) with ultra-high- power resonant soundwaves of the precise characteristics, and flinging in shuttles and hoping nothing goes wrong? I don't know, the evacuated maglev is sort of sounding like the safe, easy option?

The reason evacuated tubes are expensive and difficult is because of the tube, not because of the evacuation. Once you have a great big tube, reducing the air inside isn't going to be that big a deal. You don't even need to get rid of all the air, just maintaining 90% vacuum would be fine, you could whiz down there at 1000kph as easy as kiss my hand.

Anyway, I'm not a physicist, I am just wondering if people have a full understanding of the forces involved flinging stuff around at 1000kph+ in an enclosed space at full air density. It is some serious shit. People are comparing it to aeroplanes, but at sea level it would be 3x the shockwave a plane has to deal with. High speed trains in Europe and Japan already match or exceed the air-displacement issues faced by airlines - and that's one third the proposed speed of this device. I don't know, man. Sure, in ideal circumstances you might be able to engineer some low drag trick. Still sounds like unicycling along the edge of a cliff to me. Near mach 1 in a fully pressurised tunnel? Dear christ.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > it's not an evacuated tunnel

Really? I thought it was already established that the Hyperloop is a vactrain ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain)). Using small cars (say, six passengers) accomplishes the "leaves when you arrive" and putting solar panels on top of the tunnel accomplishes the storing energy part. I wonder what the alternative would be and what its advantages over a vactrain would be.

<comment><USER15> He's said explicitly that it's not, although I can't find a primary source for this quote.

<comment><USER39> [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/224406502188916739](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/224406502188916739)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Thats clearly nothing to think of :P

</comment><comment><USER41> I have a flight to LA tomorrow. Any chance this will be ready by tonight?

<comment><USER42> You're not flying to LA tomorrow. They haven't built the plane yet.</comment></comment>


Show HN: I made an app that tells you exactly how profitable every investor is - <AUTHOR> https://tradably.app.link/RtiZbKdY5M <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all! I was in the finance industry several years and realised that there is a lack of transparency in the investments space. So together with my team, we came up with Tradably that allows users to share actionable investment ideas, and to build a portfolio to showcase their investment prowess with real-time verifications.

I hope you'll enjoy the app!

<comment><USER2> Hey, this looks great. What is the best way to contact you? I'm planning to install it and will try to provide some feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Amir6! Thanks for showing your interest! You can contact me at email@example.com!</comment></comment></comment>


Two-seater German-made multicopter flying machine on its way - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/118131-two-seater-german-made-multicopter-flying-machine-on-its-way

<comment><USER2> Why we don't have jetpacks and flying cars:

A: We do. A helicopter is a flying car, built safe enough for commercial use by a trained pilot. Anything that incorporates enough safeguards to be reasonably useful will be a lot like a helicopter.

B: Humans are bad enough at driving on the ground, in 2 dimensions of space. Add a velocity assist from gravity, and the danger factor goes way up.

In other words, humans can't generally be trusted with these technologies. We need robopilots.</comment>


Best Pictures Of The Decade: The Noughties - <AUTHOR> http://totallycoolpix.com

<comment><USER2> Having all those powerful photos watermarked with 'totallycoolpix' in the corner is really throwing me. It's a complete sentiment mismatch.

The photos are important. Many of the events depicted, however, are not 'totally cool' in any sense that I read the phrase. I know it's just website branding but it's bothering me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Direct link: [http://totallycoolpix.com/2010/12/best-pictures-of-the- decad...](http://totallycoolpix.com/2010/12/best-pictures-of-the-decade-the- noughties/)

Some significant events those.</comment>


Scaring People into Supporting Backdoors - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/12/scaring_people_.html <comment><USER2> Why do people generally assume that law enforcement is clean? There are sufficient examples of cops informing for drug gangs ([https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/07/29/during-steroid- scandal-f...](https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/07/29/during-steroid-scandal-few- arlington-police-officers-faced-drug-tests/)), and somewhere in Mexico a blogger whose subject was gang atrocities was discovered and killed by cartel members because the cartel had an inside man at the local telco ([https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/me...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/mexican- drug-cartel-killed-another-blogger/335686/)).

<comment><USER3> From an American perspective: it's because police are idolized and worshipped on the nightly news just about every single day. Growing up, speaking ill of the police was second only to speaking ill of God himself, and this isn't an exaggeration. There are no cops in my family, but this reverence is still held. My family is quite religious, and I wonder if that plays a factor (I would suspect it does).

<comment><USER4> It's just another form of tribalism, picking teams, and blindly supporting your chosen team.

Religion is the same, pick a team and throw critical thinking out the window.

Supporting police vs. the criminals, there's an implicit dichotomy: who do you support? if you're not with us, you're against us. You don't support the criminal team, do you? Go blue! Blue lives matter!

Employment: which company is your team? You _must_ be employed, now go choose one, and let your employer even define talking points for defending its poor behavior at family gatherings. [0]

Politics: Red or Blue, pick one and always vote your color no matter what the consequences.

Once people are engaging in teams, they're largely no longer thinking critically about the substance anymore. It's no longer relevant, the priority is being aligned with their peers.

It's quite dangerous, like mob mentality.

[0] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/krisholt/2019/12/02/facebook- ma...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/krisholt/2019/12/02/facebook-made-a- chatbot-to-help-workers-handle-relatives-awkward-questions-over-thanksgiving/)

<comment><USER5> "If I'm either with you or against you, then I'm against you. No matter who you are, no matter what you stand for."

<comment><USER4> Who are you quoting?

<comment><USER6> The hero we don't deserve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a related question, which is if the government's argument is valid, then why not extend it? Why not require cameras in every room of the home, so that if abuse or molestation of a child occurs then child services can step and remove the child, and the parents be prosecuted? You might also argue that if you don't accede to this simple request, then you must have something to hide.

<comment><USER8> Let's extend it with reason instead. Everyone has something to hide, but the people with the most power can do the mosr dangerous things. We need power- progressive surveilence: everyone with lots of power over the lives of others should have their choices and lives be scrutinizable by those whose lives they affect.

\- Random ordinary citizen? Leave me alone. \- Someone in a law enforcement agency? Jail time if their mandatory badge came stop functionioning, with all the footage being public data. A powerful politician? Billionaire CEO? Board members of a massive international corporation? 24/7 livestreamed public surveillance.

After all, the worst the average person can do is shoot some people, but those who hold power can ruin the lives of millions with a word, and often do. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, and if they don't like it, they can simply step away from power.

I honestly believe this, but even if you don't, it's worth considering why it's always a discussion of the powerful privately and secretly monitoring the weakest in society, rather then the other way around. Almost like its purely a reinforcement of the existing hierarchy.

<comment><USER9> I make a similar argument about the age of transparency hurting the elite more than it hurts common folk. If you make all my data public, I'll be at most embarrassed. If you make the elite's data public, that includes the location of dead bodies.

<comment><USER10> You wouldn't just be embarrassed. Job interviews, health insurance policies, even the prices or discounts available to you may all come under rational consideration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > We are saying three things. One, that strong encryption is necessary for > personal and national security. Two, that weakening encryption does more > harm than good. And three, law enforcement has other avenues for criminal > investigation than eavesdropping on communications and stored devices (this > is just one example).

Also: law enforcement assumes criminals and others are stupid and cannot not apply encryption and information hiding themselves. Plus creating your own chat app is extremely easy, so why even rely on the big and obvious ones, just DIY.

<comment><USER12> I mean, really, isn't this kind of a moot point from a dedicated criminal's perspective? Does the government actually have any power? Sure, you'll catch the idiots operating over a compromised channel, but it doesn't matter what laws you pass wailing about "the children" and "criminals" if the criminals are rolling their own or even just using PGP.

<comment><USER13> It's not about criminals. It's just about control.

<comment><USER12> I think it's both. The government wants the power to see EVERYTHING because EVERYONE is a potential criminal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > In fact, we were never able to view the contents of his phone

They were also never able to learn what was said in the van before the London Bridge attack [1]. Are we okay with Renault providing a law-free space inside their vehicles? All cars should be equipped with always-on microphones. But don't worry! The audio will be encrypted, and only accessible with a warrant.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_London_Bridge_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_London_Bridge_attack)

Edit: Just to make sure - this is satire, and the logical extension of believing people shouldn't be allowed to keep any secrets.

Responding in edit due to posting limit (way to make sure downvoted comments can't explain or defend themselves):

They can also record the person typing in their password, or recording the screen with cameras, or hardware or software bugs once they have a password to access the phone.

The analogy works perfectly, and while they may say the will not "treat an encryption backdoor like a universal bug", that's exactly what it _is_.

<comment><USER15> This isn't a fair response. If law enforcement knows that some specific person is doing a crime, they can and do plant always-on microphones on their car. The law enforcement concern is that they can't do that at all in this context. Even if you know for sure someone's planning a serious crime, there's no way to spy on their E2E encrypted communications.

Most law enforcement agencies argue (with varying degrees of believability) that they will not treat an encryption backdoor like a universal bug they can just listen in on whenever.

<comment><USER16> Of course there is - exactly the same way as they do so with the car: get a warrant, and surveil the target.

<comment><USER15> How would a warrant give them the ability to see what's said in an encrypted chat? You can't instal a camera on someone's shoulder like you can put a bug in their car.

<comment><USER14> What if they talk with someone while walking through a forest? Should that also be forbidden, because it's difficult to spy on?

<comment><USER15> I'm not saying end to end encryption should be forbidden, just that it's a toxic argument to go "haha, stupid law enforcement doesn't realize there are already places that are hard to spy on!" Of course there are, nobody thinks otherwise.

<comment><USER14> So what makes E2E encryption different, that the same arguments don't apply to other difficult-to-spy-on places? I think people should be made acutely aware it's not an assault on encryption - it's an assault on their right to keep secrets at all.

<comment><USER15> The difference is that, unlike forests and private spaces, (easy and consumer- grade) E2E encryption is new. Law enforcement is concerned that adding this new thing to society will change things for the worse. That's a reasonable concern in general, even if we don't think it's true in this specific case.

You don't have a general right to keep secrets from law enforcement. With a warrant, they can spy on you to try and get your secrets in ways that would otherwise be scandalous or downright illegal. If you don't think law enforcement should be allowed to steal people's secrets at all, fair enough, but that's a very radical view and I don't think most people supporting E2E encryption share it.

<comment><USER14> Cameras and phone surveillance and miniature microphones are also new. When technology encroaches upon privacy, "that's just the way things are!", but when it protects it, "it's new and different and must be restricted!".

More to your point, I do think law enforcement should be allowed to spy on people when necessary (by whatever definition of 'necessary'). But that's a far cry from saying that people should be compelled to assist in the spying.

There's no warrant to compel someone to knowingly carry a bug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's time for a careful analysis by a qualified cryptographer of how key escrow weakens the protections encryption is supposed to afford.

Schneier does conclude his post with a general "weakening encryption does more harm than good", but the title still uses the term backdoor. No one who's learned a bit about crypto (omitting Lindsey Graham here [https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/10/tech-companies- bipa...](https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/10/tech-companies-bipartisan- congress-encryption-080704)) is advocating for a "master key," short key lengths or backdoors that use obscurity to keep bad actors from exploiting them.

Key escrow is real & already deployed in things like FileVault's Institutional Recovery Key [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202385](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202385)

All institutions don't use the same key and the vendor doesn't have to have a copy.

[Microsoft offers companies a recovery mechanism too [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/security/informatio...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/security/information-protection/bitlocker/bitlocker-recovery-guide- plan)]

My guess to how key escrow weakens protections is through implementation mistakes. Are there also mathematical weaknesses that effectively shorten the key length making brute force more feasible??? Why is the discourse on the anti-lawful-intercept side so imprecise?

<comment><USER18> Key escrow doesn't change the fundamental mathematics behind the key. It's entirely an implementation detail / matter of trust. You're sharing what would otherwise be a secret with a new party. If they are untrustworthy or get compromised, it's no different than if you got compromised directly. But now you have roughly 2x the exposure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Law-enforcement agencies in the UK, to name one relatively liberal country, had no qualms about using their anti-terrorism tools to track and arrest minors during, after, and even before climate change protests. "Think of the children," indeed.

<comment><USER3> Every tool we give cops has to be measured in two ways:

\- What's the best case for this tool to be used? \- What's the worst case for this tool to be used in?

and then the disparity between the two must be examined. In most cases, I would say it's not worth giving many of these tools to cops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How to implement highly-secure backdoors is explained in the following linked article along with an analysis of potential pitfalls:

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3425957](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3425957)

</comment><comment><USER21> > In fact, we were never able to view the contents of his phone because of > this gift to sex traffickers that came, not from God, but from Apple.

Thanks to the poor state of U.S. education, inscrutable nature of encryption, and the failure of secure software developers to protect nearly anything at all, this sentence remains unintelligible to most Americans.

<comment><USER22> \- God is all knowing

\- God is all powerful

\- God created the universe

Given the above three, God created the universe knowing he was creating it in a way that said sex traffickers would come into being, and that they would get access to said phones/encryption.

It is literally impossible for the first three items to be true and the consequence to be false. As such, "this gift to sex traffickers" did, indeed, come for God (and Apple).

<comment><USER23> It depends on what you think omnipotence is; if you believe that it is constrained by consistency (God cannot create a square circle) then it could be the case that any world created would have some evil. Then a benign God could create the "best possible world" in which bad things happen.

All academic anyway, there is no God.

<comment><USER22> Even given that, He chose to create this world, with these people. Choosing between 2 evils doesn't mean you chose evil, but it does mean you chose an evil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If encryption is a weapon then (in the USA) the First Amendment applies.

<comment><USER5> You're thinking of the _second_ amendment, I think.

<comment><USER24> OMG derp, yeah, thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Reports Record Third Quarter Results - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/07/21Apple-Reports-Record-Third-Quarter-Results.html <comment><USER2> No Apple Watch sales numbers revealed. They obviously sold millions on launch but I believe they don't want to set expectations too high by revealing the number until they see next quarters results. Making the overhyped launch sales the de facto benchmark will hurt the stock in the future because it will be a tough number to top. The more likely scenario will be that they'll wait till the year is over and come out with an average sales number for the year.

<comment><USER3> Apple Watch is on a steeper trajectory than iPhone and iPad were.

>The Apple Watch has sold more units in the first nine weeks following its launch than either the iPhone or iPad did at the same point after their respective releases, Apple CFO Luca Maestri said on Tuesday. [1]

[1] [http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/07/21/apple-watch- sales-...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/07/21/apple-watch-sales-beat- iphone-ipad-through-9-weeks-cfo-luca-maestri-says)

<comment><USER2> I believe thats mostly due to the combination of the hype surrounding the release of Apple's latest product line, and the fact that Apple has A LOT more potential customers paying attention to it than it did when it launched the iPad and definitely when it launched the iPhone.

<comment><USER4> Also Apple launched the iWatch in more countries than the iPhone and iPad, including China (their second biggest market). The iWatch demand and initial sales will be more front loaded than the iPhone and iPad

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow. Will next year China be a bigger share of the revenue than the entire Americas?

<comment><USER6> Actually in China the Apple euphoria appears to have ended, Greater China sales fell by 21% from $16.8 billion to $13.2 billion, which is part of the reason AAPL stock is currently down 7%.

<comment><USER5> You shouldn't compare Q3 2015 to Q2 2015, but to Q3 2014. Otherwise seasonal effects and things like product launches play too big a role. The iPhone 6 has been out for some time, for instance. Sales of that taper off a bit after release.

<comment><USER7> This oh this. The Chinese market has its own holiday season, why would you compare Q1 to Q2?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Stock is already down 6.31% in aftermarket! Geez

<comment><USER9> Is there a reason why stock would drop so much? Did they fail to hit some target?

<comment><USER10> expected 49-51b revenue. rev was at 49.6. i think aapl has been beating rev estimates for a while, while this one was right in the low end of expected

edit: was incorrect on my numbers.

spiralpolitik: Expected revenue for Q3 was 46-48b (see Q2 earnings press release). So they beat the estimate by 1.6 billion. The 49-51b number is the Q4 estimate.

<comment><USER11> From the press release (emphasis mine):

The Company posted quarterly revenue of _$49.6 billion_ and quarterly net profit of _$10.7 billion_ , or $1.85 per diluted share. (...) Gross margin was _39.7 percent_ compared to 39.4 percent in the year-ago quarter.

Investor conclusion: Apple is not doing so well. There is something wrong with the stock market when a company post record profits, almost 40% margin (on electronics) and that's seen as an omen.

I understand it is the opposite, brokers bet earlier that the results would be even better and are now unloading the bets at a lower price (causing the market correction) but even so it is amazing how detached stock brokerage is from investment and how close it is from gambling.

<comment><USER12> Part of the value of the stock is expected returns, and if the expected returns suddenly change than the value of the stock will suddenly change too. I don't think that it's necessarily an omen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This makes it clear that Apple Watch isn't the kind of category creator like iPhone, but rather like Apple TV.

<comment><USER14> I think it's too soon to make that call. I'm an early adopter of many Apple products, but find the watch very lacking. Even my ex-gf, who works at Apple, decided she wasn't going to get the watch.

What's wrong with it?

For starters, it's no-go for left-handed people. If you put the watch on your right hand, the controls are all on the arm side, rather than the hand side of the watch. On a normal watch that's not a big deal because you barely access the controls. The solution then is to turn the watch upside down, but then the controls are still awkward and since they made the strange decision not to center the control. One wonders why they went with "watch" controls at all.

Second, it's not really a watch, is it? It's a lot more than a watch. A watch for me is mostly a fashion accessory. But these things are ugly. I find it very strange that Angela Ahrendts from Burberry is in charge of retail, but they didn't do what Burberry does... get watch companies to make the watches and then tack on their logo. I would _love_ a Burberry type watch (despite my watchmaker friend telling me how much crap they are), which, by the way, has many interactive features with my iPhone. But what Apple offered was an ugly, clunky, underpowered second screen that I have to constantly charge.

All that said, I think they might figure out how to make a good Apple Watch (as long as they don't treat it like they've treated the Apple TV, which IMHO, has gone backward with each version -- give me local storage!).

<comment><USER15> The left-hand, right-hand issue isnt really a thing. You can change the orientation of the display and bands such that it works for both left and right hands. The only difference is whether the crown is on the top right or bottom left, but it doesnt really affect usability (afaik).

<comment><USER14> It affected it for me. I've tried the watch on and its just not usable that way for me. Another poster says he prefers it that way. I find the choice of mimicking watch controls odd to begin with, and then to align them in a such a way that they provide a different experience for different users seems odder still.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The EPS, revenue and margine may have beat but when looking into the details of the overall results they do not look good at all.

47.5 million iPhone shipments missing expectations by 1.3 million units, even with both iPad (whose ASP came at $415 below the $426 expected), and Mac units coming in as expected.

Greater China sales tumbling by 21% from $16.8 billion to $13.2 billion, in the quarter when the Composite was hitting multi year highs, and the July crash was not even on the horizon.

Guidance now sees Q4 revenue at $49-$51 billion, or below the $51.1 bn consensus estimate, with a warning about the strong dollar.

And all this happened in a quarter in which they bought back $10 billion of its own stock.

In after hours AAPL seems to be down 7% as a result of all this. Which is worrying considering how big of a part of the overall market they are.

</comment><comment><USER16> Apple's suppliers: AVGO, CRUS, INVN, NXPI and SWKS are also being hammered.

Possible trading strategy here, trade the suppliers, and main games makers on apple results?

<comment><USER13> This is a good strategy if you want to trade parts of the Apple earnings report.

For example, INVN is barely down at all while Apple is down >7%, implying that whatever component INVN supplies is still in demand by Apple (i.e., that part of their earnings were not bad).

<comment><USER17> INVN supplies the MPU6050 IMU common to most smartphones. It's a really high quality combined accelerometer and gyroscope. Samsung also uses tons of these. Furthermore these will likely be in everything, and they are tiny. They use a really interesting mechanical technology combined with on-chip kalman filters.

edit: [http://www.invensense.com/products/motion- tracking/6-axis/mp...](http://www.invensense.com/products/motion- tracking/6-axis/mpu-6050/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> [https://www.estimize.com/aapl](https://www.estimize.com/aapl)

it's pretty amazing how spot on the estimates are to the actual figures for AAPL compared to other stocks.

The reason it's down is probably because there was no surprise and the numbers came a bit shy of what the estimates were but regardless, I view it as an overreaction.

My long term outlook on iPhone and Apple is positive, they've essentially established a monopoly on the luxury market segment which is always a growing market with fat margins while Samsung is feeling the squeeze from Chinese phone makers undercutting them ([http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2014/10/07/samsu...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2014/10/07/samsung- quarterly-profit-down/16861445/)), it has a similar tone to giants that have fallen (Motorola, Nokia failed to stay relevant after increased market entrants that ate into their margins). Samsung's immediate response will be to continue to spend big bucks on R&D since they can't copy Apple anymore while nothing stops Chinese companies from copying Samsung (as Korean conglomerates behave ruthlessly on it's home turf, so do the Chinese) and reaping the benefits of piggybacking. Also growing wages and demand for increased social welfare in Korea evidenced by the foul cry over the recent merger of Samsung's holding companies, screwing over it's investors and seriously putting a smear on South Korea's corporate governance, market trust is low (message is clear, if you invest in Korea, you can't fight the powerful conglomerate families or the government which share the same bed, see Morningstar) from the failure of government to lay down the law (so much for President Park's promise to reign in the _Chaebols_ or conglomerate families).

The downfall of Samsung might play right into Apple's hands if they launch a surprise attack and release a phone in this segment with cheaper hardware but with the same good software.

Considering Samsung has a repeated history of copying market innovators, undercutting to win significant market share, and dragging out the legal process until finally settling, failure to break into the luxury market will be the downfall for Samsung's phones in an increasingly decreasing margin game.

All of this is great for Apple.

edit: Someone accuses me of being an Apple fanboy when I'm an Android user happy with his Motorola phone, I don't see why that changes anything. Sent from my Android phone.

<comment><USER19> Apple has moved from traditional tech to consumer devices.

College kids may one day decide Apple is not cool.

<comment><USER20> Just standard trolling about how Apple's success is transitory, without merit, and due to people finding them "cool" for no rational reason.

<comment><USER19> (I'll bite)

Consider this : [http://finviz.com/map.ashx?t=sec](http://finviz.com/map.ashx?t=sec) (finviz: a heatmap visualization of the stock market )

Note that Apple is in "Consumer Goods", not "Technology".

At least one market analyst thinks their competitors are Proctor & Gamble and Coca Cola.

<comment><USER21> People say Apple is a tech company or a toys for millenials company, but I claim that fundamentally Apple is a _user experience_ company (maybe the only one).

They dominate because Steve Jobs realized what business they're in, and none of their competitors have. This is like when the railroads' lunch was eaten by the tractor trailer because the railroads thought they were rail companies, when in fact they were transportation companies. Samsung and all the other competitors think they're in the device business, but they're not. They're in the UX business.

It helps to have Steve Jobs, who was actually a user experience zealot and in a normal org would have been the CUXO, masquerading as a CEO. As an example, think of the difference between being an Apple vs. Samsung customer, all the way through the value chain. Shopping in that beautiful airy Apple store, experiencing those matte textures and ingenious packaging while unboxing your new devices, the industrial design wizardry that constructed a machine with such amazing fit and finish and tight panel gaps and textures, software that (sometimes, mostly) just works.

Jobs was a strong enough leader to make a bunch of mostly-orthogonal disciplines (e.g. manufacturing, industrial design, software engineering, packaging design) subservient to the company's ultimate objective, which is UX. It doesn't hurt that Apple tends to execute best-in-class on each of these axes, but that's tactics not strategy.

The big question for the future is whether Tim Cook understands this. It's left as an exercise for the reader whether the Apple watch is a product made by a UX company or by a company intent on duplicating the financial success of the ipad and iphone by cargo-culting the "create new device class" methods that worked before.

<comment><USER22> UX and ecosystem, which includes the software, services, content, and work of other users. The hardware is a key into the walled garden.

Apple's biggest asset is the fact that it's the only computer company to care about UX. All other companies try to sell computers as if they're engineering or business tools designed for engineers or business people.

So you'll often get a load of crap and bloatware which is only really there to underline the fact that a lot of engineering has happened. (It's like Japanese hifi which always has something like "SuperDynamic Extra Bitwidth HyperTechnology" on the front somewhere, so you can tell it's not just another generic amp, or something.)

Only Apple tries to sell computers to non-technical people.

Nokia would have done the same thing if they'd moved into the computer market, but they didn't. They got very close with phones, but Nokia were never run by a dictator, so the culture was too unstructured and chaotic to really nail it.

Microsoft tried it with Win 8 but got it unbelievably, insanely wrong, mostly by thinking all you have to do is dumb down the UI and add really loud colours. (Clue: no.)

Unfortunately I think the plot has been lost with Watch, which is a lifestyle product whose only real point is to be a lifestyle product.

Unlike everything else Apple has made, it's not obviously useful and trying to be beautiful - it's trying to be beautiful, because Apple.

I hope that's not the beginning of a trend. Maybe a serious use case will appear, but it's clearly not doing it for the market yet.

<comment><USER23> I agree with yours & the parent argument very much. I feel like the Watch could usher in Security/Identity features, that no other consumer device is capable of.

Imagine not having to carry your Company ID card, your credit/debit/loyalty/gym card or any home/car/locker keys or your insurance/drivers license whatsoever for the rest of your life.

This combine with tracking your health, could be its USP.

As the hardware evolves (in 2 years - where its hopefully independent of your Phone), all you need is your watch to go to the gym, or take your dog for a walk.

Iteration/Execution is key, of course. As long as Apple realizes its more important to fix bugs & not keep adding broken features to more broken features (like Apple Music & iTunes 12.2 - which have been horrible IMHO) they should have enough of a user base to make the Watch a household product like the Phone.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


In the Coronavirus Fight in Scandinavia, Sweden Stands Apart - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus.html <comment><AUTHOR> The government gets a lot of flak for this (tame? naïve?) approach, but the underlying principles are interesting in a general leadership perspective -- setting a goal without explicitly forcing people:

"Therefore, you don't need to micromanage or control behavior at a detailed level through prohibitions or threat of sanctions or fines or imprisonment," Mr. Tragardh said in a phone interview. "That is how Sweden stands apart, even from Denmark and Norway."

Let's see how it goes.

<comment><USER2> It's not so simple imho. Denmark has much higher population density than Sweden. I'll wait a few months before passing verdict on who got what right and what model works where.</comment></comment>


Taxing Robots to Level the Playing Field - <AUTHOR> https://economics.mit.edu/files/15811 <comment><AUTHOR> Article discussing the paper

[https://www.imf.org/en/News/Podcasts/All- Podcasts/2019/07/24...](https://www.imf.org/en/News/Podcasts/All- Podcasts/2019/07/24/costinot-robot-tax)</comment>


Ask Uber: Please make an emergency rides function, for my kids - <AUTHOR> Uber,
Since I cannot find any contact email address on your website AT ALL (which is really lame), I'd like to make the following feature request:
I'd like an Uber Child account that I can have on my kids phones. I want them to be able to call for an uber in any emergency/desperate/broke situation and get a ride -- but to have my phone receive a txt/notification that their request was made. ALong with pickup and drop off locations via email.
I want kids to be able to use Uber whenever they really need a ride - but this is different than just giving them access to "my uber account" and letting them run up some huge bill.
Maybe have a "call kid as if I am the Uber Driver button"
Also - please put a way to contact you guys on your freaking site or even in the app!
Thanks <comment><USER2> That is a solved problem for all of the teens at my kids' school. It is solved by having the account tagged to the parents' credit card.

Few teens abuse it. Those that do tend to get hell from their parents (controlling the children's behavior is the parents' job, not Uber's!). But in other situations it is fabulous--late nights, alcohol, etc.

But then we also have a standing deal with our kids: call us anytime of the day or night, and we will come and get you. No questions, no comments, no judgment. It works.

Disclaimer: rich city, private school.

<comment><USER3> Have your kids ever used that? Because I know growing up (I'm 23, so not that long ago) that was my parents policy as well, but neither my sister or I ever used it. a.) We were both responsible enough to make sure if we would be drinking we'd have a way home and b.) If it came to driving drunk/riding with a drunk friend vs. calling them, I would have called them. But I was never put in that situation.

It is a good policy though, the hard part, is actually following through, because I am quite confident my parents would have been pretty mad/upset if I called them at 3:00 AM hammered asking for a ride, but they would know they couldn't actually show they were mad because then the worry would be if there was a next time, I would choose to drive instead of calling.

These driverless cars need to hurry up and become mainstream!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would this be different in any way from an account which my kids could use for rides, and which would simply notify me with the relevant info when they used it?

That is, does the "emergency" aspect relate to any actual features of the account, or is it simply motivation for Uber to implement your request?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, I am fully open to your version... my premise was for it to be fully intended for emergencies -- as the basis for that type of additional account.

I.e. so as that it is not to be thought of as something a kid would easily absentmindedly abused by a teen.

Maybe there could be several types of child accounts:

Full access, but noted as to who was using the service by name of assignee in the app.

Limited child account "only uber X and only for destinations in whitelist or certain radius"

"Emergency uber": from source to home/hospital only for use to escape drunk party friends/feeling sick/[other emergency]

Thanks for the input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not add your child as an authorized user on your credit card and let them get their own Uber account?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not everyone wants to / has the resources to do so?

The point was to create a way for a teen to be able to use uber in a way that would minimize abuse on the part of the teen.

<comment><USER6> Is the important part the text/call before hand? I can imagine this being implemented at the payment level. You could have a credit card that required authorization before any use. You could ask your kid to text you "I'm lost and need to get home", you send your bank a verification code then they approve the next transaction (perhaps with a time limit, a day would suffice). Then they could send you the transaction when it happens.

<comment><AUTHOR> While I like how you thought that through, the last innovation I expect happening any time soon would be with a bank.

Also, I can imagine a child being coerced into "Im scared and need a ride, approve this transaction" into being robbed out of that next transaction....</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Discovery of classic pi formula a 'cunning piece of magic' - <AUTHOR> http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/discovery-of-classic-pi-formula-a-cunning-piece-of-magic-128002/ <comment><USER2> > But two University scientists were still surprised to find it lurking in a > quantum mechanics formula for the energy states of the hydrogen atom.

So, in a round object?

<comment><USER3> > "What surprised me is that the formula occurred in such a natural way in the > calculations, with no circles involved in determining the energy states," > said Hagen, the co-author of the paper.</comment></comment>