Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity - <AUTHOR> https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/how-elon-musk-gambled-tesla-to-save-solarcity <comment><USER3> The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did and it has dire consequences for Tesla the car company. Shareholders definitely have a great chance to sue Musk because he did not do this in the best interest of his shareholders, it's in the best interest of his cousin. Co-mingling all parts of his companies (SpaceX buying SolarCity Bonds) is a huge red flag that reeks of corporate malfeasance. He should have let SolarCity die, it would have come back as a stronger company once the initial investors were wiped out.

<comment><USER4> > The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk > did

Why was it a bad move for Elon Musk?

Elon Musk owned many SolarCity shares (in fact, Elon Musk was the chairman of SolarCity). If SolarCity would go bankrupt, Elon Musk would have lost a lot of money and power. Elon Musk saved SolarCity to save his own skin and money. Its not really that hard to imagine.

Now Tesla shareholders, who overwhelmingly voted for the merger, made a big mistake. But Tesla shareholders own the company, they are allowed to make whatever decisions they want.

Its definitely a sketchy move, but Elon Musk did it correctly. Elon Musk recused his voted, and left it up to shareholder vote. Tesla shareholders only have themselves to blame for this move.

EDIT: Even if you voted "no" and were overridden by all of your fellow shareholders, you had plenty of time to sell your Tesla shares to avoid this disaster. Tesla bought SolarCity back in 2016. Plenty of time to sell if you were keeping up with the news.

<comment><USER5> > Now Tesla shareholders, who overwhelmingly voted for the merger, made a big > mistake. But Tesla shareholders own the company, they are allowed to make > whatever decisions they want.

They voted for the merger based on Musk's claim that SolarCity had a good financial position and that they were releasing a revolutionary solar shingle product. Both of those were wrong.

<comment><USER4> Note: the financial positioning of SolarCity was obvious to anyone who could read a 10k. SolarCity never made a profit, and it spent tons of money chasing imaginary products (similar to a lot of other Musk-based properties). 10k documents exist for a reason. [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1408356/000156459017...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1408356/000156459017003084/scty-10k_20161231.htm)

In 2016, SolarCity lost a full, solid, $Billion. The Tesla investors who voted for SolarCity / Tesla merger has no excuse on this part: all information was public, and no fraud has been detected in any of these numbers (yet).

> and that they were releasing a revolutionary solar shingle product

That one... I'll blame Musk for for sure. But investors really should have done their own proper leg-work and analyzed SolarCity's financial position on their own.

<comment><USER6> > In 2016, SolarCity lost a full, solid, $Billion.

Amateurs. Uber does that every quarter.

<comment><USER7> I'd love to see Uber's projections on what fare chances to do the demand curve. How much would they have to raise fares (accounting for decreased demand) to break even? If it's <5%, they're actually in a pretty good spot.

<comment><USER4> Uber doesn't have a yearly 10k yet. But their 10Q (quarterly) data for first- half (aka: 1H) 2019 is as follows:

$6.2 Billion in revenue, $(6.2) Billion in net loss.

So Uber roughly, has to increase prices by 100% to break even. [http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001543151/bb9ba252...](http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001543151/bb9ba252-3fd3-4633-b57e-2de50831f71d.pdf#FY2019Q2FINANCIALSTATE_HTM_SA42F159CECEB567FB9E80911DB0CB0E7)

I wish I were kidding. But that's what the data says. Page 5 of the above link, Revenue: $6,265 and Net (6,262) if you want to ctrl-F things.

Uber spent $6 Billion more this half-year on Cost-of-Sales, R&D, and Administrative costs (compared to the 1H 2018).

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Operational income / Operational Margins are negative as well. Sooo... yeah... somewhere around 100% price increases across the board for Uber to break even.

Realistically, Uber will only become profitable if they cut back on marketing (aka: giving incentives to drivers), raise rates, and cut back on their R&D spending (all this self-driving car nonsense... Uber isn't rich enough to fund such a project).

</comment><comment><USER8> For all the negativity here about Musk and his business decisions, there is something to be said for integrating transport and energy services in one great package.

I consult for a large energy conglomerate that wants to get into this market from the energy suppliers side, but the problem is that they are completely clueless when it comes to expanding beyond their traditional business. In their vision, they'll supply customers with solar panels, an EV charger, home battery, heating solutions and as a backup their traditional business: gas and electricity. All integrated in a nice package.

It took them two years to set up a department that sells their first product (besides gas and electricity): an outdated EV charger, from a company they bought that stopped innovating after acquisition and is now lagging behind competition. Not a car, just the charger.

<comment><USER9> Maybe Musk will be proven right in time but having followed Tesla for a long time and having recently purchased a Model 3 (It's an incredible car). The Solar City purchase is the one thing that never made a lot of sense to me.

Even if you start from the premise that it makes sense for Tesla to be in the solar business, it's hard to rationalize that the best way to break into that market was to buy a debt laden solar panel installer.

I don't buy the short's narrative that this is anything like an Enron style fraud but the only point that the Tesla short sellers are a little bit right on, among the mounds of BS they publish, is that the Solar City acquisition was a shitty deal and Tesla would be better of today had it not happened. That said I don't think it is going to sink the company the Model 3 is just too good.

<comment> semi-extrinsic AFAICT they are still losing money on every Model 3 though?

Doesn't matter that your cars are really good if you're not profitable. Just look at Saab.

<comment><USER10> All of Tesla's models have a healthy gross margin, meaning that their economics get healthier with every car they sell.

Tesla as a whole still operates at a loss, but that's to be expected with the massive expansion of production capacity they've been continuously doing since 2012.

<comment> semi-extrinsic OK, I should rephrase that. They are not losing money on every car. But they are still far from being profitable selling hundreds of thousands of $35k cars.

According to the letter Musk himself posted in early January of 2019, he said they can squeeze out a tiny profit when selling the top end Model 3s at $45k+. And that they have a big effort ahead to make a profit selling $35k cars. This is a far cry away from a healthy gross margin.

[https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-company- update?redirect=no](https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-company- update?redirect=no)

<comment><USER11> There is a healthy margin on every car they sell. They just invested so much that they are still not making a profit. The way I'm reading it is that they can make a profit if they sell them at 45k, but they rather sell them at 35k to sell MORE. Expansion has a cost, and it's the reason why they're not making a profit.

<comment> semi-extrinsic No, the point is they are currently not selling any at $35k. They are filling the high-end orders first, hoping that they can do $35k profitably in the end.

<comment><USER12> You can walk in to a Tesla store and buy the $35k car today. It's just not for sale on their web site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This bit seems pretty damning:

 _> As SolarCity struggled to raise money from institutional investors, it began offering individuals a chance to buy what it called Solar Bonds. ("Now you can get paid while driving the solar revolution," the marketing material said.) But there were few takers—so other parts of the Musk empire took up the slack. According to the shareholder lawsuit, SpaceX acquired $255 million of the bonds._

Other than Musk's involvement in both, what's the situation where a company like SpaceX sees a need to plow $255 million into debt obligations issued by a solar panel installer?

<comment><USER14> SpaceX's stated goal is "occupy Mars".

Being able to land and deploy solar panels at scale is essential to this goal. And Musk has learned the hard way not to trust third party suppliers that he doesn't control.

SpaceX's aspirational goal is to launch something Mars-wards in the 2022 window to identify where the base will be and have some resources. Then send several vehicles and a few people in 2025 to set up a mission. Primary on that mission is to deploy solar panels, and start making methane+oxygen from CO2, water and energy. This is both for a return trip and for people to breathe. Then in 2027 send the first trip that can make a return flight. (Those dates are set by the fact that the Earth and Mars come into a good conjunction for launching from one to the other every 26 months.)

Musk says "aspirational". I think "crazy". But bump those by 2-5 years and it becomes barely plausible. And the end goal sounds less crazy now than it did 5 years ago. When it sounded less crazy than it was 11 years ago when we all were laughing at him.

And if he succeeds, the Mars colony could come to be worth more to SpaceX than its satellite launch business. By a lot.

<comment><USER15> Very interesting, but can you elaborate how we could benefit from colonizing Mars? Even more so - how could SpaceX be much more worth by being able to go to Mars, and how others wouldn't be able to achieve similar step sometime after them (depriving SpaceX from exclusivity of operation)

Mars is much smaller than Earth with much more hostile environment. I heard some ideas of growing trees or putting air on Mars, but just to adjust a flow of a river on Earth could cost millions of dollars; if you add complexity to get it done on Mars I don't think a price tag could be even put on it.

Visiting Mars - sure who wouldn't want it, but other than biologist and geologist, I doubt masses would want to migrate and live there, making SpaceX worth billions in process (that assuming somehow SpaceX would be given an exclusivity to park their rockets on Mars - a body to give such approval doesn't even exist and I doubt any single country can claim Mars' ownership)

<comment><USER14> Most people will not want to move to Mars, just as very few Europeans wanted to move to the New World in the 1500s.

However while relatively few people want to move to Mars, it is a large absolute number. For example a few years ago when Mars One called for volunteers for a one way trip to Mars, they got 200,000 people volunteering. Even filtering for people whose education and skills would make them useful, they had a large number.

One estimate that I saw said that a viable colony would require about 100,000 people to move over a century. And a person leaving Earth can reasonably spend their life savings to do so. The value proposition is essentially sell your house, use the money to move to Mars. SpaceX is planning to make the trip barely above cost. But don't forget. They will be landing on a planet where basic infrastructure, starting with energy, oxygen and tunnels, are provided by SpaceX. That's going to be billions per year. Of course it will be a long time before that colony is self-sustaining. But when it is, those infrastructure basics will be worth a lot.

As for a second contender, developing a rocket that can compete with SpaceX takes over a decade, and many billions of dollars. And then when you try to travel to Mars, you're going to be landing on a place where the infrastructure is owned by SpaceX. Musk is likely to welcome the competition...and charge top dollar for fuel for a return trip. So you'll have to invest billions more. And once you've done so, you'll be competing against an established competitor who is charging thin margins. And you still won't be in that lucrative infrastructure business.

As for who owns it legally...I believe that the people who live there will claim the land that they settle. And will create their own laws. They would mostly come from the USA where legal tradition resolves all property disputes in favor of squatter's rights. There will be room for all for a long time, but guess who the first and biggest squatters would be?

<comment><USER16> I think everyone else would conclude that Musk is welcome to have the Mars monopoly.

There's nothing there you can't get on Earth without the hassle of climbing out of a gravity well, schlepping across in front of a 24-hr supercharged X-ray machine, then climbing back down into another gravity well, then gathering whatever it is you felt is worth a hundred billion dollars of investment, waiting 2 years for the planets to align again, climbing back out of the gravity well you descended into, crossing the same X-ray moat, then finally returning to Earth and discovering some cheap bastard got it all from a mine in Australia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks.

The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as a matter-of-fact developments.

Running Tesla stories through a selection bias filter is really useful, as it'll discard most stories that pop up.

<comment><USER18> Pretty unsurprising really - sure, hating on Musk is popular, but it's mostly a reaction to the fawning uncritical gaze most people give him, and the way he's portrayed as this genius who is amazing at executing.

Elon Musk is great at promising stuff, and then terrible at executing. For every promise he fulfills there are 20 that he doesn't. But sure, the guy who flies private everywhere and shitposts more than I do is "working 100 hour weeks" and "cares for the environment."

<comment><USER17> I have a buddy - amicable, smart, did great in a tough school, did even better career wise, responsible for dozens of people, etc - who nevertheless explodes with anger and hatred and goes on 15-minutes tirades if someones brings up Musk in any positive light whatsoever. It is quite a shocking sight.

"Reaction" is the key word here. The opposite of a fanboy is not a hater, it is the person who doesn't care. The fanboy and the hater are two sides of the same coin - they both develop an obsession with a person and define their personalities as a function of this person. Whether that function is love or hate is secondary.

The way out of his is to ignore him, or judge him by his work. He sells cars - really good cars. For example, they have the best range and are incredibly safe. Your emotional reaction won't make you car's range go down, or make you any less safe in a crash.

<comment><USER19> > The way out of his is to ignore him

And any thread that involves him; I'm not good at this, but I'm trying. The reason Elon Musk inspires such hate is because he is constantly PRing (generously) unverifiable claims, but rarely gets any consequences from it. If he would let his work speak for itself, there would be less haters; his companies are clearly doing some things well.

It's kind of a Steve Jobs thing, but Jobs rarely made forward looking claims -- sure his claims of invention were irritating to some, but they were about a product that existed at the time of the claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If anyone is unfamiliar with the author, she was one of the first mainstream media authors to be critical on Enron and eventually wrote a book on Enron as well.

<comment><USER21> She wrote 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room' subsequently made into an excellent film. I suspect we will be seeing 'Tesla: The Smartest Guys in the Room' soon. It still rankles me that Nicolai Tesla's name is associated with all this.

<comment><USER22> > It still rankles me that Nicolai Tesla's name is associated with all this.

Why not? He was also an unstable "genius" who couldn't figure out the business side of things. Seems appropriate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There are real "solar shingles", but not from Tesla/Solar City.[1] The big player is CertainTeed, which makes roof components. CertainTeed is for real; you can order those. The strange thing is CertainTeed makes both regular and solar shingles, but don't offer a matching set. DeSol has a product line of roof components, with solar, non-solar, and edge parts that all fit together. Theirs looks good, but may be vaporware.

Tesla does have some "solar shingle" installations, but few; they're more like demos than a production product.[2]

The big problem with "solar shingles", which are just solar panels mounted flush to the roof or as the roof surface, is cooling. Most solar panels have air space behind them. Without that, these things run very hot. Dow backed out of solar shingles several years ago because theirs kept overheating. So, no thin-film solar cells in that application.

Somebody should have gotten this right by now. These things have been around since 2013 or so, and they're still marginal.

[1] [https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2019/04/the-latest- on-...](https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2019/04/the-latest-on-solar- roofs-solar-shingles-and-solar-tiles/)

[2] [https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-solar-roof-long-term- review-...](https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-solar-roof-long-term-review- homeowner-insights-elon-musk-solar-tiles/)

<comment><USER23> Amusingly, the DeSol web site has a copyright date of 2023 on it. I sent them a message asking if the product existed yet. They sent back, from a GMail account, "Who are you". I replied that I'd signed my message with my name and sent it from my own domain, what more did they want? Asked "You're sending from GMail, who are you?" Got back "(HN does not do Unicode emoji)". So, not sure what to think of that outfit. They seem to have a good sense of aesthetics; no idea if they can make it work.

<comment><USER24> > Amusingly, the DeSol web site has a copyright date of 2023 on it.

It's a Wix website (which probably tells you a bit about the company) - <USER2> of them have Copyright 2023 on them[1]. It's a phenomenon I've noticed for a while, but never worked out why. If anyone knows the reason I'd love to know.

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q="copyright+2023"&...](https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q="copyright+2023"&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> HN discussion at the time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11949434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11949434)

<comment><USER26> A few highlights:

> unclebucknasty - Wow. Sounds like a huge shell game that Musk has set up > among his companies. It's betting big, which should be expected from Musk, > but it seems a bit odd to be so personally intertwined with public companies > and making decisions accordingly. It also seems unduly burdensome to the > companies in the "portfolio" which might otherwise perform well.

> a13n - Some people think SolarCity is doing terribly because they're losing > so much money. Actually them losing money is an incredibly great sign for > the long run (assuming they don't run out of money - which Elon won't let > happen).

> partiallypro - The CEO is his cousin, but he has recused himself of voting > on the deal. I doubt the SEC & FTC will care; Wall Street on the other hand, > I think they all see what this is about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Charlie Munger said - "I've never seen a board vote against the CEO when their livelihood depends on keeping the job".

Boards are dysfunctional, in the best of times.

</comment><comment><USER28> What are actually Elon Musk's engineering talents? It seems he is not much more than a marketeer. It's not even clear his visions of reusable rockets and electric cars were original...he is known to take credit for subordinate's ideas and achievements.

<comment><USER29> Cult of personality mostly. However Electric cars are actually useless for the environment without renewable energy. So it probably made sense to save Solar City. This whole thing seems like a long term plan for building an absolute monopoly - like what would happen if oil companies also owned all the cars.

<comment><USER30> > _However Electric cars are actually useless for the environment without > renewable energy._

Isn't even a modern coal-fired power plant cleaner than the ICE in a car? It certainly isn't perfect to have fossil fuel sources powering the electricity used to charge a car, but I'd much rather isolate and improve CO2 capture at coal-fired plants over having 250+ million polluters spread out over the entire country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> >the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced criminal charges against a handful of Cuomo staffers for rigging the construction bids for the Buffalo Billion program to favor the governor's campaign donors. The man tapped by Cuomo to oversee the taxpayer subsidies, as well as a leading donor who received a $225 million contract to build out the Buffalo factory, were both convicted last year of conspiring to rig the bids.

At the end of the article they mention the lack of car by New York State. Of course they don't care, the decision makers already got what they and their rich friends wanted.

</comment><comment><USER32> I have solar panels on my roof. The were installed on top of regular roof tiles, since my house was already built by the time I was ready to install solar panels. But if you are building a new house, I think it makes a lot of sense to use Tesla Solar Roof. The roof looks great, you get clean energy and the warranty is for the lifetime of your house, or infinity (whichever comes first). From a personal standpoint, I wish these had been available when I built my house. As for the gamle on Tesla/Musk part, I would say that this is a long term, strategic move. More an more energy will come in the form of electricity. The solar panel market is full of chinese panels to put on top of your existing roof tiles. But in the future, when the "normal" will be to generate your own electricity, people will want the cool roof that looks like a normal roof. Not then weird "add-on".

</comment><comment><USER33> One person's "gambled" is often another person's (e.g., entrepreneur)opportunity. Musk and his ilk are where they are for a reason. They don't fear risk, they go toe-to-toe with it and mitigate it.

Words like "gambled" fit a narrative and get attention, but they are also misleading.

<comment><AUTHOR> Musk and his ilk are where they are because of luck and enormous amounts of political rent seeking and outside capital to paper over losses.

Musk's career arc is "internet yellow pages sold in the dotcom bubble" -> "payments company he was drummed out of so Peter Thiel could clean up his mess" -> "rockets and electric cars which have needed huge infusions of government and investor money to stay afloat since their inception"

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> More negative news on Tesla drawn from interviews with short sellers. The journalist on this is famous for working with Jim Chanos, the short seller who was involved in exposing Enron. He is shorting Tesla and thinks it's the next Enron, and got this journalist to push his short narrative.

I don't buy it. The economics of solar are great long term, and selling it with electric cars makes a lot of sense because a) EV buyers use a lot of power, and can save a lot of money with solar b) the electric car batteries also work great for storing solar energy to use at night

What they're offering to consumers with their new $50 a month solar rental program is the ability to have a completely off the grid sustainable energy solution for your car and your home. That is huge. Have you heard about the multi-trillion dollar petroleum industry?

Also the cars drive themselves better and better every day. Go try it. It's not perfect, but the car fucking drives itself with an object detection neural net and some traffic law heuristics. It's fucking amazing. Go try it if you don't believe me

This short bet will blow up in their faces

<comment><USER5> > The economics of solar are great long term

Why? It seems like a flooded and commodified utility market, the opposite of something with great economics.

<comment><USER34> I'm talking about the economics of powering cars with renewable energy rather than oil: [http://ieefa.org/bnp-paribas-oil-losing-the-economic- battle-...](http://ieefa.org/bnp-paribas-oil-losing-the-economic-battle-with- renewables-evs/)

Whether the panels themselves are a commodity doesn't matter -- it may actually be advantageous by lowering the capital cost required for installation. The user wants to buy the whole experience -- the panels, with a home battery to store and serve as a backup maybe, and a car all controlled through one app.

Right now you can go on Tesla.com and in five minutes you can order a Tesla for lease at $399 / month and rent a solar system for your roof at $50 a month to fuel the car. You're completely off the grid, prepared for the apocalypse, and no polluting the air. That's very compelling.

<comment><USER5> I'm talking about the economics and moat that Tesla has itself, with which the fact that the panels are a commodity matter a great deal. This makes Tesla a servicing/financing company, and why do they have a systematic advantage at that over competition? That doesn't seem like a high margin business that is going to justify Tesla's lofty valuation (especially when their solar installations have gone down close to ~90% since the acquisition of SolarCity, and their competitors now have greater market share than they do).

<comment><USER34> One advantage they have is that they try and pre-assemble systems into fixed 4 kw systems that are easier to put together on site

Another advantage they have is a very simple online ordering system -- try getting a quote for solar somewhere else vs ordering on Tesla.com

another advantage they have is asthetics

and also integration with the same app you use to control your car

<comment><USER5> > Another advantage they have is a very simple online ordering system -- try > getting a quote for solar somewhere else vs ordering on Tesla.com

Is this really a long term advantage? One, producing a website to have simple online ordering is not a problem for any company on this sort of scale, and two, how big an advantage is this? This isn't a sort of purchase on a whim like a new book on Amazon, these are long term planning decisions for a given family.

They're going to do the math and figure out what might actually be best for their electricity usage, home, and financial situation. Simple ordering isn't that huge of an advantage.

> another advantage they have is asthetics

Again, why is this something not easily copied?

> and also integration with the same app you use to control your car

Is this really that big an advantage? I don't know who is making multi- thousand dollar a year decisions based on this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> There weren't many pertinent facts or details included in this story.

The article focuses on how poorly SolarCity seems to be performing post- acquisition. However, hindsight is 20/20\. The fact that the acquisition turned out to be a mess doesn't make it a fraudulent transaction -- many if not most large acquisitions don't live up to expectations.

The facts that need to be considered to deem this fraudulent are the data/arguments that drove the decision to acquire SolarCity at the time of the acquisition. Mainly, were the arguments to acquire SolarCity honest and factual? Here is the acquisition pitch deck that Tesla put out at the time of acquisition: [http://www.solarwakeup.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/10/Tesla-...](http://www.solarwakeup.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/10/Tesla-SolarCity-Investor-Presentation.pdf)

Unsurprisingly, the author of the article doesn't address any of the primary points contained in this pitch deck.

</comment><comment><USER36> Elon has been quite open about the fact that he wants to just try new things. If things work great he gets the shift economy's, otherwise he just keeps going to the next thing. If you can't get with it then hop off

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands This looks like a very complicated pump and dump case.

</comment><comment><USER37> He should stop smoking.

</comment><comment><USER38> The full title is '"HE'S FULL OF SHIT": HOW ELON MUSK FOOLED INVESTORS, BILKED TAXPAYERS, AND GAMBLED TESLA TO SAVE SOLARCITY'. Makes me wonder are we in the middle of yet another Tesla shorting cycle. Buy some shorts, trash Tesla in the media, wait for stock to drop, then cashout.

</comment><comment><USER39> Tesla is a Ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER40> Ponzi schemes don't produce anything of value, like amazing supercars that cost <$50k. (I'm biased)

By that same logic, any Y Combinator "unicorn" startup is a ponzi scheme. Overvalued, unrealistic investor expectations.

Granted, this SolarCity deal was definitely not in Tesla's best interest... having chatted with a former engineer there who left because of their dysfunction.

<comment><USER5> Most Ponzi schemes usually do produce something of value for those who cash out early enough. I'm not saying the comparison is apt though.

<comment><USER30> Do they, though? My impression was that most Ponzi schemes generate _cash_ for early participants by paying them with cash infusions from later participants. Nothing of value is created there; it's just taking money from suckers and giving it to unethical speculators.

<comment><USER5> That's still value for the early investors.

<comment><USER30> Sure, but you're splitting hairs; that's not how the parent used the term "value".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Musketeer's trying to keep this link off the front page.

</comment><comment><USER42> He (and all the brilliant people at his companies who work so hard) are delivering to humanity, a future where we produce and consume energy sustainably, and are out in space exploring our solar system. Everyone at the companies is there because on some level they believe in this vision. So I (and many Tesla shareholders like me) am willing to look the other way with respect to his fiduciary responsibility.

There are better targets out there.

<comment><USER4> So was Enron, the company who was creating the future of energy. A future in which we produce and consume energy more sustainably.

Enron wasn't tackling space challenges, so I guess there's a slight difference there.

Look: fraud is fraud. If someone is lying to the public, it is wrong on that basis alone. Elon Musk could have done everything the same and simply NOT lied about it, and things would have gone far smoother.

The workers at the Gigafactory2 plant have been disenfranchised due to this SolarCity issue.

<comment><USER43> >So was Enron, the company who was creating the future of energy. A future in which we produce and consume energy more sustainably.

What in heavens name are you talking about? Are you really claiming that Enron was in the business of replacing petroleum and natural gas with solar and wind energy?

<comment><USER44> > _" Enron Wind Systems, part of the Enron group, were manufacturers of wind > turbines. The group was formed after the acquisition in January 1997 of Zond > Corporation of California, the largest US developer of wind-powered > electricity at the time. On May 10, 2002, following the Enron scandal, > General Electric acquired the assets of Enron Wind Systems continuing and > thriving as GE Wind Energy, after which the empty shell of Enron Wind ceased > to exist."_

[https://tethys.pnnl.gov/institution/enron- wind](https://tethys.pnnl.gov/institution/enron-wind)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> If Elon Musk gets taken down, then humanity should probably just throw in the towel.

We (humanity) are in a boat that is taking on water rapidly. The guy working the hardest to patch the leaks is Elon Musk and all those that work at his companies (they definitely aren't working there for the money or the lifestyle)

Solar City is a part of this vision.

Articles like this and the comments section here at hacker news are making me very depressed about our prospects.

<comment><USER45> If elon musk was anywhere near the best humanity has to offer, I would agree. Thankfully, the facts suggest otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Damned if Elon does. Damned if he don't. "An electric vehicle is worthless without electric charging stations." So Tesla makes a risky move to save one such company that happens to provide an answer to that criticism. People pile on. Predictably.

<comment><USER47> Is SolarCity an exclusive, or otherwise prominent producer of the solar panels required for Tesla charging stations?

<comment><USER48> Solar panels aren't required at all.

<comment><USER49> Not only are they not required, they aren't present at any station I've seen.

Some supercharger stations do have an interesting thing: a big battery bank with a four-quadrant utility meter. I assume Tesla has come up with some clever billing arrangement that combines peak shaving, demand response, TOU arbitrage, and selling reactive power to minimize the cost of operating the station. Otherwise it makes little sense to me to collocate battery banks with superchargers.

The part I don't understand is that Tesla's stations seem to operate at 480V input. Utility rates are a bit lower if you buy power at "primary" voltage. Maybe Tesla doesn't want to deal with the fact that primary voltage is different in different places?

<comment><USER48> Yeah, I've visited a couple dozen Supercharger locations and never seen solar either.

I think the main purpose of the batteries is just to cut down on demand charges. Even a smallish older Supercharger can pull 500kW if a bunch of cars arrive at once, and that gets pricey. I wouldn't be surprised if they got fancier as you describe, though. If the capability is there, might as well use it.

<comment><USER50> Solar at latest Supercharger in Las Vegas:

[https://electrek.co/2019/07/18/tesla-v3-supercharger- station...](https://electrek.co/2019/07/18/tesla-v3-supercharger-station-las- vegas-solar-power-battery/)

<comment><USER48> There are definitely a few! It's just not the norm.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk <comment><USER2> This is so close to being a real-life Kenny Powers highlight video ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjvZOh4OzBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjvZOh4OzBs)).

I realize this guy is immensely talented and probably in the top .0001% of this chosen field... but I laughed the whole time as he roller bladed, jumped and spun while shooting arrows.

Just needed some cool flame effects.

</comment><comment><USER3> None of these are forgotten archery techniques. Some of them are acrobatic, some are silly, some are unreliable. (Some fall into more than one of those categories.)

Modern Olympic archers are all about accuracy, with no points for speed other than an overall time limit.

If you want to learn archery with both speed and accuracy, you could do worse than to find your local SCA group.

A Royal Round is a set of six arrows (or bolts from a crossbow) shot at round targets at 20 yards, 30 yards, 40 yards, and then as many shafts as possible at 20 yards in 30 seconds. That gives a maximum score of 90 (6 arrows x 5 points for each bullseye x 3) plus the 30 second score.

A rank of "Bowman" is awarded to someone who can average 60 points over three Royal Rounds.

Master Bowmen average 80 points.

Grand Master Bowmen average at least 100 points.

And the Ludicrous Bowmen -- there have been 25 of them, so far -- have managed an average of 120 or more over three Royal Rounds. I've met five of them.

<comment><USER4> I'm not an archer of any rank. But my take on this is that he's trying to represent or reproduce the skill of archery when archery was essential to war and hunting. Great skill in an Olympic competition is certainly an impressive achievement but it may be worthless outside the clearly defined rules of competition.

Between your 120 bowman and this guy, which one wins in battle and which one brings home fresh meat for dinner. I think I'd rather have this guy on my side.

<comment><USER5> When archery was essential to war, it was still only "stand and loose" \- foot archers typically planted stakes in front to ward off cavalry, or would be on hills or in front of woods. Basically stand still, shoot the buggers, run and hide if anyone charged.

As for hunting, that is extreme slowness, and perfect accuracy because you won't get a second shot, and if you move at all before loosing the animal moves too. Hunters wait.

So apart from firing in the saddle, archery was and is about stillness, accuracy and yes, in war, speed.

The guys able to put 30 arrows into the attacking targets at 50 paces will win the war, and the guys setting snares will fill the pot ;-)

<comment><USER6> "Stand and loose" is an ok strategy but "Ride and Loose" let the Mongols capture more territory in 25 years than the Romans did in 400.

Hardly the "only" strategy.

<comment><USER7> The Commanche were also particularly effective at it. The combination of their horse riding and archery skills made them more lethal than the US Army, until the revolver was invented. Before the revolver, firing on horseback was a non- starter because reloading was almost impossible; a Commanche could fire dozens of arrows in the time it took one reload. I read about this in the book "Empire of the Summer Moon" by S. C. Gwynne.

<comment><USER8> Samurai as well. Very skilled horse archers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd love to know the draw weights of the bows he's using. One of the differences between the sort of archery he's doing and the standard recurve competition shooting you'll see is that the latter is _much_ slower, more relaxed, with very defined, conscious aiming. The idea is to do _precisely_ the same thing, with your whole body, over and over and over again. His aiming is completely instinctual. Because of the way the arrow will drift away from the bow sideways if you put it on the right, I doubt it would be worth using the bow as part of your sighting at all.

On the one hand, I can believe he'd be able to do this sort of thing quite easily with low-powered bows. On the other, you really wouldn't want to be holding the sorts of positions he gets into for very long at all if they were heavier.

I'd also, just for interest's sake, be interested to put him up against an experienced modern recurve archer at, say, 40 metres. Close range trick-shots would, I suspect, lose out to more refined technique over much more than that.

<comment><USER10> So you want to compare sports archery vs combat archery and expect the results to be anything less than obvious?

Your comment does make me consider, though, whether longbowmen use a technique more similar to the modern sports technique than to Andersen's here. Kind of like how sniping is more similar to target practice than urban combat.

<comment><USER11> Maybe, maybe not. :-)

Accuracy vs. volume of fire is not an easy question to settle, given that they can't be compared directly, but require very different tactics and training.

Check this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHGUExSGH8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHGUExSGH8) (and for background, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XomJdLZGyCM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XomJdLZGyCM) ).

Most of the depictions of longbowmen in battle that I've seen make me suspect that they're going down the volume-of-fire route.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A lot of it makes a ton of sense. But draw weight of the bow and weight of the arrows make a huge difference. Would be really interesting to see him do this even half as effectively using and 80-100lb warbow with heavy war arrows. Weaker stuff will not punch through even the worst armour at any kind of decent range. Also I wonder if this works with light flight arrows used to harass enemy at range and kill horses.

His technique does show how bad it was for the horses and why Mongols needed to bring as many remounts as they did. Battle between two horse archer armies must have been a real horse slaughter.

Also that mail shot, I bet cash that is a crap butted mail. Try same with riveted mail covered with gambeson and see what happens(nothing, this arrows will bounce like it was a wall)

<comment><USER13> With heavy war arrows you can easily shoot through riveted mail and layers of gambeson. In this video ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ32VnjOQ28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ32VnjOQ28)) you can see a war arrow going right through rived mail and 8 layers of gambeson.

This Guy is bowyer and historian, and will be presenting research about this very subject at a medieval studies conference this spring.

<comment><USER12> Have not checked HN in couple days, hope you notice this. I misspoke in my original comment I was referring to a jack not gambeson as arrow protection oops. And even bigger problem is that mail he uses is bad quality you can see from ring density and thickness. here is a great set of tests [http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=11131&postdays...](http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=11131&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The use of ancient paintings as "proof" that the archers used the right-side of the bow made me think of this: [http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/nobody- kno...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/nobody-knows-what- running-looks-like/381171/)

Just because it's in a lot of pictures, doesn't mean it's really what happened.

<comment><USER15> Sure, but he specifically mentioned studying historical sources. If he's into something like, say, what ARMA folks do with fencing manuals, we're not talking about looking at a bunch of sketches and having random ideas. Historical manuals have annotations explaining what is being pictured, with motions described and what not. Sure you'll have botched icons but if text contradicts what you see, you'll test all variations and draw conclusions based on what's effective. Just because this poor video picked the flashiest imagery he had at hand doesn't mean this is what he's using as a reference.

WRT several adjacent threads here it's important to keep in mind that arms and armor changed over time. It's easy to say "meh, quality chainmail wouldn't have been pierced using this bow and this arrow" but it's quite likely that these techniques were rarely used by the time regular army had access to proper protective gear. He mentioned firearms in his video and noted that fast archery declined because of it. Could be but firearms were result of "we need more power to penetrate that armor" which in turn was caused by "we need better protection from these heavy swords" which were response to armor, and so on. I bet folks who were into art of war some hundreds of years ago had their own version of Moore's law. ;]

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So Legolas surfing down the stairs on a dwarf shield while shooting 5 orcs wasn't so far from the truth after all?

</comment><comment><USER17> This perfectly showcase how to make a true master of his craft look like a SNL sketch through amateur video making skills.

<comment><USER18> Might be intended, since it's comedic. I mean nowadays we have Yung Lean and Tim & Eric, and all that sort of stuff, wouldn't surprise me if stuff like that inspired the style of the video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As someone who owns a bow (old bowtech patriot) and has spent countless hours in the woods with bows, this guy is a gymnast, not an ancient archer.

(1) Archery has never been about speed. You don't need to be a hunter to appreciate that hunting does not involve any bouncing around like a woodland sprite.

(2) Arrows are not bullets. The do not kill quickly. Shooting at people five or ten feet away is suicide. Even if you hit them through the chest, they will live long enough to get you back. Only in hollywood do targets ever fall down dead when hit with arrows.

(3) The "ancient" archery this guy idolizes never existed. Arrows made from natural substances (wood, bone etc) are not this accurate. Ancient hunters shot very close to animals, so close that they did worry about the animal turning on them (see 2 above). In war, using indirect fire to cover distance, archers always fired en mass. They also drilled to create consistent trajectories in order to concentrate fire. They did not aim at specific targets.

(4) Leveling an arrow on the left of the riser (bow) doesn't require more movements than on right. The arrow is drawn by passing the pointy bit through the bow, between the string and riser, and then drawing it back. One motion, never letting go of the arrow. This is how I was taught to shoot fingers. As for holding extra arrows in your bow hand, this is certainly possible, but you better be careful when pulling them through a closed fists. This guys is using dull target heads, not the bladed tips used when actual trying to kill things.

(I say "fire" but the proper term is "loose", for releasing an arrow).

<comment><USER20> "The "ancient" archery this guy idolizes never existed."

In the video, he says he picked up his ideas from old manuscripts and so forth that show such archery techniques in action (arrow on the right side of the bow, arrows carried in the shooting hand, etc.) and quotes one source (Babylonian? Can't remember) saying these archers had to be able to loose three arrows in 1.5 seconds.

Also, he makes a case for close-quarters combat. I think possibly he's studied this stuff more than you have? His basic claim is that he's re-discovering forgotten techniques so it makes sense your mainstream knowledge of archery wouldn't cover these things.

<comment><USER21> Teucer from The Iliad certainly makes a lot more sense to me if I imagine him fighting like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how many takes he had to do before getting the video of splitting an arrow in flight. It's pretty damn impressive either way, but I still have a hard time believing he can do that reliably.

<comment><USER23> If i read the description right, it took him 14 tries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is so awesome.

I hope that filmmakers and storytellers learn about how _ordinary_ warrior archers should be actually be depicted in historical and fantasy films.

</comment><comment><USER25> That video was neat, but it looks entirely like underpowered archery. Was it really guns that made people not care about this kind of thing (fast archery on the run)? Or was it simply more powerful longbows that meant archers would shoot from further off?

On a related note, in this video he catches an arrow out of the air. But that air must have been moving relatively slowly. There was a Mythbusters years ago where they investigated the myth of ninjas catching arrows, and determined it was impossible based on the time it took for a martial arts master to close his hand (measured with a high-speed camera) vs the time it took for an arrow to pass through the air. But this was assuming longbows fired from a castle wall. Those arrows will be going significantly faster than the ones seen in this video.

<comment><USER26> Yes the arrow is slow, because the bows are not heavy, probably in the 25-30 lbs range.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I thought this was going to be his older video, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g). But he's improved. Splitting an incoming arrow???

<comment><USER28> And not even that but unloading with less than a second after spinning around from facing the other way? It actually puts Legolas to shame.

<comment><USER29> Well, and they CGI'd the most of the movie's Legolas' "arrows" as well.

[http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/06/game-of-thrones-has-cgi- in-...](http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/06/game-of-thrones-has-cgi-in-the- weirdest-places/)

<comment><USER30> Every arrow fired on Arrow is CGI due to crew and actor safety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Somewhat related, a historical book on archery: [http://tuba- archery.com/article/arab-archery.pdf](http://tuba-archery.com/article/arab- archery.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER26> He seems to be shooting a very light bow, from the trajectory of his arrow in one of the outdoor shots, and his technique probably wouldn't work very long for a heavier bow or more arrows, because he doesn't seem to be using his back very much. (I'm an archer).

</comment><comment><USER32> Caution! Do not split incoming arrow with remaining eye.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, that's where I did a double take and actually paused the video to confirm that he's not wearing any goggles, and doesn't appear to be wearing any protective gear whatsoever.

<comment><USER34> It's possible the incoming arrow was blunt.

<comment><USER33> True, but even a blunt arrow will put out an eye. And depending on where it hits you, it can put quite a damper on your day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I bet this dude plays a mean lute!

</comment><comment><USER36> Now all we need is a Gatling-like automatic bow that you reload while shooting with other hand at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER37> Lars Andersen: a new level of archery

Narrated by the one and only Lars Andersen

</comment><comment><USER38> myth debunked: [http://geekdad.com/2015/01/danish- archer/](http://geekdad.com/2015/01/danish-archer/)

</comment><comment><USER39> this is absolutely amazing!

</comment><comment><USER40> Very impressive! But I can't help but think of George Michael in Arrested Development [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-EouZi1mvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-EouZi1mvQ)</comment>


The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613607/facial-recognition-porn-database-privacy-gdpr-data-collection-policy <comment><USER2> Russian imageboards found VK profiles of quite a few porn actresses and prostitutes using findface.ru. Of course, they immediately started harrassing them and sending messages to everyone in their friends list.

However, ethics aside, the cat is out of the bag. People can shame the guy into deleting the data, but computing power will only get cheaper and data matchers faster. Sooner or later some will do this again and launch a Tor site with an up-to-date database. We have to adjust to the idea that if you have a social media profile _any_ public images of you will lead people to it sooner or later. And it will be sooner, not later, with every passing year.

<comment><USER3> Yes, but that shoudln't prevent society to also make those particular use of tech very costly. It should be consider like holding a concealed weapon: you need a permit, or you get jail time.

Permit should not be hard to get, as long as you can justify professional or research need.

But letting this go is creating a society I don't want to live it. I already hate, living my anonymous life, when some stranger take my photo without asking. It happens more and more.

On the other end, people filming the police get in more and more trouble.

We got things reversed.

<comment><USER4> How is this possibly enforceable though? The software is already out there and available. In countries that restrict guns, it's often quite hard to get one outside the legal channels (if there are any), so enforcement is pretty effective. But for something you can just download??

<comment><USER5> Not just download, but write yourself in a short time. And the code could be shared, and I'd guess you can build a decent system to do this in a few hundred lines.

It's a ridiculous proposition to restrict software access, akin to making it illegal to write on paper.

<comment><USER6> It's ridiculously easy to write a DoS tool. Let's make DoSing legal then.

<comment><USER4> The two aren't the same thing at all. It's legal to own guns, but illegal to shoot someone with one. It's legal to write software that opens network connections, but illegal to use said software against a target on the Internet that doesn't want said traffic.

Similarly, it's legal to write or download a neural network that is programmed for facial recognition. Same for a basic crawler bot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The same story about Findface project was big news in Russia several years ago. They scraped the whole vk.com (Russian Facebook copycat with almost entire Russian population in it) and applied some very fine ML to find a person by his/her face.

2ch (4chan ancestor) users identified girls from porn and harassed them, outing them to their families and friends using this service.

Later company discontinued this service and now sells technology to the Russian government to monitor CCTV footage from Moscow subway.

VK kind of fixed data scraping issue (not sure if they actually changed much).

Usually Russia copies everything from the west, interesting to see western news follow Russian lead after a few years. Not saying I am proud of mother Russia in this case, just an observation.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's things like this that make me think all engineers need more training on the social consequences of the tools they build.

This is an extreme case and I hope most engineers would look at this and understand how awful & damaging it could be; but given our influence on the world nowadays (as a class, if not always as individuals) we really need to be much more aware of what we're doing and how it affects people.

<comment><USER9> The problem is that engineers are not always the ones in charge of the entire end result. If you want to do something unethical you can just split it up into harmless individual tasks and give it to a dozen engineers and then put it all together. It's obfuscation.

Some of the greatest atrocities we will see in tech (and we _will_ see them) in the coming century will be the result of combining things created with good intentions.

Not much we can do I'm afraid except endure.

<comment><USER10> An engineer can quit if the project is unethical. Just 'enduring' is harmful to yourself, and others. Don't be a coward, at least stand up for your values.

<comment><USER11> >> An engineer can quit if the project is unethical.

Is creating face recognition software unethical? Your answer is not really important, just the fact that different people will classify this differently. I thought it was creepy as f __* when facebook started wanting to automatically tag people in photos. But if that 's all the tech was for it may well be ethical, if creepy to some. And yet, face recognition is really all that was used in this case - matching up porn images with social media ones.

<comment><USER12> A while ago I suggested that engineers could have an ethics code just like lawyers or doctors and the opinion wasn't very popular (although with no explicitly stated reason). I still don't see a reason not to have one. If your company is selling your code and software to abusive states and it's used to persecute journalists (for example) continuing to do that work there is no different than any unethical work from a doctor or lawyer. And software developers have a huge impact on our life these days With their work. It's reasonable to hold them to higher standards than in the past.

<comment><USER13> Problem with that is anyone with a little python-fu can hack together something like this without being an "engineer". I could probably do it using "ethical" FLOSS code and I'm pretty far from being employed in the industry. Hell, if I did do something like this and someone complained to my company they'd probably promote me since our IT dept is iffy on the best of days.

<comment><USER12> Sure, the "home-made" option is hard to regulate in any field. You also can't stop people from using hone remedies no matter how unethical they are. So you can take it and use it with little recourse.

But I was thinking more at FAANG for example. They could be required to hire "certified ethical" engineers at least on sensitive projects at first. This means that even if the code is out there no coder would implement it in the company's solution without risking losing the "certification" and the job. Anyone working for the Hacking Team (those guys selling exploits to oppressive governments) should be more or less unhireable especially if all code in a company's portfolio should be traceable to a specific engineer.

The principle is already in place for other fields. Journalism being the closest probably. It could be made more effective if needed. It's obvious that _something_ is needed in this direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The bigger problem are not the right matches, but the wrong ones, specially if they are very similar. This should affect far more people than just ex-porn actresses.

<comment><USER15> While false-positives are definitely a problem, why do you think they are a bigger problem? Do you feel the participants in pornography are "fair game" but the others are innocent? In some ways, the current level of inaccuracy could be considered an advantage, because it makes it more likely that there will be resistance. A 100% accurate system strikes me as more dangerous, as it's less likely for politicians or lawmakers to stand up for the victims.

<comment><USER16> Despite agreeing with your latter points, there's a reason why shrapnel damage is comparably serious.

Although most people who did some porn are most likely not proffesionals, most porn (by volume) is done by people who might even consider your finding part of their CV. So going by sheer numbers alone, there might be so much more cases of false positives. Now, _even if_ it becomes terribly obvious how inaccurate it is, I don't think that matters much when it comes to weaponising it, because people are easily fooled or don't care. As long as you kind find a vid of a girl that looks just like Clara from accounting, you can spread it as a false rumor. Or not even claim it's her; it's just as embarrassing. And that's even assuming you could tell them appart, because the seed of doubt extends the problem to people who didn't even do porn.

For comparison think of deepfakes. Everybody knows it's not actually Emma Watson, but I bet she isn't particularly happy about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If the videos are published, and the social media profiles public, how can it be illegal to match the two? Supposedly if they show their face they already accept the danger of being recognized, unless the video was published illegally.

That said, why would someone, once someone was identified, just go about harassing them and telling all their friends they do porn? Like who does that?

<comment><USER18> The internet has enabled some people to deploy complex systems into New York datacenters from a beach in Thailand in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately, it's also enabled a selection of less socially aware and/or socially responsible people to bypass the natural limits and filters that society had in place, to effectively cause suffering on a fairly broad scale.

Harrassing somebody on the other side of the world from the safe anonymity of your bedroom was once logistically very difficult, as was reaching significant numbers of people with a wildly malicious idea if you couldn't first find people in your immediate (physical) social circle and community to vouch for you/it.

Now, we have entire online communities which have embraced this new normal and provided these folk with the tools and an audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bypassing the stupid issue of harassing actresses by likely teenagers, isn't a husband-to-be right to know about the past of his fiancee? Is the moral right of not being outed outweighing the moral right of not being deceived in a very important matter? Where is the line?

<comment><USER20> What right of the husband-to-be are you talking about?

Is failing to tell someone something the same thing as deception?

Is this supposed right symmetric? Does bride-to-be have the right to know if the husband participated in porn video?

<comment><USER19> > Is failing to tell someone something the same thing as deception?

Yes, absolutely. Imagine you are the only person that doesn't know your fiance was in porn and you committed to her without knowing that.

> Is this supposed right symmetric? Does bride-to-be have the right to know if > the husband participated in porn video?

Of course. Even though social stigma for males is lower, it has a devastating impact on their business relationships.

<comment><USER20> You still haven't actually answered the question of what "right" there is supposed to be.

If a person is afraid that their fiance might have done porn in the past, or if they care so damn much, they should just ask the person.

<comment><USER19> If people were honest to each other all the time, we wouldn't need laws. Let's be generous and assume your question is just naive - could you ever envision a situation where an innocent husband-to-be (e.g. a nice, do-no-harm person and with reasonable means) is taken advantage of by a clever woman (with what is perceivably considered shady past in the given era) for her own material benefit? Do you think this never happens (hint: belletry is full of such situations and I'd recommend you to investigate common causes of suicide)? Doesn't husband-to-be have a justified interest in protecting his life, reputation, possessions from the baggage the unvetted fiancee brings? Do you think the fiancee wouldn't lie as much as possible in order to protect her planned future?

If you truly are just naive, please think about the points I mentioned; if not, there is no point to discuss, as your mind is set in stone anyway.

<comment><USER20> You literally said "everyone". If you're best friend knows, and your Mom knows, and your neighbor knows, and your dog knows, and your boss knows, but you don't? then you're either a fool or no one likes you.

but note: the "you" in that sentence isn't you. I'm not saying you are a fool. Then why did you say I was? "let's be generous and assume the question is just naive"

Again, you've never established a right. And there is also this horrible assumption or belief that once doing porn forever marks or stains you. Well, certainly some people believe that. But I do not, and I challenge it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure I understand the GDPR argument here. Is collecting the facial information from actors and actresses in porn movies illegal? Or was it the access of their social media accounts? Why is the tallying of what is publicly consumable a violation of GDPR?

<comment> GuB-42 In France, we have something called "droit à l'image". It means that if you can't appear on a picture without your authorization, with a few exceptions.

If you give an authorization, it has to be for a specific purpose and not generalized. So just because you gave an authorization to appear in a movie doesn't mean you gave an authorization for other purposes, such as face matching. Same thing for social media.

There are also copyright issues. If France, you always own copyright (droit d'auteur), you may transfer the exploitation rights but the work is still yours. It means you still retain some level of control, in particular regarding decency.

France is just one European country but that's to show that there are limits to what you can do, even with publicly available data.

<comment><USER21> What if your image has been cached by a CDN outside of France, and then downloaded and matched by someone who never interfaced with a French IP? Who is at fault here?

<comment> GuB-42 IANAL but I don't think CDNs an IPs matter here. The question would be more among the line of "in the picture taken in France" or "has the matching been done in France or by a company that has a presence in France".

And unless everything happens in France, it would be a huge mess and I don't think anything can be done. GDPR is an attempt to harmonize the rules of different countries and make them enforceable internationally.

I don't know how it is done in other European countries but rules regarding personal data and authorship tend to be stronger than in the US, and freedom of speech is more controlled (ex: hate speech, libel, ...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What are the GDPR repercussions for an open source project that does not make money, has no ties to an organization, holds only code, and handles no data?

<comment><USER23> If there is no data, obviously GDPR doesn't apply.

<comment><USER22> I'm more focusing on this section of the article where the legal source says 2 interesting things:

"just collecting the data is illegal if the women didn't consent, according to Börge Seeger, a data protection expert and partner at German law firm Neuwerk. These laws apply to any information from EU residents, so they would have held even if the programmer weren't living in the EU."

#1 the programmer is implicated (it's possible this is in the context of "the programmer" also being "user in Europe") #2 even if they weren't living in the EU

#2 is the particularly interesting one and also opens up the general question of "what happens if <external group> collects data but does not handle monetary transactions in Europe or deal with money abroad". GPDR is very much written around how to wrangle companies in financially, what if it's not a company?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not sure how this relates to GDPR - the arguments are nonsensical. People tend to bump everything under GDPR now like its some form of gods commandment. If I simply sit in the cafe watching someone continuously near me, I am collecting data, and nobody can do anything about it.

When you leave your home, your privacy is gone.

When you make anything public your privacy is gone. Not sure anything is ethically wrong with the software existence, the problem seems to be data usage, just as if somebody found out his neighbors wife is in porn and went to twitter and said it publicly with few pictures as a proof, and people do that.

It's naive to think that this thing can/will go away, if anything, because of this news alone who knows how many more random programmers are retrying this (or even make business plans) at this very moment.

<comment><USER25> This has everything to do with the GDPR because the GDPR outlines the conditions you need to meet to process data, simply put actually gathering the data and using this tool is not legal within the EU.

>If I simply sit in the cafe watching someone continuously near me, I am collecting data, and nobody can do anything about it.

But the tool is doing more than that as it's also using data gathered from crawling social media profiles and then matching people, you cannot do this without specific consent under the GDPR.

>When you leave your home, your privacy is gone.

>When you make anything public your privacy is gone.

GDPR provides controls on privacy, it does not say you are guaranteed privacy in every situation but that if somebody misuses your data in a way that violates your privacy you have rights to correct this misuse, e.g., the right to opt out and the right to erasure of data among others.

<comment><USER24> > the right to opt out and the right to erasure of data among others.

Algorythm doesn't have to collect any data on you besides your image which is not considered private data given that you need to carry one. It can have single image and compare it to the porn collection without storing any results anywhere, but just returning 'XXX was a porn star in YYY'.

Tool can also create opt out mechanism which would have to be pretty complex as providing ZZZ in the name blacklist isn't appropriate solution given that many people share this name.

> But the tool is doing more than that as it's also using data gathered from > crawling social media profiles and then matching people, you cannot do this > without specific consent under

Implementation detail. This can be totally avoided. Tool can accept picture and return the result.

<comment><USER25> >Algorythm doesn't have to collect any data on you besides your image which is not considered private data given that you need to carry one.

The GDPR doesn't care about 'private' data (for the most part) as it only cares about personal data, and faces absolutely are considered personal data under article 4 point 14. Faces are even in a special category of data which you are prohibited from processing at all unless some conditions are met, although article 9 point 2e allows processing such data if they have been 'manifestly made public'. The GDPR doesn't define what 'manifestly made public' means but the Scottish Parliament[0] suggests that it could mean images purposely uploaded to social media and made public, but note that just because you are not prohibited from processing such images does not mean you have a lawful basis for processing that data in the first place.

>It can have single image and compare it to the porn collection without storing any results anywhere, but just returning 'XXX was a porn star in YYY'.

>Implementation detail. This can be totally avoided. Tool can accept picture and return the result.

This is an implementation detail that I had not considered. The original tool and article talks about crawling both porn sites as well as social media and both are fraught with legal issues, not every video or image on porn sites is going to be legal in the first place (revenge porn, stolen images) never mind the copyright issues involved, and crawling social media for this information is simply not acceptable under the GDPR.

>Tool can also create opt out mechanism

Such a tool would almost certainly need to be opt in from the data subject, article 6 makes this clear, you need specific consent from the data subject or some other conditionals which aren't applicable here. Best case scenario if you want to operate such a tool in Europe is that you argue (in court, mind) that you have a legitimate interest to run such a tool which does not override the fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject, which does not seem like it would go in your favour at all.

[0] Page 6: [https://www.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/2018_06_01_Motio...](https://www.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/2018_06_01_Motions_Guidance_FINAL.pdf)

<comment><USER24> Great comments

Consider however the variant I proposed (picture 2 result). Would that be penalty according to GDPR and if photo is already public and not used for personal identification ?

Perhaps it could be said that the any algorithm that makes person identifiable is problematic. However, random photo of you doesn't identify you AFAIK and porn star names are also made up, so you are connecting 2 non-identifying things and the end result most also be non-id ?

<comment><USER25> >Consider however the variant I proposed (picture 2 result). Would that be penalty according to GDPR and if photo is already public and not used for personal identification ?

>However, random photo of you doesn't identify you AFAIK and porn star names are also made up, so you are connecting 2 non-identifying things and the end result most also be non-id ?

I'd say this would still be against the GDPR. The porn image (assuming a professional production and not revenge porn/stolen images) and an image from social media would both be public images of course, but under the GDPR you still need a lawful basis for processing data as defined by article 6 [0], one such basis for this is that the data subject concerned (i.e., the person in the photo being uploaded) gives specific consent for this purpose. The only way I can see such a site being legal is if you're providing a service to allow people to upload their own images to see if porn of them is being uploaded without consent, however you would need to ensure that the person in the image is the one consenting to that use as you would be liable if other people were uploading those images. It may also be legal to run such a tool for purely personal reasons as the GDPR does not apply to personal activities [1], but it would be illegal to make this available to other people and you would still have other legal issues with such a tool (like copyright).

[0] [https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/](https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/)

[1] [https://gdpr-info.eu/art-2-gdpr/](https://gdpr-info.eu/art-2-gdpr/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why should pornography actors not have responsibilities for what they do? I don't agree with this part where people who 1) put their faces in pornography and 2) put their faces in social media should not expect the two things to be correlated. Especially since the technology has already existed for some time and it cannot be stopped. Are we looking for regulation here? Is that exactly what we want, going back to cryptography export laws?

<comment><USER27> > Why should pornography actors not have responsibilities for what they do?

They should have a right for privacy.

<comment><USER17> How is the right to privacy being violated though?

Imagine you were a stripper or porn actress, your right to privacy wouldn't preclude someone recognizing you at the strip club or video.

Or suppose you went to the strip club or watched a video and then also happened to be on Facebook and saw the profile of someone you saw stripping at a strip club or in the video, matching the face and name in your head.

How is the slow case different fundamentally from the case where programming is used and throughput and speed is much higher and faster?

I mean would it be illegal for someone to just start going through Facebook profiles by hand trying to find an actress they just saw?

<comment><USER28> What if we're not talking about strippers or porn actresses. What if we're talking about some random person who let a partner take photos/videos of them, in confidence and in private?

<comment><USER24> In my opinion, if you let your partner do that, you deserve it. If you do that, and later come surprised if such situation happens, you are literally an idiot, not knowing in what age you live in.

So, understand what your fetish means and how it can backfire. Any age will have its own problems like that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wi-Fi hotspot loans from Kitchener, Ont. library a Canadian first - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/kitchener-library-lends-portable-wifi-1.3258791 <comment><AUTHOR> Choice quote:

"There's still a large population that don't have access, in any form, to the internet. So we believe that we're providing a service for a group of our customers who don't have access and could use it; whether it's students working on projects or individuals looking for work," said Chevreau. "The library is the greatest equalizer in our society."

Choice snippet:

Patrons will be given the benefit of the doubt and limits will not be placed on how the hot spots are used or how much data is consumed.

<comment><USER2> I wonder what kind of deal the library has with the ISP. In Australia, data overage charges from multiple people using a hotspot could bankrupt a library, and my experience in Canada was that mobile data was even _more_ expensive

<comment><USER3> I'm also surprised that they're using the cell network, but hopefully this is a relatively short-term thing and they're thinking of deploying APs with real wired connections in the future.

<comment><USER4> The point is that someone can borrow the device and physically take it to wherever they need it, so wired wouldn't really work. Of course blanketing the whole city with public wifi would be even better, but a much larger undertaking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> _There 's still a large population that don't have access, in any form, to the internet_

I wonder if this is because free WiFi was never prevalent in that area, or if all the security fears drove open WiFi to near-extinction? I remember several years ago, they were _everywhere_ and it wasn't hard to find an open access point in most populated areas.

</comment><comment><USER5> There has been a similar program being run by New York Public Library in the last year. I think programs like this can make libraries relevant again.

[http://hotspot.nypl.org/](http://hotspot.nypl.org/)</comment>


Bankruptcy for RadioShack Is Probably Unavoidable - <AUTHOR> http://consumerist.com/2014/09/11/bankruptcy-for-radioshack-is-probably-unavoidable/

<comment><USER2> I hate to see this happen. One of the first computers I touched was a TRS-80.

<comment><USER3> I was a Commodore 64 kid, but do have a lot of nostalgia for Radio Shack of that era, of course the cellphone-centric Radio Shack of today is nothing like it used to be.

My feelings on them possibly dying are similar to how you might feel about an elderly loved one passing away after they've been suffering with serious dementia and/or other serious illnesses for 10 years... sad to see them go, but at the same time it is probably for the best because even if they somehow manage to hang on longer there are no good days ahead of them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do companies go about getting cultural fit with a candidate? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I recently learned that the concept of cultural fit was originally about being a fit for the process and work culture, not about being best friends with one's teammates.

What does that actually mean?

Well, for instance, someone who wants or needs to be told exactly what they're expected to do and how to do it is not a good cultural fit for us - we need people who can show initiative and direct their own work.

Someone who wants to work 6pm-2am is also not a good cultural fit. While we offer some flexibility in work hours, we rely too much on reasonably- synchronous communication (aka slack) for collaboration.

And we can't hire selfish or self-important assholes, because they're toxic and will ruin morale.

All the rest (beer or wine or non-drinker? Loves basketball? Plays an instrument?) is beside the point and usually just an excuse for various types of otherwise illegal discrimination. Hire someone who's capable of acting like a professional when in the office. Someone who can be courteous and communicates well. Once your company is past the size where you can all fit in a sedan at one time, you don't need to all be best friends.

<comment><USER3> A simpler version: Can you fit into our micro-society?

<comment><USER2> I think a bit less about "can you fit into our society?" and more about "can you produce effectively given certain constraints and reward structures?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ask a question that has more than 1 right answer (and also more than 3 right answers). To be honest, I do the "cultural" fit while I do the "technical" interview.

 _How would you approach solving <insert some problem>?_ Dig into their solution for its technical merits, downsides, pitfalls, etc. But, more importantly, pay attention to how they react when they are challenged, whether they overcomplicate things or whether they hand-wave around real problems. Do they know when to say "it depends" or "I don't know"?

You can get a "right" answer and still "fail" the test. My feedback will basically be, "This person is smart and I can't justify saying 'no' but..."

The "cultural" question is "Do you want to work _with_ this person?" So try working _with_ them not _at_ them.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's how to pass most startup cultural fit tests:

Avoid strong opinions even if you're asked. The interviewers themselves may be crapping on emacs, PHP, design patterns or whatever so you may be tempted to voice your own, but it doesn't go both ways. Don't get too comfortable.

You'll be offered coffee. Drink it. Don't refuse beer either. Fake a liking if need be. After work drinks are mission critical.

Make sure you're not too fat nor too old nor too Indian. If you're a woman, look your best and practice your natural makeup skills.

"What are your hobbies? / What do you like to do on your free time?" don't mean what you think they mean. "Spending time with my family" or "reading" are not valid answers. The only valid answers are the ones that imply you like working for free (Github, OSS, and the like.) Bonus points for consecutive green squares.

Don't talk badly about former colleagues. This is the biggest red flag.

<comment><USER6> I know this response is only semi-serious, but I'll say this anyway.

HR professionals that I respect have advised me that asking questions about hobbies or personal interests are to be avoided.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure where you're located, but the opposite is true in Europe.

Personal questions are used to gauge your interests and personality to see how well you might fit within the company or a specific team.

<comment><USER8> I'm a HR/Talent professional based in London and I can assure you that those questions should be avoided at all costs regardless of your geographic location.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Make sure you don't mean "how do companies make sure they only hire people who are clones of their existing staff?"

The answer lies more in making your company somewhere where anyone can excel, then looking for people who show empathy in your interview process.

Here are some things we do: [https://www.haplo-services.com/blog/2017/working- with-early-...](https://www.haplo-services.com/blog/2017/working-with-early- stage-developers)

The post focuses on early stage developers, but I believe the principles stand at all levels.

</comment><comment><USER10> Assuming you're asking about _assessing_ cultural fit, we do a couple of semi- overt things.

First, we make sure that every interviewer, including initial contacts and phone screens, offers the candidate a chance to ask their own questions and I make it a point to state that "you're picking us just as much as we're picking you". From the questions the candidate asks, we get some insight into what's on their mind and they get their questions answered and can form a more informed opinion of us as well.

Second, we generally schedule an informal lunch in our cafeteria (we buy, of course) with the candidate and a 1-3 of our engineers, often from the team they're interviewing with but sometimes just other non-team peers. This is explicitly meant to be informal and similar-level peers, but you can't help sharing data about who we are, how we interact with each other and the candidate, and learning/teaching whether there's likely a good fit.

If you're asking about _creating /enhancing_ cultural fit once hired, that's an ordinary leadership challenge.

<comment><USER11> I also had such a lunch on an on-site interview day and must say that I really liked it. Not only can the company assess your fit but you can also assess whether you like the company and your future colleagues.

<comment><USER12> Indeed, I've gone through a similar process and it was really nice for both sides. Although I believe that this should be done carefully, because when people get close and personal, they tend to "judge" others based on the personality, which is important, but not really what they are doing, instead they should focus on the cultural fit having in account the candidate's personality and other factors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had a friend who was present in interviews at a hedge fund in London where the standard first question was 'where do you ski?'

When she quit, they asked her what it would take for her to stay. She asked for an equality policy and BOOM! A big cheque fell in her lap and they thanked her for her contribution.

<comment><USER14> I've been asked "do you ski?" quite a few times in my life, and it took me a while to realise that most of the time I was really being asked "are you a member of the same social class as me?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I just went through the interview process for a management role at a company in which they stressed the importance of "cultural fit." I assumed this meant I would be evaluated for my ability to work within a startup vs the traditional large enterprise companies I had been working for over the last few years.

I was caught a bit off-guard when the interview pivoted towards inclusion and diversity. I stumbled through some questions which, in hindsight, were geared around determining if I was a "brogrammer". The questions were very open-ended like: "How do you deal with diversity?" and "How do you accommodate other's working styles?"

Speaking with HR after the interview the company their definition of "cultural fit" was much broader than just work or programming style. The company is extremely interested in building a talent pool that is diverse in all ways (age, gender, ethnicity, etc...) and viewed the engineering practices as something that can be taught.

Their belief, if you invest in good people who like their jobs then they will build good products. And if those products are good then the company will make money.

<comment><USER16> > "How do you deal with diversity?" and "How do you accommodate other's > working styles?"

I don't understand these kind of questions, culture shouldn't play a role as long as core values are shared (like honesty, empathy, humility...) The rest should be irrelevant in the workplace

<comment><USER3> > _I don 't understand these kind of questions, culture shouldn't play a role > as long as core values are shared (like honesty, empathy, humility...)_

It's important to have non-toxic and morally good employees, but if you start forcing a "core value" system on subjective morality you're going to throw a wrench into the cogs.

Shared core values are better for goals and brand identity. Company culture is more leading by example, than meticulously choosing what is honest and empathetic and humble.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [http://firstround.com/review/why-firing-brilliant- assholes-i...](http://firstround.com/review/why-firing-brilliant-assholes-is- required-to-build-a-great-engineering-culture/)

For me, it's always been just to make sure the person isn't toxic to other employees

From some other comments I skimmed: I think it's a bonus if you have opinions on software. I want to hire people that challenge the team to grow and challenge me to grow with their differing opinions. It is very important as to how that opinion is conveyed though.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Corporate culture" is weird.

In my experience it's useful for teams to share some "culture" \-- some shared expectations so not everything has to be communicated explicitly.

On the other hand, it's kind of useful that different teams have different cultures and some between-teams attrition goes on in meetings related to larger projects. Think "marketers versus engineers". It's important that these mutually contradicting views clash!

Also: I've had the bad experience of the buddy-chuminess of team culture gradually drift into flirting and then into unsustainable sexual tension, complete with big fight and months of really bad communication. But note this: we've been able to work through all that storm, and now we're on pretty good speaking and collaboration terms. This only worked because we were cogs in a seven-ish-cog-machine and the machine could grind on with insufficient lubrication between two cogs. (This is a bad analogy because it seems that the more cogs the better, but there's a sweet spot...)

</comment><comment><USER19> I love this approch from [https://careers.bytemark.co.uk/process](https://careers.bytemark.co.uk/process)

"There's no "cultural fit" requirement. If you have a skill we like and you can learn and work with a team, you'll get on fine here. You'll be our company culture, and we welcome your contribution."

</comment><comment><USER20> I think it's important to first know which traits you deem to be 'culturally fit'.

Before coming up with a solution, the first step should always be defining the problem.

This could be worth running a workshop with the people you know are good cultural fits to come up with this trait-list.

In an interview (real-world application), similar to Google's layover test, I would suggest randomly picking people in the office to have an informal (but guided) chat around interests and everything after the fact of the candidate being competent enough to actually do the work.

As soon as that meeting concludes, send a form to all employees in that interview to rate against the traits you've defined.

Come up with a score tactic, if you want, and anything above, let's say 85%, is a fit.

Side note: You can be specific in your choice of words in the job posting to make it more likely that you attract the right type of people.

</comment><comment><USER21> George Bradt offers a good framework for defining & understanding company culture > [http://www.primegenesis.com/blog/2010/12/b-r-a-v-e- framework...](http://www.primegenesis.com/blog/2010/12/b-r-a-v-e-framework- for-thinking-about-culture/)

You'll want the interview team to assess the candidate with that criteria mind. Probe important areas, such as learning-style, interpersonal communication, and decision-making.

Ultimately, you're trying to answer the question "Can we live with this person?"

</comment><comment><USER22> We mostly focus on _work_ culture. Is the developer a move fast and break things dev, but your culture is more of a move slow and do it right? Do they focus more, less, or the same as other employees on tooling. Are they about always pushing the latest greatest, or are they more focused on stability, and which do you need. Do they have a big problem with collared shirts? Polos? are those in some way a business need for you? Do they have a big need for work from home but your workplace doesn't presently provide that?

</comment><comment><USER23> 'Cultural fit' is quite hard to define - sadly the phrase has a lot of negative connotations as too many people have used it to filter for people who 'look/act/think like me' or to make sure the person will regularly attend company drinks otherwise be ostracised (one example).

A more positive way to think of it could be to search for people who work well as a team, treat others fairly regardless of their role, like/employ transparency and so on.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just had an aha moment, where I realized that I might have been using "cultural fit" as a proxy for "work ethic".

Then again I don't think we've ever used the exact term "cultural fit" in my team.

</comment><comment> awinter-py Ask questions that go to socioeconomic background. 5 decades of sociology research have shown that skin color is a fair proxy for this. College rankings work too.

Newsworthy culture fit problems at e.g. uber could have been solved out of the gate by not hiring those pesky women. They bring the majority of culture-fit litigation.

Sometimes you can't tell if someone is not biologically male just by looking, so consider also supporting anti-trans legislation in your municipality.

<comment><USER25> /s, I presume?

<comment><USER5> You presume wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Lunches or drinks (if your company is into that). No work talk. Exactly like a date or a catchup with a friend.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Cultural fit" should be an illegal form of discrimination.</comment>


A third of all US bee colonies did not survive the winter - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/food-fear-mystery-beehives-collapse <comment><USER2> _Their extinction would mean not only a colourless, meatless diet of cereals and rice, and cottonless clothes, but a landscape without orchards, allotments and meadows of wildflowers – and the collapse of the food chain that sustains wild birds and animals._

Well, we could just pay people five cents an hour to pollinate our crops. We can make iPhones without bees, after all.</comment>