Tesla Model S 60kWh Gets Official EPA Ratings - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/cars/tesla-model-s-60kwh-gets-official-epa-ratings-95-mpge-208-miles-range.html

<comment><USER2> So the MPG rating is based on the power plant emissions per mile's worth of energy consumed by the vehicle and comparing that with gasoline emissions?

That's great, but like most consumers I want the MPG based on miles per dollars. For example, if I can drive 100 miles on ~$3.50 worth of electricity (or whatever a gallon of gas costs these days), it would be comparable to 100 mpg. Does Tesla or anyone else put out these numbers?

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't that be a bit too variable to estimate? If you charge your car during the day, it would cost a lot more than charging at night. I think in the bay area, it's around 5 cents per kWh in commercial zones during off-peak hours, so a full "tank" for the 60kWh battery pack would cost you around $3 -- that's almost the cost of half a gallon of gas!

<comment><USER4> When everyone starts to buy electric cars, won't we start getting closer to 24 peak hours a day?

<comment><USER5> Interesting question! Obviously this isn't a problem that's going to happen any time soon. But if you look at a random day of usage for the California ISO (actually, the only one I could find) [1], peak load was 30,000 MW and between midnight and 6AM load was around 22,000 MW. So that's 48,000 MWh, or 48,000,000 KWh, and at 100miles/38KWh, that's 126 million miles of excess capacity in those hours on the West coast. If the average commute is ~30 miles round trip, that's 4 million commuters in California, just from current excess capacity at night time.

Needless to say, it will be a while before Tesla ships 1 million cars in California, much less 4 million.

[http://www.ferc.gov/market-oversight/mkt- electric/california...](http://www.ferc.gov/market-oversight/mkt- electric/california/CAISO-rto-dly-rpt.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone know the weight difference between the three configurations? Haven't found it anywhere.

The curb weight of the 85 kWh model is 4,647 lbs, I wonder how much of that is the battery.

I suspect the weight to be the main difference in efficiency, though each configuration (as well as the 85 kWh performance version) has different specs for Peak Motor Power and Peak Motor Torque.

Also, I wonder if power/torque differences between models are because they're using a different powertrain in each model or if it's an electrical (or perhaps software) limitation.

I'd love to know if anybody knows more about these things...

<comment><USER7> This doesn't really address your questions but it's interesting none the less. I talked to a rep at a Tesla showroom. Surprisingly, the models seem to all weigh the same amount. The weight was maintained a specific number so the car could maintain it's 5 star crash test rating... He speculated that some of the weight was in the form of actual weights.

<comment><USER8> >He speculated that some of the weight was in the form of actual weights.

If true, that would appear to suggest an obvious after-market performance mod.

<comment><USER9> _> an obvious after-market performance mod._

With the probable traditionally detrimental effects on ride and handling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The "MPGe" thing seems very silly, _particularly_ since if I were using this car 99% of it's power could be coming from hydro/nuclear/wind. Surely there must be a better way of comparing efficiency and environmental friendliness.

<comment><USER11> > if I were using this car 99% of it's power could be coming from > hydro/nuclear/wind.

Actually, solar, since that's what is powering the free Supercharger network going up over the next few years: <http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger>

<comment><USER10> Fair enough, though with my usage patterns most of the charging would be done in my garage. ;)

<comment><USER12> Which is why they will probably partner with solar city to get people hooked on solar panels for the home. The convergence of falling costs for solar panels and falling costs for electric cars with increased range will probably reach a critical mass similar to the Internet in the 90s and an enormous boost to the economy from the recaptured opportunity cost being consumed by internal combustion engines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Still too expensive and too limited for my taste but I guess someone will buy it.

In Canada there is such long distances between towns and cities I can't imagine being limited to 480km ideal would be 1,000km. The deal breaker (besides the $70,000)is not being able to charge it except at home even at 5 hours with the 20KW charger is still too long.

Plus living in a snowy land where in winter you can see your gas gauge move you use so much fuel heating the car, spinning wheels, knobby snow tires.

People seem to see vehicles as just another device like a new phone or TV I don't doubt they'll become more popular and drop in price.

<comment><USER14> > Still too expensive and too limited for my taste but I guess someone will > buy it.

> . . . I don't doubt they'll become more popular and drop in price.

That's exactly Telsa's (stated) plan.

Phase 1 was the Roadster. The Roadster was made in small numbers, using very "hands on" construction methods. It was very expensive, but it was designed to feel and perform like a very high end vehicle. For people who can drop $150k on a car (and there are more of those sorts of people than you might think), the Roadster was a very competitive option

Phase 2 is the Model S. The production line for the Model S is a lot more automated, and production runs are larger, resulting in a vehicle that is fairly competitive "mid range" luxury vehicles (e.g. the BMW 6 series).

Phase 3 will be a more "average consumer" targeted vehicle. Taking advantage of the lessons learned (and to some extent, the capital raised) in the first two phases.

<comment><USER13> Nissan is already doing that with the Leaf but it's still too limited I think only ~120km-160km per full charge. Although I do like the solar panel roof option to trickle charge the car's batteries.

The ~160km is misleading though because heating the car in winter and in southern climates cooling the car must require a lot of power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is really strange, at the factory test drive last year I spoke with the head of engineering on the Model S and he said the battery backs for 60 and 85kWh were the same size but with different formulations.

Only the 40kWh was supposed to have a smaller battery pack, in fact if you upgraded the 40kWh pack you'd need to change the suspension.

</comment><comment><USER16> Trying to wrap my head around these numbers, I see the rate 35 KWh / 100 miles which suggests to me you could take a 100 mile drive for about $4.50 (11 cents per KWh and 15% extra for charging inefficiency)

<comment><USER17> Yes, so in the more typical 3 gallons of gas car (33.3 mpg) that would set you back $9-$12 you pay half as much for the energy But electricity, like gas prices, varies.

A more interesting way to look at it from my perspective is that each 'mile' has an energy cost of 4.5 cents vs 9 cents. And in a 10,000 mile year that is $450 not spent.

There are still a lot of unknowns in terms to total cost of ownership, battery pack replacement, other maintenance.

edit: $450! Just made it in under the wire. Thanks.

<comment><USER18> That's a difference of $450, not $4,500.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't quite understand. Where do environmental factors come into play with MPGe? I thought its a plain measure of energy.

<comment><USER20> Remember that the "G" in "MPG" stands for "gallons" (of gasoline or diesel fuel). When your car runs on electricity, the measurement no longer applies directly, so a conversion is used to treat "gallons" as a proxy for pollution.

<comment><USER21> I don't think it's pollution they're looking at here: it's cost. E.g. the cost to go the equivalent distance as the cost of a gallon for an otherwise equivalent car. Perhaps I'm wrong. But bringing emissions in adds significant value to the electric option: value not yet realized since externalities like CO2 emissions are not currently paid for.</comment></comment></comment>


Frugal Web - <AUTHOR> https://frugalweb.xyz/ <comment><USER2> Very nice! I'd like to see some photos and screenshots of the final setup :)</comment>


Party is over for dirt-cheap solar panels, says China executive - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-solar-gcl-idUSKCN1PI2OQ <comment><USER2> Always over until it starts again. Note that the party is over (in this case) because it is threatening smaller businesses, not because there is a lack of capacity or that the "big guys" couldn't still make money at the reduced rate. In every industry where I have been aware of this this situation coming up (voluntary reduction in production in order to shore up prices), it works for a while and then people "cheat" and ramp up their production to make a bit more money with their now dormant capacity. And then more people cheat, and the party is back on again. The Chinese are notoriously fierce in their desire to make a buck and so I give this one about a 5% chance of lasting through the end of 2019.

<comment><USER3> Often, one sees industries making changes because market forces have made the transaction cost of manufacturing too onerous. Some industries in that case will consolidate and vertically integrate. If the pain from uncertain prices and supply gets too great, could the solar industry start with mergers and vertical integration? Or is it far too early for that?

<comment><USER4> Yes, mergers have been common in solar for a while.

This is one of the top manufacturers today:

[https://www.hanwha-qcells.com/](https://www.hanwha-qcells.com/)

A Chinese cell and module manufacturer acquired a Chinese ingot manufacturer. Korea's Hanwha Group subsequently acquired this merged Chinese entity as well as the German solar manufacturer Q-Cells. The merged Hanwha Q-Cells is vertically integrated from cells to modules.

A handful of manufacturers like GCL have vertically integrated even further:

\- Refined silicon production

\- Ingot production from purified silicon

\- Wafers from ingots

\- Cells from wafers

\- Modules from cells

I don't know if that depth of integration makes sense long-term or not. Some companies have been burned in the past as they integrated with producers that weren't close enough to the leading edge. All of these steps are evolving rapidly in small increments; a vertically integrated producer has to keep pretty close to the leading edge at every stage if they don't want to see their integration advantages reverse.

<comment><USER5> I suspect vertical integration works when your key intermediate manufacturing inputs aren't commodities. And you have enough scale to overcome production granularity issues.

<comment><USER3> _I suspect vertical integration works when your key intermediate manufacturing inputs aren 't commodities._

What if your manufacturing outputs are also getting to be commodities? The example I was thinking of was refrigerated cargo containers. The inputs are obviously commodities. The outputs are also getting to the point where the cost of financing to build stock for sale or lease is getting to be onerous for smaller players.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Translation: Foreign competition has now been driven out of business by subsidies, time to raise prices.

<comment><USER7> The article says Chinese solar is 30% of the world production, not sure if that's enough to jack prices.

<comment><USER8> 30% referred to total installed capacity, not production.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Eli Yablonovitch has spoken extensively about this. Here is one talk ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_K1URyarE0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_K1URyarE0)) but I think he makes the point elsewhere that the central government in China told their regional governments that they would need to close down their smaller scale PV production with the result that they all added capacity to meet the minimum causing an even greater production glut.

Edit: I found the source (cued up for 37:25) [https://youtu.be/lDxJsa8miNQ?t=2245](https://youtu.be/lDxJsa8miNQ?t=2245)

</comment><comment><USER10> Perhaps more worrying than this change is the recent focus on expanding China's coal plants [1]. China already now is responsible for 45% of the global coal electricity. Just look at this diagram [0]. And with their one- belt-one-road initiative, they are building coal plants around the world.

[0]: [https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power- plants](https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants) [1]: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2019/01/23/coal- is...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2019/01/23/coal-is-not-dead- china-proves-it)

<comment><USER11> China is still only a moderate emitter per capita, though it's caught up to Europe in recent years. Considering the wealth disparity it's a little hard to criticize.

<comment><USER12> The earth doesn't care, so to speak, about whether it's per capita or not, it only cares about the total global output.

The consequence of having 1.4 billion people in your society, is that you don't get to pollute at the rate of a nation with one million people that outputs 10x more pollution per capita.

Is that unfair? No. I don't think per capita equality of pollution is the most important factor in this. As a society China has to bear the consequences of their immense population and its impact on the earth. Pre-emptively I'll note this isn't a defense of any other nation's high per capita pollution output level.

Globally we have to take the China output _very_ seriously, and we can afford to not be nearly so concerned about the 10x output of the one million person nation because it's not a dire threat to the planet (which isn't the same thing as not caring about their output, it's a difference of one threatening human existence and the other not; I'm far more concerned about North Korea's nukes & missiles than the localized authoritarian militia activity in a tiny nation - even though they might both be reprehensible governments, one is far more dangerous).

<comment><USER13> > The consequence of having 1.4 billion people in your society, is that you > don't get to pollute at the rate of a nation with one million people that > outputs 10x more pollution per capita.

So if China were to split up into a whole bunch of separate countries, it would be acceptable for each of those countries to have a higher per capita pollution rate than is acceptable for current China?

As you noted, the Earth doesn't care. That's why per capita is the correct way to handle this. Otherwise, whether a given set of people producing a given level of pollution is acceptable changes depending on how you draw arbitrary political boundaries among those people.

<comment><USER14> Good argument, maybe it should be based on the area of land controlled by each nation? Population density or Tons of CO2 produced per square mile? The problem with per capita policy is it encourages over population which makes the problem worse.

<comment><USER15> On the other hand, focusing on controlled area of land seems like a good way to encourage wars over territory. I don't think there's an easy answer.

<comment><USER16> Not to be harsh, but that sounds like it will solve two problems with one stone...

I don't think war is good for anyone but it has a way of reducing both population and carbon output.

<comment><USER17> Well now you've solved it. Everyone this guy sloved the eco crisis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The price of the PV modules only makes up like 1/3 the cost of a utility scale solar installation and like 1/5 the cost of residential installations. A 10-15% increase in module cost will not slow solar adoption that much. The solar train will keep chugging along.

We'll eventually get to a point where we generate 5% of the world's power with solar and people will still underestimate its impact and will still claim its too expensive to scale...

<comment><USER19> This is actually accelerating and there's no real reason it should stop. I think it's going to happen slowly and then all at once.

<comment><USER20> We're already there, now that solar+storage is cheaper than coal.

Even my local electricity coop, which sends me climate change denial newsletters every month[1][2], is buying solar.

[1] [https://ulfheim.net/files/currentwv.pdf](https://ulfheim.net/files/currentwv.pdf)

[2] [https://ulfheim.net/files/CurrentWV3.pdf](https://ulfheim.net/files/CurrentWV3.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you want to invest in or speculate in (i.e. time your installation on your house) it looks like the model to follow is the historical DRAM market: a largely undifferentiated commodity market that depend mainly on cap ex and scale, thus subject to boom and bust as technologies changed (or failed to).

the fact that they are both silicon technologies I think is tangental

</comment><comment><USER22> _Solar panel prices tumbled around 30 percent last year after China, the world's largest producer, cut subsidies to shrink its bloated solar industry, pushing smaller manufacturers to the brink of collapse._

1\. Cutting subsidies should _raise_ prices. I guess the subsidy cut could have offset a steeper decline, but the article is full of head-scratchers like this one.

2\. When has China _ever_ cut a major subsidy?

<comment><USER23> A poster below said these were installation subsidies, which makes sense. So demand fell, there was a supply glut, and prices fell.

55% of solar capacity installed in 2017 was installed in China, so a fall there is going to have a big impact on the global market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> 30% price drop last year.

Expected to climb 10-15% over _two years_.

Doesn't seem like the party has ended. Just cooled a bit.

</comment><comment><USER25> Until the next cost-reduction tech scales up, and so on, and so on...

</comment><comment><USER26> The most interesting part of the article is the seemingly perverse economic response where the government cut subsidies and then the prices _fell_.

Is this an actual known pattern or just a strange side effect of this situation?

<comment><USER27> As other commenters have noted, it was an installation subsidy. Installation is a major cost of solar, other than just the cells themselves. That made it cheaper to move inventory out of the warehouse and into the field. With the subsidy gone, the inventory piles up in the warehouse and manufacturers get desparate to sell. So they drop their prices, but it's still more expensive to bring those panels online than it was when the subsidy was in force.

It's possible that the price will keep dropping until the panels are cheap enough to move at their current production capacity. But it's also possible that the lost profits make this level of production unsustainable, and solar panel costs climb back up as manufacturers shut down their no longer profitable lines and supply drops. It depends partly on what their margins are now, and what cost reduction room they have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> no shit, this is what everybody with a brain has warned about

China's MO is to subsidize Chinese businesses, restrict foreign competition internally, and steal foreign companies IP until they are bankrupt, while simultaneously being allowed to export their goods to those same countries with no penalty. Then they jack up the prices when all the competition is gone

Everybody criticized Trump for the steel and solar tariffs because they don't think beyond next quarter earnings report. What happens in 20 years when China has a monopoly on steel, solar, and other key industries and they decide to jack up prices? The rest of the world won't be able to do anything about it because they are junkies and China is the supplier

<comment><USER29> Lots of people profit short-term by trading with China. It's easier to make a profit as a middleman with China than as a manufacturer in a western country. I'm definitely left wing, but I applaud Trump for the tariffs. Tariffs are a must for the western world if we want to maintain our standards of living and survive long-term.

Germany is also a predatory exporter in Europe, but fewer people seem to care about that. The US definitely doesn't want to end up having the same relations with China as Southern European countries ("PIIGS") have with Germany. You can't win if you have zero leverage left to negotiate.

<comment><USER30> Germany is the prime exporter of the EU. It has the benefit of the Euro in the internal market for buying power due to its size and it has the benefit of the Euro in the external market because German bonds denominated in Euros are cheaper for it than the other EU states.

I'm a democratic socialist, but tariffs are not the way to control trade and standards of living. That is a mercantilist attitude from the 19th Century. Tariffs are paid by the consumers in the country that has the tariffs (ie Tariffs on China by US is paid by people in the US). It primarily hits those that spend most of their income on consumption, which is those that are poorer.

What is needed is the power of Labor (ie unions etc) to be applied in the foreign country, by having restrictions on goods and services that are not provided by Labor with fair conditions.

That's not the same as pay or money, there are comparitive advantages in things like the supply and demand on local food production etc.

<comment><USER31> > Tariffs are paid by the consumers in the country that has the tariffs (ie > Tariffs on China by US is paid by people in the US). It primarily hits those > that spend most of their income on consumption, which is those that are > poorer.

But consumers are already paying for the current situation in Germany. Instead of tariff, Germany decided to put downward pressure on salaries via the Hartz reforms. The effects are not far from tariff in that it shifts money from consumption towards savings/investments. That's why Germany has such a large trade surplus. And like tariff, it's a losing solution. In the end, your currency should reevaluate. Germany is just lucky to have the euro.

For a long time, I was really puzzled by why the German European partners stuck with Germany in the currency union were so tolerant of pretty much being spoiled. But after Macron, I think it's pretty clear: the richest are far too happy to be able to present lowering salaries and degrading work conditions as an inescapable part of modern economic competition. They are after all on the right side of the rising inequality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> China should continue to subsidize solar so they eatablish a completely dominant position, then use their navy to start sinking oil tankers. That's our best hope for salvaging Earth's climate.

<comment><USER33> That would also throw throw us into a world war that would devastate the planet, but hey.</comment></comment>


Google Chrome OS and the Third world (why it will fail) - <AUTHOR> http://aitoehigie.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/google-chrome-and-the-third-world-why-it-will-fail/

<comment><USER2> Firstly, US companies tends not to care about other countries. To the extent that they do, it is mostly European countries that are important. The reason is pretty simple -- money. First world countries can (and will) pay for things. It is generally more useful to have paying customers as your user base. (Here I include customers of other products, i.e. "eyeballs" that you can sell to advertisers. Advertisers want access to people who buy products.)

Secondly, the third world has shown rather resoundingly that it doesn't want non-Microsoft products. Here in Thailand I routinely see Thai people install Windows XP onto their iMacs and Macbooks. They don't use OSX, and I have never met a Thai using Linux. Even laptops which are supposed to have Linux pre- installed will routinely have XP installed by the shop before they are sold.

Here, the reasoning is a bit more complex. For starters, Thai language support. XP has very good Thai support (i.e. it actually has a Thai language locale). OSX does not at all, and Linux has extremely half-assed Thai language support. Obviously, Thailand isn't an important market to Apple and Linux using Thais haven't stepped up to do the translation. This is a unique issue for Thais, so we can ignore it for the general "Third World". I would suggest, however, that most Third World users don't speak English as a first language. Some African countries will do ok with French or English (or German!) locales, so we'll leave it at that.

Besides language issues, the main issue I've encountered here in Thailand is that Thai people want to learn marketable computer skills. They believe that since everyone uses Windows and Office, if they learn, for example, Linux and Open Office, they will have the wrong skill set. They want to emulate the West so they can be successful, and the West uses Microsoft. Thats what they want to use too.

Microsoft is quite deeply ingrained into the computing culture over here. If a Thai wants to add you to their IM list, they will ask you "do you have M?" <<are you on M[SN Messenger]?>>. Alternatively, they might just say "add email someusername42" <<add the MSN Messenger contact someusername42[@hotmail.com]>>. Microsoft defaults are just assumed (MSN Messenger, hotmail.com, etc.)

So, given that OSX and Linux can't penetrate into the third world (and in Apple's case, probably don't even want to)... why would you assume that Chrome OS will? That is, assuming that Google even cares (which is a huge assumption)...</comment>


Stumbling Into the Cold Expanse of Real Programming - <AUTHOR> http://prog21.dadgum.com/173.html

<comment><USER2> Imagine if we applied such creative hardware-level acceleration as let the Atari run animated games - to the modern goal of creating zero-latency augmented reality.

Cameras and displays can both be interfaced with by FPGAs running synchronous computation on each pixel as it comes down the bus, to achieve refresh speeds as fast as the pixel clock.

It's just a matter of inventing new programming hacks and strategies to build compelling AR experiences in Verilog. We can do it, right?

<comment> c-oreills Unfortunately, it's harder than it sounds: [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine- qua-n...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-non-of- ar-and-vr/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The Commodore 64 had some nice hardware also. I liked tinkering with the sound generators.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite variants on the "Now You have Two Problems" joke? - <AUTHOR> Example:<p>Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use Machine Learning." Now they have two problems. <comment><USER2> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use multithreading". Nothhw tpe yawrve o oblems.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use Java". Now they have a ProblemFactory.

</comment><comment><USER4> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll go Ask HN." Now they have HN problems.

</comment><comment><USER5> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use Regex." Now they have two problems.

</comment><comment><USER6> I realise this is not what you asked, but I found some interesting history on the topic: [http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247](http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247)

<comment><USER7> I feel Friedl's book[1] on regex definitely deserves a shout-out. Strangely easy to read and I found his methods made it easy to learn, too.

[1] [http://regex.info/book.html](http://regex.info/book.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Definitely this xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1171/](https://xkcd.com/1171/)

<comment><USER9> or [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _A programmer has an AI interface problem. The programmer decides to use natural language processing. Now they have two problems._

[I am probably biased] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12692180#12692500](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12692180#12692500)

</comment><comment><USER7> I tend to use: s/two/at least two/

</comment><comment><USER11> I had money problems so I started a business :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Javascript?

<comment><USER13> Please elaborate.

<comment><USER14> They mean, JavaScript solved all their problems.

It's one of those anti-jokes. ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Free Linux Console - <AUTHOR> http://www.webminal.org

<comment><USER2> Anyone wanting to practice linux command line and mySQL is probably better off with a VirtualBox (or VMWare, etc) VM, where you don't have such scarce resources and limitations.</comment>


Tesla's Call for Suppliers to Refund Cash 'Reeks of Desperation' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-23/tesla-s-call-for-suppliers-to-refund-cash-reeks-of-desperation <comment><USER2> Why is Tesla so insistent on hitting cash flow positivity without raising any additional capital?

They're sitting on a $50+ billion market cap, it shouldn't be that hard to raise. We're not even talking about increasing their debt load, since $1B of bonds are coming due. Why not just refinance them? Yes, they have a junk rating, but they've consistently borrowed at lower interest rates than comparable companies.

It seems driven by Elon Musk's hubris and insistence on proving shorts wrong rather than sound business strategy.

<comment><USER3> I think it's also because Tesla needs the positive press that comes with reaching their goals. A lot of investors are investing because they want the company to succeed and Tesla needs their trust, especially after missing so many deadlines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does this thread substantially contribute more than the previous hacker news discussion?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17589429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17589429)

I do realize that this article is from Bloomberg and the other one is from Wall Street Journal. But most of the discussion has already happened over there.

<comment><USER5> No, it's just a dupe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Even though Bloomberg has pronounced Tesla dead on more than one occasion, I'm still not convinced their recent troubles are big enough for the short sellers to make their money back.

</comment><comment><USER6> If I'm understanding the articles correctly, Tesla is looking to recover funds from suppliers for failed deliverables/objectives. Why _wouldn 't_ they be trying to get compensated for that?

<comment><USER7> You're misunderstanding the articles. Tesla isn't looking to recover funds for failed deliverables, it's looking for a post-dated discount, retroactive to the original contract dates (as far back as 2016).

If Tesla had issues with suppliers previously, the proper venue would have been to withhold payments (interim payments or the final payment) pursuant to the terms of the supply contract, not send a memo asking for a refund after the fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Omg, Tesla is dead again !!! I swear, I have read at least a thousand articles predicting Tesla's demise.

</comment><comment><USER9> The WSJ 'reeks of desperation', and the New York Post.

NewsCorp should be given the corporate death penalty.</comment>


Ask HN: Can you "sell" more Bitcoin than you actually own? - <AUTHOR> Say I run a wallet service where users can buy bitcoins from me and keep them in their "online wallet". When a user clicks "buy", do I have to actually buy bitcoins for the user?
Or can I just simply update my database to increment their balance when a user clicks "buy"?
What happens if I try to "sell" more Bitcoins than I own? For a service like Coinbase, is there a way for them to prove that they actually have the bitcoins for a user? <comment><USER2> Like short selling?</comment>


Ask HN: Two 24" Monitors or One 30" Monitor - <AUTHOR>

I've been thinking about upgrading for a while, I've currently got two 19" dells that I like a lot, but just aren't quite cutting it anymore.
With either the 24"s or the 30" I think the cost is going to be roughly the same ($1000-$1200)
The 24" are nice because they partition my work better so there is a clearer delineation of whats on each screen, and they also would have a larger total screen area. The problems I see is that they'd be too wide and I'd have to do more back and forth looking.
The 30" monitor is going to have a smaller total area, but is nice because everything is centered. This lends itself well to playing video games, but could be nice for code as well. Although I'm sure I'd need to buy another video card for games.
I suppose a third option is to buy another 19" dell.
I'll be using it primarily for coding, but again, games are always nice.
Do you have any experience with this? <comment><USER2> I've got two monitors. But take this with a grain of salt because I'm not a PC gamer. I use a console, but I do have the console hooked up via HDMI to one of my monitors.

I've got a 24" Dell rotated 90 degrees to portrait. I have this one front and center so no moving of the of head. This is where I do all my coding. Lots and lots of vertical space (which is more important to me than horizontal). That's the only thing on that monitor.

To the left, I have a 27" Dell that has my e-mail, Yammer, and a couple of other "all day" windows open. I've got the Windows arranged from right to left - most important to least important. E-Mail is on the far left as I get a lot of e-mail and most of it not important :)

I scan that monitor maybe once or twice an hour. If I'm doing a lot of work on that monitor, I'll swivel my chair towards it and move the keyboard and mouse in front of it (both are wireless).

It works for me because it allows me to compartmentalize my day. The setup cost me about 1300 at the time (900 for the 27" - no sale; 400 for the 24" - cheaper now).

<comment><USER3> Just a note: There is no clear-type for vertically oriented monitors under Windows.

<comment><USER2> Very true. Which is another reason why I keep the 27" further to the left as a separate monitor. When they are side x side, I can see the difference. But when focusing just on the 24" for coding, I do see the difference. It just doesn't bother me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure why you expect to spend so much. You can get two Dell 24"ers for $600 or so easy. If you're happy with a pair of smaller monitors I'd go for the pair of larger ones, rather than a single huge one. You'll get more resolution and you're already used to the dual-panel look.

Some monitor models can swivel to a vertical (portrait) alignment for a small extra cost. You might find this better for code listings and so on than a super-wide desktop; I have a friend with 2 x 24" models of which one is portrait, off to the side for debugging etc., and one is landscape, in the middle; and although it looks weird, when I've actually sat down with it it's quite pleasant to work with.

</comment><comment><USER5> Personally I like one large monitor, because I find it fits my workflow better. If you're using two monitors and don't like needing to swivel your head back and forth, have you considering orienting them vertically? For writing code, the extra vertical space is often more valuable anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried rotating, but I find the text harder to read because there is no cleartype.

I've got all the keyboard shortcuts for code folding memorized, and I do all my navigation via the keyboard in Visual Studio, so vertical space isn't as big of a concern for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, I'm really surprised by all the 30" -in favors-?

I use 2 24" in monitors and love it. As for having to turn your head... that's a very minor concern if your keyboard and mouse are centered (or sightly off center) you can see both monitors fine.

For me I use textmate on one monitor (main) and have web-browser, Adium, Skype open on the second monitor - organized so all three are "on top". Works like a charm.

I have another box with a 30" monitor, but I use it mainly as a review station. Window organization is a bit of a pain on that large of a monitor on OSX.

I would have to agree that that for media (games, movies, video editing) the single larger monitor is better.

</comment><comment><USER7> I read this a while ago:

<http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001076.html>

I still decided to go with the 2x24's. In the end though, it may have been a waste. Afterwards I introduced myself to Ubuntu and the virtual desktop features really separated my work well enough that I probably didn't need the extra monitor anymore.

A couple months later and I'm now on a 17" Macbook Pro. With Spaces configured to my liking I don't miss the additional monitor at all.

</comment><comment><USER8> For Windows, I like multiple monitors, since it allows you to maximize a window in each monitor.

On a Mac, for the most part apps don't take over a whole monitor without a bit of effort, so one monitor is probably the winner.

There's also a Windows shareware utility called SplitView that divides up one large monitor into a couple of virtual screens, so you can have the benefits of side-by-side maximized apps without giving up full-screen gaming.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a PC with a 24" monitor right next to a Mac Pro with a 24" monitor; I share a keyboard and mouse using Synergy.

I'm going to be moving to Mac only pretty soon and plan on upgrading to a single 30" monitor.

2x24 is nice, but there ends up being a lot of side-to-side head motion which gets tiring after a few days; and the most premium screen real estate (straight in the middle) is taken up by the bezels of the monitors.

</comment><comment><USER10> The 30" without question. You get 4 megapixels (2560x1600) on one screen instead of spread across two (2 x 1920x1080) - great for side by side columns of code (I can fit 3 on one of my screens). Its also very nice for gaming, although be prepared to experience some vertigo.

Of course the real way to go is dual 30's =)

</comment><comment><USER11> Your choice might depend on your eyes. If you're subject to presbyopia (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia>), either due to age or a bad draw in the gene pool, having two 24" monitors lets you angle them to minimize the need to refocus.

</comment><comment><USER12> I like my 30" over my 24" for its greater height. It provides a little more context when coding.

I haven't used multiple monitors for years though. I let my monitoring displays peek out around the edges of my windows and use virtual desktops for task switching.

</comment><comment><USER13> viewsonic 23" LCD's are < $200, the Dell ultrasharp 24" i want is ~ $600. I can code on any decent monitor driven off a macbook, but for video, gaming, photoshop, you need better.

I believe in costco sourcing to extent possible: you can run down and grab as many Princeton, Samsung, viewsonic or other leading mfr's 22-24" monitors as you need anytime. If you don't like them a month later (90 days, actually), return in original packaging.

</comment><comment><USER14> One 30" FTW with two displays you have to twist your neck more, also, if you're using video out from a laptop, it's easier to deal with one display.

</comment><comment><USER15> dude.. save the earth.

Choose the config with the lesser power consumption.</comment>


Security vulnerability in #Drupal contrib module puts 120000 sites at risk - <AUTHOR> http://drupal.sh/vulnerable-drupal-contrib-module-puts-120000-sites-at-risk <comment><USER2> Looking at the source it took me < 5 minutes to find the actual vuln =/. Drupal saying "Just migrate away" is not the correct way to handle this disclosure. Some people can't switch immediately. A patch should be made available, and the module should be depreciated. Does Drupal have a way to update modules easily? If not, there should be...

<comment><USER3> Same. Took hardly any time to see the SQL injection. I wonder how many more of these there are on older installations using modules that are no longer actively maintained (Hint: probably lots. Code quality has come a long way since the early days of Drupal.)

<comment><USER4> As someone who used to host many Drupal installs - all of them.

The joke around the ops/security team was Drupal is a remote shell with a bonus CMS attached to it.

<comment><USER5> When was it, what versions of Drupal? 8 ended up as a massive rewrite to replace all the key parts with Symfony components.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Drupal is known for it's large number of community contributed modules that > add functionality to the bare bones core system.

No, it's known for its ridiculous number of security issues and sloppy code :/

<comment><USER7> Drupal is easy to criticize, but its handling of security issues and its code quality aren't the two places I'd start. They're actually two of the strengths of the project.

<comment><USER8> You're missing a /s there.

<comment><USER9> I've seen worse, way worse, than Drupal Core.

That of course does not include Drupal modules - there is, similar to the Wordpress ecosystem, the really bad stuff.

<comment><USER8> But that's the whole problem right there. Such a plug-in architecture with every Tom, Dick & Jane writing modules that are loosely vetted and deployed in the 100's of thousands is broken by design. There is no way a small review team focused on security will be able to audit what 1000's of dedicated lesser gods produce.

I can see the advantage of it, you just focus on the core and let the world take care of its own problems but you end up with nearly every site being critically dependent on a couple of obscure modules that will not get the attention they need until it is much too late. This coupled with Drupals nasty habit of obsoleting everything every couple of year (I hear they are changing now) and you're set up for disaster.

So even if Drupal Core is not all that bad it is _never_ just Drupal Core.

<comment><USER10> To get a module marked as "covered by the Drupal security team" it _is_ required to go through a community code review.

<comment><USER11> Which is pretty easy to pass, you just have to follow the coding standards.

<comment><USER10> And not have any (glaring) security flaws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Title is: Security vulnerability in _unmaintained_ Drupal contrib module puts 120000 sites at risk

(Emphasis mine)</comment>


First Lightning mainnet release - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lightning.engineering/announcement/2018/03/15/lnd-beta.html?1 <comment><USER3> Serious question, why does HN seemt o be in favor of lightning over BCH's approach of not neutering the block size?

LN has so many drawbacks. Have to always be online, need to hold hot walkets, need liquidity provided at both ends (kyc/aml)...

<comment><USER4> If we ever want Bitcoin to evolve from a store of value to an actual payment method we have to come up with something that does at least better than VISA's 8000tx/s and that's just not solved with going from 7tx/s to Bitcoin Cash's ~62tx/s. We have to be able to compete with every payment method out there and we should be able to handle peak throughput during sales period.

Another important factor is the 10 minutes confirmation time, nobody wants to wait for 10 minutes at the counter before they trust you walking out. We need something with instant verification and low fees and increasing the blocksize will never do that.

<comment><USER5> It exists. It is called nano: no fees and instant transactions through the block lattice. [https://nano.org/en/whitepaper](https://nano.org/en/whitepaper)

I am surprised more folks on HN are not familiar with nano considering it is one of the few teams in crypto with endorsements from familiar faces: Zack Shapiro on the core team (ex-Product Hunt), Garry Tan (YC, angel investor in Coinbase), and Charlie Lee (former director of engineering @ Coinbase).

<comment><USER6> Nano / Raiblocks is a scam in the sense it is created for free, and old users need new users to dump their nano at a profit to new bag holders.

      The initial distribution of XRB was performed through
      "manual mining" limited via a captcha.
      The distribution rate was
      17 XRB (Raiblocks) per hour per ip4.

This method was easy to automate, and easy to bypass with the plethora of VPNs and users who own hundreds of IP4/IP6 addresses. Presumably the dev team has the vast majority, millions of Rai/Nano.

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=raiblock+captch...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=raiblock+captcha)

[https://github.com/nanocurrency/raiblocks/wiki/Design- featur...](https://github.com/nanocurrency/raiblocks/wiki/Design-features)

These users need new people to buy their Raiblocks / Nano in order to profit off this scam.

<comment><USER7> You are describing the problem of all currencies, ie also dollar. If no one accepts your dollar you are screwed.

<comment><USER6> Riiight... well everyone accepts the USD.

Not even the darknet vendors accept Nano / Raiblocks.

Do you know any places where Nano XRP Raiblocks are being accepted?

You might want to read these:

[http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/...](http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1464096684955433613)

[https://stripe.com/blog/ending-bitcoin- support](https://stripe.com/blog/ending-bitcoin-support)

tl;dr cryptocurrencies don't really work for the real world.

<comment><USER5> Why do you have such a strong emotionally negative response to cryptocurrencies? It is pretty clear you are communicating disingenuously. The reasons for ending BTC support for many merchants and platforms were high fees and long tx confirmation times, which is what many altcoins have focused on addressing (eg Ether, Stellar, Litecoin, Nano)

<comment><USER6> Because most of the cryptocoin projects are designed as way to scam other users.

Why doesn't Nano Raiblocks allow more users to generate new Nano/Raiblocks? Would that hurt your investment if every user had equal access to the production of the supply?

Why are you so emotionally invested in trying to sell these beanie babies to other people? Is it because you need to profit off other buying into your scam?

Still no list of businesses accepting Nano/Raiblocks?

<comment><USER5> I am excited about the technology. I had taken a light look at the space 4-5 years ago and did not form a strong impression. I didn't take a look at the technology again until last September.

One of the topics I enjoyed deep diving on the most was the lightning network. The two pain points I observed for lightning were: (1) It takes a non-trivial amount of energy to understand hashed time lock contracts well enough to be able to prove the concept to yourself. Not having as easy mastery of a topic off the bat leads to feeling less secure about one's ability to reason about security. (2) The specter of rising on-chain fees for commitment transactions to open payment channels.

With regard to Nano, I was happy to see a different approach to the same problem that was more intuitive. I run a small business and am waiting for the desktop and mobile wallets to come out of beta before I offer the ability to pay with Nano.

I'd be happy if something came along that was better than Nano. I have it on my todo list to look into Byteball Bytes. I am optimistic about larger scale benefits that society will enjoy from the cryptocurrency space if certain projects are successful (eg improved ease of financial auditing, information- sharing platforms with strongly reduced odds of astroturfing, disappearance of credit card fees, increased financial transparency, reduced exchange fees when traveling, banking for the unbanked, etc). Since I am optimistic about the societal benefits from the space as a whole, I want to see more developers interested in getting involved.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for explaining where you're coming from.

It's a weird space. I see the general concept behind cryptocurrencies as bringing the same benefits you've outlined and from a technology and software perspective these projects are fascinating.

My contention with most of these projects and users is that in these specific implementations nearly every single one of the cryptocoin projects are designed to enable oligarchical wealth extraction from downstream investors - especially in the case of uninformed users/speculators who join the network later.

The question becomes of sustainability - if there's no underlying value to the asset and it relies on speculation and the supply is heavily centralized among a small pool of early adopters than there will likely be a point where buy pressure runs dry and most of the late adopters will be unable to exchange the same amount of wealth they traded into the system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is so incredibly exciting for bitcoin. I know this is only a beta and it's been in the works for a while, but many people didn't believe we'd see anything at all this soon.

<comment><USER9> You're kidding right? We were supposed to be seeing this over a year ago. They've been consistently behind on their promises.

<comment><USER6> LN Dev: "We're 6 months away." _Dec 14th, 2015_

[https://mobile.twitter.com/starkness/status/6765995708984197...](https://mobile.twitter.com/starkness/status/676599570898419712)

Something seems off with what LN claims is a p2p network, as the claim is they've created something better than BGP yet there's going to be many many race conditions if the network is ever actually used at scale and the only solution to those race conditions will be broadcasting updates to inform other nodes the route is inaccessible.. which will raise the bandwidth demand for anyone running nodes needing those updates.

[https://youtu.be/Ug8NH67_EfE?t=635](https://youtu.be/Ug8NH67_EfE?t=635)

For LN to claim to be p2p seems rather disingenuous, as everything about it is going to favor wealthy centralized payment processor hubs. What's the point than? Why not use venmo / stripe / square where there's less risk of scam for both consumer and retailer? Running a LN node will require a hot wallet with keys in memory, so if a Spectre/Meltdown style attack hits your node your key and funds are at greater risk of being stolen.

LN also opens up the ease of money laundering, so will all LN nodes need to keep KYC/AML logs for future audits?

<comment><USER3> LN will have all the problems of BGP, fused with all the problems of KYC/AML/legacy financial institutions.

It's truly a beautiful monstrosity. It'd be hard to come up with a more objectively inferior solution if you really tried.

No longer can a new user just send a transaction and have that magical user experience, instead they have to be given permission to transact by monolithic liquidity hubs, who of course must take their own fee. In fact as a rational lightning hub owner, I would want a rate of return similar to stocks but times some multiple to account for the very high risk of my hot wallet getting hacked and losing all my money.

Full disclosure: I'm a BCH/XMR supporter although I no longer own either since I've been sitting out of the scene for the last few months while waiting for all this idiocy to blow over

<comment><USER10> I noticed you've posted the same thing in many different posts with increasing inaccuracy.

> instead they have to be given permission to transact by monolithic liquidity > hubs

Completely false

> who of course must take their own fee

May, and routes aren't prescribed so they may take a fee on a payment that may be routed through them.

> I would want a rate of return similar to stocks but times some multiple to > account for the very high risk of my hot wallet getting hacked and losing > all my money.

What. This is completely disconnected from Lightning's functionality.

Please stop spreading FUD.

<comment><USER6> blockcipher is refering to a new type of attack LN enables, which would be a (large) node/hub having the ability to ignore/drop transactions. It's roughly similar to how pool operators can create custom tools to suppress activity passing though their part of the network.

[https://steemit.com/ethereum/@dhumphrey/f2pool- manipulates-u...](https://steemit.com/ethereum/@dhumphrey/f2pool-manipulates- usd1-2-million-on-the-ethereum-blockchain-during-the-status-im-ico)

The latter comment is in regards to the risk of providing liquidity in the more concerning design caveat of exposing keys in memory on an internet connected computer. The attack surface for theft of a LN node is now significantly higher than a normal bitcoin wallet.

<comment><USER10> The link you've posted

a) Does not work b) Seems to be specific to Ethereum c) According to a mirror, has its information sourced from an unverified Reddit post.

Is there anything but FUD here?

<comment><USER6> Ah yes the cultish rhetoric of shouting "FUD", pathetic.

Feel free to ignore the prior mentioned methods denial of service within blockchain networks as It appears your comment has rendered all reality moot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some commenters here appear to be asking why one should favour LN over raising the block size.

The answer to that is that it's not a dichotomy.

There's not a decision to be made _between_ 'LN' and 'Raise block size'. They're two independent things. The LN is an opt-in system on top of bitcoin.

If we're lucky, LN works out well.

If it doesn't - I'd be in favour of keeping the blocksize low anyway and I think a lot of technical folk would too. The reason why I don't think is difficult to understand, rather it's difficult to accept.

Raising the block size beyond some value is problematic. A small increase is likely safe, but we really don't know what. This is both in order for full nodes to be usable on reasonable hardware, and also to ensure fee pressure (in a low/zero fee environment, inflation will likely have to be introduced to ensure enough mining happens for security).

A good analogy might be with cars and cities. Imagine we lived in a world where public transport simply couldn't exist - for whatever reason it's just impossible. Would it be prudent then to bulldoze the streets of London, Paris, wherever else, to build more roads for capacity? I would argue not - <USER2> simply have a situation in which there's a limit on capacity and that's that.

In addition, in the world where pub transport _does_ exist, investing in trains does not necessarily mean completely stopping work on roads entirely. They're different things.

</comment><comment><USER12> Did the Lightning Network solve the routing problem now or are they still emulating banks by requiring permanent online super nodes?

<comment><USER13> You know what? All the hops where your TCP/IP connection has gone to allow you to write that message, were provided by devices that had to be online in order to provide you the services. EOM

<comment><USER12> Yes, but routers aren't responsible for keeping my money safe. If you don't constantly monitor all your LN channels, the other party can just steal your money by issuing fraudulent messages to the network.

<comment><USER14> Someone can setup "watchdog" services that you can give your revocation transactions to and they can watch the blockchain for any attempts to "steal" your money and if any are found they can instantly broadcast the revocation.

Doing it this way you don't give the "watchdog" service any control of your BTC, just the ability to broadcast countersignatures, which means there is still no counterparty risk here. You could even give your revocation transactions to multiple 3rd parties that can all watch the blockchain for you if you don't trust any one of them to not backstab you.

<comment><USER12> But what happens if a watchdog has an outage? I need multiple backup watchdogs then, and no watchdog will work for free. So I'm now paying multiple entities to securely transact money to other people that themselves also need watchdogs to watch their channels. This sounds not like it will result in low fees. Transaction fees, maybe, but overall fees including middlemen will be quite a bit higher.

<comment><USER14> >But what happens if a watchdog has an outage?

Locktimes are currently on the order of days (roughly 3 days IIRC), which means you have days to react to a fraudulent transaction. A dedicated watchdog service being out for days at a time is pretty shitty uptime.

Not to mention that this isn't the ONLY way you can watch out for this. Your laptop, phone, or any other internet connected device can also watch for these transactions, as long as you connect to the network once every 3 days, you can handle it yourself.

>...and no watchdog will work for free.

I'm sure you are correct, but we will need to see the exact costs here. I'm guessing (and it is a complete guess) that the costs here won't be that bad at all. You could write a service that scans the blockchain for these transactions that would easily run on a very small server with a VERY large number of revocation transactions, so it's not like it's a large cost to run a service like this. Not to mention that the "fee" for these services could be paid by "penalty" forced onto the person that tried to cheat you when the revocation transaction is broadcast, incentivizing the watchdog service to catch the fraudulent transactions (since that's the only way they get paid).

Plus I have a feeling this can easily be a value-added service to many exchanges and custodial wallets.

<comment><USER15> 3 days? In contrast, your liability is capped at $500 if you inform your bank of debit card fraud within 60 days.

<comment><USER14> That time is completely configurable between you and the person you are opening a channel with, 3 days just seems to be the number everyone is gravitating toward using as a good default since it's long enough that short times offline won't cause you to be vulnerable to fraudulent transactions, but not long enough to cause issue if the channel you are working with decides to close up suddenly (because after the locktime is up you can broadcast a transaction which gives you all the money in the channel).

And yes, your bank can reimburse your for fraudulent charges (the amount and timing depends on your location), but that also depends on your bank not deciding that your fraud isn't actually fraud, it depends on you (as in your person) constantly checking your accounts for fraud and manually reporting it to the proper channels when it happens, you are still out the money while they investigate and reimburse in some cases, they will lock and reissue your card which often takes days to arrive leaving you without a card in the meantime, they can deny your account entirely for any number of reasons, they can control what you are able to buy with your card for any number of reasons, the cost of a bank account is far from free, they can and will charge you to get access to your own money quite often, and they can deny you from withdrawing your own money at any time for just about any reason (including "you are withdrawing too much money").

Neither option is perfect, nobody says they are, but I really believe that a system like Bitcoin and LN are a significant improvement over the traditional banking system in many ways. It is worse in some ways for sure, but I feel the benefits far outweigh the down sides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For those who may not know the context, this has to do with long-term scaling of the Bitcoin network.

The very first public response to Satoshi's announcement of Bitcoin was an expression of doubt about scalability:

 _We very, very much need such a system, but the way I understand your proposal, it does not seem to scale to the required size.

...

To detect and reject a double spending event in a timely manner, one must have most past transactions of the coins in the transaction, which, naively implemented, requires each peer to have most past transactions, or most past transactions that occurred recently. If hundreds of millions of people are doing transactions, that is a lot of bandwidth - each must know all, or a substantial part thereof._

[https://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg09...](https://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg09963.html)

And the comment was spot-on. Naively implemented, Bitcoin can only scale linearly by putting every transaction onto the block chain. Double the transaction capacity means doubling the size of blocks.

Lightning Network scales the Bitcoin network by offering a secure method for keeping many, if not most, transactions off the block chain. This is done through a clever use of Script, Bitcoin's built-in programming language.

Two parties who want to transact at high speed jointly lock up some money with an on-chain transaction (thereby creating a "payment channel"). Then they send each other half-signed transactions spending the locked funds. Each transaction represents a kind of private ledger. Although any of these transactions can be published at any time, it will usually be mutually beneficial to avoid doing so and continue passing half-signed transactions back and forth. When it's time to call it quits, the last transaction is published.

In other words, the intermediate transactions never need to hit the block chain. Only the final settlement transaction needs to be published.

Lightning takes this one step further by providing a mechanism whereby a party can pay another party on behalf of a third party. This means that you can make Lightning payments without necessarily having an open channel with your intended payee. You just need an open channel and the network routes your payment.

Lightning Network has been in development for years. The idea has been repeatedly disparaged as "vaporware." The first mainnet release is a big deal because that characterization no longer applies. It also means we're going to see a real-world test of an idea that up until now hasn't been widely-tested.

The Bitcoin Cash split was due in large part to a group of Bitcoiners rejecting Lightning as a scaling option. They tend to believe not only that Bitcoin _can_ scale by increasing block size, but that this is the _best way_.

<comment><USER17> This is an excellent high level description.

Lightning network allows for an arbitrary high number of tx, but can only tx on value that has specifically been locked to do so. Essentially you end up creating a bidirectional link for each on-chain tx, the weight of each link is the amount of value that can flow in that direction. Joining a bunch of these links together potentially allows for just locking up funds with some larger node in the LN and having near instant and extremely cheap payment to node that is traversable from your link.

One of the really cool things about this architecture is that as long as two blockchains offer atomic x-chain txs then the same principal should work for LN. (e.g. send litecoin down a LN payment channel the business gets bitcoin on the other end)

Unfortunately this does have security implications, LN's security model relies on monitoring the blockchain to ensure that the other side of the channel doesn't attempt to close the channel to their benefit, if they do there is remediation you can do, but you have to be monitoring the channel. Also an inability to close the payment channel (tx on the blockchain) within a certain # of blocks could result in the history of the payment channel getting cleared.

Basically if the bitcoin network experiences a huge tx backlog like we saw a couple months ago (tx fees exceeding 15-20 USD) and we see third party routers with high dependency/volume we could see a double spend attack that would be cost prohibitive to stop.

<comment><USER18> There is no added risk of double spend in lightning. The risk in lightning is that your counterparty can close the channel on an old state that benefits them. If you, or your watchtower (not yet implemented) is not there to punish fast enough, they can run away with your bitcoin.

<comment><USER19> What happens if they DDOS you (or your watchtower) at the right moment? Most peoples' bandwidth is shit enough that forcing them offline is fairly straightforward.

<comment><USER14> Locktimes are about 3 days, they would have to ddos you for the whole time in order to steal anything. If at any point during those 3 days you are able to broadcast your transaction in any way, you get all the money in the channel from both participants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Lightning in theory would allow for fast & cheap transactions, so BTC could really be used for payments instead of the "asset" it has become. Has been discussed for years with nothing to show. I remain skeptical. But if it works well, it could be a catalyst for mainstream adoption and increased price support.

<comment><USER21> >Has been discussed for years with nothing to show

Yes, it's literally an overnight success. I think they started coding this last night, and it's in beta today /s

On a more serious note, a lot of work has firstly gone into making sure all the different implementations work well with each other, aka the standardization problem. That's a big win in and of itself.

The routing problem isn't trivial either. Lightning currently uses an 'onion- like' routing scheme where, similar to TOR, the nodes have a very limited information on the origin and destination addresses. This is great news for privacy.

The lightning network has been running on the testnet successfully for many months now, and some early adopter merchants even accepted testnet coins for small purchases. Over a 1000 lightning nodes are currently running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, what can I do with this?

<comment><USER8> Cheap and near-instant transactions.

<comment><USER23> I was excited for Lightning until I've learned about Nano (formerly Raiblocks). It promised and actually delivered totally free AND near-instant transactions. Worth checking out if you didn't knew about it.

<comment><USER24> Every comment I see like this makes me less interested in looking into "Raiblocks" because it sounds exactly like vested interest shilling. Low content promotion of semi-obscure altcoins repeated in every single cryptocurrency discussion thread...

<comment><USER23> If you browse my history you'll see I'm not a shill for Nano. This is the first time I ever brought it up in a comment on HN. I genuinely just like the technology - while it has some small drawbacks, the benefits (free, fast and no-mining) far outweigh them in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The tech is great and it's still very early but it lacks any community consensus mechanism regarding important events.

Recently there was a hack and a petition was created to ask the devs to allow the community to vote on how it should be resolved:

[https://www.change.org/p/colin-lemahieu-lets-ask-the-nano- de...](https://www.change.org/p/colin-lemahieu-lets-ask-the-nano-devs-to-hold- a-vote-on-a-fork)

</comment><comment><USER26> Ideally we just have something that can handle fast transaction volume without wasting a lot of electricity. Hedera Hashgraph looks like it might be able to do that. It's still very early, but lightning networks aren't the solution.

<comment><USER27> Keep in mind Hashgraph and Blockchain are very different, in that Hadera is a permissioned network with public access (each round has a known number of nodes that must participate to exit the round).

<comment><USER26> What do you mean by round?

<comment><USER27> "What do you mean by round?"

Because Hashgraph is BFT, a round is a round of voting for confirmation. Its done virtually but you have to have 2/3rds of nodes agree on the state to close a round and have a confirmed state. To have 2/3rds you have to have a fixed and known number of nodes in the round. See BFT for more information.

The point I was trying to make, is that they are very different in benefits and limitations.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New Social Sites Cater to People of a Certain Age - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/technology/12social.html

<comment><USER2> I've always been curious to see if social networks geared toward the older crowd will ever catch on. My concern with this is that while there may be as many internet users in the 55 year old range as the 18-34 crowd, will they be willing to invest a similar amount of time on these networks?

Something tells me that these people won't rely on these services as much as the younger crowd, but I could be wrong...

<comment><USER2> More to add to this topic from yesterday:

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/13/apparently-old- people-a...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/13/apparently-old-people-arent- dying-to-use-eons/)

I'm not surprised really. It's a hard audience to win over.</comment></comment>


Sexist Reactions to an Ad Spark #ILookLikeAnEngineer Campaign - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/04/429362127/sexist-reactions-to-an-ad-spark-ilooklikeanengineer-campaign

<comment><USER2> Thank God!

It feels like weeks since the last gender in tech hashtag has trended. I've been waiting desperately for something to steal the internet's vitriol and outrage from this whole Cecil the lion thing.

OK - yes - I'm being entirely facetious there. This might take off it might not, but I am personally tired of the seemingly endless new thing to be outraged by.

Tim Hunt, Gamergate, Doglegate, Meritocracy Carpet, Beach Body Ready, Cancel Colbert ... then if you start googling around for "gender hashtags" you'll see articles extoling the "social change hashtags" of the year - but if you look at them [http://www.forbes.com/sites/karenhua/2015/06/03/tweeting- to-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/karenhua/2015/06/03/tweeting-to-empower- feminist-hashtags-2015/) ... [http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2014/12/29/top- social-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2014/12/29/top-social- change-hashtags-of-2014-focused-on-race-and-gender/)

What has actually changed? How is the world a better place?

I'm honestly appalled that this poor young woman had to suffer shitty troll comments in the internet, but a hashtag isn't going to actually _do_ anything.

Do we really think those idiots are the same ones reading the social justice pages of the huffington post?

Holding on to outrage or fanning the flames of outrage are NOT the right way to effect positive social change.

Shame and fear may be effective methods of effecting change, but they're dark and hurtful. Love, patience, forgiveness and kindness is better for everyone.

[http://www.futurity.org/shame-942522/](http://www.futurity.org/shame-942522/) [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creative- synthesis/2015...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creative- synthesis/201501/shame-and-motivation-change) [https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/wor...](https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp0807.pdf)

There's a reason this stuff is in the 2000 year old wisdom of Jesus (turn the other cheek) and the 2500 year old wisdom of Buddha.

Love is the answer.

<comment><USER3> Wait, her response, with the hashtag, was to promote the fact that there are lots of engineers who don't look like many people's stereotype of an engineer, no?

What about that involves 'shame and fear'?

Why does it bug you?

<comment><USER4> Maybe because Isis Anchalee Wenger is not an engineer, despite what her inflated job title ("platform engineer") and 3-months of web development bootcamp may tell her to the contrary. That doesn't mean she doesn't face real sexism -- just one comment about her appearance is one too many. The more interesting question, however, is what does a software engineer actually look like? Does a 3-month web bootcamp give you the rights?

<comment><USER3> I don't know anything about her, and didn't really care enough to research her personally, and still don't really. Why did you? What is it that bugs you? Cause I still say there is no "shame and fear" involved in this 'campaign'.

I think anyone who has a job writing code can legitimately call themselves a software engineer, it's just a synonym for programmer these days, and if you program, you're a programmer.

(I play accordion, not all that well. Once a teacher of mine, who is an incredible musician, overheard me answering the question "Do you play accordion?" with "Well, I'm learning," and he said to me something like "Don't say you don't play the accordion, of course you play the accordion, I've seen you playing it, you play the accordion, you're a musician. If you pick up the accordion and play something on it, you are an accordionist, which is something to be proud of. Never deny it." This coming from a guy who is probably one of the top accordionists on the planet, better then I'll ever be (because he's been dedicating himself to it for decades since he was a child) -- was a lesson for me in confidence and generosity to oneself and others vs being excessively self-critical).

There are enough software engineers that I think it's clear that the answer to "what does a software engineer actually look like" is: Just like everyone else, they look like everyone.

<comment><USER4> Why do you assume I researched Ms. Wenger? Why does that bother you? FYI, someone who was a classmate of hers mentioned it in the comments to some article on her. >>I think anyone who has a job writing code can legitimately call themselves a software engineer, it's just a synonym for programmer these days, and if you program, you're a programmer. That's exactly it: what you think. Anyway, it's not clear because people do ask (this time I just did my research...even the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics differentiate).

Btw, I'm not talking about appearance when I ask what a software engineer looks like, I'm talking about whether three-month experience from a web development academy makes a software engineer. That bothers me.

<comment><USER3> What do you think (which of course will be "just what you think", as you say) are the qualifications for calling oneself a software engineer?

What is it that bothers you about people who have jobs coding calling themselves "software engineers" when you don't think they qualify?

I think a survey of job postings would confirm that even entry-level job postings, for which someone with 3 months of training might qualify, are routinely advertised as 'software engineer' positions. So it may not be "just what I think".

If you're reading comments from classmates on some article about her, you're clearly doing more research than I am. I've read nothing but the OP, and don't have any particular interest in learning more about her, honestly. But I like the hashtag.

<comment><USER4> >>What do you think (which of course will be "just what you think", as you say) are the qualifications for calling oneself a software engineer? Are you asking me to find out what I think, or are you just asking in order to prove a point? It's unclear, as you've mentioned yet again how you have no particular interest in Ms. Wenger... >> What is it that bothers you about people who have jobs coding calling themselves "software engineers" when you don't think they qualify? I can't imagine that three months of experience makes anyone particularly qualified for anything but to learn that they like something, which is not necessarily bad. But why three months? Why not at least a year, like the Udacity Android developer programmer?

>>I think a survey of job postings would confirm that even entry-level job postings, for which someone with 3 months of training might qualify, are routinely advertised as 'software engineer' positions. So it may not be "just what I think". Have you done a survey of entry-level postings? Given that reading comments in an article already constitute "research" to you, so I'm guess the answer is no. Thus it is indeed "just what you think" (And perhaps what some HR personnel think). It's just unfortunate that somewhere in the hiring process, people with a 3-month bootcamp experience can get hired but older software engineers/developers can't. Seems that the valley can't keep female CS/EECS/SEng grads in tech and can't hire older developers after age 30. But web bootcamps can certainly pop up and try to sell the myth that one can become a fully-contributing software engineer after three months.

Your only interesting point was the sharing of the accordion story and generosity of spirit. Thank you for that exchange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The worst thing is that "looking like an engineer" is a pejorative description. People expect some kind of nerdy appearance from an engineer no matter what gender the person is.

<comment> mycroft-holmes Exactly. I've been told I don't look like an engineer but it doesn't matter because I'm a man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As if companies never hire attractive models to feature in their campaigns

</comment><comment><USER7> I think the hashtag is cool. Just waiting for lots of male engineers in drag to subvert it. Seriously though it's cheap and I really do not see a downside except woman may be encouraged to become engineers and be surprised by long hours impinging on family time (long hours (if a little self inflicted) impinge on my family time). (I will not declare whether I am male of female. My bio: Engineering degree/programmer).

</comment><comment><USER8> Something tells me it's going to be a long, slow process stamping out sexism in tech. But this is a good step forward.

Edit: I know remarking on downvotes is frowned-upon here, but I just can't help it. Good to see HNs resident mysogynists are keeping on top of their game!

<comment><USER9> You were downvoted (not by me) for not providing anything meaningful to the discussion, not because of your bias.

Stop being a victim, don't blame other people every time you screw up (as we all do from time to time)</comment></comment>


People in Japan are being paid to have babies, and it seems to be working - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-babies-cash-incentivie-2016-6 <comment><USER2> In Poland, government started paying monthly for each child after first one (and for every child if you are a low income family). It's hard to predict if it would work like in Japan as it started a year ago and there are still no official stats available but I wonder if one-time payoff, like in Japan, would yield better or worse results than paying monthly (or would there be any difference at all)?</comment>


Apply HN: Time\2 – Elastic Time - <AUTHOR> A new kind of time that you can store, save for later and consume when you are in dire need for "just some more". Our product is currently in the idea stage, but with enough time and funding we are sure to launch an MVP of Time\2 soon. <comment><USER2> One thing that I'm hesitant about is that people often use time-as-a-limited resource as a way of pushing people out they aren't interested in seeing or doing business with.

If people are buying time for other people (I'm assuming that's your business model), then people may be forced to simply tell the truth, which may harm some relationships/businesses.

Have you found someone willing to insure your startup against any possibly litigation?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We made some user interviews, and we think there is definitely major demand for this. Even without telling them the topic of the interview they already told us that they "need to find some time".

</comment><comment><USER3> How do you pronounce "Time\2"? "Time backslash two"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Similar like we pronounce HTTP/2, just in the other direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What does this mean? How does it work?

</comment><comment><USER5> shut up and take my money!</comment>


WeChat uses one censorship policy in China and another internationally - <AUTHOR> https://citizenlab.org/2016/11/wechat-china-censorship-one-app-two-systems/ <comment><USER2> I lived in China for 3 years and speak pretty decent Mandarin. I'm really grateful people are doing analyses like this, but, and I am very sad to say this, I think it may not matter because very few people want to discuss anything subversive anyway.

Recently I tried to engage with my oldest Chinese friend about the Sesame Credit system that I think will gradually be adapted to compel more and more obedience. It was like water off a duck's back. As far as she was concerned, the government's description was the end of the story.

Anecdote, of course, but I can't do a real survey. My feeling is that I could try all day (speaking very frankly on WeChat) to get Chinese friends to at least understand my concerns and I'd just get blown off 20 different ways. I hope I'm wrong, that it's just my limited experience that makes the situation seem gloomier than it really is.

<comment><USER3> > As far as she was concerned, the government's description was the end of the > story.

This is what people don't get about China. " _Ooohh yeah, China will take the U.S down a few pegs, go China!_ " this is a very popular sentiment on reddit's /r/Worldnews or with any cynical millennial on reddit. They eat up all the blatant propaganda that comes out of either Xinhua or the People's Daily (China's very own English language, government-owned & ran propagand... erm, I mean "news agency"). China literally, not figuratively, brainwashes its citizens. And they do so from a very early age: Japan is evil!. I get a kick when I hear people say how China hates Japan and Japan hates China. I'm sorry, but relatively speaking, it's a one-sided hatred -- just go search youtube for people asking random Japanese people down the street what they think of China. There are dozens and dozens of them, all by different youtubers and done at various times over the last 10 years.

What they don't understand is that if China replaced or supplanted the U.S as the world's sole superpower, things would be a whole hell of a lot different than they are now. China would most definitely exert its influence in a way that the world has yet to see. The U.S is far from perfect but they are, by *orders of magnitude, the lesser evils. They're simply benign by comparison. Under Chinese rule, it would most certainly not be benign and many of our freedoms would erode the more powerful China got. Until one day we wake up to a global "great firewall". Sounds like an exaggeration but as someone who has lived in China, I assure you, it's not.

<comment><USER4> Are you sure about it's on-side hatred?

Here is the data: [http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/07/18/americas-global-image- re...](http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/07/18/americas-global-image-remains-more- positive-than-chinas/)

Only 5% Japanese like China.Its strange,because China never invaded Japan.

<comment><USER3> Those are general opinions about the country itself, not personal opinions. The question they ask is; Do you have a positive opinion of China? The Japanese could be taking the question to mean: Do you think China likes you? Or any other variation... It's not necessarily "Do you _hate_ China". In fact, I'd argue that's not the question at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The bigger issue is not just censorship but the potential governments access to communications of non-Chinese commercial actors. While it's common to do business on WeChat I don't know if anyone outside of China would feel confident that this isn't a security risk.

<comment><USER6> Do you honestly think US-based services are exempt from NSA/NRO/CIA snooping and should be trusted?

<comment><USER7> Do you think the NSA is going to give your trade secrets to a domestic competitor? That's the concern.

<comment><USER8> If you are discussing trade secrets on WeChat or Facebook Messenger I feel like you are doing it wrong. Any 3rd party communications service should not pass due diligence.

<comment><USER5> But that's exactly how WeChat is used in China. And really no different that having google host your email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Last time Facebook did this, HN users think it's not censorship

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13019654](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13019654)

<comment><USER10> I don't understand this game of linking to one reply in the middle of a thread and claiming "this is what HN thinks." The actual top comment on that article says "damn that's evil." Doesn't that count?

Hnwatch, which should be a good thing (why not keep a sanity check on things?), does the same. What point are you trying to make? "Someone said something!" ???

<comment><USER7> Pretty sure the point is the double standard. Plenty of people are fine with Facebook doing it, but where are those same people standing up for Wechat's right to do whatever they want in their private walled garden?

<comment><USER10> The crucial missing word is "some". "Some HN users thought lalala." It dilutes the sentence appropriately and shows how meaningless it truly is.

Some HN users think chemtrails are real. I saw one of those comments. So what?

<comment><USER7> Obviously not every HN user has the same perspective, but there are broad tendencies. HN is not a random sampling of mankind.

If product A is praised for doing something while product B is unanimously condemned for doing the exact same thing in another country, it is reasonable to point that out.

Plenty of people were eager to point out that Facebook censoring fake news wouldn't really be censorship, because it is not being done by the government but by a private company. Of course, that's exactly how it works in China. So where are all of those people on this story, pointing out that what Wechat does isn't really censorship and that this really isn't really a free speech issue?

<comment><USER9> > because it is not being done by the government but by a private company.

Well there's term for that: self-censorship.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Diego Basch is leaving LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> http://diegobasch.com/the-end-of-a-seven-year-cycle-leaving-linkedi

<comment><USER2> tldr version (quoting the OP):

      I am exhausted from seven years of almost nonstop work, and I need a break.

<comment><USER3> I hope he got paid well for it--that kind of thing can leave you wiped out for a long time.

<comment><USER4> In my experience, it takes ~ 6 months to unburn, AT LEAST.

<comment><USER3> Same here--I think it was a good 9 months before I actually felt like I could do anything other than just get through an 8-hour day and go to bed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> His LinkedIN profile page now displays: "CEO of Nothing at all". LOL

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder why he leaves 12 months after the IPO? Maybe there was a contractual reason?

[http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/05/18/happy- birthd...](http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/05/18/happy-birthday- linkedin/)

</comment><comment><USER7> when are you guys going to get how used you are.

<comment><USER8> He sold his company, IndexTank ([http://engineering.linkedin.com/open- source/indextank-now-op...](http://engineering.linkedin.com/open- source/indextank-now-open-source)) to LinkedIn a few months ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am exhausted from seven years of almost nonstop work, and I need a break.</comment>


/be Discusses The Rust Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.aminutewithbrendan.com/pages/20101206

<comment><AUTHOR> /be is Brendan Eich (creator of JavaScript)

<comment><USER2> Why not just say "Brendan Eich" in the title?

<comment><USER3> he signs every email, bugzilla post, and blog comment that way.

<comment><USER4> There's only so many initials people can remember for peoples' names.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just think the Rust is just great. Go and D are great too but I really like what I read about Rust.</comment>