Parts installed "upside down" caused Russian rocket to explode last week - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/07/parts-installed-upside-down-caused-last-weeks-russian-rocket-to-explode/

<comment><USER2> "young technician"

I sure hope he doesn't end up being both a scapegoat and deemed a criminal. Problems like this are _exactly_ why you let younger technicians be mentored by older (and ostensibly wiser) ones. It's also why you have visual inspections done by a different party.

<comment><USER3> It's also why you design the parts so that they are _impossible_ to install upside down. No matter how clearly things are labelled, even the most experienced people will make mistakes.

<comment><USER4> The shuttle had a similar problem with a large piece of round metal that had more than one way to install of which only one was right. The mechanics knew this and asked for some markers on the piece to ease the process. The markers were never added not because of the cost of four paint points but because of the documentation that had to be updated.

So there is your problem - bureaucracy. I'm sure that an engineer knew about the sensor mounting problem but nobody cared enough to make the change because of the paperwork.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an illustration of Murphy's Law, almost perfectly:

"If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then he will do it that way."

Defensive design would be to make sure, as others have state on this thread, that it's impossible to make a mistake (e.g. an asymmetrical mount for the part).

<comment><USER6> And Murphy coined his Law after being screwed by a part that was installed upside down!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipNjYMJo79o#t=77s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipNjYMJo79o#t=77s) \-- ignition begins at about 1:20

<comment><USER8> And now we know why they insist on such large perimeters. Imagine being on the side it was tipping toward.

<comment><USER9> You mean like these folks? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfuXUr- _Rns](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfuXUr-_Rns)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is why (in C code) I prefer what some people call "yoda conditions"[1]. It prevents problems where you accidentally assign when you mean to check equality. Like mentioned above, you should engineer everything, software and hardware, defensively. If the design simply forbade installing a part upside down, it would make up for the pathetic QA/QE which caused this issue in the first place.

[1] [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda_Conditions](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda_Conditions)

<comment><USER11> Clang (and GCC 4.7, I believe) would issue a warning for that. Instead of Yoda Conditions, it's recommended to use -Werror.

<comment><USER12> Microsoft C/C++ compilers also pick this up as a warning if the warnings settings are set to max.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Original source article: [http://www.russianspaceweb.com/proton_glonass49.html](http://www.russianspaceweb.com/proton_glonass49.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> A similar issue was responsible for one of the V22 crashes ([1], page 4). In that case the gyro wires were hooked up backwards, instead of the unit installed backward. Both cases are good examples of small design details that make or break a project.

[1] - [http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/v22-report.pdf](http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/v22-report.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of a comment under the Asiana Flight 214 discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6012214](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6012214), that outsider views can help. In this case, as in the case of the Mars Climate Orbiter ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter)), perhaps review of the work by someone who hasn't been scrutinizing it all day would have caught the errors? You stare at the same thing all day, and it's easy to get lost/not see your own mistakes. This can apply to supervisors, who might be inclined not to review their supervisees' work carefully because they _always do such good work_ that it really doesn't occur to them that something this big could go wrong. And at the same time, they may well have been staring at it too long themselves.

And as an aside, isn't the Russian space program always "beleaguered"?

<comment><USER16> >And as an aside, isn't the Russian space program always "beleaguered"?

a decade old story about one of the unsuccessful launches goes this way - "the salary wasn't paid for several month, so not much work was done, once the launch date came within a month the government finally paid the salary and the satellite was built really fast, though some testing and some other things didn't really make it ..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lest you think this sort of thing is something that could only happen to the Ruskies, consider that the same sort of mistake has happened on NASA space probes, twice.

The Galileo Jupiter atmospheric probe deployed its parachutes late because the accelerometer designed to trigger the pyro charges to release the parachutes was wired backwards. There were two different "g-switches" which provided acceleration data at different scales. When the probe entered Jupiter's atmosphere the software control system saw that the acceleration data it was getting was all wrong, it marked one of the channels as failed and attempted to use just the other channel, though the scale was all wrong so the data was bogus (leading the software to think that the probe was in a different stage of its entry than it actually was). The result was that the main parachute was deployed very late and the only reason the parachute successfully deployed at all at the speed and atmospheric density it was released into is by more or less sheer luck.

The same mis-wiring happened on the Genesis sample return probe, which caused it to collide with the ground rather than be captured in mid-air as per the plan.

The funny part is that the accelerometers on both probes were tested in a centrifuge, but the wiring harnesses for the tests were also wired backwards as well.

<comment><USER17> The lack of integrated testing was by far the most impressive thing about the Curiosity Rover/MSL landing to me. Most people who followed the news had no idea that the skycrane deployment setup was never actually tested in full. They validated components, like the hydrazine engines, radar, and bridle release mechanism, but not the combination of all.

Software and circuits scale through abstraction and the static discipline. But combining atoms just gets harder and harder.

(This sort of thing also happens when constructing buildings or bridges, but there's usually not a million different points for potential catastrophic failure.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "each of those sensors had an arrow that was suppose to point towards the top of the vehicle"

It's a little unbelievable to me that aerospace designers today would design a part who's only means of ensuring proper installation and alignment is a sticker with an arrow.

If it was truly the case the error was one of engineering and not the fault of the technician who installed the parts. Engineers working on such projects should not make these kinds of mistakes.

As an EE I had to learn mechanical design on my own. I quickly learned that it is paramount to have DFM (design for manufacturing) become a part of your design DNA. You need to think DFM for every little part you design. You need to think assembly for every little part you are designing. You need to ensure that parts or assemblies can be put together almost by a blind person and do so correctly.

The tools available are simple: Alignment pins, unequally spaced holes, alignment tabs or machined features, unidirectional mating or clamping methods, non-rotatable insertion of sliding elements (d-pin into d-hole), etc.

The same is true of EE design. Don't make a bunch of connectors exactly the same unless swapping the cables or daughterboards that mate with them is OK. One common technique is to use different pin count connectors. If a connector is reversible (such as a pin header used for, say, an RC servo) you need to make sure that reversing whatever mates to it will not cause damage. A more sophisticated approach, when it can be justified, is to make smart connectors that can deal with reversals by actively flipping signals around as required --common on ethernet switches and routers that can deal with straight and flipped signal pair cables.

Again, I find it hard to believe that aerospace engineers would make such a basic error. You never know.

<comment><USER19> > _Engineers working on such projects should not make these kinds of > mistakes._

Sounds like a plan. In fact, it's inspired me in my own professional life. Henceforth, I shall never write another software bug again.

The problem with the idea of this kind of thought is that it's turtles all the way down. You have an assembly mistake that could have been prevented by engineering. But of course now it's an engineering mistake. And you can't simply legislate the absence of mistakes. You can try to treat that with "engineering process", I guess, which mandates the use of funny gadgets or asymmetry or automated software checkers or whatever. And that probably helps. But then you can apply that process mistakenly...

At some point you have to cut bait and ship (or launch, rather).

<comment><USER20> The idea of DFM is that any reasonably skilled engineer creates a design such that any reasonably skilled manufacturing/assembly shop can put it together.

Without following the practices of DFM, it is more likely than not that some part of the assembly will be done incorrectly, _even if_ the assembly team was highly skilled and executing at a high level of competence.

With DFM, a moderately skilled EE, and a moderately skilled assembly team, will correctly manufacture the designated system.

<comment><USER19> True, but missing the point. DFM can be misapplied, as it was here. So now you need to propose a process (design review, I guess) that prevents DFM from being misapplied. And that process can break down...

The fact that you can look at the wreckage or a rocket and "see" what the problem was in hindsight is not proof that you know how to prevent any such accident. I really with more design people understood that.

(It doesn't mean that whatever process you favor is a bad idea either, but that it has limits. Getting to my original point: you can't fix bugs by executive fiat.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me of [https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/](https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/)

</comment><comment><USER22> As I've gotten more experienced, I've found it hard to work with people who don't optimize for safety and efficency...not because I'm a worrywart, but because experience had shown that fucking up (royally) is much less likely caused by lack of skill, industriousness, or moral character, than by unforeseen weaknesses, stress, and cascading errors. Virtually every ER surgeon has spent more energy and time into their work than I have in mine, and every day they deal with life and death, and yet failing to wash their hands is not a rare occurrence...why should I think I'm any more foolproof?</comment>


Ryzen 4000 Review - <AUTHOR> https://www.pcworld.com/article/3534769/ryzen-4000-review-amds-7nm-ryzen-9-offers-game-changing-performance-for-laptops.html <comment><USER4> An interesting proxy for CPU evolution is seeing the recommendations shift in communities like reddit.com/r/buildapc. Last year many medium to high end builds were choosing intel CPUs, but now most are recommending AMD. The last bastion will be professional gamers and streamers when they upgrade their 9900KS level CPUs - likely when the new 3080 gpus come out.

Good on AMD for pushing the competition forward by significant amounts.

<comment><USER5> You still can't beat intel at the high end. Both in terms of heat and performance. If you have a task that doesn't parallelize well, you can't beat intel.

Games are traditionally single threaded and hard to parallelize.

However: you don't need to be the best, you just need to be at the "agreed upon" high end for game requirements, which is the xbox and ps4 (soon to be next gen).

And so, if you're trying to build a "generation proof" gaming PC in a standard sized case, the 3800X is currently your best bet for a new build (or waiting for zen3). If you're trying to do SFF, Intel may be a better choice.

Regardless: AMD's competition has dropped the prices in the "enthusiast" segment. My next build will be AMD, simply because I don't need the best of the best, but rather, good enough.

<comment><USER6> > Games are traditionally single threaded and hard to parallelize.

On my 3900X I've seen even single player action titles utilize 16+ threads with overall CPU utilization reaching peaks of 80-90 %.

Yes, it maybe be _hard_ to parallelize game engines, but all major ones heavily use multiple cores. A bunch of years ago (4-5) people would recommend an i3-K dual core for gaming, because you could overclock it to 5+ GHz on air. That was sufficient for many titles back then. (And these i3s would sometimes give you higher FPS compared to the more expensive quad-core options). But a CPU like that is far too weak for newer titles.

> You still can't beat intel at the high end. Both in terms of heat and > performance. If you have a task that doesn't parallelize well, you can't > beat intel.

In terms of heat, that is, performance per Watt, Intel's high end is quite a bit worse than AMD's. It is true however that you can get slightly higher single-threaded performance out of Intel's highest-end CPUs, but not because they are more efficient (- AMD is better both perf/W and IPC-wise), but just by raw, unadulterated clock speed, pushing them to 5+ GHz. And that causes them to burn _a lot_ of power.

Zen 2 has consistently ~10-15 % higher performance clock-for-clock compared to Intel's best while achieving approximately 60-80 % higher perf/W.

This LTT review captures the massive advantage Zen 2 has in efficiency: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYqG31V4qtA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYqG31V4qtA)

<comment><USER7> >On my 3900X I've seen even single player action titles utilize 16+ threads with overall CPU utilization reaching peaks of 80-90 %.

which ones? genuinely curious. I have two Intel E5 eight-cores in an old workstation and rarely ever see a game using more than 2-4 threads.

I guess i'm not spending my time on the latest and great AAA games as soon as they come out, but i've spent quite a few (shameful) hours gaming on fairly recent titles.

<comment> 0-_-0 Doom Eternal doesn't even have a main thread and uses a dependency graph of jobs, so should paralellize reeeeally well across multiple cores

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The LTT review [0] also had good things to say about the battery life. This CPU seems very power-efficient when compared to a 9980HK.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYqG31V4qtA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYqG31V4qtA)

<comment><USER9> FWIW, loaded battery life is intrinsically linked to the thermal / cooling aspect of CPU performance discussed in the article. Mechanically, CPUs are just simple resisters converting stored battery energy into heat.

Idle battery power is also interesting, and even the older Zen 1 had pretty good reduction in power consumption at idle (C1).

<comment><USER10> Intel still best on idle power use because of on package regulator, and still better powergating

<comment><USER11> Intel dropped FIVR for the Skylake generation[1], though it's back on Ivybridge[2].

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_(microarchitecture)#Fe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_\(microarchitecture\)#Features) [2]: Used to work there, played a minor part in enabling IDC to integrate the FIVR IP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The natural question now is how much the i9-10980HK differs from the 9980HK that the 4800HS seems to trounce handily. Judging by the fact that it's still on some iteration of 14nm(++++++), it looks to be more of the same strategy of aggressive turbo to hopefully compensate for lackluster IPC.

Hope to see more high performance AMD laptop design wins as a result!

<comment><USER13> > 14nm(++++++)

What do you mean by this?

<comment><USER14> Intel has been repeatedly tuning their 14nm process and adding a plus at the end each time. It's starting to get a bit ridiculous.

<comment><USER15> For reference, Intel's first 14nm mobile processors were introduced from late 2014 through mid 2015. They've done one major microarchitecture update since then, and the rest of their microarchitecture and fab refinements in the intervening years have been minor updates as they're in a holding pattern waiting for their fabs to deliver a 10nm process that is viable for mass production.

The first 10nm process was such an abject failure that Intel now prefers to pretend it didn't happen. The second 10nm process produced laptop processors that began shipping last fall, but are still mixed in with 14nm processors that are branded as part of the same generation.

<comment><USER16> Apparently a big chunk of those top-bin 10nm chips ended up going to Apple for the new 2020 Air.

<comment><USER17> Sure, Intel sold some to Apple, but I've been seeing 1/3 to 1/2 of the laptops Costco carries with Ice Lake since before thanksgiving. Warehouse stores, not even premium channels.

They're not in nearly the short supply that some people like to imply.

AMD is quite late to market with their mobile 7nm products. Their desktop products are far more timely, if their mobile had been launched with the desktop they would have beaten Intel, instead they basically are 6 months late to market.

<comment><USER18> Late to market, but better performance.

<comment><USER17> Yes, incrementally better, not drastically, as compared to the 14nm parts.

That's how generational leaps work. Competitors one-up each other, just like Intel one-upped the 1000 series with Coffee Lake. Time to market lost is time you're giving your competitor to get their next generation ready.

Intel is now only 6 months away from their next release, Tiger Lake. We are already starting to see a few benchmarks leak out.

I don't get why people think it's such a big ask to not release half their lineup 9 months late. For that matter, where are the socketed APUs?

<comment><USER19> It's probably the same answer to both. Demand is still high but TSMC has finite 7nm fab capacity and the APUs have lower margins. What's the hurry to release lower margin APUs if the fabs are still busy making higher margin CPUs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> bloody-crow It's very promising. Can't wait to see more laptop offers on this chip. The current Asus Zephyrus G14 seems to gamer-y in terms of the design.

I'd buy the same hardware in a more mature and grown-up chassis like current Dell XPS 13 in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER20> I want this in an XPS 13 too. I just bought an XPS 13 last year, running Ubuntu, and it's very nice, aside from the whine when it's plugged in.

<comment><USER21> I'd settle for an XPS 13 with 32GB of RAM :( 16GB is the current limit.

<comment><USER22> Not with this year's model (XPS 13 9300) - 32 GB is now available.

<comment><USER23> $199 motile m141 laptop - up to 32GB no coil whine and has matte screen.

<comment><USER20> I would love to have one of these for a week or two to try it out. It's so cheap it might be worth picking up on the off chance I love it.

<comment><USER24> Here's a pretty comprehensive review I wrote on it a few months back: [https://randomfoo.net/2019/12/25/motile-m142-cheapo-linux- la...](https://randomfoo.net/2019/12/25/motile-m142-cheapo-linux-laptop-notes)

It's surprisingly good as a cheap laptop, but as a daily driver, I'd just wait a month or so and get a 4000U thin and light at this point.

<comment><USER20> thank you! I'll give it a read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm excitedly awaiting for the Ryzen 4000 Thinkpad anouncements, hopefully I can get to upgrade my aging P51. First time I'm exited for a tech launch in a long time.

<comment><USER26> They've been announced, although the details aren't 100%: [https://www.ultrabookreview.com/35805-lenovo- thinkpad-t14-t1...](https://www.ultrabookreview.com/35805-lenovo- thinkpad-t14-t14s/)

<comment><USER27> Looks like all the new Ryzen Thinkpads announced so far will use the lower power 15W models. I would love for 470p to make a return - a "T14p" with the 4900HS would be pretty sweet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Not following closely to the CPU industry. What right steps have AMD taken to achieve the recent success (compared with Intel)?

<comment><USER29> Intel made missteps with their 10nm process, and manufacturing chips in house. Yields for their new process are too low for retail demand. Additionally clock speeds are higher with the more mature 14nm process of Kaby Lake, which is itself a more refined version of Skylake. With low yields, manufacturing is too expensive, and performance isn't much improved, leaving Intel little reason to bring these new chips to market. As a result, they've been refining and refreshing chips since Skylake. Kaby Lake introduced a bump in core count, as a response to AMD's release of their Zen microarchitecture.

AMD overcame these challenges in several ways. They're fabless, choosing to partner with semiconductor manufacturers like TSMC rather than manufacturing chips themselves. TSMC's current 7nm process node is one generation ahead of Intel's 14nm node, roughly on par with Intel's 10nm node. Smaller process means more efficient, and often more performant.

AMD also created a new architecture using a "chiplet" design and an interconnect (Zen), rather than the older monolithic die used by Intel. This increases yields and simplifies manufacturing, while making chips modular. Chiplets containing a number of cores can be combined into a single package to create various SKUs, targeting different market segments.

<comment><USER30> Oh that's interesting, I had always seen the chiplet thing as purely for yield reasons, I never thought about the "one wafer, tons of SKUs" aspect.

It also, I believe, lets them use a different process node for the I/O parts of the assembly, which may be deliberate -- not only do I/O transceivers not benefit from the smaller silicon, it may actually hurt them when you look at the electrical needs of driving larger buses, surviving potential ESD events, etc. (That's purely speculation on my part, and I'd love to hear from someone with more clue..)

<comment><USER31> "one wafer, tons of SKUs" has been how the semiconductor industry has managed to keep their products evolving and so cheap for decades. Intel chips are largely all the same per generation and product line (low core count i3/5/7, high core count i7/i9, and Xeon). Whether it's an i3 or an i7 depends on how many manufacturing errors were on the surface of their monolithic chip - <USER2> core that doesn't pass the tests is disabled by activating some fuses. The chips with the fewest errors contain the most working cores and so on. The same holds for flash/SSD memory and RAM, where frequency/stability are used as the measure instead of errors on the surface of the chip.

The key is that AMD's chiplets are about 80 mm^2 in size whereas a recent i7 is something like 130 mm^2. It doesn't sound that much smaller but when it comes to economies of scale, it makes a huge difference when, for example, a giant scratch takes out half a dozen chiplets instead of two or three full Intel processors. AMD trades performance - since the IO die that holds the chiplets is much bigger than an Intel CPU (300+ mm^2) the communication between chiplets is higher latency - for much better unit economics.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you have chips like IBM z mainframe CPUs which are as big as 600 mm^2 many of which are just thrown out instead of getting binned so their yield is tiny and each chip costs tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Anyone got a list of laptops with this in, I'm due an upgrade and would like a 4k ish screen. Don't really care about gaming at all, would just like everything to be very fast.

Battery life on these parts really shocked me. At least as good as Intel for far better performance!

</comment><comment><USER33> Once again I see "Ryzen 4000 Review" and once again I'm disappointed to find out that it's actually a review of the 4000 series laptop processors. Can we change the title to reflect that? They're not the same - laptop 4000 is the same architecture as the desktop 3000 cpus (that came out last year) afaik ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_2)).

<comment><USER34> You're not going to see Zen 3 until Q4 earliest

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Come on Apple. Time to move to AMD!

<comment><USER36> Apple's most likely going to move to custom ARM processors for a lot of their laptops.

<comment><USER37> Catalina dropping 32 bit support screams to me the next MacOS will support ARM with a Rosetta like amd64 translation layer.

<comment><USER38> Maybe not Rosetta-like as Apple now controls the chip design? Perhaps Nvidia Denver style.

<comment><USER37> i didn't know about that. just read the wikipedia article and nvidia wanted to support x86 but intel wouldn't let them use their patents. i would be SUPER surprised if that wasn't the same with Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't get why AMD used 3000 naming for desktop Zen 2 CPUs and 4000 for mobile CPUs.

It is a bit misleading. When I researched some laptops and saw trhey had Ryzen 7 3700U I wronly presumed they are using Zen 2 CPUs, but I've found out that 3000 series mobile CPUs are using Zen+.

<comment><USER40> Although it seems confusing it actually makes sense from a business perspective, The Mobile chips are always designed AFTER the general cpu design with laptop graphics, different thermals and a tighter market (read, older, more mature process). That's why the technology is behind a few months compared to server/desktop. But its still AMD's "newest" chip they can produce. Therefore its better to create a definitive line for the customer that the 4000 series is simply the most up-to-date chip in any market and lineup to avoid confusion.

<comment><USER41> That said, it would be nice to see a generation of fractional numbers to just re-align... 4x50H/U for the refresh, then next generation, just wait.

It's far more about marketing... 4000 is higher than 3000, but you'd have to know there are no 4000 desktop CPUs when shopping, so it still creates confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm really excited with the prospect of a a fast, multi core chip that does not throttle on a laptop. That G14 that everyone seems to be doing the initial review with shows really nice single and multicore performance with a small thermal signature. The gaming 'workout' is not terribly dissimilar to what I'd hope to see unplugged doing development.

The i9 I've got in my work laptop just cannot handle the watts it tries to consume. I've held off updating my personal laptop waiting for something that is not an 8lb+ brick to allow it to run with a load. Should be a promising Spring/Summer.

<comment><USER43> Why use a laptop if your work appears to befit a desktop? A lot more power and RAM expansion for less cash.

> small thermal signature

When I were a lad, we used to call that 'warm' :)

<comment><USER44> Usually because desktops can't be moved easily.

<comment><USER43> I hadn't thought of it that way, but aren't there small PCs that have been designed to be portable? Guy I worked with had one and it was tiny. Get one a little less tiny and you have ventilation + expansion (not as much as a desktop but still better than a laptop). Just have a monitor at work & at home, carry the pooter around.

<comment><USER45> It can be done, but most people, who don't work at just one desk prefer the laptop as you can quickly move it to a meeting room etc. When you move the small PC, you not only need to carry keyboard and mouse and have a screen, it also means restarting the machine. A laptop keeps running and has almost everything in one package.

<comment><USER43> Fair point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I have been holding out for almost a year already to replace my T440s with a new Ryzen-powered Thinkpad. Hope I won't have to wait for long now.

<comment><USER47> I've been holding out on replacing my XPS 13 with a Thinkpad T series with a Zen 2 processor. I recently bought my wife one and I love the ergonomics of the 14" way better than the 13".

Probably my favorite laptop I've ever tried.

<comment><USER48> Which T model did you buy her?

<comment><USER47> T480. It was on sale for $750 at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> My favorite review so far has to be: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aLH0Q6CZF4&t=0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aLH0Q6CZF4&t=0s) "Now Intel is in (even more) Trouble - AMD RYZEN 4000 Mobile Review (ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14)"

by der8auer

<comment><USER50> I liked how he showed the improvements from replacing the default TIM with a liquid based TIM. I wonder if you could get the same improvement from using Thermal Grizzly. I know most people won't want to replace TIM every month for liquid metal, or be comfortable rubbing nail polish on the circuits.

<comment><USER49> I'd imagine GamersNexus on YT would be all over that one as they are sponsored by them. However, Steve tends to be down the list when it comes to getting new toys to play with.

Yes, replacing the LLM every few months, would be serious level of dedication IMHO and not sure I'm aware of anybody would go to that effort - however it was good to see what was possible.

Still, nice to see that they did use thermal paste and not pads in the production, though we don't know what paste they used. If that was known then some crude gestimations could be extrapolated.

They did however put some attention to that cooling system and was very interesting in the review how the fan blades are varying length in an effort to reduce fan noise - I'd never considered that or been aware of that before and made sense as well as being kinda neat attention to detail thinking.

Me personally, I'd not want to do any of that until warranty expired and to eek out more life in that puppy. Though, as I'm rockin a Core2Duo, you kinda feel my budget is never going to see this. Still nice to virtual experience it.

Yes the whole nail polish, kinda neat hack way of doing things and not aware of any downsides with that - beyond warranty, though at least you wouldn't have to replace that periodically compared to LM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I was looking forward to other laptops in the 4000 series, but I guess with the current world situation, those will probably be pushed back to fall releases. I'd like to see one of these things with Ryzen 4000 + amdgpu as a Linux laptop.

<comment><USER41> Agreed.. would love to see some Ryzen 4000 options from System 76 and Dell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I still have not heard an official statement what the Thunderbolt 3 story is for these CPUs. Could we get it? Will we get it?

Without this I simply can't buy em as we've invested in TB3 Docks for the past two years and are pretty happy with them.

<comment><USER53> The new Thinkpad T14 is supposed to have a TB3 on both the Intel and AMD versions, at least.

<comment><USER54> That has not been confirmed. There is nothing official on the T14 on the Lenovo site yet except from the press release.

[https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/commercial- notebook/thinkpad/th...](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/commercial- notebook/thinkpad/thinkpad-t14-series/c/22TPT14) (and yes that's the right url, try replacing "thinkpad-t14-series" with "x" you will be redirected there)

<comment><USER53> I'm going off of the datasheet reproduced here:

[https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo- ThinkPad-T14-Ryzen-4000...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo- ThinkPad-T14-Ryzen-4000-version-does-have-RJ45-upgradable-RAM.454869.0.html)

<comment><USER54> everybody does that and it's getting really boring fixing this. When the PSREF is out then we can talk until then, that's just a heap of typos. They already published a correction over RJ45 and blablabla i need to type this up four times a week on various social media, people, get a grip, there is ONE certified AMD motherboard with TB3, an extremely expensive Threadripper it is beyond unlikely that it will happen

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> One (biased?) metric of performance and efficiency of modern cpu is the Random X algorithm used in mining cryptocurrency like Monero. It is designed to use all the cpu subsystems including memory controller. The top CPUs by far for RandomX are AMD ryzen 3000 series both in terms of performance as well as efficiency.

[https://monerobenchmarks.info/](https://monerobenchmarks.info/)

</comment><comment><USER56> I would really like to see Laptop Reviews sort by price first, then logical maximums within a given narrow price range.

It would make sense to group by Price, then key secondary features like: Weight, Screen Quality, Raw performance (Mixed current year games score, Disk Bound, CPU bound, GPU bound) when plugged in, maximum battery time (default out of box experience).

<comment><USER57> I'm not saying that you're wrong, but e.g. im my case the priorities are different (screen quality, keyboard, battery, touchpad/clickpad/trackpoint, weight, etc... and CPU&GPU performance would be last but potentially weighted against watt consumption) => can become complicated => I don't think that a "universal" method of getting the "ultimate" sorted list is feasible => I'd definitely love a site that would allow to set my own priorities and get as result the "perfect" laptop/notebook that matches at most the expectations/priorities :)

Some retailers have such sites, but maybe not reviewer-sites? (I do use that [https://www.notebookcheck.net](https://www.notebookcheck.net) whenever I want to buy something, but their selection criteria is limited)

In my case price has never been a _direct_ primary selection criteria - <USER3> always bought the gadget that met all my minimum requirements but which didn't exceed the budget that I had available.

<comment><USER56> For me it's about what works the least, and 'high price' is usually the main consideration since I __rarely use__ the laptop in question. My use case for a laptop is a couple times a year when I'm at a tech or similar convention for a weekend, or very very light use when visiting a relative's house for an hour or two.

I agree that the screen and keyboard quality are also factors that veto a laptop; but those are much more subjective and difficult to actually rank. I think that might go in to an 'editors choice' within a given price point. Then you'd compare the 2-4 that fit within your budget needs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Cool to see a mobile Ryzen chip performing well, but there was nothing mentioned about thermals in all their tests. That's more concerning to me in a lighter laptop than the "muscle-books"

</comment><comment><USER54> This is a dishonest review. The numbers are fine but the article surrounding it is dishonest. He is often repeating claims on weight but he compares 2070 (115W) and 2080 (150W) GPU laptops to a 2060 Max Q (65W) laptop. Mind you, there are no other 2060 Max Q laptops yet but there are 2060 laptops, that would've been much closer.

<comment><USER59> The article almost never stops mentioning that it's competing quite well against laptops that are 50% or 100% heavier. I don't think it is dishonest. They include some similar size laptops in the graphs, but the results aren't as interesting because it is such a one sided result. The article is trying to sell you on a laptop that performs like a bulky heavy gaming laptop but travels like a mid range spreadsheet pusher.

<comment><USER54> It's competing well on CPU benchmarks. The moment it benches a game [https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2020/03/asus_rog_ze...](https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2020/03/asus_rog_zephyrus_g14_rotr_dx11_19x10_very_high-100836713-orig.jpg) the picture becomes more nuanced.

<comment><USER14> That's comparing a GTX 2060 to a 2080 in the Intel laptops. Now if you care about gaming it's fair to point out there aren't any GTX 2080 laptops with AMD being reviewed, but it's not an indication of the performance it could have with a full spec GPU. Hopefully we should see one in the next few weeks.

<comment><USER54> You were saying "The article is trying to sell you on a laptop that performs like a bulky heavy gaming laptop but travels like a mid range spreadsheet pusher." but i was saying it does not perform like a bulky heavy gaming laptop because it has an inferior GPU compared to those.

I am sure once it's on a more equal footing there will be some small gains but nothign earth shattering, alas.

<comment><USER14> I think people are more excited about the possibilities of the CPU than this specific laptop, but fair point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I'm glad to see AMD working on its single core IPC performance. The only CPU- bound workload I have as a user are game emulators, for which multicore performance is nearly irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER61> PC World is still a going concern?

<comment><USER62> PC Magazine employed John Dvorak up until 2018!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044106)

<comment><USER61> How about that.</comment></comment></comment>


Really Good UX – A look inside your favorite products - <AUTHOR> https://www.reallygoodux.io <comment><USER2> Okay, this one has to be really good UX. The floating bar at the bottom that covered text "one mail each..." (before I could read it) contains a number 617 and few social buttons. Linkedin, that is blocked in my country, fb/tw/g+ that I don't have, and buffer that I'm unaware of. The same for 617. After first stripe scrolled, there is ugly site name floating at the top that I can see in my phone's browser titlebar anyway. Two floating bars, nice. Menu(?) stripe seems to have an inconsistency at "modal windows" item. Oh, and css is broken between email input and stay inspired button.

I don't want to read or tap anywhere on this site or stay inspired, but I suspect how much time was spent to make it at least what it is (leading web- based project right now). I think it is not good UX, nor a good platform to do it.

My often used products are google and youtube, among others. Google can't remember my password when I'm switching accounts, i.e. my browser places wrong remembered password into account switching form, because the domain is not changing. This ruins the entire fast switching, and my browser made it really faster than google, but now there is no way to do it, because login is integrated with fast-switch and asks for login and password in separate screens. Separate ... screens.

Youtube remembers the last button I pressed and leaves it focused. So, when I'm clicking "next" in a playlist, two things happen: 1) I can't control the volume and time position with keys anymore, 2) pressing space does not pause the video, it only shows focused "next" control. I don't know what it does pressed twice, but if it activates "next" again, then it is a double fail. Hey, but you knew it was focused, can you ask. Yes, but not so after watching content for half a hour. It is a surprise every time. Every ... time.

There was no desktop product such shitty, except for builtin IE and WMP, and even those were better imo. Because no product could survive such inconveniences, stupid design and the absense of real end-user usability testing like today's. Now that web has an ability to lock-in user via content, not through good design, design went to the secondary plane and goes deeper and deeper. And if you'll try to make a good youtube viewer with human design, UX and all, they'll sue you to death.

Modern UX (web UX really) is a pile of trash. There may be something you can learn from, but not much to do.

/rant

<comment><USER3> FWIW, Firefox seems to be able to handle the "password in separate screen" idiocy, the password manager still lets you choose the account despite the domain not changing.

</comment></comment><comment> yoz-y Okay so I will be a bit cranky here but you can't just tear a product to bits and pieces when it concerns UX.

On the site there was an example of Google Hangouts, I was curious because this product has one of the worst UX as far as messaging services go.

Their first point is praising:

> The first welcome message makes it very clear that users are in the right > place: Hangouts. This can help orientate users, especially since Google has > so many integrated products with similar-looking branding.

Well... nope, this first card is lying actually. When you open the hangouts page and click on Video Call, you will be catapulted to Meet with no way of actually calling anybody.

Second point:

> The modal series provides a broad overview of the best features. The copy > is short, and each window is image-heavy.

The copy is short but the images have absolutely no link to the content.

So my question would be, who writes these posts?

<comment><USER4> Ah Google Hangouts... Doesn't work in Firefox, since they only was told about changes to the extension API about a year before the change was made. No logout button so have to go to google.com to logout after using it. Opening Hangouts with an account with no access to Hangouts (test-account) and you get an error page with option to use another account, but no place to logout...

<comment><USER5> I have an account that _used_ to admin Google Apps. If that account is available as a choice to log in -- doesn't matter if it's logged in or not, only has to be on the account select -- then none of my accounts can log in to Hangouts. Seems it's trying to redirect me to enable my Google Apps account again, then complains that only an administrator can perform that action.

On the surface though, yeah, if you take some screenshots it looks like really good UI. The follow through is generally garbage though. I think it's fair to put it on the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hah! Can we can lump all of these into a new "Business Experience" category? None of the examples I looked at are good _user_ experiences, they're just good ways of making more money off of users. Every design that takes more money from you is a negative UX. Causing the user headache or inconvenience in the hopes that they'll become a little less wealthy after the interaction and calling it UX is fucking ridiculous. This is UX in the same way a carrot and stick is to a donkey. And of course this site has a spam list^W^Wnewsletter, fucking marketroids.

<comment><USER7> Not really sure who in their right mind considers "upsell prompts" part of a great user experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So I randomly clicked on this:

[https://www.reallygoodux.io/blog/hellofresh-offboarding- flow](https://www.reallygoodux.io/blog/hellofresh-offboarding-flow)

None of the points why this is __really good UX__ are valid in my opinion.

The practice of providing alternatives when unsubscribing is quite common today. I get why it's there but it keeps me from achieving my goal.

Furthermore if I have to go through a two page survey to achieve my goal, then no, that is not a good user experience. Doesn't matter if you get potential valuable feedback out of this.

And finally the button "I've changed my mind" is also pretty common.

So all in all nothing special here. If that's the quality I can expect from the newsletter then I can't say I would find this valuable.

<comment><USER9> I clicked too, and the site's introduction is pretty telling, in my opinion:

 _HelloFresh 's cancellation flow helps them mitigate churn and capture valuable feedback to improve their product experience for the future._

That sounds _very_ much like it takes the business' side, and not the user. "Mitigating churn" sounds like business speak for "making users stay since quitting is hard". Very annoying.

I thought nobody but the actual user could have UX, talking about user experiences based on the large-scale effects they have on your site/business is ... cynical, at least to me. Bluergh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This site doesn't seem terribly useful -- looks like they're mostly looking for shiny things; pretty buttons, nice on-boarding flows, fancy modals etc.

What I would like is a nice in-depth analysis of the UX in highly complex applications -- does anybody know of a book or site that de-constructs web apps (and/or mobile apps) that aim to replace desktop software? Thinking about document management, hierarchical and context-aware menus, best-practices for editing stuff on a canvas (including alternatives for right-click menus).

Too often we just replicate what we would have done on a desktop, in the constraints of HTML, but usually that leads to poor UX (or at least sub- optimal).

Any suggestions appreciated...

\--- After-thought: Does the 4th Edition of About Face go in to any of this? Back in the early 00's, v2 of that book was an enlightening read, but I haven't picked up the newer versions.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ironically, this seems like a good example of someone not knowing the difference between UI and UX.

To recapitulate:

UI: User Interface. The design and aesthetics of the interactive and informative parts of an application.

UX: User experience. The ways in which the UI enables users to navigate and use the application with ease, understanding and minimal effort.

Many of the products (which others have mentioned) have a lovely UI, but the UX leaves a lot to be desired. For example Google Hangouts might __look__ pretty but that's no use if it's making it harder to locate the relevant actions.

My rule of thumb is this: If the average Joe would have more luck finding their way around if it was just a HTML list of links to the right activity, then your UX is crap.

<comment><USER12> _the difference between UI and UX._

This sort of criticism is neither helpful nor accurate. UI has always been about more than just cosmetic details. We've been talking about usability, accessibility, information architecture and so on for almost as long as we've been making UIs. Certainly that means several decades before someone in need of a new buzzword for their blog/presentation/resume first coined the term "user experience".

<comment><USER13> > We've been talking about usability, accessibility, information architecture > and so on for almost as long as we've been making UIs.

All of the above is UX, and should be integral part of design. Too often it isn't.

> Certainly that means several decades before someone in need of a new > buzzword for their blog/presentation/resume first coined the term "user > experience".

\--- start quote ---

Early developments in User Experience can be traced back to the machine age that includes the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The term user experience was brought to wider knowledge by Donald Norman in the mid-1990s. He never intended the term "user experience" to be applied only to the affective aspects of usage. A review of his earlier work suggests that the term "user experience" was used to signal a shift to include affective factors, along with the pre-requisite behavioral concerns, which had been traditionally considered in the field. Many usability practitioners continue to research and attend to affective factors associated with end-users, and have been doing so for years, long before the term "user experience" was introduced in the mid-1990s.

\--- end quote ---

What's that shiny new buzzword you are talking about?

<comment><USER12> _What 's that shiny new buzzword you are talking about?_

Just to be clear, it's not the term "user experience" itself that I object to, so much as people making artificial distinctions between UI and UX. Using UX instead of UI to try to sound more qualified or authoritative most certainly does qualify as a buzzword, and it most certainly is a relatively recent and IMNSHO undesirable trend. I have never seen an expert of the standing of Don Norman claiming that UI is limited to no more than design or aesthetics, as the comment I replied to claimed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To me this site seems like it was slapped together at minimum cost pull eyeballs and place ads.

This would be a cool idea if it was executed with passion and expertise.

<comment><USER15> Agreed. Less thorough and more informal, but you might like [http://littlebigdetails.com/](http://littlebigdetails.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Really good UX is when i can still use a website even after activating all bad content filters with firefox Klar. This site ain't one of those...

How much JS and whatever shit in background-loading do they need to tell me whats good UX???

<comment><USER17> For those wondering, Firefox Klar is the name of Firefox Focus in German speaking countries.

<comment><USER16> Thanks, i wasn't aware of the name being different in different markets ( which somehow sounds reasonable and then again makes international communication complicated)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So, 90% of those seem to be about making it easier for the web site to sell me stuff. Didn't we talk about how the Mac menu has invisible triangles for submenus, or pie menus or stuff like that instead of sales workflows?

</comment><comment><USER19> A good UX would be one where the UI is invisible. So the bullet points would and should be about the elements that don't exist -- that are invisible. This makes "Really Good UX" an oxymoron of sorts, because the focus is on what doesn't exist.

Seems most of these are "Really Good Ways To X" where X is capture emails, retain those who want to leave, gather information at the expense of user attention, etc.

This, by definition, is bad UX, but good product design.

This dilemma is unavoidable. But it still should be made clear. Maybe not to users, but between designers.

</comment><comment><USER20> For a site that claims to laud "really good UX", their own UX leaves a bit to be desired. If you go into a category page, there's no navbar or breadcrumb that can help the user identify where they are in the site hierarchy.

</comment><comment><USER21> Poe's law in action.

<comment><USER22> It's amazing: it is almost impossible to tell whether this is satire. I almost thought [https://www.reallygoodux.io/about](https://www.reallygoodux.io/about) clinched it, because the "Submit" button had scrollbars in Chrome, but, alas, Firefox renders it without them.

In the final analysis, I find it hard to believe appcues.com would do such subtle satire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I like the idea, but the content is difficult to read. The photos are really small and I can't see the elements being described.

</comment><comment><USER24> LOL this website should be featured on datkpatterns.org

</comment><comment><USER25> > A look inside your favorite products

…which have been selected for you.</comment>


Open YellowPages Data for Everyone - iBegin Source Launched - <AUTHOR> http://source.ibegin.com/ <comment><USER2> Anyone who cares, here's a tip. Go find somewhere that has Yellow Pages listings (and if all else fails your local telco is required by law to sell it to you), and guess what, in its basic form they're not copyrightable. Address plus name plus phone number, even when combined with a business category, is not original enough to be afforded copyright protection. So copy them. I know that's hard to believe because the US has such a low bar for copyrightability, but there have been very specific court cases that I commend to you in order to check it out for yourself.</comment>


Christian Bale drops out of Steve Jobs biopic - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/3/7152029/steve-jobs-movie-christian-bale-drops-out-report

<comment><USER2> Doesn't surprise me. I don't think anyone with mainstream popularity will take this role. It's been beaten to death. Pirates of Silicon Valley, Jobs, and countless documentaries. Bill Burr has some poignant thoughts on the topic too: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmbwR9J6-Yw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmbwR9J6-Yw)</comment>


Hey startup parasites: We don't have time for you - <AUTHOR> http://anothersb.blogspot.com/2015/04/hey-startup-parasites-we-dont-have-time.html <comment><USER2> Yeah, we had the same thing with the web summit run by the same people who run Collision. "Hey, we think you've got a great startup, and we'd love to talk to you to see if you qualify for our start-up track."

After the interview, of course, they follow up with the exact same sort of line:

"As you know, we can't invite everyone. However, I'm happy to say that it seems XXX is doing great things in an exciting space and you've been selected for XXX, the later stage startup track at XXX."

Followed by this...

"Your code will reduce the cost from €12,950 to €1,950. As discussed the package includes 3 attendee tickets, plus a complimentary exhibition stand for one of the three days."

Afterwards, if you interact with them in any way, expect to get 5-15 average spam mails a week with "Guess who's going to be at our conference!" If you unsubscribe from the list, it seems like they just invent another conference to spam you with.

Not surprisingly, their "exhibitor" costs rival some of the largest and most successful industry conference costs, even though, in the case of the one I inquired about, it it was the first event that they had put on in that track. Afterwards, of course, "oh, but you qualify for our start-up track which lets you stand in this hall for one day for $5,000!"

Agree with earlier poster to avoid.

<comment><USER3> > the package includes 3 attendee tickets, plus a complimentary exhibition > stand

This is the kind of wording that drives me insane. If I'm paying for a thing, then anything that comes with that thing is by definition NOT complimentary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Collision is run by Paddy Cosgrave, who conned the Irish Government into paying for the Dublin Web Summit (DWS) and F.ounders. Mind you, he has a fair track record in conning gullible politicians out of their money! [http://www.irishelection.com/2009/04/micandidateeu-the- full-...](http://www.irishelection.com/2009/04/micandidateeu-the-full- analysis/)

He once threatened to sue someone for organising an event during the same week as DWS, claiming that they were riding on his coattails.

Avoid like the plague!

</comment><comment><USER5> I went to Collision (Las Vegas) last year, and it was a waste of time and money.

Same startups, same VCs, same bloggers, etc, repeating the same stuff they said in a similar conference the week before i.e. loads of words are spoken, but no real content. Add to that the junk food they served, no seating (seriously, no seating through out the event for all the attendees), loud fans made it impossible to have a proper conversation, remote and random location, expensive, etc... and now the pay-to-pitch schemes. I felt treated like cattle. Stay away from these events.

The only tech event I strongly recommend attending is LAUNCH Festival by Jason Calacanis.

<comment><USER6> >The only tech event I strongly recommend attending is LAUNCH Festival by Jason Calacanis.

Agreed. It's very well done. Also note that Jason has been very critical of the "pay to pitch" phenomenon: [http://www.businessinsider.com/my-latest-war- angels-who-char...](http://www.businessinsider.com/my-latest-war-angels-who- charge-startups-to-pitch-2009-10)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Worse, if you do present, you'll find that the "angels" who are members of these groups are often wealthy professionals with no startup or technical background (lawyers, doctors, ranchers etc).

They're often tire-kickers who will waste a lot of your time doing "diligence" and trying to negotiate absurd notes with excessive warrant gearing/premiums. As you talk with them, you'll come to find they have never put in more than $50K and have only done one or two investments.

<comment><USER8> Hey, we survived a couple of years on these kind of investments. It was a fulltime job for one founder; he burned out. But it kept us going.

<comment><USER9> It's weird to see you casually describing and justifying the deteriorating mental health of a person who was important to you.

I don't think you'd do the same for, for example, RSI. "Hey, we survived a couple of years with a bad keyboard desk combination. Typing on that was a full time job for someone; they got RSI. But it kept us going".

<comment><USER10> I don't think it's a topic we need to tiptoe around. This is one of the few places where it should be normal to write about it casually. Describing it as 'deteriorating mental health' makes it sound like something to be ashamed of. Like burning out means you've gone bonkers. That attitude probably deters many founders from wanting to talk about it.

<comment><USER9> I agree that burnout is serious. That's why I think it's weird to see it so casually dismissed - this guy burntout but that's okay because we got some cash and we were able to keep going.

I don't think it's okay to allow people to burnout; and if their job is causing burnout something about the job needs to change.

It's odd that you call for people to discuss their mental health problems while simultaneously using deeply stigmatising language.

<comment><USER8> Wow you guys read a lot into a few words. Lets reset. He burned out on pitching several times a day, took a break of a few weeks, moved up the food chain to more qualified investors (> $200K) so he didn't have to pitch but once or twice a day. Doing fine now.

Lots of people burn out on lots of things. Its not always a complete mental meltdown. Sometimes its just "I can't do this any more; lets find a new way"

<comment><USER11> Seems to me we have some conflation of the term "burnout" versus the verb "to burn out". The other people in this subthread were talking about this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnout_%28psychology%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnout_%28psychology%29)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Makes me sad that Keiretsu is still around.

Jason Calacanis went after their horrible tactics 5 years ago[0], and was very vocal about it. This is the first I've heard of them in 3-4 years, so I just assumed they had closed up shop.

Only one link among many. [0]: [http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2010/11/ja...](http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2010/11/jason- calacanis-is-coming-to-seattle.html?page=all)

</comment><comment><USER13> From The Funded site comes this gem of a comment:

 _" Many years ago as a young entrepreneur I had a lunch meeting with an investor, at the end of which I tried to pay. He stopped me and said "any investor who lets you pay for lunch isn't a real investor". I sat in on a K forum, considering pitching them. When they told me they wanted $3000K for me to "join their community" and pitch I almost fell over."_

[http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/Keiretsu+Forum](http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/Keiretsu+Forum)

</comment><comment><USER14> [http://www.keiretsuforum.com/about/team/](http://www.keiretsuforum.com/about/team/)

I like how most people are directors or presidents of Keiretsu Forum and TWO people are staff employees.

</comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me a whole lot of those "modeling agencies" that charge reasonably attractive young women with no hope of making it as a model for photo shoots.

<comment><USER16> There are also writing "competitions" that accept everything and anything, put all entries into some crappy "anthology" and then try to sell copies to everyone who entered.

<comment><USER17> An elderly relative of mine fell for that. Oddly, it changed my opinion of them - the amount of pride he extracted from it was more than worth the couple of hundred dollars he paid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> With this thread + yesterday's about WWDC being so "oversold" and people lamenting their desire to go back to the 500-person meetups of yore I thought I'd share a tip.

I've found it helpful to purposely target the smaller, industry-specific or location-specific conferences.

While you don't necessarily meet the "super angels" or luminary press figures, I almost always come away glad that I went.

Two recent examples was pitching our location startup at the Telecom Council's "Connected Car" start-up:

[http://telecomcouncil.cvent.com/events/connected- car/event-s...](http://telecomcouncil.cvent.com/events/connected-car/event- summary-d934b2d1062c4317b1301df128863aae.aspx)

I think registration was $200 and it was maybe 300 people deeply connected into the telecom and auto industries.

Or the App Developer's Alliance in Los Angeles (regionally important to us):

[http://www.appdevelopersalliance.org/](http://www.appdevelopersalliance.org/)

Again, great people, lots of indie devs, etc.

I could walk away from both being materially glad that we attended, and with a list of people that I connected with face-to-face and look forward to doing business with.

<comment><USER19> Check out Compute Midwest this fall. Previous speakers include founders/leaders from iRobot, reddit, Shapeways, D-wave, DARPA, interaXon, singularity, NASA Mars Rover project and so many more

[http://computemidwest.com](http://computemidwest.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was approached to speak at Collision. When I included my speaking agent in the loop that was the last I heard from them! :-)

</comment><comment><USER21> Collision called us as well and made a bunch of promises to get us on as a speaker. Post registration, no speaking engagement. Felt like a bait and switch. It better be good.

<comment><USER22> If they promised to get you on in order to make the sale, then it didn't just "feel like" it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> On the flip side this post comes to mind [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/13/be-careful- not...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/13/be-careful-not-to- become-a-conference-ho/)

How much value is being generated by the founder(s) being at events like this?

<comment><USER24> I would like to know too..

I have long ago stopped applying for awards rort.. took away so much of my time..

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> My team snagged tickets to the web summit in Dublin last year, not to present but just as attendees. We actually had a great time at it, got to see some good talks, some not so good, and met a huge amount of really cool and interesting people at the eating/drinking events held afterward.

I can see how there would be a huge amount of opportunities there for startups. There is a vast amount of money people, lots of technical talent and lots of ideas all brought together for a few days and I think that if you're socially savvy you could make a lot from it.

What I did not like is how the organisers conduct themselves. Their approach to getting speakers is, I believe, totally offensive. I understand that they're running a business but they spam and bait-and-switch like no company I can recall in recent memory. I believe, or read somewhere, that their hiring practices for their volunteers/staff are pretty awful also.

I suppose it is what you make of it. Would I go to it again as an attendee? If the tickets were given to me and I was in or around Dublin at the time, certainly. Would I pay to attend myself? Probably not. If I were running a startup and wanted to get it in front of people, and to meet people who might be interested in it? I'd probably pay €1500 for the opportunity. It's not very expensive compared to the opportunities it may present. Worst case scenario is you have a few fun days in an interesting city.

<comment><USER26> "If I were running a startup " is key here. You don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Another sub-species is the organization that does nothing but get inactive VCs/Angels to small events and charge founders $20-$50 to attend and $100-$500 for 'a table' for the company Names like Lifograph (aka Cofounder Club) or FundingPost come to mind- They seem not to do anything except these crappy events constantly with the same 6-7 tired VCs year-round. Great way to charge for tickets, for 'tables' for companies to display, and sponsor fees.

</comment><comment><USER28> Just to be clear - there are good and legitimate startup events/pitches/conferences. And there is a sea of parasites.

</comment><comment><USER29> Although I tend to agree with this post, we had a good experience with the only conference we decided to attend.

We at Codacy decided to attend the Web Summit last year and invested the amount they asked us to put in (I can't recall how much but was the standard for the BETA category). They upgraded us to the BETA category even though we actually should have been put in the lower ALPHA one.

In any case we executed on a plan: to extract as much as we could from it and that we did:

* We abused the day with the stand to talk to Startups and give awareness of our product. We actually met a few of our best customers.

* We did a list of people we wanted to meet and took some effort to network and reach them. We got into very interesting discussions and follow on meetings after the conference. We met great engineers and people we ended up partnering with.

* We took part in the pitch competition (with some hesitation at first to be honest..), but took it seriously and we ended up winning the whole thing (techcrunch.com/2014/11/06/lisbons-codacy-wins-the-web-summit-pitch-competition/)

So while I cannot speak for these new conferences, for us the Web Summit was certainly a great investment.

<comment><USER30> My experience with the WebSummit is that it's valuable IF you participate in the pitch competition. If not, you can get a lot of value at the evening/night events.

Some of the talks are also very interesting and gives you the chance to see people that you usually don't see in Europe.

But the stands? The stands have been completely useless for us.

BTW, congratulations, we were finalists in 2013 and even that gave us a big push.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Offering a discount if you're accepted to pitch isn't comparable to conferences (I won't name names) that make you pay to come AND pay to "present" if selected.

I wouldn't call that parasitic at all - I think it's silly though (they're clearly not making money on those folks so why charge them at all?) but it's a reasonable way to do things.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hey guys, Paddy G (@thepadman) from Collision here. Probably best for me to chip in and clarify the situation. We do get thousands of applications and make time to hop on calls to make sure the companies are viable and have cool teams. We end up choosing around 10%-15% of those who apply.

Regarding registration; Physical space at any conference would come at a premium. As advertised, we're removing this element of the cost to startups who could bring value to the event and charging a fee for tickets & registration. The package grants you 3 tickets (2 day event and evening socials), online circulation, access to industry leader talks, workshops, investor office hours & invitations to partner activations as well as the physical space in your chosen industry area. Our website clearly states that there is a cost associated with registering. Our event isn't free but you can see by the calibre of attendee and speakers (as outlined in the website) that there are definite opportunities and knowledge to be gained.

The event was really well received last year and more than half the participating startups either joined us at Web Summit and/or are returning to Collision this year. For me personally, that is a great testament to the event. We are working tirelessly to improve our systems to make sure everyone gets value from the event. We're a tech startup ourselves and we just want to put on an awesome tech event.

Happy to answer any more questions. Feel free to drop me a line at firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER28> Thank you for taking the time to comment. As I make clear in the post, it's not the fact that you charge that is the problem. It's the misleading tactic of calling startups, making us present, asking us questions, then e-mailing us "Congratulations! Your company is great and we are selecting you after screening. You can now pay us $1,400." If you are not explicit when you reach out by e-mail in the first place about the fee, and if you don't mention it on the phone call - you are wasting many people's time. Please look through the comments in this thread.

<comment><USER32> Thanks for your note. Paddy G here again.

The team are really sorry that there was a misunderstanding between us and the author of the blog article Lenny Teytelman over the cost of coming to Collision and taking part in our Collide track for startups.

We really try to be as transparent as possible about the costs of attending our events. We believe that we offer great value for money for all attendees, whether they are startups, investors, speakers or general attendees. At our flagship event, Web Summit in Dublin, the numbers of those attending have doubled every year - which we feel shows that many people agree that we provide a great networking experience. Some on this thread have mentioned this.

To be clear, in our call with Lenny there seems to have been a misunderstanding over costs. We followed up the conversation a week later with an extensive email setting out the costs and the benefits of attending in the hope that he and his exciting startup could come along.

I've checked with the team here and from the email correspondence he told us: "I misunderstood you during the Skype call. I thought you are waving the attendance fee of $1450, instead of reducing the price to that." Which is fair enough and we apologise if we were unclear on the call in any way. He then declined to take us up on the offer and we left it there.

As I have mentioned earlier, our Startups page on the website collisionconf.com clearly states that while exhibiting for selected startups is free, there is a cost for attending. To quote:

'Each week we selected 25 early stage startups from around the world to exhibit for free as part of our Collide Program. The bigger tech companies pay $9,950 to exhibit, meaning exciting, disruptive, early-stage startups can afford to attend no matter what. All they will pay is a discounted price for tickets and Collide registration, and we'll give them a free exhibition stand.'

Really sorry if Lenny feels we wasted his time. We were genuinely excited about the possibility of him attending Collision but as mentioned previously, we do need to make the effort to screen applications so that we present the very best experience for startups and investors at our events.

We are a technology startup ourselves and of course we can always improve what we do. We are working hard right now to make Collision in Las Vegas on May 5-6 a success for the hundreds of startups across 14 industry areas who are attending. The networking at our events has been called "legendary" and we try hard to live up to that tag.

We are reaching out to Lenny to offer our apologies for any misunderstanding and we hope that those on this thread who are attending Collision will report back on their experience.

Happy to answer any more questions. Feel free to drop me a line at firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER28> No Paddy, I did not "misunderstand" during the Skype call. That e-mail was just my polite way of telling you to go away. Here is a less polite but more direct response: [http://anothersb.blogspot.com/2015/04/last-post-on- collision...](http://anothersb.blogspot.com/2015/04/last-post-on-collision- conference-and.html)

I am not going to engage in "he said, she said" with you. Instead, I encourage readers to look at the other comments in this thread to make up their mind about Collision. Plenty more of such concerns here [http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/2x8i04/weve_been_a...](http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/2x8i04/weve_been_accepted_to_exhibit_at_collision_conf/).

<comment><USER33> Hey, I'm the author of that reddit post (knowhere). We decided to not go and are very happy about our decision now that that comes to light. We almost spend a lot of money for what felt like a big shot.

We decided against it because the deadline was so short. We got accepted on a tuesday and would have had to pay by friday the same week. We passed because that wasn't enough time to make a good decision.

We have the same problem with the phocuswright europe conference as well. They want us to pitch but spend 7500€ (we won't). It's hard to navigate that because as a startup you feel like you have to get out there and deciding between the really goot opportunities and the bad ones is harder then I thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Where there's a buck to be made on the gullible, the shameless flock it seems.

I wonder how these folks sleep at night and how much money they're really making. They could be doing something else with their time that is a win-win for everybody, not just them.

On the flipside - maybe we ought to be glad they're running around doing small-time scams, imagine these jerks infiltrating large organizations and spreading their ways around in ways that affect the masses.

</comment><comment><USER35> So glad you wrote this, it is so amazing to me to see people trying to feed on start-ups. I find that good deals get better and bad deals get worse, when there are all these added costs of getting the chance to present or involved in certain meetings, the level of enthusiasm seems to drop on all sides.

</comment><comment><USER36> We're attending Collision this May, and were offered the deal the article mentions. I wasn't cold called, but applied on their site directly for their startup offer.

We saw it as a fair good deal, and didn't feel scammed at all. It took us one 10 minute phone call, and then we got offered the tickets for $1,500.

It's our first conference, other ones we've looked at cost far more. So for a first one, we thought the event looks interesting, not as expensive as other events we've cost up, looks like there will be interesting people there and Vegas is a fun city for us all anyway!

<comment><USER37> I'd be interested to hear how the experience goes and if it is worth the $1,500.

<comment><USER36> Feel free to drop me an email if you're interested after the event.

It's not filling me with confidence reading other comments in this thread, but still happy and excited to be going.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm curious as to how I ended up on these startup spam lists as well.

I've always suspected CrunchBase, since that's when they seemed to have started, but can't prove it.

</comment><comment><USER39> I am getting several sponsored ads for startup conferences in Facebook, it is very annoying.

<comment><USER40> First world problems eh!</comment></comment>


If Donald Trump Targets Journalists, Thank Obama - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-trump-targets-journalists-thank-obama.html <comment><USER2> Wow. The way this is molded is just a new low. Good going, mainstream media! The lower you go, the smellier it gets.</comment>


Eddy Rivera - <AUTHOR> http://www.edelman.com/?post_type=guest-author&p=135491 <comment><USER2> > _Error 404_

> _Apologies, but the page you requested could not be found. Perhaps searching > will help._</comment>


Tesla's giant battery in Australia reduced grid service cost by 90% - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2018/05/11/tesla-giant-battery-australia-reduced-grid-service-cost/ <comment><USER2> This outcome is in a particularly distorted badly operated market, one where for no very good reasons regulatory power is not being applied, and distorted bidding for FCAS and peak supply has been the norm. It's hugely politicised, and in the context of a rejection of carbon trading and an attempt by the ruling federal liberal-national government to wedge coal into the mix (it's basically uneconomic now, and won't get any better but the lib hats want it _come what may_ )

The battery couldn't have come at a better time. It's an initiative of a state labor government, now tossed out, and it's signals how much could have been achieved with decent capital investment in alternative power sources. That said, it's role here is _frequency stabilisation_ not power: it's a tiny percentage of the states power burden. The states solar and wind was (alas) not required to have any associated storage capacity or supply FCAS services, both things which alter the economics in favour of more traditional coal, and gas peaked power supply.

There are more batteries on the way. There are pumped hydro systems in design. Things are getting better.

<comment><USER3> > This outcome is in a particularly distorted badly operated market, one where > for no very good reasons regulatory power is not being applied . . .

You described most energy markets on the planet.

<comment><USER4> Not to the point where it costs $14,000 per MW. At that pricepoint hiring humans to hand crank generators is not the laughably ridiculous proposition it should be.

<comment><USER5> A human might average 100W per hour over a workday at say 10$ per hour to keep the numbers clean (1$ = 10Wh). 14,000$ per 1,000,000Wh is 72wh per dollar so far cheaper. Except this is instantaneous power so they would need 1,000,000 people to sit around doing nothing most of the day and then occasionally have have some or all of them work, because again that battery caps at 100MW.

Really, people in AU don't pay 14$ per kWh making 14$ per MWh meaningless. They are really paying to _keep generating capacity online_ not for actual power. A backup generator that's never used costs infinite dollars per W, that does not make it useless.

PS: Well under 1 million beause people can generate more power in short periods.

<comment><USER6> _A human might average 100W per hour..._

This seems like the wrong unit to use.

[EDIT:] I mean that power is already a "per time period" measure; there's no reason to say "joules per second per hour".

<comment><USER7> A rule of thumb is a large hamburger with all the fixings is about one kWh.

<comment><USER8> His point is that a Watt is a unit of power being equal to 1 joule per second. As an aside, this corresponds to an electric circuit with a potential difference of 1 volt and a current of 1 Ampere.

Saying a human produces 100W/hr is wrong. What I assume he meant is this:

A human can produce 100W for 1 hour, on average. This is reasonable, since humans produce about 1/8 Horsepower, on average; and 1 HP = 746W.

<comment><USER9> He meant a human can produce 100W. He specifically doesn't mean "for one hour"; he says the human works a full workday, producing 800 watt-hours of energy.

<comment><USER8> Right, but 100W/hr is very different from 800wHr.

<comment><USER6> Mostly because "100W/hr" doesn't really mean anything sensible? If you wanted to write "100W" like "100W·hr/hr", that would be fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's also a national embarrassment according to the government treasurer who likened it to Australia's tourist stop big things such as The Big Banana.

What I love about it is that it's forcing the governments hand. They have vested interests in the coal industry but cannot continue to overlook this when electricity prices are so high in Australia.

<comment><USER11> The South Australian government at the time did an incredible thing. They gave the national government the middle finger, in a live-televised conference no less: [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-16/josh-frydenberg-jay- we...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-16/josh-frydenberg-jay-weatherill- verbal-biff/8359056)

<comment><USER12> No video in that article, here's the full press conference with the badass former premier of SA downplaying the federal government MP standing next to him: [https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/video/2017/mar/16...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/video/2017/mar/16/jay-weatherill-gives-josh-frydenberg-a-serve-at- bizarre-media-conference-video)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For obvious reasons there's a lot of focus on Tesla's automobiles, but part of me wonders if these Powerpack grid batteries aren't the real innovation and killer product for the company.

<comment><USER14> Where's Tesla's secret sauce in this solution: the battery chemistry, the control circuits or well-engineered integration of the parts?

How much a threat is constrained lithium supply to the business model?

<comment><USER15> FYI this project wasn't built with Panasonic / Tesla / Gigafactory batteries. They were purchased from Samsung:

[https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/30/tesla-using-samsung- sdi...](https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/30/tesla-using-samsung-sdi-battery- cells-129-mwh-south-australia-facility/)

<comment><USER16> Wow, that's even more impressive in some ways. That was a huge gamble to rely on another company (though perhaps they already have a good relationship I'm not aware of) and it's great that the system was "easy" enough to build with different parts (though, again, perhaps they've always kept multiple vendors in mind)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is _so obnoxious_ when a website immediately asks to send you notifications.

<comment><USER18> I've actually never seen it approached any other way (triggered by a direct action), which is somehow even more obnoxious than the prompt itself.

<comment><USER19> Gmail at least used to do that. There was sometimes a link near the top of the page with text instructing you to click it if you wanted to enable notifications.

<comment><USER20> Slack too ("Slack needs your permission to enable desktop notifications"). But I don't find it more annoying than showing the prompt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Zero emmissions_

If nuclear has to include the costs of dismantling the plants, batteries have to include the cost of building them. And wind generators are massive aluminum structures, which are extremely costly to shape.

Some day, maybe. Let's be fair in the meantime.

<comment><USER22> No one has any way to dispose of nuclear waste (except reprocessing, which has significant cost and safety concerns). It sits in storage pools waiting for that day. Lithium batteries have no such issue.

<comment><USER18> While not cost effective in the slightest, jettisoning nuclear waste into outer space is one proposition.

Naturally, launching rockets filled with nuclear waste comes with its own safety concerns.

<comment><USER23> What's the carbon footprint of a thousand rocket launches?

<comment><USER24> Somewhere in the ballpark of a thousand 747 flights at maximum range, maybe a little less.

The Falcon 9 carries 147 metric tons of RP-1, which is functionally the same thing as Jet A (both are kerosene), while a 747-400 carries 165 metric tons of Jet A.

For a very broad estimate, I'd say the carbon footprint of a thousand Falcon 9 rocket launches is somewhat less than the carbon footprint of a day's worth of aircraft travel, globally.

<comment><USER25> It's also relatively easy[1] to switch over to liquid hydrogen rocket fuel if you decide space lauches really must be hit with pointless double standards.

1: where "easy" means "literally rocket science"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Their Q1 earning report revealed they lost money on the grid service.

<comment><USER2> pointer please. I'd like to understand this in more detail. Its not just any Q1, its their very first Q1. I'd want to believe thats a one-off, since for much of the quarter they were in test mode, but its possible you have a good point that bidding in this model, whilst a net public benefit, doesn't earn profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Which one is cheaper to build and operate: Pumped hydro or batteries?

<comment><USER28> In a lot of places pumped hydro is at capacity. There's only so many rivers, but you can generally put batteries anywhere.

<comment><USER29> You don't really need a river to pump hydro up and down. As long as you have some kind of container for the water (usually a dam though not necessarily so,) you can pump any water. The cheapest to pump is probably sea water. I'm not really sure how cheap that would be compared to batteries, but it's still an option.

<comment><USER30> To make it cost-effective, you need a height advantage and a "natural" container. The ideal sites are mountaintop lakes. It's a fairly rare topography.

<comment><USER31> Could be a dry lake tho, no? Are those rare?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Good to hear. Hopefully the massive success they're having in this area can carry them through their car troubles until that becomes profitable too.

</comment><comment><USER33> The 90% cost reduction claim disturbs me because I find it quite ambiguous. The original quote in the article is:

>it reduced the cost of the grid service that it performs by 90%

Let's examine "the grid service that it performs". What does this mean? Which "grid service" is it performing?

I imagine the "grid service" it performs is that of inputting energy: it's a source of electricity into the grid. So the claim can be re-written as:

>[the battery] reduced the cost of <putting energy into the grid> by 90%

Reduced, compared to what, a coal-powered steam turbine power station?

<comment><USER34> It's clearly explained in the article it's frequency stability it's talking about.

>When an issue happens or maintenance is required on the power grid in Australia, the Energy Market Operator calls for FCAS (frequency control and ancillary services) which consists of large and costly gas generators and steam turbines kicking in to compensate for the loss of power.</comment></comment>